Pacific (9780802194800)

by Drury, Tom

  Albert spread the map on the table. It showed the state forest and a winding river with an X drawn on either side, one labeled Scout Encampment and the other Sandra Zulma.

  Albert wondered whether the newspaper would need to print a correction. The new editor kept track, so one didn’t correct lightly.

  He took the correspondence to the city editor, who had been with the paper for years and made more money than anyone else. She was hoping to get bought out rather than fired.

  “Hey, what do you make of this?” said Albert.

  She took the letter from Albert and looked at the dense handwriting.

  “I’m not about to read this,” she said.

  Albert took the letter back and paraphrased it.

  “Did we say it was in this fen thing?”

  “We said in the woods.”

  “And that’s accurate.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fuck it. Inside baseball.”

  “That’s what I thought. Maybe I should go up there.”

  “No you shouldn’t. Our out-of-town money is spent, and you spent it. Now listen, honey. I want you to slip over to the American Suites. There’s a greenhouse conference going on.”

  “A greenhouse conference.”

  “Yeah. You know, with plants. See what they’re talking about. If there’s some new hybrid. Have fun with it. People love greenhouses.”

  Dan Norman wandered the Great Hall of the American Suites, where the spring meeting of the Garden Supply Consortium of the Upper Midwest was taking place.

  He was monitoring two unrelated cases of suspected infidelity. That was four people counting the partners. Apparently these greenhouse operators were highly sexualized, perhaps from being around seeds and earth and growing all the time.

  The private investigation business relied on this simple work, but Dan felt like a crumb. Whatever you found out, you seemed to be taking financial advantage of the death of a marriage.

  To which Lynn Lord would say, “Well, far as that goes, Dan, if you’re too sensitive to take financial advantage of things, you shouldn’t be in any business. You should go be a monk, get yourself one of them monk haircuts.”

  Moving with the tide of conventioneers, Dan strolled booth to booth, holding the Fanta camera that had nailed the clandestine bowler. He checked out the latest in spray nozzle technology.

  Every couple years he or Louise would buy one of these, but it would always break or disappear, and they would go back to thumbing the end of the hose to wash the car or chase leaves down the eaves trough.

  Dan paused at a booth crowded with concrete statues—trolls and mermaids, deers and frogs and eagles, naked people who seemed to be stretching after a restful nap and wondering where they put their clothes.

  The nipples of the female statues were concealed by strategically placed arms or vines or locks of hair, and the men all had very small penises, but then, when you thought about it, there probably wouldn’t be that much of a market for a garden statue with a large penis either.

  The statues reminded Dan of the adulterers. He had not seen any of them for a while. Possibly they were in their rooms, under the covers. He left the Great Hall, and in the corridor he saw one of the couples.

  They didn’t seem quite old enough to be married to other people they’d got tired of. The man had his back to the wall, and the woman leaned close holding his face in both hands.

  Dan could not ask for a better chance to get them on video. As they were standing by the elevators, he could move naturally down the hall with his attention trained on them the whole time.

  All he had to do was turn the camera on and walk over and take the elevator to any floor. He put his finger on the button that would turn the camera on, and, as he did so, he asked himself why should he do this, and saw that there was not one reason in the world.

  He turned and walked to the hotel lobby, where Albert Robeshaw was just coming in.

  “Hey, Dan,” said Albert. “I’m looking for the greenhouse convention.”

  “Just go on down that hall.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Working.”

  “What on?”

  “Ah, it doesn’t matter. I quit.”

  “The whole thing.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Not sure. Your dad’s after me to run for sheriff again.”

  “You would win.”

  “I might. And if I don’t maybe I’ll just be a monk or something.”

  “You’d be a great monk.”

  “You think so?”

  “Well. A good one, anyway.”

  Dan drove home, coming up on Delia Kessler’s place. She and Ron were divorced now, and the kids had long since moved away. labs for sale, said a sign.

  Dan parked in the lane. The house was a prefab that had been brought in after the spectacular Kessler fire of the nineties. It was long and gray with small windows and looked like an ocean liner.

  Dan knocked on the side door and Delia let him into the kitchen, where she was cooking something in a speckled black pot.

  “What’re you making?”

  “Oyster stew.”

  “I seen your sign. You’ve got pups.”

  “Too late,” said Delia. “They’ve all gone but for one, and her I’ll probably keep.”

  “To breed,” said Dan.

  “Nah. I think she’s a little slow. The last one to go, they’re never happy about it, but she hasn’t come around the way they do. I charge a fair price, and I don’t want it out there I’m selling depressed dogs. I mean I’ll show her to you but don’t expect too much.”

  “Might as well have a look.”

  Delia put a wooden spoon on a porcelain rest, turned the fire down, and led the way to the room where she kept the litters.

  The dog room smelled like pee. There was a wire crate with blankets inside and brittle newspapers spread on the floor. “Sword Killer Escapes in Daring Hospital Break,” said an old headline.

  The Lab pup lay underneath a water heater, eyes brown and slightly crossed.

  Dan knelt on the newspapers, and the dog yawned, stuck her head out, and smelled his hand.

  Delia stood in the doorway, chewing the skin by the nail of her little finger.

  “She’s certified hips and eyes. Just kind of withdrawn.”

  “How much?”

  “Three hundred.”

  The dog cocked her head, as if the price sounded high and she wondered if Dan would have the same reaction.

  “She seems okay to me.”

  “Tell you what. Take her home and see how she does. I’ll have her back if it don’t work out.”

  Dan sat at the kitchen table and wrote Delia a check that he tore off and laid on the table. Delia stirred with the spoon.

  “Will you and Louise eat oyster stew?”

  “You got extra.”

  “I always cook the same batch as when the kids were home. My grandpa used to make it in the winter. Us kids wouldn’t get oysters, you had to be a certain age. We’d put the crackers in and let them swell up big as silver dollars.”

  Dan drove home with the new dog asleep on his lap and a mason jar of oyster stew on the floorboard.

  Louise had never been to the house where Tiny and Joan Gower had lived. It was on a bend in the Boris road, from which no other houses could be seen. She got out of the Scout with the necklace in the box Tiny gave her at Mary’s wake.

  She knocked on the door and listened to the soft clatter of the wind chimes. “Look, someone has come to visit,” they seemed to say. “Oh, it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter . . .”

  The chimes were made of sandalwood and, like the necklace, seemed an unusual item for
Tiny to have laid eyes on, let alone acquired.

  It was not too late to run until Tiny opened the door and raised his hand to cover his face. Louise pulled his hand away and saw the cuts and swelling.

  “What the fuck happened to you?”

  “Well, these guys come over, you know.”

  “No I don’t. What guys?”

  “There were four of them. Earl Kellogg. One of them Mansfields from Mixerton. I didn’t know the other two. They were wearing their class rings.”

  “What was it about.”

  “I’m the Laughing Bandit.”

  “You have got to stop this shit, man.”

  “Well, that’s what they said.”

  He went to the kitchen and came back with an ice pack made of a twisted washcloth and pressed it to his cheek.

  She put the necklace box on the counter.

  “I don’t want this.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “It’s not a question if I like it. It isn’t right.”

  “I thought who it would look good on, and you were the one that come to mind.”

  “Tiny . . .”

  “You want to sit down? I’m kind of dizzy.”

  He went to the living room and settled into a chair with a leather back and wooden arms.

  “You’re married,” said Tiny. “That’s a given. But I just want to know something. With Micah gone, I’ve been thinking back. Would you’ve stayed with me if I’d done things different?”

  Louise brought a kitchen chair over and sat looking at him, elbows on knees, the living room between them.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s been such a long time. You know. But I’d have to say, since you’re asking, no. I don’t think so.”

  “How come.”

  “At the time? I wanted what you stood for.”

  “What was that?”

  “Trouble.”

  “Did I?”

  “You want me to get a mirror?”

  “And what were you to me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “A way out,” said Tiny. “Is what I think you were.”

  “Of what?”

  “Everything. Myself. And fine-­looking. To this day.”

  “Let’s be quiet now.”

  He stood up. “I’m going to go lay down.”

  “Will you be all right?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve had worse than this.”

  “Put something on those cuts.”

  “I’ve got rubbing alcohol. That’ll probably hurt worse than the fight.”

  “And don’t go after them.”

  “After what they did.”

  “You want to do things different, you make me that promise.”

  “All right. Promise.”

  Louise picked up the necklace and put it in her pocket. To do otherwise now would be to side with the gang that battered Tiny.

  She went to him then and touched his face with her hand. “Take care of yourself,” she said.

  The woods were damp and sugary and mossy on the first weekend of May. Lyris and Albert walked the forest with backpacks. The birds flew tree to tree whistling broken songs.

  They’d never camped together. It seemed like the next step for them as a couple.

  “You think we’ll find her,” said Lyris.

  “It’s been, what, five months. Cops would have her if she was here.”

  “Tiny says they couldn’t find cheap sandals at Target.”

  “You would question our heroes in blue.”

  “Every day I would.”

  “Well, you know, I got the map. Just seems like I ought to follow it.”

  They came to the river at the bottom of a ravine and followed it upstream. The river was twenty feet across with a rock wall on the far side and the current hurried along carrying dead branches and skeins of leaves plus the occasional beer can.

  In late afternoon they found the abandoned fire ring of the Boy Scout camp opposite a rock ledge and narrow opening in the bluff.

  “That’s her tunnel,” said Albert.

  They dropped their packs on the ground and made camp. The tent had ridgepoles of shock-corded carbon and went up so fast and neatly they wished they had more tents to pitch.

  Albert built a fire, opened a can of hash, and cooked it in a skillet. The sun went down as they ate, and shadows came over the campsite. Lyris took two bottles of beer from a cooler and passed one to Albert.

  After supper they drank apple brandy and played cat and mouse with flashlights in the treetops. The tent was low and warm, and they crawled inside to go to sleep. The Twins were playing the Red Sox in Minneapolis, and they listened on the radio. The Twins were up 2 to 1 in the seventh. Lyris fell asleep with her head resting on Albert’s arm, breathing with a tiny click in her throat.

  Lyris cried out in her sleep. She’d dreamed that she was playing a parlor game, but no one would tell her the rules, and everything she said was stupid, and people laughed at her.

  “That sounds like my regular day,” said Albert. “Go back to sleep. Listen to the river.”

  “Shhh,” she said, sitting up on her elbows. They heard soft steps. A shadow moved over the tent.

  Albert pulled jeans on and picked up a flashlight and went out. He shone the light on the emaciated figure of Sandra Zulma. She hunkered by the fire ring, sifting coals with a hunting knife, hair long and matted around her face.

  “Put that out,” she said. “The moon’s enough.”

  Albert turned off the flashlight.

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” she said.

  “Who were you expecting?”

  “Do you have a message for me?”

  “Have something to eat. That’s my message.”

  “I don’t do that.”

  “You don’t eat.”

  “Nope.”

  “Maybe you should think about it.”

  She laid the knife on the ground and put sticks on the coals and leaned close to breathe on them, her body folded like a heron’s. A circle of flames came up with a soft breath.

  “Jack’s coming,” she said.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “He’s meeting me here.”

  “That would surprise me.”

  “Who’s your friend?”

  “Her name is Lyris. We live together.”

  “How nice. Bring her out.”

  “What do you want?”

  She turned toward him smiling with a pale and dirt-streaked face. There were pink scars on her forehead and the side of her face. “I’m not going to hurt you, Albert.”

  Lyris came out of the tent, a sleeping bag around her shoulders.

  “Lyris Darling, this is Sandra Zulma,” said Albert.

  “Hi,” said Lyris, her voice small and far away in the clearing, with the wraithlike Sandra building a fire.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said Sandra.

  “Well, I am. I am afraid.”

  “You have been a long time.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I can tell.”

  “The knife isn’t helping any.”

  Sandra sheathed the knife at her hip. “There. All better.”

  “Thank you.”

  The fire was going now. Sandra added kindling and then rested her upturned hands in the dirt in a strangely imploring gesture.

  “This is certainly pleasant,” she said.

  “How did you get out of Stone City?” said Albert. “There were cops all over the place.”

  “A man gave me a ride. He gave me the knife. He gave me this.”

  She took the rock from her jacket and held it up, slate facets refl
ecting the firelight.

  Albert thought of the things he might tell her. He’d been in her room, he’d seen her books, Jack Snow was dead. But he didn’t know what she would do and wasn’t eager to find out.

  Sandra got up and stretched. “Well. I should be on my way. Jack will be looking for me.”

  “He’s dead,” said Lyris. “Don’t you know that?”

  “There’s all kinds of dead,” Sandra said. “Don’t try to follow me. You wouldn’t like it where I go.”

  “Come with us,” said Lyris. “We’ll take you home.”

  Sandra stood looking at the moon. Tears rolled down her face in silver tracks like beads of mercury. She wiped them away and stared at her hands.

  “Take care of her, Albert. Don’t forget her.”

  Sandra turned and walked to the river. She waded across in the moonlight, scrambled onto the ledge, and was gone. Lyris brought clothes from the tent. She dropped sneakers on the ground and hopped about pulling on jeans.

  “Where are you going?” said Albert.

  “After her.”

  “You heard what she said.”

  Lyris snapped her jeans with her chin on her chest. “She’ll die. That’ll be on us.”

  “We should call the cops.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “What do you think she meant?”

  “About what?”

  “She doesn’t eat.”

  “It doesn’t mean that.”

  “There’s different kinds of dead.”

  “Ghosts don’t carry knives,” said Lyris. “They don’t build fires.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Come with me.”

  Albert followed Lyris into the river. The water swept cold around their legs. They climbed to the ledge, scraping hands and shins on the rocks. Sandra had had a much easier time of it. Albert shone the flashlight into the tunnel, the walls furred with moss.

  “Sandra,” called Lyris, her voice echoing down the passage.

  They entered single file and holding hands. Albert fanned the flashlight on wings of bats like wet leaves pasted to the rocks. After they had gone a hundred paces, they began to hear the singing of many voices.

  The tunnel angled left. Sandra held the knife and the rock, her eyes like blue glass.

  “You can die if you want to,” she said.