County Line

by Bill Cameron

  The last photo differs from the rest. A boy and a girl sit together on a couch, a kidney-shaped table before them. An adult arm reaches from out of frame with a cigarette, captured in the act of flicking ash in an ashtray. The boy and girl sit hip to hip, the girl leaning away from the boy. His grin is exaggerated, the smile of a boy being told to say cheese. The girl isn’t having any of it. Her arms are folded across her chest, her lips pursed in annoyance. She’s maybe six or seven; I guess the boy at ten. Even though the color is faded, the focus soft, there’s no mistaking a young Ruby Jane. Her features are more angular, less defined than in the woman she’ll become. But it’s her, rangy reddish hair and round eyes, a hint of dimples too deep to be obscured by her annoyance.

  I return the album to the Ziploc bag. The picture of young Ruby Jane goes into my pocket. I stuff the rest of Fairweather’s crap in the backpack. Ruby Jane can decide what to do with the photo album when she gets back. I might offer a suggestion on the matter, but in the end it strikes me as something she needs to see. I have no hypothesis about who Chase Fairweather is, not one which doesn’t give me the willies, but he got that picture somewhere.

  I toss the backpack onto the sleeping bag, add the soup cans and other trash, wrap it all up. Ruby Jane would expect me to separate the recyclables, but arm’s length isn’t far enough as I walk the stinking bundle out the side door. The rain has stopped. I head to the back of the building. The dumpster is locked. I don’t know where the key is, maybe inside or maybe on RJ’s key chain in her pocket. Clammy fog hangs off the exposed skin of my face and neck.

  “I know your name.”

  The voice seems to come from all directions. I drop the bundle and spin. Soup cans clatter at my feet. A tall figure stands behind me. I fall, find myself pressed against the dumpster. All sound is magnified, from the scrape of the dumpster wheels to the man’s breathing. The vague shape of a hooded face looms through the mist. My mind flashes to a moment the autumn before, when the bodies piled up on a rain-soaked hilltop at dusk and I put a bullet into a woman’s head. A clean killing, saved the lives of a boy and his mother and my own as well. I came through it a different man. I’m not ashamed of the yelp, nor ashamed of the balled fist I drive forward from my hips. No one would look at me and think he’s a tough guy, but in some ways I’m in better shape than I’ve been in two decades, dividend of giving up the smokes and adding miles of daily walking. The blow strikes the sweet spot below the man’s sternum. Air whuffs from his mouth, a cloud of sour garlic. I push off the dumpster and almost fall as my feet tangle in Fairweather’s sleeping bag. A hand grips my arm and I kick out, connect with something soft. We fall, but I catch myself on my hands and push off. And then I’m running. The echo of my slapping footsteps follow me to Ruby Jane’s door. I skid to a stop and push through, slam the door behind me. Throw the bolt and wait. A different man, but not a fucking idiot. My heart pounds, my breath roars in my ears. The entry is dark around me.

  For a moment, there’s nothing. Then the doorknob shakes and I hear a scratching on the door. I step back, wish I still carried a gun. My shadow cast against the door by the lights over the butcher block is huge. For a moment I listen, my chest tight and head on fire. Half angry, half anxious. I picture the man on the other side of the door. Tall, indistinct face in the mist. God. Damn. Hoodie.

  I smack my hand against the door. “I know who you are!” The scratching stops. “You stole my money, you piece of shit!” My voice sounds feckless and hollow.

  But perhaps enough. Maybe I imagine the footsteps tapping away. Maybe he was gone before the echo of my shouts died away. I lean on the door, hanging there with my ear pressed against metal. All I hear is my own heartbeat.

  I could call 911 again, but there’s no point. Even if he’s nearby, he’ll fade long before the cops arrive. And then what do I say? Some guy who picked my pocket is stalking me. “Do you know who he is?” He wears lots of layers.

  Sure.

  I wait for another long minute, then two. Nothing. I’m still pulling in deep, ragged breaths. But they’re slowing, slowing. I go to the kitchen sink, run water and splash my face. My hands are shaking. Behind me, the Weather Channel reports on a cyclone threatening Sri Lanka. I move to the sitting area, the long night catching up with me. Chase’s campsite still smells of piss. I pull the cushions off the sofa and stack them near the entryway. Then I sit down, put my hand on the door. Tomorrow, maybe, I’ll take the cushions out to get cleaned.

  - 6 -

  Dividend to Stockholder

  I awake slumped against the door with my spine twisted into a contortionist’s wet dream. A cell phone is ringing, an unfamiliar ringtone. I uncurl and pull Ruby Jane’s phone out of my pocket. I have no business answering, especially given the likelihood Susan will try to reach RJ, but the call is from a 415 area code—San Francisco. I hit the TALK button.

  “Hello.”

  All I hear is the anechoic sound of an open line.

  “Hello? Any body there?”

  Someone coughs, and then notices I’m here. “Yes, Ms. Whittaker, please.”

  It’s a woman, her tone formal and a bit brusque. “She’s not available. Can I help you?”

  “Are you her representative?”

  “Who is this?”

  “My name is Joanne, from Pacific West Fidelity.” She rattles off about twenty digits, though whether it’s her phone number or latitude and longitude isn’t clear. “When can I expect Ms. Whittaker’s return call?”

  “She’s out of town.”

  “It’s a matter of some urgency. When can I expect her return call?”

  “Listen … Joanne?” She neither confirms nor denies. I take a breath. “She’s away. I don’t know when she’ll be back. But perhaps if you could tell me—”

  “It’s a matter of some urgency.”

  “You’re not too bright, are you?”

  “Please have Ms. Whittaker return my call at her earliest convenience.” She rattles off more numbers, too fast for me to note them. Click.

  The clock on the phone display reads just before seven. Brain death and condescension alike know no schedule. The foyer is dim and cold, but daylight has invaded the main room beyond my feet. The piss stink from the stacked couch cushions assaults my nostrils.

  I heave myself off the floor, unraveling the knots in my neck and cracking my ossified joints. In the bathroom, I dunk my face in cold water and brush my teeth with a toothbrush from the medicine cabinet. I didn’t exactly sleep. Hell, I didn’t even nap. I need coffee. Normally this would be the place to get some, but the only beans I’ve seen are still raw and Ruby Jane never trusted me with the roaster. At least Uncommon Cup is a few blocks away.

  Marcy is farther, opening up Hollywood. It’ll be busy there now, the morning rush. I sit on the clean couch, dial RJ’s phone. Marcy picks up on the first ring, breathless.

  “This still isn’t Ruby Jane, is it?”

  “I could fake it.”

  “And you’d pull it off too, because she totally sounds like a robot who swallowed a sheet of sand paper.” She has to raise her voice over the chatter of customers and the whoosh of the espresso machine. “Whatcha need, Skin? I’m hopping.”

  “You ever hear of Pacific West Fidelity?”

  “Sure. That’s where James works.”

  “James Whittaker?”

  “The very. Why?”

  I describe the call from Joanne. “Any idea what it might be about?”

  “Not really, no. I don’t handle any financial stuff, except the daily deposits and reporting payroll to ADP.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you get back to it. If you happen to hear from Ruby Jane—”

  “You will first, man. Trust me. But if by some twist of fate it happens to be me, I’ll tell her about Joanne.”

  “Thanks.”

  The Weather Channel is still murmuring, the business travelers report. The day will be nice everywhere, spring fully sprung. I take out the photo of Ruby Jane and the boy. T
hough there’s a lot of years between the man I met in passing and the boy in this faded snapshot, I’m confident it’s Jimmie. He shares with Ruby Jane his round cheeks and high forehead, if not the mischievous tilt of her head. The hand with the cigarette is pale and feminine, perhaps her mother. What I know of RJ’s life pre-Uncommon Cup wouldn’t fill a three-by-five note card. She grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, went to college in Ohio, then moved west in her twenties. Beyond that, she insists she’s a full-blood Oregonian now—a contention certain genuine natives would take issue with. I’m a genuine native, but I’ve never been one to favor fortune over wits.

  What else I know is she’s not on the best of terms with her brother. He helped her get Uncommon Cup started by providing the seed capital. They’ve clashed ever since. The shops have been doing well, the expansions successful. “The greedy prat is making money—” she once said, “—the only thing he cares about.” Ruby Jane bristles whenever Jimmie comes up in conversation.

  Still, perhaps she spoke to him before she took off. If I can track him down, he might tell me what’s going on. Or at least explain what the hell Joanne wants.

  I scroll through her cell’s contact list. No Jimmie. No James. No other Whittakers at all. All things considered, I’m only a little surprised. I head to Ruby Jane’s office.

  The desk phone has speed dial, but Jimmie isn’t assigned a button. Marcy, me, the other shop managers, direct lines to each shop. She doesn’t have an address book that I can find. It would be in her laptop anyway. There’s no folder for James Whittaker in the filing cabinet among the Wells-Fargo statements, tax forms, and payroll records. After some digging I find record of a quarterly disbursement to a Pacific West Fidelity LLC memo’d DIVIDEND TO STOCKHOLDER. The address for Pacific West is in San Francisco, the phone number has a 415 area code. Saves me the hassle of repressed memory hypnosis to recover the endless string of digits Joanne threw at me.

  I dial the number and spend ten minutes fighting a voice messaging system. No James Whittaker is available through the touch-tone directory. I leave a vague message on the general voicemail, certain no one will call me back. Places like that never call back, not unless you have something they want. Joanne may call for RJ, but even if she knows Jimmie she won’t admit it. Likely as not, she’ll be calling from Bangalore, ignore everything I say, and demand to speak to the woman who isn’t here. A matter of some urgency.

  There’s nothing else. If RJ has Jimmie’s phone number somewhere, it’ll be in her laptop, or in her head.

  For the hell of it, I call Information and request San Francisco, listing for James Whittaker. The operator asks me if it’s Whittaker with one T or two. There are twenty possibilities if I include the initial J, still more if I expand my search to include the full Bay Area. I thank the operator and hang up. With so many options, a computer search will be easier.

  I lean back, Ruby Jane’s desk chair squeaking beneath me. Right now, home isn’t where my heart is, but it is where my computer can be found. I think of another Jimmie I once knew, a man who died on the deck in my backyard. I feel like I’d have more luck finding him than Jimmie Whittaker. James. Ruby Jane once told me he hates being called Jimmie. “My grandmother started it. ‘Jimmie and Ruby, come to supper.’ I ran around chanting it, Jimmie Jimmie Jimmie. It made him so mad.”

  “Good thing you didn’t let that stop you.”

  I imagine the morning ahead of me, running on fumes and dialing number after number for various J. Whittakers and Whitakers—can’t count on consistent spelling with online directories. During the work day, I’m as likely as not to reach voicemail. I’ll leave the same message over and over: “My name is Thomas Kadash and I’m calling from Portland, Oregon. I am trying to reach James Whittaker, brother of Ruby Jane Whittaker, also of Portland. If you’re the James I’m looking for, please get in touch with me …” Not all the calls will go unanswered, but odds are against anyone fessing up to being RJ’s errant sibling.

  What I want is for Ruby Jane’s phone to ring, for me to answer and to hear her voice. “I knew you’d answer.” Of course I would, darling. I click navigation buttons at random. Missed call list, settings menu, a game, The Oregon Trail. She’d taken the Trail in her own way, I suppose, a hundred and fifty years after the original action, east to west, a journey with its perils even if times were very different. That gives me a new thought. I take out my own cell phone, bring up my own contacts. Scroll down the list, stop at a number Ruby Jane has erased from her own phone.

  I haven’t talked to Peter McKrall for the better part of a year, though there was a time when I called him friend. The three of us met during the course of a murder investigation back when I was still working and partnered with Susan—a god awful mess thick with bodies, RJ and Pete nearly among them. In the aftermath, as she recovered from a gunshot wound and he recovered from a decade’s worth of psychological fuckery, Pete and Ruby Jane found themselves an unlikely couple. The romance was born of tribulation, and twitchy from the beginning. Pete was never sure of who or what he wanted to be; Ruby Jane was as focused and assured as anyone I’ve ever known. That they were together at all is a mystery I’ll never solve, but at his best he could be charming and thoughtful. I assumed they shared something on a more intimate level than either was willing to share with me.

  Things deteriorated when Pete took a job in California, manager of a commercial plant nursery. The position was supposed to be temporary, a stepping stone to a better job at a larger nursery back in Oregon. The better job never materialized. The last time I saw him, Pete had come to town for a long weekend to see Ruby Jane—his final trip from Walnut Creek before the relationship went tits up once and for all. Not that the breakup was clear to anyone at the time. I didn’t learn it was truly over until months later when I made a clumsy, semi-spontaneous pass at Ruby Jane. A day later, I was in intensive care—gunshot wound of my own—followed by months of difficult recovery. I never did find out what Pete thinks about me and Ruby Jane—or if she’s even spoken to him about us. Far as it goes, I’m still not sure what Ruby Jane thinks about me and Ruby Jane.

  I highlight his entry and hit TALK. He answers just as I’m sure it’s going to voicemail.

  “Hey, Pete, it’s Skin. Long time.”

  I hear the faint sound of an engine. Maybe he’s on the road.

  “Pete? You there?”

  Another pause, but then I hear a breath. “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “I’m at work.” There’s no mistaking the tone in his voice. Terse.

  “I won’t keep you then—”

  “Good.” And he’s gone. Call time: sixteen seconds.

  I leave the small office, my mind a turbulent stew of confusion and exhaustion. Past the roaster, through the hallway, into the apartment. I come to a stop next to the forlorn claw foot. Chase Fairweather left a scum ring. All the cleaning I did, I forgot to scrub the tub. Or maybe I made an unconscious choice. Doesn’t matter now. The atmosphere in the room is oppressive; a dense, still reminder of Ruby Jane’s bewildering absence. I move quickly, turn off lights and television. I hesitate near the smelly couch cushions, decide to leave them for now. Maybe I’ll come back for them, or maybe Ruby Jane will return first. I don’t know. Someone will have to deal with the alarm panel too, but not now, not today. I open the side door. Stop short.

  As I stare at the empty spot where my car used to be, I find myself imagining Ruby Jane in California. In Walnut Creek.

  With Pete.

  It would explain everything.

  - 7 -

  Every Exit an Opportunity

  I’ve been driving past almond trees, celery fields, and strawberries for the better part of an hour when my phone rings. A 503 number according to the display, but not one I recognize. Not Peter, not Ruby Jane.

  “Sir, I’m calling to let you know we’ve recovered your car.” It’s a cop.

  “Thank you. Where is it now?”

  “We�
��ve brought it to Rivergate impound.”

  I wince; that’ll cost me. If he’d called me first, I’d have asked him to make sure it was locked up and leave it parked until I return. “Okay. I’m out of town. I’ll see if I can arrange for someone to come pick it up.” Marcy might be willing, assuming I can get some cash to her. There’s paperwork too, but maybe I can get Susan to grease that. She knows Marcy and can vouch for her.

  But the cop isn’t finished. “I’m afraid it will need to be towed, sir.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “It’s in pretty bad shape.”

  “Stripped?”

  “Not really. We pulled it out of Johnson Creek.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Someone drove it down the Springwater Corridor and dumped it in the water at Tideman Johnson Preserve. A cyclist reported it.”

  “Christ.”

  “You’re gonna need some engine work and a professional cleaning.”

  A triple-trailer blasts past me on the right, whacking the car with its backwash and putting my own excessive speed to shame. “Shit. I’ll have to work something out.”

  “There’s a storage fee—”

  “I know. I know …”

  I hang up. I’ve been on the road since eight, having delayed only long enough to report the car and arrange for my second rental car in as many days and hit the road.

  By the time I passed Eugene, a giant coffee with a couple of add shots burning a hole in my stomach, I’d convinced myself I’m out of my fucking mind. The thought of Ruby Jane with Pete floods in and out of my thoughts as I drive, a bitter tide. South of Roseburg I pull into a rest area to piss and refill my coffee. Before I get out of the car, I tilt the mirror to look at my blotchy, weary face.