The Blinds

by Adam Sternbergh

  “And Calvin?”

  “I just liked the comic strip, the one with the kid and the tiger. Besides, I always had a boring first name so I wanted something a little fancier. It was John, if you’re curious. Unlike the residents living here, I know who I used to be.”

  “Really? And what was your last name?”

  “Now you know I can’t tell you that.” Cooper swigs. “Okay, your turn, Sid—what’s your real first name?”

  “My first name is just a bunch of syllables my mother thought up five minutes before I was born, then slapped on my birth certificate, then stuck me with. I never liked it.”

  “Let me guess. LaToya?”

  “Don’t. That’s not even funny,” she says sharply.

  Cooper considers this onset of defensiveness. For the first time, he starts to think he might grow to tolerate her. From what he’s seen so far—well, for starters, the notebook’s got to go. But she’s smart, and persistent, and not afraid to be a stickler. “Your secret dies with you,” he says.

  To Cooper’s disappointment, Dawes pushes her beer away and pulls out her notebook. “Tell me about Ellis Gonzalez.”

  “We’ve got to get back to work.”

  She nods to the notebook. “This is work, sir. Why’d he leave?”

  “To be honest, he wasn’t cut out for this place.”

  “I’d like to try and contact him.”

  “Why?”

  “Ask him about that gun. What if he never sent it in? That would answer a lot of questions. I bet I could track him down.”

  “Off-grounds? Absolutely not. We’re only cleared to leave the facility under extraordinary circumstances.”

  “And this doesn’t strike you as an extraordinary circumstance, sir?”

  Cooper stands behind the bar, glaring at her. Here he is, trying to reach out, sharing a slightly illicit midday drink, making connections, and now this: a blatant flirtation with insubordination. “You seem to be under the impression that you can say anything to me just so long as you follow it with ‘sir.’”

  “That’s not true. Sir.”

  “My theory is, someone got drunk, staggered home to retrieve a rusty old firearm he’d kept stashed under the floorboards or who the fuck knows where, came back here and settled their argument for good. People do smuggle things in here, Deputy, despite our best efforts. In any case, whoever did this will likely come crying to us and confess before week’s end. It’s not like they have anywhere to go.”

  Dawes sits up a little straighter, like a student in a seminar, poised to deliver the argument she’s been formulating for weeks. “To the contrary, I would argue that, given this is a facility dedicated to sheltering sensitive government witnesses, even the possibility that someone’s found a way to target these witnesses represents the most serious kind of breach—”

  Cooper cuts her off. “Let me share a secret with you, Sidney Dawes. These people”—and here he gestures toward the door, the bungalows, the town—“they agreed to be part of an experiment. That’s what this really is. You ever hear that expression: ‘If you want to truly keep a secret, you have to keep it from yourself’? That’s the notion this whole place is founded on. You flip. You talk. You get your past sins wiped away. In most cases, so thoroughly that even you don’t even remember who you used to be. For these people, that’s a blessing, believe me.”

  “But they’re not all criminals, right?” Dawes asks. “Some of them are innocents. Just victims, hiding out from some bad person they agreed to testify against.”

  “Sure. But here’s the magic of this place. We don’t know which is which. And neither do they.” Cooper leans in toward her and speaks low—he doesn’t want Greta, wherever she got off to, or anyone else, to hear this next part. “Look, if you are worried that this incident will somehow imperil your potential for professional advancement—”

  “That’s not my worry—”

  “Let me assure you that, to anyone in the outside world, this town basically doesn’t exist. As far as they’re concerned, these people have served their purpose. This place is just a landfill to store them all until they die.”

  “But Agent Rigo—”

  “Agent Rigo works for the Institute. His only concern is to make sure nothing happens here that would let anyone shut this place down.” Cooper walks back around the bar. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of nervous residents with a lot of pressing questions, and I’ve got to think of something to tell them.”

  “I’m going to stick around here,” she says. “Maybe have another beer.”

  “You barely touched the first one.”

  “I want to look over my notes.”

  “I’ll see you at the town meeting then. When you hear the chapel bells, head over to the main street.” Cooper pushes the door open, letting in a rush of sunlight.

  Dawes calls to him from the bar. “One more question, Sheriff.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Agent Rigo said”—she checks her notebook—“he said, ‘Does he have a funny name, too?’ About the child in town.”

  “So?”

  “So how did Agent Rigo know the child in the town was a boy?”

  Cooper shrugs. “He works for the Institute. I’m sure he knew about Isaac already.”

  “So why’s he asking us then?”

  “Another mystery to ponder.”

  “I guess so. One more thing, sir.”

  Cooper grimaces. “What is it?”

  “Happy birthday.”

  He looks at her, his hand still propping open the door. “How in the hell do you know that it’s my birthday?”

  Dawes raises her barely touched bottle. “I guess it must be all that time spent wearing my deerstalker hat.”

  Alone now at the bar, Dawes sets her beer at a distance. She’s a lightweight, even after a few sips. And it’s not like she doesn’t have plenty of cautionary tales in her background when it comes to the consumption of alcohol.

  She looks at her watch. Nearly one. Many hours left yet in the workday. And a crime scene, all to herself. She stands up and decides to question Greta, then scouts around until she spots her in back, standing in the cramped, dirty kitchen behind the bar, washing glasses. She wonders if Greta heard any of what they were talking about.

  The kitchen’s barely bigger than a phone booth. Greta looks up at Dawes leaning in the doorway.

  “So can I replace that blood-soaked plywood now?” Greta says, with the edge of irritation of someone whose life has been upended through no doing of her own.

  “I believe so, ma’am,” says Dawes. “I’ll arrange to take it to the station as evidence. We can certainly replace—”

  “I’m good,” says Greta. “I’ll replace it. And fuck ‘ma’am.’ That’s not a title I aspire to.”

  “May I ask you something? How long have you lived here in Caesura?”

  Greta laughs, her hands in sudsy rubber gloves, poised over the basin. “Me? I’m an original sinner, dear. One of the original eight.”

  “And you didn’t notice anyone else at the bar last night? With Gable?”

  “No, but I like to turn in early.”

  “Cooper said Hubert always drank alone.”

  “Not always. Just last night. He closed the place down, like usual. But he used to drink a lot with Gerald Dean—you know him? Short fellow. Not the prettiest. Lives on the north side of town, over by the old Colfax home.”

  “I don’t know him,” says Dawes, inching into the room. “And I—and please forgive me, I’m new here—but: How exactly does this bar work?”

  “I sling, you drink,” says Greta. “It’s a bar.”

  “I mean to say—the provisions. The liquor. Where does it all come from?”

  “It comes in with the weekly shipment, on Wednesdays, same as anything, from Amarillo. Clothes and boots and toothpaste and booze, everything a growing town needs.”

  “I’d like to come by on Wednesday morning. Meet the driver, if that’s all righ
t. Come to a better understanding of how things work around here. You mind?”

  “He’s not cute, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  Dawes laughs. “No, that’s not what I’m wondering.”

  Now fully wedged into the cramped kitchen with Greta, Dawes grabs a towel and starts to dry.

  6.

  THE CHAPEL BELLS RING.

  The town assembles.

  They come quickly, in a rush, like they’ve been waiting all day.

  The crowd is bigger than Cooper expected, maybe thirty, maybe forty, which is nearly the entire population of the town. Only the usual introverts and invalids don’t show up, people like William Wayne—the shut-ins and loners who you might not lay eyes on for an entire calendar year. Everyone else, though, is gathered in a jumpy mob in what passes for the town square just outside the commissary. As the crowd gathers, it’s reflected in the ripples of the store’s huge plate-glass window, people’s faces wide and anxious, waiting for Cooper to start his address.

  He steps up on an overturned apple crate to be better seen by all, then immediately regrets it—now he feels like a target, like some clown at the fair you throw balls at to dump into a barrel of water.

  He waves his hands to get their attention.

  “I’m sorry to report we’ve had an unfortunate incident,” he says.

  The crowd pulsates in the heat, murmuring, fluid and combustible.

  “Call it what it is, a fucking murder!” someone yells. A male voice. Well, that didn’t take long to escalate, Cooper thinks. He tries to place the voice; it sounded like Lyndon Lancaster, though Cooper can’t quite make out faces as he squints against the sun-glare.

  “That’s right. A murder. A fucking murder,” says Cooper. “Hubert Gable was shot dead last night.”

  The crowd ripples again, roiling, the nervous chatter of a rumor confirmed.

  “Okay, settle down,” says Cooper, pointlessly. He’s trying hard not to slip into vice principal mode. He’s got eight years of hard-won collateral on the table here, eight years of cultivating trust, house by house, handshake by handshake. In the Blinds, he’s learned, people run hot and skittish, their anxiety fueled by mistrust. That’s what happens when you wipe out a big chunk of a person’s memories: Fear breeds in the empty space that’s left behind.

  “Call in the real police!” someone else yells, a woman’s voice this time, followed by an angry counterpoint from another man: “Yeah, that’s a fucking great idea—more police!” The crowd falls into angry factions, bickering. Cooper calms them again, or tries.

  “We’re going to handle this in-house,” he says. “The way we always do.”

  “There is no ‘always’ when it comes to a killing,” someone says loudly enough to settle the crowd. The man steps forward. It’s Buster Ford. He wears denim overalls with a paperback stuck in the front pocket, his white hair ranging wildly, letting the world know he has more important things on his mind than combing his hair. He’s one of the original eight as well, got to be near seventy by now, and as such, he commands respect in the town. “There’s never ever been a killing here, Calvin. Not once. Not inside the gates.”

  “Yes, I know, Buster,” Cooper says. “I’ve been here since day one, same as you.” Then, to the crowd: “Longer than most of you. We’ve never had a murder and I don’t plan on having another.”

  A woman’s voice now. This one he knows very well. It’s Fran Adams. “So who was that man here this morning?” she calls out. Cooper spots her in the crowd, her hand cupped over her eyes to shield them from the sun.

  “That was a, uh, liaison. From the Institute. Visiting from Amarillo,” says Cooper.

  This news pleases no one.

  Cooper continues: “It was strictly some logistical assistance, which will aid us in figuring all this out.”

  Fran speaks up again: “Will they be sending more men? More liaisons?”

  “We are not anticipating any further outside involvement at this time,” Cooper says. Goddamned press-conference-speak. Snap out of it.

  Another hand goes up, like a submarine’s periscope rising in choppy waves. Thank God for the civility of a raised hand, Cooper thinks. He peers out and sees it’s Spiro Mitchum—well, of course it is. Spiro, who runs the commissary, is nothing if not orderly. He wears an actual apron to work every day, like an old-time shopkeeper, bless his heart.

  “Is this an outside breach,” he asks, “or are you looking at someone here. A resident.” The crowd communally echoes the question, restating it chaotically.

  “That’s ongoing,” Cooper says. “But we have no reason to suspect a breach—”

  “What about the newcomers?” someone yells.

  “As I said, we have no reason to suspect a breach. But either way, it’s a serious matter. Because someone is in possession of a firearm in this town.” He shifts on the crate, which feels unstable under his boots. “Now, I know some of you might have, shall we say, secrets you keep in your bungalows. Contraband items kept as extra precautions or whatnot. And you know that, normally, as long as there’s no trouble, I don’t like to pry. But in this case, if you know anything at all, please come forward to me or to Deputies Robinson or Dawes.” Cooper nods to the pair of them, standing dutifully nearby. “This is not—” Cooper pauses. Then restarts. “Look, as you know, the Blinds is not like any other place. We have our own rules, our own customs, and, I like to think, our own sense of what’s right. I don’t want to bring up the threat of expulsion, but we need to get this sorted out. If you know something and you come to me, we can work this out, I promise you that. But if Amarillo or the Institute or, God forbid, the federal law enforcement gets involved, then I can’t protect you. Any of you. This is a fragile ecosystem we live in here. Someone out there knows who’s behind this. So I’m counting on you to come forward. Thank you.”

  More questions are being lobbed now freely from the crowd but Cooper’s done, it’s over, he’s said his piece and he’s already stepped off the crate. He starts to walk away and motions to his deputies to follow.

  “That could have gone better,” mutters Cooper, as the three of them retreat.

  “You were expecting different?” says Robinson.

  Cooper’s spent and pissed and frankly tired of questions. He looks at Dawes’s placid, maddening face. “You’ve got something to contribute, Deputy?”

  “Just observing,” she says, as they walk.

  “And what, pray tell, did you observe?”

  “People are scared. For good reason. And if we don’t figure this out, or at least give the impression that we’ve got a hunch, I’d worry that mob is going to go door-to-door until they find someone to blame it on.”

  Cooper wants to cut her off right there, remind her again that she’s barely six weeks on the job, except he knows she’s exactly right.

  “It’s our duty to make sure that doesn’t happen,” he says. “You got any better ideas on ways to do that, you let me know. Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I’ve got a birthday to celebrate.”

  As Bette Burr watches the crowd disperse, she tells herself it’s a simple question of numbers. She has two days, maybe three tops. She’s been here one day already. There’s forty-eight residents in the town, give or take. And there’s three things she knows about the man she’s looking for: He’s old. His name is William Wayne. And he’s been here the full eight years. She thinks she’ll recognize his face, too, given they showed her pictures of him, and he’s the only one in this town who was once famous enough to have been on TV. She remembers those newscasts vaguely, the outrage, though she didn’t pay attention at the time. She didn’t know then what she knows now about him. About him and her father.

  She can guess at roughly how old he’ll be because she knows how old her father is, which means the man she’s looking for must be seventy, at least.

  Was.

  How old her father was. Past tense.

  Not a change she can get used to. Or wants to.

  When sh
e heard the bells and saw everyone assembling, she hoped she’d spot William Wayne here. No luck, but she’s not discouraged. There’s only so many doors to knock on in this town. Just knock and ask, knock and ask, until a door opens and it’s him.

  William Wayne.

  People here act funny when his name comes up, she’s definitely noticed that. They whisper. Withdraw. Few claim to have ever even seen him. Yet everyone has a story. A rumor. A myth.

  She’s tried to act casual, just asking questions, the new kid in town, orienting herself. Hanging around outside the commissary on the main drag ever since that intake session ended. Chatting up people as they exit the store, asking them to explain how all this works. The Mexican shopkeeper, the one in the apron, Spiro Something, he was friendly. He told her the shop is pretty much picked clean by this time in the week, but not to worry, a new shipment arrives every Wednesday. He said they even get apples and bananas on Wednesdays, fresh produce, though it’s usually all gone by the afternoon. Save up your allotment of chits, he told her, don’t waste them at Blinders on booze, and you can trade them for different treats when they come in every week. Clothes, books, games—sometimes they even get mangoes. He hinted that, if they did, he’d stash a few away for her. Ah, the advantages of being young and cute, she thinks—she’s never had a problem getting people to do her favors, especially older men. It’s kind of her hidden superpower. She’s friendly, approachable, she’s got an “open face,” that’s what everyone tells her, which she hates, because she thinks “open face” is just a euphemism for stupid, which she definitely is not.

  Yet her open face has certainly helped her today—pretending like she’s one of them, these people with no pasts. She watches them leaving the town square slowly and talking in their worried whispers about the meeting and the news and what’s happened here and what might happen yet. She wonders what it’s like to uproot yourself from everything you know, everyone you loved, everything you’d ever earned, and damn yourself by choice to a life in a place where you’ve forgotten it all. To be given the chance to forget every bad deed you’ve ever done. In a way, she’s almost envious.