The Blinds

by Adam Sternbergh

  Cooper laughs outright. He knows it’s rude, ruder maybe than even young Dawes deserves in this moment, but he can’t help himself. “Do you know how many successful information requests we’ve put in over eight years? Walt, help me out with the math here.”

  “I believe the answer you’re looking for is zero,” says Robinson.

  “Somewhere in that ballpark,” says Cooper. “It’s definitely a number between zero and zero.”

  “How many information requests have you made in that time?” Dawes says, in a way that let’s Cooper know she’s already tracked down the answer, which he finds a little infuriating.

  “Also zero—and there’s good reason for that. Do you know why we don’t know anything about the backgrounds of the people who reside here? Because if we did, it would make our jobs impossible.”

  “I’m happy to put in the request myself to Dr. Holliday,” she says, “and make it clear to her I’m acting against your objections.”

  “And I’m happy to say no to that, too,” says Cooper.

  Dawes finally breaks. “Why?” she asks sharply.

  Cooper almost smiles, knowing the break in her composure means he’s won. “Because Dr. Holliday will just say no. And you’ll gain nothing but a notation on your official record suggesting you misunderstand the fundamental mission of your place of employment. I’m trying to protect you, Dawes. An information request like that is a huge ask that, frankly, you don’t have the equity here to make. I have built up a number of important and crucial relationships over my eight years here, relationships I am not eager to endanger. Meanwhile, you, in your short six weeks, haven’t even managed to charm me.”

  “So I can’t contact Ellis Gonzalez and I can’t make this request. Is there anything I can do, sir?”

  “Yes, there is—LaToya.”

  “LaToya?” says Robinson. Something like a chuckle tumbles from his throat.

  “That’s not my name, and it’s not funny,” Dawes says.

  “I want you to go door-to-door this morning and engage in some community outreach,” Cooper says. “Reassure the residents, let them know we’ve got this under control.”

  “It’s not even seven A.M., sir,” she says.

  “You’re certainly welcome to wait until the day gets even hotter.”

  “And what exactly am I supposed to tell them, reassurance-wise?”

  “Tell them what we know. Our victim is Hubert Gable. Killed by a nine-millimeter pistol, smuggled in to our premises at time unknown, by persons unknown, and currently stashed at whereabouts unknown.” Cooper stands. “And while you’re out there canvassing, see if anyone heard any noises last night over by Orson Calhoun’s repair yard. Someone trashed it overnight.”

  “Drunks?” says Robinson. “Greta’s open for business again.”

  “Maybe—though it may be more complicated than that.” Cooper thinks of the bubblegum card he’s got stashed in his breast pocket. “They scribbled some graffiti on the walls, too. Some gibberish”—he searches both pants pockets for a slip of note paper, then finds it and reads it—“Damnatio Memorae. That mean anything to either of you?”

  Robinson shrugs, and Dawes shakes her head.

  “My kingdom for a Google, right?” Cooper crumples the paper and tosses it in the trash. “While you’re formulating grand conspiracies, Dawes, I’ve got an actual town to govern.” He grabs one of the week-old pastries and bites into it—it tastes about as good as he expected. Then he searches reflexively for the phantom hat he doesn’t own. “I’ve got to go see a lady about some coydogs that won’t shut up.”

  “Anything you want me to do, chief?” says Robinson.

  “Maybe learn Latin,” says Cooper. “Then, if you’ve got another spare moment, figure this whole fucking thing out.”

  Walking along the sunbaked gravel, out toward the farthest corner of town, Dawes is happy to let Cooper think she’s out here dripping, sweating in agony, being punished, but the truth is she’s never minded heat. Not this kind, anyway. Not Texas heat, not dry heat. Even now, in the first hours of the morning. Where she grew up, in the South, hot meant sticky; hot meant sodden; hot meant barely tickling eighty on the thermometer but with humidity so suffocating that your heart felt like a wet dishrag hung in the cavity of your ribs. Compared to that, this Texas heat can sun-kiss my ass, she thinks. In fact, this whole town can kiss my Georgia-born ass, starting with the sheriff, she thinks.

  And she’s happy, too, as she makes a beeline to the north quarter of town, and the former place of residence of one deceased Errol Colfax, to let Cooper assume her real name is some collision of random syllables, like LaToya, like she’s hiding it to outrun some shameful secrets from her past. Truth is, her Atlanta background is all upper-middle-class cul-de-sacs and kente cloth formal wear and faculty parties glimpsed from between the railings of the staircase as a kid. Her real name isn’t LaAnything. It’s Lindy, short for Lindiwe, the Zulu word meaning “I wait.” Her parents chose it for her because it took them so long to have a child, and once they did, she often wondered why they even bothered, given how absent they both were for most of her childhood. They were ambitious academics who tried for a late-life kid, then got one. Good for them. The most vivid memory she has of her childhood is the two of them retreating behind their respective office doors.

  She always hated Lindiwe, and hated Lindy even more. It was only once she got older that she learned Lindiwe has another meaning. It means “I wait,” but it can also mean “I watch,” or “I guard.”

  That meaning suits her better, she thinks.

  And she’s happy, too, to let Cooper think he’s had the last word. She still has a few secrets of her own. For example, she now knows Cooper’s real name.

  John—that part he told her already, back at the bar. Got skittish about the last name, given exchanging any information about names or your past is against regulation, but he probably figured, rightly, that John’s a common enough name to share—not like Lindiwe. Then this morning she played a hunch and stole a glance at the inside of his gun belt on his desk while he was reading his precious fax. His lucky gun belt, the one he toted along with him from his previous job. A keepsake like that, she figured, you don’t want to lose it. Don’t want some coworker accidentally walking off with it at the end of a shift.

  Might even write your name in it.

  Which he did, in block letters, on the inside of the belt.

  Barker.

  Nice to meet you, John Barker, she thinks.

  Not that there’s much she can do with this info, or even that she thinks it adds up to anything. But right now, it feels good to know something about him that he doesn’t know she knows. Just a name, but that’s a little bit of power, and she’ll take it. Just like how she didn’t mention to Cooper when he asked that she knows damn well what Damnatio Memorae means—she slept through enough prep school Latin classes to know that. Damnatio Memorae: the Condemnation of Memory. Now, why someone would scrawl that in spray paint on the wall of Orson Calhoun’s workshop—that’s just another mystery for her to solve. She pulls out her notebook, writes the phrase neatly inside with her pencil stub, right under the name “John Barker,” then stashes the notebook in her breast pocket again, all without breaking stride.

  For now, though, she’s got her stupid door-to-door reassurance tour to worry about. Cooper told her to do it, but he didn’t tell her where to start, or with whom, which she figures is tantamount to official clearance to head over to the north quarter and knock on some doors. The north quarter, where they house the so-called mummies: the former home of Errol Colfax and current home of Gerald Dean and, most curiously, the fabled William Wayne. Dawes has never seen him in the flesh and she’s been told many times never to disturb him. In her six short weeks, she’s become well acquainted with the legend of William Wayne, which looms over the Blinds like a long shadow at dusk. Taller than a totem pole and craggier than driftwood, so they say, those few people who’ve glimpsed him. Wayne’s willful ret
reat from the community breeds all manner of unkind speculation, like he’s some mythological creature sliding along in the shadowed depths beneath the surface of a placid lake. He’s said to have a large scar on his face, or maybe a whole bunch of scars. Some say his face is blood-splashed, permanently marked. Some say he’s a killer whose past is a swath of carnage, while others swear he was a mere accountant, some factotum adjacent to violence, but one who witnessed something so chilling and gruesome that even the head scrubbers at the Fell Institute couldn’t uproot those memories. Now he lives alone with them, haunted.

  As she rounds the corner toward his house, she hears footsteps—someone running. She turns and sees a young woman jogging toward her.

  “Deputy Dawes!” the woman calls out. She’s carrying a manila envelope. “Sorry to startle you. My name’s Bette Burr. I’m hoping you can help me. I’m looking for someone’s house. William Wayne?”

  “I’m headed there right now. You’re welcome to tag along.” Dawes nods to the envelope in Burr’s hand. “What’s in the package?”

  “Just something I want to deliver to him,” Burr says.

  They walk a bit, not speaking, then mount his steps together. “After you,” Dawes says.

  Burr raises a fist to the door, then pauses. She turns to Dawes. “Just knock?”

  “Sure. Though if he answers the door for you, that would be a first.”

  Burr knocks.

  They both wait.

  No answer.

  Burr knocks again.

  Nothing.

  Dawes steps to the side and peers as best she can into the bungalow’s large picture window. The curtains are drawn tight and the glare from the early sun turns the glass reflective, into a bright painting of what the window faces: an empty, dusty street, the other quiet houses, the shimmering heat, and Dawes and Burr, standing side by side on the porch.

  “No luck, I guess,” says Dawes finally. “Though you’re welcome to keep trying. I’ve got a few dozen more people to call on this morning.” Dawes retreats down the steps, then turns back. “By the way, the sheriff wants me to tell you: Everything’s fine. It’s all under control.”

  “What is?” says Burr, confused.

  “Everything,” says Dawes. Then she smiles, turns away, and walks off toward the next house.

  Burr stays on the porch and stares at the window, toward her reflection again. Still clutching her manila envelope. At least I found you, William Wayne, she thinks, and she contemplates the door again. Now all you need to do is open up. Maybe this will help—and she pulls a piece of paper from her pocket and unfolds it. She’s already affixed a piece of tape to it; already written the note. It reads:

  I am John Sung’s daughter.

  She places the note against the plate-glass window, tapes it there, and smoothes it flat against the glass, so that the words she’s written face the darkness inside.

  9.

  GINGER VAN BUREN is, at sixty-eight, one of the oldest living residents of Caesura. The oldest known resident is William Wayne, who’s well past seventy, and their respective presences in the town couldn’t be more different. Wayne is whispered about, never seen, and barely ever heard from. Ginger Van Buren, on the other hand, is seen, and heard from, often. She’s well known to everyone in town. And, for the most part, what she’s known for is her dogs.

  Not dogs, exactly. Coydogs, actually. Bastard offspring of dogs and coyotes. Just four of them, though you’d never know that from the amount of noise they make.

  Cooper still remembers the day, six years back, when Ginger arrived for her intake. She came with no name and no past and no worldly possessions, save for a lime-colored polyester pantsuit, Jackie O sunglasses, and her dog. The dog was a short-haired, long-limbed, and vocal hybrid of a Doberman and whatever lesser breed her Doberman ancestor managed to pin down and force himself upon. At the time, there were absolutely no pets allowed in Caesura—there still aren’t—but Cooper’s overlords at the Institute explained that they’d made an arrangement with the Justice Department. The agents in charge of the investigation for which Ginger had served as a crucial and indispensable witness had made it clear that taking her dog was a nonnegotiable part of her amnesty deal. It made sense, sort of. Because if she left her beloved hound behind in the outside world, whoever sought to punish Ginger for whatever it was she said could simply find and enact their revenge on her precious pooch, which, to her, would be a much worse punishment than anything they might do to her. So the town made room for the lady and her dog. They’ve regretted it ever since.

  They’d located her and her dog in a bungalow at the farthest end of the final street in town, in a cul-de-sac, a stone’s throw from the outer perimeter fence, the thinking being that the dog, in her mature years, might live another two or three years, tops. Unbeknownst to Cooper, however, Ginger started squirreling away food scraps from the commissary and leaving them out by the fence. Pork chops. Raw hamburger. Left by the fence as bait. Hoping to attract some of the area’s wilder denizens. And she used some pliers borrowed from Orson Calhoun—himself easily hoodwinked under any pretense—to snip a small doggie-door in the bottom of the fence. All in hopes, to her credit, of midwifing exactly the kind of amorous union that eventually took place. Coyote meets dog. Coyote mounts dog. Dog births litter. And the tangled lineage of her beloved pooch became even more compromised.

  Her bitch got pregnant, birthed four mewling coydog hybrids, then passed on from the stress of the delivery. The coydog pups were small, cute, loud, wild, and nasty—naturally, Cooper submitted a request to the Institute to eject the whole brood. Ginger protested to her overseers, successfully, claiming emotional support. Of course, no one at the Institute who approved the coydogs’ continued presence had to actually live with them, or listen to them crooning every night.

  Eventually, a compromise was reached. The pups got neutered, the illicit doggie-door got sewn back up with plastic ties, and the town built a small, fenced-in kennel adjacent to Ginger’s bungalow, right by the perimeter fence, where the four coydogs could howl and paw the dirt and gaze longingly at the wild expanse just beyond. Sometimes Cooper sees the arch of that sewn-up doggie-door in the fence and it looks to him like a hellmouth, the portal by which the town was invaded by these infernal, yapping beasts. Once the coydogs grow to adulthood—or Ginger passes from this world—they will be released back into the wild, or, in Cooper’s secret fantasy, shot. The beasts are half-wild already, he figures, with no hope of domestication. Ginger thought she could tame them; she was wrong. Now they live as accidental bastards, the untamable offspring of the ersatz civilization that exists within the fenced-off confines of the Blinds and the acres of empty nothingness on the other side. Robinson once joked that the Blinds should adopt the coydog as its mascot and form an official football team: the Caesura Coydogs. Cooper never saw the humor in all that. To him, the coydogs were snarly, mean-spirited mistakes, an ill-advised experiment gone wrong. True, most people get used to their howling—eventually. You can get used to almost anything, he’s found. But not if you’re brand-spanking-new to the town, spending your very first week in the Blinds.

  Cooper knocks, and waits patiently, until Vivien King answers the door. Her hair’s tousled and she looks tired and pissed off and desperate, standing in the doorway, wearing a chiffon robe.

  “Morning, ma’am. I’m Sheriff Cooper. I understand you had a complaint.”

  “Those dogs,” she says, nearly in tears.

  “Technically, they’re coydogs. Part coyote, part—”

  “Whatever they are, they were barking. All. Night.” She looks wrecked.

  “I do apologize.”

  “I’m not—look, I love animals.”

  “Trust me, these animals are not lovable,” says Cooper. “The best thing is to just move you clear across town. We’ll have to fill out a few forms, but I can get you moved to a different bungalow, in the north end, where it’s quieter.”

  King smiles, then says in a ragged voice, �
��It went on all night. I didn’t sleep at all. Just lay there—thinking.”

  “I understand.”

  “I have no idea what I’m doing here, Sheriff.”

  “It’s a common reaction on the first few nights.”

  She stares out past him, past the fence. “I thought it would be liberating, you know? Not to remember? But I just feel”—she pauses, searching—“untethered.” She looks back at him. “I remember some of it. I remember my childhood. Everything up to a certain point.”

  “The experience is different for everyone. The goal of the Institute—”

  “But then it just stops,” she says. “Like a whole portion of my life is just . . . missing.”

  “That’s the way it’s supposed to work,” Cooper says. “You should consider yourself lucky. Some of the earliest people lost everything. Over the years, the procedure got more precise. They only target the parts of your life you don’t want to remember. That’s how you get a fresh start.”

  King looks dismayed, like all of this is dawning on her only now, as she’s saying it. “I just can’t stop thinking about that emptiness.” She looks up at him, bewildered. “Does that feeling get any better?”

  “It does,” Cooper lies.

  She smiles, comforted a little bit, at least for now, and once she’s tucked away back inside her bungalow, Cooper exits her porch and lingers for a minute in the dusty street. He checks his watch—still early, still several more hours until two P.M. He considers the coming agenda for the day. Thankfully, Dawes’s vaunted theory turned out to be a bunch of nothing, just a few happenstance overlaps. Still, it’s not like he hasn’t wondered himself if maybe Colfax and Gable were connected in the real world. Well, it’s not for him to ask questions, not those kinds of questions, anyway. In the meantime, he has to go talk to Fran about this incident at Orson’s, because they found Isaac’s trading cards sprinkled all around Orson’s trashed workshop. Cooper pulls a card from his pocket to examine it. No mistake: It’s a trading card for the movie he and Isaac went to see a few months back. Which puts Cooper on a collision course with a very unpleasant conversation with Fran. He feels a painful twinge in his gut and wonders if it’s guilt or that stale pastry, then remembers hazily how he swallowed a bullet in a glass of whiskey last night. Probably some combination of all three.