The Blinds

by Adam Sternbergh

  Cooper’s set to leave when he notices a man on the porch adjacent, watching him but saying nothing. It’s another one of the new arrivals from yesterday’s intake. The man’s head is shaved, like a new recruit or a monk, and he’s wearing loose pants and a white sleeveless undershirt. His taut, wiry arms are covered with tattoos.

  Once Cooper catches his eye, the man nods. “Good morning, Sheriff. What you got there?”

  “Just a good luck charm.” Cooper pockets the card again. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, since I didn’t stick around yesterday when y’all chose your new names.”

  “Now what did I end up calling myself?” The man adopts an exaggerated pose of rumination, stroking his stubbled chin with spindly fingers. “Oh, yes, Dick. Dick Dietrich.”

  “Those coydogs keep you up last night, too, Mr. Dietrich?” Cooper stands in the street, cupping his hand over his eyes, squinting.

  “No, I slept like a baby. Or a corpse.” Dietrich laughs. “I suppose the corpse of a baby would be the soundest sleeper of all.”

  “I don’t believe I saw you at the town meeting yesterday.”

  “I was busy getting settled in.”

  “And how’s that going?”

  Dietrich looks up and down the street, then smiles. “Already feels like home. This meeting I missed—was that about the killing you had here the other night?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “You see a lot of killing in this town?”

  “Never before, and never again, if I have anything to say about it.”

  “But that’s always the question, isn’t it?” says Dietrich. “Will you have anything to say about it? Or will something else happen instead?”

  “I guess so.” Cooper’s in no mood for this, not today. “Y’all have a nice morning,” he says, then turns to go.

  Dietrich calls after him. “You don’t come by that ‘y’all’ honestly, do you, Sheriff Cooper? My ear can pick out a carpetbagger at a hundred yards.”

  Cooper turns back to him. “Really? Are you a Texas boy, Dick?”

  “I’m from all over,” says Dietrich. “Now I guess I’m from right here. Fancy calling this place home.”

  “We do our best to be neighborly,” says Cooper, with a cold smile.

  “Then I’ll do my best to do my best,” Dietrich says.

  “You do that,” Cooper says, then walks away. At the end of the street, he taps the trading card in his pocket again, like a talisman, then turns the corner and points himself on a path to Fran Adams’s house, which happens to be the very last place in town he wants to go right now.

  The Chevy Aveo has two rear windows smashed by the vandals, but Orson’s vacuumed out the shards from the backseat and cleaned out the empty panes and covered the empty windows in black plastic. The tires are solid, the engine’s tuned, so otherwise, he explains to Dawes, the car runs good. “Once you get north of sixty miles per hour,” he says, “she’ll start to shudder on you.” Dawes assures him she takes her driving slow, which isn’t exactly the truth.

  “You planning on taking a trip into town, Deputy?” he asks.

  “Just curious if it’s an option,” she says. She’ll have to figure out a story for Cooper to get his permission to leave for the day, but she’s not too worried about that. She’s allowed to request a twenty-four-hour furlough in case of emergency, and she’s confident she can cook up something convincing. She just needs to get to Abilene for a couple of hours, tops. During her rounds, knocking on doors, she managed to slip in a few questions to the residents about Marlon Garner, aka Ellis Gonzalez, aka the man she was hired to replace. Aka the man who up and quit and took off the week after Colfax shot himself. Allegedly shot himself. Everyone remembered Garner, of course, though no one knew where he went. But Lyndon Lancaster remembered him talking often of Abilene, like maybe he had family there, or at least a reason to visit. It’s not much, but it’s not nothing, she thinks. A real name and a real place. It’s a start. Now all she has to do is get there. That’s where the Aveo comes in.

  “It’s beautiful countryside beyond these fences, or so I recall,” Orson says. “It’s been a long, long while since they drove me in the bus to here.” He nods to the half-organized refuse in the yard. “You see what they did to my shop?”

  “I’m very sorry, Orson.”

  “They scrawled some foolishness, too, on the wall to scare me. You have any idea what that means?” He points to the graffiti: Damnatio Memorae.

  “I don’t,” she says, another not-exactly-true statement.

  “Well, if you do need the car, she’s ready to go and the tank is full. Thankfully I filled her up before my spare gas can disappeared.”

  “What happened to the spare gas can?” she asks.

  “Whoever broke in here up and stole it. Must have done. I’ve searched everywhere else. Though you know my mind’s not always the clearest.”

  “What would someone want with a gas can?” asks Dawes, though she knows Orson won’t have an answer. And if she’s honest with herself, she knows there’s only one reason someone would steal a gas can in a town without cars, and that’s to burn something down.

  10.

  COOPER KNOCKS AGAIN and Isaac answers the door. He seems excited to see Cooper, which just makes Cooper feel worse about the business that’s brought him here. He considers confronting Isaac directly with the telltale trading card, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Geez, he’s just a kid, thinks Cooper, a little weird, but innocent and unruined. Or so Cooper had always assumed.

  “Your mother home?” he asks.

  Isaac hollers and Fran appears, her arms wrapped around a basket of half-folded laundry. She invites Cooper into the living room and, after exiling Isaac back to his room, inspects the trading card that Cooper just handed over. While she does, Cooper marvels at the living room again—he’s been here plenty of times, but he’s always struck anew by all the books. Since the day she arrived she’s surrounded herself, patiently building a collection. She quickly filled the small, standard-issue bookshelf they all get—Cooper’s got maybe two, three throwaway paperbacks on his shelves right now—then she squirreled away the other volumes, discards mostly, collected from the library or from the new books that arrive sporadically with Spiro’s weekly commissary supplies. It doesn’t matter: Fran wants them all. Every surface in her living room now holds a small collection, in haphazard piles or standing up straight, spines rigid. That’s all she does when she has the time. She reads.

  “Sure, it’s his,” she says finally, “but Isaac would never do anything like that.” She holds out the card to Cooper with finality, as though the issue is settled and the topic is closed.

  “I know it seems unlikely, Fran, but someone trashed that shop. It wasn’t me, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t you, and I don’t imagine it was old Buster Ford. And you know Isaac has been acting out lately—”

  “Come on, Cal, that was months ago.”

  Cal—it’s been a long while since she regularly called him that, he thinks. She turns away from him and goes back to folding her laundry—another signal to tell him she’s done with this topic.

  “He set a fire, Fran. These things escalate—”

  “It was a pile of grass and sticks in my front yard. He found some matches in the kitchen. Boys do that. I bet you did it, too, when you were a kid. I bet you did a lot worse.”

  Cooper did—plenty worse. He doesn’t mention that. “Plus, he broke that window—”

  “You don’t know that was him—”

  “We both know it was him, Fran. Doris Agnew saw him do it.”

  Fran sweeps stray hairs back from her ponytail, tied hastily. She picks up a kids’ t-shirt. In her fingers the shirt looks frail and impossibly small. When she answers, it’s in a low voice, to be sure Isaac won’t hear from his room. “Look, I’m not saying he doesn’t misbehave. Or that living here isn’t taking a toll on him. We both know that it is. But I was up until midnight last night. He was sound as
leep the whole time.”

  Cooper holds out the card again. “Then explain this.”

  “That’s my whole point, Cal. I don’t know how someone got those cards, but I do know for a fact that Isaac would never leave any of his cards behind. He loves those cards. They’re like treasures to him. He even stores them in a special box. He would never scatter them all over the place. It makes no sense.”

  “I’m not saying I’m sure it was Isaac,” says Cooper. “In fact, there’s reason to believe it wasn’t. There was graffiti there, too, in the shop, some Latin saying. But if it wasn’t him, then it’s someone who wants us to think it was. And that makes me nervous, too.”

  “Then I don’t know why you’re wasting your time here,” Fran says. “Accusing me? Accusing my son?”

  “You know I’m only concerned about him. About both of you.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “There’s just something happening right now,” Cooper says. “The thing with Colfax. Now Gable.”

  “Funny you didn’t mention any of this at the town meeting yesterday.” She folds a pair of jeans, her motions controlled and precise, her creases crisp. “Is that why you broke things off between us? To give me an easy way out?”

  “I’ve told you I’ll help you any way I can.”

  “Look, I’m happy to leave, if you, or anyone, can give me some idea of what exactly is waiting for us out there if we do.”

  As she folds mechanically, Cooper glances at her left hand and the series of numbers tattooed like a cuff around her wrist. He asked her about it once, in a very different moment of intimacy, one which seems very long ago to him right now. Calling each other by first names, quietly, huddled together in the dark.

  “There may not be anyone out there hunting you,” he says. “Maybe you just—”

  “What? Maybe I’m an innocent?” She almost laughs at the thought. “Isn’t that what everyone here wants to believe? I may not know why I’m here, Cal, but I do know, at some point, it was my only option. And that scares the hell out of me.”

  “Look, just ask him about the card,” says Cooper. “I’m not going to punish him. But I do need to know what’s going on in my town.”

  “You worry about your town. I’ll worry about my son,” she says.

  Cooper wants to say more, but what exactly, he’s not sure. But he does have an idea. Not a new one exactly, but one he’s been waiting for the right moment to act on. Well, this sure as hell feels like the right moment, he thinks. He nods to her, then excuses himself from the house without another word.

  Cooper eats his lunch alone at home. The shades are drawn. It’s nearly two P.M.

  At quarter to two, he rises, clears his dishes, and washes the plate in the sink. He sets the cutlery in the drying rack. He wipes his hands on a towel, then heads out to the police station.

  Back in the harsh sunlight, ambling through the middle of town, Cooper watches as people gather in front of the commissary, collecting provisions; it’s Tuesday, so end-of-cycle allotment discounts kick in to clear out space for the new shipment Wednesday morning. Cooper spots white-haired Buster Ford in his overalls loading up a little red wagon with groceries. Ford gives him a friendly nod.

  “Any leads?” he calls out.

  “We’re working on it, Buster,” says Cooper. “Closing in on a few promising possibilities.”

  A few other stragglers, their arms freighted with bags, free their hands to wave a greeting to the sheriff. He smiles back each time, doing his best to look calm, optimistic, and in control. It’s a look he’s practiced enough to pull off.

  He heads to the police trailer, which is empty, thankfully, so he doesn’t have to make any excuses to chase off his deputies. Cooper closes the door behind him. He takes his seat by the fax machine and checks his watch.

  At two P.M., the machine barks to life. Paper starts stuttering out. He rips the page clear of the machine.

  The paper contains one word in large letters across the top: Tomorrow. Then, in smaller script, beneath that: 9 mm in the mail.

  Under that: a photo.

  A mug shot actually. He recognizes the person right away.

  It’s a photo of Gerald Dean.

  Gerald Dean—the same guy Dawes decided to focus all her attention on. That’s got to be a coincidence, right? There’s no way Dawes—no, she’s on the wrong scent. Still, the connection—Colfax, Gable, now Dean—makes Cooper uneasy. If Dean and Gable were drinking buddies, maybe they did know each other in their previous lives. Maybe they were drawn to each other, without knowing exactly why.

  What did you do in your past life, Gerald? Cooper thinks, studying the photo. What evil deed brought you to this place?

  Either way, it doesn’t matter to Cooper, or to what he knows comes next. Besides, he’ll find out all about Dean’s past soon enough.

  He’s about to feed the paper into the shredder, but he stops and folds it up instead. He slips it into the breast pocket of his shirt, just under where his sheriff’s star is pinned.

  Then he sits again in the silent gloom of the shuttered office. He’s got one more decision to make. Not about Gable, not about Dean—about Fran Adams and her son. He’s considered this option before—his final option, really—but hesitated to pursue it, knowing it was the last and only card he had to play. But he’s out of ideas now and, frankly, after tomorrow night, after Gerald Dean, all this will come to an end. He’s decided that already. Recent events have only made him more sure. He’s honestly not certain what happened at the repair yard—drunkards, vandals, roustabouts—it wouldn’t be the first time a few boisterous residents got out of hand. Right now, it’s just a distraction to him. But what he sees more clearly than ever is that there’s no good reason for Fran and Isaac to stay.

  He takes another moment to talk himself out of it, fails, and so he scribbles his note on a sheet of paper. He feeds the paper into the fax machine. He dials a number that only he knows. His belly gives another painful twang. He recalls the bullet he swallowed last night.

  He sends the fax.

  His note bears a simple message:

  We need to meet.

  An unusual request. But these are unusual times.

  He sits back in his chair and waits. He thinks about a little boy on the other side of town, and all the years that boy has spent here, and all the years he has ahead of him.

  Then Cooper thinks about another little boy, from long ago.

  Maybe a minute later, maybe two, maybe twenty, Cooper can’t tell, he loses count, the machine whines back to life, and his answer comes stuttering out. Handwritten on official Fell Institute letterhead.

  It’s been a long time, Calvin, but I’m always happy to see you—come by the ranch tomorrow afternoon.

  There’s no signature, but the long, looping letters are unmistakably written in Dr. Holliday’s impeccable hand.

  Bette Burr waits on his porch again.

  Knocks again.

  Still no answer.

  No worries. It’s only the second day. She’s still got one more day—that’s what they told her. Three days to find him and deliver the news.

  Don’t think I can’t wait you out, Mr. William Wayne. Or that I’m going away.

  She knocks again.

  Then she steps back and peers into Wayne’s window, but sees nothing. The curtains are still drawn tight. Only her searching face reflects back to her in the rectangular pane of glass.

  She does notice one thing, though. Something encouraging.

  The faint residue of the Scotch tape she used to leave her note, lingering in a tacky rectangle on the glass.

  Someone took that note down. Must have read it, too.

  I am John Sung’s daughter.

  And I’m still out here, she thinks.

  She knocks again.

  No answer. Again.

  That’s okay. Neither of them is going anywhere.

  In her other hand, she clutches her manila envelope. Inside is a photo
of her father.

  Once William Wayne opens up, she’ll show it to him.

  To see if he remembers.

  11.

  FRAN SLIDES OPEN THE DRESSER DRAWERS in Isaac’s bedroom and lays in the folded laundry. The dresser looks like a baby’s dresser, she thinks, still covered in appliqué and painted baby blue. The whole room is now years out of date, she realizes, with a Noah’s Ark mural and a zoo-animal mobile hanging from the ceiling. She feels a sudden flush of embarrassment, ashamed that she’s kept the room frozen in time like this. As if that would keep him from growing up and save her from making her decision. When he was born, she thought she had a year to decide. At a year, she gave herself two more. When he reached age five, she wondered if this life would ruin him, but also admitted to herself that what lay beyond the fences was far too scary for her to contemplate. She dreamed of Jean Mondale and Jacob nightly; in her dream, they were both in a school bus, trapped, submerged underwater, drowning and pounding the glass. Then the bus filled with blood. Then she woke up. Sometimes she dreamed a man was watching the whole thing on his computer, his back turned to her, so she could never see his face. That same dream, night after night, for years. How could she plan to move away with Isaac after that?

  In the meantime, as she waffled, frightened, Isaac turned six, seven, eight—he’s got race-car posters taped up over the rainbow in the Noah’s Ark mural now. Is that how the story of Noah ends? With a rainbow? She struggles, but she can’t recall. She remembers the part about the storm, and the flood, and everyone piling into the boat to seek salvation, but not how it all ends. A rainbow? And dry land somewhere. A mountaintop. Maybe a dove.