by Jack Womack
HEATHERN
BOOKS BY JACK WOMACK
A M B I E N T
HEATHERN
E.LVISSEY
RANDOM ACTS OF SENSELESS VIOLENCE
LET'S PUT THE FUTURE BEHIND US
TERRA PLANE
HEATHERN
Jack Womack
For Nancy With Nancy knows what, and Nancy knows why.
ONE
A baby almost killed me as I walked to work one morning. By passing beneath a bus shelter's roof at the ordained moment I lived to tell my tale. With strangers surrounding me I looked at what remained. Laughter from heaven made us lift our eyes skyward. The baby's mother lowered her arms and leaned out her window. Without applause her audience drifted off, seeking crumbs in the gutters of this city of God. Xerox shingles covered the shelter's remaining glass pane, and the largest read:
Want to be crucified. Have own nails. Leave message on machine.
The fringe of numbers along the ad's hem had been stripped away. My shoes crunched glass underfoot; my skirt clung to my legs as I continued down the street. November dawn's seventy-degree bath made my hair lose its set. Mother above appeared ready to take her own bow; I too, as ever, flew on alone.
"Joanna," Thatcher said, prying loose my memory's coils that I might freely return to my present. "You want your face to freeze like that?" Thatcher Dryden, who with his wife Susie owned the Dryden Corporation-that is to say, Dryco-was my boss; my owner, in the conceptual sense. As Vice President in charge of New Projects I rarely listened during the morning rundowns, as I had yet to work on a new project in the nine months since he promoted me. "There's something I want you to look at tomorrow. See if anything's there."
"Anything where?" I asked. Thatcher's eyes glazed, as if he imagined me clad in one of those specialized designs he favored, the sort I refused to wear.
"Got some reports in about some fellow on the Lower East Side-"
"Loisaida," said Bernard. "For appearance's sake we should pretend to keep the names straight." As Vice President overseeing Operations, Bernard made sure that when his owners left teeth beneath their pillows at night they would in morning find shiny prizes in their place. He also still handled those New Projects. I'd worked under Bernard before coming to Dryco, through his mentorship learning the skills I no longer used.
"Whatever they're calling it this week," said Thatcher. "Give her the lowdown as we've got it, Bernard."
Bernard was forty-five, three years older than me; he held his printout that he might see over the frames Of his bifocals, and read aloud, translating the jargon in which all paperwork, for obfuscatorial reasons, was written. One Lester Hill Macaffrey, age twenty-nine, from Kentucky, present address unknown-"
"Squattin' somewhere, no doubt. We'll dig him up like a clam if we have to. A Southerner, you'll notice," said Thatcher, keen to note his countryfolk.
"Turn over any rock and find one," murmured Susie Dryden, seated as ever at the far end of the table reading the Daily News, her eyes flitting over the pages, looking for referents, seeking in mundane reports the usable connections that underlie seemingly unrelated events; she reminded me of a hawk searching meadows for mice. Her paper's headline read: PROBLEM? THEY ASKED/CANNIBAL, HE SAID. Kept Hand in Pocket.
"He teaches philosophy and theology at a parent-run facility on Ninth Street," Bernard said. "Most of his students are Long Island transferees, including test group children-" Susie grimaced.
"Macaffrey teaches grade schoolers philosophy?" I asked.
"Nothing more eschatological than Nietzsche, I'm led to understand," Bernard said. "Our friends in the appropriate agencies have examined possibilities mentioned concerning potential political disruption and feel we're being quote, paranoid, unquote."
"Told you that's what they'd say," Thatcher said, placing a finger to his lips that he might hush his own classroom. "Listen now. That's all I ask."
"Said neighborhood is rife with tales of Macaffrey," Bernard continued, "most arising during the past year, most claiming that he possesses, or is possessed by, some supernatural force. It's sworn by many that through unknown agencies he provides his charges and their families with drugs-"
"Drugs? What drugs?"
Bernard winked at me. "Food, clothing, shelter. Traditional silencers. As so many these days are mad for apocalypse no matter how arbitrarily timed, more outre stories have begun to circulate, silly even by Nasty Nineties standards and far beyond most recent fin-de-sieclivities-" "English, Bernard," said Thatcher.
"Sources claim he foresees and tells of the future." Bernard smiled. "Must be a fount of joy for his neighbors. Supposedly he restores sight to the blind. As predictable within such subcultures a consistent belief is that he changes the weather to suit or punish as he pleases. I don't think these tales can supply his public with the fix they need much longer. Any day now we'll probably hear stories that he's cured millions of cancer, turned water into CocaCola and parted the Fast River to ease the shipment of weapons into Brooklyn."
"Damn good research," said Thatcher. "Good talking. Thanks, Bernard."
I remembered how so often to me Bernard referred to Thatcher only as Stonewall's revenge. "It sounds so charismatic," I said. "So cultish."
"The snakecharmer's air clings to him," said Bernard. "These types rise up in ebullient times such as ours as scum rises on stew. Good to have an accomplished hand lifting the lid now and then to see what's boiling up."
"I got a hunch about this one," said Thatcher, making a series of tiny x's on his notepad with his pen.
"Like the hunch you had about that fool last May?" asked Susie.
"Messages from beyond could be useful even if true, depending on the beyond," said Bernard. "At least Swami Lester doesn't claim to have once lived in Atlantis. So many do you'd think the weight of the populace was what sunk the place."
"Makes him more believable, doesn't it?" Thatcher asked. "You got to follow these things up." Spring's oracle had professed the ability to lift the shrouds from Elvis. When he conjured up no incubus of higher rank than one claiming to have been Grover Cleveland's postmaster general, Thatcher felt more assured that Elvis was still alive, or at least for now sat waiting in the lounge of heaven's airstrip until he heard the boarding call for the return flight to earth. "This boy didn't come calling on us, it's cost-free so far. If there's something usable he's got it'll be a damn smart investment, getting in on the ground floor."
"Send a magician along," said Susie. "A stage magician. Someone who recognizes tricks and lies and knows what to do about them."
Bernard, stonefaced, lifted his hand. Thatcher smiled, ogling me for the tenth time that morning, his attitude implying that he'd told all of his classmates a secret I'd asked him not to tell. "Go down there tomorrow, hon. See if his shoes match his suit. Report to me once you get back."
"May we proceed?" Susie asked. "More pressing matters require notice." She turned to Gus, who'd thus far remained silent. Gus oversaw Security, and so spoke only of matters about which we didn't want to hear. He was in his sixties, and worked for many in many ways before signing on with Dryco. "Fact me on this Jensen thing, Gus."
"Mister Jensen, who worked with Latin American accounts-"
"Dog bites man," muttered Thatcher. "Who doesn't?"
"-left Chicago two nights ago, arriving at the Newark terminal on our jet number 12AR6. Jake and I were to bring him into town and we met him there." Jake was Gus's protege and trainee. "It startled me, how pale he looked, but Jensen said he was fine. I sat with him in the back, Jake sat with the driver. Halfway through the Holland Tunnel he clutched his chest and slumped. A coronary, I thought, and pulled him closer to me. When I tried to place the oxygen mask over his mouth he pushed it away. His face was gray and blue. He felt very cold. He spoke."<
br />
"What did he say?"
"'Can you keep a secret?' he asked. I said 'Yes, my friend.' He could keep a secret as well and said nothing else. He entered a paralytic state, almost a coma. In his eyes you could tell he was thinking." Gus sighed.
"What's the moral to the tale?" Susie asked.
"None, so far," said Gus. "Our doctors examined him after he was admitted to our ward at Beekman. Within an hour he died. Poison, the doctors said."
"What poison introduced how?"
"Fugu," said Gus, "derived from a Caribbean species of blowfish-"
Thatcher nodded. "How much was Jensen allowed to know? He must have been aboveboard if he was using one of our planes."
"High enough," said Bernard. "Sometimes I saw him at various dos, forever resembling a librarian on speed. Just the same he was vouchsafed and seemed no less competent than the rest. Probably at some stage he simply took the wrong path in life."
"No ifs about it," said Thatcher. "Sushi boys are in the bush."
Bernard frowned, and when he spoke his offering was no less serious than I would have expected. "If those little yellow people weren't so little they'd be easier to spot."
"They hid on Guam for thirty years after the war," said Thatcher.
"We believe the poison was on a projectile fired into the back of the leg, behind the knee, by means of a nondiscernible microbioinoculator," Gus said. "Dartgun," he added, seeing that none of us save Bernard knew what he meant. "Easily concealed within an umbrella, for example. In a car exhaust, in a child's party whistle. Innocence doesn't deny death."
"Sounds like Russian tomfoolery to me," said Bernard, examining his nails. Whenever he dieted he fed upon his fingertips to supply the calories forbidden. "Those crazy Krasnayas eat up those Bond movies. I've often told you it's our Moscow trolls we should keep a closer eye on-"
"They need the business too bad," said Thatcher. "We're partners, boy. Russia's at war with the country, not us."
"The recovered pellet fits instruments of Cuban make," said Gus, his own Cuban accent shading his soft voice.
Thatcher shook his head. "They're in the damned Caribbean," he said. "Finally getting into the market."
"Quit fixating," said Susie.
"You've no reason to suspect," I said. "All somebody has to do is say Tokyo and you act as if samurai were running down Fifth Avenue."
"Stick to your assigned projects, hon," Thatcher told me. "You know something about conspiracy we don't?"
"Returning to this supposed conspiracy of which we have no evidence," Bernard said, "if Jensen was into freebooty he may well have been flying solo."
"Loose cannons sink ships," said Susie.
"Somebody else was involved, since somebody killed him," said Thatcher. "Wish to hell I could remember the bastard. These low-level boys, it's like looking at ants-"
"He was higher on the hill than that," said Susie. "Investigation's essentialled."
"Of course it is," said Thatcher. "You can bet Japs'll be holding the dartgun when we catch 'em. Talk about watching too many Bond movies. Fugu poison, my ass-"
"You're such an idiot, Thatcher," shouted Susie; her snow-pale skin darkened as if she'd been rinsed in cheap wine. Whenever her control over anything slackened Susie rushed to teeter wildly at hysteria's edge so that one among those who watched might rescue her as she desired. Since aligning with her husband, Susie lived by her balance. "Aren't there plots enough without your making up ones that don't exist?" Standing, she walked to the window to sightsee while biding her time; it was Bernard, and not Thatcher, who spoke anew.
"Let's forget Pearl Harbor long enough to approach this logically. Why not?"
"Give it a try," said Thatcher.
"The negotiations at Kyoto have been ongoing for a year and a half -"
"Year and eight months," said Susie, without looking at us.
"On Tuesday you'll be meeting with the closest Japan has to your equivalent-"
"Oswego-?"
"Otsuka," said Bernard. "You know his name, use it. He's the one who made the bid to us and he's worth hearing. Nothing wrong with forming with Japan the same sort of benevolently hostile relationship we have with Russia, and with Japan there'll be no need for military interaction. So long as we postnet options-"
"English," said Thatcher.
"What will Japan matter in ten, twenty years? China's learned its lesson. Once they attain production levels of even half-strength everything will be left in the dust. Then all we'll have to do for the Japanese is draw up their retirement program."
"Like they don't have enough to retire on. Property, farms, factories, stores, banks-"
"All of those assets frozen since the troubles," said Bernard. "We do the deal, then apply the blowtorch. We receive a thirty percent cut of their future profits in all aboveground American-based operations-"
"Thirty percent," Susie repeated. "He bit?"
"With all teeth. Once we sign we will have to abide by the agreement. No clowning about later on. That's our sole requirement-"
"Sounds good," said Thatcher. "Too good."
Susie stood before Gus, sounding more tranquil as she spoke. "Security's on double alert?"
"Absolutely. All guards are undergoing allegiance checks. Master Dryden is safe at your house in Westchester."
"It's Wednesday," Thatcher said. "Settle this Jensen thing by Monday, if possible. Get the police to make pertinent arrests when necessary."
"We've surrounded the usual," said Gus. "The actual assassin may prove untraceable."
"Wouldn't be the first time," said Thatcher, regarding Gus until our guard looked away.
"There's so much else that needs attention," Susie said, rubbing her forehead as if shifting her brain's patterns into bizthink; as she eased into her traditional role even her speech began to change. "What's tagged for intersits? List me." Intersits were, in our economical shorthand, international situations. Thatcher shook his head, patently displeased with the grate of neology.
"Three point seven million imperial gallons at our Vancouver plant primed for disposal," said Bernard, reading from a different printout. "Dispersal, excuse me."
"As what?" Thatcher asked. "Cancer in a jug?"
"Barter unfeasibled in this instance," said Bernard, resting his chin in his palm. "Call it charity."
"Third-world writeoff," said Susie. "Next."
"Dryco's Caracas unit to return online January first-"
"December fifteenth," she said.
"They ever figure out what happened?" Thatcher asked.
"Major malfunction," said Bernard. A guess; no one was left alive to ask. I gazed into Thatcher's face as if to divine the future; found myself again unsuccessful as a seeress. His actions were forever unpredictable, but this day's whim especially puzzled, that he should make advances to a teacher in a ghetto. Beyond his stated claim I could discern no higher purpose in his intentions.
"What's this I heard about some delay in the wall?" Thatcher asked. "What's up?"
"The river." Workfare recipients built the wall that would shield downtown from rising waters in the event Green house predictions proved accurate. Without working they received no government assistance; for twelve daily hours they received thirty cents. There was a two month wait for spaces that forever reopened. "Higher tides this fall than expected. At Cortlandt Street they ran out of bedrock, Schist one of those things." He paused, as if hoping for a reaction other than the one he drew forth with his pun, before reading on. "Struck quicksand at forty feet. Geologists are insisting that additional tests be performed--
Thatcher's finger rapped my knee as if he was testing to see if I'd gone bad. He slipped a note to me beneath the table.
"Check it out, Bernard, whatever they say." I want to see you tonight, his note read. On the message's reverse I scribbled my reply and passed it back, peripherally watching his reaction. Thatcher glanced at it, his dark eyes fixed. His features could have been called Lincolnesque, had Lincoln been forty pound
s heavier, beardless, and worn his hair tied in a short pony in the back. "Precautions. Can't trust nobody on faith."
Not tonight, he'd read.
I agreed to drink with them after work; so long as Susie accompanied he usually kept his passions reined. During this season, I settled for such company as would keep me. Through the years, spending the Thanksgiving-Hanukkah -Christmas circuit carving turkey rolls instead of turkeys, decorating bushes rather than trees, I should have convinced myself without reminder that each new year's holidays might prove more memorable than those preceding, but no; the mind rejects too many lies as the body rejects too many sleeping pills.
"What a beautiful sunset," Thatcher remarked as we rode the few blocks from Wall Street to Fraunces Tavern. Slivers of sky between buildings showed half-glimpsed glory. Old downtown's narrow streets held a medieval feel, hemmed in as they were by stone battlements and wide walls. Evening's lingering heat slapped our faces as we stepped from our car; we saw two visigoths who'd long before invaded the city, bond traders giggling as over a bug in a bottle while they poked umbrellas into a trashbag. The bag groaned; the man within hid his face with his hands.
"Amateurs," Thatcher muttered, evincing as much concern as I or anyone I knew evinced toward those who'd lost that we might win. Thatcher's snow queen, Bernard laughingly called me: ice princess, glacier girl, the hoar with heart of frost. Was I better than Thatcher for having noticed but not remarking? That was another lie I couldn't keep down. My generation's zeitgeist preferred to haunt its halls alone, without undue consideration of an unlikely heaven: therefore, like all, I saw but didn't see, cared yet didn't care; couldn't stop long enough to think about what I might do if I tried; convinced myself that there was nothing I could do, and so did nothing.
Susie took Thatcher's arm as we entered, holding him tight; he didn't pull away. He'd had involvements before ours, yet Susie never left him, nor did he want her to go. They never spoke of their unavoidable symbiosis, as if embarrassed to admit that neither could have dealt with their world by themselves. There would be no breaking of their ring from without; I'd tired of battering myself, trying. Soon enough, I believed-wanted to believe-I would fly away from it all, not knowing how, not knowing when; wanting in the meantime only to let what moments we had left together pass silently away, that he wouldn't notice I'd left till I'd gone.