Last Bus to Coffeeville

by J. Paul Henderson

  ‘Excuse me bothering you, sir,’ the boy said, ‘but is there any chance you could give me a ride?’

  ‘Jesus, kid, you almos’ give me a heart attack! I thought you was one o’ them aliens. What you doin’ out here?’

  ‘Visiting my uncle, sir. There’s no bus till morning and I need to get to Hershey.’

  ‘Couldn’ yo’ uncle give you a ride?’

  ‘He’s in prison, sir. The one back there off the road.’ He pointed with his free hand, the one not holding what Bob took to be a girl’s umbrella.

  ‘Okay, kid, climb in.’

  Eric climbed in and fastened his safety belt. He then held out his hand to Bob and introduced himself: ‘My name’s Eric Gole, sir. What’s yours?’

  ‘Otis Sistrunk,’ Bob said, ‘Call me Otis.’ He then put the vehicle into drive and steered toward the exit.

  Fred Finkel’s Living Room

  ‘She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen,’ Finkel said. ‘No one would have turned her down. I was lucky to be blessed with brains when I was born, but I didn’t do too well in the looks department. It never used to bother me until I met Susan, but then I started to wonder how life might have been if I had been handsome and met someone like her thirty years ago. I don’t mind telling you, it unsettled me. Don’t go getting me wrong, there was no funny business between the two of us, but when she left it was like my heart had been broken in two. Strange thing that, isn’t it?’

  Bob and Eric were sitting side by side on a small couch in Fred Finkel’s living room, drinking cups of tea. It was Sunday afternoon and their second visit to Finkel’s house. Although they’d arrived in Hershey on the Saturday, Finkel had been out of town visiting his sister.

  The man who’d opened the door to them had the appearance of a wire coat hanger on edge. He was in his late sixties, about five foot six and thin as a rake. His head was particularly narrow – more like a side profile than a full face – and gave the impression of a man who’d been delivered from his mother’s womb by a doctor who’d pressed on the forceps too hard.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you like this, Mr Finkel, but our understandin’ o’ the matter is that you an acquaintance o’ Susan Lawrence. Susan’s a cousin o’ this young man here, an’ he tryin’ to locate her. We was wonderin’ if you can help us.’

  At the mention of Susan’s name an immediate change came over Fred Finkel: his guard dropped and a tremulous smile jerked uneasily across his face. He held out a surprisingly firm hand and invited them into the house.

  ‘I was just making a cup of tea,’ he said. ‘Would you care to join me?’ Finkel disappeared into the kitchen and left Bob and Eric alone in what passed for a living room.

  ‘What’s tea like, Otis?’ Eric whispered. ‘I’ve never drunk it before.’

  ‘Tastes good,’ Bob said. ‘Jus’ diff’rent is all.’

  The curtains in the living room were old and made from a heavy velvet material. They were drawn shut to prevent any natural light from seeping into the parlour’s cheerless interior, which was illuminated by a sole standing light. There was no television, no radio and no CD player, and the walls – apart from a small round mirror – were completely bare. There were only three ornaments in the room and these sat on the mantel over the fireplace: an old glass candy jar filled with buttons, a black wooden elephant sat on its haunches with a clothes brush sticking out of its hollowed head, and a small rosewood tea chest.

  Finkel came back into the room holding a tray. He placed it carefully on one of the tables.

  ‘I’ve brought milk just in case,’ he said, ‘but I think you’ll find the tea tastes better if you just squeeze lemon into it. One more piece of advice: it’s wisest to sweeten the tea only after you’ve tasted it.’ He then poured three cups. ‘I don’t know whether you’ve drunk Lapsang souchong before, but it’s special.’

  Bob squeezed the lemon into his cup and took a taste. ‘Mmmm, this good, Mr Finkel. It’s got a kinda smoky taste to it, don’t it?’

  ‘Exactly so!’ Finkel replied.

  ‘I notice you got an ol’ tea chest on the shelf, there. You keep tea in that, too?’

  ‘No, Mr Sistrunk, I keep my caul in there.’

  ‘Coal? How you fit coal in there, Mr Finkel? Looks too small.’

  ‘Not coal, Mr Sistrunk. Caul! It’s a veil of skin that covers the face of some children when they’re born – rather like a mask. It’s rare that it happens, but not that rare – Napoleon Bonaparte had one, for example.

  ‘In Eastern Europe, they believed that a child born with a caul over its face would grow up to be a werewolf, but in our culture it’s always been interpreted as an omen of good luck. Legend has it that the bearer of a caul never drowns, and sailors in particular are still prepared to pay large sums of money for them. It’s nonsense, I know, but harmless nonsense.

  ‘Having said that, my mother made me promise never to throw it away. She believed that if the caul wasn’t buried – or burnt – with me when I died, then my soul would never rest in peace, and like all mothers she wanted the best for me. So that’s what will happen when I die, and in the meantime it stays locked away in the tea chest there.’

  Bob was fascinated by Finkel’s story, Eric rather less so.

  ‘I hope I’m not interrupting, Mr Finkel – and that story of yours about coal was very interesting – but can you tell me about my cousin Susan?’

  ‘Of course I can, young man,’ Finkel said. He put down his cup, closed his eyes and then appeared to fall asleep.

  Eric looked at Bob uneasily, and was about to prod the man when Finkel suddenly burst into life.

  ‘I was up at the plant and got a call from the post room to say they’d taken receipt of a letter addressed to The Person who invented The Desert Bar, and wanted to know if they should forward it to me. I wasn’t the inventor as such, but I was probably the last member of the original project team still working at the factory, and so I said yes. It was an unusual letter, handwritten in purple ink with big hearts over the ‘i’s and ‘j’s, and flamboyant loops on all the upper and lower sticks. To tell you the truth, I thought it had been written by a child, and because I was in the middle of something else I didn’t read it immediately. I stuck it in my pocket and only remembered about it after I got home.

  ‘The writer of the letter introduced herself as Susan Lawrence and described herself as an artist who was interested in doing something with chocolate that didn’t melt in the hand. She wanted to know if she could come to Hershey, perhaps buy me dinner and pick my brains. I was intrigued and wrote back to her the next day saying I’d be happy to help. I think if she’d said at the time that she was an exotic dancer, I probably wouldn’t have done so; but I didn’t know that then and, when I did know, it no longer mattered to me.

  ‘I didn’t hear anything back, and then, about two weeks later, there was a knock on my door and a young lady standing there telling me she’d come to take me to dinner. My twitches started up and I couldn’t think of anything to say, and that’s when she leaned across and kissed me on the cheek – right here,’ he said, pointing to his left cheek. “Come on, pull yourself together, Mr Finkel,” she said. “I’m Susan: the person who wrote to you about the Desert Bars.”’

  ‘I’d just opened a can of sardines when she’d arrived and washed some tomatoes, but I just forgot all about them and followed her to the car meek as a lost lamb. It wasn’t until I got home again that I realised I’d never even shut the door behind me: it was still wide open, believe it or not.

  ‘She took me to the Fire Alley Restaurant down on Cocoa Avenue, looked at me and said: “Mr Finkel, what you need is a steak! You look like you’re about to waste away,” and so that’s what I ordered. People in the restaurant kept looking over at us, probably wondering what a good-looking girl like her was doing with a decrepit old man like me, and I tell you, it felt great. She was a tactile person and when she talked she kept touching me, and every time she did, it was like a jolt of electricity shoo
ting through my body.

  ‘She told me right off that she was a dancer rather than a fine artist, but a fine dancer. She smiled when she said that. I’d never seen a smile as beautiful as hers and I just smiled right back. She said she wanted to incorporate chocolate into her act in a tasteful way – and she smiled again when she said it, and I smiled right back at her. I think that’s when I fell in love.

  ‘Anyway, she explained how she wanted to cover her body with chocolate that didn’t melt when it was applied, and would then only melt slowly. She told me it was for “human installation art purposes” and wanted to know if the Desert Bar would be appropriate. I told her I didn’t know a thing about human installation art, but that I did know a thing or two about chocolate, and that yes, it would be possible – but the chocolate they used for the Desert Bar would first have to be modified. It was simply too solid to spread over a human body, too intractable, and the window between melting and re-solidification was too short a time for the chocolate to be applied to a person’s body without burning the skin.

  ‘“So, what can we do?” she asked me, and I told her we’d have to add more cocoa butter to the mix. I explained to her that I couldn’t be sure how much cocoa butter would have to be added without doing a few experiments, but that I’d be able to do these tests in my own kitchen. I said if she came back in a couple of weeks, I’d probably have something ready for her. But she’d have none of that. She said she wanted to stay in Hershey and help me – in fact, she was insistent on it – and the next day, we got down to work.’

  There had been no problem locating the chocolate that formed the basis of the Desert Bar, but it had taken a few days for the necessary paperwork to clear and for the blocks to be released into the hands of its maker. Finkel had been right in thinking the whole process would take no more than two weeks. Working nights and at weekends, using conventional cooking pans and a microwave oven, Finkel and Susan made chocolate mixes with varying amounts of cocoa butter until the right consistency was finally achieved and the chocolate spread easily and evenly over Susan’s arm, hardening without cracking. Although pleased with the final outcome, Finkel was also crestfallen by its success: he knew Susan would soon leave and no longer be a part of his life.

  ‘Two days after we’d finished making enough batches to keep her going for a while, we loaded up her car and she headed off to Nashville. That’s where she thought she’d try out her new act first. I got a postcard from her soon after she arrived, but I haven’t heard anything since. The day she left she gave me a hug – the first hug I’ve ever had from a woman, except for my mother and sister. There are times when I close my eyes that I can still smell her perfume. Odd that, isn’t it?’

  He pulled the card from his jacket pocket and showed it to them. The card ended with Lots of love, Susan and, underneath her name, a line of kisses. Bob knew it would be in Finkel’s possession until the day he died, and would be either buried or burnt with him along with his caul. There was, however, an address on the card: 2010 Honey Pot Estate, Nashville, and Bob copied it down.

  ‘We ’preciate the time you given us, Mr Finkel, an’ we ’preciate the help you given Susan, too. I’m sure she holds you close to her heart.’

  ‘You think so?’ Finkel asked, excitedly. ‘Really think so?’

  ‘I do,’ Bob said. ‘Ain’t that the truth, Eric?’ Bob prompted his companion to agree by nudging him in the ribs.

  ‘Yes sir, Mr Finkel. The truth!’

  ‘Some kinda heartbreaker, this cousin o’ yo’s, ain’t she,’ Bob said, after they’d returned to the bus.

  ‘I don’t think she means to be,’ Eric said.

  ‘I’m sure she don’t, but she sure left po’ ol’ Fred in the doldrums.’

  ‘Did you like him?’ Eric asked.

  ‘I didn’t dislike him,’ Bob replied. ‘The ol’ guy’s lonely, an’ until yo’ cousin came ‘long he prob’ly never even knowed it. Prob’ly never been in love b’fore, neither. Lived his whole life in the dark an’ then yo’ Susan comes along an’ turns the light on. He’ll get reacquainted with his self eventu’ly but, ‘til he does, he ain’t gonna be enjoyin’ life too much. Hard to dislike someone you feel sorry for.’

  ‘He made me nervous,’ Eric said.

  ‘Ever’thing makes you nervous, son. That’s why you wander roun’ with a damn-fool cycle helmet on yo’ head when you don’t even have yo’self a bike to ride.’

  Eric fell silent for a moment. ‘Is it okay if I stay with you another night and then leave in the morning?’

  Bob could never have lived with himself if he’d let the boy go off by himself. Eric had been lucky so far, but no man’s luck ran forever. Something bad could happen to the boy, and he didn’t want that on his conscience – there were too many deaths sitting there already. Gene, he knew, would grumble because it was in his nature to do so, but he’d mellow; Bob knew – if most others didn’t – that the man had a soft centre.

  There was, however, another and more calculated reason for taking Eric along: the boy knew the tour bus’s provenance! Bob knew in his heart that Eric would never knowingly compromise him, but in his head worried that the boy might well let slip that he’d been given a ride in a tour bus that had once belonged to Paul McCartney. The last thing Bob wanted was the attention of the law.

  The first inkling Bob had that the tour bus he was driving was the same tour bus stolen from Paul McCartney five years previously, was when Eric showed him how to disconnect the endless music droning from the speakers. Ever since he’d picked up the bus in Montreal, all he’d been able to listen to was Paul McCartney, and he was now more than tired of it. Eric told him that the music was coming from an iPod connected to the sound system from inside his armrest. Bob had no idea that the armrest even opened but, when he raised its lid, sure enough he found an iPod there. He immediately unplugged it, opened the passenger side window and hurled the annoying device on to the roadside.

  The second inkling came when Eric asked to use the toilet. He was about to give the boy directions when Eric told him he knew where it was.

  ‘How you know all this? You been on this bus b’fore or somethin’?’

  ‘I think I have,’ Eric replied. ‘If it wasn’t this bus, then it was one just like it. Me and Susan got invited onboard when we went to a concert in San Francisco. I’ll know for sure once it stops.’

  Once the bus stopped, Eric led him to the bunks in the sleeping area. He told Bob that if this was the same bus, then under the top mattress of the three-tiered bunks on the right would be a small heart drawn in purple ink. Inside the heart would be Susan’s initials. Bob climbed up and, sure enough, once he pulled back the mattress he saw a small faded heart with letters inside it: SL = PM.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Bob said. ‘So there is. I’m fig’rin’ the new owners who bought this bus never even see’d it.’ (He emphasised the word new to give Eric the impression that the tour bus had been bought legally.)

  ‘The new owners won’t mind me being on the bus, will they?’ Eric asked.

  ‘I doubt it, but I wouldn’ go mentionin’ it to nobody. Bes’ keep this a secret – yo’s an’ mine. No point causin’ any trouble for Susan.’

  Eric had readily agreed.

  Part Two

  LOCATIONS

  5

  Two Mountains and a Plateau

  Missing Persons

  Brandon Travis walked into Oaklands just as William Hoopes was being led from it in handcuffs. Signs warned that the floor was wet, and a member of the janitorial staff was in the process of removing what looked to have once been an aquarium. He slowed his pace and walked carefully to the reception desk.

  ‘What’s been going on here?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing to speak of,’ the receptionist replied innocently. ‘There’s been a small misunderstanding, but it’s all sorted now. How can I help?’

  ‘My name’s Brandon Travis. I’m here to see my sister, Nancy Skidmore. She’s locked up here, somepla
ce.’

  The receptionist typed the name into the computer. ‘She’s in the Assisted Living Community wing, Mr Travis. If you sign your name in the visitor’s book, I’ll give you directions.’

  Brandon signed his name, noted the time, and then walked down the corridor leading to the Secure Unit.

  The receptionist turned to a nurse who’d been standing close by. ‘My God, did you smell that man? I doubt he’s been near a bar of soap in weeks!’

  Ten minutes later, Brandon returned to the desk huffing and puffing.

  ‘She’s not there,’ he shouted. ‘She’s gone!’

  ‘Sir, please don’t raise your voice – there’s been enough excitement for one day. Now what do you mean she’s not there? Where else would she be?’

  ‘How the hell would I know? I’ve only just got here! All I know is that she’s not in her room. She’s not in any of the other loonies’ rooms either, and she’s not in the communal area. You work here – you go figure where else she’d be?’

  The receptionist asked Brandon to take a seat while she made some calls. She did this not out of any consideration for the missing patient’s brother, but for herself: his aroma was truly foul! She phoned the head nurse in the Secure Unit to confirm Brandon’s story and then called Howard Franks, the day manager of the nursing home. ‘We have a situation, Mr Franks.’

  Franks listened carefully, replaced the phone in its cradle, and then rested his head in his hands. ‘Un-fucking-believable!’ he eventually said.

  Howard Franks was having a bad day, the worst he could remember in more than thirty years of healthcare administration: first the shooting and now a missing client. Word was bound to get out, and word getting out would be bad for business. The top priority for Franks was always the bottom line – dollars and cents, profit and loss. Unless the situation was contained, Oaklands would be facing an expensive lawsuit. He took a deep breath, left the safety of his office and went to meet the irate Brandon Travis.