Heartstone

by Phillip Margolin

  The baby sucked greedily at the bottle. Esther’s head lolled to one side and she tried to stay awake. After he finished, she would change him. Then, hopefully, he would sleep for a few hours. He looked so peaceful sucking. It was an illusion. She hated him. She felt guilt as soon as she thought it. No, she did not hate her baby. She loved her baby. It was herself she hated. She blamed the baby for losing John, but he was just a baby. Only John would not have left her if she had not become pregnant.

  When she told him that she had missed her period and thought she was pregnant, he had said nothing. It hurt her. She hoped that he would be happy. This would be their baby. Something they could have and love together. But the news had not made him happy. He became taciturn, sullen. There were constant arguments over finances.

  She began to hate the baby even before it was born. She could see how it was breaking them apart. Wedging its tiny body between her and the only happiness she had ever known. She sensed that he would leave her. He never said anything about going, but the idea filled every room of their apartment. Then one day he was gone.

  The baby’s mouth sagged and fell off the nipple. He relaxed and his eyes closed. She would not change him, she decided. She could not risk waking him and starting the crying again. She placed him in the crib and left. Maybe he would sleep for a long time.

  Esther crawled back under the covers and closed her eyes. The hardest thing she had ever done was to return to this apartment with the baby. The walls were her prison and the baby was her keeper. It was a life sentence. Sometimes she thought that she would be better off dead. If she had died in childbirth…She imagined the doctors in white. They would look solemn. The bouncing dot on the life monitoring machine would stretch slowly into a straight line. They would have told John that she and the baby were dead. He would have cried and there would have been roses at the funeral and a minister to say nice things about her.

  But she wasn’t dead. And, sometimes, she hoped. She tried not to, but when she was weak or tired, like now, she could not help herself. She wasn’t much. She could see that. But there were other people like her who were somebody. All she really wanted was…was to be somebody. She started to cry.

  Cindy Shaeffer heard her husband’s troubled breathing and knew that he was awake. Outside it was still dark and she lay without moving, wondering what she should do. It was like this almost every night. She felt so helpless.

  He was stirring. She knew he would be exhausted. He sighed and it sounded like a moan. She turned toward him and saw that he was staring at the ceiling, his forehead beaded with sweat. She put an arm across his chest and hugged him. Mark felt her embrace, but it did not comfort him.

  “Do you feel okay? Do you want me to fix some hot chocolate? That will help you sleep.”

  Mark shook his head slowly. He felt scared and empty inside.

  “I’m all right. I’ll just go downstairs and read for a while. There’s no need for you to lose sleep too.”

  “Mark, don’t worry. Everything will work out. It just takes time.”

  Mark got out of bed and took his bathrobe off the hook behind the bedroom door. He picked up his book from the dresser and started out of the room.

  “Mark,” Cindy pleaded. He looked so dejected.

  “I’ll be okay,” he said, half-heartedly. “Don’t worry.”

  She heard the door close and she lay back on the bed, fighting back tears. She felt so helpless. Everything was falling apart.

  In the living room, Mark turned on the light and opened his book, but he could not concentrate. Eight months ago he had been on top of the world. He had always wanted to be a lawyer and that was the day he had received his notice that he had passed the bar. He was ready to start his career. The problem was that there were no jobs.

  During the six months that followed, his self-confidence had been completely eroded. At first he had not thought much about it. That was when he was still expecting the lawyers who said that they would get in touch with him to get in touch. That was when he really believed that he would get a job. After a few months of broken promises and insincere handshakes, he stopped believing.

  Cindy had been no help, because she did not understand. They had married young and she had taken a job as a secretary to help put him through law school. Like Mark, she expected to find gold on the day he graduated. Instead, there had only been frustration. She was from a poor family and very insecure about money. The longer he went without a job, the more pressure she began to feel and the more pressure she had begun to exert on Mark. She could not understand why he was unemployed. She began to blame him for not trying. There had been nasty scenes with Mark yelling and feeling guilty afterwards when she cried.

  Then, shortly after the new year, tired of trying and failing, Mark had decided to go into business on his own. He had talked with a few sole practitioners and they had assured him that he could do it. It was a frightening thing to do. He was inexperienced and completely without connections. Still, the more he thought about the idea, the more it had excited him.

  Unfortunately, it had not excited Cindy. She wanted to quit work. She wanted a baby. If Mark went into his own practice instead of working for one of the big firms that paid big salaries, it would mean more debts and it would mean that she would have to work some more-maybe several years more. There had been more scenes, but he had prevailed and two months ago he had rented a small office in the National Bank Building, an old, eight-story office building located three blocks from the courthouse in downtown Portsmouth. He enjoyed what he was doing, but business was slow in coming and he had begun to wonder if he would make it on his own.

  He had not been sleeping well lately, because he was worrying. He needed his rest, but as soon as he lay down to sleep, he would start thinking of his expenses or whether one of his clients would try to stiff him. Then he could not sleep.

  The fights with Cindy did not help either. They were going to bed mad more often, something they had rarely done in the first six years of their marriage. They usually made up in the morning, but the nagging and bickering were starting to get to him. He even caught himself wondering if they shouldn’t separate for a while, but had rejected the idea. Still, he had no way of knowing how the relationship, which he had thought so secure, would hold up, if his business did not prosper.

  Mark leaned his head against the back of his arm-chair and closed his eyes. In a few more hours he would have to go to work. If he could not sleep, at least he would try to rest.

  “Slow down, will ya, Coolidge? This ain’t a goddamn race.”

  The truck jarred and hopped as it hit a pothole and the Scotch in Mosby’s bottle splashed over the rim, wetting his lap.

  “Fuckin’ A, Coolidge. This booze cost me plenty. I’ll have your ass if you make me spill any more.”

  “Better you than the Viet Cong. You’re cuter than the gooks anyway.”

  “Those little farts ain’t gonna get your ass with me here to protect you.”

  “They may get both our asses if we aren’t back at the camp by sundown.”

  Mosby leaned back and took another swig from the bottle. God, he could drink. They had both been doing their share since they hit Saigon last night. Bobby Coolidge could feel the effects of his share and he concentrated extra hard on the twists and turns of the narrow jungle road. The lush green foliage was packed tight along either side. The upper branches of trees stretched across the space between to cut off the scattered rays of light still left from the setting sun. The way was shadows.

  He decided that he had been a fool to let Mosby talk him into waiting while he banged the bar girl he had picked up shortly before they were to return to camp. He knew how long it would take to return with the supplies and he knew the dangers of being in the jungle after dark.

  The road curved suddenly and Bobby jerked the wheel sharply, just managing to keep the truck upright. Mosby cursed again. He shouldn’t be driving after drinking so much. Shit! He had to drive. Mosby would wreck them in t
wo seconds.

  The hum of the motor and the monotony of the trip lulled Mosby to sleep. The almost empty bottle tottered over on a curve, spilling the brown liquid onto the floor of the cab. Coolidge glanced at Mosby’s face. Mosby groaned and smiled in the midst of some obscene dream. It had been a long time since Coolidge had dreamed sweet dreams.

  The old fears had resurfaced faintly in boot camp. A glimmer, a warning perhaps, but nothing he could put his finger on. He was still excited by it all then. Only weeks out of high school and primed on John Wayne. Then Vietnam did not work out the way he thought it would and he began wondering what he was doing there. The people he was killing did not look like the enemy was supposed to. There were too many women and children and old men. Sometimes he was not sure that they were enemies at all.

  He became confused. One day he stopped firing his rifle in combat, although he told no one of this. What would Mosby say if he knew what was going on inside his head? Or the others? There were some who might understand or sympathize, but it was safer to keep his thoughts to himself. Only there was a price to be paid in the form of dreams that crept in when he was sleeping, bringing flashes and bodies and fire. Blood was everywhere.

  The dreams began to control his life. They made him a lineman. He had to repair the damage to telephone lines in an area heavily infiltrated by Viet Cong. He would shimmy up the telephone poles in the dark. Then they would turn on a spotlight and he would have two minutes to work, praying the snipers would not find the range, each second stretching into eternity. It made him sick. He did not sleep during the day thinking about the nights and he did not sleep at night because of the dreams.

  If it had not been for the liquor, he would not have made it. The bottle brought dreamless sleep and peace. It made the war softer and easier to survive. He began to see the war as part of some other life led by some other person. There were two Bobby Coolidges. One drinking and drifting and biding his time and the one that that one watched: the one who went through the motions of being a soldier. In no time at all, and without formal training, he was becoming a man of conscience. He was rejecting the violence of his youth. Questioning. There was no glory in it anymore. He had learned that on telephone poles in the dark and in side streets of Vietnamese villages from the faces of dying children.

  The road was the same everywhere. The headlights hypnotized him and his eyelids grew heavy. He must have dozed for a minute, because he could not remember seeing the old man dart into the road. He was just there, frozen in the headlight beams, a frightened deer, paralyzed and staring with eyes that begged for life.

  Maybe Bobby could have given it to him if he had been sober, but he was too slow and the truck was over him before he could apply the brakes. There was a thud and the truck was tearing slowly through resistance for a moment. All Bobby could do was lay his head on the steering wheel of the truck that now sat sideways across the road.

  The sudden stop had thrown Mosby against the dashboard. He saw his friend moaning and he saw the position of the truck. It took him a few seconds to take it in.

  “What happened?”

  “I think I hit a man.”

  “What?” Mosby asked, still confused by sleep.

  “With the truck. I think I hit an old man. I swear I didn’t see him. He was just there. I don’t know how it happened.”

  Mosby stared into the darkness.

  “I don’t see anyone.”

  “He’s probably behind us or under the truck.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  They sat in the cab for a moment.

  “We gotta see if he’s dead. He might just be hurt.”

  Bobby was afraid, but he followed Mosby, lowering himself out of the cab onto the hard-packed dirt. Mosby took a look around. It was pitch black where the headlights did not shine. He leaned into the cab and fished a flashlight out of the glove compartment. He flicked on the beam and they walked cautiously to the rear of the truck. At first they could not see the body, because it had been knocked into a thicket by the roadside. The beam caught a leg bent at the knee. The face was frozen in a state of disbelief. There were no outward signs of death except for a trickle of blood at the side of the mouth. The old man did not move when Mosby prodded him with his foot.

  “Is he dead?” Coolidge asked over Mosby’s shoulder.

  “I think so. He ain’t movin’.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Let me think for a minute.”

  Mosby shone the light in all directions. The area was deserted.

  “Look, this was an accident, right?”

  Bobby shook his head. He was still shaky and he felt loose inside, like he might come apart at any moment.

  “This guy was old anyway and he’s a gook. If we pull him into the bushes, he won’t be found for days. And if he is found, who’s gonna care? There’s no way they can connect us with this thing if we don’t tell anyone about it.”

  “I don’t know. I killed him, Carl.”

  “Listen, Bobby. You got to start thinkin’ straight. This ain’t some white man. This is another gook. You don’t know. He coulda been a V.C. Now, if we don’t say nothin’, there ain’t gonna be no fuss.”

  Bobby had to sit down. He slid down the side of the truck and took out a cigarette with a shaking hand. Mosby reconnoitered the area looking for the best spot to dump the body. When he returned to the truck, Bobby was calmer.

  “You’re right. I’m okay now.”

  He stood up and approached the body with caution. Bobby licked his dry lips and bent down. His hands jumped a bit as he touched the still warm legs. Mosby had the corpse under the armpits and Bobby averted his eyes as they lifted and dragged the old man farther into the bushes. There was no blood on the truck and they sat in the darkened cab breathing heavily from the exertion. When they had recovered, Mosby drove the truck toward camp. It was finished. Nothing had happened. They agreed on that.

  A few nights later, Bobby woke up screaming. He had been wandering through a village. The dead were everywhere. Their bodies were naked and their stomachs had been ripped open so that the intestines hung outside, looped in insane coils, tangling his heels as he walked among them. In the light of napalm flashes he saw the faces of the dead staring at him with the eyes of the old man.

  “We’re not gonna find ’em, tonight,” Officer Stout said.

  “You don’t think so?” Shindler asked rhetorically.

  “They’re whores. They’ll travel to L.A. or Frisco. They’re like birds-they migrate. Be back next summer,” Stout said, laughing at his own joke.

  Shindler was in no mood to joke. He had been riding the streets all night with Stout, who knew the district, looking for two hookers who were witnesses in a murder case. Now it looked as if he might not find them. He was tired and depressed.

  The police radio crackled, but Shindler paid no attention until Stout swung the patrol car in a U-turn with a squeal of tires.

  “What’s up?” Shindler asked, starting out of his reverie.

  “Attempted suicide a few blocks from here,” Stout said, the humor gone from his speech.

  Stout pulled the car into the curb in front of a four-story apartment building. A woman in a bathrobe and curlers was standing in the lobby.

  “She’s in room 4B. It’s locked. You better hurry.”

  But Stout and Shindler were already bounding up the steps. Shindler was puffing when they hit the fourth-floor landing, but Stout, young and in good shape, didn’t show any signs of fatigue as he raced down the hall to 4B. Stout paused in front of the wooden door for a second, then swung his foot into it near the lock. The wood splintered and Shindler saw the end of a piece of chain whip through the air.

  The girl was lying nude on the bed. An empty bottle of pills lay on the nightstand. Stout shouted that she was still breathing and Shindler dialed the phone in the front room that served as kitchen and living room. By the time that Shindler finished calling for the ambulance, Stout had her up and w
as trying to walk her.

  “She left her baby at my door.”

  Shindler turned around. The woman who had met them was standing in the apartment doorway, staring past him at Stout and the naked girl.

  “Pardon?” Shindler said.

  The woman talked without taking her eyes off the tableau in the bedroom.

  “I heard the baby crying. It was six o’clock and it sounded louder than usual. He was in his stroller in front of my door. She dressed him and strapped him in and left him. When I read the note, I called the police.”

  “You did the right thing,” Shindler reassured her. He heard footsteps pounding up the stairs and walked into the bedroom to assist Stout. Two men in white carrying a stretcher rushed into the apartment. The tiny front room was getting crowded. Shindler watched the girl’s face for signs of life. She was a pretty girl. Sensual was a better word. Pretty was for Miss America. This girl had a darker beauty.

  The men with the stretcher were asking him questions. Something about the girl disturbed him. He felt that he knew her.

  “What’s her name?” Shindler asked the woman in the curlers.

  “Esther Pegalosi,” the lady replied as the men with the stretcher began to assist Stout.

  Shindler looked at the face again. Esther! But not Pegalosi.

  “I want to ride with her to the hospital,” Shindler said.

  One of the attendants nodded. They were working fast and Stout, relieved of the burden, was sitting on the bed, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

  “I’m going with the ambulance,” Shindler shouted as he followed the stretcher through the door. Stout looked up in surprise. He was about to say something, but Shindler was gone. He shrugged and took out his notebook. The lady with the curlers looked down the corridor after the stretcher bearers and the detective.