End of Story

by Peter Abrahams

  “Maybe,” said Harrow. “But we wouldn’t get far.”

  Ivy paced back and forth, one flawed idea after another spinning through her mind. Then she thought of the expanding balloon, and the strategy of lying low. “What if we do it again?” she said.

  “Do what again?”

  “Lie low.”

  “How?” said Harrow.

  It turned out to be a three-step process.

  Step one: Ivy drove the Saab to the end of the dock, opened the windows, shifted to neutral, got out. Harrow gave the car a push. It splashed down in the water, floated for a few moments, more and more sluggish, then with a heavy wobble sank out of sight. Bubbles burst on the surface, big and small, then just small. A paperback book floated up. Ivy recognized it, the novel Ferdie Gagnon had lent her. It got waterlogged, sank back down. Too late, she remembered her cell phone; but who would she call and what would she say?

  Step two: they carried the rowboat, Caprice, from its winter storage place under cabin two down to the water. All their things went inside, plus the shotgun and a bottle of gin Harrow found in cabin one. They left everything the way they’d found it and got in the boat. Looking back, Ivy noticed a broken pane in the side window of cabin one. Had it always been like that?

  Step three: they rowed out to the craggy island, the one that could have been lifted from a medieval painting. Harrow rowed the first few hundred yards, but Ivy saw it hurt him; she took over the rest of the way. They hid the boat under branches on the far side of the island and climbed to the top, four or five hundred feet above the water. Ivy showed Harrow the cave, with its little entrance, just big enough for a crouching person.

  “How did you find this place?” he said.

  “By accident.” If she believed in them anymore.

  “It’s perfect.” Harrow put his arm around her, kissed her on the lips. “We’re in the driver’s seat.”

  The snowflakes kept falling, still not many, and far apart, no snow sticking to the ground. A strange snowfall: it reminded Ivy of confetti. They entered the cave.

  Not long after that, maybe only ten minutes, the droning whap-whap returned. Ivy and Harrow sat side by side on the cave floor, just out of the light from the mouth. The sound intensified, grinded overhead, lessened, and then went silent. Harrow crept out of the cave. Ivy followed. They crawled across the ledge, peered through the rocks.

  The helicopter—dark blue, blades still—stood on the little sandy beach in front of the cabins. Half a dozen squad cars, maybe more, were parked here and there. Lots of tiny people, all in uniform, were moving around—in and out of the cabins, along the dirt road, by the pickup, into the woods; one little figure spent a few seconds on the dock. From time to time they bunched together for a minute or two, then separated and tried the different places again. Later a canine unit arrived, and a dog led its master around the camp.

  The woods darkened, then the sky, and last the lake. Lights flickered around the camp. Then headlights started flashing on. The helicopter took off, soared in a long rising curve and disappeared in the night. Ivy and Harrow stayed on the ledge, invisible. The squad cars drove away, one by one, taillights blinking through the trees and then gone; all of them in search of a red Saab.

  “Wish I’d met you long ago,” Harrow said.

  Thirty-one

  “This is nice,” Harrow said.

  They were in the cave, darkness complete, the wind rising outside, snow starting to pile up at the entrance—Ivy knew that only from the soft accumulating sounds. Nothing at all to eat; nothing to drink but Jean Savard’s gin. On the plus side, the dirt floor was surprisingly warm.

  “How about a drink?” Harrow said.

  “Not for me,” Ivy said.

  “You mind?”

  “Of course not.”

  A metallic snick: the seal on the cap, broken. Then came a little gurgle.

  “Ah,” Harrow said. “This is nice.”

  “You like gin?”

  “Never had it before,” Harrow said. “I wasn’t much of a drinker—a few beers now and then, that kind of thing.” Another gurgle.

  “What about Betty Ann?”

  “What about her?”

  “Was she much of a drinker?”

  He was silent for a few moments. The sound of falling snow, already hard to hear, faded away.

  “What’s the point of your question?” Harrow said.

  “The point?” said Ivy. “Curiosity.” She laughed.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Plus I’ve seen Claudette drink,” Ivy said, expecting him to laugh, too, but he didn’t.

  “Is that when she told you about this—what did you call it, affair?” Harrow said.

  The knowledge had actually come from the pot-smoking episode, but Ivy didn’t want to get into that. “Are you telling me you don’t believe it, about her and Mandrell?”

  Silence.

  “Because I only wish she’d told you,” Ivy said. “Told you at the time.”

  Gurgle.

  “Are you listening?”

  “Yup.”

  “Because then none of this would have happened.”

  “Why is that?”

  She didn’t get it. What could be more obvious? “You wouldn’t have cared about protecting her,” Ivy said. “She’s your alibi. You’d have pleaded not guilty and gone free, or more likely not even been charged at all.”

  “How come you’re so good at figuring things out?” Harrow said.

  “I’m not,” Ivy said.

  He moved in the darkness. The bottle touched her hand. She changed her mind and took a little sip, registering liquid but no taste; and gave it back.

  The night didn’t seem so dark. Ivy went through the opening, stood on the ridge. The air was still, but up above the wind must have been blowing hard, to be tearing up the clouds like that and driving them away. The moon appeared, at first veiled, then fully exposed. It shone on the lake, the forest, the mountains, a black-and-silver landscape. Nothing human showed. Had she ever seen anything more beautiful? Ivy felt like she was inside some great painting, a nocturnal masterpiece.

  Harrow came up behind, put his arms around her waist, the bottle dangling by her leg.

  “What worries me,” Ivy said, “is the thought that maybe you’re still protecting her.”

  “Then you can stop worrying,” Harrow said, his lips just brushing her cheek.

  She had to force herself not to say, Promise?, like a high-school girl.

  Harrow gave her a little squeeze. “I promise.”

  A big bird, an owl, maybe, with moonlit wings, glided across the sky.

  “I believe you,” Ivy said. “It wouldn’t even make sense otherwise.”

  “What wouldn’t?”

  “Escaping now,” Ivy said.

  “I’d have got out sooner or later,” Harrow said.

  Ivy laughed. “Eighteen years is hardly sooner or later,” she said.

  Harrow backed away, took another drink, the gin like mercury in the moonlight. The level in the bottle was down to half.

  “I’ll have a little more,” Ivy said.

  They stood side by side on the ridge outside the cave, cold beauty all around, sharing the bottle.

  “We don’t have any food,” Ivy said, “or even water.”

  “Lake’s full of water,” said Harrow. “I can hunt and fish.”

  What a thought: to live forever in this masterpiece, just the two of them, safe and sound. “But realistically,” Ivy said.

  He made that little half snort, half laugh. “Realistically,” he said, “we can go without food for a day or two.”

  “Meaning after that we’ll be gone?” Ivy said.

  “Have to be.”

  “To find Betty Ann, right?”

  He gazed up at the moon. “Know what I like about this planet?” he said.

  “What?”

  “That when you’re on it the sun and the moon are the same size. What’s that all about?”

 
; “Does it have to be about something?” Ivy said.

  “Funny question, coming from a writer,” said Harrow. “Think of the odds against something like that happening. Got to be sending us a message.”

  “Who is us?”

  “Everybody who ever lived,” Harrow said. “You and me.”

  “And what’s the message?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Harrow said. “But it’s about death.”

  Ivy drank some more. Something made a silver splash in the lake, twenty or thirty yards from the shore of the island, the sound clear in the still air. She shivered.

  “And who’s sending it?” she said. “Are you saying there’s a God?”

  “No way,” said Harrow.

  They stood in silence, just touching. The immensity of space, the insignificance of people, the need to live now: the real meaning of those concepts hit her deep, deep down for the first time, all of them so obviously beyond dispute. An unsettling and scary realization; but the touch of this man gave comfort.

  Harrow took the bottle, drank.

  “How about you?” he said. “Think there’s a God?”

  “My heart says yes,” Ivy said. “My mind says no.”

  “Got to be one or the other,” Harrow said.

  At that moment, Ivy remembered the cross on the topmost crag of the island. She looked up and saw it, but barely visible, for some reason failing to pick up any moonlight at all.

  Harrow finished off the bottle. He caught her glance and smiled, his teeth, small and perfect, the color of the moon; except for that gold incisor. “This is a free night,” he said, and drew the empty bottle back, preparing to throw it into the lake.

  Ivy caught his arm. “We’ll need it,” she said. “For water.”

  “Always thinking ahead,” Harrow said. He gave her an elbow in the side of her arm, very soft, then went into the cave, taking the empty bottle with him. Ivy stayed outside, trying to absorb every little visual bit, but after a while it got too cold.

  Much warmer in the cave, but warm enough to lie there naked? Ivy wouldn’t have thought so, but soon they were. The moon sank a little, then hovered right outside the cave mouth, and things got even warmer: a strange moon-heat that bleached their skin, damp now, the color of bone.

  Later, they lay on their sides, Ivy behind him, holding on to what was now in its resting state. That brought to mind the image of Felix in Sergeant Tocco’s surveillance photo, pale and defenseless under the showerhead, a few minutes before he died. And after that came what Harrow had told her: Oh, Morales did Felix, all right. Which was what Sergeant Tocco had thought, too, until he put that taped evidence together.

  “Awake?” she said.

  “Barely.”

  “I keep thinking about Felix.”

  “Nice little guy.”

  “They found out Morales didn’t kill him.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Sergeant Tocco.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Yes. He—”

  “Tocco’s a goon,” Harrow said. “And goons are liars.” He didn’t sound at all drunk, not in the conventional way, but there was an edge in his tone she hadn’t heard before.

  Ivy thought of Sergeant Tocco’s house with the white picket fence, a neat little house missing only wife and kids. She liked Sergeant Tocco. “He never lied to me,” she said.

  “Why would he?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re a civilian.”

  “But—”

  “Do me a favor,” Harrow said. “Go to sleep.”

  “You don’t understand,” Ivy said. “He—”

  Harrow sat up, very quick, twisted around, leaned over her. “No more about Tocco,” he said. “He’s feeding you lies.”

  “Why would he?”

  “A million reasons, not even worth discussing,” Harrow said. “But I know the truth, Ivy. I saw the whole thing.”

  Ivy: Had he actually called her by her name before? “What whole thing?” she said.

  “When Felix got shanked,” Harrow said. “It happened in the gym, in this little corner where they keep the equipment.” His eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “Nothing I could do, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “These things go by fast.”

  Those photos, with their time codes: it couldn’t have happened like that, in the gym. There was no doubt at all about the where or when. “In the gym?” Ivy said.

  “Yup.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “About what?”

  “How Felix died.”

  “I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “In the gym.”

  “That’s what I said.” His eyes gleamed down at her. He reached out. His hand touched her neck, gentle. He lowered his voice, although the edgy part didn’t go away, sharpened if anything. “Any reason to doubt me?” he said.

  The moon sank lower, dimming the cave. “No,” Ivy said.

  “You’re shaking.”

  “Just from the cold.”

  “Poor Ivy,” he said. “How about if I warm you up?”

  He rolled on top of her. His body felt warm, even hot, but it didn’t rub off. Not long after, he was doing all the things he’d done before, maybe better: she realized how much he’d learned already about her sexuality. But to no effect this time; a development he didn’t seem to notice.

  They lay side by side, on their backs.

  “Tell me the story,” Ivy said.

  “What story?”

  “How Felix died.”

  “You really want to hear that?”

  “I do.”

  A long silence. Then: “The Death of Felix Balaban,” Harrow said. He took a deep breath. “It was my fault, in a way, what happened to Felix. I suggested he hit the gym, try to get stronger, even though I knew he was one of those types who can’t really get strong, no matter what they do. All mental, guys like Felix.” He paused. Ivy got the strange feeling that he was starting a new paragraph in his mind.

  “They’ve pretty much stripped the weight room down to nothing at Dannemora—the warden got tired of breeding monsters. Now there’s just this one little corner with a bench, a leg press, a rusted-out old Universal machine, no free weights. I drop by—I used to—to shoot some hoops. I could just see Felix, lying on the bench, straining under the bar. Then Morales stepped into the picture. You know how you can tell a lot just from how people are standing? Morales was standing in a way that said, My turn. And Felix was lying in a way that said, Two more, or One more, or some other rational and completely wrong answer, given how things were between him and the Latin Kings. I turned away, put up a shot, looked back. Morales was bent over Felix. Out came the shank. And then the slice, real deep, Felix’s neck so exposed, the way he was lying on the bench. But the sound that went with it was a little swish. That was my ball, falling through the net, which only shows how fast things can go bad.”

  Silence.

  “And then?”

  “The end.”

  “But what happened after that?”

  “Nothing,” Harrow said.

  Nothing happens after the end of a story. “Something must have happened,” Ivy said.

  “Nothing important,” Harrow said. “Whoever was around just melted away. Standard procedure.”

  They lay in the cave. Harrow’s breathing was shallow at first, then got deep and slow. “The Death of Felix Balaban”: a little gem, the characters true to themselves and completely believable, the resolution inevitable, the details just right. A little gem, but false from first word to last.

  Things that had been fixed in Ivy’s mind—clues, if you wanted to call them that—became unstuck, began moving around on their own, searching for a new pattern. Felix had an escape plan, but hadn’t been planning to escape, just trade the idea for probation or a lighter sentence. He’d run into trouble with the Latin Kings and been moved in with Harrow for his own protection. Someone—not Morales—had killed him in the B-block showe
rs, not the gym. And: I’d have got out sooner or later. A remark of Harrow’s that had struck her as funny, stoical, even gallant; but: suppose he had known the escape plan. Then it might have been a simple statement of fact. And if Harrow had discovered how Felix was going to use his plan, making a trade that would render it useless? Ivy’s mind writhed away from what came next. But why? Her body was already there.

  She got colder, started shivering again. His skin had cooled a little, but still felt warm. “Did you kill Felix?” she said.

  No answer.

  He was capable—immensely capable—of killing in self-defense or in her defense, but little Felix? “You couldn’t have.”

  He just breathed, long, slow, deep. She smelled gin.

  And if he had? Horrible, all the more so since he’d gone in an innocent man. Ivy went over everything—all those clues—reassured herself that that was the case, that the innocent-man pattern still held true. Three masked robbers: Mandrell, Lusk, Carter. Mandrell alone survives, takes the cash in a duffel bag to the boat ramp. He’s picked up within minutes, but the money is gone, and so is Betty Ann. Mandrell fingers Harrow as the third man, goes into witness protection, somewhere along the way rejoins Betty Ann, and recovers the money, or enough of it to set himself up. Had she discovered anything to undermine that story, to disturb the pattern? No.

  But for some reason, her mind kept tugging her back to that willow tree, specifically the way Harrow had examined it so closely with the flashlight, stopping only when he found that oblong hole in the trunk. At first, she’d thought he’d been looking for Mandrell, but the hole was too small for a person. Something about that hole amused Harrow: he’d laughed and said, That Frankie. As though…

  As though he’d figured something out. But what? A hole in a tree, too small for a person—what possible significance could that have? Was he afraid Mandrell had planted a gun there? What sense would that make? Mandrell had been carrying a gun, and so had Vic. And then it hit her, something as simple as Tab A and Slot B: the duffel bag. What was the ending of that little piece he’d written “The Cop Who Busted Me”? Ferdie asks the big question, the one about where the money is. I can only laugh.

  Ivy sat up. Without even following all the links, she knew that Mandrell could have handled the money part all by himself. The combination of that duffel bag full of cash and the hole in the willow tree knocked Betty Ann right out of the story—or into another part of it.