by Steven Clark
I noticed Rainer was poker-faced and kept out of sight, saying nothing, as if he was holding a winning hand. I suspected he knew more than he was letting on, but now was not the time to delve into that chilled subplot. Sky chuckled.
“So you need me for some dirty work. Well, what are ex-husbands for?” He looked at Rainer. “We got shovels, right?”
Pierce reluctantly checked his cellphone for the local weather report. “The newscast predicts a moonless night.”
Antje smiled. “Schoooon.”
Which is German for cool.
Until it was the witching hour, Pierce and Antje did some sightseeing and had a long lunch, then returned to mark where we were going to dig while Sky and I drove to New Town, a planned community outside St. Charles, a place of walkable neighborhoods, free of the usual subdivisions and traffic connector roads. A new small town with human dimensions. Saul loves it. Many hate it. Too clean, too orderly. They want their urbanity gritty, like St. Louis City. The usual armchair tough guys who have tenure.
Sky and I entered New Town’s town hall, a cozy meeting place with a New England feel within its walls. I relayed to him my plans for the next two days. He grudged approval, and we beheld Jama speaking to a semi-full house. She was dressed in boots and black, oozing charm like a squeezed tube of charisma.
“Corn. When we think about corn, what does it mean to us? ‘Corny.’ ‘It’s a lot of corn’. ‘Real cornball’.” She had gestured and got a ripple of laughter. “To us, it’s trite, sentimental. Mawkish. It’s like being told to eat our broccoli, right? ‘Oh, sweetheart, listen to your mother’.”
Laughter from Jama’s mugging. Sky grunted. “She’s got you.”
I poked him. Jama continued, her studied intimacy worthy of Oprah.
“But, look: we fight our essence. We never open ourselves to the natural and obvious because corporate life strips our human, spiritual bark and takes us to a sawmill. We need to be trees. Stalks of corn. Blooming with our roots set throughout the cosmos. Corn Mother knew that. Ages ago, in Cahokia, they lived a life of total peace and harmony with Mother Earth.”
And so on and so forth.
Sky shook his head. “A hundred thousand bucks, huh?”
“Yes, and Rasheed’s getting impatient. I think any day—”
“You still carry a torch for Doc?”
“Could we keep our eyes on the prize?”
“You and those Brit accents. Sure. All systems go. Can’t wait for midnight.” I sighed and leaned back.
“I thought about him.”
Jama held up a pendant around her neck.
“This is Ganesh. The elephant god of India. He likes to pig out on sweets. Once he ate so much that his stomach burst. Chandra, the moon goddess, saw this and laughed. Ganesh lost it. He broke off one of his tusks and threw it at Chandra, darkening the moon.” She sat in her chair, legs crossed. “So there was no moonlight. No relief from the sun, and all romance was lost because lovers couldn’t meet under the moon. The gods went to Ganesh and asked him to loosen up. He agreed, but only if the moon agreed to shine at its fullest one week out of the month. So, Chandra agreed. What’s the lesson, you want to know?”
“Yeah, how does it fit into the con,” mumbled Sky.
Jama’s face was benign and wise, well-groomed with enlightenment. “It shows the sun and moon are opposing halves. As I learned in yoga, there is ida nadi and pingala nadi … the left and right energy channel. It shows us that without the moon, all love is lost. We have to keep light and dark balanced because we need each of them to find our own enlightenment. Corn Mother is also a balance of unity. She brings harmony to our opposites, and harvests to our souls.” Jama leaned forward, a closing, cheerful pitch-woman’s benevolence. “With Corn Mother, we’ll make ourselves and the world one; the way it was meant to be.”
Applause at Jama’s closing was hearty and joyous, matching the donations. The Q&A soon dispensed with spiritual peace and went straight to the gut: Hollywood and Jama’s dirt on the stars.
Twenty feet away from us, also seated at the rear, were two men in black suits. Real whitebreads. I nudged Sky. He nodded.
“Scientologists, maybe,” Sky narrowed his eyes. “Mormons. Taking notes. She is the competition.”
When the crowd broke up, Sky and I threaded our way to the stage. Two young chirpies in too-tight jeans and tops did Jama’s donkeywork as she embraced older couples and enthusiastic wannabe disciples for photos. When the last one left, Jama turned to Sky and me and immediately filed away her smile.
“Hi, Dad. In from the river?”
“Yeah, Sweet Pea. For a day. Catching a larger boat, then down to Cora for eight coal barges, and on to the Big Easy.” He winked and tapped her shoulder. “Want to hitch a ride? Come along, meet the crew. Keep those boys young.”
Jama smirked. “Oh, Mom wants you to get rid of me? River’s all yours.”
I stared at Jama’s cold stare. “I think it wise for you to get out of town. Corn Mother maybe in for a rude awakening.”
“Yeah,” Sky said. “Hopping on my barge might not be a bad idea.”
“Oh, sure, keep knocking me. You never change.”
Sky nodded back. “So when you going to pay off this Rasheed?”
“Another three, four weeks. I’m lining up some big donors. Then I’m setting up a conference in Vegas. I’m already fishing leads in L.A.”
“No you’re not,” I said. “Jama, Corn Mother is phony. There’s no tomb.”
She turned to Sky to plead her case, as always, snarky and sexy at once. “Why should I listen to Mom? Look at her. She’s a pain in the ass.”
Sky shrugged and glanced at me. “I know she’s a pain in the ass, but you got to cut this thing off.”
While I simmered, Jama tossed back her hair. “This isn’t a con, Dad. Corn Mother really is inside me. Like, I connect. When she hits the coast, she’s gonna blow.”
“There is no Corn Mother,” I said quickly to head off my kid. “There is someone buried there, but it’s connected with some drug deal.”
“Oh, B.S.,” Jama said smiling, because a couple smiled at her as they waved pamphlets on their way out. “You will stop at anything to keep me from spiritual enlightenment.”
“Hey,” I said. “Corn Mother isn’t there.”
For a moment Jama stared hard and mean, like a gunslinger, or, in Jama’s case, a wily dance hall girl stopped from picking a very lucrative pocket.
“You two are so pathetic. You just want to stop me. You always have. A jackal and a—”
Sky’s smile evened out. “Nothing raunch with me, huh? Just listen, and get ready to scoot. Jig’s up, baby girl.”
“I have nothing to say to either of you,” Jama sniffed. “I’m bonded with Corn Mother, not your lies.”
She turned, walked away, and turned on the bubbly for her chirpies, no doubt doing a quick mental count of the loot. Sky turned and dug his hands in his pockets. “Well, Dear. We tried.”
I saw the men in black keep their eyes on her as they closed notebooks.
I cuffed Sky on the way back to the car. “Thanks a lot. ‘Pain in the ass?’”
“You want my help, Mrs. Bridger, you get the truth.”
It was dark, which was what we wanted, and also there was a big Rams game at the dome, a triple shooting near Sherman Park off Martin Luther King, and one of the Clintons was in town to pontificate and raise funds. The media was preoccupied with all three, so the heat was off us. I’d texted Saul. He replied he’d have Barrett check on background for the drug deal.
Margot lay in bed, finally asleep. The dosage was high as it could go. I headed into the kitchen and Pierce rustled behind me, a bottle and two glasses in his hand.
“Ah, kiddo. A wee bit of mother’s milk?”
He set the bottle down and applied the corkscrew. “A Burgundy. St. Veran En Creche. ’93. Rainer didn’t mind if I raided the wine cellar.” I nodded as the cork popped. Wine flowed.
“He and An
tje are rapping about Deutschland.”
“They must get along.”
Pierce drank. “It’s a truce. She’s from Saxony. He’s Berlin. Berliners see Saxons as Hoosiers.”
We laughed and drank.
“She’s a nice woman,” Pierce said. “I guess you’re going to morphine?”
“Yes. It can’t be put off. I wanted those damned half-siblings of mine to come forth, but they won’t. Pulling up a skeleton has to do it.”
Pierce nodded, and I treasured his graceful aging, like a thoughtful Robert Redford whose blue eyes recalled the Egyptian skies Doc and I toured.
“They have to come together as a family. I’m sorry to unload this on you and Antje, but I need people I can trust.”
“Sure. You said that. It’s okay, Mom. We’re in.”
“She’s a good daughter,” I mused between sips. “You made such a good choice.” I narrowed my eyes. “The Desouches. They’re normal, really. They hate. Bicker. Ignore each other. Live in the past, nurse grudges. See happiness as anywhere except where they grew up.” I tried not to sound bitter, but in vino veritas, so they say. I sighed, then continued.
“Well, they have to accept. They have to love. That too, is normal. Should be. I say … said … will say that every family has its own karma. So here we are.”
“Sure,” Pierce said quietly, rolling his glass. “Our karma?”
So much to remember. When I brought Pierce up, how we bonded, how I loved him and worried. “It was always in the back of my mind,” I said care-fully—“about Len. You having children.”
“Yeah,” Pierce nodded wisely. “For so long I worried about carrying Dad’s genes and having a schitzo child. I did worry, Mom.”
“Sorry if I passed that on.”
“Sure. For years, then I met Antje, and she made it clear she wanted a family. We had some bust-ups over it, but she won.”
“Can’t you come back to America? So we’d be closer?”
“I’m where I belong.”
It was said firm but kind. “If the child is in anyway … disturbed … we’re prepared. I just don’t want to put anyone through what Dad put you through. I never knew him, but to think of you …”
He trailed off. I tousled his hair. “Oh, kiddo, you were worth it. Every second. Hell, every nanosecond.”
Pierce brushed back his hair. “So, why are you keeping Sky here? If it’s for the exhumation—”
“He’s a body and will help us dig up the skeleton and scoot.” I held out my glass and he refilled it. “Christ, I was thinking about Doc again.”
Pierce chuckled, then refilled his glass. “Mom, Doc’s gone. It might not have worked out.”
I frowned and drank, continuing this talk with Pierce where it had broken off from last time. “He was determined to go back to South Africa. He almost begged me to try it, and I said we’d see. I told him I could dump St. Louis. Maybe I could at one time.” When? I wondered. When did the city become me? How do these places morph into one’s soul? “He worked in a clinic outside of Cape Town. He refused to gate himself up like so many whites did. He was the noble Daktari.” My voice lowered. “So one day, three men … like evil magi … came to the door. They’re hurt. ‘Must speak to doctor.’ Doc let them into his clinic. Out came the gun.” The pain throbbed in my heart. “They rob him. Steal drugs from the medicine cabinet. Go for the morphine. Take his watch. Money. Kick him down. Doc would look up. He wouldn’t cower. Then came the shots.”
My eyes closed. “Five rounds.”
“Mom …”
“After two crummy marriages, Doc was the keeper. I didn’t see that. I could have been bitchy, kiddo. He would have stayed if I’d been bitchy and say it’s here or nowhere. He’d have stayed. I sent him back to that country’s bullshit, where he became an outlet for someone’s frustrations. Goddamned, historical frustration. The cops didn’t even bother to track down the killers.”
Pierce nodded. “It sucks. Don’t blame yourself.”
But I did. A part of me always will, the angel that let one fall. In the drawing room, the clock chimed midnight. I drained my glass and rose.
“Let’s go rob a grave.”
26
The Big Dig
The major lesson of Watergate: don’t rely on cheap help.
I pondered this maxim as shovels dug under a moonless and chilly night, bringing up rump roast-sized chunks of earth. The men’s heavy breaths made small puffs; not a freezing night, else they’d have steamed out. We were thankful for a mild winter and damp soil. Antje, spade in hand, watched where she’d earlier traced a square where Sonia’s machine located a body.
“Go faster,” she urged, “we shouldn’t reach the skeleton until a few more meters.”
“Feet,” grunted Sky.
She shrugged. My foot tapped the plastic body bag we’d use for the bones. After thirty-odd years, no one was expecting a cadaver. One foot deep, and going on two.
Antje stared at the upturned soil like an early bird waiting for worm carryout.
“The body,” she said, “will shift in the years. But not that deep. If Lucas was frightened, he probably dug a shallow grave.”
Pierce forced a smile between digs. “She can go on all night about this.”
“Yeah,” grunted Sky as he shoveled. “Digging up a stiff. Where’s Vincent Price when we need him?”
The men were three feet down, and there was no need to crouch. We were far enough from Grand Boulevard. The security guard was bribed. He liked Margot, was paid peanuts, and settled for two thou to look the other way. Antje threw off her coat to reveal a black T-shirt with a green-glowing outline of a man with a hat, proudly marching. This was Ampelmannchen, the Little Traffic Light Man. He was used at traffic lights in East Germany, and had become a cult after the wall came down. East Berliners treasured him, one of the few things they liked about the old system. When traffic lights were being westernized, there were riots. Ampelmannchen stays!
He didn’t, but the cult is strong. You see another wear the T-shirt, and a nod is given. Antje adores him. He’s her Veiled Prophet. His glowing some sort of weird postmodern green light to our enterprise.
She tapped the earth with the flat of her spade, then stepped into the deepening trench. Pierce grabbed her arm.
“Hey,” he said, “take it easy.”
“I must check the dirt.”
“Let me. You’re carrying our baby.”
Antje glared. “You’re being patriarchal.”
Sky leaned on his shovel. “What’s ‘patriarchal’?”
Pierce sighed. “It’s the new ism over there. Greenhouse effect’s out of fashion.”
“Right,” croaked Sky. “Male chauvinist pig. Been there, done that.”
“Antje,” Pierce impatiently whispered.
“Mutti Bridger,” she said to me, “stop him.”
“Pierce, stop being patriarchal. We’ve got a stiff to dig up.”
Pierce sighed and stepped back. Antje bent down, positioned herself, and probed with a trowel, carefully, like a surgeon searching for a bullet.
Antje kept probing. I looked at the men. Sky wiped his brow. He looked down at Antje. “You can see that T-shirt from ten feet away.”
“He’s Ampelmannchen,” thumbed Pierce, “and he stays.”
“Ja,” Antje said as she probed. Her trowel tapped something.
Pierce took out a mini-mag flashlight. Before I looked into its shaft of light, a dull white shape emerged from Antje’s hands after she scraped away dirt. Her blue latex gloved hands held a skull.
“Alas, poor Yorick,” whispered Pierce. He looked at me. “Well, someone had to say it.”
He and Sky carefully shoveled around the skeleton’s ribs. I went to check on Margot.
Margot breathed heavily from the sedation. I smelled her, that jaundiced odor of the body beginning to break down. Soon, she would lose control of her functions. Rainer stood by her bedside, watching me take her vitals and check the dosage.
Rainer sighed but remained stiff and straight, like a nun’s ruler. “Mutterings here and there. Asking for you. I told her you would be up soon. She rested then.”
I stared at him and didn’t look away. He reached down to smooth Margot’s bed covers. “It is rude to stare, Mrs. Bridger. Is this the way of nurses?”
“You know what happened. Who’s buried there. You probably saw it and said nothing. Why?”
Rainer’s hand made a soft crease of the blanket, eliminating a last wrinkle. “Would it make any difference? Lucas destroyed everyone around him, and yes, I know about the body. I heard Lucas’s cries and his frantic attempts to bury … it.”
“It? Not ‘him?’”
“The Desouches, Mrs. Bridger, tried to pass their morality onto their children … their overindulged, egotistical children.” He shrugged like a postscript. “I am no moralist, just the butler. I see things and say nothing.”
I thought over Rainer’s part confession, part defense as I stroked Margot’s head. She cozied deeper into her pillow. Even in her drug induced sleep, she responded kindly to my touch.
“What do I need to know about that skeleton that I don’t already know?”
Rainer absently rearranged things in the room that were already perfectly arranged. “Antje is the better detective. She will give you answers.”
He brushed past me with a tray of dirty cups and saucers. I followed him, ready to do battle when my cell phone purred. I stopped my advance. Pierce was at the door.
“Mom, come down to the basement. We assembled it there.”
“God, it’s like Arsenic and Old Lace. What did we find?”
“The plot thickens.”
I followed him downstairs.
The skeleton was laid out on an old wooden table, clumps of wet dirt still clinging to the rib cage and femurs. The light bulb dangled above from a thick brown thread. Sky raised his eyes to me.
Antje peered at the skull. Ampelmannchen still glowed and marched. She wasted no time and positioned herself on a stool. Her still latexed fingers traced above the skeleton’s heart-shaped pelvis. “This is a woman’s pelvis. As is the skull.”