by Jack Lynch
“All right,” he said. “It was a brief note. It said: ‘I can no longer stand the scorn in her eyes—Good-bye, old friend. My time is now a part of yesterday.’ ”
Tom Nolan pulled out a handkerchief and bruised his nose with it. I gave him a moment to compose himself, but it was hard to do, because I had one more question to ask him, and probably it was the most important one I had asked in the two days since I’d hit Sand Valley. He finally put away the handkerchief and turned back to me.
“Tom, who was John Caine writing about? The scorn in whose eyes?”
“Why his daughter of course. The grown daughter he and his wife had.”
TWENTY
It was one of those things Cathy Carson had been talking about, looping in from clear outside of the ballpark. After a while I closed my mouth. Tom Nolan saw how it affected me and screwed up his face in thought.
“I hadn’t thought about her in some while. You didn’t know about her?”
“I guess somebody did mention a daughter this morning, but that seems like about six months ago. What can you tell me about her?”
“Not too much. Her name was Debbie. She grew up quiet and alone. Off by herself most of the time. After she finished high school she went off to college, up in Colorado somewhere I believe. Never saw much of her after that. Her ma was gone by then. She spent her summer vacations working in some other part of the country, I guess. I think in a year’s time John would hear from her twice, maybe. A note at Christmas; a card on his birthday. I think that bothered him too, that they weren’t closer.”
“His note mentioned the scorn in her eyes. When did she see him last?”
“She came through town during the holidays. Christmas or New Year’s. Only stayed a day or so. Can’t blame her, really, John being in the terrible shape that he was. I’m sure she was disgusted at what had happened to him. But I’ve never felt that really was what made John kill himself. I think he was just trying to make one last excuse to me. I think it was the way his whole life had come unglued.”
“Was she at the funeral?”
“No, sir. Nobody knew how to get hold of her. It wasn’t until the next summer she found out about it. She tried phoning him. Found out the number had been disconnected. Then she called my wife. It was Mary’s unpleasant task to tell her about it. She came back then for about a month. Haven’t heard from her since.”
“You don’t know where she is?”
“Haven’t the least idea.”
“What did she do while she was here?”
“Did I guess whatever needed doing with John’s affairs. I had a couple of talks with her during that time. If you can call them that. I did most of the talking. She asked almost as many questions as you do.”
“About what?”
“Her father. And the things that had gone on around here since she’d been off to school. And I wasn’t the only one she spoke to. I hear she was asking a lot of folks questions.”
“Like who?”
“People at the bank. She might even have gotten the money from that bank account. I don’t think John ever touched it.”
“This could be important, Tom. I need to know everything you can remember about your conversations with her.”
“Oh, gosh.” He leaned back and rubbed the back of his neck. “I told her about the snooping around her dad had been doing. The things around town that were becoming more blatant.”
“At Slide’s casino?”
“Yes, but at the Truck Stop too. I know John was on to some racketeering elements coming through there. Barker had some pretty tough friends. And they kept coming back even after Barker moved away. And I told Debbie about the bank account that got John kicked off the police force, but how John kept digging away on his own. And I told her how one day he just gave up and started drinking. I told her that I wished she had been here when that started. It might have helped John. She didn’t like my talking that way, naturally enough. She was more interested in the bank account—who put money into it and so forth. I couldn’t tell her, so I guess that’s when she questioned people at the bank. Then she came back here later and asked about the men working for Barker, and their girlfriends. I didn’t know that much about them, to tell the truth.”
“Did she ask you about a man they called Moon?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Would you know if Moon had a girlfriend?”
“Yes, but I can’t tell you any more about her than I told Debbie. And if she hadn’t asked about them just last year I probably wouldn’t have remembered at all. It was something John mentioned during one of his drunken times. Didn’t make a great deal of sense. But he did mention Moon and that fellow’s girl. Don’t know her name. I just know she was someone who worked out at the Truck Stop. The next day or so, Debbie left town again. No good-byes, nothing. She just left. I haven’t heard a word from her since.”
“You didn’t tell her about Theresa Moore’s child?”
“No, I did not.”
“I don’t suppose you have a photo of Debbie around the house.”
“No, we quit taking pictures some time ago, Mary and me. Old folks like to look at them, not take them.”
“Can you describe Debbie for me?”
“Not as well as you’d like, probably. She was a bit tall for a girl, perhaps. Hard to say. I was always sitting down the few times she came by to ask questions after she’d grown up. She wasn’t fat. Pretty plain looking.”
“Did she wear glasses?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What color was her hair?”
“Sort of mousey. I don’t see all that well. Why do you ask, Bragg? You think she’s into mischief up in San Francisco now?”
“It might be that way, Mr. Nolan.”
I thanked him as profoundly as I knew how and left him the way I’d first seen him, standing at the front gate.
The police manning the roadblocks at the edge of the residential section warned me about going back through town. They said things seemed to have flared up again. The governor apparently had come to the same conclusion I did. It would take too long to mobilize the National Guard if the town was to be saved. He’d conferred with officials in Washington and they were sending in Army troops. But they weren’t here yet.
I thanked them for the information and continued on down through town. I would have thought that by then the warring parties would have gotten tired and holed up to lick their wounds. I found it wasn’t that way at all. I witnessed a few more high-speed chases through intersections in the distance. I drove over to Nevada Street and started out to the Truck Stop, but before I got out of the town proper I was overtaken by one of those chases. I heard the sharp crack of gunfire. In the rearview mirror I saw a truck coming up behind me. I braked into the curb and hunkered down low in the seat. The truck went by with a roar. It was followed seconds later by the whine of a car engine and more sounds like firecrackers.
When I sat back up there were a couple of holes in the windshield. The gunfire caravan went around a corner two blocks away. I figured to get out of there before they came around again. I drove about ten bumpy feet before pulling into the curb again. I got out and looked over the car. Both front tires were flat.
I stood in the middle of the street and felt like shouting at the sky. I’d lost my guns and now my rented car. A dry breeze began to stir the evening air. It blew a speck of sand or dust into one eye. So much for wanting to holler at the gods. I went looking for a telephone, but I was in a stretch of service stations and auto parts stores and what outside phones I found were either shot up or out of order. Some of the newcomers to town must have harbored deep resentments against the phone company. I estimated it to be between one and two miles out to the Truck Stop. I transferred my wallet to my hip pocket then took off my jacket and rolled it up under one arm and started jogging. It was not the way I wanted to travel out to the Truck Stop, but nobody I’d care to thumb a ride with was apt to be coming my way.
Nearly a m
ile down the way I passed the smoldering hulk of a truck. It looked as if it had been hit by cannon fire. Nobody was around and I kept on humping down the road. It was getting dark enough now so that as I approached the road leading into the Truck Stop I could make out a glow against the sky. By the time I got to the rutted section of road and the little shack beside it, I was walking, with my tongue hanging down to my belt and my shirt soaked and clinging to my damp body. There wasn’t anyone in the shack, which was fine by me.
The flames were coming from the service facilities at the Truck Stop. The warehouses and maybe some fuel tanks had gone up. The bar and casino building, and the barracks-like structure nearby seemed undamaged. Trucks were parked in an arc between them and the road. I didn’t see the Colonel’s camper around. That depressed me. I did not want to have to jog all the way up to San Francisco. A guy stepped out from behind one of the trucks and came over to check me out. I showed him my ID and he recognized me from earlier.
“Okay, Bragg, go on ahead.”
I wheezed something appropriate and stumbled over to the main building. Inside I tossed my coat over a chair and stood at the bar, taking deep breaths. I pointed at the beer tap. The people working there were dressed a little more fully than they’d been the night before, as if they wanted to be ready if they had to run off into the woods along the river or something. The girl behind the bar was wearing slacks and a blouse. She filled a beer mug and put it on the bar. I finally sat on a bar stool and just sagged there for a time. Business was slow. The place looked like an old bus station where the buses didn’t stop any longer. In addition to the bartender and a waitress, I only saw two other girls who worked there. One sat at a table by herself playing solitaire. The other was in the next room dealing blackjack to a couple of drivers. The girl behind the bar must have called Ma to let her know I was there. She came through the casino and joined me.
“You look like you been run over.”
“Just running.” I finally got enough of my wind back to try the beer. It tasted sour to me. I didn’t drink much of it. “Front tires of my car were shot out back at the edge of town. Where’s the Colonel?”
“He and his people left for the airfield about a half hour ago.”
“Ma, I need to know something. I understand that Armando’s pal, Moon, used to go with one of the girls who worked here. Who was it?”
“Oh shucks, that gorilla liked all the girls.”
“Don’t stall, Ma. I been kicked around enough in this town. I don’t have any patience left. Who was it?”
She looked at me with a dignity that lasted about five seconds. She’d lost status, such as it had been, and she knew it. “I guess he did feel sort of special over one of the girls. She was behind the bar here last night. Harmony. She was just another body for rent around here in those days. I sort of promoted her to bartender to make her feel better after Armando and Moon left town.”
“Where’s Harmony now?”
“At her place. An old house trailer set back in the trees near the river.”
“Can I use the phone?”
She snapped her fingers and the girl behind the bar brought one up and put it beside my beer. I took another sip then shoved it away. “Can I trade that in on an Early Times over ice?”
The girl poured it while I dialed the number Saunders had given me for the hangar. It rang for a while, but the Colonel finally answered.
“Yeah?”
“This is Bragg. Can I still hitch a ride?”
“If you hustle ass over here. I got what I came for. We’re all headed up that way now. Plan a little celebration over in Sausalito.”
“The Banana Inn?”
“Hey, you’re a smart man.”
“It’s my town. How about another thirty to forty-five minutes? I’m at Ma’s now. I have one more thing to do, then I’ll be ready to leave.”
“It depends. If things stay quiet around here, okay. Otherwise we blow.”
“The little girl…”
“Forget it, Bragg. You told me all about the little girl. But all God’s chill’un got trouble. I hear the Army’s on its way. The fastest way for those khaki asses to get here would be by helicopter, and they’d probably use my field to land in. There is no way I intend to be around when they arrive. So that’s it, Bragg. You have until the Army arrives. That first blade I hear in the night sky—we are gone.”
“So be it.”
“Wish it were otherwise. Good luck.”
“Yeah, the same.”
I hung up and gulped the Early Times. “I have to visit Harmony,” I told Ma.
She looked at me with a crooked smile. “Aren’t you going to ask me how things are around here?”
“I can see how things are around here. A little slow.”
I left her sitting at the bar and went out and around back. A wide path led through the grove of trees, past cabins with occasional lights inside, toward the sound of the Grey River. At the river was an old, rust-colored house trailer, not looking a day over ninety years old. There were lights on inside and a radio was playing low. The door was wide open and I called Harmony’s name.
“Pete? I’m over here.”
I turned. She was sitting at a picnic table near the bank of the river, but she got up in a hurry and crossed to me, wearing some warmer clothes than she’d had on the last time I saw her. She put her arms around me and squeezed.
“My golly, doesn’t this show you how wrong a girl can be? I figured when you left this afternoon you’d walked out of my life for good. But you came back. My God, Pete, you don’t know how happy I am that you came back.”
I didn’t know how to say what had to be said. She took my hand and led me over to the table. “Come on over and sit with me for a while. I find it relaxing, sitting here looking at the old Grey go by. It’s a good thing to do when things go the way they been going around here.”
I sat beside her. We put our elbows on the table and chins on our hands. The moon, low and pale in the sky, was trying to sprinkle a little silver on the water, but it was fighting a losing battle with the lights shining through the open door of Harmony’s trailer behind us. But then I guess different people see different things in the Grey Rivers of their lives. And I learned what Harmony saw.
“You know, Pete, the Grey here starts out as just a little stream up high in the Sanduskis. It’s just beautiful there. I discovered this meadow. You have to backpack about a half day to get in to it. There’s these big old pine trees all round it, and the old Grey here laughing through the middle of it. And the stars, Pete. My God, the stars look like they’re ready to brush the top of your hat. Would you like me to show it to you sometime?”
“It sounds great, Harmony. I would like to see it. When I have a little more time.”
I felt her stiffen beside me. “What’s that mean, Pete?”
I sighed audibly. “It means there are people getting killed, Harmony. Somebody I’m working for might be next, unless I can stop it. And I have to get back to San Francisco tonight, to try to stop it.”
A little flutter crossed her mouth. She turned away and looked out over the Grey River. “Pow,” she said softly. “Right between the eyes.”
She was still a moment, then wiped her nose and turned back to me. “Goddamn it, you are a real bastard, fella. Why did you come back? Just why? I went through this once today already, when you left this afternoon. I said to myself, shoot, why should I let it bother me? He’s just another fellow travelin’ through with his flattery and all. Shucks, the sort of life I’ve had, I shouldn’t let a little something like that bother me.”
She wiped her nose again. “But it did bother me, Pete. And then you came back again. What for? A little quickie before you hit the road? I heard you calling me over at the trailer there and my little heart just went zing right up to the stars there. I said to myself, Harmony, honey, you finally got yourself one who isn’t so bad after all. So I just let it all hang out and told you about my secret meadow and…”
She took a breath and nodded her head a half-dozen times. “Okay, but don’t try messing up my brain by telling me you came all the way out here just to say good-bye, Lucky.”
“Oh, now I’m just another country John, am I? Harmony, I swear…”
She gave me a look that brought a chill to the air. I sat back down on a corner of the table. “Well, there is maybe one or two things I wanted to ask you.”
“That’s better,” she told me. She took a cigarette from a pack on the table and lit it while I was groping for the lighter I don’t carry any longer.
“Harmony, I hear you were friends with a fellow named Moon, who worked for Armando Barker.”
“Yes,” she said flatly. “He was my boyfriend. People used to wonder about it, him being so big and mean-looking. But he was sweet to me. Treated me real well.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“In San Francisco, with Mr. Barker, so far as I know. He said he’d come back for me some day. It’s been a couple years now. I shouldn’t have believed him any more than I shoulda believed you.”
I got up and paced around some. There wasn’t a single reason I could think of to tell her Moon was dead. Or how he died. “Now something else, Harmony, and this is important. Do you know whether Moon ever happened to work both sides of the street around here? By that I mean, do you know if he ever did any jobs for Carl Slide?”