Scavenger

by Tom Savage

  Tracy stood up, she wasn’t sure why, as the tall, attractive woman with the short dark hair arrived at the table. She smiled at the woman, aware of the pounding of her heart and the sudden tingling sensation all over her body. She drew in a slow, careful breath.

  “Hello,” she said, nearly wincing at the high-pitched, unnatural squeakiness of her voice. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Thank you so much for—well, for agreeing to, uh—”

  “Oh, sure,” the woman said, her genuine smile as bright and cheerful as her speaking voice. She shrugged slightly when she said it, as though she wanted to get this part over with as much as Tracy did. She continued to grin, dispelling the odd mood of the room by her mere presence in it, as she dropped into the chair across the table and pointed down at Tracy’s virtual fishbowl of white wine. “I’d like one of those, and pronto! What a day I’ve had! Well, here we are, anyway. Hi, Tracy, I’m Carol. Carol Grant.”

  Tracy sank into her own chair, raising an arm to summon the unsmiling young man from behind the bar, but her eyes were on Carol Grant. “You’re, um, remarried.” Dumb, she thought. Why did I say that?

  “Yup,” the woman said. She stopped the barman halfway, merely pointing a red-lacquered nail down at Tracy’s glass, then at her own chest. He nodded and retreated to fill the order. “I’ve been married for two years now. I’m not Mrs. Stevenson anymore. I guess you’re about to inherit that title. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

  Tracy blinked. Then she relaxed, smiled.

  “Why, yes,” she said. “I suppose it is.”

  Carol Grant nodded. “Yeah, well, we’ve never worked together, but I certainly know who you are. I know a couple of your authors, too. Stella Verlaine did a couple of articles for me, but I guess that was before you were handling her. Are you Mark’s literary agent?”

  “No,” Tracy said. “His agent is a colleague of mine at Jaffee/Douglas, and Mark and I sort of mutually decided not to work together professionally. We figured that a setup like that could get in the way of our private relationship, and we don’t want that to happen.”

  “Good idea,” the other woman said. “But I can’t help wondering why you wanted to meet me. I mean, I’m glad you did, but—”

  “Carol,” Tracy said, using the woman’s first name for the first time, “I—I don’t know quite how to put this, but I guess I have a few unanswered questions. About Mark, I mean. He’s very, I don’t know, mysterious. About his life, his past. I don’t know anything about his childhood, or his family, or what he did before he came to New York. And I’m curious about him. You see, I—I was married before, to a charming, handsome son of a bitch, and …” She searched for words, wondering how best to convey her anxiety.

  As it turned out, an explanation was unnecessary. Carol Grant nodded again, sipped her wine, and leaned forward, a friendly smile on her face.

  “I see,” she said. “You don’t want another dud. We know all about them, don’t we? I guess every woman does, eventually. Well, I can put your mind at ease in one respect: Mark is a very nice man. He’s honest and decent and moral, I think, and that’s after four years with him, start to finish. That wasn’t our problem—my problem, I mean. My problem with him was just what you’ve been saying, oddly enough. I didn’t know anything about him at first, and it took me forever to get anything out of him about his life. When I did, I understood why he was so quiet, so uncommunicative with me. But it didn’t help; by then, it was too late for us. I left him. Well, that sounds more dramatic than what actually happened. It was perfectly civilized, really. But it was I who decided to get divorced, not Mark. I don’t regret that decision—but you may be surprised when I say I think you should give marriage to him a try.”

  Tracy reached for her wineglass as Carol Grant leaned back in her chair, smiling. The two women sat in companionable silence for a few moments while Tracy absorbed what she had just been told.

  “Thank you,” she said at last, smiling back at the woman across the table. “But tell me, if you don’t mind, what did you learn about him?”

  Carol raised an eyebrow, and her smile disappeared. She was quiet a moment longer, apparently making some sort of decision. Tracy studied the woman, noting that the decision, whatever it was, was apparently not a pleasant one. She felt another frisson of anxiety. At last, Carol leaned forward again.

  “First, let me ask you a question,” she said. “Well, two questions, actually. Otherwise, this could just be—I don’t know—needless, and I wouldn’t want to upset you needlessly. So I have to ask. Do you love him?”

  Tracy answered immediately. “Yes.”

  “And are you going to marry him, no matter what you may learn about him?”

  Again, Tracy did not hesitate. “Yes.”

  Carol studied her face a moment. Then she nodded again and took a deep breath.

  “Okay,” she said, “here goes. What I guess you should know first is that his name was not always Mark Stevenson. It was Matthew Farmer.…”

  22

  The tea was in white Styrofoam cups, and the plastic stirrers and packets of sugar and artificial sweetener were on a paper plate. Mark took in these details with something approaching humor, but he remained silent. Another surreptitious glance at Sarah Gammon’s wrists was all he needed to remind him that china cups and plates were probably not a good idea. Of course, Sarah didn’t really look as if she would suddenly shatter something and attempt to reopen her wounds, but then again, she didn’t really seem the type to have done it in the first place. Besides, he hadn’t seen any of the other patients on this floor, and he trusted the wisdom of the staff.

  As soon as everything was placed on the table between them and the nurse was gone from the dayroom, Sarah Gammon leaned back on the overstuffed couch, her body in relative darkness between two slanting rays of light streaming in through the windows behind her, and began to talk.

  “Your reaction tells me that you know about the man with the scar. I’m glad to see it. I was beginning to think I’d imagined him.” She glanced over at Nurse Call in the corner with an expression that seemed to mix equal parts contempt and triumph.

  “I—I don’t understand,” Mark said. “Did your husband tell you about my conversation with him, or—”

  “My husband didn’t tell me anything,” she replied. “Only to expect a writer named Mark Stevenson at four o’clock.” She shrugged then and leaned forward, holding out her hands—and her wrists—to him for the first time. “This happened, let’s see, about three weeks ago. I woke up in the hospital, and then they brought me here. I’ve been here before, at Pontchartrain, but never mind about that. For a week they kept me in my room here, and they wouldn’t let me out at all. So I started smiling and chatting with the nurses, you know, playing the game. Pretending to them I was real grateful to be here, and alive, and all that. So they finally let me out. I don’t mean out, mind you. My husband wouldn’t hear of that; not yet, anyway. But they let me go downstairs and out to the lawn in the afternoons, with the other … guests.” She emphasized the word, as if it were the local polite euphemism, which it probably was. “There was always a nurse or an orderly with us—except this one time, on the third day, which would be about ten days ago. I was sitting in a chair on the back patio, near the rose garden, with one of the other guests, and she became—well, the orderly, Jake, had to take her back to her room. I was alone in the garden for, I don’t know, maybe five minutes. That’s when it happened.”

  Mark stared. “What happened?”

  Sarah Gammon shuddered. “I was looking at the roses, watching a bee that was flying around them, when I suddenly felt very cold, as if a shadow had come between me and the sun. And I realized that this is exactly what had happened, that someone was standing over me. I looked up.” She raised her eyes toward the ceiling, reliving the moment. “There was a man standing there, looking down at me. No, staring. That’s the only word for it. He was nearly seven feet tall, and he was all in black, a black suit and a
long coat nearly to the ground, like those coats they wear in western movies. Black hair and mustache, and very peculiar eyes, pale gray and, I don’t know, piercing. But the most remarkable thing about him was the scar, a long white line down one side of his face. He just stood there, scowling at me, the most sinister-looking person I’ve ever seen. My first instinct was to get up from the chair, to get away from him, but he was standing too close, right in front of me, actually leaning over me. I looked around, but Jake wasn’t back yet. He and I were alone in the garden.”

  “Did you speak to him?” Mark asked.

  She shook her head and returned her gaze to him. “I couldn’t speak. I could hardly breathe. Besides, he didn’t give me a chance. He leaned down closer, and he took my hand in his. Then he reached out with his other hand and pressed something into my palm. And he spoke to me, barely a whisper. He said, ‘Give this to Mark Stevenson. Mark Stevenson.’ He said the name twice. He took his hands away, and I looked down at what he’d given me. I remember being confused, not really getting it. I looked up again to ask him who Mark Stevenson was, to tell him that I didn’t know anyone by that name, but he was gone. Just like that. I mean, he was nowhere! It was as if he’d never been there at all.” She shook her head again, then jerked a thumb to indicate the woman in the corner. “They didn’t believe me. They thought I made the whole thing up. Dr. Graham told my husband that I’m delusional.” A shrug, accompanied by a sad little smile. “Delusional. Isn’t that a lovely word? It doesn’t even sound like another word for crazy, does it?”

  There was a long moment of silence in the room as the two of them regarded each other across the table. The sunlight was weakening now as dusk approached, the slanting rays through the windows growing gradually dimmer on the floor around them. Finally, Mark spoke, choosing his words with great care.

  “I believe you,” he said. “I don’t think you’re delusional, Mrs. Gammon. The man you described really exists, and I’m Mark Stevenson. He’s—he’s helping me with my research for the book, and I’m sorry if he frightened you. But tell me, what did he give you?”

  She blinked. “Oh, yes.” With another swift glance over at the nurse, she dug in the pocket of her robe and extended her hand across the table, palm up. “This. Of course, they said I made this up, too, that I’d had it with me all the time.”

  Mark looked down at her hand. She was holding out a large gold key. It seemed to be brand-new, unused, as if it were freshly minted. He reached out and took it from her.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, inspecting it. “How could you have had this all the time?”

  Another shrug, another sad smile. “Well, I have one just like it, don’t I? It’s a key to my house.”

  Mark stared at her, and his fingers closed around the key. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Of course. I can’t imagine how that man got ahold of one. As soon as I get out of this place, I’m changing the locks.”

  Now Mark was completely confused. “But your husband should—”

  “Oh, not that house,” she said, cutting him off. “It is a key to my family’s house in Destrehan, the house I grew up in. I own it now, you know, and nobody’s lived there in years, not since …” She stood up abruptly and walked a little away from the couch, apparently as an alternative to finishing the sentence. “I suppose you’d like to see the place. Research. For your book.”

  Mark stood up, too, still clutching the key in his fist. “If you wouldn’t mind—I mean, if—”

  “Sure,” she said. “Whatever.” She was over at one of the windows now, looking out, her back to the room. “It’s on the river, not far from Destrehan Manor. Take the main highway about twenty-five miles west of here. You can ask for the turnoff at any gas station: just ask them for directions to the haunted house. They’ll know what you mean.” She laughed again, one sharp, ugly bark of derision.

  “Mrs. Gammon,” he said, going to stand behind her at the window, “I’m sorry if all this has upset you. I—I’m writing a book about it because I—”

  “Don’t!” she cried, whirling around and raising her bandaged hands up as if to ward him off. “Please, don’t. I told you I don’t want to talk about that. Not now. Not ever! Go look at the house, write your book, do whatever you have to do, but please go away now. I just want to be left alone!” She turned away from him again, toward the window, but not before he saw that her eyes were glistening with tears.

  “Mr. Stevenson!” The voice of the nurse came from behind him, a firm command. He turned around to see that she was already at the door, holding it open. “You’d better go now.”

  “But, I—”

  “Now, Mr. Stevenson, if you don’t mind. This interview is over.”

  He looked at the woman, so coolly efficient in her starched white uniform and sweater. Then he nodded weakly and went to join her at the door.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s all right,” Nurse Call told him. “You can find your way out, I think. She’ll be all right.”

  With a last glance over at the weeping woman by the window, Mark nodded to the nurse and went out. As she closed the door behind him, he heard Sarah Gammon’s sudden, shouted words, her voice sharp with despair.

  “I won’t be all right!” she cried. “Nothing will ever be all right again!” The door closed with a click, cutting off all further sound.

  He stood outside the door, his eyes tightly shut, feeling the edges of the key biting into his clenched fist. Then he opened his eyes and moved, walking forward down the cold white hallway to the cold metal gates. The foyer, the elevator, the lobby: he passed through all of them as swiftly as possible, with fleeting smiles and nods to the various staff members he passed. By the time he reached the front entrance, he was running. He ran out into the waning light of day and down the sidewalk toward the parking lot. Only when he reached his car did he stop, sagging against it, taking in huge lungfuls of fresh air. It took him several long, painful minutes to get his breath back again. He bent down over the hood of the car, pressing his hand down against its warm, reassuring solidity. The real world came creeping back, even slower in coming than his respiration.

  She had not shared her family’s fate, he thought, but in a way she had. She survived, and yet she did not survive. Not at all. She was dead, buried with her family.

  And so, in many ways, was he.

  He had gone there, to that awful place, the sort of place he most feared, not knowing what to expect. That had been his first thought upon entering, he now remembered. What he had perhaps expected least in all the world was to confront that empty shell of a woman, to gaze into those eyes so like his own. To hear that weary voice, so lost, so defeated by the vagaries of fate. The cruelty she had seen, had known. She had encountered The Family Man, and nothing in her world would ever be all right again. They had been her final words.

  But now it was time to go. To get away from this place, the last refuge of the wounded, the broken, the discarded. He looked down at the gold key clutched in his fist. This key would open a door, and it was time to open it.

  Slipping the key into his pocket, he got in the car and drove back to the guest house, glancing over occasionally at the cellular phone on the passenger seat beside him. He half expected it to ring at any moment, but it remained silent.

  23

  The two women had moved from the gloomy Art Deco bar into the relatively bright lights of the hotel’s dining room. Dinner had been Carol Grant’s suggestion, and Tracy had been unable to come up with a decent reason to refuse. She couldn’t think, could barely even breathe. What was she learning from this friendly, well-meaning woman chilled her, dulled her senses, rendered her passive. She followed Carol Grant into the restaurant as a sheep follows the shepherd into an abattoir.

  She listened to it all, the whole, terrible story of Matthew Farmer and his unfortunate family. There was more wine with dinner, but it didn’t seem to have any effect on her. The co
ol, sweet alcohol failed to dull her senses to the horror she was absorbing, and her grilled chicken breast and salad went largely untouched. As Carol spoke, Tracy gazed around the dining room, at the waiters and the well-dressed diners and the attractive blond couple from the bar who were now eating at the table next to her.

  Matthew Farmer was the oldest of three children of Reverend Jacob Farmer and his wife, Charlene. Reverend Farmer was the pastor of the Chicago branch of a nationwide Fundamentalist sect known as the Church of the True Believers, as his father had been before him. He had a local cable television show, and he frequently traveled to national gatherings of the church in other states. His wife and children accompanied him, and they participated in televised church activities, Mrs. Farmer playing the organ and the children singing and passing collection plates. The daughter, Mary, and the younger son, Joshua, were both students at a religious college in Oklahoma at the time of the murders, preparing for careers in the church.

  Matthew had been the rebel. He hated the church, and he hated his family. His father had been very strict, even abusive, and Matthew had run away from home at eighteen, after barely making it through high school. He’d joined a group of runaways in Chicago, drifting into petty crime and drug addiction. This hadn’t lasted long, as far as Carol Grant could tell. He and his girlfriend, a young woman named Judy something, had gotten jobs and a place to live, and they’d started taking classes at a local university. Judy was a waitress, and Matthew worked for a national market research firm. For three years, he mailed and received questionnaires, feeding results into computers that informed the company which brands of toothpaste and shampoo and breakfast cereal were preferred by families in various parts of America. Not challenging work, perhaps, but he had done well enough to pay the rent.