Blood Acre

by Peter Landesman

  In his rear-view mirror he saw her standing against the rail. She was alive. And down Surf Avenue, she was alive still.

  At Famous's, as he turned for the Belt Parkway, a car along the curb turned off its headlights. Nathan slowed and saw it was Krivit's car. Krivit was sitting with his hands on the wheel, staring ahead and through Nathan to the boardwalk. Of course he'd have to be somewhere nearby. They were to meet, after all. Krivit had probably watched Nathan while he made his call, his excuses. Nathan drove on.

  But at the last minute he glanced again in the mirror and Krivit's car was moving, turning the corner, passing Famous's, heading up Surf. Nathan stopped, turned and followed. Krivit's car stood at the spot of boardwalk where he'd left Isabel. Krivit was not in the car. Isabel was not on the boardwalk. He thought, Get out of the car. He thought, Save her.

  Then, he put it together again, for the hundredth time: He'd been fucking her. He was dead. She wouldn't live. She was already dead.

  The big house perches high on a hill, its windows punched dark like the portholes of a ship stripped and looted and set adrift. All the windows but one-Nathan can see light in the trees in the back. Even beneath the snow, a yard in ruins. The stripped shrubbery, once manicured, grows beyond any pattern, gnashing at the downspouts, tugging at the gutters, slithering across front steps gnawed by dryrot.

  He opens the back door of the car and the dog explodes into the night, slaloming through the trees, kicking up sprays of snow. He slides to a halt and, shivering, trickles on a treetrunk, then is off toward the back. Nathan, as is his habit, follows. The concrete patio is shot through with weedy flourishes gone to seed. A lavish pool half drained and rancid, a frozen shallow brown syrup dropped further beneath an incremental set of scum lines marking other longer periods of neglect and the comings and goings of ice. Old leaves and twigs and snow. A deflated Yankee cap Nathan remembers on his own head now encased in ice. The diving board has been torn out and made off with.

  Nathan feels for the back steps under the snow and stops before the open kitchen door. The small window beside the knob has been shattered, the wind whistling through the shards. Inside, a drift of snow has begun to climb the stove. He hears a voice echoing down the hall, and steps in. "Hello," he calls.

  Baron shoves by him and skates clicking and clawing along the floors.

  Nathan follows a dim path of light toward the living room. The rooms he passes are tossed, the mattresses overturned, the pillows disemboweled, drawers flung into the corners, the mug shots of his life's suspects crossing before him with each clop of his shoes, Maria, Serena, Amparo, his mother, Ruth, room after room where the pickled floors climb blank walls that spire high to a cathedral 'ling. In the dimness above, fans hang like dead and dried flowers.

  "We're doing the best we can," the voice says, then abruptly stops. "I'll have to call you back." A phone is replaced on its cradle. "I saw the new Land Cruiser in the carport, Nathan." Beside a floor lamp, a figure the size of a stubby child on a couch, clutching her knees. "Nice. It's just what you need. Whose is-I mean, was-it?"

  "You like it? It's yours." Nathan sits on the chair opposite, unsurprised-in fact he realizes he's expected her.

  Ruth's face shifts and reshapes in the dark hood of her coat. She is sullen. She wears mittens. "But you're soaked," she says. "You'll catch pneumonia."

  Nathan lifts his palms, as if to say, Look, no hands. "Bring it on," he says.

  Ruth points. "And your hands are bleeding."

  "So they are. Take off your coat, stay awhile. The pool is ruine. It'll have to be relined."

  "Why bother? You never swam."

  "But you did."

  "And never liked the sun for that matter. You were always covering up."

  "Skin cancer," Nathan points out. "You can't be too careful." Ruth begins to say one thing then stops herself. She blows a stream of vapor like cigarette smoke. "I tried the thermostat. When is the last time you paid your gas bill?"

  Uninterested in these details, Nathan squints out the glass door, listening for the tinkling of his precious windchime, and notices that the circle of porcelain doves has been shorn off, whoever or whatever leaving just the nubs, like a necklace of broken teeth.

  "I thought so," Ruth says. She bends forward and holds out an upturned hand. "Give me five thousand dollars."

  Ruth says nothing more and without hesitation Nathan raises one hip and reaches into his pocket. He brings out a handful of bills and deals what is there into Ruth's palm. "Just a minute," he says, and reaches into his jacket pocket for the envelope of cash and tugs out more bills and places them atop the pile.

  Ruth takes the money and shapes it into a brick and it disappears somewhere about her person. "For services rendered."

  "Any in particular?"

  "All," she says flatly.

  "Sounds like you're settling your tab."

  "Nathan," she begins, and looks at him as if she means to get up and capture him in a hug and lift him back up to the heights from which they have fallen.

  But he is already on his feet, heading for the stereo. "I'd like to dance," he announces.

  "But you don't dance."

  "How about the Duke, for old times' sake, as a warm-up?"

  "Nathan."

  "Ruth.”

  "You re impossi'ble.

  "Thank you."

  "It won't work now."

  "The Duke? He always works, always cheers me, always cheered you, just try and deny it."

  "The stereo, Nathan, it won't go on."

  "Why not? How do you know?"

  "Because I do. The music's over. It's screwed."

  "The music is perfect," Nathan insists, feeling a gust of indignation. "It's the only thing that is."

  "Maybe a wire's been cut," Ruth suggests.

  "Why would they cut a stereo for chrissake? It's not a car."

  Ruth turns to look at him: "They?"

  But Nathan doesn't miss the catch in her throat, the little hop of fear, like the cap of a kettle about to come to boil. Ruth is very afraid.

  Baron, spent, sidles up beside his master and noses his crotch. Overwhelmed with love-or some emotion-Nathan kneels and embraces the dog's head with his hands. Their foreheads meet. Creatures who ask from each other nothing. Baron's tongue passes across Nathan's mouth.

  "Is he coming back?" Nathan asks the dog, though calmly, as if inquiring after the weather. "And I'm not talking about Krivit. I know all about him now. I saw him, can you believe it, in town."

  Softly, imperceptibly, in the corner of Nathan's eye, Ruth nods. "And Schreck, the asshole?"

  Ruth doesn't deny it.

  Outside, in the lamplight falling across the patio, Nathan can see that the snow has turned to rain. The drops beat down the crust, chunking the skim ice in the pool.

  He straightens, surprising even himself with his resolve. In fact, he is full of energy, as if he's just been given a transfusion. He lifts his hand, as if to issue forth a pronouncement. "A walk," he says to no one in particular.

  "But now?" Ruth asks, gripping her seat. "It's raining, or snowing, or whatever."

  Just then thunder explodes like a bomb outside the glass doors. The single functioning lamp dims, wavers, strengthens again. "Nathan! "

  "We always go to the beach," he addresses the dog. "Don't we, boy?"

  Baron, sensing nothing but his most simple pleasure, cranks his tail.

  "Don't," Ruth pleads.

  Something is wrong, is very wrong. Her mouth moves, it wants to make sound. Ruth's talent for keeping things to herself seems to be failing her. Nathan lifts a hand, gesturing to the dark house, to the greater dark beyond it. Ruth's got it wrong. Obviously, she doesn't see his freedom.

  "I should go," he says calmly. "He's coming."

  And he sees he's already been. The tire tracks beat him to his favorite trailhead to the beach. But there is no car. Baron is already down the path, at the rail of the stairway down.

  "Here, boy!" Nathan calls, but t
he wind smothers his cry. He begins to jog after him, clutching the dog's leash, though despite the surge of energy his bones feel ready to splinter. He slows to a walk, to baby steps, and alone, doubled over at the rail, he finds it hard to believe he is really going. The boxy, contemporary mansions teetering on the edge of the bluff, looking out over the bay, like abstract fortresses guarding against invasion from the less acceptable North Fork of Long Island. The abandoned lighthouse and its red punctuation at the end of the finger of land. On Roatan he will have this sight for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; this beach, only more so. Clear water. Azure sky.

  Nathan can hardly keep upright in the sea spray. The rain and snow, crosshatched, come from three directions at once. One after the other, huge waves commit suicide on the beach. Baron snaps at the foam, plunging in, scurrying back, then stops stone still, wrinkling his nose, dormant birding instincts surfacing, sensing. Something's coming.

  Behind Nathan, a snap, a twig, a slab of driftwood, and the dog, belly-deep, is barking up at the trees to Nathan's right. just as a forked tongue of lightning touches down far offshore, a current passes along the horizon and a momentary spit of flame leaps from the woods. A yelp from the beach, and Nathan turns to find the dog rolling like a barrel in the surf.

  Clenching his fists, Nathan watches the woods and waits for the next shot.

  "If you're coming, come!" he cries.

  The stubby trees are kneeling.

  He looks up full of questions but the wind nudges him, drives him on.

  "We can't be here," Claire insists.

  "But we are."

  The road from East Hampton to Nathan's house is empty ahead and behind, the ground turning at the last minute, rising beneath them like sea-swells. Claire grips the dashboard tightly, barely conscious of the landmarks Nathan used to point out with a wave of his hand, the little family cemetery with its white picket fence, the little lane on the right, the roadside stand and its outrageously expensive pies.

  "Nobody's on the road. Why do you think no one is out? We shouldn't be out."

  "It's too late."

  She feels her heart melting even as the peace that comes with returning to old, familiar ground falls around her. For a moment it is almost as though she and Nathan are returning home from the market, the dog panting in the back seat, standing guard over the groceries-

  "My god-" As they pull up the crescent drive, Claire braces herself. This is the address she remembers but hardly the house. From the hill, the windows, gaping like potholes, breathe down at her old memories and new desolations. Everything she planted, the pines along the base of the house, is gone. Tired of nightmares, she asks the air, "What am I doing here?"

  But Santos is already out and knee-deep in snow, his gun drawn. Claire trudges after him, turning her head with the wind to breathe as they walk a lap around the ruined yard.

  "Errol-" she calls. "Why do you have your gun out? Your gun-put it away, you're not going to shoot him. Nothing is confirmed. Tests would have to be done. If you're going to arrest him you need samples, hair, skin, blood."

  "I don't know if I'm arresting him." He walks on.

  "You would kill him?" she calls, trailing him. "Is that why you became a cop, you could decide whether to arrest someone or kill him? Jesus, Errol, it's Nathan. I mean, what if he is your brother?"

  Santos stops at a Hertz van backed against the front door. The driveway is rutted with tire tracks.

  "You still love him,” he says.

  "No- I don't know, I did. Yes, maybe I do. Don't you?" She turns into the snow now, blinking. "Didn't we grow up together?"

  "I don't know if that's good enough."

  At the open kitchen door there is broken glass and Santos motions for her to stay back. Inside, shadows crisscross the hall, muffled voices, none of them Nathan's. She follows as Santos keeps to the walls, hugging corners. Debris and bags of frozen garbage are piled everywhere. The pristine doors she remembers from years before are scabby and gritty with soot, the room in which she and Nathan once made love charred from disuse.

  Sounds of grunts and footsteps in the living room. She follows Santos toward a man cradling a stack of stereo components. Boxes of CD's sit by the front door.

  Santos lifts his gun. "Who are you?"

  Schreck turns, smiling thinly at the gun. "Errol. And Claire. I didn't expect you. It's been years and years-"

  At the sight of Schreck Claire can feel a tic, a reflex, jerk the corner of her mouth. "Oliver," she says, with dread. An ancient memory about him awakes, and she looks up, anywhere, toward the ceiling, out the glass doors where the trees are tossing their bare heads in the wind. Once, when Nathan was in another room, Oliver grabbed her from behind. Another time he'd whispered revolting things in her ear. The dirt returns, those pathetic times of believing bad lies and despising the look of her own reflection. He may not have expected her, but she should have expected him. Hadn't he always chased the ambulance to the scene of some crime?

  Ruth emerges from the dark dining room, the hood of her overcoat pitched high like a monk's. "Claire-"

  Finally, Santos puts away the gun. "Where is Nathan?" he asks.

  Schreck heads out the door with pieces of stereo. Ruth picks the shredded remains of a cushion off the floor, drops it on the empty frame of the couch and sits.

  He's gone," she says.

  "Where did he go, town?"

  Ruth, imperious still, says nothing.

  Claire takes in the desolation. "What the hell happened here?"

  "Do you want to sit down?"

  Schreck returns slapping his hands on his thighs.

  "Someone's been searching the house," Santos says.

  "Yes," Schreck replies, without hesitation.

  "Is all this you?"

  "Errol," Ruth interrupts, "as a cop, you're out of your jurisdiction. This isn't Brooklyn."

  But he's not here as a cop," Schreck says, "is he? Are you?"

  Santos looks from Schreck to Ruth.

  Does Nathan know you're taking these things?" Claire asks.

  "Why?" Schreck asks. "Do you want something?"

  She shakes her head. "Where are you taking it?"

  "Where Milton can watch his son's TV, listen to music on his son's speakers-"

  Stupidly, she knows, Claire points at a porcelain vase propping open the door. "But I got him that."

  "Milton would never know if something small walked out on its own."

  "Take it," Ruth suggests.

  "You're taking everything," Claire says. "Why is everybody doing this, acting like he's already dead?"

  Schreck reaches into his coat and brings out an envelope and offers it to Santos. "I've been holding this for you. This is yours-"

  "What is it?" Santos asks, taking the envelope.

  "That's your share."

  Santos lifts out a sheaf of bills. "You neglected to mention this part last night."

  An odd smile crosses Schreck's face. "I never lied to you, Errol. Not last night. And not now. You're here to do a job. A man in your position, a job should be well paid, or else why do it. Do what you've come to do."

  Claire is shaking her head, looking from one to the other, but Santos seems to come to an understanding, as if from an old arrangement. He hands back the envelope. "I don't want it," he says.

  "We don't have more than a few minutes," Schreck says. "There's no time to argue. Take it."

  Claire looks at the money. A wave of nausea washes through her. She lies: "I don't understand."

  Santos has backed against the wall. "I'm supposed to finish it."

  Schreck nods. "Eye for an eye."

  "No one ever accused you of being a sophisticated thinker, Schreck," Santos says.

  “Am I wrong?"

  “I don't know what you are."

  " Let me ask you something," Schreck says, "what would you do with Nathan if you found him?" Santos doesn't answer. "You know, we're a lot alike, Errol. You don't want to admit it, but then again, that always wa
s your problem."

  "I don't think so. I'm not like you."

  "We are, more than you know."

  Santos turns to Claire. "They've set us up. They've set us all up."

  Claire, hesitating, stands terrified of moving, as though having reached the edge of an unexpected clearing. She was meant to be here; all these years, all the thousands of days, have led her here. And pointing to the open door of the house, like a road sign, is the feeling, Escape. But another feeling points the other way, back to Nathan, and to Errol and Schreck and Ruth and Milton Stein and a too clean end to something she hadn't known had been begun. She sees clearly where she stands, the two options, the two paths diverging-strange how brilliantly the image comes to her-like the arms of a man being pinned to a cross.