Lucy pretended to remain aloof. But he was talking loudly, and his voice made her flinch.
He rubbed his hands together and looked at me.
“A sad, sick, salacious, succulent tale, Braintrust. Perfect for you.”
Turning quickly to Lucy. “After you stretched her womb, she lost whatever feeble interest she’d ever had in the double-backed beast. But like the old song says, her sister will—oh, did she, little Sister Kate. One of those yawning vaginas the exact color of bubblegum. So who was I to play brakeman to Fate? Her sister did, so I did her sister, oh, yes, oh, yes.” Smile. “She bucked and buckled, that one did. Scratched and caromed and screamed like a stuck sow at the moment of truce.” Pointing to his groin. “Remembering it almost convinces me something dingled, once upon a spine.”
I kept a close watch on Lucy. She was staring in his direction, but not at him. Anger shot through her slender frame like an injection of starch.
“Sisterly love,” said Lowell. “Maw-Maw found us, sang her ode to virtue, and I creeped off, tail-tucked.”
He tried to shrug and managed only a shoulder tic.
“Banished to the horrors of Paris. Reprobate Kate parceled off to California. Then Mother caught herself something postnatal and fatal, and suddenly I was called back to be a father.”
He aimed his thumb at the ground and mock-frowned. “Ill-suited for the care of a mewling snot-jack and a no-tone, anally blocked normal infant, I had the wisdom to relinquish parental privilege to ForniKate. By then, she was fucking some pansy Jew journalist.”
Gleeful bellowing.
Lucy was standing on the balls of her feet. I could see moisture in her eyes. I was thinking of my dead father.
Lowell said, “Why fight it, girl? You need me.”
“Do I?”
“Given your insistence upon projecting an air of injured chastity, I’d say so. Really, dear, enough bad theater, let us slash pretense’s throat and allow it to bleed out richly into the gutter. The permanent-hymen act won’t work with me. I know about the summer you spent with your heels in the air, looking into the bile-sooted eyes of Roxbury coons. Quite disappointing, I must say. To rut is nature; to rut for money, commerce. But to rut niggers for money and let some boss nigger pocket the profits? How sheepheaded, girl. I shall assign a collie to herd you.”
Lucy’s fists opened and her knees bent. I held her by the arms, whispering, “Let’s get out.”
She shook her head violently.
“Ah, the self-esteemer plies his craft,” said Lowell. “Dispensing turds of wisdom as you try to convince her she’s okay.”
Lucy let her arms fall. She stepped away from me. Right up to the edge of the bed. Stretching her arms as wide as she could, she stared him in the face. Exposing herself.
Shock therapy? Or the death of hope?
Lowell turned to me. “She’s not okay. She’s planets from okay.” Back to Lucy: “Want to know how I learned all about your Moorish mooring? Darling Brother Petey. No interrogation necessary. Lovely, filthy truths emerge when a wretch craves his needle, toof, toof. Ah, yes, yet another betrayal, daughter. Not to worry, disillusionment builds character. Stick with me and you’ll be granite.”
“Did you kill him?” said Lucy. “Did you give him that overdose?”
That surprised Lowell, but he rebounded with a snort.
“No-o,” he said softly. “He did a fine job of that himself. My error was kindness. Giving him cash when I knew what he’d do with it. He’d come up here, in this room. Lie on the floor, rolling around, begging and vomiting—a craftsman of cowardice. And evidently you, Stupid Girl, are his apprentice.”
“Him,” said Lucy. “Me. That’s some parental report card.”
“Is that what Siggie Fraud, here, told you? That you can blame your shit-life on me? That you have some right to happiness?”
Shouting and spraying spit, his words pushing him forward.
“You’re not meant to be happy! There’s no grand plan. Your happiness doesn’t mean two buckets of sour pus!”
“Not to you, that’s for sure.”
“Not to anyone! God—whatever He is—looks down on you, sees your misery, scratches His balls, cackles, and pisses steaming buckets on your head! His condo-mate Satan stops buggering tiny animals just long enough to add to the torrent! The raison d’être isn’t happiness, you styoopid nin. It’s being. Existence. Inherence. It doesn’t matter what happens, or doesn’t, or who else is! Fuck the consequences; you occur!”
I remembered Nova’s little speech. Someone had paid attention during class.
He glared at Lucy, breathing hard. Seized by sudden wet, rumbling coughs, he sucked in air, started to tilt back on the bed, and forced himself upright again.
“Didn’t know you were religious,” said Lucy, nearly breathless herself.
“Get to know me,” said Lowell. “You’ll learn lots of things.”
She looked at him, then sat on the bed, hard enough to make him bounce.
Pinching sheet between thumb and forefinger, she rubbed the fabric.
“What kinds of things will I learn, Daddy?” she said in a small voice.
After a second’s hesitation, he said, “How to create. How to be a cathedral. How to piss from the heavens.”
Lucy smiled and played with the sheets some more. “Be God in six easy lessons?”
“No, it won’t be easy. You’ll change my diapers, wipe my armpits, and powder my thighs. Fetch my papers in your mouth. Get down on your knees and acquire an attention span. Learn what a good book is and how to tell it from crap. Learn how to whore for your own good. How to rid yourself of redbugs like that curly-haired leech over there, how to finally stop binge-purging on self-pity.”
He shook a finger at her. “I’ll teach you more in one day than all the marrow-suck schools full of eighth-wit arsenods taught you in—what are you?—twenty-six years.”
He leaned forward and touched her arm. His fingers looked like crab legs on her plaid sleeve. She didn’t move.
“You have no choice,” said Lowell softly. “As is, you’re nothing.”
She studied his pale, twisted hand.
Then her eyes moved back to the rear door.
She gazed into his eyes for a long time.
“Nothing?” she said sadly.
“The quintessense of it, Angel-pie.”
She hung her head.
“Nothing,” she repeated.
He patted her hand.
She sighed and seemed to grow small.
My fear for her rose like floodwater.
Lowell giggled and traced a line from her wrist to her knuckles.
She shuddered but remained still.
Lowell clucked his tongue, cheerfully.
She was breathing deeply.
Eyes closed.
I got ready to pull her away from this place.
Lowell said, “Welcome to reality. We’ll do everything to make your stay as interesting as possible.”
Lucy looked in his eyes again.
“Nothing,” she said.
Lowell nodded, smiled, and stroked her hand.
Lucy smiled back. Peeled his fingers off and stood.
Walking to the rear door, she tried to slide the bolt. It was rusted and stuck, but she freed it.
Lowell’s head craned, his body warping as he strained to watch her.
“Fresh air?” he said. “Don’t bother. Sweetness is a lie, your senses are despots. Get used to stale.”
“I’m going out for a stroll,” she said in a flat voice. “Daddy.”
“To think? No need to. It’s not your strong suit. You finish your homework and then you can play—pay close attention and I’ll turn you into something interesting. You’ll endure.”
“Sounds pretty Faustian. Daddy.”
Something new in her voice—punch-line satisfaction.
Lowell heard it right away. His face lost tone, the bones softening, the skin giving way.
“Sit down!�
�
Lucy stared.
“Sit down!”
Lucy smiled. And waved. “ ’Bye, Daddy. It’s been educational.”
She threw the door open.
Green filled the doorway and sunlight shocked the room.
Lowell squinted as Lucy looked out at the green tide; then he sprang forward, groping for a hold on nothingness. His lower body was leaden, and it anchored him to the bed.
He cursed Lucy, God, the Devil.
“Nice property you’ve got, Daddy. There’s someone I need to look for out there.”
A terrible comprehension took hold of Lowell, a preliminary death. He pitched harder, fell forward, flopping face down on the mattress.
Lying there, face pressed against the sheets, he labored to breathe as he watched Lucy disappear.
His eyes met mine.
His were bottomless and terrified.
I glanced at the black phone and considered ripping it out of the wall. But there had to be other extensions in the house—why remind him of the instrument?
As I left, I heard him howling, like a child, for Nova.
CHAPTER
43
At first I thought Lucy had slipped into the forest. Then I heard footsteps along the side of the house.
Returning to her car. Good.
When I caught up with her, she didn’t acknowledge me. How many sessions would it take to unravel what she’d just been through?
We reached the Colt. But instead of opening the driver’s door, she went to the back and opened the trunk.
Personal justice.
Finally pushed too far?
I ran over just as she pulled a shovel out of the trunk and put it over her shoulder.
Brand new, the price tag still looped to the handle. Bearing it like a rifle, she headed back toward the house.
I blocked her.
She passed around me. I blocked her again.
“Come on, Lucy.”
She walked away. Once more, I caught up.
I felt like screaming, This is nuts!
What I said was, “Don’t let him get to you, Lucy.”
“Nothing. Maybe so, we’ll see.”
We were hurrying alongside the house now.
“He’ll call his friends. They’ll come after you.”
She ignored me. I took hold of her arm. She shook me off.
“Listen to me, Lucy—”
“He won’t do anything. He doesn’t do anything, he just talks—that’s his game, talk, talk, talk.”
“He’s still dangerous.”
“He’s nothing.” Furious smile. “Nothing.”
We came to the dirt patch behind the building. Women’s lingerie flapping on the line. The back door was closed. Nova had heeded Lowell’s cries.
Nodding as if in response to a suggestion, Lucy forged forward, into the green.
Low shrubs and tender shoots, shadowed by the tree canopy, gave way quickly to dense ferns, creeping vines, brambles, and broad-leafed things that looked to be some kind of giant lily.
Lucy used her hands to clear the way, and when that didn’t work she began hacking with the shovel. The tool proved a poor machete, and soon she was breathing hard and grunting with anger.
“Why don’t you give me that?”
“This isn’t your problem,” she said, chopping. “If you really think there’s danger, don’t put yourself in it.”
“I don’t want you in it either.”
“I understand what I’m getting into.”
She touched my hand briefly, then resumed poking through the brush.
My choices were: Drive back to PCH and try to reach Milo, carry her out bodily, or stick with her and try to get her out as quickly as possible.
Physical coercion would probably destroy our therapeutic relationship, but I could stand that if it meant saving her life. But if she resisted it might prove difficult, even ugly.
Maybe the best thing was to stay with her. Even if she found the gravesite, she’d learn soon that exhumation with one shovel was beyond her physical capabilities. And the thought of her out here, alone, scared the hell out of me.
Maybe I was overestimating the danger. Lowell was a monster, but in his own sick way he’d been reaching out to her. Would he sentence her to death?
She’d gone only a few yards but the vegetation had closed over her like a trapdoor and I could barely make out her plaid shirt. I looked over my shoulder. The house was obscured, too. No visible pathway, but as I followed Lucy’s footsteps, a troughlike depression in the earth became evident.
Long-buried trail.
She was moving as surely and quickly as the brush would allow.
Knowing where she was going.
Guided by a dream.
I clawed my way through the vegetation and got right behind her. The plants were taller, the treetops thicker, and soon there was more green than blue in the sky. Things slithered and scampered all around us, but other than a suddenly vibrating leaf or tendril, I saw nothing move. From time to time, I heard the broom-sweep of wings flapping in panic, but the birds stayed out of sight, too.
The growth became jungle-thick. Lucy swung the shovel like an ax, sweat running down her face in sooty streams, her chin set, her eyes hard and clear. I took over and got us through faster.
We came to the first of the small cabins, a fallen-down roofless thing, nearly hidden by emerald clouds. Lucy barely looked at it. Tears were diluting the sweat tracks, and her blouse was sodden. I wanted to say something comforting but she’d just been raped by words.
A second cabin appeared a few minutes later, just a loose pile of logs managing to support a tar roof. Shiny, black, wasplike things buzzed through holes in the tarpaper, swooping in, then jetting out like tiny dive bombers.
Lucy stopped, stared, shook her head.
We kept going.
Our silent trudge took us past three more cabins.
Gnats and chiggers were having fun with our faces. The sudden takeoff of a huge brown bird nearly stopped my heart. I managed to catch a glimpse of the creature as it forged up through the treetops. Big square head and five-foot wingspread. Horned owl. The silence that followed was unsettling.
Lucy didn’t seem to notice. Pinpoints of blood pocked her face where the bugs had gotten her, and her palms were raw from wrestling with vines.
“Give your hands a rest.”
She said, “No,” but she complied.
Getting through wasn’t easy even with my pushup-tightened arms. Hers had to be numb. I ripped and sliced, wondering how much grace time we had. Knowing we were leaving an obvious trail for anyone who followed.
“Even if you find her,” I said, huffing, “after all this time, she won’t look like a person. There may be nothing left at all. Animals carry off bones.”
“I know. I learned that at the trial.”
The trough deepened and I had to fight for balance. Lucy was looking up at the trees.
Something lacy? Trees of all kinds were everywhere, an untidy colonnade rising through the undergrowth.
It was two-forty. The sun had peaked and was falling behind us, dancing through holes in the overgrowth, a tiny, brilliant mirror.
A new sound: more of the groundwater, a trickle that recalled the one I’d heard driving up.
The kind of moisture that hastens decomposition.
“Even if you find her, what will you do?”
“Take something back with me. They can do tests and prove it’s her. That’ll be evidence. Something.”
I heard something snap behind me and stopped. Lucy had heard it, too, and she peered at the forest behind us.
Silence.
She shrugged and wiped her face with her sleeve. It was hard to gauge how far we were from the lodge house. I tasted my own sweat and felt it sting my eyes.
We started walking again, coming upon a knotted mass of thick, ivylike vines with coils as hard as glass. It refused to yield to the shovel. Lucy threw herself at it, yanking and
tearing, her hands wet with blood. I pulled her away and inspected the plant. Despite its monstrous head, its root base was relatively small, petrified, a two-foot clump of burl.
I chopped at the shoot right above the root. Dust and insects flew, and I could hear more animals fleeing in the distance. My biceps were pumped and my shoulders throbbed. Finally, I was able to sever enough tendrils to pull back the clump and let us pass.
On the other side of the vine, things were different, as if we’d entered a new chamber of a great green palace. The air cooler, the trees all the same species.
Coast redwoods, great, repeating roan columns, spaced closely, their top growth a black fringe. Not the three-hundred-foot monsters of the north, but still huge at a third that height. Only a scatter of ferns grew in their shadows. The ground was gray as barbecue dust, mounded with leaves and bark shards. Through the fringe, the sun was a speck of mica.
The fringe.
Lace?
Lucy began weaving through the mammoth trunks.
Heading toward something.
Light.
A patch of day that enlarged as we ran toward it.
She stepped into it and spread her arms, as if gathering the heat and clarity.
We were in an open area, bounded by hillside and the same kind of mesquite I’d seen on the highway. Beyond the hills, higher mountains.
Before us, a field of high, feathery wild grass split by dozens of silver snakes.
Narrow streams. A mesh of them, thin and sinuous as map lines. The water sound diffuse now, delicate.…
I followed Lucy as she made her way through grass, stepping in the soft ground between the streams.
Down to a mossy clearing. Centered in it, a pond, brackish, a hundred feet wide, its surface coated by a pea-colored scum of algae, bubbling in spots, skimmed by water boatmen. The globular leaves of hyacinth floated peacefully. Dragonflies took off and landed.
On the near bank was another cabin, identical to the others.
Rotted black, its roof a fuzz of lichen, a decaying door dangling from one hinge.
Something green running nearly the width of the door. I ran over.
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