Trick of Light

by Hunt-David

  We figured it would take the fire department at least fifteen minutes to reach the club, a good two hours after that to get the fire in the rear under control, by which time we would be long gone.

  I think of Hank now inside the lodge building, setting his charges, molding them to doors, light fixtures, the grand piano in the lounge, beneath the mahogany bar. Then sticking in the detonators, turning the detonator switches on, moving always toward the gun room, pool table in the center and all the fabulous guns gleaming brilliantly in their cherrywood racks.

  Mold some C-4 to the gun vault too while you're at it, Hank. Blow all their precious firearms sky-high. Blow up the videotapes of the orgies, the club records, logs, accounts and membership rolls. Take out the antiques, paintings, lugubrious hunting trophies mounted on the walls. Don't forget the leather couches in the lounge, the big oak club officers' table in the dining room, the range in the kitchen where succulent prime steaks are grilled. Take it all out! Every trace. Leave nothing behind but smoke and ash.

  Hank's running toward me now. He doesn't even bother to hunch or crawl, just runs openly across the main yard, crosses the firing range where Chap Fontaine was killed, then leaps his way to cover in the trees. Half a minute later he flings himself down beside me.

  "Best time I've had in years," he says, panting. He turns to me. "Great diversion, huh?" There're beads of sweat on his face, exultation in his eyes.

  He reaches for the device that will set the detonators off.

  "How do you want it, Kay?" he asks. "One at a time or all at once?"

  "I think all at once will be just fine," I tell him.

  "Yeah!" he smiles. "Well then — here she blows!"

  He pulls all the switches together, then clamps his hands to his ears. I do the same. There's a brief pause, barely long enough for me to sigh, then an explosion so loud and violent it dwarfs the diversion explosions many times over. The entire main lodge of the club seems to rise up into the air, hang there a moment, then collapse. Secondary explosions erupt. Flames leap. Acrid smoke clouds the air. Plumes of dust rise, shimmering pillars. I grin. We are destroyers wreaking vengeance, flinging down lightning bolts upon our enemies.

  "We're outta here," Hank says, gathering up his stuff. "Oh, by the way, I got something for you." He reaches beside him, hands me a gun, the one gun in the world I'd know anywhere — "The Goddess."

  "It's the one you wanted, right?"

  "Oh, Hank! I can't believe it. You're fabulous!" I plant a kiss on his cheek.

  "Couldn't resist taking a souvenir," he says. "Listen, I want to double-time it out if that's all right."

  "Sure."

  "Halfway to the road, we'll give Gale a call."

  At that he starts to move, I following again at thirty feet, the two of us jogging stealthily through the forest. Holding "The Goddess" before me, I feel like Diana herself, Goddess of the Hunt, loping jubilantly, triumphantly through the moonlit woods.

  * * * * *

  News of vastly destructive nocturnal explosions at the G.G.C. is the lead story on tonight's late news. I watch from bed as Sheila Troy, Channel 6's glamorous on-scene reporter, offers an analysis before the smoldering wreckage of the club.

  "Sheriff's office sources attribute the explosions to disgruntled hunters in the local community," she reports. "These men, according to these same sources, have long resented the Goddess Gun Club for its strict policy toward poachers, some of whom have actually been shot by G.G.C. guards. It's no wonder, these sources tell me, that resentment has built to the point where an attack has taken place. In addition there are mercenary groups in Mendocino County who may have had reason to want the exclusive shooting club burned down. Estimated damage due to the blaze, including buildings and artifacts — six point four million dollars. One law enforcement source, close to the sheriff, tells me that the sabotage was so well executed he estimates a commando squad of at least a dozen men worked with military precision to bring it off."

  * * * * *

  Four guns to dispose of now... and I know just where each one must go.

  I take my new H&K straight to Gun City, tell the woman behind the counter I've changed my mind and would like to sell the pistol back.

  She picks it up, examines it. "Never been fired," she notes. "I can't give you full price. How's eighty percent? Or you can leave it here on consignment. I'm fairly certain I can sell it for you, but of course not for what you paid."

  I happily accept a twenty percent loss, figuring it's a fair price for ridding myself of trouble. I'm glad I'm over my gun phobia now, glad too I've discovered that guns aren't me.

  * * * * *

  Tonight I phone Bee Watson, tell her I've got something for her. We arrange to meet tomorrow in Bolinas. Sasha has agreed to drive me out at noon.

  Next I call David Yamada. At first he's shy with me, stumbling over his words. Then he apologizes for his behavior last time we met, rushing out of the coffee shop without saying goodbye.

  "That's okay, David," I tell him. "I understand. Since then I've learned all about Maddy's past, her career as a fancy shooter in the circus."

  Silence. "I should have known you'd find out. Maddy always said you were relentless."

  "I found Bee Watson. She lives out in Bolinas. She told me everything. I even have the old Winchester Maddy used to use."

  He gasps.

  "This is important, David. Please tell me the truth. Was it really her idea to embargo her early papers? Or did you decide that on your own?"

  "I did what I thought best," he tells me. "She didn't want people to know."

  "When she was alive — sure, I understand. But now that she's gone it doesn't make sense. I believe her past informed the deep humanity of her work. Her whole life, the fancy shooter as well as the socially concerned photojournalist, is present in every photograph she took."

  "I guess."

  "Anyhow, you should know I'm going to present the rifle to the museum, also an interview tape I'm going to make with Bee. I feel very strongly that Maddy's full story must be known. Meantime I hope I can persuade you to revise the terms of your gift."

  Silence again. "I'll think about it, Kay."

  "Thank you. I know you'll do what's right."

  He chuckles. "You don't leave a person much room to maneuver."

  "Probably my worst failing," I admit.

  * * * * *

  The moment Bee sees "The Goddess," her eyes widen. She hugs me, then lightly runs her hands over the gun, caressing the engravings with her fingertips.

  "It's for you," I tell her. "You made it. Now it's yours again."

  Soon her desire gives way to squeamishness. "I don't know, Kay. It's stolen property, isn't it?"

  I assure her that as far as anyone knows, every single gun in the G.G.C. gun room was blown up or consumed by fire.

  "I understand," she says, "but you see, it's a Parker Invincible, a great gun, the rarest and finest Parker ever made. I'll have to return it to them. I'll ship it to them anonymously." She smiles. "But not the engraving. I'll take off all the steel first."

  Sasha drives us out to Point Reyes, then into the National Seashore. We park at the head of the Tomales Point Trail, then hike through coyote brush, following the curves of the moors into the Tule Elk Reserve. Perhaps because it's a weekday afternoon and the fog's closing in, we pass only two other hikers coming the opposite way. En route we stop to observe herds of elk. An occasional rabbit leaps across our path. At six p.m., when we reach the grassy slopes of Tomales Bluff, there's no one else around.

  The view from here is wondrous: open ocean to the west, the mouth of long narrow Tomales Bay to the east. Waves crash against the rock below, churning spume, showering land's end with spray. Fishing boats bob on the swells. The fog makes the place seem otherworldly, uniquely strange.

  It's from here that we've decided to cast away the revolver Ram Carson used to kill Tommy Dunphy in their duel. Sasha offers to hurl the murder gun into the water. He throws well. The little
gun flies high, clears the rocks, falls into the mouth of the bay, which, Bee tells us, is prowled continuously by great white sharks, devouring fish and anything else living or dead that crosses their murderous paths.

  * * * * *

  I phone Baggy Bigelow. He turns frosty as soon as he hears my voice.

  "You welshed on our deal, Kay. We were to become friends, see each other once a month. Now two months go by and you call out of the blue. I'm deeply hurt. Hurt to the quick."

  I think he likes feeling hurt, that he nurtures himself licking his wounds. As for me, whom he fancied as his "new young friend" — how delicious it must be for him to savor the pain I've inflicted by my neglect.

  "Look, Baggy, I've been busy as hell bringing down Carson and the G.G.C.. Who do you think found a witness to the duel with Fontaine? Who do you suppose blew up the club lodge?"

  "My God, girl!" In an instant his frostiness melts to syrup. "You've got an item for me?"

  "I've got a whole column."

  "Please, dear, bring your sweet tush straight over here. I and all my Barbies are panting, breathless for your company."

  OH HOW SWEET IT IS!

  by

  Schuyler Bigelow

  THIS DEPARTMENT has learned more about the weird and bizarre goings-on at the veddy exclusive, veddy tony, all-male Goddess Gun Club in Mendocino County, lately blown up by persons unknown.

  A highly knowledgeable source, exclusive to THIS COLUMN, reveals that among numerous valuable firearms lost in the catastrophe was a particular weapon which club insiders called "The Goddess."

  Sounds perfectly innocent, right? Maybe so... until you learn that this weapon, an antique Parker shotgun, was embellished with engravings of pornographic scenes watched in turn by a group of animal-voyeurs bearing the caricature faces of leading members of the club.

  Lately making the rounds at Pacific Heights dinner parties — you know the kind, those veddy exclusive little gatherings of eight or ten — has been a game of "zoo," i.e., match-the-critter-to-the-member.

  Here, for your delectation, DEAR READERS, is a short list of animals and G.G.C. members whom knowledgeable folk are trying to match up. See what you can do with them.

  CRITTERS: Monkey; Fox; Leopard; Wolf; Pelican; Gazelle; Ostrich; Crocodile.

  MEMBERS: Jack Stadpole; Orrin Jennett; Raid Harris; Ramsey Carson; Henry Petersen; Tuck Chubet; Carter Dixon; Chauncy Chase.

  And there's more! Scuttlebutt has it that "The Goddess" was used in a veddy unseemly manner during certain arcane "rituals" conducted on club premises, rituals that mirrored the activities engraved upon the gun itself. Oh, dear boys! If only those burned-down G.G.C. walls could talk!

  On a more serious note: A year and a half ago THIS DEPARTMENT Made mention of contentious G.G.C. meetings regarding certain "recreational" goings-on at the club, and, a few weeks later, that differences between members had been resolved in "a traditional gentleman's manner."

  Now all the world knows that a gun duel was fought between cofounders Ramsey Carson and his real estate partner, the much loved and greatly missed Chaplin Fontaine. Fontaine was killed in the duel, about which witnesses lied to local police. Later, Carson eulogized Fontaine at a hypocritical memorial service in Grace Cathedral. As reported in THIS NEWSPAPER, indictments of several of San Francisco's leading citizens have since been handed down.

  It can now be revealed that this was not the first gun duel fought by Mr. Ramsey Carson. Nor was it the first duel in which he killed an opponent. Future columns will supply further details on this gentleman's rather amazing histoire.

  Query: Is the aforementioned histoire relevant? The case prosecutor seems to think so. Carson's indictment for murder, as opposed to merely dueling, is based on a legal theory that an experienced duelist facing off against an inexperienced opponent is akin to a professional prizefighter taking on an ordinary Joe in a bar, i.e., assault with a deadly weapon. And for such a person, who has killed before, to engage in a duel is indicative of "intent to kill."

  Let it now be recounted that after THIS DEPARTMENT first wrote about the club, an attempt was made to intimidate your FAVORITE COLUMNIST by an anonymous caller who threatened him with "a bullet in the brain" should he continue to file items about the G.G.C.. A couple of days later a bullet engraved with his initials was received in the mail.

  Now far be it for THIS DEPARTMENT to impugn the reputation of any particular person by accusing him (or her) of issuing this obnoxious ultimatum. Still, it's important that you, DEAR READERS, understand that THIS DEPARTMENT will never be intimidated by threats, no matter how vicious and no matter how exalted or well connected the source.

  Over the coming weeks we shall offer further revelations about G.G.C. goings-on, including some, shall we say, veddy strange parties held in an apartment in the Mission, an apartment situated in a building owned by (surprise!) CFJ Realty Corporation, a company bearing the initials of its original owners, Carson, Fontaine and Jennett.

  STAY TUNED!

  The end of summer: My life is coming together. All the endgames have been played out, all the mysteries resolved. I still miss Maddy, her nurturing friendship and sometimes sharp critiques, most of all her powerful eyes, which could see intentions in my work I barely knew were there. But I keep reminding myself that I must become my own coach and best critic now.

  The painful memory of my ordeal in the gun room has greatly diminished. The humiliation has been well paid back. It's time to put all that behind me, Sasha says that to allow oneself to feel humiliated is to grant to one's tormentors an unseemly power.

  And so I concentrate on the future, which now is to achieve my shodan in aikido. I train hard every day, working with Rita, practicing techniques, looking forward nervously to the exam.

  * * * * *

  Tonight, coming straight from evening practice, I drop in on Sasha without calling him first. He's delighted; his liquid eyes light up. He gazes at me, insists we make love at once — never mind a shower first.

  "But Sasha — I'm so sweaty."

  "Never mind." He licks his lips. "I like you that way."

  He picks me up, carries me to his couch, gently lays me down. Then he undresses me, makes passionate love to me, bathing my body with his tongue.

  Later, as we're hugging one another, he tells me he adores the fact that I see him in black and white. It's such an interesting comment I ask him what he means.

  "I like the way I look in the pictures you take of me."

  "You want to be seen as possessing a formal abstract beauty, is that it?"

  "It's more like I love being loved by your eyes," he says.

  I stroke his dusky face. "Camus said: 'Death and colors are things we cannot discuss.'"

  "He also said, and I like this very much: 'There is no fate that cannot be overcome by scorn.'"

  I owe him so much: For introducing me to David Bohm's theory of the implicate order, without which I might never have sussed out what Maddy was doing. For an act of loving kindness I can never put out of my mind — how, on our first Christmas together, he gave me a painting of an Indian goddess which he photographed first in black and white, to make sure it would be pleasing to me even though I wouldn’t be able to see it in color. Most of all for his gentleness as he helped me cope with the trauma of the gun room, urging me to draw what I could not face, helping me to unravel the mystery of the bee. He understood too why I needed to go back to the G.G.C. to watch Hank blow it up.

  * * * * *

  Two p.m.: The Warren Field House at Sonoma Valley Community College. Over two hundred martial artists from all over California have assembled here for a five-day intensive aikido retreat.

  It's the last afternoon. Exams are about to begin. Six of us are going for our black belts, others for higher ranks. My fellow aikidoists, including Rita, sit in Seiza position, suited up, in two long rows along the edge of the gigantic mat. Others — a good hundred guests in civilian clothes, among them Joel, Lucky, Sasha and Dad — sprawl at the f
ar end.

  Three judges, senior senseis from Japan, have come to administer the exams. They sit at a table off center from the kamiza where the photograph of O-Sensei hangs. Those of us about to be tested are busy stretching and warming up on the mat edge.

  The exams begin. I take my place in the front row. The first candidate's name is called. I watch as he moves to the mat, bows to the judges, then goes to his knees to take the first attacks from his uke.

  I watch but do not watch. My eyes are turned inward, looking deeply into myself, seeking the warm center where the power lies, the power upon which I know I soon must draw. Nearly an hour passes. Three other candidates complete their tests. My name is called. I awake as if from a meditation and move onto the mat.

  Ralph is my uke. He is ten years younger. Tall and graceful, he had been a black belt himself for only a year. We have trained well together ever since he joined Marina Aikido. His style is direct yet gentle, no-nonsense but to too tough. I want him to love me even as he attacks me, and I want to love him even as I throw him off.

  I apply the first series of compulsory techniques, as required, from the kneeling position. Then, as the senior judge calls out further requirements, Ralph rises to attack me from full height. Next I rise so that we face one another, both of us on our feet. More techniques. More throws. I start feeling really good.

  I don't look at the judges, nor at Rita, who I know is watching me intently. She has warned me not to mimic her techniques, but to perform in my own style according to my sense of my own power. I am here today for myself. I don’t even look much at Ralph's face. Rather I look past him. I want to defeat his attacks without effort. Even when I throw him down I barely notice.