Upstairs, I picked up the phone to call Katy, but put it down almost immediately. I didn’t think I had it in me to lie to her tonight. Even if I’d been able to say the words, as accomplished a liar as I’d learned to be, I didn’t think I could summon up the voice. She would have heard it, sensed it, and called me on it. Once that happened, I wouldn’t be able to go through with it. There was a good reason they always drafted eighteen-year-olds. No wives. No kids. No lies.
Sam picked the spot for my way onto the old Fir Grove grounds. It was right off the road, through some woods. He assured me there’d be no fencing to cut through or walls, just some tall, tangled hedges. Gee, what a surprise. Tangled hedges seemed to be a cash crop at the old Fir Grove. Once I was on the grounds, it would be only a short walk to the trailers through the shrine and cesspits.
The plan was simple. Sam was going to drop me off by the woods. Ten minutes later, after having given me enough time to get onto the Fir Grove grounds, he’d go down the road to a pay phone and make an anonymous call to the cops. He’d claim there were shots fired, or a fire, or something like that. When I heard the sirens, I’d start working my way up to the trailers. When the sirens were really loud, they would draw everyone’s attention, dogs included. If Harder came out, I’d get into his trailer and wait for his return. If he didn’t come out when the others did, that was okay, too. I knew which double-wide was his. When it was established that the call was a false alarm and everyone settled back down, I’d have already worked my way to Harder’s cabin.
Besides the small .22 automatic and ankle holster I had purchased in an adjoining town that afternoon and my .38, Sam and I had taken a few other precautions. I carried a bag of ground black pepper and paprika to throw the dogs off my scent if necessary. Hey, it always worked in the movies. I also had a plastic bag full of Sam’s private bacon stock in case I had to distract the dogs or buy a few seconds. I carried Sam’s binoculars, a flashlight, and a road flare for signaling purposes. I think I was more prepared for a barbecue than for what I was about to do.
We didn’t talk in the car until we reached the drop-off point.
“For any reason, you don’t like how things are going, boychik, you turn your tuches right around. This isn’t worth getting yourself …” Sam didn’t finish his sentence.
I shook my friend’s hand. “Don’t worry about me, Sam. I’ll be fine.”
“Who you tryin’ to convince?”
“Whoever it is, I’m not doing a real good job of it. Check your watch.”
Sam patted the back of my neck. “Okay, you take care, you haven’t paid your bill yet.”
“Thanks for the sentiment.”
I stepped out of his old Caddy and walked into the woods without looking back. Though the sky was clear, only a silver sickle of the moon lit the night. Fifty yards into the pines, that light was pretty much lost to me. Flashlight in one hand, .38 in the other, I slogged through the snow for about three minutes. Twenty or thirty yards ahead of me, I could just make out where the woods came to an end. There was a narrow clearing, and beyond it a tangle of overgrown hedges. Sam knew his shit. Then things started to go wrong.
Behind me in the distance, I thought I heard Sam’s car pull away. I fumbled to check my watch, dropping the flashlight in the process. That was stupid of me. I didn’t really need to check my watch. I was good with time. Sam had left a good four or five minutes early. He was supposed to give me ten minutes before going to call the cops. Maybe he had been spotted and was drawing attention away from me. Maybe it was simply a passing car which I’d mistaken for Sam’s. It didn’t matter now. Finding the flashlight mattered.
I must have been a sight there on my hands and knees, groping around in the blackness and snow. When my fingers wrapped around the barrel of the flashlight, how I looked was beside the point. I flicked the switch a few times, and its beam popped back on. I calmed myself, brushed the snow off my pants, and continued ahead. The clearing was just another few yards away.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the downward arc of the baseball bat. My hands went numb. Time stopped flowing smoothly. My eyes caught glimpses of things between seconds of nothingness. I could see the flashlight in the snow, its beam shining on the feet of my attackers. I saw one of those feet sweep my .38 back into the pines. Fists came at me, legs. I was deaf with panic, though a word would filter in between the kicks and punches. “Jew … blood … skull …” I was being dragged now. Then things got very still. I could hear again, but there was nothing to hear. Then there was nothing at all.
And in that split second before nothingness consumed me, I had a revelation. No, I didn’t see God or a womb of light. I did not see Christ smiling down at me. I saw the boots of my attackers in my mind’s eye. I never thought I had an eye for footwear, but apparently I was wrong. I actually thought I recognized one of my attackers’ boots. Layered atop that flash, I had another vision: the burning shed at the Swan Song. I thought of the footprints in the snow, how they all ran between the hotel and the shed. There had been no tracks leading away from the grounds. And in that one lucid moment between clicks of the second hand, all the bothersome loose ends knitted themselves neatly together.
Suddenly I knew who had gone to so much trouble to try and hang the Fir Grove fire on Anton Harder. I still didn’t know why. If I lived through the night, I’d worry about that. I was getting sleepy, the cold covering me like a shroud. I thought of Katy and Sarah, but I found I was worried more about Aaron. I didn’t think he’d ever forgive me for missing my Christmas-New Year’s shifts. It’s crazy what you think about sometimes.
Chapter Thirteen
December?
I woke up. That was something, at least.
I felt like a ripe floater that had been fished out of the East River by Harbor Patrol: swollen, stiff, broken. Even my hair was bruised. My left wrist was particularly stiff and painful. I raised my left arm to have a peek. It was in a neat white splint that ran from just below my elbow to my fingertips. I remembered the arc of the baseball bat and winced. Except for the wrist, I guess I was mostly just bruised. Well, my head did have someone in there trying to pound his way out with a dull hammer. When I rolled to one side, I became aware of the pulpy lump behind my right ear. I didn’t think I’d lost consciousness for convenience’s sake.
I was in a bed, but it was no hospital bed. The sheetless mattress was thin and soft as a Ritz cracker and smelled of last week’s beer sweat. I’m not complaining, mind you. The pillows were fluffy, the quilt was warm, and, on the whole, it was better than being left to die in the dark and in the snow. The walls were covered in cheap wooden paneling, and the floors in worn-out blue carpeting. Grayish light shone through the Windex-starved glass over the bed. The flickering overhead light was a bare fluorescent tube.
Propping myself up on my right elbow, I took a better look around. From all appearances, I was alone. Beyond the end of the bed was a little den area, and beyond that was a tiny kitchen, tiny even by New York City apartment standards. You couldn’t fit two cooks in there with a tub of Crisco and a shoehorn. I was in a camper or trailer of some sort. Who it belonged to was a mystery.
That little guy with the dull hammer told me to get off my elbow and lie back down. I paid careful attention to his instructions, but not quickly enough. The camper was spinning. Shutting my eyes helped a little to slow it down, but I just knew that when the spinning stopped I wouldn’t be in Kansas anymore. Waves of nausea rolled over me. Eventually, the waves calmed and the spinning stopped. I think they did. They must have, because I fell hopelessly asleep.
When I reopened my eyes, there was no appreciable light coming through the glass of the aluminum slider over the bed. It was nighttime wherever outside of Kansas the camper had come to rest. The fluorescent tube above my head still had its tic, the bed still reeked, the mattress was no more comfortable, I still felt like I’d been dropped out of a B-52 without a parachute, but something had changed. I was no longer alone. I heard a racket
coming from the little kitchen. Maybe a fat chef had gotten himself wedged in between the sink and stove. Remembering the last time I elevated my head, I thought twice about trying to peer into the galley. My host saved me the trouble.
“You’re up.” It was Anton Harder.
“This is pretty ironic,” I said, not realizing how sore my jaw was until I used it. “I was on my way to see you last night. Was it last night? What day is it?”
“It’s today,” he answered blankly. “If you’re asking when we found your trespassing carcass bleeding on the property, then, yes, that was last night.”
I repeated: “I was coming to have a little talk with you.”
“Your soup’s almost ready.” He ignored me. “Your wrist is broken, but we have a former army medic here. He says it should be fine until you get to a hospital and have it set properly.”
I raised my broken wrist. “You didn’t do this to me?”
“To what end?” he wondered. “You think we would have kicked your stupid ass and then fixed you up because we felt guilty about it? We don’t want the cops around here.
Somebody might have shot you by accident. You would have deserved it, too, but no one from around here did this to you.”
“Where did you find me?”
“By my mother’s—By the grave,” he mumbled.
“I know your mom was Missy Higgins. Sam Gutterman told me about her. She died in the fire.”
“Yes, over there.” He wasn’t interested in talking about his mom.
“I was attacked on the other side of the hedges by two or three men,” I explained. “They purposely dumped me over on—over there.”
He was curious. “What for?”
“I think they thought if they were really lucky you’d finish the job for them and kill me. But mostly I think they wanted me to believe you did this to me. This way, when the cops showed up, I’d point the finger at you. Somebody’s trying very hard to have me think the worst of you.”
“Cops! How did you know about the cops if you were unconscious?” he demanded.
“The cops were part of the plan. They were supposed to be a diversion. When they showed up, I figured they would draw everyone’s attention away from the rear of the property. I guess that part of the plan worked pretty well. Unfortunately, there were parts of the plan nobody bothered sharing with me.”
He gave me a big bowl of canned soup. As I ate I studied my reluctant rescuer. Though he was a man by all measures, he seemed like such a boy. Maybe it was his diminutive stature. I think maybe it had more to do with the humanizing effect of Molly Treat’s stories. He was cute once, she said. They’d kissed. And, having read his psych evaluation, I had trouble seeing him as anything but a wounded little boy. Wishing to be a monster doesn’t make it so. Wishing never does.
“So,” he asked when he thought I’d gotten enough soup down, “why did you want to talk to me?”
I told him about the other incidents. He did not shy away from taking responsibility for my car being vandalized at the Fir Grove. In fact, he seemed disturbingly pleased with himself. However, he vehemently denied having anything to do with the fires at the Swan Song. I told him that I already knew as much, but that someone was deeply invested in trying to pin the Fir Grove fire on him. Though Harder was curious, I played dumb about who that someone was. Until I knew the whys of what was going on, I was going to keep my own counsel.
“The cops thought you did it, you know?” I said just to see his reaction.
“Fuck what the cops thought. That was my mother who died out there in that fire. My mother.” His thin chest heaved. “How could they think I would kill my own mother?” he whispered haltingly, choking back tears.
“Cops think stupid things sometimes. It’s their job.”
Hearing the sympathy in my voice made him furious. “Tomorrow morning I’ll have someone drive you to the hospital.” Harder sneered. “Then, if you should do me a favor and drop dead, it won’t be my headache.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t ever come back here!” He slammed the trailer door behind him.
In spite of everything he represented, I could do nothing but feel terribly sorry for the pieces of Robby Higgins that lived inside the pint-sized man. He couldn’t possibly loathe me as much as he loathed himself. That was very sad, very sad indeed.
I shut my eyes for a while, trying to fall back asleep. It didn’t work. I was sore as hell, not tired. My eyelids were beginning to twitch synchronously with the fluorescent fixture. I leaned over the edge of the bed to see if I could find something to read. I hadn’t perused Mein Kampf since college. Alas, the only things to read besides the soup can on the kitchen counter were two copies of old reliable, the Catskill Tribune. Unfortunately, both were days old.
I buzzed through the December 4 edition without getting the slightest bit drowsy; not that reading the Tribune was remotely like wading through the Sunday New York Times. It was more like reading your high-school newspaper, only with more advertisements for foundation garments. In desperation, I reread the December 3 edition, the one with the green-bean-salad recipes. It had put me to sleep once before. Maybe it would do the trick again. Sure enough, as I read down that same page my eyelids began to shut. But as I drifted into the world that existed between waking and unconsciousness, I heard an unsettling voice. I had heard it before, urging me to pay more attention. This time I did.
I surrendered my hard-fought battle for sleep, forcing my eyes open. I reread the green-bean-salad recipes for the third time. I hated green beans in any form, but especially in a casserole with a can of condensed cream-of-broccoli soup, peanuts, and fried onion sticks. The key to my universe was not to be found in that recipe, so I scanned farther down the page. Mary Obenessor, eighty-one, of Old Rotterdam was dead of pancreatic cancer. Jim Moody and Eileen Barker were pleased to announce their engagement. There was going to be a Christmas festival at Town Hall on the 18th, and the Candle Commune on Beacon Road was having a charity sale.
At the bottom of the page, in the last column to the right, was a section called “Poetry from the Soul.” I was getting nauseous again. There’s nothing like bad poetry. Poetry, everyone thinks they can write it, and it’s perhaps the hardest thing to write well. I considered rereading the green-bean-casserole recipes yet again. It was an impossibility to hate green beans as much as I hated haiku. The voice didn’t let me go back. The first poem was a little ditty by that bard of the Catskills, Edith Cohen, called “I Love the Sunshine.”
I Love the Sunshine
Hove the sunshine in the air of blue.
I love the green grass and its mossy dew.
I love the truth because it is so true.
And I love my love beca use it is for you.
I love the sunshine.
The next poem had the catchy title “A Capella 132” and it was penned by anonymous. But it wasn’t anonymous at all. I’d read poems just like it before, poems entitled “A Capella 77” and “A Capella 24”. The same poet had written “Trio for Two and One” and “Coney Island Wheels.” It had been a long long time ago, in high school, that I’d read them. I’d even heard “Coney Island Wheels” read aloud in our school auditorium.
My heart was beating so incredibly fast that I actually clutched my chest. Sweat gushed out of every piece of me with a pore. I stood for the first time, and in spite of the racking pain, I ran around the trailer in a panic. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to scream, but I had no words to give, no shape for my mouth. What could I do? What do you say when you read a poem written by a girl who’s been dead for sixteen years? Arthur Rosen was right: one of the dead girls wasn’t. And I knew exactly what to do. I fell down on my knees and cried like a fool. Suddenly things fit, the loose ends were knitting themselves more tightly by the moment. That voice inside my head fell finally silent.
I had to get out of there now. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow. I couldn’t wait five minutes. I fumbled to get my still-damp clothes on. Dressi
ng is less complicated when you’ve got two good hands, but I managed nonetheless. I ran out the door of the trailer, forgetting I wasn’t exactly a popular figure in these parts. None of that mattered. I just stood out in the snow screaming for Harder.
He didn’t appreciate being summoned by the trespassing cop. Too fucking bad, I thought.
“Tomorrow,” he repeated, trying to push me back into the trailer.
“Now!” I demanded in a whisper. “Right fucking now.”
“Why?” he whispered so that the gathering crowd could not hear.
“Because I’m on the verge of answering a question that’s plagued you for sixteen years. If you get me to a hospital or Doc Pepper’s tonight, I’ll be able to find out what really happened at the Fir Grove.”
“Why should I trust you?”
I didn’t like the crowd. I didn’t think they’d do me any harm, but Harder was unlikely to allow himself to appear even remotely weak in front of his friends.
“Slap me in the face,” I whispered, “and push me up the stairs into the trailer.”
He didn’t ask why. For a twig of a man he hit pretty good.
“You’ve got my attention,” he said, slamming the door purposefully hard behind him. “Why should I trust you?”
“Because you’ve got nothing to lose. Just get me outta here so I can do my job. People besides yourself have been suffering for a long time, too. And whether you hate them or not, you know how they feel.”
Redemption Street Page 17
