Revolution Number 9

by Peter Abrahams

  “I don’t know,” Emily said, wondering if the man might be a bit mad. “And I’m afraid Charlie’s not here right now.”

  “Aw, that’s too bad,” said Pleasance. “When’s he coming back?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “No?” Pleasance looked her up and down. She had barely begun to show, if at all, but he said: “Hey! Got one in the oven. Congratulations.” He held out his hand. Emily shook it, felt again its strength and capability. “Your first?” he said.

  Emily nodded.

  “Well, well,” said Pleasance. “Old Charlie must be pretty excited.”

  “We’re both very happy.”

  “I’ll bet you are. Thought of any names yet?”

  “One or two.”

  “Is Ronnie one of them?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a fine name, Ronnie.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  Pleasance glanced around, took in the stacked lobster pots, the house, Straight Arrow tied to the dock, the pond beyond. “That Charlie’s boat?”

  “Yes.”

  “Straight Arrow. What a card.”

  “You can read that from here?”

  “Sure.” He looked surprised. “Nice boat. Nice layout, in fact. I can’t wait to see Charlie.”

  “Maybe you could call in a day or two.”

  “In a day or two?” Pleasance glanced at the boat. “Where did you say he was again?”

  “On a business trip.”

  “Whereabouts?”

  “I’m not sure of the itinerary.”

  Pleasance’s eyes shifted to Straight Arrow again. “What’s he do, anyway?”

  “He’s a lobsterman.”

  “Yeah? Sounds kind of quiet for him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Pleasance ignored her question. “Ever run into any of Charlie’s old gang?”

  “What old gang?”

  “From college. Andrew Malik, maybe.”

  “No.”

  “Or Rebecca.”

  “Rebecca?”

  “Rebecca Klein.”

  The incongruence grew in her mind, the two Charlies assuming increasingly different shapes. “What college was this, Mr. Pleasance?”

  “Those names don’t ring a bell, do they?” said Pleasance. “Don’t ring a bell at all.” He made a clucking sound. “What about Blake Wrightman?”

  Emily shook her head. “Who are these people?”

  “Just the old gang. I thought maybe Charlie had kept up with them. They were kinda close at one time.”

  “In college.”

  “Right.”

  Facts slid together in her mind. “Was this Yale?”

  “Yale?” said Pleasance. “Did Blake tell you he went to Yale?”

  “I told you,” Emily said, hearing the annoyance in her tone and knowing that Charlie, not Pleasance, was the cause: “I never met this Blake person, or any of those others.”

  Pleasance laughed. “You never met him. Geez.”

  “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing. Slip of the tongue. My mistake.”

  He strangled the laugh, muting it down to an embarrassed titter. Emily noticed he was wearing a snakeskin belt. “What college are you talking about then?”

  “Morgan.”

  “Charlie went to Morgan?”

  “It’s not a bad school.”

  “It’s a good school. It’s just that …”

  “Ol’ Charlie never mentioned it.”

  Emily nodded.

  “He’s too modest.”

  “Were you a student there at the same time?” Emily asked. Pleasance looked too old, didn’t he?

  “I was on the faculty.”

  “Teaching what?”

  “My specialty was tactics.”

  “Tactics?”

  “I ran the ROTC.”

  “And Charlie was in the ROTC?”

  “You might say that. Briefly.”

  “And that’s where you met him?”

  “That’s where our paths crossed.”

  Emily had a thought left over from Triangle A. “Did you ever meet Charlie’s uncle?”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Sam.”

  “Nope.”

  “Or possibly Francis Goodnow.”

  Pleasance blinked. “Are you having some fun with me, ma’am?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I’m a little confused, that’s all.” She snatched at a sudden idea. “Are you sure you’ve got the right Charlie Ochs?”

  “Sure I’m sure,” said Pleasance; but his brow furrowed and doubt altered his tone. “You wouldn’t have a picture of him, would you?”

  “I would.” Emily turned and went quickly into the house. Pleasance followed her as far as the screen door, stood outside. Emily looked back. “Come in,” she said.

  “Thank you kindly.” Pleasance opened the door and stepped inside.

  They went into the living room. A framed photograph hung on the wall above the record player. It was a wintertime shot of Charlie and Emily sitting on the dock, lacing their skates. Pleasance took it off the wall, held it in both hands. His eyes were dime edges again.

  “Well?” said Emily.

  Pleasance didn’t speak right away. Emily waited. At last he said, “Looks good, doesn’t he? Real good. Young.”

  “It’s him, then? The Charles Ochs you knew?”

  “Oh, it’s him all right.” Pleasance kept staring at the picture, specifically at Charlie’s image in it. Charlie was smiling at her; she had just said something funny. Emily remembered that De Mello had taken the picture, but not what she had said to make Charlie smile. Her condensed breath hanging between them was the only record of her words. All at once she didn’t want anyone touching the picture. She reached for it, intending to hang it back on the wall. For an instant Pleasance didn’t let go. Then his lean hands relaxed, allowing her to take it.

  Emily rehung the picture. When she turned, she found Pleasance staring at her. His artificial smells filled the room. “Well, then,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Guess I’ll be going. Tell Charlie I dropped by. When you see him.” He nodded to her and walked out of the house. Emily heard the pickup’s door close, heard it drive away.

  She reached for the phone, got the number of Morgan College, dialed it. The receptionist put her through to Alumni Affairs. “I’m trying to locate a former student,” she said. She sketched in a brief supporting story involving job openings and résumés.

  “Name?” said the woman at the other end.

  “Charles Ochs.” She spelled the surname.

  “One moment.” A moment passed, then many more. The woman spoke: “We have no one listed under that name.”

  “You don’t?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Did you use the right spelling? O-c-h-s?”

  “Yes. We have no such listing.”

  “But—” Emily tried to think of words to convey her objection. None came.

  “Yes?” said the woman.

  “I see,” Emily said, not wanting to hang up, not wanting to let go of the phone. “What about …” She tried to remember the other names. “Blake Wrightman?” Had that been one of them?

  “Blake Wrightman?”

  “He’s named on the résumé.”

  There was a pause. “Is he?”

  “Yes.”

  A longer pause. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “Joke?”

  “If so, it’s a rather sick one.”

  “I don’t understand,” Emily said.

  “Don’t you? Are you saying you’re not aware that Blake Wrightman is still a fugitive?”

  “A fugitive?”

  “From justice,” said the woman. “He’s wanted by the law.”

  “What for?”

  “Murder. In the 1970 bombing. No one has ever been apprehended.” Emily heard the woman whisper to someone, heard a whispering voice respond. “The police should be told about
this résumé,” the woman said. “Can you tell me your name, please?”

  Emily lowered the receiver—“Hello? Hello?” said the woman—and placed it in its cradle. The plastic was damp with her sweat.

  Emily hurried to the screen door, looked out. The pickup with the Georgia plates was gone. The street was shady and still in the late afternoon heat. It was her street, she jogged on it every day, but it seemed unfamiliar. So did the house, the town, the sea, and sky. Emily went outside, got on her bike, and cycled around to the Oceanographic Studies Center’s library.

  The library, which took up most of the space in the center’s original brick building across from the town dock, never closed. Emily went upstairs to the periodical room. She had it to herself. She took down the New York Times Index for 1970 and began with January 1. Forty-five minutes later she had it.

  Morgan College Bombing

  Warrants have been issued for the arrest of three suspects in yesterday’s bombing of the ROTC office at Morgan College, Morgantown, Mass., that left one person dead. The three, all students at the college and members of the Tom Paine Club, a radical campus society, are: Rebecca Klein, 20, a junior; Andrew Malik, 24; a graduate student; and Blake Wrightman, 19, a sophomore. The bombing victim, Ronald Pleasance, 11, will be buried tomorrow.

  Pleasance is the name. Jack Pleasance. Mean anything to you?

  Emily bicycled home, went into the kitchen. She paced. She looked at the phone. It didn’t ring. She hadn’t eaten all day, knew she should. She made a sandwich, but didn’t touch it. She sat at the table. When that grew intolerable, she paced some more. Then she vacuumed the house, washed the bathroom floors, sinks, and toilets.

  Later she opened Charlie’s closet, stared at his clothes. It was like a math problem: she had a feeling for the answer even before she did the calculations, a feeling he wasn’t coming back.

  I ran the ROTC.

  And Charlie was in the ROTC?

  You might say that. Briefly.

  And that’s where you met him?

  That’s where our paths crossed.

  Night fell. Emily drank a glass of wine, and a second. Then she thought of the baby and didn’t pour another, although she wanted it. She tried to picture Charlie’s face again, and still could not. Perhaps Ben Webster would help. She played “My Romance.” It didn’t help. Worse, it didn’t even sound like music: what had before been beauty of the most moving kind was now disordered sounds, impossible to piece together in her mind. Emily went to bed.

  She lay in bed—their bed—for a long time. She learned that peace and quiet were not the same thing. She fell asleep—and down into a dream of San Francisco, this time speeded up, like a synopsis. Going into labor on the Golden Gate Bridge. Tires bursting. Traffic disappearing. Getting stuck in the car. Someone coming toward her. But this time it wasn’t Uncle Sam. It was Charlie. He had a big grin on his face and a Molotov cocktail in his hand. Her unconscious worked a calculus of its own.

  Emily awoke in a sweat. She got up, went into the bathroom for a glass of water. She drank it looking out the window, the back window, with its view of the pond.

  The night was still, the pond like black glass. Nothing moved except a light on Straight Arrow, bobbing down at the dock.

  Charlie.

  Emily, in her nightdress, ran downstairs, outside, across the lawn, and onto the dock; her bare feet made no noise on the planks. A cone of yellow light shone on Straight Arrow’s console. The casing was open. Emily saw wires, tools, the shadow of a man, and his hands, working in the yellow cone.

  “Charlie?” she said. But even as she spoke, she was thinking about those hands, too lean, so capable.

  Something metal clattered on Straight Arrow’s deck. The light went out. Emily heard a grunt, quick footsteps; and then the light was on again, shining in her eyes. She smelled mouthwash, deodorant, aftershave.

  “Hi,” said a voice, and she felt again one of those hands on her shoulder. The light declined, down her body, clad in the thin nightdress, down to her bare feet. In its penumbra she could make out Jack Pleasance standing before her, pliers and screwdrivers in his snakeskin belt.

  “Mr. Pleasance,” she said, jerking out from under his hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “What needs to be done, ma’am.”

  Emily’s voice rose, rose on the force of her frustration, doubt, worry. “You’re on our property, Mr. Pleasance. I want you to leave now.”

  He smiled: a gleam in the night. His hand disappeared in his pocket, emerged with another gleam. He raised it to his teeth, bit into it, pulled. A straight razor opened in the space between them; the kind of razor that cowboys used. It went with his boots, his belt, his squinting eyes.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s you and me go inside and discuss it.”

  Emily considered turning to run; she considered jumping into the pond. But with the baby inside her could she outrun him, or outswim him? She didn’t know. All she knew for sure was that he would use that razor on her, that he would have no compunction about using it, that he wanted to use it. The proof was in his smile.

  32

  By the time Charlie found Hugo Klein’s office, it was almost dawn, the morning after the deaths of Brucie, Svenson, and the little Chinese man. Klein’s office was in Berkeley, on Shattuck, a few blocks below the university. Charlie went into a coffee shop on the opposite side of the street, had a cup of coffee, then another. He tried to remember when he had last slept. Had it been in Toronto, or before? He ordered a third cup. This seemed to please the counterman, who paused to complain to Charlie about the kind of money ballplayers were making, and waited for some indication of agreement. But Charlie, thinking of Candlestick the night before, and the way it had glowed like an artifact from a more-advanced planet, said nothing.

  The night began to pale. Charlie paid his bill and left the café. He stood across the street from Klein’s office. Dawn gave it color and shape: a creamy affair with arched windows and red tiled roof, that could have passed for the palacio of some minor Castilian figure, perhaps one who had been unable to land the architect he wanted.

  Hugo Klein appeared at seven in a long low convertible. He stepped out, wearing a sweat suit and jogging shoes, smoothed his hair, and stretched his arms to the sky, like a triumphant Olympian. A young man in a three-piece suit hurried out of the building, got in the car, and drove it away. Klein didn’t go inside; instead, he started loping up the street. Charlie, in street shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt, followed him on the other side, trying to pass for a jogger on his morning routine. In some places he might not have gotten away with it; in Berkeley, no one looked at him twice.

  Klein wasn’t fast, but he kept a steady rhythm, his silky mane bobbing up and down in syncopation. The sun was still behind the hills, leaving them in a half-light. Klein turned right, ran past the university, and up into the hills, not slowing his pace at all. Charlie, on the other side of the street and about fifty yards behind, broke a sweat. Klein was running easily now, and faster. That suited Charlie, although he really wasn’t built for distance running. He didn’t know where Klein was going, couldn’t have explained why he was following him, but it felt good to sweat, to run—as though he was getting something accomplished. He almost forgot about Brucie and Svenson and the little Chinese man.

  Three quarters of the way to the top of the hill, Klein turned again, and jogged north on a pleasant street, green and quiet. The sun rose over the hilltop, pouring saturated color on green herb gardens, a red tricycle on an uncut lawn, bundled yellow newspapers, Klein’s silvery bobbing mane. As Klein came to a house with a beat-up Ford compact in the driveway and a blue Toyota Tercel on the street in front, he reached into his sweat suit. Without pausing, or even slowing down, he slipped something through the rear window of the Tercel. Something red, Charlie thought: fiery for one moment in the sun, like a hot coal.

  Klein ran on. Charlie crossed the street, jogged past the Tercel, stopping to look inside. A red ro
se lay on the back seat. He glanced at the house: it had a yard just big enough for a single palm tree; weeds grew out of the eaves troughs; 227 was the number on the doorpost, in tin.

  Ahead, Klein rounded a curve and disappeared. Charlie quickened his pace. His feet were hurting now, and he thought about removing his hard shoes. He was still thinking about it when he picked up Klein again, turning at a cross street.

  They started downhill, Klein about fifty yards in front, a sweat stain growing in the middle of his back. Ahead, the bay was baby blue in the early light, and fog was stacked up over the city across the water like whipped cream on a wedding cake. Klein ran all the way down to Shattuck, then turned left, completing the rectangle. People were on the streets now; a few of them greeted Klein, looking up at him with smiles on their faces. Charlie couldn’t see Klein’s expression: he could only observe how he lifted his knees a little higher, pumped his arms a little faster, each time someone said hello, the sweat stain spreading across his back. Klein picked up speed as he neared his office. He was almost sprinting when the young man in the three-piece suit opened the front door and let him through.

  Charlie stopped on the other side, breathing hard, hard enough to want to hold his sides. He resisted. The young man looked up and down the street, as though storing mental images of the outdoors for the long office day ahead, and closed the door. The city hummed.

  Charlie stayed where he was. His pulse and breathing fell to their normal rates; only his mind kept racing. He watched Klein’s office, hoping the door would open, hoping Klein would come back out, hoping for something. But Klein didn’t come out, and Charlie began to doubt that he would until the end of the day. Charlie didn’t want to wait all day. He took off his shoes and socks and started walking.

  He walked along Shattuck, up Bancroft Way, past the university; then up the hill, and left, retracing Klein’s run along the green and pleasant street until he came to the house with the palm tree and the tin 227 on the doorpost. The old Ford was still in the driveway, but the blue Tercel with the red rose on the backseat was gone.

  Charlie stood before the house, shoes in hand. He heard a trumpet playing, not far away. The song was “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” but the tempo was very fast and the tone was honking, rude, funny. Technically the player wasn’t bad, almost good enough to bring it off. Charlie listened as the trumpeter tried one thing, then another, moving farther and farther from a simple tune about streams and dreams. The music died abruptly, leaving various ideas unresolved. It was only then that Charlie realized that the sound had come from inside 227.