He wondered if they were going to have their first serious argument. That would be very bad-in light of what he was planning to tell her.
She continued, "Don't disrupt things. Between us, I mean."
"Is something wrong?"
"No, nothing's wrong. What do you mean?"
This was sounding like the conversations he used to have with his wife. Before he fell out of love with her.
He backed off. "You just seem… I don't know."
She said, "We were just having a discussion. Don't take it personally."
"You're the one who seems to be picking a fight."
"I am not."
After a moment he felt her stiffen and draw away from him. Only millimeters-but it was enough so that he refused to do what he instinctively wanted to and touch her leg in a chaste way, seeking forgiveness for his vague crimes.
The day wasn't going as he'd planned. Not at all. He wished they hadn't made love. It tilted the balance of power against him. Men and women. Never changes.
He felt a shudder of pain and anger course through him.
There was silence for a long moment. He debated then wiped his sweating palm on the sheet. "Can I ask you something?"
She didn't answer.
Ambler said, "We've been seeing each other now for, what? Six months?"
She said a neutral, "About that."
"I was thinking… I'm not good at this." (The same way he hadn't been very good at asking her out the first time, he recalled.)
She softened. He knew that she had a weakness for chivalrous, struggling men. "What are you trying to say, Wex?"
At least the terrible edge was gone from her voice.
His mind went blank, then he blurted: "I think we should get married."
He wanted to be light about it. He wanted to joke. Like middle-aged couples on sitcoms. Snappy comebacks. Rejoinders. Mugging for the camera. He couldn't think of a single thing else to say.
And from her: Utter silence. As if she'd even stopped breathing.
It couldn't have been that she'd never considered this before, could it? Was he so far off base that he'd completely misjudged? His heart pounded. He actually heard it.
Her hand touched his arm. "We said we'd never think about it."
"That was before." He looked futilely for some appropriate milestone in their relationship-the twenty-fifth time they'd had sex? The twelfth candle-lit dinner together? The sixtieth time they'd laughed at a private joke?
She sat up and reached for the night table. The light snapped on. It was a low bulb, which she'd asked him to put in the lamp. He knew she hated bright lights.
Meg Torrens pulled the comforter around her shoulders and said, "Oh, Wex."
And in his name, spoken through a loving, gentle smile, he heard the word No as clearly as if she'd shouted it.
TO SLEEP IN A SHALLOW GRAVE
BIG MOUNTAIN STUDIOS
EXT. ROAD TO BOLT'S CROSSING, NEAR FOREST-DAY
ECU: JANICE'S FACE. It is not aged so much as weathered. You can see in it the hampered beauty of a woman at forty. An earth mother. She was at Woodstock. She cried at Woodstock and got stoned there. The long hair falls across her face, subdividing it into patches of ruddy skin. She brushes it aside. The wind pushes it back.
MEDIUM ANGLE: SHEP. He's leaning against his motorcycle. The lights should be gelled magenta to put an aura on the chrome, harmonizing with the sunset that's approaching behind them. He's torn. He's told her he's leaving, and he wants to go. But also wants desperately to find something about her that will keep him from leaving. Is it pity? Or is it something more genuine, more mutual? He doesn't know.
Pellam sat in his hot camper-though he was really in Bolt's Crossing, not Cleary, New York.
Which was where he needed to be at the moment.
In Bolt's Crossing, there was no stinking hulk of a car, punctuated with scorched tufts of upholstery shooting outward like patches of hair.
In Bolt's Crossing, the only people lying still in funeral parlors weren't dead at all and in four scenes would be prowling around in flashbacks, lusting and ornery and laughing.
In Bolt's Crossing, people like Marty never died.
CUT TO:
MEDIUM ANGLES, CROSSCUTTING between Janice and Shep.
JANICE
I took a chance you might be here.
SHEP
(Avoiding her eyes)
Brakes gave me some trouble. Thought I should fix them before I left.
JANICE
I was thinking about what you said. Last night? About me.
SHEP
I was mad. I-
JANICE
You were right. I keep looking for answers in the past. If I'm not careful, there won't be any future left.
Pellam pulled the sheet out of the typewriter with a satisfying buzz of the platen. He wrote Insert 58A across the top and slipped it into the script, which he'd unfastened. It was now just a stack of a hundred fifty sheets of wrinkled paper, filled with his handwriting and interleaved with inserts like this one.
He put his hand on it, then picked it up and riffled the pages, feeling the thin breeze on his jaw.
He walked to the front of the camper and sat in the driver's seat, looking out the grimy windshield. Now he wasn't seeing the cinematographer's stunning dusk in Bolt's Crossing but the winding country road that led into Cleary.
The Winnebago's engine turned right over. He drove downtown, parked and stepped out into the brilliant sun. Blinking his way along Main Street he found a stationery store that did photocopying. He gave them the script and asked for a copy. The polite acned teenage boy behind the counter told him the job would take about twenty minutes. Pellam offered to pay now but the boy said, "No, sir, no hurry. Want to make sure you like the job."
Pellam hesitated then said, "Sure," remembering that he wasn't in Los Angeles or New York and that there was no reason to be suspicious of politeness.
He wandered out into the street, blazing with its raw sunlight, to get a cup of coffee. He saw Marge's across the street but, thinking of the day he and Marty had gone there, decided against it. Also, he preferred to go someplace where he wasn't so well known. He didn't want to be adored by the help, he didn't want to talk about Marty, about parts in movies, about Hollywood.
He walked into a drugstore, with its snaking turquoise lunch counter and chrome-and-red vinyl stools.
"Hey, Mr Pellam." From one of the clerks-a middle-aged man Pellam had never seen.
So much for anonymity.
And for hostility too. Whatever the official opinion about drugs and movies, the half-dozen people in the place all glanced at him with meaningful, eye-involved smiles that said, I'm not asking but if you want to haul me off to Hollywood and put me in a sitcom episode of your choice, go right ahead.
He nodded, walked to the pay phone and tried to make a credit card call. His company card number had been canceled. He sighed and billed it to his personal card. After five minutes the assistant producer came on the line. The boy was in high spirits.
"Yo, hombre. You better hope Lefty don't have a homing device set up. 'Cause he do, there's a scout-seeking missile aimed for your crotch this minute."
"He hasn't unfired me, huh?"
"Whoa, boy. You came real close to cratering that movie but I think it's going to fly. He bent over for one of the money cows and I guess it worked out okay. Shysters said Marty's accident was a force majeure. So he's got another couple of weeks."
"You got a location?"
"Not yet, but they've got a free-lancer down in Pennsylvania. Season's later. Gives 'em more time to shoot."
Pellam said, "Pennsylvania's all wrong."
"I'll connect you with Lefty. You can tell him."
"You sound pretty calm."
"I'm medicated."
"I'm going to do something and I need your help."
"No." Cheerful, cheerful, cheerful. "Absolutely not."
"Listen to me. I'm going to-"
/> "John, clue me in-are you trying to get me fired?"
"Every assistant producer gets fired. It's a rite of passage."
A sigh. "Okay, talk to me."
"I doctored the script."
"What script?"
"Shallow Grave."
"Hmmm. Why?"
"I want you to get the changes to Bob. Is he still directing?"
"Pellam, are you mad?"
"Don't show them to Lefkowitz. Only the director. Repetez apres moi."
"No."
"Answer my question. Has Lefty fired Bob?"
"No, and he can't. He's in too deep. His deadline problems are almost as bad as his herpes."
"Good. I'm sending it by Express Mail."
"John, no."
"To you."
"John, there's no way they're going to hire you back."
"That's not what I care about. I don't even want a credit. It's too good a story to screw up with that half-assed script. Get it to Bob and don't let Lefty see my changes."
"John-"
"Bye."
"-no."
Before he sat down at the lunch counter Pellam noticed a rack of sunglasses. His had met the same fate as his Polaroid, thanks to Meg Torrens's little Toyota. He decided to buy another pair. He noticed some mirrored teardrop shapes. He tried them on, checked them out in the mirror.
He smiled. Perfect. Yep: Cool Hand Luke.
The middle-aged man behind the counter said, "They're you."
"How'd I look? Like a small-town sheriff?"
"Yessir, you could man a speed trap any day with those."
"Take 'em," Pellam said.
"You want the fake leather case?"
"That's okay."
He sat at the counter. The clerk didn't seem much interested in a Hollywood career and just talked to Pellam about traveling, of which he'd done a great deal. He told Pellam how he and his wife had taken this year's vacation in Peru and Chile.
"The air is the thing you don't think about. The altitude, you know. You walk a couple blocks-well, they don't really have blocks but you know what I mean-and you've gotta lie down and take a nap. It's exhausting! I mean, I thought I was in good shape. I can chop a couple cord of wood and no problem. But I was beat. And there are all these little old women steaming along like it's nothing to them and trying to sell you pottery and these blankets and jewelry. They see money and they run right at you. They sprint! In air like that. It's all what you're used to." The man summarized: "Everything's relative."
"Suppose so," Pellam said, and listened to the history of Machu Picchu.
Pellam checked his watch, said, "I've got to pick up something."
"We did the Orinoco too but I didn't see one crocodile." He grimaced.
"Life's full of disappointments." Pellam stood and put his deputy glasses on.
"No disappointment at all. Sally and me're going back in October. We'll find one. I promise you that."
Pellam wished him luck.
12
Pellam parked the camper in the driveway of the Torrens house (the word "homestead" came to mind). Meg stepped out onto the porch, then smiled and jumped down the few steps to the walk that led to the driveway, wiping her hands on a scallopy apron and looking just like a housewife out of a 1960s sitcom.
A housewife, however, in a tight, blue silk blouse, the top two (or was it three?) buttons undone.
Eyes up, boy.
My God, she's got a freckled chest.
Pellam just loved freckles on women.
"What brings you here, Pellam?"
"Came to borrow something."
She blinked. To joke, or not to joke? "Butter churn?"
"Naw."
"Bear grease for your muzzleloader?" she asked.
Gotcha.
He smiled indulgently. "As a matter of fact," Pellam said, "you're talking to one of the only people in the state of New York that's fired a Sharps.54."
And she didn't miss a beat. "A Sharps? Forget about it, boy. That's a drop-block breechloader, not a muzzleloader."
Got me.
She laughed hard at his jolted expression. "Girls usually melt at gun talk, huh?"
He said, "Nobody in the goddamn world except me and born-again gun nuts know about Sharps anymore."
"I never fired one but my daddy had one. He collected guns. I've got myself a Springfield breechloader in the den."
"No." He laughed. "A forty-five seventy?"
She nodded. "Carbine. With a saddle ring and everything."
"Damn, what a woman. You ever fire it?"
"What good's a gun unless you fire it? But try getting the black powder smell out of your silk undies."
"Not a problem I have."
"Sam and I take it out to the range sometime. Hard to find ammo, of course."
"That's what I wanted to borrow."
"Ammunition?"
"Your son."
"The bomb expedition?" she nodded.
"Yep. It okay?"
Meg said, "You ever known any parent to mind when somebody says he'll take your child off your hands for a few hours?" She called Sam then turned back to Pellam. "Oh, before I forget… The Apple Festival is Saturday afternoon. You interested in seeing it?"
"I guess. You'll be there?"
"It's a family thing."
What was that supposed to mean? You'll be there it's a family thing. He waited a second for more messages; when he got none, he said, "Sure. Look forward to it."
Sam appeared. "Hey, Mr Pellam, we gonna look at bombs?"
"You bet, Sam."
"All right! Can we go in the camper?"
"That's the only wheels I got."
"Can I, Mom?"
"Sure, just be back by six for dinner."
"Mr Pellam, these are the greatest. They got red ones and green ones and they got mortar shells that Dad says they don't have powder in them anymore and hand grenades…"
"Do not, under any circumstances, buy him anything."
Pellam laughed, "Yes, ma'am."
They got into the camper.
"Hey, Sam, you know, one thing'd be fun?"
"What, Mr Pellam?"
"Why don't you bring your metal detector along?"
"My metal detector?"
"I have this collection?" Pellam said. "And whenever I'm in a new town I like to add to it."
"I collect dinosaurs. And baseball cards. And pro-wrestling cards, of course." Sam jumped down out of the Winnebago and ran into the house.
Energy. Where do they get it?
He was back in two minutes.
"You need batteries?"
"Nope. They're recharged. I used ni-cads. What do you collect, Mr Pellam? Coins?"
He said, "Bullet casings."
Sam said, "Wow."
As it turned out, Pellam liked the bombs as much as Sam did.
This particular junkyard was a lot classier than R &W. He remembered it from the poker boys' list. It sold mostly what the name promised: Army Surplus, which seemed to be in pretty good supply despite what Bobby (or Billy) had said. Vehicle parts, cartridge boxes, portable latrines, tools, tents, flashlights. All solid, olive-drab, functional. A lot of things that you couldn't use for much other than paperweights: Bombsights and old altimeters and doughboy helmets that wouldn't even make good planters.
But the bombs, yeah, they were great. All different colors. Different shapes. Some pointed like rockets, some rounded like old-time airplane bombs. Jesus, they were huge. Pellam cautiously tapped one. Hollow.
Sam said, "They're just practice bombs. You don't have to worry."
"I wasn't worried," Pellam said quickly.
"You looked like you were afraid it was going to go off."
"Ha, ha."
Sam showed him mortar shells, concussion grenades and bayonets, mean-looking things with deep blood grooves up the side. Most of them were still wrapped in sticky creosote.
Despite what Meg had told him, he wanted to buy the kid a bomb. They were only fifty bucks. Then
he admitted he really wanted one for himself. One of the deep blue ones. He wanted to mount it on the front of the Winnebago.
No-what he really wanted was to buy one and mail it, C.O.D., to Alan Lefkowitz, c/o Big Mountain Studios, Santa Monica Boulevard, Century City, California…
Then Sam decided it was time to look for bullet casings. They climbed back into the camper and drove ten minutes out of town, parked and started hiking.
They walked through the woods, following what was a pretty clearly marked trail. The boy had a box over his shoulder and carried a short metal rod with a disk attached. He had a headset around his neck. They were by themselves. The day was very quiet. Sam kept looking up at Pellam as if he expected him to say something brilliant.
"You think you're going to find bullets here?"
"You never know."
"Like from hunters?"
"Right."
"You hunt, Mr Pellam?"
"Yep. Haven't for a while. My father and I used to go out all the time."
"Where's he live?"
Pellam glanced at him. "He died few years ago."
"Like Grandpa Wold."
"That's your mother's name? Wold?"
"Un-huh. She's got a gun, my mom. Grandpa gave it to her. It's an old one. Mom and me shoot it sometimes down by the river. Wow, it makes this totally loud noise, really loud. And it knocked me over nearly."
He set down the metal detector and illustrated shooting the gun and falling backwards. He lay on the ground, still.
Pellam looked down at him, alarmed. "Hey, you okay? Are you all right?"
"Sure!" He jumped up. "My dad doesn't hunt much. We go fishing sometimes. What'd you hunt?"
"Pheasant, duck, geese."
Sam asked, "You like football?"
"I used to play."
"Yeah, I knew it! Where? Pro, I'll bet."
He laughed loud. "Pro? I'm about a hundred pounds light for that. Naw, just in high school."
"Quarterback, right?"
"Receiver. I figured it was better to get jumped by one or two big guys instead of four or five."
"What's it like to score a TD? Running over the line. I like the way, you know, how they run over the line and then drop the ball like it's nothing to them. That's so neat! What's it like?"
"I didn't score that many. I wasn't that good."
Shallow Graves Page 13
