Hard Rain

by Peter Abrahams

  Zyzmchuk started to follow, then stopped himself. The monitor. He turned back. More haste less speed, slow and steady wins the race, and other comforting adages took the place of thinking.

  Zyzmchuk looked at the screen. “Frame,” it said, “Hartley E. Class of ’69. Father: Edmund S. Frame. Class of ’43. U.S. Senator, Virginia. Mother: Alice (Sangster). Faculty advisor: Prof. M. R. McTaggart, Dept. of Music. Academic Record: SAT: Verbal-670. Math-640. Achievement Tests: French-610. Grades: 1965: Fall Semester: Music 101-A …”

  Zyzmchuk scrolled through the academic record of Frame, Hartley E. Except in music, his grades started high and dropped steadily; the music marks remained high. By the spring of 1968, he was on academic probation. No grades were listed for the fall term of 1968. Instead there was a notation: “Withdrew Dec. 3, 1968.” Then came a few blank lines, followed by: “Alumni contributions: $0. Present Address: Deceased. (See file WR/DD).” There was nothing else in the file on Frame, Hartley E.

  Zyzmchuk looked down at the instructional template fastened to the flat border of the keyboard. To close a file: Control KD. Simple enough. He closed the Frame file. The screen displayed an opening menu. To open a file: E. Zyzmchuk pressed E. “Name of file?” asked the screen. WR/DD, typed Zyzmchuk. Nothing happened. “Enter?” asked the screen. “Okay, okay,” Zyzmchuk muttered. He pressed ENTER. That made the disk drive hum. Then green words appeared on the screen: File WR/DD—Alumni War Dead. That heading was followed by many names, going back to the War of 1812. The last entry was Frame, Hartley E., U.S. Army, Pfc. Viet Nam.

  Zyzmchuk closed the file. Leaving the computer on at the opening menu, he walked out of the Alumni Affairs Building and drove to the 1826 House restaurant, across the street from the motel. He sat by a window facing the road and ordered coffee. Then he waited.

  It wasn’t long before a small car turned into the motel lot and parked in front of number 19. The dark-haired woman got out, unlocked the door and went inside.

  Zyzmchuk paid for his coffee and drove across the street. “I’d like a room,” he said in the office. “Is number twenty available? That’s where I’m parked.”

  “It is,” said the clerk, “but there’s no fireplace. Eight has a fireplace, though, and it’s empty.”

  “Twenty will be fine.”

  “They’re the same price.”

  “I like twenty.”

  “Okeydoke.”

  Once inside his room, Zyzmchuk pressed his ear against the wall. He heard the woman talking on the other side, but couldn’t make out her words. There were no other voices. Zyzmchuk examined his phone, following the wire to an outlet in the back wall. He opened the window and looked out. A telephone cable was strung along the foundation, a few inches above the ground. At each room a small plastic circuit box was wired to it.

  Zyzmchuk got his toolbox and climbed out the window. The motel backed onto a rocky meadow, occupied by half a dozen cows. They raised their heads, looked him over, stuck their noses back in the grass.

  Zyzmchuk opened the plastic box outside number 19. He clipped his own wire to the leads and ran it into the circuit box outside number 20. Then he climbed back inside and closed the window.

  Zyzmchuk picked up his phone. A man said, “If that’s supposed to be a joke, it’s not a very funny one.” Click. Zyzmchuk heard breathing; it sounded very near. Then the line went dead. He hung up.

  Zyzmchuk lay on the floor, next to the dividing wall. The 1826 House had thick broadloom, nice furniture and fireplaces in some of the rooms, but it didn’t have soundproof walls. Zyzmchuk could hear the woman moving around. She got on the bed, got off the bed, ran water, turned on the television, turned it off, picked up the phone.

  Zyzmchuk picked up his.

  “Boucher’s Dodge and Dodge Trucks. Buddy here,” said a voice that oozed bonhomie.

  “It’s Jessie Shapiro, Mr. Boucher.” The woman sounded nervous, as though she were about to ask for a loan.

  “Who?”

  “Jessie Rodney.”

  “Oh yes, Mrs. Rodney.” His stores of bonhomie were drying up fast.

  “I wondered—”

  “Sorry. Nothing new.”

  “He hasn’t been back yet?” The woman’s voice dropped; Zyzmchuk could hardly hear her.

  “Nope. And nothing on the BMW, neither.”

  “Please call me if anything—”

  “What’s that?”

  The woman cleared her throat and spoke louder. “Call me if anything happens. Collect. I’m at 413-656-7098. Room nineteen.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Click.

  Zyzmchuk heard the woman walk slowly across the room, heard her lie on the bed; bedding rustled. Silence. Zyzmchuk’s eyes began to close. He pictured a bird’s-eye view of the 1826 House with its roof taken off: he and the dark-haired woman lying a few feet from each other, on opposite sides of a wall. Then, quite distinctly, he heard the woman moan. It was not a moan of pleasure, but of despair.

  She got off the bed. She moved around. She picked up the phone. Zyzmchuk picked up his.

  “Yes?” said a man; he had a high voice, poised on the edge of a tantrum. A piano played in the background: the Goldberg Variations. It couldn’t have been a record, Zyzmchuk thought: the pianist’s left hand was almost nonexistent.

  “Professor McTaggart?” the woman said; her voice was low again and forced.

  “What? Keep playing, keep playing. No, no, from the third bar.” The man’s voice rose higher and higher. “Yes, what is it?” he snapped.

  Again the woman cleared her throat and began with an apology, not the way to handle a yelling demon like the man on the other end. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but it’s important. I’m looking for information about someone who was a Morgan student in the sixties. You were his faculty advisor, and I thought you might be able to help.”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” the man interrupted. “Who?”

  “Hartley Frame. He was in the class of ’sixty-nine.”

  There was a long pause. Then the man said, “You’ve got the wrong number.”

  “But—”

  “You want my ex-wife,” the man said, his tone filled with spite. “Good-bye.”

  “God damn it,” the woman shouted, not a hysterical cry, but one of rage, like a tormented animal. Zyzmchuk heard her over the phone and through the wall. Then something crashed and made a ringing sound. The phone: could she have detected the bug? Zyzmchuk lay absolutely still. He waited to hear sounds of the telephone being taken apart or the back window opening. But room 19 was silent.

  After a few minutes, Zyzmchuk heard pages turning. Then the woman walked across the floor. The door opened and closed.

  Zyzmchuk peeked through the curtains. The woman went into the office. Still watching, Zyzmchuk called Grace at home. No answer. He tried her work number. Grace was there.

  “It’s Saturday,” Zyzmchuk told her. “A day of rest.”

  “But I wasn’t tired, Mr. Z. I was bored. What’s your excuse?”

  He didn’t have an exact answer to that. “As long as you’re there,” he said, “I’d like the U.S. Army record for Frame, Hartley E.”

  “Frame?” she said.

  “Right.”

  “Gotcha.”

  The dark-haired woman—Jessie, Jessie Shapiro or perhaps Jessie Rodney—came out of the office and got in her car. Her face looked puffy, her eyes exhausted, and yet …

  “Mr. Z.?” said Grace. “You still there?”

  “Yes.” The dark-haired woman got in her car. “I’ve got to go,” Zyzmchuk said.

  “Ciao.”

  The dark-haired woman backed her car and turned onto the road. Zyzmchuk followed. She drove to the southern edge of town and down a short dead end. Zyzmchuk parked on the corner. His phone buzzed.

  “Mr. Z.?”

  “That was quick.”

  “And futile. The Hartley Frame records are flagged. I can’t get into them without assistant director authority or higher.”
<
br />   “Who flagged them?”

  “I don’t know. Do you want me to call Mr. Keith?”

  The dark-haired woman was at the door of a little house at the end of the street, talking to someone Zyzmchuk couldn’t see. Then she went inside; the door closed.

  “Yes or no?” said Grace.

  “Yes or no?”

  “About calling Mr. Keith. He’s got the authority.”

  “No, don’t call Mr. Keith. But see if you can dig up anything on Jessie Shapiro. Or Jessie Rodney.”

  “In army records?”

  “In any records, Grace. Any at all.”

  23

  The dark-haired woman was a good driver, but she never checked her rearview mirror. Following her north on Route 7, Ivan Zyzmchuk wondered about that. There were all kinds of people in his business, but they had one thing in common: they checked their rearview mirrors. Frequently.

  It was only four o’clock when the two cars crossed the state line, but the sky was already darkening. Zyzmchuk might not have looked so closely at the southbound Jaguar had it been any color other than cherry red. It stood out, even in the fading light. Zyzmchuk knew someone with a car just like that, so his eyes were on it as it flashed by. And he saw the someone he knew, hunched over the wheel. Keith.

  Decision time. Zyzmchuk’s hands and feet made it for him. They threw the Blazer into a controlled right-to-left skid and swung it around. A noisy business, but no one was around to be bothered by it except the cows in the fields. Moments later, Zyzmchuk was heading south. Welcome to Massachusetts, said the road sign. It was a personal message from the governor, whose signature was at the bottom.

  The Jaguar had been going fast—seventy or eighty, Zyzmchuk thought. He didn’t pick it up until the outskirts of Morgantown. The Jaguar rounded a corner, not totally in control, and quickly slowed down and pulled into a gas station, parking by the pumps.

  Zyzmchuk drove in right behind the Jaguar and stopped with his bumper inches from it. He got out and approached on the driver’s side. The window slid down. Beatles’ music floated out. They were singing about fixing a hole. “Fill her up,” Keith said.

  “Premium, I suppose?”

  Keith’s head snapped up. “Zyz!” he said. He added, “Old buddy,” in a lower octave. “What the hell are you doing here?” He switched off the music.

  Zyzmchuk leaned on the roof and tested the suspension. The car bounced up and down.

  “Please don’t do that,” Keith said. “I asked what you’re doing here.”

  “My job. And you?”

  “Oh, right, right,” Keith said, as though remembering that Zyzmchuk had one. “Then it’s not really a coincidence.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “This serendipitous event,” Keith said.

  “Serendipitous?”

  “Fortunate. It comes from a story about the three pri—”

  “I know where it comes from.” Zyzmchuk bounced the car a few more times. Keith frowned, but said nothing. “I don’t know why it applies to this event.”

  “Because. It’s a chance to have a talk outside the office. Let our hair down a bit. I should have realized you’d be here. After all, she’s here.”

  “Who?”

  “Alice Frame.” Keith glanced up at Zyzmchuk’s face. “I have a feeling we’re talking at cross-purposes, Zyz. I’m here to attend the unveiling of the memorial. The senator couldn’t fit it in, and he asked me to stand in for him, as it were. Alice is here, too, of course. And that’s why you’re here. There. Does that all add up?”

  “You need new shocks, Keith,” Zyzmchuk said.

  Keith laughed. “You’ve got a great sense of humor, Zyz. We’re going to miss that. How about dinner? You can bring me up-to-date on the investigation.”

  “Dinner sounds good.”

  “Super. Know anywhere?”

  Zyzmchuk recommended the 1826 House restaurant—the coffee had been good.

  “No, no,” Keith said. “We can do better than that.”

  “You know this town?”

  “I spent my salad days here, Zyz.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Becoming a gentleman. Learning to love art, poetry, Western civilization. Within limits. Picasso yes. Allen Ginsberg no. That’s what Morgan’s famous for. I’m an alumnus.”

  “I thought you went to Harvard.”

  Keith shook his head. “That came later. The B school. This was the scene of my undergraduate career.”

  Keith knew somewhere. Le Cochon d’Or. The interior evoked a French country inn. They sat in a dark corner, overhung with strings of garlic cloves. “It’s on me,” Keith said when the menus arrived. Zyzmchuk ordered mushroom soup and a steak. Keith ordered a lobster soufflé and ris de veau. His French wasn’t bad, Zyzmchuk noticed, certainly better than the waiter’s. “You like wine, Zyz?”

  “Sure.”

  Keith scrutinized the list. “How about the Chiroubles?”

  “Fine.”

  Candlelight glowed on Keith’s glasses, and the creamy collar of his button-down shirt. There was a tiny red spot near the neckline, the kind that comes from a shaving cut. “So,” he said, “How goes the Little Miss Muffet affair?”

  The first course arrived. Keith poked at the souffle with the point of his knife. The souffle quivered, but didn’t deflate. “Perfection,” he said, cutting off a piece and popping it in his mouth. He chewed it carefully, lips pressed together. Zyzmchuk had the impression he was counting the chews.

  “Ah,” Keith said, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. “Soup okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “Good, good.” Keith went to work on another bite. When the chewing and the dabbing were finished, he said, “You haven’t answered my question.”

  Zyzmchuk put down his spoon. He’d been hungry, but watching Keith eat had dulled his appetite. “There’s nothing to report.”

  “What kind of nothing?”

  “The boring kind.”

  Keith stared at his reflection in the blade of his knife. “Isn’t that always the way?” he said.

  How would you know, thought Zyzmchuk, you’ve spent your life in an office; but he just nodded. The waiter refilled their glasses; they were both drinking quickly. Keith had some more souffle and said, “What’s she been doing?”

  “Nothing of any interest to us.”

  “Nothing that might clarify the polygraph?”

  “No.”

  “Dahlin is very anxious to avoid unpleasantness with the powers that be.”

  “Who isn’t?”

  Keith smiled. “He has career ambitions.”

  “Like what?”

  “It would only be hearsay.” He tipped the glass to his mouth once more. “Good, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  Keith was staring in the knife blade again. He dipped the corner of his napkin in a water glass and patted the spot of blood on his collar. Putting down the knife, he said, “Chiroubles is my favorite of the Beaujolais crus.”

  Zyzmchuk nodded but didn’t speak.

  “What’s yours?”

  “The red kind,” Zyzmchuk replied. “Unless they’re pouring white.”

  “Ha ha. There’s that sense of humor. But you’re not fooling me, Zyz. I know what you are.”

  “What am I?”

  “A sophisticated man. A man of the world. For example, I bet you could tell me the eight communes of Beaujolais that are allowed to put their names on the label.”

  “You lose. Can you?”

  Keith leaned forward in his chair, like an eager student, and counted them off on his fingers. “Chiroubles, Juliénas, Saint-Amour, Morgon, Moulin-à-Vent, Brouilly, Côtes de Brouilly, Fleurie. Eight.”

  He’d omitted Chénas—there were nine—but Zyzmchuk didn’t mention it. Instead, he asked, “Is that the kind of thing you learned here?”

  Keith laughed. “What a reputation this school has! No, Zyz, I learned from my father—he had a little cellar.” Keith smiled at the memory, swirled hi
s wine around, drank and said, “What kind of people has she been seeing?”

  “No one special.”

  “So you think there’s nothing to it?”

  “I always have.”

  Keith nodded. “You’re probably right. I trust your judgment, Zyz.” He stared deep into his wineglass. “That Rumanian caper. Incredible. I still don’t understand how you got out.”

  “On a regular commercial flight,” Zyzmchuk said.

  “I meant how you were able to do that.”

  Zyzmchuk couldn’t imagine that Keith really wanted to know. He emptied the bottle in their glasses and said, “When did you graduate?”

  “From here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nineteen sixty-nine.”

  “Not so long ago,” Zyzmchuk said. He would have thought Keith older than that. Keith looked older and acted older. Or maybe it was just that Zyzmchuk preferred to believe he really wasn’t so much older than his boss.

  “It seems like a century,” Keith said. He ordered another bottle of Chiroubles. “Those were crazy times, Zyz. Student strikes, demonstrations, drugs, Viet Nam.”

  “You were involved in all that?”

  “Well, not actively. I was too busy. But I soaked up the atmosphere.”

  “What were you busy doing?”

  “My studies, of course. And the drama club. We did an adaptation of The Wind in the Willows my senior year. Played to full houses for a week. All male, then—now everything’s totally changed.” Keith reached for his wine. His hand shook a little.

  “You look tired,” Zyzmchuk said.

  “Jet lag.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “You name it.” Keith looked at his gold watch—a Rolex, Zyzmchuk noticed: perhaps it came with a feature to tell him where he’d been. “How much more time do you think you’ll need?”

  “For what?”

  “Miss Muffet.”

  None was the answer, of course. But Zyzmchuk said, “A few more days.”

  “A few more days,” Keith repeated. “I hope you’re not being … overzealous. It was just a publicity stunt, after all, as Dahlin said.”

  “So was Nagasaki.”