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Hard Rain

Page 22

by Peter Abrahams


  People began to clap in a well-bred way. Cracking sounds echoed discreetly across the quad. A tall black woman in a red jacket bowed and smiled. Alice Frame shook her hand. Phinney shook her hand. The crowd fragmented; a few people moved forward, waiting for a word with the sculptor, Phinney or Alice. One of them was the dark-haired woman. Jessie Shapiro. Or Rodney. She held out her arm, trying to attract Alice’s attention. From Zyzmchuk’s angle, it connected the two women like a hyphen.

  He cut through the mass of slower-moving people, in time to hear the dark-haired woman say, “Mrs. Frame? May I talk to you for a moment?”

  “Certainly,” Alice replied. She looked puzzled, possibly by the intensity of the dark-haired woman’s tone, clearly audible to Zyzmchuk, twenty feet away.

  “It’s a bit complicated,” the dark-haired woman began. “I—”

  At that moment, Phinney put his hand on Alice’s shoulder, turning her away. “Alice, I’d like you to meet an old and valued …”

  Zyzmchuk circled the statue, using it as a screen. He didn’t want the dark-haired woman to see his face, but he wanted to see hers. Alice was shaking hands with a man in an impresario coat. The dark-haired woman’s eyes darted from one to the other. She leaned forward slightly, as though into the teeth of a prevailing wind. Then her hand slipped into the pocket of her suede jacket. Zyzmchuk got ready to run between them. But when she withdrew her hand, it held not a pistol, but a broken barrette. Zyzmchuk let his weight shift back on his heels. The dark-haired woman glanced down at the barrette; she didn’t put it back in her pocket, but kept it in her hand, tightly grasped.

  The man in the impresario coat moved on to the sculptor. The dark-haired woman stepped in front of Alice Frame, inside the orbit of personal space. Alice blinked.

  “It’s about Pat Rodney,” the dark-haired woman said.

  Alice blinked again.

  “He was a friend of your son.” Her voice was low; Zyzmchuk came closer, until he stood behind the man in the impresario coat.

  “Yes?” said Alice.

  “I—I was hoping he might be here. But I haven’t seen him.”

  “What did you say his name was?”

  “Pat Rodney. He might be with a little girl. My daughter.”

  “I’m afraid the name isn’t familiar.”

  “But they were good friends.” The dark-haired woman’s voice grew edgy. Phinney, listening to the sculptor, cast a quick look at her. “They played in a band together. They went to Woodstock together.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “But you must—”

  “Alice,” called Phinney, a little louder than necessary, “may we borrow you for a moment?”

  “Excuse me,” Alice said to the dark-haired woman; she half-turned and Phinney, reaching for her arm, drew her away. They were as smooth as Rogers and Astaire; they might have made quite a couple, Zyzmchuk thought, fit to be monarchs of some other world where good manners counted for everything.

  But back on earth, they meant less and less. The dark-haired woman spoiled the choreography. Hurrying after Phinney and Alice, she tried again. “Mrs. Frame, think back—Hartley must have spoken about some of his—”

  “I’m sorry.” Alice was turning pale.

  The dark-haired woman planted herself in front of Phinney and Alice. Zyzmchuk had a clear view of her face, a beautiful face, but every feature sapped by anxiety. Leni had looked like that the last time he saw her, the night of the kiosk fiasco.

  “What about the funeral? Didn’t some of Hartley’s friends come? I’m sure Pat—”

  “Funeral!” Alice rounded on her. “What sort of funeral do you have for a dog tag and a telegram?”

  The dark-haired woman faltered. “What do you mean?” she said.

  Alice might have been about to reply, but Phinney spoke first. “This is not the time for whatever it is you want. Now if you will please excuse us.” Holding Alice by the arm, he pushed past the dark-haired woman. For a moment, Zyzmchuk thought she would resist with her body—he could see she was strong—but she gave way. Alice and Phinney joined remnants of the crowd climbing the steps of the music building. The dark-haired woman walked slowly the other way. She went right past Zyzmchuk, but didn’t see him. Her eyes were hot and cloudy.

  Zyzmchuk watched Alice and Phinney enter the music building. Sounds of musicians tuning their instruments drifted through the open door. He turned and followed the dark-haired woman. She walked back to the 1826 House and went into her room. Zyzmchuk entered his. He pressed his ear to the wall. He heard the squeak of box springs, the soft knock of a headboard against the wall. Then nothing.

  Zyzmchuk showered, dressed and returned to the music building. He followed the sounds of the Mozart horn trio to a performance hall on the second floor. But he didn’t go inside: Alice Frame was talking on a pay phone outside the closed doors.

  Zyzmchuk walked past her and stopped in front of a bulletin board. He took out a notepad and pen and began copying random notes from the bulletin board. “Ride needed to Boston—share gas.” “Movie at Slocum House Sat. nite: Eraserhead, $1.” Zyzmchuk was conscious of Alice Frame’s eyes on him, heard her lower her voice. He kept writing on the notepad.

  “It makes it so final,” Alice said. There was a long pause. “Yes, we’ve been through it a hundred times. That doesn’t make it easier. In fact, it was harder, if anything. A woman was asking questions about one of his friends. It brought everything back. That’s—” Another pause. “I don’t know. Pat somebody … I don’t think she gave her name … Dark hair, not bad-looking, does it matter? The point is it was upsetting. Because we really didn’t know his friends, did we?” Zyzmchuk heard tinny sounds of anger coming over the wire. Alice raised her voice, too. “I am blaming you.” Again Zyzmchuk felt her gaze. She lowered her voice. “Partly.” The tinny sounds diminished, dipped below Zyzmchuk’s hearing threshold. It didn’t matter—he couldn’t keep up the bulletin board pretense any longer. He closed his notebook and walked away. He heard Alice say, “All right, Edmund. I’ll expect you.” The receiver clicked into its plastic cradle. By that time he was around the corner and on the stairs.

  The Morgan College library stood on a hill overlooking the music building. It was an even grander structure, combining excesses drawn from Greek and Roman styles and guarded by two stone lions with angry faces. They roared, “Knowledge is power,” in case anyone thought libraries were for wimps.

  Zyzmchuk pushed open the massive oak door and went in. His shoes clicked across the marble floor. A stern man in a powdered wig looked down in disapproval from a gold-framed painting over the main desk. The woman behind the desk had oily fingerprints on her glasses and the same disapproving expression on her face. She directed Zyzmchuk to the periodical section. In half an hour he had found what he wanted.

  WAR CASUALTY

  Pfc. Hartley E. Frame, ex-’69, son of Senator Edmund S. Frame ’43, and Alice Frame of Sweet Briar Va. and South Morgantown Mass., was removed from the Missing-in-Action list and declared dead by the U.S. Army on January 5, 1971. The action followed the visit of an International Red Cross team to a North Vietnamese prison camp in December.

  Private Frame was sent to Viet Nam in January 1970. He was last seen during heavy fighting around Pleiku the night of February 3 of that year. He was listed as MIA in March. A memorial service will be held in the chapel on Sunday.

  —from the Morgan College Record, January 10, 1971

  Zyzmchuk photocopied the article and pocketed it. He was about to leave the periodical room when a long shelf loaded with fat purple-bound books caught his eye: copies of the college yearbook, going back to time immemorial, or at least 1845. “For earlier volumes,” said a notice, “consult the librarian.” Zyzmchuk selected the 1969 volume and sat down to look at it.

  The 1969 Morganian was like a stranger’s home movies: pictures of people and places that meant nothing without the catalyst of the viewer’s nostalgia. Zyzmchuk looked at faces of young, long-haired men on pla
ying fields, in marching bands, at parties dancing with young, long-haired women, carrying a banner that said: “Hey hey L.B.J.—How many kids did you kill today?” He remembered his own yearbook, Chicago 1951, with a picture of himself, sole Z, on the last page. The yearbook had been left behind in some apartment or rented room. Nostalgia was death in sentimental disguise. No need to rush things.

  Individual photographs of the graduating seniors appeared alphabetically at the back of the 1969 Morganian. Hartley Frame wasn’t among the F’s; he hadn’t graduated. Zyzmchuk checked the R’s for Rodney and the S’s for Shapiro, finding neither. But Keith was there. He’d been thinner in 1969, with long hair worn Prince Valiant style. The hair surprised Zyzmchuk, but after a moment or two he noticed that Keith was wearing the kind of horn-rimmed glasses he still wore, noticed the sober expression of a budding homme sérieux: perhaps, with the long hair, an homme of the eighteenth century. Under the photograph, it said, “Drama Club 2, 3, 4; Band 1; Art Appreciation Club 3, 4; Rifle Club 1, 2, 3, 4.” Zyzmchuk turned back to the first page, searching for other pictures of him.

  He found four.

  The Art Appreciation Club: Keith and four other young men in tweed jackets, standing around a table set with upended wine glasses and half a dozen bottles of wine.

  The Band: a ragged corps on a rainy football field. Keith was in the middle, a bass drum with the word “Morgan” on it strapped to his shoulders. He didn’t look happy.

  The Rifle Club: a line of marksmen at a firing range. Keith stood at the far end. His form looked perfect.

  The Drama Club: “The Blizzard of Gauze.” This, Zyzmchuk saw, was some sort of political spoof. The Wizard wore a Ho Chi Minh mask; the Wicked Witch of the West had on a Lyndon Johnson one. Dorothy, in a polka-dot dress, had been played by Keith. He’d worn so much makeup Zyzmchuk had to read the caption to make sure.

  26

  An evangelist was on TV. He had a florid, well-fed face, suffused with love of God and contempt for his fellow man. Jessie didn’t switch him off. All the other channels had shut down for the night; she couldn’t sleep, and she didn’t want to be alone. Even the preacher’s malign company was better than nothing. He whispered, he shouted, he cried, he paraded across the stage like an albino peacock in his white silk suit.

  But at last the organ music rose, and people came forward from the audience to be saved. It made a good background for rolling credits, and the director rolled them. Then he cut to a bare studio where the preacher, in a more somber suit and a mood to match, explained his current financial requirements and asked that they be met by return mail. After that he turned to snow and left Jessie alone with her thoughts.

  But the activity taking place in her mind couldn’t really be called thinking; it was too disorganized. Fragments of thoughts popped out at her like bogeymen in a funhouse, vanishing before her mind could fit them into patterns. She was left, at two-thirty in the morning, lying fully clothed on her bed at the 1826 House, exhausted, sleepless, staring at her suitcase across the room. It was open: a sleeve of Kate’s red sweater hung over the edge. Beneath it she could see the blue-striped leather of one of her Reeboks and a corner of Jane Eyre.

  She thought for the first time that Kate was dead.

  The idea struck her with the force of a blow, opening a hole in her subconscious that spilled out unbearable images: Kate’s funeral, sorting her things, the empty space on the fridge where the “My Mom” poem had been.

  “Enough,” she said aloud and pushed herself off the bed. Having such thoughts was one thing; dwelling on them another—a masochistic self-indulgence. Like an El Greco martyrdom, there was something sick about it. And worse, it led nowhere.

  Jessie sat at the desk and took out the motel stationery. So far, she had coped with Kate’s disappearance like a bloodhound: searching for her trail, nose to the ground. That hadn’t worked. Perhaps it was time to step back, to see from the perspective of the bloodhound’s handler. That meant putting her thoughts in order. It meant developing an explanation for Kate’s disappearance first, finding her trail second.

  Explanation 1: the theory, half DeMarco’s and half hers, that Pat was on a toot down memory lane with an old buddy. This was getting harder to believe. His old buddy Hartley Frame was dead, for starters. Explanation 2, or more properly 1A: Pat had come for the dedication of Hartley Frame’s memorial. This was invalidated by his absence from the ceremony. Besides, neither theory accounted for Blue’s frightened message on Pat’s answering machine. Or Mr. Mickey. Or the bag lady who had watched Pat’s house. Jessie could only imagine one context where all that would fit: drug-dealing. Had Pat been involved in some drug enterprise with his sister? Maybe for years? Was that what the ten-thousand-dollar payment to Eggman Cookies was about?

  If all that were true, then Mr. Mickey and the bag lady might be Pat’s competitors or suppliers with some grievance against him. Blue had discovered that they were about to move against him, but her warning had come too late. On Friday Pat had been in Los Angeles. On Monday he was at Buddy Boucher’s. A second man stayed in the car. How had Buddy Boucher described him? He hadn’t. The second man had stayed in the BMW—a little rocky, Buddy said. Could the second man have been Mr. Mickey? Why not? She hadn’t seen him till the following Thursday—he’d had plenty of time to return to L.A. And then to cross the country again. Why? Had he found out she’d been to Spacious Skies? Had he been searching for her when he came up the stairs to Disco’s room? Or for Disco? Or for someone else?

  And if the second man had been Mr. Mickey, it meant that Pat had shaved his head. Why?

  Jessie looked down at the motel stationery. She’d drawn a box. Inside the box she’d written three names: Mr. Mickey, Bag Lady, Ratty. Beneath the box dangled another, also containing three names: Pat, Blue, Disco. Beneath it dangled a single, boxless name: Kate. Around the whole, she drew a barn. Then she crumpled the paper, tossed it in the wastebasket and rose. The motel supplied a flashlight in every room. Jessie took it and went outside. The bloodhound-handler approach led back to Spacious Skies.

  The night was cold, cold enough for snow, but the sky was clear. The moon, so big and orange in L.A., here seemed small; and as white as false teeth. Jessie got in her car and drove north.

  There was no traffic. Jessie found herself pressing on the accelerator—fifty-five, sixty, sixty-five. Then she saw headlights approaching from the Vermont side and slowed down. The headlights seemed to be approaching quickly, but Jessie was not prepared for the speed of the oncoming vehicle. It flashed by so fast it rocked her little rented car in its wake and was far down the road behind her before her brain processed what she’d seen: a black van with a red streak on the side and a white head behind the windshield, too briefly glimpsed to record any of its features but the baldness on top.

  A jolt went through Jessie, like an electrical stimulus meant to activate the muscles of laboratory animals. She stepped on the brakes, much too hard. The wheels locked in a skid that swept her across the road and into a field on the other side. The car spun around several times and came to a stop; the motor stalled.

  Jessie’s senses were suddenly acute. She could smell, almost taste, burned rubber in the air, could hear the popping sounds of metal changing temperatures and, far away, the fading noise of another engine. But, although her hand was not quite steady when she turned the key, she felt no fear. The urge to follow the black van was too powerful to allow any other feeling. Kate was in that van. Jessie was sure of it. She stamped the accelerator to the floor; the car roared out of the field, tearing two strips in the earth, and swung out onto the road to Morgantown.

  Jessie hunched over the steering wheel, peering ahead for a glimpse of the black van’s taillights. But she didn’t see them. She sped south through Morgantown, past the 1826 House, dark except for her own room and the one beside it, past the campus, and into the shadowy hills beyond. A sign pointed the way to Pittsfield, Stockbridge, Connecticut, New York. The black van might have gone that way; o
r it might have turned off the road in Morgantown, might now be parked on some side street. Jessie stopped the car, more carefully this time, turned it and drove back to town. Morgantown wasn’t a metropolis; she would search every strip of pavement if she had to.

  It was easy in theory, in practice much harder. Morgantown’s streets weren’t clearly marked; some circled back on themselves, some ended in cul-de-sacs. After an hour, Jessie had seen only two signs of life—a dog trotting across a playing field and a student, her black face momentarily caught in the glare of Jessie’s headlights, trudging along a sidewalk with an armful of books. Her mind pictured the van flying south, across the Connecticut line, heading for New York; the image was forcing her to face the fact that she had made the wrong decision, forcing her to look into an uncharted future.

  Then she saw the van.

  It was parked on a tree-lined crescent, in front of a student residence. There were no streetlights, but the light of the moon was strong enough to illuminate the red flames on the bodywork, the temporary Vermont license plate. Other cars were parked in front of the residence, but the space behind the van was empty. Jessie pulled into it and shut off the engine.

  Nothing happened.

  No light came on in the van. Its doors remained closed.

  Taking her flashlight, Jessie got out of the car. She heard a dog barking, faintly, and a guitar, fainter still. Not a sound came from the van.

  Jessie walked around it. She moved very quietly, without really knowing why. The windows, as Buddy Boucher had told her, were opaque, all except the windshield. Jessie put her face to it and looked in.

 

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