Darkscope

by J. Carson Black

  “I know why you’re here,” Kathy told him. “You might as well save your breath. It’s Johnny you want to talk to.”

  Lucas knew that John had gone back East to talk his wife into a divorce. John’s last visit had upset Peggy so much, she had miscarried the child—Lucas’s second grandson. Lucas felt the familiar rage building as he thought of the child who would never be. His grandson! He felt his lips draw back from his teeth, felt the anger at this girl before him congealing in his heart. But he could not show his true feelings. Not yet. “I want to talk to you,” he said. “Do you mind if I sit down?” He glanced with distaste at the old sofa, the snowy antimacassars on the arms. A little bit of lace couldn’t make up for its ugly lines.

  Kathy started out of the room. “I’ll get some tea. Or would you like coffee?”

  As if he had come on a social call. With the little half-formed child only just cold in the ground. His grandchild . . . dead because of John’s ridiculous obsession with a Wobbly’s daughter. His knuckles closed on the silver-headed cane he had recently taken to carrying. “Nothing, thank you.” He felt oddly out of his depth here, despite the disparity in their backgrounds. The girl’s coolness bothered him.

  She had built a thriving business out of the money he had given her; he knew people, prominent members of the community, who had commissioned her to design their clothing. Kathy had talent and drive. This was Lucas’s hope—that common sense and the desire to go farther than Bisbee might make the difference.

  Kathy returned with a cup of tea for herself. She sat opposite him, regarding him over the steaming cup. “What do you want?” she asked without preamble.

  Lucas felt his anger creep back. Was she bent on alienating him? Didn’t she care that John had not spoken to his own father in six months? “I want to talk about your future.” His words sounded ridiculous in this shabby, clean room.

  Kathy laughed bitterly. “What do you care about my future? It’s your future you’re worried about. The future of your company. Your son.”

  “You know it won’t work,” he said. “You know that in the end John will go back to his wife.”

  I don’t know that.”

  “Come on. You’re a smart girl. I don’t blame you for holding out for the best deal—”

  Kathy stood up. “I think you had better leave.”

  “All right.” Lucas stood up as well. He removed a card from his breast pocket. “I know you want to become a dress designer. I have a friend at Warner Brothers who is always looking for new talent—”

  “No deals. Not this time,” Kathy said.

  “I’ll leave it here if you change your mind,” Lucas said, dropping the card on the small table by the sofa.

  “I won’t,” Kathy said, standing still as a stone.

  Lucas walked to the door. He paused, his hand on the doorknob. “You’ll lose, you know. You might as well get something out of the deal.”

  “Go,” Kathy reiterated.

  “I thought you were a smart girl.”

  “Get out.”

  Lucas opened the door and walked out on the porch and stood for some time, staring up at the mountain above. Automatically, he struck his left open palm with his right fist, as he often did when he was thinking.

  Thirty-seven

  After lighting a fire and drinking two cups of cocoa to get warm, Chelsea called her great-uncle. His maid Felicitas told her Bob was out at a fund-raising dinner.

  The walk back from Mrs. Kagle’s shop had been chilling in more ways than one. The old lady’s words chased her down the street: Uncle Bob didn’t get his way.

  His way about what?

  Uncle Bob’s face loomed before her, looking as he had that day they lunched at the Courtyard. John and I were five years apart in age, he had told her. I didn’t know his friends.

  Could he have just forgotten?

  Chelsea changed into her nightclothes and went back into the living room to pick up the cocoa mug. There was no use worrying about it now. She had a Basic Design class at eight tomorrow morning; she’d better get to bed.

  Chelsea paused in front of the sofa table, her gaze falling on the box camera. Just when had she brought it in here? Last week? The week before?

  She picked the Brownie up, running her fingers over the pebbled surface.

  The camera sat in her hand, mute. If anything, it looked more decrepit than ever. The juteboard curled up where it had parted from the seam. The lens glass was milky, Chelsea couldn’t remember ever seeing that before. Must be some sort of oxidation, caused by the sun coming in through the window in the afternoon.

  She put it down, feeling unsettled. The shock from earlier this evening had left her numb. And she couldn’t remember . . . had the camera been in the cupboard all this time, or here on the sofa table?

  Funny. I can’t remember seeing it—at all. Not since the day I threw it on the floor.

  She must have put it away again, hadn’t she? In the cupboard, with the Pine-Sol and the silver cleaner and the Endust?

  I’m sure I did.

  Chelsea stirred the fire in the grate. Suddenly the hairs on the back of her neck tickled. She could feel someone watching her, eyes boring into her back. She turned around.

  The camera faced her. Chelsea could have sworn it had been facing the other direction.

  “Silly,” she said to herself, picking up the mug. The mug had left a ring on the table. Chelsea took it into the kitchen and returned with a dishrag. And nearly dropped it.

  The camera had turned around. As Chelsea came out, its baleful eye glared straight at her.

  Chelsea stepped toward the sofa table. The Brownie’s pull was almost hypnotic; her feet moved by themselves. She bent closer and saw the milky glass begin to swirl.

  The ringing phone broke the stillness. Chelsea jumped, her heart thudding.

  Reluctantly, she turned her back on the camera and answered the phone.

  The strong voice boomed. “Hello, Chelsea?”

  “Uncle Bob.” Chelsea’s glance darted to the camera.

  With relief, she saw that it remained where she had left it, facing in the opposite direction. Must have been her imagination. She turned away. “How was the fund-raiser?”

  “Great. I think we’re on our way. Felicitas said you called. So my dear, what’s up?”

  Goosebumps ran up Chelsea’s back and her legs trembled. She could feel the camera staring at her back. She looped the telephone cord around her fingers. Aren’t I supposed to ask him something? Chelsea couldn’t remember. She’d blanked out completely. Her mouth went dry.

  “Is anything wrong?”

  “I’m fine.” Now what was it? Something to do with Kathy. Chelsea twisted the phone cord nervously, looking around the room. It was just at the tip of her tongue. Her gaze returned to the sofa table. Something about Kathy, about Uncle Bob. But for the life of her, she couldn’t—

  The camera’s eye gleamed.

  “Is anything wrong?” Uncle Bob repeated.

  Chelsea gripped the mouthpiece with slippery fingers. Her heart thudded like a hammer in her chest. She felt ill.

  Almost imperceptibly, the camera started to move. It inched toward her.

  “Chelsea?” Bob’s voice was insistent.

  “It’s . . . I just—” The Brownie picked up speed, rolling along the glass-topped table, its silence like the grave. And like a slide projector, her mind suddenly clicked into another picture, one of Jason coming at her, grinning, holding a straitjacket. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s a bad connection.”

  The camera had almost reached the edge of the sofa table.

  “Well, I won’t keep you. I know you’re busy. You know, we’ve scheduled the debate.”

  “Oh? When?” Chelsea’s voice was almost an octave higher.

  The camera paused at the brink, seemed to consider, then coasted smoothly forward. It tumbled to the floor, righted itself, and kept on coming.

  “Saturday. My opponent needs some time to come up with a few a
nswers. Apparently . . .” Bob’s voice droned on. Chelsea could barely hear him, but made appropriate sounds of interest when he came to the end of a sentence.

  The camera drew even with the couch. Stopped. Its eye leered at her crazily.

  “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

  She had to think of something—anything—to get off the phone and away from the thing that was stalking her. “The cat just came in with a bird. I’d better attend to it.”

  As if operated by batteries, the camera started again, smoothly gliding across the expanse between them. The sight of it terrified Chelsea.

  “Give me a call then. I’ll be expecting you at the debate. How could I go on without my right-hand man?”

  Adrenaline stampeded through Chelsea. She was wired, galvanized to run.

  Bob chuckled. “I mean, woman.”

  Run!

  Run where? Where you do run when you’re in your own house, and a ghost camera is rolling along the carpet like a motorized train? She backed up as far as the phone cord would allow.

  The black box skimmed across the floor.

  “Chelsea?” Uncle Bob’s voice, loud in her ear.

  “You do that,” Chelsea said.

  “What? Oh, I see. Go take care of that damn cat. See you there.” Uncle Bob hung up.

  The dial tone hummed as the camera reached her feet.

  Bob McCord set the phone down. Chelsea had sounded . . . well, funny.

  Wouldn’t you sound funny if your cat was dragging some poor bird through the house?

  Still, the feeling that things weren’t quite right nagged him as he walked into his study. Probably just his imagination. He sat down at his desk.

  Back to work. Hardly got in the door, and here he was, back at his desk. No time to rest. Tomorrow he was scheduled to talk to three groups.

  The reports, mostly on water and land issues, were stacked on his desk. It would be a long day; he had to be prepared. Facts, figures, percentages. Geological reports, environmental studies, studies from many different groups—all lobbying for their own interests. Sometimes he wondered if he really wanted it, this job that would try Solomon.

  He wanted it.

  He remembered the old man’s face, heard the peevish voice.

  You’ll never amount to much. I don’t care how much money you make. Your mother spoiled you for honest work.

  Honest work. I’m a credit to you now, you old bastard. Soon he would be governor, which was better than Lucas McCord had done.

  He picked up the first report, opened to the first page, looked at it without seeing. Eight years dead, the old man, and still he loomed bigger than life in Bob’s mind. His voice, as grating and intimidating in Bob’s brain as it had been when Lucas was alive. You’re not like Johnny. You’re not a patch on Johnny. Even Bob’s many accomplishments, his smooth handling of the company, his astuteness as a businessman were nothing to Lucas. Even though Bob had always been better suited for the work than John. Bob lived and breathed his work; John had only wanted to play polo and live out his days with—

  He shut his mind on the thought.

  I was always more like Lucas. But he couldn’t see it.

  All the deals he’d made, all the right business moves . . . did Lucas once give him credit? No. Never.

  He remembered Johnny’s funeral. Remembered Lucas’s face, closed in, his mouth hemmed with a dark thread of bitterness. Remembered Lucas’s eyes, pinpoints of swallowed light. Eyes that had said what words could not: Why can’t it be you?

  Had Lucas been as powerful as God and could swap bodies then and there, he would have.

  He had done worse.

  Bob McCord thought back to all the things that Lucas had done. There was that whole thing with Kathy, for one. Lucas had engineered himself into a corner, but he never admitted his mistakes, not to the day he died.

  Kathy. Bob had been thinking about her a lot lately and dreaming about her as well.

  He had almost forgotten her. Had, in fact, willed himself never to think of her from the very first. The decades had come and gone, and as he moved up in the world, he’d successfully shaken Kathy’s dust from his shoes. Until now.

  It had taken him awhile to realize the dreams were about her.

  The first few times, he’d awakened, feeling a nameless dread seep slowly into his vitals—and he didn’t know why. But little by little, he’d remembered the dreams. They were oddly nostalgic. He would awaken from them feeling drained, but it was a euphoric kind of draining, almost a purge. This made him feel guilty.

  All this dream activity was starting to tell on him, though. His vision blurred from tiredness sometimes, just a little. And when he drowsed in the mid-afternoon (something he normally never did), Kathy’s image burned sweetly on his soul like a brand.

  She was beautiful. Seeing her in his dreams as if it were yesterday, he was freshly reminded just how beautiful . . .

  He had been kicked out of school. He was to come home for the summer and work for his father, and Lucas would decide where he would go from there: another school or a low-level position in the company. There were no other choices. It was 1940, and Bob was nineteen. He knew that his saintly brother had finally done something wrong, and this gave him great pleasure. John had fallen for a local girl. Bob couldn’t remember her very well; he’d been younger than John’s gang of kids. He vaguely remembered a skinny, black-haired kid, with legs like a colt and a pointed chin.

  When Bob arrived home that April, Lucas hadn’t ignored him as he usually did. He hadn’t called him a failure or derided him for being kicked out of school. Bob had even heard his father remark to someone that “Robert just has high spirits. He’ll settle down.” All this could be laid at Kathy’s door. Lucas had made a subtle switch in his thoughts, the way a train switched onto an alternate track because the original track had broken down. Robert was close to being what he always wanted to be: son and heir to the McCord fortune and the McCord affection.

  He wished he could thank Kathleen Barrie personally.

  Lucas himself had picked Bob up at the station. He’d always sent a driver before. John, of course, had been nowhere to be seen. When Bob had asked about him, Lucas cleared his throat and said he hadn’t seen John lately.

  It was too good to be true.

  Oh yes. When Robert finally met this Kathy, he would shake her hand. No doubt the little hayseed would be flattered by the attention. That, too, would make Bob feel good. Bob had a certain reputation back East, and he had worked hard to earn it. Women—all women—were attracted to him. Including John’s pale, overbred wife. It would be nice to see John squirm as his homely little girlfriend looked at him with shining eyes.

  Wasn’t it just like John to pledge his love to some little mining-camp ragamuffin? The White Knight, himself. Forget he had a wife and child in New York.

  Bob didn’t see John or John’s girlfriend his first week in Bisbee. Most likely, they were afraid to face him.

  Since John was too ashamed to show his face at the big house in Warren, Bob would visit him.

  Bob drove along Main, marveling at how empty the streets were. The town had shrunk. All up and down the canyon, houses stood empty, left by miners and their families who couldn’t make it during the Depression. Times were better now; slowly people were coming back, but Bisbee wasn’t anything at all like the city of Bob’s boyhood. He drove past the new Phelps Dodge Mercantile Building, admiring the sleek, clean lines. Streamline moderne, the latest in architecture. If only the rest of the town looked like that. The P.D. Mercantile stuck out among all the old-fashioned pressed-brick stores. It looked, with its square chimney, like a steamboat ready to chug away.

  Bob’s tightening stomach betrayed his excitement. Who could imagine steady, serious Johnny living in a den of iniquity? He pictured John answering the door, his eyes widening with recognition. He could almost see the surreptitious glance to the inside of the house, the embarrassment, maybe even a trapped look—all passing across John�
�s features like clouds.

  And Bob would say, “It’s all right, John. Sometimes a fellow just finds himself in a . . . situation. God knows, I’ve been no saint.” And then John would look relieved and grateful, and Bob would feel magnanimous and somehow older. After all, he had been around. John was new at vice.

  Then he would meet this siren, who had so successfully shoved John off the track.

  He couldn’t wait.

  The house looked small. Not a hovel, but certainly not the kind of house John was used to. Bob was surprised to see two horses tied to the porch, saddled and bridled. Good-looking horses, too. Thoroughbreds.

  As Bob reached the gate, a girl burst out of the house and ran down the steps. She was laughing. Her dark hair caught the sun. He glimpsed a trim figure in jodhpurs and a white shirt, a heart-shaped face, startling green eyes.

  Kathleen Barrie had grown into her pointed chin.

  Bob stood where he was, uncertain whether he should say anything. The girl ran to a tree in the yard.

  “I’ll get you! I swear I will!” John appeared in the doorway. He held a belt in his hands, slapping the buckled end against his thigh. You deserve a spanking for that!”

  Giggling, Kathy backed up against the tree. “No, John, you wouldn’t dare.”

  He advanced on her. “Wouldn’t I?” He dashed for her. She squealed as he imprisoned her in his arms. They fell into a heap in the grass, laughing. John managed to turn her over and smacked her bottom once or twice. Then she slipped out of his grip and ran for one of the horses. He caught her, and they kissed. Passionately. The horse sidled away from them, snorting.

  “That’ll teach you to put food coloring on the bread!”

  “You thought it was mold! You did! You did! Admit it!”

  John lay back in the grass, wiping his eyes. “When I saw you take that big bite, I was nearly sick!”