The Ice House

by Laura Lee Smith

  “I can’t believe it,” Pauline said. “Finally.” She, Roy, Claire, and Ed from Sales were clustered in the shade of a live oak, watching the proceedings. Knowles and Sam Tulley were taking it all in as well.

  “Well, hot damn,” Knowles was saying. “Just hot damn.” Tulley nodded, grinning.

  A group of men were huddled around the police car closest to the factory. One—an ancient guy—peeled off and walked over, and Pauline did a double take when she realized who it was: the old city attorney Sid Hoying, who lived out near the beach on Watchers Island. He was beaming.

  “What are you doing here, Sid?” Pauline said.

  “Are you kidding?” Sid said proudly. He patted her on the back, nodded to Claire and Ed, and shook hands with Roy and the two attorneys. “This is my baby, right here. My little project. I can’t stay out of City of Jax business, you know. So I’ve been paying attention to this one. I knew we’d bust it open eventually. I’ve been riding JSO like a bicycle. Get a move on! I’ve been telling them. I think they finally got going just to shut me up.” He cackled and rocked back on his heels. “I can still get a few things done in this cow town, you know,” he said.

  “And guess what?” he continued. “Leonard’s already been spilling his guts. They told him if he started talking, they might go a bit easier on him.” Sid lowered his voice conspiratorially. “But just between you, me, and the lamppost? That’s bullshit. Leonard’s going down hard; he just doesn’t know it yet. Anyway—he’s singing like a bird, as they say. And guess what one of his songs is about? It’s about tapping ammonia from the Bold City Ice Plant. I love it!” Sid said. “I swear to God, I don’t need to watch CSI. I live it.”

  He looked at Knowles and Tulley. “You guys are the attorneys,” he said. “I can spot ‘em a mile away.” Knowles nodded wryly. “Well, listen. We got path of failure out the wazoo,” Sid said to them. “Reasonable cause for the tank rupture. Y’all can thank me later for winning your case for you.”

  Knowles looked like he wasn’t sure whether to be irritated or relieved, but he seemed to opt for the latter. “Mr. Hoying,” he said. “With all these strings you pull, how ‘bout pulling one to get JSO to fast-track the police report? We got an appeal to write and not a hell of a lot of time to write it.”

  “Bingo,” Sid said. “As good as done.” The old man was positively gleeful, Pauline thought. We all need to be needed, she decided. We all do. She gave Sid a hug.

  “Thank you, Sid,” she said. “This is tremendous.” He seemed to be enjoying the hug an awful lot. Pauline wriggled free.

  “Where’s Johnny, anyway?” Sid said. The old man looked around the parking lot. “I wanted to throw it in his face that I saved his butt.”

  “Traveling,” Pauline said simply. She couldn’t bear to get into it. “He’s coming back today.” Something caught her eye across the parking lot. It was Ford, sitting on his bicycle and leaning against a tree. He was watching the drug bust activity with great interest. He seemed almost proud.

  “Sid,” Pauline said. She kept her eyes on Ford. “Who was the informer?”

  “Well, now, Pauline,” Sid said. “I can’t tell you that. That’s dangerous stuff, you know? People get shot over stuff like that.”

  Pauline waved to Ford. He waved back, and after a moment, he smiled. Then he pushed off the tree and rode away. A little wobbly, but more or less in a straight line.

  It was wickedly hot out in the parking lot. People were starting to flap their hands in front of their faces, trying to stir the air. Pauline noted with satisfaction that the handcuffed drug suspects were sweating like livestock on the curb and that the police were making no effort to move them out of the direct sun. Good.

  By the time they’d finished up business with Knowles and Sam Tulley (“Now we’re cooking with gas!” Knowles kept saying), it was nearly lunchtime. Roy and Claire went back to work. Pauline still hadn’t heard from Johnny. She crooked her left thumb and pressed it against her wedding band, then closed her eyes and tried telepathy with her husband: I found the ring. Corran’s not a thief. They busted Leonard. Where are you? After a moment, receiving no reply, she gathered her files and limped out of the conference room into the lobby. She stopped at the reception desk on the way back to her office.

  “Has Johnny called?” she said to Rosa. Rosa shook her head. “And has Owen Vickers come in yet?” Pauline said. Rosa’s eyes widened.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I haven’t seen him.”

  “Well, when he does, have him come directly to my office,” Pauline said. She leaned over the reception desk and lowered her voice. “And later on, Rosa, you and I are going to have a little chat.”

  Rosa swallowed hard. “Why?” she said.

  “Because you’ve been sleeping with somebody you shouldn’t have, and you almost found yourself in a world of hurt,” Pauline said. It was hard to keep the anger out of her voice, though she was trying. “Say goodbye to your boyfriend. His days at the Bold City Ice Plant are over.”

  Rosa looked almost relieved, Pauline thought. But in the next moment her eyes filled. “He’s not my boyfriend, Pauline,” she said. “He hasn’t even texted me in, like, three days.” The girl looked so abject that Pauline found herself softening.

  “Does my mother know?” Rosa said.

  “A bit,” Pauline said. “But not all.” She walked around the reception desk and drew Rosa’s head toward her in a hug. “He doesn’t deserve you, Rosa. All right?” Rosa sniffled into Pauline’s shirt for a few moments, and then straightened up and cleared her throat. “Don’t worry, Pauline,” she said. “It’s over. That asshole.”

  “Watch your mouth, Rosa,” Pauline said. “That ain’t how a lady talks.”

  Pauline headed back to her office. She needed to elevate her throbbing ankle. And she had a thought to check Delta.com and see if any of the flights from Charlotte had been delayed, but before she could reach the office she was waylaid by Roy, who gestured to her from the doorway to the ops floor.

  “Can you come here a sec, Pauline?” he said. “I need to show you something. Bring a parka.” She donned Johnny’s parka and followed Roy through the manufacturing wing until they reached the storage room. Roy opened the padlock and stepped inside, motioning for Pauline to follow him. He closed the door.

  “What are we doing, Roy?” she said. “It’s freezing in here.” She wedged her hands into the pockets of Johnny’s parka. Indeed, the storage room was by far the coldest place in the entire factory—it had to be, in order to keep the bagged ice loose and crisp before shipment. An enormous compressor maintained round-the-clock subfreezing temps. Today the room was nearly filled with towering pallets of bagged ice; one of the biggest shipments of the week was scheduled to go out tomorrow. It was difficult to maneuver in the storage room, Pauline noted. You had to turn sideways and slide between ice pallets to get anywhere.

  “C’mere,” Roy said. He edged through towers of ice. Pauline followed. When they reached the back of the room, she gasped and felt her stomach flip. Owen Vickers was curled in a fetal position behind the last ice pallet. His face was battered. A trickle of blood was frozen under his nose. His wrists and ankles were bound together with electrician’s tape. He wasn’t moving.

  “Oh, my God!” Pauline said.

  “Don’t scream,” Roy said.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Nah.” Roy approached Vickers and nudged him roughly with one steel-toed boot. “But he sure is cold. I guess that’s because he’s been in here a while. Get up, jackass,” he said. Vickers stirred and moaned. “Get up,” Roy said. He leaned over and pulled out a pocketknife.

  “Roy!” Pauline said.

  “Don’t worry,” Roy said. He cut the tape on Vickers’ wrists and ankles and pulled him roughly to his feet. Vickers’ lips were blue. His eyes were unfocused. Pauline now noticed that he was wearing only work pants and a T-shirt. The bare skin on his arms and neck had a papery look to it. He swayed.

  “Can
you hear me, Owen?” Roy said. He pushed Vickers against the back wall to prop him up. “Can you hear me?” Vickers nodded weakly.

  “Good. Because I want to tell you some things, and they’re important, m’kay? We know what you did. We know what you did to Rosa, and we know what you did to the factory. You let Leonard in to tap the ammonia.” Vickers looked at him. Being made to stand upright seemed to be improving his cognition a bit. He still looked pretty foggy, but now there was something besides vacuity in his eyes. Now there was fear as well. “So here’s the deal,” Roy said. “If I ever get wind that you’ve set foot anywhere inside Duval County again—and I mean, I don’t care if you’re on the beach or picking out panties at Wal-Mart or sitting in your mama’s house taking a dump—I will find you myself. And I will kill you.”

  Pauline was half terrified. But she was also impressed. Roy!

  “And do you know how I’ll do it, Owen?” Roy continued. “Easy. We’ll come right on back here to the storage room, where we’ll send you on a permanent vacation. All I need is a ten-dollar padlock from Home Depot. And you know, if I position you just so behind the pallets, like you are right now, and if I do it on a Friday afternoon, nobody will find you until Monday at the earliest. You know what I’ve read? When you freeze to death, after a while—say after the first thirty hours or so—it starts to feel not so much like cold. It starts to feel like heat. It starts to feel like you’re being burned alive. That goes on for a while, evidently.”

  Vickers stared at him. For the briefest moment, Pauline thought she might have seen a bit of swagger, but there must have been something in the milky-white blur of Roy’s damaged left eye that got to Vickers, because after a moment, Pauline saw the defiance flicker and die. Vickers blinked. He looked away.

  “So bye-bye, Owen,” Roy said. “We understand each other?”

  Vickers nodded.

  “What did you say?” Roy said. He shoved Vickers roughly against the wall again.

  “Yes,” Vickers whispered.

  “Where are you never going to come again?”

  “Jacksonville.”

  “Wrong.”

  “Duval County.”

  “Bingo! You got a wide world out there to take your sorry ass to,” Roy said. “But Duval County is no longer a part of it. And you know, me and Pauline here, we’ve lived in this area a long, long time. Haven’t we, Pauline?”

  “Yes, we have,” she said.

  “We know almost everybody, don’t we, Pauline?”

  “Yes, we do,” she said.

  “And if the stench of Owen Vickers were to turn up inside county lines, we’d know it pretty quick, wouldn’t we, Pauline?”

  “Yes,” Pauline said. “We would.”

  Roy gave Vickers a final shove, and this time he fell to his knees. “Oh, no, no, no, Owen,” Roy said. “Don’t get comfortable. You’re on your way out.” He dragged Vickers to his feet and kept dragging until they were all the way out of the Bold City Ice Plant. Then he pushed him, staggering and frozen, onto the burning blacktop in the loading yard. Pauline followed, limping. Roy threw Vickers’ car keys onto the pavement in front of him, and he and Pauline watched as Vickers hobbled, crouched and trembling, into his truck and drove haltingly away from the Bold City Ice Plant.

  “My word, Roy,” she said. He was breathing hard. He looked at her; she could see he was almost as astonished at his behavior as she was.

  “Well,” he said. “Had ta be done.” They reentered the factory to the sight of Rosa hurrying across the ice floor toward them.

  “Pauline,” she said. “Get line one, quick.” Pauline stepped into Roy’s office and picked up the phone.

  “Pauline, this is Russell.”

  “Russell?” Pauline was drawing a blank.

  “Russell Tosh,” he said. “Sorry. Dr. Tosh. A young kid just showed up in the ER with Johnny. They paged me down here. We’ve got some serious seizure action happening. You’re going to want to get over here.”

  He hung up. Pauline turned to Roy and found she couldn’t speak.

  “St. Vincent’s?” Roy said. Pauline nodded. He picked up his keys. “Let’s go,” he said. They left through the loading bay. On the way out, Pauline could hear the sounds of the crew shouting, and of ice splitting, and of Dumbo, off her bushings, thrashing and thrashing and thrashing.

  Twenty-Four

  Vogel. And Tosh. Cold. Lights. Gimme Shelter. Street Fighting Man. I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.

  We’re going to get you into this robe, stand up for me, sir. Stand up. Stand up.

  Pauline, there’s someone knocking. It’s Donald Stone, Pauline, but don’t be afraid. He’s in the floorboards; he’s waking up. He’s doing fine, doing fine, pirates in the lighthouse, what can you do? I love you, Pauline, do you know that? And the General. I love the General, too. And James and Fayette. They’re taking their grandbabies to the Blue Men. I want to go home, Pauline.

  This is the anesthesiologist, Dr. Olusola. We just call him Dr. O. Right, Dr. O.?

  It’s cold in here, Pauline. I’m freezing. I slept with Sharon in Port Readie, but don’t worry, it’s not what you think. We touched for a moment, then she sank like a bicycle into the black waters of Loch Linnhe and I was afraid but I was not sorry. Corran has a Lucy and the Lucy is a bird. Silly, silly bird. The bird chased the lamb. The lamb ran away.

  The piston, Pauline. Did you see it melt? Did you see, how beautiful?

  Right here in this bed, Mr. MacKinnon, and we’re going to get you all hooked up, okay? I know it hurts. I know. I need you to be strong, Mr. MacKinnon. It will be over before you know it. Yes sir. Yes sir. Emergency resection, that’s how Vogel wants it. Here we go now!

  Screw you, Ed. The pallet heights are fine. Hit and run, you say?

  I changed the channel on Corran, Pauline. I couldn’t watch it anymore. There was blood and there was pain and there was fear and it was hurting, hurting, hurting. Like now. Hurting. Like always. Hurting. These needles! They’re putting skag in me, Pauline, skag! I don’t do it. I don’t want it. It’s death. And once you do it you cannot stop. Only the brave. Only the bravest. The moonlight solana. The moonlight sostana. The moonlight setenta. What? Out of Easterhouse. We got him out of Easterhouse. There’s a bird in the icehouse. Up in the rafters.

  It hurts, Pauline. My head. My eye. Paint it black. If he would just let me help him. If I would just let him help me. Too late now, daftie, the train has left the station. Tell ‘em on the flip side, jive? Those ice boys—the things they say. Word.

  Charlie! Good to see you. My old da. Tide’s coming in now, watch your feet, Charlie. Sandpipers and seaweed, water’s got a chill this year. Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main. Fuck that, Charlie. No. I’m not ready.

  You’re going to feel something very cold in your arm, Mr. MacKinnon. And then you’re going to fall asleep. All right, sir? All right?

  All right.

  Pauline.

  Pauline.

  Pauline.

  Twenty-Five

  The local NPR station had a scientist on. He was talking about sinkholes in the Florida aquifer. Johnny turned it up. It was hard to hear these days, but Tosh said that was to be expected. All your senses may be a little wonky, he said. Don’t let it worry you. The garage was stuffy. Johnny pushed the button and the door clanked open. In the three weeks since the surgery, the air had cooled slightly and the light had clarified thanks to the long-awaited reduction in humidity. Now, the day before Thanksgiving, life felt warm, still, but drier, crisper. A little clearer.

  The thing about sinkholes, and geology, and science in general, the guy on the radio was saying, is that they are initiated by chaos. Much is predictable, he said. Science thrives on rules and laws and conclusions, after all. But without the influence of chance, of accident, the odds of discovery are reduced. Think of penicillin, for example. If Alexander Fleming had not taken a closer look at the mold that had accidentally contaminated one of his petri dishes, he’d never have begun the line o
f research that led to the development of one of the most important drugs in the world. The point, the scientist was saying, is to be open to the unknown.

  So, he said. Back to sinkholes. There are two types, he explained. There are those that are formed by the slow, gradual erosion of soil and sand, which creates a depression. Then there are those which form quickly, the inevitable conclusion of a chance void in the aquifer. These are the dramatic cases, the scientist said, the ones where the holes appear suddenly and can sometimes cause damage to structures.

  “But,” said the radio host, “doesn’t that mean we’re all vulnerable? Walking around with potential sinkholes beneath our feet? I saw one on the news last week. It collapsed under a house in a suburban neighborhood. That makes me nervous.”

  “I think most of us,” the scientist said, “take for granted that the foundations of our life are solid.”

  Nicely stated, Johnny thought. Put that one on a bumper sticker. Make yourself a mint. His head itched where the staples were removed last week. He ran his fingers over the scar and scratched around the perimeter. Ignore it, he told himself. Nothing you can do.

  It was a benign cyst. Meningioma. No malignancy. Russell Tosh was downright jolly when he delivered the news. Johnny was just waking up from the anesthesia. “Didn’t I tell you to trust us, Johnny? Didn’t I?” Tosh said. He was bumping his wheelchair from side to side in glee.

  “You did.” Johnny had been groggy and uncomfortable and scarcely focused, but the sight of the relief on Pauline’s face had been all he needed.

  “Nice job, Tosh,” he said. “Schedule the golf game.”

  “Oh, hell yes,” Tosh said. “Giddyup!”

  That was three weeks ago. The road back—so far—was proving easier than Johnny had anticipated. The itching at the incision site was one of the biggest annoyances, which, all things considered, was not too terrible at all. Could have been worse, he reminded himself. Much worse. And if he did tend to forget this, Pauline was quick to remind him.