The Off Season

by The Off Season (epub)

“We must display our unbounded commitment to those bold and higher forms of duty,” a Victorian voice said. “We must show truth’s sacred flame to Gerald, and with unremitting purpose levy stern effort against the mobsters with the machine guns.”

  “That might do it,” the morose cop said. “If you mean the mobsters who came to town with the real estate lady and that trollop who plays the stock market.”

  “For indeed,” the Victorian voice said, “our efforts of the past century surely earn us some regard.” The voice choked with romantic calm. “I have earned a pittance, just enough a pauper’s end to save— /And have a spotless suit laid by, to clothe me for the grave . . .”

  “That’s so beautiful,” Janie’s voice said. “So sensitive.” The ghostly voices and ghostly steps faded into mist and rain. Jerome’s voice sounded from the store above. “Some news is about to happen. I’ll drop back later about that ad.”

  “Oh, dear,” Joel-Andrew said, “oh, dear, indeed.” Then his normal optimism returned. “Perhaps Maggie will provide a calming influence.”

  Obed grunted. Obed sounded dubious.

  “It began so well,” Collette explained. “August Starling sent a dozen white roses every other day. I ran out of vases. This morning he sent another dozen . . .” Collette’s voice choked.

  Obed, with authority gained from working undercover, assured Collette that August Starling was out of town lining up a network of drug pushers.

  “And this time,” Collette told them, “the box was black, the tissue paper black, and the roses were tied with a black ribbon.”

  Obed shuddered in alarm. Joel-Andrew’s face went white.

  “And delivered by a Chinaman,” Collette said. “There hasn’t been a Chinaman in Point Vestal during the whole twentieth century.”

  “Time jump,” Joel-Andrew guessed.

  “Of course,” Collette told him, “and if that were the only time jump, it still wouldn’t be bearable. There’s been others.”

  In the near distance, Gerald spoke to the Irish cop. The two men stood on the sidewalk above the opium den.

  “My inclination,” said Gerald, “is to go into Janie’s and bang some skulls together. Bust the lot of them.”

  “Think it through completely,” the Irish cop said. “They be good lads for the most part, ’tho the lasses be a bit dubious of virtue.”

  “Because,” Gerald’s calm voice said, “I figure you can handle Janie’s bouncer, the one who looks like a tugboat with arms. I can handle the rest of ’em.”

  “I can surely drydock the gent,” the Irish cop told Gerald. “But be askin’ of yourself this, me man. Is it not better to leave ’em howl? Not a lad there has been on a binge in this century.”

  “They’re not attending to business,” Gerald ruminated. “Of course, they can’t attend to much business if they’re warming up the slammer.”

  “They carry resentments,” the Irish cop said. “Give them a fine and skull-busting bout amongst the chippies. Encourage them to profligacy. Press them into becoming degenerate.”

  “Of course.” Gerald’s voice filled with admiration. “Being Victorian, they will go crazy; and, being Victorian, when they sober up, they’ll have enough guilts to kick them right into line.”

  “The method has always worked for meself,” the Irish cop assured him.

  “I’ll even stand for a round,” Gerald said. “The town gives me a discretionary fund. I’ll tell Frank to tap all the sauce that’s wanted.”

  Silence descended, was uninterrupted until Joel-Andrew once more said, “Oh, dear,” while Obed muttered something that began with “Oh,” but ended elsewhere. Collette’s teeth chattered.

  “I wish Kune were here,” Joel-Andrew confided to Obed. “Between your undercover work, and whatever Kune does at the Starling House, we might avert disaster.”

  Obed’s words carried no encouragement. Obed revealed that Kune took a beating. Kune continually walked in and out of the servants’ entrance searching for evidence that would jail August Starling, the search itself, like an intelligent force. Kune had little faith in anything, but he gained faith in himself. Obed’s investigation followed similar lines, except that Obed traced Starling’s current connections. Gerald and Obed figured Starling could no more stop from eventually ordering a murder than a Dunker could stay away from rivers.

  “If evidence is what you need,” Collette said between chattering teeth, “I already have it.” Collette’s pretty face was apologetic. “Because I’m too awfully interested in history. My parents and the PTA said it was a failing.”

  Obed looked cynical but hopeful.

  “Some years ago,” Collette explained, “. . . and I was very young at the time . . . I salvaged a carton of nautical charts from an attic . . . you know how kids are.”

  Obed was fascinated.

  “They sat in back of the antique store for years. A week ago, I sorted through them.” Collette looked like someone guilty of gossip. “Folded into one of the charts I found a deposition by August Starling’s boat crew. It concerns Starling’s orders for drowning Chinese. It is legally attested.”

  “They were copping a plea,” Joel-Andrew murmured. “I wonder if it did that boat crew any good.”

  “It did not.” Collette spoke with the certainty of an experienced historian who is frightened gaga. “August Starling bought the judge. That boat crew was ordered hanged in 1887. Starling saved their lives by shanghai to a clipper ship named Spirit of John Knox. August Starling made fifty dollars sterling from the deal.”

  “We must tell Kune immediately,” Joel-Andrew said. “It will preserve him from further difficulty.”

  “Kune is censured,” Collette said, “we can’t talk to him.”

  Obed was dumbfounded. Obed started orating about reality. Obed pompously stated that an entire lifetime spent in Point Vestal would not resolve every mystery, or reveal every custom in the universe.

  “I fear a connection,” Joel-Andrew said. “Did you receive those black-boxed roses before or after the discovery?”

  “After.” Collette’s puzzlement changed to fear. “There was no possible way August Starling could have known . . .”

  “There was a way,” Joel-Andrew said. “I don’t know how, but he knew.” Joel-Andrew turned to Obed. “Perhaps August Starling has someone working undercover?”

  Obed pompously promised to work that angle.

  “Because otherwise,” Joel-Andrew said, “the man reads minds.”

  Analytic Obed supposed that the discovery of the deposition might have something to do with time jumps.

  “Tell me about the time jumps,” Joel-Andrew said. He was not in despair, but in a state of confusion very like despair.

  “Indians,” Collette said. “A lot of time jumps are Chinese, but most are Indians. They dress ceremonially. They wear paint and carry war clubs.”

  Obed pointed out that all living Indians had left Point Vestal to visit relatives.

  “I have a theory,” Collette explained. “In November, and sometimes in early December, Samuel canters around the circuit.” Collette paused to tremble. “Samuel is a powerful preacher.”

  “You believe he incites the Indians?” Joel-Andrew knew as much about Indians as anyone from Rhode Island, which is to say he was baffled.

  “Part of this town’s history,” Collette said, apologetic as she used the word “history”—“is this: when the first white settlers came, they asked the Indians where they might settle. The Indians pointed to the site of Point Vestal and said, ‘Take that. It is cursed. We don’t want it.’ I think Samuel is being insensitive. He inflames Indian spirits. That, in combination with awful things planned by August Starling, is causing the curse to come alive.” Collette’s frightened face looked nonetheless thoughtful. Obed mentioned that the idea seemed farfetched.

  “Why the curse,” Joel-Andrew asked. “Whatever in the world happened?”

  “The first explorers were enraptured with the Indians,” Collette explained. “Th
ey kidnapped Indian women and children. The curse says if such a thing happens again, the sea will rise against the land.” Collette’s pale lips trembled. “That’s not the worst of it. Once the curse begins, it must be contained rapidly. Otherwise it will spread as far as a man can go in a day and a half.” Collette was brave and Collette was good, but Collette’s shoulders shook with fear. “These days, you could probably go around the world in a day and a half.”

  “Are there other time jumps?” Joel-Andrew’s quiet concern for Collette did not allay Collette’s fear.

  “Standard things,” Collette told him. “Drowned seamen, mutilated Chinese, emaciated and dying children, raped women, battered animals . . . the regular Victorian hoopla.” She paused. “A rumor says twenty dancing ducks were seen on North Beach. That’s bound to scare anybody a bit.”

  “We must weave a scheme.” Joel-Andrew took charge. “Collette should stay in hiding, but not in this smelly cellar. Obed should tell Gerald of the evidence Collette obtained. I see Kune and Maggie at 2:00. We will lay plans.” He turned to Collette. “Hide in the basement of the bookstore. I doubt if even August Starling can make his way past the morose cop and The Sailor and the Irish cop, your grandfather.”

  “I haven’t spoken to my grandfather.” Collette was timid, but anger seemed just below the surface. Collette started to get her Irish up.

  Obed stated that it was time for one member of their company to mature. Obed barely avoided sarcasm as he wished he had met Collette when she was a little older.

  Collette remarked on the historical degeneracy of cats. Collette suggested cute ideas concerning cats and the fall of the Egyptian empire. Collette barely avoided sarcasm wondering if cats were reincarnated dung beetles.

  “Your grandfather must feel lonely,” Joel-Andrew suggested. “His friends are ghosts. A little kindness might persuade him from Janie’s Tavern.” Joel-Andrew did not tell Collette that the Irish cop stayed sober, or that he used the tavern as a base from which to watch August Starling.

  “It’s worth a try.” Collette combed her hair with her fingers. Her eyes held a missionary look, dangerously apostolic. “I’ll speak to him.” She left the opium den and hummed with a touch of zeal.

  The candle flickered, guttered, the nub nearly gone. Obed stretched and yawned. Darkness lay heavy with silence, and in the minds of both man and cat lay a dreadful premonition. It seemed to each that this might be their last time alone together. They would forever regret this moment if something were not said as a seal of friendship.

  Joel-Andrew leaned down, picked up his violin, and began to play, almost timidly. Obed snuffled, sniffled, equally timid. As the music became firmer, and as the guttering candle faded into dark, Obed began to dance.

  Chapter 23

  Black light covered the town, and December chill swept through grayly falling rain to lay skims of ice. Joel-Andrew headed for Bev’s bookstore. The all-seeing tower shrugged at frost on its windows while it peered myopically into streets and minds and hearts of Point Vestal. Then it hesitated.

  The all-seeing tower noted the arrival of a network news anchor. The news anchor looked nearly human, her form sylphlike. She slipped into a modest hotel accompanied by her cameraman who sported a forty-dollar haircut; and the bumpity ride into town had made the news anchor horny. No one, except the all-seeing tower, noticed as she undressed and slipped on—or rather, around—her cameraman: managed to salvage one whoop and one yip, then rose to clothe herself and inform the public. No one, except the all-seeing tower, knew of her cameraman’s frustrated sobs as he trailed behind, unfulfilled; deserted; feeling himself a sensitive and caring person who had been used, a mere sexual object.

  And certainly no one noticed Joel-Andrew, who stood in the bookstore holding earnest conversation with Bev.

  “I don’t worry about Samuel,” Bev confided to Joel-Andrew. “Samuel is an old pro who has ridden circuit for years.” Bev found it easy to confide in Joel-Andrew, because Joel-Andrew tended toward optimism. She thought Joel-Andrew slightly inexperienced. However,” Bev said, “something is different this year. Samuel sends letters by messenger. He describes wholesale converts. Samuel is also madder’n a Jesuit teaching kindergarten.”

  “Is he angry at Indians?”

  “He is angry at this town,” Bev said. “The town rallies behind August Starling who has some fool scheme. This town acts like cats chasing Mikey Daniels’s milk truck.”

  “I figure,” Joel-Andrew told Bev, “the ministerial association will sling brimstone against August Starling if a leader prods them. That leader will be Samuel.”

  “They’ll come out in favor of motherhood,” Bev said, “because they’re realists. Be grateful that you are defrocked. You might have had a congregation in Point Vestal.” Bev spoke kindly, and even looked kindly. She wore a conservative green dress of the same color as library book bindings. Her long hair was piled in a thick mass. She looked like Dorothy Lamour playing the role of a schoolteacher. “Point Vestal doesn’t want a God.”

  “What would happen if the Lord showed up?”

  “The Chamber of Commerce would advertise to tourists.”

  “The Lord is in the neighborhood,” Joel-Andrew said confidently, “and that’s not preacherly rhetoric.”

  “They’ll endorse high principles,” Bev said of the ministerial association. “Otherwise they’ll get tangle-toed in dogma.” Bev motioned to a shelf titled “Sermons.” “The only way to keep a bookstore alive in this town is to stock what sells in off season,” she murmured.

  It was, as Joel-Andrew looked carefully, an elegant and unusual bookstore. It was not quite as large as Janie’s Tavern, but walls were stacked to the fourteen-foot ceiling. Beside the wide section titled “Sermons” sat a thick section of theology. Beside that stood yards and yards of nineteenth-century histories; and next to the histories—and even mixed in with them—were hundreds of gothic romances. Further along stood leather-bound sets of presidential papers, the confessions of Lola Montez; and a section containing tales by Bill Nye, George Ade, and Josh Billings. Sinclair Lewis and Philip Wylie brooded above the peregrinations of Robert G. Ingersoll, while in the ladies’ section, Dorothy Parker’s work flashed flaming red beside blues and purples and blacks and grays of Austen, Lowell, Fuller, Dinesen.

  “This is the finest collection of theology in the country. The other side of the store,” Bev said, “is for tourists.” She motioned toward cartoon books about clever cats, diet books, how-to books on sex and skin diving, guides to the ghosts of Point Vestal.

  “Instead of denouncing August Starling, let the ministerial association promote kindliness,” Joel-Andrew said. “It may run Starling out of town.”

  “You are a dear man,” Bev told him, “but you’ve placed your brains where the sun is not exactly beam-y . . . I don’t mean to be unkind.” She was disconcerted. “Oh, my dear man, what do you think they’ve been doing all these years?”

  Bev stood beside Joel-Andrew, and suddenly found herself supporting him as he slumped. Joel-Andrew’s face drained of color, his gray-green eyes widened with shock. He faltered, stumbled. His violin case bumped a biography of Mary Baker Eddy, his elbow tapped sermons of George Whitefield. Joel-Andrew suffered a revelation, but Bev could not know that. Facts added up, and the scene shifted. Joel-Andrew slumped before the awful power of the Lord’s message.

  “You are ill,” Bev said. “Are you getting enough to eat? Do you have a place to sleep? What in the world is wrong?” Bev, an unmarried woman, had little practice at being motherly. She steered Joel-Andrew to a chair, watched his face slowly regain color.

  Joel-Andrew trembled. He finally understood why the Lord sent August Starling back to Point Vestal. August Starling was not a simple sinner. He really was a creature from hell.

  “I thought August Starling was given a second chance,” Joel-Andrew muttered to Bev, “but I’m wrong. Point Vestal is being given a second chance.” Sounds from the street intruded on the quiet sanctity of the
bookstore.

  “Is there sex after death?” From the sidewalk an aggressive female voice spoke toward a TV camera. “In a new series titled American Improbables, our network brings this reporter to Point Vestal where a question of vital national importance may indeed find an answer . . .” The voice trailed as the news anchor stepped quickly down the sidewalk in search of a “ghost on the street” interview.

  Joel-Andrew held the arms of the chair, then rose slowly to his feet. “I have to go to Janie’s,” he told Bev. Bev smiled cautiously, then patted Joel-Andrew on the head.

  “An appointment with Maggie and Kune.” Joel-Andrew was awed in the face of his realization. “O Lord,” Joel-Andrew prayed silently, “you’ve got yourself a prophet, but Lord, I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong boy.”

  “You are not well.” Bev simply could not figure what ailed Joel-Andrew. “However, your color is improving.”

  “I used to believe I was very good at what I do,” Joel-Andrew explained to Bev, “but now I’m seriously afraid. The Lord has given Point Vestal a chance to repent. Otherwise it’s Sodom all over again, it’s Gomorrah.”

  “It isn’t,” Bev told him. Bev looked fondly at high walls filled with books. “When you run a bookstore,” she said, “you have a lot of time to read. At least that is true in off season. I promise you it isn’t Sodom, and it isn’t Gomorrah.”

  Joel-Andrew stood thinking, his violin keeping its mouth shut as he pondered. He thought about Victorian pretentiousness. He thought of the tackiness of August Starling. “It’s Nineveh,” Joel-Andrew said finally, with relief. “It’s just plain old seedy Nineveh. It can be turned around.” Joel-Andrew felt strength returning. “O Lord,” he prayed silently, “may Thy humble servant have Your helping hand. I’ll try to be the boy You want, Lord.”

  “Nineveh,” Bev agreed. “Samuel could have told you that years ago . . .” She paused. “I told that to Samuel years ago.”

  “The innocents will yet be spared,’’ Joel-Andrew prophesied, “but move your wives and cattle, children and bookstores to high ground. The sea will storm and the sea will break. The sea will run in the streets of the town.”