She slid her hand down between his legs. “Are you so easy to arouse, Max? After all these years?”
Yes, he thought. After all these years.
He kissed his wife there on the sun deck and after a few moments he drew her indoors and lay beside her on the bed, losing himself in the controlled fury of making love.
29
Dennis woke. He reached for the bedside lamp and turned it on and he blinked in the sudden stark light that hit his eyes. Pushing the covers aside, he swung his legs over the edge of the mattress. He’d been dreaming that things were crawling all over his flesh, shapeless dark leeches that no matter how hard he tried to remove still stuck to his skin and sucked at his blood, puncturing his veins with tiny needle-sharp incisors.
Even now, though he was awake, he still felt he was back inside the dream and the bloated shapes were crawling over him and he was plucking at them wildly. He shook his head. Then he rolled up one sleeve of his pajama top and held his bare arm beneath the lamp. The little cluster of freckles itched like crazy. He thought maybe this itching sensation had seeped inside his dream, that the freckles had turned into those gross leeches through some awesome process of the mind. He scratched for a while and it felt better but then the sensation came at him again.
He stared at the spots. It looked as if there were more of them than before.
Goddamn itch, he thought. What he needed was more calamine. It helped for a while anyhow. Calamine, palomine, don’t let me down.
He walked across the room and moved out into the hallway, conscious of the silences of the house all around him. He thought of the big dark house as if it were a large silent body, the pulse of which was his parents’ room upstairs.
He stepped into the bathroom. His stomach groaned. He took the bottle of pink substance from the cabinet and spread it liberally over his itches, then he stuck out his tongue at his reflection in the mirror. He had small dark circles under his eyes and he leaned closer to the mirror to get a proper look at them. The physician’s son examines himself, he thought.
It was a trick of light, nothing more. When he held his face up close to the glass he couldn’t see the dark patches any longer. He stuffed his face right against the mirror, breathing over the silver surface. This close, you didn’t look remotely like yourself. You became an unfamiliar person. Even to yourself.
He stepped back but the impression of strangeness remained. It was like looking at a single word for a long time—pretty soon it didn’t mean anything. He’d done that once with a book when he’d gazed at the word “splash” for more than a minute and then he couldn’t recognize it at all, didn’t know what it meant—it became gibberish.
He went out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and found a chicken drumstick, which he ate with the light from the refrigerator door falling across him in a ghostly way. He tossed the bone in the garbage, then found the last piece of Charlotte’s fudge. He chewed into it slowly, staring from the kitchen window at the shapeless trees that pressed against the house. He yawned. As he did so he pondered his father’s invitation to go camping. It was good of the doctor to suggest it, but Dennis wasn’t altogether sure he wanted to go. For one thing, he was at a stage in his life when he didn’t feel he had much in common with his father. For another, he didn’t really want to leave Dick and Charlotte.
Well, it wasn’t really Dick and Charlotte, was it? It was the truck. He wanted to get that damn thing running. Yeah. That was what it came down to.
He tapped his fingers on the door of the freezer compartment. When he yanked it open a gust of icy mist blew out at him. He rummaged amid the Popsicles and ice creams and boxes of frozen veggies. The land of Birds Eye. Jolly Green Giants. A whole frozen wilderness in there. He took out a Popsicle and ripped off the wrapper. Why did he have this gnawing goddamn hunger going on at all hours of the day and night? He launched into the rocket-shaped Popsicle and a variety of stains collected around his mouth—purples and yellows and reds. When he was finished he snapped the stick in two and closed the refrigerator door. He yawned again.
On his way back to the bedroom he decided he’d be good—he’d brush his teeth. He stepped inside the bathroom and took out his brush and a tube of Crest and brushed vigorously. Attack the plaque! Attach the plaque! He imagined the brush was a laser device designed to root out and annihilate the bacterial invaders that threatened the domain known as Oral Hygiene. Scrub brush rotate. He made battle noises as he worked the brush around and around layers of toothpaste foam. Rmmmm, brrmmmm, zooooom, kapowwwww! Then he stopped, placing the brush on the edge of the sink while he rinsed, swirling cold water around his gums and between his teeth.
Tingle. Rinse. Spit!
His saliva was a strange pale pink color.
He spat again. Pink?
He went up close to the mirror and, reaching for his mouth, pulled his upper lip back so that he could check his gums. Just above the left incisor he saw a faint trace of pale blood. It ran over the tooth, discoloring it.
He rinsed again. He recalled that his gums had bled once before, years ago, when he was losing the last of his baby teeth. But he didn’t have any baby teeth to lose now. So why the bleeding? He rinsed repeatedly until the last trace of pink was gone. Then he smiled at himself in the mirror.
He went back to bed and turned on his side. He looked at the picture of Dick and Charlotte propped against the base of the lamp. He reached out for it, holding it tipped slightly so it caught the full glare of the electricity. He studied it for a time. Even though both Dick and Charlotte were staring into the camera, they somehow gave the impression—strange—that they were impatient to turn away from the photographer and go on gazing into one another’s eyes. Their bodies touched slightly at the hips. Dick’s right arm and Charlotte’s left were out of the shot, presumably tucked behind their backs. Holding hands, Dennis imagined—they liked to touch one another even now. He set the photograph back in place, a couple of inches away from the jar of bait. It was funny to him how his mother was always bitching about the smell.
He smelled nothing. Maybe he was just used to it. Or somehow immune.
He stared at the brown substance inside the glass. It glistened and, even as he watched it, seemed to move, as though it were breathing very quietly, as though some kind of pulse beat way down deep inside it. Dennis smiled. What was this? The Blob? He sat up on one arm and lifted the glass jar up. It was inert brown matter, lifeless and still. He held it to the light.
And zis, zis in ze glass jar, zis is joost a liddle zomething I am working on, Herr Doctor.
He put the bait back in place, then he switched off the lamp. In the darkness he lay very still; outside, a brief wind rattled the forest. It had a comforting sound to him. He scratched his arm a couple of times and then he was floating down toward sleep, which hurried out of the black places to meet him.
30
Theodore Ronson’s office was perched at the top of the municipal building. An aerie, Metger thought, housing the head eagle. It was an expansive room filled with photographs and mementoes of old Carnarvon, historic illustrations of the time when the town had been the center of a thriving silver-mining industry. Wild miners peered bleakly into lenses. Prostitutes who worked the silver circuit eyed the camera coyly, huge-hipped women with painted faces suggestive more of innocence than lewdness. In some pictures horse-drawn wagons trudged the muddy main street.
Metger always found these old pictures interesting, if only because they underlined the absurd transformation of Carnarvon from a wide-open mining town to what it had become today, a genteel tourist trap, complete with imported souvenirs from Taiwan and Hong Kong and Victorian streetlamps and striped canopies hanging above the windows of boutiques. It was the kind of town where the mayor, Theodore Ronson, often came to his office—as he’d done this morning—wearing baggy Bermudas and white shoes and a Hawaiian shirt.
Metger turned from the illustrations and looked at Ronson, who reminded him of a us
ed-car salesman whose tailor had fled Waikiki on account of sartorial crimes.
Ted Ronson said, “Yeah, those old things always fascinate me, Jerry. This town’s seen some changes in its time.”
Metger sat down facing Ronson’s desk. They had met in the parking lot and Ronson had invited Metger up to his office to “shoot the bull.” There was nothing unusual in the invitation because Ronson effected a certain folksy manner and was the kind of man who believed in “getting down there” among the people.
Metger trusted none of this. From his point of view Ronson was as fake as the used-car salesman he seemed to model himself on.
“We don’t see much of each other, Jerry. We work in the same building. Ships that pass in the night, huh?” Ronson settled in his oversized chair. His shirt flashed. Metger imagined parrots screaming out of the foliage on the material. “How are you these days? How’s the job?”
“Job’s fine, Ted,” Metger said.
“I see your stats. Your reports. They pass across my desk. You run a clean town, Jerry.”
Metger shrugged. “It isn’t exactly difficult. Traffic violations. Some drunk tourists. A wife beater or two. Petty thefts.”
“Yeah, I guess you never run into anything really odd in this little town of ours, do you? You’d imagine that twelve thousand seven hundred people could come up with more imaginative misdemeanors, wouldn’t you? More creative ways of breaking the law?”
Metger had an impression that Ronson was fishing. He said, “They don’t seem to, Ted. Which makes my job easy.”
“Maybe you don’t find your work very satisfying, Jerry. Maybe the job doesn’t fulfill you.”
“I’m perfectly happy,” Metger said.
“For now,” Ronson said. “What about later on down the line, Jerry? When you’ve worked your job to where it runs itself and you start to get an itchy feeling? What will you do then? A man’s got to think of his future, after all.”
“I haven’t given it much thought,” Metger said. “We’ll see what happens then, I guess.”
Ronson smiled. He had a smooth, bland face, which reminded Jerry Metger of an underripe tomato. The smile was like a slash in the pink skin.
“When you get bored, Jerry, see me. We’ll sit down and together we’ll examine your options. Promise me we’ll talk.”
Metger nodded and said, “Sure,” but he thought the whole thing odd. Was Ronson hinting at something here? Some future commitment? Or was he just playing politics?
“I mean, the town’s growing, the tourists come, rain or shine they come, a man could have a real nice future here. And you ought to think about joining the Chamber of Commerce. Make some contacts. That’s always important in a town like this. Connections. Friends, Jerry. You know what I’m saying?”
Metger wasn’t sure. It was as if Ronson’s mind were a maze and he’d wandered inside it inadvertently and now he had no true sense of direction.
“They tell me Nora’s expecting. Is that right?”
“In a month or two.”
“That’s terrific. What do you want? Boy? Girl?” Ronson spoke as if he could make certain guarantees as to the sex of the unborn child, as if he could arrange almost anything.
“As long as it’s healthy, I don’t mind.”
“Kids are terrific, Jerry. Expensive though.”
“Right.”
“They need a lot of care. Clothes. Medical bills. You know that.”
Metger shifted in his chair. “Yeah,” he said. He was uncomfortable now. He couldn’t read between Ronson’s lines. But he was sure the man was saying something to him something that lay just under the surface of his words.
Ronson stood up, his hands deep in his Bermudas. He strolled around behind his desk. “How’s your dad, Jerry?”
“Funny you should ask that. I was thinking I’d run over and visit him today.”
“He okay?”
“They take good care of him over there, I guess.”
“Sure they do, sure they do. Senility’s an awful thing. You stop to think about it a moment, it’s awful. Can’t remember things. Don’t know where you are. You get confused easily. Bed-wetting. Bad.”
“Some days he’s fine, Ted. Other days …”
“That’s how it goes,” Ronson said. “Expensive over there at the nursing home?”
It keeps coming back to money. To my future, Metger thought. “Dad’s insurance covers most of it.”
“That’s a break,” Ronson said. “Your dad and me, we go back a long way. He was a hell-raiser when we were younger. He could drink any man under the table.” Ronson shook his head. “It’s a pity what happened to him. When you see him you say I said hello. Okay? I must get over there and see him sometime.”
“I’ll do that.” Metger, sensing that this whole curious encounter was drawing to a close, got up from his chair.
“It’s been nice having this little chat,” Ronson said. “I like to keep in touch. We’ll do it again soon.”
Bermudas flapping against his calves, the mayor walked with Metger to the door of the office. Then he did it, he finally did it—he slung his arm around the cop’s shoulders.
“Now remember, Jerry. When you have to make a career choice you see me. Don’t forget that. I’d like to just sit down with you and see what we might arrange. Okay?”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Metger answered, moving out from under the weight of Ronson’s thick arm. He stepped out into the corridor and turned once to see Ronson’s smile receding behind the door. Arrange, he thought.
Then he was going down the stairs, past the various administrative offices, past desks where typists pounded on IBMs, past the glass-cased historical display that contained late eighteenth-century mining artifacts—picks and dull little samples of silver and more historical daguerreotypes and documents—until he had reached his own white-walled office.
He sat behind his desk and he thought, A waste of time. A waste of goddamn time. He closed his eyes momentarily. What had all that been about anyhow? Why had he been made to feel he was Ronson’s blue-eyed boy, his personal protégé, all at once? The sensation disturbed him.
But he had other things on his mind that, when he weighed them against the murky depths of town-hall politics and the motivations of Ted Ronson, were infinitely more important, more urgent. He thought about the Untermeyers and his senses were filled all over again with the dizzying scent that had drifted out of the boy’s bedroom.
It’s crazy, he told himself.
What kind of smell lingers in a house for twelve years?
31
It was a glorious morning of sharp sunlight and warm wind and clouds sailing across the sky like galleons driven to unknown destinations. Louise thought it was more like a morning of early autumn than a day in July—one of those bright yellow days when the two seasons, summer and fall, enter into a brief, doomed partnership.
She paused and turned once to look back the way she had come. All around her the pines shook and the yellow sunlight pressed delicate patterns out of the branches. A day like this could raise your spirits the way a brisk wind flapped laundry on a line.
She came to the dry wash and went down the incline slowly. She thought she remembered the way to the Summers’ place. It wasn’t very far from the wash. Halfway across, maneuvering around the awkward rocks and boulders that littered the cracked streambed, she saw some bluejays rise out of the foliage and squawk somewhere overhead.
When she reached the clearing the house came into view. She studied it for a time. It looked different from the last time she’d been here. She wondered how. The yard was tidier, that was it. Denny must have helped out; maybe he was doing something more over here than trying to fix an old truck.
At the porch steps she paused. The dead plants she’d noticed before were gone. In the pots that lined the porch there were new growths, shiny fresh leaves. Someone has been busy here. A swatch of sunlight slanted into the kitchen, illuminating the edges of things. She climbed the steps, k
nocked softly on the door, waited. Nobody answered.
She stepped inside the house a little way, calling out, “Charlotte? Charlotte?”
She stood in the awkward manner of the uninvited, reluctant to call any louder for fear of disturbing someone, unwilling to go any farther into the house lest she be rude.
She looked around the kitchen. There had been another transformation. Where there had been cobwebs and dullness before along the shelves, silver sparkled now. The tablecloth was crisp and white and unrumpled and cameo-glass bowls, piled neatly above the shining silver and the row of clean pewter pots, caught traces of sunlight and flashed them back.
Spring cleaning at the heart of summer, Louise thought.
She had a sense of renewed vitality. Looking up, she could see flimsy spiderwebs strung across the ceiling beams, and there were layers of dust on a shelf of old books, and the old stove was still caked with ancient grease and spills—but something had been done in this house, a major effort had been started, an offensive against years of neglect.
She moved toward the table.
There was an old-fashioned stoppered pink glass candy jar in the center of the white cloth. It contained something dark that lay in shadow against the inside of the jar. As she skirted around the table she thought, Don’t be nosy. Don’t pry, but she went toward the jar anyhow, conscious of light trapped in the density of pink glass.
As she did so she heard a sound from the stairs at her back. She turned away from the candy jar quickly, like someone caught in the act of contemplating petty larceny. A shoplifter’s look went across her face and she was embarrassed. Charlotte and Dick appeared halfway down the stairs.
“I …” Louise said, then faltered.
She stared at Charlotte. Something was different about the woman. At first Louise couldn’t think what, Dick, his hand cupped on his wife’s elbow, was smiling in a fashion Louise thought was almost sly, as if he had an enormous secret.
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