by Auster, Paul
That was when I turned to Henry Peoples, my old associate at Mid-Atlantic Accident and Life. He had been one of the company’s top investigators, and over the years we had worked on a number of cases together, the most spectacular one being the so-called Dubinsky Affair, which had turned Henry into something of a minor legend in the field. Arthur Dubinsky had faked his death at fifty-one by killing a homeless man from the streets of New York and substituting that body for his own in a fiery car crash off a cliff in the Rockies. Maureen, his twenty-eight-year-old third wife, collected on the one-point-six-million-dollar policy, and then, just one month later, sold her Manhattan co-op and vanished from sight. Henry, who had been suspicious of Dubinsky from the start, had continued keeping tabs on Maureen, and when she suddenly upped and left New York, he filed a report with his department chief, who granted him permission to go after her. It took nine months of arduous legwork before he found Mrs. Dubinsky – living with her perfectly intact husband on the island of Saint Lucia. We managed to recover eighty-five percent of the policy; Arthur Dubinsky wound up in prison for murder; and Henry and I were rewarded with large bonuses.
I worked with Peoples for more than twenty years, but I’m not going to pretend I ever liked him. He was an odd, unpleasant man who adhered to a strict vegetarian diet and demonstrated all the warmth and personality of an extinguished lamppost. Rumpled polyester suits (mostly brown), thick horn-rim glasses, perpetual dandruff, and an unnerving revulsion against small talk of any kind. You could show up at the office with your arm in a sling or a patch over your eye, and Henry wouldn’t say a word. He would stare at you for a while, absorb the details of your injury, and then, without asking how you’d hurt yourself or whether you were in pain, calmly put his report on your desk.
Still, he had a knack for wriggling into holes and scaring up missing people, and now that he was retired, I wondered if he wouldn’t be willing to take on the job for me. Fortunately, he hadn’t moved from his old apartment in Queens, which he shared with his widowed sister and four cats. When I dialed his number, he picked up on the second ring.
“Just name a price,” I said. “I’ll pay anything you ask.”
“I don’t want your money, Nathan,” he answered. “Just cover my expenses, and it’s a deal.”
“It could take months. I’d hate to see you lose so much time and get nothing out of it.”
“That’s all right. It’s not as if I have anything better to do with myself these days. I’ll climb back into the saddle, and I’ll get to live the glory years all over again.”
“The glory years?”
“Sure. All those good times we had together, Nathan. Dubinsky. Williamson. O’Hara. Lupino. You remember those cases, don’t you?”
“Of course I remember them. I didn’t know you were such a sentimentalist, Henry.”
“I’m not. Or at least I didn’t think I was. But you can count on me. For old times’ sake.”
“I’m assuming North Carolina or South Carolina. But I could be wrong.”
“Don’t worry. As long as Minor used to have a phone, I’ll be able to find him. It’s in the bag.”
Six weeks later, Henry called me in the middle of the night and muttered four syllables into my ear: “Winston-Salem.”
The next morning I was on a plane, flying south into the heart of tobacco country.
THE LAUGHING GIRL
Eighty-seven Hawthorne Street was a shabby two-story house on a half-rural, half-suburban road about three miles from the center of town. I lost my way several times before I found it, and when I parked my rented Ford Escort in the dirt driveway, I noticed that all the blinds on the front windows had been drawn. It was a gloomy, overcast Sunday in mid-December. The logical assumption was that no one was at home – or else that Rory and her husband lived in that house as if it were a cave, guarding themselves against the glare of natural light, fending off the impingements of the outside world, the sole members of a society of two. There was no doorbell, so I knocked. When nothing happened, I knocked again. Ever since Rory had left her message on Tom’s machine, we had been expecting her to call back. But no more had been heard from her, and now that I was standing in front of what appeared to be an empty house, I was beginning to suspect that she no longer lived there. All sorts of gruesome thoughts jumped around in my head as I knocked for the third time. What if she had tried to run away, I asked myself, and Minor had caught up with her? What if he had taken her to another city, another state, and we had lost track of her forever? What if he had struck her down and accidentally killed her? What if the end had already come, and I was too late to help her, too late to carry her back to the world she belonged to?
The door opened, and there was Minor in the flesh, a tall, good-looking man of about forty, with dark, neatly combed hair and gentle blue eyes. I had built him up into such a monster over the past months, I was shocked to discover how unthreatening he looked, how normal. If there was anything strange about him, it was the fact that he was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and a blue necktie knotted tightly at the collar. What kind of man walked around the house in a white shirt and tie? I wondered. It took a moment for me to come up with the answer. A man who had been to church, I said to myself. A man who observed the Sabbath and took his religion seriously.
“Yes?” he asked. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m Rory’s uncle,” I said. “Nathan Glass. I happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by to see her.”
“Oh? Is she expecting you?”
“Not that I’m aware of. As I understand it, you don’t have a telephone.”
“That’s correct. We don’t believe in them. They encourage too much chatter and idle talk. We prefer to save our words for more essential things.”
“Very interesting … Mr … Mr …”
“Minor. David Minor. I’m Aurora’s husband.”
“That’s what I thought. But I didn’t want to presume.”
“Come in, Mr. Glass. Unfortunately, Aurora isn’t feeling well today. She’s upstairs taking a nap, but you’re more than welcome to come in. We’re very open-minded in this neck of the woods. Even when others don’t share our faith, we make every effort to treat them with dignity and respect. It’s one of God’s holy commandments.”
I smiled but said nothing. He had a pleasant enough manner, but already he was talking like a fanatic, and the last thing I needed was to tangle with him over theological issues. Give him his God and his church, I said to myself. The only reason I was there was to confirm whether Rory was in danger or not – and if she was, to get her out of that house as quickly as I could.
Based on the condition of the exterior (peeling paint, disintegrating shutters, weeds sprouting from the concrete steps), I was prepared to find some squalid assortment of broken, mismatched furniture cluttering the rooms within, but the place turned out to be more than presentable. Rory had inherited June’s talent for doing much with little, and she had fashioned the living room into an austere but attractive environment, decorated with potted plants, handmade gingham curtains, and a large poster advertising a Giacometti museum show on the opposite wall. Minor gestured for me to take a seat on the couch, and I sat. He settled into a chair on the other side of the glass coffee table, and for the next few moments neither one of us said a word. I was tempted to plunge in at full tilt – demanding to go upstairs and talk to Aurora, grilling him with questions about Lucy, forcing him to explain why his wife was too scared to call her own brother – but I realized that this approach would probably backfire on me, and so I tiptoed into the conversation as delicately as I could.
“North Carolina,” I began. “The last we heard, you were living with your mother in Philadelphia. What brought you down here?”
“Several things,” Minor said. “My sister and her husband live in the area, and they found a good job for me. That job led to an even better job, and now I’m assistant manager at the True Value Hardware Store over at the Camelback Mall. It
might not sound like much to you, but it’s honest work, and I make a decent living. When I think about what I was like seven or eight years ago, it’s a miracle I’ve come this far. I was a sinner, Mr. Glass. I was a drug addict and a fornicator, a liar and a petty criminal, a betrayer of everyone who loved me. Then I found peace in the Lord, and my life was saved. I know it’s hard for a Jewish person like yourself to understand us, but we’re not just another sect of Bible-thumping, fire-and-brimstone Christians. We don’t believe in the apocalypse and the Day of Judgment; we don’t believe in the Rapture or the End of Time. We prepare ourselves for life in heaven by living good lives on earth.”
“When you say we, who are you talking about?”
“Our church. The Temple of the Holy Word. We’re a small group. Our congregation has just sixty members, but the Reverend Bob is an inspired leader, and he’s taught us many things. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’”
“The Gospel according to Saint John. Chapter one, verse one.”
“So you’re familiar with the Book.”
“To some extent. For a Jew who doesn’t believe in God, more than most.”
“Are you telling me you’re an atheist?”
“All Jews are atheists. Except for the ones who aren’t, of course. But I don’t have much to do with them.”
“You’re not making fun of me, are you, Mr. Glass?”
“No, Mr. Minor, I’m not making fun of you. I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Because if you’re making fun of me, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“I’m interested in the Reverend Bob. I want to know what makes his church different from the others.”
“He understands what it means to sacrifice. If the Word is God, then the words of men mean nothing. They’re no more significant than the grunts of animals or the cries of birds. To breathe God into us and absorb His Word, the reverend instructs us to refrain from indulging in the vanity of human speech. That’s the sacrifice. One day out of seven, every member of the congregation must maintain a full and unbroken silence for twenty-four straight hours.”
“That must be very difficult.”
“It is at first. But then you begin to adjust, and your days of silence become the most beautiful and fulfilling moments of the week. You can actually feel the presence of God within you.”
“And what happens when someone breaks the silence?”
“He has to begin all over again the next day.”
“And if your child is sick, and you have to call the doctor on your day of silence, what happens then?”
“Married couples are never silent on the same day. You get your spouse to make the call.”
“But how can you call if you don’t have a phone?”
“You go to the nearest pay phone.”
“And what about children? Do they have days of silence as well?”
“No, children are exempt. They don’t enter the fold until the age of fourteen.”
“Your Reverend Bob has it all figured out, doesn’t he?”
“He’s a brilliant man, and his teachings make life better and simpler for us. We’re a happy flock, Mr. Glass. Every day, I get down on my knees and thank Jesus for sending us to North Carolina. If we hadn’t come here, we never would have known the joys of belonging to the Temple of the Holy Word.”
As Minor talked, I had the impression that he would have been satisfied to go on extolling the virtues of the Reverend Bob for another six or ten hours, but I found it curious to see how carefully he avoided mentioning the names of his wife and adopted daughter. I hadn’t traveled all the way down from New York to shoot the breeze about True Value Hardware and crackpot temples of God. Now that we had spent some time together and he was beginning to feel a bit less nervous in my company, I figured the moment had come to change the subject.
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked me about Lucy,” I said.
“Lucy?” he replied, looking genuinely taken aback. “Do you know her?”
“Of course I know her. She’s living with Aurora’s brother and his new wife. I see her almost every day.”
“I thought you were out of touch with the family. Aurora said you lived in the suburbs somewhere, and no one had seen you in years.”
“That changed about six months ago. I’m back in touch. I’m in touch all the time.”
Minor gave me a short, wistful grin. “How’s the little one doing?”
“Do you care?”
“Of course I care.”
“Then why did you send her away?”
“It wasn’t my decision. Aurora didn’t want her anymore, and there was nothing I could do to stop her.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t know Aurora, Mr. Glass. She’s not all there in the head. I do everything I can to help and support her, but she shows no gratitude. I pulled her out of the depths of hell and saved her life, but she still won’t give in. She still won’t believe.”
“Is there any law that says she has to believe what you believe?”
“She’s my wife. A wife should follow her husband. It’s her duty to follow her husband in all things.”
It was difficult to know where we were headed now. The conversation was branching off in several directions at once, and my instincts were beginning to fail me. Minor’s calm, soft-spoken question about Lucy seemed to demonstrate a sincere regard for her well being, and unless he was a ferociously gifted liar, a man who wouldn’t hesitate to distort the truth whenever it served his purpose, I found myself in the awkward position of feeling a little sorry for him. At least for a few moments I did, and that sudden, unexpected rush of sympathy caught me with my guard down, turning what was supposed to be a naked clash of wills into something far more complex, far more human. But then he had started bad-mouthing Rory, blaming her for abandoning her own daughter, accusing her of mental instability, and then, even worse, had come out with that idiotic, reactionary pronouncement about marriage. Still, certain facts were nevertheless undeniable. He had rescued her from drugs and fallen in love with her, and based on Rory’s past history, who was to say she wasn’t prone to fits of irrational behavior, that she wasn’t an impossible person to live with, that she wasn’t partially out of her mind? On the other hand, perhaps the entire conflict could be boiled down to a single irresolvable point: Minor believed in the teachings of the Reverend Bob, and Rory didn’t. And because she refused to believe, he had gradually come to hate her.
From where I was sitting on the couch, I had a clear view of the staircase that led to the second floor. As I pondered what to say next, I looked past Minor’s left shoulder in that direction, momentarily distracted by something I’d seen out of the corner of my eye – a small, dark object that appeared for less than a second, then vanished before I could identify what it was. Minor began talking again, reiterating his ideas on what constituted a good and proper marriage, but he no longer had my full attention. I was looking at the stairs, belatedly understanding that the thing I had seen was probably the tip of a shoe – no doubt Aurora’s shoe – and if that was the case, I hoped she’d been standing there for some time, eavesdropping on us since the start of my visit. Minor was so wrapped up in what he was saying, he still hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t looking directly at him. Fuck it, I said to myself. Enough cat and mouse. Enough beating around the bush. It’s time to pull up the curtain on the second act.
“Come on down, Rory,” I said. “It’s your old Uncle Nat, and I’m not going to leave this house until I’ve talked with you.”
I jumped from the couch and skirted past Minor to the foot of the stairs, moving quickly on the off chance that he would try to stop me from going to her.
“She’s asleep,” I heard him say behind me, just as I caught my first glimpse of Aurora’s legs at the top of the stairs. “She’s been fighting the flu since Thursday and has a high fever. Come back in the middle of the week. You can talk to her then.”
> “No, David,” my niece called out as she descended the stairs. “I’m all right.”
She was wearing a pair of black jeans and an old gray sweatshirt, and it was true that she looked under the weather, not at all in good form. Pale and thin, with dark circles under her eyes, she had to clutch the banister as she slowly made her way toward me, but in spite of the effects of flu and fever, she was smiling, smiling the great, luminous smile of the little Laughing Girl she had been so many years before.
“Uncle Nat,” she said, opening her arms to me. “My knight in shining armor.” She threw herself against my body and hugged me with all her strength. “How’s my baby?” she whispered. “Is my little girl all right?”
“She’s fine,” I said. “She can’t wait to see you again, but she’s doing fine.”
Minor was standing next to us by then, looking none too pleased by this display of family affection. “Sweetheart,” he said. “You really should go back upstairs and lie down. You were a hundred and one just half an hour ago, and it isn’t good to walk around with a fever like that.”
“This is my Uncle Nat,” Rory said, still holding on to me for dear life. “My mother’s only brother. I haven’t seen him in a long, long time.”
“I know that,” Minor said. “But he can come back in a couple of days – as soon as you’re feeling better.”
“You know what’s best, don’t you, David?” Rory said. “You always know what’s best. Silly me to come downstairs without your approval.”
“Don’t go if you don’t want to,” I said to her. “You’re not going to die if you stay here for a few more minutes.”
“Oh yes, I will,” she said, making no effort to hide her sarcasm. “David thinks I’ll die if I don’t do everything he says. Isn’t that right, David?”
“Calm down, Aurora,” her husband said. “Not in front of your uncle.”
