“I guess not,” Peter said. “Nobody but me. What do you mean, haunted?”
“Oh, you know. Regular sort of thing. Old man who owned it was supposed to have died out there or disappeared or whatever. Anyway they never found him. People seen him through the windows, going around, doing all that worthless crap ghosts do. It’s all lies, of course. Nothing to keep you awake nights.”
“Doesn’t sound like it,” Peter said. He held up the photograph of Amanda and David. “I wonder if you’ve seen these people.”
The man took it, holding it at arm’s length. “What are you,” he said, “some kind of cop?”
“No,” Peter said, dreading this part. “I’m her husband.”
“Swear to God?” Bateman said, widening his eyes. He paused long enough to drink the rest of the beer in his bottle, then looked at the photo again. “Now, I might know the woman,” he said. “But the boy … I ain’t seen the boy. What’s the deal about ’em?”
“Lost,” Peter said. “Last Sunday afternoon.” That was the worst part. “When did you see the woman?”
“Well, at first I thought she was the one used to work up at the general store. Back a couple of years. But you say you’re married to her, so you’d know that better than me. What was her name? Lu, I think it was. 1 didn’t know she had a kid, though.”
“That couldn’t be her,” Peter said.
“No, I don’t guess so.” He looked at the photo again. “You want another beer? I was just going to open me another one.”
Peter shook his head. “Thanks anyway.”
“You going to drink that one?”
“I guess not,” Peter said.
“Then I’ll go ahead and drink it for you. If I had a Coke or something I’d offer it, but I’m out. Cup of coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
“Where they supposed to be, anyway?” He gestured at the photograph.
“Hawaii,” Peter said without thinking.
He nodded slowly, as if that explained nearly everything. “I was married once. Lasted ten years. Two kids. She up and left me, too. Oh, it was my fault, I guess, come to think of it. You’ve got to treat a woman right.” He looked at the photo again. “Nice-looking lady. No offense my saying so, I hope.”
“No offense,” Peter said.
“If it was me, I’d try to hold on to her a little tighter. I’d get the hell over to Hawaii, if I was you, not that I mean to be giving you advice. Either that or why don’t you wire ’em money? You can do that nearly everywhere now. No problem to Hawaii. Tell her to get on the next plane out’s what I’d do. Sometimes you’ve got to eat a little crow. It don’t taste bad. A married man gets used to the flavor or he don’t stay married.”
“That’s the truth,” Peter said. Somehow a wire had disconnected in the conversation. He let it go for the moment.
“So what kept you home, anyway? Seems to me a man should go along with the family to a place like Hawaii. No offense meant again.”
“I can’t stand the heat,” Peter said, taking the photograph back. “Haven’t seen either of them, then?”
“Not unless that’s Lu, and all I can tell you is that she worked over at the store in the Oaks, might have been, hell, three, four years back, come to think of it. Real nice gal. Same hair as this anyway. Dress kind of reminds me of a woman’s been hanging around the canyon for the last week or so. Woman and boy. I don’t know, though.” He focused on the photograph and shook his head. “I guess that ain’t them, either.”
“Woman in a black dress?” Peter asked. “Kid’s got suspenders and a striped shirt?”
“Them’s the ones. I think they’re some kind of homeless. That son of a bitch I just run off probably bought ’em out. That guy blows like big rats.”
“That’s the truth,” Peter said, standing up. “Thanks, for the time.” He patted Freeway again and stepped down off the porch.
“Sure you won’t drink a beer?”
“Maybe later on.”
“Well, tell me, you ain’t going up the road sometime today are you? My battery’s just about as dead as it can be. You mind picking me up a couple of things? Just enough till I get going again. I could walk it, but I’ve got arthritis in both knees, and I’m about out of groceries.”
“Sure,” Peter said. What the hell. He probably was going out sometime before the day was over, and if he wasn’t, then he’d go out anyway. Bateman stepped inside and then back out again with a pencil and paper. He scribbled on the paper and handed it to Peter along with a pile of ones and some change. Peter shoved it all into his pocket.
“No hurry,” the man said.
“Probably be later on this evening.”
“That’d be fine. And no offense on the advice, I hope. If I was you I’d think about wiring that money to the little woman, though. Soon, too. Western Union’s the quickest, I guess. You wait too long like I did and you’ll find yourself living out here like me with holes in your damned sleeves. Not that I don’t like it.”
“Thanks for the good word,” Peter said, turning around and waving over his shoulder. When he was out of sight down the road he took out the grocery list. “Pabst Blue Ribbon, case” was the first item, “Pabst” and “case” underlined three times. Then the words “block ice.” That was it. He didn’t bother to count the money. If there was any change left he could wire it to Hawaii.
The sun had just climbed over the ridge and was baking the west-facing slopes. In the oak shadows of the canyon floor it was cool and perfect—the kind of day to open all the windows and doors and let the air in. The winds had diminished for the moment to a willowy little breeze that drifted out of the northeast, stirring the leaves high up in the alders and carrying on it the smell of chaparral. There were autumn colors in the sycamores, and except for that and the carpet of fallen leaves, it might have been summer.
Instead of heading toward home Peter hiked up the slope toward the ridge. If Amanda and David had gone that way then maybe there’d be something, some clue. If he had a dog like Freeway he could probably search out a broken twig or a wind-faded spoor. “Comb the hillsides, Freeway!” he said out loud, then laughed.
He stopped himself, closing his eyes instead, letting the breeze wash past him. If only he wasn’t so damned useless! He’d had a wife and child, and six months ago he’d lost them, or thought he had. He’d spent those months twisting it in his head, arguing through it—whose fault it was, how it happened, this leading to that—as if the pieces of his marriage were a complicated jigsaw puzzle, and he could move the pieces around until they’d make a clear picture that he could study and make sense of.
Now he’d lost them again. Only this time it wasn’t in any kind of figurative sense. There weren’t any puzzle pieces now, nothing to argue through, nothing to protest, just some ghostly shapes in the darkness. What Ackroyd had told him hadn’t made anything more clear, but had revealed an even deeper void, and he stood now on this windy hillside looking into it, trying to see something where there was nothing.
He opened his eyes. The canyon stretched before him, winding down toward the flatlands, disappearing beyond the ridges so that civilization might have been infinitely distant. He decided right then to hike as far as the top of Falls Canyon just to see what the falls looked like in the daytime. Maybe what he’d seen last night was some trick of shadow and perspective—just another illusion. Or maybe it was a picture in the darkness.
4
KLEIN HAD BEEN UP SINCE FIVE IN THE MORNING, PROWLING around the house, listening to the wind. He had cleaned and loaded his two pistols first thing—one of them for Beth, although she would probably try to argue with him about it. She didn’t understand about Pomeroy, but he certainly couldn’t explain him to her. Sometime this morning he would head down to the Builders Emporium in El Toro to buy a couple of decent dead-bolt locks for Beth’s doors, and new sash hardware to replace the screwed-up stuff on her windows. He was going to lend her a cordless phone, too, in case the dirty little prick c
ame back. She could haul the phone around with her from room to room and punch his number in the memory dial if she needed to. He pictured confronting Pomeroy—the look on his face when he saw the pistol in Klein’s hand.
The telephone rang at nine. It was him, calling from the pay phone in front of the general store. Klein listened impatiently to the usual rundown on cabins, but he was distracted by last night. He had been half hoping that Pomeroy wouldn’t call at all, that he would have pulled up stakes and moved.
“… the old man again this morning,” he heard Pomeroy say. “There was no action on the tank yet. I’ve got a couple of ideas for leaning on him a little harder.”
“What?” Klein asked, listening now.
“I said I worked on Ackroyd again this morning. Only had a second, but you know me; I keep chipping away. I hate to push a friend of your wife’s like that, but, hey, business is business. He’ll end up with a good dollar.”
Klein wanted to swear into the receiver, but he forced himself to stay calm. This was business, whether he liked it or not. “Maybe you better back off a little,” he said. “You don’t have to sell him or lose him today. He’ll be there next week and the week after that. Maybe you ought to give it a rest for a little while, Barn. People are going to start wondering how come you’re making so many strong offers and not buying anything.”
“There’s a time frame, Lance.”
“I know there’s a time frame. I set it up. It’s my time frame. And I say to hell with Ackroyd. We don’t want people asking questions we can’t answer.”
“I don’t think we can afford to take that attitude, Lance. As far as the old man goes, I’ll come up with something.”
Like a rabid dog, Klein thought. Maybe there was nothing left to do but shoot him. “Clear it with me first, will you?” he said, forcing his voice to stay level.
“Sure,” Pomeroy said meaninglessly. “But I think he smells something. Probably that woman I met out there yesterday said something to him.”
“What?” Klein asked. “What woman?”
“The one I was talking to at the steak house last night. Her boyfriend’s got a place out in the canyon. Number twelve, I think.”
“Why would she have said anything to anyone? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m not sure, but she might have seen me fix up the old man’s tank. You know, with the mousies.” Pomeroy snickered.
“Jesus Christ!” Klein shouted into the phone. “What the hell kind of stupid—!”
“Whoa!” Pomeroy shouted back at him. “Relax. Don’t worry. I’ll chat her up a little bit. She’ll get the drift.” After a pause he said, “Problem is, I don’t know where she lives. I think it must be around here somewhere. She acts like a local.”
“That’s what you think, is it?” Klein said evenly.
“Makes sense,” Pomeroy said.
“Leave her alone,” Klein said hoarsely. “I’m only going to warn you once about that. Don’t say anything to her. Don’t go near her. Get the drift?”
“I don’t think you’ve got the drift yet,” Pomeroy said. “You know, now that I think about it, maybe it was your wife who talked to the old man, since they know each other. What did you tell me, that they used to work together? You’ve got to watch what you say to her, Lance, or you’ll turn your own wife into a liability.”
I should have shot him last night, Klein thought. I should have followed him out into the field and got it over with, told the cops that the bastard jumped me. “My wife doesn’t understand the first damned thing about this deal,” Klein said evenly. “And if she did, so what? She’s going to blow a hundred grand gabbing about it? Hell, she knows better than that. My advice, Barn … Are you listening?”
“All ears.”
“My advice is that you don’t talk to my wife, not even about the weather.”
“Then you better send her out after groceries, Lance, because I think it’s time you and I chewed a little fat face-to-face.”
The line went dead. After a moment there was a dial tone, and it was only then that Klein understood that Pomeroy was on his way up to the house.
5
PUTTING DOWN THE COFFEE MUG, BETH WENT BACK INTO the living room, where there was a cartoon on about a dog who was trying to parboil a cat, which escaped mutilation by making the dog step on a bear trap, momentarily crippling it. “This is awful,” Beth said.
“It’s a cartoon,” Bobby told her. “It’s not real.”
“Remember that,” Beth said. And of course he would. He didn’t have any trouble distinguishing between make-believe and reality. That was one of the main functions of a parent, though, to remind children about things they already knew.
“It’s nearly time to leave,” she said. “You about ready to go?”
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “Where we going?”
“Over to the nursery. We’ve got to pick out a rosebush for Peter’s house.”
“Now?”
“In a few minutes. You were going to put your shoes on,” she said to him.
Bobby kept his eyes on the TV screen. “I can’t find them,” he said. “I found my hat, though.”
“They’re right there,” Beth said, “on the floor by the end of the couch.”
Bobby said, “Oh, yeah,” without looking up.
“Put them on. Now. You should eat something more, too.”
He looked around for a moment, and then focused on the shoes. “I don’t want those shoes. I want my new Airwalks if I’m going over to Peter’s today.”
“Then get your Airwalks. Just put on some shoes.”
Bobby pushed his quilt around for a moment, finding a shoe underneath it. He held the shoe up in the air—eighty-dollar tennis shoes, a gift from his father. “Other one’s gone,” Bobby said. “I think it’s lost.”
Slightly irritated, Beth started across to turn off the television. The show was over anyway. There was a commercial just then coming on.
“Wait!” Bobby said. “This is great. Watch.”
Beth watched as an ad came on for some sort of newly invented breakfast cereal with flying saucer-shaped marsh-mallow pieces in it.
“Can we get some?” Bobby asked.
“I told you about breakfast cereal with marshmallows in it.”
“I know,” Bobby said. “Marshmallows are just oil and sugar.”
“That’s right. No food value.”
“Oil is good for you,” Bobby said. “You’ve got to have oil. Just like a car.”
“Who told you that?” Beth asked.
“Peter. He said that there’s a part of your heart called a crankcase, and it needs oil once in a while.”
“Peter’s kidding.”
“You saying there’s no such thing as a crankcase?”
“Yes there’s a crankcase, but it’s not part of your heart. It’s part of a car engine. Peter’s just being crazy.”
“I knew that,” Bobby said. “I was seeing if you did.”
“I know everything,” Beth said. “I’m your mother.”
“Then find my other shoe, will you?” Bobby stood up from the couch and wandered into the kitchen. “And find my trucks and my blue alien, too, okay?”
“If I can. There’s a bowl of cereal on the table,” Beth said. “Pour your own milk, but be careful.”
“You always say that,” Bobby said. “Like I’m going to spill on purpose or something.”
“They pay me to say that,” Beth said, and then went off to find his shoe. Bobby’s bedroom looked like a wreck. He had too much stuff, and somewhere in it, hidden, lay the other tennis shoe. She got down onto her hands and knees and looked under the bed. Nearly every inch of space under there was clogged with stuffed animals. “Where did you find the shoe you’ve got?” she hollered at him. Sometimes she got lucky, and Bobby had taken off both his shoes in the same room of the house, so that if she found one of them she could find the other somewhere nearby.
“Under the quilt,” Bobby shouted back
at her.
“I mean before that.”
“In the bedroom,” Bobby shouted. Then, not quite as loudly, he said, “What is this stuff?”
Hopeful, she went back into the kitchen again in order to avoid shouting. She had bought a new breakfast cereal, one that had nothing to do with anyone’s crankcase.
“It looks like Fruit Loops,” Bobby said, “only they forgot to put enough color in them.”
The cereal had no added sugar or salt. It was full of oat bran, too, and sweetened with fruit juice, which also provided the color. It was three-forty-nine a box, but what was money when your son’s health was concerned?
“Looks okay,” Bobby said, dousing it with milk.
“Yum,” Beth said. “Good for you, too. What do you think?”
Bobby chewed up a spoonful, then laid the spoon back into the bowl and made an awful face. “It’s crap,” he said, and for a moment Beth thought that he was going to spit it back into the bowl. He choked it down, though, then picked up his milk and swallowed half a glass full. “You try it.”
“I bet it’s good,” Beth said, picking up the spoon. “And I don’t want you talking like that.”
“Like what? What did I say?”
“You know. Just watch your mouth.”
“All right. But you were the one who made me eat it.”
“This is the sort of thing the astronauts eat,” she said cheerfully, spooning some of it up. Bobby was in an outer-space phase right now, and so was susceptible to the mention of astronauts. Beth crunched the cereal up in her mouth, anticipating something that tasted at least a little bit like it looked. What she got was the flavor of sawdust mixed up with something like lemon extract. Poker-faced, she swallowed it, then drank the rest of Bobby’s milk.
“Why would the astronauts eat something like that?” Bobby asked. “To lose weight? I mean, you wouldn’t eat very much of it.”
“That must be it,” Beth said. She carried the bowl of cereal to the sink and poured it down the disposer.
Night Relics Page 15
