by Greg Jolley
They stepped apart, the cell continuing to ring. Uncle Tim wondered again, no, suspected that Paula’s timing was not coincidental. She released his hands and walked over to her stage design table.
“Hey,” Israel said, no need for salutation. “She’s off the road and in the studio with Wyde, just as planned.”
Uncle Tim was looking at the newly vacated space between himself and the modeling table. “How did the appearances go?”
“Standard and true ‘Where’s Karen?’ performances. Doubt if a hundred people saw her. She played well and was happy. The band enjoyed her.”
Uncle Tim smiled at his cell, set it on speaker, and rested it on the table.
“Timmy? So you know, there were no abductions reported. Could’ve still happened, but it appears like it didn’t. Zack and Ross had a beefed-up group watching the entrances, lobbies, walkways, and the parking lots as best they could. Venue security was also increased.”
“Israel, it’s been bugging me—how does Zack, a cop, detective, whatever, move all over the country with Karen? I thought cops had turfs and the like.”
Israel did not reply with his usual quick confidence.
Uncle Tim turned around. Paula was moving labeled paperboard shapes on the scaled sized stage layout.
“Israel?”
“Well ... Zack isn’t exactly on a force’s payroll right now.”
“Meaning?”
“She’s on leave, Timmy—an admin leave.”
“Meaning?”
“She got herself into some trouble. A conduct issue.”
“So ... Zack is minding, watching Karen on her own time?”
“Well, no. Zack’s on my payroll.”
Uncle Tim looked to the back of Paula’s black shirt. She had released the bunt and her mahogany hair swept as she moved about her table.
“Did Zack do something wrong?” he asked.
“According to the review board, yes.”
Uncle Tim wanted to ask what, but didn’t. The two good friends let a silence lay there between themselves.
“Right,” Uncle Tim spoke first. “I’m glad that she’s keeping an eye out during Karen’s performances.”
“Yes. And the befores and the afters.”
“Where is Zack now? With Karen in the studio?”
‘Watching the studio. Watching the web. Watching the motel when Karen sleeps.”
“Right. Good.”
“Timmy? Where is—how is Brian?”
“Brian? He’s around. Either back in the warehouse or out training the new pool service girls.”
“Girls? No guys?”
“Only women,” Uncle Tim smiled, watching, marveling at Paula’s gangly arms working and moving. His view of her model was obscured.
“Brian’s idea,” he said. “He thinks clients will be more patient and relaxed with only women on their property.”
“Okay ... He hasn’t disappeared? Wandered off?”
“Not that I’ve seen. Don’t know about his nights.” Uncle Tim let out a little more smile.
“Oh, I do,” Israel laughed. “Sleeping in a swimming pool.”
“Of course.”
“Of course.”
Paula’s arms and shoulders paused. She looked over her shoulder, her calm eyes lovely and steady.
‘Israel?” Uncle Tim said softly, returning Paula’s gaze. Her expression was another mystery to him—a blend of curiosity and concern.
“Yes?”
“Gotta go make Paula lunch.”
“Yes. Talk to you at two a.m.”
“Right. I’ll be here.”
They hung up.
Paula and Uncle Tim stood a few feet apart, in between their design tables, looking to one another. The light from the opera house’s many tall windows shifted to a muted gray. When the light warmed and brightened again, Uncle Tim reluctantly looked away.
“I’ll go to the market.”
Paula continued to study his face and his eyes.
It appeared to him that she was not even breathing.
“Anything special, today? Different?”
Paula took a breath. She held it deep before letting it flow out. She turned around, back to her design. “No, thank you. Surprise me, please.”
“Let me go find my wallet and the grocery bags.”
”Okay.”
LEONARDO FINISHED PAINTING FOR the evening. His work lay before him, silent and still. The cameras continued to roll on their tripods, the video posting to his dark net website. His battered copy of The Pillow Book was open to word painting 80, ‘Things that create the appearance of deep emotion’.
His painting was excellent, but the canvas was less than ideal. A chubby small thing with disgusting rolls of back fat, and coarse, weathered skin. He took another breath from his half bar of surf wax.
That Zack cop had closely examined his press pass and stopped him from entering backstage. His confident bravado had earned him an elbow gouge by a yellow-vested security goon. He had missed Karen, but plucked this canvas twenty minutes later.
He had discovered this canvas sitting on the tailgate of a cowboy truck in the back rows of the parking lot; perhaps ticketless and certainly dazed and bemused.
This mousey canvas had been difficult with him. At first. His chemistry was flawless as always, no blame there. A mistake on his part was not possible. Must have been a hiccup during the tranq prep before he purchased it at the pharmaceutical warehouse. Well, actually, in the alley behind the warehouse. She had gotten physical, which he didn’t mind, and took care of with his roll of Gorilla tape before escorting her aboard the sailboat. It was her mouth and meaningless ranting that had angered him. He had solved that with more tape—possibly covering her nostrils as well. No matter, she was silent after a few minutes, no longer intruding on the movie soundtrack that featured his favorite violinist.
Standing naked beside the canvas on the table, he turned on the compressor and took up his tattoo gun, ready to put his signature on his art. He donned his magnifying eyepiece and leaned over the snow-covered hills and valleys.
He worked with flare and delight, admiring the miniature impressionist flavor of his signature. Was it an L for Leonardo? Or a simple check mark? It was a clever aesthetic touch and ambiguous, but also compelling—the mark of sure genius.
That done, he turned the cameras off. He took another minute to study his completed creation, seeing no flaws or errors in his painting.
Now he needed to get the canvas draped in clear plastic and discarded. He had the immortal film to share with the world. The fleshy residue before him needed to go. Perhaps a picnic table in a park? Or a bench with a view on a city street?
The rains began four days later.
Paula woke to the sounds of swirling wind and the gurgling of the rain gutters from outside the window beside her bed. She opened her eyes from within a distressed tangle of pillows and blankets, her skin hot with perspiration. She left the bed slowly and started for the kitchen, stopped, and pulled on clothing—pants and a shirt borrowed from Emma. She considered a shower first to wash away the feverous remains of her dreams. Glancing back to her bed she whispered, “Naughty,” with a wistful smile and closed the door.
Uncle Tim was before the stove and the oven cooking and baking while the kitchen warmed with the scent of espresso. Paula sat at the breakfast table, sipping from a mug of the thick and very dark coffee and thought again that the shower might have been the better first choice. Uncle Tim served breakfast and joined her sitting in the chair across the table.
Their conversation began as the prior mornings, focused on flows: the likely flow of the residents of the river house, and the flow patterns of musicians on her new stage design. They had differing opinions on how typical people gathered and departed. It had become clear over the past days that neither had much personal experience with typical living.
“Two or more living together has to be messy,” Paula observed, taking a bite of buttered rye toast.
“Yes. No question, but there must some gathering. Messy, like you said, but needed.”
“I think the house should give each of them more space. More separation. Places to retreat to.”
“Retreat? Yes. And they’ll have ten acres of house and river.”
“You see areas for joining, but all I’m seeing is places for irritation. For sparks.”
“Sparks, sure. But, also love. Or at least sharing.”
“Right. Sharing, or worse, tedium. Look at how you live. This grand strange place and Karen and everyone and your mysterious hidden bedroom.”
“Maybe we should go back over the client’s requirements—”
“Oh no, let’s stay on this subject. I sense big time retreating in you.”
“Yes… I believe in private quiet places.”
Paula looked around the room, “An opera house. I’m thinking of the Addams Family show. Great sets. Grand odd relationships. A beehive of characters.”
“But even Gomez needed his basement, his trains, and a door lock.”
“Oh? And tell me, Uncle Tim. Where are your trains?”
“More toast?” he offered.
AT TWO IN THE afternoon, Uncle Tim’s cell rang. Like the days before, he stepped back from Paula, tapped it, and said hello to Israel. The two good friends talked about Karen’s recording sessions with Wyde.
“They’re on a new course—I’m hearing calypso and blues, I think. Is Paula there? Put her on?”
Paula and Israel talked about the schedule for the new stage design. She refused to discuss what it looked like or what the theme was. Uncle Tim smiled as Israel pleaded to no success. He heard Israel say, “Okay. Listen, Zack has a few additional questions. Do you mind?”
Paula greeted Zack in cool tones and walked to the far end of the stage. The conversation was brief due to Paula’s curt “Yes” and “No” replies.
The two spent the rest of the day on the stage where Paula worked and talked on her phone with Weather—it was apparently time to start building props. The caterers brought dinner, and they ate at the folding table in the orchestra pit.
After dinner, Uncle Tim left the stage and went to rear of the building where Brian and his crew were closing up their day around Brian’s battered desk. When the crew left, Uncle Tim went up front and locked the doors.
Reentering the theatre, he saw that Paula was no longer working. The lights were dimmed, and the air was warm. Uncle Tim yawned. He went on up to the kitchen, set his cell on the windowsill, washed his hands and face, and headed off to bed early.
The blanket descended like a gold cloud, and Karen’s head and shoulders were veiled with the reek of chemicals.
Leonardo climbed down off the toilet in the adjoining stall and entered hers after cracking the lock.
He gathered Karen up, moving part of the shroud aside so she could take in fresh air, and carried her limp and bundled body out into the studio hallway. There were voices down the hall. A quick look showed no one nearby. He carried Karen away in the other direction and out the back door. The parking lot was pitch dark. Leonardo poured Karen into the back seat of his sedan and a minute later, the headlights illuminated business park buildings as he headed west.
He drove four blocks away, parked, and transferred Karen to the salon of the sailboat.
ISRAEL WOKE UP ON the couch in the soft-lit playback room, his cell beeping and displaying 1:40 a.m. He stared at the cell and then at Ross in the recliner. The bodyguard was sleeping with headphones on. Israel stood up and looked through the large window to the musicians and engineers milling about mics and instruments and music stands. He thought of Zack and frowned; she had been the smart one who had left the studio earlier in the night to sleep at the motel—sleeping in a bed, as normal people do. He saw Karen’s violin and dobro, but not her. The members of Wyde were clearly not recording so he pressed the intercom switch and asked, “Where’s Karen?”
The musicians gave him a number of distracted frowns and shrugs.
Israel released the switch and waited four minutes for Karen to appear. He left the playback room to look for her, starting with the restroom.
Israel knocked on the door and waited. He rapped harder on the door. Getting no response, he decided to look in other rooms of the studio. He noticed that the back door was chocked open; probably by the one engineer who took smoke breaks. He looked out on the empty smoking patio, kicked the chock aside, and closed the door.
After checking out the other rooms and equipment bays, he returned to the playback room. He kicked Ross’s extended boot and told him, “Let’s get everyone together.”
“Sure. Why?”
Ross levered the recliner and stood.
“Karen’s gone.”
“Where?” Ross replied, rubbing his face.
Israel pursed his lips.
“Fuck,” Ross said.
The alarm clock in Israel’s cell begins to chime and display two a.m., time for the status call to Uncle Tim.
“Call Zack at the motel. Maybe Karen’s there? Not sure how, but. Just ask her.”
While his cell continued to chime, Israel watched Ross, the band, and engineers gathering in the recording studio. Ross was on his cell and talking to them while it rang. Israel didn’t need to join them; all heads were shaking. Tapping the alarm clock off, he selected Uncle Tim from his contacts and placed the call.
The phone rang and rang all the way to voicemail. The musicians on the other side of the window were looking at him. He canceled the call and dialed Brian.
It was clear he had woken the big guy, who sounded like he was in the middle of dreaming and muttering oddities.
Israel growled through that chaos, “Find Timmy. Karen’s missing.”
“Okay,” Brian answered and hung up.
“Brian! Fuck!” He shouted in frustration, looking at the end of call display.
Ross was leaving the studio and heading out into the hall with engineers in tow. Israel heard them knocking on doors and shouting. He dialed Uncle Tim’s number again. No answer.
Zack called with the scary news that she had checked Karen’s room and she wasn’t there. She had woken Emma on the couch, who said she hadn’t seen Karen since midnight, when she left her in the studio.
He dialed Uncle Tim a third time, and the call finally answered, but not by Timmy; instead, he got a sleepy sounding Paula.
Paula’s room was midnight dark, and she didn’t wake easily. She was once again entangled in dreams and bedding and when she opened her eyes, her body was hot and her skin feverous. She sat up and saw that she was sideways on the bed again with a pillow in embrace.
She stared into the darkness, hearing wind, rain, and a telephone ringing, on, and on, and on. There was a minute of silence and then the ringing started again. She untangled herself and climbed to the edge of the bed. She followed the sound of the telephone into the kitchen where she stood naked and yawning. She saw the cell on the windowsill above the sink. She tapped the light switch, and the kitchen went bright. Squinting, she tapped the answer icon.
“Timmy,” Israel said briskly.
“No. It’s Paula. And it’s after two a.m.”
“Yes. Yes. Put Uncle Tim on please.”
Paula stretched her lovely and steady eyes open wide. “That’s a problem. I’ve no idea where he sleeps. I’ve looked before. No idea.”
“Paula, you need to find him. We have a bit of a crisis.”
Paula turned to the window, to the sound of a car starting. She saw the headlights of a pickup crossing the lot at high speed. When the truck passed under the arc lamp at the rear of the building, she saw the poles, buckets, and other supplies in its bed. The truck disappeared into the alley alongside the opera house.
“Paula?”
“Brian’s truck is leaving.”
“Yes. I called him when I couldn’t get Uncle Tim. Dammit. I told him to not come, but to get Timmy first.”
She heard the truck race up the alley.
&nbs
p; “Maybe Uncle Tim is with him?”
Not waiting for Israel’s response, she walked to the curtain before the kitchen window over the side of the building. She parted the curtain, the material rich and heavy in her hand.
“Paula?” Israel barked.
She cupped the cell between shoulder and cheek and stared. Between her and the fire escape was a door centered in the window. A fine door and well maintained. She tried the handle and the door opened, letting in wind and rain.
“Paula!”
She stepped out into the storm, looking down through the grates. The fire escape had no opening, no ladder contraption to lower rungs that didn’t exist.
“Paula! What’s going on?”
She turned to her right and let her eyes climb the shiny metal ladder that rose for the roof. She went back inside, heading for her bedroom and clothing.
“Paula!”
She gathered her clothing from the bedding and pulled them on.
“Paula?” Israel was trying a calm voice.
“I don’t know where he is. What’s going on?”
She crossed the kitchen to the window, door, whatever. Out on the landing in the rain, she wished she had grabbed a jacket. Israel spoke as she started to pocket the cell.
“Karen is gone. As in taken.”
Paula paused with her hand on the ladder rail.
“Okay,” she shouted into the wind. “I’ll find him if he’s here.”
Not waiting for a reply, she slid the cell in her pocket and started to climb.
HER CLOTHING WAS RAIN-SOAKED halfway up the side of the tall brick building. Wind swept her wet hair across her face, but she was able to keep her eyes on each metal rung as she climbed. The ladder felt secure, but the rungs were slick. She knew better than to look down, but she was trembling as she watched the roof edge move too slow to her.
Paula reached the top curve of the ladder and climbed up on the roof. She descended the two rungs slowly, carefully, before looking around. She saw that she was standing on a circular pad of inlaid bricks. There was a mailbox on a post, facing the ladder behind her. Outward was a recently mowed lawn. Smaller brick circles offered a path forward. In the distance, there was a lamp on a post way up high, beyond what looked like a wall of foliage.
