by Pat Bertram
“I don’t know. We just got here.
“Look, there it is.”
Bob turned to follow her finger. The station wagon raced down the street to the Stark house. It pulled into the driveway without any discernable lessening of speed, and stopped abruptly. Lorena jumped out. She wore a shapeless sweat suit and bunny slippers, and her hair looked uncombed.
“Is that Lorena?” Kerry asked, craning her neck.
“Yes. Probably took the kids to school.”
He saw nothing else of interest until Robert came out an hour and a half later, climbed into the vehicle, and drove to Buckingham Square.
After watching him work for an hour, Kerry sighed. “He’s not going anywhere. Since we’re at the mall, I’d like to do some shopping. Coming?”
Bob glanced once more at Robert, who fiddled with a computer by himself, then followed her to a drugstore.
“Look!” she exclaimed, grabbing a paperback off a display by the counter. “A new novel by William Henry Harrison. Are you familiar with him?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve read all his books. I didn’t think there would ever be another one. This is great.” She thrust the book into his hands, then darted down a nearby aisle and grabbed two boxes of hair dye.
When he caught up to her, she said, “I need a change.” She raised first one box to her face, then the other, and looked at him expectantly. “Would you like me better as a redhead or a blond?”
It seemed a strangely intimate moment, as if they were husband and wife, or at least friends of long standing, and he found himself unable to speak.
“Well?” she said.
“It’s never been established I like you at all.”
“Of course you do.” She laughed. “You find me annoying, but you still like me.”
“If you say so.” And he did like her. Somehow she made his bizarre plight seem normal, as if having a duplicate self were simply an interesting personality quirk.
“Ouch. I bet that hurt.”
He wondered what she meant, then realized he was smiling.
“So which?” she asked. “Blonde or red?”
“Neither.” He reached out to touch her hair. Remembering that she had a boyfriend, he let his hand drop. “I like your natural color. Sometimes it’s a true black, but other times you have red highlights, as if your banked inner fires are glowing through.”
She stared at him for a second, then slowly replaced the boxes.
***
“Do you mind if we go?” Kerry asked at four o’clock. “We aren’t learning anything, and Pete and I have plans for this evening.”
Not yet ready to leave, Bob decided to call a cab for her but changed his mind when he remembered Scott’s invitation to dinner. It would be rude to cancel now, especially if the man’s wife had gone to a lot of trouble. Besides, Kerry spoke the truth; they weren’t learning anything.
“Okay, let’s go.” As they walked to the car, laden with Kerry’s purchases, he said, “You did a good job today.”
She rewarded him with a pleased but tired smile.
***
Scott Mulligan welcomed Bob warmly and ushered him into a homey living room filled with well-worn furniture and floor to ceiling bookshelves, where a woman, a boy, and a girl waited. Like Scott, they were nice looking with open faces and they dressed modestly.
Scott gestured to the woman. “This is my beautiful wife, Rose.”
Rose blushed becomingly, and for a second she did look beautiful. Her best feature was her shiny dark brown hair.
Scott gestured to the girl. About eleven years old, she looked like a younger version of her mother. “This is my gorgeous daughter, Beth.”
Beth giggled. “Oh, Daddy.”
“And that’s Jimmy.” Scott pointed to the sturdy, bright-eyed boy, who appeared to be about two years older than his sister. Both father and son had square, blunt-nosed faces, and unruly auburn cowlicks.
Rose held out a hand. “Please sit.”
Bob perched on the edge of a dark green upholstered chair.
“We’re glad you came,” Rose said. “Scott mentioned you’ve recently returned home. I don’t imagine there’s a lot you remember. Denver’s changed so much in the past eighteen years.”
Bob shifted his weight. “I’ve noticed.”
“At least we’ve been having nice weather, all these dry, sunny days, but then maybe you prefer rain?”
“I don’t know if I prefer it so much as I’m used to it.”
Rose nodded. “A person can get used to anything, I suppose, but I think it would be difficult to learn to live in an entirely different environment. Was it your experiences in Vietnam that prevented you from coming home?”
Bob glanced from Rose’s sympathetic face to Scott’s interested one and wondered if he had made a mistake in coming here. They seemed pleasant, and he’d sensed an affinity with Scott, but he didn’t enjoy talking about himself, especially not to strangers.
He gave a mental shrug. It was a trivial matter after all. “No, nothing like that. Someone offered me a job, and . . . well, the years passed.”
Scott spread his arms along the back of the green couch, which did not match the upholstered chair, and stretched out his legs. “What’s your line of work, Bob?”
“The restaurant business.”
“Ah, the food service industry.” A calculating look crossed Scott’s face. “Let me know if you have any free time. My church runs a soup kitchen. We can always use the help.”
“Don’t let him bulldoze you, Bob,” Rose said. “He’s as sweet as can be until he gets his mind set on something, then watch out.”
Scott laughed. “I don’t know what’s worse, being misunderstood or being understood.”
Rose smiled at him then turned to Bob. “Excuse us. We have to set the table.” Gathering her children, she herded them into the dining room.
Bob leaned back in the chair and listened to the domestic sounds of children laughing and utensils clinking. “I’ve heard that Vietnam vets had a rough time of it when they returned home.”
“Many did. We’d all been raised on World War Two movies, and somehow we got it into our heads we’d get the same reception as the soldiers in the movies did, but everyone treated us like pariahs. Now that they’re making Vietnam movies, we’re becoming part of the country’s mythology, so people aren’t treating us with quite so much disdain, but we had it rough for a while. I was lucky. I have Rose, I have my children, and I have my work.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m an administrator of a literary foundation that runs a private bookmobile service for shut-ins and supplies books for nursing homes, hospitals, and hospices.”
Rose reentered the room. “And every weekend he finds time to read to the elderly who can no longer read to themselves.”
Scott made a dismissive gesture. “Well, so do you and Beth and Jimmy.”
“Are you ready to eat?” Rose asked. “Dinner’s on the table.”
After everyone gathered at the table, said grace, and passed the food around, Rose asked about Thailand. She listened so intently that Bob found himself talking about his fascination with Bangkok, a city with no downtown, no neighborhoods, just a sprawling conglomeration of buildings with architectural marvels tucked in the most unexpected places. He told about the gibbons, the family pet of choice, about the weekend market at the beautiful tree-lined Phramane Grounds, and about the Thai kickboxing matches he had attended.
“Did you find much difference between Vietnam and Thailand?” Scott asked.
“I didn’t see many similarities except perhaps for the weather at certain times of the year. Vietnam had a strong French influence. Many of the places seemed like they belonged more on the French Riviera than in a country at war. Thailand, on the other hand, is unique. During most of its history, the Thais were left alone to develop their own culture without outside influences. Thai architecture, for example, has no equal. It is stunningly beautiful—a perfect balance be
tween simple, harmonious lines and intricate ornamentation.”
“You speak like an artist,” Rose said.
Bob took a bite of food and chewed it slowly.
Rose gasped. “How terrible of us. We’ve kept you talking so much we haven’t given you a chance to eat.”
While Bob finished his delicious dinner of roast beef, stuffed baked potatoes, mixed vegetables, and made-from-scratch dinner rolls, Beth and Jimmy tried to top each other with family stories that seemed to have been told and retold so many times they sounded folkloric: how Scott had fallen into City Park Lake, how Beth had dyed herself blue, how Jimmy had gotten sick from eating poisonous berries.
After Beth and Jimmy cleared off the table, Rose brought in a heaping plateful of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies, along with tea for the adults and lemonade for the children.
Stuffing a cookie in his mouth, Jimmy announced, “We’re building a greenhouse in the back-yard.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Rose said, but it seemed an automatic response. Bob heard no censure in her voice.
“So we can have a garden all year,” Beth explained.
Scott took a sip of his tea. “I wanted a project the whole family could get involved with, and a greenhouse seemed as good as anything.”
Jimmy grabbed another cookie. “Better. When it’s done we can grow strawberries and tomatoes and corn.”
“And toads,” Beth added.
“You don’t grow toads in a garden, silly,” Jimmy said.
“Do too.”
“And anyway, girls aren’t supposed to like toads.”
“I do. Toads and lizards and snakes.”
When everyone finished eating, Scott compli-mented his wife on the meal and stood. Beth and Jimmy jumped to their feet and took off running, as if a school dismissal bell had been rung.
“Don’t forget you still have the dishes to do,” Rose called after them. “And homework.”
Scott led the way into the living room.
“You have nice children,” Bob commented.
Rose inclined her head. “Thank you.”
“They grow so quickly,” Scott said with a catch in his voice. “Before we know it, they’ll have families of their own.” He opened a photograph album and showed Bob pictures of his family.
As Scott turned the pages, Bob could see the young ones growing from babyhood to toddlerhood to childhood, and Rose growing more settled and serene. He wondered what it would be like to be part of a loving family such as theirs; then it occurred to him that if he had returned to Denver after Vietnam, perhaps he would have been the one to marry Lorena, and he would know.
But who would he be—Robert the computer salesperson, Bob the artist, or an entirely different Robert Stark altogether?
Chapter 5
The ample-bodied woman sitting behind the admitting desk at the VA hospital scowled at Bob. “How many times do I have to tell you? You cannot see Dr. Albion. Take a seat, and Dr. Montgomery will be with you as soon as he is able.”
“But I need to talk to Dr. Albion,” Bob said.
The woman pointed a stubby finger at him. “If you don’t do as you’re told, you won’t be talking to anyone.”
Bob waited. When the woman became involved with another hapless individual, he stepped from the crowd at the desk to a cluster of nurses and patients passing into the hallway. He remained with them for a minute, then veered off into another corridor and proceeded to Dr. Albion’s office. He hoped to corner the doctor and ask him what he’d found out; he himself had learned nothing about his situation despite his continued observation of Robert.
Seeing a group of nurses huddled outside the doctor’s office, he slowed his pace, but kept on walking.
“He was such a nice man,” a sniveling older woman said. “Always so courteous and charming, with a kind word for everyone.”
A buxom young nurse wiped away the tears streaming down her face. “I’ll miss him. Why did it have to happen?”
A redheaded nurse shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”
The older woman wiped her nose with a lace-edged handkerchief. “We’re all having a hard time believing he’s dead.”
“I’m not in denial. What I mean is I don’t be-lieve he drove while intoxicated. He never drank.”
“Maybe he had problems and stopped to have a few drinks on the way home,” a motherly looking nurse said in a soft voice. “Even non-drinkers drink occa-sionally.”
The redhead crossed her arms beneath her bosom. “Not Dr. Albion. He couldn’t drink—some sort of allergy to alcohol.”
“What are you saying?” the older woman asked. “That someone killed Dr. Albion?”
“Of course not,” the redhead answered. “We all know he died in a car accident. It’s . . . oh, never mind. I have to go back to work.”
The women dispersed. Bob left by way of a side door and wound his way through the grounds to his car.
***
Bob parked down the block from the boarding house, then spent the morning walking and thinking, trying to make sense of his situation. He could feel the anger and fear work their way up from deep inside him, and he missed the serenity he’d once had.
He returned from his walk by way of the alley. To avoid attracting his landlady’s attention, he opened the gate wide enough to slide through, closed it soundlessly and skirted the yard, staying in the shadow of the hedge. As he neared the house, he caught a flicker of movement through his French doors.
He winced. Ella must be nosing around his room.
From inside the room came the rumbling of a voice too deep to belong to the old woman, and the answering growl of an even deeper voice.
Bob stopped short. Not Ella, then. Two men.
With barely perceptible movements, Bob edged closer to the house. Then he stopped, stilled his thoughts, stood like stone.
He watched.
Listened.
The crickets ceased chirping. A few amber leaves fell, sounding like raindrops in the silence. The men’s voices seemed to grow louder.
“At least we finally found him,” the man with the deep voice said.
“We didn’t find him, shit-for-brains,” the baritone responded. “The computer geeks found him.” The baritone climbed to a falsetto. “We can find anyone, anywhere, anytime.” It dropped back to its normal register. “Assholes.”
Subdued sounds of a search floated out into the garden.
“Fuck it,” Baritone said. “The papers aren’t here.”
“Mr. Evans is going to be pissed. He wants those papers and he wants Stark.”
“Well, fuck Evans, too.”
“What do we do now?”
“Wait until Stark gets back. I can hardly wait to get my hands on him after all the trouble he’s caused us.”
“I still can’t believe he’s been eluding us for a month. He must be very good.”
“He’s not. Just lucky. According to Evans, he’s a nothing.”
“Could be, but he was smart enough to have given us the slip at the airport and again at the VA.”
“I thought for sure the funeral would have flushed him out.”
“Maybe he didn’t see the obituary.”
“We’ve got him now,” Baritone said with great satisfaction. “All we have to do is wait for him to show.”
“You think so?” Deep Voice sounded dubious. He paced the room, but paused briefly to glance out the French doors, giving Bob a good look at his face. “If you want to know what I think—”
“I don’t,” Baritone interrupted.
Bob stood in the shadows of the hedge for another five minutes. He heard nothing more than the small, restless sounds of men bored with waiting, but he did catch fleeting glimpses of them as they moved about the room.
Very slowly, he inched backward. When he finally left the yard, he sauntered down the alley and around the block to where he’d parked his car. He’d almost reached the vehicle when it occurred to him that the VW could be und
er surveillance. Not wanting to remain in the area long enough to find out, he kept walking toward Colfax.
His brain churned. How had they traced him? Through the car? His traveler’s checks? The taxicab company? What did it matter; in this age of computers, there is no privacy. As the man had said, they could find anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Striding along Colfax, Bob passed a small cinema that showed full-length skin flicks twenty-four hours a day. He backtracked and entered the theater. A few other dispossessed souls dotted the expanse of empty seats, and in the flickering light of ten-foot-tall tits, he caught a glimpse of gleaming silver—the man with the aluminum foil headgear.
Who was the foil man? Another refugee from an alternate universe? A time traveler from another galaxy, one with less harsh cosmic rays?
It did not seem peculiar to Bob that these thoughts should be coursing through his mind. They were no stranger than the fact that two men had been searching for him ever since he had landed in Denver. They had even staked out his mother’s funeral; he had seen them—the men standing off to the side. Apparently they had not noticed him hidden in the shadows of the lilac bushes. No wonder they had seemed familiar to him at the time; he had also seen them at the airport scrutinizing everyone who got off the plane. How had they missed him?
Then he recalled the young woman who’d been struggling with a baby, a toddler, an oversized purse, and a huge diaper bag. When the toddler dropped his teddy bear, Bob picked it up and handed it to the boy, who promptly dropped it again. Bob retrieved the bear. Holding on to it, he asked the woman if she’d like some help. She looked at him for a moment, then nodded, and handed him the diaper bag. He draped the strap of the bag over his shoulder and entered the terminal with the woman by his side and the boy tugging at his pants, demanding the return of his Binky.
If Baritone and Deep Voice had been looking for a man alone, no wonder they missed him, but why did they want him? What papers were they searching for? Who was Evans?
Bob sighed wearily. Too many unanswerable questions. He closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest.
He awoke to find two bright blue eyes inches from his face. The foil man darted away, but after a moment he moved close again.
