by Lou Berney
“Can we talk?” Wyatt shouted.
Finn saw him and waved. “What?”
“Can we talk?”
Finn gave Wyatt the okay sign. “Right on,” he said, and then added something Wyatt couldn’t make out because the excited woman turned and stuck her baby in Wyatt’s face. The baby took one look at him, turned red, and started squalling. The crashing downgrade from Lyle Finn to Wyatt was apparently too much to bear.
Wyatt edged politely away from the woman and the baby. He saw that Finn had left the pyramid. Wyatt looked around but didn’t see him. He started to move around to the back of the float, but one of the bodyguard zombies blocked his path. The zombie held up a hand: Stop.
“It’s okay,” Wyatt told him. “Lyle said he’d talk to me for a minute.”
The zombie crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t move.
“Come on,” Wyatt said. “Don’t be an asshole.”
The zombie peered imperiously down. Through the decomposing nostrils, Wyatt could see the eyes of the person inside the giant papier-mâché head. Wyatt thought it might be the bearded pig.
“Asshole,” Wyatt said, and gave one of the zombie’s stilts a little kick, a tap with the toe of his shoe. The zombie wobbled, listed, and then overcorrected. He pitched forward and fell into the crowd, which caught him before he hit the asphalt. Wyatt slipped past.
But Finn wasn’t behind the Aztec pyramid either. Wyatt scanned the parking lot. He caught one quick glimpse of a white tuxedo jacket, tails flapping, as Finn turned down an alley between two brick warehouses.
Wyatt gave chase, hobbling after him. His knee felt like broken pottery, every step a hammer. He caught up to Finn where the alley hit a dead end: the Bricktown Canal. Finn stood on the edge of the water, staring glumly down at it.
“Hey, Lyle,” Wyatt said.
Finn turned. He was still holding his candy apple. “Oh,” he said, trying to act casual. “Hey.”
“Great parade.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“Why the high-speed escape attempt, Lyle? I just wanted to talk to you.”
“I wasn’t!” Finn said. He assumed his standard album-cover expression, eyes filled with childlike wonder. “I just . . . I thought you meant, like, let’s talk tomorrow.”
Wyatt waited to see how long he’d stick with that story.
“Okay,” Finn said finally. “Yeah. I would prefer not to talk to you.”
“Because you know that I know you lied about your feud with Candace? Because it’s starting to look like you’re one who broke into the Land Run?”
“I didn’t lie about it.”
“A sin of omission is still a sin,” Wyatt said. So insisted his former client, the defrocked priest who was convinced that the mob had put a contract out on him.
“I don’t believe in the concept of sin,” Finn said. “Not how it’s commonly understood.”
“That explains a lot. Keep talking.”
Finn didn’t know what to do with his candy apple. He looked around for a trash bin. Finding none, he carefully set it on the brick sill of a boarded-up window.
He took off his white tuxedo jacket and tossed it to Wyatt. His bare chest glittered.
“What are you doing?” Wyatt said.
“Candace refuses to acknowledge the fundamental value of art. I understand the intrinsic tension between art and commerce. But Candace, man. She wants to profit from my art without a mutually beneficial exchange.”
Finn took off the necklace he was wearing, a big wooden fang on a leather cord, and tossed it to Wyatt.
“Take that, too. Take everything.”
“Okay,” Wyatt said. “I get it.”
Finn started to unbutton his kilt.
“Stop,” Wyatt said. “I get it.”
“People like you, like Candace—you’re locusts. You’re not satisfied until you’ve devoured the entire harvest.”
“Is that why you’ve been harassing her?”
“I’m motivated by an artistic curiosity. People like Candace are motivated by a need to devour.”
“I don’t blame you for being mad at her. I know she told you that you’re not a real rock star. That would make me mad, too.”
Finn finally managed to unbutton the kilt. Underneath he wore boxer shorts decorated with the Communist Party hammer-and-sickle symbol turned into a happy face.
He looked up at Wyatt with disbelief. “You think I care about that?”
“I do.”
“I’m not a rock star, man. I’m just this weirdo in a band. I care about making music. I care about being part of what, like, happens when music gets made. I still live in Oklahoma City, man! I still live in my old neighborhood.”
He had a point. And Wyatt still couldn’t imagine, or maybe he just didn’t want to admit, that this was the guy who’d jumped him in the playground and beaten him almost senseless.
At the same time, though, Wyatt noticed that Finn had deftly managed to avoid his question.
“Lyle,” he said. “Just tell me the truth, okay? Are you responsible for what’s been happening to Candace and the Land Run?”
Finn picked up his candy apple. He contemplated it for a long moment, Hamlet with Yorick’s skull, and then tossed it to Wyatt. Wyatt wanted nothing to do with a half-eaten candy apple, so he stepped aside and let it sail past. Finn turned, too, at the same instant, and leaped into the canal.
Wyatt had thought the evening could hold no more surprises. He watched Finn frog-kick to the other side and pull himself out. No. Try to pull himself out. The edge of the canal was three or four feet above the water, and Finn found his upper-body strength lacking. After several tries, he had to give up and frog-kick back to Wyatt’s side of the canal.
Wyatt squatted down. “You were saying.”
Finn held a hand out. “Can you help me up, please?”
“No. Answer my question.”
“It’s cold in here, man.”
“Really?”
Finn shivered. His teeth clicked. “What was the question again?”
“Have a nice night.” Wyatt stood and started to walk away.
“Wait! Fuck, man. Okay.”
Wyatt squatted back down and gave Finn his arm. He heaved him out of the water and onto the pavement. Finn picked up his tuxedo jacket and used it to towel off his luxurious mane of hair.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t break into the Land Run or— What was it Dixon said? I didn’t poop on Candace’s car.”
“Then why didn’t you want to talk to me? Why did you just jump into a freezing canal to get away from me?”
“Because you’re kind of scary, man. You’ve got a very darkish energy.”
“No I don’t.”
“Can you hand me my necklace, please?”
“Answer the fucking question.”
“See?”
Wyatt took a step toward him. Finn recoiled and almost fell back into the canal. Wyatt was fine with that. It would save Wyatt the trouble of pushing him.
“What aren’t you telling me, Lyle?”
Finn looked old and pale, cold and miserable.
“I was mad at Candace, okay?” he said. “Yes. Not for the rock-star thing but because the Land Run is like my home, man. When Greg died, that was tough, man. He wasn’t much older than me, you know. And just gone, just like that.”
Wyatt tried to keep him on track. “So you were mad at her. And then what?”
“And then maybe after I got back to the warehouse, I said some things. About how I was mad at her. Maybe I went off on her a little. I go off on everything! That’s what I do, man! But I don’t mean it. I don’t mean half the shit I say. I don’t know if I mean it till I say it. Do you know what the definition of art is?”
Wyatt ignored the
question. “So you think one of your groupies knew you were mad at Candace and then decided to take matters into his own hands.”
“They’re not groupies, man. They’re as much part of the music as I am.”
“Which one?” Wyatt said.
“I don’t know, man,” Finn said. “I really don’t.” He was looking even older and colder, even more miserable. “I wish I did.”
Julianna
CHAPTER 19
On Monday morning Crowley called again. Julianna had thought he would. She couldn’t be certain, though, and so the past twenty-four hours had been excruciating. Every time she’d tried to call Crowley back—twenty times, fifty—there had been a single ring, a click, dead air.
“So you still want me to leave you alone?” he said when she answered. Julianna could picture his smile. He was calling from a different number this time, probably using a prepaid cell phone. Untraceable. “I won’t lie to you, that hurt my feelings. But I figured, I ain’t proud. I figured, let’s give this one more try and hope for the best.”
Julianna had just arrived home after her overnight shift in the ER. She sat in her car, in her driveway, one hand gripped so tight on the steering wheel that her entire arm burned. A chubby black neighborhood dog on the loose trotted across her yard, head low, smiling sheepishly.
“I didn’t know it was you,” she told Crowley. “You know that.”
“I want fifty thousand dollars.”
“What?”
She hadn’t expected him to want money. She didn’t really know what she’d expected him to want.
“In cash,” he said. “Hope I don’t have to explain that. Tomorrow night.”
“I don’t have that much money.”
“Get it.”
“I don’t have nearly that much money.”
“Suppose we’re both out of luck, then, ain’t we?”
She waited. Crowley didn’t hang up. “You’re enjoying this,” she said.
“Sure,” Crowley said. “You would, too, don’t lie.”
“I don’t have fifty thousand dollars.”
“How much you got? I’m a reasonable man.”
Julianna tried to think. She had around fifteen thousand dollars in her checking account. The equity in her house was nothing, really—she’d bought the house a year and a half ago, with only five thousand down, and her payments were still mostly interest. She wouldn’t be able to get to that anyway, not in just a day or two. It would take time as well to cash out her 401(k) at work, if that was even possible. She had two credit cards she could use for cash advances. Two or three thousand? Each? She might be able to borrow money from Donna at work. She would never be able to ask DeMars, of course, for a loan.
What was she doing? Why was she even considering this?
Juli! You’re such a spaz! You’re embarrassing me!
“Hurry up,” Crowley said.
If she told him the truth, Julianna suspected he would double or triple the number. But if she lied and came in too low, he might lose interest and walk away for real this time. She couldn’t risk that.
“Twenty thousand,” Julianna said. The truth. “That’s all I can get with short notice.”
The chubby neighborhood dog had circled back to her driveway. He looked up at Julianna and sneezed.
“Tomorrow night,” Crowley said finally. “Midnight. You know that park out by the lake, out by that road where you and me had our first date?”
Stars and Stripes Park, on the shores of Lake Hefner. Julianna had been invited to a birthday party there when she was in second grade. Stars and Stripes had the best playground slide in the city, a metal rocket ship about to blast off, painted red, white, and blue.
After dark the park had been a hangout for druggies and dealers. Julianna had heard that later, in the eighties, gay men gathered there to have sex. Now, for a long time, Stars and Stripes closed at dusk. It would be deserted at midnight.
“No,” Julianna said, “not there. We have to meet somewhere public.”
“Don’t be late. I’m heading to California straight from there. Show up late, you won’t never see me again.”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“So it’s enough?” Julianna said. “Twenty thousand?”
He laughed. “We’ll see.”
IT WAS STILL early, a little after eight. The Chase bank branch near her didn’t open until nine. Julianna went online and logged into her Bank of America checking account. Only thirteen thousand dollars, and payday not until Friday. The cash-advance limits on her credit cards, though, were higher than she expected: five thousand dollars on the Sapphire MasterCard, three thousand on the Freedom Visa. She never used the Visa and didn’t even remember why she’d signed up for it. She was glad now she had.
Twenty thousand dollars. Julianna tried not to think about what she was doing. Because what was twenty thousand dollars? It was nothing. And she saw no value in trying to pretend she was in a position to make a choice about any of this. She knew, and probably Crowley did, too, that she’d give anything, everything, to find out what had happened to Genevieve. So what, then, was she willing to give for the hope of that, no matter how faint it might be?
Anything. Everything.
At eight-thirty she drove to the Chase branch. She waited outside the building, watching the skinny man across the street thrust his sign at cars that passed. The sign advertised a special on oil changes. Julianna often passed the man on her way to and from work. He was always out there, rain or shine, cold or hot. A former patient of hers who worked in marketing had told her that people like the skinny man on the corner were called, in the business, “human directionals.” She couldn’t think of a more terrible existence.
She was waiting when a woman unlocked the doors. The woman couldn’t stop yawning. She led Julianna to a teller window and swiped Julianna’s MasterCard, punched in her PIN. While they waited for approval, the woman made small talk between yawns. Julianna thought the woman might be wearing last night’s outfit—a wine-colored silk blouse, wrinkled, with a gigantic bow in front.
“Looks like it’ll be,” the woman said. She paused to yawn. “Just a gorgeous day.”
“Yes,” Julianna said.
The first advance was approved. The woman counted fifty one-hundred-dollar bills onto the counter. When Julianna nodded, the woman slipped the bills into a Chase envelope and handed it to her.
“You know you don’t have to go,” she said.
Julianna looked up, startled. “What?”
The woman yawned. “To a Chase branch. You can go to any bank or credit union that displays the Visa logo.”
She swiped Julianna’s second card and punched in the PIN. They waited.
“I’m here now,” Julianna said.
The woman yawned and nodded. When the approval came through, she counted out another thirty one-hundred-dollar bills. She put them in another envelope.
“Have a nice,” she said. “Day.”
Julianna’s Bank of America branch was just up the street. She left a thousand dollars in her checking account and withdrew everything else.
When she got home, she placed the three envelopes on the kitchen counter and considered them. They were surprisingly slender. Her first thought had been to get home as quickly as possibly and stash the money somewhere safe. But was her house safe? Maybe this was Crowley’s plan—to have her gather the money so he could rob her if she left at some point during the day. She remembered the way he’d looked around when she let him inside her house for dinner. He’d noted every detail.
Crowley knew she’d go immediately to the bank this morning and not wait until the last minute. This meant too much to her. She would never risk a five-o’clock glitch at the bank, or with one of the credit cards.
Julianna almost laughed. Crowl
ey knew her so well. Better, really, than anyone else.
She wondered if he’d followed her from her house to the banks. She’d been so intent on getting the money that she hadn’t thought to check.
Was she being too paranoid? Or not paranoid enough? Take your pick.
In the drawer by the refrigerator, she found a plastic bag from Target. She put the envelopes with the cash inside the bag, then wrapped it with packing tape. She opened the fireplace damper and taped the bundle to the metal wall of the firebox, as high up as she could reach. She closed the damper and moved the screen back into place. Crowley might think to look there. Probably he would. But Julianna didn’t have any better ideas. She’d have to take her chances.
No shit, Sherlock.
Screw you, Watson.
Genevieve had taught her that exchange. It always cracked them up.
She ate a bowl of oatmeal, then tried to nap. She hadn’t slept since the night before last, and her brain had started to feel wet and heavy, like a towel dropped on a bathroom floor. She needed, she knew, to be at her sharpest, her very clearest, when she met Crowley later that night. She needed a few hours of real sleep.
But real sleep: no. She drifted in and out of the shallow end. Her bedroom was too warm, too quiet. Around four, Julianna gave up, got up.
Now what? She had eight hours to tread water. Her specialty.
She thought of a movie she’d seen a few years ago. A woman moved into a spooky house. She saw ghosts. At the end of the movie, the woman realized that the ghosts were actually living people. The woman, the star of the movie, was the ghost. She’d been the one doing the haunting all along.
Julianna’s date had fumed afterward that the premise of the movie was derivative and that Nicole Kidman’s performance was mannered. He was not in a position, Julianna discovered later that night, to bag on anyone else’s performance.
She went back online and checked the Facebook page—“Remember When in OKC.” She scrolled down. Mary Hilger Hall had posted the rest of the roll she’d shot that night at the State fair. The photo of the teenage girl with the stormy waves of chestnut brown hair, Genevieve’s look-not-quite-alike, had been poorly scanned. The focus was softer, the tint greenish. Julianna downloaded the photo anyway. She opened it and zoomed in. The digital girl resembled Genevieve no more or no less than the analog one had.
