The Orchid Eater

by Marc Laidlaw

  The Artist understood him.

  Lupe looked back at the wall, feeling that he should leave a gift, something special for this boy whose mind was so full of horror. Something, also, to make the map completely accurate.

  Gentle as a lover sliding a flower into a buttonhole, he slipped one of his grenades into the wall.

  Lupe stood still, gazed grinning at the hills, basking under the moon.

  His boys gathered around. A breeze blew up from the canyons, from the cave that awaited him.

  In the distance, he heard an owl call.

  PART THREE: A WALK ON THE MOON WALL

  20

  The next day, on foot, Mike trudged up Old Creek Road. He had sworn off hitchhiking. It only led to trouble.

  How can all this be happening to me? he thought. I’m not even old enough to drive.

  After the morning’s long house-cleaning, he had figured it was probably safe to call Edgar. Since he called every day anyway, it might be more suspicious if he suddenly stopped.

  “Hi, is Edgar home?”

  Ms. Goncourt recognized his voice immediately. “Uh . . . no, Mike. In fact, I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

  “Really? Wow. I wonder where he is.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Oh, uh . . .” He remembered that Ryan had seen them together yesterday. Better play it close. “Yesterday afternoon, till about five or six. We were going to go downtown but he changed his mind so I went alone.”

  “He didn’t say anything about where he was going?”

  “Nope . . . uh-uh.”

  “Well, gee. Okay. Would you do me a favor? Tell him to call me if you see him? There’s . . . someone who needs to talk to him.”

  He sensed that she meant the police. She sounded worried, which was unusual; she took pride in being unfazed by any of Edgar’s schemes. She always seemed pleased not to have raised simply another zombie. It was she, Edgar confessed, who had enrolled him in the Alt-School, as if it might make him even more unorthodox.

  “I’ll tell him,” he promised. “I hope everything’s okay.”

  He hung up.

  It was then he thought of finding Hawk, which would take care of two things at once: the key and Edgar’s disappearance. Maybe Hawk knew Edgar’s hideout. They could bring him food and water while he was lying low. Hawk might not do it if he knew about the burglary, so he would have to make up some story just to get Hawk moving. Let Edgar deal with the truth, later.

  All he knew about Hawk was where he lived. There obviously wouldn’t be any listing for a plain “Hawk” in the phonebook. For all Mike knew, his name was “Hawk Jones.”

  Half a mile up the canyon road, he realized he should have called one of the other guys in Hawk’s gang. Kurtis or Howard or Mad-Dog. Any of them would have known the number. He wasn’t thinking straight, though. He’d gotten so little sleep that it was hard just putting one foot in front of the other.

  He had spent most of the night following cops around his house, eavesdropping on their conversations, answering their questions. Dirk’s mother had brought Ryan home in the middle of the night, and after the initial shock, he joined Mike in tagging after cops. When the police asked Mike where he’d been, he blurted, “I went downtown. Alone.” Only later did he realize that his story left Edgar without an alibi if he ended up a suspect in the other break-in. Since both houses had been entered in the same manner, on the same night, the two crimes would certainly be linked. Edgar might end up being accused of burglarizing Mike’s house!

  The cops said nothing about the other break-in; they were quiet, talking mainly to each other. The missing art supplies intrigued them. Jack, too, trailed after the cops and asked them pointed questions about the investigation, showing off a command of cop talk gained from “Columbo” and “Adam-12.” Mike’s mother sat on what remained of the upstairs sofa and wept, since the police would not allow her to straighten anything—not even to put her orchids back in their pots—until the crime lab had been through.

  Around three in the morning, a short fat man in a rumpled business suit showed up to powder and brush the sliding glass door. He transferred the sharpest fingerprints to pieces of clear adhesive tape, which he then pressed onto white index cards for preservation. Ryan and Mike watched this procedure with an intense curiosity that overpowered sleepiness and even, in Mike’s case, shame. Finally, along with Jack and their mother, the boys submitted to having their fingerprints taken.

  That’s it, Mike thought. I’m on file.

  Since the government now knew who he was, he could forget about ever being a master thief or assassin or anything like that. Not that he’d want to, after this. His fantasies were spoiled.

  Therefore he approached Hawk’s residence with dread, since it meant a return to the domain of vaguely illicit activities. Hawk’s One-Way Gang, the pack of juvenile delinquents whose company he had for some reason sought and cherished, all sickened him now. Or else he was getting the flu. He felt queasy and tired and feverish. The sun wouldn’t leave him alone. Was it going to be summer forever?

  Old Creek Road was packed with cars. Their exhaust made the heat seem worse; blue-gray tailpipe vapor darkened the sky without cooling it, like clouds that gave no shade. He passed the driftwood stockade of the art festival, where people crowded in by the score. Bohemia’s festive displays couldn’t cheer him; he felt more an outsider than any tourist. The town’s population, bloated by the sun, didn’t ease his sense of isolation. In fact, the crowds might simply offer more cover to the man with the key. Sal’s brother. Lupe—or “Loopie.” It sounded like a nickname, one that made his skin creep the way it hinted of both whimsy and psychosis. That wacky ol’ cut-up “Loopie” might be following him even now, a guy in baggy Bermuda shorts, sun-visor, and a Hawaiian shirt. It was awful to realize that he didn’t even know what Lupe looked like, though the guy must know him well by now—even intimately.

  What kind of weirdo would take my art supplies?

  The crowds faded out. He might as well have stood on a featureless plain, alone with his shadow and one other. The shadow of a man he couldn’t see, a silhouette against the scorching sun. He felt as if he were being pursued by the shadow as much as the man. For now, Lupe was less substantial than the horror he inspired.

  Farther up the canyon, things weren’t set up for tourists. You didn’t see sunbathers flocking into auto repair shops for souvenirs or snapshots—although compared to the sculpture exhibited in the festival, the corroding heaps of oily metal scrap outside the garages looked imaginatively composed. This was the real Bohemia Bay. People lived and worked here; not orthodontists or lawyers, not retired movie stars or brain surgeons; just people.

  Beyond a junkyard, eucalyptus trees fringed a dry dirt lot. Hawk’s trailer squatted in the sun like a lunatic’s chapel.

  He had always wondered about this place—never dreamed he might visit it. It looked like some kind of crazed miniature golf course, a blend of cemetery and scrapyard. The chassis of stripped cars and motorbikes looked like bones pulled from a tar pit. He trudged toward the trailer through the shadows of giant Candyland crucifixes.

  The trailer door hung open, presumably for ventilation. Mike walked up the steps and stuck his head into an atmosphere of yeasty mildew. It was dark, but he could hear someone muttering.

  “Hawk?” he called.

  At the far end of the trailer, in the elevated niche that held the bed, a shrouded shape rose up. It was Hawk, in a tangle of sheets. “Who’s there?”

  Beyond Hawk, Mike glimpsed curves of flesh and realized he was looking at a woman’s buttocks. Hawk pulled the sheets over her as he dropped from the bed.

  “Sorry,” Mike said, retreating toward the door. At that moment, someone poked him in the kidneys and squeezed into the trailer. It was Dusty.

  “Heeeey, how you doin’, kid? Back on earth again?”

  “Where’d you come from?” Hawk said. “Dusty, what’s he doing here?”
/>   Dusty shrugged. “Ask him.”

  Mike cleared his throat. “I, uh, thought you might know what to do with this.”

  He unshouldered his backpack and set it on the crowded little formica table. The pack was stuffed with a huge beach towel for padding. He dug his hand through wads of terry cloth and found the hard egg nestled safe at the cushioned center.

  Hawk’s eyes bulged when he saw it. He grabbed it from Mike, shrieking:

  “What are you doing, you idiot kid? Where the fuck did you get this?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He rushed outside and for a moment Mike imagined him running into the road stark naked, causing an accident that would end in a movie-style fireball.

  Laughing, Dusty pushed Mike out of the trailer. They watched Hawk run up the hillside behind the lot, where he set the grenade down gingerly in a pile of crispy bark and eucalyptus mulch. On his way back down, cursing, he grabbed a frayed towel off a drying line and wrapped it around his waist. Finally he stalked up to Mike and shook his index finger in the time-honored manner.

  “Do you know what you were carrying around? Do you have any idea what it could do to you? You’d be lucky if they found your shoes! And then you have the balls to bring that thing into my house!”

  “It’s one of Stoner’s, man,” Dusty said. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Yeah.” Hawk hesitated. “Where did you get it?”

  “I found it in my bedroom last night.”

  “Your room?”

  Mike found himself abruptly on the edge of tears. Hawk’s admonishment came close to the punishment he had been awaiting from his mother, but which had never come. He was tired, hot and dizzy; and sick of all this.

  “It’s that key,” he choked. “Someone used it last night to break into my house. They wrecked the place. They cut a big hole in my wall and stuck that inside it.”

  Hawk looked at Dusty. “Stoner?”

  Dusty shrugged. “How’d he get the key?”

  Some kind of look went between them. Hawk shook his head. “Shit,” he said, and went tiptoeing back to the trailer, avoiding all the bits of twisted wire and jagged metal that littered the lot. “Start your van,” he yelled at Dusty.

  “It was lugging last night, man, so I . . . I been working on it.”

  Hawk stopped, shook his head, sighed. “God help me.”

  “Jeep’s okay,” Dusty called out hopefully. “I haven’t touched that.”

  “And you better not.” Hawk went in and slammed the door. When he came back out, he was dressed and ready for action. He squinted at Mike a moment before slipping on his sunglasses. “I tried calling Edgar, have him meet us up there. You know where he is?”

  Mike shook his head. He hadn’t cooked up a story yet.

  “We might need him to find the spot again. I don’t suppose you know the place he and Leo dug?”

  “No.” That must be his hideout, Mike thought with relief. Hawk knows it.

  “Well, we’ll give it a shot without him.” Dusty was already in the Jeep. Mike started to climb in back until Hawk noticed and stopped him with a look.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Going . . . with . . . ?”

  “No way. You stay here till I get back.”

  Mike backed off, in no mood to insist. Besides, if he went with Hawk he’d have to do some explaining along the way, come up with a story, and he wasn’t ready to be grilled. With mixed feelings—mostly relief—he went back and sat on the trailer steps. Hawk tore out into traffic, nearly causing a collision.

  A story, he thought, a story. I have to come up with a story—something to protect Edgar and fool Hawk. Because once I start telling the truth, if I ever do, I won’t be able to edit it just any old way I please.

  “Hey. Kid.”

  He twisted around, looking up into the trailer. The woman from Hawk’s bed stood above him, tugging a pair of bluejeans up over her hips. A flash of pubic hair between the zipper halves nearly stopped his heart. She pulled up her black sweatshirt and zipped herself. Her hair was tangled, her eyes dark and circled. A cigarette fumed between her lips. But he hardly noticed these details while the memory of dark curls blocked his mind’s eye.

  “Where’d he go?” She had a raspy smoker’s voice.

  “Uh . . . up the hill? Shangri-La?”

  “Shangri-La, huh? What a fuck. Bailing some kid out of trouble?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Bailing you out, right?”

  Mike blushed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s not all your fault.”

  She turned away, went deeper into the trailer. Mike heard her muttering as she banged drawers and cabinets. He thought she might be talking to him, so he leaned back inside. “Excuse me?”

  “You know he’s got, what do you call it, illusions of granger, right?”

  “I don’t really know him that well,” Mike said.

  “Oh, just well enough to ask for help when you’re in trouble.”

  “I’m in trouble because of him,” he said, which was a lie, but he needed some defense.

  “That’s Hawk. The more he helps, the more you need it.”

  She threw herself down at the built-in Formica table, clutching a pad of paper and a ballpoint pen. She lit another cigarette and started scribbling furiously, still muttering. “The fuck.”

  He watched the traffic for a while, acutely aware of her behind him. The glare made his eyes ache, so he was grateful when the woman, coughing, said, “Hey, come in here.”

  What if she seduces me?

  He knew how absurd it was, but he couldn’t help imagining her dark hair tangled around him as her tongue pushed into his mouth, tasting of cigarettes, sort of disgusting but real. He got to his feet without seeing where he was going, moving blindly toward her voice. Hawk’s girlfriend, an older woman, experienced—she would show him how it was all done. Finally!

  When his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he saw that she was holding out the pad. Big shaky words were scrawled across the top sheet. It looked like a third-grader’s handwriting, with the letters all different sizes, some capitals, some in lower case. He couldn’t believe an adult had written it.

  “Immature,” she said.

  Did she mean him? “What?”

  She thrust the pad up to his face. “Immature. Did I spell it right?”

  He tried to find something like “immature” in the jumble of words, and found himself reading a letter he had no right to see—wouldn’t have wanted to read in a million years. But she had it shoved right in his face and there was no avoiding it.

  Hock—

  Taday I had all I cud take. Yore obveussly not reddy for a dult rilashinship. I new you were immithur but I thot you were gone to be a man sumday. Now I see your jus trine to be a boy agen.

  “Uh . . .” She doesn’t even know how to spell his name! he thought.

  “What? It’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  “Well, not all of it.”

  “Shit. You do me a favor?”

  Standing by the table, he found his eyes straying to the loose collar of her sweatshirt, glancing down at bare tan skin. A wisp of smoke stung his eyes, just as she looked up at him. He squinted, rubbing at the pain.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “You look like an egghead. If I tell you what to write, will you do it?”

  An egghead? he thought, seduction dreams evaporating. Jeez . . .

  “Will you?”

  “Write . . . your letter . . . for you? This letter?”

  “You owe me.” She put the pen in his hand. “Have a seat.”

  Numb, he sat down across from her.

  “What have I got there?”

  Mike ripped off the top sheet, put it to one side, and read it back to her as best he could. She started another cigarette and gazed at the ceiling, pondering.

  “How’s that sound to you?” she asked. “Sound okay?”

  “Well—maybe I’ll recopy it? Just to get it al
l spelled right?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  He wrote a corrected version of her text; he couldn’t bring himself to make suggestions. He was terrified that Hawk might return, find him here composing a “Dear John” letter, and see in his eyes that he lusted after his girlfriend. Then Hawk would drive him out into the hills, tie him to a tree, and write “Come and get it!” on his chest.

  His fingers were shaking. He tried to control them because he didn’t want to have to do this twice.

  “Done?” she said, eyeing him sharply, squinting through her smoke.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay . . . let’s see . . . trying to be a boy again, that’s why he prefers their company to mine. Is that good?”

  Mike shrugged. “If that’s what you want to say.”

  “If that’s what I want?” She slammed a fist on the table. “Of course I don’t want it, but it’s the fucking truth, okay? I know him a hell of a lot better than you. I knew him when he could still admit he was a fuck-up, a regular asshole like everybody else. At least back then, acting like a jerk kid, he had a good excuse. He was a kid.”

  Mike shrank back into the seat. “I just meant, how do you want to say it?”

  “I don’t care how the fuck I say it. Just write it down, all right? How his boys don’t worship him like he thinks they do. They’re just getting what they can out of him, and there’s nothing left for me. So I’m going now, Hawk, you bastard. Going for good. And I sincerely hope you’re very fucking happy with all your little pals.”

  Mike nodded, writing as fast as he could, repeating after her: “—hope you’re very happy—very fucking happy—with all your little pals.”

  “Damn right,” she said. “Does that sound mad? Because I’m mad, and I want him to know it.”

  “It sounds pretty mad to me,” Mike said. “Pretty fucking mad.” He suppressed a giddy laugh, but she glared at him anyway.

  “Give me that,” she said, and snatched the pen and pad out of his hands. “That’s enough—more than he deserves.”