"Makes sense to me," Clayton repeated, and then belched. "And I think having a seance is a great idea. We can have Eric get some of that dynamite acid he gets from Steve Wolzer, and—"
"Clay, shut the fuck up, will you?" Peter snapped. "This isn't funny."
"That's the thanks I get for keeping your river nice and clean," he said, feigning offended dignity.
"Oh!" Dorcas exclaimed. "Get me a paper and pencil, quick. Quick!"
"What for?" Lydia asked.
"Just get it, quick!" Lydia went over to the counter to ask the waitress for writing materials and returned a few moments later with a pen and a paper napkin.
Dorcas grabbed them from her hands and began scribbling furiously.
"What are you doing?" Sean asked.
"Writing down the prayer before I forget it," she muttered.
Peter sighed. "Oh, Jesus."
Rebecca sipped her coffee and then said, "Listen, Dork, you need to rest, I mean like really, really rest, you know? Why don't you go home and—"
"No," she snapped, still writing on the napkin. "Maybe you should go to a doctor, just to talk. . . ."
"No," she snapped again, and then added as an afterthought, "Besides, my father's a doctor, and I sure don't want to talk to him. Not now. Not after last night."
"You know what I think?" Clayton said firmly. "I think the solution to this problem is for you and Peter to get falling-down drunk, and then go home and fuck your brains out."
Dorcas and Peter both blushed as Lydia punched Clayton hard in the side. "You asshole! This is serious. Stop making jokes."
"Who's making jokes?" he asked, snaking his arm around her waist and stroking the underside of her breasts. "Doesn't getting drunk and fucking sound good to you?"
"Later, okay?" Lydia said sharply, pushing his hand away. "Can't you see how upset Dorcas is?"
"And haven't we gotten drunk enough for one twenty-four-hour period?" Rebecca asked.
Sean moaned and laid his head down on the table. "I'm never gonna drink again."
"Of course you won't." Clayton nodded. "I believe that. Yup."
"I'm not upset," Dorcas insisted quietly. "I'm scared, and I'm stunned, and I'm relieved to still be alive, but I'm not upset. You guys are the ones who are upset."
"I'm not upset," Sean and Clayton said in unison.
"Why don't we all just go back to the trailer and kind of unwind?" Peter suggested, looking angrily at his two friends. "Watch some TV, listen to some music."
"That's a good idea." Lydia nodded. "Let's just go back and relax, all of us."
"Dorcas, is that okay with you?" Rebecca asked. "Go to the trailer, watch some TV or something?"
Dorcas sighed with exasperation. "You guys just don't get it, do you!? Mr. Patanjali is someplace in those woods, hurt and dying, and we have to get him help. And there's been a murder, for Pete's sake! We have to go to the cops and tell them Old Mr. Schilder has been killed."
"What's that?" Walter Rihaczeck asked from the door of the diner. "What are you talking about, Dorcas?"
Dorcas bit her lip as the town councilman entered the diner and walked over to their table. "What did you say about Johann? That he's been killed?" His tone was serious, but a smile was on his lips.
She forced herself to smile back as she shook her head. "It was nothing, Mr. Rihaczeck. Just a little game I was playing."
"Well, I'm sure Johann'll be happy to hear that." He laughed. "I just saw him not ten minutes ago taking his morning walk."
"You . . . you saw him?" she asked.
"Sure. I leave for work pretty early, you know, and I see him most days. He takes a walk every morning. You can practically set your clock by old Johann Schilder."
Dorcas frowned, perplexed. Vernon acted like Mr. Schilder to get me to go with him to the cave. But he already got me there, so why would he still be . . . I don't know, still be impersonating him? And why would he be following all of Mr. Schilder's personal habits, things that no one would notice even if he didn't follow them? If he didn't take a walk this morning, Mr. Rihaczeck wouldn't have noticed, so why would he take a walk? And how would Vernon know that Mr. Schilder took a walk every morning in the first place? This doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense.
Unless none of it happened.
Maybe I did imagine it. Maybe there wasn't even blood on the floor of the cave. Maybe it was just rock slime or something, or bat shit, or something else disgusting. I couldn't see very well in there. I might have been wrong this morning. I might have been wrong last night. Maybe Becky's right. The whole thing with Sarah . . . maybe . . . maybe . . . Her head snapped up when she heard her name. "I beg your pardon?"
"I said I hoped your dad was feeling better," Rihaczeck repeated. "The shock about your sister and all. You know."
"Oh, yes, yes," she replied. "We're all doing fine, thank you."
Rihaczeck nodded and then turned to Clayton. "Actually, Clay," he said, radiating friendliness, "I came in here on my way to work because I saw your jeep out front." He grinned broadly. "It's kind of a distinctive car. All those bumper stickers, I mean. No doubt in my mind whose it was."
"I strive to be different," Clayton said, returning the grin.
"Could I, ah, speak to you for a moment? Privately?"
Clayton sighed and motioned for Lydia to let him out of the booth. As he and Rihaczeck went off into the corner to speak, Sean turned to Rebecca and said,
"Funny how popular Clay is now that he owns the Sweet place."
"Yeah." She nodded. "Last month that guy wouldn't give us the time of day, and now he's sweet as sugar."
"You think he's trying to get Clay to sell the land for the factory?" Peter asked anxiously.
"Of course," Sean replied.
Peter began biting his left thumbnail. "Clay wouldn't go along with it, would he?"
"Of course not," Sean said, and then finished his cup of coffee. "Hey, I'm dead on my feet. Let's split."
Clayton walked back to the booth and said, "I heard that, Brenner. Busting up another good time, are you?"
"Give me a break, Clay." He sighed. "It's been a long night."
"What do you say, Dork?" Rebecca asked. "Back to our trailer? TV and music and then just fall out for the rest of the day?"
"Sure," Dorcas said quietly, folding the paper nap-kin and sticking it into her pocket. "Anything. I don't care. I don't know what to think and I don't know what to do. I just don't care." Her sister watched her carefully, knowing that the cool, emotionless exterior was covering a mass of fears and troubles. Lydia and Dorcas left as Rebecca went to the counter to pay the check.
Sean turned to Clayton and said, "That is like one really fucked-up chick, you know?"
"Like, really!" Clayton nodded.
"She's been through a lot," Peter said. "Don't give her a hard time, okay?"
"Sure, sure," Clayton said. "Don't worry about it. I'll behave."
As they walked to the door of the diner Peter asked, "Did Rihaczeck make you an offer for the Sweet property?"
"Not yet. He wants me to go to a council meeting tomorrow. Closed session, very hush-hush." He laughed.
"But they'll probably make you an offer, right?"
"Of course they will. Three hundred grand, I figure." He saw Peter's eyes grow tense, and before he could protest Clayton's even talking to them, he said quickly. "Don't worry about it, Pete. I'm just gonna fuck around with them. They'll keep offering me more and more, and I'll just keep saying it isn't enough."
Peter relaxed visibly. "Yeah, of course, I know. Of course you won't sell them the land. If they think you will, they've got a surprise coming."
Not as big as the surprise you've got coming, Peter, m'boy, Clayton thought as they left the diner.
The jeep and the Volkswagen Beetle began driving west toward the mountain and the trailer as Walter Rihaczeck drove east in the direction of Route 42, which would take him to his job in Kingston. Rihaczeck glanced into the rearview mirror to make certain that
Clayton and the others were well out of sight, and then he turned his old Buick around and headed down Main Street toward the River Road. He drove along the road for two miles and then pulled his car to a stop along the wood line.
Rihaczeck looked around to make certain he was not being observed and then walked into the woods. He walked for over an hour, past the spot where Sarah Ostlich's body had been discovered, past the old Sweet house and the charred ruins of the old barn, deeper and deeper into the forest until he came to the upslope of Saunders Mountain. He walked along the base of the incline, past the brush-covered mouth of the cave that Dorcas had inspected a few hours before, and stopped when he reached another pile of brush that covered the mouth of another cave. He moved some of the brush aside and entered. He walked deep into the cleft in the base of the mountain until he came to a large open space.
Ashvarinda Patanjali was lying motionless in the center of the natural room, his eyes shut, his breathing even more labored that it had been the previous evening. A canteen was lying beside him, and Rihaczeck picked it up and poured a thin trickle of water onto the parched, brittle lips, paying no attention to the two corpses that lay a few feet away, the dead bodies of Johann Schilder and Walter Rihaczeck.
"Rinda," he said softly. "It's me, Vernon. Can you hear me?"
Give my body the strength to live, Vishnu, Vishnu . . . keep my mind alive to do your work, to contain the beast, Vishnu, Vishnu. . . .
"I know you don't like it when I play the trick with people, Rinda," the Rihaczeck-thing said sadly as he sat down on the cold stone floor next to his comatose friend. "But I just had to. You know that when I'm Vernon, I don't think very well, I don't understand things. I had to make sure the girl didn't tell anyone about us. At least I had to make sure that no one believed her about old Johann."
Ashvarinda's lips moved spasmodically. "Mujey raakshus ko kaabu ruhkney . . . key liyey jiyna hiy hoga. . . . I must live . . . I must live . . . to control . . . the beast. . . .
The Rihaczeck-thing sighed. "I just don't want to lose the house, Rinda. I grew up there. It's my home. I can't think, I can't understand or act when I'm just Vernon, so I have to do these things. You understand, don't you? I had to go to the council meeting yesterday and say that I . . . I mean, that Schilder wouldn't vote for their plan to buy the land from Saunders. I had to, Rinda, I didn't know what else to do."
Bhagawan Vishnu, meyriy muhduhd kuhro. . . .
Lord Vishnu, help me. . . .
"And just now, I had to tell the boy to come to the meeting . . . that was what Rihaczeck was going to do today, it was in his mind when I killed him . . . but what will I do now? I'm scared, Rinda, so scared. . . ."
Bhagawan Vishnu, mujey suno. . . .
Lord Vishnu, hear me. . . .
"You've always taken care of me, but now . . . " He started to weep. "Now you can't. And I don't know what to do to take care of you. I can't get a doctor or take you to the hospital, you understand that. But I don't want you to die, Rinda. I love you too much. I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. . . ." His weeping became loud and bitter in his misery, and as if the overpowering emotion had robbed him of his self-control, he lost his Rihaczeck form and dwindled down once again into the shape of a malformed dwarf.Not go 'way, Rinda," Gorgo wept. "Not go way. . . ."
He stroked Ashvarinda's cold forehead gently, bathing the aged yogi's face in his tears. When his body had reverted to its own form, his mind had followed suit, and he was no longer able to comprehend what was happening to him. He no longer understood why the mean faces had done what they had done, no longer understood why he and his dying friend where hiding in this cold cave.
And his mind was much, much too simple for him to understand that adding to his unhappiness and his fear was the slowly emerging suspicion that he was not really Vernon Sweet.
III
The Dance of Shiva
And he said, But my face
shalt thou not see;
for no man shall see my face
and live.
-EXODUS 33, xx
Chapter Thirteen
January 10, 1969
COME TO THE SEANCE! JANUARY 11!
R.S.V.P.
You are cordially invited to attend a séance as a guest of the late Grogo the Goblin on this coming January 11th, at the Saunders estate in scenic Beckskill, NY. Drink and dope will be provided, but it would be cool to make a contribution to the common pot (Get it? Ha-ha!)
ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT TO IMPEACH LBJ!
VERNON SWEET FOR PRESIDENT!
R.S.V.P.
Alex Brown was standing in the cemetery, his weary eyes pressed tightly shut. He came here to visit his wife's grave whenever things began to seem too much for him to bear, as if to seek some vestige of the peace and contentment he had once known. The pressure has been getting too much for me, he thought. If only I could afford a vacation. I wouldn't have gotten so upset the other night if I'd had some rest, if my nerves weren't so frayed. He gritted his teeth at the memory. His anger at Sean Brenner had not abated, but it was balanced by the fear that he had lost Clayton and Rebecca Saunders as customers. They spent enough money when they came to his bar to make them worth the aggravation they caused him. And Rebecca, her eyes, her lips, the way she walked, the almost unconsciously provocative way she dressed, the lilt in her laugh . . .
Alex held the collar of his coat closed against the chill, bitter wind. He gazed at Paula's name as he always did and sighed as he always sighed, wondering when, if ever, the pain of his loss would finally leave him. The memories arose unbidden as he gazed down at the simple burial marker.
"We have to get out of the City, Aleshka," Paula was saying as she brushed her thick, dark blond hair. "I do not want my children to grow up in the City. It is not healthy here, not for them, not for us."
"Yes," he was replying, "of course, of course. . . ." He was twenty-seven, five years older than his bride of three months, and his hair was dark and full.
"It's a good business," the real-estate agent was saying. "Isn't far from the main road, Route 42. Only bar for a few miles. Building's in good shape, too."
"But the governor says—"
"Don't worry about Tom Dewey's pipe dream. The state legislature will never fund construction of a thru-way. Route 42 is the main road, and it's gonna stay the main road."
"This is a pretty little town, Aleshka."
"Beckskill's on its way up, Mrs. Brown. Why, in five years' time vacationeral be paying top dollar for rooms near those ski slopes."
"The roof needs mending," Aleksander Ovyetchkin said. "And the bar top is in bad condition."
"Well, I'm not saying it doesn't need some work, but my client is willing to take that into consideration when discussing the price."
"We could be happy here, Aleshka. . . ."
He was standing in the large barroom for the first time. Such room, he was thinking, room to dance, to eat, to celebrate. His imagination showed him crowds of spectral merrymakers dancing polkas, lifting glasses of beer to their thirsty lips, laughing, singing. . . .
"We could be happy here, Aleshka. . . ."
"Glad to have you joining our little community," Dr. Timothy Ostlich was saying, shaking his hand.
"We're sort of the unofficial welcome wagon." Mrs. Doris Ostlich smiled, handing a warm casserole to Paula. Her soft brown eyes were somehow sad and weary.
"Why, thank you," Paula said, returning the smile. "Goddamn governor," Walter Rihaczeck was say-ing, "goddamn spineless assembly . . ."
"Is it true? They're going to build a thruway?"
"We could be happy here, Aleshka . . . . "
"Come away, Alex," Dr. Ostlich said softly. "There's nothing you can do now. She is at peace."
"Paula . . ." he wept. "Paula . . ."
"It's better this way, Alex . . . she was in so much pain . . . it's better this way."
"Paula . . . Paula . . ."
"We could be happy here, Aleshka. . . ."
He knelt down to brush the snow off the marker when Rebecca Saunders came up behind him and said, "Real nice, Al. She'll like it a lot better now."
He turned when he heard her voice and then rose to his feet. Alex swallowed hard and asked, "What are you doing here?"
She sniffed. "I saw your car, so I figured I'd stop and give you a piece of my mind. I mean, you're probably sober now, and I don't think you're armed, so I'm probably safe." She paused, as if she expected her sarcastic criticism to elicit a response from him, but his only reply was to turn away and begin to walk back toward his car. "Hold on, Al baby. . . ."
"Go away."
"You had a lot of goddamn nerve acting the way you did, starting a fight like that. Who the hell gave you the right to be so—"
"Leave me alone," he snapped, and then added, "And don't use that kind of language. It isn't ladylike."
"Ladylike!" she laughed. "Holy shit!"
"I told you—"
"Yeah, yeah, I heard what you said. Did you hear what I said? I think you owe us an apology."
Alex reached his car and opened the door, but before he could get in Rebecca interposed herself between him and the seat. "Go away!" he repeated more forcefully, and then grabbed her by the shoulders to push her out of the way.
But he felt the soft give in her arm beneath the fur and denim of her jacket and the cold breeze carried a breath of perfume to his nostrils, and he could not bring himself to push her away. He looked into her eyes, and she seemed to be gazing back into his. He saw her lips part slightly and the tip of her tongue ran pink and moist against her bottom lip. He brought his mouth closer to hers and he could feel her breath on his face as she said softly, "Al?"
"Yes?" he whispered.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" she shouted, accentuating the expletive with a hard punch to his stomach.
He staggered back, embarrassed and resentful, and he shouted, "Why don't you leave me alone? What the hell do you want from me?"
"I sure as hell don't want to make out with you!" she spat. "Maybe Clay is right. Maybe you really should go to the whorehouse in Newburgh, you horny old bastard!"
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