Leave Her Out

by Daniel Davidsohn

  “Where am I?” I said.

  “Havre.”

  “So now what?”

  “This is Wildhorse Road. Turn right on Thirty-first Street. Count twenty steps—not nineteen, not twenty-one—and then walk into the wheat field on your right. There’s a hatch in the ground. You can’t miss it. Open it, get in, and close the hatch, then walk down the steps.”

  “Tell me this is a joke.”

  “No, sir. It’s for your own safety and privacy.”

  “I still think it’s a joke.”

  What was Charles up to this time? Why couldn’t we meet in a restaurant and enjoy a civilized glass of wine despite the drama with my daughter?

  Jose turned and stared at a helicopter hovering beyond the field. “You see the chopper? It’s with us. In case you need it.”

  “The helicopter. Sure.”

  “I need to be going now, sir. Someone will be waiting down under.”

  “I hope it’s not the devil.”

  Jose smiled and left.

  I spent a moment watching the van disappear from sight. Good were the times when I was welcomed and greeted by better sorts of people. When I was never left alone. When there were carpets and smiles. With nothing else to do, I followed Jose’s instructions and soon found myself turning right at Thirty-first Street.

  Some distance away, I saw a woman walking with a huge dog. She looked at me, but then was distracted by the helicopter, which was flying closer. I took the twentieth step, entered the wheat field to my right, and saw the hatch.

  “No joke, I guess,” I mumbled.

  I knelt just as the woman was turning back around and heaved open the metal door. It was heavy, just the way I felt. Inside, stairs led down. I closed the hatch as I descended, walking carefully and holding the handrail, fearful of falling. Equally fearful of what lay below. Was I entering hell?

  I reached the last step. I estimated I was thirty feet belowground. The space was poorly illuminated by a single light bulb hanging above a rusty metal door. The door opened.

  A man wearing jeans and a sports jacket nodded to me. “Mr. President. Please follow me,” he said.

  The first thing I saw beyond that door was a golf cart. I climbed on it and faced what looked like an old and long mining tunnel. The man closed and locked the metal door behind us and sat in the driver’s seat.

  “We’re just three minutes away from the meeting point,” he said as we began moving. “Mr. Dulles is waiting.”

  38

  GLASGOW, MONTANA

  Mohe had been planning to spend the weekend with Debby in Lame Deer, but a call from Vicky, updating him on the situation, put an end to that idea. He was clearly needed in Glasgow.

  Debby offered to come with him, but Mohe refused. This was a very private matter, he explained. That didn’t seem to have gone down too well with her. She believed that nothing should be so private between them that she would be shut out. Dr. Deborah Hastings, the all-knowing Zen psychiatrist, was revealing herself to be a jealous and controlling person. Right then, among all the priorities in Mohe’s life, such virtues—or the lack thereof—were at the bottom of his list.

  Mohe arrived at Tony’s house that afternoon with Otoahhastis. Mohe found it comforting to have his father around. There was too much going on. First Stella went missing. Then Tony went away without a word to any of them. And now Stella was returning, but not in an official way. Mohe had experienced strong feelings the last time he met Stella, and they hadn’t diminished a bit since. The impact on him had been such that he’d even talked about it with his father. After hearing about how Mohe felt, Oto made what Mohe considered to be one of his classic mystical remarks: “You two have a spiritual connection.” But Oto, being who he was, said nothing for the sake of saying it.

  Vicky showed Mohe and Oto into the living room and brought tea and the copy of Tony’s manuscript, which she gave to Mohe.

  “Have you read it?” Vicky asked.

  Mohe raised his eyebrows. “No. Have you?”

  “Yes. What does your shrink girlfriend have to say about Tony?”

  “Why?”

  “Read it. You’ll understand.”

  Immediately thereafter, Mohe got up and moved to sit on the least-used couch in the living room, right next to the only family portrait in the house. He wanted to read it right away, and without interruption.

  Vicky took a seat. She and the old shaman looked at each other.

  “How are you doing, Oto?”

  “I’m doing according to Heammawihio.”

  Vicky nodded, though she wasn’t following him.

  “God,” he explained.

  “Are you always so sure of things?”

  “I know what I know. Many things, I don’t know.”

  “Oh. Such as?”

  “I’ve seen Tony’s Tasoom lately. I’m struggling to find the right interpretation.”

  “Otoahhastis Taylor, you’re a man of mysteries and complicated words. Maybe that’s why everybody likes you.” Vicky smiled and sipped her tea.

  The Cheyenne explained: “I’m simply saying that I have seen his shade. His soul…his Tasoom.”

  “OK. Were you, uh, walking under the sun with him and realized he cast no shadow?”

  It was Oto who smiled this time. White people could be terribly stupid at times. “No,” he said.

  “Please, enlighten me.”

  “When a man sees someone else’s shade, it means that person is approaching death.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And I’ve seen his shadow.”

  Vicky nodded. “Well, I hope he stays with us for a long time.”

  She stood up and left the room, having decided it would be better to wait in her bedroom.

  In the corner of the living room, Mohe was completely immersed in reading the memoirs. With Vicky gone, Oto shifted the focus of his attention to his son. He set his gaze on him like he himself was reading those papers. Mohe felt his father’s eyes on him and briefly interrupted his reading to look at the old man. He wouldn’t miss his father’s advice for anything in this world. And he was right to value Oto’s wisdom so highly.

  39

  HAVRE, MONTANA

  At the end of the very long subterranean tunnel, I was confronted by an old wooden door, and standing before it, Charles Dulles. He looked older than the last time I saw him in person, which was a good fifteen years ago, when our differences became irreconcilable and we decide to follow different paths.

  Since then, we remained friends. Well, at least on the surface. Now we met literally underground, well aware of each other’s secrets—though it would be fair to say that he knew much more about me than I of him. Regardless, keeping our relationship on good terms had been by far the best option for us both.

  “Seems like the doors you’re opening nowadays are a bit different,” I said as I climbed off the golf cart and walked toward him.

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, I feel buried here. And what about the moisture in the air…?”

  “We’ve been underground before.”

  “You can’t possibly compare this to the White House bunker.”

  I extended my hand to him and he shook it. We exchanged forced smiles.

  Charles signaled for me to follow him. “I know you hated it then, but I told you there’d be nothing like the White House. Hence this shithole.”

  The place was indeed creepy. There were broken life-size mannequin parts—including disembodied heads—piled up on both sides of the room we were passing through. We reached a regular office with old but acceptable furniture. The man in the sports jacket remained outside and Charles closed the door.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “We’re in Havre.”

  “I’m sure they have better places above.”

  Charles and I sat.

  “In the past, most of Havre was destroyed by a fire,” Charles explained. “So, people took their businesses underground to carry on with their lives
. We’re very close to a museum. They don’t use these rooms too much. It’s all about tourism now. The reason I chose this place is because it’s not far from where you live.”

  There was a certain cloudiness about Charles that I didn’t recall seeing before. He’d always been about steadiness and ready answers. Now he appeared to be stalling and trying to make me feel comfortable. Which, we both knew, wasn’t going to work. I was there because my daughter was missing, and because he said he knew something about her.

  “You wanted to make it easier for me. I appreciate it, but how about you tell me what you know about Stella? Jesus, Charles, I hope you have nothing to do with her disappearance. I would never forgive you.”

  “I need you to bear with me. We have a situation here.”

  “No. Tell me where the hell my daughter is. Tell me now, Charles. And tell me if you are—in any way—responsible for this.”

  “I’m as responsible as you are. In that sense, I’m to be blamed.”

  “In not so many words, you’ve fucked up.”

  “Call it what you want.”

  “You’ve crossed a line—you got my daughter involved. That’s just great… Where is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What am I doing here?”

  “You’re here to help me.”

  With strength I didn’t know I possessed, I got up, stood before the metal table separating Charles from me, and hit it hard with the palms of my hands. The sound it made reverberated loudly.

  “Calm down, will you?”

  Charles’s aide came running into the room. I was ready to punch Charles in the face, but at our age I didn’t think he or I would come back from a hard fall. Our bones had long passed the point of tolerance.

  “It’s OK. Leave us,” Charles told the man.

  We were alone again. Charles sighed while I walked back and forth. I could have used some fresh air.

  “As you know,” Charles said, “Stella has been working for The Nature Dweller as our lawyer. She’s been defending us against a woman called Loretta Johnson. A widow. Her husband left her a lot of money. Part of it was given to TND. As you also know, some of the money that goes to TND is used for other purposes. Your presidential campaign, for instance.”

  “I’ve never dealt with campaign money.”

  “You were the recipient of that money.”

  “Nobody knows about that. Isn’t that what you told me the whole time? That I should worry about running the country and leave everything else for you to take care of?”

  “You don’t need to remind me of that, Tony. It’s not us I’m worried about.”

  “Now you’ve got me confused.”

  “See, Loretta Johnson has just won her case against us. Against TND. When the public gets to know about this lawsuit, it will eventually get people wanting to know about all of TND’s previous donors. They’ll want to know where their money really went. That’s the part that bothers me. There are certain groups you don’t want to mess around with.”

  “Let me get this right. If TND already lost the case, why are we having this conversation? It’s already damaged goods.”

  “It sure is. But here’s our problem. Stella was defending us against Loretta Johnson when she decided to abandon ship. People are blaming her—rightly—for this situation. For TND’s loss.”

  “I’m sure she must have had her reasons.”

  “That’s irrelevant.”

  “What’s relevant, Charles? What do you want?”

  “Loretta Johnson is dead. It appears that her pacemaker stopped working the very night she went out to celebrate her imminent lawsuit win against us.”

  “Too bad for her. What does that have to do with us? Or Stella?”

  “A lot. I’ve been told that Mrs. Johnson’s death was not an act of nature.”

  “Oh, please. Give me a break. You said it yourself: pacemaker problem. I thought I was paranoid, but you’re a strong contender in that department, pal.”

  Charles shook his head. “You’re not seeing the whole picture. It was an induced pacemaker problem, Tony. See, the people who did it are some of the beneficiaries of our NGO scheme. Black budget money for USAPs. They won’t let anyone get near it. Loretta Johnson made a very bad decision, suing for transparency and all.”

  “Oh, Charles. What a mess. Do you think they got to Stella?”

  “No.”

  “How can you know?”

  “Because I brought Stella to my house.”

  I had to sit down. I felt nauseated. “You must be out of your mind.”

  “I knew what was coming. I wanted to have her near me. To protect her.”

  “Nice work, you fucking idiot!”

  “Hold your tongue. I tried to talk her out of leaving us before the trial, but she was resolute. On her second night with us, she ran away. And I don’t know where she is now. That’s why we’re here. That’s why I’m asking for your help.”

  “God, Charles. Don’t you think it’s a little late for that? And who are these damn people we’re dealing with?”

  “Noctis America.”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “Future tech. Special ops and stuff like that. They’re merciless. Invisible to everyone, including Congress. Bottom line is, they don’t leave loose ends.”

  “Stella is a loose end.”

  Charles shrugged. “Right now, all of us are.”

  “Well, kudos, Charles.”

  40

  GLASGOW, MONTANA

  It was close to midnight and Vicky was in bed, expecting Stella to call at any moment. When she heard her phone ring, she jolted to a sitting position.

  “Where are you?” Vicky answered.

  “I’m five minutes away.”

  “Hold on. I’ve got to check outside.”

  Vicky walked to the living room and peeped through the curtains. She saw one government vehicle out front.

  “Listen, honey, they’re at the front door right now. I think you should try parking a block away and coming through the back door.”

  “Got it.”

  “Be careful. I’ve made you dinner in case you’re hungry.”

  “That’s nice of you. I’m kind of hungry. Is my father there?”

  “No… Haven’t you heard the news?”

  “What now?”

  “Apparently, someone saw your father in Havre and notified the local police.”

  “What’s he doing there?”

  “Who knows? A woman saw him in the middle of a wheat field, or something like that. It was on the local TV news an hour ago. I don’t know what the heck is going on.”

  “That’s weird. We’ll go over it in a minute. See you soon.”

  In the car, Stella let Fernanda know how grateful she was for her help with a warm hug.

  “You know what to do, right?” Stella said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll reimburse you for everything as soon as I can.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re exhausted, Nanda. I know I am. Go straight to the hotel, spend the night there, and drive back in the morning. You don’t want to stay near Glasgow.”

  “Don’t worry. Please call me when this is over.”

  “I sure will. Now go.”

  Stella got out of the car. The street behind her father’s house was poorly illuminated, and she saw no vehicles and no one nearby. Less than a minute later, after Fernanda had driven off, Stella crossed a public area filled with trees behind the house and gently knocked on the back door.

  Vicky was waiting and opened it immediately.

  “Sweetie!” she said and practically pulled Stella into the house.

  “So glad to see you.”

  “Are sure you’re all right? What’s this on your forehead?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? Are you trying to fool me? That’s a horrible cut.”

  “It’s just a scratch. I’ll tell you what happened. Who’s in the house?”

 
“Mohe, Oto, and me.”

  Stella left her bag in the kitchen and went to meet the others. Mohe saw her first and stood up to greet her. He and Stella made no effort to hide their mutual joy at seeing each other.

  “What the hell, kid?” Mohe said and went for an embrace. “You had us all worried.”

  “Forget about me,” said Stella, stepping back. “I’m here. What’s my father doing in Havre?”

  “We don’t know that he’s there. It’s a small town. Someone claimed to have seen him walking alone in a wheat field. How much sense does that make?”

  Stella saw Oto standing to one side and approached him. They shook hands.

  “Good to see you,” Oto said.

  “It’s good to see you too, Mr. Taylor.”

  Vicky came in from the kitchen, bringing glasses of orange juice. “The boys already dined. I know you like fresh, organic juice.”

  “That’s so kind.”

  “You need to tell the Secret Service you’re here, Stella,” Mohe said.

  “Not yet.”

  Looks were exchanged while they sipped their juice.

  “Why?” Mohe said.

  Stella finished her glass and sat on the couch near the family picture. She picked it up, looked at it for a moment, and then put it back.

  “You know, the only two people I consider family besides my father are in this room,” Stella said, looking at Mohe and Vicky. Then she heard Mohe’s father clear his throat. “And you, Oto, of course.” She gave the old man a smile.

  “We understand, but—”

  “I just want to lay low for a while, Mohe. With all the trouble I’ve been through lately, I think I’m entitled to be a little cautious.”

  “You’re going to have to explain that to us,” Mohe said and moved to sit beside Stella.

  “I had this client, The Nature Dweller. An NGO. I was defending them against a lawsuit, but I found out about corruption going on there. So I quit. And Charles kidnapped me. That’s why I went missing.”

  Vicky covered her mouth in shock. “Are you kidding us? Why would he do that?”

  “I guess he didn’t want me to quit. He said he was worried about my father and me. But frankly, it was completely over the top. Charles drugged me, Vicky. And as for my father…”