Floater

by Gary Brandner

  Roman said nothing. His mother had written to him at the time, telling of the steady abuse she had taken from his father along with the drunken tirades that had finally driven her out of the house. She had met Leonard Simon at her sister’s house in Oak Park, and married him a year later. As far as Roman could tell, they were happy now in Fort Lauderdale.

  “Then they fired me out at the plant. Fuckin’ manager was afraid I’d do my job too good and make him look bad, so he told a bunch of lies about me drinkin’, and naturally they believed him instead of me and fired my ass.”

  “That’s too bad, Pop.” Roman wished the self-pitying old fart would just go away.

  “But listen, I’m okay. Got me an okay room on the South Side. Not too bad. Got my own bathroom. Got a TV, not as good as this one, but it picks up most of the stations.” He wiped his lips. “Mind if I have just another little snort?”

  “Go ahead,” Roman told him.

  The fat old man poured whiskey into the glass, carefully leaving a quarter of an inch in the bottom of the bottle. He drank, looked up, and for a moment his eyes held the fierce gaze Roman remembered.

  “You let me down, Romey,” he said, and his voice was stronger than it had been.

  “What do you mean, Pop?”

  “You know. I mean what you did to the Nunley kid. You and your friends.”

  Roman recoiled as though he’d been struck.

  “Everybody in town knew,” Howard Dixon continued, “even though nobody said anything about it. That Judge Grant and the police chief and the editor of the Chronicle, they saw to that. I could never hold my head up in this town again. People were talkin’ about me behind my back. Whispering. It’s your fault, what happened to me.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying, Pop.”

  For a moment the old man met his eyes, then something inside him collapsed. He was a fat, defeated old drunk. Nothing more. With difficulty he hoisted himself out of the chair.

  “I better go. You most likely got things you want to do.”

  Roman did not argue.

  “Uh, just one thing, I’m runnin’ a little short this month, and if you could see your way clear to — ”

  “Sure, Pop.” Roman dug out several bills and passed them to the old man. “I’ll send you more when I get back home.”

  “Thanks, Romey. I-I’ll pay you back.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Roman closed the hotel room door behind his father, and for the first time in many years felt like crying. Instead, he went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth over and over.

  ALEC

  The cemetery, the old one out at the end of West Road, was not a place Alec McDowell really wanted to be. With the gunmetal clouds pushing down on Wolf River like heavy hands, it had to be one of the least attractive locations in town.

  And yet here he was. After the unsettling talk with the old police chief, Alec had wandered around aimlessly, or so he thought, until he found himself at the row of cypress trees that bordered West Memorial Park.

  He hesitated a moment, then entered through the tall black iron gates that were never closed. “Why lock ’em?” ran the town joke. “Nobody’s going to break out.”

  He walked among the gravestones — simple carved slabs, most of them, although there were a few more elaborate ones with angels or sorrowing saints. Alec caught himself being careful not to step on the patches of ground directly over the buried bodies. Ridiculous, he thought. What am I going to do, wake somebody up? But he continued to walk around the sodded rectangles.

  The stone seemed to jump up suddenly in front of him. Plain dark marble, no embellishments. Just the engraved legend:

  Phelan Alexander McDowell

  1912–1971

  At Rest

  Alec stood at his father’s feet, looking down at the simple stone, the unadorned grave. In his head he heard the boom of the long-ago gunshot that had splattered Phelan McDowall’s brains over the ceiling of his garage.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Alec said softly. “I never meant to hurt anyone.”

  As he stood there, remembering, not wanting to remember, Alec had a growing sense of unease. Someone was watching him. There had been no one else around when he entered the cemetery. He had seen no other person as he crossed through the graves. But now he was as sure as he was of the dead under his feet that he was not alone. Not wanting to turn, he turned.

  The woman was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a long gray dress and a gray hood. She stood atop a gentle rise and looked directly, unblinkingly at him.

  Alec had a crazy impulse to run. Just turn and run as fast as he could the hell out of that graveyard, through the iron gates, all the way back to town and out of town, never to return.

  He fought down the urge and stood his ground as the woman came toward him. He couldn’t see her feet beneath the flowing gray dress, and she seemed to float over the graves as she approached. For a moment Alec thought she was going to collide with him, but the woman stopped when their faces were just inches apart.

  Her skin seemed unnaturally smooth, the flesh tinted pink, the blue eyes clear and sharp. It was a much younger face than was suggested by the strands of white hair that straggled from beneath the hood.

  After what seemed like an agonizingly long silence, the woman spoke. “You’re back,” she said. Her voice was low-pitched and cultured.

  “W-what?”

  “You’ve come back. All three of you.”

  Jesus God, no, haven’t I had enough of this?

  The woman put out a hand. Her movement was surprisingly swift; before Alec could get out of the way her fingers had clamped onto his upper arm. The strength of her grip was astonishing.

  “Excuse me,” Alec said, trying to pry loose the grasping fingers. “I think you’ve made a mistake.”

  “I made no mistake.” The woman’s voice took on an uneven quality. For the first time Alec noticed that the blue eyes were a shade too bright. “My son made the mistake. Twenty years ago. My son trusted you.”

  Alec could only shake his head dumbly.

  “Did you come back to see him now?”

  Alec pulled harder at the gripping fingers. He could not dislodge even one.

  “I’ll show him to you,” the woman said, her voice now moving rapidly up and down the scale.

  Before he could protest further, the woman was pulling him across the graves, her fingers digging painfully into his biceps. Alec looked around frantically for help, but the two of them were alone in the cemetery. He had no choice but to let himself be pulled along, striving to keep his balance as the woman swept back up the rise toward the spot where she had been standing.

  They came to a stop before a pink marble headstone.

  “There!” said the woman. She leveled a bony forefinger at the stone, keeping her iron grip on Alec with the other hand.

  Squirming around in her grasp, he read:

  Frazier David Nunley

  1952–1966

  Beloved Son

  Taken Too Soon

  “There he is,” the woman continued. “There is my son, where you and your friends put him.”

  Alec pulled at the hand that was squeezing his arm to numbness. “Mrs. Nunley … please …”

  Abruptly she released him. Alec staggered back a step before he caught himself.

  “It’s wrong,” the woman said, madness now twisting her face. “My son is dead, and you are alive. You should have to pay for that.”

  She rose to her full height and seemed to Alec to tower over him. He had a terrible moment when he thought she was about to draw a hatchet or something from the folds of her dress and split his skull. The, as suddenly as she had appeared, Orva Nunley turned and drifted away from him over the graves.

  Alec rubbed his aching arm and hurried toward the gate. To the north, thunder grumbled.

  Suspended over the bordering row of cypress trees, the Floater observed the scene.

  Don’t worry, Mother. H
e will pay. They will all pay.

  CHAPTER 27

  Lindy and Roman watched silently as Alec came into the inn and crossed the lobby to the registration desk. His face was pale, his thoughts unreadable. He didn’t see the two of them standing near the elevator.

  The clerk took a single sheet of paper from the pigeonhole marked with his room number and handed it to Alec. He read the short message, and for a moment looked as though he were going to be sick. When he saw the clerk looking at him oddly, he righted himself and headed for the elevator. He pulled up short as he saw the others. They started toward him.

  “I guess you got the same message in your box that we did,” Roman said.

  Alec stared at him wordlessly and handed over the folded sheet. It read:

  • • •

  Big Reunion Party Tonight!!

  At the Wolfpack Cabin.

  For the Hero, the Monkey, the Cat … and the Clown.

  Don’t miss it or you’ll be sorry!

  “What are we going to do?” Alec said.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m sure as hell not hanging around to see what that party is all about,” said Roman.

  “It seems to me that’s what you said last night at dinner,” Alec reminded him. “Something about getting out of here first thing this morning.”

  “Jesus, don’t you think I’ve been trying? Is it my fault the damn car is screwed up and the dumbass mechanic can’t fix it?”

  “Are you saying that your car is the only way out of this town?” Alec said.

  “It might as well be. The only car rental outfit in town is closed, if you can believe it.”

  “There’s got to be a bus out or something.”

  “I came in from Milwaukee on a bus,” Lindy said.

  “Great. So why don’t we catch one right back out of town?” Alec said.

  “Don’t you think I thought of that?” Roman said. “I just came from the Greyhound depot. There’s exactly two buses a day out of Wolf River. The last one left at five o’clock. Just over an hour ago.”

  “There has to be something we can do.”

  Roman scowled at him. “If you’ve got any bright ideas, let’s hear ’em. How did you get here?”

  “I hired a driver at the airport in Milwaukee.”

  “Oh, well, lah-de-dah.”

  “I don’t drive myself. In New York you don’t have to.”

  “Same old Alec,” Roman said. “You always did mooch a ride with somebody else. Mostly me.”

  Alec ignored the dig. He said, “Well, let’s call around. There’s got to be a way.”

  “Call?” Roman sneered. “Call on what? Have you tried to use the telephone?”

  “There was some problem with the lines earlier. Surely that’s been repaired by now.”

  “Oh, yeah? Why don’t you try it?”

  “It’s true, Alec,” Lindy said, “but go ahead and make sure.”

  Alec looked from one to the other, then walked deliberately across the lobby to the pay telephone. He picked up the receiver, dropped a coin in the slot, and listened. He jiggled the switch hook several times, tried the dial, finally replaced the receiver and walked back, not bothering to retrieve the coin that rattled into the return slot.

  “It’s dead,” he announced.

  “No kidding,” Roman said dryly.

  A peal of thunder reverberated through the lobby.

  “I wish that storm would either move in or go away,” Roman complained. “It’s making me jumpy as hell.”

  “It’s a funny kind of storm,” Lindy said. “It just sits there outside of town, like it’s waiting.”

  “Are we going to stand around and talk about the weather?” Alec demanded.

  “Like I said before,” Roman told him, “if you’ve got any bright ideas on how to get out of here, lay ’em out.”

  “I don’t think we are going to get out of here,” Lindy said quietly. “Not before … whoever or whatever is doing this is through with us.”

  “Now what does that mean?” Alec said. “Are we talking ghosts again? The supernatural? Some mystical power holding us in town?”

  “Something is holding us here,” Lindy said. “The telephones, Roman’s car, that odd storm hanging over us. And you’ll have to admit some pretty strange things have happened to us. Things that can’t be explained away easily.”

  “I suppose so,” Alec said grudgingly. “But we can worry about explanations later. There must be something we can do now.”

  “One thing we can do is buy a gun,” Roman said. “Either of you see a gun shop or a sporting goods store open anywhere?”

  “I didn’t see much of anything open,” Alec said. “If there was ever a dying town, this is it.”

  Lindy was staring at Roman. “A gun? What in the world are you going to shoot? Your car? The telephone? A plastic toy clown? A storm that won’t move in or away? Come on, Roman, use your head.”

  “I’d still feel better if I was armed,” he grumbled.

  “I think the important thing now is for us to stay together and not panic,” Lindy said.

  “Nobody’s going to panic,” Roman said. “At least I know I’m not.”

  “And what good does it do to stay together?” Alec said. “We were all together at dinner last night, and somebody still pulled off that trick with the floating clown.”

  “That was the waitress’s idea of a joke,” Roman said. “It had to be.”

  Alec snapped at him. “You know better than that.”

  “The important thing,” Lindy said, “is that nobody was hurt. There may be strength in the three of us.”

  “Do we have to stand around here in the lobby?” Roman said. “Why don’t we go into the bar?”

  “That will help a lot,” Alec said, “for you to get smashed again.”

  “Listen — ” Roman began darkly, but he broke off, and they all turned as the street door to the lobby pushed open and a gust of cold air washed over them.

  Jim Dancey entered. He started for the desk, then saw the three of them standing by the elevator and changed his direction. “Your car’s ready,” he told Roman.

  “You mean it’s fixed?”

  “I mean it starts and it runs. Nothing I did, it just decided it was ready to go.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I just drove it over here, I’m that sure. It’s out front now if you want it.”

  “Hell yes, I want it. How much do I owe you?”

  “I figure forty dollars will cover it. If you’re gonna use the credit card we’ll have to go back to the station.”

  “No, here, I’ll give you the cash,” Roman said quickly. “I don’t want any more delays.”

  Dancey accepted the money and looked at each of them. “You’ll be leaving town? All of you?”

  “That’s the plan,” Roman told him.

  “Good.” Dancey turned, walked back across the lobby, and out. The street beyond the glass-paneled doors was dark and forbidding.

  “What did he mean by that?” Alec wondered.

  “Who cares?” Roman said. “Me, I’m outta here. Anybody coming with me?”

  After a moment’s hesitation Alec said, “All right, I’ll come.”

  Lindy said, “I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”

  “Why the hell not?” Roman wanted to know.

  “It’s too convenient, that’s all, having the car suddenly get well like that.”

  “Stay if you want to,” Roman said, “but me, I’m not spending one minute more than I have to in this miserable town.”

  Lindy pursed her lips. “No,” she said finally, “I’ll come along because I still think we should stick together. But we might be making a big mistake.”

  “I’ll be packed and ready to go in ten minutes,” Roman said. “We can meet back down here.”

  • • •

  Fifteen minutes later Lindy was standing at the registration desk while the clerk processed her credit card to settle the bill.

 
He said, “Sorry you couldn’t stay with us a little longer. Wolf River is really a nice little town.”

  “I know,” Lindy said. “Like the sign says, ‘A nice place to live.’ ”

  “There’s those who think so.”

  She could see Roman jittering impatiently by the door while Alec stood by, waiting for her. Just like the old days, she thought. Only much, much different.

  She signed the credit slip, took the cardholder copy, and stuffed it into her handbag.

  “Glad I don’t have to go out tonight,” the clerk said. “I don’t like the looks of the weather.”

  “Neither do I,” Lindy agreed, “but sometimes you don’t have a choice.”

  She picked up her bag and carried it with her toward the two men.

  “Come on, come on,” Roman urged. “It’s getting darker than hell out there.”

  So it was, Lindy saw. It was barely seven o’clock, which should be reasonably light at this time of year in northern Wisconsin, but the gloom that had hung in the town all day had darkened to restless night. The streetlights had been turned on, but they seemed unable to penetrate the unnatural dark.

  When they went outside, a cold, wet wind eddied around the three people as though probing for a point of entry. Lindy pulled her sweater closer around her while Roman keyed open the trunk.

  Their three bags fit easily into the trunk of the Monte Carlo. Roman and Lindy got into the front, while Alec took the back seat. Unwanted memories returned of the same riders in other times and another car on these same streets.

  Roman fired the engine, which roared to life immediately. He looked around to the others with a smirk of triumph as though he personally had fixed whatever was wrong.

  “Are we going to leave or are you going to sit here revving the engine?” Alec said.

  “Keep your pants on,” Roman told him. “I’ll have us back in Milwaukee before you know it.”

  He started away from the curb.

  “Aren’t you going to turn on the lights?” Lindy said.

  “They’re on,” he told her.

  “What’s the matter with them? I can barely see in front of the car.”

  “I don’t know, but we’re not stopping for that. As long as this baby runs, I’m heading out of here and away.”