The Wooden Sea

by Jonathan Carroll

  Barry shrugged. “Astopel fucked up. He sent him and shouldn’t have. He thought having him here might spur you on to working faster.”

  “Floon knew about me and Gee-Gee. Did Astopel tell him that?”

  “Yes, and almost as much as you know now.”

  “Couldn’t he cause big trouble, knowing that?”

  “Yes, he could.”

  “Why don’t you kill him?”

  “We’re considering it.”

  “Should I?”

  “I’ll let you know what we decide. In the meantime don’t worry about it.”

  “You’re sure who you’re looking for is in Crane’s View?”

  “Absolutely. We’re sure they’re someone you know.”

  Barry told me something else: There was not just one person responsible for mankind’s contribution to the World Machine– there were four. Three had already done their parts. When I asked what they’d made or if I could see it, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the feather.

  “Son of a bitch! That’s why the damned thing kept following me around. But people don’t make feathers—birds do. Find that bird and your problems are solved.”

  “This feather was man-made. And there’s something else.” Reaching into the same pocket, he took out the silvery piece of bone I’d found while burying Old Vertue the first time. I looked expectantly at Barry, assuming he had a good punch line to this show and tell.

  None came. Instead he held the objects in an open palm and looked at them. Without thinking, without pausing, connecting or considering or any other goddamned thing I asked, “How do you row a boat across a wooden sea?”

  He snapped the fingers of his other hand. The noise was very loud in that small space. It sounded like a tree branch cracking. “Very good, Mr. McCabe, you remembered Antonya’s question. That’s the third part. Now all we have to do is find the fourth.”

  “How did I know that, Barry? How did I know that question was the third part?”

  “Because you’ve tuned into our frequency. You found our channel.” Smiling, he reached over and began taking Magda’s blood pressure again. “Now you’ll be able to receive our broadcasts.”

  “Don’t be cutesy. What does it mean?”

  “It means you’re beginning to understand.”

  “But what do a feather a bone and that question have in common?”

  “Don’t know. We’re hoping the fourth piece will tell us.”

  At the hospital both Michael and Isabelle Zakrides were waiting for us. They immediately took over from the paramedics, shooing away even the nurses who came to help. The Zakrideses are old friends and both of them are very good doctors. After I was shot years ago Mike saved my life. Watching him and his wife push Magda’s stretcher down the hall, I realized he would take care of me again soon when lights started going out chez moi. Before that delightful idea could land and make me miserable I saw something down the hall that caught my attention. After checking to make sure Magda was all right for the moment, I went down there.

  Bill Pegg stood at the other end, listening intently as a short woman doctor with a monk’s haircut lectured him. Her pedantic tone of voice set my teeth on edge ten feet away. When I arrived, he put up a hand to stop her.

  “Hold it, Doctor. This is Chief of Police McCabe. He’ll want to hear all of this.”

  “What’s up, Bill?”

  “Chief, this is Doctor Schellberger. Brunhilde Schellberger.” He lifted one eyebrow one millimeter but that said it all.

  “Hello, Doctor, what’s going on?”

  “A Caucasian male named John Petangles was brought in half an hour ago with gunshot wounds to the stomach and thigh.”

  I looked at Bill but heard myself tell Johnny it was all right to follow Caz de Floon only minutes after that shithead shot Gee-Gee and Old Vertue.

  “Put out an all points on a white male, around sixty years old wearing a multicolored jogging suit. He’s about five-nine, got a big head of white hair, weight… a hundred and fifty. A little less.”

  Bill took a notebook out of his pocket and wrote it down but his eyes kept coming up off the page and looking me over. “How do you know this, Chief?”

  “Just do it, Bill. How’s Johnny?”

  “Not good. They’re operating on him now.”

  “Doctor?”

  She turned her hand back and forth and again. “We’ll know more after the operation.”

  “Who is this guy, Frannie? How do you know who to look for?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Right now I’ve got to find a paramedic here named Barry.”

  Dr. Schellberger said, “Barry? There’s no paramedic at this hospital by that name.”

  I turned to go. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  George and Pauline were sitting in the waiting room holding hands. That picture struck my heart like lightning splitting a tree down the middle. Two people who mattered so much to me. I would have them for only a few more days and then they would be gone. George gone, Pauline, Magda, Crane’s View ... my life. How do you ride the wave of that thought into the beach without falling off? Your life will be over in days.

  “Is she gonna be all right. Frannie? Is Mom going to be okav?”

  “Yes, I think so. I hope so. They said things looked good. But we have to wait till they’ve finished the tests. Pauline, can you wait here a minute while I talk to George? It’ll only take like five minutes.”

  She grabbed my arm. “Are you not telling me something? Is there something I should know about Mom?”

  “No, no, it’s nothing like that. Believe me. It’s just something I have to tell George—”

  “Don’t lie to me, Frannie. Please don’t. I know that you think I’m a baby—”

  “That isn’t true, Pauline. Magda’s your mother. If I knew something was really wrong with her I wouldn’t hide it from you. Why would you think I’d do that?”

  “Because you think I’m a child and—”

  There was so little time left now that I felt it imperative to get through to Pauline on at least this one thing. Taking hold of both her arms, I pulled her close to me so that we were almost nose to nose. “I don’t think that at all. I’m proud as hell of you and I think you’re going to be a contender, like you said you wanted in the garage the other night.” That’s all I could think of to say but knew I had to say more because it was all breaking up inside me, breaking up and crashing together at the same time. An impossible thing, but there nevertheless.

  Life is only contradictions and learning how to adjust to them. I wanted to tell this smart, naive girl to be quiet and listen—I’ll tell you some of what I’ve learned and maybe you can use it. At the same time I wanted to tell her nothing and let her live in her silvery soap bubble of innocence until the very last moment when of course it would pop and she would fall to a much harder earth than she had ever imagined.

  “Listen to me—” But then it was her turn to hold me because I completely lost it, couldn’t say anything more and started to cry.

  “Are you lying to me, Frannie? Is that why you’re crying? Are you lying to me about Mom?” Her voice was soft and kind as cashmere. It asked its question but reassured at the same time. It held no grudge. Okay, even if you lied to me about this it’s okay. I forgive you and will hold you till you’re feeling better. All these new sides of this girl I had never seen before this morning. All of them appearing at once. Sexy Pauline, Flirty Pauline, Forgiving, Understanding... Why hadn’t I seen them before? Why hadn’t I known her?

  “Am I good to you, Pauline? Have I been a good stepfather?”

  “Well, yeah. Yes, definitely. Why are you asking? What’s the matter?”

  “I just want to know. I need to know. Your Mom is okay. I swear they didn’t say anything I haven’t told you. But this is different: I just want to know if I’ve been a good guy to you.”

  She smiled small but warm. “A very good guy. The other night when we were sitting in the garage talking I loved you s
o much. You made me feel like what I was saying wasn’t stupid or crazy. You made me feel normal.”

  We hugged. We hugged and I felt tears on my face and the heat of her thin body in my arms. “Don’t be normal, Pauline. Don’t ever try to be normal because it’s the first symptom of a terminal disease. As soon as you feel the need to be normal coming on, get the antidote.”

  “And what is the antidote?”

  I wanted so badly to come up with a brilliant ripping riposte that she would remember the rest of her life. All I could think of was, “Just make sure that you’re living your life, Pauline; don’t let normal pretend to be you.”

  Isabelle Zakrides came over with papers to sign and asked if she could speak with one of us about Magda’s condition. With a glance I asked Isabelle if anything was new. Her eyes back said no, this was just a formality. I told her to talk to Pauline and the girl’s face showed happy gratitude.

  “Will you tell me what’s going on with my mom?”

  “Sure, Pauline. Let’s sit over there and I’ll give you the whole scoop.”

  Standing outside the hospital, I told George what had happened to Johnny Petangles and that I was sure Floon shot him. I also described what had gone on between Barry and me. When I was finished, the blown-fuse look on George’s face said it all. “Digesting all this is like eating a whole turkey in a couple of bites, Frannie. It’s staggering. What are you going to do now?”

  “I was going to look for Barry and ask some questions but he’s disappeared. I have a feeling he’ll be back when it’s necessary. In the meantime I don’t want that cocksucker Floon roaming around with a gun. He’s already shot two people and a dog and it’s not even noon.”

  “But if you find him what are you going to do then? You only have a few days, Frannie.”

  “First let me find Floon. The guy’s dangerous. Then I’ll look for this fourth thing they’re so hot to have, whatever the hell it is. What else can I do, George? I don’t exactly have a lot of options open to me.”

  A look of deep sadness swept onto his normally impassive face and stayed. He was frightened for me and to my surprise a lot of love was in his look as well. Very quietly he asked, “How can I help?”

  “Go back inside and keep an eye on Pauline for me. I can’t be worrying about her now. Carry your cell phone so I can reach you when I need to. And answer it for Christ’s sake, George. Don’t just let it ring till the battery runs out.”

  “All right. Where are you goinp now?”

  “Home to get a gun and get changed. Then out to find Floon the Flying Dutchman.”

  We stared at each other and more than a lot passed between us in those silent seconds.

  Finally a small guilty grin flickered at the corners of his mouth. He couldn’t resist asking, “Frannie, you really saw the Beatles? What was it like?”

  “They were all shorter than I imagined. Even Lennon. I always thought of him as ten feet tall.”

  The phone was ringing when I got to my house. In the rush to leave for the hospital, we’d forgotten to lock the front door. I walked in and caught the phone on its last ring. But by the time I said hello whoever was gone. Had Floon done something else in the meantime? God forbid. I thought about that familiar phrase as I walked into our bedroom and started getting dressed How could “God forbid” if He’d been asleep all this time? Or “God damn” or “God save us”? And was He actually unconscious the way we are when we sleep, or did Barry mean it as some kind of cosmic metaphor?

  With a pair of trousers in my hands and one leg up ready to insert, I realized I was staring at our bed. Did God sleep on a mattress? Or use a pillow? How big was His bed? Why was I suddenly smiling? I was going to be dead soon because my poor brain was going to explode. In the meantime I had to catch mad Caz de Floon before he shot someone else, then find the fourth whatever so as to save the universe. Why was I smiling?

  After slipping on the pants, I straightened up and struck a pure Bruce Lee pose—arms up in inverted “L’s” ready to deliver lethal blows. I swatted one out while growling, “Heeee-ya!” in my best Hong Kong karate movie voice. McCabe, dying Master of the Universe. Because George was right—it was too much to even imagine, much less absorb. It just seemed logical to do whatever I could and then leave the rest to Barry, his gang and whoever else was out there in the stars.

  I didn’t have a solution but I had to admire the enormity of the problem.

  Where to find Floon? In his situation where would I go? Hmmm? Where could I go with no money or identification? I was assuming he arrived here with only the clothes on his back. Plus he had no clue of the specifics of what was going on today. If I were suddenly shot back thirty years with no preparation and no resources to work from, I don’t know what I’d do. He’d said he wanted to “change some things” which I took to mean take greedy advantage of what he knew about the future to affect his fortunes then, i.e., buy a zillion shares of Microsoft stock the first day it goes public. But how could he do that? Rob a bank to get some startup capital? He had his gun and certainly the balls to do something like that.

  Standing in front of the dresser slipping things into my pockets, I looked at myself in the dresser mirror trying to figure this out—where would Floon go? What’s the first thing he would be likely to do?

  Magda is an orderly woman. Everything in its place, our house is always spick-and-span, her desk is empty of any extraneous papers, and monthly bills are paid punctually. It’s one of her qualities I deeply appreciate because I am not usually tidy in either mind or checkbook. Every morning when the mail arrived she put whatever letters were for me in a neat pile on top of my dresser. When I came home from work and changed clothes, I’d fan through them and read any that looked inviting. The others I left on the dresser for when I could summon the small interest to open them. Magda and Pauline kidded me about how many contests I’d lost or orphans I let starve because I didn’t open most of those letters for days.

  Today on top of that pile was a quarterly report from my stockbroker. When my pockets were filled with what I thought I would need—money, notebook, pistol… I mentally ran through the list to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. While doing this, my eyes remained on the broker’s letter, specifically the company’s mailing and email addresses. Something dawned on me.

  “Elementary, my dear Watson!” And then I was galloping out of the house like a horse on fire.

  Our town library was the pet project of Lionel Tyndall, the only obscenely wealthy resident of Crane’s View. A lonely old eccentric who made a fortune in oil prospecting, Tyndall gave the library so much money before he died that the place is a joy to visit. Not only do they have a wide array of constantly changing books, but their equipment is always the most tiptop, cutting-edge, and up to date. The head librarian, Maeve Powell, patiently taught me how to use a computer and, when I had it down, how to surf and make the most of the Internet.

  That morning when I entered, Maeve was sitting behind the front desk looking at a large coffee table book on wristwatches.

  The library’s computer room is behind that desk and off to the right. There was no way I could see into it from where I was standing. It made me nervous knowing Floon might be a few feet away but I had no way of knowing it.

  Librarian Powell is as serious as a postage stamp, so when she smiles you should consider it a special gift. She looked up from her book and smiled. “Good morning, Francis.”

  “Hi. Have you been here since the library opened today?”

  “Yes. I was just reading about the Breguet Tourbillon—”

  “That’s nice. But did a guy come in here in an ugly-colored jogging suit, around sixty years old and with a lot of white hair? He speaks with an accent.”

  “Yes. He was quite nice. Asked for the CDs of the Encarta encyclopedia and dictionary we keep on reserve. Then he went into the computer room with them.”

  “I knew it! I knew he’d look for a computer and that goddamned Internet! Is there anyone else in the
library?” I looked around. A fat woman in a yellow dress sat at a table reading an Utne Reader magazine. “Anyone besides her?”

  Maeve got my message. Her voice turned grave and quickened. “Yes, there are a couple of children in the computer room too.”

  “Shit.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All right, we’ll just have to deal with it.”

  “Who is this man, Frannie?”

  For a moment I was tempted to tell her but something held me back. “It doesn’t matter. I just have to talk to him and it might be dicey. Who else is in the library besides her and those kids?”

  “No one.”

  “Then why don’t you go outside for a while and take that woman with you.”

  “Should I call the police station?”

  “No, let’s see if I can take care of it without a fuss. You two go ahead outside.”

  She stood immediately but then hesitated. It was clear she wanted to say something. Instead she walked around the desk and over to the woman. Both of them stared at me while Maeve spoke. Fatso clearly did not want to leave. But she heard something that changed her mind. She jumped out of that seat like she’d been ejected from it. She motored by me toward the door at a speed that said it all.

  When Maeve was passing me she stopped. “Frannie.”

  “Yes?” I looked from her toward the door to the computer room, wishing she would leave so I could get on with this.

  “My daughter Nell is in there. Nell and her friend Layla.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”

  “If anything were to happen—”

  I spoke lightly—as if this were no big deal. “Nothing’s going to happen, Mrs. Powell. I’m going in there and come right out again with this guy. Zip zip and we’re gone. Please, trust me.”

  “I do trust you, Frannie. But it’s Nell in there. Don’t let anything happen to my child.”

  “Never.” I touched her cheek with my hand. Her eyes were brimming with tears and her eyelids trembled.

  When she had left the building I walked slowly around the desk. Pressed flat against the wall, I took out my Beretta and checked to see if the safety was off. Holding it at my side, I slid slowly toward the computer room. On reaching that door, I got ready to sneak a look through the glass. Without warning a nova of unimaginable pain burst in my head. Because my back was to the wall I sort of crumpled against it and slid to the floor. If I hadn’t been leaning I would have fallen on my face. I had no control over my body.