Señora for taking me in. I was married to Vanna, once upon a time. The murrelets are just a convenient excuse, not her cause.” Dickon leaned against the bank of postal boxes next to the closed post office window.
“Married to her?”
“It’s a sad old story. Promise me something,” Dickon said. He moved close to Ben and shook a parental finger at him. “Promise me you won’t let that woman take you in. Remember, she’s slick, she’s sly, and she’s dangerous.” Dickon’s eyes glittered with his intensity. His gaze bored into Ben’s brain.
“Really, Dickon, can she be all that bad?” Ben backed away from Dickon. Dickon followed him.
“Yes. She is. I ought to know. I was married to her for ten hellacious years. Promise me you’ll be careful, or, better yet, that you won’t even see her.”
“Dickon, I’ll go into any meeting with her with my full radar on. I promise you I’ll be careful. You make her as fascinating as a rattler’s eyes in a noonday desert. I have to see something like this.” Ben backed away a little from Dickon.
“Don’t believe a thing she says, not even if she says rain’s wet.” Dickon gripped Ben’s shoulder. Ben could feel bruises forming. Dickon frightened him; he wanted to get away from him. “You’re too nice a guy to tangle yourself in her toils,” Dickon said. “Promise me you’ll be careful!”
“I will, Dickon, I will,” he assured him, as he disengaged Dickon’s hand from his shoulder. Then he fled. He wanted to re-think how involved he should be with Dickon.
Ben Meets Vanna
Ben went to Las Tumbas to keep the appointment Coastal Commissioner Dee had set for him. Her office was in the downtown area, in a state building, so he left early, because he knew parking would be difficult.
The morning was gray, and the redwoods lining the road up the River wept tears on his windshield. Nothing is darker than a redwood forest in the fog. It wasn’t until he got to the vineyards above the resort towns that the sun broke through, though even then it was pale and weak, as though it had missed morning tea.
The traffic thickened as he came close to Las Tumbas. The noise and smell oppressed him. Three months at San Danson had cleared his sinuses more than he realized. Las Tumbas was fast filling them again. He had forgotten how loud civilization can be at rush hour. The whizzing cars and howling trucks on the freeway unnerved him. He was glad he had only a couple of miles before he could get off into the downtown. Not that it was much better, but at least it swirled at a slower speed.
He found a lot to park in, at a price a little smaller than the national debt. It was only two blocks from Vanna Dee’s office. He squared his shoulders, and took to the sidewalk with great resolve. Only one person accosted him, an older man with a face wracked by long indulgences and a body devastated by time. He had a spread pictures out for sale. A small sign on the sidewalk by the pictures said, “Works by Noah Count.” Ben brushed by the pictures and the artist, mumbling something about having no wall space for pictures. He got a vague impression of stylized creatures, perhaps llamas, as he went by.
The state office building was a grim example of modern architecture. It had few windows. Concrete bollards half-blocked the front entrance. Metal detectors guarded the doors. The state seal was laid out in mosaic on the floor. The elevators were stainless steel set in a white wall and reasonably polished. He looked up Ms. Dee’s office number on the notice board; she was on the third (and top) floor. He took the elevator up.
Non-descript beige carpet, thick and lush underfoot, covered the corridor floor. The walls were institutional cream. The doors were the same color. Only by the protruding brass doorknobs distinguished the doors from the walls. A discreet brass plate marked Commissioner Dee’s office. Ben turned the knob, and went in.
A gray-haired secretary commanded the desk that lay athwart the room like a beached cargo container. She had no nameplate on her desk, so one didn’t know how to address her. She could have been a robot, except robots are usually less stiff. This woman was all corset and iron.
“May I help you?” she inquired in a mechanical voice.
“I am Benjamin Soul. Commissioner Dee is expecting me, I believe.”
“One moment.” She pressed a communicator button on the telephone. Some electronic magic made it impossible for Ben to hear what she said. She nodded, and put the receiver back on the cradle. “You are seven minutes early, Mr. Soul. Commissioner Dee is in conference. She will call for you in a few moments. Please take a seat.”
He looked behind him. Near the door where he came in, he saw an uncomfortable looking straight-backed chair. He discovered it was uncomfortable when he sat on it. A large clock hung on the opposite wall, above Ms. Secretary Steel. It showed he was, indeed, seven minutes early.
Twenty-two minutes later, the telephone buzzed. Ms. Secretary answered, and then rose and said, “Follow me, Mr. Soul.” She marched to a door she opened at the right and held it open for Ben. “Mr. Soul, Commissioner,” she said, and closed the door behind him. The click sounded so final.
“Sit, Mr. Soul,” Commissioner Dee ordered him. He sat. He recognized the sharp-faced woman he had seen in the Café of the Four Rosas. She began interrogating Ben without pretense or preamble of courtesy.
“Is it true you are renting a cottage at San Danson village?” Her voice was coldly neutral. Her face was a mask. Her eyes were alive with suppressed fury. The controlled emotion in them struck him so he neglected to note their color.
“Yes, it is,” he said.
“How long is your lease?”
“I’m renting on a month-to-month basis.”
“Then you can easily leave at any time?” Her voice commanded an answer.
“Not easily. Moving’s a pain.” He shrugged and spread his hands, hoping to inject a little human warmth into the room.
“Yes. Are you aware you are renting in a restricted area?”
“Restricted? How?”
“San Danson village and its mountain are the only breeding grounds of the San Danson marbled murrelet, Brachyramphus marmoratus, variety Sandansoniensis, an endangered variety,” she pontificated. He wondered what encyclopedia she was quoting.
“Variety, not species?”
“Variety. The marbled murrelet is an endangered species. Cream-colored throat, nape, under-parts, and scapulars distinguish the San Danson variety. Other marbled murrelets are white on those parts. The variety only breeds in the cliffs near San Danson village.” She might have been a robot with a recording inside for all the expression on her frozen face.
“If they use the cliffs, how does the village interfere with them?”
“By being there. The murrelets are shy.” She pointed to a picture on the wall near her desk. “Soon this great beauty of nature will be gone, if we do not get rid of the llamas and people at San Danson.”
“How do the llamas interfere with the murrelets?” he asked.
“They drop foreign dung on the hillsides. It upsets the natural vegetative balance. This pollutes the waters on the coast. That in turn poisons the fish the marbled murrelets eat.” It sounded far-fetched to Ben, but he didn’t dispute her.
“I haven’t seen llamas on the mountain.”
“There are at least seven. They may breed more. Llamas belong in the Andes, not in North America, and especially not in the breeding zone of the San Danson marbled murrelet,” she pronounced, as though reading the law of God.
“What does all this have to do with me?”
“I’m urging you to terminate your rental agreement and go back where you came from.”
“But I’ve only recently moved to the village. I need a place to rest and sort myself out. It seems perfect to me.”
“You are endangering your mental health by staying with the crazy people in that village.” She snapped the comment at Ben with fire in her voice, the first time she’d broken from her cold mechanical speech. He jerked his head back
, as if to avoid a blow.
“They seem quite nice to me,” he said. “Everyone I’ve talked with has welcomed me.”
“Stuff and nonsense! They are all mentally disturbed, and shelter there only because Mrs. Mandor wishes to spite me and thwart my rescue of the murrelets.” Ben thought of Dickon’s reaction when he learned Ben was to see Vanna. Perhaps mental disturbance was contagious, but who had infected whom, Vanna Dickon or Dickon Vanna?
“They are involved in some strange cult, I’m sure,” Vanna continued, “centering on llama worship. Don’t let them draw you into their ways; escape while you can. Mrs. Mandor, of course, we cannot move out, because her family has owned the land far longer than the Coastal Commission has existed.” She leaned toward Ben. He was glad the substantial desk remained between them.
“I have heard that her people have been there a long time,” he said to Vanna.
“They have. The old blood has worn thin in her.” A strange light glittered in Vanna’s eyes. “She’s half-crazy, I believe, and has surrounded herself with misfits and malcontents.” Ms. Dee’s eyes blazed. Ben drew back, fearful their fire might start an inferno in his thinning hair. “Leave, Mr. Soul, while you can!”
“I’ll take your words under advisement,” he said. His stomach roiled with suddenly released acid. “If you have no further business with me, I shall be on my way.” He put as much force into his voice as he could muster.
“No. Not now,” Vanna said. “I will contact you to find out when you plan to move out.” Monotones veiled her voice again. She had suppressed the fury in her eyes. “Go now. Think long and hard about what I have said.”
“Good day,” he said, as he got up. He didn’t offer to shake her hand. She had already turned to the papers in front of her on her desk. He closed her office door behind him, nodded at the Iron Maiden secretary who did not nod in reply, and left that cold office for the blessed warmth of the fog that had settled in again on the street level. He was glad to hide in it.
Cookies with Emma
Ben fumed at the slow speed limits in the river resort towns. He needed space between him and the ice woman in her sterile office. He pitied poor Dickon, trapped into a marriage with the likes of her.
When he got to his cottage, Butter greeted Ben with that combination of enthusiasm and implied guilt (his) that only a dog or a mother can induce in a man. He gave Butter her “Yes, the boss is back” treat, and then gave her another because he was so glad to be with her again. She looked expectantly at him for a third, but he steeled himself to refuse. Butter’s waist was not as slender as it ought to be. Too many treats and too much people food. He silently vowed to be a more conscientious dog servant in future.
Butter ran to the door and barked just as Emma knocked on the screen. Butter dearly liked Emma. Sadly, Butter and Prime Pussy didn’t like each other at all. Irreconcilable inter-species differences.
“Hello,” Ben called through the screen. “Hush, Butter. Emma doesn’t need your noise.” Butter whimpered and wriggled in delighted anticipation.
“Hello, Benjamin,” Emma said. “Do come over; I’ve just made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, and I need help eating them.”
“A man can’t refuse an offer like that from a gracious lady,” he replied. “Butter, stay here. I’ll be back soon.”
Butter whined in protest, but stayed. She was a biddable beast, though vocal about her disappointment. He had not been in Emma’s cottage. They commonly met by happenstance when they were in their yards. He entered, expecting flocks of frilly doilies and ranks of ruffled curtains. Emma preferred tailored furnishings. Her curtains, though lace, were cut simply, without ruffles. Her couch was simple in its lines, and her recliner was a classic overstuffed chair. She limited her use of pink to the occasional touch. Her living room had few of the little old lady touches Ben had pictured.
Her kitchen was friendly, warm with pale yellows and green accents. It was made for eating cookies. Emma produced a plate of them with a modest flourish. Her graying curls framed her round face with a girlish touch that was, somehow, altogether appropriate.
“Eat,” she said. “I understand you saw our Coastal Commissioner this morning. You need and deserve some supplement to build back your strength.”
“She was a bit of a terror,” he said. “Perhaps the coldest woman I’ve met in a long time. So is her secretary. They’re a matched pair.”
“Bertha’s only that way at the office. She can be human elsewhere.”
“Bertha?”
“Bertha Van Nation, the secretary.”
“Oh. I still don’t want to meet her on a dark and stormy night.”
“She does the formidable act well.” Emma put a kettle to boil. “What did Vanna have to say?”
“She talked about the threat to murrelets. Then she told me to move out. When I demurred, she warned me about everybody here being crazy followers of some llama cult.”
“Her hatred runs deep. It’s been festering since she was born. I don’t think she knows how to stop hating.” The kettle whistled. Emma got up to make the tea.
“I understand a little better why Dickon was frothing and fuming about her. He was in the post office when I opened her letter summoning me to an interview.”
“Dickon’s never quite gotten over being married to her. It nearly destroyed him, you see.” She brought their tea and gestured at the cookies. Ben took another one.
“How?”
“She took his marriage, his calling, his job security, and his dignity. Then, when he’d lost everything, and re-invented himself, she took his first lover, that Vince Decatur. Dickon had just come out, and Vince was his first. Vince was no prize, I’ve heard. If a person represses his true nature for years, and then embraces it, he’s so likely to go overboard. One gets to make all the silly adolescent mistakes in compressed adult time.”
“I think I know what you mean.” He took more cookies.
“Vin Decatur was a weak man, easily led by the strongest will in the room. After she rejected Dickon, Vanna ignored him until she discovered he had happily embarked on a new life. Then she sent Vince in. Vanna hired Vince to compromise Dickon with the church, according to La Señora.”
“It’s hard to believe anyone could be so vicious.”
“Viciousness is in Vanna’s genes.” Emma drained her teacup. “Dickon needs someone, someone he can trust.” Ben finished his cup and set it down.
“We all need to have people we can trust,” Ben said. There were only a few cookies left, far fewer than he thought there should be. He wondered how many he had eaten.
“I think Dickon’s ready to fall in love again,” Emma continued, “with a kind and caring man.” He began to feel cornered. What is it about some motherly souls that they have to pair off every single body?
“Have you noticed, Benjamin, how he looks at you when you’re not looking at him?”
“No.”
“Are you at all interested in Dickon?”
“I like Dickon, but I’m not sure I’m up for an intimate relationship with anybody.”
Emma got up. “I think tea is not enough, today. You’ve been with the wicked witch this morning, and need more fortification than cookies and tea. Do you take bourbon, scotch, or gin?”
He was a little surprised. Emma seemed more like a sherry person than a hard liquor drinker. “Either bourbon or scotch,” he said, “though it’s a little early in the day for me.”
“It’s happy hour somewhere, London, or Cairo, or New York. We’ll celebrate that.” She went to the cupboard and took out two tumblers. Then she took a bottle of bourbon from another cupboard. “Three fingers each, I think,” she said, and poured them. Emma had short wide fingers. He suspected he’d have an afternoon nap.
“Here,” she said. “I prefer mine neat, but I can get you some rocks if you want.”
“I’ll try it neat,” he said, f
eeling a bit like British gentry in a cozy murder mystery. He sipped at his drink, letting it linger on his tongue. Emma swallowed more than he did.
“I think you need someone, too,” she said. “Dickon’s available. I suggest you try it out.”
“Emma,” he said, and sipped a little more bourbon, “I haven’t had much urge to be with anybody else romantically since Len died. Death’s an ugly thing to watch when you love the dying person.”
“Death is ugly,” she said, “more a matter of flies and bad smells than dignity and released souls. We’re alive. Of course we hate death.” Did he imagine it, or was she slurring her words? Perhaps Emma wasn’t used to strong spirits either.
“Did Len suffer a lot before he died?”
“Not too much. His heart failed him. He got old all of a sudden. Then he died.” He felt tears welling behind his eyelids. As he’d gotten older, alcohol induced the maudlin in him.
“And now you should let him rest, and take up with a new life.” Emma was emphatic.
“I have. I’ve moved here, and, despite Commissioner Dee, I’m planning to stay, if La Señora permits me to.”
“I think she will.” Emma took another long swallow, coughed gently, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes were sparkling. “I fell in love once, Ben. It began and ended in a day, but it gave me my Notta.”
“Your daughter?”
“Yes.” She got up and went into the sitting room. She soon returned with a picture of a lovely young woman. “This is my Notta,” she said, wiping the glass with her sleeve. She handed it to Ben.
“Feminam pulchram matrem pulchrior,” he quoted, looking at the
“What?” The sudden shift to Latin confused her.
“It’s from Horace’s Odes,” he said. “Translated it says, ‘Lovely daughter of a lovelier mother.’”
“Ah, my cookies work, you silver-tongued rascal.” Emma finished off her bourbon. “Anyway, I fell in love for a day with Haakon, Notta’s father. That was the Big Quake day. I never saw him again.”
“And you never found anybody else?”
“No.” She stared at her empty tumbler. “I haven’t thought about Haakon for a long time,” she said. “Finish off your bourbon, Ben, and join me in another.”
His own tongue felt a little thick and awkward as he swallowed the sizable remnant of his drink. He felt it spread fire in his stomach as he held out the empty tumbler to Emma. This time she poured four fingers each.
As she set the glass in front of him she said, “Word of advice in your pink and shell-like, Benny.” She stood swaying slightly. “Have a date with Dickon. See where things go. I think you two belong together.” Emma sat down suddenly. She took a small sip at her bourbon. Ben sipped at his. Prime Pussy leaped into Ben’s lap. They swapped stories of Prime Pussy and Butter, and drunkenly compared the relative merits of dogs and cats as pets.
Dinner with Dickon
When Ben toddled home from Emma’s,
Ben Soul Page 70
