[2010] The Violet Hour

by Daniel Judson

  Cal pocketed the change and ticket. “Thanks, man.”

  “Saw inside one car,” the ferryman said. “The guy was dressed up like the pope or something, and the woman next to him was naked. I’m talking not a fucking thing on. Next to her was this long mink coat. Just lying there on the seat. Fuck me. You think maybe you could get me and my brother into that party? We’re off at two.”

  “Not staying all that long myself,” Cal said. “Just picking someone up.”

  The ferryman nodded. “Bummer. Just so you know, the last ferry is at one forty-five. They start running again at five forty-five.”

  Cal nodded, said, “Thanks, man,” and closed the window.

  Something told him—an inherent instinct, perhaps, long dormant till tonight—that talking to this guy had maybe been a mistake.

  He remembered Heather’s warning to be careful, decided he should heed it.

  The trip took less than five minutes. During the crossing Cal had listened to the shuddering drone of the ferry’s engine and the steady sound of the waves splitting against its bow, watching through the windshield as the island grew larger and larger. The little the ferryman had told him about his destination only served to confuse Cal; not only was Amanda’s presence out here, this far from the city, something he did not understand, but her being at a party like the one the ferryman had described made no sense at all. She’d always seemed to Cal to be a confident girl, to the point, even, of being stuck-up. A good head on her shoulders, selective about the men she dated, almost, well, prudish.

  What was she doing here, with a crowd like this one?

  Once the ferry docked, Cal let the pickup disembark first, then drove onto the island, pulling over and waiting till the pickup’s tail-lights were out of sight before finally proceeding. The streets here were all unlit—the darkness back in the no-man’s-land of Bridgehampton had nothing at all on this island—but a single left turn from Ferry Road, and another left turn less than a minute later, and Cal had arrived at the beachside parking lot on the southwestern rim of the island that was, according to Heather’s directions, his destination.

  Several dozen cars were parked in the lot, some of them black Town Cars, others a sample of every top-end vehicle imaginable. Most were brand-new, but Cal recognized some classics among them, out, no doubt, for their last joyrides before being locked away for the winter. Carver, were he here, would certainly be interested in seeking out the owners of those vehicles. Beyond this lot, to the west, was a strip of beach that ran north to south. Narrow, it led to water Cal could only barely see. He could hear it, though, the frequent and faint falling of tiny waves just yards away.

  Looking along the length of the beach, he spotted in the distance a bonfire, saw that people were gathered around it, some standing, most sitting. A burst of orange sparks suddenly rose from the flames—someone must have tossed another log upon it. One more long look around the lot—at the cars for hire and the other vehicles—and then Cal stepped onto the sand. Wrapping the wool of the peacoat around himself against the gusts of cold—significantly different here in feel and smell from the gusts he had experienced out in the potato fields—he headed toward the fire.

  He had only taken twenty or so steps in the soft sand when he spotted the house. It was off to his left, surrounded on three sides by a thick row of tall pine trees, the branches intertwining like thatch, which was why he hadn’t been able to see the building from the parking lot. The only house in sight, most of its windows were lit up, but no outside lights were burning. Cal stopped to look at it, uncertain whether to continue toward the bonfire or head instead toward the house. As he was trying to decide he realized that two people were actually nearby, moving diagonally along the dark beach from the house. He didn’t see them—couldn’t see them—and then, suddenly, there they were. One was dressed in a long priest’s cassock, the other as a Catholic nun—figures clad in black, moving through blackness. He could tell by the way they had trouble walking on the soft sand—laughing and clutching at each other—that both were, if not already drunk, well on their way.

  Cal’s eyes were getting used to the dark, and he could see that the couple was heading toward the bonfire. After a moment of watching them he felt certain that they had no idea he was even there. Looking back toward the house, he saw a figure standing at the property’s edge. He wasn’t sure if that figure had just arrived in that spot or if he had only now noticed it, but it seemed that this figure was looking straight at him. Staring, even.

  Then the figure raised one arm high over its head, waving in a wide back-and-forth motion. Whoever this was wasn’t just looking at him, was in fact beckoning him over.

  Cal waited a moment more, then altered his course and began to make his way toward the house.

  A three-story structure built from gray stone. Tall, narrow windows facing the beach. A monastery once, probably, by the look of the place, the starkness of it, but obviously a private residence now.

  The figure that had waved Cal over was waiting on a narrow strip of grassy sand separating the beach from the driveway that ran the length of the house. Cal could tell soon enough that the figure was a man, but as he got closer he saw that this man was dressed in the brown robes of a Franciscan monk, a thick white rope tied like a sash around his waist. Cal could see, too, that this was a young man, not much older than he was.

  “You’re Heather’s friend?” the mock-monk said.

  “Yeah.”

  “She called back, said she was sending you. Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine.”

  Even with the seaside wind rushing past him, Cal could smell the alcohol on Angstrom’s breath. Around the guy’s neck, on a strip of worn leather, hung a rabbit’s foot, dyed jet black, the same color as his shoulder-length hair. A good-looking guy, he had a narrow face and strong jaw, intelligent eyes and a Roman nose, didn’t look at all the way Cal had expected him to. There was something almost scholarly about him. Healthy, too, and despite the fact that he’d been drinking, Angstrom seemed alert, in control. For some reason Cal had thought he would be none of these things.

  “Where’s Amanda?”

  “I’ll take you to her. We need to hurry, though. It’s about to start.”

  Angstrom led Cal onto the driveway. Rounded white stones here, as noisy as gravel. Straight ahead of them was the door to the kitchen, its windows, and those on either side of it, brightly lit. Inside, chefs and waiters scurried, and outside, not far away, two white catering vans were parked.

  Instead of heading toward that door, Angstrom was leading Cal in the direction of another, this one at the far end of the building, off to their right. Made of heavy wood—ornate, with wrought-iron fittings and an arched top. A row of windows was alongside it. Unlit, they reflected the dark, clouded sky. At the very end of the driveway, in the shadows of the giant barrier of pine trees, stood a silver Lexus. It and the two vans were the only vehicles here.

  “I saw you pull in,” Angstrom said. “Cool car. What kind is it?”

  “Don’t know,” Cal lied. Again, instinct here, and the sudden urge to obey it. “I borrowed it from a friend.”

  “So it’s not yours.”

  “No.”

  “Some friend, to let you drive around in that. It must be worth a lot.”

  Cal said nothing. These were probably just friendly questions, casual conversation meant to pass the time it took for them to reach the door. Still, the least said, the better, right?

  Once they arrived at this side door, Cal noted that the row of windows just past it were the only darkened ones in the entire place—what he could see of it, anyway. So far, all he’d glimpsed was the side facing the water.

  “I put her in here,” Angstrom said. He opened the door, stepping into the dark room. Cal followed, stopping just beyond the threshold and waiting as Angstrom made his way further inside, looking, Cal figured, for a light. Angstrom hit something solid with his toe, whispered, “Shit.” Then, finally, a light came on, a d
im reading lamp standing beside an easy chair.

  This room was a study, windows along three of its walls, the fourth wall a floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled to capacity with leather-bound editions. At the center of the bookcase was a door leading to the rest of the house. There were throughout this room a half dozen easy chairs, a desk the size of a king bed, and two long sofas—a bit crammed together, and yet each spot a private place. On the sofa nearest to the door, under an overcoat, lay an unconscious girl. Cal’s eyes went to her immediately, found her face. He recognized her at once.

  Amanda.

  He walked to the couch to get a better look at her. “Is she okay?” It was more of a demand than a question. Something about Angstrom’s bookish appearance brought out a toughness in Cal.

  Angstrom went to the door around which the bookcase had been built. Opening it slightly, he made a thorough survey of the hallway beyond, then carefully closed it again.

  “She was pretty much out of it when I found her,” he said. His voice was a half-whisper. “By the time I got her down here, though, she was passed out.”

  Cal knelt and gently pried her right eye open; he knew what to look for, more or less, having watched Aaron take care of his on-again-off-again girlfriend for years. At the time, Aaron’s troubled girl at home and Heather at work were the only women in Cal’s daily life.

  Unlike her half sister, Amanda was blond, and while Heather was tall and thin, Amanda was petite, with full breasts and hips. There were blackish half-circles under her eyes now, and her skin was pale. She looked nothing at all like the girl who had worked with them that long-ago summer. Radiant back then—a man-trap, Aaron used to call her. Now, too thin, worn out, ragged.

  Her pupil responded sluggishly to the dim light, but that was to be expected. The fact that it had responded at all, Cal knew, was what mattered. He felt her wrist for a pulse. What moved beneath his fingertip was slow but steady.

  She could be moved, he knew this much.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” Angstrom said. “He’ll figure out in a little bit that she’s missing.”

  “Who will?”

  “The guy throwing the party.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “How did you end up at his party if you don’t know him?”

  Angstrom hesitated. “We’re ... business associates.”

  That answered the question, more or less, of how Angstrom, a drug dealer, got to be here. A party like this certainly offered a wide variety of refreshments. But what about Amanda?

  Before Cal could address this, though, Angstrom said, “Listen, it’s about to start. We need to get her out of here while we still can.”

  “What’s about to start?”

  “The show.”

  “What show?”

  “I’m trying to do the right thing here, man. Seriously, it’s now or never.”

  “What show?”

  “Every woman here is a prostitute, call girl, whatever. When I saw her here and found out what she was here to do, I called her sister.”

  “What do you mean, ‘what she was here to do’?”

  “Everyone gets to fuck her. Or everyone gets to watch her get fucked. It’s something like that. I didn’t ask a lot of questions. She’s a freaking mess, she can’t possibly know what she’s doing. C’mon, man, we’ve got to go. Now.”

  Cal saw no choice at this moment except to take Angstrom at his word, in every way.

  On the floor beside the sofa was a large leather purse, packed to capacity and partially open. Inside it was a change of clothes, a mesh toiletry kit, and a portable hair dryer.

  “That hers?” Cal said.

  “Yeah. It’s all she came with.”

  “Grab it.”

  Angstrom crossed to the sofa and picked up the purse. Cal stood, removing the overcoat covering Amanda and tossing it to Angstrom. He saw then that she, too, was dressed for the occasion.

  A French maid’s outfit—frilled lace, silk bows, flimsy and, for all its old-fashioned qualities, absurdly short. Black fishnet stockings, torn in places, and painful-looking shoes completed the costume.

  “Jesus,” Cal muttered.

  Angstrom placed the overcoat on top of the large purse to conceal it, tucking the bundle under one arm. “We really should go, man.”

  Cal bent down and slid his arms under Amanda, lifting her as carefully as he could. He was scrawny but powerful, had, like his brother, a wrestler’s strength. Equal parts muscular strength and tendon strength—the only strength, when it came down to it, that counted.

  Angstrom held the ornate door open as Cal made his way through. Once outside, Cal looked at the beach. He didn’t relish the idea of carrying Amanda over that soft sand—and out in the open.

  Closing the door quietly, Angstrom whispered, “This way.”

  He led them away from the house, toward the line of trees that were, here, only several yards from the study door. As he reached the trees, Angstrom made a kind of zigzag motion, all but disappearing between two them.

  Cal paused briefly, looked back at the house behind him, then followed. Carrying Amanda meant he had to turn sideways, and once he was through those two trees, he realized that he was standing on a well-worn path.

  A shortcut to the parking lot.

  Angstrom was holding a flashlight in his free hand. He felt around the shaft for the switch, then turned it on.

  “Where’d you get that?” Cal whispered.

  Angstrom ignored the question. “We need to keep moving.”

  He headed down the path, and Cal followed, noting as they went that their feet barely made any sound at all. The floor, hard-packed dirt, was clear of any debris. No pine needles, no twigs. The path was like a maze, full of sharp and sudden turns, but within thirty seconds they were through it and standing at the edge of the parking lot.

  Angstrom reached the Citroën first and opened the passenger door. Cal placed Amanda inside and fastened the seat belt around her. Then, taking the overcoat and purse from Angstrom, Cal quickly covered Amanda with the coat and laid the purse on the floor beside her feet.

  As simple as that.

  Stepping back, Cal reached into his pocket for the money. Angstrom was looking back at that path, checking to make certain, Cal assumed, that they hadn’t been followed.

  “Here.” Cal held up the wad of bills.

  Angstrom looked at it, said, “Keep it.”

  “You and Heather had a deal.”

  He nodded toward Amanda. “Just get her out of here, okay?”

  Cal had questions, a lot of them, but this wasn’t the time. There was one question, though, that he had to ask.

  “You going to be all right sticking around here?”

  “I don’t think anyone saw us. Anyway, I might not be staying all that long. I probably wouldn’t have come out here if I knew what kind of party this was. A bit too… grown-up for me. I’m in a little over my head, you know what I mean?”

  Cal understood that. He’d heard of such parties for years, had seen no reason to doubt their existence. After all, decadence and wealth had a tendency to go hand in hand. Human history was full of examples of that. Imagining such a thing, however, was different from standing so near it. In that former monastery, at this moment, women were pleasuring men for profit. As titillating a fantasy as that might be, it was, in reality, disturbing. Sexual greed feeding on desperation—what would Cal do had he found himself in a place like that, among men like that? He’d only been with a handful of women in his life so far; one-night stands, mostly, drunken encounters that had been stumbled upon on his nights out with Lebell—prior, of course, to Heather’s arrival. Certainly he, too, would feel compelled to run from a place like that. Certainly fear—fear of doing wrong, yes, but also fear of his inexperience showing—would cause him to quietly remove himself and return straightaway to the safety of his narrow
and empty bed.

  Still, despite understanding Angstrom’s unease, Cal thought of another question that he had to ask.

  “You’ve never been to one of these before?”

  “No.”

  “So you’ve never seen this place before tonight?”

  “No.” Angstrom was looking around the parking lot now, studying the cars. His eyes stopped on something. Cal followed his line of vision, spotted what had caught his attention.

  In one of the Town Cars, behind the wheel, the vague features of a man’s face lit the colors of a sunset.

  One of the hired drivers, smoking a cigarette.

  “You should get going,” Angstrom urged.

  Cal decided to opt for the cautious thing to do, which was to get out of there, get distance between him and Amanda and this place. He nodded his thanks and climbed into the Citroën. Heading toward the exit, he looked in the rearview mirror and saw that Angstrom was watching the car as it pulled away. The mock-monk didn’t move, not in the slightest, was, in fact, standing exactly where Cal had left him, visible in the bright red glow of the taillights, when Cal made the turn from the parking lot back onto that long, dark road.

  It wasn’t long before Cal pulled over.

  He parked on the shoulder, under a tree with low, angular branches, killed the lights and looked again in his rearview mirror, this time at an empty blackness.

  He’d only driven a few hundred feet. Not nearly enough distance between them and that place, but it would have to do. After a moment he exited the car, stood by the open door, and looked toward the parking lot’s entrance. The mirror had showed him a lot of nothing, but this direct view wasn’t much better. He checked on Amanda—unconscious still, buckled in and covered up by her overcoat. He didn’t want to leave her like this, in case she woke up, but he would need to if he was going to do the careful thing, go back and try to make sense of something Angstrom had said that didn’t make sense at all.

  Removing the key from the ignition, he closed and locked the driver’s door, then stepped to the rear of the vehicle, pausing there.

  Finally, Cal backtracked on foot to that unlit parking lot, crossed it quickly, and reentered the winding path that cut through the thick line of pine trees.