The Cartoonist

by Sean Costello

  Suddenly Krista jammed her foot on the brake pedal, grinding the car to a halt. Outside, shiny amber eyes became a family of raccoons, mama and two little ones, waddling in sloppy single file across the blacktop. The coons glanced at the car with what appeared to be only mild interest, then vanished into the tall grass skirting the shoulder.

  Kath snorted awake, saying, “What happened?”screwing a fist into one sleepy eye.

  Resuming speed, Krista said, “Nothing, babe. Just a family of coons.” Her heart had begun to triphammer in her chest.

  Kath spun in her seat and squinted through the back window. “Aw, I missed ’em.”

  “So did I,” Krista said. “Lucky for them.”

  Kath smiled. Then, like a chameleon, she stuck her bottom lip out in a pout. “Where’s Jinnie?”

  “In your room at home I guess,” Krista said, thinking: At least in her sleep she’s still a little girl.

  “I forgot her...oops.” Kath broke wind, a small but definite pop. “I farted,” she said, giggling.

  Krista stifled a laugh. “Don’t say ‘fart.’ It’s unladylike.”

  “I didn’t say ‘fart.’ I said ‘farted.’”

  “Kath,” Krista said, her voice mock-stern.

  “What do I say, then?”

  “Don’t say anything. When you fart, it’s better to say nothing. Try to have it blamed on someone else.”

  Kath laughed. After a quiet interlude she said, “Are we almost there?”

  “Almost,” Krista said, hoping Kath would nod off again. “Tired?”

  “Uh-huh.” She brushed away a wet spot from the corner of one eye. “I hope Daddy’s okay.”

  Krista said, “He’s fine, hon,” but her mind jarred with an image of Scott lying limp and gasping on the dock. “You talked to him yourself last night on the phone.”

  The Volvo was just veering into of a tight curve, over a hump and sharply downhill. Krista angled the car into the bend, then glanced over at Kath.

  “Yeah,” Kath said, unconvinced. “But—Mom!”

  Reacting out of sheer instinct, with time to do little more than glimpse the roadway in front of her, Krista jammed her foot on the brakes and the car spun into a wild, angling skid.

  PART TWO

  16

  THE BREEZE MATURED QUICKLY, BECAME a whining wind that seemed to run as if fleeing ahead of something else, something darker. In the distance, thunder boomed like leviathan footfalls. Offsetting this inconstant sound, an eerie calm-before-the-storm silence lay draped over everything. It was a maddening silence, more desolate than peaceful, the kind of lifeless quiet that set a mind to dark imaginings.

  Scott sat alone in this silence, deriving little comfort from the cold cube of light that was the rec room around him. The night beyond seemed almost liquid, black water crowding in at the screens, waiting only for the lights to be unwittingly doused so that it might flood in and consume him. A draft found him where he sat by the Mickey Mouse phone, and he shivered in his short sleeves. He’d been sitting here with Kath’s Cabbage Patch doll in his lap for two hours.

  Now he shifted in his chair, grateful for its squeaky intrusion on the quiet that only moments before had seemed so inviolate. Feeling as stiff as he had on the day of his near-drowning, he climbed to his feet and crossed the room to the stereo. He chose something he’d listened to only once before: Bach, “The Goldberg Variations,” performed by Glenn Gould. The rec-room stereo was an old one, its automatic cue function long since broken. Awkwardly, Scott dropped the needle onto the LP. There was a harsh grating noise...then cool, precise piano chords filled the room. He adjusted the volume to the just-audible range.

  Then he went to the small basement refrigerator, dug out the last of the six-packs, and returned to his seat by the phone. He tabbed one of the cans and downed its contents in a single gratifying pull.

  A gentle dizziness danced immediately through him.

  It wasn’t too late for Krista to call. Any one of a hundred harmless delays might have befallen them, and he knew only too well how single-minded Krista could be if she got her sights set on something. If they were going to Boston, then they were by-God going to Boston, and nothing short of a hurricane or a nuclear holocaust had better interfere.

  Thinking of Krista’s sometimes mighty force of will made Scott smile in spite of his worry and fear. It had been Krista’s strength during his years of specialty training that had on more than one occasion prevented him from chucking the whole damned thing. Krista was a force unto herself, an undeniable presence, even in her absence. The entire house glittered with her touch, her tastes, her invention.

  Ripping the tab off a second beer, Scott found his mind drifting inevitably back to the day he first met her.

  He’d been in Sandy Point, Newfoundland, for exactly three weeks, and had just been getting the hang of Doctor Frith’s family practice. Scott had taken over for Frith in the wake of the elderly practitioner’s second heart attack. Like the first, this attack had been a mild one, but the old physician had seen it as a warning and had opted for a six-month leave. Scott, hoping to bank a small nest egg before specializing, had found Frith’s ad in the back of a CMA journal and had applied. As it turned out, his had been the only application.

  Frith’s office ran on a simple system of two alternating examining rooms. His nurse, a Teutonic, no-nonsense type named Eva Underhoffer, kept the place humming along like a well-oiled machine. Scott had only to shift from room to room and, waiting for him, he’d find a new patient—weighed, urine-tested and smiling.

  That day, after weighing an elderly diabetic. Nurse Underhoffer had taken Scott aside and in her brazen, superior tone, warned him that he might find his next patient “a fraction unsavory,” to quote the Frau’s own discreet terminology. It was a young girl (a “heepy”), who’d got herself into a family way and now wanted out of it. The Frau frowned on such requests with a burning righteousness.

  Flanked by the barrel-calved nurse, Scott had strolled into room 2 and found Krista Draper, then still a teenager, seated on the examining table, sheet-draped and furiously blushing. Scott had been nervous enough in those early days, still only a fledgling physician, tottering about with a head full of rote facts and a black bag full of inexperience. But something about this girl had him immediately unstrung. Nothing he could identify at the time...something in those big, glacier-blue eyes perhaps, in their searching brightness. Whatever it was, he found himself suddenly dry-mouthed and stammering, nearly incapable of carrying off the doctor-patient charade. Had he been more impulsive (and a lot less professional), he might have said, “Hey, how about you and I head downtown, buy a couple of sundaes and wander out onto the jetty for a while, talk this whole abortion business over like sensible adults.” But instead, he’d asked all of the expected questions, made notes on her chart (which Frith had meticulously maintained throughout all of her eighteen and a half years), and then examined her.

  And for once Scott had been glad to have Frith’s fat, officious nurse present. The Frau’s steely Aryan eyes had kept him keenly professional. But he’d noticed this girl, her smooth olive skin, the thick mane of her womanhood, her warmth around his probing gloved fingers; and later, had felt disgusted with himself...yet oddly exhilarated.

  When they met again a few nights later, haunting the jetty for entirely different reasons—Scott, missing family and home, juggling around in his head the pros and cons of specialty training; and Krista, wavering unsteadily between thoughts of abortion and suicide—Scott had blushed with shame, imagining that Krista had been aware of his entirely inappropriate arousal in Frith’s examining room. But Krista had been absorbed in her own turbulent musings, and had barely recognized him.

  He found her sitting on the crumbling extremity of the jetty, her gaze cast dreamily outward, looking for all the world like some fanciful figure from centuries past, waiting for her lover’s ship to appear on the swells. She’d been in the midst of a painful transition that windswept night, grad
uating from girlhood to womanhood through the school of hard knocks, and Scott ended up holding her comfortingly in his arms. And later, when the rain came in stinging sheets, he’d kissed her and stroked her wet hair and whispered that everything would be fine. He’d been a goner before leaving the jetty. After walking her home that night and returning to his narrow cot in the clinic, he’d lain awake for hours with a kind of phantom pain in his heart.

  Seven months later, Krista’s belly swollen like a concealed basketball, they were married. A month after that the child was born. They christened her Kathleen Marie.

  This was something else Scott hadn’t had a conscious thought about in years, the fact that Kath was not his by conception. That had gnawed at him at first, before Kath was born. But he’d realized even then that the gnawing was little more than his own oh-so-delicate ego. Someone else had been with the girl he loved, someone else had been inside of her. Sensing this, Krista assured him that it had been just a one-time thing, a boy she’d been infatuated with all through high school. “Just my luck,” she said that night on the jetty. “The one time I try it, I get myself knocked up.”

  But once Kath was born and that precious round face began working its magic on him, Scott had been a goner all over again. Kath was his, and God help any man who challenged that fact.

  At the trill of the rec room phone Scott’s body jerked convulsively. Kath’s doll rolled from his lap to the floor, where it landed in a face-down heap. Lunging forward, he snatched the receiver from Mickey’s hand.

  “Hello?”

  “Dr. Bowman.”

  It was Vince Bateman. Considering the hour and the circumstances, the call both surprised and annoyed Scott.

  “I realize it’s late,” Bateman said without waiting for Scott to reply, “but I’ve just—”

  “Look,” Scott cut in, “I understand that you’re pissed about the meeting, Vince. I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about it right now. I’ve got to keep this line open. I’m expecting an important call.”

  “This has nothing to do with the meeting,” Bateman said. “Which, I might add, went remarkably well in spite of your absence. I’m calling as department head, Scott. As I started to say, I’ve just been informed by the supervisor on Two Link that you created quite a scene with our psychic earlier tonight. Is this true?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “What in hell is going on, Scott?” Bateman’s tone was openly reproachful. “According to the nurse, you might have done the old man some real harm. This sort of behavior does not look good, my friend. What’s wrong? Are you under some sort of stress?”

  Thinking it over now, Scott had to admit that it must have looked pretty bad. And it was true—he’d realized when the nurse prevented him from shaking the man any further—he could have done some serious damage. The old were frail.

  But Scott found himself bristling at Bateman’s patronizing tone. Besides, he wanted off the phone.

  “We’ll talk about this another time, Vince, all right?”

  “I wouldn’t have called if I’d considered this unimportant—”

  “It’s the Cartoonist,” Scott said. “Some of his sketches...I’m afraid that Krista and Kath are in danger. A car accident. Please, I’ve got to keep this line open.... She should have called by now.” Articulating his fears, Scott felt suddenly close to tears. “She might even be trying to reach me as we speak.”

  “Oh, my,” Bateman said, his initial vehemence evaporating. “Well, perhaps it’s nothing. These people aren’t infallible, you know...” His voice trailed off.

  “Good-bye, Vince.”

  “Good-bye,” Bateman said, then quickly added: “Let me know if...good-bye, Scott.”

  Sighing despondently, Scott retrieved Kath’s doll and set it on the counter. Its head drooped bonelessly onto its chest. He glanced at his watch—and when he saw that it was pushing midnight, fear ran the peaks of his spine like a scorpion.

  She should have called by now.

  Oh, God, she should have called....

  * * *

  A half-hour later the phone rang again and Scott scooped it up to his ear.

  ”Scott, it’s Gerry.”

  Scott’s heart sank. It should have been Krista. It should have been her and then he could have forgotten this whole crazy deal. He could have told her that he loved her and then gone up to bed, written it off to an overactive imagination. But it was Gerry, and Scott fell mute. Afraid of the worst, a part of him didn’t want to hear what his friend had to say.

  But Gerry had called only to assure him that the Maine and Massachusetts police were cooperating fully. Gerry had told them they were after a kidnapper, but had cautioned them against using force, since it was suspected that the kidnapper was actually the child’s estranged mother. To get around the reticence of law enforcement agencies to involve themselves in domestic disputes, Gerry threw in that the car they were driving was a stolen one.

  Scott thanked his friend, apologized for his abruptness, then replaced the receiver in Mickey’s hand.

  He opened another beer and took a series of quick, thirsty gulps. He was tired, hungry and getting rapidly drunk. His muscles ached, his hip ached and now his head was aching, too.

  Outside, thunder rumbled steadily closer, and from time to time sheet lightning flared in the south.

  She should have called by now, his mind kept repeating.

  She should have called....

  * * *

  At about one-thirty Scott reached for the six-pack and found only empties. When he stood, he weaved. He crossed to the stereo and lifted the needle off the record—it had been bopping against the label for almost an hour—then returned to the phone and called Caroline in Boston. She had been asleep. The conversation was brief, the message clear.

  There was still no word of them.

  Scott apologized for waking her and Caroline said that was okay. She told him not to worry. Scott said good-bye and hung up the phone. He tried to read—first a scientific journal, then a penny dreadful—but only stared uncomprehendingly at the same few lines. At around two o’clock the alcohol claimed him and he slipped into a stuporous, image-ridden sleep. He kept seeing the cartoons, except that now the face in the drawings was Kath’s.

  What seemed like hours later (in fact it was only one), a clap of thunder brought him awake with a start. The power had gone off in the summer storm that was now raging, leaving the house steeped in darkness—but in the instant Scott opened his eyes, the room was dazzling with the flashbulb brilliance of lightning. In that fleeting glare he saw Kath’s Cabbage Patch doll on the counter in front of him, its plump body knife-hacked, its stuffing protruding in ugly gray wads, a fresh rivulet of blood coursing from the corner of its dimpled mouth.

  Then darkness reasserted itself, lightning flickered, and the doll was whole again, just good ol’ Jinnie.

  Eventually, dawn came.

  * * *

  At first light Scott called Caroline again.

  “They probably just stayed overnight in a motel,” she told him; but now Caroline’s voice betrayed her own mounting anxiety. They both knew it was unlike Krista to miss calling. Again the conversation was brief.

  After evacuating a tense bladder, Scott took the cordless phone down to the lake. The storm was taking a breather now, and only a light drizzle was falling. The air was clean and cool, redolent of rain-drenched greenery. Partway down the path Scott spotted a four-leaf clover and instinctively bent to pick it Instead, he marked the spot with a fallen branch, figuring he’d wait until Kath was with him, then pretend he’d only just found it....

  Struggling to suspend his thoughts, Scott continued his descent to the lake. Around him, fat August blueberries dotted the green, many of them already falling away from the plant. Beyond the dock a gust stirred the surface, then whipped through the lakeside birches, rustling their papery leaves. To the west, masses of unspent thunderheads overlapped in an unruly regatta. Behind Scott, to the east, the rising sun fought for d
ominance, creating with its light a nearly fluorescent yellow-green, an unearthly color that imbued the hills and made them glow against the gunmetal backdrop of the sky.

  Scott walked out onto the dock and stood at its edge, gazing into the choppy water. He found himself trying to imagine diving in, stretching up onto his toes, arcing out...but he felt suddenly dizzy and had to step back onto solid ground.

  Jesus, I wish that phone would ring. He could feel its silent weight inside his jacket. One way or the other, knowing would be so much better.

  Or would it?

  He sat on the picnic table with his feet on the bench and his face in his hands and rocked in silent anguish. The thought of harm coming to his wife or his daughter was unendurable. It filled him with a swooning dread...no, it was stronger than that. Since discovering those drawings and their possible connection to his family, Scott had been terrified, jumping at shadows, imagining scenes of ruin he was unable to sweep from his mind. He’d even experienced what he supposed amounted to a fatigue and stress-induced hallucination, seeing Kath’s doll gored and bleeding in a flicker-flash of lightning. Every minute that passed without Krista’s call doubled his certainty that the old man was right, there had been an accident...and a bad one. He felt cold, husked-out, hollow, like the barrels beneath the dock.

  At one point while he sat there in the strangely electric air, a gull mumbled plaintively behind him, making a sound that was disturbingly human. When Scott turned, imagining in his fatigue that it was Kath sneaking playfully up on him, he saw the gray and white bird perched on a rock, disemboweling a minnow and watching him with wary yellow eyes. Furious at it for its unknowing deception, he flailed his arms and the gull lifted off, its call like a laugh as it winged away.

  Tears welled in Scott’s eyes. Through their blur he spotted something lying on the ground near the dock—twin, rose-colored irregularities. Looking closer, he realized they were a pair of Krista’s barrettes. Then he remembered: she’d taken them off before skinny-dipping with him a few weeks before and had later given them up for lost. As Scott picked them up, he smiled. He took them with him to the table, where he reconstructed that night in all of its warm and intimate detail.