by Lila Shaara
The shrine was brightly lit as usual, and he found it comforting, as if its message was meant for him. But recalling Miss Tokay’s ideas about the Sky People and their choosiness, his comfort left him. He told himself that since he wasn’t ready to ascend, maybe their disinterest was for the best. He drove farther, slowing down by the big signaling hand. The lights were out, and he kept on driving.
After he got home, he debated for fifteen minutes whether or not to call Maggie, worrying that he’d wake her up, or worse, get an awakened or drunken Josie on the phone. He decided he needed to be a man about it and made the call. The phone rang and rang but no one picked up, and he cursed the fact that they were either too poor or too cheap to have an answering machine.
· · ·
He slept a little but was awake by six. He lay in bed, trying to return to sleep, but the sun was so strong that it seemed to have incorporated itself into the very walls of his bedroom, and the crows and mockingbirds and blue jays outside his window were screaming at one another. He thought, I hate the South, I hate the daytime, I hate nature. Then he remembered Maggie in the rain and the ball lightning, and thought, No, I hate insomnia. He kicked off the covers, knowing that he would not sleep again that day.
In the kitchen, he stared at the phone, he stared at the coffeemaker. He used the latter, wondering if he drank too much coffee, knowing that of course he did. He’d tried alcohol, but that didn’t help at all, and not only because of the incessant need to urinate every hour on the hour after a binge. He’d tried sleeping pills after Lawrence had died, but the hangover they gave him was worse than that from beer, and the sleep somehow even more poisonous, making his waking hours so much more depressed that it scared him. His experience with antidepressants had been worse. At least chronic insomnia means that I probably won’t die in my sleep, he thought, then realized that that was what most people wanted, to simply go to sleep and not have to think about what was happening to you as all systems shut down and your heart went pitter-pat and then still. He imagined gasping for his last breath while being wide awake, feeling every organ grind to a squishy, disgusting halt. Then he thought, I wonder how Emily Ziegart killed herself.
He went online and wasn’t surprised when his search produced no results. He thought about how to try to find out but realized he didn’t know her maiden name, didn’t know which state she’d moved to and died in, much less what town. He didn’t even know in what month or year she died. Death records were public, but you needed a place to start. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that it probably didn’t matter anyway. Charlie Ziegart was certainly everywhere in the information world; you’d think his widow would be as well if she’d died in a way that the media found interesting.
Then he did an image search on Emily Ziegart. The results showed the same three pictures of Charlie that he’d come across before: the first and most common an improbably handsome head shot; the second, Charlie at a lectern, smiling and making a sweeping gesture with his right hand; and last, Charlie in a cap and gown, solemnly accepting the Presnell Award on a curtained stage. There were no pictures listed of wives, or of Charlie’s son, Jonathan. Then Harry typed his own name into the white bar under “Image Search.” He enlarged the first entry, a grainy head shot that made him look a lot less intelligent than Charlie Ziegart, still available in cached newspaper archives. There was another Harry Sterling in Miami who made a living selling real estate, and who had pictures of himself splattered all over the World Wide Web. But of himself, reporter and now professor Harry Sterling, there were no other images available online. There were none of Ann either, or of Dusty.
He waited until eight o’clock, then called Maggie. When he got no answer, he drove out to her house again. Both cars were in front of the double-wide, and Miss Baby and Josie were sitting on the porch, drinking coffee.
“Well, what in the name of the sons of the pioneers are you doin’ here?” said Miss Baby, her face almost happy to see him. Josie’s was not. She looked a good deal older this morning than she had the first time he’d talked to her on the porch. Miss Baby answered herself. “You’ve come to see Maggie, ain’t you?” She laughed and laughed, but Josie didn’t join in. Miss Baby added, “Josie’s giving you the stink eye. You screwed up my mini-vacation, boy. The grandgirls were with ’em at that beach house of yours, and I had a date. I was pretty pissed at you, you know that? I haven’t had the house to myself in thirty years.” She didn’t look mad at him, but Josie did, staring at him with her big decorated eyes, the color of angry mud.
“I’m sorry, Josie,” he said. “Miss Baby, my apologies to you as well. It was a misunderstanding.”
“I know what kind of misunderstanding,” Miss Baby said, apparently having been designated the mouthpiece for the morning. “A little inconvenience with the wife. It takes all kind of balls for you to be here this mornin’. But Maggie’s gone, so you wasted your trip, unless you’re here to kiss our ancient asses.”
Harry suspected that Josie didn’t like having her ass called ancient, but all she did was stare at him. He wondered if she were sober. He opened his arms wide and said, “What can I do to make it up to you ladies?” He put his arms down and his hands into his pockets. “I checked the rental schedule for the house before I came. It’s free three weekends from now. You want to try it again? I promise I’ll make sure it’s all yours.” He looked at Miss Baby. “You can go on that date. Although you’re making me jealous.”
That always worked in fiction, he thought; a younger man flirting with an older woman always made her feel good, a nice pleasant joke. Miss Baby curled her lip and said, “You ain’t good-lookin’ enough for me, white boy. If you think I’m gonna get all gooey and giggle at you for pretendin’ to flirt with me, you’re as stupid as you are ugly.” Harry realized belatedly that Miss Baby was just as angry with him as Josie was.
“I told you to leave Maggie alone,” said Josie in a terrible flat voice. “I told you. I know people, you know. I could have you killed.” Her words were just the slightest bit slurry, but Harry still believed her. “All southern boys have shotguns. Accidents happen.” She sat up straighter and said, “Like Baby told you, Maggie’s not here and she won’t be back for a while. She’s got better things to do than wait around for some Yankee married boy to talk shit to her and try to get in her pants and then leave for his goddamned skinny wife-bitch.”
Even Miss Baby looked a little uncomfortable at this unpleasant speech. Harry was openmouthed; nothing would come out. He turned, got back into his car, and left.
Miss Baby said, “Who do you know that kills people ’cause you want them to? It ain’t your boyfriends. Pair of pussies.”
“Nobody,” said Josie, “but I hope it scared the shit out of him.”
“That’s always good,” said Miss Baby.
Harry parked at the cemetery lot and stood among the graves, calling Maggie’s name. He saw a pair of joggers heading for the trail into the park and an old woman with a small dog standing over a grave at the farthest line of headstones. He walked for a while in the cemetery, reading names and epitaphs. He came to one that he recognized: Duncan Dupree, beloved husband and father. He’d died at the age of fifty-three. The headstone was small and rounded, like an open clamshell, and there was a vase next to it filled with dead daisies. He tried to feel less hostile to Josie but didn’t succeed.
He thought about walking farther, but his energy was flagging; he hadn’t had any breakfast and he was hungry and it was very hot. He needed a shower and food. He stopped at Crane’s, and Shawntelle barked her horsey laugh at him, telling him that the “crazy cook” wasn’t there. Harry didn’t know if it was better to be thought of as insane or retarded by the likes of Shawntelle.
He decided to go home, but as he neared the strip mall with the Laundromat, he slowed and pulled into a parking space in front of it. He got out of the car and peered through the glass window. She wasn’t there either.
29
NINE OF WAND
S
Temporary cease-fire, but the war isn’t over
Harry stewed at home for half an hour, then drove to the tiny store where he’d purchased his cell phone the year before. After waiting for forty-five minutes for a bored clerk to help him, he explained the problem with the phone’s battery. The clerk stared at him with contempt and said, “It’s over a year old. You can’t get those batteries anymore.” Harry didn’t say anything, but something in his face must have alarmed the young man, because he added, “But we might have a recycled one in the back.”
Harry gave a smile the clerk also didn’t seem to like and said, “Why don’t you check?”
After putting the semi-new battery in his phone, he spent the rest of the afternoon with Serge at the university swimming pool; he recognized that he was sulking, but he thought, I can’t apologize to someone who won’t let me. If I could talk to her, I’d invite her to come here, and I’d get to see her in a bathing suit, wet and happy and cool. It wasn’t the beach, though, so maybe she wouldn’t like the chlorine and the concrete. He thought, I should know that about her.
Serge asked him about his research, and Harry told him what he’d learned about Charles and Emily Ziegart. “I don’t know why I can’t let it go. I doubt there’s anything to it that you could hang a book on. It keeps scraping around inside my head.”
They were sitting in ribbed plastic chairs under a large green umbrella. The pool lay in shimmery blue splendor before them. The summer session had started, so there were a few students in the water, their young skin tan and taut. Harry thought, I was never that taut. But he could swim farther than he had when he was in his twenties, and had done laps today. His body felt better, even if his soul still felt heavy and loose.
Serge said, “Then keep going. Maybe your instincts are telling you something your conscious mind just doesn’t know yet. You know”—Serge turned toward Harry; his sunglasses were dark, so it was impossible to tell for sure if he was looking Harry in the face—“Amelia says you’re getting better looking as you get older. She’s pissed, actually, since she says that’s the way for men and not for women. You’ve lost weight. You’re not sick, are you?”
“I love you, too, Sergei. So your wife thinks I’m handsome, eh?”
“No. Just less ugly than you used to be.” Serge turned back to contemplating the pool and the young women around it. “Did you know that this Friday is Stoweville’s sesquicentennial?”
“Its what?”
“It’s been around for a hundred and fifty years. There are going to be fireworks.”
“Yay.”
“They launch them from Lake Austell.”
“That’s great.”
“You can see them really well from our back patio.”
“You’re very fortunate.”
“We’re having a party.”
“Yippee.”
“You’re invited.”
“Oh, God, Sergei. I hate parties.”
“You don’t have to drink.”
“Great. That makes the whole idea of a party so much more exciting.”
“What about Maggie?” Serge said.
Harry was silent.
“I want to meet her.”
“Why?”
“Because. Are you dating this woman?”
“No.”
“Oh. I thought you were. You’ve been so squirrelly about the whole thing, I thought sex had to be involved.”
“It’s not.”
“Oh. I see. She’s just a waitress.”
“She’s not a waitress.”
“She works at a restaurant.”
“Yes. She cooks.”
“Okay, well, that’s what’s important, I suppose.” Serge drank from his water bottle. “How about Julie Canfield?”
“Jesus Christ, Serge, why are you being such a matchmaker? Are you really worried that I’m going to run off with Amelia?”
“No, I’m worried that you’re going to run off with your ex-wife.”
Harry felt the shock of this settle on him for a moment before he said, “I doubt that she’s really interested.”
“Are you?”
“No. But you know, there’s something still there. Like a taste you can’t get out of your mouth. Not even a good taste. But a familiar one.”
“Lovely,” said Serge. “Continuing with this disgusting metaphor, I had the impression that Maggie was being a sort of mouthwash. I’m done with this, by the way. Come up with some other image for me. Please.”
“Serge, she’s, like, twenty-five. I don’t want to be in charge like that. You know what I mean; the big educated man taking on the unsophisticated woman and being her mentor into the big complicated world.”
“My God, I had no idea you were such a snob. Egotistical, too.”
“That’s the whole point. I don’t want to be Judd Lippman.”
“I hope not. Judd Lippman is an arrested adolescent with power issues. I guess that leaves Julie Canfield out, too.”
“Thank God.”
“Come to the party anyway. Hey, you could bring Maggie, not as a date but as a way to introduce her to your terribly sophisticated friends.”
“Hay is for horses. I don’t have any sophisticated friends.”
“Well then, according to you, she should fit right in.”
Darcy Murphy hadn’t been in to work in a week. The Little Shit had called him three times, pretending to be concerned for Darcy’s health but really more worried about the backlog of work that was piling up on his desk. See, thought Darcy, I’m worth three of you, but that didn’t help his headaches and his increasingly frequent panic attacks.
He got up at six, then at nine, and again at ten, trying to sleep, then trying not to when he dreamed of snakes and explosions. The Little Shit called him at eleven; at first Darcy thought he was going to whine again about trying to get him back on schedule. But instead, he told him that Darcy’s cousin from up north had called the office and asked for his home number. The Little Shit hadn’t given it to him but had taken the message because the cousin said the matter was urgent. Darcy was about to tell the Little Shit that he didn’t have any such cousin when his supervisor said, “He said something about an inheritance and he had to talk to you right away. You need to tell him that work isn’t the place to conduct personal business.”
Darcy took the number down and was about to hang up on his boss when the younger man went on, “You’re popular these days. I forgot to tell you that last week I got a call from a prospective buyer for one of your properties. Seems they’d heard there were some concerns about the power configuration of the place and they wanted to talk to the inspector in charge. I gave them your name but said they’d have to wait till you were in the office to talk to you. It was that place out on Highway 21. I guess the owners are moving.” He laughed, something the Little Shit would never have done if Darcy had been standing in front of him. “I guess you’ll sleep better after they’re gone, eh?” Darcy slammed down the phone.
He looked at the number of his “cousin,” assuming it was some sort of scam, but he was smart enough not to give anyone any money, and there was always the possibility of something real happening, one break in his sorry life. He dialed the number and was shocked to find himself talking to an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
On Tuesday morning, Harry waited until eight-thirty, then called Gillian DeGraff again. It took three times before he finally reached her.
“I thought we were done, Mr. Sterling. I’ve told you all I can about Charlie Ziegart. Anything else you need to know is a matter of public record.”
“Actually, I was hoping that you could tell me more about Emily Ziegart.”
“I believe I told you that I didn’t know her very well.”
“I was hoping you could give me some names of people who did.”
“I don’t have any names for you, Mr. Sterling. She kept to herself. She wasn’t very interested in befriending anyone who couldn’t help her career.”
“It seems to me that there were lots of people there who could have helped her career. I don’t know what good it would have done her to be standoffish with any of them, especially you.”
“I couldn’t tell you, Mr. Sterling. It wasn’t so much that she was standoffish as it was that she was . . . a little off. She had a lot of crackpot ideas, most of which weren’t practicable at all. Charlie indulged her, but he was just that kind of man. Maybe she had a personality disorder or some other problem, and just didn’t know how to get along. I have no idea. But I’ve told you everything I—”
“What crackpot ideas?”
A long-suffering sigh. “Free electricity, for starters.”
“Free? As in, you don’t have to pay a utility company?”
“Yes. It isn’t even an original idea. Some famous scientist from way back when was her idol. His name escapes me now.”
“Not Edison?”
“No. Someone crazy.”
“Nikola Tesla?”
“That’s it. She claimed that he’d already done it, using the earth as a conductor or some such thing. It’s all she ever talked about. It annoyed everyone.”
“What was wrong with the idea?”
“Good Lord, isn’t it obvious? It was totally impractical.”
“Do you know how she killed herself, or where?”
“No, but I don’t think I’d discuss that with you in any case.”
Harry decided to swerve his line of questioning again. He liked flustering Gillian DeGraff. “What was her maiden name?”
A pause. “I don’t remember. Isn’t that funny, how things slip your mind?”
“You can’t remember her name?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“Who wrote her letters?”
“What?”
“Her letters of recommendation. From her college.”
