by John Smolens
“Poor dear,” she whispered. She lowered her hand and took the bottle from him and drank. “I suppose killing him would prove something.” Her voice was playful, teasing, but there was no ridicule in it. “Of course, if you really did it, your father would never understand, would he? He’d never know what it meant. Because he’d be dead. Ha!”
“But I would.”
“And that’s what’s important, right?”
After a moment, he said, “That’s what’s important.”
“But would it be enough, Sean?”
“Maybe. And there’d be others who knew—who it mattered to.”
She thought about this for a moment, then said seriously, “It must be nice to have what you do matter to other people.”
“Just certain people.”
“I see.” She offered him the bottle. “Last taste.”
“You can finish it,” he said.
“No, you.”
He shook his head.
“All right,” she said as she poured the rest of the Scotch out on the ground. “This is for the earth. For all of our ancestors.” She flung the bottle out into the dark. They heard it land in the grass. “What did you and your father talk about in the bar this afternoon?”
“He gave me advice.”
“Was it good?”
“He said don’t do anything.”
“He’s a wiser man than I thought.”
She got to her knees unsteadily, and she placed a hand on his shoulder as she rose to her feet. “He said you had a problem.” She laughed briefly. “Which of course means a girl.” She began walking back toward the building and Sean followed. “After you left the bar he said you had a problem and he’d take care of it.”
“He did?”
“Which I guess is why he advised you not to do anything. Hombre, I think you’re both in a heap of shit, and have been for a long time. Neither of you can see the solution, even if it’s right there before your eyes.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Probably? Ha!”
They reached the sliding glass door of the efficiency apartment. She turned and leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. Her hair smelled of the lake. He slid back the door and with his arm around her shoulder guided her into the room. The television was on but the sound was muted.
“But I know what he’s going to take care of,” Sean said.
“The girl?”
“It sure isn’t my mother.”
Mary seemed perplexed as she stared up at him. “Listen to me, Sean. You don’t have to go. You don’t have to go there—wherever you think you’re headed. You won’t see the stars from there, you won’t be satisfied, no matter what happens, no matter what you do.” She stepped away from him and lay down on the bed. Her hands untied the bathrobe and drew it open. The blue light from the television flickered over her breasts, hips, the large triangle of hair. “Your father was right,” she whispered. “You don’t have to do anything.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have any choice.”
“But you do.” Her voice was resigned. “You really do.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “And you told me you weren’t afraid.”
Sean went out the door and walked back down to the beach.
26
PEARLY LAY ON HIS cot in the dark. He had set it up in what would be the living room of the other apartment on the first floor so he would be right across the hall from Hannah and Martin. The problem was he couldn’t sleep, which he attributed to being sober.
Sometime after midnight, he got up and went quietly out the front door and locked it behind him. He walked down the driveway to the backyard. The doors and windows were all locked, but he was glad to be doing something, even if it was just walking around the house.
First Pearly heard the sound of branches breaking in the woods to his right. The man who stepped out into the yard moved something like Sean, but it was too dark to be certain. One thing was certain: He was drunk. He angled toward the back of the house. Pearly followed quietly, but not quietly enough, because when he reached the patio, the man turned around and Pearly stood still.
It was not Sean.
“Frank?” he said.
Frank Colby raised his arm and Pearly could see that he was holding a gun. “Frank, it’s just me, Pearly. What’s going on? Out here kind of late.”
“I am taking care of it.” Frank’s arm began to sink, but then he straightened up and took careful aim. “Told him to do nothing. So I’m going to take care of it. Let it be on my head.”
“Well, if he’s doing nothing, then everybody’s happy.”
“That boy would screw up anything.”
“What exactly is on your mind, Frank?”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I expected you. Not you, but the idea, if you catch my drift.”
“The idea.”
“I thought we’d discuss it, you know?”
“Ideas. We’re way beyond that now.”
“You sure, Frank?”
“Yeah, I think we’re moving on to execution. Execution of the idea.” Frank went up the back stoop and opened the screen door, but the inside door was locked. Turning, he said, “You got a key, right?” When Pearly hesitated, he said impatiently, “Am I going to have to shoot you for the damn key?”
“I don’t have a key to the back door,” Pearly said.
“Okay, then.”
Frank came down off the stoop and waved his gun, indicating that he wanted Pearly to lead him around to the front of the house. They walked up the driveway and climbed the brick steps to the front door, which was wide open. Pearly could have sworn he had locked the door when he went out, but now he wasn’t so certain. The front hall was dark.
“You want me to turn a light on for you, Frank?”
This seemed to perturb Colby, but after a moment he said, “Yeah. And don’t fuck around. Just show me where they are.”
“Right.” Pearly switched on the light and tried the knob of the door to Martin and Hannah’s apartment, which, to his surprise, opened. He was certain now that Hannah and Martin had heard them talking in the backyard. Maybe they left the house. He just wasn’t sure.
He pushed the door open and led Frank into the living room, which was only lit by the light coming from the hall. Without asking, Pearly turned on a lamp next to the couch. Frank walked through the living room to the kitchen and back again. “Somehow I didn’t think she’d be so tidy,” he said with genuine surprise.
“What you expect?” Pearly asked.
“Sean’s a pig. Most of them are at that age.”
“You want my opinion, Frank?”
“No.” But Frank looked at him anyway.
“You misjudged Hannah from the start. Sean would have been better off if the two of them hadn’t been yanked apart. They should have been given a chance to work it out. My guess is some of Hannah’s tidy would have rubbed off on Sean’s pig.”
“That so?”
“Yeah, and now Sean’s been out of control for a long time.”
Frank didn’t deny it. In fact, he nodded his head slightly. It was clear with the lights on that he’d been drinking for a long time. The skin around his eyes was dark and had lost its elasticity. Even his stubbled jaw, which for years had been a firm complement to his pressed uniform, was pale and fleshy.
“I happen to know that there’s some good, strong coffee already made in the kitchen,” Pearly said. “How ’bout if I heat it up?”
Frank became more alert, though the gun now hung at his side. “How ’bout if you show me what’s down this hall?”
“All right, Frank.” Pearly went down the hall and stopped at the first door. “Bedroom,” he said. He reached in and turned on the wall switch. The bedsheets looked as if they had been thrown aside in haste.
He started down the hall, but Frank said, “Wait a sec.” He went into the bedroom. The closet door was ajar and he opened it with his free hand. There was nothing but clothi
ng on hangers, boxes stacked up on the shelf. Turning, he said, “What else?”
“Just the bathroom, down here.”
Pearly led him to the end of the hall and switched on the light in the bathroom, which was empty. Without being asked, Pearly pulled back the shower curtain. “You always want to check the tub.”
“I said don’t fuck with me.”
“Frank, you got to evaluate this thing. They’re gone. They heard us coming and they did the sensible thing and ran.”
Frank raised his head and gazed at the ceiling. “It’s a big house.”
“They’re gone, don’t you get it? You’re not going to solve anything this way,” Pearly said. “They’re gone and you need to sober up. You know I know what I’m talking about. Look, if you don’t want coffee, let me drive you down to the Hiawatha. Get some eggs into you. Protein always helps.”
“Who said anything about solving anything?” Frank said. He turned on the cold-water spigot, leaned over, and cupping his hand beneath the faucet, drank water from his palm. Straightening up, his chin dripping, he said, “Besides, I got you, don’t I?”
HANNAH HADN’T RUN much since her abortion and soon her ribs ached. So she slowed to a fast walk, which she could maintain. The next house was at least a half-mile up the road, a family named Cryzinski, but there was no one home. She had pounded on the front door, but the house—one of those prefabs that were delivered in halves—remained dark and silent. The only vehicle in the yard was their flatbed truck, which had Cryzinski Well and Septic Service written on the doors. So she continued up Shore Road, where the next house was perhaps another quarter of a mile away.
It had happened so quickly, and now she was sorry and quite panicky about running away from the house. But Martin had insisted. Something had changed in him just the past two days. He was clearer, and at times he was more like his old self. When she was awakened by voices in the backyard, Martin was already getting out of bed. She followed him into the living room, where they heard someone try the back doorknob. Then a voice—she thought it might be Frank Colby’s but she wasn’t sure—said, “Am I going to have to shoot you for the damn key?”
Martin pushed her with both hands, indicating that he wanted her to go out into the front hall. She resisted at first—she was only in sweatpants and T-shirt, with nothing on her feet—but he was very insistent. When they were in the hall, he whispered, “You go,” and she said, “Go? Go where?” They argued briefly. He wanted her to run up the road to the next house and call the police. When she started to say that that wouldn’t do a lot of good, he pushed her again, once toward the front door, which he opened, then again until she was standing on the stoop. He whispered, “Don’t worry, I’ll be all right. You just got to get somebody. Anybody.” When she heard footsteps coming down the driveway, she jumped off the front steps and ran.
It was hard walking barefoot on the pavement. Pebbles became embedded in the soles of her feet, and she’d have to pause to brush them off with the palm of her hand. She was doing this, awkwardly bending over and slapping at her foot, when a pair of headlights came around the bend. She looked up into the glare as the vehicle slowed down and pulled over in front of her. Raising a hand to shield her eyes, she saw a man get out of a truck.
“Well, here we are,” Sean said.
She stood upright. He remained beside the car, difficult for her to see. Then she turned and ran, her feet slapping on the pavement. He called to her again and then began to run after her. Her side ached but her wind was good. He wasn’t gaining on her—it sounded as though he was favoring one leg slightly.
She saw an opening in the trees to her right, one of the many two-tracks that laced the woods. There was no time to consider which was best, the road or the woods, so she turned up into the two-track, where at least she was out of the glare of the truck’s headlights. She could barely see the track she was on, and then the faint, pale line ahead curved and disappeared. She slowed down, but it was too late as her legs crashed through branches, and then her forehead hit something hard.
MARTIN COULD HEAR them downstairs. Pearly was talking a lot, as though he was trying to keep Martin informed of their movements. Frank Colby—whom Martin remembered was Sean’s father and on the police force—was with him. At first Martin wondered if he had come looking for his son. He apparently had a gun, and he was obviously pissed off and drunk.
They were coming up the stairs. Pearly had tried to convince Frank that there was no point in searching the rest of the house, but Frank wasn’t buying it. Standing in the dark stairwell on the third floor, Martin leaned out over the banister and looked down at the two men as they climbed to the second floor. Frank raised his head and Martin pulled back into the dark. When they reached the second floor, Pearly switched on the hall light, and Martin listened to them walk through the rooms.
He went down the hall toward the back of the house. The only light came up from the second floor. In the shadows he found the sconce on the wall and unscrewed the lightbulb. Entering the room on his right, he knew there was only one bare bulb there, hanging by the wire from the middle of the ceiling, and he removed that one too. He stood still and he could hear that they were directly below him. By the groan of dry hinges, it was clear that Frank insisted on opening every door. Martin moved quietly through the other rooms on the third floor, removing lightbulbs as he went, cradling five in his arms like eggs. Setting them on a windowsill, he nearly dropped one. Their footsteps came into the second-floor hall and began to climb the stairs.
He looked across the room and saw Pearly’s tools in the corner. Walking carefully, he went and knelt down in front of the boxes and buckets.
RUNNING, Sean’s feet still hurt and he couldn’t catch up to Hannah. His shadow, cast by the lights of the truck, was long, and up ahead she was difficult to see—only her T-shirt seemed a faint smudge against the dark trees, and then it disappeared.
He knew there was a two-track nearby, and when he reached it he stopped and listened. All he could hear was his own breathing and the wind rustling the treetops. He could see the faint parallel tracks and he began following them into the woods, where it was even darker than out on the road.
He’d walked perhaps thirty yards—it was getting more and more difficult to see the two-track—when he paused and looked up. The gap in the trees was filled with stars. He tried to remember what Mary had said about the stars, about not being able to see them where he was going. He saw again the blue television light flickering over her skin. He wondered why he left her, her invitation. Something extraordinary seemed to have happened back there and he had to admit that it frightened him. And she had said something about that, too, fear, which he couldn’t remember. Maybe he was trying to deny that anything had happened at all. The whole thing seemed so bizarre, sitting on the damp grass beneath the stars, sharing the bottle of Scotch with her, the way her breasts seemed to emerge from his father’s bathrobe as though beckoning to him. As he drove back to Whitefish Harbor, his sense of purpose had become more and more confused, uncertain. Something had been jarred loose.
To his left he heard movement in the bushes, followed by a groan. He could barely make out the T-shirt. After wading through branches, he knelt down on one knee. Hannah was lying next to a tree trunk. When she saw him, she tried to get up, pleading, “Leave me alone! Don’t touch me!”
He caught her arms and said calmly, “Take it easy.” Though he held her tightly, she began to relax. He helped her sit up. “I guess you ran into that tree.”
It was too dark to see if she was cut, but he carefully touched her forehead and scalp with his fingers. Her skin was rough, as though scraped, and he could feel what he thought were bits of bark in her hair. “You got a good whack on the head, but no blood,” he said. “Think you can stand up?”
Slowly, she got to her feet. He could feel the tension in her arms, but she didn’t actually resist his help. They pushed through the brush until they were out in the two-track.
�
��What are you doing here?” She sounded sleepy.
“That’s a good question,” he said. With one hand on her elbow now, he guided her along the path toward the road. “I’m looking for my father.”
“He’s at the house.” She became more alert and insisted on walking without his help. “He’s drunk,” she said, “and he’s got a gun.”
“I know,” he said.
“You do?”
They reached the road and stopped. “Listen,” he said. “Earlier tonight I thought I was ready to kill people. Start with him, and see who else I could take down. Maybe myself, too. I was that bad. But now it’s . . .” He paused. “Now I don’t know. Where is he?”
“He’s back there at the house with Pearly and Martin. I was going for help.”
“And you found me.” Sean laughed. The headlights were at least fifty yards away, but he could see her face, her stunned eyes. The bruise on her forehead had already begun to swell up. “Come on,” he said. “Unless you want to run back there barefoot.” He turned but she didn’t move. “All right, fine.” He began to walk toward the truck. After a few steps he heard her feet slap the pavement as she came up beside him.
PEARLY THOUGHT HIS MIND was playing tricks on him. When they reached the top of the stairs, he had switched on the third-floor light, but nothing happened—they were still in near darkness. First the front door, now the hall light. He was sure the light had worked that afternoon.
“Awful dark up here, Frank.”
“Keep going.”
Pearly went into the first room on his left, felt along the wall until his hand found the light switch—but it remained dark. He knew now.
“Somebody messing around here.” Frank paused for a moment, long enough that he might have been having some doubt. But then he said, “Let’s go through there. What’s that?”
“Kitchen.”
“Okay.”
Pearly went through the door, found the wall plate, but again no light came on. Frank placed one hand on the counter and walked down past the stove to the refrigerator. “All new,” he said. “Let’s see here.” He yanked open the refrigerator door and the interior light came on. Its harsh white light illuminated an oblong of the floor in the living room. Frank said, “In there.”
