38
“What does wifey know?” Rebecca said. She sat in the passenger seat of the Tercel, the gun in her lap, her fingers loose around the grip.
“Her name is Emily,” Charlie said. “And the answer is nothing.”
“What are you going to tell little Emily?”
“She’s taller than you are. And she’ll probably be at her office. If your father comes soon I won’t have to tell her anything.”
“And if not?”
“Some story. A favor for a friend, boat rides, bullshit.” Rebecca nodded. “And after?”
“After what?”
“After I’m gone. What are you going to tell her then?”
“As little as possible,” he said. The truth was: everything.
He looked at Rebecca out of the corner of his eye, scanning her face for some reaction, some sign of belief or disbelief. There was none. That left him with three facts he didn’t like: the fact that she knew that he knew what Hugo Klein had done; the fact that she believed her father was a great man; and the fact of the gun.
The Atlantic came into view, blue sparkles between the tourist traps. “Are we there?” Rebecca said.
“Almost.”
They had crossed the country. He remembered how long it had taken to go the other way, by bus and thumb, twenty-two years before. If he was an orbiting body, his path of revolution was eccentric. Otherwise the country had shrunk; perhaps it had, perhaps that explained the past twenty-two years.
The road wound through forests of scrub oak and pine, topped the rise marking the glacial moraine, and dipped down into Cosset Pond. He had driven into Cosset Pond many times, but never with this feeling that stirred in his chest. He knew what it meant: for twenty-two years he had lived here as an imposter; now it was his rightful home. And he’d only been gone for nine days.
“Quaint,” Rebecca said, taking it in.
Charlie drove past the Bluefin Café and onto the bridge. He glanced over the water, saw a trawler, sailboats, a water-skier, but no speedboats coming in from the open sea. A lone car was parked on the lookout. Charlie crossed the bridge, followed the road around the pond. Through the trees he caught his first glimpse of Straight Arrow tied to the dock, and the house in the background. He had to force himself not to press harder on the gas.
Charlie turned onto his street. The yellow Beetle was in the driveway. He parked in front of the house, behind an old pickup with Georgia plates. They got out of the car. Rebecca had her suitcase in one hand, the gun in the other. It wasn’t pointing anywhere, just hanging at her side. “Open the trunk,” she said.
Charlie opened it. They looked down at the three canvas bags, one stained red-brown. “Bring them,” she said.
They walked to the house. Rebecca hardly limped at all. Charlie set the canvas bags on the stoop, took out his key and unlocked the door. Be at the office, he thought. Be anywhere but here. He opened the door, pushed the canvas bags inside with his foot, went in. Rebecca followed.
“Emily?” he called. “Em?”
No answer.
Rebecca looked around. “I expected a higher standard of housekeeping,” she said.
The house was a mess: papers on the floor, plates of half-eaten food here and there, an empty quart of whiskey on the saxophone case.
“Em? Em?”
No reply.
Rebecca went on into the kitchen. Through the doorway Charlie saw her peering out the window at the pond, the cut, the ocean beyond. He bent down and picked up the bottle: some bourbon he had never heard of; the price sticker read “$6.95.” It had left a ring on the saxophone case. He opened the case, half expecting to find a pool of bourbon soaking into the velvet. There was no bourbon inside, just the saxophone: but broken, smashed, flattened, as though someone had jumped on it with both feet.
He went into the kitchen, thinking she might have left a note. But there was no note, just dishes in the sink, garbage overflowing the bin, more empty bottles. Rebecca was still looking through the window. She pointed. “Is that where he’ll come from?”
“Yes.”
“Have you got binoculars?”
“Upstairs.” Charlie went to get them. Rebecca remained at the window.
Up the stairs, along the hall, to the bedroom. The door was closed. Charlie opened it. There was something on the bed.
Something. He couldn’t pull all the visual pieces together at first; they were like parts from different puzzles: rounded form, duct tape, straw wastebasket. He just stood there with wild sounds roaring in his ears. The puzzle parts assumed a shape, the shape of a woman, lying on her back, bound to the bed with duct tape that wound over her legs, under the bed and back around, over and over, from her ankles to her shoulders; with the upended wastebasket where the head should be.
Then he was standing over the bed, in a world with nothing in it but those wild sounds and that wastebasket. He raised it. And underneath was Emily’s face. There was duct tape wrapped around it too, covering her mouth and her ears, but her eyes were open and they were alive. They saw him, recognized him, filled with an expression he would never forget. He found the end of the duct tape, over her ear, got his fingernail under it, ready to peel it back. Her eyes shifted, looked over his shoulder; she made a sound in her throat. Charlie understood, and started to turn, but too late. Strong, lean arms grabbed him from behind and a cold blade pressed against his throat, just hard enough to cut.
“Don’t make a move, Blakey-boy,” said a voice in his ear; he smelled whiskey breath. “First I’m gonna wreck your whole life like you did to me—your wife, your little Ronnie, your everything—zip zip zip. Like you did to me. And then we’ll see what we shall see. Get the picture?”
Charlie looked into Emily’s eyes. He got the picture: despair, so profound that it loosed him from his fear of death. He didn’t think, didn’t calculate, in any case knew nothing of the science of fighting. But he knew how to move. He moved with all his strength, straight back, cracking the man behind him into the wall; then up and sideways and out of the lean, strong arms. The man with the blade could move too. It cut him, under his chin, down the right side of his neck, deep into his right shoulder, down his chest. He whirled, spraying a fan-shaped pattern of tiny blood drops.
The man faced him, razor held high and a terrible excitement on his face. “You’re dying already,” he said. There was something familiar about him, but Charlie didn’t know what it was, couldn’t think at all, stopped trying. He took one step and launched himself at the man, feet first, to keep that blade away from his face. The man went down, slashing hot stripes across Charlie’s legs, but he went down, his back striking the edge of the open door. He cried out, and lost the razor.
Then Charlie was on him, banging, banging, banging with his fists—the left one mostly, since his right arm didn’t seem to have much strength in it—until the wild roaring in his ears ceased.
Charlie rose. The man moaned and tried to sit up. Rebecca ran into the room, the gun in her hand. She took it all in very quickly: Emily, the man, the blood. “Who the fuck is this?” she said.
Charlie looked down at the man’s face. He had seen that face before, when it was younger and unworn by alcohol, the sun, and other things he couldn’t put a name to. Yes, he had seen that face, seen it with tears streaming down it.
“Ronnie Pleasance’s father,” Charlie said.
“Who’s Ronnie Pleasance?”
“The boy, God damn it.”
“Oh,” said Rebecca. Ronnie Pleasance’s father sat up, a little at a time. There was blood on his face, some of it his, some of it Charlie’s. He saw Rebecca and recognized her.
“You’re all still together,” he said. He sounded surprised. “It didn’t change your fucking lives at all.” He spat out a tooth, saw the razor lying on the floor, reached for it.
“This is getting out of hand,” Rebecca said. She raised the gun and shot Ronnie Pleasance’s father in the head. Then there was a lot more blood in the room, and Ronnie Pl
easance’s father was still.
In that moment of stillness, Charlie made a grab for the gun with his left hand. But slow, so slow. Rebecca stepped aside easily, pointed the gun at him. Her eyes focused on a spot in the center of his forehead. He was aware of that spot, felt it, felt nothing but. Then all at once Rebecca looked past him, out to sea.
“There he is,” she said, lowering the gun and going to the window. Charlie turned. He saw a red boat beyond the bridge, slicing a white V across the water. The binoculars were on the desk in the corner. Charlie took them, adjusted to infinity, looked out.
It was Hugo Klein. The wind swept back the long silver wings of his hair, baring his face, making him appear much older and at the same time revealing how much Rebecca resembled him.
As Charlie watched, Klein approached the bridge, slowing the boat. The bow rose in the air, settled back down. Then, just as he was about to pass under the bridge, Klein glanced at the lookout on his left. Something caught his attention. Through the binoculars, Charlie saw Klein’s eyes and mouth widen, like three black holes. In the next instant Klein jerked the wheel hard right and gunned the engine. The red boat swung around, banging its stern on a bridge support, and sped back out to sea, slicing a white V the other way.
“Give me those,” Rebecca said.
He handed her the binoculars—who cared what happened out there?—and walked away, to Emily. He cared about her. He bent over, kissed her forehead. He tried again to untape her mouth, left-handed this time. His blood dripped down on her, but there wasn’t much of it, he thought, not enough to worry about. But she was worrying; he could see that in her eyes. There was so much to explain. He reduced it to one simple hackneyed declarative statement: “I love you.” Then he peeled back a corner of the tape and started to pull.
“What’s he doing out there?” said Rebecca from the window.
· · ·
It was going to work, thought Hugo Klein. The sea was calm, the boat fast, the visibility clear. He hadn’t seen a Coast Guard boat, hadn’t seen any boat at all until he was in sight of land and part of normal traffic, just another recreational boater out for a spin. Now he saw the bridge, almost straight ahead. The compass bearing had been perfect. He made a slight steering adjustment, eased back on the throttle and headed for the bridge.
He was almost there when he glanced at a bluff on his left, overlooking the channel. A car was parked on the edge. There was a man inside, his face pressed against the side window. The man was staring, staring at him. There was a grin on his face. All at once Klein recognized him. The face had thinned, but the features were the same features he had seen in the courtroom at the last Santa Clara Five trial, the same features he had seen in the law school yearbook. Goodnow. Goodnow had gotten to Wrightman. It was a trap.
Klein swung the boat around, pushed the throttles all the way down. His back felt cold. He hunched forward, making himself small. He forced himself not to look back. By the time he did he was almost out of sight of land. That’s when he thought: What about Rebecca? Goodnow had her now, that was certain. But she wouldn’t talk. He knew his daughter. Hugo Klein moved on.
· · ·
“There,” Rebecca said, watching through the binoculars. “He’s stopping. Something went wrong. He wants me to go meet him.”
Charlie, unwrapping the tape from Emily’s face as gently as he could, wasn’t listening. He was concentrating on his work. It was going slowly, very slowly perhaps, but he was doing a good job. It was important to get this right. Blood dripped down on the duct tape around her body; that couldn’t be helped; besides, there wasn’t much of it, like a bad shaving cut, or two, no more than that.
“I’m talking to you,” Rebecca said. She was standing beside him. He felt the gun in his side. The touch hurt him for some reason.
“Don’t,” he said.
“I want that boat.”
“What boat?”
“Isn’t that your boat at the dock? With the stupid name?”
He nodded.
“I’m taking it.” She prodded him again. Again it hurt. He glanced down and saw that his shirt was shredded and bloody. Something was hanging out of one of the holes. A muscle? It embarrassed him. He rearranged his shirt so no one could see. “You’ll need the keys,” he told Rebecca.
“Give them to me.”
“No,” Charlie said.
“No?” She jabbed him again, hard. It hurt.
“But I’ll trade them,” he said.
“Trade them?”
“For the gun.”
She laughed, that barking laugh. “Don’t try to be smart, boyfriend. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Then shoot me and try to find them.”
Rebecca pointed the gun at Emily. “What if I shoot her, instead?”
“Then you’ll never get the keys, no matter what you do.”
The anger line deepened between her eyes. She glanced out the window. Hugo Klein’s boat seemed far away now, a red period on a blue page. Rebecca broke open the gun, pulled out the shells, dropped them in her pocket, and handed the gun to Charlie.
“They’re on the hook in the kitchen,” Charlie said. “The ones that say ‘boat.’ ”
The anger line deepened a little more. Rebecca looked down at Emily. She smiled. “Do you find him funny?”
Then she stepped over the body of Ronnie Pleasance’s father and was gone.
Charlie leaned over Emily. He took up the end of the duct tape, began pulling on it again. He wound it back around her head, lifting gently, trying not to pull too hard where it stuck to her hair. Red dripped down in interesting patterns. He heard Rebecca moving on the floor below, heard the back door open and close. The last of the tape came free in his hand.
Emily’s lips moved. Sound came out, but not speech. He lowered his head to hers. Their foreheads touched. It felt good. He looked right into her eyes. She licked her lips. “Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t?”
“Don’t let her go.”
“It’s all right, Em. It doesn’t matter what she does. I’m going to tell you everything.”
“No, Charlie.”
Charlie. The sound of the name—yes, his name—the way she spoke it transfixed him. He laid a hand on her forehead.
Emily shook her head. “No, Charlie. Stop her.”
I couldn’t and I wouldn’t, Charlie thought, but he rose and walked to the window. Hugo Klein was almost out of sight, smaller than a period, black instead of red. Rebecca was on the dock, tossing her suitcase and the three canvas sacks onto Straight Arrow’s deck. Then she hopped on, freed the lines, shoved off from the dock with a powerful push of her leg, and stepped up to the console. The keys flashed in the sunlight.
“He was out there, Charlie.”
Rebecca stuck the key in the ignition, turned it. The big diesel throbbed to life. She hit the throttle.
“He was out there?” And Charlie saw it all, just before it happened.
There was a boom, not unlike the boom of twenty-two years before. Then came an orange ball, like a small-scale model of the sun. After that there was nothing but bits of this and that, splashing down on the pond.
Charlie looked into the distance, over the pond, over the bridge, all the way to the horizon. Not a speck. Hugo Klein was gone.
He turned away. He picked up the razor, cut through the tape binding Emily to the bed, helped her to her feet. There was a red streak down the inside of her leg. He must have dripped on her.
Charlie put his arms around Emily. She kept hers at her sides.
“Are you all right?” he said.
“Yes.”
And what if the blood on her leg wasn’t his? That would mean …
“But I’ve lost the baby.”
He went on holding her, tighter; and didn’t let go. What else could he do?
There were sirens. He took her hand, but she withdrew it, and walked with her out of the bedroom, down the stairs. That took something out of him. Then she had his good arm
over her shoulder, and he leaned on her a little. They went on, out the front door, across the lawn. Charlie began to feel light, lighter and lighter, light enough to walk forever. He had walked almost as far as the ambulance before he went down.
39
The night before Charlie left the hospital, he had a visitor. The visitor wore Harold Lloyd glasses, but one look and Charlie knew that nothing madcap was in the offing.
“My name is Bunting,” said the visitor. “Mr. Goodnow was an associate of mine.”
“Was?”
“He passed away. Or died, if you prefer. Of natural causes, if cancer is natural. It happened the morning of all that ruckus. The only unexpected part was the venue.”
Charlie sat up, hoping to think more clearly. Instead, the motion made him light-headed. Or maybe it was just the painkillers. “Venue?” he said.
Bunting didn’t answer right away. He was gazing at the stitches. “Yes,” he said. “He was found sitting in a car parked on that bluff by your bridge.”
Charlie nodded.
“What does that mean?”
“I capeesh.”
“I don’t,” Bunting said. “He should have been in the hospital. Why wasn’t he?”
Charlie didn’t know the answer to that, not the real one, the one that would explain Mr. G.
Bunting pulled up a chair, sat down. “I haven’t made up my mind what to do about you.”
“I came through on my end of the deal.”
“What deal?”
“With Goodnow.”
“He’s dead, as I told you. And any deal he made was unauthorized.”
“That’s your problem,” Charlie said.
Bunting smiled. “True.”
“But it doesn’t matter anyway,” Charlie went on. “There’s nothing you can do to me.”
“Oh?”
“There’s a knapsack on the floor of the blue Tercel in front of my place. Take a look at it.”
“It’s already in our possession. What about it?”
Revolution #9 Page 31
