by Boston Teran
"Assemblyman!"
It was pure loaded pleasure. A coyly insulting lead-in to a little hard, nasty sex. She dropped another chair down on his head, she threw a magazine from his coffee table at him, she tossed his pants at him, she flung his sport coat over his head.
He kept on like some hooded maniac laughing and groping and crawling, his bone-thin legs helpless. She reached back to the coffee table again.
"Fuck!" she screamed.
Like a child he tried to pull the coat from his head. She stood above him in anger. "You fool shit liar. What did I tell you?"
She was holding up a brochure from the organ bank. She flung it at him as she shot past on her way to the back bedroom. She was a screaming harridan who scooped up her clothes. He bent and twisted and curled himself upright. He leaned against the wall.
"It must be some sort of senseless cock vanity that makes you—"
As she jumped past his outstretched arms he managed to catch her foot. She stumbled and kicked at the wall as she fell. Grasping he got one god damn handful of leg. "At least listen to what I was told—"
* * *
IVY WAS right at my desk, looking at me with a face like some kind of window dressing and she just said it." Essie sat in her living room chair with the standing lamp beside it, which alone lit the room. "In my heart I don't believe Taylor told her that. He wouldn't open himself up like that to her and not to me. That isn't possible. That was not Taylor."
Dane was sitting on the edge of the wooden coffee table, arms resting on his thighs, listening.
"If that's selfish or unfair, the belief that he didn't come to me, then I'm selfish and unfair. If I'm being immature or unwise, all right. I accept it. I just can't accept—"
Dane saw something come over Essie.
"What's wrong?"
Essie spoke low, in an unsettled way. "Maybe… Taylor opened a package like we did. Maybe… something was delivered to his company like that antique in your garage. Ivy bought a lot of furniture for Nathan's office, for his house, even for the bank. There are invoices in the garage. All those calls to Merton's number. Maybe—"
Essie shot up. As she did she knocked over the lamp. The bulb exploded, the room went black.
Dane went to her. She just stood there, not moving, immersed in a cold-blooded thought, with only a few swimming lines of light across her face where the moon had slipped through the blinds to catch her.
Dane put his arm around her.
"Would she do something that terrible," asked Essie, "to protect Nathan?"
"Herself…"
Somewhere in the dark Essie saw Ivy's face while she talked about having a baby and saying, "Maybe in some small way it would—"
* * *
NOTHING MORE was said. They lay down and slept. Essie awoke to find the bed empty. Dane was in the living room shepherding the dark. He sat on the couch, the balcony doors were open. Essie was wrapped in a blanket. She curled up beside Dane and enclosed him also in the blanket.
Across the alley, above the roof tops, the moon was white and full against a matte of soft black. And the buildings, those flesh-colored buildings with their oddly-shaped roof tops looked almost like towers framing that lunar mystery. The neighbor's glass mobile harped lightly.
They sat like that, as if in some small way they were there to watch out for the world. Dane had not told Essie why Nathan had called. And he was uncertain how, and when, he would.
Chapter Sixty-Three
A PHONE RINGING woke Ivy. She could hear Nathan's voice say, "I thought it might be you."
There was silence after that, then Nathan saying, "Yes." More silence was followed by another "Yes."
It went on like this; silence—"Yes"— silence. And each "Yes" grew more disturbed, as if the body had to wrestle out the word. Ivy rolled over.
Nathan was sitting at his desk by the window. The light around him had blackened in his outline. He again said, "Yes." His voice now sounded as if it were being drawn to some distant point, as if it were slowly being removed from the body which was saying it. As he listened he wrote down something on a note pad.
When the phone call was over the phone seemed to slip from his fingers and back into the cradle as he was putting it down. He remained just so, like some heavily breathing cloud against the white curtains.
"I'm to meet a man tonight, who, I'm told, has information on how Taylor died."
* * *
WHILE HE was in the shower Ivy went and looked at what he'd written down. When she saw the name, with the light streaming across it, she could have drowned in her own terror.
* * *
SHE COULD hear Nathan in the shower crying, sobbing, and the pain of it went through her as if there were fissures in her flesh that led to places it is better not to know existed.
Through the wall she could feel him hitting the shower tiles with his fist, like some great machine pounding out its breaths, with a slow brutal economy.
* * *
THIS DOESN'T feel right," Ivy said. She had to tinker with her voice. "I can't explain it." She was imploring him. "It just doesn't seem—"
Nathan sat naked on the edge of the tub and those dusky, movie theater looks said nothing would stay what he was going to do.
* * *
THE NANNY finished loading suitcases into the family wagon. Charles strapped the girls into their car seats, telling them all the fun things they'd see and do. The day was sunny and beautiful, a perfect backdrop for starting a little vacation.
Claudia came from the house checking through her purse. She gave Charles a cursory, "We'll be back in a few days."
"Yes," he answered.
Claudia got behind the wheel, the nanny climbed in front. As the engine turned over the nanny said, "Wave good-bye to Daddy."
The nanny waved, the girls waved. Their heads bent to see their father as the car pulled off. They looked to be almost floating there in the back, like two small angels. And Charles thought, how unaware they are that now would never be again.
* * *
A BROAD sweep of daylight cut across the garage. It left its duty trail of light where Essie sat with the door open like she had so many times before. She went through the stacks of invoices again, with the virtued meticulousness of an executioner.
There were deliveries to Taylor's company for Discovery Bay, the bank, Nathan. Many signed by Ivy. At least three she found were from companies with different names but the same Plymouth Cove address. Two, just weeks before Taylor's death. Both were signed by Ivy.
"Essie."
It was Flesh. Essie scooped up the invoices around her and got them stuffed into a file folder as Flesh stepped into the light of the open garage door.
"What are you doing here?"
"Your neighbors said…" Flesh's eyes wandered that filled to overflowing space with things she knew, she'd seen…"Those were Taylor's."
"Everything in here was Taylor's."
Essie set the folder down and stood. She brushed herself off. She looked like some phantom in the half dark, half light. A little nervous to have been come upon. "I kept everything."
Flesh glanced over that stacked world. "I heard some terrible things last night through Roy I want to ask you about."
"Through Roy?"
"He said Dane had been studying law at Princeton and had been thrown out. That he had been working for an attorney and he made sure certain evidence in a criminal case never made discovery. And now he and Nathan were involved in—"
"This came through Roy."
"Through Roy, from Charles Gill. I am going to call Princeton, but first I wanted to ask you—"
"Through Roy, from Charles Gill. That's quite a character sweep."
Essie left the folder where it was and walked out of the garage forcing Flesh to follow.
"Talk to me. This is Francie. Remember, the night in the emergency room."
Essie pulled the garage door down.
"I cleaned the blood from your arm."
&nb
sp; It slammed shut.
"You give me some rap about needing the name of a witness in Taylor's murder, which sounded totally bogus. And not five minutes after Charles is backing Roy for a political run he's pouring out dirt about Nathan and—"
As Essie locked the garage door, "Roy took money from Charles?"
Each examined the other. Flesh threw out her arms. "Something is going on here. Essie? What do you know?"
"Tell Roy, if he doesn't want to get flushed down some drain, to stay away from Charles."
* * *
ROY, BE prudent who you speak to about this," said Charles. "If Nathan or Rudd found out—"
Flesh knocked on Roy's office door. She could see he was on the phone.
"I understand," said Roy. "I will see you tonight."
Roy waved her in as he hung up.
"I'm waiting on a call back from the Dean of Princeton Law School," said Flesh. "I should have it before the day is over."
"Good."
He reached for his crutches.
"I talked to Essie," said Flesh.
"As a prosecutorial matter, do you think that was wise?"
"I think there's a lot going on here that neither you nor I understand."
"Exactly my point."
Roy hitched himself upright.
"Essie said to stay away from Charles Gill."
He labored toward the door. "We have questions about one man Essie works for, another who she's fucking. What do you expect her to say about Charles?"
Flesh opened the door for Roy. "You mean who you're fucking or who you work for determines who you are?"
On his way out he answered, "If it didn't you'd be doing your tour of duty down in traffic."
Flesh slammed the door at his back.
* * *
CHARLES CUT Ivy off before she had hardly begun about the meeting that had been set for Nathan. His utter calm was more terrifying than the note itself. She foundered a moment before she said, "But the General—"
"Ivy, get off the phone, pour yourself some wine, then go think long and hard about the conversation we had in your kitchen."
* * *
I'LL BE picked up by boat here, at around nine o'clock, and taken to meet the third party."
"Are you sure about this?" asked Dane.
"Sure? There is sure," said Nathan, "and there is sure. The General is sure."
They leaned against the walkway railing which led down to the guest docks. Dane noticed deep welts and bruises on the back of Nathan's hands and knuckles. They watched the boat traffic move through the glaring sunlight. And even in the shadow of the Antioch Bridge they could see freighters on the Sacramento River, huge against that flat California landscape.
"You don't have to come with me on this. But if you decide, here's where I'll be."
Nathan walked away, his hand hitting down on the railing every few feet. Dane remained. He stood watching the water. He could see clouds in the water that day.
* * *
I NEED an answer," said Dane.
Alone on the bank of the Sacramento River, with his hand cupped to one ear so he could hear better on the phone, he confronted his handlers. "I know I'm a material witness now… I know the kind of retaliation I could face being out in the open… I know the problems with security… I know this was part of the deal to beat an indictment… I know your rules… But I'll take all the risk… I just, just want to be able to come back here… It's the first thing in my life I've ever really needed and wanted. Do you understand?"
He walked farther down to the water as he knew he might start shouting and he didn't want to chance anyone overhearing him. "You're between a rock and a hard place? Well, excuse the analogy but I'm chained to that god damn rock… I want your commitment I can stay… And I want it on paper. Nice bond government stationery. And I have to have it by seven o'clock tonight… I'll tell you at seven.
"It's the con artist in me… yeah… Describe me any way it works, but call by seven."
Chapter Sixty-Four
AS SUNSET REACHED out across the landscape Dane Rudd sat at Taylor's desk to write Essie a letter. On the desk was that faded section of the Sacramento Bee, on the chance this night did not go well. Beside it, wrapped in a bauble of aluminum foil, were the missing diamonds.
The sky was a seething reef of branded reds. An unending dusk not unlike the one that had colored his approach to Rio Vista the day he first walked into Paul Caruso's hangar. As it cast its burning shine across the writing paper, Dane beared down on the exact truth of who he was. He printed everything he had done, everything he had never told her, so if he were not there at the end, at least she would know the truth. Of him, from him.
* * *
THE NOVELIST Owen Wister once called the eye of man "the prince of deadly weapons." Dane now understood the more sublime inference inside that idea. To experience the difference between the life he'd led and the one he would probably be forced to leave behind was devastating. And in light of that fact, the enigmatic truth was Taylor Greene had seen to it, however indirectly, however ironically, and for whatever it might bring, that a hope and a dream had passed to someone in desperate need of a hope and a dream.
Dane put all that in his letter and then went on to tell Essie how much he felt for her, and for Paul and Sancho Maria and the world there, and no matter what, if they forcibly took him into hiding he would find a way to get back.
But he also told her that if after reading everything he'd done, she didn't want him, he understood.
I'm sorry for keeping you all in the dark, he wrote, but I saw no other way. Forgive me.
Dane was staring at the letter when the call came. He let it ring a few times not to seem so desperate, though he certainly felt that way.
"Yes…" He listened to a long uncomfortable monologue of inconclusivity. "You can't answer till this is all done, that's the answer?"
Dane took the letter and folded it in half. He slipped the letter into the envelope. "The General is setting a meeting for Nathan. I'm to be there… It seems someone with information about Taylor's death is willing to come forward. I told you taking the diamonds would open them up."
Dane slipped his safety deposit box key into the envelope along with notarized instructions giving the house on Disappointment Slough to Essie. He licked the envelope shut. "The day after tomorrow, no sooner… Send your people down here, it's your call… Anywhere they want to meet. As long as it's outside the Delta. I don't want anybody to chance the connection… They should contact me just like you do." Dane listened to the way their voices played on, as if they were a proxy for God's own judgment.
"I know you wish it could be different… I won't do anything to compromise myself… What do I think?"
Dane closed his eyes for an illimitably long time, then in a tone they would not understand till later he said, "I think you should always be careful what you wish for."
Conversation over, Dane got up and walked to the kitchen. He took a mug from the dish rack. He took a beer from the refrigerator. He filled the mug two-thirds of the way with beer and then he let the cell phone drop like a depth charge into the brew.
He lifted the mug and drank. He drank till the cell phone dropped into his mouth and he chewed on the top and spit it back into the mug, then set the mug down on the counter.
"Try and get to me now."
* * *
There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon
Charles sat in his studio with headphones on, blasting himself with sound.
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move, but I can't hear what you're saying
Was this what he had been riffing with his guitar boys the night Taylor died?
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
They controlled you once, they control you now. Charles was, he knew now with hateful certitude, a boy walking around lost inside a man's body.
The child is gone
The dream is gone
The wall clock told him Roy would soon be leaving work.
* * *
DANE PRINTED Essie's name on the back of the envelope. He lay the letter atop the newspaper, resting it against the diamonds.
He lit a cigarette and sat on the front door steps. He watched as that fire brand horizon burned away. Everything in the unmarked voyage of life that he'd thought and felt on those doorway steps came back to him.
The here and now constantly tries to decide the now and forever. It is a limited plan at best. But one, it goes without saying, that shall be with us forever. At its most heartbreaking, and most beautiful.
* * *
A GARAGE attendant in the building where Roy worked had been crippled in an auto accident. Roy knew the boy's family and was instrumental in forcing the building management into hiring him.
Occasionally, walking to Roy's car, they would fence, turning crutches into rapiers. It was their self-determined way of venging a little showy black humor on the healthy who watched.
The boy attendant, thrusting his crutch at Roy's passing car window, would be the last known person to see Roy Pinter alive.
* * *
DANE SLID the double-bladed knife down into his boot. He worked his black jeans down over the leather top. With scissors he cut the jeans from the heel all the way up till his hand could easily grasp the knife handle.
He checked the gun to see it worked properly. He fired one shot from the kitchen door into the vine-strangled wilderness behind the house. The shot echoed across that frieze of shadows.
He went and put on his old leather coat. He realized he was dressed as he was that first day he walked into Paul Caruso's hangar. It was, he thought, a perfectly befitting accident. If you believe that in life there is such a thing as accidents.
The phone rang. The message machine answered. "Where are you?" Essie asked, "Are you all right? Call me. I'm… I'm me."
