Biting the Moon

by Martha Grimes

  Andi stirred, blinked herself awake. “I fell asleep. How long was I asleep?”

  “Maybe five minutes. Don’t sound so anxious about it.”

  Andi resumed eating the pizza slice she was still holding in her hand.

  “Listen,” said Mary. “We can get to Salmon tomorrow morning—”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I hate to say this, but—”

  Andi turned toward her, waiting.

  “Well . . . what if he’s not there? What if we can’t find him? What do we do then?”

  Andi had the remote now and was surfing again through the programs. “Keep looking.”

  This was so exasperating! “Andi, if you’re not sure what he looks like, and you don’t know his name, how can you identify him?”

  Andi settled on a hospital show. “There’s the pickup driver, remember? Mel certainly did.”

  “You mean someone with black hair and blue eyes was in both places. That doesn’t make him the same person. Lots of people go to Cripple Creek.”

  “Including C. R. Crick. You forgot him.” Andi returned part of the pizza slice to the box, got off the bed, and went into the bathroom. Mary heard water running and then Andi asking, “You want to take a walk?”

  “A walk? Aren’t you tired after driving for all those hours?”

  Andi came back, pulling up her jeans. “That’s why I want to walk. We’ve been sitting for like twelve hours. We can look at the river. Come on.”

  It was more a plea than a command and Mary got up, said, grumpily, “Oh, okay.”

  It wasn’t much of a river. It must have been the very end or the very beginning of some tributary or other that fed into one of the big rivers like the Salmon or the Snake. Or perhaps it was just an orphan strand of water, a place into which people could chuck cans and cellophane wrappers, cigarettes and Big Mac cartons.

  This was what floated by as Andi and Mary stood behind the motel, arms folded, watching it. There was no rush of water over stones, only a labored trickle. If rivers had a seamy side, this was it.

  A sodden cigarette pack floated by. “Everybody throws junk in it,” said Mary.

  Andi nodded. They stood looking at the narrow band of water for a few moments before Andi said, “It’s like a dream, isn’t it? It’s only two days, and we’re all the way to Idaho.”

  The silence fell again. Mary said, “Did you see that movie?”

  “What movie?”

  “My Own Private Idaho.”

  For a moment, Andi didn’t answer. Then she said in a small voice, almost as if she were ashamed, “I don’t know.”

  Mary could have kicked herself. “Oh. I forgot. Sorry.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “It’s these two fellas who meet up in Idaho. One’s rich. One’s got narcolepsy.”

  Andi turned, frowning. “Got what?”

  “Narcolepsy. He keeps falling asleep. Even standing up, he just goes to sleep and sinks to the ground. It’s a condition.” It was a condition Mary sometimes wished she had whenever Rosella started preaching at her. “The rich one, the other one, reminded me of that prince in—” She tried to call up the name. “That Shakespeare play, one of his history plays. Do you remember Shakespeare?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Andi crossly.

  “Well, I was only asking, since you don’t remember My Own Private Idaho.” Mary watched a bent can, empty of its Budweiser, snag on a root in the water. She thought of the truck driver. “I wonder why you can remember some things and not others.”

  “I don’t know why. The same reason I remember what skiing is and the names of animals and how to drive. I don’t know why.”

  Mary resisted commenting on the how-to-drive memory.

  “You mean you read Shakespeare in school?” Andi seemed surprised.

  “Well, it is high school, after all.” Rarely did Mary ever feel defensive about her age or what grade she was in in school. She supposed she must be jealous of Andi, of her being seventeen or eighteen. Good Lord, how childish to envy someone who’d been through what Andi had, who could remember so little. She brooded for a bit, and then suddenly the name came to her. “Prince Hal! That’s who the other one was like, the rich one. He threw his money around, got in with bad company, was a kind of playboy. His father called him on the carpet and told him how disappointed he was and that he couldn’t see leaving everything he had to someone so irresponsible, not realizing the son was doing it all for a reason, just like Prince Hal was. The father was going to disinherit him. The father sounded like King Henry. One of the Henrys.”

  “What was the reason?”

  Mary shook her head. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure it was ever clear in the movie.”

  “That’s a strange story. One of them always falling asleep and the other one like a Shakespeare prince. That’s a really strange combo.”

  “Prince Hal.” It irritated Mary that Andi wasn’t paying close attention. After all, Mary was filling her in on her life, wasn’t she? In a manner of speaking. Mary had had a crush on Keanu Reeves for some time after she’d seen that movie. But she wasn’t going to tell anybody. She wondered if Andi had boyfriends. Surely she must’ve, a girl who looked like that. But she was also smart. And very independent. Yet, had she been before all of this happened to her? It was hard to tell. Anyway, boys didn’t like a girl to be so independent. They didn’t want to date straight-A students. Only a boy who got straight A’s himself might have been able to tolerate it, but she didn’t know of any A students in her class. Mary suspected this was why she didn’t have a boyfriend. She didn’t really mind too much now, but what about later? When she was a senior? Or after she graduated? What about then? She would hate to admit to anyone that she was worried about this. She got over Keanu Reeves pretty quickly, since his physical presence was not there to plague her.

  Andi, who had been simply standing there with her hands behind her back, seemed to sink down to the ground, and it was really like watching the boy who had narcolepsy suddenly fall asleep. But Andi was crying, her legs pulled up, arms wrapped around them, forehead on her knees. It was like watching a statue weep. Andi was so strong and solid she seemed to be beyond tears. Mary knelt down beside her and put her arm around Andi’s shoulders.

  Andi wept. “I’m nobody. From nowhere.”

  To hear someone who had always struck her as honed and aimed as an arrow, pointed directly and unflinchingly toward a target, this amazed Mary. She said, “Listen, it’s just that you can’t remember. It’s only temporary, you’ll see.” Andi’s hair hung scattered over her arms, down her back, and Mary gathered it up, as if it were a bouquet, and pulled it back, her other hand smoothing the hair. That was always so comforting, to have someone smooth back a person’s hair. She thought she remembered someone doing it to her—her mother, or perhaps a nurse. She said, “You do remember a lot of things: for instance, animals. You knew that was a coyote and you knew what a government agent is. You remembered Shakespeare. And driving, you remembered that.” She nearly choked, saying it.

  Andi hadn’t looked up or moved, but she’d stopped crying and Mary knew she’d been listening. In a little while, her face came up and she wiped it with her hands. Looking down toward the river, she sighed. “Maybe this will be our own Idaho.”

  “Private Idaho,” said Mary. “Our own private Idaho.”

  24

  After a big breakfast at a restaurant in the town, they were in the car. They passed ranches and well-tended big-gated houses that seemed to tint the very air with the color of money. Mary, who was driving, saw names like “El Lobo,” “O.K.O. Ranch,” “Big Bear.” Mary said, “My God, don’t these places look rich?”

  Mary was surprised when Andi put a hand on her shoulder and told her to go back. “Go back? Why?”

  “Didn’t you see the dog? Didn’t you see him?”

  Mary put the car into reverse and backed up to a small clearing where she could turn. They drove back until Andi said “Stop.” Ma
ry pulled the car off the road onto a grassy shoulder. On this side the house and grounds lay behind a thick brick wall with a black iron gate as entryway. A black box that must have held an intercom was apparently the only way to gain entry.

  The dog looked like a Labrador; it had a beautiful chocolate-brown coat, which now stretched over a prominent rib cage. On the ground and on the other side of the gate was a bowl of water, but no food. When the dog saw them approaching, he struggled up to a sitting position and wagged his tail. Around his neck was a heavy collar affixed to a heavy leash. Mary saw now it was not a leash but a short length of chain bolted to the brick wall. The chain was joined to the collar with a small lock.

  Wincing, Mary looked away from the rib cage, the fleshless spine. The dog was clearly starving. But what was much worse was that the dog was meant to starve.

  Andi kneeled beside the gate and reached her arm through the bars. When she ran her hand over him, his tail thumped in rhythm. Mary inspected the length of the chain from the collar to the wall; it was no more than six or seven feet.

  “There’s no way to get the chain off, Andi. Anyway, the poor dog couldn’t get through the gate, if that’s what you were thinking.”

  “I know. So we’ll have to get the key.”

  “What? How?”

  “Let me think.” She was quiet, sitting there beside the dog, who had stuck his muzzle through the bars and was trying to lick her face. It amazed Mary, astonished her about animals. No matter how badly you treated them, they were still faithful. Not all, perhaps, but most. Certainly, this one.

  “You know that black coat you brought? Get it out, would you?”

  Mary looked in the backseat and found it. “Here. What’s it for?”

  “Me.” Andi put the coat on, belted it tightly, then started taking off her jeans. “They’d make me look too young and not official enough. Do you have a ribbon anywhere?”

  “No. What do you mean ‘official’?”

  “Isn’t there anything I could tie back my hair with? A shoelace.” She found another pair of shoes with laces, pulled one out, and gathered back her hair.

  Mary was down now, petting the dog. She said, “I’ve got dog food in the car. I always carry it around, just in case. Should we give him some?”

  “Yes, but just a little. His stomach could probably cramp up until it gets used to having something in it.” Andi had been rooting in her backpack and came up with a plastic kit that held makeup. She was sitting in the car applying a tint to her eyelids, looking in the visor mirror.

  Mary went back to the trunk, raised it, pulled out a bag of Science Diet. It was almost cruel, she thought, just to give the poor thing a little. But she did, keeping back some for a second course. The Lab ate the handful of nuggets in one bite. Then looked at her again, hopefully.

  Andi asked, “Okay, how do I look? Do I look older?”

  The makeup had transformed her. She looked older by half a dozen years, but also looked oddly like a shadow of herself. It was as if the lipstick and mascara had taken something away at the same time they had added an artificial beauty. Mary said, “You look like you’re in your twenties.”

  Pleased, Andi went to the speakerphone, pressed the button. A less-than-welcoming voice came through from the other end, a rather sultry female voice wanting to know the visitor’s business and clearly prepared to keep whoever was on the outside of the gate, outside.

  “I’m from the ASPCA. I’ve come about the dog.”

  Mary heard the woman breathe, “Shee-it.” Then, “Look, my husband isn’t here now.”

  That, thought Mary, was a break. Hard enough to put this act over on one of the dog’s owners, much less both.

  “I know. But he told me you’d take care of it.”

  Silence. A sigh. “Come on.” The buzzer sounded. The gate started to open.

  “Okay,” said Andi, “you can be my assistant.”

  Mary gave the Lab a few more pellets and told it they’d be back. She swung into the passenger’s seat as Andi accelerated. The car nearly careened through the now wide-open gate.

  “What are you going to tell her?”

  “To give us the dog.”

  “What? What? Even if she agreed, what would we do with it?”

  “Something or other,” said Andi.

  The house was massive, much bigger than it appeared from the gate. Mary was just glad there wasn’t a butler around to receive them. A woman in a dull gray dress opened the door for them. She offered to take Andi’s coat. Andi said no, thank you, they wouldn’t be staying long.

  Andi seemed quite struck by a painting over the marble hall table. To Mary it was one of those noncommittal works, a bowl of fruit atop a lacy tablecloth. Under the painting and on the table was a silver tray for mail and calling cards. Did people really live this way? Mary asked herself. It was like a bastion that dared others to enter. How could anyone feel connected to the rest of the world in a place such as this? Her own parents had had a good deal of money, which is why she and her sister never wanted for much, and what she and Rosella were living on now. Actually, she had never wanted much. But they had lived in a big apartment in Manhattan and at least knew the doorman and the elevator operators.

  The lady in the gray dress told them to wait just a minute and she would tell “madam” that they were here. As Andi looked at the painting, Mary wondered why it was necessary to announce their arrival since Andi had talked to “madam” not three minutes ago. The voice coming over the intercom had certainly not been this person’s. Oh, well, the ways of the rich. There were rituals, she supposed, that had to be observed, form that had to be called on so one might proceed from one level to the next.

  The woman who’d admitted them came back and, with extended arm, ushered them in.

  Mary decided she must be the housekeeper.

  Andi lost no time in introducing herself and saying she was sorry for “barging in,” and that if “we” could just collect the dog, “we’d” be out in five minutes. “We’re sorry if our call comes as a surprise, Mrs. Silverstone.”

  Mrs. Silverstone? Where on earth did she get that? Mary thought for a moment. Of course, letters or calling cards or both. Mrs. Silverstone, standing by a beautiful champagne-colored sofa—one of two—was still holding her drink when Andi put out her hand. Mrs. Silverstone simply switched the drink from one hand to the other. She wasn’t about to put it down. Her hands were heavy with rings—platinum, gold, turquoise, and diamonds. She did not ask them to sit down, and she herself remained on her somewhat unsteady feet. The highball glass in her hand had about an inch of straw-colored liquor in it. Her hair was the same shade, carefully back-combed so that it stood high on the crown of her head. Her face was, beneath the makeup and the bored expression, rather pretty, though it had probably always lacked the sort of definition high cheekbones would have given it. Unlike the dog out there, Mrs. Silverstone’s face lacked a visible bone structure.

  “What’s all this?” Her voice was languorous as her gaze drifted from Andi to Mary. “You don’t look old enough to be holding down a job.” She nodded toward Mary.

  “She’s in training,” Andi said.

  “That so?” said Mrs. Silverstone, with a wry lifting of the eyebrows. She put her hand on her hip and drank off the inch of liquor. Her two-piece blue dress pinched in at the waist and flared over the hips, and was so out of fashion that it had a certain poignance, like the high hairdo. Mrs. Silverstone had this fortress of a house, and the lady in gray and no doubt other servants, but she couldn’t keep up. “I told him sooner or later one of you people would come.” She moved over to a table that served as a small bar. “Drink?” She raised her glass, jiggling what was left of the ice in invitation. When Andi and Mary said no, she went on. “I want you to know I’ve got four chips from AA; I’m a recovering alcoholic.” She held up her fresh drink. “This is helping me recover.”

  Mary smiled. She liked Mrs. Silverstone, in spite of the dog. And Mary thought the woman might
even have made some sort of weak protest about the way her husband was treating it. But the protest was probably only as strong as her last drink.

  Andi asked her when Mr. Silverstone would get home and Mary was happy to find out maybe never.

  “Who knows? With him you can’t measure in terms of hours or even days. It’s more what week will he be here? What month? Once he was gone for nearly a year and nobody noticed. The dog down there—the doghouse burned down; I’m ashamed to say it was my fault, my tossed-away cigarette that caused it. Anyway, he decided to chain it down the drive. The short rations? That’s his work. What a sweetheart, eh?”

  Mary asked, “But why? Why is he starving the dog?”

  “Why? Because he’s a bum. If he weren’t a rich bum, I’d be outa here. But since he’s gone most of the time, it’s not so tough.” She moved toward the raw-silk champagne-colored sofa. From the marble coffee table she held up a silver box. “Cigarette?” The heavy bracelets on her wrist slid back and forth as she picked up the box, then the lighter.

  “Well, you don’t drink, don’t smoke. Probably read, too. He used to be a preacher, if you can believe it. Used to threaten his following with hellfire and damnation. He’d be up there on a stage yelling and holding all these folks in the palm of his hand. I can barely hold a damn glass there.” She motioned toward one of the twin sofas, said, “Come on, girls, sit down. I don’t get much company.” Rather gingerly she lowered herself to the companion sofa. “Look. I tried to do something about the dog. You’re wondering why I didn’t just pick up the phone and call the ASPCA? Because he’d know, that’s why. The servants—that Mrs. Danvers-type who let you in, the chauffeur, the cook—they’re all in his ‘employ,’ if you know what I mean. His spies. Buck, my hubby, he’s even got the phones bugged—not because of me or what I might do, which is sweet nothing, but because so many people out there would like him to hang his hat on the old wooden cross permanently. I told him somebody’d be around one of these days to shut down his sicko operation—”