Nerve Damage (30 page)

“Okay.”

“Try it now,” said Turk. “Just for practice.”

“I know how to press a button,” Roy said.

“Three-mile radius,” Freddy said.

“And if you're out of range?” Roy said.

“Not gonna happen,” said Freddy.

“So,” said Turk, “that just leaves us with—”

“Yeah,” said Freddy. “The hammer.” He laughed, and so did Turk. Roy laughed a little, too: as though the three of them had cooked up a tricky play in the locker room between periods and were now going to
stick it to some overweening team. Turk took out his cell phone, scrolled through some programmed numbers, dialed one.

“Myra Burns?” he said. “Who cowrote the obituary on Roy Valois?” Turk listened for a moment. “Yeah, I know it's late, but he wants to say hello.”

 

Roy lay
on the platform. Turk and Freddy tied the tarp back down.

“Doin' okay?”

“Good.”

“Get some rest.”

“Yup.” He had to rest, had to save his strength for what lay ahead, to reach the finish line before it reached him.

“Don't forget the button.”

Footsteps moved away, crunching once or twice on the dried-up vegetation. Then came a clink—the ladder knocking against the chain-link fence—and finally the Caddy, a low, throaty murmur that faded quickly away. After that it was very quiet. Roy, on his side in that comfortable position, just breathed. He felt
Delia,
hard and cold, against his back. What would he say?
Hi, baby, it's been a long, long time
? Sounded like a line from one of those old songs she liked. He shifted his body, getting closer to her. His heart took off on one of those high and rising flights it was starting to like.

“This is a disgrace.”

Roy opened his eyes. For a moment he didn't know where he was, all breathless and closed in, as though buried alive. The urge to thrash around came right away, but that voice, a voice he knew, brought him back.

“An appalling disgrace,” Krishna was saying. “Are you seriously asking me to believe that a work of art of this stature was left unguarded the entire night?”

“Well,” said a man, “the orders didn't say nothin' about no guard.”

“And,” said another man, “this here is a secure area. Lookit that barbwire.”

“Anyways,” said a third, “no harm done.”

“Oh?” said Krishna. “And how can we be sure?”

“Well,” said the first man, “there it is. Just take a gander.”

“I intend to,” Krishna said. “Please untie that end.”

“This here end?”

“If you'll be so good,” said Krishna.

Roy shrank closer to
Delia,
wedged himself under a low curve of twisted rads. Then came a flapping sound and blinding daylight flooded in. Roy glimpsed, as though at the end of a tunnel, a dim yet somehow
natty figure. Just as his eyes were adjusting—he made out Krishna's face, so unhappy today—the tarpaulin fell and darkness returned.

“So,” said the first man. “Everything okay?”

No response from Krishna.

“Those kinda looked like rads in there,” said the second man.

“Thought it was s'posed to be art,” said the third. “Ain't it, Mr., ah…”

“Let us now load it with great care on the truck, gentlemen,” said Krishna. “I will follow in the limo. Thirty miles per hour, please, and no more.”

“How much is it worth, anyhow?”

“That,” said Krishna, in a tone Roy had never heard from him before, “is not the point.”

“What's the point?”

“Respect.”

A minute or two later, the chain-link door clinked open and Roy was in motion—a short bumpy ride on the forklift; then a pause, and a scraping slide; followed by the shriek of released air brakes and they were rolling. A deep thrumming vibration rose up through the floor of the truck and the wooden platform where he lay; an easy, gentle thrumming, like a massage, but the demon didn't like it. Roy tried to find a position they could both live with. He had a crazy thought, how he was now on a secret mission, a kind of Operation Pineapple of his own—only his would make things right. Delia had had Paul Habib; he had the demon.

After a while, Roy felt the truck slowing down—pressing
Delia
against him—and then stopping. He heard voices, too faint to distinguish the words. Then someone banged on the truck body, not far from Roy, and they were rolling again. The road seemed smoother. The demon, like a resistant and colicky baby taken for a ride, finally gave in and napped. Although he'd just slept all night, Roy felt worn out. He took the IV bag from under his shirt, uncapped it and drank what was left. Then he napped, too.

 

“What a nice space.”

Roy awoke: no longer in motion. He smelled flowers.

“So glad you like it,” said Calvin Truesdale. “The roof is retractable, by the way.”

Roy felt in his pocket, touched the button on Freddy's wireless transmitter; didn't press it—just made sure he knew it was there.

“Have you considered a setting for the piece?” Krishna said.

“The alcove,” said Truesdale. “Knew it the moment I first laid eyes on her.”

“Even before Roy made up his mind to sell?” said Krishna.

Truesdale laughed. “I never quite fell for that line. So many of these artists turn out to have a shrewd side.”

“Not Roy.”

“You knew him better, of course. And he must have been quite sick when I met him, surely not himself.”

“I think he was very much himself toward the end.”

“Oh? In what way?”

“How he handled it,” Krishna said.

“Possibly,” said Truesdale. He sighed. “Such a tragedy.”

Krishna said nothing.

“When is the funeral?” Truesdale said.

“There's talk of a memorial service,” said Krishna. “Nothing is set.”

“Please keep me informed.”

“You'd like to go?”

“If possible. But I'd certainly want to send flowers.”

A silence.

“Interest you in something to eat or drink?” Truesdale said. “Tour of the ranch?”

“Very kind,” said Krishna. “But—”

“Or even better,” said Truesdale, “we're having a party tonight—that's where most everyone is right now, setting up tents by the river.
Steer roast, some ropin' and ridin', fireworks off the barge—why don't you stay for that?”

“What's the occasion?” said Krishna.

Truesdale laughed. “Nothing, really,” he said. “I'm just in the mood for a little shindig, is all, kick up my heels.”

“I have to be in New York for dinner,” Krishna said; his tone suddenly going cold, very unlike him, in Roy's experience.

“Then I'll say good-bye,” Truesdale said. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

“And with you as well.”

“I'll walk you to your car.”

“Not necessary.”

“No trouble.”

Footsteps moved off. When Truesdale spoke again, he was farther away, almost inaudible. “Any predictions on how the market's going to treat his work in the next five, ten years?”

A door closed on Krishna's reply.

 

A minute
or two went by. Roy heard nothing but the distant neighing of a horse. He reached out, raised the edge of the tarp. The first thing he saw was a huge bronze seated woman by Henry Moore, familiar from his college textbooks. Beyond the sculpture stood a wall of tall windows, thirty feet high or more, all topped with stained-glass rosettes. Outside lay some gardens, green under a fine mist from the irrigation system, and on the far side of the gardens lay a corral. A horse with pinto markings—much smaller than the horse in Tom Parish's barn—was prancing through a series of figure eights, the rider a woman in a stylish Spanish hat with a flat crown and a round brim. There was no one else around.

The woman sat very still, upper body erect, hips barely moving with the rhythm of the horse, and maybe because of the intervening mist, seemed the more graceful part of the team, although the horse was
beautiful. The way she carried herself, her body so trim, an intense concentration that was visible, at least to Roy, and so alive: he found that he'd somehow gotten off the platform, crossed the marble floor, almost unaware of the art around him, and had his face pressed to the window. And Roy knew: from the way she held her head, how the curving shadow of the hat brim fell across her face, and a thousand other little things, seen in all those dreams. He knew.

Roy looked around, frantic to get out there, caught his first good view of this space—a huge U-shaped gallery, all stone and glass, sculptures along both sides—and at the end, just past the tarp-covered platform, high double doors. Enormous doors made of marble, but they opened easily. Roy ran outside, really ran—no one around but it wouldn't have mattered. Nothing could have stopped him: momentum had shifted and he felt its push like the first wave of a slow-moving but powerful explosion, a wave he rode through the garden, mist cooling him—and he needed cooling, all at once realizing how hot he'd been—to the corral. He ducked under the railing, kept going. The rider came out of a turn, saw him and said, “Whoa, Angus,” leaning back on the reins. The horse halted and leaned back, too. Horse and rider gazed down at Roy, ten feet away.

Not Delia. For one thing, this was not a woman of his own age, not a woman at all, but a teenage girl. For another thing—but there was no other thing. Roy moved forward, no longer running, now moving very slowly, taking in every detail of her face. His heart took off again. This was going to be a lucky day.

The rider looked uneasy, but only for a moment. Then she sat taller—a reaction to stress so familiar—and said, “Are you the new vet?”

And the voice: a slight Texas accent, but otherwise identical.

“No,” Roy said, going closer. “I'm—”

She frowned, pushed back her hat. He could see her hair now, that same curly brown hair, flecked with gold. The light shone on her face, in her eyes: yes, those golden glints.

“Then—?” she said.

Roy caught himself gazing up at her, rapt, as though transfixed by a vision. “My name's Roy,” he said. “Roy Valois.”

She shrugged, a teenager's kind of shrug. He'd missed so much. “The name mean anything to you?” Roy said.

“No.”

“I'm—” Roy took a breath, not deep; it made a funny rattling sound, maybe because of how keyed up he was. He sensed a tremendous victory, very soon, very near. Yes, a lucky day: he'd hardly dared to dream of a double triumph like this. “I'm looking for your mother,” he said.

“My mother?” said the girl. “This must be some kind of mistake.”

“Why?”

“I don't have a mother.”

Roy opened his mouth, tried to speak. Nothing came out. He tried again. “No mother?”

Angus shied, backed away. “Easy,” said the girl. The horse went still. “He doesn't like loud voices,” she said.

“Sorry,” said Roy. “No mother?”

“That's what I said.” The girl reached into the vertical slit pocket of her Western shirt, offered Roy a sugar cube. “You could give him this.”

Roy took the sugar cube. Their hands touched. A charge went up Roy's arm, down his spine. She had his hands, a softer, female version, but his: his own flesh and blood. There was no doubt. Roy held out the sugar cube. Angus took it between his rubbery lips.

“I have a stepgrandmother, sort of,” the girl said. “Are you looking for her?”

“No,” Roy said. “Your mother.”

The girl shook her head. “She died.”

“No.”

“I told you—he doesn't like loud voices,” the girl said, steadying Angus. “And what do you mean—no? Who'd know better than me? She died a long time ago.”

“When?” Roy said, so low the word was barely audible. Angus's tail twitched.

“Like the exact date? I don't know—not long after I was born.”

“Are you sure?”

“About what?”

“That she's dead.”

The girl's chin went up; Roy remembered that, too. And the sharpening of her tone. “What kind of a question is that? It's the biggest thing that ever happened to me.” She gave Angus a kick and he started to turn. Roy grabbed the reins.

“Please,” Roy said. “I didn't mean to upset you.”

“But you are,” she said. “What do you want? Why are you asking all these questions?”

“It's the biggest thing that ever happened to me, too,” Roy said.

She paused, wrists cocked to pull the reins away from him. “My mother dying?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“I can explain,” Roy said. “But first, are you telling me you never knew her?”

The girl nodded.

“Are you fifteen?” Roy said.

Another pause; then she nodded.

“And your birthday's in September.”

“The twenty-first,” she said. “How did you know that? Who are you, anyway?”

Roy met her gaze. “She was my wife.”

“My mother was your wife?”

Roy took out his wallet. He had a photograph of Delia in a Velcro'd-off side pocket, a picture he'd never shown to anyone, just carried around, not quite forgotten: the two of them, actually, Roy and Delia standing on a beach, arms around each other, expressions on their faces quite solemn. He held the photograph up so the girl could see.

She saw. Then she slipped down off Angus, gave him a light whack, and he trotted away. She took the picture.

“This is my mother?”

No reply necessary: the resemblance did all the talking.

The girl studied the photo, her eyes unwavering. In a low voice, she said, “I've never seen a picture of her.”

“How come?” said Roy. He glanced around: no one in sight.

“All her stuff got burned up in a fire.” The girl looked at him. “Is this a trick picture or something? From the computer?”

“What would be the point of that?”

She thought; her face pinching slightly—that same annoyed look Delia had for puzzling through tough questions. “I guess none,” the girl said. “So you were the husband before?”

“Before what?”

“My father.”

“Tell me about him.”

“He was a wrangler, just passing through.” She shrugged. “I never knew him either.”

“Who told you that?”

“I just grew up with it.” She thought for a moment. “My grandfather, I guess.”

“Your grandfather?”

She gestured at their surroundings—corral, gardens, private museum, sprawling ranch house, stables, outbuildings, and land, land in all directions.

“Calvin Truesdale is your grandfather? Where did you get that idea?”

“Not really my grandfather,” she said. “More like adoptive. I think he felt responsible for my mother's accident.”

“What accident?”

“The one that killed her—falling off this bronco they were training, which she shouldn't have been on in the first place. She was the cook.”

Roy smiled.

“What's so funny?”

“She couldn't make toast,” Roy said.

“Maybe she learned after you got divorced or—”

“Don't you see how thin this is, everything they told you?” Roy said, voice rising again but now Angus was safely out of hearing range. “How sketchy? There was no divorce. No cooking. No wrangler.”

Her eyes went from Roy to the photo, back to Roy.

“What's your name?” Roy said.

“Adele,” said the girl. “I'm named after her.” But that statement ended on a slightly rising note.