Ash Wednesday (32 page)

"I'm not interested! Who are you, anyway?"

"I
could
be the best friend you ever had."

"I said I'm not interested."

"All right. Just think about it. Think about more money than you ever dreamed of having. More than the six hundred and four dollars and seventy-three cents the government pays you every week and takes back two hundred before you get it. Think about the house you're in now and what it would be like to live in a house like that all the time. And think of the women that money would buy. Think of safety and secrecy and cash and just bending the rules a little. We'll be in touch."

Clyde Thornton
did
think about it, and the more he thought, the more harmless his participation seemed. Take some heat off, that's all, and it would be easy enough. So far no one, not the Russians or the French or the independents or Jackson and Pruett, had found a damn thing linking the Merridale phenomenon to Thorn Hill. Nor had they found proof of a link to any other source, natural or man-made. It must be the uncertainty, Thornton thought, that was driving the power people crazy. In the eyes of the public, nuclear power was already at fault; a
Newsweek
poll had found that sixty-two percent of those questioned felt that the nearby nuclear facility was somehow responsible for what had happened. Thornton didn't blame them for their fears. He knew damn well that N-plants weren't as safe as they could be, but he also knew that the easily panicked public would blame nearly any mysterious happening on a nuke if there were one within a hundred miles. Odds were that Thorn Hill was in no way responsible, so where would the harm be if he made that implication public?

The next day he had grilled Jackson and Pruett on the problem, but they were reluctant to fully clear low-level radiation as a cause. "But you see no link," Thornton pressed, and the scientists confessed they didn't. In that case, Thornton told them, perhaps the time had come to clear the air just a little.

The man called the next day. Thornton told him that he would talk to him, but not over the phone, and they agreed to meet on a back road several miles outside Merridale. The man was there when Thornton arrived, his tan BMW parked with its rear to the trees so that Thornton could not see the license plate. He stood beside it, the impeccable tailoring of his topcoat giving his massive body an intimidating V shape that made Thornton doubly aware of his own predilection to flabbiness. The man, clean-shaven, hair close-cropped, grasped Thornton's hand firmly. "Glad you came," he said.

Everything went smoothly. Deals with the devil usually do, Thornton thought later. He agreed to do what he could to clear Thorn Hill in the eyes of the public, to inform his contact (who unimaginatively asked to be addressed as Mr. Smith) in advance of any detrimental findings, and to withhold any of those findings from the public for as long as reasonable. "We're not asking you to endanger the public," Smith assured him. "Merely to give us time to work out a viable response." Thornton's stomach tightened. "Viable response" was one of those corporate buzzwords that meant everything and nothing at the same time. Though he used it, he disliked it when others did.

"Now," said Smith, pulling two thick packets from his pocket. "Two hundred and fifty twenty-dollar bills in each of these. That's ten thousand all together. An advance honorarium as a symbol of our good faith. Do a good job for us and you'll receive an additional five thousand per week. If this thing is resolved with no blame being put on the facility, you'll receive fifty thousand dollars. As a bonus, we'll say."

"That's not enough." That Thornton protested surprised him even more than it did Smith.

"Not enough?" Smith asked, his jaw suddenly tense.

"A hundred thousand would seem more equitable.
TriCounty
Power can afford it."

"Perhaps. But I represent
Friends
of
TriCounty
Power.”

“I can't believe that
TriCounty
Power wouldn't have wealthy friends."

"Dr. Thornton, I'll be frank. I'm authorized to offer only up to seventy thousand."

"A hundred. Otherwise you're just another potential public hazard."

"I don't think—"

"A hundred." The man irritated Thornton. His good looks, his sturdy build, his unflappable air of self-assurance—all contributed to a scenario of a rich man buying a poor one. All right, then. If Thornton was to be bought, it would be for a damn healthy sum. "A hundred maximum is the price. That includes this ten and the weekly fives. If we're here another two months and you're clean when we leave, you owe me"—he paused to figure—"fifty. A hundred total. If you have to check with your boss first, you know my number." It tore at him to hand the ten thousand back, but he did it and turned toward his car.

"All right, Dr. Thornton," Smith called just as Thornton was about to close the door. "That should be acceptable."

They agreed to meet every Saturday morning at the cleared spot they now occupied just off the infrequently used back road. Thornton would report whatever was necessary, and Smith would hand over the five thousand in twenties.

It had not been difficult to take the heat off the utility. Thornton did it subtly, carefully, so that there should be no suspicion of any connection, and Smith was well pleased. Only this Saturday morning something was different. When Smith handed Thornton the money, Thornton noticed that instead of the plain white envelopes he'd always received before, these bore the printed return address of
TriCounty
Power.

"Coming out of the closet?" Thornton asked.

Smith smiled coolly. "Things were in a rush this week. Let's just say that
TriCounty
contributes stationery to us because of the fine volunteer work we do for them."

Thornton put the money in an inside pocket snug against his wallet, and the men exchanged a few words, then drove away separately. As he felt the healthy heft of cash against his chest, Thornton smiled. That made twenty-five thousand so far. Not a fortune, but in only four weeks he had more than he'd made from take-home in a whole year of working for Uncle Sam. He turned left on
Coleton
Road and, whistling, headed toward Merridale.

Passing through the roadblocks with ease, he drove into and parked in the square, calling friendly hellos to the people he knew and nodding sagely at those he did not. The newsstand was his first stop. It was empty except for Marie Snyder, who looked up sharply from her magazine and smiled, her glasses dropping obediently, dangling from the chain around her neck.

"Good morning, Dr. Thornton, or should I say"—she glanced at the RC Cola clock—"good afternoon. My, isn't this weather something though? Coldest Christmas we've had in years, I think. Guess you're not so used to winters like this, being from Florida originally and all."

Florida?
Thornton thought. How did she know I'm from Florida? Then he relaxed, remembering that it was in the
People
article. She must have read it there. Still, she gave him the creeps, always seeming to know more than everyone else
about
everyone else in town. "How's business, Mrs. Snyder?" he asked, stepping around the jury-rigged affair of canvas and poles that hid Marie Snyder's late husband, Lloyd, from view of the customers.

"Oh, it could be better. Lots of customers who used to come in early in the morning don't bother anymore. But I still open at five-thirty just the same. Have for thirty years, and I'm not changing now. Everything's fallen off around town, you know. Tom Markley's not doing well at all, and I'm afraid it's getting to
Mim
. 'Course, Bob Craven's been a wonder at keeping people's spirits up. He's even giving a guest sermon at St. Luke's tomorrow before the one at his own church. Weren't for him, most of the
people'd
be gone instead of just some. Frank
Kaylor
told me it was about thirty percent, isn't that something though? I just thank God people still buy newspapers, and my magazine and paperback sales are all right. Escape reading mostly, and who can blame them? If this situation isn't something to escape from, well I don't know what is."

Thornton put a stack of magazines on the counter and Marie Snyder flipped through them, adding the prices in her head. "
Newsweek
,
TIME
,
U.S. News
,
TV Guide
,
Scientific American
,
Playboy
. . .” She sniffed. "Don't think much of this one myself," she said, peering snakelike at Thornton, "but I sell it 'cause so many want it."

"There's an article," Thornton explained, angry at himself for doing so, "about Merridale. They interviewed me for it."

"Oh," Marie said, as though that were barely enough of a reason to buy filth. "And
Food and Wine
. That's fourteen-fifty. I didn't know you cooked. Do you cook?" Her eyes were wide, as if ready to see an answer, to gather in one more unnecessary smidgen of information to jam into her already
overrich
trove.

"Not me. Dr. Pruett." Thornton reached roughly into his coat for his wallet. "He likes to cook. And with that huge kitchen over at
Bashore's
, well, he's . . .”

The wallet came out, followed by one of the envelopes whose flap had hooked onto the card case that protruded slightly above the rest of the wallet. The envelope fell onto the counter with a dull slap, face up, so that Marie Snyder could easily see the
TriCounty
Power logo and name in the return address space. Her hand shot out and clutched the envelope, lifted it, and returned it to the suddenly pale Thornton, while her thin, blue-veined fingers pressed and prodded the unmistakable sponginess of stacked currency within.

"Yes?" Marie Snyder said.

Thornton had the envelope now and stuffed it awkwardly into his pocket. His lip quivered, and he knew he must look as guilty as he felt. "What?"

"The kitchen?" she replied, smiling more sweetly than before. "At Ted
Bashore's
house?"

"Yes," Thornton said. "Dr. Pruett likes the kitchen."

"I see." Marie took the magazines and slid them with practiced fingers into a brown bag. "That was fourteen-fifty dollars?"

"Ah!" Thornton picked up his forgotten wallet that lay on a pile of
Messengers
and paid her.

"Thank you. I hope you enjoy them."

He looked at her, uncertain whether or not to read complexity into her simple words, then walked quickly out the door.

~*~

Marie Snyder watched him go, thinking how open people were, how they wore their secrets on their sleeves for those wise enough and experienced enough to know where to look.

Through the years little had escaped Marie's birdlike eyes. Infidelities, dishonesties, lies, cheats—all had been obvious to her. But of all the thousands of secrets that their owners had unconsciously revealed, she channeled only a small number into the town's network of rumor, and those with discretion. Oh, of course there were those stories that were too good to keep to oneself—stuffy old Grant Evans, the banker, bringing back a case of gonorrhea from one of his banking conventions, or Ed
Kravitz
finding Thelma in bed with his brother. These were filtered out to selected individuals who would tell only a small circle of people. Such items were never picked up for "Around the Square," so where was the harm? Marie also had a way of getting intimate details of events that everyone knew about—the way
Emeline
Barnes cursed her daughter from her deathbed, not only
what
she called her but
why
—and the
reason
that Josh Foley's daughter went to visit an aunt in Philadelphia for a few months.

There were some stories, though, she would not spread. Although she was fairly certain that Bob Rankin's wife had had an abortion, she kept her suspicions to herself. The Rankin girl was nice, and though affairs and teenage pregnancies could be forgiven and forgotten over a number of years, murder was something different. So in this case, and in others, Marie Snyder remained silent out of good will. She had never, in her sixty-four years, thought about keeping a secret for any other reason. She had never thought of remaining quiet for money. Not until today, when that
fat
packet of bills landed like a windfall on her counter.