House of Gold (32 page)

Rheumy met this observation with silence. Buzz continued his ministrations.

"Dead people don't remember things," Rheumy said after a couple minutes. For once, there was a coldness in his voice.

"And the living don't always know where the bodies are buried–hypothetically speaking, of course. No evidence, no trial.

"I am the law in Brixton for the time being. It
sure beats mob rule. When things change again–when law and order, as you call it, makes a comeback–I'll go with the flow. I'll shuck and I'll jive. I'm a lawyer, after all. Law and order always needs a lawyer."

"And the world always needs a chiropractor," Buzz joked casually, drawing a chuckle from Rheumy. "Um, move your arm up, yeah, like that."

But one thing Rheumy had said had given Buzz chills:
Dead people don't remember things.

Was he threatening me?
It was hard to tell.

After a few minutes, Buzz started the conversation again.

"There are other, how shall we say, assets, buried around here."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Rheumy replied.

"Come on. You had millions Rheumy, you couldn't have spent it all on the farm. You're too smart. I know you didn't let all your wealth
disappear into the computers. I'm talking about–" Buzz leaped at just the right word "–coins."

"Ahh! You mean the shiny stuff. Well, if I
had
buried that kind of thing, and I'm not admitting that I did, I sure wouldn't tell you about it. I wouldn't even tell Ralph."

The shiny stuff–gold.
Buzz had guessed right. Rheumy probably had hundreds of thousands of dollars–perhaps millions–buried on his
property. That was too bad.

Buzz looked down at Rheumy's pallid skin, his excellent crewcut, then closed his eyes. (Lloyd had been a barber before the Troubles, and his ability to keep Rheumy looking sharp probably made up for a few dead bodies.)

"Tell me, Buzz," Rheumy began again, turning his head slightly. "How come you know so much about me?"

"Every doctor should try to understand his patients.
You yourself tell me more than you know–"

–as soon as Buzz uttered these words, he knew he had made a mistake. He desperately tried to recover–

"Uh, and I just know things. Maybe I know about you because we're so alike. We think alike."

"Maybe too much alike," Rheumy replied.

You have no idea,
Buzz thought.
Stop talking so much.

He was pressing Rheumy too hard tonight. Pushing too much. Looking
for what? For...guilt?

Rheumy's shoulders tensed again, less than before. Buzz almost missed it this time. No matter what Rheumy said, Buzz believed that his muscles could not lie, though Rheumy was getting better at masking himself.

Buzz was running out of time. He had been well-fed for the first time since leaving Cleveland, and had actually managed to gain a little weight. His days here were
comfortable, despite the tension of playing a role. Buzz's mandate to get to Bagpipe was still intact, of course, but the daily imperative to keep moving, which had punctuated every minute of the trip before coming here, was no longer in force.

"So tell me, how long do you plan to stay at the farm?" Rheumy asked suddenly, his voice natural, as if reading his mind.

The length of Buzz's stay had
not come up before. He hesitated before answering, and unfortunately, allowed his hands to pause in their duties. He tried to cover by cracking his knuckles.

"Uh, I haven't really given it much thought," he lied. Another mistake–a lie not based on a truth.

Is Rheumy cross-examining me?

"I'm pretty happy here. You know that."

"But you never take advantage of everything we have to offer," Rheumy
observed.

Both men knew he was talking about the free sex.

"You're not gay, are you?"

"Hell no," Buzz replied honestly.

Rheumy's next question came quickly.

"You're not hiding anything from me, are you?"

"Hiding what? And what's with all the questions–are you cross-examining me? If so, then I confess. Guilty as charged," Buzz scrambled, trying to sound breezy, but failing.

Sometimes the best defense
was a good offense.

At least what I said was confusing.

It struck Buzz for the first time that this entire conversation, because Rheumy was lying flat on his stomach, had taken place with neither man looking each other in the eye.

Has he been reading my hands as I've been reading his shoulders?

"Guilty as charged? Of what?" Rheumy asked a bit forcefully.

Maybe Rheumy was thrown off by the strange
response. There was no way for Buzz to know.

"Uh, I don't know," Buzz responded.
Boy, that sounds stupid.
And so it was.

Rheumy grunted, then turned over abruptly, then sat up, placing a towel around his neck.

"We're done for the day," he told Buzz.

+  +  +

Buzz was not able to fall asleep that night. He steeled himself to carry out his plan–for Johnny. He tried to think of another way, a better
way–but could not. Instead, images came to his head.

Tom Kasovich, raising his hands to heaven, praying before dropping his make-shift fishing line into a stream.

Mel running up to him at Bagpipe, Markie and Packy at her side.

Donna, her arms resting on the ledge, just before he fell...

The Man, in his kitchen, before the Troubles began, carefully raising a spoonful of Cream of Wheat to his lips,
his eyes concentrating on the newspaper...

...his first view of the majestic Lady of the Rockies, on the mountain with Sam and Lee Royalle.

Throwing a full-court pass to Sam, who catches it and makes the lay-up.

The floor of the living room with Packy in the old house in Lakewood, peaceful, on their backs, listening to
John Barleycorn Must Die
by Traffic.

An older memory of waltzing with Ellie
on her wedding day, along with the sense-memory of the feel of his hand on the back of her taut, silken wedding dress...

Markie's innocent voice; screwing his eyebrows together with grave sincerity, saying, "I love you, Daddy," then smiling a boy-smile, showing his perfect first teeth.

Mel's hair, sitting on the bed facing away from him, the gown falling from her shoulders, her skin glistening,
on their first night as man and wife...

...the night in New Jersey, on the jetty, with the lightning flashing and the surf pounding. The mirage-boy on the beach, brandishing a sword, crying out "Buzz Buzz Buzz!"

The Lord gave
you
a second chance.

He rolled over onto his stomach, and stretched his neck, his back, his arms. He flexed and unflexed the muscles in his thighs. He was in the best condition
of his life.

I'm thirty-seven, still at my peak.

And he felt the mastery there, the hardness–the gift of strength which the Almighty had knitted into his frame. Buzz Woodward also possessed the head-and-hand knowledge required for his profession. He understood the human body the way a mechanic–though perhaps not an engineer–understands the innards of a car. The places and connections where the
body is robust–and where it is susceptible...

The dialogue with himself began again, as it did every night when he went over his plan. The knock would surely come to the door; if not tonight, then tomorrow night, or the next, because Rheumy kept all hours, and Buzz was at his beck and call.

At the beck and call of a monster.

Buzz didn't normally like monsters. But he liked this one. This monster
was charming, and sincere (even if sincerely amoral), and generous in his own way.

I can't do it,
his conscience–or his inner coward–protested.

What about Johnny?

What would the Man do?

The Man would never do what I have planned. Or would he?

But it would be self-defense.

Self-defense? You can slip away whenever you please. Nobody's holding a gun to your head.

But what about Johnny? They're holding
a gun to his head. They'll kill him.

God can do anything. God can perform miracles. Johnny has faith.

God didn't save Tommy.

But Tommy was a martyr–a saint in heaven now.

A song came to him:
Lord, what is man that You look at him, the son of man that You think of him? A shadow, he passes away...

Buzz, confused about some things, certain about others, prayed. The words that came to him were the
same that had come to him at the O'Mearas during the croquet game:

Yahweh, make strong the hands of your chosen one. Lay mine enemies down before me.

Isn't this what Yahweh has done? Hasn't He laid Rheumy down before you? Put him within the grasp of your strong hands.

But you could stay here, continue building your friendship with Rheumy. Influence him. Convert him–like you converted Sam and the
Man. Johnny Bryant is praying for you...

Rheumy is no Sam. Rheumy uses people. He is not your friend. He is not like Mark. He has no friends. He wants no friends.

If you stay longer, you'll get soft, just like Rheumy wants, and you'll grow to need him, and he'll discover the truth about you. And it is pride to think that you can continue to resist the lures of his movies, his food, his alcohol,
his whores...

Oh crap. This is going nowhere.

He dove into his own mind, searching for a pearl of wisdom, a clue for action, an imperative for moral decision and found...

Reality.

What was the reality of the situation?

If I don't do it, what will happen to Johnny?

Can you live with yourself if you do it?

Can you live with yourself if you don't?

Buzz realized that the reality of the situation would
never be clear-cut. A gray area.

Buzz had read Saint Thomas Aquinas. He knew the queen of virtues, prudence, as the Angelic Doctor had taught, was the application of absolute moral principles, informed by grace, to decide to do the right thing in a given situation.

Until I'm in the room, with my knee in his back, I won't know what to do.

This was the reality of the situation.

Perhaps, he thought
now, he shouldn't be asking himself what was right or wrong. He already knew right from wrong.

It was written in his heart.

Sure knowledge of right and wrong, in the abstract and absolute principle, was perhaps the greatest perk of being a Catholic.

Maybe he needed to ask: What is prudent?

He turned on his back and looked at the ceiling of his sparse, comfortable room. His eyes had adjusted to
the darkness. Unlike the night at Deacon Samuel's house, Buzz had grown accustomed to a real bed here at the Marks Farm. He longed for a statue or a holy picture. He reached down to his pants, which he had left on the floor, and found his relic of the Little Flower in the pocket.

Little Flower, help me! What is prudent?

He waited.

What is simple?
she asked in reply.

I don't know.

Just then, the
knock he had been dreading came on the door. Lloyd Beaumont, Tom's murderer, stood in the hallway, flashlight in hand.

"Rheumy needs you again."

Game time,
Buzz thought soberly. But he knew this was not a game.

+  +  +

Lloyd, shotgun in hand, closed the door behind them and sat on the chair outside Rheumy's door. Buzz knew that Ralph was probably sleeping in his room down the hall.

Rheumy Marks
was already on the treatment couch, on his stomach, dressed in a pair of boxer shorts, his chin resting on the down pillow, his right hand comfortably hidden beneath the same pillow.

His shooting hand,
Buzz thought suddenly.
Is he hiding a gun?

Rheumy owned several handguns–Glocks, Rugers, a Colt. He had proudly shown them to Buzz on several occasions. Buzz knew he kept at least one in this room.

"Sorry to wake you," Rheumy greeted him with a wince. He kept his eyes on the wall, away from Buzz. "It's really bad tonight. I couldn't sleep."

Neither could I,
thought Buzz.

"That's okay. I'll have you feeling better in a jiffy. Let's begin with the massage, loosen you up, then do the adjustments."

"Sure."

Buzz walked to Rheumy and stood over the man. He seemed so small. Buzz knew he was actually
quite strong for his size. He was also coordinated–a seasoned hunter before the collapse. Buzz placed his hands on Rheumy's back, and began the massage.

"I've been wondering..." Buzz began his patter in the usual fashion, pausing to let Rheumy signal for him to go on.

Rheumy did this with a grunt.

Buzz could not see Rheumy's face–only the bald spot in Rheumy's crewcut. Buzz knew Rheumy's back
the way a motorhead knows his hot-rod. He eyed Rheumy's forearm, and how it disappeared beneath the pillow.

I could die tonight,
Buzz thought. Even though he wanted to live, the prospect of dying did not bother him in the least.

I have a job to do.

He prayed the Act of Contrition just in case:
O my God, I am heartily sorry, for having offended Thee...

Rheumy was not in a talkative mood tonight.
By the painful knots in the man's muscles, Buzz could understand why not. He had the kind of back that always reverted to form, no matter how many times Buzz realigned it.

Why not just get down to brass tacks?

Buzz had a purpose on earth. He was here to cut things down, one way or the other.

"I've been wondering about...God."

"You? God?" Rheumy asked.

"Yeah, God. I mean, what if He really exists?
What if He really is the final judge of what is right and what is wrong?"

Like all Buzz's forays into conversation with Rheumy, he was basing his misdirections on truth.

"But God doesn't exist."

"But what if He does?"

"Then he doesn't care about the likes of you and me."

"Maybe not here on earth. But what if there is life after death, and a final judgment? Maybe He cares about how we treated each
other. Thou shalt not kill, remember?"