No Way Home (33 page)

“The hell I don’t. The chief was here now, I’d tell him to his face. He’s a god-damn fool.”

Meg’s sharp cheekbones almost came through the skin. “You want me to tell him that?”

Malcolm turned his back on her. “It’s between you and me.”

• • •

In the heat of the sun Papa Rayball stomped his wife’s grave. His heels crushed the grass and cut the sod. “I know you can hear me!” His voice was terrible, like his face, which had caved in on itself. “He’s yours now! You take care of him!” The sky blazed its bluest. His voice should have raised the dead, but it didn’t. Exhausting himself, he stopped. That was when he saw the chief.

“Don’t stop on my account,” Morgan said.

Papa’s face regained form. “How long you been there?”

Morgan had a hand in his pocket. “Anything wrong with Junior?”

“That’s my business. And hers.”

“She can’t hear you. I’m the only one that can. And I’m going to put you away, Papa.” Morgan’s hand slid out of his pocket with Meg O’Brien’s little snub-nose. “MacGregor told me everything.”

“Seems to me I heard he shot himself. You tellin’ me I’m wrong?”

“Before he did, he left a confession. I got you, Papa, it’s all in writing.”

The revolver was raised. Papa ignored it. It didn’t much matter to him, and Morgan mattered only as an object of hate. “You got nothin’,” he said, spittle showing. “You got pecker droppin’s on a piece of paper.”

Morgan gave a look at the ground. “Maybe I got her word too,” he said, and Papa’s eyes glowed with heat.

“Her? That tramp?”

“You killed her, didn’t you?”

Papa grinned. He grinned the biggest he had in years, maybe ever. “Anybody around? Anybody hear us?” He gloated. “I’d do it again.”

Morgan held the revolver steady as his eyes slid from side to side and then over his shoulder, which disconcerted Papa.

“What are you doin’?”

“Looking around for the rock I’ll tell people you tried to hit me with.”

“You ain’t gonna do nothin’. You ain’t the kinda man could kill a chicken. And that ain’t a big enough gun, that’s a cap pistol. I had one like it, I was little.”

“You’re still little, Papa. You’re getting smaller.”

“Big enough to stand up to you.” Papa’s voice challenged, his eyes baited. He was entering another rage, this one just as helpless but cold as ice, and Morgan watched and learned something, which took away will and purpose.

“I don’t know what’s happened, Papa, but I don’t think I have to bother about you anymore.” He lowered the revolver. “I think it’s over.”

“It ain’t ever over,” Papa said. Morgan pocketed the revolver and turned to leave, and Papa barked at him. “You were bluffin’! You were bluffin’ all the time!”

“That’s right, Papa, but you weren’t. That was the rub.” Morgan turned to leave again and stopped himself. “If I look for Junior, will I find him?”

“You leave him alone.” Papa looked away. “He’s where he wants to be.”

Clement Rayball returned to the motor inn to shave and shower, put on a fresh shirt, and to pack. The packing took no more than a couple of minutes. His used underwear and socks he tossed into the wastebasket. He zipped up the bag and left it on the bed. He told the desk clerk he would be leaving that night and settled his account. The clerk said, “Thank you, Mr. Rodriques.” At the bar he ordered a Miller. When the bartender served him, he laid down a hundred-dollar bill and a sealed envelope containing more than that.

“I’m checking out later,” he said. “That’s for you, the envelope’s for her.”

“Milly?”

“Yeah, tell her she’s a nice kid, better than most of her customers.”

“She’ll appreciate it. She doesn’t have much.”

“More than my mother had at that age. Make sure she gets it.”

Clement drank half his beer and left. The sun was white, the sky went on and on, like Florida’s. He did not simply miss Florida. He yearned for it. He drove out of Andover, back to Bensington for the last time.

• • •

The death of Calvin Poole intensified the investigation into the Mercury Savings and Loan. The two red-bearded regulators brought in staff to help them winnow truth from fiction in complex loan agreements with Bellmore Companies and subsidiaries. One of the regulators said to his staff, “We’re walking planks thrown across mud.”

Gerald Bowman, whose contacts at the bank kept him abreast of the investigation, conferred much of the morning with a team of lawyers, one of whom was a woman who annoyed him. He did not trust her judgment, nor appreciate her gloomy assessment. The others, the men, rendered cheerier forecasts, though by morning’s end he distrusted their judgment too.

In the sitting room adjoining his private office he made love to his secretary. His love was translucent drops threading hair and beading the curve of her abdomen, for he was precautionary and quick enough to pull out at the agonizing moment. “Thank you,” he said.

Attending to the golden bun behind her head, Pembrooke said, “It wasn’t good, was it?”

“My mind’s on other things.”

It was like a poorly dubbed movie, the words ill fitting the movements of their mouths. She made herself decent, presentable, efficient. “I may be leaving you soon,” she said.

“Another job?”

“Yes.”

“It’s time,” he said.

An hour later he did something he rarely did. He left early for the day. On I-93 he had an urge to open the Mercedes up, to push it to the limit, but that was something he did only to himself and other human beings living in the closing decade of the twentieth century.

Entering Bensington, he drove beyond Oakcrest Heights to the country club, where he parked the Mercedes in a privileged space. His personal net worth, on paper, was the highest in the Heights, with the possible exception of that baseball player, whom he despised, a loud-mouthed ignoramus when he showed up here on the green.

The bar was quiet and cool, only one other patron. He took a table and soon had before him a glass of grapefruit juice chunky with ice. Leaning back, he said, “No need to sit alone,” and a large man rose in the dim and ambled forth in a lightweight athletic jacket open over a spotless white T-shirt.

“How are you, Mr. Bowman?”

“Not bad, Pierre. Not bad at all. Yourself?”

“Making a living,” Pierre said. He was also drinking grapefruit juice, though without ice, which gave more for the money. His bald head looked polished, his smooth face free of any trying thought. “We don’t usually see you here on a weekday.”

“That’s true.” Bowman removed his glasses, fogged them with his breath, and applied a soft napkin. His defenseless eyes may have been born too soon. “Where do you live, Pierre, not here in Bensington?”

“In Lawrence, Mr. Bowman.”

“That doesn’t sound safe.”

“I’m careful.”

“Live alone?”

“I used to have a dog.”

Bowman replaced his glasses. “To us, a dog is a lovable pet, a faithful companion with soulful eyes, but to the Oriental he’s edible.”

“Dining is relative.”

“Everything is relative, Pierre, except the bottom line. That’s where the real buck stops. I learned that at B.U. Did you go to college, Pierre?”

“I was a dropout. It was the sixties.”

“The sixties, yes.” Bowman smiled and sampled his juice. “That’s when everybody wanted to learn to play the guitar, but very few did. I’m more a product of the seventies and an example of the eighties. We’re all products of our times, Pierre.”

“You think so, Mr. Bowman? I’d say we’re products of ourselves.”

“Everybody’s entitled to his opinion,” Bowman said with a wink, “but I agree only with my own.”

The bartender sauntered over to see whether anything was needed. “Mr. Bowman? Dennis? Everything OK?” Everything was OK, to a degree. Bowman’s eyes crinkled.

“What’s this Dennis bit? I thought your name was Pierre.”

“Dennis is my real name.”

“We’re all something we’re not. It might not make the world move, but it makes it interesting.” Bowman paused to smile. He was lightheaded, as if the grapefruit juice were alcoholic. “You like your work, Pierre? You like being a masseur?”

“It has its moments.”

“You like doing the women?”

“They trust me. They talk, I listen and never reveal a confidence.”

“What does my wife tell you?”

“I never reveal a confidence.”

Bowman laughed. “You’re good. Tell me, professionally speaking, of course, what do you think of her ass?”

Raising his glass, Pierre considered the question. “I’m in the mood to speak personally.”

“OK, go ahead.”

“I like yours better.”

Bowman looked away. Two customers had come in, and the bartender was busy with them. “I thought that would be your answer.”

• • •

Glancing here and there, Clement Rayball walked through the house he had been raised in. His eye was quick and thorough, militarily trained. In the room he and Junior had shared as children, he snatched the Polaroid of himself from the wall and destroyed it. In the kitchen he tapped the face of his watch, which had stopped, but failed to wake it. A few minutes later he heard the pickup come into the yard.

He did not ask Papa where he had been. He did not want to know. He did not care. He sat at the table and drank Papa’s apple juice. A mosquito whined, but kept its distance. “We got any family pictures, Papa?”

“No. I never saw the sense.”

“None of Ma?”

“I burned those. You saw me do it, you were ten.”

“Any of Grandma?”

“My ma?”

Clement nodded. His last memory of his grandmother was picking up kindling near the shack where she had lived. She had reverted to childhood and smiled at him from another century.

“I don’t recollect any of her,” Papa said.

“I got anything of mine here? Anything at all?”

“The rifle was the only thing, and you know where that is.” Papa squinted. “What are you askin’ these things for?”

“I’m leaving tonight. I don’t expect to come back again.”

Papa said nothing. He washed out a pan in the sink, which had been Junior’s job. Clement stared at him and found him smaller. He tapped his watch again, without result. The battery was dead.

“I’m restless, Papa. I can’t just sit here. I’m going for a drive, you want to come?” When he got no answer, he said, “Suit yourself.”

Papa followed him out the door. “I’m comin’.”

The digital clock in the rental told him the time, which was neither early nor late. It was just the time. The sun was still white, but the sky was now glass. Near a gully on Papa’s side of the road a dead woodchuck awaited crows.

Papa said, “I been thinkin’, it ain’t right. Junior should be beneath the ground.”

“He’s all right where he is.”

“She had better, he should have the same.”

“Let’s not talk about it, Papa.”

“Where we goin’?”

“Nowhere in particular.” He was approaching the bridge that connected Bensington to West Newbury. “This where you threw it, Papa?” He slowed down as Papa nodded and parked on gravel and grass, scaring up dust.

“Whatcha stoppin’ for? Nothin’ to see.” Papa watched him climb out and sat tight. “I ain’t goin’ with you.”

Clement walked onto the bridge and felt the breath of the river, the Merrimack, which had been clean only when the Indians had it. Through the metal rungs of the railing, he peered down. Last night’s rain had given it life. It ran with authority.

“What are you stoppin’ here for? I was farther down, I flung it.” Papa’s voice was right behind him and jumped ahead of him. With the strut of a game cock with the run of a henhouse, Papa went to the middle of the bridge and pointed. “Right here’s where Junior and me got rid of it. He was ‘fraid you’d be mad. I told him you’d be madder we didn’t do it.”

“You always told him right.”

“I tried.”

Two cars went by, one right after the other, and then there were none. Clement reached under his loose shirt and tugged free the Saturday night special. He stood directly behind Papa, who was peering through the rails to watch the waters rush. A gull with angry eyes, not unlike Papa’s, planed the river.

“I ain’t gonna turn around, Clement. You got somethin’ you wanna do, do it. Just don’t take all day.”

The only man he had ever executed, a bullet in the back of the head, was a Contra captain who had given a nun to his men before killing what was left of her. Big stink about it later because the captain had been on the right side.

“I know what you got in your hand,” Papa said. “Same as I knew back at the house you were only pretendin’ you didn’t care if I come. I
know
you. I brought you up.”

“You want me to do it, Papa?”

“I ain’t got nothing to live for. Like Junior, I ain’t never been happy. Chief wanted to do it, better it’s you.” Papa gazed far out. “Only takes a second, then throw me in, no one knows.”

Clement let his gun hand drop. He should’ve known he wouldn’t do it. He wished the chief had, or God would. Papa spun around.

“ ‘Fraid? Then leave that thing with me and go on back to Florida.”

Clement crossed his arms and hid the weapon in an armpit as another car went by. “I can’t do that, Papa.”

“Why not? I ain’t your father.”

“Maybe not, but I haven’t known any other.” Clement turned to leave. “You coming?”

“Not this time.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

“I ain’t goin’.”

Clement trudged back to the car, slipped inside, and looked at the clock. The time now seemed significant. He had never known exactly when his mother died, only when he was told about it. He started up the car and coasted onto the bridge. Papa was standing in the same place.

“OK, Papa, last time. You coming?”

“No, I’m gonna suit myself.”

“You always have.”

“Ain’t gonna change now, am I?” A mosquito flew into his ear, and he dug it out with his middle finger. “You take care of yourself, you hear?”

“Papa, what was your father like?”

“Like me.”

“What was mine like?”

“Never knew him.”

Clement drove on, into West Newbury, and soon came upon a weatherboard house, where a warm-faced woman was crumbling bread and tossing it to birds, mostly pigeons. Behind her a rock garden, freshly watered, vibrated. A short way up, he made a U-turn and, keeping a light foot on the gas, drove back to the bridge.