Occultation (30 page)

“Oh, ye gods! Like hell I’m coming up there!” she said during their latest phone conversation. “My air conditioner is tip top.
You
come over here.” She paused to snicker. “Where I can get my hands on you!”

He wanted to argue, to resist, but was too busy melting into the couch, and knew if he refused she’d come flying on her broom to chivvy him away most unceremoniously. Defeated, he put on one of his classier ties, all of which Constance had chosen, and made the pilgrimage—on foot in the savage glare of late afternoon because he walked everywhere, hadn’t owned a car since he sold his El Camino in 1982. Walking generally suited him; he’d acquired a taste for it during his years of toil in the wilderness. He took a meager bit of pride in noting that his comfortable “traveling” pace left most men a quarter his age gasping and winded after a short distance.

He disliked visiting her place, a small cottage-style house in a quiet neighborhood near downtown. Not that there was anything wrong with the house itself, aside from the fact it was too tidy, too orderly, and she insisted on china dishes for breakfast, lunch, supper, and tea. He lived in constant fear of dropping something, spilling something, breaking something with his large, clumsy hands. She cheerily dismissed such concerns, remarking that her cups and dishes were relics passed down through the generations—“They gotta go sometime. Don’t be so uptight.” Obviously, this served to heighten his paranoia.

Wanda made dinner; fried chicken and honeydew, and wine for dessert. Wine disagreed with his insides and gave him a headache. When she broke out the after-dinner merlot, he smiled and drank up like a good soldier. It was the gentlemanly course—also, he was loath to give her any inkling regarding his penchant for the hard stuff. Her husband had drunk himself to death. Pershing figured he could save his own incipient alcoholism as an escape route. If things got too heavy, he could simply crack a bottle of Absolut and guzzle it like soda pop, which would doubtless give him a heart attack. Freedom either way! Meanwhile, the deceit must perforce continue.

They were snuggling on the loveseat, buzzed by wine and luxuriating in the blessed coolness of her living room, when she casually said, “So, who’s the girl?”

Pershing’s heart fluttered, his skin went clammy. Such questions never boded well. He affected nonchalance. “Ah, sweetie, I’m a dashing fellow. Which girl are you talking about?” That heart attack he sometimes dreamt of seemed a real possibility.

Wanda smiled. “The girl I saw leaving your apartment the other morning, silly.”

The fact he didn’t know any girls besides a few cocktail waitresses didn’t make him feel any better. He certainly was guilty of
looking
at lots of girls and couldn’t help but wonder if that was enough to bury him. Then, instead of reassuring her that no such person existed, or that there must be some innocent mistake, he idiotically said, “Oh. What were you doing coming over in the morning?” In short order, he found himself on the porch. The sky was purple and orange with sunset. It was a long, sticky walk back to the hotel. 

4.

The next day he asked around the Broadsword. Nobody had seen a girl and nobody cared. Nobody had seen Hopkins either.
Him
they cared about. Even Bobby Silver—Sly to his friends—didn’t seem interested in the girl, and Sly was the worst lecher Pershing had ever met. Sly managed a dry cackle and a nudge to the ribs when Pershing described the mystery girl who’d allegedly come from his apartment. Young (relatively speaking), dark-haired, voluptuous, short black dress, lipstick.

“Heard anything about when they’re gonna fix the cooling system? It’s hotter than the hobs of Hell in here!” Sly sprawled on a bench just off the columned hotel entrance. He fanned himself with a crinkled Panama hat.

Mark Ordbecker, a high school math teacher who lived in the apartment directly below Pershing’s with his wife Harriet and two children, suggested a call to the police. “Maybe one of them should come over and look around.” They made this exchange at Ordbecker’s door. The teacher leaned against the doorframe, trying in vain to feed the shrieking baby a bottle of milk. His face was red and sweaty. He remarked that the start of the school year would actually be a relief from acting as a househusband. His wife had gone east for a funeral. “The wife flies out and all hell breaks loose. She’s going to come home to
my
funeral if the weather doesn’t change.”

Ordbecker’s other child, a five-year-old boy named Eric, stood behind his father. His hair was matted with sweat and his face gleamed, but it was too pale.

“Hi, Eric,” Pershing said. “I didn’t see you there. How you doing, kiddo?”

Little Eric was normally rambunctious or, as Wanda put it, obstreperous, as in
an obstreperous hellion.
Today he shrank farther back and wrapped an arm around his father’s leg.

“Don’t mind him. Misses his mom.” Mark leaned closer and murmured, “Separation anxiety. He won’t sleep by himself while she’s gone. You know how kids are.” He reached down awkwardly and ruffled the boy’s hair. “About your weirdo visitor—call the cops. At least file a report so if this woman’s crazy and she comes at you with a pair of shears in the middle of the night and you clock her with a golf club, there’s a prior record.”

Pershing thanked him. He remained unconvinced this was anything other than a coincidence or possibly Wanda’s imagination, spurred by a sudden attack of jealousy. He almost knocked on Phil Wary’s door across the hall. The fellow moved in a few years back; a former stage magician, or so went the tales, and a decade Pershing’s senior. Well-dressed and amiable, Wary nonetheless possessed a certain aloofness; also, he conducted a psychic medium service out of his apartment. Tarot readings, hypnosis, séances, all kinds of crackpot business. They said hello in passing, had waited together outside Superintendent Frame’s office, and that was the extent of their relationship. Pershing preferred the status quo in this case. 

“Cripes, this is all nonsense anyway.” He always locked his apartment with a deadbolt; he’d become security-conscious in his advancing years, not at all sure he could handle a robber, what with his bad knees and weak back. Thankfully, there’d been no sign of forced entry, no one other than his girlfriend had seen anything, thus he suspected his time schlepping about the hotel in this beastly heat playing amateur investigator was a colossal waste of energy.

Wanda didn’t call, which wasn’t surprising considering her stubbornness. Dignity prohibited
him
ringing her. Nonetheless, her silence rankled; his constant clock watching annoyed him, too. It wasn’t like him to fret over a woman, which meant he missed her more than he’d have guessed. 

As the sun became an orange blob in the west, the temperature peaked. The apartment was suffocating. He dragged himself to the refrigerator and stood before its open door, straddle-legged in his boxers, bathed in the stark white glow. Tepid relief was better than nothing. 

Someone whispered behind him and giggled. He turned quickly. The laughter originated in the living area, between the coffee table and a bookshelf. Because the curtains were tightly closed the room lay in a blue-tinged gloom that played tricks on his eyes. He sidled to the sink and swept his arm around until he flicked the switch for the overhead light. This illuminated a sufficient area that he felt confident to venture forth. Frankie Walton’s suite abutted his own—and old Frankie’s hearing was shot. He had to crank the volume on his radio for the ballgames. Once in a while Pershing heard the tinny exclamations of the play-by-play guys, the roar of the crowd. This, however, sounded like a person was almost on top of him, sneering behind his back.

Closer inspection revealed the sounds had emanated from a vent near the window. He chuckled ruefully as his muscles relaxed. Ordbecker was talking to the baby and the sound carried upstairs. Not unusual; the hotel’s acoustics were peculiar, as he well knew.  He knelt and cocked his head toward the vent, slightly guilty at eavesdropping, yet in the full grip of curiosity. People were definitely in conversation, yet, he gradually realized, not the Ordbeckers. These voices were strange and breathy, and came from farther off, fading in and out with a static susurration. 

Intestines. Kidneys. 

Ohh, either is delectable.

And sweetbreads. As long as they’re from a young one.

Ganglia, for me. Or brain. Scoop it out quivering.

Enough! Let’s start tonight. We’ll take one from—

They tittered and their words degenerated into garble, then stopped.

Shh, shh! Wait!… Someone’s listening.

Don’t be foolish.

They are. There’s a spy hanging on our every word.

How can you tell?

I can hear them breathing.

He clapped his hand over his mouth. His hair stood on end.

I hear you, spy. Which room could you be in? First floor? No, no. The fifth or the sixth.

His heart labored. What was this? 

We’ll figure it out where you are, dear listener. Pay you a visit. While you sleep.
Whoever it was laughed like a child, or someone pretending to be one.
You could always come down here where the mome raths outgrabe….
Deep in the bowels of the building, the furnace rumbled to life as it did every four hours to push air circulation through the vents. The hiss muffled the crooning threats, which had ceased altogether a few minutes later when the system shut down.

Pershing was stunned and nauseated. Kidneys? Sweetbreads? He picked up the phone to punch in 911 before he got hold of his senses. What on earth would he say to the dispatcher? He could guess what they’d tell him:
Stop watching so many late night thrillers, Mr. Dennard.
He waited, eyeing the vent as if a snake might slither forth, but nothing happened. First the phantom girl, now this. Pretty soon he’d be jumping at his own shadow.
First stage dementia, just like dear old Dad.
Mom and Uncle Mike put Ernest Dennard in a home for his seventieth birthday. He’d become paranoid and delusional prior to that step. At the home Pop’s faculties degenerated until he didn’t know if he was coming or going. He hallucinated his sons were the ghosts of war buddies and screamed and tried to leap through his window when they visited. Thankfully, long before this turn of events Mom had the foresight to hide the forty-five caliber pistol he kept in the dresser drawer. Allegedly Grandma went through a similar experience with Gramps. Pershing didn’t find his own prospects very cheery.

But you don’t have dementia yet, and you don’t knock back enough booze to be hallucinating. You heard them, clear as day. Jeezus C., who are they?

Pershing walked around the apartment and flicked on some lights; he checked his watch and decided getting the hell out for a few hours might be the best remedy for his jangled nerves. He put on a suit—nothing fancy, just a habit he’d acquired from his uncle who’d worked as a professor—and felt hat and left. He managed to catch the last bus going downtown. The bus was an oven; empty except for himself, a pair of teens, and the driver. Even so, it reeked from the day’s accumulation; a miasma of sweat and armpit stench. 

The depot had attracted its customary throng of weary seniors and the younger working poor, and a smattering of fancifully coiffed, tattooed, and pierced students from Evergreen; the former headed home or to the late shift, the latter off to house parties, or bonfires along the inlet beaches. Then there were the human barnacles—a half-dozen toughs decked out in parkas and baggy sports warmup suits despite the crushing heat; the hard, edgy kind who watched everyone else, who appraised the herd. Olympia was by no means a big town, but it hosted more than its share of beatings and stabbings, especially in the northerly quarter inward from the marina and docks. One didn’t hang around the old cannery district at night unless one wanted to get mugged.

Tonight none of the ruffians paid him any heed. From the depot he quickly walked through several blocks of semi-deserted industrial buildings and warehouses, made a right and continued past darkened sporting goods stores, bookshops, and tattoo parlors until he hooked onto a narrow side lane and reached the subtly lighted wooden shingle of the Manticore Lounge. The Manticore was a hole in the wall that catered to a slightly more reserved set of clientele than was typical of the nightclubs and sports bars on the main thoroughfares. Inside was an oasis of coolness, scents of lemon and beer. 

Weeknights were slow—two young couples occupied tables near the darkened dais that served as a stage for the four-piece band that played on weekends; two beefy gentlemen in tailored suits sat at the bar. Lobbyists in town to siege the legislature; one could tell by their Rolexes and how the soft lighting from the bar made their power haircuts glisten.

Mel Clayton and Elgin Bane waved him over to their window booth. Mel, an engineering consultant who favored blue button-up shirts, heavy on the starch, and Elgin, a social worker who dressed in black turtlenecks and wore Buddy Holly-style glasses and sometimes lied to women at parties by pretending to be a beat poet; he even stashed a ratty pack of cloves in his pocket for such occasions. He quoted Kerouac and Ginsberg chapter and verse regardless how many rounds of Johnny Walker he’d put away. Pershing figured his friend’s jaded posturing, his affected cynicism, was influenced by the depressing nature of his job: he dealt with emotional basket cases, battered wives, and abused children sixty to seventy hours a week. What did they say? At the heart of every cynic lurked an idealist. That fit Elgin quite neatly.

Elgin owned a house in Yelm, and Mel lived on the second floor of the Broadsword—they and Pershing and three or four other guys from the neighborhood got together for drinks at the Manticore or The Red Room at least once a month; more frequently now as the others slipped closer to retirement and as their kids graduated college. Truth be told, he was much closer to these two than he was to his younger brother Carl, who lived in Denver and whom he hadn’t spoken with in several months.