Overfall (10 page)

“I couldn’t see what was happening,” she said. “I wasn’t going to be stuck there if those dogs got you.”

Sam walked over to her, dripping red as he went.

“I will never again call a man a girl as a term of denigration,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Shouldn’t we do something about those?” she said, pointing to his wounds.

“Without antibiotics we should just leave the gashes open. There’s no artery involvement. We have to move. You know the men are coming.”

An English wren was sitting on their shelter when they walked past.

“I’m gonna pee,” Anna said, “and I’m not going far.”

“Go ahead.”

“Stare at your feet. And close your ears.”

Sam laughed. She went behind a bush.

They walked inland from the shore, occasionally jogging seaward to make sure they hadn’t veered off. The going was slow.

“Can they catch us?”

“No. They won’t have a tracker, and even if they did, he would have to crawl in places. They’re more likely to try to get in front of us or beat us to Echo Bay. It’s the only settlement near here.”

“Does it hurt?” she asked, looking at his bloody arms.

“Sure, a little.”

“You’re a tough one,” she said.

“I love these islands,” he said in response. “They have their own spirit. I don’t know many places like this.”

“I could tell by the care you took with your maps.”

“These things were gouged out of the rock by glaciers in the last ice age. You notice that they are high and dry. Geologically they are young. Every hill is on its way to becoming a flat spot. We’re standing on mountains.”

“Do you know the natives here?” she asked.

“This is Kwaikutl territory. I’ve been looking at their old village sites.”

“I could see that as well. Are you part Indian?”

“I am. I’m sure you saw the books and maps in the stateroom.”

“Why won’t you talk about yourself? Are you really that afraid of telling me who you are?”

“You can see there are bears on this island. See the claw marks on the tree and this spot here where the bear scratches his backside?”

She shook her head. “I’m already very impressed, so don’t show off as a distraction. How much farther?”

“Sun’s out—it’s warm. Enjoy it. You know there isn’t a thing we can do about Jason until we get back. You have to learn to enjoy the moment even in a crisis so long as you are doing what you can do.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never been chased by dogs and nearly drowned three times.”

“Yeah, well, nobody has ever turned down my spaghetti before.”

“Try me again in Manhattan. It seems like we’re walking there.”

“It’s still about ten miles to Manhattan North.”

“They don’t seem to be following us,” she said after a while.

“We’ll have a greeting party at Echo Bay, but they won’t try anything with people around.”

“Fishermen?”

“Bird-watchers. It’s the annual fall bird count—Echo Bay is their new hot spot. Great deal for the resort owners.”

“How did you know about that?”

“I’ve stayed at Echo Bay.”

“You’re not a bird-watcher?”

“Not exactly.”

“You are. You’re a bird-watcher!” She giggled. “You are just a bundle of surprises.

“Tell me something,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Do you drink your coffee black?”

“All show-offs drink their coffee black. It’s a rule.”

“You drink your scotch straight?”

“Don’t drink it anymore. Occasionally red wine.”

“You smoke cigars, don’t you?”

“Cuban.”

“You don’t smoke cigarettes?”

“I don’t believe in it.”

“Thought I smelled one on the boat.”

“Strange.”

“What are your vices, Sam?”

“Couple times a month, give or take, I have wild blackberry pie or a lemon sour-cream pie, but I usually only admit to the blackberry.”

“Why?”

“Lemon sour cream is too afternoon-tea for me. So I eat it and pretend I didn’t. I break the cigar rule more than the pie rule.” He stopped for just a moment. “Are there right answers to these questions?”

“No. I’m just curious about you. Are you religious in any way?”

“I do yoga as physical discipline, not as a peek into something important. Hindus I don’t understand. The Ganges is the most polluted river in the world, and religion or not, it can’t be good throwing all that dead crap in the Ganges—a major water source.” He was silent for a moment. “There is something out here with us—the universe isn’t all cold and black and fiery infernos; somewhere there’s love and beauty and whatever makes those values rock-solid in a person’s gut.”

Anna wondered if he had just revealed more of himself than he intended. To her it was far more important than his last name.

“My mom’s a Catholic. But I’m not that.”

“Christianity seems like a good idea if they could ever get anybody to practice it. I don’t know if I could make ‘turn the other cheek’ work for me.”

“Okay, back to vices. You don’t gamble?”

“The sport of idiots.”

“Jimmy would have said that.”

“Again, Jimmy was?”

“He was a great guy. Like a father or an uncle. When I met him I was eighteen and waiting tables and crammed into a small apartment with three other girls eating macaroni without the cheese. I was being turned down for bit parts as fast as I could scurry from one audition to the next.

“I was going to acting classes when I could and determined that I was going to be an actress.

“I vividly recall the awkward blind date followed by continuous puking on the sidewalk. The restaurant did a great job with the food poisoning. That’s what started it all with Jimmy. Anyway, I’m kneeling on the sidewalk in front of my place nearly unconscious with dehydration and I feel this hand on my forehead and another on the back of my neck. And I see this old guy with a big nose and wrinkles like canals and I’m thinking he’s a pervert. I tell him I don’t know him. And he says: ‘Right now, do you really care?’

“Somehow he goes and gets this lady who has an apartment next door to his. He lives in the only really good building on the block. Next thing I know I’m in her place with a compress on my forehead and a compazine suppository shoved up my rear. It turned out that she was a nurse.

“They called him Jimmy Beam because he drank too much of the stuff when he was in the Navy. His real name was Erik. Crusty on the outside, a doll on the inside. He had friends everywhere he went. He always insisted, maybe demanded, that I would amount to something. I agreed with him. Everybody needs somebody who agrees with them contrary to all the evidence.

“Jimmy did come with a big dose of humanity: he picked his teeth incessantly and carried a metal box of cinnamon-flavored mints, constantly offering them to whomever as if he was conscious of his own bad breath. If he had a glass of apple juice, he’d fondle it like it was whiskey. After dinner his old bowels constantly farted. I complained about him, and I loved him.”

“How often did you see him?”

“Like once or twice a week before I moved out of the neighborhood. You know, sometimes it was with my friends. They liked him too. Sometimes on the steps to his building. We talked on the phone. Every time something really big happened, I called my mom, my sister, and then Jimmy.”

“What about your dad?”

“I was twelve when he died. Kind, humorous, always joking, upbeat. Never a down moment.”

“You make him sound nearly perfect.”

“A life as wrinkle free as a new starched shirt. I still idolize my father. But you know, there was one thing about him. I couldn’t get him to be serious, I guess. I don’t bring it up. My mom, my sister, and I, we just remember him as the perfect dad.”

“But?”

“Well ... it doesn’t matter now ... he died of cancer. Bowel cancer that spread everywhere. It was hard.

“I think I cried harder when they lowered Jimmy into the ground. Because my dad was so horribly sick, dying was deliverance from misery. Jimmy dropped through a trapdoor out of a happy life into the grave. I suppose the special thing about Jimmy was that he had no reason to love me and no nudge from mother nature. He didn’t want fame or money. I guess he just wanted to enlarge his life with other people.

“Later, after my first big movie, Jimmy reminded me that I was just a girl from McLean, Virginia. Of course I would tell him that I was reminded of that every time I went to a party. I didn’t sing or do the hoochy coochy or quote Shakespeare. So I’d say: ‘Look, Jimmy, I go to a party and I’m a big deal that doesn’t do anything.’ Then he’d smile at my poor floundering ego. Jimmy died four years ago.”

“Jimmy’s talk must have taken. On those TV shows you always protest that you’re an ordinary gal with an unusual job. Ah, shucks—no special insight, wisdom, or wit, you tell them. Of course nobody believes a word of it. Especially me. Then for the rest of the program you’re expected to be very witty and wise in addition to being humble.”

“I really do feel regular.”

“Get over it. And don’t tell us about it on TV. Maybe you once were normal, but you can’t be normal or ordinary or whatever the hell you call it when you sneeze and the entire world offers you a hanky. If you act with kindness despite all that—now, that is golden.”

“So, Mr. Publicist, what should I say when they stick a microphone in my face?”

“On national television, you can tell us that you were blessed with some good luck but that you still like being with your family and friends. You like doing the usual things. And for God’s sake don’t bat your eyes and act as if you suddenly woke up and noticed you were famous. That’s crapola again.”

“How long have you been waiting to say that?”

“Probably all my life. So then you had your mom and your sister?”

“Yeah.”

“What was your mom like when you were growing up?”

“Catholic workaholic.”

“Who always wanted to be a movie star but taught drama instead.”

“You don’t mince words, do you?”

“Peter told me.”

“Peter? Oh, ho. So you do know each other. And you know each other well.”

“Big clue there, huh, Sherlock?”

“So how did you meet Peter?”

“No more clues for now. I want to know about your mother ... she was a wonderful inspiration in your acting career ... you can skip that part.”

“You are tough.”

“I gather your mother was working a lot when you were little?”

“I had a baby-sitter or day care.”

“Are you close with your mother?”

“Very.”

“When you were growing up?”

“My mom was working her head off to make ends meet like any kid, I was probably disappointed a little.”

“But you got over it.”

“Yeah. I wrote a poem about it.”

“Always embarrassing.”

“Especially when you quote it in junior college English class.”

“Can you still quote it?”

“No.”

“Come on. Your memory for scripts is legendary.”

“You would make fun of me.”

“Because you’re not a poet? No. Amateur poems can be very touching. I have a feeling about this one.”

“I do not believe this. You are beer and football. Maybe hot cars or hot boats and maybe ... maybe French restaurants where you order in French. You’re a man of contradictions. But I won’t stretch to poetry.”

“How about I’m a collector of information?”

“I see. Poetry as fact-gathering. That’s an emotionally challenged point of view.”

“Touché. Touché. What about your brother?”

“Jason departed my life shortly after my twenty-second birthday. There was a major fight. His wife was asking for custody of Grady, their baby girl, and I got into it on her side. I thought he was an arrogant bastard at the time.”

“You seem almost obsessed with saving your brother from his own decisions.”

“I am.”

“So when did you change your mind about him?”

“When Sydney, his ex-wife, told me that she had lied a little.”

“Now you lost me completely.”

“I’m too worn out to talk about such a heavy-duty subject. Your cuts look awful. I’m worried about you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what Jimmy would have said. Okay, back to you, Sam. You were married and divorced and you don’t want a repeat.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Kids?”

“My only son died.”

“I’m sorry. Do you talk about it?”

“No.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Friends who are girls but no girlfriend.”

“I see.”

“What about you? How are you and Lane Rollins getting along?”

“He’s kind, thoughtful, caring, and a great companion.”

“Doesn’t sound good.” He grinned.

“You see there? That grin. You’re a know-it-all arrogant bastard.”

“So I’m right.”

“How do you get that out of what I said?”

“You say more than is in your words.”

“I don’t know your name and you’re asking about my love life?”

They spoke of other things, and Sam revealed more than he intended, but he thought he managed to receive more information than he gave. Still, he did reveal that he was in the information business, and he knew that she was a perceptive woman and that she had an idea about him, and that for her and for this little game, that was something of a score.