Chapter 15

1

He watched the mountains outside the window. Some of their peaks clipped the clouds and he wondered if they had been given a taste of heaven. Would he?

            Through this port pass the best damn soldiers in the world. He’d let that idiom sink in. The guys all read it as they passed into the Japanese port at Sasebo. It was a sort of welcoming wagon after sixteen days on the choppy sea. He’d lost count how many times he got sick. Did it matter? He wasn’t alone. And maybe it wasn’t sickness but fear. Fear of what could happen. They told him—they, the titular they, those leaders, top brass, those men trying to gather about the wits of the peons confronting their mortality when the world should have just been blossoming before them—the ship was a World War II vessel built by Henry Kaiser’s Six Companies, which he’d found rather ironic considering the Liberty Ships were heavily torpedoed to hell by the Krauts. An engineer named Kaiser headed this effort to fight a fucking new age German Kaiser, ol’ Adolph himself. If he was going to find humor in anything, he’d find it in word games. He wasn’t sure if the guys in infantry would even get the joke.

            “It’s beautiful. In spite of what’s going on at the 38th parallel.”

            “Betty?” She was sitting across from him. The seats were uncomfortable. Rigid. And the train lurched this way and that. Getting to war was often as excruciating as the battle itself. The ship was one thing, but getting on this train in Pusan was another. And not even because they were closer to the Kumhwa Valley, where he knew he’d spend some time in the bush with a rifle on his back. It was because they were packed like cargo. Like things. “You’re not supposed to be here…”

            “I won’t tell if you won’t.” She smiled. A young Hepburn. The sunlight on her face gave her a sort of numinous quality, almost angelic. Her hair was pulled over on her left shoulder; she wasn’t wearing a uniform but a sundress, its white straps over sunburnt shoulders. Her eyes were so flirtatious. Always flicking back and forth between him and the window, the Korean horizon beyond that would see so much bloodshed. “It’s fruitless, you know that, right? Everything we’re doing here. In the end, the 38th will shut off to the world. So many will die. So many, Lew.”

            “What are you talking about?”

            “You’re in no condition for this.” She smiled, her full lips parting to white teeth. “The expectations you have of yourself, your duty, they’re being borne by a man far too old to accommodate his mind’s intent.”

            “I don’t understand, Bets, I don’t understand…”

            She nodded toward his hands, both folded on his lip. He was nervous. The anticipation that came combined with a full throttled thrust toward combat was enough to remind you the urge for greatness is sometimes just a mask over something far meaner. He looked down. He thought he’d find a young man’s hands, showing just a bit of use, the callouses of one who did some labor where he could find work. But the hands on his lap, they didn’t belong to him. Did they?

            They’re so old. And contorted. Like the roots of a tree that had started supplanting.

            “Christ, Betty…” He looked into the window. Not past it, not out into the great wilderness where the 14th Infantry would fight back the fucking Communist Chinese and leave the world in shambles, leave a people’s history a mere palimpsest of what once had been before ideologies grew teeth. Because they always do. What he saw in the window was his own reflection. His wrinkles. His hair, once so full, once so goddamn thick, was thin and white, as frail as the eyes staring back at him. “Oh my God. What happened to me, Betty? What happened?”

            “This. This already happened. All of this. You can dream about the war because you got home, Lew. But not everybody did. Don’t you remember the tears? You cried for a lot of friends. You lost a lot of friends. And I understand what you’re thinking now, I understand how powerful your beliefs are, Lew, I do, and I love you for it. I love you.” She leaned forward and touched his old hands, his incredibly used hands, and hers felt somehow alien. They weren’t as warm as he thought they’d be. They were cold. Lifeless. “But what you think you saw here and what you think you saw there,” she gestured toward the mountains, “is just your mind’s preoccupation with taking care of your family, and you’d do whatever you thought was right. You would. It’s why I ever married you.”

            “But Barb…”

            “The grand intentions are different than your own. Don’t you remember?” And for just that moment Betty lingered as she had once looked: the white sundress and those beautiful eyes, those wondrously curious eyes set in a lineless brow. But then her hair was gone. And those eyes, they were hollow and empty, staring at him like the pits of an ancient well, undiscerning and oddly terrible. Her collarbone was protuberant and jut like a granite brow in an abandoned quarry, those white straps of her dress having lilted and slid down the cragged edges of her arms. “We didn’t plan this either. We didn’t plan to lose Rose, and no matter how angry you got, nothing was bringing our baby girl back. Nothing. We didn’t plan this. My getting sick. They say we reap what we sow, but I don’t think that’s true. Or fair. Cause we reap what we’re given, and life is nothing if it isn’t a bastard.” She smiled. Her lips were still full but blue and cracked, her teeth dirty and scummy, like the inside of an old wash basin.

            They were pulling into a station. The train was slowing. The world was so quiet here.

            “Just go home, Lew, and let things lie. What happens will happen. Maybe I won’t be so alone up here. Rose needs a sister.”

            “No,” Lewis said. “I would have done anything if I knew it would mean your life, Bets. Anything.”

            Betty smiled, this older, sicker version of her still strangely beautiful. “I know, Lew. Rose and I both know.”

            “Then why stop me now?”

            “Because this place, Reedy Creek, it isn’t right.”

            And now Lewis saw the station’s platform. The sign above the benches read Reedy Creek, and there were cameras everywhere, cloaked some by the shadows but giving the convexed reflection of light that reminded him of a crow’s eyes. And there were children rushing to the side of the train, thin arms outstretched to reveal skeletal fingers, wide eyes reveling under bushy black manes. The kids were Korean. Lew remembered them. The beggars, those displaced kids who’d learned enough English to seek succor. Anything will do.

            “Orphans. All of them.”

            “I know. I remember.”

            “Look closer.”

            He saw them. In the fray. Adam and Patty. Adam was holding his brother. Patty was crying. They were alone. They looked at him through the window. Watched him with something close to hurt, and maybe now he understood. Maybe now he knew.

            “This is what you sow. You make this. You give this.” She was cross, and the boys only watched him as the train came to a sputtering halt, the sounds of its wheels cracking the rails like steady gunshots. Louder and louder and louder—

            He was in a cornfield.

            There were fireworks popping in the sky, their explosive cracks reverberating with a steady pulse. He’d fallen asleep. He looked down at his hands, lit in the downcast glow of the reds and oranges and yellows painting the tar-sky. Old. Used.

            And ready. Yes. It came down to that, didn’t it?

            If you’re wrong?

            “Then Betty will be happy.”

             The gun was on his lap.

2

Everybody was likely at the barbecue. He figured that was fine. Sitting to a drink alone might be nice. Might take the weight of the world off his shoulders for a bit.

            “Not big on the corn festivals either?”

            He finished his beer and gave her a look. He thought she might have been checking him out from the jukebox, swaying her denim hips to Poison.

            “Oscar, two more please.” She tipped the bottleneck toward him and the bartender nodded his head, throwing a rag over his shoulder. “Hope you don’t mind if I join you. Had to stretch out the legs after work.” She smiled. It was a beautiful smile, something he might have once been drawn to, but now she was almost a nuisance, somebody he would have rather nodded to and gone on with his night. “So, did you ever figure out the Nembutal caper? I don’t mean to be nosey, but I saw the Post this morning. I remembered Clayton coming to the General last weekend with the jitters. Sort of freaked me out.”

            “Still working on it,” Ned said, taking his beer from Oscar and nodding his head. “Thanks for the beer.”

            “You don’t come here often.”

            Only when I need to. He wanted to say that, he did, but it was only natural to court her a little bit for the drink. It was the nice thing to do. “I sometimes work night shifts. Can’t drink with the badge on.”

            “Shame. I love to dance.” Sarah Darling was a confident girl; she had every right to be, Ned figured. Her ass looked great in her Levi’s, and she showed just enough cleavage to ensure she wouldn’t have to spend much to get drunk. He supposed a town like Reedy Creek could be boring for a girl like her, who’d most likely scouted most of the talent. But he was new, wasn’t he? He’d come by the General in his uniform and she’d taken notice.

            “I love to watch,” Ned smiled. “Not much on my feet.”

            “I doubt that.” She touched his arm. She knew how to play the game. He could admire that. He hated that it wasn’t working on him; he hated even more what it meant. The more and more he dwelled on it, the more and more he felt guilty.

            There weren’t many people in the bar. Up the Creek. It was a clever name. Something Ned didn’t think Oscar had come up with. The bartender wore an old Dodgers cap and had grisly sideburns that looked as oiled as the barstools. If he knew anything, he knew drinks. How to serve them and how to hold his liquor. He kept his eye on Sarah. Most of the guys in the place did. All except one. Well, two if he counted himself.

            “Look, officer Ned. Cool if I call you that?” She was blushing. He wasn’t sure if it was an act, some sort of incredible control over her capillaries, or if she really was nervous about the approach.

            “Sure, Sarah.”

            “The fact you and I skipped out on the hurrah shit over on Deermont, that’s one thing; but to think we both ended up here is another. You ever hear of fate?”

            Ned nursed his beer for a moment and calculated her.

            “Stupid shit, I know,” she laughed. “Fate. But this town, this place, God Ned, I’ve wanted out for so long but the Creek keeps pulling me back in. Once I save enough I’ll go to uni in Cincinnati or Cleveland or even New York, the big city. But it’s nice to have fun while you’re still here.” She took a drink, staring at him over the upturned bottle. “Funny, I hate most of these Corners, hate ‘em. And yet I want to live with the bulk of ‘em in the city. I guess it’s context. Sorry, I’m talking your ear off. I do that when I get nervous.”

            “Every guy in here’s got his eye on you, Sarah. Every one of them.”

            “But I’ve got mine on you.”

            “That’s flattering.”

            “It’s the truth.”

            He wanted to look her up and down again, just to gauge if he was just being dumb. The drink sometimes did that to him, but he was just nursing his second bottle, and beer didn’t hammer him as badly as it used to. “Maybe not tonight, Sarah. I’ve just—my mind’s on other shit. Work. You know…”

            She smiled. Her cheeks flushed again and this time he knew she wasn’t controlling it. She was embarrassed. And he hated himself for it. “Hey, no problem, Ned. I get it. You’re a cop. Your story’s first page news in the Post. Look, I’m leaving you a standing offer,” she stood up from the stool and adjusted her jeans. “No pressure or anything.” She touched his arm again, silently nodded, and retreated back toward the juke where she’d most likely sway her hips while the rock blasted, hoping some cute single Creeker might wander in after the barbecue. Or, hell, she might even settle for a Corner. Maybe. After a few more.

            “Pretty thing, that one.”

            The guy sat next to Ned. He’d hoped he would, and maybe Sarah was the open door. Hell, Ned had followed the guy here. “She is.”

            “This is off the record, I hope. I understand formalities. I’m a doctor. But in plainclothes, I hope we can chat as strangers in a bar.”

            Norris Serkis was drinking Scotch. Ned had watched him order three already as he sat back at a table in the shadows. Ned wasn’t sure if the doctor noticed him. If he’d seen the cop at all as he tailed him from the clinic. But he was glad as hell the guy didn’t hit up the barbecue. Maybe they both, and Sarah, had something in common there.

            “Of course. Last thing I want to think about is work.”

            “Ain’t that the truth.” Norris clicked his glass against Ned’s bottle. “So, why didn’t you accept her offer?”

            “Pardon?”

            “I’m an observer of the human situation, and the culture of promiscuity courted by places such as this leaves me particularly fascinated by the exchange. Man and woman. Strangers maybe. Maybe not. But comfortable enough to participate in the act of seduction, no matter the darkness, the dinghy witness of a bartender with little desire to or evidence of looking into a mirror every once and awhile.”

            Ned chuckled. He checked Sarah out once more, watched her dancing at the juke with her eyes closed. Hell, she was beautiful. Norris was a handsome man. Maybe he should test his chances. “It’s not who I am, Dr Serkis.”

            “Norris. We’re in plainclothes here, Ned. I won’t call you officer, you don’t have to call me doctor. In fact, let’s forget you showed up at my place in uniform. The past is the past, and I’m more interested in the future.” Norris smiled. He is handsome. But his eyes were like glass. It could have been the lighting in this shithole, but there was something particularly hollow about them. Maybe he’s drunk. Or getting there.

            “To the future.” Ned offered his bottle again and Norris cheered him, finishing the rest of his Scotch and exhaling sharply.

            “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, Ned. Please don’t be offended if this comes off as rude. Reedy Creek is a new place for me. I’m used to a bigger pool.”

            Is he coming onto you? The thought wasn’t so strange; he didn’t get any vibes when he’d gone to Norris’s house earlier, but then he’d been surprised and defensive. Ned had more or less made him a person of interest. But he was a refined man. What most would call a gentleman, and Ned often wondered if that urbane refinement was correlated with different feelings of attachment.

            “She is beautiful and you said no. I don’t see a ring on your finger, and unless you’re the type who pockets his ring when he comes to places like this, I’m inclined to think you’re looking for something else. Somebody else.”

            Ned felt his face flush. He felt the nerves in his neck make his hair prickle; it was an exciting feeling. It was dangerous.

            “I am being forward. I apologize.”

            “No,” Ned said. He touched Norris’s hand. It was rested on the bar top; he felt an electric rush up his arm. “I…I like it.”

            Norris smiled. It was genuine. His glassy eyes seemed to warm for a moment, seemed to feel. “Good. That makes me happy.”

            “What does that mean?” Now the excitement was shooting other places, lining his veins with fire.

            “Strangers meet in a bar. Strangers become friends. The exchange occurs. Pleasantries, the act.” Norris’s hand was still inside Ned’s, clasped now, and he ran his thumb up Ned’s palm. Slowly but surely. “We have a choice to make here, Ned. Do we act, or do we play it safe? Say our farewells and return to our respective uniforms.”

            “Your place is close,” Ned said. Whispered. This was so new. Something about it felt wrong, but that seemed right. The paradox was exciting.

            “Yes it is.” Norris stood up. “So we act.”

3

Just north of the farmhouse. This way he wouldn’t have to wade through the animals. Wouldn’t have to see the birds he’d watched die in the middle of the sky above this place. The fireworks were waning and the crowd on Deermont was probably starting to disperse. He wondered if Allen regretted giving him the gun. He wondered if Allen suspected the veracity of his claims. But it didn’t matter.

            You can’t do this.

            He had to. He knew Betty didn’t understand. Hell, seeing her in his dream, seeing her in Korea before the shit went down, was its own sort of poetic justice, he supposed. He remembered lying in bed with her all those nights, trying to quash her curiosity about all he’d seen and, more importantly, all he’d done on that stage, but he’d learned to keep mum. But there were tears and she was always there to comfort him. Because no matter what, no matter how strong you were, the memories were enough to drown you.

            The back of the farmhouse was just as ramshackled as the front. The rear yard toward the corn fields, stretching a few hectares north where the silos towered over the trees, was a certified junkyard, with 50’s era trucks, some probably older, sitting up on cinders having been mostly stripped spare for the chassis and the peeling paint on the doors. A few animals found their graves here. Not as many as the front where the clearing had become a twisted memorial, a large open grave not unlike the shit the Soviets did to the kulaks and Ukrainians and Poles in the 30’s, the shit that so terrified the feds now about the encroaching presence of the Communist Menace. He’d read about somebody then, one of the chief executioners of Stalin’s NKVD, Vasily Blokhin; the image of his smug, almost vampiric face, seemed to arise from the idea that this place, this haunted place in Reedy Creek was actually something far different than he’d originally supposed. Because this was a place of death. He could taste it, smell it. The sense was in the air; the dreaded solace. It was similar to that reverent calm expected of a cemetery, the quiescent corridors between the tombstones that elected of one his better behavior because he understood the place offered a liminal doorway to the beyond. And that terrified most people. So maybe Reedy Creek had its own chief executioner like Blokhin, a guy who wore a leather apron before he put a pistol to the base of your skull so the blood wouldn’t get on his uniform when he pulled the trigger. These animals, more of them in a hole to the southwest of this place, just a few of the bodies that had begun piling up.

            Like Barb. Is that what you think?

            He ignored her. He ignored Betty and closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the gun in his hand; he hadn’t really held one since he was a cop. Hadn’t really wanted to. He touched his forefinger to his thumb instead. The tic.

            The lights were on in the house. It was strange to even consider this place was still on the grid, especially since the Creek power station had met a hefty upgrade upon the incoming migration of the Corners. Why any money would be spent getting this place electricity meant it served some importance. He looked through the back window. The new window, the pane clean and spared any soapy scum or errant bird shit that would have surely struck its surface over the many years since those pick-ups were brand new. He was looking into the kitchen; it was empty, but he could see some sort of movement by the porchlights through the opposite front windows. The windows through which he’d seen Vasily Blokhin the night the crows died. The night the man named Lazarus put a gun to his head and proved he was right about this place. Had to be right.

            He went around the side of the house. He could smell the animals now. Could smell their decomposing bodies. A part of him wanted to gag, but a stronger part somehow resisted. Because that’s how you survived. You made due when everything was shit.

            The kid was on the front porch. Sitting on a rocker. Rocking a doobie or cigarette; the organic putrescence would suggest the former, but Lew didn’t know anymore. He grabbed the bannister at the first set of stairs, feeling its splintery edges, hoping to God the thing didn’t groan as he settled his weight on the treads. But what did it matter? The surprise would be short-lived either way. He watched the smoke rise above the kid’s black hoodie, swirling in the porch light like a precipitous halo before disappearing entirely.

            Lew’s thumb hovered over the safety. He could really feel the gun’s weight now, its lifeless persuasion somehow speaking to him. Speaking through him. The deck boards creaked and croaked, but he moved fast enough to press the barrel of Webster’s loaner against the kid’s mane of long black hair.

            “Don’t move.”

            “Can I finish my drag?”

            “I don’t fucking care, Lazarus.”

            “That ain’t my name, ol’ timer.” The kid didn’t finish the blunt; he flicked it into the grove of desiccated bodies where it would smolder in the shadow of a badger whose still eyes would gleam its ember end. “You smart people with your nicknames. Why don’ you pull the fucking trigger and see if I rise from the dead. You cocksucker.”

            “I don’t know what to call you.”

            “You can call me what my mother did before she croaked. The pills, ya know. Henry. Any more than that will make us friends, and I’m not in the mood to shoot the shit with the heavy-footed fucker who put my van in the fill. Can I at least look you in the face, or you too cowardly?”

            Lew relieved the pressure on the gun, pulling it away from Henry’s head, wanting to swallow but knowing it would be dry and painful.

            The kid with the scarred face turned and looked up at him. “He said you’d come.”

            “Who?”

            “Do you really think we’re that dumb?”

            Lew looked at the open clearing at the foot of the stoop. Still aiming the gun. “You put a gun to my head, now I’m returning the favor. How’d you know my wife’s name?”

            “Look, I know a ton of shit. Comes with the territory.” He touched the scars on his cheek, the knotted skin that tufted his lips and heaped upon him the sort of scorn that most likely made him what he was.

            “Tell me.” Lew pressed the gun into Henry’s forehead. Same way the kid had in Lew’s Tercel.

            “Ok, Jesus. You’re an ornery old prick.”

            “I’m an ornery old prick at his wit’s end.”

            “I can dig it. That’s a nice gun. Glock?”

            Lew said nothing.

            “The Boss man’s interested in you. And he knows shit when he’s interested.”

            “You threatened her…” Now there was a grit to his tone. The real reason why he ever came to this place, why he ever negotiated—no, lied—his ass off to get this gun.

            “Who?”

            “When I hit your van…when I hit your fucking G20 and your fucking drugs that no cop will fucking touch, you threatened my baby girl. You threatened my daughter Barb.”

            “I didn’t threaten no Barb. I don’t know any Barbs, you barking bastard!” He pushed the hair off his face. “So man up and mark up the other side of my face, huh. Do it.”

            “You said I did this to her…you said it, and my fucking son-in-law told me my daughter has cancer. The same night. That’s not a coincidence. No…” And maybe now he understood what Betty was on about. How crazy he must have sounded. He wanted to drop the gun. To leave this place, to hold his baby girl and tell her he’d be there for her, tell her he knew everything.

            “Shit, ol’ timer, I only say what Boss man tells me to say.”

            “I don’t understand.”

            “Boss man brought me to Reedy Creek cause it’s ill. I get that. I see it. You do too, or you wouldn’t be here. But if you suspected this was any sort of surprise then you’ve got your screws loose. Boss man knew you’d hit my van just as well as he knew you’d show up tonight. He sees everything here. Everything.” He chuckled. “Boss man’s eyes are everywhere, and so is his voice. These words, they’re mine. Hallelujah. But that shit I said after you smoked my ride. Hell, Boss man told me to say that shit. He told me over the radio. Over the Beastie Boys. He can fucking talk to me over the radio. FM. Cool, eh?”

            Now Lewis did swallow. His stomach felt hollow and the sound of his throat moving the wad downward was irritating; his mouth was so goddamn dry.

            “Told me your wife’s name, too. Ex-wife? Or dead? Doesn’t matter, I guess. All I know is that you’re here, and on cue. Did you see the fireworks? It’s why I smoked up a bit. Makes them brighter. Realer almost.”

            “Shut up. Just shut up. Please.” Now his head was aching. It was the confusion, sure, but here was the convergence of a ton of information, enough to prove he’d stepped in the shit. Enough to prove Betty might have been right. Maybe he should have buried the gun when he woke up and walked home. Talked to Adam. Told the boy everything would be all right. But did he really believe that?

            “I get it, ol’ timer. You’re here cause you think he helps people. Shit, he helped me. Look at this. It’s all people see when I’m around. Scarface. It gets old, but you get used to it if you can shut out their voices. But he didn’t see my face, he saw past it and helped me. Gave me something to do.”

            “Made you Earl Cloven,” Lewis whispered.

            “What?”

            “Nothing. I just…”

            “You just need a drink? Need to sit down? Shit, you can do both. What’s your poison?”

            “No…your boss, the man who helped you, the man in the fedora, Vasily…I saw him. I saw him when the crows died…” His words seemed garbled. Maybe he did need that drink. Just to make sense of his own incoherence. Or at least justify it.

            “Vasily? I don’t think so. Sounds Russian. Guy is a Cold War junkie, but he calls himself Grimwood. That’s what I know to call him. To his face. To pricks like you, he’s Boss man. Cause Boss man’s why I’m sitting here talking to you by ol’ Rotting-Row.”

            “The animals…”

            “Oh yeah. Come here to die. I’ve watched them. It’s curious, isn’t it? I watched the bear waddle in and just lie down. Heard its last breath too. Boss man says it’s a nice place to die. Out in the open like that. Away from the road. Not me though. You don’t go to a graveyard to die. You go to a graveyard once you’ve died, dig it? But I’ve said my piece. You’re here because you want to be helped. Or that’s what you believe, right?”

            Lewis looked at the animals and then at the camera with the sheared cord. He thought of all the cameras. Boss man’s eyes are everywhere.

            “I want to talk to Grimwood.”

            “Thought you might,” Henry smiled. It was such a cold, almost lifeless grin; the sign of a horrific mask over an empty vessel. “Gotta admit, ol’ timer, I didn’t think you’d make it this far.”

            Me neither.

            “You here to save Reedy Creek, too?”

            Lewis only shook his head as the boy with the scars stood up from the rocker. He took out a set of keys from his pocket and went toward the front door.

            “I’m here to make a trade.”

4

Norris shoved him against the wall by the stairs just as they walked in; the door was still open, the porch visible where Ned had stood just that morning with the Post in hand and questions about the dead guy on the front page. That was forgotten now. Norris had kissed him twice in the car, pulling him across the gear shaft to taste his lips, but this was more forcible. The doctor’s hands combed through the back of his hair before pulling him forward, shoving his retracted shoulders against the wall and rattling a picture on the table.

            There was an odd sort of passivity about the man’s aggression; he’d apologized in the car both times after kissing him. Apologized for being forward. “I’m not usually like this. But I’ve been thinking about this since you came over.”

            And you have too, right? At least a part of you. Comparing him to Robert Redford, imagining him in that same Knights uniform the actor wore in The Natural, imagining those hands so deftly stroking the bat clawing at you with precarious impulsivity. That much was true. But anticipating this as a result of his following him around the Creek on Cole’s request was a tall order. He went to Up the Creek because he watched the doctor stride in, watched him sit at a table and order a Scotch. But a baser part of Ned wondered something else, wondered who was following whom. Because this man made the first move, didn’t he?

            Maybe he wanted to be followed. It was a strange thought. But Reedy Creek was a strange town.

            “I know I sound redundant, but I’m not like this.” Norris stared at him in the eyes, not blinking, serious and anxious. Maybe this was out of character. It certainly was for Ned. You’ve had these feelings for sometime. But you were always so afraid to truly act on them. Hell, it’s why you even left her—her, that beautiful little Melissa with the deep dimples whose smile, for the longest time, kept you warm when your soul was cold and questioning—to come here, to try your hand out on different pastures, even when your mom was so angry you wouldn’t be giving her grandchildren.

            No, she was angry because she suspected just what you were beginning to learn about yourself.

            “Me neither.” His voice was just a breath.

            “I need a drink. A stiff one. Forgive the joke.”

            Ned laughed. He felt free. For the first time that he could remember. And his duty to Cole now lay forgotten in what could be or what might happen here. There aren’t any cameras in here. Cole told you there weren’t any cameras in the homes of council members.

            “That would help,” Ned finally said. Taking in his surroundings. Seeing Norris’s place now without a door or a doctor in his way. The place was immaculate, with cornice mouldings capping the front room that had the opulent veneer of one with spirited and artistic tastes. The house seemed free of the burdensome tchotchkes in which his mom’s place was drowning, whether they were those collectable spoons from around the world hanging on cheap plush boards, spoons with the likes of Big Ben or the Eiffel tower, flashing a false sense of decorum tied to the ideals of European sophistication, or the tea cups adorned with colorful flowers that were never used but displayed.

            “You have a beautiful home.”

            “It’s the grand expectation, but an illusion all the same. The doctor prefix assumes one has class, so a doctor must assume the proper flourish.” His voice had come from the kitchen as Ned explored. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular. He didn’t know what to look for.

            Clayton Miller’s door was unlocked. He OD’ed on something only Norris could give him. He would have locked his door if he was shooting up some barbiturate; junkies do that shit to be alone, to dwell in their shame. Miller wouldn’t have let in his nosey neighbors on purpose.

            Norris’s briefcase was on the floor by the couch, nestled between the side table with the glass lamp, the copy of a book Ned would never read in a million years because he wasn’t a doctor. Didn’t want to be one, or think like one either. Really, right now he just wanted to hold one. He snickered. Because he wasn’t sure if hold was the right word to use. Maybe it would go further. Maybe he would test his own limits. The case had a latch. Ned knew it would. Probably full of prescription pads. Something a guy like Lazarus would love to get a hold of.

            Maybe you can just bring it up naturally. He seems into you. Enough to break the sound barrier and bring you into his home. Enough to kiss you, to taste you. Talk to him about the council. And maybe risk everything, the entire operation Cole was trying to build here? He didn’t think that was an option.

            What are his motives right now? You ever think of that? What does the doctor expect of this? A guy like that, as smart as he is, always has intent. Always. It was Officer Stevenson’s voice, the one of reason, because that’s what the badge was, no matter where in the world it was worn. It talked you out of tough situations.

            “I hope you like red. I’m not sure more Scotch would have been prudent for me. The last thing I want to do right now is sleep.”

            Norris walked back into the foyer carrying two glasses.

            “Would you like a tour? The question’s a formality. Some like to see homes, others couldn’t care less.”

            Ned took his glass. He looked into the wine, looked into its deep rubescent silk, like ribbon almost, and he wondered what all of this might mean. In the morning. If he should let down his guard. If he should close his eyes and forget Melissa’s dimples. “There’s only one room I want to see.”

            “Down to brass tacks. I like that,” Norris smiled. “Shall we?” They clinked glasses. The sound was elegant, and reminded Ned of his mom’s tea cups, so pristine and pointless, sometimes knocking into each other as they hung from their pegs, the sound oddly old and so brittle. Norris took a deep swill and carried the wine in his mouth, watching Ned.

            Ned drank. It was sweet and strong and acrid. He wanted to say oaky, but he didn’t really know what that meant. He wasn’t cultured. Not like Norris Serkis. Not like the man who would read Gore Vidal or Edward Said or whatever other critical theorist the man had lying around as if to pronounce his depth to the world. Or was it Gore Said and Edward Vidal? He didn’t know. Or maybe that memory, that sight, was far too muddled. You didn’t drink that much. Two beers and a few sips of wine. He wasn’t a light weight. He could almost hear his heart now. The fevered tattoo of a tribal drummer. Is it hot in here? Is that what it is? He thought he heard the air conditioning flow through the vents in that steady hiss of cool. He thought he had, but maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he hadn’t done a lot of things.

            “Is it Gore Vidal or Gore Said?” His voice was a murmur.

            “The former. Here, let me take that, I don’t want you spilling it on my hardwood. Red’s a bitch to get out.” Norris took the glass from Ned, and now he did feel some sort of numbness spread, could feel the lightness of his limbs, as if he was floating. As if the world was helium.

            “The farmer or former? Is that a riddle?” Ned laughed. The sound was airy, but the feeling was distant. As if he was watching himself in a play.

            Get out. Now. The cop voice. Now out. Geeeeeeeeeet.

            “You should sit down, officer. I don’t want you to bleed on my floor.”

            “Offices don’t bleed.” Ned laughed again. Language was so strange. Office and officer. Blood and bleed and bled. His knees buckled and he felt the world push him; he felt the helium leave in one enormous gust and he watched the doctor, he watched Norris as he fell and fell and fell and then the light was gone. For a moment.

            Get. Out.

5

His head. Yes. It was like swimming. Like holding your breath underwater. Feeling that pressure from all sides. But there was a blaring pain as well, something thudding at the base of his skull and reaching out with blind fingers.

            Beneath the pain was the frustration of trying to remember, trying to piece certain things together like a quilt. You don’t know how to stitch. He wanted to laugh, wanted to, but that sensation was lost to him. Now. Your head. Your goddamn head. What is that pulse, that thud, that goddamn pain? He went to cradle his temples with both hands. To apply some pressure.

            Only one hand came up.

            The other jerked forward and he felt a blunt edge against his wrist and the jingle of something. Metal maybe, like a coin purse? Opening his eyes now felt ill conceived; the pain of that thud coupled with any stark light would be enough to gnash his teeth into rounded nubs. He did it slowly. Cautiously. How much did you drink last night? He didn’t think that mattered, because this didn’t feel like a hangover. Not his usual hangover, at least. A few sips of orange juice and a light jog was enough to clear his mind, but now his left arm wouldn’t even cooperate. And the sound of that jingle, the feel of that cragged edge against his bone.

            It wasn’t bright. Not right now. He looked down. He was sitting on concrete. The slab was cool. His legs were splayed out, fuzzy at first, like the world through half-closed eyes, and then solid, emphasized against the cement in shaded outlines. Your left hand.

            It wasn’t his mobility. And a part of him thanked God for that. But the celebration was short lived. His hand was cuffed to the…furnace. Was that it? The other end of the bracelet dangled from the gas line. “Jesus,” he whispered. His voice sounded hollow. Not like his own. He tugged his arm, tested the restraint, and felt the cuff against his wrist, the slice of its edge precise and dangerous. “Jesus,” he muttered again, this time louder. A slight echo. He looked up at floor joists, unfinished wood with fleeced plumbing lines and heating vents; he saw boxes against the far wall, sheathed in sheetrock, the cloying dank one associated with subterranean tunnels, and somewhere a window, big enough to shoot beams of light through motes of dust.

            But there, on the floor and arranged with purpose, the subtlety of one who took pride in its pattern, was a plate and silver fork and knife (butter knife, its edge meekly serrated) set upon a pleated napkin, two rich yellow egg yolks mounded over frayed whites with two slices of what looked like crisp bacon. The smell suddenly hit him; he was hungry, but at the same time he was nauseous, wanting to tear into the food and vomit concurrently. The gesture was a kind one, he supposed. A crystal glass sat at the side with what looked like orange juice, and above that, set on the rim of the napkin, was a vase whose elegance matched the stem holding the juice, two flowers jutting out in a natural sway. He didn’t know what the flowers were. He didn’t really care. But they were a warm yellow, lighter than the yolks, pristine and innocent, indifferent to the handcuffs, the concrete and the boxes, the furnace and the man splayed in a V whose head blared with the constancy of an endless foghorn. They were a curious reprieve from the mystery. The fear.

            And there was a tape recorder. Sony. With a placard folded in half before it that read: GOOD MORNING OFFICER. Ned reached for it with his free hand, the movement sending more shards of pain into the center of his head. He could only bite his lip. There was a tape inside, its reels rewound to the beginning. He stared at the deck for a moment, still lost, still trying to re-gain something. Anything.

            And he pressed play:

            “Good morning, Friend of Dorothy. Did you know that idiom was born rather organically to euphemize homosexuality? When the act was confined to the shadows during its prohibition, men would seek such playdates by hearkening Oz, yes, for what fantasy would not equate its acts with the Lollipop Guild? But I digress. I do that often. You are probably wondering where you are and how you came to be there. I apologize about the theatrics. Perhaps I thought you would appreciate them. But you so obviously underestimated me. Us, I should say. You are waking up from something rather cliché; for that I apologize. I drugged you. Rohypnol. Two milligrams crushed rather convincingly into your red wine. I did not do anything to you. It wasn’t a conventional date rape; I’m not sure the tactic was required considering your amorous consent. I carried you into my basement. I was a gentleman. I have the key to your cuffs in my pocket. I am sorry I wasn’t there to say hello as you woke up. I do have a busy day. A very important meeting with the council, at that. We can discuss it later. I know you’d like to. We can discuss many things. You should eat. Think deeply about what you’d ask me. Because I have my own questions, Ned Stevenson. And I am a very patient man.”