Butch Karp: Absolute Rage Part 17

"Yes. The sole advantage of getting drunk in rural surroundings is that you get to spend a lot of time lying on your back and watching the galaxies whirl around. You can tell yourself that you're small and meaningless and futile, which gives you an excuse for another snort. Not that you need an excuse."

Marlene went to the back door and snapped off the floods. Dan was on a stool with the phone clutched to his ear; she didn't disturb him but returned to the yard, where she found that Poole had settled himself in an aluminum lounge chair, staring at the heavens. The sky was still overcast, but the cloud cover was scudding, making holes for starshine. Marlene whistled up her dog, who arrived bounding, to be hugged and made much of.

"You should give a nice lick to Mr. Poole, Gog," she cooed. "He saved your bacon, didn't he? Yes, he did! He said you were worth ten thousand dollars. And you are, and more. Go ahead, give him a big kiss."

The dog licked Marlene instead, kissing on demand not being part of his extensive repertoire, and settled heavily under the hammock where his mistress now reclined.

Poole said, "Speaking of which, I expect that this evening's events have pressed home to you exactly what we're up against here with respect to our so-called justice system."

"Old Omar is bent, you mean."

"No, it goes far beyond that. Bent is a useful descriptor only when you have the idea of the straight. But there is no such idea hereabouts. You need to think about a little banana republic set among these misty peaks, except instead of bananas it's coal, and instead of United Fruit, it's the Majestic Coal Company."

"I know that's what you think, but I still can't understand why the state would allow it. Or the feds. I mean, we had that kind of thing in the South, and it got cleaned up twenty years ago, and the same with the bigcity machines and the Mob."

"Yes, but the critical thing there were complaints; people b.i.t.c.hed about it, the press was involved. You know the old joke about the kid who didn't talk and his parents took him to all kinds of specialists, and no one could cure him, and one day, the kid is about ten and he pushes his plate away and says, 'I hate spinach.' And his parents get all excited. 'You can talk! You can talk! Why didn't you say anything until now?' and the kid goes, 'Everything was okay until the spinach.' It's like that. The level of expectation is so low, and the level of terror is so high, that there are no complaints. Until Red Heeney, and you saw what happened to him. The first plate of spinach, though. Now you arrive and dragoon me into it, and soon your hubby will come with the full power of the state. It'll be interesting. I may even stay sober occasionally to observe the high jinks."

"You have no great hopes, I take it."

"Oh, I think we'll get the boys who did it, the actual gunmen. As you saw tonight, we're not dealing with criminal masterminds. Probably half the people in the county know who pulled the triggers or know someone who knows. They'll toss them in the pokey, and the next squad of villains will appear ready for action. There's a never-ending supply, like cans in a soda machine. The Cades alone must have a dozen or so fellows like young Earl, shambling horrors with their eyes too close together who like to hurt people. The system, though, our way of life-changing that is another kettle of fish. It's like the transition from a society that's essentially barbaric, and based on fear and force, to a civil society based on laws and rights. It usually takes a century or so, and even then it's fragile, as the recent century has so hideously demonstrated."

"Well, I can appreciate that," said Marlene. "I'm a kind of feudal person myself. Odd for a lawyer, but there it is. Dieu et mon droit, et cetera, and Sicilian plots and revenges."

Poole turned his head to look at her. "Are you? And your husband, is he feudal, too?"

"No, he's extremely rabbinical when it comes to justice. Never ever personal, which is why he's so good at what he does. The methodical, perfectionist approach. I tend to drive him crazy."

"That sounds dull for you."

"Mm. But sometimes I crave dullness. It's like roughage in the diet, bran flakes, no fun but necessary for the organism. There's such a thing as excessively interesting."

"What would be interesting is if you rolled over here and gave me a big kiss," said Poole.

"Is that in the nature of a proposition, counselor?"

"It is. Or maybe more in the nature of tapping on the gauges to see if there's steam. I can't remember the last time I was (a) alone with a desirable woman on a soft summer's night, and (b) conscious. It gives me goose pimples."

"I'm sorry I can't help you there, Poole, although I confess to feeling flattered, s.l.u.t that I am. And also let me say that while I have come real close in twenty-odd years of marriage, I have not yet slipped over the edge into infidelity."

"That's hard to believe. And you from the evil big city, too."

"It's hard for me to believe. And it looks like I will slide gracefully into the unattractive years with my honor intact. Maybe that's the upside of being a medieval-type person."

"Honor," Poole echoed, his voice sad and hollow. He lay back on the lounge and stared upward. "There's the Summer Triangle. Altair, Vega, and Deneb. Since you're not going to slake my l.u.s.t, why don't you fix me a little drink."

"I think it's coffee time," said Marlene as she rolled out of the hammock. "By the way, who's Commissioner Jakes?"

"Duane P. Jakes. One of our fine county commissioners of a few years back. He had this thing about the s.p.a.ce program. He thought it was making holes in the sky and changing the weather. Well, no harm in that. Duane was about average among our county fathers with respect to smarts, but the problem was he conceived the notion that the daily prop flight from Charleston to Knoxville was sent by NASA to spy on him. I mean, it stood to reason-the thing flew over his spread every day at about the same time, just when he was out feeding his hogs. So he started shooting at it with his rifle. The amazing thing is he actually hit it, so Omar and another deputy paid him a visit to get him to cut it out. Basically, it was a case of taking a rifle away from a loony old man, but Omar aggravated it into a real shoot-out. The deputy got shot, Duane got shot, and the town came in for the kind of publicity it would rather not have. I thought it wise to mention it in the present situation."

"It was, too." She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead before she left.

Dan was still on the phone when she walked in, and laughing. This was unusual enough to make her stop and stare. He saw this and brought himself under control.

"Here's your mom." He handed Marlene the phone. "It's Lucy." He vanished.

"I didn't know you were such a comedian," Marlene said.

"We were doing accents of weird people we know in Cambridge," said her daughter.

"For this you called in the middle of the night? Is anything wrong?"

"No, everything's dandy. We sold all the pups, and I got the Toyota running. Why I called is, I want to go on a road trip with the boys."

"To where?"

"Oh, I don't know, just around. I thought I'd take them on the car ferry to Bridgeport and see Tran and then maybe up to Boston, take them to the Children's Museum and Science Museum. I have a couple of things to do there anyway."

"How long would you be gone?"

"Oh, three, four days. They're antsy and it would do them good."

"And you love to drive."

"That, too. The car runs great. With the new tires it came in under a grand. I charged it to the farm."

"No problem. But, Lucy? When you get to driving, make sure your wheels don't turn southward. I don't want you and the boys down here. The situation is still too fluid. Did Dan tell you what went down just now?"

"Yeah. It sounds like something out of Deliverance . Do you think they'll try again?"

"Not in the same way. They're stupid, but not that stupid. You know your father is going to be playing Mighty Mouse in this cartoon?"

"Yeah, he told me. Are you going to come back when he gets there?"

"I don't know," said Marlene a little sharply. "It depends on the situation. Look, call me from Tran's or Boston or if you have any problems. Keep in touch. Meanwhile I have to go. I have to drive this guy back to his place."

"Okay, take care, Mom, and could you put Dan back on the phone?"

"Planning the wedding? I'd like to be involved."

"Mo-m."

"Okay, okay, here he is."

He had been hovering, and when Marlene handed him the cordless, he took it back to his bedroom. No, I will not hang around and listen in, she thought virtuously, and went off to pour the coffee.

"So," Dan said, "you checked in. Everything is approved?"

"Oh, yeah. I get a pretty loose rein. From her. My dad worries a lot more."

"Strange. It's funny. Mom always drummed it into us to let them know our plans, like if we weren't coming home for supper, or staying over. The other day, I drove out to Huntington to see a guy I went to school with and they asked me to stay for dinner and I said sure, let me call and tell them I won't be home. I had the phone in my hand, dialing."

Lucy had nothing to say to this that she thought would be tolerated by the other, so she stayed mum. He went on, "Could I ask you something dumb?"

"Sure. I'm an expert on dumb."

"Do you, um, believe in ghosts?"

"No."

"No? Why not? You believe in all that other supernatural cr-stuff."

"Because the spirits of the dead leave this world and other stuff happens to them. Also, it's insulting for you to imagine that, because I'm religious, I'm generally credulous or superst.i.tious. It's like thinking that rocket scientists ought to believe in flying saucers."

"I didn't mean that," he said quickly, with genuine contrition. "Sorry, really I didn't mean . . . it's just . . . I mean weird stuff has been happening. Like calling home. I have this feeling that I'll call and Mom will pick up. It sends chills down my spine. But, okay, night before last, it's late, I'm reading in bed, totally absorbed, and all of a sudden I felt this weird feeling, like being light-headed, like when you stand up too fast? And I just knew that Lizzie was in the room with me. She used to like to be with me while I worked, or read. She had some games she liked to play on my machine. And I knew that if I had turned around, she'd be there in her quilted bathrobe, sitting in my chair. I mean the sweat was popping out on my face. And just then the hard drive kicked in, and my heart practically stopped, it was like she was there playing a game. I was just getting ready to turn and look when it went away. I mean the feeling. G.o.d, I can't believe I'm telling this to anyone! Did you ever, ah, have one like that?"

"Oh, sure, all the time. That's not ghosts, though. It's what we call the communion of saints. It's part of the Apostles' Creed as a matter of fact. I used to have long conversations with St. Teresa of Avila."

"You're kidding."

"Uh-uh, no lie. Starting from when I was about eight. For a while, I thought everyone could. I could see her and hear her and smell her, even."

"What did she smell like?"

"Onions. And roses."

"You spoke to her in English?"

"Of course not. In sixteenth-century Castilian Spanish, lisping all over the place."

"Oh, right, you can do that whole language bit. So, what are you telling me. Lizzie is some kind of saint?"

"Not at all. We just think that there remains a connection open between people who have died and people who're still alive, and there's an unseen world that can touch us and that's just as real as the one we can see. It's pretty complex and we're not encouraged to speculate about it in detail, or to try to penetrate the barrier. But it happens, there's contact."

"You don't think it's simpler to call that kind of stuff hallucinations?"

"Yes, if your purpose is to defend simplistic materialism. But that's a choice; it can't be proven scientifically one way or the other."

"But Occam's razor-"

"Yes, yes," she said impatiently, "Occam's razor, don't multiply ent.i.ties beyond necessity, but that leaves open the question of what's necessary. William of Occam was a medieval churchman. He probably thought belief in the real presence was necessary, and certainly that G.o.d was. The bottom line here is that you've had an experience. You can call it an hallucination, which means that you consider that your brain is a machine with a screw loose, and that your sister is essentially erased from being, or you can believe that she still has her being in a state unimaginably different, but still real, and that your experience was also real, as real as the bed you're lying on."

"How do you know I'm lying on a bed?" he asked.

"Projection. I'm lying on a bed, so . . ."

"Gee, we're in bed together already, and we've barely met."

To his relief, after a brief pause, she laughed. "Yes, I'm such a s.l.u.t, but I can't seem to help it. Men with their insatiable demands are ever at my heels."

He laughed, too, and after a moment said, "So, will I ever see you again?"

"In real life? Yeah, we both go to school in Boston. We could probably arrange it."

"I mean before that."

"I'm working on it," she said.

10.

"M R. K ARP? I' M W ADE H ENDRICKS," SAID THE MAN IN THE AIRPORT lounge. "From the governor's office?" Karp shook the proffered hand. "I'll be flying down to Charleston with you. We figured I could brief you on the way."

Hendricks was almost as tall as Karp, but rangier, and although he wore a blue suit, a certain stiffness about his bearing suggested to Karp that he had spent a lot of time in a uniform. Hovering behind him was another man who was actually in uniform, the green of the West Virginia State Police. "Trooper Blake will take your bag," said Hendricks, and Trooper Blake did. They all walked out of the gate onto the blazing tarmac and up a boarding ladder into a white twin-engined propeller aircraft. The plane held eight large, comfortable first-cla.s.s-style seats, with the center four set opposite each other, so that the people sitting in them could converse face-to-face. Hendricks directed Karp to one of these and went forward through a curtain. Trooper Blake entered and sat in the rear. A uniformed woman came out from behind the curtain, closed the exit door, and popped behind the curtain again. The engines started with a cough and a whine. Hendricks reappeared, smiled at Karp, and buckled himself into the seat facing Karp. The plane taxied onto the runway.

"Is there a movie?" asked Karp.

"No, sorry," said Hendricks. "I got a copy of Wonderful West Virginia Magazine you could read, though."

"Maybe later. How long is the flight?"

"Well, it's four hundred and twenty-five miles as the crow flies, and that's usually about an hour and a half, but we've modified our flight plan to swing southwest, so you can see Robbens County from the air, low and slow."

"Will I be looking for murder clues?"

Hendricks looked startled for a moment and then registered that Karp had made a light remark. A slow grin spread across his face. "No, except maybe indirectly. The governor thought you might like to see what a strip mine looks like from the air, and also get an idea of the geography of the place. You being from away. You don't mind?"

"Oh, not at all. This is pretty exciting for me anyway. I don't get to fly much in private planes."

"No? Heck, most of the folks I see getting in the private jets and all look like lawyers."

"You might be right," Karp said. "I guess I'm not that kind of lawyer."

The engines roared, the plane sped down the runway and lifted into the air. Hendricks expounded on the virtues of the King Air 350, its comfort, its safety, its economy, its usefulness to the governor of a mediumsized state. Karp was not much interested in this palaver, but found the man worth study. Not the kind of face you saw much of in New York, but oddly familiar nonetheless. Karp recalled faces like that from the Sat.u.r.day-matinee movies of his childhood-ten cartoons and two westerns-the faces on the people who hung around with Randolph Scott and Hoot Gibson, lean cowboys, the cla.s.sic American stock, as alien as Martians to the little Italians and Jews yelling on the plush seats. He had the pale eyes, the small, straight nose, the lipless mouth, the strawlike hair. Karp saw him in a white hat. And a six-gun.

In fact, as he saw when Hendricks released his seat belt and stretched, there was a six-gun.

"You're a cop?" Karp asked, indicating the weapon.

Hendricks glanced down at his waist, as if he had forgotten it was there.

"Yeah, captain, state police. I should have said. Fact is, I'll be going down to Robbens with you."

"If I get the job."