Lewis Cole: Primary Storm Part 21

"That I will," he said, opening the door. "You just have fun not sleeping alone, all right?"

"Good night, Felix. You want I should walk you to the door?"

"d.a.m.n it, like I said, I'm not dead yet."

He slammed the door shut and maybe it was just the way the night had gone, but I did wait until he got up to the door and went inside, and the lights came on. He didn't need my protection or my backup, but still, I wanted to make sure everything was all right.

A h.e.l.l of a goal.

I backed out and went home. At home there were four messages on my answering machine, three from groups reminding me that in the event I had been living in my cellar for the past six months, that next Tuesday was indeed Primary Day, and that my vote was sorely needed so that the forces of darkness and Satan would not emerge to march upon the land, sowing war and pestilence in their path, or something like that. I deleted them all.

The fourth message was from Annie, and was to the point: "Lewis, you wouldn't believe how much grief I got from my bosses about your little dinner stunt tonight. In fact, Tom wanted to punish me by sending me up to Colebrook, right then and there, until cooler heads prevailed. So, yeah, your little dinner idea really caused some heartburn tonight. ... "

Her voice dribbled off some and I waited, not breathing, just listening, when she laughed and said, "And you know what? It was worth it, worth it very much. Thanks again. You're the best, my dear, the very best. Sleep well and I'll talk to you tomorrow."

I smiled at that and went into the living room, watched some of the late night cable news, and interspersed among all the talking heads, I saw a fresh clip of Senator Hale and his lovely wife, Barbara, at a campaign event way up north, in a mill city called Berlin. At the rally I saw the confident look of the senator, and the loving look of his wife, who was at his side throughout his remarks, and when that bit of political news was over, I shut the television off and went to bed.

The next morning I hesitated at the door, before embarking on my usual routine of getting my morning newspapers from Stephanie at the gift shop across the way. It had been my routine for months, and save for those times when the weather was really rotten, or I was ill, I had never skipped it, not once. But this morning was different. I wasn't sure if I wanted to be there, on the off chance of running into Chuck Bittner after our little adventure from last night. I was not sure how an encounter like that would be, but I had a feeling it wouldn't be a particularly cheerful one.

So maybe I wouldn't go today. Maybe.

I thought about it some more and then grabbed my coat. The h.e.l.l with it. I was going to keep to my routine and not let anything bother me. That was my decision, and shortly thereafter, I was trudging my way up the packed snow to the place where my newspapers awaited me.

Funny thing about decisions. The simplest ones sometimes can have the most deadly and far-reaching consequences, for if I had skipped getting the papers that morning, my, how things would have turned out differently.

So differently.

The gift shop was crowded and Stephanie had to wait on a practically UN General a.s.sembly of guests-I heard German, French, and something that might have been Korean-before she came to me. She looked around the store and smiled and said, "Tell you something, if you've got time."

"Sure, I've got time."

"Ever tell you where I grew up?"

I thought for a moment. "Someplace in Pennsylvania, I believe."

"That's one way of putting it. Yes, someplace in Pennsylvania. Foley's Corners. Tiny little place that shouldn't have existed, except there was coal in the hills, coal that was easy to get to. But by the time I came around, the coal was gone, the coal company was gone, and there wasn't much left for the people there."

Truth is, I didn't have that much time to talk to her --- I hadn't called Annie yet and there was still that d.a.m.n magazine column to finish, along with other pressing issues --- but this was the most Stephanie had ever said about her past, so I stood there, polite, and nodded in all the right places.

She went on. "Those people included my dad, whose own father and grandfather had managed to support a pretty big family on a coal company's salary. But by the time he got married and had me and two other daughters, well, jobs were mostly part time work, st.i.tched together here and there. Some fathers adjusted, some fathers rolled with the punches. My dad wasn't one of them."

She took a breath and I saw that her hands were trembling.

"My dad ... well, I don't know if it would have been different, if the coal were still there ... but all I remember are the shouts, the slaps, the broken dishes and the empty beer bottles, piled up in the rear yard by the toolshed. Lots and lots of empty beer bottles."

"Must have been rough," I said. "I'm sorry."

She nodded, bit her lip. "I'm sorry, too. Sorry that I'm going on so long, telling you this. But there's a point, Lewis, if you just give me a few more seconds."

"Absolutely."

"Point being ... Dad was a bully. And when he wasn't hitting my mom, he was. .h.i.tting me, or hitting my sisters. The hitting went on right up until I joined the air force, and when I came back from Texas, after basic training, that night ... it stopped. I dragged him out to the rear yard and I ... well, I made it stop. I know it sounds pathetic, a daughter beating up on her old, drunken father in the family's backyard, but I don't care. He never hit my mom or my sisters again. Not ever."

With that, she reached under the counter, pulled out my morning newspapers. This morning, unlike any other morning, they were folded over and held together by a rubber band. I left the money on the counter. She handed them over to me and I almost dropped them, from the unexpected weight.

I looked into her face, now content, now relaxed. "Lewis, I've always hated bullies, especially bullies who pick on women. And what you did yesterday for that college girl ... it was special. And I had to pay you back for it. Just so you know."

I hefted the weighted newspaper, my hand tingling with antic.i.p.ation, knowing exactly what was in there. "Stephanie ... thanks. Thank you very much."

She shook her head quickly. "It's nothing. I should have done it for you earlier. I really should have ... but I was scared. Scared like I was when I was a girl, before leaving home. And I don't like being scared like that."

I started out of the gift shop. "I'll get it back to you, soon as I can."

Stephanie smiled. "I know you will."

Chapter Fifteen.

If it wasn't for the snow and ice still on the ground, I would have trotted back to my house, but cracking my skull or losing the videotape in a snowdrift wouldn't have been too bright. So I took my time and I got into my home safely, dumped my coat on the floor, and was unsnapping the rubber band from the newspapers as I entered the living room. The newspapers fell away and there it was, a standard black VHS tape. I turned it over and there was a white label with neat printing --- PARKING LOT SURVEILLANCE -- followed by beginning and end dates. I turned on my television and VCR and got to work.

I was surprised at how easy it was. The view was of the parking lot, all right, in shiny black and white. There was a fishbowl effect with the lens, skewing the view at the edge of the screen. At the lower right hand side of the screen was a time and date stamp, which was helpful since it wasn't a continuous video. It was more like a series of snapshots, one every few seconds. But after a few minutes of rewinding and playing, I got it down to the moment that morning when Spenser Harris had made his last visit to my home.

I leaned forward on the couch, to get a better view, I suppose, and I let the tape play through that special morning. Everything looked quiet. Two sedans and an SUV were parked at the south end of the lot. Very normal. Very quiet.

There. Movement to the left of the screen, the north end of the lot, near my driveway, and I froze the tape. And shivered.

Sure. I recognized that figure, all right.

It was me, heading up to the Lafayette House to get my morning newspapers.

I don't know why, but seeing myself on the television screen, in not-so-living black and white, creeped me out. The little form there, in electrons and bits and bytes, that was me. Innocently going up to a hotel to get reading material, not knowing, not even imagining what was ahead of me. It was like a time machine, glimpsing back into the past. Almost as weird as seeing that tape of myself the other day, vomiting so magnificently in the parking lot of the Tyler Conference Center.

I shivered again, let the tape play through.

The electronic Lewis Cole left the screen. Another car parked. Then a white panel truck came in, parked at an angle at the north end of the lot, where my driveway was. A guy came out carrying a large leather bag. I remembered the truck. An electrician's truck, if I was right. Yeah. Some guy named Jimmy. Could Spenser and his killer have gotten to my house that way?

A few more frames clicked through. Nope.

A black car appeared, maneuvered its way to the north end of the lot. The car had black tinted windows. The way it was parked, the driver's side was obscured by the panel truck, but the pa.s.senger's side was clear enough. The door opened up.

And a living, breathing, talking Spenser Harris got out.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned," I whispered, leaning even the television. I reversed and played the tape again. A black luxury car, and Spenser Harris, stepping out.

So far, so good.

I let the tape play on.

Spenser leaned into the open pa.s.senger door, talking to the driver, it looked like, and then he stood up. The door was slammed shut. Spenser moved off to the left, disappeared from view.

I waited.

The phone rang, making me jump. I let it ring and ring and went back to the television, my own little time machine.

Even though it was partially blocked by the panel truck, the driver's side door then opened up. Somebody got out. A figure in a coat. That's all I saw. Couldn't tell if it was male or female. But the driver went to the left, too, following Spenser.

I waited.

Then the figure came back, opened the driver's door, leaned in and- Got in, closed the door.

But there was something there. I stopped, rewound, played. Stopped, rewound, played. And again.

The driver and no-doubt shooter was wearing a white trench coat of some sorts, the belt tied at the waist, and black gloves.

I rubbed my chin.

Couldn't see a face, couldn't see a head. Was there anything else?

I let the tape play again.

Oh yes, there was something else. Stopped, rewound, played.

And saw the car maneuver its way out of the spot by backing up, going forward, backing up, and then leaving the lot.

The car was now recognizable. It was a black luxury car, made in Great Britain, the latest model of the Jaguar XJ8, and I could see that the front license plate was New Hampshire, that it was vanity, and though I couldn't make out all of the letters, I was positive what the front plate said.

WHTKER.

I shut off the television, ejected the tape, and got the h.e.l.l out.

With tapes in hand, I drove south about ten minutes to the Tyler post office, where I mailed something out and then checked my incoming mail. My box was chock-full when I pulled it out, and I went over to one of the counters and sorted through everything. I had fourteen pieces of mail.

One was my checking account statement from the Tyler Co operative Bank, and another was a mailing from the National s.p.a.ce Society. The rest of the mail was brightly colored flyers divided as so: pro-Hale, pro-Grayson, pro-Hale, anti-Hale, anti-Nash, anti-tax, pro-tax, anti-gun, pro-Grayson, pro-Wallace, pro-gay marriage, and anti-Grayson.

I gathered them up and tossed them in an overflowing trash can, also filled with similar messages of democracy.

Just another day in the land of the first-in-the-nation primary.

North of the center of Tyler, Route 1 widens some, allowing a depressing series of mini-malls and strip stores to fester and take growth. Paula Quinn of the Chronicle once told me that it was like the malignancy that had grasped so many of Ma.s.sachusetts's North Sh.o.r.e communities had infected Tyler, and who was I to disagree?

Stuck between an auto parts supply store and a sub shop was a tiny place called Mert's Electronics, about a hundred yards north of Tyler center. Parking wasn't a problem so early in the morning and so early in the year, and inside the store, I breathed in for a moment, taking in the view and the scent. The scent was of burned wire and dusty radio tubes and old ways of communicating, and the view ... old television sets piled up next to CB radio gear next to cardboard boxes of circuit boards and radio tubes, and shelves and shelves of dusty gear that looked old when Marconi had retired.

At the rear of the store was a waist-high counter, and an older man was sitting back there, eyeing some papers as they came out of a computer printer, and he nodded at me as I approached.

"Lewis," he said.

"Mert."

Mert Hinderline was retired navy after thirty years in the service, with mermaids tattooed on his forearms as a constant reminder, and a ready smile and dapper little mustache that wouldn't look out of place on a 1940s film star. He was smart and affable and knew electronics, and his store wouldn't last anywhere else, I guess, except for Tyler and its collection of eccentrics. Like me.

"What can I do for you?" he said, putting another piece of paper down.

I held up the tape. "Need something duped. Two copies, if that's all right."

"The whole tape?"

"Just ten minutes' worth. Got it cued up right where I want it to start."

He held out a beefy hand. "Pa.s.s it over. Can do it right now and you can stick around as it dupes, if you'd like."

"Sure," I said, dragging over a metal stool. "I can wait."

He went to the rear of the store and out of view, and I heard movement and switches being thrown, and I looked to the printer, to see what he was doing. Next to the printer was an old Apple computer, and displayed on its monitor was a page of a Web site dedicated to a political action committee opposed to the current administration that used the words "storm trooper" and "fascist" and "book burner" a lot. The printer still ground along, and I saw what Mert was doing: He was printing off screen shots of the Web page.

Seemed like a waste of time and paper, and when Mert came back and said, "All right, ten minutes and we'll be through," I asked him about the printing.

"Looks interesting," I said, pointing to the stack, "but I never thought of you being interested in politics that much. Especially fringe politics."

"Oh. That." He scratched his ear and said, "I'll tell you, but you've got to promise that you're not going to laugh at me."

"That's not a problem, Mert," I said. "Last summer, when my VCR croaked, the manufacturer said dump it and buy a new one. You got it up and running again in fifteen minutes with a fifty-cent part. So, no, I'm not going to laugh at you."

Mert grinned and picked up another sheet from the printer tray, and put it in a separate pile. "I'm a volunteer. Belong to something called the Gutenberg Society. We're preserving our historical record for future generations."

"Oh."

Mert said, "I know what you mean by that. What does that have to do with printing off Web site pages and e-mails and other electronic stuff? Quick answer is, everything. You see, in this wonderful and wild electronic age we're in, it's actually easier to do research on the Eisenhower administration than this administration and its immediate predecessors. Too many doc.u.ments are now in an electronic format. The older presidents, they did everything on paper. Stored properly, paper can last hundreds of years. Electronic files? Who knows? There are gigabytes of information stored on electronic files that can no longer be read, because computers and their operating systems have surged ahead, leaving older files useless."

From beneath the counter he pulled out a framed photograph, a black-and-white picture of a young man in a sailor's uniform standing on a ship. He said, "My dad. Was a quartermaster aboard the USS Converse in World War II. A hundred years from now, this photo will still look like this. Same thing with my wedding day picture of me and Cathy. But there's color pictures of me, taken in the 1980s aboard my own ships, that have already faded and will be blank in fifty years. And don't get me going on digital cameras. All these wonderful photos, and who knows if they can still be viewed in ten or twenty years when new operating systems are being introduced."

I nodded. "Read something similar to that about authors and their books. Used to be, researchers could look in the papers of a writer from fifty or a hundred years ago. Could look at the various drafts, see the handwritten notes, the sections that were crossed out, the inserts that were made, and could see the process of how a writer reached the final version of a novel. But now ... so many authors edit on-screen, and make changes right up to when the book is finished, so all that's in the records are the final versions. There's no record of how the author got there."

"Exactly," Mert said, and he gestured to the computer screen. "So that's what we do in our little volunteer group. Digital information can be manipulated, can be changed, can disappear. So what we do, we make hard copies, as much as we can, so that future generations can have an idea of who we were and what we did. And not have to worry about the final record being cleaned up and edited."

From the back room came a ding as a kitchen timer sounded, and Mert got off his stool and went to the rear of the store and came back with three tapes. He handed them to me and I thanked him and said, "How much?"

"Oh, let's say five bucks for the cost of the tapes. Sound fair?" "More than fair. Sounds pretty d.a.m.n generous."

I handed him a five-dollar bill and he said, "Well, there was a discount. For two things."

"What's that?"

"For not laughing at me, and for listening to me." I picked up the tapes. "My pleasure."