Flamingo Lane, page 6
For the next hour nothing happened, not a single tremor of activity behind the windows of 1724. As the rain slackened, a rusty pickup swished down Tenth Street, a yellow tomcat darted through the wet weeds, a stooped old lady wearing an elaborate head scarf waddled across the road carrying a chafing dish, presumably bound for the corner market at the end of the street. And then, without warning, the front door swung open and Faye appeared, craning her neck to look up at the overcast sky.
Chance thought his heart might stop, his first sight of Angelina since she disappeared from the village four years ago generating a wave of emotions that threatened to drown him. Blind love. The familiar bile of bitterness. Regret. What a beautiful world we could have created. If only she would have accepted me for who I am.
He grabbed the binoculars and focused in on his quarry through the streaked windshield. She was as slender and willowy as ever, but this initial brief glimpse also revealed dark pouches of sleeplessness underneath her eyes as well as strings of uncombed hair spilling down the sides of a face which, in memory, never looked this solemn, never looked this sad.
A few minutes later Faye reappeared in the doorway. With a suitcase in her hand.
Chance flinched. A suitcase? A fucking suitcase? It was the last thing he had expected to see. Why was she leaving? And where would she possibly go?
Holding a folded newspaper over her head for protection from the rain, Faye scurried out to her mother’s car, flung open the hatchback, and shoved the suitcase inside. In response, Chance twisted the key in the ignition to activate the manic wipers, which immediately jerked back and forth. Rain pounded the hood again. The wipers cleared the glass. His fingers tapped the dashboard.
He needed to calm down, to reestablish control, to remember the principles of samadhi. Concentrate. Disallow distraction. Think it all the way through. She had decided to rent an apartment, a place of her own. Or she was going on vacation. Or she was checking into a detox clinic though surely, since she had been back in Terre Haute for a number of months now that had already been taken care of. Unless, that is, she had suffered a relapse. In the dark weeks following Angelina’s abrupt departure from the village, Chance had dabbled in a little heroin himself before enduring a debilitating afternoon of chills and cramps and suicidal fantasies when he quit. So it wasn’t hard for him to imagine how excruciating it must have been for her to kick a long-term habit. According to the rumor mill, in order to control his captive, Pablo Mestival had fed Angelina a daily diet of high-grade smack. Until she was all used up. Until she was too listless to perform for a camera or trick out to a friend. Until the drug lord decided that the wisest course of action was to cut his losses by selling her back to her family for what he considered a fair sum.
And then, when the rogue detective the Lindstroms hired to deliver the ransom decided to go cowboy on the deal, the cash exchange had turned into a bloody rescue instead, the man handling the transaction for Mestival, as well as the traitorous bodyguard Sanchez, left dead on the runway of a private airstrip slashed out of a jungle in Quintana Roo.
Not that Mestival, Chance suspected, had actually planned to let Faye go. At the last minute, after the ransom was secured, more than likely an assassin camouflaged by a mesh of trees at the edge of the airstrip had been directed to kill both Faye and her would-be rescuer. But something had gone wrong. And now a traumatized and embittered young woman with far too much knowledge of Mestival’s entire operation—the location of his safe houses, the identities of his most vital associates—was out there running loose.
After Faye hurried back inside Chance analyzed, in a lucid state of mind, the situation. Despite the mournful weather and the sudden change of plans, he felt better now that his initial jolt of panic at the sight of Faye’s suitcase had subsided. As he shut off the engine to wait for his quarry to reappear, he considered how the gods continued to shine down on him, continued to protect him, like a parent’s favorite son. For once again serendipity—one of their gifts—had opened a door of opportunity he was more than happy to pass through. If he had arrived in Terre Haute even a single day later, Faye Lindstrom would have already been gone and he would have been left with only one option: to return to Mexico and explain to Pablo Mestival that he had failed. But that hadn’t happened, and now he was free to shadow his target no matter where she chose to go.
Filled with newfound confidence he watched Faye, closely followed by her mother, descend the steps, carrying a handbag this time, and when Blanche’s Toyota Tercel pulled away from the curb he deftly backed up into the alley and headed north, avoiding the gauntlet of potholes. Pausing at the mouth of the alley, he glanced out the passenger window just in time to see the Tercel swing right onto Hulman, splashing through a puddle of rain.
After tracking them at close range for the first few blocks to gain a sense of Blanche’s driving habits, Chance slowed down, staying as far behind the Tercel as he could without losing visual contact. Then, maintaining this safe distance, he followed them up a ramp onto I-70 and settled in for a drive.
Now that the initial burst of adrenaline at the beginning of the chase had begun to wear off, he pressed the fingers of his right hand against his heart again, reassured this time by the slow, steady pulse. At ease, he casually regarded the rural landscape flowing past him, farm country on either side of the highway strangely soothing as it was not unlike the Willamette Valley of his youth. Freshly-plowed fields, old red barns, windbreak poplars. The pewter sky of his childhood. Horses grazing in the rain.
As the latest shower passed over the highway he claimed the center lane, letting his quarry drift out ahead until she almost disappeared. Because a man of his particular talents could tail a target on an interstate, especially an interstate like this one—sparse traffic, ample sight lines—in his sleep.
Corn silos, the flashing lights of an adult bookstore, a drive-in theater like the one in the first shot of Midnight Cowboy . . . Finally, on the outskirts of Indianapolis, thicker traffic clotting the road forced him to apply his skills, to smoothly maneuver from one lane to another to match the movements of his quarry. Flipping on his turn signal, he watched a 747 power through the clouds, steadily descending, and it occurred to him that Faye and her mother must be going to the airport. So he pressed down on the accelerator, swinging into the far right lane to close the distance between the two cars. Whatever else happened, he couldn’t afford to lose them now.
Melissa
At a bakery across the concourse from gate C12, Chance watched Faye hand the gate agent her boarding pass and disappear into the gloom of the tunnel. A few minutes later her plane taxied away, assuming its position at the head of one of the runways. Sipping a cup of lukewarm coffee and tearing off pieces of a stale bagel, he waited a while longer until he was certain that Faye’s plane had taken off.
In the parking lot he unlocked the passenger door of the Monte Carlo, flipped open the glove box, and grabbed the prescription vial of Xanax he always carried with him to combat his not infrequent episodes of melancholia.
When the middle-aged woman behind the ticket counter looked up from the update she had just been handed announcing the cancellation of a flight to Minneapolis, she saw a handsome young man with long blond hair ambling across the terminal, headed in her direction.
May I help you?
Good morn . . . I mean good afternoon.
Good afternoon. May I help you?
Well I hope so—he glanced down at her nametag—Melissa. I’m looking for flight, uh, ’scuse me a sec. Frowning, he fished in the pocket of his sweatshirt and retrieved a scrap of paper while Melissa gave him the once-over. Like many flyers who came through her line, he was dressed for comfort, just this side of slovenly. Corduroy slacks, a green Oregon University sweatshirt with attached hood, black Nikes. He squinted down at the scrap of paper.
So I’m looking for the gate for Flight 322. Wait a sec. Yeah, that’s it, Flight 322, Indianapolis to Atlanta.
Flight 322, Melissa hummed, glancing at her screen. Here we are. Flight 322, Indianapolis to Atlanta, gate C12.
C12? Great. Thank you! Chance spun around to leave but the agent’s voice halted him.
Hold on a minute, sir.
Yes?
I’m afraid that flight’s already departed.
What’s that?
Your flight. It’s already taken off.
It has?
At twelve-fifteen. Melissa tapped her screen with a red fingernail. Twenty minutes ago. I’m sorry, but that plane’s already in the air.
Chance grimaced. I am such a space cadet, he groaned. I must have written down the wrong departure time.
Well I’m sorry you missed your flight. If you’d like I could—
No, no, it wasn’t my flight, it was my sister’s.
Your sister’s?
Yeah, my sister’s. She stayed at my place last night—she always does when she flies out of Indy, she’s corporate you know—and the thing is . . . well the thing is she left her pills, her blood pressure pills. He fished through his sweatshirt again, this time retrieving the prescription vial of Xanax, which he rattled at Melissa then quickly pocketed.
Oh my.
Listen, I’m sorry to bother you like this, but could you check for me, make sure she got on the plane?
No bother at all. Melissa leaned over her keyboard, rapidly clicking keys. Your sister’s name?
Lindstrom, Faye Lindstrom, he replied, spelling the last name.
Oh yes, here she is. Faye Lindstrom, seat 16B. Indianapolis to Atlanta with a connection to Tallahassee. That the one?
When he heard the ticket agent say Tallahassee, a little light in his brain blinked on. Went dark. Then blinked on again.
Did you say Tallahassee?
Yep.
Well that’s the one alright. My sister’s company, they have an office there. He rapped the counter with his knuckles and flashed the ticket agent the inauthentic smile he saved for such occasions. Thanks, Melissa, you’ve been a big help.
Is there anything else I can do? We could call ahead and notify her if you’d like.
No, no, that’s all right, you’ve been very helpful. I’ll overnight the pills to Tallahassee. Or maybe she can pick up a refill down there. Anyway, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Gracias.
Tallahassee? The Florida panhandle? Driving back to Terre Haute, he considers the situation from every angle he can think of, convinced that he’s right. Who better for Faye to turn to at a time like this than a trusted old friend?
The next day, finished packing, he lingers for a few minutes at the window of his room at the Drury Inn. For the second straight morning the rain that streaks the glass pummels the cars in the parking lot. Yet in two or three days he’ll arrive in the sunshine state where, instead of slashing rain, he’ll be greeted by a horseshoe harbor shining in the sun, the open arms of a shrimp trawler draped with glistening nets, the antebellum neighborhoods he read about in Dieter’s book.
In the breakfast room, idly munching on a slice of whole wheat toast, he flips open a road atlas and traces his route. Kentucky. Tennessee. Georgia. The dreaded Deep South. The great confederacy. Dolly Parton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, pecan fucking pie. And finally Florida, the end of the proverbial line. Or if all goes well, he muses—and why would it not?—the beginning.
Dieter
On the drive from the airport in Tallahassee to Crooked River, Faye asked Dieter if he would mind going by the harbor when they pulled into town so she could compare it to the one she had read about in Fever Tree.
Only, he responded, if you listen to my standard disclaimer first.
Your standard what?
Disclaimer. You know, this is a work of fiction? Any resemblance to actual people or places is purely coincidental?
The writer’s mock-playful tone reminded her how much he used to enjoy this kind of banter; at one time so did she. That’s a good idea, she countered. I mean you wouldn’t want a reader to think that a novel about a guy named Dieter might be true.
Okay then! He licked the tip of his index finger and pretended to draw the number one in the air. Faye one, he announced, Dieter zero.
She appreciated the repartee. After a clumsy embrace at the airport they had strolled out of the terminal talking about what flyers and the people who picked them up at airports always talk about. How was the flight? Did you have anything to eat on the plane? Are you hungry? By acting carefree they had hoped to establish a pattern that would carry them through the day. Now was not the time to talk about Mexico. Now was not the time to talk about Jen.
She looked out the passenger window at a row of bee boxes in a dark patch of woods. Live oaks strung with garlands of Spanish moss, a murky stream wending through densely-timbered bottomland a few miles north of what the tourist brochures referred to as The Forgotten Coast.
So I’m guessing, she said, that you hear stuff like that all the time.
Stuff like what?
You know, people assuming that everything you write is auto-biographical?
Even though it’s fiction?
Right, even though it’s fiction.
She watched him bite his lower lip, shaping a response. He seemed more introspective than he used to be, less spontaneous, more guarded. She wondered if this, at least in part, was the price of fame.
I suppose, he eventually answered, that it comes with the territory.
And you’re comfortable with that? With people like me asking these kinds of questions?
People like you, sure. We’re old friends. But others?
Not so much?
Not so much, he admitted.
She had read somewhere that the press considered him a recluse. He rarely granted interviews, and when he did, his answers were determinedly concise. He wanted the books to stand or fall, he claimed, on their own.
The trouble is that some of my readers have the strangest connection with my characters, he resumed. They write these elaborate letters.
Connection?
Investment. They have this emotional investment in my characters even though they know I make them up. And then I fiddle with their presumptions.
By using real names.
By using some real names, he clarified. And some false ones. Some real places, some fictional ones.
And they resent that.
Dieter shrugged, genuinely befuddled.
And yet they still read your books!
I know! Go figure, right?
Faye’s sudden laugh startled her. When was the last time she laughed?
So why not make it easy on yourself, she suggested rationally, and use all fictional names, all fictional places.
Why not make it all up?
Exactly.
Because fiction, he explained, growing more expansive, is based on experience. On real life. And sometimes the line that separates the two gets a little blurred. Besides, he added with a boyish grin, I like puzzles, I like games.
Puzzles, games . . . There were times when she felt almost whole again. And other times when all it took was a word or two to plunge her back into despair. Mexico, she thought darkly, was the ultimate puzzle, the ultimate game, the ultimate mind fuck. You turned over a rock to plant an ocotillo bush and discovered a tangle of snakes underneath it poised to strike. And yet somehow you survived. In the distance she saw a bridge spanning the harbor and then, as they began to cross it, the spire of a church. And as the bridge lifted them up over the water a swell of energy forced her to grip the armrest to control her sudden fright.
The house was a two-story redbrick colonial located in one of the town’s most appealing antebellum neighborhoods, a row of classic southern homes Faye recognized, like the harbor, from Dieter’s book. Climbing out of the car, she was struck by a kind of literary déjà vu.
As he led her up the walk toward the four white columns that framed the front portico, he provided a brief history of the home. The original owner, he said, was a wealthy cotton merchant during the boom years before the Civil War. Which means, I suppose, that it was built with blood money. But hey, what are you gonna do? Maggie always loved this place—she grew up a block from here—and when she heard it was for sale, we immediately put in an offer.
He eased open the door to one of the upstairs bedrooms and set her suitcase down next to the bed. Out the window she saw a corner of the swimming pool, a slash of blue.
After Dieter excused himself and went downstairs, she put her clothes in drawers, on hangers, on shelves. Books on top of a roll-top desk. Then, in the adjoining bathroom, she splashed water on her face and brushed her hair and applied a faint streak of lipstick. Since she must look to Dieter like she’s aged ten years, the least she could do was make herself presentable.
A little weary from jet lag, she stood at the window looking down at the backyard where Sunny, the yellow Lab, slept in the sun while Dieter cleaned the grill of an adobe oven with a wire brush. Above the rooftops, a small plane floated by.
When she came out to the patio, Dieter asked her if she’d like to take Sunny for a walk. They could go down to the harbor. Or maybe she’d like to rest first? Take a nap?
I’m fine. I’d like to see the boats. And Sunny needs to get used to me, right?
At the end of the block, catching sight of the town plaza, she was struck once again by déjà vu. The long X of sidewalks crisscrossing the center of the square. The furniture store owned, in Fever Tree, by Maggie’s father. It all seemed so familiar, just as she had imagined it would be. The Gibson Hotel, Blue Moon Tavern, Delta Café: here they all were, straight out of the pages of a book. The only thing that seemed to be missing was Uncle Billy, the old black gardener. And the statue of General Lee.
As they approached the harbor, the sun hovering over the palm trees out on Christopher Key bathed the ships in the marina in buttery light. Dieter suggested a drink. Or coffee, he quickly added. Anything you want.
He’s trying to please me, Faye thought, but he isn’t sure how to do that, isn’t sure how much I’ve changed. He’s wondering if I still drink, still listen to Dylan, still on occasion flash that quicksilver wit, even drier than his, that forged our friendship in Quintana Roo. Smiling to reassure him that she wasn’t as fragile as he might assume, she switched the leash to her right hand and looped her left arm through his. She was so glad to see him. In the village, even in those halcyon days when there wasn’t much, really, to worry about, he had been her anchor. A drink, she said, sounds wonderful. A drink sounds great.
