Quicksilver, page 20
He passed rolls of hundred-dollar bills to us. I distributed five in my jacket pockets, and Bridget tucked five away in hers.
My moon goddess and I got out of the car, and I met her at Wallace Eugene Beebs’s sign.
As Sparky came around to occupy the driver’s seat, Panthea put down her window and said, “I’m pretty sure neither of you will die tonight.”
Although I knew she was capable of jujitsuing me into a human pretzel, she looked like such a tiny person there in the back seat, heartbreakingly vulnerable, as is everyone ever born. “Stay alert,” I urged. “Be careful.”
“I’m not saying that one of you won’t be grievously injured or seriously wounded,” Panthea explained, “but it’s most unlikely that you’ll die here tonight.”
“Thanks for the clarification,” I said.
Sparky got into the Explorer and pulled the door shut, and Panthea put her window up.
Bridget and I turned and stepped off the highway, into the autonomous zone, where the laws of the United States did not apply.
| 27 |
Bridget and I stayed off the unpaved track, proceeding overland approximately fifteen yards parallel to it, in case there might be sensors or a guard to alert Wallace Beebs that we were approaching. The terrain gave us little to use as cover; but we were wearing dark clothes, and the moon was half wrapped in ragged clouds.
“Mary Poppins?” I whispered.
“You can be my governess any day,” Bridget said, “and I’ll do exactly what you tell me. Thanks for backing me up on that bit about scaring Hakeem.”
After the downpour, I expected the ground to be muddy, but for the most part it wasn’t. I supposed this territory was essentially a sandbox, and water quickly drained through.
Now that the night was clearing, I wondered if seething swarms of spring insects would erupt into the air, as advertised, followed by a pandemonium of bats feeding in flight. Having been delayed by bad weather, maybe they would just say to hell with it and wait until tomorrow night.
As anticipated, the flats led to a long slope and a glen that lay about a hundred feet below. The floor of the vale wasn’t a realm of gravel stone and mesquite and sagebrush, as I had expected, but in part an oasis with palms and other trees, which must mean that an aquifer provided ample water effortlessly obtained.
Porch lamps and soft light spilling from windows suggested a prefab log house that looked no less out of place in this territory than would have an igloo. It wasn’t a weekend-getaway cabin but a sizable residence, perhaps as much as three thousand square feet. Like Hakeem Kaspar, Wallace Beebs evidently produced electricity with a sound-shielded propane-powered generator.
Moonlight shaped another structure about fifty yards from the first, although that one didn’t appear to be a house. As large as the residence, its lines simpler, at the moment without lights, it might have been a barn or a storage building, and it, too, was shaded by trees.
We descended the slope far enough to avoid being silhouetted against the sky, and then stood watching, listening. There seemed to be no jackbooted autonomous-zone police, no machine-gun emplacements protected by barbed wire, no slavering pack of attack dogs, not even a border checkpoint with an officious bureaucrat wanting to see a passport. As the trailing garments of the storm grew threadbare and the moon had greater influence on the glen, this unguarded compound—the quaint log house, the warm amber light in the windows, the grace of trees in an otherwise hard land—seemed to be nothing more than a retreat for an eccentric who sought refuge from the bustle and demands of our increasingly authoritarian society, a man who preferred seclusion and privacy, perhaps to meditate or to pursue some talent. He might be a painter, a sculptor, a sensitive poet. He might be a philosopher, seeking meaning in the quiet of nature, an Arizona Thoreau. Whatever he was, curmudgeon or gregarious bard of the Sonoran Desert, the sign at the entrance to his property made it clear that he had issues with authority, suggesting that he might be delighted to be overpaid for a vehicle and then fail to report it stolen for a week or two.
“Second thoughts?” Bridget asked.
“No. The sooner we have new wheels, the better. That other transport is still out there somewhere, and the weather’s making drones more likely.”
We walked down the rest of the slope and across the glen. The porch lamps seemed welcoming, as did a sign hanging above the top step—REMEMBER THE “KIND” IN HUMANKIND—and another sign above the front door—LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD—and an adage woven into the nubby material of the doormat—IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE LIVING LIFE IN PEACE.
I scrubbed my feet on the doormat. The doorbell push was aglow, easy to find even if the lamps had not been turned on, and I pushed it. A merriment of chimes arose in the house.
Although living in this lonely place and in a time when nowhere seemed entirely safe, Wallace Beebs came quickly in response to the bell and opened the door without giving us a lookover from one of the flanking windows.
Fiftysomething, tall and robust, stout but not excessively so, with long white hair and blue eyes and ruddy cheeks and Popeye forearms, he seemed to be the embodiment of hospitality when he spread his arms wide and smiled broadly and said, “Welcome to the Republic of Beebs!”
He wore a Tyrolean hat, a short-sleeve white shirt, a string tie, khaki shorts, white kneesocks, and saddle shoes.
“Mr. Beebs?” Bridget inquired.
“The one and only,” he declared. “President, vice president, speaker of the house, majority leader of the senate, secretary of the treasury, housekeeper, and cook. Who are you two magnificent-looking people?”
Before I could claim that we were Homer and Marge Simpson, Bridget said, “Mr. President, I’m Mary Torgenwald. And this is my husband, Bill. We hope it’s not too late for two heads of state to consult with you on a matter of great importance.”
He appeared to be a guy who was always ready for a bit of fun. “And what sovereign state might you be representing?”
“The autonomous zone known as Torgenwaldistan,” Bridget said. “It’s not as large and impressive a sovereign state as the Republic of Beebs. In fact, its territory is limited to a six-foot radius around each of us. However, we love our little country and will defend it at any cost.”
Whether Wallace Beebs merely chuckled or whether his chuckle became as gleeful as a chortle would be a matter of debate for a panel of linguists whose specialty was to interpret the nuanced meaning of such vocables, but I can say without doubt that Bridget thoroughly charmed him. He looked at me and said, “Bill, I hope you realize what a lucky man you are.”
“Sir,” I replied, “if I didn’t realize that, I’d be the biggest fool in the world, but I’ve seen enough of humanity to know that I’m probably not even in the top ten.”
His response to me was a mere chuckle, nothing as mirthful as a chortle. He stepped back and said, “Come in, come in. Join me in the library, and let’s discuss what unique bliss you’re seeking.”
The library was most likely the largest room in the house, about forty by thirty feet, entirely lined with hardcover books. A large sofa provided space for a man the size of Wallace Beebs to lie down. Four commodious armchairs, each with side rails crowned with the exquisitely detailed carved-wood heads of dogs, formed a circle with side tables.
Beebs directed Bridget to a chair that featured a pair of Great Danes and motioned me to sit under the beneficent smiles of golden retrievers, while he settled into the chair topped with two German shepherds. Surmounting the fourth chair were Irish wolfhounds.
I noticed that the legs of the sofa were carved to resemble the feet of a dog. Canines are toe-walkers, and the sofa appeared to be poised for action in case anyone threw a tennis ball.
“I see you like dogs,” Bridget said.
“I adore them, but I can’t have them anymore. Haven’t had one in years.”
“Allergic?” she asked.
“No. But Uncle Erskine is. His eyes swell, he itches all over, and in about a minute flat he goes into anaphylactic shock. As much as I like dogs, I owe more to Uncle Erskine than to all the canines who have been my boon companions, so I now lead a dogless life. It was Erskine’s idea to retreat here from the greed and narcissism that define our times.” He swept one arm in a grand 180-degree arc to suggest the world beyond the Republic of Beebs. “Uncle and I make a difference by being indifferent. We fully engage by retreating. We defend the truth by living a lie.” He made a fist of his right hand and raised it high. “We support social justice by being antisocial.” He leaned forward in his chair, lowering his voice as if imparting a secret. “We protest poverty by living well. And we champion freedom by providing folks like you with whatever you think makes you free.”
Because Wallace Beebs broke into a broad, sunny smile at the conclusion of that speech, Bridget and I smiled and nodded as if what he’d said was no different from the lessons in good citizenship that, while growing up, we had learned from the Muppets of Sesame Street and Mister Rogers of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Sometimes it is difficult to identify the border between mere eccentricity and craziness. As I tried to determine on which side of the line this man lived, I surveyed the impressive library. “You’re quite a philosopher. I guess that comes from being so well read.”
“Half of these volumes,” he said, “are in German, as I was on the ambassador’s staff at the American embassy in Berlin for nine years, and the other half are in Íslenska, the language of Iceland, where I served three other ambassadors over eleven years.”
Bridget said, “You must be the only person in Arizona who can read Íslenska.”
Collapsing back into his chair with a hearty laugh, Beebs said, “Oh, no, no, dear lady. I can’t read a word of either Íslenska or German. I don’t buy books to read them. I’m too busy for that.”
I was about to ask why anyone would purchase books if not to read them, when another man entered the library. He appeared to be in his sixties, as handsome as a movie star from the days when icons of the silver screen were often supernaturally good-looking. He had a full head of salt-and-pepper hair and blue eyes as clear as those of a newborn. With a face of symmetrical perfection and nobility, with the posture and grace of a trained dancer, he stepped into the room as though arriving onstage to perform in one of Shakespeare’s histories. His smile was less extravagant but warmer than that of Mr. Beebs, and in fact he had considerable charisma.
Wallace Beebs said, “Uncle Erskine, these young people are Bill and Mary Turgenwald.”
The uncle was such a presence that I found myself starting to get out of my chair to show due respect, but he said, “No, please, don’t get up,” and quickly settled into the remaining chair, under the carved heads of Irish wolfhounds.
He did not share his nephew’s tendency toward costume, but instead was dressed in black snakeskin loafers, soft gray slacks, and a black silk shirt.
Wallace Beebs slid forward in his armchair, so that his bare knees dimpled as though they were smiling at us. He regarded his uncle as a puppy might regard its beloved master. “Mary and Bill have come in response to our sign declaring our autonomy. I don’t know what they’re seeking. So far, we’ve just been having a nice little chat.”
“Although I didn’t hear a car,” said the uncle, “you aren’t soaked from the recent storm. So if you walked out of that dismal wasteland and through a storm without getting wet, I hope perhaps you’re mystical beings on a mission of great mystery. Things have been a bit dull here lately. We need some mystery.”
Bridget said, “I’m sorry to disappoint, sir, but—”
“If I may call you Mary, please call me Erskine.”
“Of course, Erskine.”
Wallace Beebs said, “You can call me Wally.”
“Erskine, Wally,” said Bridget, “I’m sorry to tell you, we’re no more mystical than two potatoes. We parked out on the road and walked in after the rain stopped.” She hesitated. “We’re taking a chance, risking a lot, by assuming that your autonomous-zone sign means what it says.”
“It means all that and very much more,” Erskine said. “Both as a reassurance and a warning, I must tell you that we are—shall I say—‘sanctioned’ by certain county authorities who understand the symbolic nature of our protest and the necessity of our mission.”
I took that to be a fancy way of saying that they had paid off the right officials.
“You appear to be sincere young people,” Erskine continued, “too young to be federal agents of any kind. I also do not believe you would want to cheat us in any transaction. I beg your pardon for suggesting even the possibility of such a motive.” He smiled more warmly than ever. “However, if for a moment you think you’re dealing with two vulnerable old men, you’re woefully mistaken. Should you attempt to harm us in any way, you will die either where you sit or before you can leave our happy home. Sadly, others have met that very fate. Do we understand one another?”
“Perfectly,” Bridget said.
The golden-retriever armchair had been wonderfully comfortable until I realized now that Beebs had specifically directed me to it. I wondered how it had been rigged to kill me.
“I hope you’ll forgive me,” Erskine said, “if it seemed that I threatened you, which was not my intention.”
Bridget matched his smile better than I could when she said, “Not at all, Erskine. We understand the difference between a threat and a helpful explanation of the circumstances.”
“Lovely,” he said, and he seemed to cast a blessing on us by making something like the sign of the cross in our direction. “Now to business.”
Bridget said, “We need a vehicle. We’ll pay a lot more than it’s worth. You wait two weeks and then report it stolen.”
“Are the police after you?” Erskine asked.
“We’re fugitives from a corrupt, oppressive system,” she said, which I thought struck the right note. God knows what I might have said if I’d opened my mouth.
“What have you done?” Erskine asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Bridget said. “If you sell us a vehicle, you’ll need to drive our Explorer miles from here and abandon it.”
“You need guns?”
“No. We have a friend waiting in the Explorer with guns.”
“You need drugs?”
“Thank you, no.”
“It’s perfectly safe to deal with us for anything, anything at all,” said Wallace Beebs. “How about ID in new names?”
“We don’t have time for that. So it’s just the wheels.”
Wallace regarded his uncle with the bright-faced excitement of a boy hoping to be taken on an adventure, and the older man regarded us with analytic intensity.
After a silence, Erskine said, “We believe that what little we love is defined by what all that we hate and how much we hate it. What do you think?”
“Hate makes the world go around,” Bridget said, and it was clear the sentiment was well received in the Republic of Beebs.
I had a lot to learn about deception from this splendid woman.
Erskine’s voice was as gentle as that of a truly caring grief counselor, his expression as kindly as that of a fairy godmother in a Disney cartoon. “Wallace and I believe that if you want to build something better, you must first burn down everything that exists.”
My fiancée smiled with tender malice. “Just give me the matches.”
Putting us through the perverse equivalent of an ethics exam, Erskine said, “History is the enemy of the future.”
Bridget called him and raised him one: “The past is a cancer that kills all dreams of progress.”
“Power is beauty, beauty power.”
Lifting her chin and thrusting her chest forward as if she took overweening pride in her beauty, she said, “Keats was such an idiot, confusing truth for power.”
We were all silent as Wallace turned his grin on his uncle, on Bridget, on me, and then on each of us again, clearly waiting for Erskine’s decision.
No doubt about it—we were across the border from eccentricity, in the mad kingdom of the Red Queen.
When Erskine finally spoke, he said, “We have now and then assisted others like yourselves, who needed a vehicle to get them safely into Mexico or Canada, something with no history and with what appears to be a genuine DMV registration. I can offer you a sixteen-year-old Mercury Mountaineer with no GPS, with legitimate plates. If you email me photographs of yourselves and your associate in the Explorer, I can in three days send perfectly forged passports to any mail drop you wish.”
“Not necessary,” I said. “We won’t be leaving the country.” Then I realized my presumption and turned to Bridget. “We won’t be leaving the country, will we?”
“We won’t,” Bridget agreed.
Erskine said, “The Mountaineer has a secret compartment for the transport of weapons and ammunition. If you want a backup arsenal, I can make you a package deal—the Mountaineer and guns.”
“We have a lot of great guns,” Wallace assured us.
Bridget put her hands together as you do when you’re praying, and she nodded at Erskine. “Thank you so much, padrino. But the Mountaineer is all we need.”
“Very well, then. Thirty-five thousand.”
“Sold,” I quickly declared.
“Forty thousand,” he said.
“Wait a second. We had a deal at thirty-five.”
Erskine smiled sadly at me and then with amusement at Bridget. “Mrs. Torgenwald, I recommend that you prevent your husband from playing poker.”
“Forty thousand,” Bridget agreed. “Give him twenty, darling, and I’ll give him the other twenty.”
“Please pay Wallace,” Erskine said. “My nephew takes such delight in counting money.”
Bridget and I got to our feet and together handed eight rolls of hundred-dollar bills to Wallace Beebs.
Remaining in his armchair, Erskine combed one hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, which was when for a moment it ceased being a hand and became an utterly alien appendage of six tentacles, each tipped with a wickedly sharp talon.
My moon goddess and I got out of the car, and I met her at Wallace Eugene Beebs’s sign.
As Sparky came around to occupy the driver’s seat, Panthea put down her window and said, “I’m pretty sure neither of you will die tonight.”
Although I knew she was capable of jujitsuing me into a human pretzel, she looked like such a tiny person there in the back seat, heartbreakingly vulnerable, as is everyone ever born. “Stay alert,” I urged. “Be careful.”
“I’m not saying that one of you won’t be grievously injured or seriously wounded,” Panthea explained, “but it’s most unlikely that you’ll die here tonight.”
“Thanks for the clarification,” I said.
Sparky got into the Explorer and pulled the door shut, and Panthea put her window up.
Bridget and I turned and stepped off the highway, into the autonomous zone, where the laws of the United States did not apply.
| 27 |
Bridget and I stayed off the unpaved track, proceeding overland approximately fifteen yards parallel to it, in case there might be sensors or a guard to alert Wallace Beebs that we were approaching. The terrain gave us little to use as cover; but we were wearing dark clothes, and the moon was half wrapped in ragged clouds.
“Mary Poppins?” I whispered.
“You can be my governess any day,” Bridget said, “and I’ll do exactly what you tell me. Thanks for backing me up on that bit about scaring Hakeem.”
After the downpour, I expected the ground to be muddy, but for the most part it wasn’t. I supposed this territory was essentially a sandbox, and water quickly drained through.
Now that the night was clearing, I wondered if seething swarms of spring insects would erupt into the air, as advertised, followed by a pandemonium of bats feeding in flight. Having been delayed by bad weather, maybe they would just say to hell with it and wait until tomorrow night.
As anticipated, the flats led to a long slope and a glen that lay about a hundred feet below. The floor of the vale wasn’t a realm of gravel stone and mesquite and sagebrush, as I had expected, but in part an oasis with palms and other trees, which must mean that an aquifer provided ample water effortlessly obtained.
Porch lamps and soft light spilling from windows suggested a prefab log house that looked no less out of place in this territory than would have an igloo. It wasn’t a weekend-getaway cabin but a sizable residence, perhaps as much as three thousand square feet. Like Hakeem Kaspar, Wallace Beebs evidently produced electricity with a sound-shielded propane-powered generator.
Moonlight shaped another structure about fifty yards from the first, although that one didn’t appear to be a house. As large as the residence, its lines simpler, at the moment without lights, it might have been a barn or a storage building, and it, too, was shaded by trees.
We descended the slope far enough to avoid being silhouetted against the sky, and then stood watching, listening. There seemed to be no jackbooted autonomous-zone police, no machine-gun emplacements protected by barbed wire, no slavering pack of attack dogs, not even a border checkpoint with an officious bureaucrat wanting to see a passport. As the trailing garments of the storm grew threadbare and the moon had greater influence on the glen, this unguarded compound—the quaint log house, the warm amber light in the windows, the grace of trees in an otherwise hard land—seemed to be nothing more than a retreat for an eccentric who sought refuge from the bustle and demands of our increasingly authoritarian society, a man who preferred seclusion and privacy, perhaps to meditate or to pursue some talent. He might be a painter, a sculptor, a sensitive poet. He might be a philosopher, seeking meaning in the quiet of nature, an Arizona Thoreau. Whatever he was, curmudgeon or gregarious bard of the Sonoran Desert, the sign at the entrance to his property made it clear that he had issues with authority, suggesting that he might be delighted to be overpaid for a vehicle and then fail to report it stolen for a week or two.
“Second thoughts?” Bridget asked.
“No. The sooner we have new wheels, the better. That other transport is still out there somewhere, and the weather’s making drones more likely.”
We walked down the rest of the slope and across the glen. The porch lamps seemed welcoming, as did a sign hanging above the top step—REMEMBER THE “KIND” IN HUMANKIND—and another sign above the front door—LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD—and an adage woven into the nubby material of the doormat—IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE LIVING LIFE IN PEACE.
I scrubbed my feet on the doormat. The doorbell push was aglow, easy to find even if the lamps had not been turned on, and I pushed it. A merriment of chimes arose in the house.
Although living in this lonely place and in a time when nowhere seemed entirely safe, Wallace Beebs came quickly in response to the bell and opened the door without giving us a lookover from one of the flanking windows.
Fiftysomething, tall and robust, stout but not excessively so, with long white hair and blue eyes and ruddy cheeks and Popeye forearms, he seemed to be the embodiment of hospitality when he spread his arms wide and smiled broadly and said, “Welcome to the Republic of Beebs!”
He wore a Tyrolean hat, a short-sleeve white shirt, a string tie, khaki shorts, white kneesocks, and saddle shoes.
“Mr. Beebs?” Bridget inquired.
“The one and only,” he declared. “President, vice president, speaker of the house, majority leader of the senate, secretary of the treasury, housekeeper, and cook. Who are you two magnificent-looking people?”
Before I could claim that we were Homer and Marge Simpson, Bridget said, “Mr. President, I’m Mary Torgenwald. And this is my husband, Bill. We hope it’s not too late for two heads of state to consult with you on a matter of great importance.”
He appeared to be a guy who was always ready for a bit of fun. “And what sovereign state might you be representing?”
“The autonomous zone known as Torgenwaldistan,” Bridget said. “It’s not as large and impressive a sovereign state as the Republic of Beebs. In fact, its territory is limited to a six-foot radius around each of us. However, we love our little country and will defend it at any cost.”
Whether Wallace Beebs merely chuckled or whether his chuckle became as gleeful as a chortle would be a matter of debate for a panel of linguists whose specialty was to interpret the nuanced meaning of such vocables, but I can say without doubt that Bridget thoroughly charmed him. He looked at me and said, “Bill, I hope you realize what a lucky man you are.”
“Sir,” I replied, “if I didn’t realize that, I’d be the biggest fool in the world, but I’ve seen enough of humanity to know that I’m probably not even in the top ten.”
His response to me was a mere chuckle, nothing as mirthful as a chortle. He stepped back and said, “Come in, come in. Join me in the library, and let’s discuss what unique bliss you’re seeking.”
The library was most likely the largest room in the house, about forty by thirty feet, entirely lined with hardcover books. A large sofa provided space for a man the size of Wallace Beebs to lie down. Four commodious armchairs, each with side rails crowned with the exquisitely detailed carved-wood heads of dogs, formed a circle with side tables.
Beebs directed Bridget to a chair that featured a pair of Great Danes and motioned me to sit under the beneficent smiles of golden retrievers, while he settled into the chair topped with two German shepherds. Surmounting the fourth chair were Irish wolfhounds.
I noticed that the legs of the sofa were carved to resemble the feet of a dog. Canines are toe-walkers, and the sofa appeared to be poised for action in case anyone threw a tennis ball.
“I see you like dogs,” Bridget said.
“I adore them, but I can’t have them anymore. Haven’t had one in years.”
“Allergic?” she asked.
“No. But Uncle Erskine is. His eyes swell, he itches all over, and in about a minute flat he goes into anaphylactic shock. As much as I like dogs, I owe more to Uncle Erskine than to all the canines who have been my boon companions, so I now lead a dogless life. It was Erskine’s idea to retreat here from the greed and narcissism that define our times.” He swept one arm in a grand 180-degree arc to suggest the world beyond the Republic of Beebs. “Uncle and I make a difference by being indifferent. We fully engage by retreating. We defend the truth by living a lie.” He made a fist of his right hand and raised it high. “We support social justice by being antisocial.” He leaned forward in his chair, lowering his voice as if imparting a secret. “We protest poverty by living well. And we champion freedom by providing folks like you with whatever you think makes you free.”
Because Wallace Beebs broke into a broad, sunny smile at the conclusion of that speech, Bridget and I smiled and nodded as if what he’d said was no different from the lessons in good citizenship that, while growing up, we had learned from the Muppets of Sesame Street and Mister Rogers of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Sometimes it is difficult to identify the border between mere eccentricity and craziness. As I tried to determine on which side of the line this man lived, I surveyed the impressive library. “You’re quite a philosopher. I guess that comes from being so well read.”
“Half of these volumes,” he said, “are in German, as I was on the ambassador’s staff at the American embassy in Berlin for nine years, and the other half are in Íslenska, the language of Iceland, where I served three other ambassadors over eleven years.”
Bridget said, “You must be the only person in Arizona who can read Íslenska.”
Collapsing back into his chair with a hearty laugh, Beebs said, “Oh, no, no, dear lady. I can’t read a word of either Íslenska or German. I don’t buy books to read them. I’m too busy for that.”
I was about to ask why anyone would purchase books if not to read them, when another man entered the library. He appeared to be in his sixties, as handsome as a movie star from the days when icons of the silver screen were often supernaturally good-looking. He had a full head of salt-and-pepper hair and blue eyes as clear as those of a newborn. With a face of symmetrical perfection and nobility, with the posture and grace of a trained dancer, he stepped into the room as though arriving onstage to perform in one of Shakespeare’s histories. His smile was less extravagant but warmer than that of Mr. Beebs, and in fact he had considerable charisma.
Wallace Beebs said, “Uncle Erskine, these young people are Bill and Mary Turgenwald.”
The uncle was such a presence that I found myself starting to get out of my chair to show due respect, but he said, “No, please, don’t get up,” and quickly settled into the remaining chair, under the carved heads of Irish wolfhounds.
He did not share his nephew’s tendency toward costume, but instead was dressed in black snakeskin loafers, soft gray slacks, and a black silk shirt.
Wallace Beebs slid forward in his armchair, so that his bare knees dimpled as though they were smiling at us. He regarded his uncle as a puppy might regard its beloved master. “Mary and Bill have come in response to our sign declaring our autonomy. I don’t know what they’re seeking. So far, we’ve just been having a nice little chat.”
“Although I didn’t hear a car,” said the uncle, “you aren’t soaked from the recent storm. So if you walked out of that dismal wasteland and through a storm without getting wet, I hope perhaps you’re mystical beings on a mission of great mystery. Things have been a bit dull here lately. We need some mystery.”
Bridget said, “I’m sorry to disappoint, sir, but—”
“If I may call you Mary, please call me Erskine.”
“Of course, Erskine.”
Wallace Beebs said, “You can call me Wally.”
“Erskine, Wally,” said Bridget, “I’m sorry to tell you, we’re no more mystical than two potatoes. We parked out on the road and walked in after the rain stopped.” She hesitated. “We’re taking a chance, risking a lot, by assuming that your autonomous-zone sign means what it says.”
“It means all that and very much more,” Erskine said. “Both as a reassurance and a warning, I must tell you that we are—shall I say—‘sanctioned’ by certain county authorities who understand the symbolic nature of our protest and the necessity of our mission.”
I took that to be a fancy way of saying that they had paid off the right officials.
“You appear to be sincere young people,” Erskine continued, “too young to be federal agents of any kind. I also do not believe you would want to cheat us in any transaction. I beg your pardon for suggesting even the possibility of such a motive.” He smiled more warmly than ever. “However, if for a moment you think you’re dealing with two vulnerable old men, you’re woefully mistaken. Should you attempt to harm us in any way, you will die either where you sit or before you can leave our happy home. Sadly, others have met that very fate. Do we understand one another?”
“Perfectly,” Bridget said.
The golden-retriever armchair had been wonderfully comfortable until I realized now that Beebs had specifically directed me to it. I wondered how it had been rigged to kill me.
“I hope you’ll forgive me,” Erskine said, “if it seemed that I threatened you, which was not my intention.”
Bridget matched his smile better than I could when she said, “Not at all, Erskine. We understand the difference between a threat and a helpful explanation of the circumstances.”
“Lovely,” he said, and he seemed to cast a blessing on us by making something like the sign of the cross in our direction. “Now to business.”
Bridget said, “We need a vehicle. We’ll pay a lot more than it’s worth. You wait two weeks and then report it stolen.”
“Are the police after you?” Erskine asked.
“We’re fugitives from a corrupt, oppressive system,” she said, which I thought struck the right note. God knows what I might have said if I’d opened my mouth.
“What have you done?” Erskine asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Bridget said. “If you sell us a vehicle, you’ll need to drive our Explorer miles from here and abandon it.”
“You need guns?”
“No. We have a friend waiting in the Explorer with guns.”
“You need drugs?”
“Thank you, no.”
“It’s perfectly safe to deal with us for anything, anything at all,” said Wallace Beebs. “How about ID in new names?”
“We don’t have time for that. So it’s just the wheels.”
Wallace regarded his uncle with the bright-faced excitement of a boy hoping to be taken on an adventure, and the older man regarded us with analytic intensity.
After a silence, Erskine said, “We believe that what little we love is defined by what all that we hate and how much we hate it. What do you think?”
“Hate makes the world go around,” Bridget said, and it was clear the sentiment was well received in the Republic of Beebs.
I had a lot to learn about deception from this splendid woman.
Erskine’s voice was as gentle as that of a truly caring grief counselor, his expression as kindly as that of a fairy godmother in a Disney cartoon. “Wallace and I believe that if you want to build something better, you must first burn down everything that exists.”
My fiancée smiled with tender malice. “Just give me the matches.”
Putting us through the perverse equivalent of an ethics exam, Erskine said, “History is the enemy of the future.”
Bridget called him and raised him one: “The past is a cancer that kills all dreams of progress.”
“Power is beauty, beauty power.”
Lifting her chin and thrusting her chest forward as if she took overweening pride in her beauty, she said, “Keats was such an idiot, confusing truth for power.”
We were all silent as Wallace turned his grin on his uncle, on Bridget, on me, and then on each of us again, clearly waiting for Erskine’s decision.
No doubt about it—we were across the border from eccentricity, in the mad kingdom of the Red Queen.
When Erskine finally spoke, he said, “We have now and then assisted others like yourselves, who needed a vehicle to get them safely into Mexico or Canada, something with no history and with what appears to be a genuine DMV registration. I can offer you a sixteen-year-old Mercury Mountaineer with no GPS, with legitimate plates. If you email me photographs of yourselves and your associate in the Explorer, I can in three days send perfectly forged passports to any mail drop you wish.”
“Not necessary,” I said. “We won’t be leaving the country.” Then I realized my presumption and turned to Bridget. “We won’t be leaving the country, will we?”
“We won’t,” Bridget agreed.
Erskine said, “The Mountaineer has a secret compartment for the transport of weapons and ammunition. If you want a backup arsenal, I can make you a package deal—the Mountaineer and guns.”
“We have a lot of great guns,” Wallace assured us.
Bridget put her hands together as you do when you’re praying, and she nodded at Erskine. “Thank you so much, padrino. But the Mountaineer is all we need.”
“Very well, then. Thirty-five thousand.”
“Sold,” I quickly declared.
“Forty thousand,” he said.
“Wait a second. We had a deal at thirty-five.”
Erskine smiled sadly at me and then with amusement at Bridget. “Mrs. Torgenwald, I recommend that you prevent your husband from playing poker.”
“Forty thousand,” Bridget agreed. “Give him twenty, darling, and I’ll give him the other twenty.”
“Please pay Wallace,” Erskine said. “My nephew takes such delight in counting money.”
Bridget and I got to our feet and together handed eight rolls of hundred-dollar bills to Wallace Beebs.
Remaining in his armchair, Erskine combed one hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, which was when for a moment it ceased being a hand and became an utterly alien appendage of six tentacles, each tipped with a wickedly sharp talon.
