The Collected Short Fiction, page 124
“Hmm. Fair enough. I could ring Custer or Pearson. Heck, I could deputize both of them for the day.”
“Look, you can’t trust anyone.”
“I don’t.” Newcastle stows the thermos and slides on his wool gloves. He unclips the twelve gauge pump action from its rack and shoulders his way out of the cruiser. The road is slick beneath the tread of his boots, the breeze searing cold against his cheek. Snowflakes stick to his eyelashes. He takes a deep breath and trudges toward the entrance of the Frazier Tower. The dark gap recedes and blurs like a mirage.
True Romance isn’t Deputy Newcastle’s favorite movie. Too much blood and thunder for his taste. Nonetheless, he identifies with the protagonist, Clarence. In times of doubt Elvis Presley manifests and advises Clarence as a ghostly mentor.
The deputy adores the incomparable E, so he’s doubly disconcerted regarding his own hallucinations. Why in the heck does he receive visions of MJ, a pop icon who fills him with dread and loathing?
MJ visited him for the first time the previous spring and has appeared with increasing frequency. The deputy wonders if he’s gestating a brain tumor or if he’s slowly going mad like his grandfather allegedly did after Korea. He wonders if he’s got extra sensory powers or powers from God, although he hasn’t been exposed to toxic waste or radiation, nor is he particularly devout. Church for Christmas and Easter potluck basically does it for him. Normally a brave man, he’s too chicken to take himself into Anchorage for a CAT scan to settle the issue. He’s also afraid to mention his invisible friend to anyone for fear of enforced medical leave and/or reassignment to a desk in the city.
In the beginning, Deputy Newcastle protested to his phantom partner: “You aren’t real!” and “Leave me alone! You’re a figment!” and so on. MJ had smiled ghoulishly and said, “I wanna be your friend, Deputy. I’ve come to lend you a hand. Hee-hee!”
Deputy Newcastle steps through the doorway into a decrepit foyer. Icicle stalactites descend in glistening clusters. The carpet has eroded to bare concrete. Cracks run through the concrete to the subflooring. It is a wasteland of fallen ceiling tiles, squirrel nests, and collapsed wiring. He creeps through the debris, shotgun clutched to his waist.
What does he find? An escaped convict, dirty and hypothermic, like in the fall of 2006? Kids smoking dope and spraying slogans of rebellion on the walls? A salmon-fattened black bear hibernating beneath a berm of dirt and leaves? No, he does not find a derelict, or children, or a snoozing ursine.
The Killer is waiting for him, as the King of Pop predicted.
Deputy Newcastle sees shadow bloom within shadow, yet barely feels the blade that opens him from stem to stern. It is happening to someone else. The razor-sharp tip punches through layers of insulating fabric, enters his navel, and rips upward. The sound of his undoing resonates in the small bones of his ears. He experiences an inexplicable rush of euphoria that is frightening in its intensity, then he is on his knees, bowed as if in prayer. His mind has become so disoriented he is beyond awareness of confusion. His parka is heavy, dragged low by the sheer volume of blood pouring from him. He laughs and groans as steam fills his throat.
The Killer takes the trooper hat from where it has rolled across the ground, dusts away snow and dirt, and puts it on as a souvenir. The Killer smiles in the fuzzy gloom, watching the deputy bleed and bleed.
Deputy Newcastle has dropped the shotgun somewhere along the way. Not that it matters—he has no recollection of the service pistol in his belt, much less the knowledge of how to work such a complicated mechanism. The most he can manage at this point is a dumb, meaningless smile that doesn’t even reflect upon the presence of his murderer.
His final thought isn’t of Hannah, or of the King of Pop standing at his side and mouthing the words to “Smooth Criminal,” eyes shining golden. No, the deputy’s final thought isn’t a thought, it’s inchoate awe at the leading edge of darkness rushing toward him like the crown of a tidal wave.
A storm rolls in off the sea on the morning of the big Estate Christmas party. Nobody stirs anywhere outdoors except for Duke Pearson’s two-ton snow plow with its twinkling amber beacon, and a police cruiser as the deputy makes his rounds. Both vehicles have been swallowed by swirls of white.
Tammy Ferro’s fourteen-year-old son Mark is perched at the table like a raven. Clad in a black trenchcoat and exceptionally tall for his tender age, he’s picking at a bowl of cereal and doing homework he shirked the previous evening. His mother is reading a back issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The cover illustration is of a mechanical heart cross-sectioned by a scalpel.
Tammy divorced her husband and moved into the village in September, having inherited apartment 202 from her Aunt Millicent. Tammy is thirty-three but can pass for twenty-five. Lonnie DeForrest’s appreciation of her ass aided her in snagging a job at the Caribou Tavern waiting tables. She earned a degree in psychology from the University of Washington, fat lot of good that’s done her. Pole dancing in her youth continues to pay infinitely greater dividends than the college education it financed.
She and Mark haven’t spoken much since they came to Eagle Talon. She tells herself it’s a natural byproduct of teenage reticence, adapting to a radically new environment, and less to do with resentment over the big blowup of his parents’ marriage. They are not exactly in hiding. It is also safe to say her former husband, Matt, doesn’t know anything about Aunt Millicent or the apartment in Alaska.
Out of the blue, Mark says, “I found out something really cool about Nate Custer.”
Tammy has seen Custer around. Impossible not to when everyone occupies the village’s only residence. Nice looking guy in his late forties. Devilish smile, carefree. Heavy drinker, not that that is so unusual in the Land of the Midnight Sun, but he wears it well. Definitely a Trouble with a capital T sort. He goes with that marine biologist Jessica Mace who lives on the fifth. Mace is kind of a cold fish, which seems apropos, considering her profession.
She says, “The glacier tour guide. Sure.” She affects casualness by not glancing up from her magazine. She dislikes the fascination in her son’s tone. Dislikes it on an instinctual level. It’s the kind of tone a kid uses when he’s going to show you a nasty wound, or some gross thing he’s discovered in the woods.
“He survived the Moose Valley Slaughter. Got shot in the head, but he made it. Isn’t that crazy? Man, I never met anybody that got shot before.”
“That sounds dire.” Guns and gun violence frighten Tammy. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever acclimate to Alaska gun culture. However, she is quite certain that she prefers grown men leave her impressionable teen son out of such morbid conversations, much less parade their scars for his delectation. Barbarians aren’t at the gate; they are running the village.
“It happened twenty years ago. Moose Valley’s a small town, even smaller than Eagle Talon. Only thirty people live there. It’s in the interior… You got to fly supplies in or take a river barge.” Mark isn’t looking at her directly, either. He studies his black nails, idly flicking the chipped polish.
“Gee, that’s definitely remote. What do people do there?” Besides shoot each other, obviously.
“Yeah, lame. They had Pong, maybe, and that’s it. Nate says everybody was into gold mining and junk.”
“Nate says?”
Mark blushes. “He was a little older than me when it all went down. This ex-Army guy moved in from the Lower Forty-Eight to look for gold, or whatever. Everybody thought he was okay. Turns out he was a psycho. He snapped and went around shooting everybody in town one night. Him and Nate were playing dominoes and the dude pulled a gun out of his pocket. Shot Nate right in the head and left him on the floor of his cabin. Nate didn’t die. Heh. The psycho murdered eleven people before the state troopers bagged him as he was floating downriver on a raft.”
“Honey!”
“Sorry, sorry. The cops apprehended him. With a sniper rifle.”
“Did Nate tell you this?”
“I heard it around. It’s common knowledge, Mom. I was helping Tucker and Hendricks get an acetylene bottle into the back of his rig.”
She hasn’t heard this tale of massacre. Of course, she hasn’t made many friends in town. At least Mark is coming out of his shell. Despite the black duds and surly demeanor, he enjoys company, especially that of adults. Good thing since there are only half a dozen kids his age in the area. She’s noticed him mooning after a girl named Lilly. It seems pretty certain the pair are carrying on a rich, extracurricular social life via Skype and text…
“Working on English?” She sets aside her magazine and nods at his pile of textbooks and papers. “Need any help?”
He shrugs.
“C’mon. Watch ya got?”
“An essay,” he says. “Mrs. Chandler asked us to write five hundred words on what historical figure we’d invite to dinner.”
“Who’d you pick? Me, I’d go with Cervantes, or Freud. Or Vivien Leigh. She was dreamy.”
“Jack the Ripper.”
“Oh… That’s nice.”
A young, famous journalist drives to a rural home in Upstate New York. The house rests alone near the end of a lane. A simple rambler painted red with white trim. Hills and woods begin at the backyard. This is late autumn and the sun is red and gold as it comes through the trees. Just cool enough that folks have begun to put the occasional log into the fireplace, so the crisp air smells of applewood and maple.
He and the woman who is the subject of his latest literary endeavor sip lemonade and regard the sky and exchange pleasantries. An enormous pit bull suns itself on the porch a few feet from where the interview occurs. Allegedly, the dog is attack-trained. It yawns and farts.
The journalist finds it difficult not to stare at the old lady’s throat where a scar cuts, so vivid and white, through the dewlapped flesh. He is aware that in days gone by his subject used to camouflage the wound with gypsy scarves and collared shirts. Hundreds of photographs and she’s always covered up.
Mrs. Jessica Mace Goldwood knows the score. She drags on her Camel No. 9 and winks at him, says once her tits started hitting her in the knees she gave up vanity as a bad business. Her voice is harsh, only partially restored after a series of operations. According to the data, she recently retired from training security dogs. Her husband, Gerry Goldwood, passed away the previous year. There are no children or surviving relatives on record.
“Been a while since anybody bothered to track me down,” she says. “Why the sudden interest? You writing a book?”
“Yeah,” the journalist says. “I’m writing a book.”
“Huh. I kinda thought there might be a movie about what happened at the Estate. A producer called me every now and again, kept saying the studio was ‘this close’ to green-lighting the project. I was gonna make a boatload of cash, and blah, blah, blah. That was, Jesus, twenty years ago.” She exhales a stream of smoke and studies him with a shrewd glint in her eyes. “Maybe I shoulda written a book.”
“Maybe so,” says the journalist. He notices, at last, a pistol nestled under a pillow on the porch swing. It is within easy reach of her left hand. His research indicates she is a competent shot. The presence of the gun doesn’t make him nervous—he has, in his decade of international correspondence, sat among war chiefs in Northern Pakistan, and ridden alongside Taliban fighters in ancient half-tracks seized from Russian armored cavalry divisions. He has visited Palestine and Georgia and seen the streets burn. He thinks this woman would be right at home with the hardest of the hard-bitten warriors he’s interviewed.
“Life is one freaky coincidence, ain’t it though?” She stares into the woods. Her expression is mysterious. “Julie Vellum died last week. Ticker finally crapped out.”
“Julie Vellum…” He scans his notes. “Right. She cashed in big time. Author of how many bestselling New Age tracts? Friend of yours?”
“Nah, I despised the bitch. She’s the last, that’s all. Well, there’s that guy who did psychedelic music for a while. He’s in prison for aggravated homicide. Got involved with a cult and did in some college kids over in Greece. Can’t really count him, huh? I’m getting sentimental in my dotage. Lonely.”
“Lavender McGee. He’s not in prison. They transferred him to an institution for the criminally insane. He gets day passes if you can believe it.”
“The fuck is this world coming to? What is it you wanna ask me?”
“I have one question for you.”
“Just one?” Her smile is amused, but sharp. It has been honed by a grief that has persisted for more than the latter half of her long life.
“Just one.” He takes the small recorder from his shirt pocket, clicks a button, and sets it on the table between them. “More than one, of course. But this one is the biggie. Are you ready?”
“Sure, yeah. I’m ready.”
“Mrs. Goldwood, why are you alive?”
Wind moves the trees behind the house. A flurry of red and brown leaves funnel across the yard, smack against the cute skirting. A black cloud covers the sun and hangs there. The temperature plummets. Gravel crunches in the lane.
The dog growls, and is on its feet, head low, mouth open to bare many, many teeth. The fur on its back is standing in a ridge. It is Cerberus’s very own pup.
“Oh, motherfucker,” says Jessica Mace Goldwood. She’s got the revolver in her hand, hammer cocked. Her eyes blaze with a gunfighter’s fire as she half crouches, elbows in tight, knees wide. “It’s never over with these sonsofbitches.”
“What’s happening?” The journalist has ducked for cover, hands upraised in the universal sign of surrender. “Jesus H., lady! Don’t shoot me!” He glances over his shoulder and sees a man in the uniform of a popular parcel delivery service slamming the door of a van and roaring away in a cloud of smoking rubber.
“Aw, don’t fret. Me and Atticus just don’t appreciate those delivery guys comin’ around,” she says. The pit bull snarls and throws himself down at her feet. She uncocks the revolver and tucks it into the waistband of her track pants. “So, young man. Where were we?”
He wipes his face and composes himself. In a hoarse voice he says, “I guess what happened in Alaska doesn’t let go.”
“Huh? Don’t be silly—I smoked that psycho. Nah, I hate visitors. You’re kinda cute, so I made an exception. Besides, you’re gonna pay me for this story, kiddo.”
He tries for a sip of lemonade and ice rattles in the empty glass. His hand trembles. She pats his arm and takes the glass inside for a refill. Atticus follows on her heel. The journalist draws a breath to steady himself. He switches off the recorder. A ray of sun burns through the clouds and spotlights him while the rest of the world blurs into an impressionistic watercolor. A snowflake drifts down from outer space and freezes to his cheek.
She returns with a fresh glass of lemonade to find the journalist slumped in the lawn chair. Someone has placed an ancient state trooper’s hat on his head and tilted it so that the man’s face is partially covered. The crown of the hat is matted with dried gore that has, with the passing decades, indelibly stained the fabric. A smooth, vertical slice begins at the hollow of his throat and continues to belt level. His intestines are piled beneath his trendy hiking shoes. His ears lie upon the table. Steam rises from the corpse.
Atticus growls at the odors of shit and blood.
Jessica gazes at him in amazement. “Goddamnit, dog. Now you growl. Thanks a heap.” She notices a wet crimson thumbprint on the recorder. She sighs and lights another cigarette and presses PLAY. Comes the static-inflected sound of wind rushing across ice, of snow shushing against tin, of arctic darkness and slow, sliding fog. Fire crackles in the background. These sounds have crept across the span of forty years.
A voice, garbled and muted by interference, whispers, “Jessica, we need to know. Why are you alive?” Snow and wind fill a long gap. Then, “Did you cut your own throat? Did you? Are you dead, Jessica? Are you dead, or are you playing? How much longer do you think you have?” Nothing but static after that, and the tape ends.
Intuition tells her that the journalist didn’t file a plan with his network, that he rolled into the boondocks alone, that when he doesn’t arrive at the office on Monday morning it will be a fulfillment of the same pattern he’s followed countless times previously. The universe won’t skip a beat. A man such as he has enemies waiting in the woodwork, ready to wrap him in a carpet and take him far away. It will be a minor unsolved mystery that his colleagues have awaited since his first jaunt into a war torn region in the Middle East.
She can’t decide whether to call the cops or hide the body, roll the rental car into a ditch somewhere and torch it. Why, yes, Officer, the young fellow was here for a while the other day. Missing? Oh, dear, that’s terrible…
“Jack?” she says to the hissing leaves. Her hand is at her neck, caressing the scar that defines her existence. “Nate? Are you out there?”
The sun sets and night is with her again.
Three years, six months, and fifteen days before Dolly Sammerdyke is eviscerated and dropped down a mineshaft, where her bones rest to this very day, she tells her brother Tom she’s moving from Fairbanks to Eagle Talon. She’s got an in with a woman who keeps the books at a shipping company and there’s an opening for an onsite clerk. Tom doesn’t like it. He lived in the village during a stretch in the 1980s when his luck was running bad.
“Listen, kid. It’s a bum deal.”
“Not as if I have a better option,” she says.
“Bad place, sis.”
“Yeah? What’s bad about it? The people?”
“Bad people, sure. Bad neighborhood, bad history. Only one place to live in Eagle Talon. Six-floor apartment building. Ginormus old tenement. Dark, drafty, creepy as shit. It’s a culture thing. People there are weird and clannish. You’ll hate it.”
“I’ll call you every week.”
Dolly calls Tom every week until her death. He doesn’t miss her calls at first because he’s landed a gig as a luthier in Nashville and his new girlfriend, an aspiring country and western musician, commands all of his attention these days.
