Empty Places, page 3
CHAPTER 3
THAT NIGHT I HAD the dream again. I woke awash in sweat, my heartbeat threatening to smash my ribs from the inside. Gunfire echoed in my head and muzzle flashes seared my eyes. I’d had the dream many times in the past months, but its vividness never ceased to terrify me. It was made all the more horrifying knowing that the dream was not just a nightmare, but a memory.
I was walking through a small brick and clay village surrounded by lush yellow-green tropical forests. The air was hot and humid, so heavy I had difficulty breathing. I couldn't seem to catch my breath. Perspiration rolled off me in sheets, dripping from my hair into my eyes, burning them and fogging my vision.
I was straggling behind a squad of young government soldiers making a sweep of the center of the village. The village was in the heart of rebel territory, and the soldiers were making a house-to-house search for hidden guerrillas. They were angry and abusive; the day before they lost four comrades in a series of rebel ambushes to the north. On the outskirts of the village were more soldiers, and I heard occasional rifle fire. Smoke rose from one end of the village.
The soldiers found only young children, old men, and women of all ages. It was a classic sign of guerrilla support activity; the village's young men must have been away, fighting with the rebels. The soldiers became angrier.
I was alone. I had lost the band of reporters I came to the village with, and the soldiers didn't realize I was following several yards behind them. They moved so fast, and I was so slow in the thick air I feared I'd lose touch with them—lose touch with everyone, that I'd be left behind. My heart pounded, my throat was dry. I was scared to death, and drowning in the heat and humidity, and my own stinking sweat.
The women rousted from their homes were trying to stifle their own sobs while their children wailed uncontrollably.
Suddenly a figure dressed in white darted from one of the homes, something tightly clutched to the chest. The soldiers yelled, ordering the darting figure to stop. The runner turned down a small street, an alley really, and the soldiers followed. I ran behind the soldiers, lifting my camera to my eye and watching the scene through the viewfinder. Sweat stung my eye, and I had to blink repeatedly to keep a clear view of the soldiers.
I turned the corner and stopped abruptly. The soldiers had caught the runner, a young woman carrying a baby. The soldiers were shoving her and screaming, "Puta! Puta!" "Whore! Whore!" They seemed to be accusing her of being the woman of a rebel soldier. The woman was screaming and crying, hunching over to protect her baby. One of the soldiers knocked her down with his rifle butt. Another kicked her. She dropped the baby as she fell back against the wall.
I watched the scene through the viewfinder of my camera, frozen by both fatigue and the violence I was witnessing. Instinct alone kept me shooting pictures, the rhythmic click and whirl of the auto-winder smothered by the screams of the soldiers and their prisoner. As I photographed the beating, I realized the soldiers still didn't know I was behind them.
Finally, I released the shutter button and lowered the camera. I wanted to do something to stop the beating, but I was afraid. Scared to death. My mind stumbled over the fear.
Suddenly one of the soldiers raised his M-16 and fired at the woman. The impact of the bullet slammed her back into the wall. An instant later, all but one of soldiers followed suit, each firing their weapons into her prone figure. The bullets tore jagged holes in her body, and her white dress turned dark red with blood and ruptured flesh.
The soldiers stood around the corpse, viewing their work. They turned to the lone soldier who did not fire. I could read the expression on their faces. They wanted the last soldier to join in their rampage. Join us or the woman, their faces said. On the ground at their feet, the baby still wailed.
The last soldier pulled his bayonet from its scabbard and locked it onto his rifle barrel. I know what he's going to do, and I can't stop it, my mind screamed. I couldn't move but to raise the damned camera to my eye and press the shutter button again. The soldier turned to the child and thrust the blade into the small bundle. The baby screamed, then whimpered, then died.
In the sudden silence, the whirl of the auto-winder seemed to reverberate off the alley walls. The soldiers heard it and turned toward me. Only then did I see the battered face of the woman. Her eyes remained open and gaping at me, her mouth frozen in one last plea.
That's when the soldiers beat me and took my camera. That's when the dream ends abruptly, leaving my sleep shattered and my bed soaked with cold sweat. Only this time, the dream ended differently. This time the dead woman doesn't have the dark features of the campensina I saw murdered. This time, the woman was blonde and light skinned. A gringa.
This time, the woman was Robin.
✽ ✽ ✽
The pain in my head was the price I paid for the night before. The hangover exacerbated the pain from my head wound. I had only myself to blame. The doctor had warned me about drinking.
I rummaged through my suitcase and pulled on a pair of running shorts. I grabbed my bottle of painkillers, stumbled down the hallway into the kitchen and filled the coffee pot with water. Where the hell did Matt keep the coffee? I banged though cupboards and drawers and was ready to give up when Matt's voice boomed from his bedroom. "In the fridge, boy. In the fridge."
"What?"
"The coffee's in the refrigerator. That's what you're making all the noise about, right?"
I found the coffee and a carton of milk. While the coffee brewed, I took one of my painkillers with some milk, and hoped the protein would keep the codeine from making me sick. Then I sat at the breakfast counter, rested my head and prayed for forgiveness.
"Morning, lad." Matt padded into the kitchen wearing only shorts, his bare stomach bulging over the waistband. He rubbed both eyes with his huge fists, then popped them open wide and shook his head. "Brrllllgggg," he said, hunching up his enormous shoulders.
Matt took a can of beer out of the refrigerator, popped it open, and poured half its contents down his throat. Golden rivulets streamed down from the corners of his mouth. He wiped them away with the back of his hand. "The hair of the dog," he said with satisfaction. "Want one?"
I shook my head. "I think the dog that bit me had rabies."
Matt shrugged and repeated his chug a lug. He finished, crushed the can with his hand and tossed it in the waste basket, then took a giant mug emblazoned with the sheriff's logo from the cabinet. He poured some coffee and stood at the kitchen counter, pot still in hand, sipping the steaming brew. "What time is it, anyway?"
I squinted at the clock on the stove. "Nine. A little after."
"Funeral services begin at two." He sipped some more coffee, then topped off the mug. "You going?"
I didn't feel like going anywhere just then. "May as well," I answered, easing myself off the stool. The movement caused my head to throb. "The way I feel now, I might be needing an undertaker myself pretty soon."
"Why don't you take a swim while I build us some breakfast?"
Build was the word for what Matt did with breakfast. He seemed to take everything out of the refrigerator and the larder—eggs, sausages, peppers, canned sliced potatoes, and a dozen more seemingly incompatible ingredients—and dumped it all into the largest skillet I've ever seen. By the time I finished my coffee and felt the codeine kick in, the pyramid heaped in the pan was sizzling away. The smell made my stomach growl with the morning's first pangs of hunger. Matt hummed happily to himself as he sliced more ingredients, occasionally stopping to toss a morsel or two into his mouth.
Outside, the warmth of the morning wrapped itself around me like a soft blanket. There is a stillness in the desert air that is felt as much as heard. In the early morning the quiet is broken only by the chirping of a small bird, or the distant growl of an automobile engine. I slipped out of my shorts and walked into the water until it reached my chest. It was cool from the night before. My head started to clear as I swam several slow, easy laps on my back.
When I finished, I slipped my shorts back on and lay on the warm concrete, closed my eyes and listened to the silence around me. It lulled me into a half sleep. The sounds lightly rippling across the stillness merged with my dreams. The distant rumble of an automobile became traffic roar. The screech of birds became radio static. And the gentle breeze passing my ears became animated whispers.
✽ ✽ ✽
"Hey, boy, wake the hell up."
Matt's great foot nudged me in the ribs. I opened my eyes and blinked at the sudden brightness. Matt towered above me, sipping coffee.
"Boy, I been calling you for five minutes," he said. "Thought you might've drowned out here."
I shook my head. The pain was gone, but it took me a few moments more to remember where I was.
"Breakfast is ready," Matt said. "Come and get it."
I stumbled to my feet and staggered into the house. Two huge mountains of food rose from the breakfast counter. Tangled strings of steam rose twisted in the air-conditioned currents. The seductive smell of home cooked food brought me back to life. I sat in front of one mountain and dug in like some giant strip mining shovel.
"Thought you died out there, boy," Matt said, pushing a steaming forkful of food into his mouth.
"I was dreaming of Robin," I said. "About the first time we met." I chewed more of the breakfast, shaking my head. "Damn, it was real. Just like it happened."
"When was that?" Matt asked. I'm sure he knew.
"Must be five, six years ago now," I said. "I was covering a police action in The Springs. Some guy tried to knock over a restaurant on Palm Canyon after closing. The night manager triggered the silent alarm, and the cops closed in and sealed off the place while the SWAT team moved into position."
I mined more of the mountain's dwindling resources and chewed on it a while.
"That was when Robin was first starting out as a radio reporter, and this was her first police action." I shook my head and found myself smiling at the memory. "She was trying to interview old Bull Dog Jefferson—"
"Who?"
Sgt. B. D. Jefferson, I explained, was a huge black ex-Marine with two tours in Vietnam behind him, and whose fondness for reporters was only slightly less than his love of the Viet Cong. Unfortunately for those of us who covered the cop shop, Sgt. Jefferson was a watch commander. On the weeks he had the early morning shift, we had to deal with him in getting the low down on the happenings of the night before. Jefferson's usual greeting went something like, "What the hell do you want?"
No one knew what his initials stood for; we just called him Bull Dog because it fit. Of course, we never called him that to his face.
Jefferson preferred certain reporters to others, and I was on his good shit list. Bull Dog had a good idea what most of the reporters thought of him, not that he cared. One crummy morning, suffering from too large a hangover and too little sleep, I let him know exactly what I thought of him. He didn't care about that, either. But in his book, it was a ballsy gesture, and it earned his respect. After that, Jefferson and I got along pretty well, considering he was still a son of a bitch.
"Anyway," I continued, "Robin needed live quotes, and she was trying to interview Bull Dog. And Jefferson just kept giving her a hard time. He kept saying, 'They don't tell this nigger nothing, lady. They just let me wear the uniform to keep the ACLU off their backs.'"
Matt tried to stifle a laugh, his mouth full of food. He was only partially successful.
"Robin finally gave up. I think Bull Dog damn near traumatized her. I went over to him and asked with a straight face if he realized she was doing a live on-air report while she was talking to him. He almost had a stroke. Later on, I started talking to Robin—you know, explaining that was just the way Bull Dog treated everybody. Couple nights later, we had our first date."
"So, did they get him?" asked Matt.
"Get who?"
"The 211 suspect."
"Yeah." I washed a forkful of food down with coffee. "They smoked him out with tear gas."
"Good," said Matt.
CHAPTER 4
THE ONLY CEMETERY IN Palm Springs was built far outside of town, where the city fathers thought no one would ever want to develop. It was a symmetrical oasis of closely cropped, well-watered grass. High brick walls held back the dunes and scrub brush for years. But the barren waste land no one would ever develop was now being encroached by new islands of green with their own high walls. The country clubs grew closer with each year, followed by shopping malls and convenience centers. It was even money whether the cemetery would eventually become a golf course or a parking lot.
The cemetery chapel was nearly empty. A few people milled outside, fewer still sat in the pews waiting for the service. Robin's gray metal casket stood alone at the end of the single aisle, lit candles flickering at either end. No one but Matt and I seemed interested in looking inside the open coffin.
Robin was never tall. Dead, she looked smaller than ever. Everyone, it seemed, looked smaller in death, even the tallest, strongest man. The pomp and ceremony of all our burial rituals don't seem to change that.
The mortician had done his best to hide the blemish scars on Robin's face. He had done better than I recall Robin ever doing, and I resented that. It changed her face. I remembered the way it should have looked, the way it was as she slept, her mouth and nose twitching with dreams, the way it was when she smiled, a slight dimpling in her cheeks, and the way it was when gripped with passion.
I leaned into the coffin and gently kissed the cold, stiff skin of her face. "I'm sorry, Robin," I whispered to her. "I'm sorry for everything." I don't think she heard.
A tall, sickly thin man, remarkable only for the prominence of his nose and the fact he was probably the only person wearing a black suit in the middle of a Palm Springs summer, blocked my exit from the chapel. "Mr. Anderson?" he asked. The look on his face was a strange mixture of concern and nervousness.
"Who?"
"I'm so sorry," the thin man said, his eyes turning to the others in the chapel. "You were pointed out as the husband of the deceased, Mrs. Anderson. But I must have gotten you confused with another gentleman. Do you know Mr. Anderson?"
The thin man's eyes darted with what seemed like fear, and the nostrils of his massive hawk nose flared like those of a frightened animal. It was obvious he was the funeral director—that was the only sane reason for his choice of suit colors—and it was equally clear he was looking for me. I looked at the closed chapel doors behind him, then at Matt. The old bear just shrugged.
"I'm Miss Anderson's ex-husband," I finally said. "My name is Brandt."
"Of course," the mortician said. "TV people always use professional names. I'm terribly sorry."
"What is it, Mr.—?"
"I am Mr. Ramon." He held out a bluish white hand. It looked as cold and limp as a dead man's, but it was warm and moist with sweat. "Mrs.—Miss Anderson's television station retained my services to prepare your wife for her final farewell." He grasped my hand with his other. It was as soppy as the first. "May I express my condolences for your loss?"
"Thank you," I said. I pulled my hand away and stuffed it in my pocket, wiping it dry on the inside fabric. "But, Mr. Ramon, I say again: I am Miss Anderson's ex-husband. We've haven't been married for years. I'm here only to pay my respects."
"Oh, dear . . . I was hoping you could help me," Ramon said. His eyes darted nervously again. His tongue wet pale, dry lips. "We . . . we don't have any pallbearers," he finally said.
"Pallbearers?"
"Yes, and I thought . . . I was told, by Miss Anderson's co-workers, that you would help."
"Why not them?"
"They declined," Ramon said. "With reason, of course. One older gentleman had a bad back. Another gentleman said it would disrupt their shooting sequence for the cameras. One gentleman—I believe I've seen him on television reading the news—said it was too hot and he couldn't afford to sweat. Because of the cameras, he said. I'm sure they all had good reasons."
"Yes, I'm sure."
"If you and your friend, Mr.—"
"Banyon," I said.
"Mr. Banyon could help us, I think we could manage," Ramon said. "That would give us four pallbearers. You, Mr. Banyon, myself and my assistant."
I stared at Ramon. His eyes flashed back and forth without touching on mine. I looked at Matt. He simply shrugged and nodded. Ramon brightened before I could say anything.
"Oh, that's wonderful," Ramon said. "Then we can begin the services immediately." The funeral director turned back down the aisle. "Could you come this way, please?"
✽ ✽ ✽
I felt there were a thousand pairs of dark, penetrating eyes following every solemn step we took as we carried the casket from the car to the grave. But there were, at most, only a dozen such pairs to watch the process. The turnout for Robin's last sign off was light.
We placed the coffin on the lowering ramp, then stood back, hands crossed. A minister I was certain had never met Robin began the eulogy. I nudged Matt. "Where'd they get this clown?"
Matt shrugged. "Her TV station arranged everything," he said. "I think this guy has a Sunday morning preacher show."
"At least they paid for the funeral," Matt added.
"Don't give these vultures too much credit, Matt," I said. "It wouldn't do to have one of their reporters buried in a pauper's grave."
I nodded toward the cameramen.
“And they’re getting free publicity from it.”
When Robin and I first met, she was working part-time as a cocktail waitress. Her first radio news job paid less than part-time wages, and the night job kept her in rent and food money, and little else. I doubt her TV job paid that much better. Journalism wasn't known for big salaries, unless you were one of those talking heads called news anchors. In small markets like Palm Springs, even that job wouldn't pay well.
Those who had dutifully paid for their reporter's funeral were among the small group of mourners. The station manager was there. Short and fat and dressed in a dark suit, I recognized him from the editorials he occasionally aired. I knew the news director, too, a former network reporter who took the slide down to local stations and was never able to fight his way back up.
