Early Warning (59 page)

He was carrying a backpack, too, and another bundle, maybe a tent. Frank looked at his watch—nearly eight. He slowed his steps, let his quarry get farther away. At a stoplight, the girl, talking, stepped into the street. The boy's arm went out, automatically preserving her, as he looked both ways. She took his hand, and they obeyed the light, though no cars were nearby. Once across the street, they went along the side of a large brick building and stopped. The boy unlocked the door, pushed it open, and went inside, closing the door behind them. Frank made his way down his side of the street, crossed, took up his position. The building, an outdoor outfitter's store, was in the sunshine now, and he couldn't see much through the windows. He did see lights come on inside, he did see a man in a sweatshirt jerk on the door handle, rare back, look at the hours of operation, and turn and walk away. Nine a.m., probably. Frank went back to the Jerome and reserved his room for another night. His heart was pounding. Why this should be, he had no idea, except that it seemed to him a fixed and permanent truth that this kid was his, the son of Lydia Forêt. He picked up the phone again and dialed Arthur's number.

Arthur lived in Hamilton, New York, now, near where Hugh was teaching at Colgate, in a small apartment above some shops across from a park. Arthur didn't complain. Andy got him down to the city every so often, where she led him around art exhibitions and fed him. He was thin. That he was still alive Frank considered a miracle, but perhaps Arthur considered it a curse. He said he enjoyed his grandchildren.

He answered on the third ring, not “hello” or even “yes,” but a cough. Frank said, “How are you?”

“At the moment, vibrating with curiosity.”

“That I should call you on Lillian's birthday and wish you well?” That Lillian had been dead almost three years amazed Frank. If you saw someone born, you were not supposed to see them die, an entire life nested within yours.

“Tell me one thing I've always wondered,” said Arthur.

“What is that?”

“What was her first word?”

“ ‘Mama,' I'm sure. Isn't that standard?”

“No, think. I mean after that.”

“How old would she have been?”

“Frank, you have three kids and four grandchildren. Debbie's first word was ‘up!' Tim's first word was ‘kitty.' ”

“Or ‘titty,' ” said Frank.

Arthur produced his first laugh.

Frank said, “I do remember that her dolls were named Lolly, Dula, and Lizzie. She used to pat them on the back, then give a little burp, and then wipe their faces. She treated them very well.”

“Of course she did,” said Arthur.

“Of course she did,” said Frank.

Now came the time to not ask any questions about Arthur's spirits or his mental condition, so Frank said, “If I were to write down a license-plate number here in Aspen, how would I go about finding out the name of the owner of the vehicle?”

“It would take a day or so.”

Frank noticed that Arthur didn't say how. He said, “I'll call you. I don't want to send it by mail.”

“Are you afraid I'll wad up the letter and choke to death on it? The presence of the KGB in Aspen, Colorado, is intermittent at best.” Then, “I await your next communication with interest.”

“I'll call you later today.”

“Be sure it's from a pay phone, and people are least observant around lunchtime.”

At eleven-thirty, he wandered into the shop. He didn't see the kid. The fellow behind the counter was in his forties, balding, cheerful. And doing a good business—he kept ringing up goods, a hundred dollars, $270, is this really the vest you want? Frank moved into the footwear area, less suffocating. He passed the door to the stockroom and glanced in. There he was, shelving boxes of boots. Unencumbered, he was graceful, with a limber gait and a long reach. He was humming to himself. Frank turned an ear and leaned toward him, but he didn't recognize a tune. At that moment, the kid looked his
way and said, “Oh, hi! May I help you?” The smile came to his face as if it was second nature.

No, Frank thought. This was not his child. None of his children were this lacking in distrust. He said something about hiking boots. The kid glanced around, reached for a box. He said, “These are my favorites. What are you, about an eleven? These are Timberlands. They last forever.”

Frank sat down and let him kneel at his feet, slip on the reddish, heavy boot, and lace it partway up. He said, “I don't lace them all the way unless I'm hiking in pretty rough country, but they're great for stabilizing your step….” The patter went on. “They were eighty-five dollars, but I'm marking them down to seventy-five this week. In Europe, they're twice that. This is the last pair of elevens.”

“Okay,” said Frank.

“You'll love them,” said the kid. “Bob will ring them up for you. May I find you anything else?”

Maybe he was indeed the child of Lydia, kind, generous, who had accepted him, asked nothing from him, might indeed have been “Joan Fontaine,” a whore who had not stolen his money, had not had him shot, had not even kicked him out of her room when he fell asleep on the job. His mother had always professed to know where someone “had got that from”—every animal and human was a walking exhibition of traits inherited from Opa or Grandma Mary or, for goodness' sake, Cousin Berta, who ended up in the asylum in Independence, less said about that the better. Frank thanked the kid; got up and walked away from him, not even turning around, over to the cash register, where his boot box was tied with a string. Bob couldn't have been more friendly—was he new to the area, wonderful country, Bob himself came from Georgia, could you imagine that? Frank said, “Your salesman was very helpful.”

“Oh, Charlie? He's turned into a good boy. You should see him on a rock face. Yakking the whole time. Scary sight.”

“Risk taker,” said Frank.

“Good thing his parents live in the Midwest.”

“Oh, where?” said Frank.

“Kansas City, I believe. Well, wear 'em in good health. Thank you for your patronage.”

It was seven minutes past twelve. Frank stationed himself across the street, in the shadow of an awning, where he could watch both the front door and the side door. Sure enough, at twelve after, Charlie let himself out the side door and walked across the street to the nearby parking lot. When the car drove past Frank, he noted the Colorado license-plate number—FIL 645. Toyota wagon, light green, filled with equipment.

—

ARTHUR WOKE UP
, as he always did, just before dawn, though dawn at the beginning of December in upstate New York was at seven-thirty in the morning. Carlie and Kevvie would be eating their breakfast—no Frosted Flakes for them, not even Cheerios. Then they would be bundled in wool mittens, scarves, and hats, hand-knit by Hugh's mother (and beautifully done, Arthur had to admit). Debbie would walk them to the school-bus stop and wait with them there. Carlie was eleven and in sixth grade, and Kevvie was almost nine and in third grade.

The report was locked in Arthur's desk, even though he knew that the last place you should put something secret was in a locked drawer in your desk. But he wasn't keeping it secret from Debbie and Hugh, who would never investigate his apartment. Nor was he keeping it secret from Frank—he'd told Frank the bare-bones fact that this young man, Charles Morgan Wickett, age twenty-one (birthday June 4, 1965), adopted (through the Our Lady of Mercy Home, St. Charles, Missouri, on June 23 of that year), son of Morgan Feller Wickett and Nina Wickett, née Lewis, of 402 Tuxedo Boulevard, Webster Groves, Missouri, graduate of Webster Groves High School and Washington University (Bachelor of Science), and recipient of one speeding ticket (June 17, 1983, eighty-three miles per hour in a seventy-mile zone), employee of Owl Creek Outfitters, Aspen, Colorado, Social Security Number 499-78-5432, was not related to any woman Frank could have known. He was the son (he hadn't yet told Frank this) of Fiona Cannon, student at the time of the birth, at Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri. Arthur remembered Fiona perfectly well—a short, daring girl, a talented equestrienne, Debbie's great friend. What Arthur saw in the boy's driver's-license photo and the
high-school photo included in the report was not Frank, but Tim. The person he wanted to keep the report secret from was himself.

Arthur pushed the covers back, lay there for just another moment, then turned and put his feet on the cold floor. Suddenly he thought of his roommate, freshman year at college. He was from out west somewhere, and he had once told Arthur that his earliest memory was from when he was seven years old—only ten years before. Everything else was a blank. What was it a memory of? Arthur had asked. It was having some hash set before him for some meal, at the orphanage where he lived. Arthur, whose memories at the time were all too precise and abundant, had envied him. He remembered that envy now, and trailing behind it was another memory, of himself in the summertime, he must have been three or four, neatly dressed, sitting on the veranda of their house in Maryland (green mat underneath him, his legs pushed through the white posts, leaning forward, his hands gripping his bare knees). Walking down the street were three older boys. One was pushing a bicycle, another had two baseball bats, and the third was tossing and catching three balls as he walked. They were laughing. Undoubtedly, moments later, little Arthur was removed from the porch, so the memory was pinned into his brain like a photograph, emblematic of the moment he realized what he was missing, predictive of his future embrace of Lillian and Frank and the noisy, wild Langdons, who sometimes did what they were told, but always had something to say about it. Solitude was not good for him, and here he was again.

If Charles, or Charlie, as Frank had referred to him, had been born full-term, then he would have been conceived under Arthur's very nose, around the time Tim was heading off to the University of Virginia. That Tim had had a relationship, romance, one-night stand, episode of intercourse, whatever it might have been, with Debbie's adored—worshipped, he realized—Fiona both surprised Arthur and did not. Also in the report was some information about Fiona: Her name was now Fiona Cannon McCorkle, she ran a riding school with her husband, Jason McCorkle, in Pasadena, California. The McCorkles owed $126,000 on their house, a large sum, but maybe not for California. Jason McCorkle had been an alternate for the show-jumping team at the L.A. Olympics.

Arthur hoisted himself to his feet and walked to the window. The great attraction of upstate New York was bad weather—if not snow, then wind; if not ice, then cold; if not rain, then overcast skies. He had not been party to the negotiations that brought him here. Tina was in Sun Valley, Idaho, now, running a gallery, still making glass sculptures. Dean was in Yardley, Pennsylvania; he and Linda both had their real-estate licenses. Real estate, as everyone knew, was a time-consuming occupation.

Arthur didn't remember much about the fall of '64—that would be the point of his many shock treatments, wouldn't it? If Arthur were to tell Debbie about the report, she would insist on contacting Fiona. If the report stayed locked in his drawer, nothing would be set in motion.

Arthur turned from the window. The brass keyhole of the locked drawer sparkled. He looked away.

Over Thanksgiving, Frank had said again, “The resemblance was uncanny. When I watched Charlie walk down the street, I
felt
his gait in my body. If you saw this kid, you'd agree with me.” At some point, Frank would think of Tim, Arthur was sure of that—they had always laughed about how similar Tim was to Frank, especially as an ornery and determined little boy. Arthur shook his head. He had no rights over this young man, none whatsoever.

Coming up on three years now, since his life had ended. After Lillian died, he'd embarrassed himself thoroughly, but it was logical, really—if you would prefer to be dead, why shave, or wash, or sleep, or talk? Why take out the trash? Why eat, especially if you literally could not swallow, if your stomach clenched up and prevented entry, and the smallest items of food felt jammed in your lower esophagus, making you gag? Why not leave the doors of the house open even in the coldest weather, why not empty everything of everything—let the coal burn and the heat fly away and the mice and rats raid the larder, let the water run out of the sink and over the floor, let the lightning strike the trees and the lawn grow and the garden disappear in weeds. Let the fencing collapse. And so he had been taken in hand, and there was not so much pain now. Now there was simply nothing, more convenient for everyone.

But they had returned him to the childhood he'd made every effort to leave behind, including restricting his access to dangerous objects
like butcher knives and throw rugs. Was it like this for everyone when they got old? The phone was ringing now. It would be Debbie. Having gotten the kids on the bus, she would be calling to ask how he'd slept, what he was having for breakfast, what he planned to do today—would he like to come with her to the rec center and have a swim? The pool was warm. They could stop at the library on the way home, if he needed a book. She had been reading
Anna Karenina;
had Arthur ever read it? Did he think it was the greatest novel ever written? If Arthur remembered correctly, Tolstoy had written
Anna Karenina
in his late forties. Arthur was not interested in a novel someone had written in his late forties, and he suspected that if Tolstoy were beside him or, say, across from him, sitting on the rim of the bathtub, brushing his teeth, his beard to his waist, turning to spit down the bathtub drain, his hair in tangles, then hoisting himself, leaning to stare into the mirror at what he had become, he would agree. This is what they would do, he and Lev, they would creep down the stairs, making sure to hold both of the banisters. They would wince at the squeal of the front door as they opened it. They would stagger onto the street, turn right, and walk along, waving their arms. Passersby would avoid them.