Go With Me (9 page)

The man at the credenza was middle-sized. He wore a brown leather jacket. He had a round, bewildered face, and he stared at them as though he weren’t fully awake and responded to what was said to him only after a certain delay, as though he had to wait for a translation. He smoked his cigarette.

“They’re looking for Blackway,” Stu said again.

“Blackway isn’t here,” said the seated man.

“You know where we can find him?” Lester asked.

The man who had gone next door to quiet the crazy woman came back into the room and took his place by the door.

The sleepy man at the credenza gazed at Lester, but he didn’t reply.

“You know where Blackway is?” Lester asked him again.

The man shook his head slowly from side to side. “You know them, at all?” he asked Stu.

“I know him,” said Stu, looking at Lester. “Sure.”

“Her?” the man at the credenza asked.

“No,” said Stu. “Could get to know her, though.”

The man in the corner grinned. Nate turned to look at Stu, but Lester put a hand on his shoulder.

“The thing is,” said Lester, “we need to see Blackway.”

The man at the credenza turned to him. “Blackway isn’t here,” he said again.

“You said.”

The other let the ash on his cigarette drop onto the carpet.

“Uh, what do you want with Blackway?” he asked.

“Well, the thing is, he won,” Lester said. “Didn’t he?” he asked Nate.

“He did,” said Nate.

The man blinked. After a moment he said, “Won?”

“He won the raffle,” said Lester.

“Uh, raffle?”

“That’s right,” said Lester.“The fire department raffle. You know.”

“I do?”

“Blackway won it,” said Nate.

“He won part of it,” said Lester. “Didn’t he?” he asked Nate.

“That’s right,” Nate said. “He won the VCR.”

“He didn’t either win the VCR,” said Lester.“He won the gas grill.”

“That was Denny won the grill,” said Nate. “Blackway won the VCR.”

“You’re thinking of last year,” Lester said. “Denny won the grill last year.”

The man at the credenza gazed from one to the other of them. “VCR?” he said.

“That was the year before,” Nate said. “Denny won the cord of wood last year.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” said the man beside the bed. He hadn’t spoken before, but now he said, “Jesus fucking Christ! You fucking woodchucks got all the time in the world up here, don’t you? Are we going to do some business, here, today? This week? Is this some kind of a fucking party, here?”

“No,” said the man at the credenza. “Okay, okay,” he said to Lester. “Blackway was here. He was going by the Fort. You know the Fort? He had to see a guy at the Fort. He might be there. Or he might have gone ahead up to his place, up the mountain. His camp. You want him, I’d go to the Fort, then if he isn’t there, I’d go to his place. You know where that is?”

“We know,” Lester said.

The man at the credenza blinked. “I don’t,” he said. “I don’t know where that is,” he said. “Uh, you know where that is?” he asked the man standing at the door.

“All the time in the fucking world,” the man by the bed said. “Hey, why don’t we get a few more in here? You know? We could have a party. Why don’t we send out for fucking pizza?” He slapped his hand down on one of the suitcases that lay on the bed. “Can we move this?” he demanded. “I’ve got a long drive.”

The seated man looked at the big bearded man, Stu. “Get them out of here,” he said.

“Blackway stops back here, tell him about the gas grill, okay?” said Lester.

“About the VCR,” said Nate.

“Okay, okay,” said the other.

The man at the door turned and opened it, and the three of them left the room, followed by Stu. They stood on the balcony outside.

“That was Blackway’s partner, you said?” Lester asked Stu.

“That was nobody,” Stu said.

“I mean the one who was talking,” Lester said.

“Nobody was talking,” said Stu. “Go on, now. Go on home. If I was you, I’d go right on home. Forget about Blackway. Give the — what? — the TV to somebody else. Blackway don’t need a TV.”

“Gas grill,” said Lester. “We can’t. Blackway won it. It’s his. We’ve got to get it to him.”

“You want Blackway, go to the Fort,” said Stu. “If he ain’t there, Murdock will be. He’s buddies with Blackway. He’ll know where he is. See Murdock.”

“Murdock?” Lester asked. “Is he back?”

“Since spring,” said Stu.

In the next room the crazy woman began to laugh again, opening with a low chuckle but soon rising to the full, howling hysteria of her earlier performance. Did she, maybe, think she was singing?

“There she goes again,” said Stu. He slammed his fist against the woman’s door, but her laughter continued.

“Get out of here,” said Stu.

They left him on the balcony and went down the stairs and across the lot to the truck. Stu watched them from the balcony until they had driven out of the lot. Lillian turned in the seat to look behind.

“He’s watching us,” she said. “What a toad.”

“You mean Stu?” Lester asked.

“All of them. You know him?”

“I did,” Lester said. “Some time ago. We worked on the same woods crew one year. Part of the year — until he quit. Young Stu was never what you’d call a hard worker.”

“What a bunch of toads,” Lillian said. “I feel like I need a bath just being in the same room with them. And that woman next door? My God, what was going on in there?”

“Couldn’t say,” said Lester.

“Do you know this Murdock he was talking about?” Lillian asked Lester.

“Seen him,” said Lester. “He’s a prize steer, Murdock is. He was in prison, somewhere in the south. Too bad for us.”

“That he was in prison?” asked Lillian.

“That they let him out.”

“I ain’t scared of him,” said Nate.

“’Course you ain’t,” said Lester.

“I wasn’t worried back in there, either,” said Nate. “I wasn’t worried about the big one, Stu. If he’d started something, I had him.”

“He was twice as big as you,” said Lillian.

“He was soft,” Nate said.

“That other one, though,” Lester said. “The one did the talking. He was different.”

“He was zoned,” said Lillian.“He was on Valium or something.”

“What’s Valium?” Lester asked.

“I bet they were all zoned,” Lillian went on, “or we wouldn’t have gotten out of there. You wouldn’t have been able to blow all that raffle garbage by them. That was the stupidest thing I ever heard. It was like something Kevin would try.”

“Who’s Kevin?” Lester asked.

“It was just like Kevin,” Lillian went on. “Nothing but talk. Nothing but words.”

“Worked, didn’t it?” Lester said.

“It worked because the big one is too dumb to move, and the rest of them were wasted,” Lillian said. “We were in trouble in there. You tricked them — again. You did it again. If you’d had to fight them, it would have been different.”

“Stu ain’t so dumb,” said Lester. “I wouldn’t say Stu was dumb. Not smart, maybe, but not that dumb.”

“What about the other two?” Lillian asked Nate. “I suppose you weren’t worried about them, either?”

Nate didn’t reply.

“Look,” said Lillian. “That’s two times you’ve been able to sneak around without a fight. Do you think you can do that much longer?”

“Hope not,” Nate said.

Lester laughed. “Me, too,” he said. “You just wait till I turn this kid loose. You’ll see something then.”

“You’ll turn him loose?” asked Lillian. “And how about you? You wouldn’t have been much help, would you? You didn’t bring your gun with you.”

“Gun?” asked Lester.

“You didn’t bring it,” said Lillian.

“No,” said Lester.

“Why not?” Lillian asked.

“Gun’s only good when it’s the only gun,” Lester said.

10

A MUSEUM OF WHAT?

D.B. shook his head. “Les ain’t crazy,” he said.

“He just spent a little too much time working too far out in the woods, it looks like,” said Coop.

“Got hit by one too many falling trees,” said D.B.

“Like me,” said Whizzer.

“You said it,” said Coop, “not me.”

“But I ain’t crazy,” said Whizzer.

“You said it,” said D.B., “not me.”

“No,” said Whizzer, “but yes: Les put in his time out there. He worked for Fitz’s dad — hell, he might have worked for his granddad. Les worked in the woods when they had horses.”

“He doesn’t look that old,” said Conrad. “How old is he?”

“Older than me,” said Whizzer.

“Nobody’s older than you,” said Coop.

“I remember Les as a kid,” Whizzer said. “When we were kids. He used to hang around Lucas’s shop, help with the shoeing.”

“Lucas’s shop?” asked Conrad.

“Lucas’s,” said Coop. “Blacksmith shop. Used to be just this side of the bridge, on the right, there.”

“Place that’s an antiques shop now,” said Whizzer. “The Forge.”

“Oh, that place,” said Conrad. “You know, that’s another thing.”

“What is?” asked D.B.

“Les helped around the shop,” Whizzer went on. “Some people said he lived there, at Lucas’s, upstairs or in the coal shed, there.”

“What’s another thing?” D.B. asked Conrad.

“Wait,” said Conrad.

“Les didn’t really have anyplace to go, he didn’t have a home, it didn’t look like,” said Whizzer.“He just kind of turned up one day, only a kid. Slept at Lucas’s, slept wherever he could. Slept here, probably.”

“Kind of a Huck Finn,” said Conrad.

“Kind of,” said Whizzer.

“Who?” asked D.B.

“Who?” asked Coop.

“He had no family?” Conrad asked Whizzer.

“If he did,” Whizzer said, “nobody knew who they were. He hung around, did one thing and another.”

“He was a kid,” said Conrad. “Didn’t he go to school?”

“It don’t seem like he did,” said Whizzer. “Who was going to send him? But he knew something about horses, and by and by he went to work in the woods.”

“What’s another thing?” D.B. asked Conrad.

“Well,” said Conrad, “how everything around here used to be something else. Like the antiques shop was a blacksmith’s. Our house? Our house was a schoolhouse, Betsy says.”

“That’s right,” said Whizzer. “That’s right, it was.”

“So what?” asked D.B.

“Well,” said Conrad. “It strikes me, that’s all. Everything’s switched around. The blacksmith’s an antiques shop, the school’s somebody’s house . . .”

“That place on the way to the Fort,” said Coop. “That basket store. That was — what?”

“Dr. Osgood’s office, when I was a kid,” said Whizzer.

“The Fort itself, come to that,” said Coop. “The Fort used to be a garage, go back far enough.”

“It did,” said Whizzer.

“But so what?” asked D.B.

“Well,” said Conrad, “it’s this change you’ve got going here. Nothing’s what it started out as. Everything’s changed around. You know? You’ve got this — I don’t know. This flux.”

“You better watch your mouth, there, young fellow,” said Coop. “You’re starting to sound like What’s-her-name.”

“Except for here,” said Whizzer.

“That’s right,” said D.B. “This place has been here — how long?”

“Long time,” said Whizzer.

“A long time, and always the same,” said D.B.

“But not forever, maybe,” said Conrad.

“How do you mean?” D.B. asked. “Why not?”

“Con’s right,” said Coop. “Who knows what’s going to happen to this place? Come to that, you could do a lot here, you wanted to.”

“I know it,” said Whizzer. “Place is loaded with potential. What it is, though, is there’s a lack of capital.”

“Think about it, though,” said D.B. “You could turn it into some kind of a museum.”

“A museum of what?” Coop asked him.

“I ain’t got that far,” said D.B.

“You got to move into the present day, here,” Coop told D.B. “You want the whole world to be a museum. I’m thinking apartments, here, you know, condos. Maybe with an outfit to it like a gym. What is it you call that?”

“A fitness center?” Conrad asked.

“There you go,” said Coop. “Put in a fitness center.”

“I’m thinking we move some girls in here,” said Whizzer. “Set them right up: beds, hot water. Put in a Coke machine. Make a little run at Stu and them, up there on the highway.”

“We’ll all go to jail,” said Conrad, “but it’s your place.”

“Or, here’s what you do,” Coop said. “How about this? Sell the whole works off to that place down in Mass, that old-time town.”

“Sturbridge Village,” said Conrad.

“There you go,” said Coop. “Sell her to Sturbridge. Lock, stock, and barrel. They come up, put the whole works on a flatbed, the whole mill, and move it right down there. Set it up again, charge admission.”

“I like it,” said Conrad.

“Come to that,” said D.B. “They could move us along with the rest.”

“Package deal,” said Coop.

“So you’re saying we’d just sit around, down at What’s-its-name?” asked Whizzer. “Sturbridge? Let the tourists look at us? Just be there?”

“Why not?” said Coop. “That’s all we do here.”

“What are we talking about for money, do you reckon?” Whizzer asked.

“Millions, Whiz,” said Coop.

“Millions,” said Conrad. “You’ve got to look at what this is, here. This is no Disneyland business, you know. This is no stage set. This is the real thing.”

“You think?”Whizzer asked him.

11

FORT BOB

A mile and a half past the village as you go toward Dead River Settlement, you see on your left a big, high old house, like a haunted house, once grand but now a slum, with a broken window patched over by cardboard, a mangy slate roof, and sagging porches all around. A place with a story to it, you think, and maybe you’re right. Maybe it is. No matter. Pass it by.

Not that place, and not the next one, Bea’s Baskets & Birdhouses, but the place beyond them on the same side of the road is a low gray building made of cement blocks, a kind of bunker. It was put up years ago to house an auto repair business, but that enterprise failed, and for many years since the building has been a bar called, by the sign on the road, the Hill Country Inn — by everyone else Fort Bob.