The Black Silent (4 page)

"Who is he?" he asked Sherry.

"Just came a day or so ago. Calls himself Rafe something. Thinks I sold him my body just because he bought my stereo. I told him I didn't want to sell it. Told him it wasn't worth a thousand, but he insisted. And then after he took the stereo, he got real ugly when I wouldn't have dinner with him."

"That other one," she said, meaning the smaller man, who'd already disappeared, "I guess is trying to take up pimping."

"So he's not with the heavyweight champ here."

"Not regular, I don't think."

The insanity was starting to make a little more sense.

"What's this guy doing on the island?"

"I don't know, but he's got friends."

Sam nodded.

Rafe what's-his-name was coming around. When he got up, he kept his eyes pointedly away from Sam, brushed himself off, and walked straight away.

Sam went back and resumed his reading until he felt the weight of someone else's gaze.

Without looking he knew that it was Haley, her brunette curls and eyes like bluish green silk, which were perceptive and inquisitive, and that once might have held just the proper mirth. Sam hadn't seen that light in her eyes in a long time, not since the Fourth of July, 1994.

She had missed the "Mud Head and Rafe Show" and that was just as well. She would have insisted on fighting.

Following his capture and torture and the death of his wife, Anna, Sam had decided on San Juan Island as the site of his convalescence. His relationship with his uncle Ben and Haley turned out to be the perfect balm. In his growing-up years, he on occasion came to visit Uncle Ben and now-deceased Aunt Helen, and quickly grew fond of them.

During the summer of his twelfth birthday, he had spent the entire three months working with Aunt Helen on the landscaping and Uncle Ben had taken time from work for a number of salmon fishing expeditions. There were various other visits and more salmon. For a time, when she was nineteen and he was twenty-nine, he and Haley had almost been an item. Over his recent months on the island, Sam had found this dormant bond with Ben was growing. Haley was more complicated.

Life had kicked Haley to the ground, but Sam admired her because she kept trying to get back up. The prestigious Sanker Corporation had thrown her out in disgrace, claiming she'd stolen the work and ideas of her fellow scientists. That was shocking because she was the adopted daughter of the eminent Dr. Ben Anderson, also at Sanker, known to be the straightest of the straight.

Sam knew that Haley's life had been a strange mixture of ups and downs. Before her adoption at age nine, life had been very tough. With Ben and Helen her intelligence flourished. By sixteen she could fly Ben's float plane and run any boat that floated.

Academically she excelled, obtaining a Ph.D. degree in marine biology at age twenty-seven.

Because of her success, Sam knew the last great fall was very hard.

For the present she had taken to operating a bicycle and motor scooter-rental business thirty feet from Sam's sitting spot. She owned it, and had part-time employees, but lately seemed to be showing up herself. Sam's return to the island had just followed Haley's expulsion from her job and concurrent ostracization from local scientific society. She hadn't wanted to talk about the scandal much. He glanced her way and waved. She used that iron will of hers to return a good smile left over from better days and waved back.

Then she came closer.

"Can I interrupt your work a moment?" she asked.

He, of course, had no work during his recuperation but his learning, to which he was devoted. In response he put the book of early-island history aside. He was studying the history of the place, what grew in each microclimate, when it bloomed if it did, the resident birds, the migratory visitors, what was in the sea and what was beside it, the terrestrial life, the mammals, the invertebrates, the habits of each, and their place in the order of things. It was an ambition.

If Haley's face was looked at in an unguarded moment, the symmetry of it was pleasing, and the slight round of it and the softness in it had the look of caring. She was only thirty-two and beautiful. In her smile he saw the residue of pain. Lately she was always very welcoming, and when he looked at her, it was starting to feel like Irish cream in his coffee. That Fourth of July in 1994 passed through his mind again. He nodded.

"Of course," he said. "What's up?"

"It's about Ben," she said.

From the corner of his eye he saw Ben Anderson's lady friend and personal assistant, Sarah, approaching, the fourth member of their little family. Sarah was an attractive, forty-five-year-old redhead who looked in her late thirties and always had a good word at the right moment. She was sincere, soft-spoken, and liked corny jokes. Additionally, she was a fitness fanatic and had the strong elastic body to prove it.

"I assume Sarah's arrival is no coincidence," he said.

Ben, Haley, Sarah, Sam, and Haley's best friend, Rachael, had created something of an extended family.

Haley nodded. "I asked her to come."

It may have been Haley's tone, or Sarah's appearance here on a Sunday but Sam had suspected something was up. Also the bicycle-rental business was virtually shut down this time of year and Haley's appearance to repair a bike was a little thin. Sarah lived on Lopez Island, and on Saturdays she didn't typically cross San Juan Channel in her little runabout until later, about the time Ben typically quit his weekend work. Sarah worked for Ben, had for years, but Sam figured there was something growing between them.

Sam stood. Together he, Haley, and Sarah adjourned to the uphill side of the veranda in front of the sidewalk-servicing window of the local coffee shop.

They placed their orders, then retreated from the window to wait.

"Haley looks like a brunette version of Cameron Diaz in that hat," Sarah said, referring to Haley's tam-o'-shanter. Haley always wore a hat of some sort.

Haley gave a smile as if she didn't believe it.

"Haley wanted to talk," Sarah said, "and I did too. Although I have to admit that I'm feeling a little guilty because I didn't mention this talk to Ben. He and I are having dinner tonight after I, quote, 'finish some chores at home.'"

She had Sam's interest. He looked to Haley for an explanation.

"We're worried about Ben," Haley said.

"How so?"

"Well," she said, "he is not acting like himself. He's keeping things secret. Actually, he's keeping
everything
secret. From me, from Sarah. We want to know if he's told you anything he didn't tell us."

Sarah nodded in agreement.

"Ben doesn't talk much about his work," said Sam. "What do you think is going on?"

"I think he's got more on his mind than his work. Or leaving Sanker."

"You might be right," Sam told Haley. "You know the rumors—that Ben's discovered some sort of longevity secret."

"You
heard that?"

"Only vaguely," Sam said. "From everything you
do
know, do
you
believe Ben discovered some kind of magic bullet to slow aging? I mean, for significant lengths of time?"

Sherry had their coffees ready, but no one moved to get them.

"Let me put it this way," Haley said in a lower voice. "If you conquered cancer in North America—I mean completely conquered it—you would only increase average life expectancy about 3.5 years. Heart disease is better, but still only about seven years. Isn't it shocking that by eliminating these two big killers, cancer and heart disease, we're only talking a little over a decade of extra life? The real miracle, if someone could pull it off, would be 'youth retention.'"

Sam raised his eyebrows in question.

"Youth retention," Haley explained, "would be truly slowing aging, not just extending life and being old for a heck of a long time."

Sam nodded.

"It's a hot area in biology these days, and the fundamental problem is that so many bodily systems deteriorate with age," Haley said.

"I think he's discovered something about energy,
and
something about aging," Sarah said. "But it's complicated— I don't understand it, and I'll feel very guilty if I speculate. I think he might have a secret lab and that's all I'm saying. Period." She sat back.

"That's a shocker. What on earth do you mean by a 'secret lab'?" Haley sighed, obviously frustrated that she hadn't gotten much out of Sarah, but Sarah had obviously zipped her lip.

"He's spending time with a lot of different people, I think," Sam said.

"What people?"

"Science people?" Sam speculated.

"Yeah. That's all I know as well. Strange goings-on— people coming into town at night, and Ben hustling off to meetings," Haley said. "He's mum as a mummy about it all."

"To me too," Sarah said.

"Well," said Sam, "we all agree that he's leaving Sanker. It's just a matter of time, right?

Distance from Frick and the corporation has to be a good thing."

"Absolutely a good thing," Haley said. "If they
let
him leave."

A
fter Sarah left, Haley locked up the bikes, deep in thought. In the ocean when the fmgerlings or the herring were jumping and roiling at the surface, you knew there was something having dinner down below. She couldn't shake the feeling that Sanker was having dinner. Her worry over Ben was incessant. As with Ben's work, she had questions about Sam. After a fashion she had known him for twenty-three years, since she was nine. At that time he was nineteen and an impressive college jock.

Sam's father—a difficult, macho-type guy, to hear Ben tell it—had all the empathy of a wooden wall, but he had a sister who was the opposite. Her name was Helen, and she married Ben. Because of the rogue-male lifestyle led by Sam's dad, Sam would sometimes come to stay with Ben and Helen. That was mostly before Haley's time, and then after her time, he came out of gratitude and affection for Ben and Helen. Sam had a little of that family feeling in him despite the tough upbringing.

As far as Haley and everybody else was concerned, Sam's life after graduate school had been mostly secret; so when he came to visit, it was as if he walked right out of a dark closet and into these idyllic islands. As far as his life and his persona in the islands, she knew a lot. He was very strong and athletic, a good listener, never bragged, and didn't mind going unnoticed, although it was hard not to notice him.

She looked down toward the water and saw a big black man and some white guys walking down the waterfront street. They did not have the look of people from the island. Then they were gone.

A few moments later, Sam came along, headed for his chair. She developed the familiar nervous knot in her belly whenever they were alone.

She smiled at Sam, hoping it wasn't brittle. He smiled. Although he had been here first with his chair, starting nine months ago, somehow she felt he should move, since she had taken over the shop.

Apparently he wasn't moving and neither was she. She glanced up. Sam had gone back to his book, sitting only about twenty feet away.

Her phone rang and she jumped, casting about for the cordless contraption.

"It's in your back pocket," Sam said without even looking up.

Seeing it was Ben calling, she came back around the building to get better reception, but the call died. Then it came again.

"Haley," came a staticky voice, "this is Ben. Can you hear me?"

"Hey, how's it going?" The static worsened, and then it sounded like they were disconnected. It happened all the time on the island. "Hello, hello .. ." She tried for a minute and gave up.

"Was it Ben?" Sam asked.

He must be on a Russian spy ship.

"Yeah, but he disappeared. I just caught a few words, but he sounded stressed. Maybe things aren't going well in the lab. It's past lunch. I think I'll take him something to eat and see how he is. Maybe after, we can have a cup of coffee."

"I'll be here," Sam said, walking back to his chair.

Haley turned to leave.

"Say, Haley," he said as she left. She paused and turned. "Give me a call and let me know that everything's okay with Ben."

She nodded and left.

Haley parked in the lot behind Oaks, the building that housed Ben's office and lab.

Clouds were now starting to blow across the sky and making intermittent showers in the distance. At the moment the rain clouds formed a dark band up Lopez and all the way to Orcas, maybe beyond. Over on the far side of San Juan Channel, it looked like heavy rain.

She wrapped her coat around herself and walked through blowing leaves. Down the way, at the main building, she saw much more activity than she would have expected on the Sunday morning after Thanksgiving. At the gate she held a plastic card that Ben had given her up to the electronic detector and passed through a heavy revolving gate.

Months ago Garth Frick had taken her original key card with great fanfare. That had been the final humiliation.

Haley knew that she needed to be careful here. She didn't really like coming to Sanker.

Those old feelings of self-doubt threatened her every time she walked in the place.

Worse, if she were caught inside, Frick would seize the key card that Ben had loaned her for just such occasions. Fortunately, Ben's fellow scientists, although mostly against her, really weren't the sort of people to fight over entry privileges and they had ignored her on the few times that she had come. Their shunning only added to the pain.

She walked through some attractive gardens, with some artificial ponds and flowing water, and up to the glass revolving door, where she used the card again. Downstairs things appeared empty. As she mounted the stairs, she looked from a lower-floor lab's open door, through the window, and onto a small garden area. She saw a man running across the front of the building, apparently headed for the forest. That was strange.

Coming back down the stairs, she walked into the waterfront lab space and looked to the right, down the building. Sure enough, she saw a couple of men putting up yellow tape. Immediately she thought of the crime scenes seen on TV She went back and ran up the stairs. The halls were half-dark, the labs all silent. Turning around, she looked for a sign of someone, anyone. Nothing. As she walked down the hall toward Ben's office and lab, shadows and dark corners and the occasional watchman making the rounds replaced her memories of cheery, collegial greetings and chats and the perpetual movement of people.