The Long and Faraway Gone (17 page)

“I didn't know what semen was,” she said. “I mean, I knew. But I'd just turned thirteen. I was young for my age. There was a boy who lived down the street. He was older than me, a junior or senior in high school. I waited until I knew that his parents weren't home, and then I went over. I asked him if I could see his penis. I just came right out and asked him. I was curious. I wanted to see his penis make semen. I knew that the penis was involved. He said no, at first—­no way! I was just this little pest of a little neighbor girl he'd never even noticed unless my sister was around. But he gave in. It was fascinating. I was fascinated. Afterward he was so embarrassed. He couldn't even look at me. Which was funny, because he was this big athlete at his high school, this cocky guy all the girls were in love with. But really he was a sweet kid.”

Crowley had started to take a sip of bourbon but then forgotten to finish. Julianna saw the surprise in his eyes, the fresh wariness. He'd planned to keep her on edge. Now he was on the edge with her. Maybe he was wondering how the hell that had happened. Julianna stood.

“More?”

“Everything but the gravy.”

When she returned from the kitchen, Crowley had the tumbler of bourbon in his hand, contemplating it, the way Julianna had seen him do in the bar. She put the plate in front of him and sat back down.

“Corn-­bread stuffing,” he said. “That's what my mama made. But my daddy's mama, she'd always made it from white bread. That was a war, let me tell you. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas. Long as they was together, at least.”

Julianna remembered Denny, the boy who lived down the block from them. He went to U. S. Grant High School, and his letter jacket had an embroidered patch, the word
GENERALS
, sewn on the leather sleeve. He was good-­looking, but Genevieve never had any interest in him. Bohunks bored her.

He didn't mind showing Julianna his cock. He thought it was kind of a hoot—­innocent, educational. But when she told him she wanted to see
everything,
she wanted to see him do
everything
—­that was why she was there, after all—­he shook his head hard and pulled his jeans back up.

“You're just a kid,” he'd said.

“You're chicken,” Julianna said. “You're a big chicken.”

“No I'm not. This isn't right.”

“Chicken,” she said. “I'm going to tell everyone you're a big chicken.”

He stopped buttoning his jeans and stared at her. “You can't tell anyone about this.”

That might have been the moment, Julianna thought, when she realized that power could be taken, not just bestowed. All you had to do was recognize the opportunity when you saw it.

“Hey!” he'd said. “I mean you can't tell anyone about this!”

Julianna just sat there cross-­legged on the floor of his bedroom, her chin in her hand, and said nothing. She waited.

As he neared the end of the process, Denny let Julianna put her hand on his hand as he moved it up and down, up and down, faster and faster. In retrospect Julianna thought he might not even have noticed her hand on his. His eyes were closed, his face crumpled. He looked like he was in pain, like he'd banged his toe on the curb.

“Tell me what you remember about my sister,” she told Crowley.

“What do you remember 'bout me?”

“About you?”

“I was a handsome young man, wasn't I?”

She noticed that he'd filled her glass again. She reached for it and had a sip. Just a sip this time. Her head felt light but clear.

“I remember you never took your eyes off my sister.”

“You don't look nothing like her.”

“Not really.”

He finished the last bite on his plate and then studied her.

“Maybe a little,” he said. “That was a long time ago.”

“So you do remember her, then.”

“Never said I didn't.”

“You told her to come to your trailer later. When she left me, she was on her way to your trailer.”

“Says you.”

He pushed back from the table and stood. Shifted from one foot to the other and winced. He picked up the bottle of Maker's Mark and his glass.

“My damn back,” he said.

She followed him into the living room. He lowered himself to the sofa, wincing again. For effect? Julianna thought maybe so. She took a seat in the chair across from him.

“Dumbest thing I ever did,” he said.

“What?”

“Steal that beer from the 7-­Eleven. I had the cash to pay for it. Hell, I had plenty of cash, but I left my billfold at the trailer. I thought, well, hell, ain't no sense walking another mile back and forth just for a six-­pack of Budweiser. What'd a six-­pack go for in those days? Five dollars? The clerk in the store wasn't paying no attention. Cop out in the parking lot was, though. Pulled in to get himself a doughnut, probably. But turned out lucky for me, didn't it?”

“You were in jail when my sister was last seen,” Julianna said. “I know that.”

“Whatever happened to your sister, I ain't the one caused it to happen.”

“I want to know about before you stole the beer.”

“Have another drink,” he said.

“No.”

He filled his glass again. His smile caught her off guard. It was a young man's smile, the same smile he'd smiled at Genevieve when he handed Julianna the Pink Panther plush toy.

“Aww,” he said. “You ain't no fun.”

If Crowley didn't give her what she wanted, Julianna decided, she'd call the police when he left and report a drunk driver in the neighborhood. She'd provide them with a detailed description of his truck. Crowley's blood-­alcohol level had to be over the limit already.

“When you handed me that Pink Panther,” Julianna said, “I was so happy. But it wasn't the Pink Panther that made me happy. I can't explain it. What made me happy was that my sister knew just how happy that stupid Pink Panther would make me.”

That was the moment Julianna wanted to remember. Not the moment, later, when Genevieve looked past her toward the midway—­looked
through
her, Julianna just an inconvenient apparition—­and promised without meaning it that she'd be back in a flash.

Crowley was silent. He shifted on the couch and propped the toe of one boot against the edge of the coffee table. Alligator cowboy boots, polished. He'd dressed up for Julianna.

“She had a way about her,” he said finally.

“Did my sister come to your trailer?”

“Yeah.”

The heat from the bourbon, Julianna's pleasant buzz, vanished. The world sharpened around her. When she took a breath, she felt the silky mesh of her lungs expand.

“You're lying,” she said.

Crowley smiled. “Minute ago I was lying when I said she never did. You gotta pick one and stick to it, darlin'.”

Julianna stayed calm. Somehow she managed it. She knew she had one chance, this chance, at the truth.

“When?” she said.

“I don't know. A little after dark, must have been. I didn't know she'd turn up or not. I thought she might. I hoped she might. There were plenty of girls on the road, but your sister had a way about her. Like I said.”

He was a big man—­he took up almost half of Julianna's sofa. One boot up on the coffee table, having a sip of his bourbon, his blue eyes steady on her.

Was he lying? Why? Was he telling the truth? Why?

“And?” Julianna said.

“And nothing,” he said. “She turned up, we talked for a minute or two, and then she left. I asked her did she want to come inside. Can't blame me—­I thought that was why she was there.”

“What did she say?” she said.

“I don't recall. But she didn't come inside. She left.”

Julianna waited. For something more, anything more. She could feel the faint breeze of hope fading, dying. Crowley was just taunting her. Genevieve had never come to his trailer.

He saw he'd lost Julianna. “Believe me or not.”

“I don't,” she said. “What did you talk about?”

“This and that. The usual pleasantries.” He tipped back the rest of the bourbon in his glass. “I had a guitar back then. Old acoustic guitar. I told her I could play her a song if she wanted. Every other girl, they all wanted me to play them a song. I was a handsome young man, you remember. I said, Let's make some music together. Your sister, though, she said—­I don't recall exactly what she said. She laughed and gave me a wink. She said, ‘Let's not.' That was it.”

The jolt of recognition caught Julianna off guard. She could hear that laugh, she could see the wink. Genevieve's most common response, whenever Julianna suggested how much fun it would be for the two of them to build a tree fort in the backyard, or dress up like the Bangles, or stay up all night playing board games.

I know what!
Genevieve would say, as if she'd just been struck by the most brilliant idea ever.

“Let's not and say we did,” Julianna told Crowley.

Crowley nodded. “That's it. Let's not and say we did. Made me feel two feet tall, but I had to laugh, too. Your sister had a way about her.”

Julianna got up and went into the kitchen. She didn't want Crowley to see that her hands were shaking. She cut a slice of apple pie and slid it onto a plate. When she returned to the living room, he'd filled his glass again. She set the pie on the coffee table in front of him.

Genevieve
had
gone to Crowley's trailer. She
had
talked to him there.

It was as if Julianna had spent most of her adult life staring at a blank brick wall. And now, suddenly, a door had appeared in that wall.

Behind the door: the possibility that her sister, who had vanished from the face of the earth, had maybe not, after all, vanished without a trace.

Julianna had so many questions she felt dizzy. Why would Genevieve go to Crowley's trailer only to leave again? Why hadn't she returned to the spot in front of the rodeo arena where she'd left Julianna? How and why did Genevieve end up half an hour later on Food Alley, on the other side of the fairgrounds?

“Please tell me everything you remember about that night,” Julianna said.

“I told you, the long and short of it,” Crowley said. He took a bite of the pie, then put his fork down and pushed the plate away. “That ain't no home-­baked.”

“Why did she leave?”

“Don't have no idea. I tried not take it personal. Went to go got me some beer. You know what happened at the end of that story.”

“Where was she going when she left?”

“Didn't say.”

“Was there someone else there?”

“Someone else where?”

“Your trailer.”

Crowley gave Julianna a look. “You think I planned to share her? No, I didn't.”

“Or nearby. Someone who might have followed her when she left.”

Julianna was thinking of the man in the cowboy hat, but she didn't want to lead Crowley.

“Don't have no idea,” he said. “Not that I saw.”

Genevieve
had
gone to Crowley's trailer. She
had
talked to him there.

That was all she could be certain was true, Julianna reminded herself, out of everything Crowley had told her.

“Why didn't you tell the police any of this?”

“Why do you think? They was looking for any reason to get further up my ass. And I didn't have nothing to do with nothing.” He patted the sofa cushion next to him. “Come on over here a minute, why don't you?”

Julianna stayed where she was, in the chair, two steps from the carving knife she'd left on the kitchen counter. Even if his bad back was a fiction, she thought she'd be able to get to the knife before Crowley got to her.

He held out his hand. “That pinkie finger there? See how it's crooked? That's from a cop picked me up one time for disorderly conduct. Murray, Kentucky. Broke my finger in two just for the fun of it.”

“Are you sure that's all you remember?” Julianna said. “Do you remember anything else at all?”

Crowley pulled his boot off the coffee table. He got to his feet slowly, heavily.

“Where are you going?” Julianna said. She stood, too.

“Dinner's over, ain't it?” he said, his blue eyes innocent. “Unless you got something else in mind, of course.”

“Just . . . wait,” she said.

“I'm sorry, darlin',” he said. “I gave you everything I got.”

He moved to the door. Julianna followed. She felt a panic rising in her. She had to fight to stay above it.

“Anything else,” she said. “The smallest detail. Anything at all.”

He opened the door but then stopped. “I do recall now she said one thing. Your sister did. Was the last thing she said to me, right before she took off.”

“What did she say?” Julianna said.

“Didn't mean nothing to me at the time. Now I think about it, though, after what happened and all . . . well. Might be it means something after all.”

Julianna reached for Crowley's arm. She gripped it tight.

“What did she say?” she demanded, and then in the next breath—­when he turned back to her, when he smiled—­she realized just how perfectly he'd played her.

He stepped even closer and put a finger beneath her chin. Julianna let him. He tilted her head back, gently, so that he was looking right down at her.

“Bet you'd like to know,” he said. “Wouldn't you?”

 

W
yatt stopped back by the Land Run to ask Candace about Lyle Finn and then remembered she'd already left to take Lily to day care.

He got out his phone. He put it away. He wanted to call Laurie back but knew he needed to give her time. He couldn't understand what she wanted him to think about. He loved her. He wanted to spend his life with her. He'd never been as sure of anything
in
his life. What else was there?

He'd never told Laurie what happened to him at the movie theater twenty-­six years earlier. She didn't know the name he'd been born with. But that was Wyatt's choice to make, wasn't it? He didn't want that night in the projection booth to be part of their life together. He didn't want it to be part of his life. It
wasn't
part of his life, at least not when he was anywhere but
here,
this city, where the past was a riptide.

Theresa, Wyatt thought, would understand. She'd had no interest in the sharing of feelings, no patience with the baring of souls. If you tried to tell Theresa the story of your life, your hopes and dreams—­if, even more foolishly, you ever tried to ask about
her
life,
her
hopes and dreams—­she would yawn, she would blow smoke at you, she'd bend close and run a finger along the shiny ridge of her shin, checking for any patches she missed when she shaved her legs that morning.

Theresa wasn't especially beautiful. She was just an ordinary seventeen-­year-­old girl with dark hair and a long neck and a slight overbite. So what made her so attractive? Her eyes were a strange metallic green, like the sky in Oklahoma when suddenly the wind died and you knew a tornado was near.

O'Malley and Theresa broke up for good at the beginning of the summer. The decision to split, he told Wyatt the day after it happened, was mutual and amicable. O'Malley never mentioned it again. Theresa, of course, never mentioned it all. Wyatt waited a ­couple of months to make sure they didn't get back together. And it took him that long, really, to work up the courage to tell Theresa how he felt about her. The first time Wyatt started to tell Theresa he loved her, the first and only time, she touched two fingers to his lips and said, “Shhhh,” stopping him. She twisted the handle of the popcorn kettle with her other hand and watched the popcorn pour golden into the bin. She went on with her shift as if Wyatt had never said anything.

Melody, nosy Melody, was the only other employee around at the time, working the box office during Karlene's break. The box office was at the opposite end of the concession stand, and Melody was facing away from the popcorn machine. But Wyatt should have known better. Melody had eyes in the back of her head, she had supernatural hearing. Later that night she cut Wyatt a look—­sympathy, amusement, warning. Wyatt cut her a look back. Like, what? Like, I have no idea why you're looking at me that way! Melody just grinned. Wyatt was a terrible liar at age fifteen.

Why am I still here and all the others gone?

Wyatt didn't know any of the killers. He didn't recognize their names. Richard William Purdy. Dale Earl Barrett. Clifton Holly Needs. Their names meant nothing to Wyatt. Their faces, no matter how long Wyatt studied them, meant nothing to him. He'd never seen any of the three men before in his life.

Or had he?

For years after the murders, the possibility that maybe Wyatt
had
crossed paths with one of the killers, without realizing it, almost drove him out of his mind. His memories of the theater that summer were razor sharp, at work and after work, but he didn't remember in much detail the time he spent away from O'Malley and Theresa and the others.

Mornings in front of the TV. Mowing the lawn. Walking up to Roy Rogers for lunch or to Penn Square Mall for the used-­book store. Was there some critical moment in there that he'd forgotten about? Some brief, chance encounter he had with a stranger that ended up, down the line, saving his life?

Or what about all the customers at the theater? Thousands of them over the course of a summer, a blur of faces. Two auditoriums, six shows a day each. During the rush you had to bust your ass. Wyatt didn't have time for more than a glance at any but the hottest of hot girls.

The police were sure that one or more of the killers had cased the theater before the robbery. But maybe
that
was the other way around. Maybe one of the killers happened to see a movie at the Pheasant Run and realized what a sweet score it would make.

Wyatt stopped at Whole Foods to pick up some of the apples he remembered his uncle liked, Honeycrisps, and drove to his house. His uncle was sitting on the porch.

“Mikey!” Wyatt's uncle said.

“How are you, Uncle Pete?”

The old man reached up to give Wyatt's hand a solemn, formal shake.

“As well as can be expected given the circumstances,” he said in his deadpan baritone. It was another one of his favorite lines. “Sit down, Mikey. Take a load off.”

He patted the cushion next to him. Wyatt had a seat on the rusted old porch slider—­the place, in nice weather, where his grandmother would always sit and rock away the hours.

Wyatt handed the bag of apples to his uncle. His uncle peered inside.

“Honeycrisps! My word.”

“The apple of kings, the king of apples,” Wyatt said.

“That's just what Daddy always said.”

“Uncle Pete,” Wyatt said, “you took me to a ball game out at the fairgrounds one Fourth of July. It was the summer before my junior year in high school.”

“Was it?”

“You remember the fireworks? After the game. We stayed for the fireworks.”

“I sure do,” Pete said.

Wyatt could still see how the fireworks came swimming up from behind the scoreboard in left field, fast at first and then slower, struggling until they lost all momentum, drooping and bursting apart. But he couldn't remember anything else—­that was it.

“Do you remember anything else about that night?” Wyatt said. “Who we talked to? Anything out of the ordinary?”

His uncle stroked his chin. “Well, sure,” he said. “We sat next to that fella with the trombone.”

“With the trombone?”

“Sure. Out at Holland Park. When the Indians hit a home run, you remember, he'd blow his trombone. A big, fat fella who always wore a bow tie. Rudy or Ruby. Ruby, I think. Ruby Roberts. I know you remember him. Old Ruby with the trombone.”

The Oklahoma City Indians had been the name of the minor-­league team long before Wyatt was born, and Holland Park was where they played before the stadium at the fairgrounds was ever built.

Pete was lost again in the past. He couldn't help Wyatt. No one could.

Why am I still here and all the others gone?

There was no answer. The question was a loop without beginning or end, a tunnel that corkscrewed deeper, deeper into the bedrock and never found light. Wyatt knew this. And yet here, once again, he was.

“You remember old Ruby with the trombone, don't you?” his uncle said.

“Sure I do,” Wyatt said.

W
YAT
T HEADED BACK
to the hotel to change his shirt before the football game. In the lobby someone called out for him to hold the elevator. Wyatt complied. A kid in his twenties—­coat and tie, khaki slacks—­hurried in.

“Mr. Rivers?” he said.

“That's me,” Wyatt said.

The kid had broad shoulders and rosy cheeks and a bashful, aw-­shucks smile. Probably, Wyatt guessed, a former power-­hitting high-­school first baseman from a small town in eastern Oklahoma.

On the lapel of his blazer was a hotel name tag:
CHIP
.

“My name's Chip,” the guy said.

“I wish you would've let me guess,” Wyatt said.

He punched in his floor. The doors slid shut, and the elevator began to rise.

“I'm not supposed to be here,” Chip said.

“In a metaphysical sense?” Wyatt said. “Or in the sense that you just remembered you have a meeting in the banquet room?”

The guy smiled bashfully and shook his head. “No, I mean I work at the front desk. We're not supposed to approach the guests for personal reasons.”

It was news to Wyatt, that he was being approached for personal reasons. He noticed now that the guy seemed nervous—­opening his hands, closing his hands. Wyatt checked the display. Four floors to go.

“Fire away,” he said.

“You're a private detective, right?”

“I am.”

“My friend in food and beverage told me you were. I hope you don't mind. I don't want to get him in trouble.”

“Don't worry. I blame my own big mouth.”

“I need your help, Mr. Rivers.”

“You don't,” Wyatt said. “You may need
help.
That's entirely possible. But you don't necessarily need
my
help.”

The kid, Chip, worked his way through that one. The elevator continued to shudder upward. Slowly, slowly.

“I can pay you. I'll pay you whatever you want.” Chip hesitated. His hands opened, his hands closed. He bit his lower lip. “How much would that be, do you think?”

Finally the bell dinged, and the elevator doors slid open.

“Chip,” Wyatt said, “I'm afraid my dance card is full.”

“Oh.”

It didn't appear that Chip knew what a dance card was. Wyatt wasn't entirely sure he knew either.

“I'm booked,” he explained. “Busy. Unavailable.”

“It's my wife,” Chip said. “I think she . . . I think she's having an affair. It's eating me up, not knowing for sure. I feel like I can't even breathe sometimes.”

He looked too young to be married. But how young was too young? He was probably twenty-­three or twenty-­four. Maybe he was already an old hand at marriage.

“Ask her,” Wyatt said. “That's my best advice. A healthy relationship is best served by trust and candor, not the ser­vices of a private detective.”

“I did ask her. She said I was being stupid. And maybe I am. But how do I know that? When do you know if you're being stupid or not?”

Wyatt didn't have an answer for that. He wished, selfishly, he did. “I'm sorry.”

He stepped out of the elevator. His room was four doors down. When he got there and turned to swipe his key card, he saw that the kid was still standing there—­forlorn, halfway in the corridor and halfway out—­the jaws of the elevator trying to snap closed on him.

“All I need, Mr. Rivers,” he said, “one way or another I just need to
know.
”

Wyatt swiped his key card but didn't enter his room. Shit. He felt a certain amount of bad for the kid, but mostly he felt motivated by caution. Yesterday he'd asked a favor from the cranky reporter at the
Daily Oklahoman.
So how wise would it be for Wyatt to refuse now when the universe asked a favor in return?

If one sows goodness, one reaps goodness. According to the Vedas.

“I'll try to look into it, but no promises.” Wyatt took out his notebook. “I'll need some information about your wife.”

“Mr. Rivers. Thank you. Oh, man. Thank you so much.”

“Don't thank me yet.”

Wyatt's point sailed right by the kid, a passed ball the catcher never even saw. When Chip shook Wyatt's hand, he shook Wyatt's entire arm.

“Oh, man,” he said. “I will. I won't.”

T
HE DRIVE DOW
N
to Norman took Wyatt twice as long as it should have—­game-­night traffic, bumper to bumper, big-­ass SUVs with crimson flags flapping from plastic arms wedged between window and roof. Some SUVs had four Sooner flags, one for each window. Wyatt felt naked without one.

When the crawl finally reached Norman, he had to park blocks from campus, in the patchy front yard of two college students who charged him twenty bucks for the privilege.

Wyatt scored the last spot in the yard. He squeezed his rented Altima between an Escalade (two flags, a vanity OU plate) and the porch of the house. The porch was crowded with more college students, the guys with tribal tattoos on their calves and struggling chinstrap beards, the girls in cut-­off jeans and bikini tops. One shirtless guy was attempting to do a keg stand while another guy slapped at him with a wet towel.

Wyatt thought that looked like more fun than spending the evening with Jeff Eddy, but duty called.

The massive redbrick football stadium was in the center of campus. It dominated the campus, like a medieval cathedral surrounded by mud-­and-­wattle huts. Wyatt could feel the throb of religious excitement, of ecstatic near hysteria, as the crowd he'd become enfolded in funneled closer and closer to the stadium. Every thirty seconds or so, someone would shout “Boomer!” and then the rest of the crowd would roar back “Sooner!”

Wyatt knew that OU was now a very good public university, well regarded nationally. Back when he was a kid, though, ­people had joked that they wanted to build a school that the football team could be proud of.

Wyatt's father had lived and breathed sports—­he'd loved, literally and without exaggeration, nothing and nobody else in his life but sports. O'Malley hadn't given a shit about sports. He gave a shit about books and movies and music. From the first day they met, he'd made Wyatt feel good about himself, not bad, for giving a shit about the same things. O'Malley understood that there was a world outside Oklahoma City, which in the 1980s could feel—­for someone like Wyatt, from a family like Wyatt's—­like a closed fist.

O'Malley had planned to move to California, or maybe Rome. Wyatt, after he graduated high school a ­couple of years later, or maybe even before if he saved enough money, would follow. He would take the spare bedroom in O'Malley's beach house or Renaissance villa.