Westlake, Donald E - Novel 50 (13 page)

 
          
I
can
see
with my forehead.

           
Is this a new thing? Does this exist
in the annals of science? Am I the first of a new breed?

 
          
I
can see with my forehead. The glare became so bright, the sheen of the sun so
fierce, that now I've closed my eyes, and still I can see all that light,
bright white light, see it beating on my forehead, ramming its way through the
skull and into my brain. I am
seeing
the light.
With my forehead.

 
          
Which
of my doctors could I tell this to?
One that won't steal the
credit, of course.
I want this phenomenon named for
me,
doc, not for you.

 
          
"Mr.
Pine?"

 
          
Oh.
Him.
My
forehead sees him, a dark gray lump at
two o'clock
high; my interviewer. "I'm here,"
I promise him.

           
"You were telling me about the
Rev. Elwood Cornbraker."

 
          
"Ah,
yes." My eyes open briefly, but that's an error; I snap them shut again.
I'll keep watch with my forehead. "Life was good with Reverend Cornbraker,
good and full and sweet. All at once there was purpose to my existence. I gave
him a tenth of my income; that's tithing. That wasn't much, was it? After
agents, managers, alimony, child support, attorneys, accountants, taxes, that
left me a good three or four percent of my income for myself to spend any way I
pleased. That's not such a bad deal, is it? Is it?"

 
          
"I
guess not," the interviewer says, but I can hear in his voice he's not so
sure.

 
          
"Well,
I
didn't think it was a bad
deal," I say. "I was happy with the reverend. I was at peace with
myself. All my nightmares went away, my old guilts—"

 
          
"Which old guilts, Mr. Pine?"

 
          
"—just seemed to disappear.
I was washed clean, in the
blood of the Lamb."

 
          
"Which
old guilts were those, Mr. Pine?"

 
          
Persistent son of a bitch.
What kind of fucking deferential
interviewer
is
this anyway? Why don't
I just tell him to go shove his bail-point up his ass and get out of here, the
interview's
over? Why don't I just—

 
          
No.
Not a good idea to make the press suspicious. You never know what they'll come
up with.

 
          
"Which
particular old guilts were you talking about, Mr. Pine?"

 
          
My
forehead gives him a crafty look.
"All
my old guilts," I tell him. "They just faded away. For a little
while, I was at peace with myself. I was content. It was such a strange
feeling, that.
But good.
I'd been working too hard,
piling up the money, the pictures, the credits, working in three bad pictures
for every good one, and Reverend Cornbraker was the one who told me I didn't
have to do that. He's the one who told me working compulsively like that was a
way of running away from something that scared me, but that I didn't have to be
scared anymore. I could take my time."

 
          
"And
did you?"

 
          
"Most
of my people didn't like it."
My forehead smiles,
remembering.
(My forehead can smile, too, and frown if necessary.)
"Agents," I say.
"Managers.
Even Buddy.
They all
liked,
me working, it meant more money for everybody. Reverend Cornbraker was the
one
who gave me permission to slow down, and I did, and then
it lasted just a little while.”

 
          
“And
then it came to an end.”

 
          
My
forehead gives him a rueful look. “Sure did. I know Buddy meant well with what
he did, but sometimes, even now, I find myself wishing I'd never learned the
truth.”

 
          
The
living room of the ranch stretched across the entire front of the place so that
in three directions, through the six-over-six windows flanked by red and white
check curtains, the views were of wild and tumbled hills, tall pines, thick
untamed underbrush, and high triangles of pale blue sky. Not one artifact of
man was visible out there, as though the ranch were a trapper's cabin high in
the
Rockies
in a silent movie.
Except
in color, of course.

 
          
Within,
the ambiance was of a trapper who'd done very well for himself; an
As
tor, perhaps. The knotty-pine furniture with rosy
chintz-covered cushions was rustic but comfortable. The Indian rugs on the
floor were muted Mondrians, schematic, symmetric, each with its tiny deliberate
unnoticeable imperfection, placed there so the gods—who think of perfection as
their own prerogative- would not become jealous and take vengeance on the
carpet's maker.
Or owner.

 
          
Balancing
the broad, heavy, dark-wood front door, on the opposite wall, was a huge
fields
tone fireplace in which a construct of large logs
slowly burned, orange and red. Above the fireplace, where the moose's head
might be expected—and where, until recently, the moose's head had in fact been
displayed—a wide amber painting hung, called “The Return from Calvary'': the
weeping women in the foreground, the dirt road curving back and up to Golgotha,
the three crosses tiny but prominent there against the cloud-raging sky.

 
          
A
sound of Gregorian chants filled the clean air of the high-ceilinged room.
Jack,
dressed in red floral neckerchief, checked flannel
shirt,
Levis
, and well-worn cowboy boots, sat in a wide
knotty-pine armchair near the fire and read a copy of
Lives of the Saints.
Peace, that peace that surpasseth
understanding, abided in the room.

 
          
Hoskins,
dressed quite similarly in style to Jack, although his neckerchief was blue and
his cowboy boots less worn, and the entire sartorial approach less suited to
his size, shape, age, and demeanor, entered bearing a silver tray on which
stood an opened can of Coke and an ice-cube-filled glass. He placed the can and
the glass on the rough-legged knotty-pine table beside Jack's chair.

 
          
“Thank you, Hoskins,'' Jack said, glancing up from his book. “
We're
all equal in the eyes of God, you know.''

 
          
Hoskins
bowed from the waist and from the neck. “And very good of Him it is, too,
sir,'' he said.

 
          
Jack
returned to his reading. Hoskins bowed again and departed toward the rear of
the house, carrying the silver tray. Jack poured some Coke into the glass,
waited for the bubbles to subside, and sipped. He returned to his reading.

 
          
The
Coke was not quite finished and the ice cubes not quite half their original
size twenty minutes later when the broad front door opened and Buddy entered,
also dressed in the same style as Jack, except that his neckerchief was black
and his boots were a highly polished snakeskin. In this setting, dressed in
such similar fashion, that old resemblance of their youth was more pronounced
again, as though they were cousins employed by the same rancher.

           
Jack looked up, as always pleased to
see his friend. “What say, Buddy? Have a good trip to town?"

 
          
“In
a way," Buddy said. He was carrying a large manila envelope in his left
hand. He shut the front door behind him, crossed the room, and sat in the chair
on the other side of the small table bearing the Coke. Jack went back to his
reading, and Buddy sat watching him, his expression troubled. He fidgeted with
the manila envelope in his hands. One Gregorian chant sighed and reverberated
to an end, and a moment later another one started.

 
          
Jack
looked up, mildly interested.
“Something wrong, Buddy?"

 
          
“I'm
sorry, Dad," Buddy said, looking and sounding sorry, “but I've got some
bad news."

 
          
“There
is no bad news in the eyes of the Lord, Buddy," Jack reminded him.
“Just good news."

 
          
Buddy
took a deep breath, and then blurted out: “The Reverend Elwood Cornbraker's a
phony."

 
          
Smiling,
confident, Jack shook his head. A finger marked his place in
Lives of the Saints
. He said, “Oh, no,
he isn't, Buddy."

 
          
“But
he is."

 
          
“Buddy,"
Jack said, “I know you haven't felt the call as strongly as I have, but you can
be sure of one thing: Reverend Cornbraker's as real as God Himself."

 
          
Buddy
looked grim. He said, “His real name's Ralph Hatch. He's done time twice in
federal pens on mail fraud."

 
          
Still
confident, Jack smiled in commiseration and said, “Not possible, Buddy.
Mistaken identification.
Goodness just shines from the
reverend's brow."

 
          
Buddy
said, “He also did a couple years in Indiana State Penitentiary for child
molestation. He liked to take pictures of himself with the kids."

 
          
Buddy
tossed the manila envelope into Jack's lap, atop the copy of
Lives of the Saints
he held there. Jack
stared at it, his expression growing more and
more blank
.
Finally, with nothing showing on his face at all, he withdrew his finger from
Lives of the Saints,
placed the book
next to the Coke can on the table, and picked up the envelope. Even with
nothing showing on his face, it was clear from the slope of his shoulders and
the slowness of his movements that he really and truly didn't want to know what
was inside that envelope. He opened its flap,
then
looked across at Buddy, but there was no reprieve there. Buddy sat and waited
and watched.

 
          
Jack
sighed. He slid two fingers down into the manila envelope and partially brought
out an eight-by-ten glossy photograph. He turned envelope and photograph around
so he could look at the picture, then sat for a long silent moment unmoving,
studying what he saw.

 
          
Buddy
cleared his throat. He said, "The Feds got a tip that Hatch was back in
business."

 
          
Jack
glanced at Buddy.
"A tip?
Who
from?"

 
          
"Anonymous,"
Buddy said. "I figure we'll never know who blew the whistle."

 
          
Jack
looked at his friend. He nodded. He looked again at the photograph.

 
          
Buddy
said, "Hatch is under surveillance now; they'll close in soon when they've
got all the evidence they need. I didn't want you to be there when it
happened."

 
          
Still
looking at the photo, Jack said, "Turn off that fucking music, will you,
Buddy?"

 
          
Buddy
got to his feet and crossed the room to where the stereo equipment was
concealed in an old marble-topped dry sink. While he hunkered in front of it,
opening its door, Jack removed three more large photos from the envelope,
dropped the envelope on the floor, and looked at the pictures, turning them
this way and that.

 
          
The
Gregorian chant stopped. Buddy rose, shut the dry sink's doors, and came back
across the room to sit once more at Jack's left hand.

 
          
His
manner calm, judicious, Jack tapped the photo he was looking at and said,
"I didn't know anybody could do it in that position."

 
          
Buddy
leaned forward over the Coke can. Jack turned the picture so they could both
look at it. Buddy said, "
It's
young bones.
They're supple."

 
          
“Try
that with a grown-up," Jack suggested, “you'd break something." 
.

 
          
“I'm
sorry, Dad," Buddy said somberly. He kept looking at the photograph.

 
          
Jack
also kept looking at the photograph.
“Nothing to be sorry
about, Buddy.
I appreciate what you've done. It's better to know."

 
          
Jack
studied the photographs. Buddy studied Jack, waiting it out.