Whatever Lola Wants (33 page)

“That'd be great.”

She disappeared inside. Did she patrol the hills daily, sling in hand, looking for so-called killers? And when she found one, invite him home?

A darker silence. The screening filtered the water's lilt. Carney, no air moving about him, stuck to his sweaty clothes. A porch that gets evening light holds the day's heat. He pulled at the heel of his wader— His elbow screamed. He waited. For the other wader he used his left hand, for the socks, his feet.

He heard a back door slam. A moment later he saw her march toward the little log house. A generator? She disappeared inside. He stared across the pond. His elbow pounded down his forearm in time with his heart. He closed his eyes and tried to think the pain away.

“You grimace well.” She stood next to him, in one hand a towel and an eight-inch wedge of ice traced with sawdust, in the other two frosted bottles. “Roll up your sleeve. Sit over there.”

He shifted to the armchair. An ice house. In the twenty-first century. On the broad wicker arm she set the wrapped ice. He touched his elbow to the ice, the towel cool and damp. “Thanks.”

She opened the beers. Without looking at him she said, “Santé.”

The beer washed smooth across his tongue and down his throat. She observed him.

“You shoot stones at everybody on Milton's land?”

“When I drove in I saw your car at the bridge. I thought you were with the development.”

“You shoot development people?”

“Somebody was trespassing and I went looking. You were fishing so maybe you weren't Terramac. But you were killing fish.”

No he wasn't. He waited. She wasn't pushing it. “What do you do here?”

“I live here.”

“And?”

“Isn't that enough?”

Carney shrugged.

“Sometimes I think here.” She took off the baseball cap. Her hair lay scrambled down her back and sweat blackened her shirt but she looked cool as the bottle she touched to her cheek.

“What do you think about?”

“You know me well enough to ask that?”

He took a swallow of beer. “You drink with people, you ask questions.”

A puff of a laugh. “I think about my trees, my pond.” She stared out at the fading light.

“Does the ice keep all summer?”

“Pretty near.”

He adjusted the cold to the other side of his elbow. “How much d'you take out?”

“Couple of tons.”

“Hard work.”

“Yep.”

They lapsed to silence, thick as the air, till Carney said, “You work for pay too?”

“I work in a lab.”

“Around here?”

She took some time to answer. “At the County Hospital.”

Saying nothing was difficult. “Interesting work?”

“It can be.”

The ice helped. And the alcohol, beer to blood to brain, had softened his irritation. He should go. He sat, eyes half closed. The earth vibrated lightly.

“Bastards.”

Not a rush of movement, more like the trembling he'd felt after her second shot with his head lying flat on the ground. The tremor passed. “What was that?”

“Goddamn Cochan. That Terramac development.”

A known type. What Carney in his book had called an environmental paladin on a previous generation's estate. He didn't oppose development out of hand. All kinds of people buy themselves some peaceful country air, Carney included. Can't do that without going where other people, country people, live. “What? This land is mine, go build your retreat someplace else?”

She shook her head. “There's one huge reason for this Terramac thing, just one. To make lots of money for Handy Johnnie Cochan. Don't nimby me.”

“Look, people have to live somewhere.”

“Wait till you feel it.”

“What?”

“It may happen. Wait.”

Carney tested his elbow. The ice was working.

“Another beer?”

He should leave. He shrugged. “Great.”

She went out, by the front door this time, into the dim light. His glance followed her to the ice house. Pleasant to watch, the unknown woman's walk: good stride or pretty amble or inadvertent shift of hips. The overalls gave Sarah Magnussen-Yaeger the sensuality of a grizzly. But no, anyone getting him another beer has to be appreciated.

His sweat had dried. He looked around as if an accuser stood behind him. He waited.

Sarah came back. As she closed the door a mosquito flew in, a tiny shape against the lamplight. Carney felt sudden relief, unconscious till then, at their recent absence. She opened the beers. He watched the pest's flight. In his direction. A whine past his ear and he jerked away. It hovered, lowered its flight pattern, made an approach toward his repellent-thin elbow. He cupped his hand. It arced, his fingers stalked—

“Don't.” She flicked at his fingers with the rim of a net.

Like getting his knuckles rapped.

A flit in mid-air caught the mosquito in the skein. She drew a string. Webbing closed over the net top. She stepped outside, closed the door, loosened the cover, released it. Came back, picked up his beer, handed it to him. “Around here, killing isn't on.”

“House rules?”

“My rules.”

“Ah.” He raised the bottle in salute.

Her right eyebrow curved up. “You know it.”

This Magnussen daughter, thought Carney, is weird.

•

“Damn right,” said Lola.

“You judge quickly,” I said.

“She used to be kinda terrific. What got into her?”

In truth, I wasn't sure yet. “Hang on, hang on.”

•

Sarah took down
another lamp, lit it, trimmed the wick, set it on a low table. She looked at Carney's face, shoulders, arms, in open appraisal.

He drank down half his beer. Her stare felt full of questions.

“You met Feasie and Ti-Jean at the Grange.”

“And your parents. Ti-Jean was away.” Carney finished his warming beer. “Ms. Magnussen-Yaeger, thanks for the hospitality. Now could you take me to my car?” He stood.

“Magnussen-Yaeger sounds strange, here in the woods. Look. A favor?”

“What?”

“Stay a bit longer.”

“Why?” The wicked witch flitted past.

“I'll take you now if you want. But if you don't mind, an hour would do.”

“Well—”

“I'll bribe you. Another beer. Or Scotch? I don't have soda. You hungry?”

Too hot for appetite. Beer had turned ache to weak sociability. “Scotch would be nice. And water, just a little.”

She examined his face again and said nothing.

“My elbow and I make such good company?”

“Not very.” She smiled but to herself. “I didn't mean it like that.” Her gaze returned. “You'll see soon, maybe.”

“A puzzle?”

“Kind of.”

And what could an hour of puzzling hurt? Spent with insects'-rights Sarah. She left. Trying to seduce him? Too late. Parties with new people, bar pick-ups, it'd been years since any of that attracted him, even before Lynn. The presence of others, women and men, had become off-putting, Except for Bobbie. More and more he enjoyed his own company. Carney wasn't uninteresting, and who knew him better than himself.

•

“You, possibly?”

“Glimpses, Lola.” I try to search out memories of, and then be omnipresent for, important events of the story. All-knowing, all the moments all the time, is impossible. “Glimpses.”

•

Sarah returned with
a tray and set it on the table. Scotch, two glasses, a bowl with ice, a jug. “It's cold. It comes from a hundred seventy-seven feet down.” She poured Scotch.

“Thanks. Enough.” He picked up the jug and poured a little water. “Cheers.” He sipped. And what was its coliform count?

“Now we wait.”

For a few minutes they sat. Silence is hard with somebody else. Way easier when you're alone. Carney asked, “You live here all the time?”

“Where else?”

A minute later: “Always have?”

For a while it seemed she wouldn't answer. “I've been away. But I grew up around here, at the Grange.”

“Where I'm staying.”

“There.”

He sipped thin Scotch. From the corner of his eye, he watched. She held her Scotch in one hand, the other grasped the arm of the chair. Her face was in profile, a bit of upturned nose, brow half covered with mussed hair. A woman wanting the silence of Carney's company. Original. “And this cabin, did you build it?”

“Yes.”

“You carted all this in, and a construction crew?”

“Walls are pre-fab. A helicopter landed it on the lake seven winters ago. I put it together.”

“By yourself?”

“You have trouble believing that.”

“It looks like a big job.”

“Took me three summers.” She resumed staring out, and sipped Scotch.

They sat for ten minutes, fifteen. He bet himself he could avoid looking at his watch. He won. Though invited to her parlor he hadn't left the porch. A bathroom would be nice, too much beer to sweat out. “There a toilet in there?”

“On the right. To pee, anywhere outside.”

“I'll use the night.”

“Put on some repellent.”

To hell with it, he'd go in. But that felt like defeat. He spread the goo on his arms and face. “What is this vile stuff?”

“Garlic, chili peppers, onions, corn oil.”

“No vinegar?”

She handed him the flashlight. “Don't take your time.”

Careful to let no creature in he stepped outside, gingerly in bare feet. He peed, paused, turned off the lamp, stared up. Heat haze hid all but a few big stars. He returned. A moth got in.

She chose a net with a four-inch diameter rim, stalked the animal, snapped it up beside the lamp, outside, release, back in quick. “That was an ilia underwing.”

“I can even see not killing moths but, be serious, mosquitoes?”

“You talk a lot, don't you?”

“Just curious.”

“Is it necessary to kill anything?”

“Mosquitoes bite me.”

“They want a bit of blood. Call it symbiosis.”

“And the whirring that keeps me awake? And the itch after they've got me? Come on.”

“What, a nice man like you buying the old eye-for-eye philosophies? Kill or be killed?”

The woman was a nut, yes. And his only way back to the Grange. He glanced at the couch. Comfortable enough for a night's sleep? Anyway, no mosquitoes.

“You a carnivore?”

He laughed. “I'm not a vegetarian, no.” From somewhere a shred of memory: that roses, when cut, scream. “And you, you kill plants? You don't hear the tiny cry for help just as you let the sweet little string bean fall into boiling water?”

“I cause as little pain as possible.”

“So? What do you eat?”

She shrugged. “Vegetables. Grains and seeds, they drop in the normal way of things.”

“And the future life of seeds? What about baby plants?”

Her stare through the screen looked weary, with the conversation, with Carney. “Like your own seeds. You don't make babies each time you expel semen.”

He laughed. “Then beer's good. And Scotch. All that barley, those hops.”

She drank her glass empty. “It's good.” A long accusatory silence. “Look, I fly in planes, they spew down contamination. They do if I'm in them or down here. I drive a Jeep and poison pours out. But the idea is, maximize life for the living and minimize pain. Okay?”

Some of Theresa's lessons, Carney figured, were planted deep. “You atoning for something? What'd you do”—a thin darkness rose in her cheeks as he went on—“pour kerosene into anthills when you were fifteen and set them on fire?” Carney had.

She stared straight ahead. After a while she said, “I've taken a vow.”

Vows were private and Carney let it go. “You still want me to wait?”

“You like to talk. You don't like to argue.”

“Look—”

“A few more minutes. Whatever happens. Or not. Then I'll drive you back.”

“Okay.” Not another word.

They sat. Her breathing grew audible, a rhythm set in. Carney felt himself go sleepy. Don't drift away—

He barely felt the beginning but the middle rumbled him to his feet. Except standing was unnatural. Not whisky. The ground itself, a heave, a roll, another, rattling, and vibrations, less, quivers, a tremble, tiny, then still.

Her eyes were misty. A release of breath, a hiss: “Bastards.”

Eight

1.

The explosion smithereened away a
wall. With it went the small passageway. Necessary, Yak had explained. Johnnie had let it go, couldn't admit to Yak that Benjie might be in there. He stood behind the screen and felt the echo-waves of the blast die away. No Benjie in that passage now.

Dust settled. They stared through it. “Damn!” From Yak.

“What?”

“You can see. Over there. Why it didn't work.”

Johnnie saw. Bang Steele rarely erred, but this time two-thirds of the rock face remained. A fissure, visible now between the crumple of dynamited stone and the still-standing granite, had dampened the shock. No, no sonar probing would ever have computed a fissure to be back there.

“Okay,” Yak allowed, “tomorrow we'll refigure, in the evening we get through.”

The plans for Terramac had been drawn up by the architect Harold Middleston Clark of Pretoria. Winner of the Wright Prize, the International Association of Architects Medal and the Linden Prize. Designer of the two-mile long Anabaptist Mall; of Chikoree Fair, plexiglass englobed, the world's biggest amusement park, open for business every day and all night whatever the season; of Adirondack Stadium the convertible race track, football and baseball complex with module seating and retractable roof; and of a two-page list of shopping centers from São Paola to Helsinki.