Winter 2007 (17 page)

“Mary Beth? Listen! I want
you to have him pull over. Right now!”

“Everything’s under
control, Coria,” says Ashford. “I’m on top if it.”

“And behind it, too. And on
the bottom.” Mary Beth giggles.

“You can’t take her in
there!” says Cliff. “It’s dangerous! Even if there’s nothing…”

“Bye,” says Ashford, and
breaks the connection.

Stunned, Cliff calls him
back, but either Ashford has switched off his phone or is not picking up.

There’s the missing piece
to the Ashford puzzle, the one that explains why he never rose higher than
sergeant: He’s a fuck-up, likely a drunk. He didn’t sound drunk, but then he
didn’t sound sober, either. His friends on the force probably have had to cover
for him more than once. He has to be drinking to pull something like this.
Cliff tells himself that Ashford has survived this long, he must be able to
handle his liquor; but that won’t float. He should go over to the Celeste…but
what if he fucks up Ashford by doing so? He puts his head in his hands, closes
his eyes, and tries to think of something that will help; but all he manages to
do is to wonder about Mary Beth. Recalling how she slipped into business mode
this morning, he’s certain Ashford is paying for her company. Six or seven
hundred dollars, plus dinner and drinks—that would be the going rate for
all-nighter with an aging hooker. Ashford, he figures, must earn thirty-five or
forty K a year. Spending a week’s wage for sex would be doable for him, but he
couldn’t make a habit of it. But what if this is his farewell party and he’s
crashing out? Unwed, unloved by his peers, facing a solitary
retirement—it’s a possibility. Or what if he’s on the take and this sort
of behavior is commonplace with Ashford. Cliff has a paranoid vision of Jerry
Muntz slipping Ashford a fat envelope. He rebukes himself for this entire line
of speculation, realizing there’s nothing to do except wait.

Thirty minutes ooze past.
Wind shudders the panes, rain blurring the lights of the boardwalk, and he
calls again. Ashford answers, “Yeah…what?”

He’s slurring, his voice
thick.

“Just checking on you,”
Cliff says.

“Don’t fucking call me,
okay? Call when it’s been two hours…or I’ll call.”

“Are you in Number Eleven?”

“Yeah. Goodbye.”

To ease the strain on his
back, Cliff lies down on the bed and, perhaps as a result of too much
adrenaline, mental fatigue, he passes out. On waking, he sits bolt upright and
stares at the alarm clock. Almost midnight. If Ashford called, he didn’t hear
it, but he’s so attuned to that damn ring…He fumbles for the phone and punches
in Ashford’s number. Voice mail. After a moment’s bewilderment, panic wells up
in him and he can’t get air. Once his breathing is under control he tries the number
again, and again is shunted to voicemail.

He talks out loud in an
attempt to keep calm. “He’s fucking me around,” he says. “Motherfucker. He’s
twisting my brains like in high school. Or he forgot. He forgot, and now he and
Mary Beth Hooker are passed out in bed at the Celeste.”

Hearing how insane this
monologue sounds, he shuts it down before he can speak the third possibility,
the one he believes is true—that Ashford and Mary Beth are no more, dead
and done for, presently being carted off to wherever the Palaniappans dispose
of the bodies.

He flirts with the notion
of calling the police, but what would be the point? If they’re alive, all it
would achieve is to attract more attention to him and that he doesn’t need. If
they’re dead and he calls, he’ll instantly become a suspect in multiple murders
and they’d most likely pick him up. But he still has an out. He calls Marley.
Voicemail. He leaves an urgent message for her to call him back. If he knew
where her mother lived, the street address, he’d drive to Deland and pick her
up, and they’d get the hell out of Dodge. Where they would go, that’s a whole
other question, but at least they’d be away from Shalin and Bazit. That’s okay,
that’s all right. Tomorrow will be soon enough.

He tries Ashford a third
time, to no avail, and lies down again. He doesn’t think he can sleep, but he
does, straight through to morning, a sleep that seems an eventless dream of a
dark, airless confine in which insubstantial monsters are crawling, breeding,
killing, speaking in a language indistinguishable from a heavy, fitful wind,
coming close enough to touch.

Chapter Eleven

It’s not unreasonable to
think, Cliff tells himself, that Marley’s still into it with her mother and
that’s why she hasn’t called; but it’s nine AM and he’s growing edgy. He calls
the police, asks to speak with Sgt. Ashford, and is put through to a detective
named Levetto who says that Ashford’s always late, he should be in soon, do you
want to leave a message?

“No, thanks,” says Cliff.

Screwing up his courage, he
does something he should have done last night—call the motel.

“Celeste Motel,” says
Bazit. “How may I be of service?”

Cliff rasps up his voice to
disguise it. “Number Eleven, please.”

“Number Eleven is vacant,
sir.”

I’m looking for some
friends, the Ashfords. I could have sworn they were in Eleven.”

A pause. “I’m afraid we
have no one of that name with us. A Mister Larry Lawless and his wife occupied
Number Eleven last night.” Cliff thinks he detects a hint of amusement in
Bazit’s voice as he says, “They checked out quite early.”

After trying Marley again,
Cliff sits in his underwear, eating toast and jam, drinking coffee, avoiding
thought by watching Fox News, when an idea strikes. He throws on shorts and a
shirt, and heads for the arcade where he met Ashford the previous morning; he
stakes out a stool at the counter, orders an orange juice from Kerman, and
waits for Mary Beth to appear.

Last night’s deluge has
diminished to this morning’s drizzle, but the wind is gusting hard. It’s a
nasty day. Churning surf ploughs the beach, massive, ugly slate-colored waves
larded with white, like the liquidinous flesh of some monstrosity spilling onto
shore, strands of umber seaweed lifting on its muddy humps. The bruised clouds
bulge downward, dragging tendrils of rain over the land. A mere scatter of
senior citizens are braving the weather; in the arcade, a handful of debased
souls, none of them kids, are feeding coin slots with the regularity of casino
habitués. If she’s alive, the chances of Mary Beth putting in an appearance are
poor, but Cliff sticks it out for more than an hour, scanning every approaching
figure, prospecting the gray backdrop for a glint of whitish gold with black
roots. His thoughts grab and stick like busted gears, grinding against each other,
and the low music of the arcade, a muttering rap song, seems to be issuing from
inside his head.

He reaches for his cell
phone, thinking to try Marley, and realizes he has left it on the kitchen
counter. He hurries back to the apartment and finds a message from Marley. “Hi,
Cliffie,” she says. “I’ll be home soon. Mom’s no longer threatening suicide. Of
course, there could always be a relapse.” A sigh. “I miss you. Hope you’re
missing me.”

The message was left five
minutes ago, so he calls her back, but gets her voicemail. It’s twenty-three
miles to Deland, a twenty-minute drive at Marley’s usual rate of speed. At
worst, he expects her to walk through the door in a couple of hours. But two
o’clock comes and she’s not yet back. He calls obsessively for the better part
of an hour, punching in her number every few minutes. At three o’clock, he
calls the police again and asks for Ashford. A different detective says, “I
don’t see him. You want to leave a message?”

“Is he in today?”

“I don’t know,” says the
detective impatiently. “I just got here myself.”

Cliff is astonished by how
thoroughly the circumstance has neutralized him. He knows nothing for certain.
There’s no proof positive that Stacey is dead, no proof at all concerning the
fates of Mary Beth and Ashford. There is some evidence that Jerry is involved
in criminal activity, perhaps with the Palaniappans, but nothing you can hang
your hat on. He has every expectation that Marley is safe, yet he’s begun to
worry. He can’t raise the alarm, because no one will believe him and the police
think he’s a murderer. If truth be told, he’s not sure he believes Shalin’s
story—events have gone a long way toward convincing him, but it’s
perfectly possible that she’s playing mind games with him and that’s all there
is to it. When the DNA results come back, as they could any minute, at least
according to Ashford, then there may be some proof, but if the DNA doesn’t
match Stacey’s…
Nada.
Yet it’s the very nebulousness of the situation
that persuades him that his life has gone and is going horribly wrong, that
he’s perched atop a mountain of air and, once he recognizes that nothing is
supporting him, his fall will be calamitous. He should do something, he tells
himself. He should leave before the DNA comes back, pack a few things and put
some miles between him and the Palaniappans whom—irrationally—he
fears more than the police. He can call Marley from the road, though God knows
what he’ll say to her.

In the end, he takes a
half-measure and drives to the cottage, deciding that he’ll pack and wait there
for Marley to call. The surf in Port Orange is as unlovely as that in Daytona,
the sky as sullen. Wind flattens the dune grass, and the cottage looks vacant,
derelict, sand drifted up onto the steps and porch. When he unlocks the inside
door, a strong smell rushes out, a stale, sweet scent compounded of spoilage
and deodorizers. Eau de Cliff. He tiptoes about nervously, peering into rooms,
and, once assured that no one is lying in wait, he grabs a suitcase and begins
tossing clothes into it. In a bottom drawer, underneath folded jeans, he finds
his old army .45 and a box of shotgun shells. The shotgun has long since been
sold, but the .45 might come in handy. He inspects the clip, making certain
it’s full, and puts it in the suitcase. Headlines run past on an imaginary
crawl. Actor Slain In Deadly Shoot-out—Details at eleven. He finishes
packing, goes into the living room, and sits on the couch. A cloud seems to
settle over him, a depressive fog. He can’t hold a thought in his head. It’s
been years since he felt so unsound, as if the fluttering of a feather duster
could disperse him.

The overcast turns into
dusk, and for Cliff it’s an eternal moment, a single, seamless drop of time in
which he’s embedded like an ancient insect, suspended throughout the millennia.
He feels ancient; his bones are dry sticks, his skin papery and brittle. The
phone rings. Not his cell, but his landline. He reacts to it
sluggishly—he doubts Marley would call him at this number—but the
phone rings and rings, a piercing note that reverberates through the house,
disruptive and jarring. He picks up, listens yet does not speak.

“Mister Coria? Hello?”

Cliff remains silent.

“This is Bazit Palaniappan,
the owner of the Celeste Motel. How are you today?”

“What do you want?”

“I have someone here who
wishes to speak with you.”

Marley’s voice comes on the
line, saying, “Cliff? Is that you?”

“Marley?”

“I’m afraid she’s too upset
to talk further. I’ve arranged for her to have a lie-down in one of our
bungalows.”

“You fuck! You hurt her, I
swear to God I’ll kill you!”

Unperturbed, Bazit says,
“Perhaps you could come and get her. Shall we say, within the next half-hour?”

“You bet your ass I’m
coming! You’d better not hurt her!”

“Within the next half-hour,
if you please. I can’t tie up the room longer than that. And do come alone.
She’s very upset. I don’t know what will happen if you should bring people with
you. It might be too much for her.”

His cloud of depression
dissolved, Cliff slings the receiver across the room. He’s furious, his
thoughts flurry, he doesn’t know where to turn, what to do, but gradually his
fury matures into a cold, fatalistic resolve. He’s fucked. The trap that the
Palnaniappans set has been sprung, but Marley…He removes the .45 from the
suitcase, sticks it in his waist, under his shirt, and thinks, no, that won’t
be enough. They’ll be watching for him, they’ll expect a gun or a knife. His
mind muddies. Then, abruptly, it clears and he remembers a trick he learned in
blow-it-up school. He goes to the drawer in which he found the .45; he takes
out two shotgun shells, hustles back to the living room, rummages through his
desk and finds thumbtacks, strapping tape, and scotch tape. He makes a package
of the shells, the scotch tape, a few thumbtacks, and a length of string; he
drops his shorts and tapes the package under his balls. He’s clumsy with the
tape—his hands shake and it sticks to his fingers. The package is
unstable. One wrong move and everything will spill onto the ground. He adds
more tape. It’s uncomfortable; it feels as if he shit his pants. He stands at
the center of the room, and the room seems to shrink around him, to fit tightly
to his skin like plastic wrap. He’s hot and cold at the same time. A breath of
wind could topple him, yet when he squeezes his hand into a fist, he knows how
strong he is. “I love you,” he says to the shadows, and the shadows tremble. “I
love you.”