1985 - Stars and bars (29 page)

He crept closer, moving from bush to shrub, from tree trunk to tree trunk. Then he saw a tall oddly pear-shaped figure step in front of the fire. Henderson hid some twelve or fifteen feet away. The flames illuminated a heavy expressionless face. Henderson knew instantly who it was. He stepped casually out of the bushes.

‘Hi there, Duane.’

Duane turned round unconcernedly: ‘Yeah? Who is it?’

‘What’re you doing?’

Duane peered at him. ‘Mr Dores, yeah? Hi.’ He had dark hair, parted in the middle and falling to his collar. His face had a stubborn, prognathous—but otherwise inoffensive—aspect. He was carrying a lot of extra weight, but his height and big frame compensated for the excess.

‘Good to meet you, sir. An’ hey, listen. I’ll get your car tomorrow. I promise.’

‘Great.’ Henderson felt untypically calm. He looked at the fire. Its fuel seemed to gleam and glint strangely.

‘What are you burning?’

‘Oh. Mr Gage’s pictures.’

Henderson felt his adam’s apple swell to block his throat. He knelt down. Testing first with licked fingertips he slid a semi-charred stick from the fire’s edge. It had been a thin finely worked section of frame, some of the dull gold moulding was still unburnt. Using it as a poker he prodded at the contents of the fire. Frames, nothing but frames. Some intact, some broken. Empty frames with a few crisp, blackened shreds of canvas adhering to them.

‘Why have you burnt them?’ he asked quietly, not wanting to provoke or cause offence.

‘He told me to.’

‘Who?’

‘Mr Gage.’

‘When? Why?’

Duane put his hands in his pockets and gazed at the fire. ‘Well, you know, after he had his kind of attack…Beckman took Monika home and went for the Doc. I picked Mr Gage up and carried him back to his room. I felt kinda bad seein’ as how he’d been shouting at me, and all. That it was sorta on account of me, like…’ Duane paused.

‘He was, ah, you know, breathin’ all sorts of wheezes and gasps and he says, ‘Duane, you got to do one thing for me.’ I says, ‘Sure thing, Mr Gage, what’s that?’ An’ he says, ‘You gotta take those paintings off of the walls and burn ‘em. Burn ‘em all. And don’t let Freeborn or Cora or Beckman see you doing it. Don’t let anybody know.’ So I said OK, good as done. And then he said swear. So I swore on the Bible and my mother’s head. He told me to do it as soon as I could…’ Duane kicked aimlessly at a jutting frame.

‘And then, I guess, he died. Though I couldn’t be sure. Then Beckman and the Doc came in.’

Henderson picked up another section of frame. Holding it to the fire he could read the careful copperplate of its inscription. ‘Edouard Vuillard (1886-1940).’ He tossed it back on the fire. So much for the Gage collection. Smoke and cinders.

‘But why did he ask you to burn them?’

‘Hell, I don’t know, Mr Dores. Maybe he didn’t have any more use for them seein’ as he was dying. Maybe he didn’t want for anybody else to have them. They were his own, sorta thing. Not anyone else’s.’ Duane spread his hands. ‘Listen, I’m just doing what he toP me, you know? I swore I would.’

‘I suppose so.’ Henderson rubbed his forehead.

‘Mr Dores?’

‘Yes?’

‘Did, uh, Bryant like kinda say anything to you? About us?…Not you an’ me. Me an’ Bryant. I’d sure like to talk with you—’

‘Let’s talk about it in the morning,’ Henderson said. He was suddenly reminded of his kidnapping plans. He had to keep Duane out of the way.

‘I think I’ll get back to bed,’ he said cautiously.

‘I’ll just stay on here. Make sure it all burns away. Check it don’t spread, sorta thing.’

‘Good idea. In fact you’d better make absolutely sure. Be very careful.’

‘Don’t worry, sir. I’ll make sure.’

‘See you in the morning.’

‘Sure, and hey, I’ll get your car back. Sure thing. Nice talkin’ to you, Mr Dores.’ Duane held out his big hand.

Henderson shook it, smiled, and walked quickly back into the house. In his room when he bent down to pick up his bag he thought he would faint. He paddled air onto his face with stiff hands. He felt as though some tiny but vicious fist were pounding him repeatedly in the chest. His legs trembled dramatically. Easy, boy. He summoned up one of Eugene Teagarden’s breathing drills, flaring his nostrils, voiding his lungs. Nymphs and shepherds. In, out. Come away. Inhale. Exhale. Cough. Come come come co-ome away.

Then, marginally composed, he crept into Bryant’s room.

Speed was crucial now. He switched on the light. Bryant slept on, mouth open, still snoring. Her clothes lay scattered all over the room. He thought of trying to gather them into her suitcase but decided there wasn’t time. Anyway, the girl had enough clothes as it was. He picked up a pair of green jeans and a yellow sweatshirt. He would simply pull them on over her pyjamas…

He knew, or rather he thought he knew from their effect on him, what the consequences of taking three sleeping capsules were. One was not comatose and could be woken. And from there one could stay awake with some prompting, could walk, even talk a bit, just like someone who—logically enough—had been roused from deep sleep. The difference was that the sensation of bleary baffled consciousness never departed, as it did from a normal sleeper, normally roused; rather it prevailed for a further twenty-four hours. Or at least that had been his experience. He remembered his own stumbling, blunt day after he had taken the pills. His head turned quicker than his eyes. His hands were composed of ten calloused thumbs. His bottom lip grew oddly heavy, irresistibly inclined to hang free from its partner. Saliva pooled in every oral cavity, causing embarrassing spillage, or else constant loud draining noises. After he had spent a couple of hours in the office like this, Beeby had ordered him home. Now Henderson was counting on Bryant being similarly inconvenienced.

‘
Bryant
, ’ he hissed, and whipped the sheet back. He whipped it up again and turned away, one hand on his mouth, one across his forehead. The fist started punching again. He looked stupidly about the room. She was
naked
.

Bloody thoughtless bitch! he swore petulantly. He saw her pyjamas crumpled by the bed. He rubbed his hands across his face as if he were washing it. His palms were warmed by the heat of his brow and glowing cheeks. There was nothing for it. He prayed Duane was still diligently supervising the fire. He pulled down the sheet again.

He felt guilt and shame swill through his body as—despite stringent moral injunctions to the contrary—he stared at Bryant’s nude body in fascinated curiosity. The firm pointed breasts, the soft pale nipples, the skin stretched tight over the staves of her rib cage, the etiolated trace of a bikini bottom, the oddly touching, thin, vertical stripe of pubic hair…He had to wake her up. He sat beside her. But first—evil Henderson—he covered a breast for a second with a hot shivering palm.

‘Bryant. Wake up.’ He shook her, grabbed her wrists and hauled her into a sitting position.

‘Wha…?’

He pulled the sweatshirt over her slubbed blinking face, tugged it down over those accusing breasts. Working like a harassed mother—he concertina-ed the legs of the jeans and directed her boneless feet through the holes. Tug. Up to the knees. Keep the eyes on the toenails: chipped and scarred with aubergine varnish.

‘Wha’s happ…’—swallow—‘…ning, Hndrson?’

‘We’re going.’ Tug, heave. ‘Lie down. Make a bridge.’

‘Wha?’

‘Make a bridge.’ He slid a hand, palm uppermost, between the warm sheet and her warm buttocks and lifted. She held it there. Mohican crest. He pulled.

‘OK.’ There just remained the zip on the fly. He was disgusted to notice a straining behind his own.

‘Hold it.’ Zip. Soft cilia brushed the knuckle of his forefinger. Then he pushed his hand down the left sleeve of her sweatshirt, located her left wrist and pulled it through. Right sleeve. She was dressed. He licked his lips and tasted salt. A palm wiped across face came away slick and shiny.

‘Hennerson. I wanna go…sleep.’ Her eyeballs rolled, white in the sockets for a second.

He found some shoes, flat creased gold moccasins, and slipped them on her feet. Then he had a flash of inspiration. He tore a leaf out of his notebook and wrote in capital letters:

DEAR DUANE,

 

IT’S NO GOOD. I DON’T LOVE YOU ENOUGH TO GO AWAY WITH YOU. I’VE GONE BACK TO NEW YORK WITH HENDERSON. IT’S ALL OVER. SORRY.

 

BRYANT.

He couldn’t fret over composition or style. He just hoped Duane could read. He folded the note, wrote ‘DUANE’ on the front, and left it prominently on the pillow.

‘Come on,’ he said to Bryant. ‘We’re going to meet Duane. Don’t make a sound.’

He took her hand and led her out of the room. She came docilely. She lurched and staggered a bit and once said ‘Duane’ in a loud clear voice but they made their way down the stairs without being discovered and without too much difficulty. Henderson unbolted the front door and stepped outside onto the porch. There was a faint dawn-lightening in the sky by now, the stars were almost gone. His brick still stood in place of his car: even if the car had been there he realized he couldn’t have used it. He had to leave with maximum stealth. And he was running a little late. He was counting on Duane not visiting Bryant’s room until after breakfast.

With his case in one hand and the other on her elbow he guided Bryant down the steps. The large bulk of Freeborn’s trailer was completely dark. He felt the sweat cool on his face.

‘See Duane?’ Bryant mumbled.

‘
Shh
. Yes.’ Goodbye, he breathed at the Gage mansion, goodbye forever.

‘Let’s go.’

‘
Henderson
? Is that you?’

He whirled round almost dropping his case with shock and surprise.

‘Whatcha doin’?’ Shanda stood at the foot of the trailer steps, wearing a pale grey dressing gown.

‘We’re getting out of here,’ he whispered.

‘I heard noises earlier. Were you movin’ around?’

‘No.’ It was probably Duane. ‘Goodbye, Shanda.’

‘Hey, wait on a minute. I’m coming too.’

‘No!’

‘Henderson, I can just go right on back in there and wake Freeborn. I’m sure he’d like for to know what you’re all doin’ out here.’

‘Oh God, Jesus H. Christ. OK. Anything. But hurry, for God’s sake.’

‘I’ll be two minutes.’

He felt his sinuses thicken and clog and his eyes screw up of their own accord. It could have been a sneeze but he knew it was tears of frustration. He shook his head angrily.

‘Shanda?’ muttered Bryant, lolling against him.

‘Yes, she’s coming too.’

Subjective hours later Shanda appeared. Henderson kept expecting the broad figure of Duane to amble round the corner of the house. Shanda wore a print dress beneath—what looked like Freeborn’s denim jacket. She carried a small nylon hold-all.

‘Let’s go,’ she said conspiratorially. ‘Hi, Bryant honey.’

They set off down the road to Luxora Beach, Bryant’s feet dragging rather at Henderson’s brisk pace, Shanda making surprisingly good progress in spite of her high heels.

‘What’s wrong with her, Henderson?’

‘She took a couple of sleeping pills.’

‘What?’

‘Pills. Sleeping bloody pills.’

‘Oh. Got you.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t wake Freeborn?’

‘Sleepin’ like a hog. Are you sure it wasn’t you come by earlier? About three or four times?’

‘No.’ Duane lugging pictures no doubt.

They pressed on along the dark lane. The crickets were almost silent, only the odd solo voice joined by an early chirping bird. There was a refreshing moist coolness in the air. The dark had retreated; the light was grey and silver, the trees and bushes still and opaque. Glancing to his right he could see Shanda, taking giant unsteady strides in an effort to keep pace. Henderson slowed, out of respect for the jolting embryo.

Soon they arrived at Luxora Beach. A few lights were on; the solitary traffic light hanging above main street shone amber, amber, amber. The bar was dark and inert; no neon gleamed. They paused at the railway line. Shan-da wiped some drool from Bryant’s sweatshirt front. A distant rumble in the east turned into a monster truck which thundered needlessly through the town.

‘Are you sure she’s OK?’

‘Yes,’ Henderson looked around. ‘She’s jist plum tuckered out.’ Three cars stood in the otherwise deserted mall. What now?

‘What now?’ Shanda said. She lit a cigarette and leant against the stanchion of a railway warning sign.

‘A bus, I thought. An early morning bus to Atlanta.’

‘A
bus?
Are you kidding? Ain’t no bus in Luxora.’

Henderson smiled stupidly. Of course not. He was thinking of tiny English villages, all with local bus routes. Stoppers. What a fool…Just then he longed for an English bus, with its hard furry seats, its smell of wet coats, stale cigarette smoke and diesel. A surly fat yob of a driver with badges and a pencil behind his ear.

‘OK, so we gotta hitch a ride,’ Shanda said.

They crossed tracks and waited. An odd forlorn threesome, Henderson thought. Shanda solicitously checked on Bryant, who was swaying about and mumbling that she was tired.

‘You want a smoke, honey?’

‘No. She can’t smoke.’

‘OK.’ Shanda stretched back, both hands supporting her spine. ‘I’m glad I could come along, Henderson,’ she said sincerely. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘Mmm.’

‘No I mean it. I couldn’t have stood it there any more, with Loomis gone and all. Loomis was the only person could keep Freeborn down.’ She shook her head. ‘You just get me to New York. Should be far enough away.’ She flicked her cigarette out into the road. It was getting distinctly lighter. Behind the church somewhere Henderson heard a car start up. Some upstairs windows shone yellow. A door slammed. A banal cock crowed. The flags on the post office flagpole still hung at half mast for Loomis Gage.

Henderson stood on the dust verge and looked down the grey road. He felt his body was about to petrify from the tension. A smoky lemon stripe in the east heralded the approach of the sun. For an instant he had a sensation of the rushing massive rotation of the earth. It was ten o’clock in the morning in England, the sun was shining on the Atlantic, it was the wee small hours in Los Angeles. A mile or so away the efforts and genius of some dead European artists had been reduced to ashes by a dim, innocent galoot, and their owner was starting the long process of decomposition in a box beneath the earth up on that hill. And meanwhile he, Henderson Dores, stood by the side of a side road in the hinterlands of America, with his enemy’s pregnant wife and a drugged abducted girl, trying to hitch a ride to New York. What did it all add up to, he asked himself. Where was the sense?