Fade to White (17 page)

She took a step backward and found Manny and Buddy standing there behind her still, transfixed by the television. They jumped and she jumped, too. Manny’s face went slack and his mouth dropped open as the story crawled past on the bottom of the screen. Buddy sneered up at the television and said how great it would have been if Stone had lived to see himself finally getting some decent publicity after all those years.

*   *   *

“The state police wanted me to tell them everything, of course.”

The girl leaned toward Brian, rapt. “Did they put you in one of those interrogation rooms, like on TV?”

He laughed it off. Mister Tough Guy. The Voice of Experience. “Hardly,” he said. “In fact, quite the opposite. They visited me in my condo.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them what I know. Background information, mostly. Personality issues. Behavioral stuff. Performance on the job.”

“Like if he’d been acting strangely? That kind of thing?”

“You’ve got it.”

“Well, had he?”

“Had he what?”

“Had he been acting strangely?”

“Hard to say.” It was hard, on account of Brian had only been on the job with Stone for a couple of days. Even then they hadn’t exchanged more than ten words. Prior to that he’d never met the guy. He’d never even seen one of his movies, other than on one dimly-remembered Saturday afternoon in junior high, stuck over at some friend’s house in the rain, bored half to death and seeking salvation in a cardboard box of old VHS tapes. As he recalled, it was either watch
Murder Town
or sit through some Clint Eastwood cowboy picture they’d both seen a hundred times already.

The girl poked at the votive candle between them. “Did he have any enemies or anything?”

“Wow,” said Brian. “You could be a police detective yourself.”

She beamed.

“Really. Have you thought of going into law enforcement?”

“I took a couple of classes,” she said.

“No kidding.”

“So they asked you that? They asked you did he have any enemies?”

“Oh, you bet they did.” They hadn’t asked him anything of the sort. Once they’d gotten the lowdown on how little he knew about Harper Stone, they’d taken his contact information, given him a business card as a courtesy, and tipped their hats good-bye.

“And?”

“And a person like Harper? With his profile and his status and his wealth?” (All of them, the profile and the status and the wealth, being things that he’d already trumped by claiming himself the guy’s employer.) “Why, he’s
bound
to have enemies. Don’t you think?”

“That’s why I asked.”

“I told them a few things. Let’s put it that way.” He sipped his drink. “Let’s leave it at that, OK?”

The girl leaned forward. “Aren’t
you
the mysterious one?”

“Sometimes,” he said, as mysteriously as possible.

*   *   *

Brian had been doing so well. When he went off to use the men’s room, though, everything changed: the people, the dynamic, his prospects, the works. He’d washed his hands and combed his hair and fixed his shirt collar just right, but when he came back to the table he found two more chairs pulled up and a couple of laid-back guys draped over them—guys younger than him by as many years as Susie ChapStick was, guys who looked like they might have gone to high school with her, guys who were just bursting with bullshit stories about their heroics on the mountain. There was no way in the world he could compete. He sat down and introduced himself, stayed put for as long as it took to finish his drink and salvage a little bit of his dignity, then excused himself for an empty stool at the bar. He hated like anything to drag himself over there in plain sight of Stacey, but she was pretty occupied anyhow.

Jack was right there when he sat down. “No luck?”

“It’s not about luck,” Brian said.

“I guess not.” He didn’t look like he meant it, though. He pointed to Brian’s empty glass. “Another one of those for you?”

“Sure,” said Brian.

Everything that Stacey might have had to say about finding Harper Stone beneath the snow was pretty much common knowledge by now. Brian sat quietly, letting that third drink work on him, feeling the information ebb and flow around the bar. It was nothing but locals, as far as he could tell. Somebody’d have a question for Stacey and Stacey would be too occupied to answer it entirely—she was either consulting Old Mr. Boston on the fine points of a drink she’d never made before or carrying a tray of Long Trails over to a table of snowmobile dudes who couldn’t seem to get enough—and somebody else would take up the thread on her behalf. There was a rhythm to it and a kind of comfort, too. All these people finishing each other’s sentences and filling in each other’s blank spaces. He had nothing to add, really, and it made him feel kind of low. Kind of jealous. Not on account of Stacey’s connection with anybody in particular—none of the men here filled that bill; it was only the bartender and some porky middle-aged guy who looked like a car salesman, and an old farmer whose gray hair stood straight up like it was scared of something—but because of how she seemed to be fitting in here better than she’d ever fit into his life. It made him wonder about things, until he decided that it was probably just the alcohol.

TWENTY-FIVE

Maybe the troopers were just throwing Guy a bone, but maybe not. Maybe they really
were
interested in his personal take on the local angle. Either way, it was going to give him something to do instead of the usual, which mainly consisted of bolstering the township’s budget by snagging flatlanders who thought that the road between here and Rutland was their own private speedway. Every time he issued a ticket he included a friendly and even faintly apologetic lecture about traffic safety and narrow roads and the stopping distances required by these treacherous wintertime surfaces, but everybody involved in the process knew the truth. As a general rule, it was 75 percent about the money. The money funded a lot of good things—including his own salary, without which the highways around here would definitely be more dangerous. So there you had it.

Anyhow, the lead-footed flatlanders were going to be getting a holiday today. God bless ’em, there’d been a little bit of fresh snowfall, and they’d be in an even bigger hurry than usual. Guy Ramsey, though, had other fish to fry.

*   *   *

He started at the Slippery Slope. Buddy’s big Japanese SUV was where it usually sat, in the parking spot right in front of the door. For a change there were five or six other cars, too, all of them from out of state. People coming and going with skis and poles over their shoulders and boots dangling from their gloved hands. Guy backed his patrol car into a space across from the door, killed the engine, and sat for a while watching folks come and go. It was actually kind of comical. You’d see somebody getting out of his car, a spring in his step and a smile on his face as he looked forward to a day on the mountain, and fifteen minutes later—when he came out of the shop with a pair of freshly-tuned skis over his shoulder or a sack of gear in his hand—that same guy’s face would be twisted into a mask of impotent rage. He’d be shaking his head
never again, so help me God, never again
. That, in a nutshell, was the special magic of Buddy Frommer. He’d made the Slippery Slope into a homey place, provided that home was an institution for the criminally insane.

Guy waited until the crowd thinned out, turning on his engine every few minutes to warm up the cabin and defog the windows, and when the rush was over he got out and approached the store.

Buddy was behind the counter with his head down, scowling at numbers on a computer screen, and he wasn’t in any hurry to look up as Guy came through the door. When he did raise his eyes, though, it was clear that either he’d sneaked a peek and known that Guy was coming all along, or that the old off-the-cuff nastiness that Guy and his brother had always hated him for had not abandoned him in middle age. He tilted his head toward Guy’s muddy patrol car and smiled his poisonous smile. “I see you’re still driving a Ford,” he said.

“Company car,” said Guy.

“So’s mine.” He was talking about that big white Japanese SUV.

“I guess,” said Guy.

“Only I own the company.”

“Right,” said Guy.

He stood in front of the elevated counter with his boots draining onto what looked like a pretty high-end hardwood floor, and reminded himself not to care. He had other things to think about. The immediate problem was that all the trappings of authority that he carried with him everywhere he went—the razor-sharp uniform, the flat-brimmed hat, the scrollwork badge, the holstered gun—all of the things that ordinarily established an air of authority around him and produced a kind of settled and automatic confidence in his heart, all of these elements suddenly felt not just meaningless but downright silly. Like he was a kid wearing a costume for Halloween. Like he was Michael Jackson dressed up in one of his flamboyant Sergeant Pepper outfits. All because of Buddy Frommer and his attitude, Buddy Frommer and his dad’s bank account, Buddy Frommer and his damned Camaro, thirty years in the junk yard. Some things never changed.

Buddy sighed, craned his neck, and twisted his shoulders like they hurt. He had a big head, that Buddy Frommer. It was a head like a bull’s head, one of those big belligerent oversized heads like John Travolta had. His hair had gone thin on top a long time ago and he’d covered it up with a comb-over for years, but lately he’d begun shaving it instead. Now it just looked kind of naked. Big and naked and raw. It wasn’t a good look. Guy took off his flat-brimmed hat and ran his fingers through his own dense flattop, feeling a little better about that if about nothing else. You took pleasure where you could find it.

“You’re not here shopping,” Buddy said. He said it as if it was an accusation, as if Guy was just one more irritating flatlander, arrived to waste his time looking at skis for an hour and then to splurge a couple of bucks on a ChapStick.

“No,” said Guy. “I’m not.” Running his hand through his hair again for good measure, and putting his hat on the counter.

“Hmm.” Buddy gave his computer screen another quick look and then switched it off, a move that Guy observed without looking directly at it. “Then what
do
you want?” he asked.

“A couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind. I mind very much. How’s that?” Turning back instinctively toward the dead screen and reaching around the back of it.

“I’m going to ask them anyway. How’s that?” Guy forced out a smile.

Buddy just grunted.

“I understand you’ve been making some friends in the media lately.”

“Is this one of the questions?”

“Yes.”

“Then ask it straight out.”

“Nothing specific. I was just wondering if you’ve been making some friends in the media lately. Movie people. Like that.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Come on.”

“Really. No idea. You’re going to have to get a whole lot more specific.”

Guy started small. “A director from New York. A fellow by the name of Manny Seville.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Come on.”

“No. Really. Never heard of him.”

“He came into your shop yesterday.”

“A lot of people do.”

“You left with him.”

“People buy enough of this crap, I help them out to their cars. Give ’em a hand.”

“No, you don’t. Not the Buddy Frommer I know. You’ve never given anybody a hand in your life.”

“Sure I have. A guy with a couple thousand bucks’ worth of skis. A little old lady.” He shrugged. “I’m a Good Samaritan. Sue me.”

“This guy didn’t buy skis.”

Nothing from Buddy. Not even the passage of some hidden recognition behind his eyes. His big dull face on his big head was a blank.

“This guy Manny left and walked to the Binding, and you had dinner with him there.”

“Jeez. Am I under surveillance now or what?”

“No. People just notice things. Me included.”

“Goddamn small town busybodies.”

“So you
did
spend a little time with Seville.”

“I never knew the guy’s name. Or else I forgot it. Sorry.”

“I see.”

“We had a few drinks. Had a few laughs. I’m a friendly guy.”

“Sure,” said Guy. “But never mind that.” He was thinking that there was obviously more to be learned about what Buddy was up to around here, but now was not the time to do it. “I’m not really interested in Seville anyhow. Who I
am
interested in, in case you haven’t guessed, is an old friend of his. Harper Stone? The movie actor? You do know
his
name, don’t you?”

“I haven’t spent my whole life under a rock.”

“I guess not.”

“Remember in high school?” Buddy’s eyes, sunken into that big head, actually got a little dreamy at the recollection. “A bunch of us took Bernie Johnson’s mom’s car—that big Eldorado—up to the drive-in for a double feature?
Murder Town,
it was. And that army one.”

“The Ne’er-Do-Wells.”

“Yeah. That’s it. That’s the one.
The Ne’er-Do-Wells.
”

“That was my brother,” Guy said. “My brother Bill. You were in
his
class, remember?”

Guy didn’t say anything. He was too busy marveling at how movies had the power to change history. To rewrite not just their own subjects but the content of life that went on around them. There was no question in his mind that Bill Ramsey hadn’t been in that Cadillac with Buddy and Bernie and their pals. He’d been doing his homework, probably, or running his paper route. Working, anyhow. Like his little brother Guy did. It was how they were raised.

“Must have been a dozen kids jammed into that car. Four or five of us in the trunk.”

“Bill never mentioned it,” said Guy.

“What a night,” said Buddy, shaking his big head back and forth in a fog of misremembering.

“I guess.”

“Those were the days.”

“Right,” said Guy. “Anyhow, what I’m wondering now is if you had a chance to see Stone when he was in town.”