Fade to White (7 page)

Halfway down the Thunder Bowl, she ran into Chip. His skis were planted upright into a drift, and he was picking up a pine branch that the snowfall had brought down onto the margin of the trail. She slid over toward him and stopped, figuring to get the scoop on the sirens in the valley.

“I thought you’d be occupied,” she said.

“Hey,” he said, “I am.”

“No, I mean the sirens and all. They didn’t need you? I guess they’ve got a lot of guys on today.”

Chip shook his head. “No—no more than usual.” He tapped his walkie-talkie. “I didn’t get any calls, though. Whatever happened must have happened in town, not up here.”

“That’s good news.”

“If a siren’s ever good news.”

“Right.”

ELEVEN

That evening, conversation was a little subdued in the Broken Binding. Even Tina Montero, who was a look-on-the-bright-side kind of individual capable of facing almost anything with a lipsticked smile and a glass of chardonnay, wasn’t her usual upbeat self.

Word on the street was that Harper Stone had gone missing.

Jack, the highly professional bartender who’d been here since the Germans and was more a fixture than the walnut bar itself, leaned up against the cash register, folded his arms across his chest, and chewed his lip. “I don’t know,” he said. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“People don’t just disappear that way,” said Tina.

“Especially not a capable guy like him.” He shook his head. “I mean,
come on.
It’s
Harper Stone.”

“You don’t know,” said Tina.

Jack raised an eyebrow. “I guess you’re right. The guy could be a pansy. Or maybe he just went soft.” He patted his little belly. “We all do, sooner or later.”

“Going soft doesn’t have anything to do with disappearing into thin air.”

“I’m just saying you’d think a guy like that would know how to take care of himself, whatever happened.”

“Whatever happened.
That’s the question.”

“You’re right. There’s no telling.”

“He was there one minute and gone the next.”

“Maybe somebody kidnapped him.”

Tina laughed and drained her glass. “Sure. That happens all the time around here.”

“I’m just saying.”

“You’re right. Anything’s possible.” She was quiet for a minute, thinking. “Then there’s the drugs.”

Jack wobbled his head from side to side, watching the light in the foyer change as the front door swung open and people came in stamping their feet. “I don’t know about that drug stuff. That’s just a rumor.”

“It’s all just rumors.”

“I’m saying don’t believe everything you hear, is all.”

“I’ll believe anything.”

He rubbed his jaw, rueful. “Not me. You don’t succeed in this world the way Harper Stone did without being a pretty square guy.”

“You’d be surprised.”

He refilled her glass. “You sound like you’d know.”

“Six degrees of separation and all that.”

“What do you mean by that?” Jack asked, watching Stacey head out among the tables to take orders. It was the TV crew, and if the mood in the Binding was subdued they looked ready to bring it down a little more. “What do you mean ‘six degrees of separation’?”

“You know. The Kevin Bacon thing.”

“I know that. I’ve heard about six degrees of separation.” He put the bottle back in the fridge under the bar. “How do you suppose Kevin Bacon got mixed up in that, anyhow? He’s another one.”

“Another one what?”

“Another Hollywood guy. That’s all. How’d he get mixed up in it?”

“In what?”

“In that six-degrees business.”

“I think because it rhymes, is all.”

“Really?” He tilted his head, trying it out to himself. “As simple as that?”

“As simple as that.”

“You think he knows Harper Stone?”

“Within six degrees,” she said, “there’s no question about it. That’s the whole point of the game, isn’t it? Nobody’s that much of a stranger to anybody else.”

*   *   *

The crew would be headed home in the morning, there was no way around that. With Stone gone wherever he’d gone, their work was finished. They all looked pretty glum. Not that anybody missed
him
in particular, but you didn’t expect things to end this way. It was all very dissatisfying.

Manny Seville was at one end of the long table, waving his hands around and telling Karen and Brian that he’d had another look at the footage during the snowstorm and complaining that he wasn’t sure he had enough decent stuff to make the commercial work. Brian was giving him a disgusted look that said he’d damned well better, or else there’d be hell to pay. Karen was putting in her opinion that it didn’t really matter, since you’d have to be kind of ghoulish to go ahead and sell mouthwash with poor old Harper Stone’s last scenes, if it turned out that that was what they’d gotten on tape. Imagine it. The poor guy’s last moments on camera. The famous Harper Stone, looking irritable and old in a mouthwash commercial.

“Don’t worry about him,” said Manny. “He’ll turn up. They always do.”

“Do we have insurance for this?” Brian asked.

Karen frowned. “I guess. Maybe.” Then she thought a little more and shrugged. “How do I know?”

Manny shrugged, too. “I don’t know if you can
get
insurance for this. I mean, the guy disappearing and all. That’s an act of God, isn’t it?”

Brian gave him a hard look, as if he’d caught him at something. “I thought you said they always turn up. Like you’ve had experience with this kind of thing.”

“Not directly. I mean, I read the newspapers, I watch
Entertainment Tonight.
Just like anybody.” He leaned back and swiveled his head, trying to get Stacey’s attention. She was at another table, and he’d have to wait. “Anyhow,” he said, “when he turns up, we’ll come back and get the shots we need.”

“Don’t bet on it,” said Brian. Then, to somebody else at the table, a youngish woman with a pinched look: “That commercial airs … when?”

“End of the month.”

“The commercial airs at the end of the month, Manny.”

“He’ll be back.”

“We won’t.”

“But the commercial—”

“The commercial will be perfect.” Brian narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips into something that was not a smile. “You’ll see to it.”

Manny set his jaw as if he had some kind of artistic integrity to defend, but before he figured out where he was going next, he realized that Stacey had come up behind him and was ready to take their orders.

Brian looked past him to her. “In case you hadn’t figured it out already,” he said, “now you can see why they brought me into this job.”

Manny shot a look over his shoulder and then slumped in his chair, visibly wondering if all of that had been about impressing the girl.

*   *   *

Stacey took their orders and was working on them at the bar with Jack when the front door slipped open on a little gust of wind. Chip Walsh came in. He stamped off his boots in the foyer, hung his coat on a peg, and came over to perch on the stool alongside Tina. He had his black knit cap tugged down to his eyebrows and it made him look stupid, so Stacey took a step away from the taps, yanked it off, and dropped it onto the bar, revealing a case of helmet-head that was pretty remarkable even for Chip. He reached up and pushed his blond hair around, but it didn’t do any good. She reached over and gave it a little more pushing, but that didn’t help either. He was sitting there with a grin on his face, running the band of his wool cap through his fingers and watching Stacey work, when he picked up the vibe that somebody at the tables was staring at him. It turned out to be Brian—who glanced away the second he made eye contact.

“Hey,” he said to Stacey. “That guy.” Motioning with his thumb.

She glanced up quickly, still working on the drinks.

“What’s his deal?” he said. “You know him?”

“How come?”

“The look he was giving me.” He shook his head. “Sheesh.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Like he didn’t approve of you touching me or something. Kind of weird.”

“Don’t give it another thought. It’s just Brian.”

“Brian?”

“Brian.”

“Brian,
Brian?”

“Brian, Brian.”

“Your
Brian?”

“I don’t have a Brian anymore.”

“But—”

“I know.”

“It’s
that
Brian, though.”

“That Brian. Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t mention he was here?”

“I didn’t get a chance.” She finished arranging the drinks on a couple of round trays. “Besides, what difference does it make? What’s the big deal?”

If she didn’t know, Chip didn’t think he ought to go telling her now. Because he’d probably be wrong, and what then?

*   *   *

The bar filled up and Stacey stayed busy. It figured. Everybody in town had been snowed in the night before, and now that the roads were clear they’d all been set free to enjoy a couple of brews and a bowl of Chex Mix and maybe some hot wings. They obviously intended to make the most of it.

Chip ordered a Long Trail and he took his time drinking it. Every now and then he’d slide a look over toward Brian, and every time it turned out that Brian was looking back. There wasn’t anything special about the guy, at least as far as Chip could see. He was all right. He was a type that he’d seen a million times before, back in the offices of his father’s lobbying firm in Washington. Smooth, he’d say. Oily but not greasy. In control of things, at least within certain parameters. A guy like that could go his whole life and never know his own limitations, since he’d never attempt anything beyond them. A guy like that could actually believe that he had no limitations—that he was capable of anything he put his hand to. Chip figured a guy like that could stand to fail every now and then. It would improve him, and for that reason, among others, he was pleased that Brian had failed with Stacey.

Maybe it had taught him a lesson. Probably not.

Chip hadn’t wanted to go through life that way, believing that he was invulnerable and in charge. He could have done just that, easily, if he’d gone into the family business. He could have ended up like his father the oil lobbyist, thinking that he was in control of the whole world, or at least the big parts of it that mattered. The problem was, if you were an oil lobbyist and you really were in charge of the world, then things were starting to look as if you’d screwed the whole deal up pretty badly. Which is just one reason Chip had left behind the family business and a perfectly good trust fund, and come north to Vermont last year for a stint on the Ski Patrol. After one day in first-aid training, a person with any brains knew that he wasn’t in control of things. The world could throw almost anything at you.

With that in mind he got another beer and left the stool alongside Tina’s and headed over to the table where the TV crew was sitting, to see what happened when the world threw something unexpected in Brian’s direction.

The answer was
not much,
at least not right off.

A few people remembered him from the mountain, from that morning when they’d all sat around the picnic tables drinking coffee. The blond actress in particular. She leaned forward—away from a conversation she’d been having with Brian, as if she were coming up for air—and asked Chip how things were on the mountain. As if everybody at the table hadn’t been there all day long. As if he had some kind of inside information. As if his opinion was superior to anybody else’s in the room.

He just shrugged.

Evan got up to use the men’s room, and she took advantage of his absence to slide over into the chair next to Chip, which also happened to be a notch farther away from Brian. Brian just sat there and watched her go, shaking his head, looking dazed.
Hey,
he asked the room without speaking a word,
what am I, chopped liver?

People laughed, almost sympathetically but not quite, and the girl smiled back from over her shoulder. Then she turned her full attention to Chip, who’d raised his palms and was giving Brian a bewildered look. Bewildered but definitely happy.

*   *   *

Stacey came back with another pitcher of beer and Brian watched her come. He pointed toward Chip and the blonde. “Looks like the outdoorsy types get all the girls around here,” he said. Although she looked over at Chip, Brian didn’t. Not for a few seconds, anyhow. He kept his eyes locked on Stacey instead, evaluating her expression. She had a thing for that guy Chip, all right. That was for sure. Although she didn’t seem to know what to do about it. Or whether she should be doing anything at all. She just looked at that blond-headed ski patroller and that blond-haired actress, put down the pitcher at the other end of the table, and stood there. Brian had never known her to be at a loss for words—except for that one night in Boston when she’d found him in bed with that friend of hers who hadn’t been able to keep her hands off him. Right then she hadn’t said a single word, she’d just gone all stony and thrown her stuff in the car and had never come back. It sure looked like she was at a loss for words now, too.

Hmm.

Chip, on the other hand, didn’t seem to notice a thing. Whatever subtleties were warring in Stacey’s brain were utterly lost on the guy. Mister Oblivious, that was Chip. Then again, Brian thought, who could blame him? It looked like he could have it pretty much any way he wanted it. Maybe what they said about those outdoorsy types was true, incredible as it seemed.

TWELVE

“So where are you staying these days?” Brian. Leaning on the bar with his head tilted to one side in that look of phony sincerity that Stacey had learned, in retrospect, to hate.

“I’ve got a room.”

“Oh. A room. Sounds nice.”

“It is.”

“A room of one’s own,”
he said, as if he knew the first thing about Virginia Woolf. As if he ever might.

“It’s nice enough.”

“Are you subletting from some old spinster?” He might have meant it as a means of suggesting that she was on her way toward becoming an old spinster herself, now that she’d blown him off; or he might have meant it as a way of discovering if she was shacking up with nature boy over there. Or he might have meant nothing by it at all.