Hard Rain (29 page)

He found four.

The Art Appreciation Club: Keith and four other young men in tweed jackets, standing around a table set with upended wine glasses and half a dozen bottles of wine.

The Band: a ragged corps on a rainy football field. Keith was in the middle, a bass drum with the word “Morgan” on it strapped to his shoulders. He didn't look happy.

The Rifle Club: a line of marksmen at a firing range. Keith stood at the far end. His form looked perfect.

The Drama Club: “The Blizzard of Gauze.” This, Zyzmchuk saw, was some sort of political spoof. The Wizard wore a Ho Chi Minh mask; the Wicked Witch of the West had on a Lyndon Johnson one. Dorothy, in a polka-dot dress, had been played by Keith. He'd worn so much makeup Zyzmchuk had to read the caption to make sure.

26

An evangelist was on TV. He had a florid, well-fed face, suffused with love of God and contempt for his fellow man. Jessie didn't switch him off. All the other channels had shut down for the night; she couldn't sleep, and she didn't want to be alone. Even the preacher's malign company was better than nothing. He whispered, he shouted, he cried, he paraded across the stage like an albino peacock in his white silk suit.

But at last the organ music rose, and people came forward from the audience to be saved. It made a good background for rolling credits, and the director rolled them. Then he cut to a bare studio where the preacher, in a more somber suit and a mood to match, explained his current financial requirements and asked that they be met by return mail. After that he turned to snow and left Jessie alone with her thoughts.

But the activity taking place in her mind couldn't really be called thinking; it was too disorganized. Fragments of thoughts popped out at her like bogeymen in a funhouse, vanishing before her mind could fit them into patterns. She was left, at two-thirty in the morning, lying fully clothed on her bed at the 1826 House, exhausted, sleepless, staring at her suitcase across the room. It was open: a sleeve of Kate's red sweater hung over the edge. Beneath it she could see the blue-striped leather of one of her Reeboks and a corner of
Jane Eyre
.

She thought for the first time that Kate was dead.

The idea struck her with the force of a blow, opening a hole in her subconscious that spilled out unbearable images: Kate's funeral, sorting her things, the empty space on the fridge where the “My Mom” poem had been.

“Enough,” she said aloud and pushed herself off the bed. Having such thoughts was one thing; dwelling on them another—a masochistic self-indulgence. Like an El Greco martyrdom, there was something sick about it. And worse, it led nowhere.

Jessie sat at the desk and took out the motel stationery. So far, she had coped with Kate's disappearance like a bloodhound: searching for her trail, nose to the ground. That hadn't worked. Perhaps it was time to step back, to see from the perspective of the bloodhound's handler. That meant putting her thoughts in order. It meant developing an explanation for Kate's disappearance first, finding her trail second.

Explanation 1: the theory, half DeMarco's and half hers, that Pat was on a toot down memory lane with an old buddy. This was getting harder to believe. His old buddy Hartley Frame was dead, for starters. Explanation 2, or more properly 1A: Pat had come for the dedication of Hartley Frame's memorial. This was invalidated by his absence from the ceremony. Besides, neither theory accounted for Blue's frightened message on Pat's answering machine. Or Mr. Mickey. Or the bag lady who had watched Pat's house. Jessie could only imagine one context where all that would fit: drug-dealing. Had Pat been involved in some drug enterprise with his sister? Maybe for years? Was that what the ten-thousand-dollar payment to Eggman Cookies was about?

If all that were true, then Mr. Mickey and the bag lady might be Pat's competitors or suppliers with some grievance against him. Blue had discovered that they were about to move against him, but her warning had come too late. On Friday Pat had been in Los Angeles. On Monday he was at Buddy Boucher's. A second man stayed in the car. How had Buddy Boucher described him? He hadn't. The second man had stayed in the BMW—a little rocky, Buddy said. Could the second man have been Mr. Mickey? Why not? She hadn't seen him till the following Thursday—he'd had plenty of time to return to L.A. And then to cross the country again. Why? Had he found out she'd been to Spacious Skies? Had he been searching for her when he came up the stairs to Disco's room? Or for Disco? Or for someone else?

And if the second man had been Mr. Mickey, it meant that Pat had shaved his head. Why?

Jessie looked down at the motel stationery. She'd drawn a box. Inside the box she'd written three names: Mr. Mickey, Bag Lady, Ratty. Beneath the box dangled another, also containing three names: Pat, Blue, Disco. Beneath it dangled a single, boxless name: Kate. Around the whole, she drew a barn. Then she crumpled the paper, tossed it in the wastebasket and rose. The motel supplied a flashlight in every room. Jessie took it and went outside. The bloodhound-handler approach led back to Spacious Skies.

The night was cold, cold enough for snow, but the sky was clear. The moon, so big and orange in L.A., here seemed small; and as white as false teeth. Jessie got in her car and drove north.

There was no traffic. Jessie found herself pressing on the accelerator—fifty-five, sixty, sixty-five. Then she saw headlights approaching from the Vermont side and slowed down. The headlights seemed to be approaching quickly, but Jessie was not prepared for the speed of the oncoming vehicle. It flashed by so fast it rocked her little rented car in its wake and was far down the road behind her before her brain processed what she'd seen: a black van with a red streak on the side and a white head behind the windshield, too briefly glimpsed to record any of its features but the baldness on top.

A jolt went through Jessie, like an electrical stimulus meant to activate the muscles of laboratory animals. She stepped on the brakes, much too hard. The wheels locked in a skid that swept her across the road and into a field on the other side. The car spun around several times and came to a stop; the motor stalled.

Jessie's senses were suddenly acute. She could smell, almost taste, burned rubber in the air, could hear the popping sounds of metal changing temperatures and, far away, the fading noise of another engine. But, although her hand was not quite steady when she turned the key, she felt no fear. The urge to follow the black van was too powerful to allow any other feeling. Kate was in that van. Jessie was sure of it. She stamped the accelerator to the floor; the car roared out of the field, tearing two strips in the earth, and swung out onto the road to Morgantown.

Jessie hunched over the steering wheel, peering ahead for a glimpse of the black van's taillights. But she didn't see them. She sped south through Morgantown, past the 1826 House, dark except for her own room and the one beside it, past the campus, and into the shadowy hills beyond. A sign pointed the way to Pittsfield, Stockbridge, Connecticut, New York. The black van might have gone that way; or it might have turned off the road in Morgantown, might now be parked on some side street. Jessie stopped the car, more carefully this time, turned it and drove back to town. Morgantown wasn't a metropolis; she would search every strip of pavement if she had to.

It was easy in theory, in practice much harder. Morgantown's streets weren't clearly marked; some circled back on themselves, some ended in cul-de-sacs. After an hour, Jessie had seen only two signs of life—a dog trotting across a playing field and a student, her black face momentarily caught in the glare of Jessie's headlights, trudging along a sidewalk with an armful of books. Her mind pictured the van flying south, across the Connecticut line, heading for New York; the image was forcing her to face the fact that she had made the wrong decision, forcing her to look into an uncharted future.

Then she saw the van.

It was parked on a tree-lined crescent, in front of a student residence. There were no streetlights, but the light of the moon was strong enough to illuminate the red flames on the bodywork, the temporary Vermont license plate. Other cars were parked in front of the residence, but the space behind the van was empty. Jessie pulled into it and shut off the engine.

Nothing happened.

No light came on in the van. Its doors remained closed.

Taking her flashlight, Jessie got out of the car. She heard a dog barking, faintly, and a guitar, fainter still. Not a sound came from the van.

Jessie walked around it. She moved very quietly, without really knowing why. The windows, as Buddy Boucher had told her, were opaque, all except the windshield. Jessie put her face to it and looked in.

There was no one in the front; beyond lay darkness. Jessie switched on the flashlight and shone it through the windshield. The back of the van was closed off by a plastic curtain. The cheap material gleamed in the light of her beam. Litter lay scattered on the front seat, piled on the floor—McDonald's cartons, Coke cans, cassette tapes:
Fresh Cream, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Strange Days
.

Jessie moved onto the sidewalk and knocked softly on the van's side door. No sound came from within. No one sat up in a moment of panic, no one stirred in her sleep. Jessie knocked again, harder, hard enough for the sound to echo off the brick wall of the residence and rebound over the broad lawn.

She leaned closer to the door, so her mouth almost touched the cold metal, and called, “Kate. Kate?” And heard her own voice as it really sounded, high and scared. She lowered it, gave it more force, and said, “Pat. Are you in there?” She heard nothing but the voice of someone pretending not to be scared.

What is wrong with you? Act. Move
. Jessie reached out, took the handle and turned it. The door was locked. She walked around the van, trying all the doors—all locked.

Jessie stood uncertain on the sidewalk. She scanned the residence. Only the lights in the stairwells were on. She shone the flash into the van's front seat and saw what she had already seen.

Jessie returned to her car. She opened the glove compartment and took out Buddy Boucher's Polaroid: same van, same license plate. She took a deep breath, trying to make herself patient. Unless Pat had abandoned the van, he'd be back. All she had to do was wait. She had him.

Jessie waited. She forced her body to be still, but she couldn't control what was happening inside it. Her heart raced lightly, pounded, raced again. Waves of fatigue swept through her, waves of panic swept them back. Much stranger, her breasts began to feel heavy, as though they were filling with milk. She hadn't had that feeling in nine years. Reaching under her sweater, Jessie felt her nipple. It was wet. But that was a biological impossibility. Her mind told her that.

But her body was telling her that Kate was very near. She got out of the car.

It was then Jessie noticed something she had seen from the beginning, but hadn't appreciated. Across the sidewalk from the van, on the edge of the grass, was a square hatch cover, painted gray. It was the right size to protect a steam vent, perhaps; or maybe it had something to do with the sprinkler system. The hatch cover had a hasp on one side so it could be locked down. But now the hasp was thrown back on its hinge. Going closer, Jessie found the lock in the grass. The bolt had been cut in two.

Jessie bent down and raised the cover. She switched on the flashlight. Its beam didn't shine on sprinklers or a steam vent, but into a deep round hole, lined with brick. A steel ladder, bolted to the wall, led down.

We used to drop acid and jam in the tunnels. The sound was incredible. We had a little room at the end. With a little mattress
.

Jessie crouched over the hole, playing her light into it. The beam glinted on the steel ladder, found the floor below, a dirt floor, leading off into shadow. What had she heard when she first stepped out of her car behind the black van?

A dog barking.

And a guitar, very faint, as though the sound came from far away. Or from underground.

Leaving the hatch cover open, Jessie rose. She examined the van. The driver, with the empty space behind him, had parked close to the car in front, no more than a foot away. Jessie got into her car and inched it forward until the bumper pressed against the rear of the van. She engaged the emergency brake, got out, locked the car. Then she lowered herself into the hole and climbed a few rungs down the ladder.

Warm, moist air rose up from below. Jessie stepped down to the tunnel floor, felt its slick dampness under her feet. She took the flashlight out of her pocket and turned it on.

There was just enough room in the tunnel for Jessie to stand up without bumping the pipes overhead. She saw a naked bulb in the ceiling, another one farther on and a switch on the wall. Jessie reached for it, then stopped. She had no way of knowing whether the switch controlled only the bulbs nearby or the lighting system of the entire tunnel. So, although craving strong light, she left the switch alone and moved forward with only the dim glow of the unsteady flashlight beam to guide her.

The tunnel was a narrow world of its own, with its own sights: cables, wires, pipes; its own smells: wet earth, urine, decay; its own sounds: dripping water, the quick scratching of running rodent paws, the occasional flushing through an overhead pipe or clicking in a transformer box. And there were Jessie's sounds too: her quiet footsteps, her breathing, shallow and rapid.

That was the totality of the tunnel world. Jessie had almost grown used to it when someone started talking.

A man. Or a boy. Jessie stopped. She switched off the flashlight. Blackness.

The talking came from above, clear but slightly distant, like a voice from the next room. The man, or boy, said, “I know it's the middle of the night. I'm sorry.” Silence. Then he spoke again: “I said I was sorry. But Mom? I hate it here. I want to come home.” Another pause. “But I don't want to call you at the office. I want to talk about it now. Can't you … shit.” Plastic clicked on plastic. Heavy footsteps creaked above Jessie's head. She must be under the residence; she thought she'd gone farther than that. She turned on the flash and shone it in the direction she'd come from. All she saw was a cone of light, edged in shadows, ending in darkness. Perhaps she had gone farther; perhaps it was another residence above her. She fought off an urge to go back and moved on.