Joshua Then and Now (47 page)

“Oh, really,” Reuben said, reaching for his crowbar.

“Let’s get out of here right now.”

“I’m staying,” Alex said.

The senator joined them. “Is there really a stiff in there?” he asked in a faltering voice.

“What a bunch,” Reuben said, exasperated. “Alex, we should of come out alone.”

“Yeah.”

“Now you boys just dig out that coffin. I know what I’m doing.”

When they had finally cleared the cheap, rotting pine coffin, Reuben moved around it, jimmying the lid here and there. Joshua’s heart thudded. The senator, for all his bold talk, looked old and weary. But Alex was elated. “O.K.,” Reuben said, “anybody here believe in ghosts?”

Nobody answered.

“If it’s a vampire, I think what you’re supposed to do is drive a stake through its heart.”

Nobody laughed.

“O.K. Stand back. Ready. Steady. Go,” Reuben said, and with one twist of the crowbar he swung back the splintering lid to reveal a cornucopia of booze. Top Hat Whisky, Scotland’s Pride, Edinburgh Castle, Hi-Life.

“Holy cow,” the senator exclaimed.

As Alex reached down to retrieve a bottle of Top Hat, Reuben cautioned him, “Hold it, kid. You don’t want to drink that shit.”

“What?”

“Too much sulfuric acid. The Gurskys didn’t know too much about distilling in those days. There was so much rust in this brew they had to run it through a loaf of bread, not that it really helped. You sip that and your fingers will go numb. Now there,” he said, pointing at two strapped boxes, “there’s the stuff we want.”

They retrieved the boxes and unstrapped them to uncover a dozen bottles of Johnny Walker Black and a dozen of Gordon’s Gin. Reuben opened a bottle of Johnny Walker, took a swig, and passed it to the senator, who drank and passed it to Joshua.

“I’m so excited,” the senator said, “I’ve just got to piss right here and now. Anybody mind?”

“Certainly not.”

And then, his cheeks flushed, the senator added, “Anybody care to join me?”

Alex and Joshua transferred the good liquor to their own cartons and, on Reuben’s instructions, resealed the coffin and shoveled earth over it again.

“How did it get there in the first place, Reuben?”

“I really wouldn’t know about that, Senator, but if I had to guess I’d say in a hearse, most likely.”

They started back for the road, the senator leading. “Damn it,” he suddenly exclaimed, trotting back toward them, “it’s the heat.”

They all turned to Reuben, but he offered no guidance.

“I knew we should have hidden the car,” the senator said.

Parked right behind their station wagon, headlights blazing, was the village taxi. And leaning against it, wizened, mottled old Orville Moon. Lizardy eyes, yellowed teeth. “Why, Senator Hornby,” he said, astonished, “what are you doing here?”

“Looking for nightcrawlers.”

“You came all this way for worms?”

“That’s right.”

Moon indicated the senator’s shotgun. “And were you going to shoot the meaner ones between the eyes?”

Alex sat down on his carton. So did Joshua.

“For worms,” Moon said, “they sure do rattle a lot.”

“Look here, Orville, if not for me you’d still be singing for your pension. I also got your cousin that beer license.”

“True enough.”

“Out of our way, then.”

“There’s some deer that’s been shot out of season around here.”

“Now you just scat, Orville.”

Pauline was waiting for them in the living room.

“I pissed outside,” the senator told her, excited, “out in a field there.”

Alex and Joshua carted in the liquor.

“Boy, did we ever have fun!” the senator said.

“Stop waving that cannon around like that,” Reuben said. “Here. Give it to me.”

Reuben gestured for Joshua to follow him out onto the porch, where he showed him the empty breech. He held the bullets in his hand. “I wasn’t taking any chances. I emptied it before we got into the car.”

The senator was just a bit of a problem the following afternoon.

“You’ll never guess where this hootch comes from,” he said, pouring a Scotch for Dickie Abbott.

“Hey now,” Reuben said, “I never took you for a canary.”

“Damn right. Mum’s the word. But it was aged in the casket, wasn’t it, old pal?”

“If you say so, Senator.”

Later Joshua found Pauline soaking in the bath. Pauline, Pauline. Joshua let out a yelp, stripped down, and lowered himself into the tub behind her.

“What if Alex comes in?” she asked.

“Well now,” he said, beginning to lather her breasts, “don’t you think it’s time he learned about alternative life-styles?”

“I’m not protesting. I just think maybe we should lock the door.”

“Maybe I’ve made a mistake about avoiding it out here. Possibly we should try a summer on the lake.”

“You have no idea of the kind of people who come out here in summer. You’d only be miserable, Josh.”

“What about you?”

“I was brought up with them.”

“I could build a fence around the property. Electrified. This is where the Shapiros live. Bless them. Jane Trimble and cancer keep out.”

“If only it were that simple.”

“Hey, you’re becoming awfully serious.”

“Darling, if you’re going to do that –”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Certainly not. But lock the door, please.”

“I love you. But I can’t understand why you ever married me. I never would have.”

“You didn’t make it easy to say no.”

“Did you love me then?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“And now?”

“Please lock the door.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“I love you. I’m also afraid.”

“Of what?”

“The others.”

“…A
ND THEN I SAID
,”
MCMASTER DRONED ON, AS THE
Sony whirled, “ ‘Look, Colucci, you dumb dago, you North End asshole, I don’t know what you’ve got going with anybody else in Number Four, but you can stuff that envelope where the monkey put his fingers.’ Cut. Stop. Correction. And then I said, ‘Look, Colucci, you are dissimulating, you are not a credit to your people, like Dante or Mayor La Guardia, I don’t know what arrangement you have with other officers in this station, but I do not accept emoluments, and therefore please put that envelope back in your pocket.’ Is that better?”

“Terrific,” Joshua said.

“You’ll clean up all the other dirty parts as we go along.”

“Sure.”

Reuben appeared in the doorway. “The Flopper’s on the phone. What do you think?”

“I’ll take it.”

Shooting McMaster a sour look in passing, Reuben passed him the phone.

“Lookit,” The Flopper hollered over the din of The King’s Arms, “tell ya why I called. There’s a sale on Wonder Bras at the Bay, and we thought we’d pick up some, only we don’t know what size cup ya take.”

“Very funny. Ha, ha.”

“You sound lousy. Now you take care of yourself, you son of a bitch,” The Flopper pleaded in a throbbing voice. “Here’s Rog.”

Roger’s voice was thick. More of the correspondence had been leaked, he said, and it was going to run in
Maclean’s
under the photograph of the two of them kissing. “Issue a statement,” he said, “and I’ll see that it goes out on the wires immediately.”

“You think that would change anything?”

“His kid was on the National last night. They interviewed him in London. What a shifty little bastard.”

“Well, he has his grievances.”

“Issue a statement. One minute. Robbie wants to say something.”

Robbie was also drunk. “I don’t give a shit about you, darling. What I want to know is, how is Pauline?”

Joshua choked.

“Joshua?”

“I don’t know where she is,” Joshua said, signaling his father to take the phone from him.

“That’s it,” Reuben said, “he’s tired now,” and he hung up and turned to McMaster. “I think he’s had enough of your memoirs for one day.”

“He’s not tired. Besides, we’ve got a best seller in the making here.”

“Josh?”

“I’m all right.”

“Anything I can get for you while I’m here, then?” Reuben asked McMaster.

McMaster rocked in a wicker chair, sucking on a soggy White Owl, his colorful shirt unbuttoned, his hairy belly bursting out of his double-knit tartan trousers, his dainty feet encased in white golf shoes. “Yeah, another Laurentide. But just bring me the can. I’ll open it myself, if you don’t mind?”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“You bring it to me in a glass and your boy here has the first sip.”

“Why can’t we be friends, Stu? Here,” he said, extending his hand, “shake.”

“Daddy,” Joshua called out, terrified, “don’t.”

“Don’t worry,” McMaster said, “I know better than to shake that hand.”

“Yeah, well,” Reuben said, leaving, “I’ll give you another hour with him and that’s it for today.”

After McMaster had finally gone, Joshua was able to make it upstairs to his study and, looking across the bay, he saw Trimble out on his dock. He’ll be coming here, Joshua thought. If not today, tomorrow.

Joshua wished he were on morphine again.

Ensconced in the hospital, his body throbbing, he had, under the influence of morphine shots, dreamed again and again that Pauline was there, adrift over his bed, and then he would call out her name, only to have one of the nurses loom into sharp focus.

“What is it, Mr. Shapiro?”

Apprehensive, unable to work, Joshua began to sift through cardboard boxes that had not been unpacked since they had left London, sorting out old papers. Somehow a photograph of Monique and him in San Antonio had survived the years. She was snuggled into that black bikini and he was grinning beneath a broad-brimmed straw hat. Look at him, the prick. He also found a handbill saying that Litri, Aparacio, and Luis Miguel Dominguin would be in Valencia for the Fallas, and a yellowing flyer from the Florida,
Boite de Nuit
, Calvo Sotelo 17, Valencia, which proclaimed “El más extraordinario programa de Grandes Atraccionies, Presentación de Sugestivas Estrellas, con Lolita Madrid y Bella Nelly.” Something else he had unwittingly dragged across continents was three stapled sheets from the Office Espagnol de Tourisme, announcing “Voyage aux Îles Baleares, séjour très agréable en toutes saisons.”

My, my.

M
ONIQUE’S STOUT, FLESHY MOTHER CONTINUED TO
fulminate on the terrace of the Casa del Sol, resolutely refusing to acknowledge Joshua whenever he passed her table, but she seemed to have become reconciled to her daughter passing most of her nights at Joshua’s place. Certainly she never intruded on them. Then, one morning, he was awakened by a visitor. Wiry, beady-eyed Mariano. It was, Mariano said, his duty to put a number of questions to him. “You must remember,” he began, “that in Spain we expect foreigners to behave with a certain decorum.”

Joshua suppressed a smile.

“You have committed certain indecent acts on public beaches.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your conduct has come to the attention of the bishop, and he is outraged.”

“Are we going to have a little
auto de fe
just because Monique and I have kissed on a beach?”

“You have been seen nude together on Las Salinas and twice on the beach of the Casa del Sol.”

“Seen by whom?”

“You deny it?”

“Of course I do.”

Hugely embarrassed, Mariano sighed and said, “There are photographs of the two of you.”

“Are you serious?”

“They are the kind of photographs they sell in Pigalle.”

“What happens now?”

“It’s not good. I’m trying to help, but not everybody is your friend here.”

“Have you come here to arrest me?”

“Oh, no,” he said, offended, “but I must urge you to go carefully.”

“May I see the photographs, please?”

“I haven’t brought them with me, but they exist.”

That afternoon, emerging drunk from Don Pedro’s, squinting against the sun, Joshua started down the hot dusty road winding out of San Antonio until he was about a mile out, and then he cut across the olive grove and sank to the grass under a gnarled tree. He awoke an hour later, no longer dizzy. He climbed the mountainside and once he reached the hump of guano-covered rock overlooking Dr. Dr. Mueller’s villa he had, it seemed to him, sweated out his drunkenness. He dug his knife out and clambered down the rock face into Dr. Dr. Mueller’s garden, skinning his knee against a jutting rock.

“Mueller,” he called.

No answer.

“It’s me, Mr. Mr. Shapiro.”

Nobody home. Lucky you, he thought, and now if you know what’s good for you, beat it. But instead he used his knife to pry open the terrace doors. Inside, it was soothingly cool. He had no idea where he might have hidden the photographs. Neither did he know exactly what he was going to do. There were, of course, no lampshades made of human skin or unmarked bars of soap lying about. There was a sentimental photograph of what appeared to be an Indian camp caught at dusk, only one of the braves was drinking Steffens Pils out of a bottle, and underneath was the inscription “Gemeinschaft Nord-deutscher
Indianerfreunde.” A buffalo robe hung on one wall, and there were crossed tomahawks over the mantelpiece. There was also a framed photograph of a severe-looking man with a handlebar moustache in the uniform of the Kaiser’s army. His father? Another photograph, this one of an elegant lady with coiled blonde hair seated on a sofa with two plump boys. The lady wore a high, frilly-collared black dress, the boys school uniforms, and all three stared solemnly into the camera. Underneath, somebody had inscribed in ink “Dresden, 1943.” Joshua studied Mueller’s foreign-language bookshelves, infuriated because the books were, he had to admit, mostly in good taste or, at worst, innocuous. Hemingway, Maugham, Michael Arlen, Charles Morgan, and what appeared to be the complete works of Zane Grey. There was a shelf of German books on natural life. Everything from horse-breeding to a history of leopards. And then, in a glass case, three rows of paperback westerns in German by Gus McCabe.

Turning to the records strewn on the table, Joshua was disgruntled not to find anything Wagnerian. Some Gene Autry, a
Carmen
album,
The Best of Maurice Chevalier
, Beethoven’s Second Symphony. Frustrated, he scooped up a lamp with a porcelain base in the shape of a waltzing eighteenth-century couple, flung it toward the ceiling, and watched it splatter on the floor, slivers everywhere. He found the camera with the long-range lens and smashed that too.