Just North of Nowhere (40 page)

Later, Miss Iverson told Mommy she hadn't said a word, nothing like it she said. She was reading from a poem book. She showed Mommy. She had put on a Halloween mask to read. “To make it scary, see?” She showed the mask. “Sleeping Beauty,” Miss Iverson said. Her hand shook. “I was reading a poem! Steve Hartranft turned off the lights! For effect, you know.”

Clem held Mommy's hand. “Clown said it.” he said. “Clown!”

The rain had come. The sky opened, and thunder crashed. BOOM like a gun.

Miss Iverson said, no, Clem had spoken. Miss Iverson had heard Clown come from Clem.

So had Cliffy and the rest. They all heard Clown come out of Clem. Clom. Clown. “Clem said, that land of death thing.”

Cliffy and his mother drove away, off to Slaughterhouse in their car in the rain. Off to tricker-treat.

Mommy and Clem ran to their car.

The wipers slurped across the windshield in the dark. Mommy's face ran with rain shadow.

Climbing the cliff road home, the car swished back and forth. They climbed through dark and rain, the wipers sweeping. Behind Clem, Clown leaned over the backseat. Clem knew his face, now, sweating white and bone, all the colors of Clown gone smeary with rain and tears. Clem smelled the pipe, the smell of the bank, the smell of Tuffy's birdy poop.

Mommy wouldn't say anything. There would be talking-to at home, you bet!

Clown said, “watch this! Ha, ha, ha…”

The car backfired. Poop, poop, POOM. The engine went bang, bang, Clang. Like lightning and thunder, but inside. The car stopped dead. It chattered and flopped. Then it got quiet.

Mommy cried.

“Just Clown,” Clem said, almost loud enough to be heard.

A light played along the cliff across the way. A beam of sun, like God, played on the face of the rocks. Mommy got out of the car. Clem got out. Clown got out. He took a running leap and flew through the air—flying Clown like before! Clem ran to where Clown flew toward the light. Now he could watch!

The rain still poured but light played across the valley, across Bluffton. Clem ran toward the sunbeam.

“Clem!” Mommy screamed. “Wait,” she screamed. “Don't,” she screamed louder. She ran slipping and sliding in the mud that flowed across the road.

Clem too. He slipped, he slid, his Scotsman’s beard was wet and his costume hung heavy. He ran toward the cliff and the sun and Bluffton, below.

Clown tumbled ahead in the air, rolling toward the Land of Death.

Clem flopped, splash, onto his face and Mommy, right behind, ran and ran and flew over him. She flew on the wind and tumbled, spinning away, grabbing branches—which broke—at leaves—which crumbled. She slid, then,
ahhhhhhh,
she fell leaving wet red down the side of the rainy bluff, down the cliff. She yelled, Ahhhh-Uh-Nuh, and bounced. Across the way, God's light went out and night came back, all green and wet. Except for the rain it was quickly quiet as Mommy and the rocks chattered into the dark, below.

“Accident,” Clem said.

“Ha ha,” said Clown. “Can’t be helped! NOW you wanna come play in the Land of Death?”

Clem was alone. But there were friends; friends at school, Miss Iverson, Vinnie the Policeman. There was time. He'd see the Land of Death someday. Someday when it had more people: Cliffy and others, Olaf the Dog. People would go and one day when it was full of friends and people he loved, people he'd meet, waiting, then Clem would go too and live forever and ever.

That's all HE knew of the Land of Death! It was filling up.

“No!” Clem said to Clown. “Not yet.”

And the rain kept sweeping down.

As always, the killer was early. He backed the rental into the trees across the county blacktop from the entrance to the abandoned drive-in. The branches closed around the windshield. He still had a view. Above the gate, the marquee sagged. He read:

Close for the Sea

Rea ?

Free in’!

“Some poetry lasts forever,” he said to the car.

The bluffs at his back, deep forest right and left, shadows everywhere. Being surrounded felt comfortable. In a minute, he got used to it. Another minute and he almost trusted it. Sunset was less than an hour away, a half an hour before the meet.

Twenty-five minutes passed. Three cars passed. The sky became dark blue. The trees on the ridge beyond the drive-in were black saw teeth at the bottom of the evening sky. No one came and the sky got darker. He never saw that shade of blue in the city, that kind of sky. If he’d cared, he'd have liked it.

He focused on the guy who wasn't there. The client, not the hotbody, the ‘customer.’ For now the consumer was just a name. No voice, no face. The consumer was Reb. For now, the killer's name was Mr. Clay. The name was a whim.

The business was as usual. Someone needed to be dead. Someone else needed that death. He needed it so much that he began to think that making it happen might be possible. That thought had become a pain and the pain became an action. Someone became a consumer. Then Mr. White, or Mr. Todd, or Mr. Clay headed north from the city. His service was not hard to find.

The consumer’s name was
Reb.

Rebel?
May be?
If Rebel, then, country
. Likely. Mr. Clay looked into the deep woods that had his back and flanks. He checked the blacktop road that connected here to everywhere else. Nothing. He let the imagined Reb gather more detail. Reb would be thick necked, bearded, his eyes would be rimmed with fat. His breath would heave under his voice, come out of flannel and denim. He’d have a smell of armpit, gasoline, and beer belches. Gut wrapped him like suet. Macho tough oozed from him like sweat.

He looked at the Reb he'd built.

A cliché. Cliché’s were dangerous. They’d get you dead in the world Mr. Clay walked. They stopped thought. The other side was, most people lived in a world fleshed with cliché wrapped on bones of the probable. Of course most people weren’t consumers.

He erased his Reb and let the consumer remain a blank.

He leaned over and unlocked the glove box. His SOB holster held the hammerless S&W 442 where he had put it that morning. He removed it, checked the moon clip. A full five. Yes. He re-holstered the weapon and slipped it into the small of his back. He settled. The thing warmed to his touch.

Another minute. The sky was darker blue. Reb was now…

Clay checked his watch.

…Late. Mr. Clay tingled. Lateness was one hate he allowed. There were a few. Hate needed to be meted-out with care. Hate gave birth to danger. He didn't hate the dead he'd made. He didn’t hate the ones who hired him. Police were irrelevant. He didn't hate them. He didn't hate evil. He didn't hate goodness. He hated waiting. Waiting was chaos. He feared chaos. Above all things he hated fear.

The squeak of a bicycle preceded the cyclist. Clay tingled again. The rider rounded the bend, pressing up the shallow hill from the town, Bluffton, two thousand yards from this spot. When he saw the rider, Mr. Clay almost smiled.

The Reb pedaled slower. When he drew opposite the drive-in entrance, he put a foot to the road and looked every way but the right one. Reb was tall and dead thin, not very old, but he breathed heavily. He wore brown gabardine slacks. His white dress shirt was buttoned to the throat. No tie. A soft gray fedora rested on his ears. The man fumbled a key ring, then unlocked a small door let into the car gate of the drive-in. Before entering, he looked up and down the road, again he missed Mr. Clay and his vehicle.

Reb! Good one.
Mr. Clay smiled completely. He gave the empty road another minute. The smile drained from his eyes. He gave his client another two and a half minutes to get jumpy, then he got moving. Such temptation. He wanted to ignore caution, go directly to him and ask, “who do you want dead, rabbi?”

No. First Principles. And the first of the First Principles was:
Ignore no principle
. He made an ice pick of the precept and drove it into his heart.
Get sloppy, get splashed
, he recited to himself. It was the way he’d first heard that First Principle. That commandment why he’d survived Falujah, the Cote d’Ivoire, Jalalabad and an uncounted number of dim bars, dark alleys and parking garages. He’d lived a lot of years after a lot of good people hadn’t. He took an even wider oblique than usual through the trees, rounding the bend in the road toward town. Once around the curve, he crossed the blacktop and climbed to the break in the fence he’d reconnoitered before he’d parked.

The world inside was large, open. The shaggy cedar posts enclosed four city blocks of frost-heaved macadam and knee-high weed. Mr. Clay did not like large or open. People were comfortable in the open. Their disadvantage. The screen backed onto the trees and river at the far end of the space. It had sagged. Another winter, it’d be down. One peeling panel hung at an angle. The internal framework, a sagging web of probably rotted wood and rusted wire stays, was open to the failing light. Graffiti covered the screen to a high-water mark, a teen’s arm-reach above the ground. It was not the rococo tagging of the city, this was moon-barking: who loved whom, who bites dick, what class ruled. Next heavy snow would drop the whole thing, he guessed. Except for the screen, the stumps of speaker poles, and the ruin of the projection booth/concession stand, the place was open to the near night sky.

The Reb stood by his bike. He faced the entrance. Clay didn't have to work at approaching quietly. Stealth was as natural as his heartbeat and the Reb’s neck and chin were in the crook of the killer’s arm, the fedora shoved over the man’s eyes. Happened like/that.

“Once you see me,” Clay said to the Reb’s ear, “things start. They start, you don't stop them. Understand? Nod if you do.”

“I can’t.

“I’ll feel your intent.” Clay felt the nod.

“I want you to know where you're going. Do you know what you're starting?”

Reb nodded.

“You don't stop it. You can't stop it. You won't stop me. You understand? You can talk.” He relaxed the pressure on the man’s throat. Just enough.

“Yes,” Reb said. “I understand. Believe me, I understand that.” His voice was thin, little air under it.

Clay eased. “After you turn around, somebody will die.”

“Well,” Reb said.

“Do you want to turn around?”

Reb nodded.

Clay released Reb and stepped back. He kept his hand ready to reach for the small of his back. The cool weight rested there.

For a moment the man did not move. He stared at the screen, or beyond the screen toward the line of bluffs, black across the river. He shook his head. “This is so foolish,” he said.

Clay waited. This was the consumer's turn.

“Hubris,” the client said. He sighed.

Clay waited.

“Tell me something. What do I call you by the way...?”

“Mr. Clay.”

There was a moment. “Can you tell me, Mr. Clay? You're an expert on death? Can you tell me: Can something be killed that never lived?”

“Rabbi, I kill people. That doesn't make me an expert on life or death. You want this death? You're the expert on this death. You tell me, Reb, can I kill this someone who never lived?”

The man turned. His eyes were large. Clay did not think they were large from panic. The face bones were fine, orbital ridges, well defined, skin, tight, covered in sweat. The tight skin pulled the wide circles of his eyes into round dark holes in his face. The eye’s darkness was from lack of sleep. He'd seen that before, on clients or on still-warm corpses. Reb's cheekbones were high and delicate. They'd break with a tap. The lips were full, they would split with a tap. His beard was thin, uncultivated, it fell below the top button of his shirt. His nose was arched, slender. It would break with a tap. Reb was 30, 33.

“Can you kill this thing? I hope. I honestly don't know, Mr. Clay. I could, that I know, but I haven't the will. Whether you can or not? It's kind of an academic question, Mr. Clay.”

Last light drained from the sky and the air chilled. A damp breeze blew across the broken ground from the river. The trees sighed, the dry prairie grasses that had pushed through the broken macadam made a sweeping whisper. The loose panel on the sagging screen creaked.

The rabbi couldn’t see the killer’s smile. “This is a ghost story, isn’t it, rabbi? A winter’s tale?”

The rabbi said nothing. Then, “No, he’s – it’s – not a ghost.”

“Reb, I’m here to bring death. If this is something less serious than that, I will make it that serious. Do you understand me? I will bring death.”

The voice was thin, airless again. “Yes.”

“A man, then.”

“A man? Something. It's coming. It comes every night. It wants. It wants something from me. We have a few minutes, Mr. Clay.” Reb said. “This was so foolish.”

“You've said.”

“A bet.”

“Much of my business begins with a bet.”

“Oh that's not what I mean.” Silence. “This isn't about money. There were no stakes. Well. A bottle of wine. Nothing important. It's just…” Another silence. “It's that I won the bet and being right, in this case, was wrong. Very wrong. If I had lost, you wouldn't be here. We'd all be happy.”

Mr. Clay had an urge. He wanted to shift his weight, adjust himself. He didn't. Part of the image and another First Principle:
In place, stay till there’s a reason to move and a place to go.

The rabbi spread his arms. The move nudged Clay’s spine. His legs, arms, brain readied. “This is mine,” the rabbi said. “You believe that? My family. They build a drive-in theater here. North of nowhere. Summer? Spring? They’re four days long here.” He dropped his arms. “I’m my family, now. Town rabbi; the only Jew a dozen miles in any direction. My father had the place from his father. Now I have it and now it's closed. Who needs drive-ins, here? Anywhere, right?”

Clay said nothing.

“I could have torn it down, put up some nice homes. Made a profit.” He shrugged. Mr. Clay tingled and relaxed again as the rabbi turned and pointed toward the town. “I could have drained the marsh at the confluence, there,” he pointed with his chin. Mr. Clay didn’t move. “I could have made a park, a community. Made something nice.” Another silence. “No, I become a tzaddik. A rebbe,” he explained to Clay. “Then I come back here where I have no people.” He made a gun of his right hand and pointed it at his head. “Meshugena, you know? Nuts. But me? I don't want to be in business. I want a life of the mind and so I become a rebbe with no one to lead, no community to teach. No friends.”

“The customer is on his way you said?”

“I believe. It’s why I’m talking, now.”

“Coming here?”

“It's our usual place.”

“You need to tell me...”

“Sorry. I am. I am telling. I just can't believe it. Okay. Father Inques... The priest and I. We golf. We fish. We trade Gods. Swap Old Testament for New. Roman mysteries and Jewish mysticism. Christ and Kabala.”

Beyond the screen, high branches shivered against the first stars. Leaves chattered, broke. A scream echoed down the river valley, as though a child died there. Another something thrashed for a half-minute.

The Reb jumped at the sound. His bike fell with a metallic crash. “Fox and Rabbit,” he explained to himself. “Wouldn't think a rabbit would scream like that, dying, would you? It does.”

The sudden wind chilled Mr. Clay's temple. He flipped the fallen bike with his toe, caught and tipped it back to Reb. “A priest then?” he said.

“What? No. Lord no! Joe, the priest? He’s my friend. No, please.”

Mr. Clay smiled inside. Much business was friend to friend.

“I'm a proud man, Mr. Clay. It's probably best I have no congregation. Best, the practice of my profession is limited to a briss now and then, a wedding, sanctifying the slaughter of meat. Kosher mechanics, you know?”

Another silence.

“Okay. I made a man, Mr. Clay.”

The killer remained quiet. He knew this consumer would tell it all. More than all. This consumer was beginning to annoy.

“A bet with Joe Inquist, Father Inquist. See? Catholics have Christ, the saints, a hell of a lot of them. Catholics pray to them for protection. Quite a few listen. Joe’s God listens because that God? He’s about life after death. He listens then all he ever says is, be patient, there’s better coming.

“So we were talking. Wine and cigar talk, you know? I mention the Jews. We Jews have our golem. That’s our protection. Here and now. Joe laughed. ‘Our savior. A golem?!’ A golem's an artificial man, by the way. It’s a notion. He’s a thing animated by the name of God. A protector. I guess he is our savior. I said our savior is about now, salvation for us is about making it to tomorrow. We make this savior from the mud of the earth with our deeds. We bring him to life through scholarship, thought, action.