Lights Out (21 page)

Some time later he was standing in front of the mirror again, wearing a black cotton turtleneck, a blue wool sweater, gray corduroy pants rolled up an inch or two and held in place by a tightly cinched woven-leather belt, gleaming loafers with tassels on them.

He studied his reflection. A clever trick, like the photographic blending of ruffian’s head on Ivy Leaguer’s body. Fabulous. Fit like a glove, but someone else’s. He stuck his hands in the pockets, trying for casual, and withdrew a half-full pack of Camels. He came close to lighting one, came close to throwing the pack away, ended by putting it back in his pocket.

At six o’clock the phone buzzed. “I’m downstairs,” said Karen de Vere.

Karen did look fabulous: her hair was swept up, revealing the substructure of her face, at once strong and fine. She wore jeans, leather boots, a leather jacket; and her tortoise-shell glasses. She offered her hand. He shook it: warm, dry, not without power.

“You look so much like your brother,” she said, “except for the hair. But I guess everyone tells you that.”

“We don’t hang out with the same people,” Eddie replied.

Karen almost laughed; but how could she have gotten the joke? Eddie saw the laugh coming in her eyes; then she stifled it.

“Did you get in touch with him?” Eddie asked.

“Everything’s fine.”

Karen had a car outside, a low Japanese two-seater. “Not too hungry, I hope,” she said. “It takes about an hour.”

“Fine.”

They drove out of Manhattan, onto a bridge, headed north. She stuck a cassette into the tape player. “Like jazz?” she said. “I’m sick of rock.”

A bass played a bouncy line that made Eddie think of hippos, then came a trumpet, soaring above. “Me too.” He’d heard nothing but rock blasting out of the cell blocks for fifteen years.

Karen drove fast, cutting from lane to lane. She watched the road ahead. From time to time, he watched her. The clouds darkened and darkened, and then it was night.

“Funny thing,” she said, as they crossed the Connecticut line. “I’ve known Jack a number of years. Business, but we’ve had lunch a few times, went to a hockey game once, if I recall.”

“You like hockey?”

“Just the fighting,” said Karen. “The point is, in all the time I’ve know him, he never mentioned you.”

“I’m the black sheep.”

“How so?”

“You know how families are,” Eddie said, although his own didn’t deserve the name.

“I know how mine is—completely screwed up,” Karen
said. She glanced at him; oncoming headlights glared on the lenses of her glasses. “What makes you the black sheep?”

Eddie shrugged.

“Jack did make an animal analogy last night about you, now that I think of it, although it was to a bird, not a sheep.”

Eddie waited.

“The albatross, specifically. Odd, given our earlier conversation about ‘The Mariner.’ ”

An icy wave flowed across Eddie’s shoulders and down his spine. He hadn’t felt anything like it since the moment in the shower room when he’d come to and realized what Louie and the Ozark brothers had done. Icy: because Jack considered him an albatross; because Jack would tell someone; because of what it said about his own obsession—yes—with the poem.

Karen was looking at him again. This time there was no headlight glare, and her eyes were nothing but black sockets. The trumpeter began something that sounded like “Where or When” and quickly lost its wistfulness. Karen said: “Sometimes there are coincidences that don’t mean anything—like when you’re reading a word and someone says it on the radio at the same time. But some coincidences mean a lot.”

“Do they?” Eddie said.

“If you believe that things go on under the surface.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Eddie said. “I don’t believe you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re smart, and you know something about life. Anyone can see that.”

“Not Floyd K. Messer,” said Eddie.

“Who’s he?”

“An old colleague.”

“In what business was that?”

“Warehousing.”

Karen turned off at an exit, drove through a prosperous town and onto a country road. The headlights picked out details in the darkness: the white fence of a stable, reflective tape on the heels of a jogger’s shoes, a sign that read “Antiques” in Gothic letters, to prove how old they were.

“That’s to prove how old they are,” Eddie said.

Karen laughed. “I was thinking the same thing.”

Some coincidences mean a lot
. The icy feeling subsided.

In a few miles they came to the restaurant, Au Vieux Marron. Outside it looked like a barn; inside like a French country inn, or what Eddie imagined a French country inn to be. The maître d’ welcomed them in French. Karen answered him in French. She said something that made him laugh. He showed them to a table by a window overlooking a pond. A waiter arrived.

“Something to drink?”

“Kir,” said Karen.

“Monsieur?”

Eddie didn’t know what kir was, thought that beer might not be fancy enough. “Armagnac,” he said.

“Prior to the meal, monsieur?”

The waiter was watching him; so was Karen. “With ice,” Eddie said. The waiter withdrew.

Drinks came, and later food. Eddie ordered
canard
because it was the only word he knew on the menu. He’d never had duck like this—thin underdone slices of breast served with a sauce that tasted like raspberries, only more tart. The name of the recipe seemed to have something to do with Inspector Maigret; Eddie had read several books in the series, liking them mostly for their descriptions of food and drink, and the relish with which Maigret consumed them.

“Good?” said Karen.

“Good.”

She was eating something Eddie couldn’t identify from the menu, still couldn’t identify when it arrived. It didn’t matter. The food was delicious; she had another kir, he had another Armagnac—she taught him how to order it
“avec glaçons,”
and how to say several other things in French, such as, “I’m going to call the cops,” and “Take it or leave it.” Eddie caught a glimpse of what life could be like at the happy-go-lucky end. Under the table their feet touched; Karen waited a few moments before shifting hers away.

It was all false, of course. He knew that deep down the whole time, knew it up front between courses, as soon as
Karen looked at him over the rim of her glass and said, “So tell me about yourself, Eddie Nye.”

“There’s not much to tell.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“It’s true.”

“It can’t be. You’re between jobs, for instance.”

“Right.”

“Tell me about that.”

“It’s the same old story.”

“What did you do before?”

Why not just tell her the truth? He knew it wasn’t simply to protect Jack. He didn’t want to tell her because he didn’t want to see the expression that would come into those cool blue eyes when she found out.

“I was involved in a resort development.”

“Was this after the warehousing business?”

“The warehousing business doesn’t count.”

Karen stabbed a strange-looking mushroom. “Where was the resort?” She popped it in her mouth.

“In the Bahamas.”

“Which island?”

“The banana-shaped one.”

Karen laughed, but only for a moment. He was starting to like that laugh—it was loud and came from deep inside—and was trying to think of a way to trigger it again, when she said: “What’s this banana island called on the map?”

“Saint Amour.”

“It’s lovely.”

“You’ve been there?”

“Sailed by a few years ago. I hope you didn’t spoil it.”

“Spoil it?”

“With your development.”

“It wasn’t my development. I just worked there.”

She stabbed another mushroom. “Was Jack involved?”

“Yes.”

“Funny.”

“Funny?”

“He never mentioned that either.”

“He went on to bigger and better things.”

“Don’t I know,” said Karen.

Soon the waiter arrived with coffee. “Another Armagnac, monsieur?”

“Okay,” Eddie said, although he was suddenly conscious of how much he’d been drinking since he’d found Jack.

“Avec glaçons?”

“Now I can have it
sans
, can’t I?”
Sans
—it came to him from his reading: “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” whatever the hell that was about. Karen laughed; even the waiter smiled.

Karen stirred her coffee. “So Windward wasn’t involved in the resort.”

“No.”

“J. M. Nye and Associates?”

“It was before all that.”

Karen shot him a quick glance. It said: You’ve been out of work for a long time.

The waiter laid the bill in front of Eddie. It came in a leather folder, as though there was something to hide. “Why don’t I take that?” Karen said. “I invited you.”

“I ate the most,” Eddie said, opening the folder: $107.50. That surprised him.

“I insist,” Karen said.

“Next time,” Eddie said. She smiled. He laid down the $100 bill and the rest of his money, making $124.75. Not enough tip. He remembered the $350 sitting on the table. Jack’s $350.

They went outside. The sky had cleared. There was a moon and stars. The trees were black, the pond silver. Karen took Eddie’s arm. “Let’s go for a walk.”

They walked around the pond, following a footpath of crushed stone. Karen still held his arm. “You don’t know much about your brother’s business, do you?” she said.

“Should I?”

“You were involved in it.”

“What do you mean?”

“At that resort.”

“It wasn’t Jack’s. We were just employees.”

“Who owns it?”

“I don’t know who owns it now.”

“Who owned it then?”

“People named Packer.”

She stopped. “You don’t mean Raleigh Packer?”

“No,” Eddie said. But then he remembered Brad and Evelyn’s son, the one Jack had met at USC. “Who’s Raleigh Packer?”

“One of Jack’s associates. Former associates.”

Eddie made another mental leap. “The one who went to jail.”

Karen let go of his arm. “So you do know something about Jack’s business.”

“That’s all I know.”

Karen was silent. Eddie picked up a flat stone and skipped it across the pond. It left footprints of quivering silver in the moonlight.

“What jail is he in?”

“Raleigh Packer? He’s in a halfway house somewhere. He only spent a few months in jail. Jail of the country-club type.”

“What for?”

“Stealing. The indictment was complicated, but it came down to stealing.”

“Stealing from who?”

“Investors.”

“You?”

“No. I just signed on with Jack last night, as a matter of fact.”

“So why do you know all this?”

“I do my research.”

Eddie scaled another stone. It bit into the water and disappeared on first contact. “I’d like to see Raleigh Packer.”

“Why?”

“Just to find out how he’s doing.”

“Did you know him?”

“I knew his parents.”

“We have something in common, then, besides Jack,” Karen said. “I’ve met his mother.”

“Where is she?”

“In the area.” Karen picked up a stone. “Try this one.”

Eddie whipped it over the pond. It skipped once off the silvery
surface, rose, and disappeared into the night, as though launched into space.

Eddie stared out over the water. Karen moved close to him. “I like you, Eddie,” she said. “I think you should go back to Albany or somewhere similar.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Just to be on the safe side.”

“The safe side of what?”

Karen didn’t answer. She just took his face in her hands and kissed him on the mouth. “I’m attracted to you,” she said. “And I haven’t been attracted to anyone in a long time. Remember that, no matter what happens.”

“What could happen?”

“Anything.”

Anything could happen when you were free; even getting kissed by a woman like this. Eddie took Karen in his arms, kissed her. She responded, even moaned, very low, but he heard it. The sound thrilled him, spurring his imagination. It rushed ahead, much too far, developing snapshots of a wonderful future: he and Karen, a house, even children. She pushed him away. “Let’s go,” she said.

“I like it here.”

“So do I, believe me. But I’m insane.” She walked toward the parking lot. He followed.

Karen drove. Eddie sat beside her. Jazz played. He wondered if she would reach out for him, touch his knee, hold his hand. She didn’t. After half an hour or so, she slowed the car and turned into a lane marked by two gateposts with carved owl heads on top.

“I just have to drop in on someone for a few minutes first,” said Karen, “if that’s all right with you.”

“First before what?”

“Before we go on.”

It was all right with him.

At the end of the lane was a big stone house with three chimneys. Karen parked in front of it. Her spine straightened, as though she was steeling herself for something unpleasant.

“Do you want me to wait in the car?”

“No.”

They got out, walked to the front door. Karen rang the bell. There was a small bronze plaque under it, very small, considering the size of the door, the house, the grounds. Eddie read it: “Mount Olive Extended Care Residence and Spa.”

The door was opened by a woman in a nurse’s outfit. Karen gave her name.

“This way, please,” said the nurse.

They followed her down a long parquet hall, past many rooms, into a library at the end. The room was furnished with leather chairs and couches, a Persian rug, and books from floor to ceiling. There was no one in it except a woman sitting at a table near the fire, bent over a jigsaw puzzle that was mostly open spaces.

“You have visitors, dear,” said the nurse.

The woman looked up. She had stringy hair, a gaunt face, unfocused eyes. Was there something familiar about her?

Karen approached the woman and took her hand. “Hello, Mrs. Nye,” Karen said.

The woman stared up at her. “Do I know you?” Her voice was familiar too; Eddie remembered a plane ride long ago, over an emerald sea. The woman had lost her tan and her self-confidence, but she still had her makeup and her painted nails. She looked at Eddie and smiled.