Michael Lister - Soldier 03 - The Big Hello (8 page)

The Cactus was a roadside motel out on US 90 that looked to have about fourteen rooms. About as basic as a block-building motel could get, there was nothing nice or fancy about it. So why had both Shelby and Perkins said Powell/Patrick seemed too well-to-do a lady for a place like the Panther Room?

Perhaps she was only staying here because there were no other rooms available in town right now.

Florida had 328,934 hotel rooms not being used by the service for the war, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce encouraged tourists to come take advantage of them. And come they did. It was counterintuitive but we had more visitors to our state just now than we did before the war started.

Florida was booming––and not just from all the federal contracts for war production, but from the money it put in people’s pockets and from the tourists we were attracting. Today alone, the Hialeah Racetrack took in $600,000 in bets, while the state’s dog tracks took in $100,000. And today was no special day. It was like all the others this season in the Sunshine State.

Hotels owners could charge full price for rooms not being used by the service. Many of them received even more in under-the-table sweeteners for vacancies––something the Office of Price Administration and Office of Rent Control seemed to be able to do little about.

I was sure Vanessa Patrick couldn’t afford to do something like that.

According to the night clerk she could no longer even afford a room at the Cactus.

“Spent her last dollar on a bus ticket back to Birmingham,” he said.

He was a tall, odd-looking fellow––youngish, but didn’t look it because he was balding and his heavily lined skin seemed to lack nearly all elasticity.

“Spent most of the ones before that one on a fella,” he said. “No, it’s not what you’re thinking. She actually hired this guy to look after her––you know, like a bodyguard. I don’t know how she could afford it as long as she did. But it always catches up with you. All good things, you know?”

“Why’d she have a bodyguard and for how long?”

“Gee mister, I can’t rightly recall how long, but not too. It was a recent thing.”

“Do you know why she hired one in the first place?”

“No idea,” he said. “Like I said, she didn’t do it for long. Maybe she didn’t even need one at all. I never saw that anyone bothered her. Probably just being dramatic. Delusions of grandeur. You know what they say––they’re as mad as a box of snakes.”

“Who is?” I asked.

“Actresses.”

“When’d she leave?” I asked.

He seemed to think about it. “I’d say little over an hour ago. Where’re y’all going? Didn’t you want to see her room?”

***

We found Vanessa Patrick in the Blue Line Cafe in Union Bus Station, at a booth in the back waiting for a bus that wouldn’t come until early the next morning.

I sat across from her in the booth. Clip turned a chair around from a nearby table and sat at the end, blocking her in.

If she recognized me she gave no indication. If our sudden presence in her booth alarmed she didn’t let it show.

We were the only people in the place besides two waitresses in white uniforms––one behind the counter, the other sitting wearily at a table in the front sipping coffee and nibbling toast.

The waitress behind the counter cleared her throat. “Colored section is over there,” she said, jerking her head toward a single table in the front corner opposite the other waitress.

“Police business,” I said. “We’ll only be a moment.”

“Police?” Vanessa Patrick said, looking a little relieved––something quickly undercut by doubt. “You aren’t really, are you? Who sent you?”

“Somebody looking for you?” I asked. “That why you’re leaving town?”

She was different than I had imagined––not stout as Bernice had said, and I wondered if that had been part of her costume or simply because she was big breasted. She was pale as hell, as Bernice had put it, but attractive, with only a smattering of light pink freckles and strawberry blond hair that was both thick and shiny. She was also a good deal younger than I had pictured.

“Who are you, mister, really?”

“You don’t recognize me?”

She studied me. “Should I?”

I shook my head.

She leaned up slightly and looked around the room.

“Whatcha looking for?” Clip asked.

She shook her head and leaned back.

“What gives, fellas?” she said, looking from me to Clip and back to me. “Is my number up? This the end of the line for me?”

“Why would it be?”

“So it’s not …”

“You an actress?” I said.

“Why? You want an autograph?”

“Any good?” Clip asked.

“She fooled a real nurse into thinking she was one,” I said.

A flash of recognition flared in her eyes then vanished.

It was only a little past eleven, but it seemed later, as if days and not hours has passed since Clip and I had first gotten in the car to head over here earlier in the evening.

Outside the diner the night was dark. No moon. No stars. No streetlamps. No lights from passing cars. Inside, it was so bright it turned the windows into mirrors. The front of the diner was only a reflection of what was inside the diner itself, as if it was a two-way mirror in an interrogation room.

I felt exposed and on display.

“Where is Lauren Lewis?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Don’t,” I said. “We’ve got you. There’s only one play. Be smart and you can be on your bus when it gets here. All I want is the girl.”

“And if she’s dead and I had something to do with it?”

“Is she?” I said. “Did you?”

“I had no idea what I was getting mixed up in, mister,” she said. “Swear I didn’t. It was just a job. I was just playing a part.”

“Tell me everything.”

“Get in there and get her out,” she said. “That’s all I was hired to do and all I did. Who has you looking for her?”

“I’m not doing this for someone else,” I said. “I was with her. We arrived together. She’s my … they haven’t made up a word big enough, strong enough, good enough for what she is to me.”

“Oh.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know. I swear it. They had me go in, isolate her, sedate her, say she died, and wait for the coroner. They came and got her.”

“Who did?”

“The coroner,” she said. “The guys pretending to be the coroner. They took her away.”

“Who were they?”

“No idea. Had never seen them before. Haven’t seen them since. Maybe actors like me. Poor dumb bastards that owe the wrong people. It’s the last I saw of her too. I swear it. I filled out the death certificate and got out of there. Never went back. These are very powerful people. Cruel. They collect debts like chits and hold onto them until they can use you and then …”

“Who is? Who hired you?”

“I’m real sorry about your girl, mister. Honest I am, but I’ve told you my part in it. That’s all I did. That’s all I know. I swear it.”

“It’s not all you know. Who hired you? Who helped you at the hospital?”

“Betty Jane Knox,” she said. “She owed the wrong people same as me. She made a call. I got a call. When I got there and told her, that other nurse, and that negro nurse I’d take it from there, she’s the one who convinced the others to back off.” She paused. “Lauren was burned real bad,” she said.

“You mean her scars?”

“Yeah. Think Betty used them to convince the other nurse that she was army or something––that she wasn’t just an ordinary patient. And remember, it was pure chaos in there. The doctor was already in surgery with you. There was a car inside the building. Rubble. Whatever she told them … wouldn’t have been too hard to convince them of anything.”

“Were you at the Panther Room earlier tonight?” I asked.

“The what?”

“You saying you don’t even know what it is?”

“Yeah. And the only thing I did earlier tonight was pack and check out of my room at the Cactus.”

“So who were you into and for what?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“Who’d you owe? Who hired you?”

“Mister, my life ain’t been so easy. I’ve been through some things. Made more than my share of mistakes. The things I’ve seen … I know true cruelty. I’ve looked in its eyes, felt its punch. These men enjoy other people’s pain. I’m leaving the area to get away from them, but I know evil’s everywhere. I know I can’t outrun it. But I’m gonna run as far and fast and for as long as I can.”

“You’re not going anywhere until you tell us who you did all this for,” I said.

She laughed. “I told you, soldier,” she said. “I know true cruelty. And you’re not it.”

“We do all right,” Clip said.

She glanced over at him then back at me.

“Look at me,” I said. “Look into my eyes. Do you really think I won’t do absolutely anything I have to to find her?”

She held my eyes, but didn’t respond.

“Harry Lewis,” I said.

She nodded.

“Flaxon De Grasse.”

She nodded.

“Who else?”

“I’m curious,” she said. “Where do you think I was when they tapped me for this?”

I shrugged, realizing I hadn’t even thought about it.

“In jail,” she said. “There’s no cruelty like that of a cruel cop.”

“Who’s jail? Which cop?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I’ve already said far more than I meant to. Please, let’s leave it at that.”

“You know I can’t do that,” I said.

“’Fraid you gonna have to,” a compact spark plug of a man with a bad crew cut said.

He had a gun in each hand. He jammed the one in his left fist into the back of Clip’s head and the one in his right fist just behind my left ear.

“Hey,” the waitress behind the counter said.

“Don’t move,” he said to her. “Don’t do anything. Everybody just freeze right where you are. We’re about to walk out of here and you’ll never see us again, so don’t do nothin’ stupid.”

Both waitresses held their hands up then froze in place.

His ill-fitting suit was too long for his thick, squat build, and he looked like a casual man at a funeral in borrowed dress-up clothes. He wore no hat and his oblong head was too big for his body.

“Sorry that took so long, Miss Patrick,” he said.

He spoke slowly and simply, and had a certain innocence, even naiveté about him.

“It’s okay, Rob,” she said.

“Gots to admit,” Clip said to me. “I’s doubtful about her having a actual bodyguard after seeing the Cactus. Figured the night clerk was confusing one of her men friends or somethin’.”

I nodded. “Thought the same thing.”

“How bad they bother you while I was gone?” Rob asked.

“They’re okay, Rob. Really they are. I just need to fade and you need to make sure they let me.”

She spoke to him slowly and sweetly, but with no discernible condescension, treating him the way one would a loved child.

“Sure thing, Miss Patrick. I was thinkin’, why don’t I just drive you? I don’t mind.” “Would you Rob?” she said. “That’s a swell idea. You really wouldn’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

“Just give me a name,” I said.

“Look mister, I’m sorry about your girl. Honest I am. And I wish I had never had any part of it, but I didn’t have a choice and I don’t know where she is. Truth is I don’t know anything, and everything I told you was just me stallin’ ’til Rob got back. So whatta you say you forget everything I’ve said and you all let us leave without Rob having to do anything to your heads that can’t be undone?”

At that Rob flicked my ear with the barrel of his gun.

“So,” he said. “Let the lady out of the booth and let us take a little walk.”

Clip cut his eye over at me.

I gave a slight nod.

He slid his chair back slightly to let Vanessa slide out, which she did.

“Good so far,” he said. “So far so good. Now take your heaters out and put them on the table. Nice and slow like.”

“Ain’t givin’ up my gun,” Clip said.

Here we go again.

“Just go,” I said to Rob. “Walk out of here. We’re letting you.”

“Oh, you’re letting me?” he said with a simpleton’s laugh. “Hear that, Miss Patrick? Got a gun on each of ’em but they’re letting us––”

Before he could finish, Clip was up and holding the gun that had been pointed at him, and I, still seated, had knocked the other one to the floor––which was the best I could manage given my particular limitations.

Not sure quite what to do, Rob stood there in stunned silence a moment, a slack-jawed mask of confusion on his misshapen mug.

And then it exploded.

Glass shattering.

Shards raining.

Machine gun spray.

Rounds ricocheting. Hundreds.

Extremely loud.

Blood-splattered waitress uniform. Rorschach in red on bright white cotton.

Rob crumpled onto the floor, Vanessa collapsed on top of him.

Find cover. Get gun. Return fire. Help Clip.

Clip crouching on the floor, yanking me down, firing back.

One waitress still alive. Screaming.

Reaching for gun.

Movement in periphery. Downward motion.

Turning. Too late. Hit. Hard. Knocked. Jarred. Then …

Adrift. Black wave. Overtaken. Darkness. Drowning. Nothing.

The moon was big and bright, the night clear and cool, the river refreshing and romantic.

It was one of those rarest of times that Lauren and I actually got to spend the entire night together, and we were swimming naked in the Apalachicola River behind Ray Parker’s fish camp where we were staying.

We were treading water at the end of a short, narrow dock, one arm on the ladder, the other around each other. Though high in the starless sky, the moon still shown brightly on the water, its beam bouncing like rollicking raindrops on the gently undulating ripples of the river.

“I can die happy now,” she said. “I’ve had the big love.”

“Well try to live a little longer, sister, ’cause you’re gonna get it again in just a few more minutes.”

“Jimmy,” she said with a smile as she punched me in the chest, splashing water up into my face. “I didn’t mean that. I meant––”

“I know what you meant,” I said.

“I just never thought it possible,” she said. “Honest I didn’t. I was content to just exist––or was until I met you. There was no way for me to know what I was missing. How can you know what you don’t know? How can you even hope to imagine anything with absolutely no frame of reference? I didn’t even know enough to know to want this. Now I’ll never want anything else.”

“I found you,” I said.

I still couldn’t believe I actually had.

“Yes you did. Maybe we even found each other.”

I nodded.

“Truth is,” she said, “love found us both. Found us for one another.”

I pulled her to me, wrapping my left arm around her, not knowing then that one day it would be the only arm I’d ever get to hold her with again. With my right I continued holding the dock.

Letting go of the piling, she held me with both arms, wrapping her legs around me, clinging to me as if to save her life when actually she was saving mine.

The dark, deep river water was no longer cold on my skin, and not just because I had grown accustomed to the temperature.

She grabbed the back of my neck with her hand and pulled me into a hard, wet, passionate kiss that sent pure, primal, preternatural energy arcing through me.

After a while, when we separated ever so slightly, we bobbed breathlessly, our eyes fixed on the other’s, something ineffable, ephemeral, indescribable passing between us.

“Whatta we gonna do?” I asked.

“About?”

“This. Us. I can’t keep getting so little of you, of this. Can’t keep sharing you.”

“You’re not sharing me,” she said. “We’ll figure it out. I promise.”

“But––”

“Baby, listen, I know how you feel. I feel the same way. But we’ve got to trust. Love found us. Love will look after us. If we’ll let her. I don’t want to waste a second of our time together worrying about future times. Okay?”

I nodded.

“When something is this good, this ideal, this magical, this … unparalleled … it’s only natural to want more, but worrying how to get it robs us of what we have now. And we can’t let that happen.”

We made love on a blanket on the dock beneath the moon, our bodies damp with drops of river water that had traveled an infinite distance to join in our joining.

Her burned body was an ancient charr-scarred scroll filled with the most beautiful words ever penned, a surviving codex containing the secrets of existence, the meaning of life and love and of all things.

Our bodies were for each other complimentary puzzle pieces, cut with precision, fitting with perfection. We were made for each other, our very beings joining and responding in ways that before now I had believed were hyperbole, the stuff of misguided myth and romance literature.

There was no sound in heaven or on earth as sweet as that of my name in her mouth when we made love, when said as a plea and a prayer, when breathed as a revelation and an ecstatic utterance.

When our lovemaking was momentarily complete and our bodies, with a different kind of dampness on them, were entwined beneath the blanket, we alternated between gazing up at the moon and into each other’s eyes.

“You know what this is,” she said. A statement, not a question.

I didn’t respond. I knew she wouldn’t wait for me to before telling me what this was.

“This is what the mystics meditate on,” she said. “What the ecstatic go on about. This. Us. What we’re experiencing. What we have is what the devout are looking for.”

And though later I would lose it, would lose her, and therefore my way entire, in that moment I knew the truth of what she was saying with the certainty of a saint.

But before I could respond, a hand reached up from the dark waters of the river, clutched her ankle, and pulled her in.

There was nothing I could do to stop it from happening. I held on to her, clung to her as if to life itself, but I couldn’t keep her, couldn’t prevent what was happening.

And then she disappeared down into the deep, dark, mysterious river that a moment before had been for both of us womblike in its warm embrace.