Palindrome (27 page)

I walk through the lobby, across Main Street, back over to Candy. Squat down beside her, along with the porcelain statues of the Virgin Mary. Paula is sitting behind her usual window. I wave at her, and she returns a sad wave. Then I return to Candy's dead eyes.

“You know the answers, don't you, Candy? You definitely know what's on that tape, that's for sure.”

She doesn't budge. Snowflakes collect in her wispy, tangled hair.

“I know you probably can't hear me, but if you could help me, it could help save my daughter's life.”

For a moment, I imagine I see her eyes flitting to me, maybe some hint of cognizance behind the glaze. But then it's gone. I lean in close, whisper in her ear. She smells like baby shampoo and spoiled milk.

“What's on the tape, Candy? I'm begging you. Tell me what's on that tape. Tell me where they took it.”

I pull back, stare into her eyes, looking for any trace of a reaction. Snow lands on her nose and melts. She doesn't notice.

I turn away, realize I'm crying.

I
AWAKE
T
HURSD
AY
with tingling dread in my belly. Unsure if I slept at all, between fantasies of hurting Greta, of her hurting Sadie, of me hurting myself. Because if this doesn't work out, there's no doubt that I will. Hurt myself.

Can't get down a thing at breakfast besides coffee. I've never felt this weary, and it's getting hard to remember a time when I didn't feel like I was on the verge of collapsing. Courtney looks like shit too. He's gotten paler and lost a few pounds he could ill afford to part with. Crow's-­feet blossom from his wide eyes, and every time he talks his forehead wrinkles like a Chinese fan.

I haven't had a bowel movement since getting here, and I can tell I've lost muscle on my arms and chest.

Thursday.

“What's the plan, boss?” I ask weakly.

“We have sixteen hours until midnight.”

“Fourteen. We're two hours behind New York,” I say.

“Fourteen,” Courtney repeats emptily. He shrugs. “I don't know what else to do.”

“Don't say that.” I shake my head. “Don't fucking say that, please. There has to be more to do. Tell me what to do.”

He sighs. “Go back to the attic?” His suggestion is so halfhearted that just looking at him makes me want to cry.

“We could do that.” I nod. “If Paula will let us.”

I'm desperate here. Grasping at straws. Anything that makes me feel like I'm moving this thing forward. Like I'm doing something to help Sadie. I feel infuriatingly helpless.

Courtney looks down at his papers, then up at me, blinks emptily.

“Maybe there are more ­people to talk to,” he says.

“Maybe,” I try to agree. Try not to think about how deep in mud and shit I am, how anything I do now feels like trying to climb out of a well, the walls made of shit, no grip, grasping at loose pieces of shit that keep giving way, me sliding right back down to the bottom.

“You know,” Courtney says, wiping some fatigue from his eyes, “maybe we should try to relax a little. Odds are we're not gonna discover anything new today. Sometimes a little space, a little step back, is the best way to gain perspective.”

I gape at him. “You're serious?”

“Yeah. You ever done yoga?”

I gaze levelly at him. And then just burst out laughing. The only other customers in the tavern, a young ­couple, stare at me. I'm in hysterics. Slam a fist on the table, laughing uncontrollably. It's mirthless, horrible, cosmic-­joke laughing. I'm almost retching. Courtney's eyes are wide with concern. I'm thinking,
This is it. This is what it feels like to go crazy.
Not bad.

“Yoga,” I gasp, clearing tears out of my eyes. “Yeah, I have some experience.”

“I wasn't joking,” he says.

“I know.” I laugh. “I know you weren't. That's what's so goddamn funny. My daughter's been kidnapped by a psychopath and you think the best use of our time is
yoga.
And you know what the funniest part is? I can't even fucking argue with you. So, what, is there a fucking YMCA around here?” I can't stop giggling.

“Actually, I'm a certified instructor,” Courtney says.

“Of course you are!” I slam a fist on the table. “Of course you fucking are! Well what are we fucking
waiting
for?” I shoot to my feet. The waiter on duty for breakfast is the skater-­looking boy from the other night. I point at him. “Hey! Champ, wanna go upstairs and fucking
meditate
? We don't have a second to lose.”

He's cowering behind the bar.

Courtney stands up and wraps an arm around my shoulder. Shoots a nonverbal apology to the other patrons and the little stoner.

“Let's go upstairs, Frank,” he says in a therapist voice.

“Sure.” I laugh as he leads me up the carpeted stairway. “All the answers are upstairs, right? Maybe that's where they hid it, Court! Upstairs!”

“
J
UST LET YOUR
mind go blank,” Courtney intones.

We're both on the carpeted floor in what Courtney calls child's pose. The shades are drawn. I'm in a filthy Rolling Stones T-­shirt and boxers. Courtney is wearing only a spandex bottom. He's built like a lemur. He dumped all the papers in a recycling bin and set it on top of the TV, figuratively demonstrating that we've absorbed all the information we're going to. The rest is processing it.

“It's not working. I keep imagining making ­people's faces bleed.”

“Shut up, Frank. This has no chance if you don't give yourself over to it. Now, I want you to push up from the floor with your palms, rise into downward dog. Your knees can be bent. Push back with your hands, driving your toes into the carpet.”

“Okay,” I mumble.

“Now, slowly pick up your right leg and stretch it back toward the wall behind you. It's not about height, it's about distance.”

I silently oblige. My mind still isn't blank though.
When is my fucking mind going to go blank?

Courtney runs us through an hour-­long progression, his voice like a metronome. He's more gentle and reasonable than the instructor at the class Sadie took me to. Feels a little less like bullshit. At the end I'm sweating profusely, and though the gag reflex is once again rearing his ugly head, I feel a little better than I did before. We lie down flat on the carpet, palms up.

“Now just imagine you're on top of a mountain,” Courtney coos. “There's nobody else around. You're on the very, very top of the mountain alone. It's warm. The sun is shining on your face. There is nothing else but you, the mountain, the sun, and the warm grass beneath your hands. Can you feel the grass? I can. It feels wonderful. It feels like spring: like lemonade and squirrels and kissing girls by the tire swing. And you have no worries, Frank. You are just letting the sun's warmth wash over you. Your mind is . . . blank.”

I'm on the mountain. I can feel the sun and the grass. I feel a peace I haven't in so long. I lie there for a very long time, and when I slowly open my eyes and sit up I'm not alone on the mountain. Savannah Kanter is sitting beside me, wearing an amber sundress, her pale shoulders freckly in the sun. We are sitting beside each other on a smooth boulder, our feet dangling, flirting with the top of a cool stream. I let clear water rush over my pair of filthy feet. Her feet are refracted by water, clean and pale an inch beneath the glassy surface.

We look at each other.

“Savannah,” I say.

She nods.

“You were right. I made a mistake.”

She nods again, smiling sadly.

“Is it too late? Or can I fix this? Can I save my daughter?”

She looks down at her feet, like she's considering my request, then shoots to her feet. She slips on a pair of sandals and urgently beckons me to stand as well. Then she starts walking backwards, like a tour guide, telling me with her eyes to follow her.

We follow the creek, which gushes down the rocky slope of the mountain. Yellow daisies and some purple wildflower I don't recognize sprout on its banks.

She's moving quickly. I have to hurry to keep up with her. She doesn't walk so much as skip backwards. Dance.

“Where are we going?” I ask her. She says something in response that I can't understand.

As we descend the mountain, the sky darkens, and the breeze grows colder. The trees start to gather snow. The flowers disappear. The rocks grow sharp. I'm wearing no shoes, I realize. And I'm struggling to keep Savannah in sight.

“Wait!” I call after her, racing down the steep path, cold wind whipping in my ears. Where is she? “Savannah!” I call. Nothing. I run faster, blood pumping in my ears, and then I think I glimpse her up ahead, at the edge of a clearing.

I slow to a halt as I reach her. We stand shoulder to shoulder and look out over the dead, snow-­covered meadow before us. The stream ends in a murky swamp that gurgles off to our left. The scene is still, save a cold breeze that ruffles her light hair. A blackbird screams something and shoots across the sky, then the scene resumes its heavy stillness.

“Where are we going?”

She points ahead, across the clearing, toward a dark mound of trees. Something about this looks familiar.

“Where are we?” I ask.

She responds, but it's again the damn incomprehensible warbling.

“I can't understand,” I say.

She tries again, nearly shouting, like it's the most obvious thing in the world, but it sounds like she's an adult in a Peanuts cartoon. I can only shake my head helplessly.

She takes my hand, sandwiches it between her two petite ones. Her hands are warm, and I can feel her pulse pumping through them.

“What is this?” I ask. “Are you a ghost or something?”

This amuses her. She laughs, low at first, and then laughs hard and squeezes my hand tightly. She gazes into my face, eyes tearing a little, and shrugs:
I don
't know.

And then she drops my hand and turns away. Retreats back up the mountain, back to where we started. I glance over my shoulder at the dark mound of trees she'd pointed to.

“Are you not coming with me?” I shout after her.

She turns and shakes her head adamantly, then points at me—­

“Frank!”

I open my eyes. I'm lying flat on my back in the hotel room. “It's seven at night!” Courtney says. “We slept all day.”

I blink at him. “What?”

“It's seven. We only have three hours before Helen is taking over. What's with you? What's wrong?”

“I . . . I was dreaming, I guess. Savannah Kanter. She was showing me some place. There was a mountain and a field.” I sit up and look at Courtney. The sleep has done my body good, that's for sure. And then my stomach falls out as I remember who I am, where I am, why I'm here.

“What else?” Courtney asks.

“I mean . . .” The pain in my ribs and cut-­up ankle slowly return, and I sink back into a familiar whole-­body sickness. “I guess I sort of felt like she was pointing to some trees. And I think . . . I think I knew that the tape was there, beyond those trees.”

Courtney looks devastated. “And I woke you up. I'm so—­”

“Forget it. It's all bullshit.”

I stand up, look at my watch. Three hours.

“Let's call Helen now,” I say. “Give her another few hours to work with.”

Courtney looks pained. “We still have time. What if . . .” He stares at me. “It exists. It's
somewhere
. The clues are all in front of us, I can feel it. I can
feel
it, Frank. It's so close . . .” His hands are clenched into fists.

“No, Courtney,” I say, put a hand on his shoulder. “It's okay. We did what we could. But we have to do whatever gives Sadie the best chance.”

Courtney nods, but I can tell how much this hurts him. I wonder if he's ever
not
solved a case.

“Go wait for me downstairs,” I say. “I'm gonna call Helen. Then let's get out of this shit hole of a town.”

W
E CHECK OUT
of the Ritz. I can't bear another minute in that goddamn place: the stuffed deer mounted on the walls, the tacky polished wood, red-­checkered tablecloths.

The tiniest of weights lifts from my chest as we leave Beulah. It's like escaping the pull of a black hole. The whole town is mired in some kind of evil haze; I'm only able to see this as we speed away from Candy, Ms. Anderson, Linda. That house. The altar.

We don't say anything. There's nothing to talk about. The case is out of our hands. Courtney buys tickets to NYC on my phone while I drive.

I spilled my guts to Helen, told her every detail, down to those black leather gloves that “Greta” wore. Helen assured me that I was doing the right thing. Said I was giving my daughter the best chance of being safe by handing it over to her. Said she'd have a team mobilized within a few hours.

Assuming they haven't found her by the time I get back to NYC, I'm supposed to go to Helen's office. Then we'll have to talk options: negotiating alternatives with Greta or just lying to her about having the tape.

I admire Helen's cautious optimism, but I'm the only one who's met Greta face-­to-­face; I'm the only one who understands how serious she is. There will be no negotiating with her—­money is meaningless to her—­and there's no way she'll fall for any sort of trickery.

Headlights capture a sliver of yellow-­lined asphalt, empty fields, shadows of mountains. I should have let Courtney drive, probably. I can feel a sort of apathy as I take each turn in the road a little too quickly, in the back of my head thinking that sliding off the road, flipping into a ditch and just burning up or getting my head bashed open . . . that might be easier than facing what's back in New York.