Ravens (17 page)

She didn’t mind hearing him talk, even if it was all baloney.

But she noticed that her drink was down to just ice. He noticed it too, and prompted, “Go make yourself another, girl.”

“What about you?”

He’d scarcely touched his, but he said, “Sure. Bring me another too.”

She made two more g&ts, giving each glass a sawtooth lime wheel. When she returned to the table, she saw that he’d placed
his chair close to hers, so they’d both be able to see the computer screen. Which at just that moment was conjuring up an
image of the Earth in deep space.

He murmured, “I want you to get to know this planet. I mean since you’re about to own
so much
of it.”

She couldn’t help but grin. He was smiling too, and his smile was so goofy. When she handed him his glass, their fingertips
touched for an instant. A little jolt.

“Sit,” he said.

She did. On the screen, the Earth kept getting bigger and bigger — she felt she was gently falling, and Shaw was falling beside
her. They were falling right toward New York City, but then things kind of blurred out, as if they’d entered a cloud-bank.
When everything came into focus again, she found herself not in the city but somewhere in the countryside, near the sea. She
was hovering above a landscape of engraved shadows and oblong swimming pools and trellises and dovecotes and shapely gardens.

He said, “See this house?”

“Uh-huh.”

“This is Gwyneth Paltrow’s house.”

It was a proud thing but not preening. It was perfect.

She took a drawn-out swallow of her g&t.

They drifted over the treetops. As though they were riding in the gondola of a hot-air balloon.

He told her, “This is Vera Wang’s house.”

It was severely graceful, the soul of elegance. They floated on, and she sipped, and he showed her the homes of Larry Gagosian
and Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg. He told her who these people were, and they seemed somehow more
serious
than the celebrities of Malibu, their lives more significant. He took her over Ralph Lauren’s dreamlike estate. She couldn’t
believe that Ralph Lauren was an actual person, that this was
his actual home
. That pair of shadows on the lawn — could that be Ralph and his dog? Could that be Ralph Lauren walking his dog this very
moment, and maybe wearing one of those shirts with the horse and rider?

Grace of God.

Then came Paul McCartney’s house; then P. Diddy’s house.

Then the ‘cottage’ where Arthur Miller had spent a summer with Marilyn.

“Some say the Hamptons are over,” Shaw said. “But you know what? They’ll never be over. Because this is where so many lines
of power converge. The Hamptons go on and on, and beauty is drawn to them as though by a magnet. And this is where you must
preside. Not Malibu. Forget Malibu. Malibu is for common entertainers. You’re not an entertainer, Patsy, you’re a visionary.
We’ll get you a quiet estate off to the side. Not on the beach or Georgica Pond, nothing melodramatic, but just something
quiet and magnificent that will suit you. You can spend your winters in St. Barts. But during the season, here is where you’ll
preside. Everyone will come to your house, because they’ll know that Patsy Boatwright is a receiver of the power of God.”

They didn’t speak for a while; they just coasted.

“Shaw?”

“What?”

“You’re a lunatic.”

He smiled. “I’ve heard that before.”

She said, “You gonna live here too?”

“Well, you know, the Hamptons really aren’t for me. They’re for you. I’ll need something a little simpler. You know?”

“Oh sure,” she said. “Like a little
hut
somewhere?”

“Exactly.”

They laughed together. She swirled her gin and it was all ice again, so she got up to make herself one more little one.

Clio
kept telling herself
no
, she wasn’t going over there. Never. Never debase herself by showing up at Tara’s house. That place that was now like some
kind of Bible camp crossed with a Jaycees’ barbecue? I mean I refuse to kneel down and beg her to be my friend. Do I even
care what the stuck-up bitch thinks about me? I’ll be OK without her. I’ll drive around a while. I’ll go to the island. That
dude Zach Collins who supposedly likes her so much? He’ll be getting off his shift soon at Southern Soul. Let’s go see who
he likes when his sweet dick is in
my
mouth. Right?

But she didn’t go to the island. She was on Rt. 17, ready to take the turn — but instead she pulled into the McDonald’s parking
lot and turned around and headed for Tara’s. She had to see Tara, she
had
to. She had to tell her about how Manny’s check for Cindy’s abortion had bounced three times. And that she had met the manager
for Drive Fast & Shut Your Eyes, and he was a screwy little nutbag but kind of cute. She had to tell Tara — who else would
understand?

She thought, I’ll just stop by for a second. I mean after all we’ve been through: she can’t have forgotten me overnight! Right?
It’s not possible! Not
overnight.
Give her a chance.

The cops made her park three blocks away from the house and walk. The place was swarming with cult people, some of them singing
hymns and others cooking on grills, and so much smiling it made your teeth hurt, and there were TV trucks and the scene was
totally bizarre. When Clio tried to walk up to the house, she got stopped by a couple of goons who told her she couldn’t go
any farther.

She said, “I can’t go to my own frikkin best friend’s house? Like what, like she’s got a velvet frikkin rope now?”

One of the goons went to check, and then came back to escort her to the carport. Making her wait there till Tara came out
to meet her.

Then suddenly here she was. She looked terrible.

Oh, Tara, thought Clio. Oh my God. Jesus.

She looked drawn, ghostly-pale, lumpy around the eyes, nervous. And Clio instantly forgave her everything and just wanted
to take her into her arms.

Tara
thought: finish this. Make it quick and show no mercy. If you show mercy you put her in danger.

Clio said, “Hey, Ratface. Sup, bitch?”

Tara gave her nothing.

They stood there like that, until Clio said, “So what’s it like? Shit. All that money.”

“It’s… fine.”

“Yeah? But what’s with all these frikkin zombies?”

“These are my friends.”

Give her nothing, and make it seem like I’m a thousand miles away.

Clio said, “Bitch, they’re staring at me. They’re like, undead.”

That’s
exactly
the word, Tara thought. A laugh tried to surface but she smothered it.

Said Clio, “How come you haven’t answered my texts?”

“Been busy.”

“Too busy for
me
?”

Rip this, thought Tara. “Look, Clio, I have other friends now, OK?”

“What do you mean, other friends?”

“I don’t know. I guess better friends. Like more in common. You know? Maybe we’re like, it’s like time to give each other
some space. All right?”

Clio’s face went splotchy. “Sure. Absolutely. Have fun with your zombies.”

“I’m sorry,” Tara said. But she was thinking, stop it, shut up, just get away from her quick as you can. “OK,” she said. “See
ya.” And turned from her just in time, before the tears broke.

Romeo
slowed the car as he passed Cousin Alfred’s house. It was a grand affair, a Queen Anne Gothic with turret and eyebrow window,
and a gray-misted garden to which Romeo felt powerfully drawn. He slowed the car to a full stop, the Tercel sitting in the
middle of dead-quiet Union Street, with the windows wide open because the a.c. was useless against this heat. Keep moving,
Shaw had said. Keep moving at all costs. But the garden was calling him, and finally he parked, and walked up to the iron
palings. Tangled and fragrant and dark in there, and the stone bench looked perfect for sleeping. Voices came down to him
from the house. The verandah was swaddled in vines, so Romeo couldn’t see anyone, but he heard one older cultivated male voice
(he guessed this was Alfred himself), and several younger male voices, languorous, and now and then the cackle of an old woman.
They were exchanging gossip. The tinkle of ice cubes, the pour of bourbon, laughter. Romeo didn’t know anyone they were speaking
of, but he loved the suggestion of soft malevolence in their tone; and the fragrance of the vineflowers was ravishing, and
he stayed there a long time, clinging to the palings, trying to follow the talk. Only when a knot of rude kids came up the
sidewalk, and one of them said, “Dude, you drunk?” did he finally manage to quit that spot and totter away.

He got back into the Tercel. He drove on.

What the hell, he wondered, was that about?

All I have to do with Alfred is kill him. Not get mired up in his life. Just be ready to behead the man when called upon to
do so.

The Tercel crept through the stately streets. His thoughts spun slowly. He went past Nell’s. Nell came out of her potting
shed wearing a big hat and carrying a long-handled shovel. She seemed sufficient unto herself, like a desert prophet. Her
garden was as enticing as Alfred’s. He wished he could do some hoeing for her. Happily he’d have worked all day for nothing.
But he had to keep rolling, keep going round and round on his carousel.

His problem, as he saw it, was a lack of hate. Not enough hate. The brain of a revenge killer, he thought, should be spiky
with hate. He should be hating Nell, and hating Alfred, hating them all. He should make himself dizzy with hate, should work
himself into the same whirling froth he’d been in that time in Hollow Park, when he was ten years old and he’d beaten the
hell out of Shaw’s mutineer.

Burris
drove to the station house and went online, went to Accurint, to find out what he could about Shaw McBride.

Precious little.

That was it — except for his pretty face on the mugshots, which looked glum in ’97 but by ’03 devil-may-care, with pinned
pupils and a slippery grin.

It surprised Burris that the sheet wasn’t longer.

He took the cruiser up Rt. 341 to the I-95 Chummy’s. He asked for the manager, but the clerk said not today. Saturday was
Mr. Hu’s day off.

Burris flashed his badge. “Just get him.”

The clerk made a phone call, and Mr. Hu came in a hurry. He was Korean or Laotian or something, and struggled with the language,
but was as obliging as could be. Burris explained that he had questions regarding the jackpot winner. He asked to look at
the security tapes.

Mr. Hu said, “You mean when jackpot winner buy ticket?”

“No, from the
next
day. Thursday.”

“Oh. OK.”

Mr. Hu didn’t ask questions. He took Burris back to his little office and slipped the disc into the drive. It was an old cheap
system. Fisheye videos, herky-jerky. The customers came lurching into the store, rushed around, paused before the cash register
for a few hummingbird heartbeats, then flickered away again. One large couple came on with such a ludicrous waddle that Mr.
Hu burst into a deep malignant laugh — before he caught himself and got all smiley again.

Abruptly, on the screen, Shaw McBride made his entrance.

“Slow it down,” said Burris.

Then the frames came one at a time. McBride looked sweaty, tired. He stopped to groom himself before approaching the cash
register. All that could be seen of Cheryl the clerk was the back of her head. She handed McBride something: what was it?
He didn’t pay for it; he just walked out of the store.

“What did she give him?”

“For tire,” said Mr. Hu.

“Pressure gauge?”

Mr. Hu nodded.

“Skip ahead,” said Burris.

Mr. Hu jumped to McBride’s re-entry. Now it was Mr. Hu behind the counter and Cheryl at the window. McBride handed the gauge
to Mr. Hu, then went to talk to Cheryl. You could hardly see either of them. After a minute, McBride went out.

A moment later, a couple of guys with TV cameras came into the store. And that was it. Show over.

“You remember that guy?” said Burris.

“No remember.”

“You have a picture of his car? You got an outside camera?”

Mr. Hu tried another tape. It was from a camera focused on the pumps — but during the time in question, there was no car to
be seen. This wasn’t surprising though — McBride hadn’t come for gas. He’d have been parked over by the air pump.

But Burris and Mr. Hu did get a glimpse of
something
passing through the frame and driving out of the lot. Blurry and inconclusive but it might have been McBride’s car. Sedan.
Kind of boxy.

Burris shook his head. “OK. You can turn it off now.”

Mr. Hu complied.

“Hey, aren’t you getting some money for this? For selling the winning ticket?”