The Ax (11 page)

“Thanks.”

He puts the pot back on its electric burner while I add milk to my coffee. Then he comes back, leans against the work counter behind him, folds his arms, gives me a friendly smile, says, “Passing through?”

I hate having to look at him, talk to him, but what else can I do? “Yeah,” I say. “Pretty much.” And then, because I’m beginning to realize this isn’t going to be as quick as I’d hoped, I say, “Is there a motel anywhere around here?”

“None of the chains,” he says. “Not close, anyway.”

“I don’t need a chain. I don’t much like chains.”

“Neither do I,” he says. “You have that feeling, there’s no human touch to it.”

By God, I don’t want a human touch between
us
, but what can I do? “That’s right,” I say, just hoping to cut the conversation short.

He unfolds his arms, points away to my right, lifting his head. I look at his near eye. I wish I had the Luger with me now, wish I could get this over with now. “About a mile and a quarter south,” he says, “on Route 8, there’s a place called Dawson’s. I’ve never stayed there myself, of course, you know, I’m local, but I’m told it isn’t bad.”

“Dawson’s,” I say. “Thanks.”

I look away, but I can feel him considering me, thinking me over. He says, “You looking for a job?”

Surprised, I look back at him, and he’s so naturally sympathetic that I tell him the truth: “Yes, I am. How’d you know?”

“I’ve been there,” he says, and shrugs. “Still am, really. I can see it in a fella.”

“Isn’t easy,” I say.

“Not around here, anyway,” he says. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that, but there just isn’t much of anything happening around here.” He gestures at his own territory, his side of the counter. “I was lucky to get this.”

This is an opportunity to get my question answered. I say, “You work a full shift?”

“Almost,” he says. “Eight hours a day, four days a week. Four to midnight.”

Eight hours. Four to midnight. He’ll be coming out at midnight. In the dark, I won’t see his face, he could be just anybody. In the dark, I’ll shoot him. “Well, it’s something, anyway,” I say, referring to the job.

He grins, but shakes his head. “Not my regular line of work,” he says. “I was twenty-five years in the paper business.”

Being ignorant, I say, “Newspaper?”

“No no,” he says, amused, shaking his head. “Paper manufacturing.”

“Oh.”

“I was a salesman, and then a manager,” he says. “Years in a white shirt and necktie. And then one day, I got the boot.”

“It happens,” I say, and there’s a ding from the kitchen. “It happened to me, too,” I find myself saying, though I shouldn’t prolong this conversation, I really shouldn’t do it.

“That’ll be yours,” he says, meaning the ding from the kitchen, and he goes away, and I take the minute of respite to tell myself I can’t relax into this thing, I can’t let us be just a couple of regular guys talking over the news of the world together. I’ve got to keep that distance, for my own sanity I’ve got to keep that distance. For my future. For everything.

And aside from all the other considerations, I’ve already lied to him, pretended I didn’t know anything about the paper industry, because I didn’t want him thinking about the coincidence of me being here, a guy with the same work history as his. But that means I
can’t
let the conversation go on. What am I going to do, invent some whole new life story, in a whole new industry?

He comes back, with my BLT and all the extras on a thick white oval china plate, and puts it down in front of me. “Refill on that?”

My coffee cup’s half full. “Not yet,” I say. “Thanks.”

“Any time.”

He goes away to deal with other customers, and I gnaw at my BLT. I’m not hungry, partly because I just ate four hours ago, but mostly because of the situation. I want to be out of here, on my way home. But I
need
this to be
over
, and then I’m out of here, and on my way home.

He’s back, taking that stance again, arms folded, back against the work counter. “What line were you in?” he asks.

I panic for just a second, but then I say, “Office supplies,” because I do remember something about that industry, from my first years as a salesman for Green Valley Paper & Pulp. “Memo pads, order sheets, accountancy forms, things like that. I was middle management, ran the production line.” Then I force a chuckle, and say, “For all I know, we bought from you folk.”

“Not from us,” he says. “We did specialized papers, industrial uses.” Another grin, another headshake. “Very boring, for anybody outside the business.”

“You probably miss it,” I say, because I know he does, and I can’t help saying it.

“I do,” he agrees, but then shrugs. “It’s a crime,” he says, “what’s happening these days.”

“The layoffs, you mean?”

“The downsizing, the reductions in staff. All those rotten euphemisms they use.”

“They told me,” I say, “my job wasn’t going forward.”

“That’s a good one,” he agrees.

“Made me feel better,” I say. I’m holding the sandwich, one triangular quarter of the sandwich, but I’m not eating.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about it,” he says. “I haven’t had much to do, the last couple years, except think about it, and I think this society’s gone nuts.”

“The whole society?” I shrug and say, “I thought it was just the bosses.”

“To let the bosses do it,” he says. “You know, there’s been societies, like primitive peoples in Asia and like that, they expose newborn babies on hillsides to kill them, so they won’t have to feed them and take care of them. And there’s been societies, like the early Eskimos, that put their real old folk out on icebergs to float away and die, because they couldn’t take care of them any more. But this is the first society ever that takes its most productive people, at their prime, at the peak of their powers, and throws them away. I call that crazy.”

“I think you’re right,” I say.

“I think about it all the time,” he says. “But what do you do about it? Beats me.”

“Go crazy, too, I guess,” I say.

He gives me a broad grin at that. “You show me how,” he says, “and I’ll do it.”

We chuckle together, and he goes off to run up the elderly couple’s check on the cash register.

While he’s gone, I force myself to eat most of the food and drink the rest of the coffee. I can’t have more of this conversation, I just can’t.

When I see him coming back down the counter, headed toward me, I make that squiggle in the air that means I want my check, so he about-turns, goes to where he keeps the book, and adds it up.

He has a couple more things to say, just chatting, but I barely answer him. Let him think I’m suddenly in a hurry. I pay the check, and I leave him too big a tip, even though it’s stupid to do that, I mean, really stupid any way you look at it.

When I’m going out the first door, he calls, “See you around.” I smile, and wave.

At least he didn’t offer to put me up.

“Good Vibrations” is playing; the old Beach Boys song. “Good Vibrations,” and I’m floating in a glass boat on a luminous yellow-green sea, it looks like dish detergent, it’s terribly sad, I’m very sad all the time, and then I’m awake and I’m in Dawson’s Motel, and the radio came on at 11:30 P.M., just the way I programmed it. I get up and switch off the radio and go into the bathroom, to pee and brush my teeth and wash my face and prepare to kill EBD.

Dawson’s Motel is a pleasant old-fashioned place with knotty pine walls and ruffled amber shades on the lamps and a dark wood floor that squeaks as I move around. The closet has a green paisley curtain instead of a door, and many metal hangers on the pipe rod inside. The plumbing fixtures are old-fashioned and make a lot of noise.

There was a rack of skiing brochures in the office, when I went in there this afternoon, but at this time of year they don’t do much business. The old man in the office was pleased at the sight of a customer, and even more pleased at the sight of cash. “I don’t much like those credit cards,” he told me, “but I suppose they’re here to stay.”

Cash: a transitional technology.

I realize I’m hearing rain on the motel roof. When I come out of the bathroom I go over to open the door, and it’s a steady rainfall out there, without much wind, coming mostly straight down, washing road dirt into patterns on the Voyager.

I shut the door, and get dressed, but I don’t pack, because I expect to come back here after I do it. 11:47 say the red numbers on the clock-radio. I put on my raincoat and the cloth cap that’s very much like EBD’s. I take the Luger out of my overnight bag and put it in the pocket of the raincoat.

The motel door is old-fashioned enough that I have to lock it with the key when I go outside. Fortunately, there’s a roof overhang here, so I don’t get wet while I’m doing it. I’ve left the lights on in the room, and the glow against the window curtains gives it a warm and homey look. I’ll be glad to get back here.

There are only two other vehicles parked along the front of the motel, both facing in toward the rooms where their owners sleep. One is a pickup with Pennsylvania plates; I’m guessing he’s a blue-collar guy, a carpenter or something like that, looking for construction work. I don’t know why I think that; I guess it’s just comforting to make up a story about the people around you. Invent a tribe.

The other vehicle is a big van that’s been converted to a small camper. The license plate is Florida, and I’m guessing this is a retired couple. No more shocks to the system for them; winter in Florida, drive north when Florida weather turns muggy and miserable. Not bad.

But not for me, not yet, not even if I could afford it. Which I cannot. God knows if I’ll ever be able to afford that kind of retirement life.

I drive north, back toward Lichgate. There’s no traffic at all, and very few lights to be seen. The rain is steady and pretty heavy, once you’re out driving in it. It slows me down, but it’s still only five minutes to twelve when I get to the traffic light at Nether Street. It turns red just before I get there, of course.

The gas station on my left is closed, but the diner ahead to my right is open. And crossing the street in front of me, on the far side of the intersection, shoulders hunched against the rain, inadequately dressed in his windbreaker and cloth cap, is EBD!

Damn! Damn it to hell, he’s leaving early!
I’m
on time, dammit!

It was going to be so easy. I would switch off my headlights as I drove into the parking lot. I would wait near the entrance, I would see him come out into the vestibule, I would drive forward, and as he came down the brick steps I would reach the Luger out the window and shoot him. And that’s it.

But now he’s walking, he’s well away from the diner, he’s already across the intersection and walking down Nether Street away from me, hands in windbreaker pockets, walking briskly because of the rain, moving along on the right side of the street past the parked cars, three blocks to walk to his house on the left.

And this damn light is still red in my face. It’s going to change now; I can see the amber light come on, facing Nether Street. There’s still no traffic anywhere, nobody to be seen, nobody at all out in this rain.

I switch off my headlights. Now I’m as black as the night, and when the green light switches on in front of me I turn left.

He’s moving briskly. This is going to be a difficult shot, out to the right from the left side of the car, me at the steering wheel, past parked cars, at a man in the dark, walking in the rain. It would be horrible to miss, to alert him, to have him running, to have him escape and at once get on the phone to the local police. (EBD would remember the phone, wouldn’t get rattled like Ricks, I can tell that much for sure about him.)

Up ahead, with only the briefest glance over his shoulder, EBD comes out from between parked cars and walks at an angle, crossing the street. And now I know what I must do.

I hit the accelerator hard. The Voyager leaps forward. EBD is a dark mass against the dark masses of the night, everything vaguely glittery from the rain, everything except his wet windbreaker and wet cloth cap. The Voyager leaps at him like a fox after a mole.

He senses me. He looks over his shoulder. It’s too dark to see his face, but I can imagine his expression, and then he jumps, trying to launch himself all the way over to the left curb, and the Voyager smashes into him. But he was jumping, his weight was going upward, so his body doesn’t go under the car, but pastes against it, right in front of me, almost hitting the wind-shield, draped there like a dead deer being brought home by a triumphant sportsman.