The Empire of Ice Cream (44 page)

Someone elbowed me in the ribs. I looked up and found I was in the cab of Stick's truck. Rosario was at the window. He put his hand in through the open window, past Stick, and I shook it. Barney leaned over and also shook his hand. We thanked him and then Stick drove off. All traces of the nausea had passed and I still felt a little high. I had some coffee at Barney's to wake up and then drove home. There was a full moon. I left the window open for a while to get some fresh air. Passing the fields and forests, I thought I heard them murmuring.

After the night out on Money, Barney and I had decided not to talk about the ayahuasca experience for a while. We didn't last a week, though. I called him a few days later on Friday afternoon.

“It was a coffin on the river for me,” he said. “Two really little guys, imperious sons of bitches, with heads like blue jays sat perched at either end. I watched the clouds passing overhead as one of them told me, ‘The knowledge that is about to be revealed to you is reserved for the dead or dying.' How do you think that made me feel?”

“Did you get sick?” I asked.

“The McDonald's wasn't a winning strategy.”

“What was the knowledge?” I asked.

“We wound up on some island and I sat on a stone bench, really uncomfortable. Across from me was a big fat snake on a concrete throne, partially coiled and sitting upright, wearing a crown. It lectured me for a half-hour and then said I could go. I woke up out in the back of the house by the reeds.”

“What'd the snake tell you?”

“I couldn't understand what the hell it was saying. It was actually talking English, but it hissed every word. I made out one or two, but …”

“Since then,” I said, “every time I go near the plants Lynn brought in from the yard for the winter, I hear a vague whispering sound, and I get this recurring image.”

He started laughing.

“No shit,” I said. “I swear.”

“There's a field,” he said. “About a hundred yards in is the edge of a forest.”

“A house,” I said.

“Ranch style, pink,” he said. “It's right at the tree line and two huge oaks kind of arch above it.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Kind of disappointing after all that rigmarole with the ayahuasca.”

“I haven't written a damn word. And I can't for the life of me figure out why I ever thought tapping into my DNA was going to help that.”

“Well, I'm going to paint that pink house. I figure, I see it enough, I might as well paint it. You should write a story called ‘The Pink House.'”

“Who do you think lives there?”

“Richard Burton and Liz Taylor.”

I got as far as,
The Taylors lived at the edge of the forest in a pink house
, and then turned the computer off. I left my office with no desire to return. In the next two days, I walked both in the morning and at night, long wanderings with Shadow. As I went along, the pine trees put thoughts in my head that I heard as words. They told me to shave and lose weight. They ridiculed my attire. I paid the bills. I helped my younger son memorize the state capitals. I made a meatloaf. I sat with Lynn on the couch; we drank coffee and talked. When no one was home, I played the Ink Spots on the stereo, “The Trees Don't Need To Know,” as I stood by the front window where the plants were gathered and daydreamed that place across the field. I had achieved a certain peace with my blankness.

Thanksgiving came and went, and I was surprised I enjoyed it so much. The weather turned bitter cold and it snowed lightly one night at the end of the month. Life was but a dream, all domestic harmony, the promise of Christmas, soft music, and fires in the fireplace. The hours came and went and I thought nothing of them. Then, one night I was in the kitchen, cooking dinner, and the phone rang.

“I found the pink house,” said Barney.

“Bull,” I said.

“I was sitting in the studio today, and I decided to get up and go out. So I hopped in the car and just started driving around, not really thinking about anything. I let myself get lost on a road out by the State Forest. The road was empty, the sun was shining, I was easing along. Then I saw the field out of the corner of my eye. I turned and there was the house, right at the edge of the tree line.”

“Pink?” I asked.

“Pinker than the pink I remembered. You've got to come down and check it out.”

“What for?”

“If it's the same one, I'll go up and knock on the door.”

“Who do you think's in there?”

“Man, I hope it's not that snake.” He proceeded to give me directions and told me to meet him there the next day at noon.

When people who don't know Jersey think of it, they usually envision the refineries in Elisabeth or the casinos in Atlantic City, maybe beleaguered Camden, but if you go far enough south, you get a clear sense as to why it is called the Garden State. Cumberland County is like something out of the Midwest—forests and swamps and acres and acres of farmland. There are long stretches of plenty of nothing in certain areas. The place that Barney led me to was one of them.

The day was clear and cold. He was sitting in his car, pulled over to the side of the road, at the edge of a wide field that had been cut out of the surrounding forest. The minute I laid eyes on the house, I knew it was the one. He got out of his car and stood staring toward the tree line. I got out.

“That's it,” he said, smiling, pointing toward the house.

“Too strange,” I said.

There was no question we were going to go to the door, so I put my trepidation aside and followed him across the field. A dirt driveway, leading in from the road, ended about fifteen yards from the house, but there was no car in sight. As we approached the structure, I could see it more clearly, no bigger than an oversized trailer, and because of its dilapidated appearance—missing roof shingles, peeling paint, crumbling concrete steps leading to a chipped front door—I said, “There might not be anybody living here now.”

“Maybe,” said Barney. The place was silent like a possum playing dead, though; like a snake coiled. I knew he could feel it too. Wind moved through the trees that arched above it and their barren branches clicked together.

“It's a tidy little ship,” I whispered as he took the three steps to the door.

He knocked loud five times, took a precautionary step back, and then we waited.

Nothing. Just the sound of the wind in the nearby forest. I looked off to the side, in amidst the shadowed trees at the ground covered with oak leaves, the pines swaying. Barney knocked again. We waited. Then he turned his head to the side and said, “I thought I heard something.”

“It's just the wind,” I said. “The place is empty.”

“Come on,” he said, and jumped down off the steps. I followed him around the right side of the house. Just off the corner there was an oil tank sitting flush against the wall, like a small, galvanized submarine in port, and beyond that, a window. Barney stepped up to the glass and, cupping his hands around his eyes, peered inside.

“See anything?” I asked, and stepped up next to him.

“No,” he said, “it's just a kid's room …”

It happened so suddenly, we both jumped back and Barney gave a short yelp. A face had popped up suddenly from beneath the inside sill—a young girl, with large, dark eyes and long hair, no more than six or seven years old. She stared at us, unmoving.

“We're busted,” I said. “Let's get out of here.”

“No,” he said, stepping closer to the face. He leaned toward the window and squinted his bad eye to see better. Turning to me, he said, “That's the kid who got snatched.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She's the one who was abducted from her yard.”

We looked back at the girl and she had her hands on the glass.

Her lips moved. “Help me,” she said, and we could very faintly hear her.

I felt the fear start to rise in me.

“We've got to get her out of there,” said Barney, who was visibly shaken.

“Are you absolutely certain it's her?”

He started moving around to the back of the house. “Yeah,” he said. “She's in Alice's class at school. I know her.”

When I caught up to him he was on the back steps, fidgeting with the doorknob, which was obviously locked.

“We've got to do this fast,” I said. I took my sweatshirt off and wrapped it around my left hand. “What if whoever kidnapped her is in the house?”

Barney shook his head. “They would have answered the front door, right?”

“Not necessarily,” I said, and punched in the pane. Glass shattered onto the kitchen floor. Reaching my arm carefully through the hole I'd made, I undid a deadbolt and chain lock. Seconds later, I had the door open and we were inside. The kitchen was dim with no light but that coming in from the outside where the woods cast the back of the house in shadow. Stained and peeling pink wallpaper with a design of cookie cutters and sinister gingerbread men made the small room absolutely claustrophobic. It stunk like old garbage. There were unwashed plates in the sink, pizza boxes on the table, and what looked like week-old creamed corn in a pot on the stove. I tried to ignore the god's-eye made from yarn and sticks hanging from a nail, beneath a clock with a different type of bird at each hour.

“What's the girl's name?” I asked him as we made our way down a short, dark hallway to the door of the room. There was a deadbolt with a key lock that fit through a hole in the center of the bolt, so whoever had taken her could be assured she wasn't going anywhere.

“Kara, something like that,” he said. “Karen or … no, Carly.”

I stood thinking what to do. I shook my sweatshirt out and put it back on.

“Any second, I'm expecting some
Deliverance
motherfucker to jump out of the woodwork and brain me with a hammer,” whispered Barney.

“Tell her we're gonna kick it in,” I said.

“Carly, this is Alice's father. You know Alice from your class? We're here to take you home, but we have to kick this door in, so stand back. Don't be afraid. A little noise and then we'll have you out.”

“Okay,” said a small voice from the other side of the door.

We put our backs against the opposite wall and counted to three in unison. On the first kick, I hurt my knee. On the second, we heard some wood crack. Five kicks later and the frame and molding of the jamb splintered free. The door swung back, and there was the girl, standing by the window, facing us.

Barney entered the room and approached her very calmly. He got down on his haunches in front of her and said, “Do you want us to take you home to your mom and dad?”

“Take me home,” she said, putting her arms around his shoulders. She started to cry.

“It's gonna be okay, babe,” I said.

“Everything's good now,” said Barney, patting her shoulder.

She let go of him and moved back, drying her eyes.

“Ready to go?” he asked her.

She reached up to take his hand, and as their fingers touched, I heard, from out in front, the sound of a car door slamming shut.

She looked up at me, her eyes wide with terror. “He's coming,” she said.

Barney lifted her and flung her over his shoulder. I gave him just a second to get by me, and then we were running—across the broken glass of the kitchen, out the back door. Neither of us bothered with the porch steps. We hit the ground and made for the path that led into the woods.

Adrenalin might be more amazing than ayahuasca. It carried my load at top speed about two hundred yards in beneath the trees on the first burst. Gray trunks, brown leaves, leafless bushes whipped by, and the intermittent light cutting through the tangle of bare branches above was dizzying. We finally ducked in behind a huge old tree just off the path. My beloved Marlboro ultra-lights had a tight grip on my lungs, and I was heaving like a hooked tuna. My Achilles tendons were ready to snap and both knees hurt. Barney, who was in somewhat better shape, gasped less but had to put the girl down and arch his back until it made a sound like knuckles popping. We were too scared to talk, but waited, listening.

The girl pulled on my shirt and I looked down at her. “He's got a gun,” she whispered.

An insane bellow rose up from the head of the path. “Marta,” cried the kidnapper. “Marta.”

“Who's Marta?” I asked.

“That's what he calls me,” she said.

Barney leaned out around the side of the tree. There came the report of a pistol from very close by followed by a voice. “Come back, please!” he yelled.

If we didn't start running again, I would have pissed my pants right there I was so scared. Barney had the girl by the hand, and we were dashing off the path through fallen leaves, over logs and sticks, around bushes. Stumbling in ruts, branches slapping our faces, we lurched frantically forward. I heard two more gunshots and expected any minute to feel a slug dig into my back.

We stopped again after a good ten minutes of flight, in behind a blind of tangled sticker bushes. Kneeling down, I tried to control my breathing so as not to give us away. Barney and the girl crouched beside me. Only inches from where my hands leaned against the ground was a broken branch, three feet long and the width of a baseball bat. I grabbed hold of it, more to keep myself anchored to reality than anything else.

“Here he comes,” whispered Barney.

I looked up through the bush and saw him approaching about sixty yards away, walking slowly, looking side to side. Every so often he'd stop for a moment or two, turn, and then continue directly for us. I tracked him as he passed behind trees, and even at that distance, I could see he was a big guy. He wore a red plaid hunting jacket and a black wool cap. What struck me most was that his face was too large, overly prominent cheekbones and a shelf of a forehead.

“When he gets close enough, I'm going to rush him with the stick and see if I can catch him off guard,” I said. “Don't start running until I hit him. Then take off, stay low, and zigzag.”