Bag of Bones (60 page)

“No, the
other
old guy. Royce Merrill.”

“I don't know who you—oh, wait. The one with the gold cane who looked like an exhibit from
Jurassic Park
?”

“That's him.”

“Bummer. Otherwise . . . ?”

“Otherwise everything's under control,” I said, then thought of the popped-out eyes of the cat-clock and almost laughed. What stopped me was a kind of surety that Mr. Good Humor Man was just an act—John had really called to ask what, if anything, was going on between me and Mattie. And what was I going to say? Nothing yet? One kiss, one instant blue-steel hard-on, the fundamental things apply as time goes by?

But John had other things on his mind. “Listen, Michael, I called because I've got something to tell you. I think you'll be both amused and amazed.”

“A state we all crave,” I said. “Lay it on me.”

“Rogette Whitmore called, and . . . you didn't happen to give her my parents' number, did you? I'm back in New York now, but she called me in Philly.”

“I didn't
have
your parents' number. You didn't leave it on either of your machines.”

“Oh, right.” No apology; he seemed too excited to think of such mundanities. I began to feel excited myself, and I didn't even know what the hell was
going on. “I gave it to Mattie. Do you think the Whitmore woman called Mattie to get it? Would Mattie give it to her?”

“I'm not sure that if Mattie came upon Rogette flaming in a thoroughfare, she'd piss on her to put her out.”

“Vulgar, Michael,
très vulgarino.
” But he was laughing. “Maybe Whitmore got it the same way Devore got yours.”

“Probably so,” I said. “I don't know what'll happen in the months ahead, but right now I'm sure she's still got access to Max Devore's personal control panel. And if anyone knows how to push the buttons on it, it's probably her. Did she call from Palm Springs?”

“Uh-huh. She said she'd just finished a preliminary meeting with Devore's attorneys concerning the old man's will. According to her, Grampa left Mattie Devore eighty million dollars.”

I was struck silent. I wasn't amused yet, but I was certainly amazed.

“Gets ya, don't it?” John said gleefully.

“You mean he left it to Kyra,” I said at last. “Left it in trust to
Kyra.
”

“No, that's just what he did not do. I asked Whitmore three times, but by the third I was starting to understand. There was method in his madness. Not much, but a little. You see, there's a condition. If he left the money to the minor child instead of to the mother, the condition would have no weight. It's funny when you consider that Mattie isn't long past minor status herself.”

“Funny,” I agreed, and thought of her dress sliding
between my hands and her smooth bare waist. I also thought of Bill Dean saying that men who went with girls that age always looked the same, had their tongues run out even if their mouths were shut.

“What string did he put on the money?”

“That Mattie remain on the TR for one year following Devore's death—until July 17, 1999. She can leave on day-trips, but she has to be tucked up in her TR-90 bed every night by nine o'clock, or else the legacy is forfeit. Did you ever hear such a bullshit thing in your life? Outside of some old George Sanders movie, that is?”

“No,” I said, and recalled my visit to the Fryeburg Fair with Kyra.
Even in death he's seeking custody,
I had thought, and of course this was the same thing. He wanted them here. Even in death he wanted them on the TR.

“It won't fly?” I asked.

“Of
course
it won't fly. Fucking crackpot might as well have written he'd give her eighty million dollars if she used blue tampons for a year. But she'll get the eighty mil, all right. My heart is set on it. I've already talked to three of our estate guys, and . . . you don't think I should bring one of them up with me on Tuesday, do you? Will Stevenson'll be the point man in the estate phase, if Mattie agrees.” He was all but babbling. He hadn't had a thing to drink, I'd've bet the farm on it, but he was sky-high on all the possibilities. We'd gotten to the happily-ever-after part of the fairy tale, as far as he was concerned; Cinderella comes home from the ball through a cash cloudburst.

“ . . . course Will's a little bit old,” John was saying,
“about three hundred or so, which means he's not exactly a fun guy at a party, but . . .”

“Leave him home, why don't you?” I said. “There'll be plenty of time to carve up Devore's will later on. And in the immediate future, I don't think Mattie's going to have any problem observing the bullshit condition. She just got her job back, remember?”

“Yeah, the white buffalo drops dead and the whole herd scatters!” John exulted. “Look at em go! And the new multimillionaire goes back to filing books and mailing out overdue notices! Okay, Tuesday we'll just party.”

“Good.”

“Party 'til we puke.”

“Well . . . maybe us older folks will just party until we're mildly nauseated, would that be all right?”

“Sure. I've already called Romeo Bissonette, and he's going to bring George Kennedy, the private detective who got all that hilarious shit on Durgin. Bissonette says Kennedy's a scream when he gets a drink or two in him. I thought I'd bring some steaks from Peter Luger's, did I tell you that?”

“I don't believe you did.”

“Best steaks in the world. Michael, do you realize what's happened to that young woman?
Eighty million dollars!
”

“She'll be able to replace Scoutie.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Will you come in tomorrow night or on Tuesday?”

“Tuesday morning around ten, into Castle County Airport. New England Air. Mike, are you all right? You sound odd.”

“I'm all right. I'm where I'm supposed to be. I think.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

I had wandered out onto the deck. In the distance thunder rumbled. It was hotter than hell, not a breath of breeze stirring. The sunset was fading to a baleful afterglow. The sky in the west looked like the white of a bloodshot eye.

“I don't know,” I said, “but I have an idea the situation will clarify itself. I'll meet you at the airport.”

“Okay,” he said, and then, in a hushed, almost reverential voice: “Eighty million motherfucking American dollars.”

“It's a whole lotta lettuce,” I agreed, and wished him a good night.

*   *   *

I drank black coffee and ate toast in the kitchen the next morning, watching the TV weatherman. Like so many of them these days, he had a slightly mad look, as if all those Doppler radar images had driven him to the brink of something. I think of it as the Millennial Video Game look.

“We've got another thirty-six hours of this soup to work through and then there's going to be a big change,” he was saying, and pointed to some dark gray scum lurking in the Midwest. Tiny animated lightning-bolts danced in it like defective sparkplugs. Beyond the scum and the lightning-bolts, America looked clear all the way out to the desert country, and the posted temperatures were fifteen degrees cooler. “We'll see temps in the mid-nineties today and can't look for much relief tonight or tomorrow morning. But tomorrow afternoon these frontal storms will
reach western Maine, and I think most of you are going to want to keep updated on weather conditions. Before we get back to cooler air and bright clear skies on Wednesday, we're probably going to see violent thunderstorms, heavy rain, hail in some locations. Tornados are rare in Maine, but some towns in western and central Maine could see them tomorrow. Back to you, Earl.”

Earl, the morning news guy, had the innocent beefy look of a recent retiree from the Chippendales and read off the TelePrompTer like one. “Wow,” he said. “That's quite a forecast, Vince. Tornados a possibility.”

“Wow,” I said. “Say wow again, Earl. Do it 'til I'm satisfied.”

“Holy cow,” Earl said just to spite me, and the telephone rang. I went to answer it, giving the waggy clock a look as I went by. The night had been quiet—no sobbing, no screaming, no nocturnal adventures—but the clock was disquieting, just the same. It hung there on the wall eyeless and dead, like a message full of bad news.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Noonan?”

I knew the voice, but for a moment couldn't place it. It was because she had called me Mr. Noonan. To Brenda Meserve I'd been Mike for almost fifteen years.

“Mrs. M.? Brenda? What—”

“I can't work for you anymore,” she said, all in a rush. “I'm sorry I can't give you proper notice—I never stopped work for anyone without giving notice, not even that old drunk Mr. Croyden—but I have to. Please understand.”

“Did Bill find out I called you? I swear to God, Brenda, I never said a word—”

“No. I haven't spoken to him, nor he to me. I just can't come back to Sara Laughs. I had a bad dream last night. A terrible dream. I dreamed that . . . something's mad at me. If I come back, I could have an accident. It would
look
like an accident, at least, but . . . it wouldn't be.”

That's silly, Mrs. M.,
I wanted to say.
You're surely past the age where you believe in campfire stories about ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties.

But of course I could say no such thing. What was going on in my house was no campfire story. I knew it, and she knew I did.

“Brenda, if I've caused you any trouble, I'm truly sorry.”

“Go away, Mr. Noonan . . . Mike. Go back to Derry and stay for awhile. It's the best thing you could do.”

I heard the letters sliding on the fridge and turned. This time I actually saw the circle of fruits and vegetables form. It stayed open at the top long enough for four letters to slide inside. Then a little plastic lemon plugged the hole and completed the circle.

yats

the letters said, then swapped themselves around, making

stay

Then both the circle and the letters broke up.

“Mike,
please.
” Mrs. M. was crying. “Royce's funeral is tomorrow. Everyone in the TR who matters—the old-timers—will be there.”

Yes, of course they would. The old ones, the bags of bones who knew what they knew and kept it to themselves. Except some of them had talked to my wife. Royce himself had talked to her. Now he was dead. So was she.

“It would be best if you were gone. You could take that young woman with you, maybe. Her and her little girl.”

But could I? I somehow didn't think so. I thought the three of us were on the TR until this was over . . . and I was starting to have an idea of when that would be. A storm was coming. A summer storm. Maybe even a tornado.

“Brenda, thanks for calling me. And I'm not letting you go. Let's just call it a leave of absence, shall we?”

“Fine . . . whatever you want. Will you at least think about what I said?”

“Yes. In the meantime, I don't think I'd tell anyone you called me, all right?”

“No!” she said, sounding shocked. Then: “But they'll know. Bill and Yvette . . . Dickie Brooks at the garage . . . old Anthony Weyland and Buddy Jellison and all the others . . . they'll know. Goodbye, Mr. Noonan. I'm so sorry. For you and your wife. Your poor wife. I'm so sorry.” Then she was gone.

I held the phone in my hand for a long time. Then, like a man in a dream, I put it down, crossed the room, and took the eyeless clock off the wall. I threw it in the trash and went down to the lake for a swim,
remembering that W. F. Harvey story “August Heat,” the one that ends with the line “The heat is enough to drive a man mad.”

*   *   *

I'm not a bad swimmer when people aren't pelting me with rocks, but my first shore-to-float-to-shore lap was tentative and unrhythmic—ugly—because I kept expecting something to reach up from the bottom and grab me. The drowned boy, maybe. The second lap was better, and by the third I was relishing the increased kick of my heart and the silky coolness of the water rushing past me. Halfway through the fourth lap I pulled myself up the float's ladder and collapsed on the boards, feeling better than I had since my encounter with Devore and Rogette Whitmore on Friday night. I was still in the zone, and on top of that I was experiencing a glorious endorphin rush. In that state, even the dismay I'd felt when Mrs. M. told me she was resigning her position ebbed away. She would come back when this was over; of course she would. In the meantime, it was probably best she stay away.

Something's mad at me. I could have an accident.

Yes indeed. She might cut herself. She might fall down a flight of cellar stairs. She might even have a stroke running across a hot parking lot.

I sat up and looked at Sara on her hill, the deck jutting out over the drop, the railroad ties descending. I'd only been out of the water for a few minutes, but already the day's sticky heat was folding over me, stealing my rush. The water was still as a mirror. I could see the house reflected in it, and in the reflection Sara's windows became watchful eyes.

I thought that the focus of all the phenomena—the epicenter—was very likely on The Street between the real Sara and its drowned image.
This is where it happened,
Devore had said. And the old-timers? Most of them probably knew what I knew: that Royce Merrill had been murdered. And wasn't it possible—wasn't it
likely
—that what had killed him might come among them as they sat in their pews or gathered afterward around his grave? That it might steal some of their force—their guilt, their memories, their
TR
-ness—to help it finish the job?

I was very glad that John was going to be at the trailer tomorrow, and Romeo Bissonette, and George Kennedy, who was so amusing when he got a drink or two in him. Glad it was going to be more than just me with Mattie and Ki when the old folks got together to give Royce Merrill his sendoff. I no longer cared very much about what had happened to Sara and the Red-Tops, or even about what was haunting my house. What I wanted was to get through tomorrow, and for Mattie and Ki to get through tomorrow. We'd eat before the rain started and then let the predicted thunderstorms come. I thought that, if we could ride them out, our lives and futures might clarify with the weather.