Forests of the Night (31 page)

Those tits, said Joan Crawford. Don't kid yourself, Gracey, it's the tits that did it. You think that little twit has talent? That girl was blond and she had
the firm young knockers all those adolescent boys in Hollywood drool over.

Don't listen to that old crone, Barbara Stanwyck said. It's all sour grapes with Joan. Look at her. Of course she hates women with tits. She hates any woman. Everybody's a threat. Who wouldn't be a threat to an ugly bitch like her? Look at those eyebrows, my God, throw away the tweezers, get out the hedge clippers. Don't listen to her, Gracey, with her tit phobia. If it takes a good set of boobs to get you in the door, then fine, don't worry. So you're well-endowed, great, enjoy it, be happy, stand up straight, show them off. Joan's just picking on your vulnerability. She knows you're sensitive about them.

“I am not,” Gracey said out loud.

Lucy turned and looked at her.

“I'm not sensitive about my breasts. I don't know where you get that.”

Yes, you are, deary. Don't try to lie to me. It isn't possible.

How the hell did she know what Gracey was sensitive about?

Because I'm in here, my little elf. Inside. What you know, I know.

“In here? Inside where?”

Barbara said, where you are right now, that's where.

Don't tie yourself in knots. Just relax and enjoy. Bottom line is, when it comes to acting, however you get your start is just fine. Listen to Spielberg. He's a class act. Not some adolescent tit man. Crawford's a mean, mean woman. Spent her entire career trying to fake a smile, cover up what a perfect bitch she is. Can't trust someone like that. You listening to me, honey?

“You okay?” Lucy asked her.

“Sure,” said Gracey. “I'm great. Fantastic.”

“You're talking to yourself.”

“No, no. I just got offered a part in a movie. A major motion picture. Steven Spielberg wants me for a supporting role, like Melanie Griffith.”

Lucy was quiet.

“What? You aren't happy for me?”

Lucy nodded, but she didn't look very enthusiastic.

“I have to get back to Miami,” Gracey said. “This is huge.”

“I'm taking you to your parents,” Lucy said. “Right now.”

“And listen, I'll tell my dad about the guy and his murder list. Dad will nail the guy. You don't need to worry anymore, Lucy.”

“I'm not worried.”

“What's the man's name? The one who was shooting at us?”

“Farris Tribue. He's the sheriff around here.”

“Okay, good. I'll sic my daddy on him and, look out, that guy won't know what hit him.”

“You do that, Gracey.”

“Now what're you going to do? Make a run for it? Blow town, go on the lam?”

“After I take you to your parents, I'm going to do what I should've done months ago.”

“What's that?”

“Finish this thing. Finish it once and for all.”

“Fragile X,” Charlotte said.

“What?”

She was scrolling through an Internet article on her computer. A Web site devoted to genetic disorders. Killing time in their motel room, waiting for Gracey to appear.

“ ‘Characteristic facial features include long, narrow face, narrow inter-eye distance, highly arched palate, and enlarged ear size.' ”

“Farris Tribue,” Parker said.

For most of the morning he'd been lying on the bed, drawing an elaborate chart on a yellow pad. His usual way of sorting out riddles: doodling circles, connecting them with branching lines, tracing the chains of causality, trying to see relationships, which sequence of events might have triggered the current situation.

Charlotte hadn't told him about her theory. She wanted it to settle for a while, let the murky water clear, see if it still made sense.

It felt right. It answered everything, but still she wasn't ready. She had to make sure it was solid before she spoke the words.

Charlotte read some more from the Web page.

“ ‘Prominent thumbs, hand calluses, enlarged testicular volume, also
known as macroorchidism, particularly noticeable after puberty. Approximately one in seven hundred males will be born as a fragile X—permutation carrier. Carrier males are at high risk to pass on the fragile X mutation and to have affected offspring. Fragile X is the leading hereditary cause of mental retardation and second to Down syndrome as a specific genetic cause, and it may also have a significant association with autism.' ”

Parker absorbed the information quietly, then said, “So?”

“So that's what Farris's got. Fragile X.”

“I repeat,” Parker said. “So?”

“So, nothing. It was bugging me.”

“So Farris has big nuts. I could've guessed that.”

He went back to diagramming on his legal pad. Charlotte killed the Web page, tried to think of something else to occupy her mind.

“Wait a minute.” Parker sat up. “Sissy, Uncle Mike's daughter.”

“Yeah? She was spying for him somewhere.”

“Back when I was a kid, Sissy used to show up at camp now and then for the big ceremonies. She loved the Indian lore stuff, the dances, the bonfires. She was maybe a year or two older than me.”

“And?”

“She's a high-functioning autistic. A smart girl, but emotionally stunted.”

“So maybe it's in the family, this fragile X thing. Farris, his twin brother, his cousin.”

She could see Parker drawing another circle on his legal pad, making an X in the middle of it, factoring that into his visual equation.

Turning back to her computer, she was about to check her e-mail for the twentieth time that morning when the knock came on the door. Three sharp raps.

In two seconds Charlotte was at the peephole and saw Gracey standing there, bobbing her head as if counting off the seconds impatiently.

Charlotte whipped the door open and grabbed Gracey by the upper arm and dragged her into the room. As she was shutting the door, she saw a white camper pull away from in front of their room, heading for the parking lot exit.

Gracey was bedraggled, wearing the same outfit she'd had on earlier in
the week in Miami. A million years ago. Parker and Charlotte took turns hugging her, and Gracey stood it as long as she could, then pushed away and said, “I need a shower. I stink.”

“How about some food? We can order room service, whatever you want.”

“I need a salad, a big green salad. I've been eating junk. I'm all puffy.”

Parker was smiling, heading for the room-service menu on the desk. He hadn't noticed yet what Charlotte had just seen.

Gracey's eyes were icing over. She was heading inward. Standing at the foot of the bed, tilting her head to the side as if listening to some high-pitched whistle.

“Look,” Gracey said. “I need the whole script. If I don't know how it comes out, how'm I supposed to play the role?”

“Gracey?” Charlotte said.

Parker turned from the desk and stared at his child.

“Okay, sure, this is my first time, and you have all the experience and everything, yeah, but I don't see how you expect me to play a role without knowing where my character's headed.”

Parker looked over at Charlotte, his face suffused with naked grief.

“No, no, no,” Gracey said. “Forget it, Steven, I'm absolutely not doing any nude scene. No, not even topless.”

She shook her head and muttered something below her breath. Then she leaned forward in Parker's direction.

“If that's all you want, just to see my breasts, then never mind. Forget the whole damn thing, okay. I'm not some slut. I know, I know, Melanie Griffith, Melanie Griffith, yeah, yeah.”

Charlotte spoke her name again, but it didn't register.

“She needs her meds,” Parker said.

“I'm not whining,” said Gracey. “I don't know where you get that. I'm just stating my case. If you don't like it, tough. Find some bimbo with big tits. Make her a star.”

Charlotte tugged on Gracey's arm and led her over to the bed and eased her down till she was sitting on the edge.

For the next few minutes she talked to empty air, bitching at Steven Spielberg. Holding firm on the topless issue. Saying she might be willing to
compromise a little, maybe consider a quick, tasteful butt shot, but anything more than that was out. From what Charlotte could gather, Gracey had gotten him on the defensive. Apologizing, backtracking. She reminded him that she was only sixteen years old and he could get in trouble. Had he forgotten about that whole Brooke Shields,
Pretty Baby
thing? What was he, some kind of pervert?

Maybe Charlotte was starting to lose it, too, but despite everything, she felt a surge of pride in Gracey. Her tough daughter, standing up for herself against an intimidating big-time director like that.

 

While Gracey was undressing in the bathroom, Charlotte got through to Gracey's psychiatrist, who approved a one-time double dose of her medication. However, he advised, because of the interruption in her treatment, it would be as long as a week before the drugs began to take hold again. In any case, that extra pulse at the beginning would probably help.

With only a minor fuss, Gracey swallowed the capsules Charlotte had brought along, then spent the next fifteen minutes in the shower. Steam pouring from around the curtain. Afterward, she dressed in a pair of Charlotte's jeans and a long-sleeved jersey and curled up in their bed and fell into a soundless slumber.

For a time Charlotte watched Gracey sleep while Parker sat at the desk and stared at the front curtains.

Maybe Parker was right. Maybe Diana had been, too.

All Charlotte had to do was love the girl. Not that it would fix Gracey's condition. But it might, if she was lucky, fix Charlotte's.

For the last year, Charlotte had wanted more than anything to recapture her healthy, happy daughter. She would always want that. Dream of it. Never give up that hope. But maybe she'd gotten things badly confused. In wishing Gracey were right again, she'd been discounting the girl Gracey had become. As if to acknowledge her daughter's new self would mean yielding to the illness. She could blame it on the shrink, just following his orders not to indulge Gracey's fantasies. But it was more than that. For little by little Charlotte had withdrawn her emotional support, held back her affection, begun to give Gracey an almost constant torrent of disapproval.

Goddamn it, they
were
right. Charlotte had been handling it all wrong. Mourning her loss of the old Gracey with such fervor that she had nothing left to give the new one.

She went over to the bed and bent over her daughter and pressed a kiss to her forehead. The flesh was cool and dry. Her face softly composed, as if her dreams had liberated her momentarily from the torment of her waking hours.

She made a silent vow. Whoever Gracey was when she woke, that was the person Charlotte would love. As challenging as that might be, it seemed at the moment her only chance to recover some portion of the girl she'd lost.

Lucy Panther came up the Tribues' gravel driveway on foot, her pistol in hand. The big meadow out front had been recently mowed, and the scent of grass hung thickly in the air. A song sparrow trilled its haunting, off-key melody from the hemlocks. Somewhere nearby a towhee called out, “Drink your tea.” In the high grass near the trees, she heard a buzzing sound, a timber rattler or a nest of yellow jackets waking from their winter sleep.

Lucy climbed the front steps. The two broad-chested poodles rose to meet her but showed no hostility. One of them nosed her butt as she passed by.

Lucy used her pistol butt to break the narrow windowpane, and then she reached through the jagged glass and unlocked the door to the Tribue house.

When Farris returned, he would see the broken glass by the doorway, be instantly on guard, throw open closets, kick in doors. Even though she'd parked the camper a mile away in the trees and trekked up, he'd still know.

Which was fine. At this point any way it went was fine.

She'd lost her boy, the only man who'd ever meant anything to her. Aside from Parker for that one short summer. Off and on for years Parker
had barged into her dreams, which left her thinking maybe he'd show up at her door one day, smile the way he had that first time, shy, awkward, full of reckless heat, and he'd want to know all about his son, and eventually he'd touch her, and the fire would flare again. She'd imagined that so much, it was almost like it'd happened. But it hadn't and it wouldn't, and now she didn't care.

That was done, too. Parker wasn't the same. And the woman he'd married was Lucy's equal. Took her only a second to recognize that. Both of them from the same race of fighters. Tooth-and-nail women who'd die before they surrendered what they loved. He'd found himself a substitute, as good or better than Lucy. Fine.

Didn't matter. None of it did.

Lucy moved through the dark house, seeing just well enough to keep from knocking over furniture. The dogs stayed out on the porch, didn't even try to follow. Lazy beasts.

The house was quiet, and for a moment she stood in the foyer and listened, absorbing the vibrations of the place.

A large part of this ruinous state of affairs was Lucy Panther's fault. She could trace nearly everything back to that summer dalliance thirty years ago. Now her son was dead. Even her father, Standingdog, had, in his own way, lost his life to this thing. This thing she was resolved to end today.

Unless he killed her first. But even that didn't concern her much. Live or die, at this point it was all the same. The world was poisoned. Every last thing that mattered was gone.

What she needed to do now, the only thing that counted, was to find a place in this house, the right vantage point from which she could see Farris's face when she gut-shot him, when he crumpled and died. That was the single thing in the entire universe that interested her. Finding that place.

She was leaving the bathroom when she heard the noise down the hall. Voices in conversation. It took a second more to discern that it was only TV people talking.

Two doors down the corridor, a light shone from a cracked-open door. Lucy wiped the sweat from her shooting hand, then reset her grip.

Moving forward, she walked a line on the edge of the hallway to keep
from creaking the boards. And she made it to the door itself before the floor planks crackled underfoot.

She didn't wait for a reaction, but shouldered through and came in the room pointing the pistol left, then right, then left again.

Old man Tribue was tucked beneath the white sheets, propped by pillows so he could watch the cowboy movie playing on his TV across the room. John Wayne in Technicolor riding a white stallion across a prairie.

Congressman Otis Tribue stared at Lucy, his eyes frantic.

Hanging from a freestanding metal pole was a plastic bag, an IV drip. The tubing ran to his right arm, a vein near the joint of his elbow. Lucy had heard the gossip around town of Otis Tribue's wife, Roberta, sustained by endless bags of morphine through her final days.

Lucy moved closer to the bed and checked the side table for weapons.

Nothing.

She kept the pistol aimed at him while she stripped back the white sheet.

The congressman was wearing only undershorts. He was lashed to the bed by ropes and duct tape. His ankles knotted to the bedposts, from his waist to his sternum a crisscrossing of silver tape kept him motionless.

The old man closed his eyes slowly and kept them closed like he was taking a moment to commune with his Maker.

On the TV, John Wayne was riding at full gallop, firing back at a war party of Apaches, a six-gun in each hand, while the Indians were blown backward, one by one, from their ponies onto the rocky ground.

“What's going on here?”

The old man's voice was hoarse and weak, as if he'd been shouting at the empty room for hours.

“My son,” he said. “He's killing me.”

“Killing you?”

Otis Tribue nodded at the IV bag.

“Pull out the needle,” he said. “It's bleach or gasoline. I don't know what.”

Lucy Panther stood close to the footboard and looked down at the man. Even in his old age, he was handsome. His face had the weathered vigor of the men on the walls of his room. Black-and-white photographs
and tintypes of other Tribues with their side whiskers and full beards, the stern pioneers who had preceded him in this bedroom, and on this land. Frontiersmen, they called themselves, tamers of the wilderness. As if wilderness ever needed taming.

Otis Tribue and people like him had homesteaded Cherokee land since long before the Civil War, and they founded the stores and banks and blasted corridors through solid rock for roads and dams and they clear-cut the forests, and their modern versions built the hundreds of money-grubbing businesses that completed the conquest their predecessors began centuries before—the soldiers with their muskets and diseases and baubles.

It was all lost now. No going back. No fixing it.

When this white warlord died, he would be replaced by one as bad or worse. Nothing Lucy Panther could do would change the landslide. Casino money was just the latest fraud, promising paradise and giving them shit.

“You know who I am?” Lucy asked him.

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“I'm the daughter of Standingdog Matthews, mother of Jacob Panther.”

The old man moved his head in sad acknowledgment of her words.

“Pull out the needle,” he said. “I'm dying.”

“Why did Farris do this to you?”

“To punish me,” he said. “Now pull it out, goddamn you.”

His eyes were as deep and murky as the caves of ancient bears.

“No,” she said. “Not until I have some answers.”

“Have mercy, woman.”

“I don't have a nickel's worth of pity for you, old man. What you did there's no forgiveness for. Nothing but brimstone's in your future.”

“What do you want to know?”

“The story. The whole story, back to the beginning of time if that's when it got started. Tell me and I'll shut this poison off.”

“Shut it now, or I'll be dead and there'll be no telling anything.”

Lucy considered it for a moment, then moved to the IV bottle and twisted the clamp. She sniffed the air around the plastic bag, and, yes, she could detect the sharp reek of a flammable liquid.

“Water,” the old man said. “Water.”

Lucy looked back at John Wayne. He was behind a boulder now, blast
ing away with his endless bullets. More Apaches flew backward in their last immortal seconds.

She went to the tiny bathroom and poured him a cup and held it to his lips and watched him gulp it down.

“Now tell me,” she said. “Or I turn on the drip again.”

“I need a doctor. I need medical attention now. A transfusion.”

“You'll tell the story first.”

“Goddamn you, woman.”

“Oh, he has already, yes, you bet your ass he has. Now tell me.”

He closed his eyes, summoning his strength, and a moment or two later, in his croaky voice, he began the tale. From one fall afternoon two centuries ago until that very evening they shared. He compressed it, left out most of the names and particulars. Those things she could find out on her own, he assured her.

In his story, dozens of her people were murdered. More than she'd imagined. More than any of the tribal scandalmongers had reckoned. Last of all, he told her where to find the remains of many of those Cherokees his ancestors had killed. A stone's throw from his very bed.

In the last twenty-four hours she had watched her son die, seen her lover Parker again, and then received this dreadful tale, and now there was more weight on Lucy Panther's heart than her heart had ever carried.

When Otis was finished, he looked at her for a long minute. She was not about to give the old man her forgiveness, and he was clearly asking for none.

“I'm dying,” he said. “Call an ambulance.”

But even if she'd wanted to, it was too late for that. The first convulsion came and went only a few seconds later, followed by another and another.

Lucy Panther stood unmoved and unmoving as she watched the seizures cease and the old man dwindle, and slowly lose his place on earth, watched him slap the air a final time, twist once more in his sheets and fall still.

When he was gone, she prowled the room, opening drawers and pawing through a woman's carefully folded undergarments and sweaters and white aprons. In the bottom drawer of the dresser she found what she was searching for. Otis Tribue had mentioned it prominently in his story. And here it was, an antiquated, small-caliber revolver. A tangible memento from Otis
Tribue's wicked past. She tucked the pistol in the waistband of her jeans. Legal evidence, in case she survived the evening.

So now it was one Tribue down and one left to go.

Lucy drew up a chair close to the TV, and she watched what was left of the John Wayne movie. She'd seen this one a couple of times before. It didn't end well for the redskins.

It never did.