Hard Rain (28 page)

“Did you fall or were you pushed?”

No reply. Jessie lit a match. “Did you fall or were you pushed?”

Disco shrugged.

“Who is Ratty?”

“The drummer.”

“In Pat's band?”

“Once or twice. But it wasn't Pat's band. It was that fucker Hartley Frame's. He always got whatever he wanted. Hendrix gave him the Stratocaster. Just like that.” In the weak light of the match, Disco's eyeless sockets were two black holes. “Do you think he was balling Blue, what's your name again?”

“Jessie. Why not ask her?”

“I did.”

“And what did she say?”

“Yes.”

“Then it's probably true.”

“No.” Disco pounded the arm of his wheelchair. “She's lying.”

“What does it matter now? What matters is where she is and what happened here tonight.”

“Blue's all right. She's as tough as they come.”

Then why had she sounded so scared on Pat's answering machine? “Blue called Pat last Saturday and left a message, telling him to get away. Why did she do that?”

“You're so full of shit, you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

“You figure it out.”

“You help me. What did Pat have to get away from?”

“All your questions.” Disco laughed a barking laugh.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. I don't never mean nothing.”

“Was it Ratty?”

Disco snorted.

“Then who?”

“Leave me alone. I don't know anything. I'm blind as a bat.”

“That doesn't make you stupid.”

“I was stupid before I was blind. Why don't you go away? Blue doesn't want you around here.”

“Why not?”

“She said so.”

“All right. I'm leaving. But you must have some idea where she might be.”

Disco didn't answer right away. Jessie waited. He needed Blue, and she was mobile. Finally he said quietly, “Try the cookie store.”

“What cookie store?”

“Blue's cookie store in town.” He told her the phone number.

Jessie went downstairs. As she passed the switch in the hall, she struck another match. The red fingerpainting was gone.

In the kitchen she picked up the phone to call the cookie store. She'd almost finished dialing before she realized the line was dead.

She went outside. She rechecked the barn. The Corvette was still gone.

Jessie drove into Bennington and found the cookie store. It was open, but Blue wasn't there and no one had seen her. Her store had a special on chocolate-chip cookies and a well-painted sign showing two dancing gingerbread men. Above them it said: E
GGMAN
C
OOKIES
. D. R
ODNEY
, P
ROP
.

25

Ivan Zyzmchuk was glad when the phone started ringing. He'd had enough of lying in his bed at the 1826 House, staring at the floral wallpaper. The mattress was too soft, the room too hot, the painted flowers too dainty. He picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”

“I'm just calling to say good-bye.” It was Keith.

Zyzmchuk sat up. “You won't be at the unveiling?”

“No. I've been summoned by the master.”

“Senator Frame?”

“You've got such a sunny disposition, Zyz. Always ready with a quip. I'm sure it hasn't kept people from taking you seriously.” Keith paused to let his words sink in. Then he said, “Dahlin is the master, as I hope you know. Good-bye.”

Zyzmchuk got out of bed. His reflection flashed by in the mirror—a broad, powerful figure with a long curved scar on the right shoulder and a shorter one on the left thigh, like brackets around a qualifying clause. He went to the wall and pressed his ear against it. No sound came from the dark-haired woman's room. Her car was parked outside. Zyzmchuk put on his sweatsuit and went for his run.

The sky had cleared overnight. Now it was the kind of dome a minimalist would like, pale blue and empty: no clouds, no jet trails, no birds. Zyzmchuk felt very small running around beneath it.

On the way back, Zyzmchuk went by the music building. A few dozen people stood on the lawn, facing the veiled memorial. Alice Frame, her mink coat buttoned to the top, was making a speech. Zyzmchuk moved closer.

“… and because Hartley loved music so much, his father and I have decided to establish a scholarship, to be called the Hartley Frame Memorial Fund, which the chairman of the music department will be free to award to the most promising music student in the senior class. To mark the inauguration of the scholarship, we are very proud to present Morgan College with this work of art.” Alice Frame tugged at the tarpaulin. It stuck. Jameson T. Phinney, in a fur hat, stepped up to help her. The tarpaulin came loose, sliding off a huge steel figure that might have been a man bent over a guitar. At its base a plaque read: I
N MEMORY OF
H
ARTLEY
F
RAME
, 1947–1971. The reflected sky washed the memorial in pale blue.

People began to clap in a well-bred way. Cracking sounds echoed discreetly across the quad. A tall black woman in a red jacket bowed and smiled. Alice Frame shook her hand. Phinney shook her hand. The crowd fragmented; a few people moved forward, waiting for a word with the sculptor, Phinney or Alice. One of them was the dark-haired woman. Jessie Shapiro. Or Rodney. She held out her arm, trying to attract Alice's attention. From Zyzmchuk's angle, it connected the two women like a hyphen.

He cut through the mass of slower-moving people, in time to hear the dark-haired woman say, “Mrs. Frame? May I talk to you for a moment?”

“Certainly,” Alice replied. She looked puzzled, possibly by the intensity of the dark-haired woman's tone, clearly audible to Zyzmchuk, twenty feet away.

“It's a bit complicated,” the dark-haired woman began. “I—”

At that moment, Phinney put his hand on Alice's shoulder, turning her away. “Alice, I'd like you to meet an old and valued …”

Zyzmchuk circled the statue, using it as a screen. He didn't want the dark-haired woman to see his face, but he wanted to see hers. Alice was shaking hands with a man in an impresario coat. The dark-haired woman's eyes darted from one to the other. She leaned forward slightly, as though into the teeth of a prevailing wind. Then her hand slipped into the pocket of her suede jacket. Zyzmchuk got ready to run between them. But when she withdrew her hand, it held not a pistol, but a broken barrette. Zyzmchuk let his weight shift back on his heels. The dark-haired woman glanced down at the barrette; she didn't put it back in her pocket, but kept it in her hand, tightly grasped.

The man in the impresario coat moved on to the sculptor. The dark-haired woman stepped in front of Alice Frame, inside the orbit of personal space. Alice blinked.

“It's about Pat Rodney,” the dark-haired woman said.

Alice blinked again.

“He was a friend of your son.” Her voice was low; Zyzmchuk came closer, until he stood behind the man in the impresario coat.

“Yes?” said Alice.

“I—I was hoping he might be here. But I haven't seen him.”

“What did you say his name was?”

“Pat Rodney. He might be with a little girl. My daughter.”

“I'm afraid the name isn't familiar.”

“But they were good friends.” The dark-haired woman's voice grew edgy. Phinney, listening to the sculptor, cast a quick look at her. “They played in a band together. They went to Woodstock together.”

“I'm sorry.”

“But you must—”

“Alice,” called Phinney, a little louder than necessary, “may we borrow you for a moment?”

“Excuse me,” Alice said to the dark-haired woman; she half-turned and Phinney, reaching for her arm, drew her away. They were as smooth as Rogers and Astaire; they might have made quite a couple, Zyzmchuk thought, fit to be monarchs of some other world where good manners counted for everything.

But back on earth, they meant less and less. The dark-haired woman spoiled the choreography. Hurrying after Phinney and Alice, she tried again. “Mrs. Frame, think back—Hartley must have spoken about some of his—”

“I'm sorry.” Alice was turning pale.

The dark-haired woman planted herself in front of Phinney and Alice. Zyzmchuk had a clear view of her face, a beautiful face, but every feature sapped by anxiety. Leni had looked like that the last time he saw her, the night of the kiosk fiasco.

“What about the funeral? Didn't some of Hartley's friends come? I'm sure Pat—”

“Funeral!” Alice rounded on her. “What sort of funeral do you have for a dog tag and a telegram?”

The dark-haired woman faltered. “What do you mean?” she said.

Alice might have been about to reply, but Phinney spoke first. “This is not the time for whatever it is you want. Now if you will please excuse us.” Holding Alice by the arm, he pushed past the dark-haired woman. For a moment, Zyzmchuk thought she would resist with her body—he could see she was strong—but she gave way. Alice and Phinney joined remnants of the crowd climbing the steps of the music building. The dark-haired woman walked slowly the other way. She went right past Zyzmchuk, but didn't see him. Her eyes were hot and cloudy.

Zyzmchuk watched Alice and Phinney enter the music building. Sounds of musicians tuning their instruments drifted through the open door. He turned and followed the dark-haired woman. She walked back to the 1826 House and went into her room. Zyzmchuk entered his. He pressed his ear to the wall. He heard the squeak of box springs, the soft knock of a headboard against the wall. Then nothing.

Zyzmchuk showered, dressed and returned to the music building. He followed the sounds of the Mozart horn trio to a performance hall on the second floor. But he didn't go inside: Alice Frame was talking on a pay phone outside the closed doors.

Zyzmchuk walked past her and stopped in front of a bulletin board. He took out a notepad and pen and began copying random notes from the bulletin board. “Ride needed to Boston—share gas.” “Movie at Slocum House Sat. nite: Eraserhead, $1.” Zyzmchuk was conscious of Alice Frame's eyes on him, heard her lower her voice. He kept writing on the notepad.

“It makes it so final,” Alice said. There was a long pause. “Yes, we've been through it a hundred times. That doesn't make it easier. In fact, it was harder, if anything. A woman was asking questions about one of his friends. It brought everything back. That's—” Another pause. “I don't know. Pat somebody … I don't think she gave her name … Dark hair, not bad-looking, does it matter? The point is it was upsetting. Because we really didn't know his friends, did we?” Zyzmchuk heard tinny sounds of anger coming over the wire. Alice raised her voice, too. “I am blaming you.” Again Zyzmchuk felt her gaze. She lowered her voice. “Partly.” The tinny sounds diminished, dipped below Zyzmchuk's hearing threshold. It didn't matter—he couldn't keep up the bulletin board pretense any longer. He closed his notebook and walked away. He heard Alice say, “All right, Edmund. I'll expect you.” The receiver clicked into its plastic cradle. By that time he was around the corner and on the stairs.

The Morgan College library stood on a hill overlooking the music building. It was an even grander structure, combining excesses drawn from Greek and Roman styles and guarded by two stone lions with angry faces. They roared, “Knowledge is power,” in case anyone thought libraries were for wimps.

Zyzmchuk pushed open the massive oak door and went in. His shoes clicked across the marble floor. A stern man in a powdered wig looked down in disapproval from a gold-framed painting over the main desk. The woman behind the desk had oily fingerprints on her glasses and the same disapproving expression on her face. She directed Zyzmchuk to the periodical section. In half an hour he had found what he wanted.

WAR CASUALTY

Pfc. Hartley E. Frame, ex-'69, son of Senator Edmund S. Frame '43, and Alice Frame of Sweet Briar Va. and South Morgantown Mass., was removed from the Missing-in-Action list and declared dead by the U.S. Army on January 5, 1971. The action followed the visit of an International Red Cross team to a North Vietnamese prison camp in December.

Private Frame was sent to Viet Nam in January 1970. He was last seen during heavy fighting around Pleiku the night of February 3 of that year. He was listed as MIA in March. A memorial service will be held in the chapel on Sunday.

—from the
Morgan College Record
, January 10, 1971

Zyzmchuk photocopied the article and pocketed it. He was about to leave the periodical room when a long shelf loaded with fat purple-bound books caught his eye: copies of the college yearbook, going back to time immemorial, or at least 1845. “For earlier volumes,” said a notice, “consult the librarian.” Zyzmchuk selected the 1969 volume and sat down to look at it.

The 1969
Morganian
was like a stranger's home movies: pictures of people and places that meant nothing without the catalyst of the viewer's nostalgia. Zyzmchuk looked at faces of young, long-haired men on playing fields, in marching bands, at parties dancing with young, long-haired women, carrying a banner that said: “Hey hey L.B.J.—How many kids did you kill today?” He remembered his own yearbook, Chicago 1951, with a picture of himself, sole Z, on the last page. The yearbook had been left behind in some apartment or rented room. Nostalgia was death in sentimental disguise. No need to rush things.

Individual photographs of the graduating seniors appeared alphabetically at the back of the 1969
Morganian
. Hartley Frame wasn't among the F's; he hadn't graduated. Zyzmchuk checked the R's for Rodney and the S's for Shapiro, finding neither. But Keith was there. He'd been thinner in 1969, with long hair worn Prince Valiant style. The hair surprised Zyzmchuk, but after a moment or two he noticed that Keith was wearing the kind of horn-rimmed glasses he still wore, noticed the sober expression of a budding
homme sérieux:
perhaps, with the long hair, an homme of the eighteenth century. Under the photograph, it said, “Drama Club 2, 3, 4; Band 1; Art Appreciation Club 3, 4; Rifle Club 1, 2, 3, 4.” Zyzmchuk turned back to the first page, searching for other pictures of him.