Hard Rain (43 page)

“Not today,” Jessie replied. “I'm looking for the site of the festival.”

“Festival?”

“The Woodstock festival.”

“Oh, that. I wouldn't know. We just opened last month. We're from Manhattan, but we couldn't take it anymore. Try one of the locals.” From the way the woman said “locals,” Jessie suspected her migration might not be permanent.

She drove to a gas station and filled the tank. “I'm looking for the site of the Woodstock festival,” she told the attendant.

He stuck his head in the window. Perhaps he was a local. He needed a shave, deodorant, a dentist, eyedrops. “On a day like this?” he said. “You people.” He laughed. Jessie didn't. “I'll tell you what I tell them all. The famous Woodstock festival didn't take place within spitting distance of Woodstock.” His voice grew a little sibilant, as if he was tempted to do some spitting himself. “We wouldn't have none of it. Not then. Not now.” He laughed again. Rain ran down the bill of his Red Sox cap and dripped on Jessie's shoulder.

“Where was the site?” Jessie said.

“Why down in Bethel,” he said. “I can never understand how come none of you pilgrims ever knows that, if you're so gung ho about that whole business.”

Jessie leaned away, out of the drip. “Where is Bethel?”

“Well, first you got to loop around the reservoir,” the attendant began, and he launched on a discourse full of town and route names that didn't stick in Jessie's mind.

“But how far is it from here?” she interrupted, expecting an answer like five or six miles.

“Fifty miles,” he said, with the smug sureness of a joker delivering a tried-and-true punchline. “Take you an hour to get there in this weather. At least.”

Jessie drove southwest, into cloud-covered hills. The rain was falling harder, and the air growing cold. Jessie turned on the heat. The roads were narrow and winding, passing through many small towns. There wasn't much traffic, but it was after five by the time Jessie drove into Bethel, and almost dark.

Bethel showed no signs of being a magnet for burned-out New Yorkers. It looked like a simple country town. Jessie went into a simple country store.

“Just closing,” said an old man in a smock.

“I'm looking for the site of the Woodstock festival.”

He sighed. “Straight on through to Hurd Road. Take a right and keep going till you come to four corners. That's it.” He dropped a handful of steel bolts into a paper bag. They exploded softly on landing.

Jessie drove out of Bethel. Rain drummed on the roof and flowed down the cracked windshield into the track of the wipers. On the far side of the clouds the sun must have been going down: for a few minutes everything turned a faint shade of purple. She found Hurd Road and turned right.

Rolling empty farmland stretched into the wooded distance. Nothing moved across it—not a tractor, not an animal, not a man. There was no sign of the black van, Kate, Pat or Hartley Frame. Jessie approached a crossroads and slowed down. She saw a small, gray shape in the brown emptiness, not far from the roadside, and pulled over.

Jessie got out of the car, stepped over a shallow ditch and walked into the field. Cold rain fell on her; mud sucked at her shoes. The gray shape, she now saw, was a stone marker. Under a bas-relief of a guitar neck bearing a dove, a plaque read: “This is the original site of the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair.”

Jessie looked around. She was alone. She gazed at the inscription, her mind a blank. Rain, finding its way into her collar and trickling down her back, broke her trance.

Had Hartley Frame lied to her? Why? If he was going to lie, why telephone her in the first place? Jessie didn't have the answer. All she could think of was trying Mrs. Rodney again.

Move
, she told herself. But she didn't want to move, didn't want to get in the car, didn't want to see the decaying house in North Adams again. She stood in the rain, looking at the stone marker in the empty field, once filled with half a million strong. The Joni Mitchell song started playing in her mind. It had also played, she recalled; in Pat's cassette machine, when she'd pressed the button in his music room.

What had happened that Friday night in Venice? It must have been Friday night—they'd driven across the country by Monday.

Hartley Frame had knocked on the door, perhaps only minutes after she'd dropped Kate off. How had he found out where Pat lived? From Blue Rodney. She tried to warn her brother, but the warning had come too late.

Who had opened the door? Pat? Kate? Had Pat even recognized Hartley at first? They had let him in. Or he'd forced his way in. And then? All she knew were two facts: They'd played the Joni Mitchell song. They'd driven away in the blue BMW. Perhaps they'd stopped at Pat's bank: Buddy Boucher had been paid in cash.

Had it turned ugly somewhere along the way? Or had it been ugly from the start?

Jessie remembered something else. Jimi Hendrix's guitar. The Stratocaster that hung on the music room wall. The one Pat had said he bought at an auction, but Disco said had been given to Hartley by Jimi Hendrix at the festival. It had been missing too. So, fact three: they'd taken the guitar with them. Adding it all up, she was no further ahead. That left only Mrs. Rodney.

Jessie looked up from the marker. The rain fell harder now, blowing into her face from across the field. Only the weakest tinge of purple remained in the clouds; the sky was growing dark. Jessie was just about to turn toward the car when she noticed something moving at the edge of the woods. It was no more than a blur, a dark blur. She closed her eyes, opened them. The dark blur was still there, but it had stopped moving.

Jessie took a few slow steps across the field. The light was fading quickly now, but the blur began to assume a rectangular shape. And, at the very limit of her vision, she saw a tiny flash of red. Jessie started running across the field as fast as she could.

The blurry rectangle hardened its outline and became the black van. The tiny flash of red blossomed into the painted flames along its side. Soon Jessie could even distinguish silvery dents on the corner of the back door and a bend in the rear bumper.

She ran. There was no sound but the rain, the sucking mud and her own breathing.
Be smart
, said a voice inside her. But what was the smart thing to do? She didn't know. She ran right up to the van.

The van was parked under a big bare tree at the edge of the woods. No sound came from inside. Jessie was so close she could reach out and touch the van. She reached out and touched it. Cold and wet. She wiped water off the windshield and looked through. No one was in the front seat. The plastic curtain was drawn behind it.

Jessie walked around the van. She tried the two front doors, the side door, the back door. All locked. She put her forehead against the opaque windows, but could see nothing inside. She tried the side door again, harder this time, jerking the handle up and down. The door remained locked.

But something stirred inside. And someone—no, not someone, but Kate—said, “Who's there?”

“Katie! Katie! It's me!”

“Mom?”

“Oh, yes, yes, yes. Are you all right, darling?” Emotion surged through Jessie; she felt as though her whole body would dissolve in it. She struggled to control her voice. “Can you open the door?”

“I'm tied up. Hurry, Mom.”

“It's okay. I'll get you out.” Jessie bent down and picked up a rock. She smashed the window on the passenger side door. Her hand was through the hole and on the lock when a man shot out from under the van and bounced to his feet. He wore a filthy summer suit and a big smile. His teeth were brown and rotten.

“Welcome to Woodstock, Jessie,” the man said, spreading his arms. His head had been shaved, but new hair was growing back in a dark stubble. Rain ran through it and dripped down his hollow face.

“Hartley,” Jessie began; but the word faltered on her lips when she noticed the color of his eyes. “I want my daughter back.”

The smile faded. “That's not my name,” he said. “My name is Bao Dai.”

Oh God
, Jessie thought. She had no idea what to say, how to deal with him, how to get Kate out of that van.

“Bao Dai,” he repeated. “It's an emperor's name. Emperor of the V.C. Emperor of the mud.”

“I know. You wrote ‘Toi giet la toi' on Pat's blackboard.” It was the first thought that came to Jessie's mind.

His eyes narrowed. “That's not how you pronounce it.” He came a step closer. She stepped back. “You're afraid of me, Jessie.”

“That's obvious.”

He showed his rotten teeth again. “You don't need to be. I like you. Come.” He held out his hand.

Jessie didn't move. “Come where?” she said.

“Just for a little talk.”

“Let's talk here. My daughter's in the van. I want to be with her. I want to see her.”

“She's fine. She's kind of my daughter too, you know. By right.” He thrust out his bony jaw, as though waiting for an argument. Jessie said nothing. “Come,” he repeated, holding out his hand again.

Jessie didn't move. He reached into his belt and took out a knife. Jessie recognized it—Pat's carving knife with the scrimshaw handle.

“You made me show you this,” he said, almost sounding insulted. “I didn't want to. But you couldn't just come nicely.” He lunged forward and grabbed her hand. He was very quick and very strong. His hand felt hard and rough. Jessie tried to pull away. He tightened his grip and drew her toward the trees.

“You said I could have my daughter. You said you weren't going to hurt anybody.”

“And I meant every word. But I wasn't stoned then. I'm a bit stoned now.”

“Mom?” called Kate from the van.

He jerked Jessie into the woods before she could answer and pulled her, half-running, half-stumbling, about twenty or thirty yards through the trees. Then suddenly he stopped. Another man stood against a tree. He was bound to it with nylon rope. He was drenched, dirty and shivering, long fair hair matted to his skull. It was Pat.

He saw her. Tears came to his eyes. “Oh, Jessie, I'm afraid,” he said. “He's got some acid. He made me take some. I'm afraid.”

The hard hand relaxed its grip. The other one showed her the knife. Jessie slipped free and, making no abrupt motions, went to Pat and put her hands gently on his shoulders. After all he'd done—placing Kate at risk, helping set this trap for her, other things she only half-understood—Jessie still couldn't say the bitter, angry words she'd meant to say when she saw him again. He was already down; and he was still Pat.

“Everything's going to be all right,” she said and tried to mean it. But one look into Pat's eyes, and she knew there would be no help from him. She was on her own.

“Sure it is,” Bao Dai said behind her. “I took some too. Blue ones and red ones. We're buddies. We share everything.” Jessie turned. He took a vial from his jacket pocket. “And I've got some for you too.”

“I don't want any,” Jessie said.

“Don't be shy. Turn on. Tune in. I forget the other part.” He opened the vial and took out a tablet. “Blue cheer,” he said.

“No.”

“Yes. It's good acid. I see all kinds of colors.” He looked around. The only colors Jessie saw were gray and brown and the bright blue of his eyes. “We'll make up for lost time.” He came toward her, the tablet between his fingers.

Jessie spun away, dodged around a tree and ran. She gave everything she had to that run.
Get to the van. Unlock the door. Grab Kate. Run
. That was all she had to do.

Jessie was only a few steps from the edge of the woods, ten yards from the van, when he caught her. He was very fast. He brought her down. Her head hit the muddy ground, not very hard. But it was the second blow in three days.

It couldn't have been more than a few minutes before Jessie opened her eyes. The sky hadn't grown much darker; the rain wasn't falling much harder. She was lying on her back in the woods. Her head hurt worse than the first time. She tried to get up. She couldn't.

Her wrists and ankles were bound with copper wire that had been fastened to tent pegs driven into the ground. Jessie pulled and tugged and strained with all her might; but she couldn't move.

Then she heard voices, not far away. A man, the man who called himself Bao Dai, said, “It was right around here someplace, wasn't it? Lie down.”

Another man, Pat, said, “I don't want to. Why don't we—”

There was a thump. Then Bao Dai said, “When I say lie down, you lie down. There. Like that. That was rule number two.”

“Please don't. Please don't. I'm begging you.”

“I begged plenty of times. I begged Corporal Trinh plenty of times.”

“But you can't blame me for that. Who could have known what would—?”

“Who else can I blame?” Bao Dai interrupted, his voice rising. “Christ, I'm stoned out of my fucking mind. But you know what?”

“What?”

“It's just what I was afraid of. A bad trip. You know? Real bad.”

“Maybe … I can help,” Pat said. Jessie could feel him thinking; she wished she could be doing the thinking for him.

“You? You? You're the one, baby, the one who fucked me good. Better than Corporal Trinh. You know that? I should cut off your yellow cock.”

“Oh God.”

“Sure. Oh God. You'll find that's a big help. But don't you worry. Would I do a thing like that?”

“No.”

“Keep your fingers crossed.” Bao Dai laughed. Then he said, “Just don't make offers to help, that's all. If I'm having a bad trip it's your fault. Right?”

“Right.”

“Goddamned right.” Pause. Then Bao Dai's voice rose again. “It was right here, right fucking here, where you stole the guitar Hendrix gave to me—”

“He gave it to me. You know that.”