Bag of Bones Part 9

I started back to the car - the door was open, the Beach Boys spilling out of the speakers - then changed my mind and went back to the sign again. In the dream, the sticker had been pasted just above the RA of SARA and the LAU of LAUGHS. I touched my fingers to that spot and thought they came away feeling slightly sticky. Of course that could have been the feel of varnish on a hot day. Or my imagination.

I drove down to the house, parked, set the emergency brake (on the slopes around Dark Score and the dozen or so other lakes in western Maine, you always set your brake), and listened to the rest of 'Don't Worry, Baby,' which I've always thought was the best of the Beach Boys' songs, great not in spite of the sappy lyrics but because of them. If you knew how much I love you, baby, Brian Wilson sings, nothing could go wrong with you. And oh folks, wouldn't that be a world.

I sat there listening and looked at the cabinet set against the right side of the stoop. We kept our garbage in there to foil the neighborhood racc.o.o.ns. Even cans with snap-down lids won't always do that; if the c.o.o.ns are hungry enough, they somehow manage the lids with their clever little hands.

You're not going to do what you're thinking of doing, You're not going to do what you're thinking of doing, I told myself. I told myself. I mean . . . are you? I mean . . . are you?

It seemed I was - or that I was at least going to have a go. When the Beach Boys gave way to Rare Earth, I got out of the car, opened the storage cabinet, and pulled out two plastic garbage cans. There was a guy named Stan Proulx who came down to yank the trash twice a week (or there was four years ago, I reminded myself), one of Bill Dean's farflung network of part-timers working for cash off the books, but I didn't think Stan would have been down to collect the current acc.u.mulation of swill because of the holiday, and I was right. There were two plastic garbage bags in each can. I hauled them out (cursing myself for a fool even while I was doing it) and untwisted the yellow ties.

I really don't think I was so obsessed that I would have dumped a bunch of wet garbage out on my stoop if it had come to that (of course I'll never know for sure, and maybe that's for the best), but it didn't. No one had lived in the house for four years, remember, and it's occupancy that produces garbage - everything from coffee-grounds to used sanitary napkins. The stuff in these bags was dry trash swept together and carted out by Brenda Meserve's cleaning crew.

There were nine vacuum-cleaner disposal bags containing forty-eight months of dust, dirt, and dead flies. There were wads of paper towels, some smelling of aromatic furniture polish and others of the sharper but still pleasant aroma of Windex. There was a moldy mattress pad and a silk jacket which had that unmistakable dined-upon-by-moths look. The jacket certainly caused me no regrets; a mistake of my young manhood, it looked like something from the Beatles' 'I Am the Walrus' era. Goo-goo-joob, baby.

There was a box filled with broken gla.s.s . . . another filled with unrecognizable (and presumably out-of-date) plumbing fixtures . . . a torn and filthy square of carpet . . . done-to-death dishtowels, faded and ragged . . . the old oven-gloves I'd used when cooking burgers and chicken on the barbecue . . .

The sticker was in a twist at the bottom of the second bag. I'd known I would find it - from the moment I'd felt that faintly tacky patch on the sign, I'd known - but I'd needed to see it for myself. The same way old Doubting Thomas had needed to get the blood under his fingernails, I suppose.

I placed my find on a board of the sunwarmed stoop and smoothed it out with my hand. It was shredded around the edges. I guessed Bill had probably used a putty-knife to sc.r.a.pe it off. He hadn't wanted Mr. Noonan to come back to the lake after four years and discover some beered-up kid had slapped a radio-station sticker on his driveway sign. Gorry, no, 't'wouldn't be proper, deah. So off it had come and into the trash it had gone and here it was again, another piece of my nightmare unearthed and not much the worse for wear. I ran my fingers over it. WBLM, 102.9, PORTLAND'S ROCK AND ROLL BLIMP.

I told myself didn't have to be afraid. That it meant nothing, just as all the rest of it meant nothing. Then I got the broom out of the cabinet, swept all the trash together, and dumped it back in the plastic bags. The sticker went in with the rest.

I went inside meaning to shower the dust and grime away, then spied my own bathing suitie, still lying in one of my open suitcases, and decided to go swimming instead. The suit was a jolly number, covered with spouting whales, that I had purchased in Key Largo. I thought my pal in the Bosox cap would have approved. I checked my watch and saw that I had finished my Villageburger forty-five minutes ago. Close enough for government work, Kemo sabe Kemo sabe, especially after engaging in an energetic game of Trash-Bag Treasure Hunt.

I pulled on my suit and walked down the railroad-tie steps which lead from Sara to the water. My flip-flops snapped and flapped. A few late mosquitoes hummed. The lake gleamed in front of me, still and inviting under that low humid sky. Running north and south along its edge, bordering the entire east side of the lake, was a right-of-way path (it's called 'common property' in the deeds) which folks on the TR simply call The Street. If one were to turn left onto The Street at the foot of my steps, one could walk all the way down to the Dark Score Marina, pa.s.sing Warrington's and Buddy Jellison's scuzzy little eatery on the way . . . not to mention four dozen summer cottages, discreetly tucked into sloping groves of spruce and pine. Turn right and you could walk to Halo Bay, although it would take you a day to do it with The Street overgrown the way it is now.

I stood there for a moment on the path, then ran forward and leaped into the water. Even as I flew through the air with the greatest of ease, it occurred to me that the last time I had jumped in like this, I had been holding my wife's hand.

Touching down was almost a catastrophe. The water was cold enough to remind me that I was forty, not fourteen, and for a moment my heart stopped dead in my chest. As Dark Score Lake closed over my head, I felt quite sure that I wasn't going to come up alive. I'd be found drifting facedown between the swimming float and my little stretch of The Street, a victim of cold water and a greasy Villageburger. They'd carve Your Mother Always Said To Wait At Least An Hour on my tombstone.

Then my feet landed in the stones and slimy weedstuff growing along the bottom, my heart kick-started, and I shoved upward like a guy planning to slam-dunk home the last score of a close basketball game. As I returned to the air, I gasped. Water went in my mouth and I coughed it back out, patting one hand against my chest in an effort to encourage my heart - come on, baby, keep going, you can do it.

I came back down standing waist-deep in the lake and with my mouth full of that cold taste - lakewater with an undertinge of minerals, the kind you'd have to correct for when you washed your clothes. It was exactly what I had tasted while standing on the shoulder of Route 68. It was what I had tasted when Mattie Devore told me her daughter's name.

I made a psychological connection, that's all. From the similarity of the names to my dead wife to this lake. Which - I made a psychological connection, that's all. From the similarity of the names to my dead wife to this lake. Which - 'Which I have tasted a time or two before,' I said out loud. As if to underline the fact, I scooped up a palmful of water - some of the cleanest and clearest in the state, according to the a.n.a.lysis reports I and all the other members of the so-called Western Lakes a.s.sociation get each year - and drank it down. There was no revelation, no sudden weird flashes in my head. It was just Dark Score, first in my mouth and then in my stomach.

I swam out to the float, climbed the three-rung ladder on the side, and flopped on the hot boards, feeling suddenly very glad I had come. In spite of everything. Tomorrow I would start putting together some sort of life down here . . . trying to, anyway. For now it was enough to be lying with my head in the crook of one arm, on the verge of a doze, confident that the day's adventures were over.

As it happened, that was not quite true.

During our first summer on the TR, Jo and I discovered it was possible to see the Castle Rock fireworks show from the deck overlooking the lake. I remembered this just as it was drawing down toward dark, and thought that this year I would spend that time in the living room, watching a movie on the video player. Reliving all the Fourth of July twilights we had spent out there, drinking beer and laughing as the big ones went off, would be a bad idea. I was lonely enough without that, lonely in a way of which I had not been conscious in Derry. Then I wondered what I had come down here for, if not to finally face Johanna's memory - all of it - and put it to loving rest. Certainly the possibility of writing again had never seemed more distant than it did that night.

There was no beer - I'd forgotten to get a sixpack either at the General Store or at the Village Cafe - but there was soda, courtesy of Brenda Meserve. I got a can of Pepsi and settled in to watch the lightshow, hoping it wouldn't hurt too much. Hoping, I supposed, that I wouldn't cry. Not that I was kidding myself; there were more tears here, all right. I'd just have to get through them.

The first explosion of the night had just gone off a spangly burst of blue with the bang travelling far behind - when the phone rang. It made me jump as the faint explosion from Castle Rock had not. I decided it was probably Bill Dean, calling long-distance to see if I was settling in all right.

In the summer before Jo died, we'd gotten a wireless phone so we could prowl the downstairs while we talked, a thing we both liked to do. I went through the sliding gla.s.s door into the living room, punched the pickup b.u.t.ton, and said, 'h.e.l.lo, this is Mike,' as I went back to my deck-chair and sat down. Far across the lake, exploding below the low clouds hanging over Castle View, were green and yellow starbursts, followed by soundless flashes that would eventually reach me as noise.

For a moment there was nothing from the phone, and then a man's raspy voice - an elderly voice but not Bill Dean's - said, 'Noonan? Mr. Noonan?'

'Yes?' A huge spangle of gold lit up the west, s.h.i.+vering the low clouds with brief filigree. It made me think of the award shows you see on television, all those beautiful women in s.h.i.+ning dresses.

'Devore.'

'Yes?' I said again, cautiously.

'Max Devore.'

We don't see him in here too often We don't see him in here too often, Audrey had said. I had taken that for Yankee wit, but apparently she'd been serious. Wonders never ceased.

Okay, what next? I was at a total loss for conversational gambits. I thought of asking him how he'd gotten my number, which was unlisted, but what would be the point? When you were worth over half a billion dollars - if this really was the the Max Devore I was talking to - you could get any old unlisted number you wanted. Max Devore I was talking to - you could get any old unlisted number you wanted.

I settled for saying yes again, this time without the little uptilt at the end.

Another silence followed. When I broke it and began asking questions, he would be in charge of the conversation . . . if we could be said to be having a conversation at that point. A good gambit, but I had the advantage of my long a.s.sociation with Harold Oblowski to fall back on - Harold, master of the pregnant pause. I sat tight, cunning little cordless phone to my ear, and watched the show in the west. Red bursting into blue, green into gold; unseen women walked the clouds in glowing award-show evening dresses.

'I understand you met my daughter-in-law today,' he said at last. He sounded annoyed.

'I may have done,' I said, trying not to sound surprised. 'May I ask why you're calling, Mr. Devore?'

'I understand there was an incident.'

White lights danced in the sky - they could have been exploding s.p.a.cecraft. Then, trailing after, the bangs. I've discovered the secret of time travel I've discovered the secret of time travel, I thought. It's an auditory phenomenon. It's an auditory phenomenon.

My hand was holding the phone far too tightly, and I made it relax. Maxwell Devore. Half a billion dollars. Not in Palm Springs, as I had supposed, but close - right here on the TR, if the characteristic under-hum on the line could be trusted. My hand was holding the phone far too tightly, and I made it relax. Maxwell Devore. Half a billion dollars. Not in Palm Springs, as I had supposed, but close - right here on the TR, if the characteristic under-hum on the line could be trusted.

'I'm concerned for my granddaughter.' His voice was raspier than ever. He was angry, and it showed - this was a man who hadn't had to conceal his emotions in a lot of years. 'I understand my daughter-in-law's attention wandered again. It wanders often.'

Now half a dozen colored starbursts lit the night, blooming like flowers in an old Disney nature film. I could imagine the crowds gathered on Castle View sitting cross-legged on their blankets, eating ice cream cones and drinking beer and all going Oooooh Oooooh at the same time. That's what makes any successful work of art, I think-everybody goes at the same time. That's what makes any successful work of art, I think-everybody goes Oooooh Oooooh at the same time. at the same time.

'You're scared of this guy, aren't you? 'You're scared of this guy, aren't you? Jo asked. Jo asked. Okay, maybe you're right to be scared. A man who feels he can be angry whenever he wants to at whoever he wants to . . . Okay, maybe you're right to be scared. A man who feels he can be angry whenever he wants to at whoever he wants to . . . that's a man who can be dangerous. that's a man who can be dangerous.

Then Mattie's voice: Mr. Noonan, I'm not a bad mother. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Mr. Noonan, I'm not a bad mother. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.

Of course that's what most bad mothers say in such circ.u.mstances, I imagined . . . but I had believed her.

Also, G.o.ddammit, my number was unlisted. I had been sitting here with a soda, watching the fireworks, bothering n.o.body, and this guy had - 'Mr. Devore, I don't have any idea what - '

'Don't give me that, with all due respect don't give me that, Mr. Noonan, you were seen talking to them.' He sounded as I imagine Joe Mccarthy sounded to those poor schmucks who ended up being branded dirty commies when they came before his committee.

Be careful, Mike Be careful, Mike, Jo said. Beware of Maxwell's silver hammer. Beware of Maxwell's silver hammer.

'I did see and speak to a woman and a little girl this morning,' I said. 'I presume they're the ones you're talking about.'

'No, you saw a toddler toddler walking on the road walking on the road alone alone,' he said. 'And then you saw a woman chasing after her. My daughter-in-law, in that old thing she drives. The child could have been run down. Why are you protecting that young woman, Mr. Noonan? Did she promise you something? You're certainly doing the child no favors, I can tell you that much.'

She promised to take me back to her trailer and then take me around the world She promised to take me back to her trailer and then take me around the world, I thought of saying. She promised to keep her mouth open the whole time if I'd keep mine shut - is that what you want to hear? She promised to keep her mouth open the whole time if I'd keep mine shut - is that what you want to hear?

Yes Yes, Jo said. Very likely that is what he wants to hear. Very likely what he wants to believe. Don't let him provoke you into a burst of your soph.o.m.ore sarcasm, Mike - you could regret it.

Why was I bothering to protect Mattie Devore, anyway? I didn't know. Didn't have the slightest idea of what I might be getting into here, for that matter. I only knew that she had looked tired, and the child hadn't been bruised or frightened or sullen.

'There was was a car. An old Jeep.' a car. An old Jeep.'

'That's more like it.' Satisfaction. And sharp interest. Greed, almost. 'What did - '

'I guess I a.s.sumed they came in the car together,' I said. There was a certain giddy pleasure in discovering my capacity for invention had not deserted me - I felt like a pitcher who can no longer do it in front of a crowd, but who can still throw a pretty good slider in the old back yard. 'The little girl might have had some daisies.' All the careful qualifications, as if I were testifying in court instead of sitting on my deck. Harold would have been proud. Well, no. Harold would have been horrified that I was having such a conversation at all.

'I think I a.s.sumed they were picking wildflowers. My memory of the incident isn't all that clear, unfortunately. I'm a writer, Mr. Devore, and when I'm driving I often drift off into my own private - '

'You're lying.' The anger was right out in the open now, bright and pulsing like a boil. As I had suspected, it hadn't taken much effort to escort this guy past the social niceties.

'Mr. Devore. The computer Devore, I a.s.sume?'

'You a.s.sume correctly.'

Jo always grew cooler in tone and expression as her not inconsiderable temper grew hotter. Now I heard myself emulating her in a way that was frankly eerie. 'Mr. Devore, I'm not accustomed to being called in the evening by men I don't know, nor do I intend to prolong the conversation when a man who does so calls me a liar. Good evening, sir.'

'If everything was fine, then why did you stop?'

'I've been away from the TR for some time, and I wanted to know if the Village Cafe was still open. Oh, by the way - I don't know where you got my telephone number, but I know where you can put it. Good night.'

I broke the connection with my thumb and then just looked at the phone, as if I had never seen such a gadget in my life. The hand holding it was trembling. My heart was beating hard; I could feel it in my neck and wrists as well as my chest. I wondered if I could have told Devore to stick my phone number up his a.s.s if I hadn't had a few million rattling around in the bank myself.

The Battle of the t.i.tans The Battle of the t.i.tans, dear, Jo said in her cool voice. And all over a teenage girl in a trailer. She didn't even have any b.r.e.a.s.t.s to speak of. And all over a teenage girl in a trailer. She didn't even have any b.r.e.a.s.t.s to speak of.

I laughed out loud. War of the t.i.tans? Hardly. Some old robber baron from the turn of the century had said, 'These days a man with a million dollars thinks he's rich.' Devore would likely have the same opinion of me, and in the wider scheme of things he would be right. I laughed out loud. War of the t.i.tans? Hardly. Some old robber baron from the turn of the century had said, 'These days a man with a million dollars thinks he's rich.' Devore would likely have the same opinion of me, and in the wider scheme of things he would be right.

Now the western sky was alight with unnatural, pulsing color. It was the finale.

'What was that all about?' I asked.

No answer; only a loon calling across the lake. Protesting all the unaccustomed noise in the sky, as likely as not.

I got up, went inside, and put the phone back in its charging cradle, realizing as I did that I was expecting it to ring again, expecting Devore to start spouting movie cliches: If you get in my way I'll If you get in my way I'll and and I'm warning you, friend, not to I'm warning you, friend, not to and and Let me give you a piece of good advice before you Let me give you a piece of good advice before you.

The phone didn't ring. I poured the rest of my soda down my gullet, which was understandably dry, and decided to go to bed. At least there hadn't been any weeping and wailing out there on the deck; Devore had pulled me out of myself. In a weird way, I was grateful to him.

I went into the north bedroom, undressed, and lay down. I thought about the little girl, Kyra, and the mother who could have been her older sister. Devore was p.i.s.sed at Mattie, that much was clear, and if I was a financial nonent.i.ty to the guy, what must she be to him? And what kind of resources would she have if he had taken against her? That was a pretty nasty thought, actually, and it was the one I fell asleep on.

I got up three hours later to eliminate the can of soda I had unwisely downed before retiring, and as I stood before the bowl, p.i.s.sing with one eye open, I heard the sobbing again. A child somewhere in the dark, lost and frightened . . . or perhaps just pretending pretending to be lost and frightened. to be lost and frightened.

'Don't,' I said. I was standing naked before the toilet bowl, my back alive with gooseflesh. 'Please don't start up with this s.h.i.+t, it's scary.'

The crying dwindled as it had before, seeming to diminish like something carried down a tunnel. I went back to bed, turned on my side, and closed my eyes.

'It was a dream,' I said. 'Just another Manderley dream.'

I knew better, but I also knew I was going back to sleep, and right then that seemed like the important thing. As I drifted off, I thought in a voice that was purely my own: She is alive. Sara is alive. She is alive. Sara is alive.

And I understood something, too: she belonged to me. I had reclaimed her. For good or ill, I had come home.

CHAPTER NINE

At nine o'clock the following morning I filled a squeeze-bottle with grapefruit juice and set out for a good long walk south along The Street. The day was bright and already hot. It was also silent - the kind of silence you experience only after a Sat.u.r.day holiday, I think, one composed of equal parts holiness and hangover. I could see two or three fishermen parked far out on the lake, but not a single power boat burred, not a single gaggle of kids shouted and splashed. I pa.s.sed half a dozen cottages on the slope above me, and although all of them were likely inhabited at this time of year, the only signs of life I saw were bathing suits hung over the deck rail at the Pa.s.sendales' and a half-deflated fluorescent-green seahorse on the Batchelders' stub of a dock.

But did the Pa.s.sendales' little gray cottage still belong to the Pa.s.sendales? Did the Batchelders' amusing circular summer-camp with its Cinerama picture-window pointing at the lake and the mountains beyond still belong to the Batchelders? No way of telling, of course. Four years can bring a lot of changes.

I walked and made no effort to think - an old trick from my writing days. Work your body, rest your mind, let the boys in the bas.e.m.e.nt do their jobs. I made my way past camps where Jo and I had once had drinks and barbecues and attended the occasional card-party, I soaked up the silence like a sponge, I drank my juice, I armed sweat off my forehead, and I waited to see what thoughts might come.

The first was an odd realization: that the crying child in the night seemed somehow more real than the call from Max Devore. Had I actually been phoned by a rich and obviously bad-tempered techno-mogul on my first full evening back on the TR? Had said mogul actually called me a liar at one point? (I was, considering the tale I had told, but that was beside the point.) I knew it had happened, but it was actually easier to believe in The Ghost of Dark Score Lake, known around some campfires as The Mysterious Crying Kiddie.

My next thought - this was just before I finished my juice - was that I should call Mattie Devore and tell her what had happened. I decided it was a natural impulse but probably a bad idea. I was too old to believe in such simplicities as The Damsel in Distress Versus The Wicked Stepfather . . . or, in this case, Father-in-Law. I had my own fish to fry this summer, and I didn't want to complicate my job by getting into a potentially ugly dispute between Mr. Computer and Ms. Doublewide. Devore had rubbed my fur the wrong way - and vigorously - but that probably wasn't personal, only something he did as a matter of course. Hey, some guys snap bra-straps. Did I want to get in his face on this? No. I did not. I had saved Little Miss Red Sox, I had gotten myself an inadvertent feel of Mom's small but pleasantly firm breast, I had learned that Kyra was Greek for ladylike. Any more than that would be gluttony, by G.o.d.

I stopped at that point, feet as well as brain, realizing I'd walked all the way to Warrington's, a vast barnboard structure which locals sometimes called the country club. It was, sort of - there was a six-hole golf course, a stable and riding trails, a restaurant, a bar, and lodging for perhaps three dozen in the main building and the eight or nine satellite cabins. There was even a two-lane bowling alley, although you and your compet.i.tion had to take turns setting up the pins. Warrington's had been built around the beginning of World War I. That made it younger than Sara Laughs, but not by much.

A long dock led out to a smaller building called The Sunset Bar. It was there that Warrington's summer guests would gather for drinks at the end of the day (and some for b.l.o.o.d.y Marys at the beginning). And when I glanced out that way, I realized I was no longer alone. There was a woman standing on the porch to the left of the floating bar's door, watching me.

She gave me a pretty good jump. My nerves weren't in their best condition right then, and that probably had something to do with it . . . but I think she would have given me a jump in any case. Part of it was her stillness. Part was her extraordinary thinness. Most of it was her face. Have you ever seen that Edvard Munch drawing, The Cry The Cry? Well, if you imagine that screaming face at rest, mouth closed and eyes watchful, you'll have a pretty good image of the woman standing at the end of the dock with one long-fingered hand resting on the rail. Although I must tell you that my first thought was not Edvard Munch Edvard Munch but but Mrs. Danvers Mrs. Danvers.

She looked about seventy and was wearing black shorts over a black tank bathing suit. The combination looked strangely formal, a variation on the ever-popular little black c.o.c.ktail dress. Her skin was cream-white, except above her nearly flat bosom and along her bony shoulders. There it swam with large brown age-spots. Her face was a wedge featuring prominent skull-like cheekbones and an unlined lamp of brow. Beneath that bulge, her eyes were lost in sockets of shadow. White hair hung scant and lank around her ears and down to the prominent shelf of her jaw.

G.o.d, she's thin, I thought. She's nothing but a bag of - G.o.d, she's thin, I thought. She's nothing but a bag of - A shudder twisted through me at that. It was a strong one, as if someone were spinning a wire in my flesh. I didn't want her to notice it - what a way to start a summer day, by revolting a guy so badly that he stood there shaking and grimacing in front of you - so I raised my hand and waved. I tried to smile, as well. h.e.l.lo there, lady standing out by the floating bar. h.e.l.lo there, you old bag of bones, you scared the living s.h.i.+t out of me but it doesn't take much these days and I forgive you. How the f.u.c.k ya doin? I wondered if my smile looked as much like a grimace to her as it felt to me.

She didn't wave back.

Feeling quite a bit like a fool - THERE'S NO VILLAGE IDIOT HERE, WE ALL TAKE TURNS - I ended my wave in a kind of half-a.s.sed salute and headed back the way I'd come. Five steps and I had to look over my shoulder; the sensation of her watching me was so strong it was like a hand pressing between my shoulderblades.

The dock where she'd been was completely deserted. I squinted my eyes, at first sure she must have just retreated deeper into the shadow thrown by the little boozehaus boozehaus, but she was gone. As if she had been a ghost herself.

She stepped into the bar, hon She stepped into the bar, hon, Jo said. You know that, don't you? I mean . . . you You know that, don't you? I mean . . . you do do know it, right? know it, right?

'Right, right,' I murmured, setting off north along The Street toward home. 'Of course I do. Where else?' Except it didn't seem to me that there had been time; it didn't seem to me that she could have stepped in, even in her bare feet, without me hearing her. Not on such a quiet morning.