Mathieson drove it into the driveway. Ronny said, “They’re good guys.”
“Aeah.” He parked by the kitchen door and they unloaded into the house. Jan had the place dusted and swept to her satisfaction; it was time to line the shelves.
Mathieson picked up the receiver and listened to the buzz. Then he put it down; there was nobody he could call.
The air was crisp and thin. After supper he built a fire and they sat around it until it was time to turn in. They slept under doubled blankets. Somewhere in the run of the night he awoke briefly and thought how cold it was, and thought about the two men in the night-shift car at the foot of the driveway: They must be half frozen.
They had an early breakfast. Immediately afterward Ronny disappeared to explore the woods. Jan’s admonishment followed him: “Don’t go beyond earshot.”
“Fat chance of him obeying that one,” Mathieson said.
“I know. But there’s no way Frank Pastor’s people could find us here.”
He hadn’t told her about Ronny’s slip of the tongue; he didn’t tell her now. He set up the typewriter on a table near the fireplace; he stacked the paper beside it but did not sit down to write anything. That would come later. It needed some thinking first.
The phone. It startled him; the adrenaline made his hand shake when he picked it up.
“Hi, Jason. It’s Glenn. How’re you making it?”
“We’re fine. Where are you?”
“Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix. I’ll be up there this evening, see how you’re getting along.”
“We’re settling in. Your men are handling things beautifully.”
“Caruso’s a Goddamn gem,” Bradleigh said. “See you around eight, OK?”
“Scotch and water, light on the water. Right?”
“Right.”
At lunch Ronny described his discoveries — the overgrown wreckage of a 1949 DeSoto, the rotted remains of a tree house evidently built by an earlier generation of children. The lady two houses down said she had a son Ronny’s age, he’d be home from camp on Sunday.
Jan stood to clear the table. Ronny said, “When are we going to go look at horses?”
“How about tomorrow morning.”
“Hey, yeah. Then I better get the stable cleaned out.” And the boy was off and running.
Mathieson broke the seal on the vodka. “Bloody Mary?”
“It’s awfully early.”
“I’m still jumpy.”
“You go ahead then. I don’t want anything.” She was cool, distant.
He mixed the drink and sat at the kitchen table watching her rearrange things in the cabinet. She kept taking things down and putting them back. Then abruptly she took the drink out of his hand and swallowed half of it.
“I changed my mind.” She gave the glass back to him. “I’m sorry. I’m feeling snappish.”
“Yeah.”
He drained it and went to the sink to wash the glass. Through the window he could see the open maw of the barn. Ronny was wielding a rusty rake, dragging piles of ancient straw.
“Fred?”
He turned. “Jason.”
“I’m sorry. It doesn’t fit you.”
“Couldn’t be helped. Those were the papers they happened to have. Short notice...”
“It’s just not fair.” She slammed a frying pan back onto its shelf. “I wasn’t made for this rustic nonsense. I miss Roger and Amy — I miss everything.”
He took her in the circle of his arms. “Go ahead.”
She was stilclass="underline" rigid. She turned away from him and went to the fireplace. She kept her arms folded; he saw her shoulders lift defensively.
It was no good trying to go to her. He knew how she felt: She wanted to start smashing things. He said, “Right offhand I can’t think of any platitudes that would help.”
“I want my house back.” She turned and stared at him. “I want my family’s name back. Our friends. Our Goddamned life. I want our son to live like a normal human being again. Adjusting, hell — when would he ever be eager to go off by himself and muck out a falling-down barn? If he weren’t desperately upset he’d be running all over the neighborhood making new friends. Look at him — he’s crying inside, Fred, he’s just barely holding himself together.”
After a long time she said, “We’re not going to last like this.”
He took a long ragged breath. “What do you want me to do?”
“I wish I knew.”
2
They waited for Bradleigh. The night shift came on but Caruso and Cuernavan stayed, taking coffee with them in the house. Cuernavan and Ronny played gin rummy with a great deal of mock ferocity: They had struck up a friendship. Cuernavan seemed to sense that the boy needed it. Caruso sipped his coffee and remained inobtrusive. Jan had cut drapes from a bolt of streaked brown fabric and was running the sewing machine as if it were a Formula One racing car. She kept looking sharply over her shoulder as if to make sure Ronny was still there.
Mathieson drank the Bloody Mary too fast and tried to remember whether it was his fourth or fifth since lunch.
The downing sun threw a red blaze through the window. Caruso left his seat and went to the screen door to stand watch. “This is fine coffee.”
Jan said, “Shouldn’t he have been here by now?”
“I don’t know,” Caruso said. “I wouldn’t worry about Glenn Bradleigh.”
“Have you known him long?”
“Worked for him six years now. He’s one of the best.”
Mathieson was thinking: This is no good. We’re just kidding ourselves. We’ve both got to find something sensible to do with our lives or we’ll go insane up here.
“Gin.”
“Hell, Ronny, you must have cheated. I’ve got at least seventy points here. Let’s see, forty, forty-nine, fifty-seven...”
“Seventy-three.” Ronny had always had a quick accurate head for figures. If he didn’t devote the rest of his life to horses he’d probably turn mathematician or engineer or computer scientist. It was something he’d inherited from Mathieson: a quick deft competence with the exactitudes of numerical and mechanical things. He’d always been handy with tools and he could handle anything electrical. He enjoyed rewiring toasters and doing handyman carpentry: He’d built all their kitchen cabinets himself in Sherman Oaks.
Maybe I’ll become a cabinet maker. Give me something to do with my hands at least.
It wouldn’t work and he knew it but he explored the fantasy dutifully. He had been devoted to professions that involved human complexities; to sustain his spirit he had to deal with people, not with pieces of wood.
Twilight, then dusk. Jan left the sewing machine and moved behind Caruso toward the window. “He really should have been here by now.”
“Might have got held up at the Phoenix office,” Caruso said. “I’m sure he’ll be—”
The phone. Mathieson shot to his feet, unnerved. “I’ll get it.” He strode past the gin players at the kitchen table and snatched the receiver up, breaking off the second ring in its middle. “Yes?”
“Glenn Bradleigh. Is Caruso there?”
“Yes. Are you—”
“Put him on. Fast.”
Goddamnit I am so sick and tired of being pushed around... But he waved Caruso over and stood back. “Caruso.”
He watched Caruso’s eyes widen and then narrow. “You sure?... Christ, that’s going to be a pill for them to swallow... Well how much time have we got, then?... I see, yeah. But we’d be stupid to take the chance, the town’s just too damn small... How the hell did they pull it off?... Christ, they must have put a lot of manpower on it then. Where do I report to you?... All right, I’ll call in. We’d better do it from pay phones on both ends, so just leave a time and phone number at the office for me. I’ll check in with them between six and eight tomorrow night... Yeah, I’ll need it. Thanks.”