“Well, I’m only calling to say thanks. You’ve been terribly generous. And I’m fine, I’m going to be okay. Don’t worry about me, Lucien, okay?” The static arose, making palpable all that distance, all that southerliness and ocean distance. And finally it swallowed Emily.
“Where are you?” Lucien asked in an excited voice as Sadie sized up the filing cabinet. “Emily, where are you?”
Lucien buzzed Antoinette.
“Antoinette, did you get a call-back number on that last one?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Because you came to the phone, Mr. Taylor.”
“Ah, so I did.”
“Are you all right?”
“That’s what the lady who called just asked. Is there something wrong with my voice?”
“No, I—”
“Would you like me to intone something in a lower register in order to prevent these inquiries as to my well-being?”
Monday and Tuesday were spent with the accountant. The spring was at a kind of financial income limit. The question was toward the write-offs now, or an outright sale. All the little things, raising the rates, improving the dining room and its revenues, adding services, were fairly well used up. And besides that, the concessionaires, if you could call them that, noting the stability of the business through advance bookings and other sensors, wanted raises. Mary Celeste was particularly bad about that: she viewed Workmen’s Compensation as a neglected gold mine. Lucien was afraid to tell her that for every person who was drawn to her therapy there were two who were appalled at sending feces across the wall in glass tubes; so he gave her a raise and she sulked off in her caftan. The accountant, Dan Janoff, stared at his sheets and made itchy traceries on his bald spot with the point of his pencil.
“I’d say — let me look at this now — I’d say you’re either going to have to sell it or just view it as an ongoing money machine, which won’t change and which — I know you — won’t be that exciting as a business qua life passion.”
“You’re wrong about that. It’s very exciting. I’m happier than you think.”
“So long as you emphasize your losses, losses are valuable things. Sell them to yourself before they are captured by someone less worthy. Everyone is trying to buy losses. These days it’s the sizzle, not the steak.”
A short time later Janoff gathered his paperwork to his chest and went out. When Lucien heard his BMW grind off through the deep gravel, he got up, thinking what a nice place he had created for himself and for others. It would be hard to give up. He got to his feet and walked out into the evening air, feeling a warm inversion come down the mountain and across his face.
But then, by force of will, Lucien behaved as usual for his dinner guests. Scrubbed and cologned, he made his way through the dining room, circled the old spring twice, made thoughtful moues to his concessionaires and returned to his office with its pictures of his parents and his child. He worked there and fell asleep at the desk on purpose. Some hours later, awakened by his alarm watch, Lucien rose and made his rounds of the spring. He went over the books in front and the bar receipts when the last celebrant had gone to his room. He’d usually exchange a few convivial words with the night watchman, light a cigar and stroll the flagstone shore of the spring. But tonight, late tonight, with the prospect of Kelsey emerging again and again, he sat down beside the empty spring and watched the phantoms drift toward the skylights and walls. He remembered when he and his father had first seen the spring under a mantle of circling crows. But he remembered too being there with Emily. And he felt his throat ache. He didn’t know if it was from remembering his father, from remembering Emily, or because the spring had become a bit of a madhouse. If it was the latter, he’d get over it; for, despite his adoration of the natural world, he despised the quiet life. It was better for the spring to draw the successful, those in need, the hungry, the full, the kings and queens of boogie, the mindless and desperate, than just lie there. Lucien was not ashamed; he just wasn’t sure why he was so blue.
Wick called Lucien at the spring. Lucien was out at pool-side fielding complaints. One man demanded to go “downstairs” and adjust the mixing valve, as it was too hot in the pool. Lucien explained that it came straight out of the ground at one hundred fifteen degrees. “And after you adjust the mixing valve,” the man replied, “add chlorine.” Lucien advised him that it was considered a marvel that the state found the water so clean that additives were not required. “The chlorine’ll get after those bugs,” the man said conclusively and left.
“Saw Suzanne,” said Wick.
“And?”
“I strongly advise you to throw yourself at her feet and beg for another chance.”
“She’s something, isn’t she.”
“Why don’t you stop by my Chinese restaurant and share a quiet litchi. I can go over the QED on that topic and spare you from endlessly shooting yourself in the foot.”
“Fuck you, I’m a millionaire.”
“Today I’m having tea-smoked duck and some nice Mexican welterweights via the satellite dish to help pass the time. Too, there is a pleasant view of the Deadrock skyline and the music of our nearby switching yard.”
“I can’t make it. I’m going to try to pick up on stuff here.”
“Incidentally, by way of deepening your debt to me, I handled your Kelsey problem. I donated him to a college in North Dakota. I had him tagged and shipped. I’m going to let the college deal directly with the family on any complications there might be involved, and I billed them for the freight, the embalming and that snazzy container. The wife called and got snarky with me. So if there’s any problem on collecting, I’ll garnishee their damn television set. I know how to hate too.”
“I can’t thank you enough for handling that. I never thought I’d see the last of him. Not that he wasn’t a nice guy. However, this thing went on and on.”
“But remember, if you ever need a liver transplant or anything, we’ve got an inside line at the college.”
“Goodbye, Wick.”
Life and death, thought Lucien. That’s all I have to say. One minute you’re shipping a body, the next you’re beating your brains out trying to get into some housewife’s shorts. During Lucien’s bad winter he had pulled his friend Dee into the unlocked foyer, a kind of anteroom in front of the locked plate-glass doors, of the Deadrock First Security Bank; whereupon like two rumpled suits they made long and boisterous love. The next day the large staff of the bank reviewed the activity on their video surveillance system. The time ran on the right-hand side of the screen, grimly factoring Lucien’s performance. Once again, Lucien’s dick had dragged him someplace the rest of him would never have gone alone, and caused him shame.
At two the mayor, Donald Deems, came in with his secretary and tossed down a hollow-sounding briefcase. His secretary was lean and large-boned as Don Quixote, and she worked hyperkinetically in her steno book and stared out of the window to the hot spring. There were three or four local schoolteachers in the pool, bobbing and chatting amiably. Sometimes Lucien’s former math teacher, Mrs. Hunt, came and glowered in the shallow end, looking for her old victims. I ought to pound that geek, thought Lucien.
“What’ve you got going today, Donald?”
“We’ve got the sister-city deal, Lucien. You remember.”
“I do remember but I don’t know what to do different. We’re ready for them. It’s what, half a dozen people?”