Nothing remained between them except a distant fondness, as for a cousin who lived two thousand miles away with whom you exchanged Christmas cards and perhaps a biennial phone call. They were still wired tenuously to each other by memories of the dead child. Robert — Robert, she thought, we owed you a better chance than you got. She knew in her intellect that nothing she could do would make up for it. But all the same she was on this plane.
Crobey collected her in the midst of a chattering mob. He looked a bit surly. Making no offer to carry her bag he led the way outside into a drizzling rain that matted her hair in seconds. Crobey trudged across the parking lot without talking to her at all and she felt as if she were an errant schoolgirl being tugged along by the ear. He folded himself in behind the wheel of a little bullet-shaped car, not opening the passenger door for her, waiting stone-faced with his hand on the ignition until she pushed her case into the back seat and got in. Then Crobey turned the key; the starter meshed brutally; he jerked the lever into drive and the car lurched forward.
She said, “You’re bilious tonight.”
“Yeah. I had one of those submarine sandwiches. It keeps surfacing.” Finally he came out with it. “I don’t recall inviting you.”
“I don’t recall giving you a choice.”
He drove it onto the expressway. An amazing traffic of suicidal imbeciles zigzagged all around them. Carole composed herself. “Do you think you could be an angel and give me a progress report?”
“Not much to report.” The wipers batted back and forth. Red tail-lights swam in the windshield. A huge baroque old car fish tailedpast, swerving, cutting in too soon, and Crobey had to stab the brake. She warded off the dashboard with her palm. “I made a little progress,” he conceded.
She let the silence run until it was clear he wanted prompting. “I’m not just here to feed you lines. What progress?”
“Somebody seems to be interested in me.” He had his attention on the rear-view mirror.
“The Rodriguez gang?”
“Or anybody. My ex-wife’s private detectives, who knows.”
The expressway ended in a muddy rubble of construction. Crobey maneuvered it through the side streets onto Avenida Ashford. The tall beach-front hotels might have been in Miami Beach. Reflected neon colors melted and ran along the wet pavements. A fool blocked Crobey’s progress, leaving them stranded at the stoplight. When the light changed Crobey kicked the pedal; the car shot forward half a block and abruptly, without signaling, Crobey turned it into a narrow passage.
Street lights shone pale along the empty alley; at the far corner a traffic light blinked red, on and off. Crobey pulled in to the curb and extinguished the lights.
She reached for the door handle but Crobey stayed her. He kept watch on the mirror. After a while he said, “All right,” and switched on the lights and drove on.
“Were we being followed?”
“No.”
He was still driving with half his attention on the rear view. She had been in San Juan before but only as a tourist; he was driving through sections she’d never seen — stucco slums, open-front shops blaring an astonishingly loud cacophony of strident recorded music.
They emerged onto a narrow blacktop road that two-laned away to the end of what appeared to be a swamp; then it began to climb into the hills. The rain had stopped. She rolled down the window and heard the pneumatic hiss of the tires on the wet asphalt.
They passed a white paddock fence — horse stables — then ran up along a curling track through a dark tracery of trees. The road had sharp bends and the headlights kept flashing across gnarled tangles of leaves and wood. Sensitive to shadows and compositions, she felt suddenly aware of her position: the dark mysterious hill road, the car in the night, the silence — nothing but the rush of the car — and her companion: half civilized, as coarse-edged as rough hand-hewn woodwork, as secure (she suddenly feared) as a three-legged chair.
“Where are we going, Crobey?”
“Well it ain’t the Ritz.”
“You could have booked me into a hotel—”
“No,” he said, “I couldn’t.”
They ran slowly through a village: a little row of shops, an intersection. Everything jerry-built and as shabby as the sets for a nonunion movie; corrugated metal roofs, tattered remains of circus posters, here and there a yellow pool under a naked light. A small dog barked at the car. For a little way it chased them, yapping alongside Carole’s window; then Crobey accelerated and the dog fell behind and they were out in the lonely darkness again.
“Where are we?”
“The interior. Up-island.”
“Specifically.”
“Does it matter? You wouldn’t find it without a guide.” He was slowing, looking for something — he leaned forward to peer out over the wheel. There was a gap in the trees on the left. He turned the car slowly, easing into the narrow opening. A pair of muddy ruts curled into the trees. Crobey hauled the stick down to low and the transmission whined as the car lurched forward.
“Crobey, this is absurd.”
He was concentrating only on the driving; he didn’t reply. His massive corded forearms fought the wheel. A wet leaf pasted itself to the windshield. Branches scraped alongside, flicking moisture in her face; she rolled up the window. The car pitched and bucketed, the rear wheels spinning at times on the slick mud but momentum carried it through each time and finally they emerged — one last bend and they were in the open, grass on the slopes to either side, dark hulks grazing: cattle or horses, she couldn’t tell in the night. Just above the horizon she could see a patch of stars but the sky overhead was dark. She sat rigid with alarm and the uneasy speculation that Crobey night have sold out. Why else would he drive her so secretively into the wilderness? She drew the handbag into her lap — it was heavy enough; perhaps she could club him in the face with it; fling the door open and dive from the car...
A shabby little house loomed in the headlights. Crobey said, “We’re here.”
She braced her feet against the floorboards, pushing herself back stiffly in the seat as if it were a dentist’s chair. Too late to run now. Her eyes went dry and she began to blink rapidly; there was a taste like brass on her tongue.
He ran the car across the grass, around behind the house. When he switched it off there was abrupt silence broken only by the pinging of heat contractions in the engine. The darkness was almost total. She had trouble drawing breath. Then Crobey opened his door and stepped out. “Come on, then.”
She let herself out. On rubber knees she lurched a few paces and then waited for him to guide her. He chunked the door shut and took her elbow.
“Crobey—”
“Relax. You’re tight as a drumhead.”
His grip was light; he didn’t squeeze her elbow. She hadn’t the presence to pull away. Crobey took her around the house — she had an impression of clumped shadows, a barren yard, another building over to the right (a barn?), the steamy smell of manure and livestock. A cowbell jingled distantly. There was a heavy weight in the air — the rain hadn’t refreshed it but only matted it down, like her hair which felt pasted on her skull and wet against the back of her neck.
“Mind the steps.” Just the same she nearly tripped; she felt blind — had she ever known such complete darkness outdoors? She felt tentatively with each foot, scraping the rough surface of the steps. Four of them and they were on the porch. Then Crobey’s fist was thudding — the rattle of a screen door’s frame. Heavy footsteps within. A man’s rough voice: “¿Quien es?”