Ruth points. "And your hands are bleeding."
"So they are. Take off your coat, stay awhile. The pool is ruine. It'll have to be relined."
"Why bother? You never swam."
"But you did."
"And never liked the sun for that matter. You were always covering up."
"Skin cancer," Nathan points out. "You can't be too careful." Ruth begins to say one thing then stops herself. She blows a stream of vapor like cigarette smoke. "I tried the thermostat. When is the last time you paid your gas bill?"
Uninterested in these details, Nathan squints out the glass door, listening for the tinkling of his precious windchime, and notices that the circle of porcelain doves has been shorn off, whoever or whatever leaving just the nubs, like a necklace of broken teeth.
"I thought so," Ruth says. She bends forward and holds out an upturned hand. "Give me five thousand dollars."
Ruth says nothing more and without hesitation Nathan raises one hip and reaches into his pocket. He brings out a handful of bills and deals what is there into Ruth's palm. "Just a minute," he says, and reaches into his jacket pocket for the envelope of cash and tugs out more bills and places them atop the pile.
Ruth takes the money and shapes it into a brick and it disappears somewhere about her person. "For services rendered."
"Any in particular?"
"All," she says flatly.
"Sounds like you're settling your tab."
"Nathan," she begins, and looks at him as if she means to get up and capture him in a hug and lift him back up to the heights from which they have fallen.
But he is already on his feet, heading for the stereo. "I'd like to dance," he announces.
"But you don't dance."
"How about the Duke, for old times' sake, as a warm-up?"
"Nathan."
"Ruth.”
"You re impossi'ble.
"Thank you."
"It won't work now."
"The Duke? He always works, always cheers me, always cheered you, just try and deny it."
"The stereo, Nathan, it won't go on."
"Why not? How do you know?"
"Because I do. The music's over. It's screwed."
"The music is perfect," Nathan insists, feeling a gust of indignation. "It's the only thing that is."
"Maybe a wire's been cut," Ruth suggests.
"Why would they cut a stereo for chrissake? It's not a car."
Ruth turns to look at him: "They?"
But Nathan doesn't miss the catch in her throat, the little hop of fear, like the cap of a kettle about to come to boil. Ruth is very afraid.
Baron, spent, sidles up beside his master and noses his crotch. Overwhelmed with love-or some emotion-Nathan kneels and embraces the dog's head with his hands. Their foreheads meet. Creatures who ask from each other nothing. Baron's tongue passes across Nathan's mouth.
"Is he coming back?" Nathan asks the dog, though calmly, as if inquiring after the weather. "And I'm not talking about Krivit. I know all about him now. I saw him, can you believe it, in town."
Softly, imperceptibly, in the corner of Nathan's eye, Ruth nods. "And Schreck, the asshole?"
Ruth doesn't deny it.
Outside, in the lamplight falling across the patio, Nathan can see that the snow has turned to rain. The drops beat down the crust, chunking the skim ice in the pool.
He straightens, surprising even himself with his resolve. In fact, he is full of energy, as if he's just been given a transfusion. He lifts his hand, as if to issue forth a pronouncement. "A walk," he says to no one in particular.
"But now?" Ruth asks, gripping her seat. "It's raining, or snowing, or whatever."
Just then thunder explodes like a bomb outside the glass doors. The single functioning lamp dims, wavers, strengthens again. "Nathan! "
"We always go to the beach," he addresses the dog. "Don't we, boy?"
Baron, sensing nothing but his most simple pleasure, cranks his tail.
"Don't," Ruth pleads.
Something is wrong, is very wrong. Her mouth moves, it wants to make sound. Ruth's talent for keeping things to herself seems to be failing her. Nathan lifts a hand, gesturing to the dark house, to the greater dark beyond it. Ruth's got it wrong. Obviously, she doesn't see his freedom.
"I should go," he says calmly. "He's coming."
And he sees he's already been. The tire tracks beat him to his favorite trailhead to the beach. But there is no car. Baron is already down the path, at the rail of the stairway down.
"Here, boy!" Nathan calls, but the wind smothers his cry. He begins to jog after him, clutching the dog's leash, though despite the surge of energy his bones feel ready to splinter. He slows to a walk, to baby steps, and alone, doubled over at the rail, he finds it hard to believe he is really going. The boxy, contemporary mansions teetering on the edge of the bluff, looking out over the bay, like abstract fortresses guarding against invasion from the less acceptable North Fork of Long Island. The abandoned lighthouse and its red punctuation at the end of the finger of land. On Roatan he will have this sight for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; this beach, only more so. Clear water. Azure sky.
Nathan can hardly keep upright in the sea spray. The rain and snow, crosshatched, come from three directions at once. One after the other, huge waves commit suicide on the beach. Baron snaps at the foam, plunging in, scurrying back, then stops stone still, wrinkling his nose, dormant birding instincts surfacing, sensing. Something's coming.
Behind Nathan, a snap, a twig, a slab of driftwood, and the dog, belly-deep, is barking up at the trees to Nathan's right. just as a forked tongue of lightning touches down far offshore, a current passes along the horizon and a momentary spit of flame leaps from the woods. A yelp from the beach, and Nathan turns to find the dog rolling like a barrel in the surf.
Clenching his fists, Nathan watches the woods and waits for the next shot.
"If you're coming, come!" he cries.
The stubby trees are kneeling.
He looks up full of questions but the wind nudges him, drives him on.
"We can't be here," Claire insists.
"But we are."
The road from East Hampton to Nathan's house is empty ahead and behind, the ground turning at the last minute, rising beneath them like sea-swells. Claire grips the dashboard tightly, barely conscious of the landmarks Nathan used to point out with a wave of his hand, the little family cemetery with its white picket fence, the little lane on the right, the roadside stand and its outrageously expensive pies.
"Nobody's on the road. Why do you think no one is out? We shouldn't be out."
"It's too late."
She feels her heart melting even as the peace that comes with returning to old, familiar ground falls around her. For a moment it is almost as though she and Nathan are returning home from the market, the dog panting in the back seat, standing guard over the groceries-
"My god-" As they pull up the crescent drive, Claire braces herself. This is the address she remembers but hardly the house. From the hill, the windows, gaping like potholes, breathe down at her old memories and new desolations. Everything she planted, the pines along the base of the house, is gone. Tired of nightmares, she asks the air, "What am I doing here?"
But Santos is already out and knee-deep in snow, his gun drawn. Claire trudges after him, turning her head with the wind to breathe as they walk a lap around the ruined yard.
"Errol-" she calls. "Why do you have your gun out? Your gun-put it away, you're not going to shoot him. Nothing is confirmed. Tests would have to be done. If you're going to arrest him you need samples, hair, skin, blood."
"I don't know if I'm arresting him." He walks on.
"You would kill him?" she calls, trailing him. "Is that why you became a cop, you could decide whether to arrest someone or kill him? Jesus, Errol, it's Nathan. I mean, what if he is your brother?"
Santos stops at a Hertz van backed against the front door. The driveway is rutted with tire tracks.