“At fuckin’ last,” the man said. “I’ve been waiting here six fuckin’ hours.”
“I explained—”
“You got a car?” He had a thin, lined face. A narrow palate with soft overcrowded teeth.
“Yes.”
“I’m in that pickup.” He pointed to a blue pickup with large fat wheels and gleaming chrome. “Follow me.”
Henderson followed the pickup through Atlanta’s suburbs. Soon they were on another freeway. He saw signs for Anniston and Birmingham. They were driving west. He wondered if they were going to Alabama. He suddenly wished he were back in his apartment in New York, or strolling down to the Queensboro gym for a sabre bout with Teagarden. Bryant stared fixedly at the pickup ahead.
“Wow, is that guy weird. Did you see his eyes?”
“I wasn’t looking at his eyes. Did you see his teeth?”
“He kept blinking all the time, like he had grit in them.”
They drove west for an hour or so, then turned off at a town called Villa Rica. From there they followed a succession of two-lane country roads. It grew darker. Henderson switched on his headlights. They drove through tiny townships — Draketown, Felton. Bryant pored over the map.
“Any idea where we are?” Henderson asked.
“No. I’m kinda lost.”
“Are we in Alabama or Georgia?”
“What difference does it make?”
“I don’t know.”
They drove on. Bryant switched on the radio.
“…terminally ill. And he said to me, ‘Father, what will heaven be like?’”
The voice was deep and mellifluous.
“Oh no,” Bryant said disgustedly, reaching out.
“Leave it on a second,” Henderson said, horrified.
“…and I could not answer the man, dear friends, that…terminally ill man. What is heaven like? I had no reply in his hour of need. Just then my dog, Patch, who I had left in the car outside, somehow managed to get out and came running into this man’s house to look for me. I heard him scratch on the door. I opened it and let him in. And then, friends, I knew. So I said to this…terminally ill man, ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘heaven is like this room. Patch has never been in this house before but he entered this room with absolute trust and confidence and without fear. Why? Because he knew that I, his master, was inside. So you too may go to the Lord and scratch on the door of heaven with trust and confidence and no fear. We do not know what is in the ‘room’ of heaven, but we know that God is there and we need have no fear of joining him inside. Good night everybody. Tune in next week on W.N.B.K. in Tallapoosa for the ‘Sunday Sermonette’. This is the Reverend T.J. Cardew. God bless you all. Amen.’”
“Good grief,” Henderson said.
“Can we find some music? This is boring.”
Eventually, after another half-hour’s driving they saw a sign. “Welcome to Luxora Beach.” Then another: “Lions Club of Luxora Beach welcomes you.” Finally: “Luxora Beach city limit. Pop. 1079.”
By now it was quite dark. They drove by single storey wooden houses on either side of the road, then into an area of street lighting. It revealed a narrow main street flanked on one side by a railway line. Beyond the railway line was a wide tarmacked area fronting a shabby mall of flat-fronted, flat-roofed stores. Henderson read ‘Luxora Beach Drugs’ above a dark window. All the windows were dark except for one bar. The red neon bow tie of a Budweiser sign and the blue rosette of the Pabst logo set pretty highlights on the matt dusty cars parked outside.
Beckman’s pickup turned and bumped across the railway line. Henderson followed suit.
“Wrong side of the tracks,” he said with a nervous chuckle.
They left the metalled road and drove along a winding dirt lane with — from what he could see through the dust Beckman’s wheels threw up — scrubby undergrowth on either side.
Presently they passed through rickety wooden gates and beneath a wrought iron arch with ‘The Gage Mansion’ written on it in dirty white scrollwork. In front of them in the faint moonlight, Henderson could make out the bulk of a rather large house ahead. The drive swept them round in a generous semi-circle. The headlights picked out small groups of tall trees which seemed strategically placed to aid some landscaped composition. Lights shone from a few windows.
The pickup stopped. Henderson stopped. He looked at Bryant who returned his nonplussed stare. For the briefest of moments they seemed allies. He stepped out of the car. In front of the house was an immense double-wide mobile home made of ribbed aluminium and some sort of plastic wood veneer. Powerlines hung between it and the house. Looking back Henderson saw that the drive formed a perfect circle. He moved away from the car in an effort to gain some better conception of the architecture but it was too dark. It was, he thought anyway, of little consequence. Even the finest building would have been vitiated by the hideous adjacency of the mobile home. He wondered why it was there.
“He’s inside,” Beckman shouted from the pickup and drove off round the drive and back out of the gates again.
Inside the house or the trailer, Henderson asked himself? He removed their cases from the car.
Bryant was peering in a curtained porthole punched through the ribbed aluminium.
“There’s people inside,” she said.
There was a call from the house. “Mr Melhuish, is that you?”
“Oh God,” Henderson said weakly. “Let’s go.”
He and Bryant climbed up a dozen or so steps to a wide wooden verandah which appeared to circle the house. A small man stood outside double front doors.
“Mr Melhuish,” he said, and shook Henderson’s hand vigorously. “A pleasure to meet you, a real pleasure. I’m Loomis Gage.”
“My name is Dores,” Henderson said apologetically. “Didn’t Mr Beeby explain I was to come?”
The small man laughed cheerfully.
“Dores, Melhuish. Who gives a rat’s rump? It’s all the same to me. Come on in.”
They stepped through the doors into the hall to be greeted by a considerable blare of noise. From somewhere above them came the thump and twang of rock music, and from a room on the right a television boomed.
“This is my stepdaughter!” Henderson said, obliged to raise his voice. “Bryant Wax! Stepdaughter to be, that is!”
Bryant looked around her with mild curiosity. “Hi,” she said.
“You do business with your family?” Gage shouted back.
“Well…!”
“I like that!”
“What?”
“I said, I like that!”
“Rarely!”
“Excuse me one moment!” Gage took some steps up the stairs.
“TURN THAT DAMN MUSIC DOWN!” he roared.
He paused, ear cocked. The volume was reduced. He descended and opened the door of the room that contained the TV. It was quite dark, apart from the bright colours on the screen. Gage turned the noise off but left the picture flickering. He switched some lights on.
“That’s better,” he said. Loomis Gage was small and plump, and clearly very old, though he seemed sprightly enough. His face had its full quota of tucks and dewlaps and his eyes were watery. Yet he had a shock of pure white hair, as dense and springy as a teenager’s, which seemed at odds with his advancing years. His nose was noticeably snub too, Henderson saw, and thought it a curiously indecent feature on a man as venerable as this. Gage wore a short-sleeved yellow sports shirt and khaki trousers. His neat pot belly pushed against an engraved silver buckle the size of a side plate.
“Please sit down,” he said. “You too, Brian.”
“T,” said Bryant. “Bryantuh.”
“You’re a girl, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“I knew it.” He glanced proudly at Henderson. “I may be an old man but I can still recognize females — even if they’ve got men’s names.”