Driving across the Mississippi, I was nearly blinded by the sun glinting off the buildings in downtown Memphis. Once on the other side, I hit drive-time traffic, so I found a strip mall with big parking lots, parked the rig, and went into a bar. It was small and long, just a dark oily bar down one side and a jukebox, currently silent, at the back, opposite the toilets. I took a seat on a stool with ripped red vinyl and asked the thin, balding bartender what they had in the way of imported beer on draft, which turned out to be Bass ale, chilled until flat and practically frozen when it should have been room temperature and aromatic.
At some point Luz would wonder who I was and why I paid for everything. I’d seen how stubborn she was; one day I might have to give her some answers.
I sipped my beer.
My mother had never given me any answers. Then again, I hadn’t asked her any questions, once I understood that the answers wouldn’t come from the place I wanted them to. Asking questions made you vulnerable. But I wasn’t Luz’s mother. I was a banker with the honorary title of aunt.
A woman with dyed black hair slid onto the stool next to me. “Fucking kids,” she said. “Fuckers took all my money, said they wanted some food for a change. Food my ass. Drugs. Only in seventh and eighth grade and already probably smoking and snorting and sticking it in their arm. Yo, Jim Beam here, Barney! Fuckers.” She turned to me. “You got kids?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What kind of answer is that? Do you got kids or don’t you?”
“Beats me.” My phone rang. “That’s probably her now.” But it was Dornan.
“Aud, where are you?”
“In a nasty little bar in Memphis drinking nasty beer.”
“Do you have Tammy with you?”
“No.”
“Only I’m here, in the clearing—”
“You were supposed to stay in Atlanta.”
“She didn’t call. You didn’t call. So I came out here, and the trailer’s gone, and there’s no sign of Tammy.”
“I see.”
“You see? What do you mean, you see? Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Christ. So she’s done another disappearing act?”
“She was fine when I saw her a few days ago.”
“If that bloody Karp—”
“She was fine. And Geordie Karp isn’t in any position to do anything anymore. She might only be gone for a few hours.”
“When are you coming back?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“What are you doing in Memphis?” I didn’t respond. “I’ll see you up at the cabin day after tomorrow then?”
“Yes.” He hung up.
“Yours sounds bad,” the woman with the Jim Beam said. “Fuckers. Here’s to kids.” We clinked glasses, I drained my beer, and left.
I was forty miles outside of Memphis when my phone rang again. I answered it cautiously.
“Hello?”
“Aud? Eddie.” The muscles in my belly went rigid. “The story has taken an amusing turn. In just the last week, apparently, our twin avenging angels have been spotted in two other states outside—”
This is what happened when you walked away from your armor. All it took was one phone call.
“—sylvania. It seems—”
“Where?”
“Two incidents in West Virginia and one in Pennsylvania. Is this not a very good line? Should I call you back?”
“No. I’m sorry. Go on.”
“It seems that the credulous readers have taken our entirely imaginary twin angels to heart. Apparently they have stricken a wife beater with terminal cancer and terrified the life half out of three seventh-grade bullies in the schoolyard at Chester Junior High, both up near Clarksburg. And in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, they appeared in the middle of the road and made a truck run off the pavement, killing the driver and one passenger. Another passenger survived. The two victims, according to the surviving witness—who, incidentally, on seeing the terrible twins glowing with wrath, has changed his evil ways forever—ran a dogfighting ring that local authorities have been trying to shut—”
West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Not Arkansas. Not Tennessee.
“—Post has substituted color paintings of the angel twins for last issue’s quick pencil sketches. Offhand I’d say that they intend to play this one for a while.”
“No police comment?”
“Oh, this story has moved way beyond the realm of such mundane concerns. Knowing of your interest, however, I did take the liberty of contacting the NYPD and asking for a quote on their progress with the Karp assault.”
“And?”
“ ‘No progress at this time.’ They made some noise about being happy to talk to any member of the public who wants to come forward with evidence, from any state, but they didn’t offer me an 800 number.”
“They’ve stopped looking, then.”
“I would agree. Unless, of course, a miracle happens.” He giggled at his own wit. “Oh, and Karp? They found some family. Cousins, I believe. The Post describes them as ‘estranged.’ They say, and I quote, ‘If his insurance won’t pay, turn him off. He’s not our problem.’ ”
I drove through the night.
An angel and aunt. Banker and devil’s advocate. Aud rhymes with crowd. My name is Legion.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Powdery snow dusted the road up the mountain but it was thin and would probably melt off by midafternoon. I would have been able to get the trailer up, after all. Tracks of two different vehicles striped the snow, one set very fresh.
Dornan’s Isuzu stood in the clearing, and thin gray smoke drifted from the cabin chimney. When I climbed down from the cab, my breath steamed, even though it was after midday, and the carrier bags I held in each hand crackled in the cold. The trees stood gaunt and bare against a gray sky streaked with blue. Winter had been late in coming this year, very late, but it had finally arrived.
My boots crunched on the frozen turf, and when I reached the cabin I paused to tap my heels on the stoop to knock away snow, making a mental note to buy a real doormat, before I opened the door.
Dornan sat on his heels by the hearth, poking at the logs in the stove. He spoke without looking up. “It’s different, trying to make a fire inside something.”
“You seem to be doing well enough.” I put down my bags, pulled off my jacket, and hung it on the banister. His lay over the couch in front of the fireplace.
He looked up. “Your face. And you’re limping.”
“Superficial. It’ll heal. I’ll make some tea.” He nodded, more to himself than me.
I carried the bags to the kitchen, filled a kettle, and brought it out to put on the stove. It would be a while. Back in the kitchen, I busied myself with pot and mugs, milk, sugar for Dornan, and the shortbread biscuits I’d bought in Asheville. I brought everything on a tray which I put on the hearth, and then I sat on the couch and Dornan stayed on the floor, and we watched the flames in silence, waiting for the kettle, and the tea, before he said what he had come to say.
The flames grew and rubbed like cats against the cold iron, which ticked and creaked as it expanded. After a few minutes, I heard the first rumble of water warming. I ate a piece of shortbread. It dissolved, rich and buttery, on my tongue.
At the first quavering whistle, I lifted the kettle from the stove using the front of my sweater as an oven mitt, and poured the water and curling steam into the pot. Heavier steam curled back out and I sniffed it. Aromatic.