Black Water (35 page)

One week ago tonight, he thought. We were here in Newport, at the Rex. Now he could remember how beautiful she was, how surprised and embarrassed, then grateful and happy. Only a few days ago, that memory—and its emotional echoes—would not have come to him. Thank God for modern medicine, thought Archie. Thank God for pills. He remembered the way her dress clung to her body, the great volume of her life pressing against thin fabric. He remembered being impatient and worried and nervous inside, and he was sorry to have spent her birthday that way. The truth was, he was like that a lot.

Sometimes she called him Worry King, as in welcome to
Worry King Live... .

He tasted Gwen's sweat and lotion in his mouth, though that happened hours later.

"I'm still here," she said.

"I know," he said back. He looked at her and smiled. Gwen wearing a short yellow dress and yellow sandals, dark hair pulled on one side. She had her dark August tan. "I wish I could touch

"Soon, Arch. Don't worry."

Now Dr. Pearlman asked Archie to focus on his chosen object, just close his eyes, and imagine his favorite place. It should be a place outdoors, a place of stillness and beauty. It should be a place of peace and understanding. She told Archie to include his chosen object into the landscape as a focal point. For instance, if he was staring candle, the candle could become the sun, or the reflection of light off a lake.

Archie stared at the neon sign and imagined it was a bank of nightlights at a big-league baseball park. He imagined the other light banks to the left and right, then moved his mind's eye downward to the empty grandstands, the dark green wall with the white numbers on it, warning track and the outer edge of grass, the crosscut emerald expanse of the outfield, the orange gravel of the infield, the white bases in holy shape and the perfectly chalked baselines and boxes. The flawless infield, crowned by the pitcher's mound with its neat white rubber and the concentric furrows of the groundskeeper's rake. Finally, the elegant pentagon of home plate.

"Now," said Dr. Pearlman. Her voice had become softer slightly more commanding. "As you imagine your place of peace and understanding, breathe deeply and slowly. In and out. In and out. With every breath you take in, let go of all your thoughts. With every breath you let out, let go of all your thoughts once again. In and out. Thoughts going, thoughts vanishing. All you see is your place of peace.
A
ll you hear are the sounds of peace, if there are any sounds at all. Breath in. Breathe out. Thoughts going, thoughts vanishing. Again. Again And as you continue, imagine that you are not just visiting this place of peace and understanding,
you are becoming a part of it. You are joining it. You are becoming peace. You are becoming understanding."

"I apologize," he whispered. "For being so uptight on your birthday. I wanted everything to be just right."

"You can't apologize for anything that generous and wonderful, Arch. I won't allow it."

"That's a beautiful ballpark."

"It really is."

"I always loved the crunch of the gravel under my cleats. The first step I took onto the mound, if we were home. The mounds were perfect then."

"I liked the first time I saw you against Dominguez Hills. I couldn't believe you looked at me during a game. But you did."

Archie smiled. "Two-hit 'em that day."

"It was gorgeous. I was sixteen years old and in love with the most beautiful man God ever made."

"I'd have died for you then. And on any day since then."

"Oh, Arch. Don't get on a bummer. Not now, when we have so much to be thankful for."

Archie thought about that as a seagull flew through the outfield lights, white against the blue plastic seats of the grandstand.

"They want me to give up. Go back to the hospital. Probably arrest me."

"You have to do what you think is right."

"I want to be together."

"We'll be together soon. Then always together. Listen to this tape. It really sounds good. ..."

".. . this state of total relaxation, you will allow your thoughts to speak to you. Try not to direct your thoughts. Try not to order them. Simply experience this peace that you have become. Simply feel the understanding that is you. Let your mind wander relaxed, like a deep wide river, and follow it to the places it is inviting you to go."

Archie looked at Gwen beside him, pretended for a moment that he didn't know her. He'd been doing that for ten years, since the first time she'd sat in his car beside him. Such a funny, subversive little thrill to see someone who moved your heart like Gwen moved his, and wonder what it would be like to touch someone like her. Well, not
like
her, but
her.
To touch her. To touch her every way you dream of. Then again. Year after year after year. What a game, then you suddenly unpretend and let the memories flood back. Let them carry you along your own past, rush away with you like a river. Dr, Sondra is right on about a river:
Gwen looking at me outside the theater that first time with eyes that took away some of what I was and back some of what she was, holding her hand in the living room of her parents' house in Norco, and that first time I brought my face hers to see if she would let me kiss her and she dug her nails into the scalp above my ears and kissed me so hard and

after that it was a storm that didn't happen all at once but still a storm like the laundry room of the Kuerners' place that first summer so damned hot and steamed up from the dryer and we locked the door and let the dryer pound away while we did the same with the washer groaning thumping under my bare ass and Gwen deep in my lap and oh that had to be one of the strongest I ever felt but there was also the tent in Yosemite and the sleeping bag in Sequoia and the beach at Thousand Steps and Crescent Bay and Diver's Cove and the bench seat of my pickup at the drive-in and the motels her senior year when we were engaged but didn't have a good place to go and we'd make love five or six times in four or five hours and

still get to laugh eat fast food and drink a little beer and tell each other every dumb little thing that had happened since the last time we’d seen each other and still be back in Norco by midnight and don't forget the Hotel Laguna and the Newport Marriott and the Hyatt Newporter on those special nights when we had enough bucks for a good room and room service breakfast at midnight and eight in the morning and definitely don't forget the first honeymoon night in the Disneyland Hotel the black lacy things and the great champagne, oh man, all you men out there who were not loved by Gwen Ellen Kuerner Wildcraft that night have never been loved at all and as long as I'm alive you never will be.

"Remember the honeymoon suite?"

"You don't forget something like that."

"Let's get together right now."

"Okay!"

Archie put his hand on her leg, felt it warm through her dress. He was still looking out at the ballpark so he didn't turn to Gwen, but his hand felt the familiar shape of her thigh and he could smell the milk and orange-blossoms smell that Gwen had when he was close to her. He felt her hands on his service belt and the zipper going down, then the cool air below his belly.

“…and in this deeply relaxed and receiving state your subconscious mind will fill with the thoughts that are most important to you. Let these thoughts come. Experience these emotions. Become truly and totally who you are."

"Wish we were home for this one," he said.

"We could use that old pickup now," said Gwen.

He relaxed a little, let her get comfortable, not easy with the center console in the way. His hand in her soft dark hair now, feeling the wonderful shape of her skull, then the physical sweetness, intensely specific but oddly general too, like his entire body was being swallowed.

Archie saw the giant and the blond man walking across the Air Glide parking lot at two minutes until midnight on the Durango clock. They were the men from the meeting with Gwen in the El Ranchito bar, absolutely no question about it. Something to do with OrganiVen. Marketing concerns, Gwen had said, right? The big one turned sideways to get in the front door, then, as he had done last night, pivoted his enormous head to scan the lot before yanking the door shut.

Archie closed his eyes for just a moment and tried to remember what it was he had seen behind the bright light that aimed down at him before the bullet smashed into his life: a man's face, possibly, but. . . this man? That face? He remembered the cartoon he and Kevin had drawn in third grade, a bearded man with rectangular glasses. The man's beard and hair were identical opposites, and his ears were rounded and sprung from the middle of his head, so that when you turned him upside down he looked almost exactly the same. They'd named him "Reversible Man."

And that was what this giant looked like. Archie had realized this over a year ago when he sat in his sunglasses and ball cap and bag; hula-girl shirt in the El Ranchito bar and watched with knots in his stomach and a forty-five automatic Colt pistol digging against his ribs as his young wife nervously sat down with two obvious monsters. Yes, she'd said
marketing concerns
, he could remember that clearly now.
Reversible Man. Pretty Blond. But was it Reversible Man's head behind the glaring light that night? Archie opened his eyes. It was impossible to say.

He'd need to talk with them to determine that. With at least one of them. It wouldn't be easy and it wouldn't be pleasant, but it was easy to pick which one he'd interview.

At one-sixteen, what looked like a black Lincoln Town Car came into the parking lot from behind the building. It passed behind the silver stretch limousines and stopped at the entrance of Coast Highway. Archie saw Reversible Man deep in the darkened interior, and as if to confirm his ID, the driver's side of the car rode slight! lower than the other. No signal, but a break in the swift traffic and Reversible Man gunned the Town Car northbound on PCH. Just like the night before.

Pretty Blond came to the window and the blinds angled down to block Archie's vision. The lights stayed on for a few minutes—he could see the yellow outline between the blinds and the window frame. Then the lights went off and nothing that Archie could see stirred within the Air Glide office for twenty-four minutes. At which time the lights came back on.

A few minutes later another black Lincoln—this one a Mark VII---rounded into view from behind the office. Pretty Blond, alone, waited and signaled and turned south on Coast Highway.

Archie moved the gumball from the floor to the seat beside him, then followed. It was an easy tail, the traffic moving fast with plenty of cars to put between them. Pretty Blond was considerate, obeying the speed limit and signaling his lane changes. He turned east on Jamboree, headed past the big hotel where he and Gwen had played all those years ago, past Newport Center and Fashion Island toward Irvine.

Archie put the gumball on the Durango roof and pulled over Pretty Blond outside the Tuscany Apartments. There was a nice entry lane away from the traffic and he could see the man tilt to his left, probably to get a wallet or a gun.

Wildcraft filled his lungs as he approached the idling Mark VII, flashlight in his left hand.

The window of the Mark went down.

Archie stood beside it, but just slightly back of the driver's easy angle of vision, just like they taught you for patrol. Make them turn to you.

"Step out of the car, please."

Maybe it was Archie's summer-weight green cotton/poly-blend uniform. Or the name Wildcraft on the brass nameplate over his left chest pocket. Maybe it was the badge. Or the barrel of the forty-five ACP he touched to the lashes of Pretty Blond's left eye.

"Yes."

An hour later, Archie was standing just outside the master bathroom in his home. Sonny Charles leaned in the corner of the bathroom proper, in the same spot where Gwen had lain. She was with them, behind and slightly above Archie.

"She died right where you are," said Archie. "Isn't that right, honey?"

"Yes. Right there."

Charles looked at him without moving his head. He was sweating hard and his blond hair was shiny in the overhead track lighting of the bath. He had a narrow face and reminded Archie of the guy who painted the soup can. His eyes were blue and dry and extremely skeptical.

Archie unwound the duct tape from Charles's face and pulled the tennis ball from his mouth.

"Let this man tell us what happened."

"I was not here," he said. His voice was clear and brittle, like it could break. "I have never been in this house."

"Apin, the big guy," said Gwen. "He was the one who crashes and shot me."

"Is that right, Mr. Charles? Was it Mr. Apin who did it?"

"Apin? I don't know any man named Apin."

"Oh." Archie sounded disappointed, even to himself. He slid left hand into his pocket and slipped out the S&W S.W.A.T. knife, thumbing it open. It was a never-used First Millennium Run with short black blade, incomprehensibly sharp. He put the point Charles's forehead, mid-latitude, far left side.

"Mr. Charles, we have a situation. This is it: you will tell me what happened that night, or I'll cut your throat with this knife and let you bleed out in the bathroom here. Your blood on Gwen's."

"That's awful," she said.

"I know it's awful, and I don't want to do it," said Archie. "But if he tells me everything I want to know, I'll let him go."

The blue eyes looked uncertain, as if the man wasn't sure he was being spoken to.

"Now," said Archie, "look in the mirror."