Deadline (31 page)

R
oxanne was wearing a black slip. Her dress was on the floor. One leg was bent.

“Oh, my God,” I said.

“What's the matter?” she said sleepily. “Is everything okay?”

I sagged.

“Yeah, everything's … Oh, God.”

She had fallen asleep. She had been waiting for me and she'd fallen asleep.

“I thought—I don't know, I thought something had happened,” I said, still standing over her chair.

“Jack,” she said. “Jack, take it easy. It's okay, baby, it's okay.”

Roxanne reached out and took my wrist. I flinched.

“What the—,” she said.

“I think we've got to talk,” I said. “I think we really should.”

It took a while. Three beers just for the briefing. Roxanne put on my bathrobe and we sat on the couch. She sat close to me, nestled against my side with her legs drawn up underneath her. As I talked, telling her about the coyote, Cormier's buddy, Cormier and his girls, she stroked my hand. When I finished, she took my hand in hers and squeezed.

“Jack, this isn't right,” she said softly. “It really isn't. I know police in Portland and South Portland. From work, I mean. And I never hear of anything like this.”

“They don't want to worry you,” I said.

“I'm serious,” Roxanne said, leaning toward me. “This is crazy. I'm afraid of what's going to happen. My God, Jack. Think about it.”

“I'm trying not to.”

“Well, you have to. People beating you up. Taking pictures of me. My God!”

“I think you're taking his name in vain,” I said.

“Jack, come on. It's not something to joke about. Those guys could have killed you today. Or left you to freeze to death or lose your fingers and toes, even. Is a story worth that?”

“Could be my Pulitzer,” I said.

I grinned but Roxanne didn't. She didn't answer, either, and I watched her for a minute, saw her eyelashes go up and down as she blinked. She was a very good person for such a good-looking person.

“What are you thinking?” I said, finally.

She blinked a couple of times before answering.

“That you should come and live with me,” Roxanne said. “Write to the owner guy in Florida and tell him you're done. Give him two weeks' notice and come to live with me. You could work in Portland. They have a newspaper. You could get a job there. The
Press Herald
. Get a job as an editor or something. God, Jack, wouldn't it be nice? We could make love every night and go places. Out to dinner. Skiing.”

“I fall down a lot,” I said.

“Jack, come on. We would never have to see this awful place again. Oh, this damned place.”

She blinked but it was to blink back tears.

“Jack, I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.”

I put my arm around her and she seemed very small.

“I know,” I said.

“I know. And you don't have to be here. I'm the one who got you into this.”

“Then get me out,” Roxanne said. “And get yourself out, too.”

I sighed.

“It isn't that easy, Rox,” I said. “The paper has to come out and—”

“The paper! Damn the paper; Jack, you aren't the only one who can put out a paper. It isn't worth it. Getting beat up and spied on and who knows what else, just to put out this paper in this hick town? Oh, God, I'm sick of even talking about it. I'm going to bed.”

And she did. I sat on the couch with a warm beer and listened to her turn the pages of a magazine for a few minutes. After a few more minutes, the light clicked off. I sat and wondered if she wasn't right.

A paper in a small town. A paper read by high-school sports nuts and little old ladies. Was it worth risking your life for? But then, what kind of a threat could it be? Could anything I wrote be enough to get somebody to kidnap me and beat me up? The mill story? I just couldn't believe that would happen, not millworkers. Not even a bunch of drunk rednecks who didn't like my looks. This wasn't bar-fight stuff. This was the real thing. What could the
Androscoggin Review
do to make somebody take these kinds of chances?

I wouldn't tie somebody up in a cabin over a story about a paper mill. I would if I'd killed somebody and didn't want any more said about it. If the guy at that paper wouldn't let it die, I might do a lot of things to make him change his mind. But had I pushed enough to get somebody's back against the wall? Only if whatever, whoever it was, was close to being exposed. If that was the case, I could be in danger of more than being hauled off to a camp for the evening. And so could Roxanne.

That night I slept with my arm around Roxanne's waist. When I woke up, it was still dark and I could feel her breasts moving up and down as she breathed. She was warm and soft, and my knees fit into the backs of her knees. Her thighs rested against mine.

I lay there and held her for a few minutes and then hoisted myself out of bed. From the closet, I grabbed a warm shirt, holding the hanger to keep it from jangling. I grabbed my pants, boots, and socks off the floor and carried them to the kitchen. The clock on the stove said three thirty-five. I wrote Roxanne a note by the stove light and hoped she wouldn't wake up before I got back.

The heat began to seep into the car as I drove out Route 2 and I took my gloves off and held my hands over the warmth of the defroster vent. Three miles out, I veered to the right and drove slowly past Arthur's studio. It was dark. I pulled into the service station lot between two snow-covered cars and shut off the motor.

Silence.

I could see the front of the studio building and the driveway behind the pool supply store. The street was dark except for the streetlights. No cars. No lights in the houses. I thought of all those people snug in their beds as I burrowed my hands deeper into my pockets, then stuck them under my arms. The chill was setting in.

I was here, sitting in the brutal cold in the middle of the night, because the studio was the only place where anything actually had happened. The pictures of Roxanne had been taken after Arthur had died; the prints had been made here. The studio was being used. And if I didn't budge, didn't move to Portland to sit in hip little bars and write about rich people, then the photographer had to do something more. Maybe more pictures. Sent to more people.

After fifteen minutes, I turned the radio on. The one station I could find was doing a late-night country-western music call-in show. The callers all had southern accents. I wondered what they were doing up so early. Nothing moved until quarter to five when a pickup truck drove by. The driver looked straight ahead as he went past. I felt the lump on my head and picked at the scabs on my wrists.

At five-twelve, a light went on in a small house a couple of hundred yards up the road. After a couple of minutes, it went out. I flexed my frozen toes inside my boots and began to wonder if I was cracking up.

If the photographer had a stack of prints already made, I was freezing for nothing. But that wasn't the way I pictured it. What I pictured was him, or her, slipping in and out as fast as possible. Two or three prints and get out. One for Roxanne and one for the newspaperman. Knock them off and clear out. Take as few chances as possible.

It seemed like this would be the best time to do it. It was early enough that most people would be asleep, but not so early that there weren't a few other cars moving. Driving around at three a.m. left the chance that you'd be pulled over by a cop with nothing to do. By five, the day had begun.

As I rubbed my wrists, I thought of the cabin. What if they had a few beers and decided to pay me a visit; what if Cormier hadn't talked to them? What if he had and told them to try again? If they found Roxanne in bed, alone in the house… .

I turned the key in the ignition and the oil-pressure light glowed red. I hesitated. Hesitated some more. Then turned the key off.

A car passed, headed toward town. A woman driving. She was smoking a cigarette. The studio looked like it had been vacant for ten years. My toes were going numb as my brain sucked the blood back from my extremities. That was the way they explained hypothermia.

The body protects its core by sacrificing the extremities. Toes and fingers first. Next, the feet and hands. For Arthur, the extremities had probably gone all at once.

Numb. Frozen solid. Blue and bloodless.

I untied my boots and moved my toes some more. Every few minutes. I took the plastic windshield scraper and shaved the frozen film of condensation from the inside of the windshield. The shavings fell in a white pile on the inside of the dashboard. They looked like fake snow.

At five-thirty, I turned the radio on again. A woman from Georgia was telling the announcer about the time she saw the inside of Tammy Wynette's tour bus. The woman said it was “beeyootiful,” and said she understood that Tammy was a regular person, too. I turned the radio off and scraped some more.

Ten more minutes, I told myself. Ten more minutes and home. I checked my watch, looking down for just a second.

And I almost missed it.

The figure came out of the darkness at the far side of the building, walked quickly to Arthur's door, and disappeared inside.

I had been right.

Without taking my eyes off the door, I bent and tied my boots, first the left, then the right. I took the flashlight from the passenger seat and stuck it in my right pocket, then popped the door latch. I slid out from behind the steering wheel and closed the door but didn't latch it. Then I squatted by the front left wheel and watched.

The figure had moved quickly, as if he had done this many times and had every move down. If he was as efficient inside the building, I might not have a lot of time.

There was a lug wrench in the trunk, the kind with a single-size head. I rose from my crouch and then eased back down.

After another minute, I crept to the back of the car and opened the trunk slowly and carefully. I felt for the wrench and found it half under the spare tire. I took a glove off and slid it out, then went back to the front of the car and waited. For what? When should I move? I didn't want to lose him. Maybe I should go and stand by the door. When he came out, get a look at the face. If he tried anything, use the wrench. Could I actually hit somebody with it? I didn't know. If he swung first, maybe I could.

I got up and crouched back down. Twice. Three times. I had to move. Couldn't move. The sky was turning from black to navy blue. Now, I thought. Go. I stood up and he slipped from the door. He was going around the far corner. He was gone.

Still crouching, I ran across the street, the wrench down close to my leg. At the corner of the building, I stopped. Listened. Stepped out.

Nothing.

I ran around to the back, past trash cans. He was halfway down the side street, walking on the edge of the pavement. I followed. He was walking quickly. At the end of the street, he went left, out of sight. I broke into a trot, picking my way around pieces of ice and snow that crunched underfoot.

There were streetlights on and I tried to see a face. I made out a dark jacket, dark pants. A black hat, maybe knit. No face. Not big, not small.

We passed one street, then another. I needed a car. At least a car and a license number. I closed to forty yards. Trotted. Backed off. He took the next left and headed back to the main road. I turned the corner. He went between two houses and disappeared.

I sprinted. My boots clumped on the pavement. The houses were dark, with cars in the driveways. I slowed as I got to the backyards.
There was a garage, a shed. I banged into a lawn mower, or something like a lawn mower. There was a space in a hedge and I moved through it and ran down another driveway to the next street.

Nothing.

He wasn't in sight. I stood in the middle of the street with the lug wrench in my hand and listened. A truck whined in the distance. Then downshifted. And then I heard it.

A starter grinding. A motor starting. Tires crunching on pavement.

It was another street over. I ran up a driveway but there was a six-foot fence. A dog started barking.

He was gone.

“Damn it all to hell,” I said.

I stood there for a minute, forced myself to wait instead of succumbing to the adrenaline-fed urge to get the hell out of there. The dog was still barking, woofing in that rhythmic way dogs bark when they realize that they've got nothing else to do. I walked down the driveway away from the barking and went back to the studio the way I had come, still holding the wrench.

When I got there, everything was still and quiet, as if I had dreamt the whole thing. I looked around once, then went to the door where the person had come in and out. The door was padlocked but the person hadn't unlocked anything. I gave the knob a pull and the hasp came away from the frame. The screws had been stripped or the holes drilled out. The door opened.

Inside, I flipped on my flashlight and walked slowly to the darkroom. It was empty. I checked the sinks. They were wet. I bent and smelled the drain. It smelled of fixer. Whoever it was that made the prints had dumped the chemicals down the drain. I looked at the enlarger. It was clean. The negative holder was still in place.

I walked to the bedroom and flashed the light over the junk. It looked different. The cartons that had been piled everywhere were stacked along the wall. I peered into them. The contents were just stuffed in. Papers and magazines, plastic knives and forks, junk. Someone had emptied the boxes and gone through the stuff and then dumped everything back in. The shelves were the same. Books were in stacks. The toy animals were piled on the floor, like bodies in a mass grave.

What I needed was records. Arthur's records of assignments. The little notebooks he pulled out whenever he thought his pay was wrong. They wouldn't be in the cartons; everything I saw there was old. Arthur the packrat. The notebook he kept with him, like a pen. His wallet. Get out of bed and stuff them in his pockets. First thing. First thing out of bed. The carton that had been beside the bed was gone, probably shoved in with all the others. I flashed the light over them again. They all looked the same.