Generation Loss (27 page)

"I've
got to get back to the city. I really need a ride back to Burnt Harbor. Can you
bring me before you go?"

"I
can't. Sorry. I should have checked Lucien's place last week, but I got caught
up with another job. And now the weather's supposed to come down. Can't let the
pipes freeze."

"Couldn't
you just run me over first? Like, just a real quick trip there and back?"

"I'm
sorry." His dark eyes glinted. "Any other day, I'd be glad to. But I
can't let this slip. First thing tomorrow, though, I'll be out."

"Shit.
Well, Is there someone else? Like Everett? Can I call him?"

Toby
sucked at his lip. "Boy, you're in a spot. I don't know if you could find
anyone today. They'll be out looking for Kenzie Libby."

"So
why wouldn't one of them give me a lift?"

"Well,
I don't know as I'd ask them. If I were you, I mean. Maybe you should just lay
low till tomorrow morning. Kenzie'll show up by then, everyone will be all
pissed off at her for scaring 'em. They'll fall all over themselves to help
you. If the weather's not too bad, I mean. This is the first big northeaster of
the year."

“I
don't give a fuck. I want to get the hell out of here—“

Toby
shrugged. "Well, you can go down to the harbor and take your chances, I
guess. I wouldn't. Tempers running high already, and now this thing with Aphrodite.
But you can stay at my place if you want."

He
gestured vaguely at a corner. "There's a futon."

"I
have to leave," I said.

Toby's
phone rang. '"Scuse me," he said and ducked into the shadows.

I
stared at the row of monitors. They now appeared to be clocking atmospheric
disturbances somewhere east of Subar.

I
got up and started pacing. I searched for a mirror, to see if I looked as crazy
as I was starting to feel, but of course there were none, not even a window.

The
bathroom had a shower stall. But no mirror.

I
went to the kitchen and got some more water. Toby stood in the doorway, phone
pressed to his ear, and stared into the boiler room, talking to Gryffin again,
I assumed. He lifted his hand to me, and I turned away.

I
wandered toward the back of the room again and passed a cluttered table. From
underneath it peeked a mask. I stooped and pulled it out, another brightly
colored confection made of papier-mache and chicken wire and acrylic paint.

It
was a frog's head, like the one I'd seen on
Northern Sky.
This one was
even more eerily totemic. Also surprisingly heavy, as I discovered when I
lifted it. I put it over my head, knocking a book off the table as I did.

Inside,
the mask smelled like library paste and hashish. I took it off and put it back
where I'd found it then picked up the book.

Mircea
Eliade,
The Sacred and the Profane.
The same book I'd seen in Denny's
bus. I set it on the table, frowning.

Something
else had fallen over, a photo in a cheap plastic frame. I picked it up.

It
was an SX-70 close-up of a naked girl lying on her back, hands splayed beside
her face. The film emulsion had been manipulated so that fizzy lines exploded
around the edges of the picture. Her hair formed a dark corona around her head,
and an eye had been drawn on each of her open palms.

You
couldn't see her face. It was covered by a tortoise shell that had two more
eyes painted on it. In one, someone had painted a tiny green star.

"What
the hell," I said.

Toby
came up alongside me. "Whatcha looking at?"

"Where'd
you get this?"

He
took it and held it to the light. "Denny. Sort of experimental, isn't
it?" He handed it back and pulled meditatively at his pigtail.

"Who's
the girl?"

"That
was a girl named Hannah Meadows—'Hanner.' She had a real strong Maine accent.
You can't tell from that, but she was real good-looking."

"You
can't tell from this if she was even alive."

"Oh,
she was alive. She was one of Denny's girlfriends. He had a bunch of them back
then. Bunch of women, bunch of kids. He got into all that tribal stuff."

He
pointed at the mask beneath the table. "Like that. That took me forever to
make. And God, did I sweat in it."

"You
made that?"

"Sure.
We all had to make our own masks—that was part of the thing. You chose your
spirit animal, and then you made the mask, and then we had a ritual, and you
were filled with the mask's energy. That was the theory, anyway," he said
and laughed. "But Hannah, she was a nurse—she worked the night shift at
the hospital up past Collinstown. She was beautiful, and something about
her—well, a lot of those girls were cute, but Denny just loved to take her
picture. She used to model for him all the time. He even talked about marrying
her."

He
whistled. "And boy, Aphrodite, she wasn't happy about that. And she sure
didn't like him taking all those pictures."

"What
happened to the girl?"

"Oh,
that was terrible. Really sad. She got into a car accident driving home one
night. In the summer; it was after she got off work. She flipped over the
guardrail and went into a lake. She got out of the car okay, but then she never
made it to shore. They got the car out of the lake, but she wasn't in it. Took
them almost a week to find the body. Denny was the one round her, he was with
the crews out looking. She'd gotten tangled up in some alders along the shore.
I guess it was pretty bad. Something had been at the body, some kind of animal.
He kind of went off after that, accused Aphrodite of cutting her brakes, though
I don't think they ever found any proof. It was a bad scene. Hey, you
okay?"

His
face creased with concern. "You look like you're going to pass out."

"C'mere."
He steered me to a chair and made me sit. "Put your head between your
knees," he said. "That's it. So you don't faint. Just stay there for
a minute, I'll be right back."

He
went and got a cold washcloth, pressed it to my forehead. "There. Boy, you
look a mess. Maybe you should try to take a nap. Sounds like you had a rough
morning over there."

"I
haven't eaten anything," I said, though the last thing I felt like was
food. "Do you have some crackers or something?"

He
got me some stale Uneeda Biscuits, also a glass of something cold and brown.
"Here, see if this helps."

I
ate a cracker, took a tiny sip of the brown liquid. "Christ, that's
disgusting! What is it?"

"Moxie."

"It
tastes like Dr. Pepper laced with rat poison."

"That's
the gentian root."

I
shoved the Moxie back at him and finished the crackers. Toby raised an eyebrow.
"Better?"

"Yeah.
Thanks."

He
puttered into the kitchen. A few minutes later he returned, carrying something.
"Denny gave me this last time I saw him, back around Labor Day, when I
brought his supplies to Lucien's house. This is what he's doing these
days."

It
was a large color photograph, 12x24, in a handmade frame, like the one at Ray
Provenzano's house. From an upright black shape, like a rock or tree, something
protruded. A truncated branch, or an arm. Leaves surrounded it, silvery green.
It was impossible for me to tell if the color was real or if the emulsion had
been tampered with.

But
in other places, the photograph had definitely been distressed, with needles
and brushes, maybe a fingernail. Layers of pigment bled through. Handmade color
separations, I would bet my life on it: a brilliant serpent green, a murkier,
brownish jade, brilliant scarlet, dull orange, porcelain white. A muted,
flaking shade of rust, like old iron.

I
ran my finger across the surface, feeling countless little whorls and bumps and
scratches, then held it beneath the lamp.

"There's
leaves in there. And insects," I said, squinting. "And, I dunno, some
kind of bug. A baby dragonfly, maybe?"

"Where?
Oh—yeah, you're right." Toby ran his finger along the outline of an
insect's thorax, with tiny, oar-shaped wings. "That's a damsel fly. A
darning needle, we called them when I was a kid. They were supposed to come
into your room at night and sew your lips and eyes together while you slept.
Denny was scared of them."

I
looked at the damsel fly. Beside it were scraps of paper, each with a letter on
it.

S
_T
2
⁹

Part
of an address? I brought the print to my face. "Jesus, this is like the
other one! It stinks."

"Denny's
not much of a housekeeper."

"It
smells like dead fish, only worse. Skunky."

"Well,
he sets out a few traps, for lobster. And I know he goes ice fishing in the
winter."

I
was going to ask how you went
ice
fishing in the ocean, but then I saw
something written in the margin.

Some
Rays pass right Through S.P.O.T.

'"Some
rays pass right through.'" I looked at Toby in surprise. "That's from
a Talking Heads song."

Denny's
big into music. I don't know it."

"It's
about exposing a photograph—that's what happens, you expose the emulsion paper
to the light. Some rays pass right through."

I
tapped the edge of the photo. Tiny particles rained from it.

“Ray
told me these pictures are worth a lot of money," I said. "Denny just
gave it to you?"

"It
was payment for some work—I built him a new darkroom a while ago. I do a lot of
jobs on barter. I live here free, in exchange for keeping an eye on things.
Thinking of which—"

He
crossed the room. "I've got to get ready to go."

I
sat for another minute, examining the photo. A flake of rust-colored pigment
came off and stuck to my hand. Where it had been, I could clearly see a torn
piece of paper that had been embedded into the emulsion. A fragment of another,
a black-and-white photograph of a bare foot with the ghostly outline of a
street sign and something scrawled across it in blue ink.

ICU

My
foot. Canal Street.

It
was a detail from one of the photos in
Dead Girls.

I
stared at the flake of pigment then sniffed. It had a faint whiff of that same
fishy odor. Cupping it in my palm, I walked to the wastebasket, fished out the
wadded-up paper towel Id just tossed, and smoothed it on the desk.

You
got some paint there on your shoe.

The
smear of blood from where I'd kicked Robert's friend wasn't the exact same
shade as the flake of dried pigment. But it was close enough.

I
threw the fragment and the paper towel into the wastebasket, ran into the
kitchen. Toby was filling a gallon jug from the tap.

"Listen,"
I said. "After you finish your work at this other island—are you coming
back here? Or heading straight over to Burnt Harbor?"

"Depends
on the weather. Probably I'll be back. Unless it really comes down, in which
case I'll drop anchor over at Tolba and stay in Luciens house. Why?"

"Maybe
I could ride out with you to the island. Then later, if you do go over to Burnt
Harbor, you can drop me off. If not, I'll just come back here with you."

"You
really want to get out of here, don't you? Okay. I guess, if you don't mind
getting cold and wet. I just thought you might want to take a nap or something.
You looked pretty whipped, to tell you the truth."

"If
I fall asleep now, I'll never wake up."

"Don't
want that." He picked up the jug and headed for the door. "You got
much to carry?"

"No."
I slung my bag over my shoulder. "Just this. My camera."

"Good.
You can help bring some things down. Then we won't have to make two
trips."

He
gathered a canvas bag of extra clothing, a toolbox, two water jugs. He stopped
by the door and pulled on a parka.

"Cold
out there." He eyed my leather jacket and cowboy boots. "You're not
going to be warm enough."

"I
still have your sweater." I unzipped my jacket to show him, and the
sweater rode up, exposing my stomach.

"That
a tattoo?" He stooped to peer at the scroll of words entwined with a scar.
'"Too tough to die.'"

He
gave me an odd look. "Looks like you earned that."

I
didn't reply. I thought of a girl walking toward a car beneath a broken
streetlamp; of another girl walking down a darkened pier where a boat drifted,
its engine cut and running lights switched off.

"Did
it hurt?" asked Toby softly.

"It
all hurts," I said and turned away.

For
a moment he was quiet.

"Here,"
he said. "Take this—"

He
opened a cupboard and tossed me a blaze orange watchcap. "You lose ninety
percent of your body heat through your head. Not that it'll do you much good if
you go overboard."