Ghost Lights (12 page)

“Who?”

“The manager. Mr. Lindley, right? My name is Marlo.”

It was a fog. He sat tiredly on the side of the lounger. Marlo. Yes.

“Right! I was looking for you. Before the armed forces.”

He leaned down, wanted to touch the water in the pool and splash it on his heavy face, but then the edge was further than he could reach. He let the arm fall, defeated.

“He said you wished to talk to me?”

“I was trying to find Thomas Stern. You worked for him.”

“You are his lawyer?”

“Lawyer? Never. Friend—friend of the family.”

“Please. Come with me.”

Hal stood up unsteadily.

“Please. This way.”

He was missing his belongings. What had he done with them? Wallet in the back pocket. Otherwise . . . he felt unmoored. He was floating. Why not: follow some guy named Marlo.

They went down a path from the pool, through a gate and a yard where the sand-raker said something to another yard guy, an unshaven youth in overalls with a lawnmower. They trudged on through the service area, where guests were not usually welcome, past bags of fertilizer on a pallet, ladders against a wall, rusty tools on a bench, boats turned upside-down and equipment under a tarp. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but he had to watch his feet to keep from stumbling. Needed something.

A Bull Shot, was what came to him—he needed a Bull Shot, beef broth, vodka and a shot of Tabasco. His mother used to drink them. During a certain era she drank Bull Shots and served cocktail sausages.

“Here. It takes ten minutes, maybe fifteen. OK?”

He must have nodded because now Marlo wanted him to help push the boat off the sand, a small boat with an outboard motor. The man was already wading out, the bottom of his white pants swirling around his legs in the water. In the boat, nothing but wooden benches—no padding and no shade.

He didn’t have it in him to object, so he bent down and grabbed the back of the boat and heaved. Then he took his shoes off and stepped into the water after it—his pant legs were soaked right away and he sat down heavily on the back bench, feeling the wet material and the grains of sand against the skin of his calves. Marlo was beside him, pulling the cord, so he groped his way to the center bench.

Head spinning, he was on the water. Again.

Neither of them said anything over the noise of the motor and the thump of the prow against the waves. Hal felt thirsty—a throat-cracking thirst came on him in an instant. Afraid his throat would crack he found himself looking under the rough benches for water bottles—anything!—and seeing nothing but an oar and a plastic bucket, he closed his eyes.

His mother stood at the corner of a bar they had in the rec room in the basement, a basement that opened with sliding doors onto the backyard patio. He remembered trays of the miniature sausages in pastry wrappings, toothpicks stuck in them with colored flags of cellophane, flags of yellow and orange. But something thirsty about it—the dry air . . . his father in a Hawaiian shirt, standing over the barbecue.

“Nadine, dear. Here. Have a Bull Shot,” he heard his mother say. Nadine was the lady from across the street. She was getting a divorce, he had heard his parents whispering about it. She wore bright, aqua-colored eyeshadow, far too much all the way up to her eyebrows, which Hal, nine at the time, fixated on until his mother told him to stop staring. Hal had firmly believed the eyeshadow was the reason for the divorce. He remembered his conviction on this point, asking his mother why Nadine didn’t just stop wearing it.

Even now he recalled the texture of the eyeshadow, how it made him notice the lines beneath the turquoise sheen on the lady’s skin, their fine cross-hatchings.

Susan had gone with him to the funeral—his mother’s, not the eyeshadow lady’s—shortly after their own wedding, twenty years later. He had held her hand at the side of the grave, which was surrounded by a carpet of something like AstroTurf. He held her hand and felt this contact was the armor worn by the two of them. Armor was what it was, the pair bond, marriage: something enclosing them that offered protection. But it was not metal, finally, it was far too flimsy . . . at different moments in a life you had these companions, blurring around you like figures in stop-motion photography: mother, father, friends of his youth, wife, daughter. Gone.

Not one of them forever.

He was riveted by the pain of this flashing away, this dimming. He would die from it, die from being alone.

He opened his eyes.

“I am so thirsty,” he said to Marlo over the engine noise, in the vain hope he might be able to help. But the man only nodded and smiled, probably no idea.

Then they were sputtering to a slow glide. Glancing down he saw the boat was over the shallows again, simple sand beneath them through the light water. No coral, no seaweed. He turned around—he had spent the whole ride facing backward, facing where they’d come from. There was a small beach, some trees—an island, he guessed. A small island.

“Where are we?” he asked Marlo.

“Mr. Tomás’s property,” said Marlo, as the boat cruised in and the hull scratched over the bottom.

Hal looked up the beach. He could make out what seemed to be piles—piles of what he did not know.

“You go,” said Marlo, and gestured.

He had no idea what he was doing here but got out of the boat anyway, waded up the slope of the beach still clutching his shoes. He tried to cross the sand barefoot but there were sharp things in it, little sticks or twigs or something, that hurt him. He had to stop, wavering, hopping to keep his balance as he put the shoes on. Off balance, he almost toppled. The sensation of his wet feet inside the shoes was unpleasant: cold toes and gritty sand.

All he could do was walk toward the piles. Nowhere else to go; there was nothing else here. He felt a prick of fear. Maybe Marlo had brought him out here to kill him. Why? A good question. Still. Hal was middle-aged, exhausted and weak—a natural victim. It was just the two of them.

He turned around and gazed back at the boat, where Marlo stood cupping his mouth with his hands. He was lighting a cigarette.

Up the beach a little further were the collapsed walls of a building, its concrete foundation. What was Hal supposed to be noticing, for chrissake? He was too tired for games. Tired and stupid. He wasn’t a forensics investigator. He was no Sherlock Holmes. He noticed nothing, did not even want to have to pay attention. Splintered plywood, chunks of plaster, waterlogged Sheetrock with yellow stains browning at the edges. That was it.

Then someone came out of the trees, a man zipping his fly. A dark, lean man with a full beard, shirtless and half-emaciated, his ribs showing over a concave stomach. A mountain man or hippie. His white painter pants were filthy.

“Who the hell?” said Hal, not meaning to. Then it struck him: this was the man on the boat, the bearded man on the boat he had seen from the scuba island.

“Wait,” said the man. He was American. Small mercies. “God! I know
you
.”

Hal gazed at him. His eyes were a startling blue against the brown of his face. The beard was brown but blond strands were woven through it; the nose was straight and peeling across the bridge from the sun.

He heard himself laugh nervously. He clutched his arms around himself, then let go.

Yes: he had seen this man standing up in a boat, the day of the scuba dive. It was him.

“T.,” said the man, stating the obvious, and stuck out a brown hand. “You’re Casey’s father, aren’t you? The tax man!”

Hal hesitated to take the hand, recalling how it had recently zipped the fly, and was startled when Stern clasped him into a warm embrace.

He felt a tinge of hysteria, then confusion.

“I’m tired,” he said, drawing back. “But I’m really thirsty. Do you have some water?”

“Sure, come with me,” said the newly brown, bearded Stern.

Wary of where he put his feet—there were rusty nails in the disintegrating Sheetrock—Hal followed droopily over the piles of debris, back through the trees. A sandy trail had been cleared, just wide enough for single file. Thin trees on each side, shiny miniature leaves. A minute later they were in a small clearing. Ahead of them was an unfinished structure of wood built around a tree; Hal saw a camp stove, a tent, a dark-green metal tank.
PROPANE
, read a red label on the side. There was a folding chair and he sank down into it. Stern was already handing him a cup.

He drank it down, all of it, with closed eyes. His blood was rushing in his ears.

“Have more,” said Stern. He took the cup from Hal, filled it and handed it back.

Hal drank the second cup and realized his head was aching again but that he felt better. It was water he had needed, water and sleep.

“Is your head hurting? Your eyes?” asked Stern.

“Yes,” nodded Hal. “Yes.”

“You’re dehydrated. It’s a dangerous condition. Just keep drinking, small sips but steadily.”

“They’re afraid you’re dead,” said Hal, after a few seconds sitting there nodding and dazed, stroking the near-empty cup with a thumb.

“Dead? Oh,” said Stern. “I kept planning to call. I needed someone to look after my dog for a while. I was just about to call.”

“We picked her up. She’s OK,” said Hal.

“I knew the kennel would take good care of her. Place costs a king’s ransom.”

“She’s at my house,” said Hal.

“Oh, good,” said Stern. “That’s great.”

“But they’ve been really worried,” said Hal.

It was a letdown after everything to be sitting with Stern, the plastic water cup in his hand. Stern took it to fill it again, leaned over to a jug, a five-gallon plastic jug with a spout. Water gurgled as Stern tipped it forward.

Hal sipped and felt himself shiver and then laughed, a bit wildly. He could hear it but not stop it.

“We had the armed forces looking for you,” he said. “It was a search-and-rescue. Organized by Germans.”

Stern looked surprised and then barked out a laugh of his own. Hal laughed harder. They were fools, laughing. Uncontrollable, stupid laughter. Hal bent forward, tears running from his eyes. He shook his head to stop himself laughing. Eventually it petered out.

“I miss them. I miss Casey,” said Stern, nodding to himself. “Susan too.”

“She’s having an affair,” said Hal. It slipped out.

“Casey?” asked Stern.

“Susan!”

“I see,” said Stern, and glanced at him sidelong.

“With that paralegal who works in your office. That young, preppy guy named Robert.”

“Robert? Huh,” said Stern, shifting in his seat and turning his face upward. He squinted a little at the sky. “Well. I never liked him.”

Hal felt a surge of gratitude.

“You know, it wasn’t so long ago that your daughter told me,” said Stern, “that I should avoid wearing those shirts with the blue pinstripes on them and the solid white collars. You know the kind I mean?”

“Those are bad,” agreed Hal. “She was right about that.”

They sat quietly, Stern gazing into the distance with a kind of enraptured tenderness.

“And here you are,” said Hal. “You’re not wearing one. Are you.”

They smiled at each other again. A bird squawked.

“I do need a shirt, though,” said Stern, musing. “I ran out of them.”

“I see that.”

“I’ve been working,” said Stern, almost apologetic.

“But,” said Hal, “I mean—what happened to you?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Stern. “You should rest first, though. I’m serious, I think you’re pretty dehydrated. Come with me.”

He got up, gesturing for Hal to follow him. At the wooden hut built on the tree—a kind of tree-house, Hal guessed—he lifted a piece of coarse cloth that was serving as a door and put his hand on Hal’s shoulder, guiding him through. Hal saw a sleeping bag on the rough floor.

“Lie down there for a while,” said Stern. “You need to be out of the sun. It’s cooler than the tent. I’ll get you something for the headache.”

Hal did what he said, lay down on the sleeping bag, which smelled a little of mildew but not bad, exactly. A few seconds later Stern was back with two small pills in his dark hand. Hal took them.

“Thank you,” he said, and slowly crumpled sideways.

• • • • •

W
hen he woke it was dark out again. He had slept through the morning, slept through the afternoon. He could barely believe it. Time was wrong for him now, out of kilter since the invasion of the armed forces.

He scrambled to his feet. He felt better, almost normal, though there was still a dull throb at his temples. The ache was less urgent. Through a window in the tree-house, if you could call it that—a gap between the planks—he saw the glow of a campfire in the dark and the silhouetted figure of Stern standing a few feet off, back turned.

He lifted the cloth and went out.

“Thomas,” he said. “Did the boat go? Marlo?”

“Call me T.,” said Stern, turning. He was standing in front of his camp stove, a two-burner thing, Hal noticed, connected to the propane tank by a thin tube that snaked out of it, curling . . . it was balanced on an empty crate. T. held a large spoon, with which he was stirring something in a saucepan.

“T. OK then,” said Hal, reluctant. “I didn’t mean to sleep the whole day. I can’t believe it.”

“You needed it,” said T.

“So where’s my, uh—Marlo?”

“Marlo left.”

“He left? He stranded me?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” said T. “You’re with me. He had to get back to work. We thought you needed the rest. Dehydration, if it lasts long enough, you know—it can have serious consequences. How’d you get that far gone?”

“I don’t know,” said Hal. “I think—I wasn’t paying attention. Basically.”

“Making chili,” said T. “From a can, but it’ll do. Got a kick to it. Want any?”

“Sure. Thank you,” said Hal, and made his way around the fire to the folding chair. He was starving, he realized. Also thirsty again. He looked for his plastic cup. It was back in the tree-house, so he went to get it.

“Make yourself comfortable. There’s a bottle of wine sitting on the cooler,” called T. as Hal came out again. “Cheap and red. Probably not the best idea if you’re still feeling the dehydration, though.”