MAGIC (12 page)

What else did he have to do with them back then?

“Stop here!” Corky said suddenly.

“Huh?” from the driver.

There had been a quick flash of blue water to the left. “Just slow down will be fine.”

The car slowed.

Corky rolled down the window and stared out at the water. “I think that’s Lake Melody.”

“If you say so.”

“Looks just the same.” He continued to stare. “No it doesn’t, it looks a lot smaller; it’s nothing really and I would have sworn it was huge.”

“You want me to stay slow?”

“There should be some cabins up around the curve.”

There were. Set down in the woods, a good distance off the road. A larger main house and then, below it, maybe two dozen white cabins around the lake. A bungalow colony. They passed a flaking sign: FINAST BUNGALOWS. And below that, in smaller lettering:
ALONE ON THE SHORES OF LAKE MELODY
.

“Now stop,” Corky said, and this time, the car did.

The driver looked out. “Must have been pretty.”

“Oh yes,” Corky answered, getting out, quickly walking across the road, staring down at the empty-looking buildings below in the woods. “I won’t be a sec’,” he called to the driver, and with that, he put his hands in his pockets and started down toward the main house. The ground was covered with leaves, and his steps made the only sound. It was colder up here than it had been back in the city, and he shivered suddenly. He was wearing just a cotton shirt and his blazer and his shaking began to grow. He slapped his arms across his body, rubbed his hands across his chest, broke into a half run, getting the circulation going.

He was still cold.

“Anybody?” he called as he reached the main house. “Hey?”

“What do you want?” from indoors. Female voice; distant.

“Cabin?”

“We’re kind of closed.”

Above him now, behind screens and glass on the second floor, a face was vaguely visible. “Something near the lake is really what I’m after. Close as you’ve got.”

“We’re not really set up for guests just now.”

“This is just the kind of place I’m looking for is the thing. I won’t be disturbed here.”

“That’s for sure.”

“Pay you for a week, I won’t stay near that long.”

From behind the window now, hesitation. “I’ve got no services to offer.”

“Pay you fifty bucks a night, how’s that?”

“I’m not turning down fifty bucks.”

“Lemme get my stuff,” Corky said, and he spun, started back up the long hill toward the road. He jogged easily, conscious of his breathing, the little bursts of white hitting the air as he exhaled. It was getting colder fast, but he wasn’t shivering anymore.

The cabdriver was standing by his car, smoking. “All set?”

“Little change in plan,” Corky told him.

The driver looked at Corky.

Corky looked back, then quickly away, because he had caught the guy studying him a couple of times is the rearview mirror, and usually what that meant, nowadays, was that they recognized him from somewhere. Corky got his two bags out of the back. “What do I owe you?”

The driver sat behind the wheel, glanced at the meter. “Exactly eighty-eight dollars and ninety-five cents, as you can see for yourself.”

Corky reached for his wallet. He had gone to the bank just before leaving town, and he took out some bills. Now he glanced at the driver again. Corky hesitated. “What’ll make you happy?” he said finally.

“Let your conscience be your guide. I might get lost on the way back, have car trouble, all kinds of things, but don’t let that enter into your thinking.”

“Here’s a hundred,” Corky said, handing over one bill.

The driver took it, said a very quiet, “Thanks.”

“You don’t understand,” Corky told him. “That’s just for you. This”—and he brought out the second hundred—“this should cover the meter with enough for maybe a cup of coffee thrown in.”

“Hey you’re my man,” the driver said.

“You’re welcome,” Corky said; “I like the way you handle a car. Plus one more thing.”

“What’s’at?”

“You didn’t bring me here.”

The driver looked up at him.

“Am I still your man?”

The driver nodded.

“Keep it that way.” Corky picked up his luggage, smiled. “Take it easy.”

“Any way I can get it,” the driver said, starting the car, waving, gunning off, gone.

Corky turned and headed back down the hill toward the main house where the woman he had spoken to
before was waiting. She wore a blue sweater over gray slacks, blue sneakers. “You said near the water, didn’t you?”

“That should be the quietest, don’t you think?”

“They’re none of them exactly noisy just now.”

“Well the prettiest anyway.”

She nodded, started leading him down away from the main house through the woods toward the water. The sun was almost gone now, and the remains of it rebounded off the lake into their eyes. Corky walked quietly behind her, carrying his cases. “I’ll give you the best we got,” she said, as they approached the farthest cabin, set very close to the water, a good hundred yards from the main house.

“I have the money ready,” Corky said.

“Don’t you want to see it first?”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

She got out a key, shook her head. “What a weird thing, keeping everything locked up—not a whole lot to steal.”

Corky nodded.

She opened the door, stepped inside. He followed. “Nothing all that special. Living room here, bedroom in there”—she pointed. “Bedroom’s small but the bed’s good.” Now she pointed again. “And the fireplace works. You got a view of the lake out this way, you can look up into the woods across there.”

“It’s fine,” Corky said. “Let me pay you now.” He put down his bags.

“Bathroom in there—kitchenette behind the curtain there. That’s it.”

“Like I said,” Corky told her. “Fine.” He held out two fifties. “One for tonight and one in advance. If I stay tomorrow, we’ll talk finances then, okay?”

“Whatever.” She folded the money, rolled it again, held it tight in her hand. “If you need—” and she stopped.

“Go on.”

“I was gonna say ‘if you need anything, call’ but
there’s nothing up at the main place. When I said we were closed, I wasn’t whistling Dixie.” She started toward the door. “Probably I should have said, ‘if you need anything, don’t call.’ ” She gave a little wave. “ ’Bye.”

Corky nodded.

The second she closed the door Fats was saying, “Open up, open up,” in a muffled tone from the larger suitcase.

“Shhhh—”

“—don’t you ‘shhh’ me, schmucko, just open the goddam lid or there’s gonna be major league trouble.”

Corky got Fats out, then went to the window away from the lake and watched as the girl walked up toward the main house.

“I hate the country already,” Fats said. “It’s quiet and full of leaves. All you hear when you walk around is crunch crunch crunch.”

Corky said nothing.

The sunlight hit the girl’s long dark blonde hair.

“I thought we were going to Grossinger’s. At least Grossinger’s got action. This dump here, maybe it’d do for a coroners’ convention, but otherwise, forget it.”

Corky still was silent, still watched.

“Hey, why the silent act, what’s up?”

Corky shook his head. “She never once remembered me.”

“Who? The broad? How can you blame her, she’s verging on the gorgeous and you are a pretty forgettable fella. No. Take that back—actually, your pointy head is quite distinctive, I wouldn’t think anybody could forget that. Must have been your acne clearing up that made her not know you.”

“You’re not funny! Not even a goddam little.”

“Sounds like I stepped on a corn—how come I’m not funny?”

Corky’s voice got soft. “ ’Cause that was Peggy Ann Snow.”

She walked into the house and locked the door, which she always did when she was alone around the place. Then she went to the tv, flicked it on, which she also always did whenever it got dark, whether she was alone around the place or not.

News.

She looked at it vacantly for a moment; the local news guy was as intelligent as ever but she had difficulty focusing her attention on what he was saying. Financial stuff. Cities going bust.

Maybe some music.

Off with the tv, on with the radio. She listened. Elton John? It was hard for her now to tell them from each other. She had a bunch of cousins who were like twelve, and they always hooted when she said it was all the same, every one of them, boom, boom, boom with the rhythm section, that’s all there was. No words anymore, why shouldn’t they sound the same. But then her folks had been like that, unable to distinguish Anka from Rydell from Fabian when she’d been a kid and they were old.

Only I’m not old.

Elvis!

Off went the radio and now, for the first time since she’d entered the house, she picked up the pace a little. She knelt quickly by the record shelf underneath the hi-fi, took out the first Presley she happened to hit. It was his “Golden Records” and Peg looked at his
face on the front for a while, then turned the record over and studied the listings:

Those were
songs
. Peg turned on the machine, took out the record, reached for her special cloth and went over the disc carefully before she put it on the spindle. All her Elvis recordings were in perfect shape and that was not about to change. Now she pushed the start lever, waited …

She knew exactly who she was and where she was when that first Presley hit home. Sneaking a cigarette in Viola Schenker’s car. Closing in on thirteen. Body already formed. She’d listened then and could not believe—there was no way she could hear what she was hearing. Never mind what the sentences said, what the singer was saying was “Let’s screw—
you
I’m talking to, don’t look away.
Now!
”

Not in the mood for Elvis either. She lifted the tone arm off, and in the ensuing silence, put the record back in the sleeve, then into the envelope, then back to the shelf.

Eat something?

Not hungry.

She got out her high school graduation yearbook. Turned to the full-page picture. It was the front of the sports section, and there she was, caught at the peak of
her jump, arms out, legs spread, smiling. The caption said simply: “Peggy Snow scores one for our side.”

She looked at the picture awhile. Of course the cheerleader’s costume was ridiculous, but otherwise …

She carried the book to a mirror, lifted up the photo, put it beside her face. Studied them. She looked fine. Fine.

But her depression only deepened.

She walked to the kitchen, opened some cat food, put it in Sherlock’s bowl. Then she opened the back door, knocked the dish against the knob, called his name. He was waiting and inside in no time. She put the dish down. Sherlock ate. He was a large, powerful and totally individualistic beast and he never allowed her to hold him except when he was done eating.

She picked Sherlock up then, walked to the window, stared down toward the lake and the one lit cabin.

“He didn’t remember me,” Peg said …

Corky scuffed his way along the shore of Lake Melody. In Chicago it might get dignified with the word “pond.” Not more than a mile around probably. But up here, anything you could get your body into was Lake something. This one wasn’t even all that pretty—the land surrounding, yes, lovely, but the water itself had a mud bottom and even on the nicest days, you always were on the lookout for snapping turtles. No one had even seen one around, but you just knew that if you were a snapper, Lake Melody was the kind of place you’d like to call home.

He glanced up toward the main house. The lights glowed out, a bright barrier against the surrounding darkness. Corky stopped and turned, taking in the whole place. A little light from his cabin; the others, nothing but shapes. Dead beasts.

When he was a kid, the Catskills had millions of these places: bungalow colonies. Mom and Pop operations. Often they made the cabins themselves or hired the local carpenter, usually drunk. And they survived by their summer rentals. All the people who couldn’t afford the big places would come, and book a cabin for the summer, and let the kids run while the mothers sat in chairs, rocking and gossiping till the weekends when the breadwinners arrived. You did your own cooking, cleaned for yourselves. What you rented was the roof mainly. Usually a game room in the main house where the Mom and Pop ruled.

Only now, at least from the way things looked on
the drive up, it was hard times in the Catskills. Sure, Grossinger’s was probably minting money and The Concord was still trying to convince the masses that they’d stumbled into Vegas, but the smaller places, the colonies, good-bye and amen.

Sad.

Corky started walking faster, heading for his cabin. When he got there, he unlocked the door, went inside, started to undress. He had his pants half off when he glanced into the bathroom, saw there wasn’t any soap or towels. He slipped his trousers back on, rebuttoned his shirt, reached for his blazer. After that he grabbed Fats and took off. There wasn’t much moon, but enough to make out a kind of worn route that led toward the main house. Corky hurried, stumbling once or twice over tree roots, but never enough to make him come close to falling. There was no sound coming from the main house and his knock echoed. “I’m sorry,” Corky said loudly.

From above, on the second floor. “What do you want?”

“No soap.”

“I told you you wouldn’t like it; you leaving already?”

Corky started laughing. “I didn’t mean ‘no soap’ that way—I meant there wasn’t any. Or towels either.”

“We never really supplied that stuff.”

“Oh.”

“Hold on a sec’. I’ll get you something.”

He waited on the steps listening to her footsteps inside. She was coming down the stairs. Then, the door was opening. “C’mon in—no sense waiting outside—”