One Door Away From Heaven (32 page)

Her dislike of Micky couldn’t entirely explain her attitude. She seemed to hold some brief for Maddoc, and though she didn’t argue on his behalf, her opinion of him appeared to be beyond reconsideration.

When Micky finished, F said, “If you believe there’s been a murder, why would you come here instead of going to the police?”

The truth was complicated. For one thing, two cops had stretched the facts in her arrest, suggesting she’d been more than a companion to the document forger, that she’d been an accomplice, and the public defender appointed to her case by the court had been too overworked or too incompetent to correct this misrepresentation before the jury. She’d had enough of the police for a while. And she didn’t entirely trust the system. Furthermore, she knew that the local authorities would not be eager to investigate a report of a murder in a far jurisdiction when they had plenty of homegrown crime to keep them busy. She couldn’t claim to have known Lukipela. Her accusation was based on her faith in Leilani, and though she was convinced the cops also would find the girl credible, her own testimony was hearsay.

She kept her reply succinct: “Luki’s disappearance has to be investigated eventually, sure, but right now the issue is Leilani, her safety. You don’t have to wait for the cops to prove Luki was murdered before you can protect Leilani. She’s alive now, in trouble now, so it seems to me that her situation has to be addressed first.”

Eschewing comment, turning to her computer once more, F typed for two or three minutes. She might have been entering a version of Micky’s statement or she might have been composing an official report and closing out the file without further action.

Beyond the window, the day looked fiery. A nearby palm tree wore a ruffled collar of dead brown fronds. California burning.

When she stopped typing and turned to Micky again, F said, “One more question, if you don’t mind. You may consider it too personal to answer, and of course you’re under no obligation.”

Wary, applying a smile no more sincere than lipstick, Micky hoped that the machinery of Child Protective Services would get the job done in spite of how badly this interview had gone. “What is it?”

“Did you find Jesus in jail?”

“Jesus?”

“Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu, L. Ron Hubbard. Lots of people find religion behind bars.”

“What I hope I found there was direction, Ms. Bronson. And more common sense than I went in with.”

“People take up lots of things in prison that are pretty much religions, even if they aren’t recognized as such,” the caseworker said. “Extreme political movements, left-wing and right-wing, some of them race-based, most with a grudge against the world.”

“I don’t have a grudge against anyone.”

“I’m sure you realize why I’m curious.”

“Frankly, no.”

F clearly doubted Micky’s denial. “We both know Preston Maddoc inspires hatred from various factions, both religious and political.”

“Actually I
don’t
know. I really don’t know who he is.”

F ignored this protestation. “Lots of people who’re usually at odds with one another are united on Maddoc. They want to destroy him just because they disagree with him philosophically.”

Even with her bottomless reservoir of anger to draw upon, Micky wasn’t able to pump up any rage at the accusation that philosophical motives drove her to character assassination. She almost laughed. “Hey, my philosophy is to make as few waves as possible, get through the day, and maybe find a little happiness in something that won’t land you in a mess of trouble. That’s as deep as I get.”

“All right then,” said F. “Thank you for coming in.”

The caseworker turned to the computer.

A long moment passed before Micky realized that she’d been dismissed. She didn’t get up. “You’ll send someone out there?”

“It’s got a case number now. There has to be follow-through.”

“Today?”

F looked up from the computer, not at Micky but at one of the posters: a fluffy white cat wearing a red Santa hat and sitting in snow. “Not today, no. There’s no physical or sexual abuse involved. The child isn’t at immediate risk.”

Feeling as though she had failed completely to be understood, Micky said, “But he’s going to kill her.”

Gazing wistfully at the cat, as if she wished she could crawl into the poster with it, trading the California meltdown for a white Christmas, F said, “Assuming the girl’s story isn’t a fantasy, you said he’ll kill her on her birthday, which isn’t until February.”

“
By
her birthday,” Micky corrected. “Maybe next February—maybe next week. Tomorrow’s Friday. I mean, you don’t work on weekends, and if you don’t get out there today or tomorrow, they might be gone.”

F’s stare was so fixed, her eyes so glazed, that she appeared to be meditating on the image of the cat.

The caseworker was a psychic black hole. In her vicinity, you could feel your emotional energy being sucked away.

“Their motor home is being overhauled,” Micky persisted, though she felt drained, enervated. “The mechanic might finish at any time.”

With a sigh, F snatched two Kleenex from the box and blotted her forehead carefully, trying to spare her makeup. When she threw the tissues in the waste can, she seemed surprised to see that Micky hadn’t left. “What time did you say you had a job interview?”

Short of sitting here until security was called to remove her, which wouldn’t accomplish anything, Micky had no choice but to get up and move toward the door. “Three o’clock. I can make it easily.”

“Was it in prison you learned all about software applications?”

Although the caseworker looked harmless behind a heretofore unseen smile, Micky expected that the question had been prelude to another insult. “Yeah. They have a good program up there.”

“How’re you finding the job market these days?”

This appeared to be the first genuine woman-to-woman contact since Micky entered the office. “They all say the economy’s sliding.”

“People suck in the best of times,” said F.

Micky had no idea how she ought to respond to that.

“In this market,” F said with something that sounded vaguely like sisterly concern, “you have to go into a job interview perfect—all pluses, no minuses. If I were you, I’d take another look at the way you’re dressing for it. The clothes don’t do what you want.”

This coral-pink suit with the pleated white shell was the nicest outfit in Micky’s closet.

As though she’d read that thought, F said, “It’s not because the suit’s from Kmart, or wherever it’s from. That doesn’t matter. But the skirt’s too short, too tight, and with all the cleavage you’ve got, don’t wear a scoop-necked blouse. Honey, this country’s full of greedy trial lawyers, which makes you look like you’re trying to sucker some executive into making a pass so you can slam his company with a sexual-harassment suit. When personnel directors see you, it doesn’t matter if they’re men or women, what they see is trouble, and they’re full up on trouble these days. If you have time to change before that interview, I’d recommend it. Don’t look so…obvious.”

F’s black-hole gravity drew Micky toward oblivion.

Maybe the advice about clothes was well meant. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she thanked F for her counsel. Maybe she didn’t. One moment she was in the office, and an instant later she stood outside; the door was closed, yet she had no memory of having crossed the threshold.

Whatever she’d said or not said as she’d left the room, she was sure she’d done nothing to alienate F further or to harm Leilani’s chances of getting help. Nothing else mattered. Not her own dreams, not her pride, at least not here, not now.

As before, just four chairs in the reception lounge. Seven people waiting instead of the previous five.

The corridor seemed hotter than the office.

Hotter than hot, the elevator broiled. Pressure built during the descent, as though Micky were aboard a bathy-sphere, dropping into an oceanic trench. She placed one hand against the wall, half expecting to feel the metal panel buckling beneath her palm.

She almost wished that her quenched anger would flare up again, raw and hot, balancing the summer heat with that inner fire, because what took its place was a quiet desperation too much like despair.

On the ground floor, she located the public restrooms. Warm, oily nausea crawled the walls of her stomach, and she feared that she might throw up.

The stall doors stood open. The room was deserted. Privacy.

Harsh fluorescent light bounced off white surfaces, ricocheted from the mirrors. The icy impression couldn’t chill the hot reality.

She turned on the cold water at one of the sinks and held her upturned wrists under the flow. Closed her eyes. Took slow, deep breaths. The water wasn’t cold enough, but it helped.

When at last she’d dried her hands, she turned to a full-length mirror on the wall next to the paper-towel dispenser. Leaving home, she’d thought that she was dressed to make the right impression, that she appeared businesslike, efficient. She’d thought she looked
nice.

Now her reflection mocked her. The skirt
was
too short. And too tight. Though not shockingly low-cut, the blouse nevertheless looked inappropriate for a job interview. Maybe the heels on her white shoes were too high, as well.

She
did
look obvious. Cheap. She looked like the woman she had been, not like the woman she wanted to be. She wasn’t dressing for herself or for work, but for men, and for the type of men who never treated her with respect, for the type of men who ruined her life. Somehow the mirror at home hadn’t shown her what she needed to see.

This pill was bitter, but more bitter still was the way that it had been administered. By F. Bronson.

Though difficult, taking such advice from someone who respected you and cared for you would be like swallowing medicine with honey. This dosage came with vinegar. And if F. Bronson had thought of it as medicine, instead of poison, she might not have given it.

For years, in mirrors Micky had seen the good looks and the sexual magnetism that could get anything she desired. But now that she no longer wanted those things, now that parties and thrills and the attention of bad men held no appeal, now that she harbored higher aspirations, the mirror revealed cheap flash, awkwardness, naiveté—and a desperate yearning, the sight of which made her cringe.

She’d thought that she had merely grown beyond the need to use her beauty as either a tool or a weapon, but something more profound had happened. Her concept of beauty had changed entirely; and when she looked in the mirror, she saw frighteningly little that matched her new definition. This might be maturity, but it scared her; always before, her confidence in her physical beauty was something to fall back on, an ultimate consolation in bad times. Now that confidence was gone.

An urge to shatter the mirror overcame her. But the past could not be broken as easily as glass. It was the past that stood before her, the stubborn past, relentless.

Chapter 38

BOY AND DOG—the former better able to tolerate the August sun than is the latter, the latter somewhat better smelling than is the former, the former thinking again about Gabby’s strangely hysterical exit from the Mountaineer, the latter thinking about frankfurters, the former marveling at the beauty of an azure-blue bird perched on a section of badly weathered and half-broken rail fence, the latter smelling the bird’s droppings and thereby deducing its recent history in significant detail—are grateful for each other’s company as they seek their future, first across open land and then along a lonely country road that, around a bend, is suddenly lonely no more.

Thirty or forty motor homes, about half that many pickup trucks with camper shells, and a lot of SUVs are gathered along the side of the two-lane blacktop and in the adjacent meadow. Attached to some of the motor homes, canvas awnings create shaded areas for socializing. At least a dozen colorful tents have been pitched, as well.

The only permanent structures in sight are in the distance: a ranch house, a barn, stables.

A green John Deere tractor connected to a hay wagon serves as the rental office, manned by a rancher in jeans, T-shirt, and straw sombrero. A hand-lettered sign states that meadow spaces cost twenty dollars per day. It’s also emblazoned with one disclaimer and one condition:
NO SERVICES PROVIDED, LIABILITY WAIVER REQUIRED
.

Encountering this bustling encampment, Curtis is disposed to pass quickly and with caution. So many motor homes in one location worry him. For all he knows, this is a convention of serial killers.

Here might be where the murderous tooth fetishists were bound. That white-haired couple could be nearby, proudly displaying their dental trophies while admiring the even more hideous collections of other homicidal psychopaths in this summer festival of the damned.

Old Yeller, however, smells no trouble. Her natural sociability is engaged, and she wants to explore the scene.

Curtis trusts her instincts. Besides, a crowd offers him some camouflage if the wrong scalawags come prowling with electronics, searching for the unique energy signature that the boy produces.

The meadow is enclosed by a ranch fence of whitewashed boards needing repair and fresh whitening. The tractor guards the open gate.

A tarp on four tall poles shields the hay wagon from the direct sun, and under the tarp, merchandise awaits sale. From a series of picnic coolers filled with crushed ice, the rancher and a teenage boy dispense cans of beer and soft drinks. They offer packaged snack foods like potato chips, as well as homemade cookies, brownies, and jars of “Grandma’s locally famous” black-bean-and-corn salsa, which a sign promises is “hot enough to blow your head clean off.”

Curtis can conceive of no way in which anyone’s head could be blown off cleanly. Decapitation by any means is a messy event.

He has no difficulty understanding why Grandma’s deadly salsa is locally famous, but he can’t comprehend why anyone would buy it. Yet several jars are missing from the geometric display, and as he watches, two more are sold.

This seems to indicate that a portion of those gathering in the meadow are suicidal. The dog has discounted the theory of a serial-killer convention, since she detects none of the telltale pheromones of full-blown psychosis, but Curtis is equally unenthusiastic about a gathering of the suicide-prone, regardless of their reasons for considering self-destruction.

In addition to beverages, snacks, and the infamous salsa, the hay wagon also offers T-shirts bearing strange messages.
NEARY RANCH
, one declares,
STARPORT USA
. Another shirt features the picture of a cow and the words
CLARA, FIRST COW IN SPACE
. Yet another states
WE ARE NOT ALONE—NEARY RANCH
. And a fourth insists
THE DAY DRAWS NEAR
and also features the name of the ranch.

Curtis is interested in Clara. Although he’s familiar with the entire history of NASA and with the space program of the former Soviet Union, he’s unaware of any attempt to place a cow in orbit or to send one to the moon. No other country possesses the capability to orbit a cow and to bring it back alive. Furthermore, the
purpose
of sending a bovine astronaut into space completely eludes the boy.

A book is displayed for sale beside the T-shirts:
Night on the Neary Ranch: Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind.
From the title and the cover illustration—a flying saucer hovering over a farmhouse—Curtis begins to understand that the Neary Ranch is the origin of a modern folk tale similar to those told about Roswell, New Mexico.

Intrigued but still concerned about the suicidal types that are at least a portion of this gathering, he again trusts Old Yeller’s judgment. She smells no prospect of exploding heads, and she’s eager to sniff her way through the fragrant throng.

Boy and dog enter the meadow without being challenged at the open gate. Evidently they are thought to be with attendees who rented a space and legitimately established camp.

In a holiday mood, carrying drinks, eating homemade cookies, lightly dressed for the heat, people stroll the close-cropped grass in the aisles between campsites, making new friends, greeting old acquaintances. Others gather in the shade under the awnings, playing cards and board games, listening to radios—and talking, talking.

Everywhere, people are engaged in conversation, some quiet and earnest, others noisy and enthusiastic. From the scraps that Curtis hears as he and Old Yeller amble through the field, he concludes that all these folks are UFO buffs. They gather here twice a year, around the dates of two famous saucer visitations, but this assemblage is related to some new and recent event that has excited them.

The campsites are organized like spokes on a wheel, and at the hub is a perfectly circular patch of bare earth about twelve feet in diameter. The meadow grows all around this circle, but the earth within is chalky and hard-packed, not softened by so much as a single weed or blade of grass.

A tall, thickset man, about sixty years of age, stands in the center of this barren plot. Wearing bushman’s boots with rolled white socks, khaki shorts that expose knees as rough and hairy as coconuts, and a short-sleeve khaki shirt with epaulets, he looks as though he will soon embark on an expedition to Africa, to search for the fabled elephants’ graveyard.

Eighteen or twenty people have gathered around this man. All appear reluctant to venture into the dead zone where he stands.

As Curtis joins the group, one of the new arrivals explains to another: “That’s old man Neary himself. He’s been up.”

Mr. Neary is talking about Clara, the first cow in space. “She was a good cow, old Clara. She produced a tanker truck of milk with low butterfat content, and she never caused no trouble.”

The concept of troublemaking cows is a new one for Curtis, but he resists the urge to ask what offenses cows are likely to commit when they’re not as amiable as Clara. His mother always said that you’d never learn anything if you couldn’t listen; and Curtis is always in the mood to learn.

“Holsteins as a breed are a stupid bunch,” says Mr. Neary. “That is my opinion. Some would argue Holsteins are as smart as Jerseys or Herefords. Frankly, anyone who’d take that position just don’t know his cows.”

“Alderneys and Galloways are the smartest breeds,” says one of those gathered around the dead zone.

“We could stand here all day arguin’ cow smartness,” says Mr. Neary, “and be no closer to Heaven. Anyway, my Clara wasn’t your typical Holstein, in that she was smart. Not smart like you or me, probably not even as smart as that dog there”—he points at Old Yeller—“but she was the one always led the others from barn to pasture in the mornin’ and back at the end of the day.”

“Lincolnshire reds are smart cows,” says a stocky, pipe-smoking woman whose hair is tied in twin ponytails with yellow ribbons.

Mr. Neary gives this rather formidable lady an impatient look. “Well, these aliens didn’t go huntin’ for no Lincolnshire reds, now did they? They come here and took Clara—and my theory is they knew she was the smartest cow in the field. Anyway, as I was sayin’, this vehicle like whirlin’ liquid metal hovered over my Clara as she was standin’ exactly where I’m standin’ now.”

Most of those around the circle look up at the afternoon sky, some wary, some with a sense of wonder.

A young woman as pale as Clara’s low-butterfat milk says, “Was there any sound? Patterns of harmonic tones?”

“If you mean did me and them play pipe organs at each other like in the movie, no ma’am. The abduction was done in dead silence. This red beam of light come out of the vehicle, like a spotlight, but it was a levitation beam of some type. Clara lifted off the ground in a column of red light, twelve feet in diameter.”

“That is a
big
levitation beam!” exclaims a long-haired young man in jeans and T-shirt that announces
FRODO LIVES
.

“The good old girl let out just one startled bleat,” says Mr. Neary, “and then she went up with no protest, turnin’ slowly around, this way and that, end-over-end, like she weighed no more than a feather.” He looks pointedly at the pipe-smoking, ponytailed woman. “Had she been a Lincolnshire red, she’d probably have kicked up a hell of a fuss and choked to death on her own cud.”

After blowing a smoke ring, the woman replies, “It’s next thing to impossible for a ruminant animal to choke on its own cud.”

“Ordinarily, I’d agree,” concedes Mr. Neary, “but when you’re talkin’ a fake-smart breed like Lincolnshire reds, I wouldn’t be surprised by
any
dumbness they committed.”

Listening, Curtis is learning a great deal about cows, although he can’t say to what purpose.

“Why would they want a cow anyway?” asks the Frodo believer.

“Milk,” suggests the pale young woman. “Perhaps their planet has suffered a partial ecological breakdown entirely from natural causes, a collapse in some segments of the food chain.”

“No, no, they’d be technologically advanced enough to clone their native species,” says a professorial man with a larger pipe than the one the woman smokes, “whatever’s equivalent to a cow on their planet. They’d repopulate their herds that way. They would never introduce an off-planet species.”

“Maybe they’re just hungry for a good cheeseburger,” says a florid-faced man with a can of beer in one hand and a half-finished hot dog in the other.

A few people laugh; however, the pale young woman, who is pretty in a tragic-dying-heroine way, takes deep offense and glowers the smile right off the florid man’s face. “If they can travel across the galaxy, they’re an
advanced
intelligence, which means vegetarians.”

Summoning what socializing skills he possesses, Curtis says, “Or they might use the cow as a host for biologically engineered weapons. They could implant eight or ten embryos in the cow’s body cavity, return her to the meadow, and while the embryos mature into viable specimens, no one would realize what was inside Clara. Then one day, the cow would experience an Ebola-virus-type biological meltdown, and out of the disintegrating carcass would come eight or ten insectile-form soldiers, each as big as a German shepherd, which would be a large enough force to wipe out a town of one thousand people in less than twelve hours.”

Everyone stares at Curtis.

He realizes at once that he has strayed from the spirit of the conversation or has violated a protocol of behavior among UFO buffs, but he doesn’t grasp the nature of his offense. Struggling to recover from this faux pas, he says, “Well, okay, maybe they would be reptile form instead of insectile form, in which case they would need
sixteen
hours to wipe out a town of one thousand, because the reptile form is a less efficient killing machine than the insectile form.”

This refinement of his point fails to win any friends among those gathered in the circle. Their expressions still range between puzzlement and annoyance.

In fact, the pale young woman turns on him with a glower as severe as the one with which she silenced the man holding the hot dog. “
Advanced
intelligences don’t have our flaws. They don’t destroy their ecologies. They don’t wage war or eat the flesh of animals.” She directs her liquid-nitrogen stare on the pipe smokers. “They do not use tobacco-type products.” She focuses again on Curtis, her eyes so cold that he feels as if he might go into cryogenic suspension if she keeps him in her sights too long. “They have no prejudices based on race or gender, or anything else. They never despoil their bodies with high-fat foods, refined sugar, and caffeine. They don’t lie and cheat, they don’t wage war, as I’ve said, and they certainly don’t incubate giant killer insects inside cows.”

“Well, it’s a big universe,” says Curtis in what he imagines to be a conciliatory tone, “and fortunately most of the worst types I’m talking about haven’t gotten around to this end of it.”

The young woman’s face pales further and her eyes become icier, as if additional refrigeration coils have activated in her head.

“Of course, I’m only speculating,” Curtis quickly adds. “I don’t know for a fact any more than the rest of you.”

Before Curtis can be frozen solid by the snakeless Medusa, Mr. Neary intervenes. “Son, you ought to spend a bunch less time playin’ those violent sci-fi video games. They’ve stuffed your head full of sick nonsense. We’re talkin’ reality here, not those blood-soaked fantasies Hollywood spews out to pollute young minds like yours.”

Those gathered around the dead zone express their agreement, and one of them asks, “Mr. Neary, were you scared when the ETs came back for you?”

“Sir, I was naturally concerned, but not truly scared. That was six months after Clara floated away, which is why we have two contact vigils here each year, on the anniversaries. By the way, some folks say they would come here just for my wife’s homemade cookies, so be sure you try ’em. Of course, this year, it’s three vigils—this one impromptu because of what’s going on right this minute, over there.” Standing taller, wearing his African-explorer clothes with even greater authority, he points east, past the end of the meadow, toward the land that rises beyond a scattering of trees. “The uproar across the border in Utah, which you and I know has nothin’ whatsoever to do with no drug lords, regardless what the government says.”