One Door Away From Heaven (45 page)

She concluded the message with Aunt Gen’s phone number and put the legal pad on the desk.

From her purse, she withdrew three hundred dollars in twenties. This was the most she could afford to pay him. In fact, she couldn’t afford this much, but she calculated that it was a sum sufficient to make him feel obligated to do
something.

She hesitated. He might spend this retainer on beer, of course. She had too little money to risk ten bucks on a gamble, let alone three hundred.

One thing about him, above all else, convinced her to put the cash atop the legal pad and weight it with the pen. Nouveau drunk or not, he was obviously a haunted man, and by Micky’s reckoning, that counted as a point in his favor. She didn’t know what loss or what failure haunted him, but her own journey had taught her that haunted people are not dissolute by nature and that they will try to exorcise their demons if a caring hand is extended to them at the right time.

Before leaving, she stepped around the desk to take a quick look at his computer. He was on-line. Skimming the displayed text, she discovered that it was part of an article exposing an epidemic of supposedly compassionate killing by nurses who considered themselves angels of death.

A shudder, less fear than wonder, traced the architecture of Micky’s spine as she sensed a strange synchronicity linking her life to Farrel’s. Gen often said that what we perceive to be coincidences are in fact carefully placed tiles in a mosaic pattern the rest of which we can’t apprehend. Now Micky sensed that intricate mosaic, vast and panoramic, and mysterious.

Leaving the apartment, she quietly closed the door behind her, as though she were a burglar making off with a treasure of jewels while her victim dozed unaware.

Hurriedly, she descended the palm-shaded stairs.

The rising heat of late morning had made the rats lethargic. Silent and unseen, they hung like foul fruit among the layers of collapsed brown fronds.

Chapter 51

THANKS TO direct-to-brain megadata downloading, Curtis knows that whereas New Jersey has a population density of nearly eleven hundred people per square mile, Nevada has fewer than fifteen per square mile, most of whom are located in and around the gambling meccas of Las Vegas and Reno. Tens of thousands of the state’s 110,000 square miles are all but devoid of people, from the desert barrens in the south to the mountains in the north. Principal products include slot machines, other gaming devices, aerospace technology, gold, silver, potatoes, onions, and topless dancers. In
Carson City Kid,
Mr. Roy Rogers—with the courageous aid of the indispensable Mr. Gabby Hayes—successfully pursues a murderous Nevada gambler; however, this is a 1940 film, shot in a more innocent time, and it involves no bare-breasted women. If Mr. Rogers and Mr. Hayes were still engaged upon heroic deeds, they would no doubt these days be uncovering nefarious activity at Area 51, the famous Nevada military site widely believed to house extraterrestrials either alive or dead, or both, as well as spacecraft from other worlds, but which is in fact involved in far stranger and more disturbing business. Anyway, vast regions of Nevada are lonely, mysterious, forbidding, and particularly spooky at night.

From the crossroads store and service station—where the real mom and pop lie dead in the SUV, and where two tangled and bullet-riddled masses of preposterous physiology lie waiting to scare the living hell out of whoever finds them—Highway 93 leads north and isn’t intersected by a paved road until it meets Highway 50. This occurs thirty miles south of Ely.

Piloting the Fleetwood with jet-jockey skill, coaxing more speed out of it than seems probable, Polly decides against turning east on Highway 50, which leads to the Utah state line.

Boasting a population in excess of 150,000, Reno lies to the west. Plenty of motion and commotion in Reno. But between here and there, Highway 50 crosses 330 miles of semiarid mountains, just the type of desolate landscape in which one boy and two showgirls—even two heavily armed showgirls—might vanish forever.

As the moon sets and the night deepens, Polly continues north on Highway 93 another 140 miles, until they intersect Interstate 80. One hundred seventy-seven miles to the west lies Winnemucca, where in 1900, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed the First National Bank. One hundred eighty-five miles to the east stands Salt Lake City, where Curtis would enjoy hearing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform under the world’s largest domed roof without center supports.

Cass, relieving Polly at the wheel, proceeds north on Highway 93, because neither sister is in a touristy mood. Sixty-eight miles ahead lies Jackpot, Nevada, just this side of the Idaho state line.

“When we get there, we’ll tank up and keep moving,” says Cass.

From the co-pilot’s chair, Curtis admits to a gap in his mission preparation: “I don’t have any info about the town of Jackpot.”

“It’s not much of a town,” Cass declares. “It’s a wide place in the road where people throw away all their money.”

“Does this have religious significance?” he wonders.

“Only if you worship a roulette wheel,” Polly explains from the lounge, where she’s resting on the sofa with Old Yeller. Though she’s gotten no answers, she’s been whispering questions to the dog. She speaks in a normal voice to Curtis: “Jackpot’s got like five hundred hotel rooms and two casinos, with a couple of first-rate buffets for six bucks, surrounded by thousands of empty acres. After a satisfying dinner and bankruptcy, you can drive to a nice barren place, commune with nature, and blow your brains out in private.”

“Maybe,” Curtis theorizes, “that’s why so many people back at the Neary Ranch were buying Grandma’s locally famous black-bean-and-corn salsa. Maybe they were going to use it in Jackpot.”

Polly and Cass are quiet. Then Cass says, “Things don’t often go over my head, Curtis, but that one cleared my scalp by six inches.”

“It was so far over mine,” Polly admits, “I didn’t even feel the breeze when it passed.”

“They were selling cold drinks and T-shirts and stuff off the hay wagon,” Curtis explains. “The sign for Grandma’s salsa said it was hot enough to blow your head clean off, though I personally doubt that any method of decapitation could be clean.”

The twins are silent again, this time for a quarter of a mile.

Then Polly says, “You’re a strange lad, Curtis Hammond.”

“I’ve been told that I’m not quite right, too sweet for this world, and a stupid Gump,” Curtis acknowledges, “but I sure would like to fit in someday.”

“I’ve been thinking sort of
Rain Man,
” says Cass.

“Good movie!” Curtis exclaims. “Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. Did you know that Tom Cruise is friends with a serial killer?”

“I didn’t know that,” Polly confesses.

“A guy named Vern Tuttle, old enough to be your grandfather, collects the teeth of his victims. I heard him talking to Tom Cruise in a mirror, though I was so scared, I didn’t register whether the mirror was a communications device linking him to Mr. Cruise, like the mirror the evil queen uses in
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,
or just an ordinary mirror. Anyway, I’m sure Mr. Cruise doesn’t know Vern Tuttle is a serial killer, ’cause if he did, he’d bring him to justice. What’s your favorite Tom Cruise movie?”

“
Jerry Maguire,
” says Cass.

“
Top Gun,
” says Polly.

“What’s your favorite Humphrey Bogart movie?” Curtis asks.

“
Casablanca,
” the twins say simultaneously.

“Mine too,” Curtis confirms. “Favorite Katharine Hepburn movie?”

Polly says, “
Woman of the Year,
” Cass says, “
The Philadelphia Story,
” but they change their minds in unison: “
Bringing Up Baby.
”

And so they proceed north through the night, socializing with the ease of old friends, never once discussing the shootout at the crossroads store, the shape-changing assassins, or the dog’s use of the laptop computer to warn Polly of the presence of evil aliens.

Curtis doesn’t deceive himself that his rapidly developing ability to socialize and his conversational legerdemain will distract the sisters from these subjects forever. Castoria and Polluxia aren’t fools, and sooner or later, they are going to request explanations.

In fact, recalling the aplomb with which they handled themselves at the crossroads, they are likely to
demand
explanations when they are ready to broach the subject. Then he’ll have to decide how much truth to tell them. They are his friends, and he is loath to lie to friends; the more they know, however, the more they’ll be endangered.

After topping off the fuel tank in Jackpot, pausing neither for one of the buffets nor to observe a suicide, they cross the state line into Idaho and continue north to the city of Twin Falls, which is surrounded by five hundred thousand acres of ideal farmland irrigated by the Snake River. Curtis knows a great many facts about the geological and human history of the city, the “Magic Valley” area, and the vast lava beds north of the Snake River, and he dazzles the sisters by sharing this wealth of knowledge.

With a population of more than twenty-seven thousand Twin Falls offers some cover, making the boy less easily detectable than he’s been since he arrived in Colorado and first became Curtis Hammond. He is safer here, but not reliably safe.

Dawn is not yet two hours old when Cass parks the Fleetwood in an RV campground. A night without rest and the long drive have taken a toll, though the sisters still look so glamorous and so desirable that the campground attendant, assisting with the utility hookups, seems in danger of polishing his shoes with his tongue.

Curtis doesn’t need to sleep, but he fakes a yawn as the twins extend the sofabed in the lounge and dress it with sheets. Old Yeller has recently learned more about the dark side of the universe than any dog needs to know, and has been a bit edgy since the shootout. She’ll benefit from sleep, and Curtis will share her dreams for a while before spending the rest of the day planning his future.

While the sisters prepare the bed, they switch on the TV. Every major network is offering exhaustive coverage of the manhunt for the drug lords who may possess military weapons. At last the government has confirmed that three FBI agents died in a gun battle at the truck stop in Utah; three others were wounded.

Reports are circulating of a more violent confrontation in a restored ghost town, west of the truck stop. But FBI and military spokesmen decline to comment on these rumors.

In fact, the government is providing so few details about the crisis that the TV reporters have insufficient information to fill the ample air time given to this story. Inanely, they interview one another on their opinions, fears, and speculations.

Authorities haven’t provided photographs or even police-artist sketches of the men they’re hunting, which convinces some reporters that the government doesn’t know all the identities of their quarry.

“Idiots,” says Polly. “There aren’t any drug lords, only evil aliens. Right, Curtis?”

“Right.”

Cass says, “Are the feds searching just for you—”

“Right.”

“—because you saw these ETs and know too much—”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“—or are they also after the aliens?”

“Uh, well, both of us, I guess.”

“If they know you’re alive, why have they put out the story that you were killed by drug lords in Colorado?” Polly wonders.

“I don’t know.” Mom had counseled that eventually every cover story develops contradictions and that instead of devising elaborate explanations to patch over those holes, which will only create new contradictions, you should instead simply express bafflement whenever possible. Liars are expected to be slick, whereas bafflement usually sounds sincere. “I just don’t know. It doesn’t make sense, does it?”

Cass says, “If they said you’d survived, they could plaster your face all over the media, and everyone would help them look for you.”

“I’m baffled.” Curtis is remorseful about this deceit, but also proud of the smoothness with which he applies his mother’s advice, controlling a situation that might have aroused suspicion. “I really am baffled. I don’t know why they haven’t done that. Strange, huh?”

The sisters exchange one of those blue-laser glances that seem to transmit encyclopedias of information between them.

They resort to one of their mesmerizing duologues that cause Curtis’s eyes to shift metronomically from one perfect frosted-red mouth to the other. Tucking in a sheet, Polly starts with: “Well, this isn’t—”

“—the time,” Cass continues.

“—to get into all that—”

“—UFO stuff—”

“—and what happened—”

“—back at the service station.” Cass stuffs a pillow into a case. “We’re too tired—”

“—too fuzzy-headed—”

“—to think straight—”

“—and when we
do
sit down to talk—”

“—we want to be sharp—”

“—because we have a lot—”

“—of questions. This whole thing is—”

“—mondo weird,” Polly concludes.

And Cass picks up with: “We haven’t wanted—”

“—to talk about it—”

“—during the drive—”

“—because we need to think—”

“—to absorb what happened.”

Sister to sister, by telemetric stare, volumes are communicated without a word, and then all four blue eyes fix on Curtis. He feels as though he is being subjected to an electron-beam CT scan of such a sophisticated nature that it not only reveals the condition of his arteries and internal organs, but also maps his secrets and the true condition of his soul.

“We’ll catch eight hours of sleep,” says Polly, “and discuss the situation over an early dinner.”

“Maybe by then,” says Cass, “some things won’t seem quite so…baffling as they seem now.”

“Maybe,” Curtis says, “but maybe not. When things are baffling they usually don’t unbaffle themselves. There’s just, you know, a certain amount of baffling stuff that always, like, really baffles you, and I’ve found that it’s best to accept bafflement whenever it comes along, and then move on.”

Paralyzed by the intensity of the double blue stares, Curtis is motivated to review what he has just said, and as he hears his words replaying in his mind, they no longer seem as smooth and convincing as they did when he spoke them. He smiles, because according to Mom, a smile can sell what words alone cannot.

Even if he were selling dollars for dimes, the sisters might not be buying. His smile doesn’t elicit return smiles from them.

Polly says, “Better sleep, Curtis. God knows what might be coming, but whatever it is, we’ll need to be rested to deal with it.”

“And don’t open the door,” Cass warns. “The burglar alarm can’t distinguish whether someone’s coming in or going out.”

They are too tired to discuss recent events with him now, but they’re ensuring that he won’t slip away before they have a chance to make a lot of chin music with him later.

The sisters retire to the bedroom.

In the lounge, Curtis slips under a sheet and a thin blanket. The dog has yet to receive a bath, but the boy welcomes her onto the sofabed, where she curls atop the covers.

Applying will against matter, on the micro level where will can win, he might disengage the burglar alarm. But he owes the twins some honest answers, and he doesn’t want to leave them entirely mystified.

Besides, after a difficult and tumultuous journey, he has at last found friends. His socializing skills might not be as smooth as he had briefly believed they were, but he has made two fine chums in the dazzling Spelkenfelters, and he is loath to face the world alone again, with just his sister-become. The dog is a cherished companion, but she isn’t all the company that he needs. Though praised by nature poets, solitude is just isolation, and loneliness curls in the heart like a worm in an apple, eating hope and leaving a hollow structure.

Furthermore, the twins remind him of his lost mother. Not in their appearance. For all her virtues, Mom wasn’t born to be a Las Vegas showgirl. The twins’ spirit, their high intelligence, their toughness, and their tenderness are all qualities that his mother possessed in abundance, and in their company, he feels the blessed sense of belonging that arises from being among family.