Pressure Drop (28 page)

Nina returned to the mud room, found a broom and a dustpan, swept up the glass, dumped it in a bag under the sink that contained a Toblerone wrapper and an empty can of caffeine-free Diet Coke. Then she went to the hall and called Hal Palmeteer's office.

“Dr. Palmeteer's office,” answered the receptionist.

“There's a broken window at Laura Bain's house,” Nina said. “Tell Dr. Palmeteer to have it fixed.”

“What?” said the receptionist. “Who is this?”

Nina hung up. She went out the front door, walked half a block to her car, past a boy on a skateboard and two girls carrying schoolbooks and cracking gum, all of whom were probably anticipating cocoa, got into the car and drove to the airport. No one clapped the cuffs on her, no sirens tried to terrorize her, no one looked at her twice. Crime was easy. It just didn't pay.

Nina caught a shuttle full of business people at the end of their day. Some kept working, some had a few drinks, some simply sat looking worried. Nina had a few drinks. Too many, perhaps.

Jules the doorman had been drinking too. Nina found him slouched on a chair in the lobby with an empty pint in his lap. She banged at the door until his eyes flickered open; he pushed himself up and staggered over, letting her in. His jacket was stained and his breath smelled of vomit. He mumbled something she didn't understand.

“You'd better get it together, Jules,” Nina said, “or the management's going to do something.”

Jules's mouth opened and closed a few times, like a guppy gasping on the floor beside its aquarium. “I like you Mish Kishener,” he said. “You're nishe to me. But manishmen can shove it upitsh ash.”

Nina rode the elevator to her floor. She walked down the hall, turned the key, entered her apartment. She switched on the lights and went into the kitchen for a glass of water.

She had almost finished drinking it when she noticed her little electronic typewriter on the kitchen table. She didn't remember leaving it there. Moving closer, she saw there was a sheet of paper in it. She pulled it out, a sheet of Kitchener and Best letterhead, and read:

I cannot live without my precious baby. Please, please don't think too badly of me.

At the bottom of the page was her signature, written in blue ink. “Nina Kitchener,” it said, each letter shaped exactly as she always shaped it. Nina was still staring at the sheet of paper when she smelled pesticide. She turned in time to see a big liver-spotted hand right in front of her. Then her whole face was covered: eyes, nose, mouth. She started struggling, at the same time smelling another smell that drowned out the pesticide, a new smell that reminded her of high school chemistry classes.

Then all her senses shut down.

MATT

26

Did the inhabitants of North Andros like Hew Aikenfield, baronet? Matthias would have said so, but they didn't attend his funeral in great numbers: not Constable Welles, not Moxie, not people who had known him all their lives. Maybe it was just the weather: a raw December morning, with a northeast wind blowing dark clouds across the sky.

Reverend Christie's Church of Eternal Life stood on one side of the Conchtown road, a dirt track leading south out of Blufftown. On the other side was the Happy Times Bar. The bar was a small shack, made of tar paper and scavenged bits of lumber; the church, not much bigger, was a concrete block structure, painted turquoise. The bar was turquoise too: there had been a few cans of paint left over. Both buildings were owned by Reverend Christie.

Behind the church, and predating it, the bar and all the other buildings in Blufftown—only the well near the flame tree in the center of the village was older—lay the graveyard. There Reverend Christie supervised the lowering of Hew into a hole—shallow because the limestone foundation of the island reached close to the surface—dug between a grave marked
BABY PINDER
and another too eroded to read. Then Reverend Christie lifted his eyes to the clouds and addressed God. Perhaps taking a global view and realizing he had to compete with all the other funerals going on in the world at that moment, Reverend Christie spoke in a loud voice, almost a bellow.

“Thank you, Lord, for giving us the gift of death,” he said. No one was shocked by this introduction: it was the reverend's standard oration. He went on to explain that death was the sweet release from the hardship of life and thus a sign of divine mercy; some in the little group of listeners appeared to agree, nodding and murmuring in the pauses he left for nodding and murmuring. But Hew himself served only as a starting point and Matthias soon found his attention weakening.

After the speech, a boy ran an extension cord into the church and returned with Reverend Christie's amp. The reverend plugged in his box-shaped Bo Diddley model and accompanied the singing of “Ain't Givin' Up, No Way.” Reverend Christie played well, not as subtly and imaginatively as Krio, but well enough to incite a few restrained dance movements in the graveyard. Death, whether good or bad, slipped into the background. The mourners segued into “Can't Nobody Do Me Like Jesus” and went out on “Amazing Grace.”

The reverend walked over to Matthias and shook his hand. “We should have sung ‘La Vie en Rose,'” Matthias said.

“How does that one go?”

“It's not really a hymn.”

“Then I'm afraid it's unsuitable. This is sacred ground.” Reverend Christie reached into his pocket and produced a bill. “Reverend Thomas Christie, B.A., Enterprises,” it said, “All-inclusive burial and service—$200.00.”

Matthias, reading it, felt the reverend's eyes on him, perhaps calculating whether haggling would ensue. Matthias handed over the cash.

“Bless you,” said Reverend Christie.

Matthias walked around the church to the road. Moxie, wearing a wool tuque with a Boston Bruins logo, was waiting for him. He nodded at the Happy Times Bar.

Matthias crossed the street, stepped over hunks of corroded car parts and peered through the glassless window of the Happy Times Bar. The bar had a dirt floor, a few barrels for sitting, and a big piece of plywood resting on two sawhorses for drinking. A chicken pecked at the dirt, a one-eyed cousin of Reverend Christie watched over the half-dozen bottles on a warped shelf, and Nottage sat on one of the barrels, his hand around a greasy glass and his head on the plywood. Matthias walked in.

Reverend Christie's cousin followed his progress with his good eye; there was no other eye, just an empty socket covered by a concave eyelid. Reverend Christie's cousin said nothing. White men didn't enter the Happy Times Bar; neither did Reverend Christie or any other respectable villager.

Matthias sat on a barrel next to Nottage. “I'll have a beer,” he said.

“No beer,” said the one-eyed man. “Rum.”

“Rum, then,” said Matthias.

Nottage spoke without lifting his head. “Rum,” he said, in his deep, frayed voice. Matthias felt it vibrating in the plywood.

Reverend Christie's cousin reached for a bottle behind the bar. It had brown liquid on the inside and no label on the outside. He took a small, dusty glass off the shelf, dumped out the dead fly inside and set the glass before Matthias. He filled it to the brim and topped up Nottage's. Nottage made no attempt to drink, but his hand remained wrapped around the glass.

“They just buried Sir Hew,” Matthias said.

No one said anything.

“Did you know he was dead, Nottage?”

Nottage didn't reply, but his hand tightened on the glass. Reverend Christie's cousin stood motionless behind the bar, looking at nothing.

“Let's go outside, Nottage,” Matthias said.

Nottage didn't move. Matthias laid a hand on his shoulder. Nottage went rigid under his touch. Matthias removed his hand. Time passed, silent except for the sounds of the chicken scratching and pecking in the dirt. Then Nottage rose, quite abruptly, and walked outside without a misstep, leaving his glass on the bar. Matthias followed.

Nottage started down the Conchtown road. Matthias had never seen him move so fast—for a few seconds he came close to running. Soon he had passed the last mean dwelling; the road narrowed and jack pines closed in on both sides. Nottage, like an animal at the edge of its territory, slowed down and finally stopped. Matthias stopped a few feet behind him. It was quiet: just the wind in the sparse branches of the trees, the rustling of crabs in the brush and, almost inaudible, the sea.

“They're saying Hew fell,” Matthias said, “but he jumped, didn't he?”

Nottage turned to him. His eyes were red; he needed a shave, a shower, a different personal history. He looked directly at Matthias for a moment; a red gaze that quickly shifted away.

“Did you see it happen?” Matthias asked.

Nottage didn't reply.

“You were on the Bluff. There was a moon.”

Nottage, his eyes on the ground, said, “I don' know nothin'.”

“I don't believe you.”

Nottage's head came up. He took a wild swing at Matthias. Nottage's body, old and ruined, still possessed the raw power that came not from gyms but from a lifetime of hard outdoor labor. Matthias, too surprised to move, felt the blow land on his shoulder, heavy enough to hurt. Nottage seemed surprised too: he stared at his fist, as though unsure it had done what it had. Then he dropped it to his side, hung his head and spoke, but too quietly for Matthias to hear.

“I can't hear you, Nottage.”

Nottage raised his voice. “Hit me, boss. Hit me.”

“I'm not going to hit you. I just want to know what you saw on the Bluff.”

Nottage shook his head.

“Look at me, Nottage.” Nottage looked up, but his eyes had gone blank. Matthias had seen that blankness before: a protective blindness to white men's business. Nottage, a black citizen of a black nation, governed by black men and women freely elected by black men and women, still had that look. He had been born too soon.

“What are you hiding from me?” Matthias asked.

“Nothin'.”

“Hew jumped, didn't he? But you don't want to speak badly of a dead man, is that it?”

Nottage said nothing.

“Did he say something before he died? Did you try to stop him, maybe, but too late?”

Nottage sighed, a sound that deepened into a moan. “Be a wicked place, mahn,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

Nottage was silent for a long time. Then he said: “Sea on fire.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

Nottage stared down at his bare, dusty feet. His body sagged, once more incapable of punching, or any nonsubmissive movement at all.

“What sea?”

Nottage turned toward the east; shiny fragments of gray-blue, like puzzle pieces, quivered between the trees. “Where Happy sank down,” Nottage answered quietly.

Matthias took a step closer. “You knew Happy Standish?”

Nottage backed away.

Matthias came no nearer. “Did you?”

Nottage nodded his head.

“When he was a boy?”

Another nod.

Matthias examined the red eyes, trying to see what hid behind them, without success. “But he wasn't in a fire, Nottage. It was a diving accident. He had bad air in his tank.”

Nottage said nothing.

“Was there a fire near the compressor? Is that what you're saying?”

Nottage remained silent.

The sky darkened. A cold raindrop fell on Matthias's head, then another. “How did you know Happy Standish?” he asked.

Nottage sighed again. “I work for the family. On Two-Head.”

“Doing what?”

“Garden work. Until the new man come.”

“What new man?”

“Gardener man.”

“What year was this?”

“I don' know. In the Duke's time.”

“The Standishes let you go?”

“‘Sack Nottage,' he say.”

“Who?”

“Gardener man.”

Wind gusted down out of the sky, driving a fusillade of raindrops against Nottage's face. He didn't react.

“But Happy wasn't born then,” Matthias said.

Nottage stared at his feet.

“How could you have known Happy if they sacked you before he was born?”

“I knows him. After.” Nottage's head came up. “Where you think they get their fish, mahn?”

“You sold them fish?”

Nottage grunted.

“And that's when you saw Happy?”

“I be taking Happy in the boat. Mrs. Albury she be holding him and I row.”

“You rowed from here to Two-Head?”

“No motor. Long time ago, boss.”

“I'm not your boss, Nottage.”

But Nottage stood still and slumping in the middle of the Conchtown road as though Matthias were indeed his boss and he was waiting to be dismissed.

“When was the last time you saw Happy Standish?”

“The night before he sank down.”

“The night before he sank down? Do you mean just last year?”

“I don' know the years,” Nottage said.

“Where did you see him? At the club?”

“No.”

“Where?”

Nottage pointed in the direction they'd come from.

“At the Happy Times?”

“Yeah.”

“He came there?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“To see me,” Nottage replied, with something like pride in his voice.

“Why did he want to see you?”

Nottage shrugged.

“What did he say?”

“He say, ‘I remember you Nottage. You teaches me to fish for grouper with a hand line and a bent nail.'”

“Is that all?”

“He shake my hand.”

“And then?”

“He aks where is the fire at sea. And I tells him.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Where is the fire.”

“But there is no fire, Nottage.”

Nottage stared at his feet; the dust on them was turning to mud.