Harvestman Lodge (62 page)

ELI CALLED MELINDA WHEN AT last he reached his apartment. He was quite depressed from his conversation with New, and not in the mood to repeat what he’d learned from him just yet. So he limited the call to telling Melinda how much he had enjoyed his visit with her family, how welcome they had made him feel, and then he told her of the invitation to visit Coleman Caldwell. As he’d hoped, she was glad Eli had already accepted on her behalf as well as his own. Of course she’d be glad to go, if for no other reason than seeing what a house that was so overgrown on the outside would look like on the inside. It would surely be an utter wreck.

Eli went to sleep that night anticipating the delight of telling Melinda the items of happy news that Curtis Stokes had told him. There were more solemn things to tell, as well … the sad story behind that empty room next to Melinda’s office … but there was no hurry to share those tales. He doubted Melinda even had met Donald New.

In the course of the evening, a nearly unconscious decision-making process had taken place in Eli’s mind. He had reached the conclusion that he could not wait much longer to ask Melinda to marry him. Their time together had been short, no doubt about it … but not every good thing takes a long time to present itself. She was the one for him, and was certain she held the same view regarding him.

Thanks to Jimbo, he already had a ring for her. He decided to begin planning the proposal, how he’d go about it, where and when. He’d make it the most romantic, delightful proposal in history. Melinda deserved that.

YOUNG Megan SNEAKED TO HER SISTER’S room late that night, when Eli was long gone and the household was abed.

“I like him,” she told Melinda, who had awakened from a deep slumber when Megan crawled onto her bed. “He’s sweet. And kind of cute.”

Melinda smiled sleepily and nodded. “Yes. He is. I’m glad you like him. I wasn’t sure you would.”

“Why?”

“Because I remember that you were fond of Rawls. And Eli is so different.”

“Yeah. But I like him anyway. And I’m glad he’s not like Rawls … like Rawls turned out to be, you know.”

“In a way I’m surprised you have much awareness of that situation … you were so young.”

“Little kids know pretty much everything.”

“I think maybe they do. You always seem a good example of just how bright a little girl can be.”

Megan smiled. “That’s nice, Melly. Thank you.” She drifted away into another thought for a moment. “Melinda, do you ever wish we were all-the-way sisters? You know, that you weren’t just adopted?”

From anyone other than Megan, that phrasing would have offended Melinda. It was different with Megan saying it.

“There’s no ‘just’ involved,” Melinda said. “When I was adopted, I became part of the family of Ben and Dot Buckingham. They are my parents in the eyes of the law, the eyes of the community, the eyes of God. And in my eyes, too. So I’m not ‘just adopted.’ I’m a Buckingham.”

“I … I didn’t mean to say something wrong, Melinda.”

“It’s all fine, Megan. You’re my sister.”

Megan hugged Melinda. “I love you, Sister.”

“I love you too. Sister.”

“And I’m glad Daddy stopped Rawls from hurting you.”

“I am, too. I kind of wish it could have happened without a shooting, but I’m glad. You know, Rawls wasn’t so bad, sometimes. At the start, when he was pretending to be interested in learning about God, I think that sometimes the pretending turned a little bit real. Rawls had a chance to become something different than he was, different than what his family was, and is. He told me about how the men in his family were taught to be, well, mean and hardened and tough. ‘See what you want and take it.’ That’s what Rawls said the ‘family philosophy’ is for Parvin men. Rawls’s father actually taught him to repeat those words to themselves every morning. It’s something dreamed up by Rawls’s great-great-grandfather or somebody. Can you believe it? Saying something like that to yourself when you wake up?”

“It’s stupid,” the younger girl said.

“It’s dangerous, too,” Melinda replied. “Rawls had it drilled into him from the time he got out of the cradle, and when you hear something like that often enough, told to you by the people you naturally love and admire, you believe it. Especially in a family like the Rawls bunch, where there’s nothing to counter it and teach you something better.”

“How was Rawls trying to hurt you when Daddy shot him?” Megan asked.

“Well, in his way of thinking he wasn’t trying to hurt me. He thought it was just what men did, and it was my obligation to go along with it. I didn’t see it that way, and … ”

“He was going to do sex stuff with you?”

“Yes. Whether I wanted to go along or not. And I didn’t want to.”

“Was Daddy trying to kill Rawls when he shot him?”

“I think he was just reacting out of a father’s reflex. Trying to protect me in a situation he’d just walked into, nothing he’d expected to see.”

“If he’d killed Rawls, he would have been in trouble, wouldn’t he?”

“Probably so. Even if he got off the hook for it in the end, his name would have been associated with a violent killing for the rest of his life.”

“Y’know, Melly, I used to kind of like Rawls. He seemed like he was nice.”

“Yeah, he did, at the start. He had me fooled, anyway. He turned out not to be such a nice guy, after all,” Melinda said. “Eli, I think, is the real thing.”

“If Eli asked you to marry him, would you say yes?”

“I would,” Melinda replied. “Now please go back to bed. I want to sleep again.”

“I’ll just stay here with you,” Megan said, and made herself at home on the other side of the bed.

Melinda was too sleep-dazed to argue. She knew the days were coming when she and her little sister would not have the chance to do such sisterly things as piling up in the same bed just to be together.

Life was changing. Not a bad thing. But change, by definition, meant difference.

WHEN THE DRINKING, EATING and talking at Rolly Flatt’s house was over and the two Parvins told Flatt farewell and headed back out into the night, Lukey Parvin was far too drunk to drive. Then again, so was Rawls, and since they’d come in two vehicles, both drove anyway, heading from the county line to Tylerville, what lies between beware.

Rawls was already throwing himself into his bed when Lukey pulled erratically into the parking lot of the Proud Cherokee Inn and managed to get almost properly into a parking slot. He climbed out, not noticing that he was watched from above, a man looking down over the walkway rail not far from the door to Lukey’s room.

Struggling to walk halfway straight, Lukey made it to the stairs, took a firm hold on the rail, and climbed. It was like a journey up Everest, every drunken footfall requiring concentration and effort.

On the second-level walkway, Lukey clung to the rail as he headed toward his door. Then came the struggle to get out his key without dropping it, and a stumble toward the door in the wild hope he’d manage to get the key into the lock.

He’d just managed to unlock the door when he felt the sting in his left shoulder. Thinking a bee or wasp had gotten him, he was puzzled when he looked down and saw a hypodermic needle being withdrawn from his flesh. Holding the hypodermic was a familiar face that should not there, a face Lukey had never wanted to see again.

Lukey lurched into his room and felt himself beginning to go down as soon as he was in. He would have hit the floor if not for being caught by the same man who had just injected him.

Jang Bo-kyung was strong and physically disciplined for a small-framed man, and with no evident strain managed to get Lukey to his bed without dropping him. He dumped and arranged Lukey on the mattress as best he could. Persuaded that Lukey was out of commission for some time to come, the Korean-American sat in a padded chair in the corner to keep his eye on Lukey, waiting for the situation to change.

Too bad, he thought. He’d always rather liked Lukey, finding in him a distinctive hillbilly kind of charm seldom encountered on the West Coast. But Lukey had a problem. He had proven too often to be a loose cannon.

The Flower Garden did not abide loose cannons, and Jang had been following Lukey for a good while now, under orders to deal with the Lukey Parvin problem.

He watched Lukey sleeping in the embrace of alcohol and the drug with which he’d just been injected, and hoped he was having a good rest, for what time it would last. Unless Lukey found a way to play it uncharacteristically smart, very soon, the next rest he entered would be unending. It was Jang’s assignment to see to that, and while he was at it, also to find, if possible, a new flower for the Garden’s use.

Jang considered turning on the television. Instead he dug change from his pocket and went out to the newspaper box on the walkway outside, beside the soft drink machine and ice machines.

Long ago he’d mastered the ability to read a newspaper while also keeping an eye on his surroundings. He’d sat in many an airport or bus terminal, watching every passing person while “reading” an open newspaper, a newly possessed “flower” in the seat beside him, drugged to a near stupor but left just alert enough to be awake. “The poor thing has just begun her chemo treatments, and they’ve drained her energy,” he’d told many an over-inquisitive stranger who’d become concerned about the lethargic condition of whatever youngster was at Jang’s side. The chemo ruse was easiest to pull off when the “flower” with him was of Asian descent and could be passed off as his daughter. When the “flower” was some rosy-cheeked white girl or black girl, he fell back on a well-crafted “step-daughter” back-story.

Jang was back in his chair, paper in hand and door locked, within two minutes. Lukey hadn’t moved an inch.

WHEN HE DID COME AROUND, LUKEY did so with surprising speed. He moaned, stirred, and the lids of his eyes moved in a pulsing way without immediately opening. Lukey groaned and writhed slowly and minutely, went through a jerking, full-body spasm, and clenched and opened his fists several times.

His eyes opened then, dull orbs trying to focus on something, anything. They settled on a corner of the ceiling. Slowly, then, they drifted leftward and took in the man seated nearby.

“Oh, God,” Lukey managed to mutter in a slurred voice. “What’d you shoot me up with, Jang?”

“Something that, at a slightly higher concentration, would have meant you wouldn’t be talking to me right now, or anybody else ever again.”

“How did you find me here? How did you know I’d be in this town?”

“Because you’re a fool and this is your home. A fool runs home in times of trouble, like a fox to its den or a rat to its hole. Think about it. Why are thieves and murderers caught hiding in their own home, or their mother’s home, or girlfriend’s home? Because they are fools who have fled home. Those are the first places police look, and usually they find who they seek.”

“The Gardeners sent you?”

“Why else would I have followed you so far, my friend? Do you think I find your company so pleasant?”

“I know I made mistakes, but I’ll find a way to make things right with the Gardeners … ”

“Their patience is gone. You’ve damaged the operation. You know the penalty.”

“Don’t, Jang. Please don’t. Don’t kill me.”

“Do you think I want to kill you, Lukey?”

Lukey began to cry. “Don’t do it … you ain’t got to do it … you and me, we’ve been friends.”

“There are no friends in our world, Lukey. You stole from the Gardeners. You didn’t play by the rules.”

“Tell me there’s a way out, Jang. There’s got to be something I can do.”

Jang did not answer immediately. He was looking intently at something in the newspaper. Lukey could not see what. “This is your hometown,” Jang said.

“Yes … ”

“You know the people here, the families … ”

“I do.”

“Do you know a family named Buckingham?”

“I know who that is.”

Jang rose and brought the newspaper to Lukey. He showed him a picture on the bottom of the front page … a group of young girls in dance costumes with a patriotic theme, posed in a typical dance-class pose over an announcement that the dancers would be part of the July 4 parade coming up soon.

Jang pointed at one particularly pretty dark-haired girl in the front center of the group. “This is the only way for you. The Garden seeks blossoms of the best quality. There has been an order placed by a high-level client in
Slovenská republika
for just such a blossom as this one. Do you understand what I am telling you to do?”

Lukey looked at the image of the girl, then scanned the identifications in the cutline below. “I know exactly who that girl is. My own nephew was boyfriend for a time to this girl’s older sister. I can do it, Jang. I can harvest this one for the Flower Garden.”

“If you can, Lukey, I may be able to persuade the Gardeners to remove their death command regarding you.”

“Thank you Jang. Thank you for giving me a chance. I won’t let you or the Gardeners down.”

“You are right. You will not let them down. Because no further chances will be given to you after this. No more from me, no more from the ones for whom we work.”