"Uh… booger?'' said Art.
-or, if he was still in the garage, in order to be out of sight of the peephole he had to be curled up right underneath the kitchen door.
Brookman clarified. ''Booger bear. Sir."
Willowmore drifted from the kitchen to the hallway, with Blitz tailing him. The dog finally gave up trying to comprehend this opaque standoff of humans, and returned to resume his picket duty in the bedroom. Willowmore made a point of inspecting the display of family photos in the hall, geometrically framed and trued into an abstract scatter pattern favoring the diagonal plane across the east wall, next to the door for the guest bathroom. He hinged forward, as he had in the kitchen, to peer like a dunk-bird in uniform. "I recognize you in this picture, but is this your wife? What did you say her name was?"
"I don't think I said," said Art.
"Suzanne," said Brookman.
"This photo doesn't look much like her," said Willowmore with a calculated scowl.
A rabid rat was running feverish circles in Art's brain, pausing only to urinate in the fissures, gnaw on his higher functions, and scratch away his composure with filthy clotted claws. "Well, she's not at her best rignt now, and that shot was taken five years ago. She's a bit… you know, heavier."
"Um-hm. So how come this picture says her name is Lorelei?"
"Lorelle. That's her middle name. Her family called her that. I call her Suzanne." Spacing out the words to specify his irritation was a bad tactic, but Art could not stop the rat in his head, the rattler in his chest.
Art's interior viper noticed the frantic rat, struck with a full-venom bite, and began to swallow. The rat was gone, the snake occupied, Art could win this game.
Willowmore decided to back off-mercifully so, thought Art, since to add one more untruth to the pile in his own skull might cause an avalanche of black lies to come cascading out his ears.
"Tell you what," the ranking officer said evenly. "The corporal and I will sortie down the road; see if there are any stragglers to evac. I think it would be a good idea to stop here again on the way back north. The road might become impassable. Some of the others, if there are others, might be injured. We all might need shelter more than escape, and so far your fancy design seems to be holding back Mother Nature pretty good here… Art.'' It seemed as thought Willowmore had to force himself to recall the name.
"Thanks," Art said.
Willowmore's gaze clouded, his eyes as minatory as the sky outside. He stopped blinking again. "Whatever you're up to here that you don't want us to see, you settle it before we get back. Do I make myself clear?"
Art held up his hands in an unthinking gesture of surrender. "I'm sorry, guys. It's just that my wife got hurt-"
"Your wife," said Willowmore, as if giving Art one final chance to prove or deny it.
"Yes. And I don't know what's going to happen moment to moment, your showing up was a complete surprise, and now I feel like I'm being interrogated. If I had something to hide, I never would've opened the door."
"So why did you open it?"
"Because I'm not going to leave anybody out in that." Art lied yet again. "I'm sorry you think I'm acting weird. Wouldn't you?"
Willowmore sniffed brusquely. "No need to apologize. Come on, Corporal." He spared Art the white heat of his gaze at last. Art thought of gun turrets muzzled in canvas covers.
***
It took the men five minutes just to get redressed against the storm, yanking zippers and sealing Velcro flaps. Blitz emerged from the bedroom to apply his rapt interest to their every movement, far too late. Some accomplice, thought Art. He needed to keep his fear and anger at bay so he could decide what to do next. The dog had kept an eye on Suzanne; that was more important than unnecessarily playing Costello to Art's Abbott for the sake of the navy. Suzanne had played along, for reasons of her own. And the Navy was leaving.
Grabbing the pistol before escorting his latest guests to their ride was out of the question, but Art knew he had to go outside with them. If the much-abused Bryan, or any part of him, was visibly lingering, bloodied and obviously in desperate need of assistance such as Willowmore was eager to provide, Art needed to apply bias. On a blueprint, you could force uneven lines to marry up; you could defy strict mathematics and mandate symmetry where the horizontals and verticals refused to agree. In a relationship, you could tint the shades until opposites equalized. And in a disaster, such as this weekend had already become, you could write your own history, depending on how picky your witnesses were. If the navy men insisted on knowing everything, or if Bryan inconveniently betrayed him, Art would have to add victims to the storm's body count. Simply.
Rain shone whitely in the triangle of light spilling from the rent in the garage door; Art thought of reel scratches on spooled film. Wind pushed his hair into his face. The blow was strong enough to loft wet sand from the beach, dry it enough to make it airborne, and hurl it in the spaces between raindrops, which were already brutally large-to stand out here for any length of time was like getting sandblasted. Bryan 's body was not sprawled on the front walkway. So far so good.
Captain Willowmore tapped his sleeved wrist, to indicate time. "It's fifteen-twenty hours now," he said, focusing his voice toward Art with a cupped hand. "I'm hoping this check is a milk run. No complications. We should be back here by sixteen-thirty, estimate."
"Four-thirty," Brookman clarified.
"I want to be out of here before night drops on our head. It's bad enough already. You batten this place down and be here when we get back."
"Yes, sir," Art said, distantly amused. His spirits were buoyed by the fact that the Bry-Guy didn't seem to be around at all. Magic.
The military Humvee backed into a two-point turn. Its lamps were not even clear of the first crick in the driveway before Art dashed back into the house, to arm himself and make a complete circuit of the grounds, gun in one hand, high-beam flashlight in the other. The still-moist blood skids on the garage floor suggested that Bryan had scuttled outside. Scraps of his flesh clung to the burst duct tape. You had to be strong and desperate to rip yourself free that way, like a coyote chewing off a leg to escape an iron-jawed trap. Art had rushed, too hurried, too sloppy; he'd noticed Bryan 's workout muscle, yet not trussed him more firmly. He should have mummified the guy's damned arms to the cross beams; should have used the whole fucking roll of tape.
Clouds of moisture hung low and swirled, similar to the thick, ground-hugging smoke of a forest fire. The fierce wind reshaped them, but they remained airbrushed to the sky, blocking out the feeble sun, limiting vision to less than twenty feet, impermeable. If Bryan had left a trail, the storm had erased it already.
If Bryan had escaped. If Bryan had ever actually been here at all. An icicle of pain calved his left eye, and it felt as though his sinuses were packed with rusty steel wool. He had plenty of evidence this time-the Buick, the ballbat, the bloodied tarp. Evidence wasn't his problem, this time. Now he was absorbed in thoughts more immediate and practical than worrying about his sanity. He could no longer fritter time in speculation about whether people had actually existed, or events transpired. Now he had to focus on covering his ass; what stories to tell which people. Which real people. Maybe he should start snapping Polaroids.
Blitz waited at the door, unwilling to play outside. Art locked up and did a quick survey of the beach through the slits in the westward shutters. He saw nothing and nobody.
What about the damned soldiers?
nagged the serpent squeezing his heart, still digesting the rat of panic,
Sailors.
Whatever. Willowmore and Brookman-both fanciful, sylvan names. A black man in command of a white Southerner; another wish fulfillment. Authority figures who materialized out of the height of the storm to push every guilt button in Art's hardwiring, from his culpability for gun-shooting and hostage-holding, to his inherited baggage of Suzanne's damning injuries, making him suffer the incisive humiliation of a chess novice beaten by a computer. Willowmore had seen right through the husband-wife sham but had chosen to bypass it, for unknown reasons. For every move, no matter how considered, Art won the complication of a new wrinkle that threatened to end his illusion of control. He had felt like the storm was an isolated pocket of suspended time, in which he could try out unpredictably hazardous new emotions. Now, with every minute, he was becoming aware that once the storm of nature ended, a fresh tempest of consequences was going to touch down on his life's ground zero. Willowmore and Brookman could very well have been an externalization of his accountability, and pondering such subtle insanities could only drive him deeper into self-doubt about everything he saw and experienced.
Then again, they could have been real… in which case Art had manfully outfoxed them and bought himself a caesura in the middle of a raging storm.
Suzanne was drugged and logy in the master bedroom, her good eye cracked open, half in, half out of some unfathomable other-zone. Mostly in. Technically she was asleep.
"Art? Need to tell you.'' Her voice was turbid and conflicted, distant behind layers of disorientation, bullied under the noise of the storm outside. Hasty, perhaps, to have given her painkillers so readily; Art had not considered which other drugs might already be freestyling through her metabolism, or maybe he just had not cared at the time he had pretended to be a pharmacist.
He sat, said nothing, squeezed her hand, made sure she knew he was right there.
"Sorry,'' she said, in a way that caused the snake in his chest to constrict. "Not my fault."
Was she trying to apologize, or aver blame?
"What are you talking about?" he said.
"I gotta tell you I'm sorry. I need something for my head."
"We already did that. No more pills. Sorry about what?"
"Price. His idea. I didn't want to, really-" Her hand drifted up to touch her own face, as if touching a stranger's physiognomy in a dark room. She found her features rearranged.
"What was Price's idea?"
A long, depleted sigh leaked out of her. "Fucking with you."
This was too touchy, fraught with bobby traps. Did she mean Price, the marionette master, had decreed that Suzanne wind up naked in Art's bed? Or was the scenario more cloaked, indicating a deeper and more sinister blueprint, making Art a game piece, and teaching him the real meaning of getting fucked?
"I said
no
but he-"
Her fragments were maddening. Each one forced ugly possibilities nearer, hidden flaws in the grand blueprint, with Art as their target.
"He wouldn't… I couldn't… you can't say no to him."
Yes, the snake was wide-awake now, warming, hungry malign, fed but wanting more. Tears glistened in Suzanne's good eye and leaked in reluctant drops from her ruined one. The best strategists played vulnerability as a lure; show 'em a weakness, then reel 'em in. Stick your face out into the world and predators perked up, desirous of snatching fresh meat. When you considered the totally impersonal hazards out there, a hermit's existence did not seem so unreasonable, or deviant.
"I'm just… sorry."
Or was she throwing herself on his mercy, seeking forgiveness for damage done because it seemed like a good idea at the time? Art himself was utterly conflicted. Did he want some sort of savage biblical retribution, an eye for an eye… plus an arm and a leg, and two pints of fresh blood? This hurricane fever dream had all begun with Suzanne. Now she seemed to be apologizing. Was this real, or part of the next phase, leading to fresh torments?
And what was up with his damned dog? Blitz seemed to be treating her like a member of the family, and Blitz had never done that. Well, almost never; he had taken a doggie shine to Derek, too. Was the dog just skipping grooves like everyone else around here? Art looked toward him, because he needed somewhere else to look.
Blitz's eyes were open and alert, two dots of onyx in the dim light of the bedroom. He emitted a grunt; the sound of an old man settling into an easy chair. The air was enriched by the oily overcast of a dog fart.
"Oh, for Christ sake,'' muttered Art. He should never have fed the beast so much processed ham.
***
The power died at exactly 5:10 P.M. by the nightstand clock, the old-fashioned flip-over digits freezing in place while Art sat on the rim of the bed trying to figure Suzanne out. The deadness of the three-second delay on the emergency lights was especially unnerving. For several heartbeats there was total darkness, and nothing else in the universe but the assault of the hurricane. Then the floods tripped, and just like that atmosphere was acrackle with danger again, more problems to solve, new threats incoming.
"Sorry,'' Suzanne said, oblivious to this world.
Art rounded up the rest of his weapons and stuck them inside the gun safe, stopping short of locking the door. He kept the Heckler-Koch with him for the sake (the excuse) of confidence.
Just what did he think he was doing?
Did he really have the gristle to shoot another living, breathing, walking, talking person? Bryan, still missing in action, almost did not count. That had been easy, simple, one-way; Art had put him down without thinking. Wasn't that the way it was supposed to go? Instinct, reflex, bang, the threat is neutralized. Now it seemed inadmissible because his opponent had not been armed, too. A turkey shoot, fish-in-a-barrel time. Too easy, to plug somebody who wasn't shooting back. And what had it changed? Zero. Bryan had escaped despite the end-all solution of Art's weaponry.