River of Salt Read online

  ‘So where is Mike?’

  ‘Fishing with some other guys. I said I ain’t going out there on account of I get sick as a dog. I said I’ll go see the dolphin show. He’s gone for the night but he’ll be back tomorrow. You still single?’

  ‘Yes, still a bachelor.’

  ‘So you’re at a loose end tonight too?’

  There was no escaping the implication. ‘I’m supposed to be heading off. You’re on your own?’

  ‘Yes. I’m staying at the Bella Vista guesthouse up the road there. Room eight. I’d love to hear about Jimmy and everything.’

  His assassin’s brain had run well ahead like a scout noting possible enemy ambush zones. It told him: don’t be seen with her, when she is found dead they’ll be looking for anybody who might have been with her. It told him: you have everything you need to know, get out of here. Now!

  ‘I don’t think it’s going to be possible, Mindy. I’ve got a friend I have to meet. I’m real sorry. I would love to have caught up.’

  ‘Oh, me too. I’ve always had a thing for you, you know that.’

  Again she angled her body at him. It was a fine body.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do but, you know … room eight, Bella Vista. No promises.’

  He held her and kissed her on the cheek. She was wearing a lot of perfume. It was a long time since he smelled this kind of girl. She reminded him of snare drums, wise guys at small tables, cigars.

  ‘If you don’t make it, give Jimmy my regards.’

  He promised he would and started off in the opposite direction to his car, turned and waved. He would kill her tonight. He would have to.

  For a time he wandered aimlessly to the south away from the crowds. Before he had felt hungry but not now, now there was nothing of him that was human, no hunger, nor thirst, no thumping head or aching leg, no repetitious tune he’d heard from a transistor dangling off the nut of a beach umbrella, no satisfaction that would come from patting a dog, no fear of God; no urge to look his best, to comb his hair, apply cologne; no desire to hear the lilt of a loved one’s voice; no relief to take a load off and put up his feet and chuckle at a dumb cartoon. This was him as he had been before, in those days when he sat day after day in a diner becoming invisible so his target, a Mob captain, would think of him as part of the furniture. This was him as he had been to so many people, a wisp of wind, an insubstantial thing, a curse, death. Here, all his considerations were technical. He had brought no gun with him and a knife was too messy. He had no clothes to change into, nowhere to dispose of those soaked in his victim’s blood. Garotte or strangulation it would have to be. He would arrive latish, say after nine, so the likelihood of bumping into neighbours was diminished. He would knock quietly. She would answer the door and let him in. If there was anybody else present he would have to postpone the event but he doubted there would be anybody else. He could not linger, just establish who she may have talked to about him since their earlier meet, what that person might know. Then he would have to kill her. He would leave the body and get out of there, maybe leave a window open, take some money to make it look like a robbery gone wrong. He would drive down the coast and wait, pick up the film tomorrow and return.

  It was only much later, a good two hours on, as the sun was off the stove and cooling, that he found a way through the robot’s metal carapace and into the wiring where he could cause a spark, ignite his humanity for a second and ask the most obvious question: did he really need to do this? Would she tell Vinnie and the others she had met him in Australia? Would they bother about him? Did anybody still care? In answer to the first, she had said she was spending more time in Pittsburgh but she also was clearly still in contact with Vinnie, Marcello or whoever. If she saw them, she would mention it. And then all of this, all of his carefully won freedoms, his anonymity, would be gone. Would they actually bother to try and track him down? Australia was a long way, but then it wasn’t so far Mindy hadn’t made it here. Blake made himself think like them.

  Vincent might keep it to himself if he was alone when she told him. But if she told him and there were witnesses, he’d have no choice. Somebody would tell Repacholi. Would he despatch Peste all the way here just to have him rubbed out, save a bit of face — nobody walks away, all that bullshit? He might. And he might also think, what angle has the kid found over there? Is there a market he should be looking at? Then he would send Peste or somebody like him and they would look for him and eventually, as they always did, they would find him, and they would say, ‘We like what you’ve done here, we want a piece of your bar because you owe us.’ One night they would kill him or force him out or demand he go back to his former profession.

  ‘You’re too good to waste playing a fucking guitar. We need guys like you.’

  He could hear it already. But now that his blood was warm and circulating and he was no longer aluminium and tin, he was forced to consider a whole truckload of uncomfortable questions. Like, how would what they were asking him be any different to what he was going to do tonight? If he had to kill an innocent woman, to stop him having to kill other people, innocent or not, what was the gain? How was that different, and maybe wasn’t it worse, even?

  And he had to say, yes, of course it was as bad or worse. He’d never killed a woman before. Mindy had never done anything bad to him. She had a life ahead of her, kids, a good husband. Was he prepared to take that from her to protect his life here? A life, where, let’s face it, he’d already lapsed once, no matter how justified that had been. But if he let her be, took the risk hoping nothing would happen but was wrong, and the Mob did come for him, then what happened to Jimmy was for nothing. Everything was for nothing. There could be no going into the ocean to be reborn. Dreams of coming up here with Andy and Doreen, forget it. He’d have to get rid of Doreen, not kill her, no, fire her, find some excuse. He couldn’t expose her to that, couldn’t let her see who he had been … who he still was.

  Shit. He was fucked a thousand ways sideways. If he killed Mindy tonight, could he live with that? Yes, he could. The world, fate, dealt you a hand and you had to play it as best you could, for your own sake. Not to kill her was simply too risky because everything he loved about the world would be blacked out if they came here.

  He didn’t want to do it. He wasn’t angry with Mindy. It was just an equation of the shit stuff you had to do if you wanted to have life’s good stuff. At the end of the day Mindy was nobody to him. A girl he once knew in a city far away. She wasn’t even that sweet or pure really. He was sure she had been coming onto him so it wasn’t like she held any moral high ground. But, and he made himself face this question, how would he be any different to Winston Clarke? Clarke brutally murdered women for his own gratification, and sure, there was nothing like that in what he would have to do if he killed Mindy, no sex or anything, but what it boiled down to was, he would be killing her for his own sake, just like Winston Clarke.

  What do you say, Jimmy?

  He literally walked in circles trying to solve this conundrum. Time spun out like candy floss. The sun was down now. He hadn’t yet warned Doreen he wouldn’t be back tonight. He retrieved the car and drove the back blocks till he found a public phone. Like every other public phone box, it smelled of piss and damp. He pumped a heap of coins into the slot. Long distance cost an arm and a leg. He punched in the Surf Shack number, heard it ringing the other end. Doreen would be flat out, the early drinkers and diners already there. Somebody picked up, the coins fell with a clunk.

  ‘Surf Shack, Doreen.’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Out and about getting that movie developed. I’m not going to make it back tonight. Tell Duck and Panza. They can do some of their jazz stuff if they want. Is everything okay?’

  ‘Yeah, fine. You’ll be pleased to know Carol’s not dead.’

  The words cuffed him about the ear like an angry teacher. ‘What?’

  ‘She called a couple of hours ago. When I said you weren�
��t here she said to let you know she was fine, she was sorry she left without contacting you.’

  ‘She say where she is? What she’s doing?’

  ‘She’s working at the Heads. I think she’s flipping burgers because I heard somebody in the background calling out orders.’

  ‘Did she …’

  But that was as far as he got before the call timed out and the line went dead. He checked his pocket for more coins but had nowhere near enough for another call. He stood in the phone box, its fug clawing at him like a beggar. He was impervious, his head spinning … Carol was alive. Clarke hadn’t killed her. Nobody had killed her. He had been unable to accept the simplest truth in front of his face: she’d lit out of town because that’s what girls like Carol did, not because she was cold in the ground at the hand of Winston Clarke.

  It took him only about half an hour to find her. It was the third café he’d tried, a couple of blocks off the main drag. It was at the tail end of the family-dinner trade, hungry kids like crocodiles watching dads fork cash out of their pockets for the pile of wrapped burgers on the counter. She saw him pretty much as soon as he entered and seemed surprised as hell. She didn’t look much different. Her hair was a bit messy like it often was and she’d been grabbing a bit of sun, more tanned than before. All of a sudden he was hungry. He scanned the blackboard menu and ordered a steak burger with the lot from the other girl working there in the same kind of mauve pinafore as Carol. While he was waiting she slid past him and said, ‘Fifteen minutes, I’ll take a break. Head down the lane on the left. It runs all the way to the beach. There’s a seat facing the ocean.’

  He did as he was told, cradling the burger, warm through the greaseproof wrapping, like some cheap god holding his tiny world. It was a good spot, solitary. There was no humidity here, the ocean breeze sweeping it away. He slowly chewed his burger: steak, egg, lettuce, onion, beetroot and cheese. It was so calm out there, so beautiful, but dark, and you couldn’t see but could hear the waves tumbling, catch a little moon glow off the ocean here and there, salt in the nostrils, a hint of pine. He heard the scuff of a rubber thong on the sandy path, felt her in the vibration of the air and then she was beside him.

  ‘How was the burger?’

  He smiled inwardly. That droll sense of humour hadn’t changed.

  ‘It was very good.’

  ‘You were smart to get it from Mary. She’s more generous with the onion.’

  Only then did he turn to her. It was about a half-moon tonight and her face was in shadow.

  ‘You’ve been sunbaking,’ he said.

  ‘Not much else to do here.’ He heard rather than saw her pull out a cigarette. ‘How did you get here so quick?’ She struck the match.

  ‘Coincidence. I was here already.’

  She sucked on her cigarette. He could imagine her nodding to herself. ‘So you didn’t come for me?’

  ‘I had some other business. I’ve been worried about you. That girl …’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to see you in case I changed my mind.’ She took another drag. ‘That Saturday morning I was going to head off for my shift at the golf club. I stopped to get a few things. The detectives were there outside Gannons asking if anybody knew this dead girl. They showed her photo. It could have been me, same age, same … look. I got back in my car and all I could think of was, what am I doing here? — working at a golf club for randy older guys, screwing you but only when you felt like it. Emptiness, that’s what I saw. People say, how did that girl end up there being stabbed to death? It’s easy, so easy to end up there. How the fuck don’t you wind up there? That’s the question I asked. Well, you get out. I packed my things soon as I got home. To be honest, I didn’t think you’d give it a second thought. I’m flattered you were worried. But that surprised me. After a time I thought about it, decided it was wrong to just walk out on somebody who hasn’t done you any harm. So I called. I really didn’t think you would be worried but it was bad manners to do what I did.’

  He let her words soak him. The ocean waves continued to roll as they had for all time. How should he approach the subject of Clarke?

  In the end he said bluntly, ‘I think Winston Clarke murdered that girl, Valerie Stokes, that’s her name. You know him, right?’

  ‘He didn’t kill that girl.’

  He had figured it could have gone either way with her. Thought she might have been scared of Clarke but no, she wanted to defend him.

  ‘He was seen earlier in my carpark, talking to her. I think she’d been staying at his place, maybe making a stag film.’ He looked her right in the eye, her mouth was making a small o. She flicked her lit cigarette in the sand. She said, ‘Winston Clarke called me about six o’clock at the club that evening. I was doing my Thursday shift. He was pretty drunk. He’s a member. I knew him from there. I’d been out to his place before …’

  ‘You mean …’

  ‘I fucked him. Yes. I would have preferred it was you but you had limited availability. You think you know what it’s like to be lonely and you probably do. But being a woman of a certain age and lonely, that’s a whole other world. One minute you’re young and beautiful and you think every man is on his knees wanting to propose and you have endless choice. You want to have fun. You don’t want to be some Bex-and-lie-down wife at thirty-three with three screaming kids, chopping kindling for a boiler. You think you can cheat, you can have your cake and not gain an ounce. Then you wake up one day and the scenery has changed and there is no choice. No good one. And you meet somebody, some man who is different to the others, darker but deeper too and you can feel something … some pull like in a deep current. And you just wish you were the one for him. But you’re not. All of a sudden three screaming kids and a boring husband who buys you a vacuum for Christmas doesn’t look so bad. But you’re stuck, you can’t quite get there now, so it’s night after night alone or a little company.’

  Blake felt her pain, he did. He just didn’t know how to alleviate it. ‘He called you that evening?’

  ‘Yes. Said he had this party on for his kid and he felt like company, did I want to come over when my shift finished. I said I’d see how I felt. I wasn’t going to go. I actually drove back to my place but then … I felt lonely. You weren’t an option. I cruised over to his place, must have been around eleven-thirty by then. The party had broken up. I walked up to the house. The door was open. There was a kid flaked out on the lounge. Clarke was in his bedroom snoring his head off. He couldn’t have killed that girl.’

  He heard her words clearly enough but wanted to gather them up and hurl them far out to sea. No. No. No. His theory was right, dammit.

  ‘How long were you there?’

  ‘I made myself a coffee. Fifteen minutes later he was still asleep, so I left. Maybe he went out earlier, met the girl in the carpark like you say, but if she died between ten-thirty and twelve-thirty, he didn’t kill her.’

  The Bella Vista was a big old wooden rooming house of three floors, six rooms to a floor. Room eight was on the second floor up a short flight of stairs from the entrance hall and along a narrow hallway, two doors down on the right. Blake let the shadows drape over him like a hood. It reminded him of Philly, of standing in dark hallways and the kind of smells — cabbage and grease — the low churn of TV talk and radios behind closed doors, a kid being spanked, tears following. It reminded him of men with singlets with holes in them, chest hair poking through, of large trousers with cuffs and braces. He remembered Trixie and Mindy now, some kind of fair they’d all gone to. Jimmy wanting him to show off by shooting ducks and winning the girls prizes but he resisted that and shot hoops instead, didn’t win anything. Jimmy told him he was a dumb mutt, he should have taken out the ducks, but later Mindy still wanted her to kiss him, and he did, in a hallway just like this. Felt her up, his fingers probing up her thigh, inside her panties. They were satin and so soft against his fingertips that were used to metal. She moaned, wanted him to do it there, up against the wall but he couldn�
�t. He really didn’t even know why he was doing what he was, other than he could and maybe everyone including himself expected it. He’d kissed her and told her he had to go and that’s where they had left it. He’d seen her once again, maybe twice, but in a group and nothing had happened but she was keen. She made eyes and whispered they could go out to the alley. It was just before he had a job, which one he didn’t want to remember, didn’t want anything interfering, didn’t want to feel a girl’s hot breath in his ear, her body on his fingers, to know life, to cherish anything in the world, wanted it to stay bleak and cold and metallic because how else could he do his job? And that was how it was again now, in this hallway. He was the tin man.

  Except he wasn’t any more. He had friends like Andy, Edward, Doreen; people who when they smiled touched something deep in him, made him want more. And Carol who was all human, not a skerrick of hard metal. He had been wrong about Clarke killing her. It didn’t seem possible that he could have been, but clearly he was. Clarke couldn’t be in two places at once. And if he was wrong about Clarke when he had been so sure, how could he be certain he wasn’t wrong about Vince and Repacholi too? Maybe they’d laugh, say screw it, leave him be.

  Just the width of a cheap door separated Mindy and him. His heart was beating fast but he stilled it. His knuckle rose to meet the wood, stopped. If he ever found a way to tell Doreen about who he was, what he was, had been … she might find a way to understand. Even Harry and Steve. But not this, this would be something she could not forgive because he could not forgive it. His hand returned to his pocket. He spun on his feet and walked silently back down the stairs and out to the warm moon.

  11. Forest For Trees

  Giselle, the stonemason’s daughter, was neither pretty nor wise, and though she was honest enough to concede the former, she was foolish enough to disbelieve the latter. All the girls in the village dreamed that one day handsome Prince Tyrol would ask them to be his bride and Giselle was no exception. Though Tyrol could choose whomever he wished, she reasoned that her plainness need be no impediment. After all, the richest man in the town was certainly not the most learned. Her chance, she believed, would come at the town festival where the single women all danced in the Prince’s honour, for one thing Giselle could do was dance. Her greatest rival was clearly going to be the beautiful Hilda. Hilda paraded around town wearing a golden pin in her bonnet which she said the Prince had given her. Giselle believed that Hilda was in fact a witch, her beauty but an apparition. The pin, which indeed looked like those worn by the Prince, may have been his after all but Giselle believed that it resided with Hilda through sorcery not merit.