JACK
O'CONNELL
|
|
|
YUK TANG
LIKES TO THINK of himself as Darcey's partner. Darcey would choke if he knew
this. He works with Yuk Tang because everyone else he knows has moved west or
south. And because Yuk Tang is connected with more than one guy in Little
Asia who can move anything -- TVs and jewelry right down to paintings and
rare stamps and precious metals -- in less than a week. And because Yuk Tang
agrees to a sixty-forty split, with Darcey hugging the sixty end. Though Darcey
dislikes Yuk Tang on instinct, he admitted to himself last week, while sober
and bored, that they work well together. They work the way he dreams about,
like they had one smart brain and six fast hands. Yuk Tang has this innate
talent for smelling dogs. He can take one whiff, any room of any house,
halfway in the window, and give the thumbs down. Darcey has never known Yuk
Tang to be careless or unpredictable. He'd walk away from an open jewelry box
without flinching if the fifteen-minute buzzer on his watch went off. For his part,
Darcey thinks of himself as smart and in control. And it's his friends who
know whether someone's enjoying a week in the Bahamas or just doing three
hours at a funeral. Darcey's generous with these friends. He gives them money
and as much time as he can spare. There's the guy whose sister is a groomer
at a ridiculously expensive kennel. There's the kid who works for the
award-winning landscaper. And there's Scalley, a new electrician for a hot
local burglar and fire alarm company. Darcey pays
close attention to these people. He studies them the way he'd study a hotel
poker game. He knows, without exception, what it is they respond to, what it
takes to cement their trust in his friendship. He bought himself a pager so
he can return their calls immediately. He knows their favorite restaurants
and reserves good tables monthly. He takes them to terrible movies and
manages to discuss the films afterward over coffee. He spent a serious chunk
of money recently on Scalley's dental restoration. All of this
has paid off like you read about. Without getting sloppy or greedy, Yuk Tang
and Darcey have put away a barrel of money. Yuk Tang has shipped a wad to less
fortunate family members back in the homeland. Darcey has filled more than
one closet suitcase with respectable dollars. It's a happy time. They're not
logging a lot of hours and they're rarely losing any sleep. And most
importantly, the worry is minimal. Their timing, their attention to detail
and planning, has meant few close calls and no sudden trips out of town. Darcey would
hate to have to leave Quinsigamond again. He's done it in the past and it
breaks his heart. Even when the trip has been to Miami or Bermuda. He's spent
hours on clean beaches, ninety degrees and a breeze, dreaming about the
coffee and the smell of the meatloaf at The Miss Q Diner. What he'd really
like to do, and what he keeps hidden from everyone, is let some time pass and
then launch into a legitimate business. A bar or, more exactly, a club.
Something with style and subtlety, where people dress up and it never gets
too loud. Sometimes, while on the phone with Scalley, Darcey doodles pictures
of the club. Ceiling fans. A long bar. An office for himself, in an upstairs
loft, with a one-way mirror for a wall. Yuk Tang has
some of his own plans that he keeps to himself. They're vague, but they also
involve the entrepreneurial arts. He's thought about opening a restaurant. Or
maybe a video-rental franchise that specializes in martial arts films. What
he'd like most is an import clothing store. Women's satin dresses and silk
scarves. The mark-up could be tremendous. Because of relations in need, he
hasn't managed to pile up as much ready cash as Darcey. And though he doesn't
resent this, he is unhappy with the sixty-forty split. But his options are
limited and he knows he'd have a hell of a time finding a reliable and
intelligent partner who'd work with an Asian immigrant who can't drive. They both
hold irritating part-time jobs, though at this point there's no need to do
so. They had these jobs before things got lucrative and, because of a fear
they don't understand, they haven't quit. They know that seeing someone go
off to work on a regular schedule keeps any neighbors from being too
interested and the routine keeps their minds calm and occupied for the few
days before any gig. Yuk Tang
works as an aide in an old-age home out on Main South. Darcey drives a
shuttle van for the Center for Experimental Biochemistry. Yuk Tang pushes
around a cart twenty hours a week, placing tiny cups of ginger ale and apple
juice into palsied hands. He pulls lit cigarettes out of sleeping mouths and
helps pick up people who have slid out of chairs to the floor. Darcey drives
a two-year-old silver Ford van back and forth, every twenty minutes, down the
same boring stretch of tree-lined road, dropping off and picking up people
who, for all he knows, could be world famous. They all carry large manila
envelopes and ask about the weather. They're condescending without meaning to
be. About ninety percent of them are Asian, which amuses and annoys Darcey at
the same time. It makes him look funny at Yuk Tang sometimes, even in the
middle of a job. Lately
though, Yuk and Darcey's luck won't let up. It's good and it's steady. It's
like they can do no wrong. Storm windows are missing from the shrubbery side
of the house. Rolex watches are left out on the bathroom vanity. Ten
hundred-dollar bills, all brand new and banded together, are found by
accident underneath a thirteen-inch Trinitron when they move it off its
stand. Street lights are out. Dogs have died or been shipped down to Florida.
It's getting scary, it's so damned easy. Then there's
a moment in this lawyer's place up in Windsor Hills. Because things have been
so sweet, Darcey and Yuk Tang have been pushing it up in the Hills. They've
talked about setting a monthly limit on jobs in the Hills. They kicked
numbers back and forth on the way to this lawyer's house. Yuk Tang wanted to
play it simple, a given number of houses in the area in any thirty-day
period. Darcey, thinking of his club, figured it would be better to work up
until they hit an agreed gross. They decided nothing and drove the last block
to the job in silence. They'd been
given the word on the house two days before. Attorney and Mrs. Bennett
stopped at the Avondale Animal Hotel on their way to the airport. Darcey
drove past the Bennett home after work and filled out his checklist. He drove
by again with Yuk Tang and they spent a few minutes discussing it over a
small dinner plate at The Grille. Though neither one will acknowledge it,
they know they didn't give this gig the attention it requires. But it's hard
when things have been coming so easy. It's like they're working with the
guardian angel of thieves and he doesn't want a cut. Then, in the
midst of lifting a Toshiba receiver out of its slot in an enormous media
wall, Darcey's beeper goes off. He nearly has a coronary and drops the
receiver and it breaks on the hardwood floor. Yuk Tang runs down from the
bedrooms, glares at him in the doorway and motions a thumb outside. They
leave with half the potential take. In the car -- a semi-restored MG -- Yuk
Tang, ever the minimalist, says only, "You're not thinking," and
Darcey comes back with a loud, "Screw you, Bruce Lee. Find me a phone
booth." There's a
tension that grows in the quiet. Yuk Tang only recently confided in Darcey
that Bruce Lee was a real spiritual hero to him, that at night he said what
Darcey might consider prayers to Bruce Lee. Darcey, in the driver's seat,
knows he's screwed up for the first time since their streak began. It's no
big problem. No one is hurt or pinched. But the stupidity of bringing the
pager on a job has brought him next door to panic. He knows what to do on a
job like he knows his own name. Like he knows how to breathe. Darcey swings
into a drug store lot and uses the phone outside. The page turns out to be
from Scalley, who's excited and confused: He's got some information. He's not
sure Darcey's interested. He's talking secondhand tip here. He needs a few
dollars. He hasn't eaten in two days. He thinks he has a fever. He's leaving
tonight on a plane for Ensenada or Buenos Aires. Darcey has to
scream into the phone to get him to quiet down. He tells Scalley to be at the
Menard Diner in twenty minutes, jumps back in the car and starts to head for
the Menard without consulting Yuk Tang. Yuk Tang, not normally a hateful or
violent man, daydreams as they drive, too fast, to the meeting. He imagines
Bruce Lee holding Darcey above his head, Darcey's terrified body parallel
with the ground, Bruce Lee's arms expanding with muscle and tension, waiting
to snap this careless thief in two. The Menard is
one of the best of the many diners in Quinsigamond, always clean and almost
never crowded. They sit in the wooden booth near the exit for close to an
hour, getting wired on too many coffees. Darcey would like to talk, but
thinks Yuk Tang might take this as an apology and a sign of weakness. A kind
of peace gets made when Darcey orders a veal cutlet sandwich and Yuk Tang
puts half the money on the table and says, "I don't think your friend is
coming." Darcey nods
and pushes the money back at Yuk Tang. "I don't
think we would have wanted what he had to offer," says Yuk Tang. "Little
hard to say at this point," Darcey says, cracking his knuckles and
immediately regretting it. "I didn't think you ate meat." "I'm a
flexible man," Yuk Tang says. Darcey nods
again, readies himself and says, "About the crap with the pager....
" "I don't
think we need to talk about that," says Yuk Tang. "Am I
right?" "You're
right," Darcey says, and he slides out of their booth and up to the
counter to hurry along the sandwich. At the end of
the counter, on the last seat on the left, sits an elderly man that he hadn't
noticed before. As he looks at the man, he thinks the guy might be blind. The
man's eyes have that rigid, unmoving stare. The man holds a full soup spoon
an inch from his lips but doesn't blow on it or sip at it. Darcey has an urge
to speak to the guy that he buries. The fry-boy
hauls up the cutlet from the grease and Darcey's tongue goes a little wet.
He's about to ask for two large milks when the blind man, the old man he
thinks is blind, says, "Would you be Mr. Darcey?" in a quiet voice
you'd use to talk to someone next to you. The voice contains an accent that
gives the man away as a foreigner, but won't get more specific. Darcey looks
over his shoulder to Yuk Tang, who holds out his right hand, palm down, like
this were some signal between the two of them. Darcey turns back to the old
man and, like he's been called before the Pope, he walks down the aisle and
slides onto the stool next to him. "That's
right. I'm Darcey," he says. "I'm
George Lewis," the old man says and sinks his spoonful of soup back in
his bowl, uneaten. The name doesn't sound foreign and as he turns his head,
Darcey wonders why he had the impression this guy was blind. "Do I
know you, Mr. Lewis?" Darcey asks. "You do
look familiar," Lewis says, "but I really doubt we know each other.
I haven't been in Quinsigamond in years. Actually, I'm just passing through
tonight." He looks at
Darcey's face and decides to continue. "I'm really just an accidental
messenger," he says and pulls a long white envelope from the pocket of
his raincoat. "From a
friend of yours, I assume," he says, "a Mr. Scalley. He asked me to
say that he had to leave and to give you this." The envelope
has been folded over and Darce is written across it in what looks like a
child's handwriting. "I've
been here awhile," Darcey says, even but firm. Lewis stirs
his thick orange soup and after a minute says, "Yes, well, you don't
look a bit like your friend described you." The night's
not going well. Darcey wishes he'd just remembered to leave the damn pager on
his bureau. He feels as if forgetting about the pager is the first domino in
a long row, just falling over. Scalley would be number two. George Lewis,
with his eyes and his voice, he might be three. Darcey nods
to George Lewis and mouths the word thanks. He walks backward, pulling money
out of his pocket and placing it on the counter to his right. Yuk Tang slips
out of their booth, mixes his money with Darcey's, and thanks the fry-boy. He
lifts the sandwich off the plate, one half in each hand and tomato sauce
oozing down the sides, and follows Darcey out of the Menard. In the car,
they sit for moment, both a little shaken. To calm himself, Yuk Tang begins
arranging the sandwiches on the glove box door like this were a formal
banquet. He finds napkins from various drive-thru restaurants, packets of
salt and pepper, tubes of ketchup and mustard. When he comes across a
container of duck sauce, he eases it out the window. Darcey opens
the envelope, reads it once, looks at Yuk Tang without expression, and hands
the letter over. Yuk Tang sucks tomato sauce off his thumb and reads: Darce, I'm screwed.
Sorry I can't get that 200 to you. I know you'll understand. You and Bruce
Lee go easy. I got no time. I'm heading south. You know what to say when you
get the calls on me. Thanks for your time and my new teeth. I'm glad I could
show you all those horror movies you would have missed otherwise. Go easy. Scalley P.S. Here's
something better than the 200 bucks: 99 Usher. Up in Windsor. A doctor and
his wife. No dog. They're doing some cruise. Cheap bastards. Discount store
alarms (batteries are prob. dead already). Could be a good haul. Look close
for specialty items. Sorry. Yuk Tang
hands the letter back to Darcey as if it were evidence in a trial. It ends up
with a red tomato stain despite his attempt to be careful. Darcey folds the
letter several times, lifts his behind off his seat, and crams the paper into
a back pocket. They sit in
silence, watching cars run down Orbis Ave. until Darcey says, "What the
hell you figure got into the little bastard?" Yuk Tang
stares forward, takes a breath, and says, "I think we know what got into
your friend. I think we should discuss retirement." Darcey reaches
over and pulls his half of the veal cutlet off the glove box door. He decides
to ignore Yuk Tang and says aloud to himself, "And how the hell did he
get to the Menard before me? The little shmuck is late for everything. He
gets there, writes a half-assed note, gives it to some weird old fart at the
counter, and gets on the road before I pull in?" In an attempt
to be taken seriously, Yuk Tang's voice drops to a whisper. He says,
"You can ignore me. This is fine, ignore me. But we both know there's a
problem here. Something scared your friend Scalley enough to make him run. Do
you really want to wait around and find out what it is?" Darcey licks
across the front of his lips, swallows hard and says to Yuk Tang, "First
of all, stop calling the little bastard my friend. I hate it when you do
that. My friend. Jesus. And second, you little wuss, you don't cut and run
because some half-retarded scumbag gets a tough question and decides to tour
South America. Goddammit." "We
could vacation," says Yuk Tang. "Just for a little while." Darcey turns,
mouth bulging with veal and bread, and says, "It's this pager crap,
isn't it? You're spooked because of this pager crap. Christ Almighty." They chew in
the dark, watch lights go on and off in the apartments over the storefronts.
When he finishes his sandwich, as if he's decided to give in to things he
can't change or understand, Yuk Tang says, meekly, "So you want to do
this Usher job?" Darcey,
unsure if this is a challenge or not, says, "You're damn right." The quiet comes
again. At one point they turn at the same moment, and look in the windows of
The Menard Diner. Neither one says a word. George Lewis has left his soup and
his stool and walked out of the diner. AT THE MOTHER
of Angels Home, Yuk Tang is having a confusing day. He's followed two
move-patient memos and found the wrong people in the rooms. A new carton of
ammonia bottles was missing from the supply closet. Though he looked
everywhere for Mr. Bernard Cooper from 319, the new nurse swears that Mr.
Cooper did not die overnight. Yuk has put down six Extra-Strength Tylenol,
but his headache seems to be getting worse. His stomach's off and he can't
bear the thought of macaroni and cheese for lunch. He's got more than one bad
feeling about tonight. Passing out
ancient paperbacks in the dayroom -- a Zane Grey for Mr. Ash, a Harlequin for
Mrs. Wiclif -- he thinks about jumping on a train after work. No call to
Darcey. No explanation. But as he sits to read the first page of Tex
Buckley's Ambush to Mr. Kerrigan, he puts the thought out of his mind. As
always, he'll do the honorable thing. He'll work tonight and let things
happen. He'll do the Usher job and give over to fate. Yuk Tang
finds the nurses' lounge empty so he stops for a minute to rest and make a
cup of tea. He closes the door and takes a few deep breaths. He wishes they
had a couple of days to confirm some information. To double-check a few facts
and drive through Windsor Hills with a stopwatch and a clipboard. But if the
Usher job is going to happen, it has to be tonight. For a lot of reasons, one
of them being their mutual diminishing nerve. There's an
old metal coat rack in the corner, next to the table that holds Mister
Coffee. Hooked on it are three or four nurses uniforms, simple white dresses
that end at the knee. He guesses that they're Doreen's. They're fresh from
the dry-cleaners, starched and looking perfect on separate wire hangers
covered with cellophane. Yuk Tang lifts the sleeve of the top uniform and
pulls up the cellophane. He holds it close to his nose and breathes in the
fresh laundry smell. He takes it off the coat rack hook and looks to the neck
for the size. He presses the uniform against the front of his body and holds
out his arm and the sleeve, comparing lengths. And that's
when he's engulfed in the pleasing smell of pipe tobacco. He turns around and
sees, in the doorway, standing rigid and staring, a tall man with a dark
complexion. The man is dressed in a well-tailored business suit. It's
impossible to tell his age. Though he seems fit and agile and in command of
himself, something makes Yuk Tang want to estimate that the guy is as old as
anyone in the Mother of Angels. He's clean-shaven. In one hand he cradles the
pipe. It's white, maybe ivory, and carved into a shape that Yuk Tang can't
make out. Yuk Tang puts
the uniform back on the hook and, forgetting his normal politeness, says,
"You really shouldn't be in here." In his left
hand, the man holds a leather suitcase that makes Yuk Tang suspect he's a
pharmaceutical salesman trying to catch Dr. Brophy. Though the case looks
heavy, the man keeps it in his hand, at his side. He takes several steps into
the lounge and says, "Would you be Mr. Tang?" Without
thinking, Yuk Tang reaches into his smock pocket for a Tylenol, but finds
none. He repeats, "You really shouldn't be in here. Is there someone I
can help you find?" The man eases
into one of the blue plastic seats opposite Yuk Tang and says, "I'm Mr.
Estrada. I believe you're expecting me?" Yuk Tang's
stomach heaves. He clenches his back molars and shakes his head
"no." Mr. Estrada
is undisturbed. He says, "No matter," and for the first time, looks
around the lounge. His eyes end up back on Yuk Tang and he says, "I'm
glad we can finally get together. I've come to you about a purchase." Yuk Tang
stays quiet and Mr. Estrada reaches to his back pocket and takes out a
handkerchief. He dabs at his forehead and says, "Could you tell me when
we might be ready to make the transaction?" Yuk Tang
repeats, "Transaction." Mr. Estrada closes
his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb.
His eyes open and he seems on the verge of being angry. He says, "I
assure you I'm fluid. And I'm not attempting to negotiate at this late date.
You people have my word, three times the estimated book value with the payout
in equal parts diamonds, bullion, and your choice of currency, though my
people asked me to propose to you the option of paying the final third in
dinar, for the obvious reasons of speed and convenience. You can trust that I
forewarned them that, most likely, this would not be acceptable." Yuk Tang has
no idea what to say. He wishes the nurses would file in laughing, having put
this drug salesman up to a practical joke. He says, "I'm sorry, sir, you
have me a little confused." Mr. Estrada's
face goes rigid. Then his mouth broadens into a smile and he gives out a
short bark of a laugh. "Business is booming, I see," he says and
Yuk Tang laughs with him, relieved but just as confused. Mr. Estrada
folds his hands on the table and says softly, "Obviously we have a few
missed connections here. I'm very sorry. My party is interested specifically
in the Belgrano volume." "Belgrano,"
Yuk Tang says. "Yes.
The Belgrano volume," Mr. Estrada says. "Though it has been mentioned,
and I shouldn't be telling you this, but it has been mentioned that if things
work out suitably here, there could be a future commission arrangement for
yourself and Mr. Darcey." Darcey's name
hits him like a slap. He says, "I think you've confused me with someone
else." He's on the verge of being giddy with fear. Mr. Estrada
doesn't react immediately. Then he stands, nods and whispers, "I
understand." He takes a business card from his suitcoat pocket and
slides it across the table toward Yuk Tang. He turns precisely and moves out
of the lounge. Yuk Tang
takes the card. It's white and blank. He flips it over. Hand-printed in tiny
block letters, it reads: Belgrano 552-7263. WITH
PERSISTENCE and careful planning, Darcey has used the past month to turn his
day job into an intricate and compulsive game. He found this necessary
because of the boredom factor inherent in the constant five minute,
twenty-mile-an-hour van runs between the various labs of the Foundation.
There were start-up expenses right off the bat to get the game underway -- a
Discman and a huge assortment of CDs (mostly 1950's collections from the
discount bins), some stationery supplies and, though it really wasn't
necessary, a thick rock 'n' roll encyclopedia. Darcey makes
thirty sweeps a day around the Foundation's grounds. On the last sweep of his
day, he often says, "Last call for the ovens," and lets the doctors
wonder. The doctors could easily walk the short route between the labs. The
grounds are beautiful and there are paths lined by flowerbeds. But the
shuttle van supposedly saves precious time and there was money allotted for
it. Darcey's not about to complain. He loves the job. He's come to rely on
the monotony. The monotony gave birth to his game and the game has come into
its own. It has started to grow and expand and take advantage of a number of
possibilities. The game
originally used a basic point system and three testing categories. Category
One involved beginning and ending the short drive at five-minute intervals
exactly, points being deducted for seconds off, either fast or slow. Category
Two involved knowing the exact wording of all the lyrics on any given CD,
picked at random from a paper bag. Darcey started with a Sam Cooke disc and
got hooked, so he stayed with the artist for two weeks and called it
pre-season exhibition. Category Three -- Darcey's personal favorite --
involved how many times in a day he could speed off, just as a passenger was
about to catch the shuttle. Last month he began awarding himself bonus points
for random and spur of the moment achievements. And lately, things have
gotten completely out of hand. There are now subcategories and half-points,
challenges that involve the Ford's tire pressure and the amount of miles
driven per gallon of gas. The scoring has gotten algebraic. Days of the week
and times of the day have new and complex meanings. Darcey has begun keeping
the long and complicated scores and results and ratings in a fat, spiral
notebook. At the end of his shift, he leaves it in the van under the driver's
seat. Today, after
he clears out everyone on the last stop at the ovens and spends a few minutes
jotting down the scores from his last round, he pops Sam Cooke into the
player and cranks the volume. He sings along to "Chain Gang" at the
top of his lungs on the drive to the Foundation's garage. He parks before the
song is over and so leaves the motor idling while he and Sam Cooke finish out
the number. Then he turns off the key and as he reaches around to lock the
sliding back door, a man in the far back seat says, "Good afternoon, Mr.
Darcey." Darcey's arm
smashes into the steering wheel and the horn sounds. "Jesus
Christ," he yells. The man is
apologetic. He holds an arm out before him and says, "I'm sorry,
I...," but Darcey again says, "Jesus Christ." They sit in
silence for a second and Darcey catches his breath and finally lifts his head
and says, "You stupid bastard, you nearly gave me a goddamn heart
attack." The man
tries, "Again, I'm sorry," his voice strange and calming. Darcey's
angry and embarrassed. He says, "What the hell are you doing in here? I
thought I dropped everyone at the ovens." "The
ovens?" the man asks. Darcey wipes
at his face and begins to settle himself. "Goddamn,"
he says. "You almost took me out." They look at
each other over the distance of the van. The man is dressed for rain in a
heavy trench coat. It's fully buttoned and he has the collar turned up.
Darcey suddenly thinks that the guy might have fallen asleep. He decides to
sit, look menacing, and wait for an explanation. "I
apologize for startling you," the man says. He accents some of his words
in the wrong places. "I thought it was in our mutual interest to speak
alone. I had thought you might be expecting me. I'm Mr. Rochelle." Darcey stays
quiet, looks out into the garage and tries to think. Finally he says,
"Yeah, well, I'm sorry I jumped. I was listening to the music. You
spooked me." He pauses and squints at Mr. Rochelle. "So, I'm
locking up now." Rochelle
gives no indication that he intends to leave the van. It's as if he's made it
his home and he won't be evicted. He says, "I have people who are
extremely interested in a recent acquisition of yours." He doesn't
appear angry, just intent. Darcey thinks
about jumping out of the van, but instead he says, "I'm afraid I don't
understand you. Do you want me to drive you back to the labs? Did you fall
asleep?" Mr. Rochelle
looks confused. He glances down at his shoes and then back up at Darcey and
says, "Mr. Darcey, are we not alone? Is there a problem?" Darcey can't
help getting edgy. He says, "I think you've got the problem, friend. We
don't know each other." Mr. Rochelle
breaks in with an easy, "Of course not." Darcey says,
"Well, I've got to go. You want to spend the night in the van, that's fine
with me." He pulls up on the door handle. The ceiling light snaps on. Mr. Rochelle
doesn't flinch. He stares at Darcey for a minute and then reaches into a coat
pocket and removes something. His hands are so large they cover the entire
object. Darcey feels a little nauseated. Mr. Rochelle looks into his hand at
a note card or picture, then replaces it. He sighs and smiles and says,
"Mr. Darcey, this is not professional behavior on your part. Please
sit." Darcey closes
the van door. "Is this
a problem with money, Mr. Darcey?" Mr. Rochelle asks. "You should
know better than that. My people are not interested in bargains. They are not
looking for a ...," his eyes turn to the side as if he'll spot the word
he's searching for out the window. They turn back on Darcey and he says,
carefully, "flea market." He smiles,
pleased with himself and, he hopes, Darcey. "I'm sure you are aware of
the extent to which they will go," he says. "Within reason, of
course." Darcey
repeats, "Of course." Mr. Rochelle
continues, "Very simply, my people mean to acquire, from you and Mr.
Tang, the Bikaner volume you recently removed from Dr. Hawthorne's
residence." Darcey's
breath starts coming hard. He hates the idea that he and Yuk Tang have been
mentioned in the same sentence. He'd bet both their lives that this has to do
with that scumbag Scalley and his note in the Menard. And then he remembers
the note. Word for word. 99 Usher Up in Windsor A doctor and
his wife. Goddamn
Scalley, he thinks. And goddamn that phone-pager. Darcey wants
to leave, to be out of the van and the garage. Out of Quinsigamond. He says,
"I have to discuss a few things with my partner." Mr. Rochelle
sighs again, then says, "Very well," and moves to the front of the
van. He presses a small card into Darcey's hand. He climbs out the side door
and into the darkness of the garage. USHER DRIVE
IS a cul-de-sac. It branches off from Cromwell and bends, like a short,
twisted arm of civilization interrupting Kingstown Woods. Kingstown Woods is
a well-tended preserve that borders Windsor Hills, ropes it off from
everything around it, as if nature gave the Hill's residents their own
buffer-zone as a gift. Usher Drive
is the most remote and isolated street in the Hills, but it's still entirely
part of Windsor. It fulfills all the requirements. For a house to be part of
Windsor Hills, it has to have a certain privileged and stable look. The homes
are all oversized Colonials. Solid brick, a lot of them with ivy running up
the walls. Five bedrooms and up. Three- and four-car garages. Long and
curving brick or flagstone walks and perfect lawns that roll into a lake of
mulch. Darcey and
Yuk Tang wait in the rented Jaguar down below the Hills. Once they break over
the line and drive up, that's it -- head for the job, hit it, and get out.
Time, during Windsor Hills jobs, becomes even more of an important factor
than it normally is. Time becomes everything. They've left
the MG behind, an unusual move and one that bothers Darcey. Though he doesn't
doubt the speed and performance of the Jaguar, he's intimate with the MG. He
knows how and when to push it. There's a cushion of instinct when he has the
MG. But, as Yuk Tang found out -- and Darcey will admit it's a worthy idea --
Dr. Hawthorne's out-of-town son drives an olive green Jaguar. An olive green
Jaguar has parked often in the Hawthorne driveway, so it wouldn't jar any
neighbors' eyes. Darcey and
Yuk Tang sit below the Hills, both wishing they were someplace else. They
wish they were sitting on fat, foreign bank books and studying difficult
languages on a beach with white sand. They're having trouble concentrating.
They've lost all the calmness that once came so naturally. Yuk Tang did
some checking with a few normally reliable people. He runs it down for
Darcey: The guy's a surgeon. Due for retirement. Comes from old money -- his
old man was a surgeon. Married forever. They've got one kid, a son, who's
doing a residency at Johns Hopkins. The old man's got a houseful of awards.
He's a world traveler with a big interest in the Middle East. He's tight
about weird stuff -- won't eat in the better restaurants, wears the same
clothes forever, and, bingo, the one that counts, won't spend the money for
an alarm system. But there's
not a word about Dr. Hawthorne being any kind of collector. Even when Yuk
Tang put out some dollars. Not a word about antiques, paintings, coins or
stamps, wine. Nothing. So, they're going in cold, no idea what to look for or
where to start looking. That, combined with the time factor, does not make
for an easy night. They know going in that they can't be as neat and careful
and professional as they'd like. The Hawthorne
house sits near the end of Usher. Because of the age of the houses in
Windsor, the lots are only a half-acre. That doesn't give them the best
border protection. They'll have to be frugal with noise and light. They've
decided on mid-to-early evening, nine o'clock, because of the rented
Jaguar/visiting son angle. The house is
number six. Mid-sized. Brick with black shutters. A standard, moneyed Yankee
estate. Darcey would've bet the owner was a doctor or a judge. Classy but
subtle. A huge front door with a golden eagle above it. Fake "alarm
protected" certificates pasted into the corners of the front windows.
It's like they put out a neon sign that they're on vacation. Took a
commuter-time ad on a popular radio station. There isn't a light left on and
the drapes are pulled tight across all the windows. The place looks like a
tomb. They pull
slowly into the driveway and cut the engine. Yuk Tang moves into the
entryway, takes a stack of banded mail out of the mailbox, and stands, easily
and patiently shuffling through it. He wears latex gloves and tries to ignore
the feeling they give him. Several letters have foreign postmarks, and on one
the return address is in another language. Arabic, he thinks. Darcey moves
fast to the most hidden side of the house. He finds some good protection
behind an out-of-control shrub. He cuts the screen out of the storm window
frame and lays the mesh against the bush. He takes a diaper from beneath his
jersey, lays it against the window. Takes a flashlight from his waist and
smashes in the pane, then reaches in and up carefully and grabs the plastic
alarm box that rests on the lip of the casing. He muffles the momentary honk
against his body, then dumps the battery and box beneath the bush. He enters
into the dining room, takes a breath and calms himself and lets his eyes
adjust to the darkness. He finds his
way to the living room and the front door, but tenses up when he discovers
that it's locked with a dead-bolt. He can feel Yuk Tang's nerves beginning to
fray on the other side of the door. On instinct, Darcey lifts a cushion on a
cane-back child's chair, positioned by a coat rack to the side of the door.
He finds the key, a thick Yale, turns off and removes the alarm box that's
hanging from the doorknob by a plastic strap, and lets Yuk Tang in. They stare at
each other in the dim foyer, both waiting for the other to flinch, to move
back out the door and into the Jaguar. Finally, Yuk Tang looks to the floor
and Darcey clears his throat. They've made a vague plan about splitting up
once inside and taking different rooms, but now the plan seems useless. "All
right, let's get at it," says Darcey, and Yuk Tang moves instantly out
of the room and up the stairs in the hallway. Darcey thinks Yuk Tang is being
a fool. Instinct tells him that they'll find what they're after on the first
floor of the house. He steps into the living room and snaps on a dim light on
a sidetable by a huge leather chair. He guesses the bulb is about forty watts
and laughs to himself at cheap Doc Hawthorne. He imagines the old surgeon
suddenly at a desk somewhere in the house, scribbling on the backs of grocery
lists his wife tried to throw out, squinting under the forty watts of
illumination and figuring how many gall bladders or tonsils he has to chop
out to equal the year's electric bill. Trying not to
think about what he's doing, Darcey eases himself into the leather chair. He
sits back and lifts his legs onto the matching ottoman. It's a comfortable
chair. He could sleep or eat in it. He can hear Yuk Tang upstairs going
through drawers. He knows he should be up and moving, thinking on his feet,
but he tells himself this is a new approach. He'll sit and think about the
best single place to look for specialty items. He doesn't care that his new
approach is most likely brought on by panic or that he hasn't felt panic on a
job, even in the worst of situations, in five or six years. He loves the
leather chair and regrets that he can't take it with him. He can picture the
perfect spot in his apartment for it. Something made of glass falls and
breaks upstairs and Darcey knows Yuk Tang is just as rattled. Darcey takes
a long look around the room. Everything appears normal. There's a fireplace,
sofa, framed portraits, floor lamps, small tables covered with bells and
photographs and small crystal figurines. There's a small upright piano across
the room, pushed against a wall, and Darcey would bet that no one in the
house can play it well. There are dozens of things, right here around him, in
easy reach, that he could pocket and turn over in a day. But none of them are
what he came for. He wonders if
he could live here. In Doc Hawthorne's house. He wonders what it feels like
to be Doc Hawthorne's son. Does the kid call the old man up and ask technical
questions about tough cases? He can picture them, the cheap bastards, both
sitting in dark rooms, late in the evening when the rates are low, talking
about people they've cut open and the things they've found inside. The thought
pumps Darcey up. He pulls himself out of the chair and bounces on the balls
of his feet, looking around the room. He takes a Swiss Army Knife out of his
pocket, opens a blade, and slashes across the seat of the chair. He's never
done anything like this on a job. He's never even tracked mud into a house or
dropped a cigarette. He feels flighty and unsure of himself. He hops up and
down in place, tosses the army knife up and down in his hand. He turns and spits
on a family portrait hanging on the wall. He picks up two figurines and
smacks them together like cars on a wet highway. On an end-table he finds a
pair of reading glasses and tries them on. The room seems to bend. He takes
them off, squats, and places them on the carpet, then stomps, shatters the
glass, snaps the arms, grinds the mess under the toe of his boot. He waits to
hear Yuk Tang's voice from upstairs, but he hears only movement, drawers
being opened, things hitting the floor. Darcey walks to the piano and opens
the key cover, sits on the stool as if he were about to play. He looks over
the keys then barely rests some fingers on them. No note sounds. He thinks
about pressing down on the keys again, but hesitates. And then a thought hits
him. He gets up from the stool and moves to the side of the piano. He tries
to raise the top to look in, but it won't budge. When he tries again, harder,
his side of the piano swings away from the wall. The opposite side is hinged
to the wall making the entire thing a huge, bulky door. Darcey puts
his hand over his mouth and tries to think. What he wants to do is to grab
Yuk Tang and start driving south. Secondary highways. Drive-thru food. Dump
the Jaguar in some thick southern forest, and pick up something common but
fast. For reasons he doesn't understand just now, he'd like to get hold of
Scalley and break all of his straight new teeth. Behind the
piano is a hole in the wall. There's imitation walnut molding that makes it
look like a weird low window frame. It's roughly three feet by three feet and
it's too dark to see what's on the other side. Darcey feels
as if time is slipping away from him. He feels incapable of making small
decisions. Suddenly, he can't recall the layout of the downstairs of the
house. Wasn't there an open hallway on the other side of the living room
wall? It's like his brain is punishing him for lack of sleep. He would bet
serious dollars that specialty items are through this door, this window. He
wishes there were a stranger here to give him direction. He wishes Mr.
Rochelle would speak to him harshly. Throw money at him and order him through
the hole. And, as if he
has received orders, he scrambles. He throws himself, off balance, onto the
floor and through the opening. As if he were diving into freezing waters and
couldn't get an idea of depth. He stays on his hands and knees, wishing his
heart would stop racing, but it's no use. He's so aware of the possibilities
that lie in the next few minutes that there's no chance of keeping calm and unimpressed.
The trick here, he thinks, might be to avoid any extensive thought, to
operate like some determined animal or tremendously reliable machine. The
trick, most likely, is to avoid thinking about why or how he has come to be
in this position. He pulls his
flashlight from his pocket and thumbs it on. He sees
books. He is in a
small compartment, a vault maybe, loaded with books. He shoots the light up
and down the walls rapidly and sees shelf after shelf of books. His breath
comes slowly as he turns, on his knees, in a circle. The room is about a
six-by-six square box, lined on all sides by thick metal shelves. And the
shelves are completely covered. Volume after volume. Most of them look very
old and the words that he sees on some spines are written in foreign
languages. He expects to smell a musty odor but there's none. He moves into a
sitting position and stays still, his legs tucked in as if he were about to
meditate. He knows he
should get Yuk Tang but decides against it. He looks around trying to get
comfortable with the vault, trying to notice as much as possible. Beyond
books, there are a few other items: a golden bowl, or at least a bowl that
once looked gold but now is tarnished and junky. It's filled with letters and
postcards and a magnifying glass. His flashlight reflects back at him and his
heart pounds and when he follows the beam to a corner where the wall meets
the ceiling, he sees a tiny window, no bigger than a half-dollar, and round.
He stands carefully to look. The ceiling is only an inch or two above his
head. The round thick pane has a syrupy look to it. Darcey puts his eye to
the glass and can see the night sky, stars and light from the moon. He knows he's
going to have to decide what to take soon and this bothers him. How can he
know? He sits again in front of the gold bowl and notices, for the first
time, candles on either side of it, secured in elaborate gold candlesticks.
Automatically, he pulls out a butane lighter from his pocket and sparks the
candles. The vault gets brighter. He starts to relax a little, then is
startled by the idea of flames so close to all these books. But he can't
bring himself to blow out the candles. He stares
without really focusing at a wall of books. Darcey would never describe
himself as a reader to anyone. Now and then he goes on a binge with the
crossword puzzle books, tears through them with no problem, word after word
and page after page. And occasionally he'll read one of those Louis L'Amour
westerns. Sometimes, a mystery. Espionage stuff. A fact that Darcey
understands now is that he has never thought a great deal about books. He has
never considered them a moveable property. He always thought stamps and wine
were as weird as it got. He reaches to
a close shelf and starts taking down volumes and piling them next to his
legs. They're all heavy. Much heavier than he'd have bet. They don't feel
like normal books that he sees around. There are no illustrations on the
covers. No pictures of the authors on the back. The bindings are all smooth
and cold as if the vault were a refrigerator. He picks the books up, holds
them, runs his hands over them and reads the titles, when he can, off the
spines. There are two
short, slim white volumes -- Vortigern and Rowena and Henry II. There's a
pamphlet sealed in plastic called The Diagnosis and Treatment of
Bibliophagia. Darcey thinks about breaking open the seal and taking a look.
He thinks there'd be some great pictures in that one. He picks up The
Courier's Tragedy and other Jacobean Revenge Plays and puts it down. Glances
at More Astronomical Studies, R.A. Locke & S. John Herschel; Rappaccini's
Other Daughter by Auberpiner; The Life and Death of Og of Bason; Recipes and
Cocktails for a New State by Ernst Toller. His eyes linger on Travels in
North America: Quinsigamond by Chesterton, then he throws it to the side. He
pulls a thick and tall volume called A History of Bitic Literature, Vol. 1,
into his lap. He judges its weight and lets it slide to the floor. He tosses
on top of it The Babel Catalogue: Argentina Ed., 1899. He breathes deeply and
feels confused and nauseated. Darcey can
find no order or category to the books. They're published in different years,
in different languages. There are plays and medical texts, histories and
cookbooks, atlases and bibles. He begins to have hateful and destructive
thoughts. Like torching this goddamn vault. Torching Doc Hawthorne's whole
house. Driving the rented Jaguar off the Havelock Cliffs. Maybe with Yuk Tang
locked in the trunk. He decides to
pocket the magnifying glass that's in the gold bowl. As he reaches for it, he
notices, underneath the thick stack of bulging envelopes, the top of a
package wrapped in brown paper. He pulls it out. It looks like a large brown
brick. It's addressed to Doc Hawthorne and it hasn't been opened. Darcey rips
off layers of brown wrapper. He pulls and tears at the paper, getting
frustrated and tense, but finally uncovering a book. Another book. It's old,
not in great shape, and bound in cloth. The front is blank, but on the spine
are the words Holy Writ and beneath them, Bombay. Darcey's not
sure why he's excited. He moves closer to the two candles and licks his lips.
As he begins to open the volume, a cough explodes behind him and his heart
and lungs collapse for a second. He falls to the side and awkwardly turns his
body. The book stays in his hand, shaking. In front of
him, in the opening to the vault, shoulders hunched and on his knees, is Yuk
Tang. Darcey has lost his voice. Yuk Tang lets his head fall to the side and
in the dim light, Darcey gets a better look: Yuk Tang's face is completely
made up. He looks like a rodeo clown. He has on lipstick, rouge, mascara,
false eyelashes. There are long, dangling diamond earrings hanging from his
earlobes and around his shoulders is some kind of fur stole. Yuk Tang
leans into the vault. Darcey begins to rise and Yuk Tang swings his arm
forward and catches Darcey solidly above the eye. Darcey falls backward. He
has no idea what has hit him. Something heavy and metal. A wide and fast
stream of blood is making its way from Darcey's skull down his face. He tries
to move and falls back against a shelf of books. He watches with one eye as
Yuk Tang withdraws from the vault. The light from the living room closes out and
he hears a metallic click as the piano comes flush against the wall. Now two
streams of blood make their way in a slow race down Darcey's right cheek and
past the corner of his mouth. His tongue comes out and licks at his own
blood, hesitantly at first, and then furiously. The tongue twists and stabs,
trying for the thick lines of red. There is an ache that takes over his
skull, obliterates everything else for a time, and then eases off, leaves
just a dizzying and constant echo of pain and confusion. Darcey thinks he
hears his own voice and gets startled, sits up to listen, but gets dizzy and
falls back to the floor. He rests his
head against books and time goes by. He dozes and wakes, dreams quickly and
mumbles to himself. His eyes blink open and closed, one continually bathed in
a fresh wash of blood. He has confusing, rapidly changing nightmares: Yuk
Tang and Darcey, buried alive in a cave. Yuk Tang and Darcey buried alive in
a rented, olive green Jaguar. Buried alive in the Menard Diner, an earthquake
or avalanche throwing wails of mud and rock up on the roof and against the
stained glass windows, sealing them in. And himself, alone and helpless, all
energy run out a hole in his body, being carried into a raging ocean in the
arms of George Lewis, carried like a sleeping child into deafening surf, and
the ocean changes form, becomes a heaving sea of books, encyclopedias and
dictionaries, ebbing and banking, swallowing broken Darcey under an endless
wave. His good eye
opens then closes. It opens again. He forces vision. The vault seems to be
getting darker, the flame from the candles seems to be shrinking, flickering.
He looks up the wall of books opposite him, to the half-dollar window in the
corner, and he thinks he sees blue and white lights revolving, lighting the
circle of sky and then leaving it. He would bet
something will happen soon. In his lap is the Holy Writ from Bombay. He opens
the cover and several pages slide under his fingers. He tilts his head and
tries to focus his eye and makes a ridiculous effort to read. An almost
perfect way of killing time. |