knife-edged drizzle shot down. Thick mist mushroomed over the lake.
The air had ice in it.
Something moved a few yards away. Broker instinctively dropped to one knee, his hand moving to the grip of the.45 in his belt.
The blond kid. David. From the cabin down the beach. A skier robbed of his snow, he clambered through the rocks.
Broker stood up. David stopped, startled. He wore a running suit and carried a hiking pack over one shoulder. The pack cover was open and had been hastily stuffed with a blanket, a thermos and a smaller cylindrical shammy bag from which protruded collapsible tripod legs. A Leupold logo was stitched in the material of the bag.
“Hi,” he said. “Lousy weather, huh.”
“Not much skiing,” said Broker.
David grinned. “And we took the place for the whole month; dumb.”
“It could change,” said Broker.
“We can only hope,” said David. “Well, have a good one.”
He continued on and Broker watched his outline disappear in the mist. It was difficult to see this pretty boy brat as a threat. But the small drawstring bag sticking from his bag was familiar. Broker had one just like it in his closet, with his hunting rifles. It contained a high-power spotter scope.
56
Days took on a routine. Danny rose early and went for a two-mile run down Valentino and out Amesti. Then he did sets of push-ups and sit-ups. After a shower and a shave he brewed coffee and had a light breakfast of yogurt mixed with oats, raisins, and bananas. Then he started in to work. It took a day to remove the moldy carpet and carry it, like hunks of whale blubber, out to the trash cans by the gate.
He found a serviceable hardwood floor under the carpet, but it was impregnated with rubbery glue and staples that he had to lever and pry out one by one with a pliers and screwdriver.
On the third day he heard a knock on his back screen door.
Through the mesh he saw a tall, willowy beach blonde. She was around thirty. The taut flesh of her thighs and the tight denim of her shorts looked to be the same surface painted different colors. Her eyes were aqua colored, dreamy. Fluffs of blue soapsuds.
She held a platter in both hands, which supported a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread and a saltshaker.
“Hi,” she said as he came to the door.
“Ah,” he said, moving his hands awkwardly to apologize for his sweat-drenched T-shirt, his dirty arms.
“I live next door. Ruby.”
“Oh,” said Danny. “Daniel Storey. Danny. Hi.” He opened the screen. Tentatively, they shook hands. She balanced the tray in one hand expertly. Self-consciously, he yanked off his cowhide work gloves.
“Danny,” she said.
It should have been a defining moment. A good-looking woman was calling him Danny. He’d had to roll Ida Rain’s orgasms uphill like Sisyphian boulders to get her to call him Danny, and that was in the dark. But the tribute coming from Ruby’s lips was curiously unmoving.
“I, ah, brought you a housewarming gift,” she said.
Remembering his lines, he smiled, “I’m afraid I don’t drink.
Anymore.”
“Oh, no, it’s…a custom. See, you’re supposed to carry the tray through all the rooms of your house before you spend the night, to appease the former residents. A kind of offering.”
“You mean ghosts.” Danny’s voice went flat as a shadow sat up in his mind.
“Welll,” she drawled playfully. “It’s not
“I’ll give it a try,” said Danny. He opened the screen door and started to take the tray, then he looked around. No place to sit it down. He motioned outside, to the deck chairs and the small round table between them.
He placed the tray on the table and offered her one of the chairs. “I appreciate the gesture. But I already spent a couple nights here.”
“We know,” said Ruby. “At first we thought you were a cop.” She lowered her eyes. Shy. “Are you. A cop? I mean.”
“Why do you ask?” He drew it out in a slightly neutral voice, playing the drama, enjoying it.
“Well, there’s been a lot of cops here since the fire.”
“No. I bought the house from the cops, they auctioned it off. The guy who used to live here was cooking speed, they said. Turns out he wasn’t such a good cook.” Danny shrugged. “It was pretty cheap.” He hunched his shoulders.
“Needs a little work.”
“I’ll say. Well, just wanted to drop by and say hello. My partner is Terra. We have a lot of cats.”
“I noticed.”
“We try to keep them home, but they stray. You don’t mind cats?” She raised a slim eyebrow.
“Nah,” he said, almost visibly excited. Not by her. But by stage fright. His first real conversation from inside his new identity.
She waved, walked down the deck and disappeared around the side of the house. Danny marveled at how Ruby was, well, perfectly manufactured. And how utterly without sex appeal.
In the long shadow of Ida Rain.
That night, for the first time, he woke up with his ears plugged by the roar of rushing water. His eyes tracked across the dark porch to the tray of offering presents, and he had a piercing memory of Caren Angland falling away, shrinking, tiny-gone in the thrashing pit.
The next night, after a microwaved supper, Danny opened a can of Coors and strolled his fence line. Ruby and Terra had their CD player turned up. Gurgles of whale music belched, groaned and farted on the evening air. Obscene.
Cows fucking. Them fucking. Disturbed by the sounds, he went home and shut his doors.
He sat on the bare floor, sipped his beer and studied Ruby’s tray with its burden of offerings. The wine, the bread and the salt.
He did not believe in presences that needed appeasing in old houses. He did not believe in ghosts. What he did believe in, powerfully, was the potency of secrets. There was an old cop adage: getting out isn’t as hard as staying out. It was easier to escape than to avoid detection on the run.
There were so many opportunities to talk, to reveal oneself.
To explain yourself.
To confess.
After an interval, he went back outside and determined that the awful racket had stopped next door. In the dark, faintly, he heard Ruby calling. “Here kitty, kitty.”
The dream was just that. A dream. Not a nightmare. In it he clearly saw Broker and his baby girl. She of the big eyes and thick eyebrows. She was watching him grab the money off the floor of the workshop. Her eyes getting bigger and bigger.
That’s all. Then he woke up, slick with sweat. And for a while, he felt around the mattress he’d laid out on the back porch, to establish its reality. His own.
He got up, shaking. Fumbled for his contacts. Too much bother. Put on his glasses. The air clung like wet sheets. Mist fumed in the porch screens. Monet painting with a steam hose. The yard light looked like a smear of Vaseline.
The rumpled covers plucked at his sweaty skin, turbulent waves he might sink in.
Barefoot, he picked up the tray containing the wine, bread and salt. As he carried them through the rooms of his new house he pretended that his life also had rooms that he was making clean, and he was moving through them as well.
