Face on the Wall Page 7

  Annie spent half the day in Harvard Square, taking a holiday from her painted wall. She met Minnie Peck for lunch. Min made huge metal sculptures from car parts, bedsprings, and old washing machines. Annie was envious of Min’s cosmopolitan life. She was always popping off to New York for a gallery opening or a play. She knew everybody in the contemporary art scene. Today at lunch she told Annie about a party for some illustrator, Miguel Somebody.

  “Miguel Delgado?”

  “That’s right. He does those crazy clowns, right? And elephants? Green and purple elephants?”

  “Oh, yes, that’s right. What’s he like?”

  “Oh, really good-looking, sexy. Long black hair, and he’s got these burning eyes.”

  “Oh, Min, did anybody mention Noakes? Joseph Noakes I’ve heard a rumor that he’s dead.”

  “Oh, no, he was there. He’s not dead.”

  “Oh, thank goodness. What’s he like?”

  “Noakes? Oh, sort of stark and really intense. Big shoulders. Gorgeous. You know.” Then Min wrinkled her brow with doubt. “Unless it was Boakes, Joe Boakes. Is there somebody called Boakes?”

  Annie sighed and picked up the carafe of wine. Joseph Noakes-Boakes sounded a lot like her old boyfriend Jack. But now Min was off on something else, her latest work of art. “I call it Millennial Woman. It’s almost finished. It’s hubcaps, shiny hubcaps, rusty hubcaps, thousands of hubcaps. And you know what? It would look really fabulous on your lawn.” Min reached across the table and gripped Annie’s arm. “Look, why don’t I truck it over? You could try it here and there. Special price for an old friend.”

  “Well, I don’t know, Min,” said Annie cautiously. “I was thinking more of a sundial.”

  On the way home she felt slightly tipsy. On Route 2 she stared straight ahead, widening her eyes, concentrating on the traffic rushing ahead of her, beside her, behind her, then ramming on her brakes when the car in front suddenly veered to one side and stopped with a jolt.

  Something had run out on the road, some kind of animal. The driver yelled out the window, “Jesus Christ, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He wasn’t yelling at Annie, he was shouting at a small shape on the road. While other cars dodged around her and sounded angry horns, she threw open the door and ran to Eddy.

  “Is that your kid?” bellowed the man who had nearly driven over him. “Criminal negligence,” he shouted at Annie, as she hurried Eddy back to her car and pushed him into the front seat.

  “Eddy,” she said, working her way back into the slow lane, “what happened? What were you doing out there on the highway?”

  “Cambridge,” he said, looking up at her, his voice trembling. “Going to Cambridge.”

  Oh, God, thought Annie, he had been trying to follow her to Cambridge. While she had been gossiping with Minnie Peck in the restaurant on JFK Street, poor old Eddy had been stumbling through the woods, fighting his way through the underbrush, heading for the highway. Why didn’t Eddy’s mother keep a closer watch on Eddy?

  At home Annie brought Eddy to the Gasts’ front door and confronted Roberta. “I was driving home from Cambridge on Route 2 when he ran out on the road.”

  Roberta said, “Oh dear.” She took Eddy’s hand and said faintly, “Thank you.”

  At home, in her own part of the house, after flinging down her bag, and tearing off her coat, Annie stopped to stare at the wall. The face was back. It was no longer the bleeding blank face of a woman with golden hair. This time it was dark and brutal, with pointed teeth, bulging eyes, and a bright-blue beard.

  Chapter 17

  “Oh, Flimnap,” said Annie, “I forgot to tell you. Bob Gast wants to know if you could fix some things over there. You know, clogged drains, doors that won’t shut.”

  Flimnap glanced at her. “Well, okay, fine.” His voice was flat.

  “And they say the trapdoor on the floor of the laundry porch is rotten.”

  “I’ll do that first. It’s not rotten, but I wouldn’t put it past those people to fall through on purpose and sue you. Mrs. Cast’s law firm specializes in that kind of thing.”

  “It does! They sue people? How do you know?”

  “Ear to the ground.”

  It was a typically evasive Flimnappian remark. There were a lot of questions Annie wanted to ask him, such as, “Exactly what is your marital status?” But she knew he’d dodge around them somehow. The truth was probably something like, Married and divorced, six children in child support.

  Flimnap asked Annie a question instead. “What does Bob Gast do? Is he another lawyer?”

  Annie wasn’t sure. “He’s in some kind of real estate, I think. You know, land management, something like that.”

  Next day Flimnap began doing things for the Gasts, knocking on their front door, using Annie’s key when they weren’t at home. After replacing the trapdoor on the side porch, he climbed the stairs with bucket and pipe wrench to work on the stopped-up drain in the bathroom sink.

  He was alone in the house. Bob and Roberta Gast were at work, the children were in school. Flimnap put the bucket down softly and began moving around among the bedrooms. One was an elegant master bedroom with a canopied bed. Another was a boy’s room, Eddy’s, rather spartan. A third was full of dolls and swimming trophies, Charlene’s.

  There remained the small room on the north side. The door was closed. Flimnap opened it boldly. The room was a study with a desk, a filing cabinet, and an electric typewriter.

  Slowly Flimnap walked up to the desk and looked down at the rows of papers, neatly arranged in piles. Was this Roberta’s stuff, or her husband’s? Or did they both use the room?

  Big manila envelope, “Weingarten and Morrissey, Attorneys at Law.” That sounded like Roberta.

  Legal-sized envelope, “Winchester, Board of Appeals.” That was more like Bob.

  Folded plot plan, “Rolling Pastures, footprint.” Footprint? It was a land planner’s term, the shape of a structure on a lot. That was surely Bob Cast.

  A sheaf of stapled pages, “Songsparrow Estates, Southtown, Preliminary Estimates.”

  Flimnap picked up the sheaf and began to read.

  Bob Gast came home early from his downtown office. Roberta was late. Eddy’s driver had not yet brought him home. Charlene was at swimming practice. Bob ran upstairs to make a few phone calls.

  Sitting down at his desk, he picked up the phone. For a moment he held it in his hand, ready to dial, then put it down.

  His papers didn’t look right. “Songsparrow Estates, Southtown, Preliminary Estimates,” what was it doing right there on top? He had thrust it carefully underneath all the rest before he left the house. His dealings with Fred Small were still in a shaky state, and there was a tricky question about ownership. It was too soon to go public.

  Could Eddy have been messing around with his papers? No, surely it wasn’t Eddy. Charlene? Roberta? Not very likely. Gast stood up and looked doubtfully out the window, as though an interfering marauder might be visible below.

  Fee, ft, fo, fum!

  I smell the blood of an Englishman;

  Be he alive or be he dead,

  I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.

  English nursery rhyme

  Chapter 18

  When he had crossed the water he found the entrance to Hell. It was black and sooty within, and, the Devil was not at home….

  The Brothers Grimm,

  “The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs”

  “Sergeant Is that you?”

  “Professor Kelly?”

  “Listen, I thought I’d head out your way and drop in on Fred Small. Want to join me? And please call me Homer, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Well, all right, Homer. And my name’s Bill. Sorry I can’t join you, I’m on traffic duty all day. Besides, Small would slam the door in my face.”

  “Okay. I’ll just barge in, the innocent bystander. All he can do is throw me out. Where does he live, exactly?”

  Kennebunk to
ld him, but when Homer got to Southtown he lost his way. Out the Pig Road, Kennebunk had said. Then he had corrected himself, Oh, no, it’s Skylark now, or something like that. Homer drove around aimlessly, hoping to run into Skylark Road.

  Southtown was a village of annihilated farms turned into housing tracts and shopping malls. After driving for miles down a country lane lined with houses built in the 1950s, modest one-storied cottages with big triangular gables, Homer stopped to ask directions from a man who was washing his car.

  “Skylark? Never heard of it.” The guy lowered his hose and the water ran out on the driveway. “Sorry.”

  “Thanks anyway.” Homer turned his car around and went back the way he had come. At a crossroads he took a right, just for the heck of it. At once he saw a carved sign, “Meadowlark Estates.” Wasn’t that what Kennebunk had said?

  There were gateposts at the entrance to Meadowlark Estates, surrounded by dwarf Alberta spruce trees; Blue Rug junipers, and daffodils. The daffodils spoke up at once and addressed Homer sternly. This is a pretty classy place. Are you sure you measure up?

  I’m afraid not, mumbled Homer, glancing nervously at the miniature castle behind the daffodils. It was a guardhouse. Like the daffodils, it asked a nosy question: Do you have any legitimate business here, my friend? Are you acquainted with any of these impor tant people?

  Homer rehearsed an answer in his head. Can you tell me which house belongs to Mr. Frederick Small.?

  But there was no one in the guardhouse. How lax, thought Homer, how careless. In the absence of the palace guard, anybody might walk in off the street, just anybody. An outside agitator like himself, for instance.

  Homer grinned and drove slowly along the curving drive, examining the splendid houses left and right. The place was a jumble. There were fairy castles straight from Disneyland, French châteaux, and Grecian temples. Medieval crenellated towers and half-timbered Elizabethan mansions were cheek by jowl with Corinthian peristyles and Italianate balustrades. Homer thought about the abundant gushes of cash that had resulted in the building of these dream homes. He imagined husbands saying to their wives, “Honey, the sky’s the limit, let your imagination soar.” And the wives had answered quick as a flash, because they knew exactly what they wanted, they’d been dreaming about it for years, “Marble foyer, curving staircase, gold fixtures in the powder room.” Were they happy now, the wives? Did they wake up joyfully every morning and leap out of bed with glad cries, or did they suffer from the ordinary anxieties of the rest of humankind? Did their husbands run around with other women, did their children flunk out of schools?

  Homer drove on, looking for a human being who could direct him to the house of Frederick Small. At the end of Meadowlark Drive, circling past an Ionic temple with a cupola on top, he was surprised to see a blot on the landscape. Behind the temple rose a rusty tower, a contraption of crumbling chutes and ladders. Surely this was not part of Meadowlark Estates? No, it was some sort of rattling, clanking commercial enterprise. Homer guessed at once what it was, the sand-and-gravel company belonging to Frederick Small.

  His house must be here somewhere. Homer drove on, looking for someone to talk to. But the massive houses were blank, and the shades of the windows were pulled down. No children played on the faultless grass, no father washed his car, no dog barked. The houses looked abandoned, like monuments in the desert.

  But not utterly abandoned. Homer put his foot on the brake and stopped his car. The garage door of one of the fairy castles was rising without the aid of human hands: A car backed out silently, a low sports car with swollen fenders.

  Homer jumped out and hailed the driver, a faceless dark shape behind the tinted windows, but the car continued to back up, swerving out into the street, ready to take off. Homer ran in front of it, waving his arms.

  Reluctantly the driver stopped. A window rolled down. A white male face in black goggles looked out at him and said, “How did you get past the gate?”

  Oh, what a courteous welcome! What a hospitable reception to the stranger from afar! Homer bent down to the window and explained that he was looking for Frederick Small.

  “Christ,” said Black Goggles. “I hope you’re an interested buyer.”

  “No, no, just an interested party.” Homer glanced at the huge blocky houses up and down the street. “He’s selling his place? Does he live around here?”

  “Oh, God, no, he’s on the Pig Road.” Black Goggles wagged his head to the left. “Oughta be condemned. Here we are in these executive estates, gated properties, paying a lousy fortune in taxes, while he’s got this phony agricultural assessment and pays zilch. Farmland, bullshit! And that fucking sand-and-gravel company, that’s his too.” Black Goggles jerked his head in the direction of the rusty towers. “Jesus, he swore it’d be gone by New Year’s Day. You tell him we’re gonna sue.”

  Magically the window beside Black Goggles moved upward. The sleek hips of the car silked past Homer. Gathering speed, it zoomed out of sight.

  Chapter 19

  There was once a man who had beautiful houses in the city and in the country … But, unfortunately, he had a blue beard.

  Charles Perrault, “Bluebeard”

  Homer was still looking for Fred Small. As he drove out of the gated community called Meadowlark, he reflected on Small’s name. It had the sound of one of those modest little men who are actually homicidal psychopaths. Hadn’t there been a notorious Dr. Small who had poisoned his wife with potassium cyanide, prescribing it for gastric distress? And wasn’t there another Small in Maine who had strangled his wife, set fire to the house, and gone off for a jolly weekend in the city? Only, unfortunately, his wife’s body had fallen through the floor into the basement, where the local sheriff observed the cord around its neck? Maybe Fred was yet another homicidal wife-killing Small.

  The next driveway was heralded by another impressive sign, “Songsparrow Estates.” That was it. Kennebunk had not said Skylark or Meadowlark, he had said Songsparrow.

  This driveway was unpaved. There were no gateposts and no daffodils, and the only house in sight was a dark little bungalow.

  Homer pulled to the side and stared at the sign. Black Goggles had said nothing about Songsparrow Estates. He had called it the Pig Road. Then Homer discovered another sign on a tall metal pole, an official green highway sign. He squinted at it. The name had been smeared with mud, but the shapes of the letters were clear in the slanting light of afternoon: “Pig Road.”

  What did it mean, two signs with different names for the same road? Pride, that was what it meant. “Pig Road” sounded agricultural and foul-smelling. One’s nose wrinkled with distaste. Whereas there was a sweetly spiritual ring to “Songsparrow,” shamelessly imitating the musical overtones of “Meadowlark” next door.

  Homer parked beside the bungalow, got out of his car, and approached the front porch. The air had a high thin sound, as of birds chirping far away. Round leaves on a bush dangled and trembled. Directly in his path a crow flapped up from some dead creature, a field mouse or a shrew.

  Climbing the porch steps, Homer told himself that of course he should have written an introductory letter, asking for an appointment. But it was not in Homer’s nature to make appointments. He never called ahead or wrote a letter, he just blundered in. It was partly laziness, partly his habit of making impulsive decisions, and partly his belief in surprise, giving his quarry no time to clean up, to shove the body under the bed and wash the bloody knife and put the kettle on for tea.

  He pushed the bell. It failed to ring. No one came to the door. He knocked loudly. Again there was no response, but as he turned away, the door opened softly behind him.

  “Oh, good afternoon,” said Homer, feeling like a Fuller brush salesman, “my name’s Kelly. I’m looking for Mr. Small.”

  “I am Frederick Small.” The man at the door was not built like his name. He was tall and broad-shouldered. The hands that hung from the sleeves of his sweater were like cabbages. Only his head was small, as t
hough borrowed from the body of some undersized person. He sported a toothbrush mustache and a neat little beard. Behind his glasses his eyes were large and lustrous, like a rabbit’s. “Are you here about real estate?” asked Frederick Small.

  Of course Homer was here about real estate. “I understand you have land for sale. I’m—uh—looking for a lot. My wife and I—”

  “Sorry,” said Frederick Small. “The entire estate is—uh—subject to a purchase-and-sale agreement, to be signed in the very near future.” But he backed up and held the door open.

  The entrance hall was narrow and dark. The pictures on the wall were nearly invisible. Small’s glittering glasses floated in the dark.

  “I thought,” lied Homer, making a frolicsome leap into the unknown, “there was some question about the title?”

  “Who told you that?” said Small sharply.

  “Can’t remember,” said Homer glibly. “Heard it somewhere.”

  “Well, there isn’t.” Small led the way into a narrow living room. At once a memory of the past welled up around Homer, because an old building was like a time machine. This one evoked memories of the 1920s. Not the fashionable decade of cloche hats and short skirts and cigarettes in long holders, but the one that appeared in old photographs—rooms crowded with brown furniture, women with odd haircuts sitting on porch swings, radios with matching veneer and lighted dials, chairs upholstered in brown plush. Some of Homer’s aunts and uncles had lived in houses like this. They had sat in the dim light under sepia reproductions of The Light of the World and Sir Galahad, rooms in which the only spot of color was the Sacred Heart.