Life's biggest problem is that it's boring. At least it's boring most of the time. When it's not boring it's terrifying. But when the panic subsides the needle does not settle back to mid-range, which consists of stimulating, interesting, exciting. No. Instead it drops right back into boring. There's no middle ground in life, or precious little of it.
So, in accordance with this zero-to-red line-to-zero pattern of life's tachometer, I was bored and depressed following work the next afternoon. My day's labors had consisted of removing impacted third molars. It's a painful but necessary procedure. It's how I make the bulk of my living. I hate it. None of my patients had been happy to greet me. Afterward, though glad the operation was over, they departed sullenly, with swollen jowls, in anticipation of the pain to come when the local wore off. Bad. I went for a slow run out along the Old Road to Nine-Acre Corners, then back around to Old Stone Mill Road where we live. I took a sauna, assembled and fiddled with my new compound archery bow, and took the mail into the study to go through it. I listened to Wagner. It was the funeral march from Seigfried. Very stirring. Heroic. When the Chicago Symphony plays Wagner, with that great brass section, you can hear the alpenhorns echoing off the purplish far walls of the Jungfrau… The only trouble with Wagner is that if you listen to too much of him, you get to actually believe it. And then it's not too difficult to imagine yourself walking out to the nearest aerodrome, climbing into your Stuka, and roaring off into the wild blue to strafe civilians.
Got to watch it with old Richard Wagner.
Halfway through the mail call I came across a government form bearing a U.S. Postal Service inscription. It was from the post office in Lowell, informing me that "an item of personal property" had been found in one of their postal facilities, and that I could claim said item by appearing there in person, bearing the proper identification, within thirty days.
An item of personal property… found in a postal facility.. . It couldn't be. It was too good to be true. To hell with thirty days;'I hightailed it to the phone and dialed the Lowell P.O. It was after four; I had forty minutes to get there before they closed. After much runaround and holding, I finally got to the young lady who was familiar with the item.
"Well, we were wondering when you'd call back, Doctor Adams. You see, you gotta have the slip in your hand, as well as the I.D. It's just the rules."
"I understand. Well, I'll be right up, so stay put. You want me to describe it?"
"No, not again. I'll be here. 'Bye."
On the drive up I couldn't help thinking that part of her phone conversation had sounded funny. Did she have the correct item? Was she confusing me with someone else? It wouldn't seem likely in a town the size of Lowell.
I arrived just before closing, and soon was facing the young woman across the counter. I showed her the proper identification.
"Should I describe the package?"
She gave a little giggle, as if I were obviously kidding, then gave me a questioning sidelong glance with furrowed brow.
"Your voice change?"
"Hmm?"
"Your voice. It sounds different. Gotta cold, mistah?"
I stared around the building. I was beginning to think I was in a Franz Kafka novel. A fat man appeared next to the young lady and glared at me over his droopy glasses. He looked at me, looked at the slip, looked at me, looked at the slip, looked at me. Later on in the year he was going to try something really challenging, like toilet training.
"Whats a big idea?" he asked me.
"What big idea? I'm here to claim my personal item. I have furnished the required identification and am prepared to describe the item. It's a small package from Investment Alloy Laboratories in Cambridge, which is a dental lab. And the piece is valuable to me."
"Must be, the way you been buggin' us about it," he said.
Back into the Kafka novel again.
"Excuse me. I only called once."
"Frank, he don't sound like the other guy," said the girl. "I asked him if his voice changed."
"What other guy?" I asked.
"A guy named Charles Adams has been callin' us continual for the past two days, did we find a box, you know? But we ain't found no box, till yesterday. Then we send the note out, right?"
"Did he call you today?" I asked.
"Uh-huh. About forty minutes ago."
"No dear, that was me."'
She giggled again. Frank looked at me, looked at the slip, looked at me, looked at the slip…
"That's just what he said each time: it's me." She laughed.
"But I described the package."
"Yeah," said Frank, "four times."
I sighed, and swept my eyes around the place. Somebody else wanted the package. Somebody who knew what it looked like. And also somebody who knew the post office would have it. Who was it? Not the guys chipping at the factory wall, because he thought the package was still in there. Or maybe he was after the newsboy's pouch… the empty pouch…
They finally let me have the package because they knew I wasn't leaving without it, and it was closing time. The best way to win an argument with a government employee is to do it just before quitting time. I filled out another special form and departed with the box, which was only as big as a pack of cigarettes. It had been opened, and the post-office people had not opened it. The letter carrier had found it, as is, in a letter box near the old factory. It could have been there all weekend. The mouth-piece was there, in perfect condition. They had never seen the other caller at the post office, nor had he left any phone number or address. One thing for sure: he knew where to find me.
But he didn't even wait until I got home. At the third light I knew the dark-blue Olds behind me wasn't there by coincidence. I did a double cloverleaf on and off of 495 and he was still on my tail. He was following me, as Brian Hannon might say, like stink on a skunk.
South on Route 3 he sped up, swerved to the left-hand passing lane, and tried to come alongside. But I swerved left too and blocked him. He tried to pass on the right and I blocked him again. Then I pulled out the light switch while I tromped on the gas pedal. He braked hard when he saw the rear lights flash on, and I had the edge for a few seconds, but it didn't work and I wasn't surprised. An International Scout is no match for an Olds sedan on the highway. He tried the passing routine again and this time I let him. But as he passed me he tried to run me off onto the shoulder. And we weren't alone on the road, either. My mystery friend wanted that cardboard box pretty badly. When he tried to head me off I got a little belligerent and swerved right into him. Ka-whunk! Our fenders banged and shrieked, and I even saw sparks. A Scout may not be fast, but it's heavy-duty and good on the body punches… just like Dempsey. I had bloodied Blue Olds's nose a bit and he backed off.
I couldn't see the driver clearly at all. He had no front plate, either. I guess I was a little heated up by this time and didn't care what happened to the Scout's body. I wanted to put Mystery Man into the opposing lane, right smack into a Peterbilt or a Mack. But I think he sensed this, and stayed back. He got no closer than a hundred feet but stayed with me like an echo. We crossed the Bedford line, then on into Concord. I went along to the town and hit Walden Road. Half a mile along it I swerved into a parking lot and Mystery Man followed me in. But he did a three-sixty right away and barreled out of there on two wheels. And as it was, it was lucky for him he wasn't tagged right then and there. I went inside and told the desk sergeant to follow that car. Then I went upstairs to Brian Hannon's office.
"Smart thing, coming to the police station," he said as he ignited a Lucky and waved out the match. "Usually crooks feel unsafe around them."
"Except for this one."
"Your comedy is not appreciated, Doctor Adams. I'll have you know that the people of Concord, and of the Commonwealth, depend on me and my staff to-"
"Listen to this. I want to tell you what's been happening lately. Maybe you can help me figure it out."
"Maybe I can, maybe not. I'm very busy right now."
"So I see," I said, pointing at the unfinished crossword puzzle on his desk.
He frowned and squinted at me and leaned back in his chair, blowing smoke rings. When I finished he scratched the side of his balding head. Then he spoke.
"What happened was, they went through the pouch in the room at the factory, okay? They not only opened it there; they went through the contents. The empty envelope from the Boston library proves this. They sorted through the papers and discarded the envelope. They opened your box from the lab and decided they didn't need it. So on their way home one of them, who decided to do his good turn for the day-"
"God bless him- he saved me weeks of work."
"Uh-huh. He drops your box into the nearest mailbox so you'll get it back. So then afterwards, when they've gone through the Sacco and Vanzetti stuff real carefully, they realize something's missing. So they think, where could this thing be? They knew Robinson had it on his person. It turned up missing from the bundle, so the first place they look is back in the pouch."
"But they never got to the pouch… or the envelope. I think they thought Johnny hid the thing in my box to throw people off if by chance they snagged the pouch. Right?"
"Yeah. That's it. But you say somebody was looking for the pouch too- tearing up that old wall. I think that either there are two rival groups after this thing, or else the original outfit is searching everywhere they can, covering all the bases."
"Whatever it is, Brian, it's small."
"'Yep. Sounds like negatives to me. Either microfilm, microfiche, or plain old thirty-five-mil. negs. They're all small and potent."
We ambled over to the tiny lab and I produced the cardboard box and the piece for them to examine. We watched them work on it for half an hour, slicing away at it with scalpels, shining bright lights through the cardboard, dipping shreds of the cardboard in solutions and dyes. Nix. Plain cardboard box. Containerus cardinarius.
We went back to Brian's office where I called the Boss. She told me Joe was looking for me. I called him at his office and found him in. He was glad to hear about my find in Lowell."Got some interesting stuff from the lab. One: the cigarette butts' snubbed ends contain residues of human flesh, burnt blood, epidermal tissue, and fat."
"They did it up there. They tortured Andy up in that room where nobody could hear him scream. The bastards."
"Right. And what they did was, they tied him to that big old desk. Remember the scrape marks? They dragged the desk over to the wall so they could stand on it to reach the gash in the wall. They went up there tippy-toe and dropped the pouch and the envelope inside. Then they dragged it back and tied Andy to it. Get this: fibers from the suit coat he was wearing were found on the floor. Likewise, the old oil and dirt on the floor match the smudges on his coat. No doubt about it then."
"Anything on the pouch or envelope?"
"Nothing. Pure blank."
"Then they'll keep looking."
"Think so?"
"Know so. Whatever the hell it is, they want it bad."
"You're right. Don't you see too how the evidence proves that the pouch and the packet didn't yield what they wanted? Because, see, if they moved the desk back from the wall to torture Andy, it was done after they discarded the pouch."
"Yeah… they tortured him hoping he could tell them where the thing was when it wasn't where it was supposed to be. After all, it was impossible to ask Johnny; he was dead."
"I told you so… I told you so," sang Brian as he swiveled in his chair, exhaling smoke. "Torture is performed for three reasons: revenge, information, or verification. They wanted information from Andy and the poor guy didn't have it."
"Who's that?" asked Joe.
"Brian, in the background."
"Put him on a sec."
After they talked. Brian and I chatted a little. I was hoping he'd get a call from a cruiser saying they'd snagged the blue Olds, but none came in. This bunch was tough and slippery. I didn't like it: I asked Brian how the bad guys didn't know that the object wasn't in the hands of the police, now that we'd recovered the pouch.
"They don't. They only know that Robinson had the item when he left the library, and that sometime between then and when he arrived home to meet his death it disappeared. Andy I must have told them that before he died. Therefore they're desperately concentrating their efforts to uncover every possibility within that time gap. And one of the leading figures in that gap, Doc, is you."
"So this poor slob who casually chucked my little packet into the mailbox later regretted it."
"Yeah, I'd say. He's probably got his boss all over him like a fire blanket. Steer clear, Doc. Use your mental faculties, limited though they might be."
I thanked him for the compliment and left. I went home and told Mary about the auto chase. Needless to say she was not pleased. She called me a meathead and a jerk. I was beginning to feel just like my old self again.
Tom Costello sputtered and lisped with ecstasy over the phone when I told him that his mouthpiece was ready for installation.
"Jameseeth! It'th about time. Now I can get thtarted thelling again. Tomorrow?"
"Seven-thirty sharp."
I glanced at a brochure Mary had left on my study desk explaining a new high-efficiency boiler and blower for our furnace which was guaranteed to cut our heating bill by thirty percent. If true, considering New England's climate and fuel prices, that meant we could make an extra trip to Europe each year. I studied the pamphlet carefully and called Mary in.
"Didn't Patriot Oil install something like this two years ago?"
"Uh-huh. But this guy said improvements had been made since then. He said his company would reimburse us for our present unit, so the net cost would be only nine hundred for the whole thing."
"Oh bullshit," I said, and tossed the packet into the circular file. "If it's not this, it's driveway coatings or roof sealant. Then there are the lawn doctors, tuck pointers, gutter rats, and chimney sweeps. Honey, if you listened to all of 'em we'd be broke in a year." '
"Then just forget it; he said call him only if we're interested. Janice called and asked us over for supper at seven."
"During the week? Ha! A meal at DeGroot's calls for a two-day recovery."
"No. They want to see us before they fly to the coast. Janice said it would be a pretty dry evening."
"I'll bet. The last time we went we should've worn Aqua-lungs."
But true to their word, the night held only moderate supping and sipping, and pleasant cards and conversation afterward. It was fun. Janice had on a pair of tight tennis shorts too. Her ass is, like Fujiyama, the Bay of Naples, a Grant's gazelle, Sequoia Sempervirens, a sable antelope, or other wonders of nature, awesome to behold. I could watch it for hours. On a scale of one to ten it rates a fourteen. Easy.
When I was dummy (my natural state, claims Mary) I followed Janice into the kitchen to help make more coffee. She was walking right in front of me.
"Janice, you have the nicest-"
"Ohhhh you!" she cooed, throwing a little more twitch into it. "You and your thing about my butt. Hmmph! Fat old thing; I just can't understand you, Doc. Here you're married to the most gorgeous piece on earth and… well-"
"I know she is. But it's funny, you know, sometimes you're attracted to somebody else just because they're somebody else. Know what I mean?"
"Yeah, I- now where is that thing?" she said to herself, bending over to get in the cabinet. She was leaning over right in front I of me, so I could see the outline of her panties underneath the shorts. Planned. She filled the decanter and poured the water into the machine.
"I do know what you mean, Doc," she said, brushing my hair aside. "Gee I think you're just gorgeous- "
"Oh of course."
"No, I really do, and you know it. You know what's going to happen someday don't you? We're going to find ourselves alone somewhere… sometime. Maybe after a party where we've had a few drinks and our guards will be down… and we'll hop into the sack."
"Oh no we won't."
"Yes we will."
"Oh no we won't."
I hoped we would.
"Listen, I think the best thing to do about this thing you have for… for my ass, is to get it out of your system a little."
"Janice, that's the dumbest- "
"I think if I give you a nice big feel, you'll feel better."
"I might feel better but I don't think it's going to-"
"Here," she said, taking my wrists in her hands. She pulled them behind her until our tummies were touching. Then she moved our hands around in back of her, fast, and wrapped my hands around so they cupped her lovely, meaty hams. I had two handfuls of luscious bun. It was a flagrant case of a 112-pound woman sexually abusing a 174-pound man. Despicable.
"How's that, Doc?" she purred.
"Great," I said. I could not tell a lie.
"Are you getting it out of your system a little?" she whispered.
"I'm getting it, but not out of my system."
"Then I think we'll have to- whoopsie!"
She disengaged, spun a pirouette like a dancer, took two fast steps sideways, and was demurely fiddling with the coffee machine as Jim strode through the doorway.
"What's goin' on? Where's that coffee? Oh, there. Well come- on then." He was gone faster than he arrived.
A deep smear of crimson had invaded Janice's neck and cheek. She grinned at me and giggled.
"Whew!" she whispered, then frowned. "Sorry, Doc."
"Let's get out of here," I said, taking the tray of cups, cream, and sugar. "And we should never do that again?
"It's going to happen at the lake I bet," she whispered as she walked steadily beside me, holding the tray of coffee and spoons. "Up at the lake. We'll be having a party at the dock, and the others will all leave for Wolfsboro to buy food and booze and there'll just be us on the dock… in only our bathing suits…"
"Nope. Never happen."
She half-closed her eyes and grinned.
"Oh I can just see it. We'll be rubbing oil on each other, then go into the boathouse and-"
"Never happen."
"Gonna happen, Doc. Gonna haaaaaaapen…"
"No. No. A thousand times no," I said, trying to convince myself. Trying not to imagine her skinning out of her wet tank suit in the shadows of the boathouse.
"Well it's a pleasant fantasy anyway. Now here we are; stop smiling."
I put the tray down and poured coffee for everyone. Mary was frowning at the cards on the table. She sipped coffee and looked up.
"You're still dummy, Charlie," she said.
"You're not kidding," I said.
I felt the eyes on me. The dreaded mal'occhio- the Evil Eye- of southern Italy.
"Why are you staring?" I asked.
"I think you know."
Ha. A bluff. How could she know what I knew? I gripped the wheel a bit tighter and swung around the curve back to Old Stone Mill Road.
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Don't kid around. You grabbed Janice's ass in the kitchen, didn't you? I can tell because you've been smiling. You don't know you're smiling, but you are. It's the smile of Charles Adams the ass grabber. Not Doctor C. Adams after he's performed a beautiful operation, but Charles Adams the lech. And you're going to get it, buddy. Just you wait."
I didn't say anything.
"Oh I'll give you some credit; I bet it wasn't your idea. She probably set you up for it. I sort of like Janice, but she's going to have to be taught a lesson."
"What's going to happen to her?"
"I'm going to hit her on that behind of hers, so the punishment will fit the crime. I'll use an implement."
"Belt? Paddle?"
"No. Chain saw. A Homelite will also render her anatomy less attractive to you. Thus I'll kill two birds with one stone. And as for you-"
"Hmm?" I gulped, feeling a damp flush on my brow.
"I haven't decided. But it will be exquisite. I promise you."
I didn't like the cold smile she was wearing. In the dim light her swarthy features and high cheekbones gave her the appearance of an Indian squaw. I remembered that the Indians, when they captured the lone white man after a battle, handed the poor guy over to their women. Of course he would beg to be killed, but they'd refuse and tie him to an old wagon wheel and invite the squaws out. Then he'd sit there, tied to the wheel, while the womenfolk assembled a gruesome array of equipment: rawhide thongs soaking in water, glowing brands, sharp flint shards, smoked hornets' nests… and so on. I'm sure the poor guy didn't know exactly what was on the agenda, but he would have a vague hunch that it wasn't Dinner at the Ritz.
At home we exited from the car and walked up the flagstone steps. I put my arm around her shoulder.
"Nothing bad happened," I said. "And Janice is okay."
"Sometimes I just get mad-"
But she didn't finish her sentence, because I had opened the front door and we were staring inside at our living room. Chairs were overturned. The sofa was shredded and hanging open like a disemboweled cow. Pictures were off the walls. Mary's desk was apart and all its contents spread over the room.
"Charlie!"
I walked through the dining room. Compared to the living room it was almost untouched. They had broken no china, yet all the pieces had been shifted in the cabinets. The silver, worth perhaps thousands of dollars, had been extracted and tossed in a heap. But none of it appeared to be missing. Same story in the kitchen. My study was a wreck, with its desk in the same condition as Mary's. They'd hit every room, and obviously spent time and effort in each in direct proportion to the room's capacity for concealment. I was boiling mad, but inwardly relieved that nothing had been taken.
I was still thinking this when I entered the darkroom; then my heart sank. It wasn't a total wreck; it was just gone. The enlargers were still there. But the cameras were gone. All gone. The two multidrawered Shaw-Walker metal cabinets were gone. Twenty years' worth of negatives, our life on Elm, gone. Mary found me leaning against the bench. She told me later I looked like I was ready to sink right through the floor.
"Good Christ," I groaned, "I wish they'd taken anything but that. The paintings, rugs, stereo stuff, jewelry… even the cameras can be replaced. But not those negatives."
"That cardboard box, Charlie. That little box with Tom's front teeth inside. That's what they were after."
"And dammit, if I'd left it on my study desk where they would have found it right away, they wouldn't have done all this."
"Where did you leave it?"
"In Brian's office, for safekeeping. Safekeeping! And look!"
Mary crinkled up her face a bit and her eyes got shiny. The corners of her mouth turned down.
"Oh no," I said. "This is something to get upset about, but not to cry over. You don't cry over property; you cry over people. You cry over Roy Abernathy, not stuff like this."
Roy Abernathy was a thirty-three-year-old father of four who, a year and a half ago, had noticed pain in his right testis. In the space of fourteen months he had been transformed from a strong carpenter into a moaning, panting, babbling, ninety-four-pound, shriveled sack of agony. As a registered nurse, Mary had performed the post-mortem care on what was left of him while Moe Abramson had done his best to arrest the avalanche of despair and depression in his now institutionalized wife. The children were fast changing from floating, speechless zombies of shock into truants and thieves.
So much for the Abernathy family. It's just one of those minor incidents that makes it a wee bit tougher to put on the spruce duds of a Sunday morning.
Mary let out a low moan and came apart at the seams. Now why did I have to mention Roy Abernathy? But perhaps it was best to have her cry. I walked her downstairs and we sat on the ruined couch together. I wondered. If there was a plan to the Great Going On, was what had just happened to us retribution for my clutching those luscious globes of flesh? And then a little self-hatred and guilt went into the stew pot along with the disaster and the horrendous, pyrotechnic trauma and injustice delivered to the Abernathys.
And I realized life had outdone itself. The needle had now fallen below boring. It was all the way down into the Dead Zone.