Chapter 5 7 страница

'But you'll miss him if you wait there, ' I said. 'I've been with him on that road. He's as apt to turn west here as to keep heading south. '

'Well, we may lose him before then if it comes to that, ' said Henry. 'I've known him to ignore the path altogether and keep heading east till he hits the highway. But I'm counting on the likelihood he won't do that. The weather's nice – he won't want such an easy walk. '

'But the second fork? You can't say where he'll go from there. '

'We don't have to. You remember where it comes out, don't you? The ravine. '

'Oh, ' said Francis.

There was a long silence.

'Now, listen, ' said Henry, taking a pencil from his pocket.

'He'll be coming in from school, from the south. We can avoid his route entirely and come in on Highway 6, from the west. '

'We'll take the car? '

'Partway, yes. Just past that junkyard, before the turnoff to Battenkill, there's a gravel road. I'd thought it might be a private way, in which case we'd have to avoid it, but I went down to the courthouse this afternoon and found that it's just an old logging road. Comes to a dead end in the middle of the woods. But it should take us directly to the ravine, within a quarter mile. We can walk the rest of the way. '

'And when we get there? '

'Well, we wait. I made Bunny's walk to the ravine from school twice this afternoon, there and back, and timed it both ways. It'll take him at least half an hour from the time he leaves his room.

Which gives us plenty of time to go around the back way and surprise him. '

'What if he doesn't come? '

'Well, if he doesn't, we've lost nothing but time. '

'What if one of us goes with him? '

He shook his head. 'I've thought of that, ' he said. 'It's not a good idea. If he walks into the trap himself – alone, of his own volition – there's not much way it can be traced to us. '

'If this, if that, ' said Francis sourly. 'This sounds pretty haphazard to me. '

'We want something haphazard. '

'I don't see what's wrong with the first plan. '

The first plan is too stylized. Design is inherent in it through and through. '

'But design is preferable to chance. '

Henry smoothed the crumpled map against the table with the flat of his palm. 'There, you're wrong, ' he said. 'If we attempt to order events too meticulously, to arrive at point X via a logical trail, it follows that the logical trail can be picked up at point X and followed back to us. Reason is always apparent to a discerning eye. But luck? It's invisible, erratic, angelic. What could possibly be better, from our point of view, than allowing Bunny to choose the circumstances of his own death? '

Everything was still. Outside, the crickets shrieked with rhythmic, piercing monotony.

Francis – his face moist and very pale – bit his lower lip. 'Let me get this straight. We wait at the ravine and just hope he happens to stroll by. And if he does, we push him off – right there in broad daylight – and go back home. Am I correct? '

'More or less, ' said Henry.

'What if he doesn't come by himself? What if somebody else wanders by? '

'It's no crime to be in the woods on a spring afternoon, ' Henry said. 'We can abort at any time, up to the moment he goes over the edge. And that will only take an instant. If we happen across anybody on the way to the car -1 think it improbable, but if we should – we can always say there's been an accident, and we're going for help. '

'But what if someone sees us? '

'I think that extremely unlikely, ' said Henry, dropping a lump of sugar into his coffee with a splash.

'But possible. '

'Anything is possible, but probability will work for us here if only we let it, ' said Henry. 'What are the odds that some previously undetected someone will stumble into that very isolated spot, during the precise fraction of a second it will take to push him over? '

'It might happen. '

'Anything might happen, Francis. He might be hit by a car tonight, and save us all a lot of trouble. '

A soft, damp breeze, smelling of rain and apple blossoms, blew through the window. I had broken out in a sweat without realizing it and the wind on my cheek made me feel clammy and lightheaded.

Charles cleared his throat and we turned to look at him.

'Do you know…" he said. 'I mean, are you sure it's high enough? What if he '

'I went out there today with a tape measure, ' Henry said. 'The highest point is forty-eight feet, which should be ample. The trickiest part will be to get him there. If he falls from one of the lower points, he'll end up with nothing worse than a broken leg.

Of course, a lot will rest on the fall itself. Backwards seems better than forward for our purposes. '

'But I've heard of people falling from airplanes and not dying, ' said Francis. 'What if the fall doesn't kill him? '

Henry reached behind his spectacles and rubbed an eye. 'Well, you know, there's a little stream at the bottom, ' he said. 'There's not much water, but enough. He'll be stunned, no matter what.

We'd have to drag him there, hold him face-down for a bit – shouldn't think that'd take more than a couple of minutes. If he was conscious, maybe a couple of us could even go down and walk him over…'

Charles passed a hand over his damp, flushed forehead. 'Oh, Jesus, ' he said. 'Oh my God. Just listen to us. '

'What's the matter? '

'Are we insane? '

'What are you talking about? '

'We're insane. We've lost our minds. How can we possibly do this? '

'I don't like the idea any more than you do. '

'This is crazy. I don't even know how we can talk about this.

We've got to think of something else. '

Henry took a sip of his coffee. 'If you can think of anything, ' he said, Td be delighted to hear it. '

'Well -1 mean, why can't we just leave'? Get in the car tonight and drive away? '

'And go where? ' Henry said flatly. 'With what money? '

Charles was silent.

'Now, ' said Henry, drawing a line on the map with a pencil.

'I think it will be fairly easy to get away without being seen, though we should be especially careful about turning into the logging road and coming out of it onto the highway. '

'Will we use my car or yours? ' said Francis.

'Mine, I think. People tend to look twice at a car like yours. '

'Maybe we should rent one. '

'No. Something like that might ruin everything. If we keep it as casual as possible, no one will give us a second glance. People don't pay attention to ninety percent of what they see. '

There was a pause.

Charles coughed slightly. 'And after? ' he said. 'We just go home? '

'We just go home, ' said Henry. He lit a cigarette. 'Really, there's nothing to worry about, ' he said, shaking out the match.

'It seems risky, but if you look at it logically it couldn't be safer.

It won't look like a murder at all. And who knows we have reason to kill him? I know, I know, ' he said impatiently when I tried to interrupt. 'But I should be extremely surprised if he's told anyone else. '

'How can you say what he's done? He could have told half the people at the party. '

'But I'm willing to bank on the odds he hasn't. Bunny's unpredictable, of course, but at this point his actions still make a kind of rudimentary horse sense. I had very good reason to think he'd tell you first. '

'And why's that? '

'Surely you don't think it an accident that, of all the people he might have told, he chose to come to you? '

'I don't know, except that I was handier than anyone else. '

'Who else could he tell? ' said Henry impatiently. 'He'd never go to the police outright. He stands to lose as much as we do if he did. And for the same reason he doesn't dare tell a stranger.

Which leaves an extremely limited range of potential confidants.

Marion, for one. His parents for another. Cloke for a third. Julian as an outside possibility. And you. '

'And what makes you think he hasn't told Marion, for instance? '

'Bunny might be stupid, but not that stupid. It would be all over school by lunch the next day. Cloke's a poor choice for different reasons. He isn't quite so apt to lose his head but he's untrustworthy all the same. Skittish and irresponsible. And very much out for his own interests. Bunny likes him – admires him too, I think – but he'd never go to him with something like this.

And he wouldn't tell his parents, not in a million years. They'd stand behind him, certainly, but without a doubt they'd go right to the police. '

'And Julian? '

Henry shrugged. 'Well, he might tell Julian. I'm perfectly willing to concede that. But he hasn't told him yet, and I think the chances are he won't, at least not for a while. '

'Why not? '

Henry raised an eyebrow at me. 'Because who do you think Julian would be more apt to believe? '

No one said a thing. Henry drew deeply on his cigarette. 'So, ' he said, and exhaled. 'Process of elimination. He hasn't told Marion or Cloke, for fear of their telling other people. He hasn't told his parents, for the same reason, and probably won't except as a last resort. So what possibilities does that leave him? Only two. He could tell Julian – who wouldn't believe him – or you, who might believe him and wouldn't repeat it. '

I stared at him. 'Surmise, ' I said at last.

'Not at all. Do you think, if he'd told anyone else, we'd be sitting here now? Do you think now, once he's told you, that he'd be foolhardy enough to tell a third party before he even knows what your response will be? Why do you suppose he called you this afternoon? Why do you suppose he's pestered the rest of us all day? '

I didn't answer him.

'Because, ' said Henry, 'he was testing the waters. Last night he was drunk, full of himself. Today he's not quite sure what you think. He wants another opinion. And he'll look to your response for the cue. '

'I don't understand, ' I said.

Henry took a sip of his coffee. 'What don't you understand? '

'Why you're in such a goddamned rush to kill him if you think he won't tell anyone but me. '

He shrugged. 'He hasn't told anyone yet. Which is not to say he won't, very soon. '

'Maybe I could dissuade him. '

'That's frankly not a chance I'm willing to take. '

'In my opinion, you're talking about taking a much greater one. '

'Look, ' said Henry evenly, raising his head and fixing me with a bleary gaze. 'Forgive me for being blunt, but if you think you have any influence over Bunny you're sadly mistaken. He's not particularly fond of you, and, if I may speak plainly, as far as I know he never has been. It would be disastrous if you of all people tried to intercede. '

'I was the one he came to. '

'For obvious reasons, none of them very sentimental, ' He shrugged. 'As long as I was sure he hadn't told anyone, we might have waited indefinitely. But you were the alarm bell, Richard.

Having told you – nothing happened, he'll think, it wasn't so bad – he'll find it twice as easy to tell a second person. And a third. He's taken the first step on a downward slope. Now that he has, I feel that we're in for an extremely rapid progression of events. '

My palms were sweating. In spite of the open window, the room seemed close and stuffy. I could hear everybody breathing; quiet, measured breaths that came and went with awful regularity, four sets of lungs, eating at the thin oxygen.

Henry folded his fingers and flexed them, at arm's length, until they cracked. 'You can go now, if you like, ' he said to me.

'Do you want me to? ' I said rather sharply.

'You can stay or not, ' he said. 'But there's no reason why you must. I wanted to give you a rough idea, but in a certain sense the fewer details you know, the better. ' He yawned. 'There were some things you had to know, 1 suppose, but I feel I've done you a disservice by involving you this far. '

I stood up and looked around the table.

'Well, ' I said. 'Well well well. '

Francis raised an eyebrow at me.

'Wish us luck, ' said Henry.

I clapped him awkwardly on the shoulder. 'Good luck, ' I said.

Charles – out of Henry's line of vision – caught my eye. He smiled and mouthed the words: I'll call you tomorrow, okay?

Suddenly, and without warning, I was overcome by a rush of emotion. Afraid I would say or do something childish, something I'd regret, I got into my coat and drank the rest of my coffee in a long gulp and left, without even the most perfunctory of goodbyes.

On my way home through the dark woods, my head down and my hands in my pockets, I ran virtually headlong into Camilla.

She was very drunk and in an exhilarated mood.

'Hello, ' she said, linking her arm through mine and leading me back in the direction from which I'd just come. 'Guess what.

I had a date. '

'So I heard. '

She laughed, a low, sweet chortle that warmed me to my heart. 'Isn't that funny? ' she said. 'I feel like such a spy. Bunny just went home. Now the problem is, I think Cloke kind of likes me. '

It was so dark I could hardly see her. The weight of her arm was wonderfully comfortable, and her gin-sweet breath was warm on my cheek.

'Did Cloke behave himself? ' I said.

'Yes, he was very nice. He bought me dinner and some red drinks that tasted like Popsicles. '

We emerged from the woods into the deserted, blue-lit streets of North Hampden. Everything was silent and strange in the moonlight. A faint breeze tinkled in the wind chimes on someone's porch.

When I stopped walking, she tugged at my arm. 'Aren't you coming? ' she said.

'No. '

'Why not? '

Her hair was tousled, and her lovely mouth was stained dark by the Popsicle drink, and just by looking at her I could tell she didn't have the faintest idea what was going on at Henry's.

She would go with them tomorrow. Somebody would probably tell her that she didn't have to go, but she would end up going with them anyway.

I coughed. 'Look, ' I said.

'What? '

'Come home with me. '

She lowered her eyebrows. 'Now? '

'Yes. '

'Why? '

The wind chimes tinkled again; silvery, insidious.

'Because I want you to. '

She gazed at me with vacant, drunken composure, standing coltlike on the outer edge of her black-stockinged foot so the ankle was twisted inward in a startling, effortless L.

Her hand was in mine. I squeezed it hard. Clouds were racing across the moon.

'Come on, ' I said.

She raised up on tiptoe and gave me a cool, soft kiss that tasted of Popsicles. Oh, you, I thought, my heart beating fast and shallow.

Suddenly, she broke away. 'I've got to go, ' she said.

'No. Please don't. '

'I've got to. They'll wonder where I am. '

She gave me a quick kiss, then turned and started down the street. I watched her until she reached the corner, then dug my hands in my pockets and started back home.

I woke the next day with a start, to chill sunlight and the thump of a stereo down the hall. It was late, noon, afternoon maybe; I reached for my watch on the night table and started again, more violently this time. It was a quarter of three. I jumped out of bed and began to dress, in great haste, without bothering to shave or even comb my hair.

Pulling on my jacket in the hall, I saw Judy Poovey walking briskly towards me. She was all dressed up, for Judy, and she had her head to the side attempting to fasten an earring.

'You coming? ' she said when she saw me.

'Coming where? ' I said, puzzled, my hand still on the doorknob.

'What is it with you? Do you live on Mars or what? '

I stared at her.

'The party, ' she said impatiently. 'Swing into Spring. Up behind Jennings. It started an hour ago. '

The edges of her nostrils were inflamed and rabbity, and she reached up to wipe her nose with a red-taloned hand.

'Let me guess what you've been doing, ' I said.

She laughed. 'I have lots more. Jack Teitelbaum drove to New York last weekend and came back with a ton. And Laura Stora has Ecstasy, and that creepy guy in Durbinstall basement – you know, the chemistry major -just cooked up a big batch of meth.

You're trying to tell me you didn't know about this? '

'No. '

'Swing into Spring is a big deal. Everybody's been getting ready for months. Too bad they didn't have it yesterday, though, the weather was so great. Did you go to lunch? '

She meant had I been outside yet that day. 'No, ' I said.

'Well, I mean, the weather's okay, but it's a little cold. I walked outside and went, like, oh shit. Anyway. You coming? '

I looked at her blankly. I'd run out of my room without the slightest idea where I was going. 'I need to get something to eat, '

I said at last.

'That's a good idea. Last year I went and I didn't eat anything before and I smoked pot and drank, like, thirty martinis. I was all right and everything but then I went to Fun O'Rama. Remember?

That carnival they had – well, I guess you weren't here then.

Anyway. Big mistake. I'd been drinking all day and I had a sunburn and I was with Jack Teitelbaum and all those guys.

I wasn't going to go, you know, on a ride and then I thought, okay. The Ferris wheel. I can go on the Ferris wheel no problem I listened politely to the rest of her story which ended, as I knew it would, with Judy being pyrotechnically ill behind a hot-dog stand.

'So this year, I was like, no way. Stick with coke. Pause that refreshes. By the way, you ought to get that friend of yours you know, what's his name – Bunny, and make him come with you. He's in the library. '

'What? ' I said, suddenly all ears.

'Yeah. Drag him out. Make him do some bong hits or something. '

'He's in the library? '

'Yeah. I saw him through the window of the reading room a little while ago. Doesn't he have a car? '

Well, I was thinking, maybe he could drive us. Long walk to Jennings. Or I don't know, maybe it's just me. I swear, I'm so out of shape, I have to start doing Jane Fonda again. '

By now it was three. I locked the door and walked to the library, nervously jangling my key in my pocket.

It was a strange, still, oppressive day. The campus seemed deserted – everyone was at the party, I supposed – and the green lawn, the gaudy tulips, were hushed and expectant beneath the overcast sky. Somewhere a shutter creaked. Above my head, in the wicked black claws of an elm, a marooned kite rattled convulsively, then was still. This is Kansas, I thought. This is Kansas before the cyclone hits.

The library was like a tomb, illumined from within by a chill fluorescent light that, by contrast, made the afternoon seem colder and grayer than it was. The windows of the reading room were bright and blank; bookshelves, empty carrels, not a soul.

The librarian – a despicable woman named Peggy – was behind the desk reading a copy of Woman's Day, and didn't look up. The Xerox machine hummed quietly in the corner. I climbed the stairs to the second floor and went around behind the foreign language section to the reading room. It was empty, just as I'd thought, but at one of the tables near the front there was an eloquent little nest of books, wadded paper, and greasy potato chip bags.

I went over for a closer look. It had the air of fairly recent abandonment; there was a can of grape soda, three-quarters drunk, still sweating and cool to the touch. For a moment I wondered what to do – perhaps he'd only gone to the bathroom, perhaps he'd be back any second – and I was about to leave when I saw the note.

Lying on top of a volume of the World Book Encyclopedia, a grubby piece of lined paper was folded in half, with 'Marion' written on the outer edge in Bunny's tiny, crabbed hand. I opened it and read it quickly: old Gal Bored stiff. Walked down to the party to get a brewski. See ya later.

I refolded the note and sat down hard on the arm of Bunny's chair. Bunny went on his walks, when he went, around one in the afternoon. It was now three. He was at the Jennings party.

They'd missed him.

I went down the back steps and out the basement door, then over to Commons – its red brick facade flat as a stage backdrop against the empty sky – and called Henry from the pay phone.

No answer. No answer at the twins', either.

Commons was deserted except for a couple of haggard old janitors and the red-wigged lady who sat at the switchboard and knitted all weekend, paying no attention to the incoming calls.

As usual, the lights were blinking frantically and she had her back to them, as oblivious as that ill-omened wireless operator on the Califomian the night the Titanic went down. I walked past her down the hall to the vending machines, where I got a cup of watery instant coffee before going down to try the phone again.

Still no answer.

I hung up and wandered back to the deserted common room, with a copy of an alumni magazine I'd found in the post office tucked under my arm, and sat in a chair by the window to drink my coffee.

Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. The alumni magazine was depressing. Hampden graduates never seemed to do anything after they got out of school but start little ceramics shops in Nantucket or join ashrams in Nepal. I tossed it aside and stared blankly out the window. The light outside was very strange.

Something about it intensified the green of the lawn so all that 2. 97 vast expanse seemed unnatural, luminous somehow, and not quite of this world. An American flag, stark and lonely against the violet sky, whipped back and forth on the brass flagpole.

I sat and stared at it for a minute and then, suddenly, unable to bear it a moment longer, I put on my coat and started out towards the ravine.

The woods were deathly still, more forbidding than I had ever seen them – green and black and stagnant, dark with the smells of mud and rot. There was no wind; not a bird sang, not a leaf stirred. The dogwood blossoms were poised, white and surreal and still against the darkening sky, the heavy air.

I began to hurry, twigs cracking beneath my feet and my own hoarse breath loud in my ears, and before long the path emerged into the clearing. I stood there, half-panting, and it was a moment or so before I realized that nobody was there.

The ravine lay to the left – raw, treacherous, a deep plunge to the rocks below. Careful not to get too near the edge, I walked to the side for a closer look. Everything was absolutely still. I turned again, towards the woods from which I had just come.

Then, to my immense surprise, there was a soft rustle and Charles's head rose up out of nowhere. 'Hi! ' he called, in a glad whisper. 'What in the world? '

'Shut up, ' said an abrupt voice, and a moment later Henry materialized as if by magic, stepping towards me from the underbrush.

I was speechless, agog. He blinked at me, irritated, and was about to speak when there was a sudden crackle of branches and I turned in amazement just in time to see Camilla, clad in khaki trousers, clambering down the trunk of a tree.

'What's going on? ' I heard Francis say, somewhere very close.

'Can I have a cigarette now? '

Henry didn't answer. 'What are you doing here? ' he said in a very annoyed tone of voice.

'There's a party today. '

'What? '

'A party. He's there now. ' I paused. 'He's not going to come. '

'See, I told you, ' said Francis, aggrieved, stepping gingerly from the brush and wiping his hands. Characteristically, he was not dressed for the occasion and had on sort of a nice suit.

'Nobody listens to me. I said we should have left an hour ago. '

'How do you know he's at the party? ' said Henry.

'He left a note. In the library. '

'Let's go home, ' said Charles, wiping a muddy smudge off his cheek with the heel of his hand.

Henry wasn't paying any attention to him. 'Damn, ' he said, and shook his head quickly, like a dog shaking off water. 'I'd so hoped we'd be able to get it over with. '

There was a long pause.

'I'm hungry, ' said Charles.

'Starving, ' Camilla said absently, and then her eyes widened.

'Oh, no. '

'What is it? ' said everyone at once.

'Dinner. Tonight's Sunday. He's coming to our house for dinner tonight. '

There was a gloomy silence.

'I never thought about it, ' Charles said. 'Not once. '

'I didn't either, ' said Camilla. 'And we don't have a thing to eat at home. '

'We'll have to stop at the grocery store on the way back. '

'What can we get? '

'I don't know. Something quick. '

'I can't believe you two, ' Henry said crossly. 'I reminded you of this last night. '

'But we forgot, ' said the twins, in simultaneous despair.

'How could you? '

'Well, if you wake up intending to murder someone at two o'clock, you hardly think what you're going to feed the corpse for dinner. '

'Asparagus is in season, ' said Francis helpfully.

'Yes, but do they have it at the Food King? '

Henry sighed and started off towards the woods.

'Where are you going? ' Charles said in alarm.

'I'm going to dig up a couple of ferns. Then we can leave. '

'Oh, let's just forget about it, ' said Francis, lighting a cigarette and tossing away the match. 'Nobody's going to see us. '

Henry turned around. 'Somebody might. If they do, I certainly want to have an excuse for having been here. And pick up that match, ' he said sourly to Francis, who blew out a cloud of smoke and glared at him.

It was getting darker by the minute and cold, too. I buttoned my jacket and sat on a damp rock that overlooked the ravine, staring at the muddy, leaf-clogged rill that trickled below and half-listening to the twins argue about what they were going to make for dinner. Francis leaned against a tree, smoking. After a while he put out the cigarette on the sole of his shoe and came over to sit beside me.

Minutes passed. The sky was so overcast it was almost purple.

A wind swayed through a luminous clump of birches on the opposite bank, and I shivered. The twins were arguing monotonously.

Whenever they were in moods like this – disturbed, upset – they tended to sound like Heckle and Jeckle.

All of a sudden Henry emerged from the woods in a flurry of underbrush, wiping his dirt-caked hands on his trousers. 'Somebody's coming, ' he said quietly.

The twins stopped talking and blinked at him.

'What? ' said Charles.

'Around the back way. Listen. '

We were quiet, looking at each other. A chilly breeze rustled through the woods and a gust of white dogwood petals blew into the clearing.

'I don't hear anything, ' Francis said.

Henry put a finger to his lips. The five of us stood poised, waiting, for a moment longer. I took a breath, and was about to speak when all of a sudden I did hear something.

Footsteps, the crackle of branches. We looked at one another.

Henry bit his lip and glanced quickly around. The ravine was bare, no place to hide, no way for the rest of us to run across the clearing and into the woods without making a lot of noise. He was about to say something when all of a sudden there was a crash of bushes, very near, and he stepped out of the clearing between two trees, like someone ducking into a doorway on a city street.

The rest of us, stranded in the open, looked at each other and then at Henry – thirty feet away, safe at the shady margin of the wood. He waved at us impatiently. I heard the sudden crunch of footsteps on gravel and, hardly aware of what I was doing, turned away spasmodically and pretended to inspect the trunk of a nearby tree.

The footsteps approached. Prickles rising on the nape of my neck, I bent to scrutinize the tree trunk more closely: silvery bark, cool to the touch, ants marching out of a fissure in a glittering black thread.

Then – almost before I noticed it – the footsteps stopped, very near my back.

I glanced up and saw Charles. He was staring straight ahead with a ghastly expression on his face and I was on the verge of asking him what was the matter when, with a sick, incredulous rush of disbelief, I heard Bunny's voice directly behind me.

'Well, I'll be damned, ' he said briskly. 'What's this? Meeting of the Nature Club? '

I turned. It was Bunny, all right, all six-foot-three of him, looming up behind me in a tremendous yellow rain slicker that came almost to his ankles.

There was an awful silence.

'Hi, Bun, ' said Camilla faintly.

'Hi yourself. ' He had a bottle of beer – a Rolling Rock, funny I remember that – and he turned it up and took a long, gurgling pull. 'Phew, ' he said. 'You people sure do a lot of sneaking around in the woods these days. You know, ' he said, poking me in the ribs, 'I've been trying to get ahold of you. '

The abrupt, booming immediacy of his presence was too much for me to take. I stared at him, dazed, as he drank again, as he lowered the bottle, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand; he was standing so close I could feel the heaviness of his rich, beery breaths.

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