Absolute Zero (24 page)

Something shook him and
he opened his eyes
.

Oh-oh.

Right in front of him, a man and a woman grappled in the dark. His eyes rolled past the flickering carnal image, then lurched back. Really worried now—not sure if he was dreaming or awake, or even alive.

Worry ran into panic.

It was a sign. Get ready, it’s time.

Stay calm. Stay calm. The only part of his life he had any control over was the moment he left it. He understood he must stay alert and focused.

But it was hard to concentrate because his eyes were fixed on clutching knees and a sweaty, plunging back. He could almost smell the hormones popping in their armpits.

The watching made him dizzy and dizzy was sensual. Almost like moving. His thoughts strained for sensation, to rise up and swarm, like fruit bats he’d seen once, leaving a jungle cave at sunset. He yearned to touch the sweaty skin.

With the whole goddamn black void to aim at, he was drawn to one hot spot of jerky flesh.

Distractions.

He’d tried to prepare for this moment. He had meditated on the mechanics. And now it was unfolding just like the Buddhists said it would. Leaving the physical body, he was distracted from his journey to a higher plane by scenes of intense intercourse.

These were the diversions.

Hadda be. So this was IT.

The big night jump.

Don’t mess up your death with distractions, Hank. Stay focused one hundred percent in the moment.

. . .

The last blinders of shock crumbled and Hank recognized Jolene out there tugging on Phil Broker’s business, with one elegantly muscled leg crooked in the air, like a snob’s little finger as she held a dinner fork. Except that wasn’t no fork she was holding.

Broker. Comforting Jolene the widow not widow to Hank’s dead not dead. And, like back in the canoe during the storm, Broker paddling hard, trying his best to keep up. Hank could sympathize.

Then
—

“I could kill you now and these pictures would be the last thing your brain would ever see. God, I wish you could see them.”

Pictures.

Earl’s voice established perspective and Hank realized the screwing was confined. Screwing in a box.

Earl had
recorded
it, like he said he would, and now Hank was watching the video on television.

“Okay, Lebowski,” Earl said. “Sit back and enjoy the show. Just for you, I’m going to run the part again where she blows him.”

So Hank treaded in his ebbing life and watched Jolene’s deathless youth flicker on the screen. He could almost hear her voice again
.

Shit! He
did
hear her voice.

“What’s going on in here?”

Jolene stood in the doorway; her bare shoulders licked by the silent, shimmering video in which she wore nothing at all.

Earl grinned, getting off on seeing her, split-screen; doing Broker on the video and, in the flesh, in the doorway a few feet away. She couldn’t see the front of the set and had no idea. Then Earl stopped the tape. Blip. Hit the reject on the VCR. Took it out.

“Ah, nothing; just checking him. I thought I heard something but he’s all right.” Earl polite, smiling. “I, ah, see you’re sleeping in your own room tonight.”

Jolene waved vaguely and went back to bed.

Earl, as usual, switched on the Fox Channel, muted the sound, and left Hank with the TV remote stuffed in his dead fingers.

Ha-ha.

Hank, alone now, worked a venomous edge, lashed on by the silent fulminations of Sean Hannity. Then he steadied his eyes, looked beyond the TV, and fixed on the blackness out the windows.

He wondered how many more times he would see the sun rise over the Wisconsin river bluffs. He felt no rancor for Broker. He pitied the man his innocent lust because he could not attribute innocence or spontaneity to Jolene.

What’s she up to?

Hank focused the fury he felt on his body mass. The body was mostly water, wasn’t it? And water conducted electricity. His thoughts became electric swimmers, thrashing toward the first and second fingers of his right hand.

Just before the indifferent sun heaved up, the dead flesh of his index finger moved a fraction of an inch.

Thank you, Earl.

Thank you, Allen.

Thinking about killing you is the only thing keeping me alive.

Jolene slept through the
alarm and missed turning Hank three times. Now, as a thin spoke of sunlight eased between the drapes, she stretched out on the king-size bed, lazing in and out of the first good night’s sleep she’d had since . . .

She sat up and hugged herself, and she could feel the memory of Phil Broker’s body still imprinted in her arms. Another comic-book hero, like Hank. Briefly she fantasized that he would put Earl Garf back in his place, back in her past. And then . . .

“THE DOW JONES CLOSED DOWN FOUR HUNDRED POINTS IN REACTION TO A SHARP RISE IN OIL PRICES . . .”

The burst of frenzied audio catapulted her upright in bed. Jangled, she stared at the door to Hank’s studio, muttering “Earl” under her breath. Had to be. Playing his TV games with Hank. Not even taking time to pull on her robe, she scrambled off the bed and stalked into the next room.

“. . . AGREE THAT ONLY EXTERNAL FORCES CAN THROW OFF MARKET FORECASTS . . .”

“Goddammit, Earl,” Jolene yelled.

Huh?

The raucous blare and the driving musical background vanished the moment she entered the room. And there was no Earl in sight. Just Hank, propped on his side in bed, staring right at her with Ambush curled in the curve of his lap and the TV remote where Earl had left it, jammed in his fingers as a joke.

Jolene. Naked.

Even with the short hair, she was a serious meditation on original sin.

Hi, honey.

And in his head he was playing “Thus Spake Zarathustra” from
2001,
like when the ape figured out he could use the tapir bone as a weapon, because Hank was using his index finger to traverse the buttons of the TV remote a big half-inch and touch the mute control. The set sizzled on at max volume. A hyper-verbal group of Fox talking heads were in full cry, puzzling over lurching stock prices, unrest in the Middle East, and terrorist attacks on a U.S. barracks in the Gulf.

Smug Yuppie pukes having their adventures in capitalism; they really thought life was a fucking Mercedes ad. Too bad. Globalization wasn’t running like a smooth computer program guaranteed to enhance their portfolios. Hank coldly wished them several million tough, bitter, third-world peasants armed with AK-47’s.

Back to Jolene. He switched off the set.

Jolene said, “Wait a minute.” She peered at the motionless figure on the bed. She took a few cautious steps forward.

Hank’s eyes did not depart on their usual loopy circuit; instead, they remained fixed, burning, on her. They were riveted in a way that made her aware of her nakedness, so intense was the stare that she began to feel the sweat drip cold in her armpits and dribble down her rib cage. It smelled like the fear of men she’d learned in puberty.

Pissed, hungry eyes, looking right at her.

Tap.

The TV came alive again in a shout of static.

Jolene screamed and ran from the room.

* * *

Allen had expected more
than this for fifty bucks.

It was his first private tango lesson and he assumed there would be a little flavor of the slums of Buenos Aires—dark hair, cleavage, at least black tights and posters on the wall. Something sexy, like the dance itself. He found himself standing in a spotless Scandinavian kitchen. The windowsills were lined with cactuses, and beyond the prickly pear, Allen had a view of an exhausted gray sky, shredding birch trees, and a smudge of White Bear Lake lying flat as a dirty mirror.

The instructor, Trudi, was a well-preserved, petite matron in her sixties whose perfectly coiffed white head barely cleared his shoulder. She wore a white sweater and gray slacks and looked more like a senior Lutheran angel than an aficionado of a steamy dance that originated in Argentine whorehouses. Her only concession to the dance was pointed black dance shoes. Allen was in his stocking feet. He got her number from a Timberry adult-education brochure. In this, his first stab at self-improvement, he didn’t want other people watching, as in a studio class. He’d wanted anonymity.

He watched Trudi move her kitchen table against the wall to make her dinette into a dance floor.

Her husband sat in the den just down the hall with the door ajar. He was watching the History Channel and so, instead of pulsating Latin music, Allen heard the rumble of massed Soviet artillery spelling doom for von Paulus’s encircled Sixth Army in Stalingrad.

Okay. Allen resigned himself to it. He had to start somewhere.

“The Argentine tango begins in the center with a stable upper-body frame,” Trudi said. She touched his sternum. “This is your center.”

So far so good. Still no music.

“We’ll start with side-to-side steps.” They faced each other, holding hands. “Move your center over your left foot, move only about six inches.”

Allen shifted to the left.

Trudi frowned. “You’re too tight. You’re pumping your shoulders, your upper body must remain relaxed and upright. It’s all in the legs.” They tried again. He moved left and then right, and this time Trudi floated with him. “Better. In tango, the man must lead and the woman must follow, and the man must lead from the center.”

That was more like it. But what he had in mind were the lunges and dips he’d seen Al Pacino execute in
Scent of a Woman
. And where’s the music?

Allen chose the tango because it was a male-controlled, choreographed seduction and therefore conformed to an elaborate fantasy that featured Jolene Sommer.

“Again,” Trudi said.

Allen stepped to the side and lost his balance.

“Patience,” Trudi said.

Allen winced gamely. He was a long way from Al Pacino. Still. He couldn’t resist asking, “How long before we get to, you know?” He leaned forward and circled his arms around an imaginary woman.

Trudi smiled. “That might take a while. Let’s try some silver boxes.”

The silver box was a six-step pattern. They’d wait on the eight-step box because, Trudi explained,
la crasada
—the crossover step—would only confuse him at this point.

Still no music.

Three moves into his tenth silver box, Allen felt his pager vibrate against his hip. He excused himself, checked the number, and his heart skipped. It was synchronicity. It was Jolene. He walked over to the window with the cactus fringe, flipped open his cell phone, tapped in the number, and suddenly the dull day came up keen as the cactus needles.

“Allen, it’s Hank, please hurry,” Jolene shouted into the phone. Full-blown panic. Dammit, he must have stopped breathing and she caught it late.

“Call nine one one.”

“It’s not like that, just hurry, okay?”

“I’m on my way,” Allen said.

Allen ignored stop signs
and ran two red lights. Coming down the snaking driveway to Hank’s house he jammed the brakes and fishtailed and dented his rear left bumper on a tree trunk.

Couldn’t be helped. He grabbed his medical bag and sprinted for the door.

Jolene met him in her robe. And although her eyes were bright with alarm, they were also very clear and vital. In fact, she looked much better than he’d seen her in a long time—rested, color in her cheeks, even her short hair had a plush spring to it.

She led him through the house toward the studio. Garf was there, of course, unshaven, looking barely awake but amused, in a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. He spooned a bowl of cornflakes close to his chest and rolled his eyes. There was a damp spot on his shirt where’d he’d slopped milk.

“And then,” Jolene said, “just as I was waking up, the TV came on in Hank’s room. And I went in and he was looking right at me.”

“Gee, you mean like he knew you did something,” Garf said, defying Jolene’s furious glare with a mild grin.

“Just relax,” Allen said. “Take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”

“Earl thinks it’s funny to leave the TV clicker in Hank’s hand.
He
turned the TV on and off.”

“Earl did,” Allen said, getting a little perplexed.

“Hank did,” Jolene said.

Hank resolved that this—his last story—was one time he couldn’t afford to screw up. This time he intended to do justice to his characters. And here they came. He couldn’t reach out and touch them but he’d heard their confessions. All the ingredients were present for them to start fighting among themselves
.

He just had to figure out how to get the party rolling.

He could move one finger a half inch and he could control his eyes. So he could communicate. He took a chance contacting Jolene, but her reaction had been to call the other two. He had to control himself; what he did was spite after seeing the tape.

He’d have to think out the next move. Make it count.

For now he was going to lay low and be the best vegetable in the garden. So his eyes rolled. His fingers, with their mighty new muscles, were as motionless as white banana peels on the TV remote. They drew near the bed. Allen and Jolene stood on the right, Earl was on the left, munching cereal.

* * *

“He was just like that with the clicker,” Jolene said.

Allen leaned over the bed and carefully inspected Hank’s eyes and his hands.

“This is exactly the way he was?” Allen asked again.

Jolene bit her lip. “No, actually, now that I think of it, Ambush was on his lap.”

Garf giggled and backed away, gamboling like a jester and humming the jangled
Twilight Zone
theme.

“The cat?” Allen said. Confounded, he moved his hands in a jerky pantomime, acting out a miniature drama. “Cat on lap,” Allen said slowly, sounding like Dr. Seuss.

“No, no; it wasn’t like that. It was
him
.” She pointed at Hank.

Allen steepled his long fingers and raised them slowly to his lips. With the attitude of a thoughtful prelate, he stepped closer to Jolene.

“Jo, I think the strain is getting to you.”

She shook her head. Allen started to place his hand on her shoulder, saw the swell of her bare throat and collarbone, and, hearing a rush of the tango music Trudi never played, held it back.

“Why don’t you get dressed, let’s go sit down in the kitchen and have a cup of coffee,” he suggested gently.

“Good idea,” Garf said, chewing with his mouth open. “I’ll watch Hank and make sure he doesn’t jump in the river.”

“You’re not helping things,” Allen said, a little testy. He turned back to Jolene and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

Jolene dropped her shoulders. “Okay.”

“Good,” Allen said. “I’m going to go wash my hands.” He walked through the bedroom into the bathroom and shut the door.

Garf moved in and nudged her shoulder. “Better take a shower, girl.”

“What’s that?” Jolene narrowed her eyes.

Garf smiled. “You don’t want to be staring into Allen’s eyes talking about the meaning of life and have Broker trickle down your leg, now do you?”

Jolene swung her right hand to slap Garf in the face but he caught her hand easily. She narrowed her eyes, questioning.

Garf winked. “Hank told me.”

“Oh, yeah?” she shot back. “What he told me was that Broker copied your whole hard drive, especially your ambitious banking records.”

“Bullshit.”

Jolene smiled sweetly.

“When?” Garf squinted when he saw she wasn’t kidding.

“Last night.” She hunched her shoulders like a starlet and let them drop. “Afterward,” she said coyly, “he made a duplicate copy off your Zip Drive.”

They glared at each other. Then, as Earl backed off, he said ominously, “Broker’s ass is grass.”

“Don’t be selling
me
wolf tickets, and if I were you I’d be real nice to Broker to make sure those disks don’t wind up in the wrong hands,” Jolene mocked.

Allen and Jolene traded places in the bathroom and, while Jolene showered, Allen paced back and forth in front of Hank’s bed. He was aware of Garf, leaning against a bookcase next to the doorway, eating the last of his cereal, watching him.

Garf crossed the room, finished the bowl, placed it on the writing desk, ran his hand along a shelf of video movie cassettes, and asked, “You really kind of dig her, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” Allen said. It wasn’t the right word, but then he resented the direct question coming from someone like Garf.

“I’m going to give you a little advice,” Garf said.

“Really,” Allen said.

“Really.” He pulled a rectangular movie container from the shelf, came across the room, and handed it to Allen.

The film was entitled
The Blue Angel
. On the cover, Marlene Dietrich wore a top hat at a rakish angle and a skimpy cabaret girl’s costume. She sat in a provocative pose, hands clasped over one carved knee.

“I’ve heard of it,” Allen said.

“If I were you, I’d watch it very carefully,” Garf said. He then turned and left the room.

Slob. Forgot to take his cereal bowl, Allen observed.

Alone now, he resumed his pacing. He was satisfied that the incident that had upset Jolene was just a fluke caused by the damn cat. Still, it left a spooky aftertaste.

It was clearly time to relocate Hank. Jolene needed some therapy or some medication to deal with the strain. And having a smart-ass like Garf around certainly didn’t help.

He glanced at the movie Garf had given him; B&W, 1930, German dialogue with English subtitles. He dropped it in his bag. He’d been glib, he had no idea what the film was about; only that it was referred to as a classic.