Liberty or Death (4 page)

Life forces me to be schizophrenic. These days, I often think this is simply woman's lot. At work, I am the professional fix-it person. I'm the tough troubleshooter called in to help our client schools deal with hard problems, public relations nightmares, difficult admissions, or image problems. I was the fix-it person in my own family. I was used to taking charge and solving problems. At five eleven, I was used to being among the biggest and strongest. But I'm an attractive woman with a nice shape, and the world expects me to be a tough, no-nonsense professional in a womanly way.

So when Jack read me the riot act, I'd lowered my eyes and tried to look demure and submissive. I'd gotten it. Watch myself or it was Rapunzel's tower for me. I'd even kept my mouth shut and nodded. It had been, still was, a genuine crisis, mine as much as theirs, but there had been so much testosterone in the air I could almost feel hair sprouting on my upper lip.

I couldn't remember much about the rest of my wedding day. A blur of sympathetic faces, people murmuring in my ear, hugging me. My mother's declaration that as the food was already paid for, we might as well invite the guests to eat. An awful luncheon in the tent, with me in my lovely dress, surrounded by my gleaming bridesmaids. Peach-colored linens. Soft peach roses. The scent of flowers, the clink of cutlery. Subdued voices. People that I loved. Aunt Rita and Uncle Henry. Suzanne. Dom and Rosie. Sarah, acting like the perfect secretary, pushing a steady succession of tissues into my hand and taking away the wet ones. And Jonetta Williamson, singing. I think she sang "We Shall Overcome." Suitably militant and hopeful. I sure hoped we would. I know she sang "Amazing Grace," which we would need plenty of. Jonetta was one of my heroes.

I remembered Jack Leonard grabbing my arm and shoving a uniformed trooper into my face. "You know Roland. He's going to stay here, to be your liaison. For the moment."

One look and I'd known that much as Roland Proffit wanted to stay and comfort me, he wanted that much more to be back in Maine, looking for Andre. I remembered shaking my head and saying, "No. He's one of Andre's friends. He needs to be on the job. With you. Looking for Andre." Seeing in Roland's eyes his gratitude. Seeing that Jack understood.

"Right," he said. "You're right." Looking around at his men. But all the ones here were Andre's closest friends. "I'll send you someone."

"Just don't send Amanda." Amanda, who had had her eye on Andre. Her presence would not be comforting.

The oddest thing of all, and the thing that I would probably remember longest about the day, long after the roses faded and Andre and I were heading into our comfortable old age, was Michael. I love my brother Michael because he is my brother. Because we share a past, a childhood, a family, a history. But Michael isn't very nice. He's an amazingly talented painter, but he wastes his talent and his time. He's mean-spirited and lazy and makes no effort to be nice to people. He has married a woman who is very similar, and they fan the flames of each other's worst qualities. Over time, they've gotten worse to be around, not better, so when Michael had approached me, as I was standing on the lawn staring at Dad's arbor, so gaudy and romantic and hopeful, I steeled myself for an unpleasant remark.

Instead, Michael had put his arms around me, given me a very tender hug, and said, "Thea, I'm so sorry. I'm hoping... no, I'm praying... that everything will be all right. That we're all back here soon watching you two get married. More than anyone, you deserve to be happy." Then he had hurried away, but I had seen his face. I had seen tears. And I was left astounded.

Wal-Mart is modern America in a nutshell. A busy, air-conditioned bazaar offering products from all over the world at irresistible prices. No one sits on a carpet and haggles with you only because the Grand Vizier has already read your mind and priced the things you want at the prices you want to pay. No human interaction is necessary. Just pile up your sterile metal shopping cart with all the things you need to keep you happy, pay with plastic, and carry them back to your mobile home in your pickup truck, where you can add them to the hordes of other products you bagged on earlier expeditions. We live in a culture where shopping has become a recreational activity and the passive, glassy-eyed stare of the shopper suggests we are all being controlled by some higher authority which has replaced our minds, our souls, our will with a single emotion: the desire to shop.

Today, I was as glassy-eyed and acquisitive as the rest of them. If I didn't keep my eyes wide, I'd fall asleep against a pile of beach towels, or sink down into a lounge chair, never to rise again. My heart leaped up only once, upon passing the guns. I wanted to buy the biggest, meanest, most powerful one of all and ride forth like an avenging angel, blasting into the kidnapper's lair and setting my loved one free. But I didn't know much about guns. They scared me. I'd resisted most of Andre's efforts to teach me, though he had put me through my paces a few times. Now, much as I longed for one, I couldn't have it. Even in a hunting state, like Maine, you needed a permit.

I settled for towels and sheets, a mattress pad, and a soft pink blanket. A new pillow. A mop and bucket, dustpan and brush, dustcloths and dusting products and Spic 'n Span. A reading lamp to go beside the bed and a tidy little rug for the floor. It was like fitting out a dorm room—and an incredible waste of money. I didn't intend to be here for long. I had a couple weeks—that was all. My honeymoon time. Then I had to go back to work.

I was the lucky winner of the black humor honeymoon contest. A honeymoon for one, in a small Maine town, accommodations to include a creaky single bed, cracked linoleum, and a rust-streaked shower stall with a limp, moldy curtain. I got a mirror that had lost half its silver, so the face that stared back at me looked at least as awful as I felt. A dingy room that smelled like mildew and old grease. Recreational activities to include a Wal-Mart shopping spree, mosquito swatting, and fly-corpse sweeping. If I really wanted to live it up, I could buy a six-pack and throw my empties out the window on the way home.

After an orgy of cleaning and bed-making, I submitted myself to the shower challenge, a spa technique featuring alternating streams of icy-cold and scalding-hot water to stimulate the system and get the blood flowing. Feeling thoroughly dejected, cynical, and furious with the world, I set my alarm for the crap of dawn, climbed into bed, and cried myself to sleep on a pillow stiff and scratchy with sizing. The only amenity missing was bedbugs.

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

I am not a morning person but for as long as I can remember, I've been dragging myself out of bed at horribly early hours to meet the demands of my life. So it was on Monday, when my new alarm clock, bleating like a sick cat, summoned me forth to greet a day as gray and lifeless as I felt. Without fully opening my eyes, I pulled on socks and underwear, a short black twill skirt and a white polo shirt. My own version of what a waitress should wear. I brushed my teeth, splashed cold water on my face, and pulled my hair back in a barrette. Then I locked the door, went downstairs, and put my purse in the trunk of my car—in my capacity as a spy, I couldn't be too careful about my true identity—and presented myself for duty.

A heavily built man in overalls and a sleeveless undershirt was standing by the stove, talking loudly to a skinny teenage boy with big dark eyes who was peeling a million pounds of potatoes. A couple of tons of chopped onions probably accounted for the fact that the boy's eyes were red. The man gestured from time to time with a spatula that dripped grease onto the floor. The boy nodded and murmured. Neither of them noticed me. Or so I thought until the boy said, "Shall I show you how to make the coffee?"

"Sure. I'm Dora." As in Theadora. When inventing, stick as close to the truth as possible.

"Natty," he said. I assumed it was his name and not a comment on my appearance. He jerked his chin toward the big man. "That's Clyde."

"You're the new girl," Clyde said. "Hungry?" I nodded. He looked me up and down, but it wasn't lecherous, it was the assessment of a food provider sizing up a customer. "Two eggs over easy, and some white toast. Natty, you show her how to do the toast and coffee, eh?"

Natty stood up. He was taller than I'd expected, one of those boys who's grown so fast they're nothing but skin and bones and giant feet. His eyes were dark jewels in his pale, pinched face. "Theresa's a real nut about always having fresh coffee," he said. "So you'd better learn to keep an eye on it." He showed me where everything was, and walked me through the first pot. "Orange is decaf. And don't mix 'em up. People complain. We got lots of customers can't have caffeine. But Theresa says you've got experience, so I guess you already know that."

"I haven't done it for a while."

He bobbed his head. "Well, you need to know anything, you just ask me or Clyde. We'll help you out." I nodded. I'd been in the kitchen for all of five minutes and I was already feeling overwhelmed. "Waitresses make the toast, bagels, English muffins. You use this." He led me to a piece of machinery and showed me how to use it. He waved a hand at the loaves of bread on the counter. "You got white, wheat, and rye. You got English muffins. Bagels. Butter's here. They wanted toasted blueberry or bran, that's Clyde's department. Spare bread's through there." He pointed at a door. "You do the toast, put it on a plate, hand it to Clyde."

My own toast came out of the toaster. I picked it up, put it on a plate, handed the plate to Clyde. Got it back with two perfect eggs. Natty showed me where the silverware lived. I got a fork, sat down, and ate. First food I could remember since my wedding luncheon. Natty slid a menu across the table. "Better study this. Won't be long before all hell breaks loose. Everything has a number. You write down the number, kind of toast, how they want their eggs." His eyes danced. "Clyde'll tell you if you get it wrong."

I looked at the menu. It seemed pretty simple. "Where's the juice?" I asked. He showed me. "Cream or milk for coffee?"

"Already on the tables, but you gotta keep an eye on it."

"Ketchup?"

"Tables. Also sugar. Syrup's here." He touched big plastic bins. "Honey. Jam. Butter."

"You're good. How come you're not waiting on tables?"

"Don't like people," he said.

Clyde laughed. "Natty gets nervous. Pours coffee in people's laps." When he laughed, he shook all over.

Theresa came through the door carrying an empty coffeepot. She tore off three order sheets and stuck them on a rack beside the stove. She picked up the fresh pot I'd made and jerked her head toward the dining room. "Better make some more coffee and come on out here. Place is filling up." I tied on an apron, made the coffee, and went to work.

From 6:30 until 10:30, I scampered back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, made enough toast to feed the Russian Army, and enough coffee to float the
Titanic.
I was so busy I didn't even have time to pee and pregnant women always have to pee. As hard as I worked, Theresa worked harder, while Clyde calmly and deftly served up endless plates of eggs and bacon, pancakes and waffles, homefries and hash, and Natty rinsed, stacked, and fed hundreds of dishes, cups, and glasses into the dishwasher. Just about at the point where I thought I would collapse, I felt a big, warm hand on my shoulder and Clyde said, "Better take a break now, while it's quiet. Won't be long before the early lunch crowd comes in."

Gratefully, I climbed upstairs on my rubber legs, used the bathroom, washed my sweaty face, and fell onto the bed. No wonder Mindy had quit to run away with the guy in the truck. A person would have to be insane to stay at a job like this. As I lay there with my eyes closed, I mentally reviewed the stack of militia materials Jack had made me read in preparation for this job, and considered whether I'd heard anything useful.

I'd heard that it was a good season for trout, and several theories why that was so. I'd heard that the Brannan boy had knocked up Stetson's daughter, and if the boy didn't come up with an engagement ring soon, Stetson would be out for blood. I'd heard that there had been a break-in over in Riley and that what the cops didn't know was that old man Fitch, whose house had been broken into, had had at least fifty guns, some of them illegal, in the storage space under the eaves, and that the thieves had gotten away with most of those. I'd heard that Perry Packer's wife was on a new cabbage-soup diet and he was so damned sick of cabbage soup he wished she'd just stay fat. And I'd heard that Mary Harding, whose son Jed was the one the Katahdin Constitutional Militia wanted released from jail, was having a hard time with her grandson, Lyle, who missed his daddy something fierce.

I knew how Lyle felt. I missed Andre something fierce, too. Just saying his name started up an ache in one of those internal organs that aren't involved in the emotions of love. Four hours on my feet. Even in Reeboks they ached. Even with special insoles. And not a soul had confessed to the crime. I didn't have much to report to my state police contact. Still, I'd come here hoping to contribute in some small measure to his rescue, and I had no idea what might be important. Maybe the news that Lyle Harding was unhappy could be used to pressure his father to talk? Maybe the story of the stolen guns? I was just a piece of human blotting paper, soaking stuff up. Maybe the afternoon would be more profitable.