Michael’s Wife (29 page)

“No. I haven't eaten since breakfast.…”

“That's funny, I could have sworn I heard Colleen drive in and Clyde bark a few times. Then I was on the phone for a while. I was just coming over to see if Clyde's barking woke Jimmy when you pulled up.”

Colleen's front yard was empty. “Maybe she left again.”

“Must have.” Myra lowered her voice as they stepped into Laurel's living room. “All seems quiet here. I hope he didn't wake up and find himself alone. The colonel's wife called and talked on and on about this luncheon … I'm on this committee … I couldn't very well hang up on.…”

“Myra.” The tingle started casually at the back of Laurel's neck but grew stronger as it moved down her spine. “Clyde's not barking.”

“Puppies sleep soundly some.…”

But Laurel ran down the hall and into the bedroom before Myra could finish. She grabbed the edge of the crib to keep her balance. No Teddy bear, no puppy.

No Jimmy.

“Well, I'll be … that little squirt must have been playing possum on me. Now don't look so worried. He couldn't have gotten far. Probably snuck in the back door to wake up Sherrie.”

Jimmy was not with Sherrie or in Myra's house. He was not in the front yard or the back. Both of Colleen's doors were locked tight. He was not in either of the cars or under the beds. Laurel moved automatically through the search, painfully aware of the silence, the lack of puppy yapping that accompanied Clyde wherever he went.

They ended up in Laurel's living room, Myra shaking her head. “I really feel responsible for this. He must have wandered down the road. Let's split up and you go one way and I'll go.…”

“No.” Laurel sat on the lumpy couch. “I'd better stay by the phone. There wasn't any note.”

“Note? Jimmy can't write.”

“But if someone took him and didn't have time to leave a note, he'd call.” How could her own voice sound so remote, detached?

“Took him … you mean … Laurel Devereaux, that is the most hysterical thing I've ever heard. Strange things like that just don't happen … or not often anyway. Why would anybody … you mean you're going to sit here while he.…”

“You … wouldn't believe the strange things that happen to me, Myra. I know it sounds ridiculous but.…” The telephone's ringing cracked into the room with a sharp raucous sound. Laurel covered her mouth with her hand, muffling the cry that came out on her breath.

“Laurel, it's not what you're thinking.” But the color had disappeared from Myra's round cheeks. “I'll answer it.…”

“No.” Laurel reached the phone before her friend was halfway across the room. “Hello … hello!” Someone breathed but did not speak. “This is Laurel Devereaux, please answer.”

“… are you alone?”

“Yes, I'm alone.” And she gave Myra a warning glance.

“If you want to see your kid alive”—Laurel lowered herself slowly to the floor—“follow these instructions carefully.” She could barely hear the throaty whisper over the sounds in her head. “Drive down the old road to Tucson. After you pass Florence, slow down but keep going until I contact you. Do
not
bring anyone with you. Do
not
contact the police or tell anyone. Have the top down on your car so that I'll know you are alone. Got that?”

“Drive down the old road to Tucson, slow down after Florence … oh, please don't hurt him.”

“If you call the police or tell anyone, I will kill him.” He hung up with a nasty crash.

She kneaded the crawling skin on the back of her neck. Her legs felt hot and sticky.…

Laurel could have sat on the creaky swing, but she sat instead on the wooden steps because the porch light attracted too many creepy bugs to the swing. She curled her arms around her bare, sticky legs and rocked her body back and forth to still her troubled thoughts.

Fireflies blinked at her from the lilac hedge. The heavy heat of a July night weighed on the world till even the massive oaks in the parking lot seemed to sag under it.

Dishes clinking in the house behind her made her feel guilty. She should be helping her mother, but she couldn't summon the energy to stand and walk back into the house.

A tired shuffle behind her and the screen door creaked open and slammed closed, and she knew her father had come to join her. The swing groaned under his weight. Daddy wasn't afraid of bugs. Daddy wasn't afraid of anything. The old resentment rose again inside her. Since she'd started college that resentment had grown harder to put down.

“Dreaming again?” The familiar tolerant note to his voice that he reserved not just for her but for women in general. John Lawrence had little time for the weak. His pride would never recover from the fact that his only living child was female.

“Laurel Jean, don't you think it's about time you got out of that fairy tale world of yours and started coming to grips with this one? You could start by picking a major.”

“Oh, Daddy.”

“Well, we can't afford to send you to the university indefinitely. You're going to have to decide what you want to do with your life. You can't dream the years away forever.” The smell of his cigar smoke hung stagnant on the heat of the night.

“It's a hard decision to make.”

“There's no decision worth making that isn't. Can't you just consider it a challenge?”

“It's all so hopeless. What difference does it make what I want to be if someone's going to drop a bomb and wipe out everything?”

“That's what you said when you were in high school and the Russians launched Sputnik. Ran around like Henny Penny with the sky falling in. You're still here, aren't you? Have some faith in God.” John Lawrence sighed and rose from the swing to sit beside her. “Look, I know you're tired of hearing about the Depression and World War II. But those were scary times, too. And.…”

“Not like this.”

“Well, you'd better learn to live with it, it's the only world you've got.”

And they were at the impasse again. He would never understand her, and she could never be quite all that he expected. But she loved him and it hurt that the strange frightening barrier existed, had always been there.

Laurel looked over her shoulder into the proud heavy face and whispered, “You'll never forgive me if I don't make it in life, will you?”

“The one thing I couldn't forgive, Laurel Jean, is if you ever stopped trying.” He got to his feet and walked back into the house, slamming the screen, leaving behind him the harsh anger of his voice and the smell of his cigar.…

Myra stood above her with the telephone receiver in her hand. “Laurel?” The plumpness of her face seemed to sag. “I've called the police, and the control tower is contacting Michael. Don't get up. This is all my fault.”

Laurel sat up and, holding onto the edge of the stereo, pulled herself to her feet. “What did you tell the police?”

“That Jimmy had been kidnapped. They're coming right over. Lay down on the.…”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, but.…”

“Myra, he said he'd kill Jimmy if I called the police … or brought anyone with me. I have to get out of here before they come.”

“You're not going to do what he said? You're in no shape to drive anywhere.”

“He doesn't want Jimmy. He's just using him to get me. Maybe I can talk him into not hurting Jimmy if.…”

“Who wants you? Why?”

“He wants to kill me … I can't quite remember why or who.…” Laurel was out the door and running toward the Jaguar.

“Come back. You can't—”

She couldn't risk waiting for the police even though she knew she was doing a stupid thing. She couldn't risk Jimmy.
This is one time I won't stop trying, Daddy
. But Myra was right. She shouldn't be driving. She had to fight fatigue and a funny lightheaded drowsiness as well as city traffic. Once out in the country, she had to fight harder. The road stretched long and straight and endless, the desert on either side a monotone of dun-brown with the green of the cactus muted by drenching sunlight. The sky, an eternity of cloudless uniform blue without even a contrail to liven it up.

Laurel tried not to think of what might be happening to Jimmy; she tried counting fence posts. But that made her dizzy. She knew she was driving too fast. When she passed the turnoff to the Milner Homestead, Laurel couldn't believe she'd been there only a short while ago. Everyone would be gone now … she'd known it was wrong, but she'd warned Rollo that Harley planned to bring the sheriff … that all seemed so long ago … hardly any cars on the road.…

The Florence turn off just ahead … she slowed the Jaguar to about fifty. Leaning forward over the wheel in the most uncomfortable position she could find, she analyzed herself. She felt drunk, the high buzzy drunk before the low sets in, and she didn't trust this feeling.

A semitrailer roared up behind her. It bleated a warning and passed, its tailwind throwing the little car about. Sounds—the truck, the rumble of the Jaguar, even the buzzing of the tires on the warmed pavement—were magnified in her ears. And the beat of her heart, the pulse of blood through the veins in her neck, all seemed to make noise. An almost unbearable racket.

Something was happening to her or was about to happen. She should pull over and stop until it passed. But she couldn't. She had to get to Jimmy. Paul's face floated into the windshield, the sad knowing half-smile under the thin mustache.… “Man was nature's one great error … the most destructive of her predators … a most unnecessary creation.…”

Laurel jerked and so did the Jaguar. Two right wheels bit into the shoulder, trying to pull the car with them. The steering wheel fought to free itself from her hands and a concrete abutment above a culvert loomed ahead. She fought the skidding, swerving car back onto the road, missing the abutment by a bare foot. Rushing air screamed through the open car.

Wide awake and tingling now, Laurel slowed the Jaguar even more, searching the sides of the road for some contact with the man who had Jimmy. How would she know? Had she passed them already? What was Jimmy feeling now?

Far ahead, a car was parked at the side of the road. Laurel's legs trembled. Drawing closer, she could see it was a small Volkswagen. She pulled behind it and as she turned off the motor, a puppy's injured yelping replaced the roar of the Jaguar.

The Volkswagen was locked and empty, but Clyde, tied by a short rope to a rear wheel, had almost strangled himself as he'd wrapped the rope around the wheel. He lay still and whimpering as she untied him, and then free, he scampered about frantically, jumping up to nip at her legs and then off to anoint a cactus and back again.

“Clyde, where's Jimmy?” She leaned against the Volkswagen and looked about her, waiting for some kind of signal. The trembling took ahold of her again … nothing moved … except the puppy.…

She watched the old blue pickup until it disappeared and then the dust clouds that traced its path in the sky above.

“Harley?”

“Good-bye, Doe Eyes. Take care of yourself.”

Sid's head lay heavy on her lap. He smelled of warm beer and sweat. “What we had was nothing to be ashamed of. It was good, Sunny. Never be sorry for love, Sunny.…”

Sunny looked at the note again. “Captain Michael Devereaux, Luke A.F.B.” She'd walked a long way from the corral, trying to work off her confusion. Should she do something about this before Sid came back or wait and discuss it with him?

“I'll wait. Sid will know what to do.” She turned back, taking her bearings from the nearby mountains.

A grunting and crashing across the little gully ahead brought her up short. Two men rolled over each other on the packed desert floor, kicking and jabbing. They came to the edge of the gully and then rolled and slid to its bottom without letting go of each other. A dark stain on the gully's side … where they'd marked their trail in blood.…

Larry Bowman reached for the other man's throat and rolled on top, his breathing coming in grunts, his hair falling into his eyes.

Sunny could see the muscles in Larry's arm through the tears in his sleeve; his teeth bite at his lip over the dark beard. She couldn't recognize the bloodied face of the man on the bottom, but he soon stopped kicking and lay still.…

She stood rooted, unbelieving … trying to blink away the sunspots that blurred her vision.

Larry Bowman rose, straddling the still figure at his feet and looked at his hands as if he couldn't believe they'd just strangled a man. Then he pushed his hair back from his face and glanced around him. His glance stopped with Sunny …

“Sunny?” He swallowed as though it hurt. His chest heaved. “Sunny … we … have to … talk about … this. Sunny!”

She didn't remember turning; she was running away from the gully and Larry Bowman, crashing through low bushes, in no particular direction, just away from the crashing and running footsteps behind her.

“Sunny!”

How long or how far she ran, she couldn't tell. When she could run no longer, she walked until she had to stop to vomit.

The mountains were far behind her and the sun had set in front of her. No sounds of the chase now, but she kept walking until she came to the double track and continued along it, gulping air into her lungs with each step.

A woman's voice behind her said, “Congratulations, Mrs. Devereaux. You have a son.”

And Sunny was running again.

24

Laurel sat on the ground beside the Volkswagen, the taste of vomit on her tongue.

The desert waited quietly in the sun.

She pulled herself up by holding onto the car. “Clyde?”

No sound. No movement. No cars on the road. The gaunt saguaros pointed to the sky and waited.…

Laurel walked toward them, and it was like stepping into a forest of armed giants, even though they were widely spaced, with large patches of barren salmon-pink earth between them. No trees here and the bushy growth was shorter, greener than that around Florence.