Journeyman Page 16

  —The bonfires were a diversion, Cosmo tells Nolan later that night. He’s toying with them. Even the tourists are here now for the spectacle.

  Production on the film, disrupted while the set makers rebuilt the façade down on the plaza that had been destroyed by fire, is underway again, but with a 24/7 security detail on site that is also protecting other locations where filming was scheduled to take place.

  —Hollywood wanted to film here because our town looks like the thing they imagine. They imagine quaint. Bucolic. Provincial. But what they got was insurrection. Hell, what they got was terrorism.

  —This isn’t terrorism, Cosmo.

  —I agree, but wait and see what they charge this guy with when they catch him. You’ll see.

  The next morning, a jogger reports coming upon a telephone pole set afire. She notices it as she crests the hill, and just as she realizes what it is, an old car races past her, and a man gets out and starts taking pictures of it. Then, he just climbs back in his car and drives away.

  —I couldn’t decide which was stranger, the jogger tells one of the TV reporters for the evening news. The fire, or the man photographing it. I still can’t.

  —You know, Mace says, studying the end of his cigarette. This is about as good as it gets.

  Nolan lies with his hat lowered over his brow, his hands folded on his chest.

  —I read once, Mace says, that they used to fight bulls and bears in this valley here. The Spanish did. Mexifornians, or whatever they were. They built these big old rings and just threw them in it.

  Nolan keeps his eyelids shut, breathing in the smell of his own sweaty hatband.

  —Can you imagine a fucking bear tearing at a bull like that? Hella señoritas all hanging around, crying and shit?

  Nolan concentrates on his breathing.

  —Did you know that this valley is as far south as the Russian Empire got and as far north as the Spanish did? This is No Man’s Land, here. Bulls-and-bears territory. Did you know that?

  Nolan doesn’t answer him.

  —Joe’s taking his sweet time, huh? Probably noshing all that free lumber-yard popcorn. Probably stashing it in that sling of his. You think he’s milking that sling business?

  Mace stubs out his cigarette against the heel of his boot.

  —I read that bulls-and-bears shit in school. I read everything they put in front of me and then some. I’m a straight scholar, like that. My problem is I can’t sit still. Those walls can’t contain me.

  He flicks the stub out into the trash heap and settles back against Guillermo’s two-by-ten. While tapping another cigarette from the soft pack he keeps buttoned in the front pocket of his shirt, several fall loose on the porch.

  —Man down, the kid says.

  Nolan lifts his hat to see the cigarettes scattered there, skinny and white. He sees that Mace doesn’t move to put them back in the pack but begins to finger them around the porch boards.

  —I don’t miss school one bit, though, Mason says, lighting the cigarette in his mouth, and then arranging the ones he’s spilled. No, siree, Bob. In fact, I’m glad they kicked me out. This is my Harvard and Yale, you know? Get on with my real education. Establish myself.

  Nolan sets his molars against one another. Almost as an aside, Mason says:

  —Nah, Joe’s all right, as far as popcorn-munchers go.

  Then, reaching up to pick tobacco from his lip:

  —I ever tell you why they kicked me out of school in the first place? They said I missed too many days, which is bullshit, because I for sure stopped by at least once every day to see a couple special young ladies I happen to know. A few, in fact. But then I went and got put up in juvie.

  He digs soggy white-bread remnants from the upper narrows of his teeth. He looks at the wet, white masticated mass at the end of his finger and then flicks it in the direction of the trash heap.

  —I was working at this hotel downtown, me and some other dudes I went to school with. They dared me to piss in this one suitcase and say it was agua. We were always messing with the tourists and shit. Bunch of assholes acting like our backyard’s their playground. Just coming up here to show off their cars and watches and shit. The judge said what I’d done was willful and malicious. I volunteered to go to Iraq, but they wouldn’t take me at sixteen. Dude whose suitcase it was, he fought me in the lobby. I have to give the man that. Never did find out what part of the country he was from.

  Mace uncrosses and crosses his ankles, his heels heavy on the porch boards. Nolan can hear him pushing the cigarettes around, doing something with them.

  —When I was kicking it in juvie, some counselor decided I should be in the loony bin. The thing about the loony bin, though, is there’s nothing to do there but mess with the crazies.

  Nolan can feel Mason thriving on his silence, the tension it holds.

  —There was this one girl there. My age. This rich-ass slut from Marin. Everyone there was nuts. Literally. But she wasn’t, either. She just liked playing tough and talking dirty, but I called her on it my first day. We got to be pretty tight, me and her. We’d slip off now and then and share a bullet, laugh at the retards. I straight up told her one day, you talk shit in these groups and all, but you’re full of it. She got all hangdog on me after that, so I said, come on, and patted my hip. More I kept telling her she was full of it, more she had to prove she wasn’t. People are fucked that way.

  —Anyhow, Mason says after a second or two, we’d sit around in a circle with the crazies, all medicated and drooling down their bibs, and she’d get to blubbering about Daddy this and Mommy that, and I’d pretend to nod off. I even fell asleep for reals once. Snored hella loud. When the counselor woke me up, the retards were all red-faced and laughing and shit, but she got all mad and stormed out, and this stupid-ass counselor said, “Now, Mason.” Now, Mason.

  He is using both hands to arrange the cigarettes now, the one in his mouth sending a thin wisp of smoke up into his eye, causing him to squint.

  —But we had some fun, too, grab ass and kissing. I even gave her a hickey on her tit once so no one’d know. But she kept holding out on me. Said she might use again, or kill herself, but no way was she going to let someone do her until it meant something. So I just started ignoring her. Didn’t even look in her direction when she came up all crying and grabbing for my hand. Wasn’t too long after that she came up saying she hella wanted to. So we slipped off for a bullet, and I did her in the stairwell.

  Nolan’s eyes are open. He stares at the inside of his hat, the sunlight shattering through the spaces in the weave.

  —I heard she went nuts after that. Took some pills or some shit.

  Nolan sits up and adjusts his hat.

  —Didn’t even wrap my tool. I could have a disease or some shit.

  —Or a kid, Nolan says, and Mason laughs and slaps his leg.

  —I never even thought of that.

  Nolan sits up and rests his hat back on his head and then cants it forward.

  —Back to work? the kid asks.

  —Yep.

  —Let’s do it.

  And that’s when Nolan sees it. The kid has constructed a house with the cigarettes. Four verticals, four horizontals, and four diagonals to complete the hipped roof. With the lit cigarette in his mouth, Mace holds the flame from his lighter to one vertical and then to another, setting the tiny structure on fire.

  10

  The doorbell rings. With Cosmo typing in his office, Nolan opens the front door, where a young woman stands before him holding a bottle of chilled white wine.

  —Hey, she says, placing her sunglasses on her head and then extending her hand. I’m Maxine.

  —Nolan.

  —You’re the nomad brother who lives in the garage.

  —Afraid so.

  —Nice to meet you.

  —You, too.

  —Smells delicious.

  —Thank you.

  —I didn’t know you w
ere going to be here for dinner.

  —I’m on my way out.

  —He didn’t tell you about me, did he?

  —Sure he did.

  —Right. She smiles. That him typing?

  —Yeah.

  —Can I come in?

  —Of course. I’m sorry.

  Maxine steps forward and tugs playfully at the end of the dishtowel lying flat against Nolan’s chest.

  —Cute, she says. You’ll make some lucky fella a nice wifey someday.

  The typing stops.

  —Partner, Cosmo yells from behind the door, is that Maxine?

  —Yes, Cosmo, it’s me.

  —Tell her I’ll be right there. I’m almost done with this chapter.

  —I can hear you fine, Cosmo.

  Nolan is about to turn toward the kitchen when Maxine places her hand lightly on his forearm. There’s a weight to her touch that he’s felt before, and while he doesn’t mind it in that moment, it’s not something he would ever act on.

  —Hey, she whispers, coming in close enough so that he can smell her perfume, subtle and elegant and sophisticated, have you ever seen the inside of his office?

  —Can’t say that I have.

  —He keeps the door locked.

  Nolan looks her in the eye. She smiles and says:

  —But you probably already knew that.

  —Can’t say that I did.

  Nolan turns and walks to the kitchen. Maxine follows him but stops at the center of the living room, her purse over her shoulder, the bottle of wine at her side. He can feel her watching him as he folds the dishtowel over the oven handle, takes up a pearl-button dress shirt from the back of a chair, puts it on, and begins snapping the buttons.

  —You don’t want to stay and eat what you cooked? she asks.

  —No, I got someplace to be.

  —I could call a friend.

  —Tell Cosmo to pull the chicken from the oven in twenty or it’ll dry out.

  —Can’t have that, now, can we?

  Nolan lifts his chin in the direction of the bottle of wine she’s holding.

  —Do me a favor?

  —Name it.

  —Make sure he eats some before you all get too far into that.

  —Aye aye, Captain.

  Then, she says:

  —You’re not going to tell him, are you?

  —Tell him what?

  She thins her lips and nods, and Nolan turns to leave.

  The streets are empty of traffic. The fog has come up the river and cooled the heat of the day. Nolan walks past a basketball hoop, the bottom edge of the clear Plexiglas backboard bearing smudges from the ball and grease from fingertips along the bottom edge. Behind it, in one of two second-story windows above a garage, a figure in silhouette holds a wireless video game controller out in front of his waist. Lasers flash on the screen before the figure and an avatar in an imagined future jumps a wildly impossible distance with relative ease. In the bedroom next door, a second television monitor displays the colorful moving tiles of some child’s puzzle.

  Nolan keeps walking. He heads west and then north. The phone booth in front of the Chinese restaurant is empty. Moths flick at the dome light. Inside the restaurant, a man sits alone in a booth reading the newspaper while eating noodles with a fork. Nolan stands across the street from the restaurant. He watches the waitress set the man’s check on the table and the man smiles up at her and she smiles back and then walks away.

  Nolan crosses the street, picks up the receiver, and dials in the prepaid number followed by Linda’s number.

  —Hello? she says.

  —I need to talk to you.

  —OK?

  —What would you do if you think someone’s doing something wrong, and you think you might be the only one who knows about it?

  —Seriously, Nolan? How old are you right now?

  —Don’t be mean, Linda. It doesn’t suit you.

  He hears her set something down and shift the phone from one ear to the other.

  —What kind of wrong are we talking about?

  —Setting houses on fire.

  —The firebug?

  —Yeah.

  —It’s your brother, isn’t it?

  —No.

  —Who, then?

  —This kid I work with. I think.

  —The one who tells the jokes?

  —No, he got deported.

  —Deported deported?

  —Yeah, he and his brother.

  —Jesus. How sad.

  —His replacement.

  —And you saw him set fire to something?

  —No. Well, yes, but no.

  —I’m confused. Did you, or did you not?

  —No.

  —Did he tell you he’s the firebug?

  —In so many words.

  —But you don’t actually know for sure he’s starting fires.

  —No.

  —Then there’s nothing to do, is there?

  —He’s Joe’s nephew.

  —Who’s Joe?

  —The contractor I work for.

  —So tell Joe. Or Homeland Security. I don’t know. Stay out of it.

  —I don’t want anyone getting hurt.

  —Unless you know for certain, Nolan, unless you’ve seen him do it or he’s confessed, I don’t see that there’s anything you can do.

  —Yeah, I hear you.

  Nolan reaches up and touches the wall of the phone booth, and the glass steams around his fingertips.

  —Is any of this true, Linda asks, or are you just doing this to call me?

  —Both.

  —Listen, tell Joe you’re suspicious of the kid. Take it to the family. That’s the least you can do.

  Joe lives in a 1970s ranch house several miles east of Burnridge. The one-story structure sits on five acres of grasses that Joe mows every other week during the summer months with the aid of a three-horsepower rider-mower, a cooler of cold beer, and a fat joint. A seasonal creek delineates the length of the southern property line, and lying on the other side of this line, a hillside of buckeye and oak and an outcrop of serpentine, mantled in blue-green and orange lichen. The other three sides of the property give way to hundreds upon hundreds of acres of vineyard.

  When Nolan rides up the driveway, he finds Joe at the center of a partially mowed field, working on the mower’s steering column. The contractor wears flip-flops and a faded T-shirt bearing the advertisement of a surfing apparel company. Old heaps of rusted farm equipment line the driveway. The leaves on the buckeyes have begun to yellow. The hillsides resemble tinder.

  —You found the place, Joe says, setting an open-ended wrench in his sling. He wipes his hand on his blue jeans and he and Nolan shake hands.

  —Beer? he offers.

  —Please.

  Joe opens the cooler, bungeed to the back of the mower, and inside of it are six empties.

  —Looks like everyone’s been over twice. Let’s go up to the house.

  They enter the house through a door that opens to the kitchen. Joe’s wife is sitting on the couch in the living room reading a picture book to their son, Joey. The boy grasps an action figure in his hand.

  —Sweetheart, Joe says, his head in the fridge, this is Nolan. Nolan, Maria, my wife.

  Nolan removed his hat when he entered the house, and now he steps into the living room and extends his free hand.

  —Nice to meet you.

  —You, too.

  —This is Joey, she says. Can you say hello to Nolan, Joey?

  The boy buries his face against his mother’s arm, and his action figure dangles by the ankles.

  —We’ll be out front, Joe says.

  They sit in the shade on the cool brick steps that lead up to the front door. The day is hot and dry. Cumulonimbus clouds tower above a mountain lake to the northeast. The bottom portions of the cloud blur into blue. Nolan can see the circular outlines on the brick s
teps of where Maria’s pots were arranged. The steps have been swept and washed, but traces of the flower pots remain faint on the bricks, dark still in the grout.

  —What’s eating your mind? Joe says.

  Nolan looks down into the mouth of the beer can.

  —I got concerns about Mace.

  Joe blows out his cheeks and exhales.

  —Here I thought you were going to jump ship on me.

  —I said I wouldn’t.

  Joe raises his beer can between them in a dismissive gesture.

  —Kid lies through his teeth.

  —That may be true, but there’s something about how he lies that disturbs me.

  —He just watches too much television, bro. Too many video games and all that. That generation doesn’t understand there’s no reset button.

  Nolan sets the beer can on the step beside him. He begins massaging the calluses along the top of his left palm with the side of his right index finger, sliding his left hand back and forth over the top of his right.

  —I’m not sure that’s all it is.

  —He’s a temporary fix.

  —All I’m saying is I think someone ought to keep a watchful eye on him. Who knows what he’s liable to get up to when we’re looking the other way?

  —OK. Will do.

  Nolan pries at Joe’s eyes and the contractor smiles.

  —What? Joe asks.

  —I’m just saying.

  —No, man, I hear you. I do. Loud and clear. I’ll keep an eye on the little dude.

  They sit in silence, looking out over the partially mowed field, at the dry creek across the way and the lichen-covered rocks up the hill. Joe sips from his beer.

  —Must’ve come up for the water, Nolan says, raising his can toward the hills.

  —What’s that?

  —Your rattler. With the drought and all, he must’ve come up to your wife’s plants for the water.

  —I talked to Joe, Nolan says into the phone, just as a truck, laden with foreign-made cars, rumbles past.

  —What’d he say?

  —I told him I had concerns about the kid’s behavior.

  —But you didn’t mention the fires.

  —No.