The Duration Read online

  She continued around the corner to the tub room and looked around. I waited in the hallway, contemplating a dash.

  “Why’s it so cold in here?” she said.

  I walked after her.

  She stood in the empty room, rubbing her arms. She walked over to look at the windows, still all locked. She stopped at the doors I’d opened earlier and stared at a wet spot on the floor, where some dogged snow was still melting.

  “I, uh, opened those,” I said, following her eyes to the doors.

  The absence of suspicion in the look she gave me. Man, nobody should have to go through that.

  I pressed on.

  “Just needed some air,” I said. “I, uh, think the quinoa didn’t agree with me.”

  Her eyes brightened and she grinned a little bit and said “Trouble in Marrakesh?” and for an instant I could see what could have been a future of comfort between us, the whole thing, quips and romps and rolls and courtship and then rolling right through the head colds and bad breath of domesticity, the times when we weren’t at our best but it was okay, the tykes, the mortgage, the eventual orphaning and bleeding and wizening of age. I could see it all play out, rolling forward into the invisible future like a carpet in a cloudless sky. I thought to myself I could marry this girl. But then she looked past me, behind me, to the niche in the wall that I already knew was bare, and her bright eyes widened and then hardened, and as fast as I saw that particular dream, I saw just as clearly the dying of it. And it was almost a relief.

  “What the . . . ” she said, and blew past me on her titanium calves, to the wall, to the alcove, where the marble base for the horn now stood empty and upturned, the affixing screw in its center snapped off. I didn’t even need to turn around to know it.

  I was going to say something, but there wasn’t much point, so I just stood there in that stupid room in those stupid plush sweats and those stupid sneakers as she looked around again. Now she regarded it professionally, unburdened of tenderness, taking in the French doors, the puddle, my dry hair, my false grin. What I would have said, if asked, if it would have made any difference, was something like, “Who’s gonna help this kid but me?”

  Which, you know, that’s it in a nutshell.

  Ava looked at me, and for a second her face crumbled like when your parents tell you that they’re separating, that irredeemable moment, but then she pulled it together and cleared her throat and unhooked the walkie-talkie from her belt.

  “Get out of here,” she said.

  I should have kissed her when I had the chance.

  Ava’s broadcast, which I heard as I headed up the hallway, past the steam rooms and through the spa, set several things in motion. A number of the helpers, including Tudd, materialized in the spa. Three of them escorted me to a side office. Arvindo Blanc floated down the sloped path from the main house wearing something that looked like a GORE-TEX kimono. He stopped me and said “Brother son, moon and stars,” and then handed me off to the heretofore unseen head of security, a decidedly unhealthy-looking troll named Crevis, who asked me to wait in a windowless room behind the reception desk while he called the police. A few guests milled in the lobby, apparently attracted by sudden vibes of activity more than by the sound of any alarm, of which there was none. Walking with Crevis, who stood slightly behind me, close enough to grab my arm but otherwise apart, I spied the mother-daughter duo, the mother looking worried, the daughter looking interested. I spied the minor movie star, back from wherever, who gave me a nod. I did not spy Ava.

  “What’s your name again?” asked Crevis.

  “They call me Handsome,” I said.

  The room where I waited was maybe one of the only places at Head-Connect that was not aesthetically soothing. It was more of a sensory-deprivation chamber. There was a folding card table, one of those metal ones, and a corresponding folding chair. There was a trashcan in the corner with a single Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup inside. Against one wall was a worn leather couch. On the opposite wall, someone had hung a poster for Head-Connect Nevada, which looked like a Quonset hut on Mars. Nobody asked me if I wanted water or ginseng or anything. Nobody came at all. I just sat there in Jimmer’s too-small sweatshirt, which I was growing to hate, so I took it off and threw it in the corner.

  I didn’t even mind what Chick had done, not too much. At least it was done, and what’s done is done, finally. It was hard to even feel surprised. I’m sure he’d weighed the consequences beforehand, maybe. Maybe he really believed nobody would connect us, and maybe they wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been Ava who came in. At least not right away. It probably would have taken some time, and by then we’d have figured something out. That’s probably what he thought.

  Or maybe he just saw one shot at this thing he felt he needed to do and figured I’d understand, which, sitting there, I sort of did. I mean, I’d given it to him.

  I also felt no compulsion to protect him anymore, something else I’m sure he’d anticipated.

  There was a knock on the door, like at the doctor’s office, and then Crevis came in with Chief Grevantz.

  We nodded to each other, the way you do.

  “What’s going on?” Crevis said, sitting on the couch.

  Chief Grevantz stood across from my chair, arms folded, archetypically authoritative. He was wearing a great winterish cop coat, sort of a variation on the jackets we’d get in high school when we’d win our division, fleece lined and shiny sleeves. His hat had snow on the brim.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Well, see,” I said. “There was once this rhino.”

  I told them most of the story, the shorter version. I tried to make it personal for Grevantz, a nod to his younger self’s police work and the kindness of his predecessor. I left out the part about the oxycodone, and left Jimmer and Unsie out of it. Of course, I didn’t mention my brief interlude with Ava Winston, the resurrection of which, with time and reparations and such, I still hoped was possible. I didn’t minimize my own role, but I did present myself in as sympathetic a way as I could manage, at one point emphasizing my own frustration with an arm-sweep from T-shirt to sneaker and a nod at “that stupid sweatshirt.” This is not my uniform, I wanted to say. This is a costume I’ve been compelled by unseen forces to wear.

  And I ended with a flourish.

  “But I know where he’s going,” I said, raising my arms and smiling triumphantly.

  “Old times, huh?” Chief Grevantz said from the front seat of his cruiser as we drove down away from the main building toward the gate.

  I sat in the back and looked out the window at the snow-covered walk that ran parallel to the drive. I felt like I could make out footprints coming down from the main house. Who knew whether they were Chick’s or someone else’s. Halfway down, did they veer off toward the curtain of woods? Did they vanish into the steady snow?

  We drove up Scrimshaw to the trailheads at the top. Grevantz got out and looked at the unmarked snow. A second cruiser pulled up behind us. There were only a couple other police cars in Gable, and one of those was still at Head-Connect. A good time to shoplift from the Foodtown.

  I wasn’t sure if I was under arrest, or if I was just sort of assisting in the investigation. I mean, I had participated in what might be looked at as a felony burglary, but I felt relatively comfortable with the story I could tell. Chick would vouch for me when they caught him, make it clear that I was just trying to help him see the thing, not steal it. We’d give it back, no harm no foul.

  Still, I understood the basics of being an accessory. Which was sort of funny, because I’d never been able to accessorize for shit.

  The back doors of the cruiser were locked, and I figured I’d wait until an opportune time to raise certain questions.

  “He was coming this way,” I said. I felt no guilt about it. It’s not like this was a mystery. “He’s probably already passed through. If I were you I’d check the Heirloom. Maybe the Horse Head.”

  Grevantz turned toward the back.

&n
bsp; “The Horse Head?”

  “I know, right?”

  He shook his head. “Plus, it’s what? Four miles away? In this snow that’s a haul. Does he have access to a car?”

  “I don’t know about access,” I said, thinking of Elvis LaBeau. “He doesn’t have a car. He has a phone, though.”

  I could’ve told Grevantz about how Jimmer could locate people, but I decided to wait.

  “Don’t leave a car here,” I said instead. “If he sees the car he’ll just go somewhere else.”

  Grevantz left one of the cruisers by the trailheads anyway and drove up to the Heirloom, the snow blowing in eddies across the street outside. I stayed locked in the back and nodded to the few people who passed by, hats pulled low and collars popped, pantomiming a request to be released. Nobody took me up on it. But I was kidding anyway, sort of. Fuck ’em. If you can’t laugh at yourself in the back of a cruiser, well then you’re a sorry son of a bitch.

  Grevantz came back out, shook his head.

  “Nobody’s seen him,” he said.

  We drove up to the Horse Head and parked outside the office.

  “Let me do the talking,” I said from the back seat.

  “Stay here,” said Grevantz, and went inside. After a minute, he came back out.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “He probably won’t use his name. He’ll be looking for me.”

  I thought that was true. It was true, wasn’t it? Anyway, Grevantz wasn’t listening. He was on the radio, talking to his dispatcher.

  “It’s going to get cold tonight,” he said when he was done. “He’d better get somewhere fast.”

  “Let me stay here,” I said, leaning forward toward the partition. “I’m not going anywhere. I can’t go back to Head-Connect, right? If Chick comes here, which he probably will, I’ll get the horn, call you, done deal.”

  Grevantz turned in the seat to look back at me.

  “You know that isn’t how it’s going to work, right?”

  I slouched back onto the seat.

  “Well, shit,” I said. “I’m supposed to be in Boston by noon tomorrow. Is that going to be a problem?”

  Grevantz shrugged.

  “I suspect that it will very likely be a problem.”

  I looked out the window. The snow was coming down hard now. It was a long walk to the Horse Head, up Bramble and into town, and then up the hill on the Knotsford-Gable Road. The walk would be especially long if Chick was looking for me at the trailhead.

  “We can track his phone,” I said.

  Grevantz looked back at me. I dug my own cell out of my sweatpants.

  “This doesn’t count as my phone call, right?” I asked.

  “Just do it,” he said.

  I called Jimmer. He was still off somewhere with Vishy Shetty and didn’t answer right away. I left a message with the basics and told him to do that thing he could do and let me know where Chick was as soon as possible.

  Grevantz nodded appreciatively.

  “We need a warrant for that sort of thing,” he said.

  “Welcome to the future,” I said.

  Grevantz started the car.

  “Okay, look,” he said. “You can come back with me and wait at the station of your own volition. Or I can arrest you. Up to you.”

  We went back to wait at the police station, which in Gable shares a brick building with the fire station, the town hall, and the ambulance bay. I really didn’t want to be arrested. I felt like I should put that off as long as possible. It would not look good on my ethics forms. But it’s not like I could go back to Fleur-de-Lys and crash in the big bed either. So I sat in a chair a few feet from the lockup and watched the snow pile up on the window ledge. There wasn’t a ton of accumulation—maybe 8 or so inches—but the wind was snapping like a bed sheet. The lockup door was open and the only person in it was a pharmacist picked up at a DUI checkpoint, sobering up and panicking quietly. I shot the shit with some of the other officers, the older dudes I remembered, their handshakes firm and their faces weathered from traffic duty, and the younger guys still ironing their uniforms every morning. We talked about the town, new buildings, old scandals, the Shaunda Schoensteins of our youths, a few of which we even had in common.

  Grevantz came and went, moving papers around, making phone calls. I couldn’t tell if he was working on the Head-Connect thing or other stuff. It didn’t seem like there could be too much else going on in town on a Tuesday night.

  I looked at my watch. It was closing in on midnight. A junior officer came in shivering from the parking lot and spoke with Grevantz in the office. I walked to the door and they stopped, both looking at me with annoyance. I got the impression that I was making myself too at home.

  “You check the Horse Head again?” I asked anyway.

  Grevantz nodded.

  “All right,” I said. “Well, I’m going to go find him.”

  Grevantz stood up.

  “No you’re not. We have two cars already looking for him, as well as security at Fleur-de-Lys. He shows, we will pick him up. I’m not diverting resources to follow you around too.”

  “Dude, it’s freezing out,” I said, pointing to the thermometer suctioned to the outer window. I began to feel a seeping in my chest, like smoke, like the first sign of something really bad. “I’m going.”

  “You know what?” he said. “Sit the hell down.”

  I started to walk toward the door. Almost got there too, before three of them landed on me. You got to give it to cops, they can go from your buddy to your oppressor like that.

  I spent the night in the lockup, the door closed. The pharmacist got picked up around 1 A.M. by a very disappointed-looking woman in a bathrobe whom I took to be his wife. Grevantz and most of the other officers went home a half-hour later, leaving only a young night watchman sitting at a dispatch desk. Every once in a while the radio would crackle and the officer would type into a computer. I closed my eyes at two and when I opened them it was five and Grevantz was back, at the door of the cell with keys. He looked sharp, his hair slick and his chin smooth and wet, like he’d gotten the full eight hours, a hot shower and a warm bowl of oats. Whatever he was doing, he was living right. By contrast, my back hurt like a mother and my mouth tasted like a sock.

  “Come on,” he said, motioning me toward his office. “Your friend Jimmer is on the phone.”

  Outside, the sky was still dark.

  “Guy,” I said, when I got to the receiver. “Where you at?”

  Grevantz put the call on the speaker.

  “I’m in Halifax,” he said. “It’s really early. Why are the police calling me? Do I want to know what’s going on?”

  “Halifax?” I said.

  “Halifax,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. Listen, I just got my messages. I called you back. You didn’t answer. Now I’m taking calls from the police? What’s up?”

  I decided to gloss over that one.

  “Gotta find Chickie again,” I said. “It’s urgent.”

  I heard Jimmer sigh, and then type.

  “Hold on,” he said.

  I looked up and saw Unsie coming in through the station’s outer doors. He was wearing Thermolite leggings, a wool hat pulled down over his ears, and the patrician look of a man who did not frequent police stations. He spoke with the desk officer and then looked through the glass partitions to me and Chief Grevantz. We both nodded, and Unsie came through the interior doors. He started to say something, but Jimmer came back on the line and I raised a finger.

  “Can’t find him,” he said, sounding confused. “Phone must be off. But hold on.”

  A second passed. I mouthed the word “sorry” at Unsie, who ignored it.

  “Yeah, he was at Head-Connect at midnight,” Jimmer said. “That’s all I got.”

  “Where at Head-Connect?” I asked.

  That fucker. I pictured the eucalyptus room, the enveloping steam. The big bed! Had he snuck back in? Had he ever actually left?

  I bet h
e was eating my granola as we spoke.

  “Can’t say. In the future, when you all move to cities like reasonable people, we will be able to be more precise. Until then, you’ll have to accept the tech that the sticks find acceptable.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Gotta go.”

  “Wait,” said Jimmer.

  But it was too late and I hung up on a multimillionaire.

  We loaded into a cruiser in the predawn cold. It was freezing out, and Grevantz let me borrow a police-issue overcoat. The snow was thin on the ground but blown high in the corners and pockets of the lot. We drove down to Fleur-de-Lys, where Security Pete gave me the side-eye and I gave him the finger. Unsie followed us in his Forester. The sun was pressing gently against the gray air to the east, a wall of cloud moving north. Security Pete made a call up to the administration, and by the time the valets were opening our doors—even mine!—Crevis and Arvindo Blanc were waiting at the front. New Age music piped softly into the lobby and a yoga class was about to let out of one of the studios, disgorging thirty or so sweaty one-percenters into the lobby. I looked toward Ava’s desk but she wasn’t there, and another Head-Connector was cocking his head solicitously toward her computer screen.

  Crevis ushered us quickly into a side room, out of sight of the guests.

  “He’s not here,” Crevis said. “We’ve searched all the common areas.”

  “Steam rooms?” I asked, and Crevis nodded.

  “We’ve also checked Mr. O’Neill’s suite,” he said, looking pointedly at me.

  “He had nothing to do with this,” I said. “Chick’s on a vision quest.”

  Arvindo Blanc nodded.

  “Quests are sacred,” he said.

  “Shit yeah,” I said.

  Behind Arvindo Blanc, Crevis rolled his eyes.

  Blanc continued. “I would like to hear the story of this animal,” he said. “We found the horn in our Vice Safe, of course, but we assumed that there was some long-ago safari behind it.”