The Bright Spot Page 6

  “Ever hear of someone named Galatea Ritsa?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “What about Kennemeyer?”

  “Edmund Kennemeyer?”

  “If you like. I only caught the last name. Who’s Edmund?”

  “He was big in the early anti-workware movement, when they actually thought they could stop it by appealing to people’s conscience. He was a philosopher, I think. An ethicist. He wrote a couple of books. I think he’s still alive.”

  I tried to remember if I knew words like ethicist when I was a sophomore. I didn’t think so. “Did Dumfries and Kennemeyer know each other?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I could try to find out.” He seemed eager to get right on it. He was a born student. That would probably be his best shot—keep going to school forever. But he struck me as the type who didn’t know when he had a good thing, who’d think maybe the world could use a little of what he’d learned and would find out the hard way the world didn’t want to hear about it. Because change always meant trouble. Whatever else it meant, you could count on that. And most people had too much trouble already.

  “I’ve been trying to find out more about them, for a part I’m playing. I’ve got some old photos of Jim and Galatea. I’ll send them to you. Would you mind seeing what you can dig up? If you have the time.”

  “I’d love to.” He looked like I’d just offered to buy him a steak dinner.

  “You must be pretty good at tests yourself,” I said.

  “Yeah. That’s how I got the scholarship. It was a national test.”

  “They still have those?”

  “A few.”

  “Well, good luck with it.” He was going to need it. There was probably already a fat file on him that would keep him out of work for years to come. Scholarship student, suspected dissident, known radical, possible terrorist. Anything’s possible, right? In the land of the free. He’d be better off with a record as a convicted child molester. You can go to classes for that, take the cure. Mere possibilities resisted treatment. That was the beauty of them. They could haunt you forever.

  ANY VICES, MR. BAINBRIDGE?

  6

  Idle Valley was a perfect place to live. Perfect. Nice people with nice homes, nice cars, nice horses, nice dogs, possibly even nice children. But all a man named Marlowe wanted from it was out. And fast.

  —RAYMOND CHANDLER, The Long Goodbye

  CLINTON COULDN’T FIND ANYTHING OUT ABOUT Galatea Ritsa except what Salvador had already told us—a piece in the paper about her death. He found no clear evidence that Edmund Kennemeyer and James Dumfries knew each other during the war either, but a lot of those records were destroyed or never kept. People who knew each other often pretended they didn’t in those days. Get friendly with the wrong person, and the next thing you knew you were a conspirator.

  Now, however, Kennemeyer was just another old man, and I didn’t have to be a detective to track him down. He lived in the area. I looked him up and called him the first weekend Lu was busy.

  She was doing a benefit in Philly for veterans. Someone on the programming committee had called up Gary and asked him if the She-Creature was available. Just what the war-ravaged boys needed—an evil nymphomaniac willing to fly to Philly. They regretted they couldn’t afford the both of us, a sentiment I understood—even though they could’ve had the both of us for what they were paying her.

  I told Kennemeyer I was a writer working on a biography of James Dumfries—would he mind talking to me about him? I thought dropping Dumfries’ name set him back a moment, but maybe he was just old.

  “Why not?” he said. “Got nothing better to do. Come around back. Don’t go to the big house. They think they have to interrogate anyone who visits me. Ignore the warning signs. The perimeter security’s on the blink again. Do you have any vices, Mr. Bainbridge?”

  “One or two.”

  “Bring them along, will you?”

  I rolled a couple of skinny joints and filled an empty water bottle with box wine. Lu had some pills, but I didn’t know what they were, so I let them lie. I wore my best jeans, a clean shirt, and a jacket I thought looked writerly. I had two pairs of shoes, old and older. I chose old for the occasion.

  Clinton had found some of Kennemeyer’s old speeches from the big anti-’ware demonstrations. The guy had roused some serious rabble in his day. If he said shit like that now, he’d find himself on a road crew in no time. It wasn’t just what he said that made it so powerful, it was the rumble of the crowd behind him, lots of people, flesh-and-blood people, not just stock mob sounds. Even when it was silent, it was a big silence, like a dragon sleeping in a cave. But now he was old and nobody cared anymore. People were even nostalgic about them, the old radicals. Like cute dinosaurs.

  Whatever his radical glory days, Kennemeyer was now living with his nephew in a place called The Lakes at Llewellyn, way the heck out, inside the walls at Llewellyn. I hated those places. Going to the “communities”—as they liked to call themselves, as if there was anything communal about them except the love of money—was like wading through sewage without the ’ware, but I was willing to do it to get Jim Dumfries’ pathetic mug off my mind.

  Will you do it? Will you do it? Will you do it?

  Yes! Yes! Yes! Just leave me the fuck alone!

  It didn’t make sense to me why I couldn’t just let it go. I’d taken part in swindling an old man. I didn’t feel great about that, but I didn’t have any money to give back to him. That wasn’t the part that drove me crazy anyway. It was the other, the telling him, promising him, as I now put it to myself, that I would change things. And him believing me. What a dope. The both of us, me and James Dumfries—a pair of dopes.

  I thought I allowed plenty of time for the trip, but everything that could go wrong, did. All the schedules had been updated, and the new schedules were not yet posted. The ones I’d printed up planning this little trek were all for last year’s buses. Last year’s routes too. Half the stops had been moved. Outmoded stops were clearly labeled: THIS IS NOT A BUS STOP. But no word was forthcoming where the new one might be found. Over that way, across six lanes of traffic? Up there, beside the tunnel? Excuse me, sir, does the bus come through here? The whole thing ran on rumor. I asked my fellow passengers what they knew, and they passed on tips, advice, warnings, in a variety of languages. I didn’t always understand what they were saying, but I studied their hand movements. An actor can’t have too many of those in his toolbox.

  I changed buses four times—the bigger the homes got, the smaller the buses. A few more million per ostentatious barn, and we’d be riding around in salvaged Volkswagens. The last bus, the Llewellyn Connector, while not quite that small, was definitely trying for cute. It was an orbiter around the walls, for schools, churches, athletic fields, and recreational shopping. It took me only marginally closer to my destination inside the walls, where only those with cars usually ventured, but I thought it might be worth it to ride through these parking lots instead of walk through them.

  When I got on the Llewellyn Connector, it was half filled with nannies with kids in tow who were somewhat less well behaved than Buck on a bad day. The nannies were all wearing their nice white uniforms. Domestics around here were always suited up. The kids too wore uniforms. They’d just come from the uplifting experience of competitive team sports, building their little characters, growing future leaders. You can’t start them too young was the current thinking, had to get those fangs sharpened in time for the future. I gathered the game was over, and they were on their way to claim some booty. They didn’t think too much of me.

  As possibly the first adult male without a service uniform ever to have ridden in this little buslet, I was the object of immediate suspicion and a flurry of hushed commentary as I slumped up the aisle to the back. If only I’d worn ratty (but once expensive) sweats, I could’ve passed myself off as a spent, rich jogger, soaked in good, healthy sweat from honest leisure activity. Dressed as I was, who knew what I was
? I clearly wasn’t from around here.

  To hell with them. I was a spent, impoverished actor, and I was in no mood. I slumped down in my seat and tried to interest myself in the landscape outside that repeated itself like a wallpaper pattern. Tree, tree, shrub. Tree, tree, shrub. Just blend, I thought, just blend.

  But then one of the children—in a voice that cut through the hushed chatter and filled the cute little bus right up to the roof—inquired of her hapless keeper whether I was one of those deviants she’d heard so much about. She pronounced it perfectly, quite the precocious little scholar. Hell, she could probably spell it. During the ruckus that ensued, she stole a smug little glance at me. I’d made her day for her. A deviant sighting was apparently no end of fun. I didn’t hear the keeper’s speech, low and discreet. A bribe of some sort, I’m guessing— Keep your yap shut, and there’s some serious chocolate in it for you, honey . Anyway, it worked, and the little phony lost all interest in me in a matter of seconds and sank back into the warm, safe ooze she called home, like a crocodile in a zoo.

  There wasn’t a back door in this toy bus, so when I got off, I had to pass right by the kid whether I wanted to or not. How could I pass up the opportunity to teach her not to mess with a professional actor? I stopped in the aisle, bent at the waist so that my face was inches from hers, and gave her a look worthy of Victor at his evil best. I handed her and her keeper Billy and the Big Guy cards, then let loose a superb maniacal laugh that must’ve given every kid on that buslet nightmares for a week or more. And all for free. Gratis. They should’ve thanked me. Most of the women were shocked, or pretended to be, and I was cursed in a half-dozen languages, but I saw a few smiling, including the little monster’s keeper.

  Deviants of the world, unite!

  The closest I could get to The Lakes at Llewellyn was Llewellyn Commons—little shoppes ’n’ things for your shopping pleasure. It was in the lease that anything sold here had to have no utility whatsoever and cost at least a month’s rent in my neighborhood. I couldn’t even window-shop. The sticker shock would kill me before I got from the knicks to the knacks, so I cut across the parking lot.

  The main entrance to the Lakes was there, a wide road with a pile of artfully arranged bricks beside it, letters bolted into the brick, humming in the wind, big enough to be read from speeding cars: THE LAKES AT LLEWELLYN. From here I only had a mile-and-a-half walk to the guardhouse through the same wallpaper design I just rode past. There were no sidewalks on either side, so I trudged up the heavily mulched median. When they built this place, they must’ve ground up the whole forest that used to be here and piled it into these medians— miniature rolling hills of dead wood, punctuated by perfectly spaced trees whose lowest limbs were about chest height. Down and up, duck and waddle, down and up ...

  At the end of this stroll was a guardhouse where a toy cop sat on his throne, a little office chair on rollers. Toy cops are even worse than real ones, in my experience. This one got right to the point, rolling up to the window designed for people in cars, looking up at me like a mean dog peeking out from under a porch, teeth bared, snarling, “This is a private community, buddy. Move along. Back the way you came.”

  If I had anything to contribute to the discussion, I was supposed to bend over, so he wouldn’t have to get a crick in his neck looking up at me. For that reason, I stood up straight and tall like my mother taught me. “I’m here to visit a private person in your private community, buddy, and how are you today?”

  “Don’t get smart with me.”

  “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t want you to fall behind. I’m here to see Edmund Kennemeyer. Here’s his number.” I took the slip of paper where I’d written Kennemeyer’s number and slapped it against the glass in front of toy cop’s face so he could read it, assuming he could read. He jumped a foot like I was actually going to smack him, a nice guy like me.

  “I know his number. What business you got with Mr. Kennemeyer?”

  I left a nice big handprint on the glass. “None of yours.” I leaned forward confidentially. “Maybe I should warn you: I’m going to sell him some automatic weapons so he can take over the place. Don’t worry. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

  He scowled at me. I was supposed to be scared, intimidated, something. He had a badge and a gun, and he might roll over me with his little chair. “You mind if I look in that bag of yours?” A metal tray slid out of the side of the guardhouse into my crotch. He pointed at my little backpack. It contained two water bottles (one with wine), a poncho, a candy wrapper (empty), a folder of photographs of Jim and Galatea, several bus schedules that had no relationship to reality, and a compass I hoped did.

  I took off the bag, put it on the tray, and watched it disappear into his lair, talking the whole time. “Of course I mind. Do you mind if I look in your wallet? What you got in the desk there? How about those pants pockets? Body cavities? Can’t forget those.”

  He grabbed my bag and zipped it open. He dug though it twice, threw it back in the tray, and shot it back out to me.

  “You going to call Mr. Kennemeyer now, or should I take my shoes off? Or maybe you’re into underwear? You look like the type....”

  Eventually he let me in. If he’d wanted to, I suppose, he could’ve come out of his guardhouse and shot me, or at least beaten me with that big stick on the desk. But he’d have to lift himself out of his chair to do that, so I wasn’t really worried. He could’ve rolled over to the desk and called the real cops, but that would’ve been embarrassing for a toy cop like himself, who no doubt told his employers he could handle any situation a real cop could and probably got paid more. And here I was, a mere pedestrian. What kind of a situation was that? Did you hear about Barney? He couldn’t even handle a pedestrian! Besides, the real cops would’ve taken at least a half hour to get there on a good day, and we were already sick of each other’s company.

  I finally made it to Kennemeyer’s and started around to the back like he said, ignoring all the signs warning me off in no uncertain terms, making it clear I shouldn’t rule out death as a possibility should security measures be required. Required by whom? I didn’t need any security, and I was the only one out here wandering the flagstones. The stone walkways might have made an interesting pattern viewed from above, but they weren’t too good at going anywhere.

  The house itself was built by somebody who thought you bought class by the ton. It wasn’t just big, it was massive, built out of stone blocks the size of Murphy’s refrigerator. What wasn’t stone was glass, big massive panes of thick glass, and I saw through one of them on the second floor, twenty feet off the ground, a woman I guessed to be the nephew’s wife, running on a treadmill in the gym, lost in some runner’s virtual, naked and beautiful and drenched with sweat. I watched her for a while. She had a nice slender build, a nice stride. She was making great time.

  Kennemeyer lived in a pool house beside a pool that looked like a set for a Hawaiian musical. The waterfall was shut off, and a crew of three in Pool Concepts uniforms were working on it, standing in a couple of feet of water. They paid no attention to me, and I figured them for workware.

  Kennemeyer was standing on his plank porch, under a thatched roof, waiting for me. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and his head was shaved. He still looked white, though, the roots maybe. With his big dark eyes and bushy white brows, he looked like a white owl. He was old, at least as old as James Dumfries, but he wasn’t letting that get to him. He paced quickly back and forth, still light on his feet. If immortality was intensity, this guy could’ve pulled it off if anyone could. He was a little guy, and he had a posture like a pencil. I felt like a slumping hulk beside him.

  “Get in here,” he said. “Don’t let them see you.” He pointed up at the many windows overlooking the pool. All I could see was the reflection of the waterfall under repair, and the repairmen like three white herons working the shallows. I knew some workware jobs tuned your nutritional needs. I wondered if these guys subsisted on a diet of algae and go
ldfish.

  I hurried in after Kennemeyer. He slid the door shut, latched it, and yanked a heavy curtain across the glass. The curtain hadn’t been made for the door, and it dragged along the floor. It was heavy brocade, totally out of place. Kennemeyer had probably scavenged it from somewhere in the big pile up front. There had to be rooms up there where no one ever went, where they just parked the airplane or grazed the elephants.

  His pool house place had a certain charm. A ping-pong table with all manner of stuff piled on it, a pool table and a set of weights that both looked like they saw a lot of use, an acoustic guitar on a stand, a bunch of wicker, including a bar with no bottles, and a bed where Kennemeyer clearly did most of his living. There was about a month of newspapers on one side, and the imprint of a body on the other, a couple of pillows leaking down. There was no box, no TV, not even a radio. There was a single bookcase crammed full of the usual radical activist stuff. Probably some collectors’ items there, but he hurried me past it to the bar and the barstools.

  “Do I need some glasses?” he asked hopefully.

  I pulled the bottle of wine out of my backpack. He sniffed it and smiled in satisfaction. He poured us both a glass and downed half of his immediately.

  “Need a light?” he inquired.

  I pulled one of the joints out of my pocket.

  “Excellent.”

  He lit the joint and sucked most of it down in one hit. “Any tobacco?” he inquired wistfully, still holding the pot in his lungs.

  I shook my head, and he exhaled, shrugging philosophically. “Just as well. That stuff’ll kill you.”

  “You got a spoon?” I asked him.

  He looked hopeful.

  “Just kidding,” I said.

  “Funny guy. So how can I help you, Mr. Bainbridge?”

  “Nick. Like I said over the phone, I’m writing a biography of James Dumfries, and I was hoping you could tell me about your friendship with him.”