"Behold the Moorehead Estate," Beasley said as he parked by slamming the brakes so the truck skidded sideways and its tires sent up a geyser of dirt. "Howard and Toshi bought it from the county about fifteen years ago guess the original family died out, changed their names, whatever. Been here in one form or another since 1762. The original burned to the foundation in 1886, which is roughly when the town Orren Towne, "bout two miles west of here dried up and blew away. As you can see, they made some progress fixing this place since then."
Partridge whistled as he eyed the setup. "Really, ah, cozy."
There were other cars scattered in the lot: a Bentley; a Nixon-era Cadillac; an archaic Land Rover that might have done a tour in the Sahara; a couple of battered pickup trucks and an Army surplus jeep. These told Partridge a thing or two, but not enough to surmise the number of guests or the nature of Toshi"s interest in them. He had spotted the tail rotor of a helicopter poking from behind the barn.
Partridge did not recognize any of the half-a-dozen grizzled men loitering near the bunkhouse. Those would be the roustabouts and the techs. The men pa.s.sed around steaming thermoses of coffee. They pretended not to watch him and Beasley unload the luggage.
"For G.o.d"s sake, boy, why didn"t you catch a plane?" Toshi called down from a perilously decrepit veranda. He was wiry and sallow and vitally ancient. He dressed in a bland short sleeve b.u.t.ton up shirt a couple of neck sizes too large and his ever present gypsy kerchief. He leaned way over the precarious railing and smoked a cigarette. His cigarettes were invariably Russian and came in tin boxes blazoned with hyperbolic full color logos and garbled English mottos and blurbs such as, "Prince of Peace! and "Yankee Flavor!"
"The Lear"s in the shop." Partridge waved and headed for the porch.
"You don"t drive, either, eh?" Toshi flicked his hand impatiently. "Come on, then. Beasley the Garden Room, please."
Beasley escorted Partridge through the gloomy maze of cramped halls and groaning stairs. Everything was dark: from the cryptic hangings and oil paintings of Mooreheads long returned to dust, to the shiny walnut planks that squeaked and shifted everywhere underfoot.
Partridge was presented a key by the new housekeeper, Mrs. Grant. She was a brusque woman of formidable brawn and comport; perhaps Beasley"s mother in another life. Beasley informed him that "new" was a relative term as she had been in Campbell"s employ for the better portion of a decade. She had made the voyage from Orange County and brought along three maids and a gardener/handyman who was also her current lover.
The Garden Room was on the second floor of the east wing and carefully isolated from the more heavily trafficked byways. It was a modest, L-shaped room with a low, harshly textured ceiling, a coffin wardrobe carved from the heart of some extinct tree, a matching dresser and a diminutive bra.s.s bed that sagged ominously. The portrait of a solemn girl in a garden hat was centered amidst otherwise negative s.p.a.ce across from the bed. Vases of fresh cut flowers were arranged on the window sills. Someone had plugged in a rose-scented air freshener to subdue the abiding taint of wet plaster and rotting wood; mostly in vain. French doors let out to a balcony overlooking tumbledown stone walls of a lost garden and then a plain of waist-high gra.s.s gone the shade of wicker. The gra.s.s flowed into foothills. The foothills formed an indistinct line in the blue mist.
"Home away from home, eh?" Beasley said. He wrung his hands, out of place as a bear in the confined quarters. "Let"s see if those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds left us any crumbs."
Howard Campbell and Toshi were standing around the bottom of the stairs with a couple of other elder statesmen types one, a bluff, aristocratic fellow with handlebar mustaches and fat hands, reclined in a hydraulic wheelchair. The second man was also a specimen of genteel extract, but clean-shaven and decked in a linen suit that had doubtless been the height of ballroom fashion during Truman"s watch. This fellow leaned heavily upon an ornate blackthorn cane. He occasionally pressed an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose and snuffled deeply. Both men stank of medicinal alcohol and shoe polish. A pair of bodyguards hovered nearby. The guards were physically powerful men in tight suit-jackets. Their nicked up faces wore the perpetual scowls of peasant trustees.
Toshi lectured about a so-called supercolony of ants that stretched six thousand kilometers from the mountains of Northern Italy down along the coasts of France and into Spain. According to the reports, this was the largest ant colony on record; a piece of entomological history in the making. He halted his oration to lackadaisically introduce the Eastern gentlemen as Mr. Jackson Phillips and Mr. Carrey Montague and then jabbed Campbell in the ribs, saying, "What"d I tell you? Rich is as suave as an Italian prince. Thank G.o.d I don"t have a daughter for him to knock up." To Partridge he said, "Now go eat before cook throws it to the pigs. Go, go!" Campbell, the tallest and gravest of the congregation, gave Partridge a subtle wink. Meanwhile, the man in the wheelchair raised his voice to demand an explanation for why his valuable time was being wasted on an ant seminar. He had not come to listen to a dissertation and Toshi d.a.m.ned-well knew better...Partridge did not catch the rest because Beasley ushered him into the kitchen whilst surrept.i.tiously flicking Mr. Jackson Phillips the bird.
The cook was an impeccable Hungarian named Gertz, whom Campbell had lured, or possibly blackmailed, away from a popular restaurant in Santa Monica. In any event, Gertz knew his business.
Partridge slumped on a wooden stool at the kitchen counter. He worked his way through what Gertz apologetically called "leftovers." These included sourdough waffles and strawberries, whipped eggs, biscuits, sliced apples, honey dew melon and chilled milk. The coffee was a hand ground Columbian blend strong enough to peel paint. Beasley slapped him on the shoulder and said something about ch.o.r.es.
Partridge was sipping his second mug of coffee, liberally dosed with cream and sugar, when Nadine sat down close to him. Nadine shone darkly and smelled of fresh cut hayricks and sweet, highly polished leather. She leaned in tight and plucked the teaspoon from his abruptly nerveless fingers. She licked the teaspoon and dropped it on the saucer and she did not smile at all. She looked at him with metallic eyes that held nothing but a prediction of snow.
"And...action," Nadine said in a soft, yet resonant voice that could have placed her center stage on Broadway had she ever desired to dwell in the Apple and ride her soap and water s.e.x appeal to the bank and back. She spoke without a trace of humor, which was a worthless gauge to ascertain her mood anyhow, she being a cla.s.sical Stoic. Her mouth was full and lovely and inches from Partridge"s own. She did not wear lipstick.
"You"re p.i.s.sed," Partridge said. He felt slightly dizzy. He was conscious of his sticky fingers and the seeds in his teeth.
"Lucky guess."
"I"m a Scientologist, Grade Two. We get ESP at G-2. No luck involved."
"Oh, they got you, too. Pity. Inevitable, but still a pity."
"I"m kidding."
"What...even the cultists don"t want you?"
"I"m sure they want my money."
Nadine tilted her head slightly. "I owe the Beez twenty bucks, speaking of. Know why?"
"No," Partridge said. "Wait. You said I wouldn"t show"
"because you"re a busy man"
"That"s the absolute truth. I"m busier than a one-armed paper hanger."
"I"m sure. Anyway, I said you"d duck us once again. A big movie deal, f.u.c.king a B-list starlet in the South of France. It"d be something."
"and then Beasley said something on the order of"
"h.e.l.l yeah, my boy will be here!"
"come h.e.l.l or high water!"
"Pretty much, yeah. He believes in you."
Partridge tried not to squirm even as her pitiless gaze bore into him. "Well, it was close. I cancelled some things. Broke an engagement or two."
"Mmm. It"s okay, Rich. You"ve been promising yourself a vacation, haven"t you? This makes a handy excuse; do a little R&R, get some you time in for a change. It"s for your mental health. Bet you can write it off."
"Since this is going so well...How"s Coop?" He had noticed she was not wearing the ring. Handsome hubby Dan Cooper was doubtless a sore subject, he being the hapless CEO of an obscure defense contractor that got caught up in a Federal dragnet. He would not be racing his cla.s.sic Jaguar along hairpin coastal highways for the next five to seven years, even a.s.suming time off for good behavior. Poor Coop was another victim of Nadine"s gothic curse. "Condolences, naturally. If I didn"t send a card..."
"He loves Federal prison. It"s a country club, really. How"s that b.i.t.c.h you introduced me to? I forget her name."
"Rachel."
"Yep, that"s it. The makeup lady. She pancaked Thurman like a corpse on that flick you shot for Coppola."
"Ha, yeah. She"s around. We"re friends."
"Always nice to have friends."
Partridge forced a smile. "I"m seeing someone else."
"Kyla Sherwood the Peroxide Puppet. Tabloids know all, my dear."
"But it"s not serious."
"News to her, hey?"
He was boiling alive in his Aspen-chic sweater and charcoal slacks. Sweat trickled down his neck and the hairs on his thighs p.r.i.c.kled and chorused their disquiet. He wondered if that was a ma.s.sive pimple pinching the flesh between his eyes. That was where he had always gotten the worst of them in high school. His face swelled so majestically people thought he had broken his nose playing softball. What could he say with this unbearable pressure building in his lungs? Their history had grown to epic dimensions. The kitchen was too small to contain such a thing. He said, "Toshi said it was important. That I come to this...what? Party? Reunion? Whatever it is. G.o.d knows I love a mystery."
Nadine stared the stare that gave away nothing. She finally glanced at her watch and stood. She leaned over him so that her hot breath brushed his ear. "Mmm. Look at the time. Lovely seeing you, Rich. Maybe later we can do lunch."
He watched her walk away. As his pulse slowed and his breathing loosened, he waited for his erection to subside and tried to pinpoint what it was that nagged him, what it was that tripped the machinery beneath the liquid surface of his guilt-crazed, testosterone-glutted brain. Nadine had always reminded him of a duskier, more ferocious Bettie Page. She was thinner now; her prominent cheekbones, the fragile symmetry of her scapulae through the open-back blouse, registered with him as he sat recovering his wits with the numb intensity of a soldier who had just clambered from a trench following a mortar barrage.
Gertz slunk out of hiding and poured more coffee into Partridge"s cup. He dumped in some Schnapps from a hip flask. "Hang in there, my friend," he said drolly.
"I just got my head beaten in," Partridge said.
"Round one," Gertz said. He took a hefty pull from the flask. "Pace yourself, champ."
Partridge wandered the grounds until he found Toshi in D-Lab. Toshi was surveying a breeding colony of c.o.c.kroaches: Pariplenata americana, he proclaimed them with a mixture of pride and annoyance. The lab was actually a big tool shed with the windows painted over. Industrial-sized aquariums occupied most of the floor s.p.a.ce. The air had acquired a peculiar, spicy odor reminiscent of hazelnuts and fermented bananas. The chamber was illuminated by infrared lamps. Partridge could not observe much activity within the aquariums unless he stood next to the gla.s.s. That was not going to happen. He contented himself to lurk at Toshi"s elbow while a pair of men in coveralls and rubber gloves performed maintenance on an empty pen. The men sc.r.a.ped substrate into garbage bags and hosed the container and applied copious swathes of petroleum jelly to the rim where the mesh lid attached. c.o.c.kroaches were escape artists extraordinaire, according to Toshi.
"Most folks are trying to figure the best pesticide to squirt on these little fellas. Here you are a c.o.c.kroach rancher," Partridge said.
"c.o.c.kroaches...I care nothing for c.o.c.kroaches. This is scarcely more than a side effect, the obligatory nod to cladistics, if you will. c.o.c.kroaches...beetles...there are superficial similarities. These animals crawl and burrow, they predate us humans by hundreds of millions of years. But...beetles are infinitely more interesting. The naturalist"s best friend. Museums and taxidermists love them, you see. Great for cleaning skeletal structures, antlers and the like."
"Nature"s efficiency experts. What"s the latest venture?"
"A-Lab I will show you." Toshi became slightly animated. He straightened his crunched shoulders to gesticulate. His hand glimmered like a glow tube at a rock concert. "I keep a dozen colonies of dermestid beetles in operation. Have to house them in gla.s.s or stainless steel they nibble through anything."
This house of creepy-crawlies was not good for Partridge"s nerves. He thought of the chair and the woman and her tarantula. He was sickly aware that if he closed his eyes at that very moment the stranger would remove the mask and reveal Nadine"s face. Thinking of Nadine"s face and its feverish luminescence, he said, "She"s dying."
Toshi shrugged. "Johns-Hopkins...my friends at Fred Hutch...n.o.body can do anything. This is the very bad stuff; very quick."
"How long has she got." The floor threatened to slide from under Partridge"s feet. c.o.c.kroaches milled in their shavings and hidey holes; their tick-tack impacts burrowed under his skin.
"Not long. Probably three or four months."
"Okay." Partridge tasted breakfast returned as acid in his mouth.
The technicians finished their task and began sweeping. Toshi gave some orders. He said to Partridge, "Let"s go see the beetles."
A-Lab was identical to D-Lab except for the wave of charnel rot that met Partridge as he entered. The dermestid colonies were housed in corrugated metal canisters. Toshi raised the lid to show Partridge how industriously a particular group of larvae were stripping the greasy flesh of a small mixed breed dog. Clean white bone peeked through coagulated muscle fibers and patches of coa.r.s.e, blond fur.
Partridge managed to stagger the fifteen or so feet and vomit into a plastic sink. Toshi shut the lid and nodded wisely. "Some fresh air, then."
Toshi conducted a perfunctory tour, complete with a wheezing narrative regarding matters coleopteran and teuthological, the latter being one of his comrade Howard Campbell"s manifold specialties. Campbell had held since the early 70s that One Day Soon the snail cone or some species of jellyfish was going to revolutionize neurology. Partridge nodded politely and dwelt on his erupting misery. His stomach felt as if a brawler had used it for a speed bag. He trembled and dripped with cold sweats.
Then, as they ambled along a fence holding back the wasteland beyond the barn, he spotted a cl.u.s.ter of three satellite dishes. The dishes" antennas were angled downward at a sizable oblong depression like aardvark snouts poised to siphon musty earth. These were lightweight models, each no more than four meters across and positioned as to be hidden from casual view from the main house. Their trapezoidal shapes didn"t jibe with photos Partridge had seen of similar devices. These objects gleamed the yellow-gray gleam of rotting teeth. His skin crawled as he studied them and the area of crushed soil. The depression was over a foot deep and shaped not unlike a kiddy wading pool. This presence in the field was incongruous and somehow sinister. He immediately regretted discarding his trusty Canon. He stopped and pointed. "What are those?"
"Radio telescopes, obviously."
"Yeah, what kind of metal is that? Don"t they work better if you point them at the sky?"
"The sky. Ah, well, perhaps later. You note the unique design, eh? Campbell and I...invented them. Basically."
"Really? Interesting segue from entomological investigation, doc."
"See what happens when you roll in the mud with NASA? The notion of first contact is so glamorous, it begins to rub off. Worse than drugs. I"m in recovery."
Partridge stared at the radio dishes. "UFOs and whatnot, huh. You stargazer, you. When did you get into that field?" It bemused him how Toshi Ryoko hop-scotched from discipline to discipline with a breezy facility that unnerved even the mavericks among his colleagues.
"I most a.s.suredly haven"t migrated to that field however, I will admit to grazing as the occasion warrants. The dishes are a link in the chain. We"ve got miles of conductive coil buried around here. All part of a comprehensive surveillance plexus. We monitor everything that crawls, swims or flies. Howard and I have become enamored of astrobiology, crypto zoology, the occulted world. Do you recall when we closed shop in California? That was roughly concomitant with our lamentably over-publicized misadventures in New Guinea."
"Umm." Partridge had heard that Campbell and Toshi disappeared into the back country for three weeks after they lost a dozen porters and two graduate students in a river accident. Maybe alcohol and drugs were involved. There was an investigation and all charges were waived. The students" families had sued and sued, of course. Partridge knew he should have called to offer moral support. Unfortunately, a.s.sociating with Toshi in that time of crisis might have been an unwise career move and he let it slide. But nothing slides forever, does it?
"New Guinea wasn"t really a disaster. Indeed, it served to crystallize the focus of our research, to open new doors..."
Partridge was not thrilled to discuss New Guinea. "Intriguing. I"m glad you"re going great guns. It"s over my head, but I"m glad. Sincerely." Several crows described broad, looping circles near the unwholesome machines. Near, but not too near.
"Ah, but that"s not important. I imagine I shall die before any of this work comes to fruition." Toshi smiled fondly and evasively. He gave Partridge an avuncular pat on the arm. "You"re here for Nadine"s grand farewell. She will leave the farm after the weekend. Everything is settled. You see now why I called."
Partridge was not convinced. Nadine seemed to resent his presence she"d always been hot and cold when it came to him. What did Toshi want him to do? "Absolutely," he said.
They walked back to the house and sat on the porch in rocking chairs. Gertz brought them a pitcher of iced tea and frosted gla.s.ses on trays. Campbell emerged in his trademark double-breasted steel-blue suit and horn rim gla.s.ses. For the better part of three decades he had played the mild, urbane foil to Toshi"s megalomaniacal iconoclast. In private, Campbell was easily the dominant of the pair. He leaned against a post and held out his hand until Toshi pa.s.sed him a smoldering cigarette. "I"m glad you know," he said, fastening his murky eyes on Partridge. "I didn"t have the nerve to tell you myself."
Partridge felt raw, exhausted, and bruised. He changed the subject. "So...those guys in the suits. Montague and Phillips. How do you know them? Financiers, I presume?"
"Patrons," Campbell said. "As you can see, we"ve scaled back the operation. It"s difficult to run things off the cuff." Lolling against the post, a peculiar hybrid of William Burroughs and Walter Cronkite, he radiated folksy charm that mostly diluted underlying hints of decadence. This charm often won the hearts of flabby dilettante crones looking for a cause to champion. "Fortunately, there are always interested parties with deep pockets."
Partridge chuckled to cover his unease. His stomach was getting worse. "Toshi promised to get me up to speed on your latest and greatest contribution to the world of science. Or do I want to know?"
"You showed him the telescopes? Anything else?" Campbell glanced to Toshi and arched his brow.
Toshi"s grin was equal portions condescension and mania. He rubbed his spindly hands together like a spider combing its pedipalps. "Howard...I haven"t, he hasn"t been to the site. He has visited with our pets, however. Mind your shoes if you fancy them, by the way."
"Toshi has developed a knack for beetles," Campbell said. "I don"t know what he sees in them, frankly. Boring, boring. Pardon the pun I"m stone knackered on Dewar"s. My b.l.o.o.d.y joints are positively gigantic in this climate. Oh have you seen reports of the impending Yellow Disaster? China will have the whole of Asia Minor deforested in the next decade. I imagine you haven"t you don"t film horror movies, right? At least not reality horror." He laughed as if to say, You realize I"m kidding, don"t you, lad? We"re all friends here. "Mankind is definitely eating himself out of house and home. The beetles and c.o.c.kroaches are in the direct line of succession."
"Scary," Partridge said. He waited doggedly for the punch line. Although, free a.s.sociation was another grace note of Campbell"s and Toshi"s. The punch line might not even exist. Give them thirty seconds and they would be nattering about engineering E. coli to perform microscopic stupid pet tricks or how much they missed those good old Bangkok wh.o.r.es.
Toshi lighted another cigarette and waved it carelessly. "The boy probably hasn"t the foggiest notion as to the utility of our naturalistic endeavors. Look, after dinner, we"ll give a demonstration. We"ll hold a seance."
"Oh, horses.h.i.t, Toshi!" Campbell scowled fearsomely. This was always a remarkable transformation for those not accustomed to his moods. "Considering the circ.u.mstances, that"s extremely tasteless."
"Not to mention premature," Partridge said through a grim smile. He rose, upsetting his drink in a clatter of softened ice cubes and limpid orange rinds and strode from the porch. He averted his face. He was not certain if Campbell called after him because of the blood beating in his ears. Toshi did clearly say, "Let him go, let him be, Howard...She"ll talk to him..."
He stumbled to his room and crashed into his too-short bed and fell unconscious.
Partridge owed much of his success to Toshi. Even that debt might not have been sufficient to justify the New England odyssey. The real reason, the motive force under the hood of Partridge"s lamentable midlife crisis, and the magnetic compulsion to heed that bizarre late-night call, was certainly his sense of unfinished business with Nadine. Arguably, he had Toshi to thank for that, too.
Toshi Ryoko immigrated to Britain, and later the U.S., from Okinawa in the latter "60s. This occurred a few years after he had begun to attract attention from the international scientific community for his brilliant work in behavioral ecology and prior to his stratospheric rise to popular fame due to daredevil eccentricities and an Academy Award nominated doc.u.mentary of his harrowing expedition into the depths of a Bengali wildlife preserve. The name of the preserve loosely translated into English as "The Forest that Eats Men." Partridge had been the twenty-three year old cinematographer brought aboard at the last possible moment to photograph the expedition. No more qualified person could be found on the ridiculously short notice that Toshi announced for departure. The director/producer was none other than Toshi himself. It was his first and last film. There were, of course, myriad subsequent independent features, newspaper and radio accounts the major slicks covered Toshi"s controversial exploits, but he lost interest in filmmaking after the initial hubbub and eventually faded from the public eye. Possibly his increasing affiliation with clandestine U.S. government projects was to blame. The cause was immaterial. Toshi"s fascinations were mercurial and stardom proved incidental to his mission of untangling the enigmas of evolutionary origins and ultimate destination.
Partridge profited greatly from that tumultuous voyage into the watery h.e.l.l of man eating tigers and killer bees. He emerged from the crucible as a legend fully formed. His genesis was as Minerva"s, that warrior-daughter sprung whole from Jupiter"s aching skull. All the great directors wanted him. His name was gold it was nothing but Beluga caviar and box seats at the Rose Bowl, a string of "where are they now" actresses on his arm, an executive membership in the Ferrari Club and posh homes in Malibu and Ireland. Someday they would hang his portrait in the American Society of Cinematography archives and blazon his star on Hollywood Boulevard.
There was just one glitch in his happily-ever-after: Nadine. Nadine Thompson was the whip smart Stanford physiologist who had gone along for the ride to Bangladesh as Toshi"s chief disciple. She was not Hollywood sultry, yet the camera found her to be eerily riveting in a way that was simultaneously erotic and repellant. The audience never saw a scientist when the camera tracked Nadine across the rancid deck of that river barge. They saw a woman-child ripe, lithe and lethally carnal.
She was doomed. Jobs came and went. Some were comparative plums, yes. None of them led to prominence indicative of her formal education and nascent talent. None of them opened the way to the marquee projects, postings or commissions. She eventually settled for a staff position at a museum in Buffalo. An eighty-seven minute film shot on super-sixteen millimeter consigned her to professional purgatory. Maybe a touch of that taint had rubbed off on Partridge. Nadine was the youthful excess that Hollywood could not supply, despite its excess of youth, the one he still longed for during the long, blank Malibu nights. He carried a load of guilt about the whole affair as well.
Occasionally, in the strange, hollow years after the hoopla, the groundswell of acclaim and infamy, she would corner Partridge in a remote getaway bungalow, or a honeymoon seaside cottage, for a weekend of gin and bitters and savage lovemaking. In the languorous aftermath, she often confided how his magic Panaflex had destroyed her career. She would forever be "the woman in that movie." She was branded a real life scream queen and the s.e.x pot with the so-so face and magnificent a.s.s.
Nadine was right, as usual. "The Forest that Eats Men" never let go once it sank its teeth.
He dreamed of poling a raft on a warm, muddy river. Mangroves hemmed them in corridors of convoluted blacks and greens. Creepers and vines strung the winding waterway. Pale sunlight sifted down through the screen of vegetation; a dim, smoky light full of shadows and shifting clouds of gnats and mosquitoes. Birds warbled and screeched. He crouched in the stern of the raft and stared at the person directly before him. That person"s wooden mask with its dead eyes and wooden smile gaped at him, fitted as it was to the back of the man"s head. The wooden mouth whispered, "You forgot your mask." Partridge reached back and found, with burgeoning horror, that his skull was indeed naked and defenseless.
"They"re coming. They"re coming." The mask grinned soullessly.
He inhaled to scream and jerked awake, twisted in the sheets and sweating. Red light poured through the thin curtains. Nadine sat in the shadows at the foot of his bed. Her hair was loose and her skin reflected the ruddy light. He thought of the G.o.ddess Kali shrunk to mortal dimensions.