The White Road

Her eyes roll. She sees the rock descend.

Finish her.

She is gone.

I had booked a room at Claussen’s I

“It’s the iron,” she said. “It’s good for me.”

“They say that about a lot of things. It’s usually not true.”

“What’s happening down there?”

“Same old same old.”

“I’m worried about you,” she said, but her voice had changed. This time there was no slurring, no tipsiness, and I realized that the hint of drunke

“I mean it,” I lied. “I’m okay. It’s coming to a close. I understand now. I think I know what happened.”

“Tell me,” she said. I closed my eyes, and it was as if we were lying side by side in the darkness. I caught the faint scent of her, and thought I felt the weight of her against me.

“I can’t.”

“Please. Share it, whatever it is. I need you to share something important with me, to reach out to me in some way.”

And so I told her.

“They raped two young women, Rachel, two sisters. One of them was the mother of Atys Jones. They beat her to death with a rock, then burned the other one alive.”

She didn’t respond, but I could hear her breathing deeply.

“Elliot was one of the men.”

“But he brought you down there. He asked you to help.”

“That’s right, he did.”

“It was all lies.”

“No, not entirely.” For the truth was always close to the surface.

“You have to get away from there. You have to leave.”

“I can’t.”

“Please.”

“I can’t. Rachel, you know I can’t.”

“Please!”

I ate a burger at Yesterday’s on Devine. Emmylou Harris was playing over the sound system. She was singing “Wrecking Ball,” Neil Young’s cracked voice harmonizing with Emmylou’s on his own song. In an age of Britneys and Christinas, there was something reassuring and strangely affecting about two older voices, both perhaps past their peak but weathered and mature, singing about love and desire and the possibility of one last dance. Rachel had hung up in tears. I could feel nothing but guilt for what I was putting her through but I couldn’t walk away, not now.

I ate in the dining area then moved into the bar and sat in a booth. Beneath the Plexiglass of the table lay photographs and old advertisements, all fading to yellow. A fat man in diapers mugged for the camera. A woman held a puppy. Couples hugged and kissed. I wondered if anyone remembered their names.

At the bar, a man in his late twenties, his head shaved, glanced at me in the mirror, then looked back down at his beer. Our eyes had barely met, but he couldn’t hide the recognition. I kept my eyes on the back of his head, taking in the strong muscles at his neck and shoulders, the bulge of his lats, his narrow waist. To a casual observer, he might have looked small, almost feminine, but he was wiry and he would be hard to knock down, and when he was knocked down he would get right back up again. There were tattoos on his triceps-I could see the ends of them below the sleeves of his T-shirt-but his forearms were clear, the bundles of muscle and tendon bunching then relaxing again as he clenched and unclenched his fists. I watched him as he flicked his glance at the mirror for a second time, then a third. Finally, he reached into the pocket of his faded, too tight jeans, and dumped some ones on the bar before springing from his stool. He advanced on me, even as the older man beside him at last understood what was happening and tried to reach out to stop him.

“You got a problem with me?” he asked. In the booths at either side of mine the conversation faded, then died. His left ear was pierced, the hole contained within an Indian ink clenched fist. His brow was high, and his blue eyes shone in his pale face.

“I thought you might have been coming on to me, way you were looking at me in the mirror,” I said. To my right, I heard a male voice snicker. The skinhead heard it too because his head jerked in that direction. The snickering ceased. He turned his attention back to me. By now, he was bouncing on the balls of his feet with suppressed aggression.

“Are you fucking with me?” he said.

“No,” I replied i

I gave him my most endearing smile. His face grew redder and he seemed about to make a move toward me when there came a low whistle from behind him. The older man materialized, his long dark hair slicked back against his head, and grasped the younger man firmly by the upper arm.

“Let it go,” he advised.

“He called me a fag,” protested the skinhead.

“He’s just trying to rile you. Walk away.”

For a moment, the skinhead tugged ineffectually at the older man’s grip, then spit noisily on the floor and stormed toward the door.

“I got to apologize for my young friend. He’s sensitive about these things.”

I nodded but gave no hint that I recalled the man before me. It was Earl Jr.’s messenger from Charleston Place, the man I had seen eating a hotdog at Roger Bowen’s rally. This man knew who I was, had followed me here. That meant that he knew where I was staying, maybe even suspected why I was here.

“We’ll be on our way,” he said.

He dipped his chin once in farewell, then turned to go.

“Be seeing you,” I said.

His back stiffened.

“Now why would you think that?” he asked, his head inclined slightly so that I could see his profile: the flattened nose, the elongated chin.

“I’m sensitive about these things,” I told him.

He scratched at his temple with the forefinger of his right hand. “You’re a fu

Then he followed the skinhead from the bar.

I left twenty minutes later with a crowd of students, and stayed with them until I reached the corner of Greene and Devine. I could see no trace of the two men, but I had no doubt that they were close by. In the lobby of Claussen’s, jazz was playing over the speakers at low volume. I nodded a good night to the young guy behind the desk. He returned the gesture from over the top of a psychology textbook.

I called Louis from the room. He answered cautiously, not recognizing the number displayed.

“It’s me,” I said.

“How you doin’?”

“Not so good. I think I picked up a tail.”

“How many?”

“Two.” I told him about the scene in the bar.

“They out there now?”

“I’d guess they are.”

“You want me to come up there?”

“No, stay with Kittim and Larousse. Anything I should know?”

“Our friend Bowen came through this evening, spent some time with Earl Jr. and then a whole lot longer with Kittim. They must figure they got you where they want you. It was a trap, man, right from the start.”

No, not just a trap. There was more to it than that. Maria