Stone Junction

  When his back touched the ground, the music stopped. Above him, framed by the grave, the moon slowly spiraled into itself till it disappeared, the stars following like flecks of foam. People whose faces he couldn’t see began to file past, each silently dropping a white rose into his grave, flowers to cushion the fall of covering earth, flowers to sweeten his decay. Daniel’s hands were crossed on his bare chest. He pressed his right palm against his ribcage, feeling for a heartbeat. Pressed harder when he felt nothing. Harder, beginning to panic, when a voice hollered, ‘Hey! Daniel!’ and he bolted from the bed, heart racing, riding the adrenaline rush as it cleared his senses.

  Another holler: ‘Hey, you alive in there?’

  It sounded like Wally Moon. Daniel tried to make his voice gruff with sleep. ‘Yeah, hey, who is it?’

  ‘Wally.’

  ‘Yeah, okay, just a minute.’ He picked up the bowling bag and slid it under the bed. He buttoned his shirt as he crossed the room, tucking it in before he opened the door.

  He need not have been so formal. Wally Moon was standing on the porch naked, dripping wet. ‘The stones in the sweathouse are still hot if you want to get clean. Sorry if I woke you, but I don’t like to waste heat. Besides, it’s about your only chance for a hot bath till the next one.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Daniel said, ‘that was thoughtful. A sweat would be perfect. And no problem about waking me up; glad you did. I’ve got some work to do tonight anyway, and––’

  Wally’s squint cut him off. ‘You work at night?’

  ‘I’m a writer,’ Daniel said quickly. ‘Religious stuff.’

  ‘Oh, a poet.’

  ‘Not quite, no, more like a scholar, sort of a religious anthropologist, I suppose – theological essays, research papers, that general vein.’

  ‘So you’re going to stay here and work tonight?’

  ‘If it doesn’t stretch your hospitality.’

  ‘No, I meant it when I said you could stay as long as you like. But I just wanted to make sure you planned to work, because I need to borrow your truck till the morning.’

  ‘Ummm, gee,’ Daniel began, ‘I’d really like to let––’

  Wally, more as if continuing than interrupting, said, ‘I told you my wife was off in the mountains menstruating? Well, she went in our truck and it broke down – she called me on the CB just before I headed to the sweathouse.’

  Daniel said, ‘The front differential on my truck is busted. No four-wheel drive.’

  Wally wiped a trickle of water from his cheek. ‘Don’t need four-wheel. She broke down on the highway about thirty miles from here, not out in the hills. Just need to tow it in if I can’t fix it, but Annie said it sounded like the engine was eating metal, so it might not be simple to fix.’ Wally shook his head. ‘Menstruating women should not be around machines. They confuse machines. But don’t worry about your truck, because Annie says she is done menstruating. Annie is always very lustful when she returns from the mountains.’ Wally grinned, looking directly at Daniel.

  It was a universal appeal: Let me borrow your wheels so I can get laid. The appeal demanded a generosity beyond the merely convenient. Daniel, feeling vaguely conned, reached in his pocket for the keys.

  Daniel was in the sweathouse when he heard his truck rumble past and fade toward the highway, the music pounding from its radio the last sound to dissolve. Faint from hunger and the heat, he bent forward from his squat, lowering his head to his knees. He inhaled strongly, stretching his lungs, but his attempt to keep the exhalation smooth collapsed into a sigh. He tried to imagine Volta’s face. The face flickered but wouldn’t hold.

  Daniel mumbled anyway, ‘I know, it was stupid to let Wally take the truck. He and his wife could get nailed, they might turn me, or take the truck and money. Hundreds of shitty possibilities. But even if stupid, it was the right thing to do, or at least that’s how I felt it. I’m working on nerve alone now, out on the edges looking for the center, not a realm that rewards a rational approach. Thought isn’t fast enough. Don’t make me doubt myself, Volta, don’t make me hesitate. Hesitation could be fatal. Let me do it myself. Don’t stand between me and the Diamond. This one isn’t yours. It has a spiral flame through its center, like the one I saw. It wants me to see inside, wants me to know. Let me go.’ He realized he was no longer addressing Volta but the Diamond.

  Daniel started laughing and immediately felt faint again. He dipped his hand in the bucket of cold water at his side and flung a cupped handful on the hot stones. The water sizzled into steam. The steam curled through the slender shaft of moonlight from the small, heat-fogged window behind him, coiled, braided, swirled through itself, dispersed. Daniel looked for a pattern, a rhythm. He threw another handful of water on the stones. A dragon’s tail lashed slowly through the light. The durable lines of a pig. A great blue heron ponderously lifted from its fishing roost and glided downriver. A lion’s paw. The bash and plunge of a whale. A twisted question mark. A rose billowing into bloom. A thousand possibilities, but nothing that cohered.

  Twenty minutes later Daniel half staggered from the sweathouse and made his way to the shower. When the cold water hit him, jolting him back into his skin, he saw a slender twist of flame flash behind his eyes.

  His body steaming in the cool night air, he walked naked back to his cabin, slipped the Diamond from the bowling bag, and vanished.

  Calm, steady, focus locked, Daniel gazed into the Diamond all night, waiting for it to open. He reappeared with the Diamond an hour before dawn, so exhausted he didn’t think to put it away. He curled around its light and immediately fell asleep.

  Smiling Jack Ebbetts punched the Play button and said to Volta, who was pouring them both a shot of cognac, ‘I don’t know if it’s something or nothing or a load of shit. You tell me.’ He sat down across the table from Volta in the basement of the Allied Furnace Repair building, swirled the cognac in his glass, tossed it back.

  The tape began with a ringing telephone. Smiling Jack said quickly to Volta, ‘He gave me his direct line so it didn’t go through the secretary.’

  The ringing stopped.

  ‘Keyes.’

  ‘Hello, Melvin,’ Smiling Jack’s voice boomed in a hearty Texas drawl, ‘this is Jacques-Jacques Lafayette, Dredneau’s good buddy and brain trust. You got your half of this deal for me?’

  ‘Yes. Or the best I could. I’m not really pleased with this deal, though. I’m––’

  ‘Well, shit-fire, Mel, it’s simple enough: You talk and I don’t; you don’t and I do.’

  ‘But suppose I talk and then you talk anyway? Or want me to keep talking so you don’t? Let’s talk about that.’

  ‘Mel, what you’re talking like is a man with a paper asshole. Haven’t you ever heard of honor? Human trust? Mutual benefit?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve heard of blackmail, too. And coercion.’

  ‘Well, fuck ya then, son. I better do business with this Debritto boy. Besides the information, maybe I could get a few of them two hundred fifty Ks that my little ol’ computer tells me were recently transferred from your very own Whole Corn Distributing Company to a numbered Cayman account. Shit-oh-dear, wouldn’t the Washington Post have fun with that on the front page!’

  ‘I’d like some guarantee,’ Keyes whined. ‘You can understand that.’

  ‘You got a guarantee, hoss! You got my word. Now quit dicking me around while you’re trying to slap a trace on my call,’ cause the call’s routed through an empty apartment in San Angelo. Shit or get off the pot, Mel. You’re not playing with kids.’

  ‘Okay, I’m going to connect you with Shelby Bennett in our Denver office. The information came directly to him about four hours before the bomb was to be planted. His informant is named Alex Three. He’d called Shelby before. There’s no tapes, and Shelby ran Alex Three and Al X Three, and like he expected, got a blank screen. It’s a code name. Shelby says––’

  ‘’Scuse me, pardner, but why don’t you let Shelby tell me hisself.’

  ‘S
ure, I’m putting it through now. I’m going to stay on the line.’

  ‘You don’t have a real bone in ya, do ya Melvin? Not one trusting bone. Reckon it must raise hell with your faith.’

  As Shelby Bennett’s phone rang on tape, Volta said to Jack, ‘You’re incorrigible.’

  Jack smiled, then he and Volta listened as Shelby Bennett confirmed the information Keyes had already given. On tape, Texas Jacques- Jacques said, ‘Shelby, I’d be obliged if you’d answer a couple of questions for me.’

  ‘I’ll try, Mr Lafayette,’ Shelby replied.

  ‘How many times has this Alex Three hombré rang up you?’

  ‘Nine, starting in seventy-five and ending a few years later with the plutonium tip.’

  ‘Why do you think that was his last call?’

  ‘Because his conditions weren’t met.’

  ‘What sorta conditions we talking about here?’

  ‘Just one, really. That nobody get hurt.’

  ‘Who fucked it up?’

  Bennett paused a moment. ‘Nobody, really. I couldn’t handle it personally because I was here, in Denver. He said he understood, that he was trusting me to put it in the proper hands, but that I’d be responsible if his condition wasn’t satisfied. I told him that anything involving theft of nuclear materials went straight to the director; I had no choice unless I wanted a career change. He said to do my best to retain control. But when I called the director he took it out of my hands.’

  ‘Why’d this good ol’ Alex Three choose you for these friendly calls?’

  ‘When I asked him that myself, he said, “I hear you’re honest and reliable.” That’s the only reason he ever gave.’

  ‘He ever let on how he was getting his information, or why he was passing it on?’

  ‘I asked his source the first time he called, and he said, “Me.” I never bothered to ask again.’

  ‘He ever ask for anything in return?’

  ‘No, but he said he might. I told him I couldn’t make promises, but that I’d do whatever I honorably could.’

  ‘Ya get that, Mel?’ Texas Jacques-Jacques yelled down the line. ‘This fella knows how to establish a professional working atmosphere. You lissen up and learn something, hear?’ When Keyes didn’t reply, he asked Bennett, ‘Now Shelby, I’m hoping you might be able to tell me what sorta other tips this Alex Three passed along.’

  ‘I’d rather not – and anyway, I doubt if they’re germane. Nothing even close to the level of the plutonium theft. I can tell you that most of it involved small South American matters and internal government corruption. I’ll give you an example: We had some of our own low-level people ripping off emergency medical supply shipments after a big earthquake down south. That sort of thing.’

  ‘His information always pretty accurate, was it?’

  ‘Utterly.’

  ‘You never met him, that right?’

  ‘Always by phone.’

  ‘Ever tempted to slap on a trace, see where he was calling from?’

  ‘He told me not to bother. I didn’t.’

  ‘Okay now, so all you ever heard was his voice. You can tell a lot about a man just listening to him talk. What did you hear?’

  ‘Male, mid-thirties or a little older, faint Germanic accent – Swiss maybe – good vocabulary, very precise. But these weren’t long conversations, you understand.’

  ‘No tapes, huh?’

  ‘No. He asked me not to. It was a request, not a condition.’

  ‘You think you’d recognize his voice if you heard it again?’

  ‘I don’t know. He hasn’t called since Livermore.’

  ‘Well, thanks for your help, Shelby.’ Preciate it. Mel does, too, I’m sure.’

  Keyes said, ‘Yes, thanks Shel; I owe you one.’ He waited for Bennett to get off the line and said to Texas Jacques-Jacques, ‘That’s all there is, cowboy. You satisfied with my end?’

  ‘You know, my ol’ Pappy, bless his wildcat soul, always told me that if a man’s real anxious to sell, give it some hard, cold thinking ’fore you buy. I got to respect my Pappy’s advice. I’ll get back to you on it soon as I got it mulled over good. Keep your loop tight, Mel.’

  Keyes was sputtering, ‘Hold on now, you––’ when the recording ended.

  Smiling Jack hit Stop, then Rewind. He glanced at Volta, who was staring into his untouched glass of cognac. ‘You want to hear it again, Volt?’

  ‘Later, perhaps.’

  ‘What do you think? Flowers or fertilizer?’

  ‘Flowers. I think you got everything there was, the whole truth and nothing but, and you had fun doing it. Please reconsider giving me the honor of nominating you to replace me on the Star. The Alliance is losing that sense of fun; you could refresh it.’

  ‘Damn, Volt, I think you’re getting maudlin in your old age – or else it’s tougher than you thought to sit here waiting for Daniel to call. Maybe you should get some natural light and fresh air on you. Do a bunch of pushups. Jog over to McDonald’s and get back in the world.’

  Volta barely smiled. ‘You’re right, waiting has been tougher than I thought. The hardest part is that I’ve had four straight days with time to reflect, and what I see of myself doesn’t please me. I’m losing my effectiveness, and I’m not having fun. I’m tired of excruciating decisions, balancing acts, judgments that must consider the welfare of the Alliance before the good of my heart – though truly they aren’t often at odds.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Jack said, ‘you’re turning sane.’

  ‘I’m beginning to cherish that infrequent state of mind, yes.’

  ‘Well, before your effectiveness peters out completely, how do you want to move on this Alex Three info?’

  ‘I think we should follow your dear ol’ Pappy’s advice and mull it over reeeal good.’

  Jack looked skeptical. ‘Way you were just talking, didn’t sound like your muller could take much more.’

  ‘Plenty of room,’ Volta assured him. ‘Throw it in there with the rest and sit back and wait for something to connect. I’m assuming, naturally, that you’re having Alex Three run through our own sources.’

  ‘Yeah, got them on it pronto, but they haven’t turned diddley yet.’

  ‘Alex Three,’ Volta mused. ‘Try it under Alexandra, also – and Xan. Maybe try working on Al Ex-Three, or maybe X as “times,” a multiplier, or as addition. Al Triple? All three times? A.L.? American League? Three-time winner in the American League?’

  ‘I told Jimmy and J.J. to run any combos they could come up with. And those boys are whizzes on them computers.’

  Volta lifted a hand. ‘I was just babbling out loud, not impugning their abilities. Actually, I was avoiding thinking about a tougher decision.’

  ‘Like whether to tell Daniel, right?’

  ‘No. He gets the information when we receive the Diamond. The tough decision is whether to tell Shamus.’

  ‘Not much to decide, is there? He’s gone loco, first of all, and besides he hasn’t been in touch.’

  ‘Not recently, but he might. And Alex Three had to get his information from close to the source, so Shamus is the best one to ask. Maybe he even knows who this Alex Three is. Let’s play it this way: Call Dolly and tell her that if Shamus checks in, she can tell him only that we’ve discovered the snitch, and how it went down in the alley with a trigger-happy agent. But don’t tell even Dolly we know who the agent was, much less the name. Only you and I have that name at the moment, and that’s enough.’

  ‘We can hope Daniel will make it three when he calls and decides to trade the Diamond for his mama’s killer, and a lead on the snitch.’

  Volta said, without conviction, ‘Possibly.’ He smiled wryly at Jack and raised his glass of cognac: ‘To hope.’ He paused as he brought the glass to his lips and added, ‘And to faith.’

  When Volta set down the empty glass, Jack said, ‘Aw, don’t worry. Things are just hanging fire right now. Pretty soon some pieces will come tumbling together, and you’ll kno
w what to do because you – more than anyone I ever met – know what to do. I mean, don’t think you can shamelessly flatter me with this Star bullshit and get away unscathed.’

  ‘Scathe me,’ Volta said, ‘I need it.’ But he didn’t smile.

  ‘You don’t think he’s gonna trade that Diamond, do you? You really don’t.’

  ‘Jack, I’ve been sitting here four days feeling that Diamond take him. It was the one imponderable, how he’d react to the Diamond. Maybe I just didn’t ponder it deeply enough.’

  ‘Volt, would you quit whipping on yourself? I mean, how could you’ve considered that?’

  ‘I could have used some imagination,’ Volta said.

  * * *

  In a rich baritone and a horrible Irish accent, someone was singing ‘Dannnny Boy, Dannnny Boy, the pipes are calling––’

  Daniel bolted awake. He looked around wildly: naked, daylight, the Diamond beside him on the bed. He lunged for the bowling bag and stuffed the Diamond inside, yelling at the singer, ‘What? Wait a minute, goddammit!’ He slid the bag under the bed, and pulled on his pants. It wasn’t until his first step toward the door that a sharp painful yank made him realize he’d caught half his pubic hair in the zipper. ‘Arrrhhh!’ he howled, clawing at his crotch for the zipper pull. At his howl, the singing stopped.

  ‘Daniel?’ Wally Moon called from the porch. ‘Hey! You all right in there?’

  Daniel flung the door open, his face flushed. ‘Yes, Wally, I’m wonderful. Just got jerked from a sound sleep by some serenading Mongol-Apache and in my haste to get dressed I caught my pubic hair in my zipper, which caused the pained cry that elicited your concern. But other than that, top o’ the morning to ya.’

  Wally winced. ‘Oooh, I’ve done that. Not only hurts like a son-of-a-bitch, but it scares you, too. Better than catching a fold of skin on your dick, though – you ever done that, zip up your dick?’

  ‘No, not yet, Wally.’ Daniel’s anger was dissipating rapidly, his confusion with it. He remembered Wally had borrowed his truck. He didn’t notice any sign of the keys in Wally’s hands.