Colin Harrison: The Finder

"Absolutely."

They stood languidly, in no hurry. In the half-light she saw the scar on Ray's stomach. Patchy skin grafts, maybe a couple of operations. What did it feel like to have the front of your stomach burned off? Don't ask him, she told herself, he doesn't want to talk about it.

She pulled on a robe as he slipped into his pants. In the kitchen he sat in a wooden chair while she made pasta and a quick salad. He also knotted his shoes, slipped his cell phone into his pocket, and put his baseball cap back on. For a moment she worried that he was eager to leave, that she had disappointed him somehow. But then he leaned back in the chair and her anxiety passed. She lit a candle and opened a bottle of wine. I'm going to make a little toast to the pleasures of sexual intercourse, she thought. She took out two glasses, poured wine in them, and set the table, feeling better than she had felt in-oh, God, in years. Maybe we'll do it again tonight, she hoped. I'm going to keep this guy here to the last minute. She glanced at the clock, knowing her mother would call before too long, exactly what she didn't want. This reminded her of Ray's father.

"Do you need to call your dad?" she asked.

"He's probably watching the Yankees game. I'll need to check in, though."

By phone? Or did he have to go back to his father's house? She was about to ask when she noticed car lights slide up her driveway.

"Weird."

"What?" asked Ray.

Holding the steaming pot of pasta, she glanced out her kitchen door.

"It's a limousine in the driveway. A man is getting out. More men."

She took a step backward.

"You're not expecting anyone?"

"No." She looked again. "They're checking out your truck."

"I forgot to lock it."

"They're not opening the-they're coming here, I think!"

The large figure knocked on the glass of the door. Ray stood up. Now a hand pounded the glass.

"Hello?" she called anxiously. "Who is it?"

The pane of glass above the door handle shattered. She screamed and jumped back behind the kitchen table.

A gloved hand reached in past the broken glass and unlocked the door. The hand disappeared. In stepped a big Chinese man in a black suit. He moved to one side and three more Chinese men came in.

"Ray," said the first man, pointing. "You go with us."

Ray moved between her and the men, protecting her. "Who are you guys?"

They didn't answer. The first Chinese man pulled back his coat to show his gun. Two of the others slipped behind Ray.

"Miss lady," said the Chinese man. "Do not call the police. Or we will come back here and"-he saw the pot of pasta in her hand-"and we will eat up your bad noodles."

The two men put their hands on Ray's shoulders. A tremor ran through him, she sensed, a desire to respond violently that he repressed right away. He looked at her. "It's all right," he said. "Don't call the police. I mean it."

But she knew it wasn't all right. She stood at the kitchen door as they dragged Ray down the steps and into the limo.

Was this really happening?

She wanted to scream, she needed to scream. They were taking him away! The doors shut, and the long car reversed smoothly out of the driveway, then disappeared.

What to do? Shouldn't she do something? She gazed down at the broken glass on her kitchen floor. Her hands shook. They could have hurt her. What were they going to do to Ray? He didn't know the men, but-but what? He accepted their presence, she realized, as if he had quickly figured out who they were. She picked up the phone. Ray said don't call, so I won't, she thought. No, actually I will. She started to dial the police. But stopped… maybe it would make things worse for Ray, and she couldn't take that chance.

Instead she slipped the phone in her robe pocket and went out the kitchen door. Ray's red truck sat in the same place in the driveway parallel to hers, and she tried the passenger door. It opened. She stepped up high and climbed inside, aware that the cab light inside illuminated her to anyone driving by or looking out a window. She was expecting to find fast-food wrappers, coffee cups, all the usual guy-in-a-truck junk. Instead she found a clipboard with Ray's father's name and address on it and notes Ray had taken on the house. She inspected his tight, careful handwriting. Under the clipboard lay three books, one on the effect China was having on the global economy, another a philosophical treatise on death and consciousness, and the last a thick history of Afghanistan published in London in 1936. I have absolutely no idea who this guy is, she told herself. She popped open the glove compartment. Engine repair records, clipped carefully together. Beneath them lay a ten-inch bowie knife, the handle worn and taped over. She slipped the knife out of the sheath an inch or two. The blade gleamed. It scared her and she slipped it back.

From there she looked under the seats. Beneath the driver's side was a standard roadside emergency kit, with flares, flashlight, and jumper cables. Under the passenger's seat she pulled out a girl's yellow canvas tennis shoe. Everything about it suggested flirty sexiness. She set it next to her own foot. Too small for her. A fine dainty foot. A thin sexy foot attached to thin sexy ankles. Not worn at all, new. She felt a little jealous now, a little mad. Ray had definitely had sex with the woman who'd lost this shoe. You just knew these things. That was what he meant when he said the word "confessional." Maybe this woman was the one who'd broken it off. But why? Who would dump a guy like Ray? she thought. She suddenly remembered the gasping noises she'd been making in bed, her hands clutching the sheets.

Frantic to know something, to do something, she swept her hand all the way under the truck seat. Her fingers found a Tupperware container. She popped open the top. Inside was what-a dead animal? No, it was hair, thick and curly and black. How disgusting! A note was tucked inside. She pinched it up, careful not to touch the hair. The note said:

Hey Ray-Gun, I told you I'd send you my beard. What did you do with yours? I'm riding the surf here in Melbourne. Come visit me if you want. I'm with you-given up e-mail. It's too fast. I need to slow down, a lot. I'm just waiting for the next assignment. Also I got some weird head pains from those pills they made us take. I am having my usual postmission meltdown. It's the little bodies that do it to me most. You understand, I know you do. Sorry to hear about your dad. I know you love him so much. Not sure if I can keep doing this. Will drink and whore my way to higher consciousness. Maybe you survive it better than me. Maybe not. I don't have many ideas anymore, not sure if I'm actually a genuine American. Might not be. Can't see myself going home, just too weird. You get any good ideas, send them to me. Let me know if you get a new assignment. All right, surf's up in like an hour.

Beneath the scruffy hair was a photograph of two muscular men with long beards. Ray and another man, presumably Z, the one who'd written the letter. Deeply tanned, in dirty T-shirts, mountains behind them. Soldiers? she wondered. She didn't see any weapons. Her eyes lingered on Ray's arms and shoulders, their obvious strength. She knew what they felt like against her fingers.

The phone in her pocket rang, startling her. She folded up the note and shoved it and the photo back into the Tupperware and the shoe back under the seat, as if the caller might be able to see her. It was her mother, ready to have the usual conversation. She hopped down from the truck and went back into the kitchen.

"Mom, let me call you back."

But her mother wouldn't. They got into it from there. The doctor's visit. Your father's arthritis. Another ten minutes of her life gone to this. She found herself drifting into the bedroom to look at the rumpled bed. The sheets seemed to still have some of Ray in them. But he was gone.