Kem Nunn - Tapping the Source

It was back near the front of the house, looking for the door he had come out of, that he heard the sound of an engine starting somewhere in the night. He hurried along a narrow walkway and up a ragged flight of stone steps. The steps led up to the great circular lawn and he reached the level of the lawn in time to see a set of headlights moving toward him out of the fog. The headlights turned away from him as the drive curved, and he saw Frank Baker’s yellow van move past him. Frank must have spotted him coming up the steps, because the van slowed a bit as it went by and he could see Frank’s face turned toward him through the glass. They were not separated by much, ten or twelve feet perhaps, but it was still too dark to make out an expression on Frank’s face. There were only the shadows of features, the curly blond hair, slicked back and wet, catching a bit of light—just as it once had in that alley in Huntington Beach the night Ike had seen him talking to Preston Marsh.

The van did not slow to a complete stop. The face turned from the window and it was all gone, nothing left but the red glow of taillights vanishing among the trees and finally just the sound of the engine, growing fainter until it too was swallowed by the forest, by the silence of the ranch.

When he finally found her, she was downstairs in the theater she had spoken of. It was a small theater, but a theater nonetheless. There were perhaps three-dozen seats, a screen, and a small stage. Thick velvet curtains covered the walls, and where the curtains were parted there were various pieces of ornamental plaster, scrollwork, prowling cats and lions’ heads with soft blue light spilling from their jaws. Michelle was alone in the room. She was seated on an aisle down near the front, one leg over the arm of her chair so that the white dress was pushed back on her thigh. There was a drink in one hand, resting on her knee, and when she turned to look up at him her eyes appeared sleepy and slightly out of focus.

“Don’t you like it?” she asked as he knelt beside her. “This room is so great.”

“Michelle, we’ve got to go, now.”

She blinked at him in a slightly drunken fashion. “He told me to wait here. What are you talking about?”

He looked instinctively over one shoulder, back toward the heavy wooden doors at the end of the aisle. “I’m talking about leaving, just the two of us, right now.” He put a hand on her arm. “Look, just trust me, okay? I can explain it to you on the way. Right now we’ve just got to get started.”

She seemed to sink farther back into the seat. “But why…”

“Because something crazy is going on here,” he told her. He was talking quickly now, like he was running out of breath. “Remember how we thought my sister went to Mexico, how that was what the kid told me? Well, I came up here because I was afraid you were going to go. I didn’t want you to. I wanted to talk you out of it, to tell you what I’d learned. But it’s not Mexico, Michelle. Ellen never went to Mexico. They brought her here, to the ranch, and they did something.” He was squeezing her arm now and she tried to jerk it away from him. He held on tighter. Finally she just shouted at him to stop, and so he did. He let go of her arm and she sat there rubbing it.

“Jesus,” she said. “Slow down a minute. Hound knows why you’re here, you know. He knows you’re Ellen’s brother. And I didn’t tell him.”

“He’s known it since that party at his house. I’ve just talked to him.”

“He says that she was in Huntington Beach but that she’s gone, that she was running away and that she didn’t want anyone following her. He says that she didn’t want you following her. But that you don’t handle it very well so you make up things.”

“And you believe that?”

She was still holding her arm, looking down now at the floor. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure what to believe. You were right about one thing. You remember that dress shop Ellen worked in with Marsha? I wanted us to go there but you said it wouldn’t do any good. Well, you were mostly right. The old lady that owns it says she doesn’t know anything about where Ellen went. But she said she left without picking up some money the old lady owed her. She said it’s not that much, but that if I could get an address she would mail it. I was going to tell you but I never got the chance.”

Ike was silent for a moment, thinking about Michelle going to check that out, thinking of what she had told him. “But I just don’t know, Ike,” Michelle was saying now. “You were acting like such a jerk…”

Ike reached up suddenly and tore one of the ivory combs from her hair. She made a small, sharp cry and put one hand to her head. Ike held the comb in front of her face. “Do you see this?” he said. “It was hers, Michelle. It was Ellen’s goddamn comb. Our mother gave these to her. And she wouldn’t have gone off without them. Listen to me. I saw this picture once. Hound had sold it to these guys that buy dope from him. I didn’t get a real good look at it, but it looked like a picture of a chick who’d been all cut up.” He shook his head. “I don’t know exactly how. But all this shit connects. The movies Hound makes, those runaway girls he’s always trying to meet. And that day on the boat. Hound was delivering movies. I think Hound spends the summer making those damn things, then he shows them to Milo. They’re looking for something—the right people, something. And then they come up here. Milo’s summer party. Have you taken a good look at this place? They could pull any kind of shit they wanted to up here and no one would know. All I know is that something bad is coming down, Michelle. Here. Hound was acting very strange—which is not that unusual, but he was trying to lay this trip on me about choosing, about how if I made the right choice I could be his partner or some damn thing. But I don’t want to be his partner, Michelle. I’ve already chosen, and Hound’s not going to like it when he finds out. That’s why we’ve got to leave, both of us, now.”

She was really looking at him at last. He was still not sure that she believed what he was telling her, but there was no more time to talk. He got to his feet and pulled her up with him. Her leg swung down off the seat and her drink hit the floor between them, the glass breaking. “Ike.” She started to say something but did not finish. She was cut short by the soft swish of a swinging door.

“Not leaving?” The words drifted down to them from the back of the room. Ike turned to see Milo Trax and Hound Adams standing at the top of the aisle. Milo held something in his hand, what looked like a roll of film. Standing behind Milo and Hound were the two men Ike had seen before, the tall man with silver hair and his thick, dark friend. “But they make a fine pair, don’t they?” Milo asked. No one answered him.

Ike felt something twisting in his chest. He looked at Michelle. She was still watching him, her eyes wide and clear now. But he had been too late.

The four men came down the aisle. Hound was holding something as well, a dark leather bag. The silver-haired man had his hands pushed into the pockets of the blue blazer jacket. He was smiling. Ike looked at each of the men, then at Hound Adams. Hound met his stare, but his expression did not change—it was in fact a perfect blank and after a moment he looked away, toward the screen and the heavy curtains. And there was something in just that simple movement of the eyes that suggested something, a kind of washing of the hands, perhaps. Hound and Ike had had their little talk. Hound had done what he could; what happened now was between Ike and Milo Trax—or so it seemed.

“I was about to suggest that we do drugs and make a movie,” Milo said. “You ought to be in pictures. And you will, both of you.”