William Boyd - Stars and bars

He tapped out the number Beeby had given him. It rang for a very long time and he was just about to hang up when a woman answered.

“Yeah?”

“May I speak to — with — Mr Loomis Gage.”

“What?”

“Loomis Gage. May I speak—”

“What?”

Jesus Christ. “Loo-mis. Gage.”

He heard her shout someone’s name. Through the phone came a faint noise of a television set, then a man’s voice.

“Yeah? Who is it?”

“Mr Gage? Mr Loomis Gage?”

“No. Who are you?”

“My name is Dores. From Mulholland, Melhuish — New York. I’d like to speak to Mr Loomis Gage.”

He had to repeat this three times; the man seemed to be some sort of imbecile.

“Oh yeah.” Then suspiciously, “Oh yeah… Don’t hang up.”

Henderson fed more money into the phone. The man came back.

“You was expected this morning.”

“There must be some mistake.”

“Beckman’s been waiting in Atlanta all day.”

“I couldn’t have got here any sooner, I’m sorry.”

“Well, he’ll be at the corner of Peachtree Street and Edgewood on the hour. Can you make it for six?”

“I think so.”

“He’ll look after you.”

This is preposterous, Henderson thought. “What does he look like?”

“Thin, kinda long fair hair.”

The man hung up.

Henderson realized his palms were sweating. He suddenly felt a bit fearful. The set up was so weird; mad, even. He thought of his usual valuation trips: a pleasant weekend in some sumptuous house; civilized, cultured talk about art. Christ only knew what Beeby had landed him in. He began to wish that he’d let Ian Toothe come in his place; it certainly would have saved him a lot of problems.

Bryant returned from her comfort station.

“So what happens?” she asked.

“We’ve got to meet a man called Beckman at a street corner in Atlanta.”

“Sounds good.” Her eyes widened. “What then?”

“I’m not absolutely sure.”

♦

They drove down the extreme length of Peachtree Street. Atlanta seemed halfway through some sort of massive redevelopment programme: crumbling façades on old buildings gave way to empty brick-strewn lots, then some spanking new skyscraper surged up from a multi-level piazza with thickets of trees and gurgling fountains and fishponds. As they got near the city centre the buildings grew higher and more impressive: vast circular hotels, mirror glass cliffs dominating small landscaped parks and squares.

The streets seemed oddly quiet, in strong contrast to New York at this hour. They were a little early for their rendezvous, only three blacks lounged at the corner of Peachtree and Edgewood, so they parked the car and wandered around for a while. They went into a concrete cave and took an escalator deep down into the earth. At the bottom they emerged into the immaculate concourse of a vast subway station, clean, shiny and vacant. A couple of ticket collectors looked curiously at them.

“Where is everybody?” Bryant whispered. “It’s like being in the future.”

They went back up. A very thin white man with straggling long blond hair twitched and shimmied on the corner, looking edgily at the blacks.

“Mr Beckman?” Henderson said.

The man whirled round in alarm, arm raised as if to ward off a blow. Henderson leapt back.

“At fuckin’ last,” the man said. “I’ve been waiting here six fuckin’ hours.”

“I explained—”

“You got a car?” He had a thin, lined face. A narrow palate with soft overcrowded teeth.

“Yes.”

“I’m in that pickup.” He pointed to a blue pickup with large fat wheels and gleaming chrome. “Follow me.”

Henderson followed the pickup through Atlanta’s suburbs. Soon they were on another freeway. He saw signs for Anniston and Birmingham. They were driving west. He wondered if they were going to Alabama. He suddenly wished he were back in his apartment in New York, or strolling down to the Queensboro gym for a sabre bout with Teagarden. Bryant stared fixedly at the pickup ahead.

“Wow, is that guy weird. Did you see his eyes?”

“I wasn’t looking at his eyes. Did you see his teeth?”

“He kept blinking all the time, like he had grit in them.”

They drove west for an hour or so, then turned off at a town called Villa Rica. From there they followed a succession of two-lane country roads. It grew darker. Henderson switched on his headlights. They drove through tiny townships — Draketown, Felton. Bryant pored over the map.

“Any idea where we are?” Henderson asked.

“No. I’m kinda lost.”

“Are we in Alabama or Georgia?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I don’t know.”

They drove on. Bryant switched on the radio.

“…terminally ill. And he said to me, ‘Father, what will heaven be like?’”

The voice was deep and mellifluous.

“Oh no ,” Bryant said disgustedly, reaching out.

“Leave it on a second,” Henderson said, horrified.

“…and I could not answer the man, dear friends, that…terminally ill man. What is heaven like? I had no reply in his hour of need. Just then my dog, Patch, who I had left in the car outside, somehow managed to get out and came running into this man’s house to look for me. I heard him scratch on the door. I opened it and let him in. And then, friends, I knew. So I said to this…terminally ill man, ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘heaven is like this room. Patch has never been in this house before but he entered this room with absolute trust and confidence and without fear. Why? Because he knew that I, his master, was inside. So you too may go to the Lord and scratch on the door of heaven with trust and confidence and no fear. We do not know what is in the ‘room’ of heaven, but we know that God is there and we need have no fear of joining him inside. Good night everybody. Tune in next week on W.N.B.K. in Tallapoosa for the ‘Sunday Sermonette’. This is the Reverend T.J. Cardew. God bless you all. Amen.’”

“Good grief,” Henderson said.

“Can we find some music? This is boring.”

Eventually, after another half-hour’s driving they saw a sign. “Welcome to Luxora Beach.” Then another: “Lions Club of Luxora Beach welcomes you.” Finally: “Luxora Beach city limit. Pop. 1079.”

By now it was quite dark. They drove by single storey wooden houses on either side of the road, then into an area of street lighting. It revealed a narrow main street flanked on one side by a railway line. Beyond the railway line was a wide tarmacked area fronting a shabby mall of flat-fronted, flat-roofed stores. Henderson read ‘Luxora Beach Drugs’ above a dark window. All the windows were dark except for one bar. The red neon bow tie of a Budweiser sign and the blue rosette of the Pabst logo set pretty highlights on the matt dusty cars parked outside.

Beckman’s pickup turned and bumped across the railway line. Henderson followed suit.

“Wrong side of the tracks,” he said with a nervous chuckle.

They left the metalled road and drove along a winding dirt lane with — from what he could see through the dust Beckman’s wheels threw up — scrubby undergrowth on either side.

Presently they passed through rickety wooden gates and beneath a wrought iron arch with ‘The Gage Mansion’ written on it in dirty white scrollwork. In front of them in the faint moonlight, Henderson could make out the bulk of a rather large house ahead. The drive swept them round in a generous semi-circle. The headlights picked out small groups of tall trees which seemed strategically placed to aid some landscaped composition. Lights shone from a few windows.

The pickup stopped. Henderson stopped. He looked at Bryant who returned his nonplussed stare. For the briefest of moments they seemed allies. He stepped out of the car. In front of the house was an immense double-wide mobile home made of ribbed aluminium and some sort of plastic wood veneer. Powerlines hung between it and the house. Looking back Henderson saw that the drive formed a perfect circle. He moved away from the car in an effort to gain some better conception of the architecture but it was too dark. It was, he thought anyway, of little consequence. Even the finest building would have been vitiated by the hideous adjacency of the mobile home. He wondered why it was there.