Joy Williams - The Quick & the Dead

“I haven’t been in there in a week,” Carter said.

Alice had an alarmed instant of feeling they had to water Mrs. V. or something, a blurred glimpse of the soul as an animal, ignored if not forgotten, thirsting, its woeful paws curled beneath its famishing.

“Well, let’s take a look,” Alice urged.

He strode purposefully toward his bedroom door. He disliked the door; it was not a fine door and was even hollow. For an expensive house, much had been scamped. He turned the knob and pushed the door back.

Alice peered into the dark. “It’s really quiet in there,” she said.

He heard Ginger’s laughter, which brought to mind the weekend they’d been Christmas shopping in New York, the evening they’d been drunk and run up the down escalator at Sak’s — far more difficult and enjoyable than you’d think. He wrenched the light on so vigorously that the plastic dimmer switch came off in his hand.

Everything looked in terrible disarray.

“You’ve been robbed,” Alice said. “Have you been robbed?”

Carter peered at the room. Initially, it didn’t seem as if anything was missing except his little clock — no, it had been safely relocated, he kept it by the bar now. But he could hear it ticking, or something was ticking, a tocking rondo in his head.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“But it looks as though the police have been here. What’s that yellow ‘Do not cross’ tape?” The tape beribboned the room with festive authority.

“That’s a joke,” Carter said. “I put it up. Just a joke.” There was The Nature of Things . It looked a little the worse for wear. Poor old Lucretius. A love philter had turned him mad. He reeled in the tape, winding it around his hand. “Do you feel a presence in here, Alice? Sort of a permeation?”

“No,” Alice said.

He was afraid Ginger had gotten herself into everything: the broken pool pump; the shot exhaust manifold on the Corvette; the tax audit; the thickening muscle around his heart detected by the yearly exam (he had seen a little something on the X ray, a clinging succubus he knew was Ginger); the weevils in his favorite brand of instant scone mix; Donald’s pulled groin muscle. Definitely Donald’s groin muscle …

“Sherwin says that God permeates the whole world,” Alice said, “and lives in everything as the purest spark.”

“God!”

“Sherwin’s saying that just popped into my head. I realize your wife — it’s not the same thing at all — I realize that.”

“Sherwin who? You can’t possibly mean the piano player.”

“Have you given any further consideration to the wildlife pool in this location?”

“Alice, I want to confide something to you. I don’t think she’s completely here anymore. I mean, we could bring in a wrecking ball but I don’t think we’d get all of her now, if you see what I’m saying.”

“There’s nothing here, Mr. V.”

“Exactly! Nothing can live anywhere! That’s exactly what Ginger is doing.”

“Do you two talk?”

“I shudder to say,” Carter said. “We do.”

“This is really sort of impressive, Mr. V. You two must’ve been exceptionally close.”

Carter had been twisting the “Do not cross” tape around in his hands. He raised it to his mouth and bit down on it, looking at Alice dully.

“Mr. V.!” Alice said.

He lowered his hands.

“I don’t feel any kind of presence at all in here.” Alice hoped for his sake that she wasn’t just having another no-kayak moment. Of course, she’d never even met this dame. She’d only heard Annabel’s somewhat inconclusive stories about her, which she suspected were somewhat gilded.

“The problem is that she’s not here now,” Carter said.

Alice nodded. “I don’t have anything to work with.”

“But I could call on you again if necessary.”

“Absolutely, Mr. V.” She looked around the room a final time. A big no kayak.

Back in the living room, Carter seemed a little steadier. “Spending the night, are you, Alice? Keeping Annabel company?”

“Annabel’s painting her nails, Mr. V. She has this new color called Needles in a Haystack. She’s really happy with it.”

“Why? It sounds gray.”

“It’s a complex gray. It has a whole world of sophisticated meaning for her. She wants to make herself over, but she’s not considering reconstructive surgery.”

“I would hope not,” Carter interjected. Sometimes communiqués absolutely essential to being an informed parent were just thrown at a fellow. “I wouldn’t acquiesce to anything like that.” He had responsibilities toward his daughter, but they just made his mind fog over.

“She wants to perfect parts of herself by choosing patinas and little adornments and effects that are apparently recognized by people she wants to be recognized by, or so she says.” Alice frowned.

“But that’s so … so common , Alice. Annabel can’t be obtaining her ethos through nail polish.”

“It’s so-called nail polish only to us. To Annabel it’s something more. She’s unhappy here. She needs a different set of acquaintances, I think. She’s kind of mad at me.”

“She’s annoyed with me, too. I fear she finds my behavior erratic.”

“That’s okay, Mr. V., we understand. You’ve just lost your wife.”

“If only I had,” Carter said fervently. “Alice, I need to confess something to you. I wanted Corvus to speak with Ginger, and I wanted that because I find Corvus not quite there or even here, if you know what I — let me say it another way. A healthy, happy person wouldn’t be able to talk sincerely with a dead person, particularly to someone as annoyed and annoying as Ginger. Now, God knows I’m not healthy or happy, but I’m not nearly as disillusioned or fatigued in spirit as Corvus, poor girl, fine girl, and I thought she could have a relationship with Ginger that would nullify her, blot Ginger right up, as it were, absorb Ginger’s nada into her own. What was the harm, I thought.…”

He saw himself for an instant as a monster of the Russian persuasion, on a galloping sledge throwing an infant to the slavering wolves almost upon him. Then he saw himself as some idiot in a feathered loincloth throwing a virgin down a well — what were they called? Cenotes, of course. No, his might be a different mask in a new setting, but he shared the same withered atoms with the long-gone louts of a certain ilk. He’d do anything to get the job done.

“I’m actually quite appalled at myself for considering employing this troubled girl in such a way, but I thought afterwards she will be less troubled, because after Ginger’s gone I will get the finest treatment for Corvus, the finest treatment for a fatigued and disillusioned spirit, available.”

“You haven’t looked into availability yet?” Alice said.

“I deserve your disgust and mistrust. I don’t feel any better for having confessed this to you.”

“I could have told you beforehand that you wouldn’t.”

“I can only say on my behalf that I did not approach her. She would have accepted, and I think it would have proved a terrifying experience for her.”

“She shouldn’t be occupied like that. It’s beneath her brilliance. In many ways she can’t be harmed. You couldn’t have harmed her, so you shouldn’t worry.” Still, Alice was disappointed in him.

Carter was surprised that Alice saw her friend as such a model of stability, or perhaps she was just trying in her somewhat inefficient way to defend someone who was precious to her.

“When you go back to the Hilton,” she added, “be sure to question them about their predator-control policy.”

“Uhmm.” He might forgo the Hilton and check into a Hyatt instead. He’d had the worst dream the night before. There were too many drapes on the windows, layers and layers of them; it was like coming to in a shroud. He couldn’t remember the details, but like all dreams it seemed to partake of both death and life, something added to the first and subtracted from the latter in a foul union, most unpleasant.