David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas

“Couldn’t say.”

“If she was drunk enough to drive through a railing, she couldn’t have made it to the shore.”

“Who knows?”

“Gross way to die.” The teenager yawns and walks off. Hester trudges back to her trailer. Milton the Native American sits on its step, drinking from a milk carton. He wipes his mouth and tells her, “Wonder Woman’s awake.”

Hester steps around Milton and asks the woman on the sofa how she is feeling.

“Lucky to be alive,” answers Luisa Rey, “full of muffins, and drier. Thanks for the loan of your clothes.”

“Lucky we’re the same size. Divers are looking for your car.”

“The Sixsmith Report, not my car. My body would be a bonus.”

Milton locks the door. “So you crashed through a barrier, dropped into the sea, got out of a sinking car, and swam three hundred yards to shore, with no injuries worse than mild bruising.”

“It hurts plenty when I think of my insurance claim.”

Hester sits down. “What’s your next move?”

“Well, first I need to go back to my apartment and get a few things. Then I’ll go stay with my mother, on Ewingsville Hill. Then … back to square one. I can’t get the police or my editor interested in what’s happening on Swannekke without the report.”

“Will you be safe at your mother’s?”

“As long as Seaboard thinks I’m dead, Joe Napier won’t come looking. When they learn I’m not …” She shrugs, having gained an armor of fatalism from the events of the last six hours. “Altogether safe, possibly not. An acceptable degree of risk. I don’t do this sort of thing often enough to be an expert.”

Milton digs his thumbs into his pockets. “I’ll drive you back to Buenas Yerbas. Gimme a minute, I’ll go call a friend and get him to bring his pickup over.”

“Good guy,” says Luisa, after he’s left.

“I’d trust Milton with my life,” answers Hester.

44

Milton strides over to the flyblown general store that services the campsite, trailer park, beachgoers, traffic to Swannekke, and the isolated houses hereabouts. An Eagles song comes on a radio behind the counter. Milton feeds a dime into the phone, checks the walls for ears, and dials in a number from memory. Water vapor rises from the Swannekke cooling towers like malign genies. Pylons march north to Buenas Yerbas and south to Los Angeles. Funny , thinks Milton. Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible . The phone is answered. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, Napier? It’s me. Listen, about a woman called Luisa Rey . Well, suppose she isn’t? Suppose she’s still walking around eating Popsicles and paying utility bills? Would her whereabouts be worth anything to you? Yeah? How much? No, you name a figure. Okay, double that … No? Nice talking with you, Napier, I gotta go and”—Milton smirks—”the usual account within one working day, if you please . Right. What? No, no one else has seen her, only Crazy Van Zandt. No. She did mention it, but it’s in the bottom of the deep blue sea. Quite sure. Fish food. Course not, my exclusives are for your ears only … Uh-huh, I’m driving her back to her apartment, then she’s going to her mother’s … Okay, I’ll make it an hour. The usual account. One working day.”

45

Luisa opens her front door to the sounds of a Sunday ball game and the smell of popcorn. “Since when did I say you could fry oil?” she calls through to Javier. “Why are the blinds all down?”

Javier bounces down the hallway, grinning. “Hi, Luisa! Your uncle Joe made the popcorn. We’re watching Giants versus Dodgers. Why are you dressed like an old woman?”

Luisa feels her core sicken. “Come here. Where is he?”

Javier sniggers. “On your sofa! What’s up?”

“Come here! Your mom wants you.”

“She’s working overtime at the hotel.”

“Luisa, it wasn’t me, on the bridge, it wasn’t me!” Joe Napier appears behind him, holding out his palms as if reassuring a scared animal. “Listen—”

Luisa’s voice judders. “Javi! Out! Behind me!”

Napier raises his voice. “Listen to me—”

Yes, I am talking with my own killer . “Why in hell should I listen to a word you say?”

“Because I’m the only insider at Seaboard who doesn’t want you dead!” Napier’s calm has deserted him. “In the parking lot, I was trying to warn you! Think about it! If I was the hit man would we even be having this conversation? Don’t go, for Chrissakes! It’s not safe! Your apartment could be under surveillance still. That’s why the blinds are down.”

Javier looks aghast. Luisa holds the boy but doesn’t know the least dangerous way to turn. “Why are you here?”

Napier is quiet again, but tired and troubled. “I knew your father, when he was a cop. V-J Day on Silvaplana Wharf. Come in, Luisa. Sit down.”

46

Joe Napier calculated that the neighbor’s kid would tether Luisa long enough to make her listen. He’s not proud that his plan paid off. Napier, more a watcher than a speaker, chisels out his sentences with care. “In 1945, I’d been a cop for six years at Spinoza District Station. No commendations, no black marks. A regular cop, keeping his nose clean, dating a regular girl in a typing pool. On the fourteenth of August, the radio said the Japs had surrendered and Buenas Yerbas danced one almighty hula. Drink flowed, cars revved up, firecrackers were set off, people took a holiday even if their bosses didn’t give ’em one. Come nine o’clock or so, my partner and I were called to a hit-and-run in Little Korea. Normally we didn’t bother with that end of town, but the victim was a white kid, so there’d be relatives and questions. We were en route when a Code Eight comes through from your father, calling all available cars to Silvaplana Wharf. Now, the rule of thumb was, you didn’t go snooping around that part of the docks, not if you wanted a career. The mob had their warehouses there, under a city hall umbrella. What’s more, Lester Rey”—Napier decides not to modify his language—”was known as a Tenth Precinct pain-in-the-ass Sunday-school cop. But two officers were down, and that ain’t the same ball game. It could be your buddy bleeding to death on the tarmac. So we flat-outed and reached the wharf just behind another Spinoza car, Brozman and Harkins. Saw nothing at first. No sign of Lester Rey, no sign of a squad car. The dockside lights were off. We drove between two walls of cargo containers, around the corner into a yard where men were loading up an army truck. I was thinking we were in the wrong zone of the docks. Then the wall of bullets hit us. Brozman and Harkins took the first wave—brakes, glass filling the air, our car skidded into theirs, me and my partner rolled out of our car and holed up behind a stack of steel tubes. Brozman’s car horn sounds, doesn’t stop, and they don’t appear. More bullets ack-ack-acking around us, I’m shitting myself—I’d become a cop to avoid war zones. My partner starts firing back. I follow his lead, but our chances of hitting anything are zilch. To be honest with you, I was glad when the truck trundled by. Dumb ass that I was, I broke cover too soon—to see if I could get a license plate.” The root of Napier’s tongue is aching. “Then all this happens. A yelling man charges me from across the yard. I fire at him. I miss—the luckiest miss of my life, and yours too, Luisa, because if I’d shot your father you wouldn’t be here. Lester Rey is pointing behind me as he sprints by, and he kicks an object rolling my way, lobbed from the back of the truck. Then a blinding light fries me, a noise axes my head, and a needle of pain shoots through my butt. I lay where I fell, half conscious, until I was hoisted into an ambulance.”