Black Water

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Archie checked into a hotel off Interstate 5 in Irvine at four that afternoon. He wore an Angels cap to cover his shaved head and big Band-Aid to hide the bullet hole, a stick-on mustache and dark sunglasses to change his face. The desk girl was polite and professor and gave not the slightest sign that she recognized him or found him odd.

He used the name Jim Green but otherwise filled out the application truthfully. He used the name Green because the girl's face was green. He paid cash for three nights plus a one-hundred-dollar deposit. She gave Archie a map to his room.

The hotel was a big barn-shaped concrete structure originally used as a granary and packinghouse. Archie remembered his father and mother staying here and liking it years ago when they visited over Christmas. He was upstairs on the end. The room was pentagonal shape-once a silo, according to the illustrated history in the lobby. From the window he could see red railroad tracks and a blue field and foothills in the distance. The blue hills were beautiful. There was burger joint across the parking lot and a gas station across the street. He easily carried the two big suitcases upstairs, then unpacked them: three portraits of Gwen, the shotgun and a box of ammunition, a couple of handguns, his three favorite suiseki, a laptop computer, his clothes and uniform, the pills, his shave kit and some miscellaneous things he just thrown in. He was surprised that carrying so much weight upstairs fatigued him so little. He'd come out of the hospital stronger, no doubt about it. He felt like he could pick up a car and throw it if he wanted to.

He put one of Gwen's old demo tapes in a little cassette player and turned the volume down low. Then tapped out his afternoon dose of Decadron and washed them down with some orange juice from the mini-bar, took an extra because of the colors getting mixed up.

But now my mind is playing tricks on me I close my eyes and you're all I see

Damn, isn't that true, he thought. It seemed that every line she wrote meant something more, or something different, now that she was dead. He propped her portraits along the wall beside the air conditioner and stared.

I won't let them take you away from me, he thought. I won't.

For every ounce of trouble I gotta pound of cure

When the tape was over he got the phone book from the nightstand and looked up medical supplies. He wrote down the two closest addresses, confirming by phone that both supply houses carried aluminum crutches for sale or rent. Specifically, he asked for the kind that have braces for the upper arm to give more strength and stability. The clerks referred to them as Canadian crutches and yes, they both carried them.

He thanked them and hung up and thought for a moment, staring out at the lapis blue hills. Red crows bickered in a yellow enamel sky. Wow.

Then Archie thumbed forward in the phone book to limousine services and called the first number.

"Hello," he said. "My name is Jim Green. I found five hundred dollar bills in my limo last night on our way back from a party. I picked up the roll and figured finders keepers, but I was drunk. I can't keep them. I probably earn ten times what your drivers do, not that I deserve to. Anyway, if it was your guy, I'd like to get them back to him."

"What was your driver's name?"

"I don't remember. One of my friends sent the car as a surprise but I don't know which friend or which service he used. All I can tell you is the driver was a great big guy with dark hair and a beard, mean very big. And he's five bills short."

"He wasn't ours."

"Thanks, I'll try the other services."

Half an hour later Archie hit pay dirt. The heavily accented front man for Air Glide Limousine in Newport Beach said, yes, they have one very large driver. This driver had in fact said something about ending the night short.

"What was his name again?" asked Archie.

"Al Apin."

He pronounced it

Ah-peen.

Archie said he'd either drop by with the bills or mail them, thank you very much.

"I will be in the office until eight tonight. I will see that he gets these money."

I bet you will, thought Archie.

He sat at the table by the window, where he'd arranged his three suiseki.

He looked at them, trying to concentrate on their grace and beauty. He knew that looking at them had once been enjoyable to him. The same way that putting big cool boulders in his garden had been enjoyable, which was the same way that carrying around pocketfuls of rocks had been enjoyable when he was a kid. And just when he was ready to look away, the suiseki shaped like a water buffalo sparked something in his mind and for a few moments Archie understood everything about the animal-that he was a warrior, a leader, a patriarch.

Archie sat for a while, hardly moving, hardly blinking, lost in the leafy green world of the buffalo.

Doctors Medical Supply sold Archie one pair of adjustable aluminum Canadian crutches for ninety-eight dollars. In the still-hot shade of the parking lot, Archie grabbed the padded rubber handles in each of his hands, then worked his upper arms into the c-cup braces. He realized he'd have to widen the braces a little to accommodate his biceps and raise them about three inches.

He stood there for a moment beside what looked very much like Gwen's Durango. Feet together, legs straight. Then he raised his arms and the crutches. He turned his head to look down each aluminum length, to the pale green rubber knob at each end.

He raised and lowered his arms together. The crutches were surprisingly light. And they gave him well over three feet of extra reach on each side. Adjusted to their maximum length, he'd get even more.

From the nearby home-improvement store Archie bought three six-by-six waterproof tarps. The package said they were blue, but they looked rust colored. He also bought a six-foot-by-sixteen-foot piece of wool-poly blend Berber carpet that was advertised as "sand." Then, a good pair of shears, some lightweight nylon straps with quick release clips, two bottles of epoxy glue, forty feet of one-inch PVC irrigation pipe in eight-foot lengths, a cutter, an assortment of joints-angles, straight, caps, Ts, four-ways-and two pots of pipe cement.

He rolled his loaded barge into the parking lot and found the Durango. He unloaded his purchases, wiping the sweat and tears from his face after he finally slammed the liftgate shut.

He sat in the driver's seat and took off the cap and aimed the air conditioner at his face. It felt funny on his naked scalp, extra icy around the bullet hole.

Don't cry, Archie.

"Oh, damn, honey."

Come get me, Arch. I'm up here. I'm waiting.

"I'm coming, honey. I just have a few things to do."

I'm going to be here for you.

Then he headed for Air Glide Limousine Service in Newport Beach.