Butcher

53

Meara could sense the excitement in Sharon as they headed for Young's. It filled the truck like heat.

“Ray,” she said in a funny voice, and he looked over. She was looking at him with those green eyes deep like ice on a frozen pond. “Is that where Dr. Fletcher told us about?” They had just passed the sign in front of the Royal Clinic.

“Yeah."

“Can we drop back by there after we get the package?"

“I reckon so. Don't see why not, but what's the point?"

“What's to lose?"

“That's true, I suppose. They said they didn't want you going anywhere alone, though. So I'm comin’ in with you."

“Thanks.” She smiled at him, feeling glad he was with her. Young's was pharmacy, drugstore, novelty and gift shop, card shop, high school hangout, and all-purpose dime store. USPS packages were delivered in the normal way in Bayou City, but some of the express carriers used the pharmacy as a pick-up and delivery point. There was a package waiting for her. The return address was marked with her father's address, but in Wendy's girlish, loopy hand. So much for the package from her dad.

“Bad news,” she said to Ray, getting back in the truck. “Just some stuff forwarded by a co-worker back home."

He stopped in front of the clinic and they went in.

“Hi-dee,” the woman called to Ray.

“Hello. I was wonderin’ if Doc would have time to see me and this friend of mine."

“Why, shore. I'll ask him."

“Ask if we could just have half a minute.” He explained briefly why they were there, and they were told to take a seat. They sat next to several other waiting patients.

“Ray, water got you yet?” one of the men said over a copy of a sportsman's magazine, and they were still in conversation when Sharon looked up to see a kindly man in bifocals.

“Raymond, my boy."

“Hey! Doc.” He stood. “I want you to meet a friend of mine, Sharon Kamen. Sharon this is Doc Royal. Sharon's dad is the one who dis—"

But the older man was moving, heading toward the door, where a vehicle was just pulling in front of the building, the passenger door open under the clinic's protective portico. “Please call me,” the doctor said to them, his hands spread in the stick-up victim's pose. “I can't stop to talk now. Marie and Walter Binksley were just in a fire,” he said, going out the door. Everyone in the waiting room moaned their sympathy. “Water got into the floor furnace and shorted—” The door slammed on his words and he was gone.

“We'll get him another time, Sharon. Damn! Walter's a fine old gentleman. Those damn floor furnaces.” He shook his head and thanked the woman at the desk.

“That's him,” Sharon said.

“That's him,” Ray said, misunderstanding. “Good ol’ Doc."

“That's Emil Shtolz,” she hissed, shaking, shuddering, knowing as she uttered the words aloud she'd just seen evil up close. She'd seen the man her dad had been chasing. She knew at that instant her father was gone. “Take me to the police, Ray."

“Huh?"

“Please. Let's go.” She was dead serious. He looked at her to make sure she wasn't putting him on.

“Hey, Sharon. You kidding me?” He was smiling.

“Please.” The word leaked out so angrily, between her pretty clenched teeth, that he just sighed and started the truck.

“I know you're really under a lot of stress, babe, so—” He could feel her fear and frustrated anger so he let it drop, but he knew what a big mistake she was making. He went into the city administration building with her but let her do her thing with Jimmie alone.

He felt sorry for her. Within a few seconds he could see a familiar look on Randall's face and pretty soon the chief's loud laughter could be heard through the glass. Not long after, she slammed out of there and he was following her, saying in a placating tone, “—and I'll have more'n thirty candles on my next birthday cake, Sharon, and he delivered me. Doc's been here all his life.” Chuckling. “I promise you he's all right."

“He hasn't been here all his life. He has a foreign accent, he's a Nazi in hiding, and he probably killed Alma Purdy and my father, goddammit!” The door cracked like a gunshot when she hit it.

“She's under a lot of stress, Jimmie,” Meara said to the smiling cop.

“Yeah, I know that, Ray. Just try to keep her in the motel, though, will ya? She's in no state of mind to be out talking to folks."

“Okay."

“Catch ya later,” Randall said, pleasantly.

“Right.” Meara went out the door. Sharon was standing beside the truck, so mad she didn't know what to do. She saw Ray and got in and slammed the door. They rode back to the motel in silence.

“Do you think I'm a moron?” she shouted the moment they pulled into the parking lot, slamming the truck door again and running toward the motel room.

“No, I don't,” he said, staying with her so she couldn't slam the door on him. She whirled.

“I don't mean only you. I mean all of you. I know that's the Nazi bastard Shtolz and I know he's done something to Dad. I know you think he walks on water and so on, but I promise you I know what I'm talking about.” She turned and started throwing things around, scattering papers as she looked for something. He wished he could give her pills to calm her down. “That voice—I know that accent. He's a German. That's a German accent. Very polished, very continental and all. But—no wonder nobody's caught him. You think he's the bloody Pope around here!"

“Hey, don't get pissed at me. I didn't do anything."

“Look at this,” she said, having found one of the circulars.

“Yeah?"

“Shit, don't you see. That could easily be Shtolz. God almightly I don't believe this."

Ray picked up the piece of paper and looked at it. “That could easily be Shtolz? That is Shtolz, Sharon. What are you saying?"

“I mean Royal, goddammit hell shit, Royal Royal DOCTOR ROYAL AHHH Royal AWWWW—” into a wail of sobbing, gasping, pure, unadulterated rage. He tried to hold her and she jerked away, stomping into the bathroom and slamming the door so hard that a man in the adjacent room, a visiting salesman out of Allen, Texas, thought for a second that a car had crashed through the wall.

Meara stood there looking stupid, shaking his head, thinking what a way he had with women, then went out the door to take care of business.

By the time he returned to the motel the woman who opened the door was a calmer Sharon Kamen. She'd pulled herself together.

“Come on in, Ray,” she said, a bit sheepishly. “I just got—weirded out."

“I understand,” he said, going in and sitting down on the edge of one of the chairs.

“Upset over Dad. Sorry I took it out on you."

“No big deal."

“Over and done with,” she said, sitting down in the other sling chair. There was a small, laminated-plastic-top table, two cultures, and half a generation—maybe eight hundred miles—between them, and Meara felt chilled, and wanted desperately to aid her in some way. To be of value.

“I wish I could help you, babe."

“I know you do,” she said, and reached for his hand, lightly touching hers against the back of his. “You're a honeybun. You've been a big help. A big help.” She seemed crestfallen.

“Listen, how'd you like to go for a boat ride? Just to get your mind off things for a while?"

“Thanks.” She shook her head. “I just think I want to be by myself, Ray. You mind?"

“No, of course not.” He got up and she was at the door with him. “I'm going on in, so, if you want or need me for anything, let me give you a number."

She said fine, got a pen, and wrote down the number at his friend's house.

“That's Pee Wee Kimbro. His place is at Mark Forks, where the water begins. If you need me just tell Pee Wee or Betty, all right? They'll come get me."

“Thanks,” she said, and turned her face up for a kiss, but when he kissed her she didn't put anything into it. He didn't care and kissed her again, trying to inject all the promise there was into the kiss. He told her he'd see her tomorrow and left.

The second she heard his pickup growl out of the motel parking lot she was back in the bathroom with the book. Sharon knew now that whatever got done she would have to do alone. Nobody would believe her. She had to force Emil Shtolz into action. When her rage subsided again and a ray of logic penetrated the anger, she realized how unwise it was to confront him by herself, but as her father had been drawn to the clinic alone, so she now felt committed to pursuing him. What were her options? Neither the local cops nor Ray would give her the benefit of the doubt.

She thought about the words Young's Pharmacy on what had presumably been a package containing prescription medicines, shipped to her father from St. Louis. A pile of junk mail and a package bearing a St. Louis USPS rubber stamp: Opened and Remailed By Bulk Shipping Center, the drugstore name visible underneath. It had originally been sent from Bayou City.

She held the book, a diary or journal in German. Two hundred pages. Small: four by six inches. Three quarters of an inch thick. Faded, soiled green leather. Brass metal corners and a brass lock, which was unlocked.

An ornate eagle with spread wings, seated atop a circular emblem with a swastika on it, was stamped in gold. Below the Nazi symbol, deeply stamped in Germanic black letters: NATIONALSOZIALISTISCHE DEUTSCHE ARBEITERPARTEI, and in large, flowing letters in embossed gold—

L E B E N S B O R N

She leafed through a few pages of writing, recognizing the word Geheim. She could make out isolated phrases here and there but she cursed her inability to read the journal as her father could have. It apparently was the diary of the missing woman, something she'd managed to ship to Sharon's father before they both disappeared. This had ended up in the hands of the bulk shippers, whoever they were, in St. Louis. Perhaps it had come open in transit. This explained the delay in its being forwarded.

She tried to think. The title meant something like life force or love force: born of love, born of life, fountain of the newborn? Living birth? She tried to force a plausible translation, her frustration mounting. Whom could she show this to?

There was a number she had once written down in her directory at home. A mysterious phone number that her father had been so serious about—someone who was to be called only by him, and only in emergency situations. He'd made vague allusions at the time, implying the guy was maybe Mossad, and it had frightened Sharon. She wished she had the number now.

She felt zombie-like. It was as if she were in some limbo world where life hung suspended. She could move, talk, see, react, do things, but her actions affected nothing. The real world spun on as she playacted out her inconsequential moves ... a chess game with an invisible, intangible player. If she only had the balls to do what her dad would have done under similar circumstances. She wished she hadn't been so quick to condemn his old-fashioned ways. Sometimes the old ways were the only ways. The German phrase he'd once taught her, verdrängte schuld, repressed guilt, came back to taunt her.

The anger and frustration welled up inside and she snatched at the slim Bayou City-East Prairie-Charleston phone directory and began flipping through pages to the Rs. There the bastard was—twice:

ROYAL, Solomon D.O., Royal Clinic, and the number. Below that, Residence 709 West Vine and the phone number. She dialed furiously, then remembered she had to call the operator first, and dialed nine.

“Desk?"

“Please dial a number for me, a local call.” She gave the home phone. She'd tell that son of a bitch she knew who he was. She was on his trail. Make the bastard sweat.

The line was ringing. She knew it was a recording even before she heard the voice say, “I am away from the telephone right now. If this is a medical emergency, please call the following numbers—” Probably something he put on the phone in the evenings so he wouldn't be bothered. She'd bother his Nazi ass, all right.

She knew she could find West Vine easily. And just as certainly she knew Royal had done something to her dad. He'd pay in spades.

First things first. She got the lady back on the telephone and said, “I have something I want given to Mr. Meara. I was wondering, could I ask you to hold a package for him?"

“Sure,” she said.

Sharon thanked her and asked for the number Ray had given her. She'd decided how she'd proceed, just in those fleeting seconds of coming to terms with her own repressed guilt.

“Yea-lo,” a woman's voice sang out on the other end of the line.

“Hello. Is this the Pee Wee Kimbro residence?"

“Yes?” the woman answered suspiciously.

“Is Pee Wee there?"

“Yes,” she said, almost grudgingly.

“May I speak with him please?"

“Who's this?"

“My name's Sharon Kamen.” Nothing. “I'm a friend of Raymond Meara."

“Oh! Ray's friend. Why didn't you say so, Sharon. I'm sorry, we don't like some of these sales pitches that you get now from strangers."

“Sure. Me either. I wanted to tell Pee Wee something."

“Sharon, Pee Wee done left already. He said he was havin’ trouble with the trailer so he's gone on down to the water to wait for Ray."

“You think Ray might come by there first?"

“He might."

“If he does, would you tell him something, and this is real important, Mrs. Kimbro. There's a package I want him to do something about. It's at the motel office.” She sensed the message would be so confused by the time he got it there'd be no point in trying to explain further. She'd put a note in about getting it translated and so forth. “Please tell Ray the package is waiting for him at the motel office, will you?"

The woman repeated the message back and Sharon thanked her.