Chance

Chance and the Camera Obscura

As Carl and D made for the Blue Dolphin, Chance made for his apartment and the ancient paperwork. D had argued against his actually bringing it but Chance thought otherwise. He drove the streets of his city, at once familiar and unspeakably strange, struck through with a certain dumb wonder that it should come to this, that the artifacts of an aberration he had expended so much time and energy in trying to put behind him could, on this particular day, serve as the last bit of thread still binding him to any recognizable version of life on planet Earth, even as the flat, thin blade of Big D’s razor-sharp dagger lay upon the seat at his side.

He collected the paperwork in a slim leather case with a zipper and a shoulder strap and returned to his car. He had not yet heard from Big D. The three hours he had promised Blackstone were only now about to be up as he turned onto the Great Highway. There were still, of course, his fellow citizens. He looked upon them as he had the streets, both familiar and strange. Most were in cars but there were still a few on foot, people out and about, surfers calling it a day, dog walkers, the last of the beachgoers, life going on… Might one say as usual? God only knew what sorts of fires, wrecks, and love nests lay beneath the apparently mundane or in what chambers of the heart men would in the end be brought to the dance, their steps in time from the day of their birth till that of their death the number by which they might one day be called before the Bar of Heaven. Or not. At which point a call arrived. “It’s looking good,” the big man told him. “What’s your twenty?”

Chance told him. “Here’s the deal,” D said and it was all pretty perfect. The motel was a little ways inland but close to that stuff they had looked at, the Cliff House and Camera Obscura, and he asked if Chance remembered and Chance said that he knew them well, that the Cliff House was just that, a building on a cliff with the sea below and the Camera Obscura just behind it—a smaller building shaped like a giant camera with a little red pyramid atop its roof—a trick done with the light wherein tourists might observe their surroundings in a somewhat altered form and D named it as the place, that he had checked angles and lines of sight, that there was plenty of parking along the street and that if Chance could get Blackstone to meet him there, and most specifically, to join him on the path leading from the sidewalk at the street to the Camera Obscura, at least as far as the first little turnout that would be obvious when he got there, it was a done deal and a sixty-foot fall to the water and rocks below.

Chance asked if he had seen them yet, one or both.

“Negative on that,” D said. “But I’ve got eyes on and I can see the room and it’s the number she gave you. Place is one of those old-fashioned motor courts. Separate room, no adjoining walls. They’re on an end in the back. Curtains are all drawn but the Crown Vic is parked in front next to some other car that could be hers. There’s a black Mercedes sedan parked around back and I saw some guy come out from the back door about ten minutes ago with a bucket to get ice. Looked like the twin of that fucker I sent away. Game’s on, bro.”

Chance could feel the string going from the backs of his knees even as he drove. “Plan’s good though,” D told him. “Weather’s getting the whole place ass raped right on time so there aren’t that many people out there by where you need to go but you can still pitch it as a public place. You make that happen, I can probably see his play. He won’t come by himself but he’ll try to make it look like that’s what he’s doing… maybe give me a moment alone with whatever asshole follows him out.”

The Cliff House rose in the distance, a pale edifice above seawater the color of asphalt.

“You copy?”

Chance did.

“Eyes in the back of your head, Doc. Wind shifts… don’t wait to be the receiver. You good for the call?”

Chance said that he was, rolling up on Ocean Beach, the Pacific nothing but wind chop, salt spray blowing in as far as the highway, mixing with the fog, finding his windshield. He set his wipers to intermittent as the big man spoke once more. “Roll the dice, brother.”

Chance got Blackstone on the phone. “She’s giving you up, pal.” Saying it and hearing himself say it and the voice he was hearing not altogether his own. “There’s no point in killing me ’cause that’s just one more thing you’ll do time for because believe me, you will do time.”

“The hell is this?” Blackstone asked.

“It’s me,” Chance told him.

There was a moment of silence on the line. “For Christ’s sake,” Blackstone said. “Are you insane?”

Chance went on. “Only way out of this is for us all to walk and never look back.”

“Way out of what?”

“And that involves me giving you this shit you asked for and for you to give me whatever it is she has there with her.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in front of the Cliff House.”

He could hear Blackstone breathing. “You need to quit fucking around,” Blackstone said, and hung up.

Chance had made the call on the dead man’s cell phone, his own resting on the seat beside him, both set to Speaker so that D might listen in. “He hung up,” Chance said.

“You’re doing great, now call the play.”

Chance got him back. “I will meet you on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Here’s the deal,” Chance said. “I’m not walking into that room and you should be smart enough to know that but what I will do is sit outside and call the cops and we can all burn ’cause as of right now my daughter is safe which is what I care about and this is what I’m willing to do.”

Blackstone said nothing.

“We settle this today, one way or another.”

“And where’s your knife-throwing pal in all of this? Where’s he on bringing in the law?”

“What friend?”

“Right.”

“It’s just me and you,” Chance said.

“Tough guy.”

“It was all I could think of.”

He could hear Blackstone laughing. He laughed for a bit then coughed. Chance could hear the soft hiss of the tank. “And why am I supposed to trust you, tough guy?”

“It’s a public place. We meet in the open. We say what we have to say and we trade what we’ve got to trade. I’ve got what you wanted.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

“I can tell you right where I am. I’m on the sidewalk south of the restaurant, at exactly the place where the pathway starts that leads down to the Camera Obscura.”

This was followed by one more beat of silence. “What I’d like to know is this,” Blackstone said at last. “How has someone like you managed to live so long?” He did not wait for Chance to respond but ended the call once more.

Chance was unclear as to where they stood.

“That was fucking great,” D said.

“How do you know?”

“He’ll be there. Trust me.”

Chance parked more or less where he had told Blackstone that he already was and got out. The wind hit him full in the face. It was sharp and cold and as D had predicted there were very few people around. It was getting on in the day with the sun low and the fog rolling in to mute even that. The air was damp and cold and you could hear the seals and sea lions going crazy out on the rocks amid the crashing of waves that were largely unseen amid the watery gloom, the shriek of gulls. He watched as a young couple bundled for caroling made their way into the restaurant and felt the cell phone vibrate inside his pocket.

“We’re on,” D said. “I’m at the motel. Your guy is getting into the Crown Vic and there are two other guys coming out and getting into the black Mercedes.” Chance asked if he could see her but he couldn’t. “It’s just the guys,” D said. “There’s going to be some kind of play but I’m on it. Just get to your spot and stay there.”

“Copy that,” Chance said.

“Good man. I’m staying on the Mercedes because I think that’s who’ll make the move. Your guy’s window dressing but I will tell you this… you get him alone anywhere along that path and you see a move, don’t wait. Go first. Trust your training… land the money shot, help him over the railing, then circle out and head for the park at Lands End… Look for Carl.”

Really? Chance wanted to say but Big D was on again before he could. What D said was “Hooya, Big Dog.” And what else was there to say to that? The big man was gone. Chance was alone. Time passed and precious little of it before the Crown Vic arrived on the scene. He watched as it pulled in and parked. He saw Raymond Blackstone getting out. It was really happening.

Now Chance had hoped to see Blackstone with something, a briefcase or satchel, anything by which to carry his own incriminating material, the stuff she claimed to have and Blackstone had said something about a trade… but there’s nothing in his hands as he climbs from the car. There’s no oxygen tank but Chance knows he might be past having to drag that with him everywhere he goes. The thought occurs that he might have something in his pocket… that the stuff she had spoken of might be stored electronically. There are times when one needs to believe in something. It’s standard advice for the terminally ill.

Chance has his stuff, of course, the old paperwork in the leather case D told him he should only pretend to bring but this is his plan now, the unspoken one forged in hope, so that he’s not really pretending about anything. He doesn’t know where D is and he doesn’t see any black Mercedes. He supposes that any deviation from the plan agreed upon might well upset his friend but knows too that this is his time. He imagines the triumph of reason, a path to understanding.

He’s still where he said he would be with maybe fifty yards between himself and Blackstone and his heart beating so loudly he can barely hear the sea. There’s some construction equipment nearby, a backhoe and some kind of small cement mixer where they are doing repairs to the wall that runs along the sidewalk to keep pedestrians from falling off and the stuff is situated about halfway between Chance and Blackstone. The machinery is using up a number of parking spaces. Chance had taken a spot near the restaurant but Blackstone has parked farther down, south of the equipment, and the weird thing is… he’s still there, still standing at the side of his car. He’s where he began except he hasn’t begun. Is he waiting for Chance to come to him? Does he even know Chance is there? Chance considers waving but this seems absurd given the circumstances so he continues to stand with the leather case hung from his shoulder and D’s double-edged blade in the pocket of his slacks that D has rigged for him with one of those little sheaths like what he fixed for Carl with the wires on it so that when and if Chance reaches into his pocket to draw the blade, the wires will catch on the pocket’s lining and the blade will come free but he has no real intention of ever doing it.

And then, finally, it appears that Blackstone has spotted him and has begun to walk uphill in Chance’s direction. And maybe this is all it took… the sight of Blackstone moving toward him like some inexorable moment of truth because very suddenly and out of nowhere the oddest thing happens and Chance loses his nerve. Just like that and it’s gone. In its place there’s a pain in his arm and sweat coming out his ass. He may not be able to feel his feet but of this he is not altogether certain. In accordance with plan A he was supposed to have stayed put. In accordance with plan B, which is his own, he was, at the appropriate moment, to have gone rogue, to have moved from his assigned location, to meet Blackstone in a place where neither would be ambushed, where the detective would see that he was for real and a meeting of the minds take place. By one plan he was to have trusted in D. By another he was to have trusted in himself and the great god of reason but it’s all starting to feel like trusting in transubstantiation or resurrection of the dead and Chance is losing his religion along with his nerve, not to mention the feeling in his lower extremities and he is suddenly moving away from the designated spot and not to meet Blackstone, but in the opposite direction, where he soon finds himself on a concrete stairway behind the restaurant lashed by the wind. It occurs to him that he is running away, but the insight does little to slacken his pace. He comes within sight of parking spaces on the north side of the restaurant where he sees that a black Mercedes sedan is parked in a no-parking zone very near the sidewalk. He assumes it to be the car from the motel although there can be no way of knowing this for certain. The car’s windows are heavily tinted. It sits at a distance in the poor light. He can’t see who’s inside. He can see some people walking up near the ruins maybe half a mile away but it is far too far and the Mercedes is blocking his path. If D is out there somewhere Chance can’t find him. The wind sings in his ears. The sky has darkened dramatically. He can see lights coming on inside the restaurant. He’s too low to see the people at their tables but he knows they’re there. He thinks about joining them but does not quite see how to make that work. He ducks back behind the restaurant, back to the stairs, and takes out his cell phone only to discover the battery has run out of juice. It becomes clear that events are conspiring against him and that he has lost his way. He hears someone walking in approach to the stairwell from what he takes to be the parking lot. It is the sound of hard-soled shoes on concrete and he imagines they are coming for him. He does not wait to find out but flees from the restaurant altogether.

The absurdity of all this is not lost on him but there’s nothing in that to lift the spirits. He’s going south again now past parked cars at the edge of the street and is able to look back down the sidewalk he’s on and see that Blackstone has stopped at a point still south of the construction equipment, possibly because Chance had vanished, but when he sees Chance walking toward him he too begins to move, albeit slowly, and Chance is a little surprised by how far apart they are, at how much distance he has managed to cover in so short a time and wonders if in fact he had begun to run which would account for the dramatic amount of perspiration on his back and face. He’s headed downhill and still moving at a pretty good clip, past his car and the path to the Camera Obscura where they were supposed to have gone and Blackstone is just now coming up on the construction equipment so that it is really going to be just the two of them… out in the open as Chance had imagined it and there is something in this that he actually finds calming, so he goes with that and he begins to think it through, to reason it out… to say to himself… okay… I really do have the stuff this guy asked for… we are going to talk… this might actually work. And he can see Blackstone more clearly now and this helps too because Blackstone is really not looking all that great and certainly not all that ominous, thinner than Chance remembers, in slacks and a sports coat, a pale blue dress shirt with no tie worn open at the top in spite of the cold, his black hair looking wet and slicked back and the wind tugging at the cuffs of his slacks and in a weird way Chance almost feels sorry for him until he realizes there’s a car somewhere just in back of him and when he looks over his shoulder he sees that it’s the black Mercedes. It’s close enough now and the light is hitting it at a different angle and he can see that there are two men in the front seat, and he knows it’s the same car he saw on the north side of the restaurant and he knows that it’s there for him. This certainty is reinforced by the fact that the car is neither accelerating into the street, nor is it parking, even though there are spaces available, but continues in the lot that skirts the sidewalk, that is little more than a broad shoulder of the road, clearly shadowing him as Blackstone approaches from the opposite direction and the thing lands on him like a brick. A blind man could see the future. The Mercedes is going to wait until he and Blackstone draw even, which is going to happen at their present pace on the north side of the construction equipment but very close to it, whereupon someone… Blackstone… a Romanian… perhaps several acting in concert, will force Chance into the car and further than that he does not care to think… only that D was right and that plan A was certainly the better of the two plans but Chance has already blown plan A six ways from Sunday and D is nowhere to be seen and maybe never will be again and the pain he felt earlier returns to his arm and the air grows thin. At which point, and out of this darkness, he sees something else… he sees a bright yellow Starlight coupe rounding a bend in the road, heading his way.

There is a moment that sometimes arrives on certain days in the city at this time of year and it has gotten to be that moment, the sun about to descend, finding some bit of space between cloud and sea and so able for just that moment, and it will only last for a very short period of time, to pierce even the fog and so manage these last long slivers of light as if the gates of heaven had come slightly ajar. The life expectancy of this beauty will be figured in seconds and with its passing it will be all but dark but it is the light by which he sees these things occurring. The coupe has got a good hundred yards to cover and it is unclear what will happen first. Chance throws a look back and can see that the Mercedes has already edged over, getting as close as it can get to where he walks. Blackstone is twenty feet away. So, he thinks, is the Mercedes. But the coupe is coming fast, gaining speed, until finally the old man is visible through the windshield. He appears to be in there alone with that little hat he likes set well back on his head, his hands atop the wheel, closing at quite a clip, as very quickly, in less than a heartbeat, really, Chance can and with absolute clarity see how it will be and what will happen and when and where and why… like a chess master seeing the board and it’s the pure geometry of the thing that dazzles, the heretofore unimagined figure suddenly obvious as a sphere and just as elegant and he wonders only briefly that if by seeing it he has not already abandoned any such free will by which his own part in its completion might yet be withheld or that if by seeing it he has not already called forth its inevitability. And so it begins… the old man blowing past… the ensuing explosion of breaking glass and ruptured metal… what can only be the Starlight coupe taking the Mercedes head-on. There does not seem to be anyone else around but if there is… this is what he or she will see. Blackstone is definitely seeing it and Chance knows this because what he is seeing is Blackstone, or… to put an even finer point on it… the second button on the pale blue dress shirt that Blackstone wears open at the collar because Chance knows that the crash was for him and that for just this moment he is the still point in a turning world, all but hidden in a wrinkle of time, all but invisible, his right hand dipping to his pocket to draw the blade, lifting it to the psycho position, his balance shifting with his gait in accordance with his pyramid of power, his weight lending force to the blow…

Just as there is the occasional moment of magic light, there is also the sound a blade makes as it breaks through bone. The human heart, capable of pumping blood by way of a severed artery in excess of thirty feet, may lose the ability to do so in a matter of seconds if the blade has indeed carried enough cloth into the wound and if the aortic arch has indeed been pierced. That’s the end of days right there and he was certainly intent on making that happen and making the count and believed himself to have done so, but it was just here, in midstride, that the light seemed to fail and memory with it. He had come to envision the fatal strike and his moving past it with such clarity, his escape into the park, that he was some time in accepting the slowly revealed truth of a new and heretofore unimaginable present, that in point of fact he was no longer in a parking lot nor anywhere near the Cliff House restaurant nor for that matter the Camera Obscura in which light was projected upon a metal plate to the delight of children, but rather in a kind of room that felt almost to be in motion—strapped to a board, his head in a metal cage.

He was far from alone. There were others with him. The person nearest him, a capable-looking young man in the uniform of a paramedic with a closely trimmed goatee and shorn head, was cutting away his sweater with a pair of scissors. He saw this well enough but was determined to reject it outright. He was determined to believe that he had struck with both force and precision and that in the aftermath Blackstone had tumbled to the sea and Chance had passed on, to the anonymity of the park and from there had found his way back to his apartment where he no doubt was just now… asleep in his own bed where at any moment he might expect to be treated to some disturbance on the part of his downstairs neighbors, fighting or fucking, it scarcely mattered, and that this state, this unpleasantness involving men in blue and the loss of a favored and valuable sweater, could be little more than some admittedly unusual stop along the road to a more full awakening.

When, over time, this failed to happen of its own accord, he set about trying to make it happen by force of will. The struggle seemed to go on for a good long while until finally, exhausted, he was forced to accept, as had so many before him, that however inexplicable, this was not a dream, that in some extremely opaque and fucked-up way the unacceptable had in fact occurred, certainly without his consent, without even his knowledge, until finally there was nothing for it but to humble himself as the others had humbled them selves, to look up into the face of the young man with the scissors, admitting by dint of his own words to his utter helplessness and dependency upon the kindness of strangers and to ask as so many others had asked before him, “What happened and where am I?”

“You’re in an ambulance, Dr. Chance,” the young man said. “You’ve had quite a bad fall and we’re taking you to the hospital.”

He might have asked for more but he didn’t. He went straight for the pact with God. He knew the routine. It was common as dirt. He promised God that if he could move his fingers and toes he would never want for more. When that was done and he had waited for what seemed a respectable amount of time, he tried and found that he could indeed move his fingers and toes. God had come through. He guessed that he could live with the rest of it but then he guessed too that they’d probably by now shot him full of morphine and the fact was… now that his business with the universe was out of the way, he was not really feeling all that bad, all things considered.