Point of Impact

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

He drove through brightness. There was brightness everywhere. The sun was a blaze, a flare; the white sand picked it up and threw it back. He drove squint-eyed because he had no sunglasses. He drove straight on because he did not want to stop to rent a room, knowing his face was the most famous in America. He lived on candy bars and Twinkies and Cokes from desolate gas station vending machines and thanked God he had had a couple of hundred bucks in his wallet. He drove through the pain and the anger; he just committed himself to driving and he drove.

Now it was hot. He was in desert. The spindly cacti that played across the low rills looked as if they could kill him; in some religious part of his brain they looked like crucifixes, though of course he was not a Catholic but some sort of Baptist back when his daddy had been alive. Ahead, the road was a straight, shimmering band in the heat; mirage rose off it in the light and dust devils swirled across it. Onward he drove.

He held right at seventy, just five miles over the speed limit. He was in his third stolen car, a 1986 Mercury Bobcat, but always before he stole a car he switched its plates with another vehicle’s. That was an old trick he’d heard about on Parris Island, from some tough young black kid, probably now long dead in Vietnam.

It was strange: from the long, wet haul across the swamp, hoarding cartridges, hunting to live, taking only the surest of shots; then, when he was down to his last, he came across something like civilization. He threw the gun away and nabbed a car; and then a long eighteen-hour driving stretch that brought him to desert. Ten hours in Texas. New Mexico was shorter. He was now in Arizona. Texas was long past, though it had been a long, long stretch in Texas. He knew he was almost there. And what was there? Maybe nothing. Maybe this was it. But there was no other choice. He’d thought it out. No, no other place to go that would not get him caught because they’d be looking for him everywhere. But here there was a chance.

He came over a rise. A little town in the desert, a spread of buildings, with bright tin roofs glowing in the sun, lay just ahead. There’d be some kind of law here too, but he didn’t care. Far off, he could see the purple crests of mountains, but for now just this spread of buildings in the desert. He slowed.

The town came up fast.

AJO, ARIZ., the sign said, POP. 7,567.

He drove through, shielding his eyes against the dazzle. Bank, strip mall, convenience store, two gas stations, one main drag, what looked to be some tract houses where a lot of water had produced what passed for green, a McDonald’s, a Burger King, another gas station, Ajo Elementary School, and then, yes, finally, Sunbelt Trailer Park.

Bob pulled in. Drove all this way for such a scruffy little place, huh? Maybe a hundred trailers, maybe a hundred palm trees, it all looked the same to him.

He almost lost it right here at the end. Some pain fired up behind his eyes and his whole body felt itchy or patchy, as if he’d come down with a terrible skin disease. The entry wound hurt something terrible; a low throbbing against his nipple where the bullet had driven through him.

Am I going to make it? he wondered.

He drove up and down the little streets of trailers and saw people out of cartoons, fat Americans in shorts, women with their hair in curlers, lots of sullen, rude little children.

I must look a sight, he thought.

But nobody noticed; they were all sunk into their own dramas.

Then he saw her name on the mailbox, followed by R.N., her profession.

He knew the address from memory. All the letters had been returned unopened, placed in a slightly larger envelope. The flowers, every December, around the fourteenth. She probably just threw them out; she never sent a note of thanks. Yet she had never moved. She had not changed her name or made any attempt to become who she wasn’t. She just wouldn’t let him in. He was the rotten past and it carried too much hurt.

Bob looked at her place: the trailer was shabby but well tended, with trim little window boxes, with flowers in them. That was a woman’s gentle way. The trailer was brown, edged in white trim, plastic. Neat, very neat.

And suppose she was not home? But the car was there, what had to be her car. And the name was hers, just as he knew it would be. Suppose there was a man there? Why not? She was a woman, didn’t there have to be a man?

But he didn’t think there would be.

He turned off the engine, and managed to lurch to the door. He knocked.

He’d never seen the woman before, only her picture. But when she opened the door he recognized her instantly. He’d always wondered what she looked like in the flesh, all those times off in Indian Country, looking at that picture. She had been a young beauty then and now she was a not-so-young beauty, but she was a beauty.

The face was a little too tough, some wrinkles, but not too many; the eyes, behind reading glasses, were gray, and miles beyond any kind of surprise. The hair was blond, but just blond. The lanky tall woman before him looked at him with eyes that stayed flat as the desert horizon.

She wore jeans and some kind of a pullover shirt and no makeup and had her hair pulled back in a short ponytail. She held a book in her hand with a bright cover, some kind of novel.

“Yes?” she said, and he saw a little shock cross her face.

He had no idea what to say. Hadn’t talked to women for years.

“Sorry,” he said, “sorry to bother you, ma’am, and sorry to look so bad. My name’s Swagger. Bob Lee. I knew your husband in the Marines. A finer young man there never was.”

“You,” she said. And then again, “You.” A sudden grimace as she bit off the word. He saw her tracking the details; his scrubby face, matted with dirt; his filthy shirt with the blood stain now faded almost rose-colored; the eyes bloodshot, the rank smell of a man beyond hygiene. She probably saw his absolute defenselessness, too. He knew he was simply throwing himself at her. He felt himself begin to wobble.

“My God, you look awful.”

“Well, I got the whole damn government after me for something I never did. I’ve been driving for twenty-four straight hours. I came to you because – ”

She looked at him some more, as if to say, Boy, this had better be good.

“…because he said that he told you all about me in those letters. Well, that was the best I ever was, and if you believed what your husband said to you when he was in the middle of a war, maybe you’ll believe me now, when I tell you that what they’re saying about me isn’t the truth, and that I need help in the worst possible way. Now that’s my piece. You can let me in or you can call the police. One way or the other, at this point I’m not sure I could tell the difference.”

She just stared at him.

“Will you help me, Mrs. Fenn? I haven’t got another place to go, or I’d be there.”

She eyed him up and down.

Finally she said, “You.” She paused. “I knew you’d come. When I heard about it, I knew you’d come.”

He went in and she led him to her bed, and threw back the cover and the sheets.

He collapsed.

“I’ll move the car around back,” she said and that was the last thing he remembered as he slid under.

Bob dreamed of Payne. He dreamed of that instant when he’d seen Solaratov fire and Payne had said his name and he’d turned and the gun muzzle exploded, the bright flame lighting the room, the noise enormous and the sensation of being kicked as the bullet drove through him. He dreamed of his knees buckling and the terrible rage he felt at his own impotence as he hit the floor.

It played over and over in his head: the flash of the shot, the fall, the sense of loss as he hit. He had the sensation of screaming.

Finally, he awoke.

It was morning, judging from the light. He was freshly bandaged, his arm in a tight sling against his chest. He was clean, too. Somebody had sponged him down. He was undressed. With his good hand, he pulled the blanket close about him, feeling even more vulnerable. He blinked, swallowed, realized suddenly how thirsty he was. His legs ached; his head ached; there was also a bandage on his arm, and some pain. Yes, he’d been hit there; almost forgot about it.

The details swam at him; the punctured holes of the acoustic ceiling, all neat and in rows; some curtains, and how the bright sun streamed through them from some sort of porthole. The room he was in was small and dark, except for the sunlight’s beam. Next to him on a table was a pitcher filled with ice water.

He raised himself and poured a drink and swallowed it in one long gulp.

“How do you feel?”

She had slid into the doorway.

“Oh. Well, I feel like I might live a little bit. How long have I – ”

“It’s been three days.”

“Jesus.”

“You slept, you screamed, you cried, you begged. Who’s Payne? You kept yelling about Payne.”

“Payne. Oh, let’s see. A fellow that pulled a trick on me.”

“Why do I think there aren’t too many men that have pulled tricks on you?”

“Maybe not. But he’s one of them.”

“The papers say you’re a psychopathic killer, a crazy man with a rifle. They think if you’re not in New Orleans, you’re in Arkansas. Or dead. Some people think you’re dead.”

He didn’t say anything. His head ached.

“I didn’t kill the president.”

“The president!”

“I wouldn’t kill the pres – ”

“It wasn’t the president. Didn’t you listen to the radio?”

“Ma’am, I’ve been in a swamp for a week, shooting one animal every two days to live. In the cars – hell, I just drove.”

“Well, it wasn’t the president. They say you aimed at the president but you hit some archbishop.”

“I never missed what I aimed at in my life. Besides with that rifle – ”

And then he stopped.

“That’s what Donny said. And that’s what I believe. But they have evidence. Fingerprints, the tests on the gun, that sort of thing.”

“Well, maybe they aren’t as smart as they think they are. Maybe I’m not so far up the tree as they say. A bishop?”

“My God, you really don’t know. Either that or you’re the best liar I’ve ever seen.”

“I wouldn’t shoot a priest. I wouldn’t shoot anything. I haven’t shot to kill in more than a decade.”

Bob shook his head glumly.

Shooting a priest, he thought. And then he thought: That’s what it was all about. That’s what it was always all about.

And then he thought: And they had me bird-dog it for them. Figure out the best way. Work it out for them. And then they used it against me. For some priest.

Then a thought came to him.

He took a deep breath.

“Say, was there anything in the papers about my dog?”

“Oh,” she said. “You don’t know?”

“They killed him?”

“They say you killed your dog.”

“What they say and what happened are two different things,” he said. But it hurt him that people could say such a thing of him.

He watched her watching him.

“The bastards. Kill a great old dog like that. Oh, the sons of bitches.”

“It’s amazing. You are the most hunted man in America. And your first question isn’t about yourself but about a dog. And when he’s dead – I can tell, you’re really upset.”

“That damned old dog loved me and I wish I’d been a better friend to him. He never cut out but stayed to do his job. He deserved more than he got.”

“So does everybody. Look, you should get some rest. What you’ve been through, the physical stress, the blood loss. It would have killed most men. I know some Indians it wouldn’t have killed, but I don’t know too many white men who could have gotten through it.”

He slept again, though this time without dreams. When he awoke, she was there too. He ate a little, then dozed off. And the third time he awoke, she was still there, just staring at him.

“What time is it?”

“Time? It’s Tuesday, that’s what time it is. You slept eighteen hours.”

“I don’t feel as if I’ll ever walk again.”

“Oh, I think you’ll make it. You were very lucky. The bullet went right through you with very little damage. You were smart enough to plug that entrance wound with a clump of plastic wadding. That probably saved your life. I’ve been pumping you full of penicillin to preclude infection.”

“What are they saying about me now?”

“Oh, they’ve gotten around to the psychiatrists and the psychologists, because they have no real news. There’s a lot of theorizing going on about motive. Your anger at your father for dying, how that became your anger at the president. Your anger at not becoming a big hero like – do I have the name right? – Carl Hathco – ”

“Hitchcock. Carl Hitchcock.”

“Yes. Things like that.”

“It’s just a lot of talk. They don’t know the first goddamn thing. My daddy was a great hero. And I never cared for medals. He didn’t and I didn’t. Talk’s cheap.”

“You’re certainly right about that, Sergeant.”

He stared off, bitterly. The mention of his father unsettled him. People had no right to bring his father into all this.

“You can’t let it get to you,” she said. “They’ve turned it into a circus. But they always do these days.”

He looked back at her.

“I have to thank you. What you’re doing, it’s – ”

“No, I don’t need thanks. I knew in a split second you couldn’t have shot at the president or that archbishop. If that was in you, Donny would have seen it all the years back; he would have sniffed it out.”

Bob couldn’t look at her. Hearing such judgments put baldly into language had the weird effect of shrinking him. He felt small and wan and self-conscious. He had to tell her the truth.

“If he told you I was some kind of hero, let me set you straight. I spent ten years drunk, and I used to beat on the only woman who ever loved me. But also I let myself slide into bitterness. That was maybe the worst. I let them get to me, and make me less a man.”

A puzzled look came across her face.

“Who? Oh, you know who. They’re always around: smart boys, have all the answers, always telling you what’s wrong and why what you done, you should be ashamed of it.

“But worst of all, I was stupid. I let some smart boys come into my life and turn me around. Real smart boys. They knew all my weaknesses, got real deep inside where I thought nobody could. I don’t know how they knew to get inside me like that. Turned me around, made me a fool. Christ, made me the most hated man in the country. Well, now, I seem to have survived all that. And so now it’s my turn. I need to stay until I’m better and stronger and have figured out another move. I’m sorry to have brought all this trouble to your door. No other door was open to me. So I’m asking you, please: let me stay and mend. A few weeks, maybe a month. And let me study on my problems, figure what the next step is. I can’t give you much but thanks. Will you consider it?”

She looked at him hard. Then her face lit up in a smile that just cracked him in two.

“Jesus,” she said, “it’s so nice to have a man around the house.”