Stranglehold Page 4

  You want a divorce, get it.

  Okay, Jim.

  She wanted.

  Plymouth, New Hampshire

  March 1983

  It was nearly a half hour past closing time. The waitresses were long gone. They had the chairs up on the tables for the kid who swept out in the morning and most of the lights off and he was closing out the register but Jake, Arthur's night man, was still indulging this guy. The guy was seriously loaded and stooped low to the bar so Jake had put a cup of coffee in front of him gratis, but the guy preferred the watery dregs of his scotch to that. Sipping it slowly. The fucking idiot.

  "Jake. You take off. I'll lock up."

  "Sure, Art. Thanks a lot."

  "Sir? You want to finish up your coffee now? I'd appreciate it."

  Jake was right to feed the guy coffee because at least they could say they'd done that for him when the asshole wrapped his car around a tree a little while later.

  Jake was a pretty good man. If he'd had a few more like him back in Boston he might have made a go of the place. Boston was a disaster.

  Masters degree in Business, specialty in small-business management and here he was back in New Hampshire not fifty miles from where he grew up.

  At least he was making a profit here.

  "Night, Art. Take care now."

  "Night, Jake."

  He locked the door behind the barman and heard him fire up his Land Rover while he went behind the bar and finished closing out the register. They'd had another good night tonight. The Caves was popular with the older students and faculty at Plymouth State; his location out on 93 near the Polar Caves tourist trap was well chosen, and Arthur knew his business. He had probably the best bartenders around and definitely the best cook. Summertime and ski season he drew a bonanza.

  The drunk lurched up from his barstool, muttered 'scuse me, gotta piss, waved at Arthur, and started weaving his way through the tables toward the back of the restaurant.

  Arthur slammed home the pseudo-antique silver-plated register drawer.

  Asshole.

  The guy looked to be maybe fifty, wearing a red-and-black checked hunting jacket.

  A laborer.

  Scruffy. Not a regular.

  I've just about had it with you, buddy, he thought.

  He tossed the rest of the man's coffee into the sink and rinsed and racked his cup. He poured a short Dewar's rocks for himself and lit a cigarette and then sat down at the bar, waiting.

  How long could a piss take, anyway?

  He sipped his scotch.

  His mother and father had been in again tonight, dressed to what they thought was the nines. Of course they hadn't a clue. Usually whatever it was, was right off the rack at his father's store in Ellsworth. Arthur didn't mind. His staff all seemed to think they were sort of charming and old-fashioned. His parents always called him at home for reservations nights they wanted to come in as though maître d's didn't exist and he always made a point of being there when they arrived if that was possible. He didn't know why.

  It wasn't as though he'd actually bother to sit down to eat with them or anything. He guessed he just sort of liked showing off the place.

  He finished his smoke.

  Jesus! How long did a piss take?

  He got up and walked back to the men's room to face what he guessed was the inevitable and there the guy was, passed out snoring in the first stall.

  "Hey. You. Up."

  He slapped the man's face. The drunk just blinked.

  God! this guy's shit stunk like he swallowed sulphur pills all day. He flushed the toilet.

  Then slapped him again.

  "Get up."

  He grabbed the guy's arm and stood him up. "Mmmmm," the guy said.

  "Pull up your pants." He had to repeat it twice. Then he had to tell him to button them and zip his fly.

  "Come on."

  He half-walked, half-dragged the man to the door. He unlocked it and stepped outside. The man seemed to revive a little when the cold air hit him. At least his eyes were open. Arthur looked around.

  No car.

  His Lincoln was the only one in the lot.

  "Where's your car?"

  "Hmmmm?"

  "I said where's your car?"

  Arthur still had to hold him up. The guy was heavy and he smelled like raw meat.

  "No car. Took my license."

  It wasn't hard to see why.

  "So how'd you get here?" They were out on a highway for chrissake!

  "Fella drove me. Friend a mine."

  "Well, your friend's gone."

  Anthur dropped him. The man crumbled to the pavement. "Hey," the man said.

  He walked back inside and turned off the lights, switched on the security system, closed the door and double locked it. The man still sat there propped up on one arm.

  Arthur had a notion.

  "Listen," he said. "You want a lift? I'll give you a lift, come on."

  The man crawled around to his hands and knees, concentrating, got his legs down under his weight and staggered to his feet.

  "The car's over here."

  He unlocked the driver's side and flicked the switch to open the passenger door. Then he got in and watched the man haul himself around the hood of the car to the passenger side. The man flopped heavily into his seat and sat there looking straight ahead, breathing hard and blinking.

  "'Preciate it," he said.

  "Where to?"

  The man mumbled something.

  "What?"

  This time the guy e-nun-ci-a-ted.

  "First road past Rumney Depot. Number two-two-three."

  Arthur drove the dark quiet highway. He glanced over at the man now and then, saw the head bobbing and the eyes close. Soon the guy was snoring again.

  He passed the Depot and turned off north into the mountains. It was a road he knew. He had taken women here from time to time, to see the sights he would tell them. There was never anybody around.

  When the road finally went from macadam to hard-packed dirt he slowed the car so the bumps wouldn't jostle the guy awake. He didn't want him puking all over the Lincoln. He got to where he wanted to be and stopped and turned the car around so he was facing back toward civilization. He left the engine running and let himself out and walked to the passenger side.

  The guy was leaning against the door. He opened it. The guy tumbled slowly into the dirt like a felled oak.

  "Hey," the man said. His eyes couldn't seem to focus. This poor sad-ass drunk wasn't going to remember anything in the morning.

  Except maybe this.

  Arthur took him by both wrists and dragged him away from the car, dropped him down in the tall grass waving gray in the moonlight.

  Then he kicked him.

  Experimentally at first, not too hard, in the ribs and in the gut. The guy went oomph and oomph and tried to crawl away on rubbery legs. Art let him get a foot or two and then kicked him some more, harder this time so that he fell, then got in front of him and kicked him once in the face.

  The guy rolled over lying in the grass, he was bleeding from the forehead, and Arthur moved again, kicked his legs apart so that he stood between them and then let him have one hard in the nuts.

  The guy shrieked and doubled over puking all over himself. Then rolled to his side and lay there coughing, whining. Slime dribbling down off his chin.

  Art walked back to the car, got in, and headed down the road.

  It wasn't that he hated drunks particularly.

  Drunks were just people.

  People who were easy.

  That was what he hated.

  The careless, heedless, almost casual vulnerability of people. They'd put themselves in the damnedest, most pitiful situations with total strangers and then expect everything to go just fine. As though their innocence itself would protect them, as though innocence and virtue were a shield against the world he knew to be there.

  He was put on the earth to do many things but partly he was put there to te
ach them.

  Teach the truth.

  That the world was a dark place.

  Where you hid from what you caused to happen.

  Everyone did, always. You forgot that at your peril.

  And then you became a victim.

  Five

  Duet

  Plymouth, New Hampshire

  June 1985

  It was something so lovely and painful to watch that Lydia could barely stand to see her sister, truly beautiful now out of the bridal veil and dancing, gliding—perfect—all in soft flowing white. Perhaps it was her own sense that it would never be this way for her sister again, this perfect, Barb's face bright with magic, the ancient ritual of bonding soul to soul resonant inside her, flushing her skin, reaching deep into something primal and good in human life lived together which, just for this moment, this day, radiated out to all who loved her. This, she thought, was the real virginity. Not the body's but the heart's. And once gone it was gone forever.

  It would be that way for her sister too. If she was lucky enough and smart enough, what would follow would be the hard logic and gentle attentions of a good life together. Children maybe, enough money to live on, pleasurable sex and other pleasures, work she cared about, love, friendship. Yet she might also have none of these.

  That made her beautiful too.

  Their mother sat prominent to one side below the wedding party, her aunt and uncle flanking her. She could see in her mother's face a reflection of her own thoughts—a steely joy, the moment's fragile grace finding that narrow path through surrounds of pain and rough knowledge to her mother's heart.

  It had not been easy for her, living with her father.

  Certainly not easy for Lydia or Barbara but especially not easy for their mother.

  She wondered what she was remembering.

  There was a man standing at the double doors to the hall. Lydia didn't know him. She assumed he was with Alan's—the groom's—party, though she hadn't noticed him at the wedding. The man was looking at her with an open interest that was just shy of being rude because the eyes and smile were so friendly.

  "Do you know that man?"

  Cindy Fortunato, Barbara's ex-roommate from college, followed Lydia's glance. She sipped her champagne before answering. The champagne had kept coming all evening and Cindy was keeping up with it nicely.

  "Sure. That's Arthur Danse. He owns the place."

  "He's staring."

  "Really?" Cindy laughed. "Hey, good for you. He's cute and he has money."

  "He's the owner?"

  "Uh-huh. You could do worse, Liddy."

  She knew that her sister and her friends used to come here often to the bar and restaurant on the other side of those double doors while they were undergrads at Plymouth College. That was why Barb had chosen The Caves for her reception—that and the convenience for Alan's family, who lived right here in town. Supposedly the banquet hall had been a recent addition. Which meant that Cindy was probably right. Danse was doing quite well for himself.

  Not that it mattered. What mattered right now, she thought—after her own three glasses of champagne—was more the cute part.

  It had been a long time since Jim.

  She decided that for once she didn't mind someone staring.

  He finally had it—why he couldn't seem to take his eyes off her.

  It wasn't that she was the most beautiful woman in the room—the bride, for one, was prettier—or the best dressed or most stylish or that she had the best body.

  It occurred to him that there were women who seemed to have this weird sort of allure—who people seemed to want to talk to right away, to open up to right away. He'd never really understood the urge in others but he could tell she was like that. That she'd bring that out in people. Something about the eyes, their directness, the interest in the eyes, something about the way the younger girl who was sitting next to her leaned toward her as they spoke, as though she felt a kind of pull.

  He knew instinctively that this was the sort of woman for whom the guy at the local service station would go the extra mile wiping down the windshield front and back and wouldn't cheat on the repair bills. The sort of woman other, maybe bolder women would always want to befriend and protect like some special little sister, even if they were actually younger than she was, and whom men would always desire.

  Somebody you could want.

  As he found that he did. If only to show a thing or two. That she wouldn't always be protected.

  "Ask him over. Give him a nod. No, better yet, go to the ladies' room. You'll have to walk right by him."

  "You're impossible."

  "I'm sensible. Plus I'm smashed. Plus it's a wedding."

  "What's that got to do with it?"

  "It's a wedding. It's romantic, for god's sake."

  "For my sister it's romantic."

  "Bullshit. You're chicken."

  "Cindy, I'm thirty years old. Married and divorced."

  "So?"

  "So I'm not about to go around picking up strange men."

  "He's not exactly strange. I met the guy once."

  "Sure. He nodded to you at the bar."

  "Actually he smiled at me at the bar."

  "See?"

  "There's a difference."

  "There is? Then you get up and go to the ladies' room. You go meet him."

  "He's not staring at me. Besides, Eddie would shoot me. Come on! You're going to have to pee sooner or later anyhow, right?"

  He really didn't believe he was doing this.

  Walking right over.

  Straight across the floor past the tables and the dancers to the bridal party.

  It violated all his principles, business and otherwise.

  First of all, it was their show. He was only there to make sure that things ran smoothly. He had no business fraternizing with the guests. Nor had he ever in his life made the acquaintance of a woman in quite such a public way. In such an exposed, unguarded way.

  Yet here he was. Walking over.

  "Everything all right here?"

  "Everything's ... just fine," she said. He could see the surprise in her face. "Dinner was excellent."

  "Good. Plenty of champagne?"

  She raised her glass and smiled. "Plenty."

  "I wanted to introduce myself. I'm Arthur Danse. The Caves is mine. So if anything's not up to par you have me to blame."

  "Really, everything's been perfect. And the room is lovely."

  "Thanks. I got lucky on the decorator. You're ... the sister of the bride?"

  "Yes. Lydia McCloud."

  "Pleased to meet you."

  She reached for his hand.

  Hers was warm and dry but not as smooth as he'd expected.

  She works with her hands, he thought.

  Yet she's educated.

  Interesting.

  She introduced him to the girl sitting next to her, one of the bridesmaids, Cindy something. Cindy Something was grinning at him like today was her birthday and he was her present.

  Not likely.

  Not with this one around.

  "Listen," he said. "If there's anything you need, whatever, napkins, matches, or a B-52 from the bar, please just let me know."

  "Excuse me? A B-52?"

  "Gran Marnier, Kahlua, and Bailey's Irish Cream. Believe me, it's exactly what it says it is."

  He turned and watched the dancers for a moment. "Looks like a good party," he said.

  "Yes, it is."

  "And your sister's a really pretty bride."

  "Thank you."

  He watched a moment longer.

  "Well, I'd better get back to work," he said.

  He smiled and turned to leave and then turned back to her again as he'd intended to do all along and gave it a beat, still smiling, looking puzzled now but knowing full well that this was a city girl. Hell, he could smell it on her.

  "You're not from around here, are you?" he said.

  "No. Boston. I'm just in for a few days, for this."
>
  "Really? I went to school in Boston."

  "Did you?"

  "Had a restaurant there too—in Cambridge actually—but it went under. To tell you the truth it's been so long since I've talked to a city person I feel like there's hay sticking out of my hair. I don't suppose it would be possible to buy you a drink later on?"

  "Well, I ..."

  "Or tomorrow night if that's easier for you."

  "I ..." She laughed. "Sure. I guess. Why not?"

  "Tomorrow night, then. Great. Whenever it's convenient for you. I'll be here. It's good to meet you, Cindy." Always be nice to the girlfriends, he thought.

  It was one of the rules.

  He walked back across the room smiling, thinking, now where is all this going. He felt strongly attracted to this woman. Up close the eyes were a beautiful amber-green, the skin creamy and smooth and the scent of her a rich clean spicy smell, not sweet or flowery.

  He liked the fact that she seemed a little shy, a little puzzled by him—off balance somehow. Maybe walking directly over had been the best thing after all. He hadn't really thought about it at the time. He'd just sensed for some reason that he could not afford to wait. That he had to grab this one fast or she'd be gone.

  He wondered why he should care.

  He wondered if he was good enough to get her to put off going back to Boston for a day or two.

  It'd be interesting to see.

  The band was playing a fairly respectable version of Springsteen's "Hungry Heart." He didn't stick around to listen. He had things to do.

  He was taking tomorrow night off.

  Maybe, if he was lucky, the next couple of nights.

  He wondered if Lydia McCloud knew that her life had already changed a bit.

  Meeting him.

  Lydia turned to Cindy and smiled. Feeling slightly foolish.

  Here we go again, she thought. For better or worse, here I am again.

  Six

  Long Distance