“We’ve gone eight years in the Blinds without any sort of trouble.”
“And yet that seems to be coming to an end.” Dietrich leans forward and sets his own mug on the coffee table. “The Blinds? Why does everyone keep calling this place that? I thought it was called Caesar salad or something.”
“Caesura. The Blinds is just a nickname we original residents came up with. You know—blind leading the blind, that kind of thing. And when there’s trouble here, in the Blinds, we know how to take care of our own.”
Dietrich seems curious to hear what comes next. “How so?”
“As I like to say, these gates only open one way. So, if anyone has trouble integrating into the community, we send them right back out into the arms of the waiting world. Which, for most people here, is not a fate that ends too well for them. Especially people with bad things in their pasts.”
Dietrich considers this solemnly, then leans forward again and picks up his mug. He points to the lingering moisture ring. “Coasters,” he says.
“I’m sorry?”
“I looked everywhere, Sheriff, but I couldn’t seem to find any. You’d think they’d anticipate that kind of thing.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” says Cooper.
“And I will thank you for your visit and see you to the door.” Dietrich puts his hands on his knees and stands with a smile. “I do appreciate you coming by. And as to those mutts,” says Dietrich, “if I were you, I’d be less concerned with how this all began than with how it’s going to end.”
“And how’s it going to end?”
“Bang, whimper—how does that old expression go?” says Dietrich. “Either way, I sure can’t wait to find out.” He reaches out to shake Cooper’s hand.
Cooper takes it, then leans in ever so slightly, holding Dietrich’s hand tight. “You may be a crack shot, Dick, but don’t forget, I’ve still got the gun.” He releases Dietrich’s hand and gives him a nod. “You have a good day now.” He turns to the door.
And at that moment, good goddamn, Cooper really wishes he wore a hat.
From the window, Dietrich watches him go. Disappearing again down the dusty road to whatever it is he does all day. Tin-star sheriff. I could break that badge in my teeth, Dietrich thinks, then chuckles.
Maybe this whole thing will be a little bit of fun after all.
It felt good to shoot those coydogs, he can’t lie. Moving targets, obscured by flame. Good practice. Stay sharp.
And those wild bastard beasts were never meant for this world.
Felt good to shoot them.
Felt even better to set them on fire in the first place.
He wants to say he never set an animal on fire before but that’s not true. There was that time in the desert, with the dogs, the wild ones, the ones that haunted the platoon’s camp, searching after scraps.
Stupid towelhead dogs too dumb to run.
See, but that’s the kind of shit that gets you kicked out of the military.
That, and other kinds of shit.
Bad things.
Out in the desert. So many dunes. So much time spent sitting around and waiting.
So many bad memories. A lifetime’s worth.
Damnatio memorae, he thinks.
The waiting around is making him itchy here, too, despite his diversions, but at least he’s only got to wait another day or two at most.
Until then: Be patient.
Keep busy.
Get creative.
As he holds the curtain open, he looks at his arm and all the silent faces tattooed up and down his skin. He wants to ask them for their thoughts, but he knows they’ll just stare back up at him, mute and reverent. Thankful, even.
Same for the ones on his chest. Even the three new ones on the small of his back, still bandaged and healing.
Dietrich remembers Cooper’s face again, so serious, pulling him close. Whispering his empty words.
Then compares that face to one of the new tattoos freshly etched on his back.
Turns out it’s a pretty good likeness, he thinks, as he lets the curtain drop.
15.
BETTE BURR SITS in her nearly empty bungalow. She slept well and woke up early, folded her pajamas neatly, and got dressed and sat at the table with her manila envelope set squarely in front of her. She has two empty suitcases piled up in one corner of the kitchen, both of which she brought with her to maintain the illusion that she’d be staying here for life when, in fact, she expects to be here three days, tops. It’s been two days already.
So far, nothing. But that’s okay. She’s got another day.
She’ll go, and knock, and wait. Again.
Expecting no answer. Again.
No sign of life even. Except that he took the note. That’s something. And, if he still won’t answer his door today, she’ll show him the photo.
She empties her manila envelope onto the kitchen table. A large glossy photo slides out, along with a small Polaroid.
The large photo is a portrait of her father, smiling, handsome, taken in his younger days. She sees herself in him, a little, even though she never knew him. In the eyes, maybe.
She checks the second photo, the Polaroid, to confirm if the resemblance is real.
It’s a snapshot of the two of them, standing side by side, in a modest house in Hawaii. Her father stands with his arm uneasily around her shoulders, a head taller than she is. He’s smiling, or trying to. An oxygen tube snakes up from a tank on the floor beside him, draped over his ears and plugged into his nose, keeping him alive. He looks emaciated, diminished—a sunken husk that hardly resembles the robust man in the first photo.
The first photo. The one she brought for William Wayne.
The second photo is hers. The only one she has of them together.
It was taken the day he gave her his message to deliver. Now all she has to do is find Wayne and deliver it. Assuming Wayne even remembers who her father was.
That’s what the first photo is for. To see if Wayne remembers.
Today, she intends to find out.
Fran walks into the library as soon as it opens in the morning, dragging Isaac behind her. She’s not letting Isaac out of her sight today, or ever again, not after what happened last night. The whole town is talking about it. She didn’t see any of it go down. She ran back to her house, with all the shouting and screaming and gunfire behind her, and she ran up the steps of the porch and into the house and into his room and found him curled up on the bed. She’d left him alone—just for a moment, but she left him alone.
That’s not going to happen again.