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An hour after Stannie's first conversation with Ed, he sat by his producer friend's pool, drinking sour, cold coffee. It was the dregs from a pot in the poolhouse. He chased it down with a strawberry daquiri wine cooler which he'd also found in the poolhouse. It tasted even worse than the coffee, and it made his teeth slimy, like melting popsickles. He knew he smelled rank. He stripped off his clothes and jumped into the pool, swam a few laps, then lay back, floating naked, slowly turning and watching the one cloud in the sky go around and around like the dial on a timer.

He'd lost his desire to stalk Brett Bordley–Young. The romance there had faded, the blush was off the rose. He didn't hate anyone at the moment: neither former Mousketeers, nor his mother and father, nor his uncle, nor the PGA nor Tom McLeesh nor Jesse Helms nor the hundreds of other people he despised under normal circumstances. He felt no ruptures and he felt no ties. He was free now. It was the kind of cold freedom he could write an article about and receive letters from women all over the country who wanted to teach him about the milk of human kindness: then maybe he'd follow one home and call her up later to see if she was, indeed, ample in that department. But for the time being, most people still thought he was missing, and that suited him fine.

He did dare to ask himself, just for a moment, "How do I feel about Rose?" but he was able to let the thought of her slip away, like water over his skin. "And my real mother?" he wondered. "How do I feel about her?"

A strange sensation passed over him when he thought of Ernetta. He saw her for a second, telling him goodbye from a corner of that ugly little trailer, with tears in her eyes; then Rose came suddenly to his mind again, like a body bobbing up from a lake. He felt something seize inside him. It was a dangerous thing to let your thoughts run loose like this, but what else could you do while floating nude in an ice–cold pool? Somehow the two women were connected in his emotions.

Women … now he thought of a night when he was about ten and his mother (not the real one, obviously) came downstairs to his room when she was drunk and crawled in bed with him and sobbed hysterically for an hour, with her lumpy, soft back jerking against her side. It wasn't the first time she'd done it: it had happened before, but this time he felt completely ashamed. For that whole hour, he gritted his teeth in a kind of cold panic, hating her and wanting her out of his room. He might have killed her just to make her shut up, if he'd had a gun or a knife under his pillow. After that night he always locked his door. No wonder he had problems. No wonder he'd been wasting his time stalking some teen queen when he could be getting a shave and a shower and heading over to a friend's house to be the toast of the town. Yet here he was.

And why hadn't the phone rung yet? Ed had promised to call back. This was like waiting for the devil to call. Stannie snickered, thinking of himself as the son of Satan, then floated around the pool for awhile and nearly fell asleep. He kept his eyelids half open, drifting in and out of little dreams about nothing.

When the phone did ring on the patio (it chimed the first few bars of Rhapsody in Blue), he took his time getting to it. He dragged himself up from the water and stretched in the sun. He'd always liked being naked in the open. He did a little dance and then craned his neck to see over the privacy fence, but the neighbor's house was too far away. They'd have to miss the show. He picked up the phone and held it in his hand for a moment while the water streamed down his legs and made a blue puddle on the mosaic tile (iris pattern, designed by one of L.A.'s best).

"Hello?" said Ed on the other end. "Where are you?"

"That's none of your business."

"Now why you want to hurt my feelings?"

"I couldn't care less about your feelings."

"That ain't true. We've always had a good understanding between us. Remember when you was home from college?"

"So why are you calling me, Ed?"

"That was the time you stole money outen your uncle's golf bag. I seen you take it and I put in a hundred dollar bill, my own money, to keep you out of trouble."

"I never stole anything from my uncle."

"I ain't tole nobody. I ain't told your daddy about your marijuana smoking or that little 15–year–old cheerleader you did under the back patio. I ain't told nobody nothing, ever. See, I'm on your side, A.J."

"Stop calling me that."

"I love you, A.J. Whatever you say to me, I still love you."

Stannie was quiet.

"You there?" said Ed.

"You're sick. And I'm going to be sick."

"What you think I brung you into the world for?"

"Get to the point." Stannie felt himself shaking. He was going to get that shower and shave, he was going to head downtown. Any minute. "I'm about to hang up on you, old sicko."

"Call me names if it make you feel good. I got a job for you. It means getting back the folks who been treating you bad. And it ain't no skin off … I mean you walk away white as Jesus when it's over."

"What do you want me to do? Bomb an abortion clinic?"

"No. All you got to do is take the camera from your sister—"

"What?"

"Take a little movie camera in with you and set it down back of the stage, like you forgot it is all."

"What camera? What stage?"

"A camera you going to get right before the awards. At the Shriner's Auditorium, where the awards is … "

"What's this camera got in it, Ed?"

"I'll worry about that."

"I'll bet it's plastic explosives. You want me to blow up the Academy Awards, don't you?" Stannie smiled, clucking his tongue.

"Just let me worry about that."

"And you really think I'd do this. You really think I would."

"Once you do it, you go on, get out of there. That's all what you got to do."

"You old bastard!"

"Call me that, you know what that makes you."

"Why in hell would I do what you're asking?"

"Because your sisters has got the camera. They somewhere out there right now and they going to meet you at the Shriner's."

"I won't be there."

"They going to meet you there, A.J. They wants to take your picture with that camera I give them. So you be sure show up for your picture. And don't be thinking about telling nobody about me, or I'm going to take care of.your sisters. You get me? I'm going to take care of them."

Stannie paused. "What makes you think I care what happens to them?"

Ed's laugh sounded like a sneeze.

"No, I mean really, Ed, I don't care."

"Everbody cares about family."

"They're just a poor little couple of bimbos, Ed. You'll have to do better than that."

"Don't shit me now, son."

"I don't care about those people, that family. I mean what … why would I?"

"You ought to be ashamed." Ed sounded genuinely amazed.

"I'm just honest. You're twisted, Ed. You kill people."

There was that wheezing sound on the other end. "It's only I love little children so much I have to."

"Ed?"

"I got to save them. Who going to do it if I don't?"

"Your politics have nothing to do with me."

"It has everthing to do with you. I brought you in the world. I saved you. Now you got your foot right in the door with these jackass liberal killers."

"Ed?"

"Just leave it back of the stage there when you get up. Then go on about your business."

"Ed?"

The phone went dead.

* * *

After an hour with Jim Westford and Sister Theresa, Rose took a break to call Joseph Corbin on a third floor payphone.

"How's Miami?" he said.

"I'm not there yet. I'm bogged down in Pensacola."

"I tell her to go to Miami, she goes to Pensacola. I knew you wouldn't listen."

"Just tell me what you know."

"I know that there's no Arvin Duckworth on the casualty list in the Rochester bombing."

"Too bad."

"However. There were two victims so badly burned that they couldn't be identified at first. One died on the scene and later they figured out he was a Cambodian janitor who worked part–time next door. He was just walking to work at the wrong time. The other did live, unbelievably. He came out of a coma after a month in the hospital, but he had amnesia."

"That sounds convenient."

"Doesn't it? He checked himself out of the hospital under the name 'Ed White' and left the address of some shelter. The hospital tried to bill him, of course, but he was long gone."

"Was he ever a suspect?"

"The police had their suspect."

"Ward Kimbley, the transistor man."

"That's right."

"And do you think, Joseph, that Ward Kimbley bombed that clinic?"

"I think two guys did it together, Ward Kimbley and Ed White, but Ed White got away with it."

"And Ed White is really Arvin Duckworth?"

"I think he could be. Do you know where Arvin Duckworth is now?"

Rose frowned. "No, but I think I may find out before the day's over. I'm waiting for one of the nuns to come back. I think maybe she knew him."

"Good, because otherwise I was going to suggest you look up Ward Kimbley's wife in Rochester, but you'd probably ignore me anyway."

"I better go, Joseph."

"So, Rose … when do you and I get to touch base? I was just telling McLeesh what a jerk he is. This thing with Stannie, everybody trying to capitalize on it. It was really bad taste to print that article. Kind of insulting to you, I thought."

She winced.

"Stannie'll be all right, Rose. You listen to me."

"Thanks for the encouragement."

"You know where to come if you need comfort."

"Gee, now there's an offer. So long."

She sighed as she left the receptionist's office, then climbed up to the dark, hot second floor of the convent, where Jim and the young nun were eating TV dinners in a small kitchen. Jim smiled as she came in, but he seemed like a stranger now. She had the sense that she'd stopped a conversation dead in its tracks. There was an expectant silence in the air: maybe they wondered if she'd heard something they said about her. She sat back down in the chair she'd occupied a few minutes before. The nun looked nervous.

"I was explaining to Theresa why you might want to take her picture," said Jim. His face looked gray in the dim, fluorescent light.

"Only if she feels OK about it," Rose said. Theresa sat very still, rubbing her fingers together in her lap. She'd hardly said five words since Jim had introduced them.

"I told her I trust you," he said. "I told her you're not just after a sensational story."

He was still smiling warmly, but he looked different to her, here. He seemed older than he had in Maryland: his face looked bony and tense. Why had she told him so much about herself? She ought to be more careful.

"If I wrote about you, I would try to be balanced," she said. "You're working on a legal case, is that right?"

Theresa kept her eyes down, the side of the face with the scar turned away from Rose.

Jim nodded. "We're going to sue the navy."

"Why the navy?" Rose was surprised.

"I think w'e've got a pretty good case that she was aborted at the naval hospital right here in Pensacola. Abortions are illegal at military hospitals, but they happen sometimes, anyway."

"Can you actually prove that it did? Can you win win?"

"We can identify the blanket she was wrapped in as navy issue. But we don't have to win. We just have to get it to trial. We want to make our case public."

Rose pictured an injured nun in the witness chair.

"So you're using me for public relations."

"Yes, frankly." He looked embarrassed, but he nodded. "The more information people have about Theresa, the better. People need to see her as a real person."

There was a long silence. A light above them flickered. It made the room ugly. Theresa looked especially ugly, even with her scar hidden.

"Do you feel good about this?" said Rose to Theresa, hardly able to look up at her. She got a pencil and paper from her tote bag and prepared to take notes.

"Do I feel good about what?" asked Theresa in a flat voice.

"Being front and center like that."

"You mean being a poster child for the pro–life movement?"

"Yes."

Theresa cleared her throat. "Well, that's an interesting question. But how can I feel good about anything?"

"She's had a rough time," said Jim. "This was a bad week."

"Yes, this was a bad week." Theresa turned her head slowly and looked straight at Jim.

"There was a baby that came through here," said Jim to Rose. "Sometimes the nuns here help with adoptions for unwanted children. This was a failed abortion, and it was a nurse from the clinic who actually brought them the child. The baby's been adopted, but Theresa had to talk to the nurse, talk her out of trying to keep the baby herself."

Rose looked up at Theresa, curiously.

"The nurse wanted the baby?"

"Why shouldn't she have her?" asked Theresa.

"It was like what happened to Theresa," said Jim.

"Except that the nurse didn't try to keep me. I was meant to die." Theresa's voice became soft. "That's what I keep thinking. It keeps reminding me."

"You were not meant to die," said Jim.

She slumped down a little and breathed out a long breath. "Anyway, I don't want to be a nun anymore."

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't know."

"My God, Theresa."

"What are you saying that for? Why are you saying 'My God?' like you're disappointed with me?"

"I'm not. Just frustrated."

She wiped her eyes. "I have a right to be depressed, you know. I don't have to be happy nun all the time."

"No you don't."

"No, I don't."

"But sometimes, Theresa, you seem to want to do this. You seem very enthusiastic."

"OK. Sometimes I do. Can't I be like everybody else? Can't I just change my mind?"

"Yes, you can be like everybody else. You can change your mind."

"But only for a little while, right?"

"Well, let's hope."

Rose could hear something in his voice. He put his arm around Theresa's shoulder, and his hand was trembling. He started to mumble a prayer for her. Theresa turned her head away from him and Rose could see the scar again, like a huge seed growing out of Theresa's cheek. She fished in her bag for her camera and then sat back up and made herself look.

"You know," Theresa said, "one of the other survivors testified before a congressional committee. I read the transcripts. Some of the liberal senators wouldn't even attend the hearings. They said that she was just being used by the conservatives to sway public opinion, so they boycotted, like she didn't even have a voice, like she was supposed to not be born."

"Forget them," said Jim. "I'm not like that."

"No. But then it seems to me like a lot of people, politicians and all, they do just want to use us. So what are they doing? Killing us all over again. Whenever anybody uses you, it's like they're putting you back in the trash bin. You're not a human being." She looked at Jim. "I know you're not doing that. You care about me. But I'm still wishing it."

"Wishing what?"

"I'm still always wishing I was dead." She paused and then looked up sharply. "What am I saying? That's not really what I think. I want to live. Everybody wants to live, even the ones who kill themselves."

Just then an older woman came into the kitchen. Rose thought she was probably a cleaning lady. She wore men's work clothes, wrinkled and patched. Her skin was brown and her hair short. She looked tired.

"Sister Mary," said Jim. Rose looked up, startled.

"Hi," the nun said, and sat down at the table, rubbing her temples. "Sorry about the way I look. Long day with the family."

"You have yet another visitor," Jim said. "This is the writer I was telling you about. She's been waiting for you to get back."

"Hello," said Mary softly, distractedly, putting out her hand.

Rose's voice trembled. "I'm Rose Merriman. It's possible you've heard of me in another context."

Mary squinted and smiled. "I'm not sure—"

"I've been seeing your nephew for a long time."

"Oh! Oh, yes! Rose!" She stood up, throwing her chair back, and put both hands to her face. "Good Lord, I didn't know you were that Rose. I've been wondering, but I didn't know how to get in touch with you."

"Well, here I am," said Rose.

She looked like she might burst into tears. "This is all terrible, isn't it? This disappearance. Poor Stanley."

"It is terrible," said Rose, thinking how amazing it was that anybody anywhere could cry about Stannie Colfax, "but I should tell you I'm not seeing him anymore."

"No?"

"But before we talk about that, I want to ask one thing. Have you ever heard of a man named Arvin Duckworth?"

Mary looked stunned.

"More important," said Rose, looking straight at her. "In fact, it may be important for Stannie. Do you know where he might be right now?"

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine.
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