Thinner Read online

  'An age we all could certainly envy,' Kirk Penschley said, 'but not at all impossible. There are records on all of these people, you know - they're not wandering around eastern Europe in caravans anymore, although I imagine some of the older ones, like this fellow Lemke, wish they were. I've got pix for you ... Social Security numbers . . . fingerprints, if you want them. Lemke has variously claimed his age to be a hundred and six, a hundred and eight, and a hundred and twenty. I choose to believe a hundred and six, because it jibes with the Social Security information that Barton operatives were able to obtain. Susanna Lemke was his daughter, all right, no doubt at all about that. And, for whatever it's worth, he's listed as "president of the Taduz Company" on the various gaming permits they've had to obtain ... which means he's the head of the tribe, or the band, or whatever they call themselves.'

  His daughter? Lemke's daughter? In Billy's mind it seemed to change everything. Suppose someone had struck Linda? Suppose it had been Linda run down in the street like a mongrel dog?

  '. . . it down?'

  'Huh?' He tried to bring his mind back to Kirk Penschley.

  'I said, are you sure you don't want us to close this down? It's costing you, Bill.'

  'Please ask them to push on a little further,' Billy said. 'I'll call you in four days - no, three - and find out if you've located them.'

  'You don't need to do that,' Penschley said, 'If - when the Barton people locate them, you'll be the first to know.`

  'I won't be here,' Halleck said slowly.

  'Oh?' Penschley's voice was carefully noncommittal. 'Where do you expect to be?'

  'Traveling,' Halleck said, and hung up shortly afterward. He sat perfectly still, his mind a confused whirl, his fingers - his very thin fingers - drumming uneasily on the edge of his desk.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Billy's Letter

  Heidi went out the next day just after ten to do some shopping. She did not look in on Billy to tell him where she was going or when she would be back - that old and amiable habit was no more. Billy sat in his study watching the Olds back down the driveway to the street. For just a moment Heidi's head turned and their eyes seemed to meet, his confused and scared, hers dumbly accusing: You made me send our daughter away, you won't get the professional help you need, our friends are starting to talk. You seem to want someone to copilot you over into ha-ha-land, and I'm elected ... Well, fuck you, Billy Halleck. Leave me alone. Burn if you want to, but you've got no right to ask me to join you in the pot.

  Just an illusion, of course. She couldn't see him far back in the shadows.

  Just an illusion, but it hurt.

  After the Olds had disappeared down the street, Billy ran a piece of paper into his Olivetti and wrote: 'Dear Heidi' at the top. It was the only part of the letter that came easily. He wrote it one painful sentence at a time, always thinking in the back of his mind that she would come back in while he was pecking it out. But she did not. He finally pulled the note from the typewriter and read it over:

  Dear Heidi,

  By the time you read this, I'll be gone. I don't know exactly where, and I don't know exactly for how long, but I hope that when I come back, all of this will be over. This nightmare we've been living with.

  Heidi, Michael Houston is wrong - wrong about everything. Leda Rossington really did tell me that the old Gypsy - his name is Taduz Lemke, by the way touched Cary, and she really did tell me that Cary's skin was plating. And Duncan Hopley really was covered with pimples ... It was more horrible than you can imagine.

  Houston refuses to allow himself any serious examination of the chain of logic I've presented in defense of my belief, and he's certainly refused to combine that chain of logic with the inexplicability of what's happening to me (155 this morning; almost a hundred pounds now). He cannot do these things -it would knock him out entirely of his orbit if he did. He would rather see me committed for the rest of my life than to even seriously entertain the possibility that all of this is happening as a result of a Gypsy's curse. The idea that such off-the-wall-things as Gypsy curses exist at all anywhere in the world, but especially in Fairview, Connecticut - is anathema to everything Michael Houston has ever believed in. His gods come out of bottles, not out of the air.

  But I believe that somewhere deep inside of yourself, you may believe it's possible. I think part of your anger at me this last week has been my insistence on believing what your own heart knows to be true. Accuse me of playing amateur shrink if you want, but I've reasoned it like this: to believe in the curse is to believe that only one of us is being punished for something in which we both played a part. I'm talking about guilt avoidance on your part . . . and God knows, Heidi, in the craven and cowardly part of my soul, I feel that if I'm going through this hellish decline, you should be going through one also ... misery loves company, and I guess we've all got a streak of one hundred percent gold-plated bastard in our natures, tangled up so tightly with the good part of us that we can never get free of it.

  There's another side of me, though, and that other part loves you, Heidi, and would never wish the slightest harm to come to you. That better part of me also has an intellectual, logical side, and that's why I've left. I need to find that Gypsy, Heidi. I need to find Taduz Lemke and tell him what I've worked out over the last six weeks or so. It's easy to blame, easy to want revenge. But when you look at things closely, you start to see that every event is locked onto every other event; that sometimes things happen just because they happen. None of us like to think that's so, because then we can never strike out at someone to ease the pain; we have to find another way, and none of the other ways are so simple, or so satisfying. I want to tell him that there was no evil intent. I want to ask him if he'll reverse what he's done ... always assuming it's in his power to do so. But what I want to do more than anything else, I find, is to simply apologize. For me ... for you ... for all of Fairview. I know a lot more about Gypsies than I used to, you see. I guess you could say that my eyes have been opened. And I think it's only fair to tell You one more thing, Heidi - if he can reverse it, if I find I have a future to look forward to after all - I will not spend that future in Fairview. I find I've had a bellyful of Andy's Pub, Lantern Drive, the country club, the whole dirty hypocritical town. If I do have that future, I hope you and Linda will come along to some other, cleaner place and share it with me. If you won't, or can't, I'll go anyway. If Lemke won't or can't do anything to help me, I will at least feel that I've done all that I could. Then I can come home, and will happily check into the Glassman Clinic, if that's what you still want.

  I encourage you to show this letter to Mike Houston if you want to, or the Glassman doctors. I think they'll all agree that what I'm doing may be very good therapy. After all, they'll reason, if he's doing this to himself as a punishment (they keep talking about psychological anorexia nervosa, apparently believing that if you feel guilty enough, you can speed up your metabolism until it's burning umpty-umpty calories a day), facing Lemke may provide exactly the sort of expiation he needs. Or, they'll reason, there are two other possibilities; one, that Lemke will laugh and say he never cast a curse in his life, thereby shattering, the psychological fulcrum my obsession is balanced on; or it may occur to them that Lemke will recognize the possibility of profit, lie and agree that he cursed me, and then charge me for some trumpery 'cure' - but, they'll think, a trumpery cure for a trumpery curse might be totally effective!

  I've engaged detectives through Kirk Penschley and have determined that the Gypsies have been heading steadily north up Interstate 95. I hope to track them down in Maine. If something definitive happens, I will let you know soonest; in the meantime, I'll try not to try you. But believe I love you with all my heart.

  Yours.

  Billy

  He put the letter in an envelope with Heidi's name scrawled across the front and propped it against the lazy Susan on the kitchen table. Then he called a cab to take him to the Hertz office in Westport. He stood out on the steps waiting fo
r the cab to come, still hoping inside that Heidi would come first and they could talk about the things in the note.

  It wasn't until the cab had swung into the driveway and Billy was in the backseat that he admitted to himself that talking to Heidi at this point maybe wasn't such a good idea - being able to talk to Heidi was part of the past, part of the time when he had been living in Fat City ... in more ways than one, and without even knowing it. That was the past. If there was any future, it was up the turnpike, somewhere in Maine, and he ought to get chasing after it before he melted away to nothing.

  Chapter Seventeen

  137

  He stopped that night in Providence. He called the office, got the answering service, and left a message for Kirk Penschley: would he please send all available photographs of the Gypsies and all available particulars on their vehicles, including license-plate numbers and VIN numbers to the Sheraton Hotel in South Portland, Maine?

  The service read the message back correctly - a minor miracle, in Billy's opinion - and he turned in. The drive from Fairview to Providence was less than a hundred and fifty miles, but he found himself exhausted. He slept dreamlessly for the first time in weeks. He discovered the following morning that there were no scales in the motel bathroom. Thank God, Billy Halleck thought, for small favors.

  He dressed quickly, stopping only once, as he was tying his shoes, perfectly amazed to hear himself whistling. He was headed up the Interstate again by eight-thirty, and was checked into a Sheraton across from a huge shopping mall by six-thirty. A message from Penschley was waiting for him: Information on its way, but difficult. May take a day or two.

  Great, Billy thought. Two pounds a day, Kirk, what the hell - three days and I can lose the equivalent of a six-pack of tallboys. Five days and I can lose a medium-size bag of flour. Take your time, fella, why not?

  The South Portland Sheraton was round, and Billy's room was shaped like a pie wedge. His overtaxed mind, which had so far dealt with everything, found it somehow almost impossible to deal with a bedroom that came to a point. He was road-tired and headachy. The restaurant, he thought, was more than he could face ... especially if it came to a point. He ordered up from room service instead.

  He had just stepped out of the shower when the waiter's knock came. He donned the robe which the management had thoughtfully provided (THOU SHALT NOT STEAL, said a little card sticking out of the robe's pocket) and crossed the room, calling out 'Just a second!'

  Halleck opened the door ... and was greeted for the first time with the unpleasant realization of how circus freaks must feel. The waiter was a boy of no more than nineteen, scruffy-haired and hollow-cheeked, as if in imitation of the British punk rockers. No prize himself. He glanced at Billy with the vacant disinterest of a fellow who sees hundreds of men in hotel robes each shift; the disinterest would clear a little when he looked down at the bill to see how much the tip was, but that was all. Then the waiter's eyes widened in a look of startlement which was almost horror. It was only for a moment; then the look of disinterest was back again. But Billy had seen it.

  Horror. It was almost horror.

  And the expression of startlement was still there - hidden, but still there. Billy thought he could see it now because another element had been added - fascination.

  The two of them were frozen for a moment, locked together in the uncomfortable and unwanted partnership of gawker and gawkee. Billy thought dizzily of Duncan Hopley sitting in his pleasant home on Ribbonmaker Lane with all the lights off.

  'Well, bring it in,' he said harshly, breaking the moment with too much force. 'You going to stand out there all night?'

  'Oh, no, sir,' the room-service waiter said, 'I'm sorry.' Hot blood filled his face, and Billy felt pity for him. He wasn't a punk rocker, not some sinister juvenile delinquent who had come to the circus to see the living crocodiles he was only a college kid with a summer job who had been surprised by a haggard man who might or might not have some sort of disease.

  The old guy cursed me in more ways than one, Billy thought.

  It wasn't this kid's fault that Billy Halleck, late of Fairview, Connecticut, had lost enough weight to almost qualify for freak status. He tipped him an extra dollar and got rid of him as quickly as possible. Then he went into the bathroom and looked at himself, slowly spreading his robe open, the archetypal flasher practicing in the privacy of his own room. He had belted the robe loosely to begin with, and it had left most of his chest and some of his belly exposed. It was easy enough to understand the waiter's shock just looking at that much. It became even easier with the robe open and his entire front reflected in the mirror.

  Every rib stood out clearly. His collarbones were exquisitely defined ridges covered with skin. His cheekbones bulged. His sternum was a congested knot, his belly a hollow, his pelvis a gruesome hinged wishbone. His legs were much as he remembered them, long and still quite well muscled, the bones still buried - he had never put on much weight there anyway. But above the waist, he really was turning into a carny freak - the Human Skeleton

  A hundred pounds, he thought. That's all it takes to bring the hidden ivory man out of the closet. Now you know what a thin edge there is between what you always took for granted and somehow thought would always be and this utter madness. If you ever wondered, now you know. You still look normal - well, fairly normal - with your clothes on, but how long will it be before you start getting looks like the one the waiter gave you even when you're dressed? Next week? The week after?

  His headache was worse, and although he had been ravenous earlier, he found he could only pick at his dinner. He slept badly and rose early. He did not whistle as he dressed.

  He decided Kirk Penschley and the investigators from Barton were right - the Gypsies would stick to the seacoast. During the summer in Maine, that was where the action was because that was where the tourists were. They came to swim in water that was too cold, to sun themselves (many days remained foggy and drizzly, but the tourist never seemed to remember them), to eat lobsters and clams, to buy ashtrays with seagulls painted on them, to attend the summer theaters in Ogunquit and Brunswick to photograph the lighthouses at Portland and Pemaquid, or just to hang out in trendy places like Rockport, Camden, and, of course, Bar Harbor.

  The tourists were along the seacoast, and so were the dollars they were so anxious to roll out of their wallets That's where the Gypsies would be - but where, exactly?

  Billy listed better than fifty seacoast towns, and then went downstairs. The bartender was an import from New Jersey who knew from nothing but Asbury Park, but Billy found a waitress who had lived in Maine all her life, was familiar with the seacoast, and loved to talk about it.

  'I'm looking for some people, and I'm fairly sure they'll be in a seacoast town - but not a really ritzy one. More of a ... a . . .'

  'Honk-tonk kind of town?' she asked.

  Billy nodded.

  She bent over his list. 'Old Orchard Beach,' she said. 'That's the honkiest honky-tonk of them all. The way things are down there until Labor Day, your friends wouldn't get noticed unless they had three heads each.'

  'Other ones?'

  'Well ... most of the seacoast towns get a little honky-tonky in the summer,' she said. 'Take Bar Harbor, for instance. Everybody who's ever heard of it has an image of Bar Harbor as real ritzy ... dignified ... full of rich people who go around in Rolls-Royces.'

  'It's not like that?'

  'No. Frenchman's Bay, maybe, but not Bar Harbor. In the winter it's just this dead little town where the ten-twenty-five ferry is the most exciting thing to happen all day. In the summer, Bar Harbor's a crazy town. It's like Fort Lauderdale is during spring break - full of heads and freaks and superannuated hippies. You can stand over the town line in Northeast Harbor, take a deep breath, and get stoned from all the dope in Bar Harbor if the wind's right. And the main drag - until after Labor Day, it's a street carnival. Most of these towns you got on your list are like that, mister, but Bar Harbor is like, top end, you know?
'

  'I hear you,' Billy said, smiling.

  'I used to go up there sometimes in July or August and hang out, but not anymore. I'm too old for that now.'

  Billy's smile became wistful. The waitress looked all of twenty-three.

  Billy gave her five dollars; she wished him a pleasant summer and good luck finding his friends. Billy nodded, but for the first time he did not feel so sanguine about the possibility.

  'You mind a little piece of advice, mister?'

  'Not at all,' Billy answered, thinking she meant to give him her idea on the best place to start - and that much he had already decided for himself.

  'You ought to fatten yourself up a little,' she said. 'Eat pasta. That's what my mom would tell you. Eat lots of pasta. Put on a few pounds.'

  A manila envelope full of photographs and automobile information arrived for Halleck on his third day in South Portland. He shuffled through the photographs slowly, looking at each. Here was the young man who had been juggling the pins; his name was also Lemke, Samuel Lemke. He was looking at the camera with an uncompromising openness that looked as ready for pleasure and friendship as it did anger and sullenness. Here was the pretty young girl who had been setting up the slingshot target-shoot when the cops landed - and yes, she was every bit as lovely as Halleck had surmised from his side of the common. Her name was Angelina Lemke. He put her picture next to the picture of Samuel Lemke. Brother and sister. The grandchildren of Susanna Lemke? he wondered. The great-grandchildren of Taduz Lemke?

  Here was the elderly man who had been handing out fliers -Richard Crosskill. Other Crosskills were named. Stanchfields. Starbirds. More Lemkes. And then ... near the bottom ...

  It was him. The eyes, caught in twin nets of wrinkles, were dark and level and filled with clear intelligence. A kerchief was drawn over his head and knotted beside the left cheek. A cigarette was tucked into the deeply cracked lips. The nose was a wet and open horror, festering and terrible.