Oliver in Bronze

Oliver in Bronze

by Mason McCann Smith

Copyright 2012

Smashwords Edition

Oliver in Bronze

by Mason McCann Smith

Chapter 1

Gabe Holahan paused inside the café’s door, brushed the snow from his beard, glanced over the diners at the counter, scanned the families in their booths.

Forget something, sweetie? The hostess’s face was weathered, as if the Mojave wind had turned her into some kind of desert plant. Her blood-red nails drummed the glass over a display of candy, gum, and locally-made gingerbread.

Did you see who’s driving that Mercedes? Gabe gestured over his shoulder toward the parking lot. Brand new, black, tinted windows. He had formed a mental image of the sort of person who would be driving a car like that. No one in the coffee shop quite seemed to fit. Someone passing through, I’d guess.

Nobody here who isn’t passing through, said the hostess.

Gabe noticed a split seam in the shoulder of the hostess’s uniform. Even the flesh of her shoulder seemed weathered.

You have some beef with them?

The way they parked, said Gabe. I can’t get my truck out. Coming out from breakfast with his family, he’d found the black sedan angled across the back of his pickup truck. Gabe had started to curse under his breath, then stopped himself. The pavement lines were nearly invisible under the frosting of sleet. At worst, he had told himself, it was a careless mistake.

You can’t wait a bit? asked the hostess.

We have a long way to drive, said Gabe. People are going to be waiting for us.

A plump waitress with wheat-colored braids and rosy cheeks hurried past with plates balanced on her forearms and a plastic coffee carafe hanging from a finger. Grinning: Friends of yours?

The hostess waggled her nails along the row of booths against the highway-side window. Those boys, she said.

Of everyone in the coffee shop, thought Gabe, they were the last ones who belonged in a glossy new Mercedes.

The waitress rushed past in the other direction. I seen ’em drive up in it.

Four young men, in their late teens or very early twenties, were seated at a booth.

Three of them looked up and watched Gabe approach — almost, Gabe thought, as if they had been expecting him. As if they knew him.

The fourth had pushed his plate away to make room for the sort of inexpensive sketch pad that Gabe, a college art professor, encouraged his students to carry around. The boy was sketching in charcoal with the deft, unhurried strokes of someone confident in his ability. On the paper, Gabe saw the cinder-block casino across the highway, a big-rig at the stop sign, even a suggestion of cloud in the distance. That’s pretty good, said Gabe, trying to ease into this. Lots of motion.

The charcoal froze; the artist glanced up. His eyes were so frosty blue, they seemed to absorb rather than reflect the light. His face was expressionless. He shrugged, lowered his gaze, and resumed his drawing.

Gabe assumed the relaxed posture and the softened voice he used when teaching. He was a big man, and it took a conscious effort to avoid intimidating some young students. Guys, if that’s your Mercedes, he said, I’m afraid you blocked me in.

The wind rattled the windows. The artist’s charcoal flowed across the paper. The other three blinked up at Gabe. One of them said, with a faint whistle in his voice, Can’t you tell when you’re interrupting an important conversation?

Gabe searched the boys’ faces, wondering if he’d somehow misheard. For the first time he actually saw them. The one who had spoken was slender, thin-lipped, with tangled teeth through which he had involuntarily whistled when he spoke.

Another was heavyset, with acne scars on his cheeks.

The third wore glasses with black plastic frames. He’d been tucked away in the corner of the booth, and Gabe hadn’t noticed a narrow yellow Mohawk crossing his otherwise-shaved head.

As if he’d finally heard Gabe’s question, the heavy boy said, You didn’t touch that car, did you?

The boy with glasses and the yellow Mohawk snorted a laugh and glared up at Gabe, but his hostility seemed forced. It was as if he were about to roll his eyes and flop down his head with its yellow crest for an approving pat.

Overgrown kids, Gabe realized. He had been a teacher for twenty-five years, and hormone-addled boys were no mystery to him. No one’s touched your car, he said, but I can’t get out. It’s parked behind my truck.

The artist said, Whose stupid idea was that?

The heavy boy ducked his head. Sorry, dude. He had a slow, thick-tongued way of speaking.

I leave you to do a simple thing.

But I thought….

Who ever invited you to think?

The boys fidgeted. On the neck of the boy with glasses and the Mohawk, Gabe noticed a pale purple line.

Tattoos didn’t bother Gabe. He had one himself, on his right shoulder blade, a full-color detail from Leonardo’s Mona Lisa.

But this tattoo. . . . creeping spiderlike from the boy’s jacket collar, purple like an ink stamp on some official document. This tattoo . . . a bubble of disgust rose in Gabe’s throat . . . he could only see part of the image, but there was no mistaking a swastika.

Gabe glanced away to the slender boy with the tangled teeth: a small silver earring, another swastika. Gabe’s gaze fixed on another earring: the double lightning bolt of the Nazi storm troopers.

The heavy boy flexed his hands. In crude blue letters, the back of one wrist read Contempt. The other read Loathing.

Gabe couldn’t help himself. He straightened up to put more space between himself and them.

The boy with the tangled teeth whistled, What’re you looking at?

Gabe worked his jaw and tried to breathe easy and remain calm. Another few seconds, he knew, and they’d have had their fun. One of them would walk outside with him and move the car. I parked way down at the end so I wouldn’t take up too much room next to anyone.

The artist set his charcoal on the table and looked up. Gabe, the sculptor, couldn’t help admiring the bone structure under the boy’s taut flesh. His freshly-shaved head accentuated the smooth precision of his features. His cheekbones were high and strong, and his nose was as straight as Gabe had ever seen on an ancient Greek statue. His hands were raised in an expressive gesture, vaguely prayerful, almost pleading. I saw you when you were eating, he said. You’re with your daughter and your grandkids, aren’t you? He grinned: he knew Anna wasn’t Gabe’s daughter. Your granddaughter’s kind of hot. I’d like to meet her. He put a cigarette to his lips, lit a wooden match with a flick of his thumbnail, and lit the cigarette. Gabe sensed customers in neighboring booths starting up at the smell, glaring at the boy, then nervously looking away. Turning toward the highway, the boy spoke too low for Gabe to hear. He thought he heard, I want her.

The boy with glasses and the Mohawk snorted a laugh.

The artist dipped his head, retrieved his charcoal, and resumed sketching.

Look, guys, this is a lot of fun, said Gabe. Now could you just move your car?

At a nearby booth, a father lifted his infant out of a high-chair and away from the aisle. Away, Gabe realized, from whatever was about to happen. Gabe shook his fingers loose, reassuring himself they weren’t curled into fists.

Yeah, man, we’re just having some fun, said the heavy, acne-scarred boy, and no one’s going to stop us. Especially no curly-haired, big-nosed kike like you.

Gabe caught his breath. Kike? The pointless stupidity of it stunned him. Their raging ignorance. Gabe’s nose was big and crooked from a long-ago break, his hair was curly, and the boy must think….

Gabe was fifty-two years old but big and fit, and none of these boys seemed like much of an athlete. He could take any one of them. If he got angry enough, angry like he hadn’t been in years, angry like he’d promised himself he would never be again, maybe he could take them all. Was that what they wanted? he wondered. An excuse for a fight? He eased himself back from the table, away from his own anger, and turned his back on the boys. Walking to the door, he dozens of sensed eyes on him.

You touch that car — the whistle that accompanied the shout made it faintly ridiculous — and you’re like fucked, man!

Gabe stepped past the hostess and her display of candy and gingerbread, pushed through the door, and paused on the sidewalk with the cold winter wind numbing every inch of exposed flesh.

He gazed around the intersection of highway and country road. The cafe, two gas stations, and the casino with its blinking neon sign occupied the four corners. Beyond them, there was nothing but dirty snow and shimmering fog. California 395, heading through the high desert toward the eastern Sierra Nevada, was clogged with cars with ski racks on their roofs and big-rigs that hissed as they slowed at the four-way stop.

In a personal way, he realized, the anger pleased him. He remembered days when rage this fierce had energized his best work, back when he was an up-and-coming sculptor instead of this worn-out shell of an artist. He clenched and unclenched his fists. Use the anger, he told himself. Turn it into something good.

Anna and their teenagers, Alex and Miles, were waiting beside the battered old pickup truck. What’s wrong? Anna asked.

You wouldn’t believe it, he said. Now guide me out of here.

It’s too tight, said Anna.

Normally Gabe would have listened — Anna was far more mechanical than him — but he squeezed into the pickup’s cab, slammed the door, and twisted the key. Behind him, Miles and Alex clambered into the camper.

Anna rapped on the window.

Gabe rolled it halfway down.

If there’s some reason we can’t wait, Anna said, then let me try.

Gabe shook his head. Just guide me out of here.

What’s this macho crap?

I thought you had a thing for macho crap. He hoped for a smile from her, but she just said, What got you so angry?

I’m not, he muttered.

She studied him and finally shrugged. Watch my hands.

What’s going on? asked Miles.

Gabe glanced back. Beyond the pass-through from the cab to the camper shell, among the mounds of luggage and ski gear and Miles’s bike, the kids had carved out a flat surface for a chess board. That Mercedes belongs to animals, said Gabe.

Like, coyotes or gorillas or something? said Miles.

You saw those four boys in the restaurant?

"Those guys were driving a Mercedes?" said Alex.

They were gross, said Miles.

I thought they were kind of cute.

Yeah, cute, said Gabe, unsure if Alex was serious or just trying to get a reaction out of him. He set his hands on the wheel and found Anna in the chrome-rimmed mirror, wind snatching at her hair, flurries of snow whipping around her. She raised her hands, palms toward herself, curling and uncurling her fingers, signaling Gabe back.

The clutch was like an old friend to Gabe, stubborn and crotchety, under no obligation to avoid offending him. The pedal jerked under his foot, the truck rocked back a vehicle length, then a little more. Anna turned her hands toward Gabe and clenched them into fists. He jabbed the clutch and hit the brake. Then, following Anna’s signals, he muscled the steering wheel around and eased the truck forward, then back again.

On the top of the driver’s-side fender, Gabe had mounted a chrome halogen spotlight, ten million candlepower, as big as a basketball, which he used to light nighttime sculpture installations. As he maneuvered the truck forward and back, the spotlight slid closer to a leafless branch that extended a couple of feet over the parking place.

Watching Anna’s signals in his mirror, nervously watching the spotlight and the branch, he inched up and back, tugging the wheel right and left.

Little by little, he pulled the truck closer to the point where he’d be able to sail away down the parking lot. Careful, careful, he muttered to himself: don’t let the branch rip off the spotlight, don’t slip in the slush, slide past the Mercedes.

He was almost there, fighting the wheel, nursing the balky clutch, cursing in sharp little bursts, looking forward at the spotlight and back at Anna in the mirror, when the truck snarled and lurched backward. Gabe shoved the pedals. The tires started to grab, then slid.

Metal screeched against metal.

Tugging the wheel around one last time, he pulled the truck forward so he finally had it aimed down the parking lot. So close, he muttered. So close. He leaned out the window and told Anna, Come around and get in.

You’re going to just drive off? called Miles.

Some roll model, said Alex.

The words rang in Gabe’s ears: You’re like fucked, man! He didn’t trust himself to face them again.

What happened in there? asked Anna.

Alex said, My driver’s ed teacher said you have to wait around if you hit a parked car. Then Alex and Miles said, in unison, "Right."

Gabe scribbled his insurance agent’s name and telephone number on the back of one of his own business cards, stomped across the icy asphalt, snapped the card under the Mercedes’ wiper blade, then came back and squeezed into the driver’s seat. Yeah, I know, he told Anna. I should have let you do it. But from somewhere inside his body, still shaking with rage, a laugh rose like a giant bubble. Hey, kids, am I the only one ready to roll?

Let’s go! yelled Miles.

#

O.K. puts his back to the sleet and quick-dials a number on his cell phone.

How’d he know we’d find them Jew bastards here? asks Alan, running his hand across his yellow Mohawk. In the middle of fucking nowhere?

That’s it exactly, moron, thinks O.K. He puts the phone to his ear and hears it ring. This is the only coffee shop for two hundred miles. Every traveler who drives up the Cajon Pass from Los Angeles and starts across the California desert stops here for coffee, a meal, or a bathroom break. It doesn’t take some genius to figure out the Holahans would stop. But instead of explaining it to Alan, O.K. says, The man’s that smart. It’s like he’s got some extra sense or some shit.

Some extra sense, says Tom.

With the phone to his ear, O.K. leads his three pals — his Stooges, he calls them, and the idiots like the name, they don’t get the fact that it’s not a compliment — down the parking lot toward the Mercedes. Snow has piled up half an inch thick on the horizontal surfaces.

A voice answers the phone: Oliver? The voice is deep, really deep, slow and powerful.

It’s me, sir.

What do you have to tell me?

Just like you said, says Oliver. Red pickup truck, green camper shell. They weren’t hard to recognize.

Marvin turns the back corner of the Mercedes, reaches for the door handle, stops as if he’s seen some horror, slaps his forehead with his palms, and says, Oh, crap, O.K., crap, man.

O.K. claps his hand over Marvin’s mouth to shut him up. They drove off five minutes ago, he says into the cell phone.

Marvin’s pointing frantically at the marred paint on the Mercedes’ door. O.K. shoves him backward so hard he slips in the sleet and lands on his butt.

You know what to do, says the deep voice through the phone.

I know, says O.K. He leans down to examine the scratch in the glossy black paint. The man’s gonna be so fuckin’ pissed, he thinks. But he waves at his Stooges to keep them quiet. Just like you told me, he says into the phone. Just like you said.

#

Driving down the parking lot, Gabe forced himself not to glance sideways through the coffee shop window. He waited for a Saab with a ski-rack to pass, pulled onto the highway, and drove past a display of tie-dyed shirts on an aluminum rack, a dread-locked man huddled in his Volkswagen bus, and a hand-lettered sign reading Best Prices Since the Summer of Love. The remote desert crossroads vanished behind him. Gradually the highway noise, the wall of fog and snow, and the seemingly motionless truck in front created the illusion of hovering in space. On both sides of the two-lane highway, snow fields met glowing walls of fog. Ghostly power-transmission towers flew past. Huge, ragged crows strutted, flapped, and pecked at roadkill just off the pavement. On the mud flaps of the truck in front of them, the pickup’s headlights illuminated chrome silhouettes of naked women. Across the semi’s rear doors was the red-and-black logo of the Fit-for-Life Exercise Equipment Company. If he got the correct angle on the passenger-side mirror, Gabe could see the vented sides of a cattle truck behind them.

What was that about? asked Anna.

Those boys in the restaurant.

Anna leaned over, cupped her ear, and made him repeat himself.

Four boys, he said. A little older than Miles and Alex.

I saw them. What are they doing in a brand-new Mercedes?

You should have heard them.

Anna squeezed his shoulder and said, Later, honey. Just focus on your driving.

Annie.

Later, Gabe.

Yeah, you’re right. But a sudden dark movement in his mirror caught his eye. The Mercedes was passing one car after another, moving nearer through the queue of cars and trucks.

What is it? Anna looked into the passenger-side mirror. What? She slid across the seat to look across Gabe into the driver-side mirror.

Gently, he pushed her back. It’s them, he said.

They couldn’t have known which way we’re going, said Anna. It’s not like they’re following us.

Of course not, said Gabe. Anyway, what can they do?

#

Chapter 2

Daylight was only just reaching the floor of the Owens Valley, nestled between two towering mountain ranges. Off a few miles to the west, the steep ridge of the Sierra Nevadas was already in full sun, brilliant and vivid. To the east, the White Mountains were black silhouettes. On the valley floor, stunted pines and junipers cast lavender shadows across the patchy snow. The hollows were still midnight-dark.

Elliott kept low to the earth. The open sky made him feel exposed, and even through his wraparound polycarbonate-lensed dark glasses and under his broad-brimmed hat, the early-morning light hurt his eyes. This exposed hillside made him uncomfortable and he’d much rather have been underground, but he had business out here this morning.

Elliott climbed cautiously, glancing back frequently to make sure his men were with him, then scanning the terrain ahead. He had nearly reached the top of a volcanic terrace when he caught a shape not quite in harmony with its surroundings: down a slope two hundred yards away, a squad of soldiers was sitting on the ground, drinking from their canteens, gnawing on energy bars. Unforgivably careless. Fatally stupid.

Elliott ducked into a fold in the earth and summoned his men with a gesture. Two of them, for reasons of their own, were paying customers. Elliott didn’t care much about them. But the third, Theo Rice, had come recommended by one of Elliott’s trusted followers. Sure enough, Rice had something about him.

Should we take them from up here, Elliott whispered, or try to get closer?

The three men puzzled over it, trying to connect this situation to the commando training they’d been through in the past week. Rice, especially, didn’t want to mess up. There was an eager look in his eyes. Sweat was freezing into icy pearls on his upper lip. He was a Montana dairy farmer. Cold mornings were nothing special to him.

"Schutze Rice?" Here at the Compound, Elliott had the men address each other with German military titles. He believed it enhanced discipline.

"We have high ground, Obergruppenfuhrer Elliott. Rice spoke right to the point. No extra words. I could take them out with my old Browning .30-06, but I don’t know about an M-16. Elliott gave him time to consider. No cover between here and there, said Rice. No way to creep up on ’em."

One of the men chose that moment to take another look.

Get down, Elliott whispered, but the branches around them were suddenly buzzing alive, pine needles flying, the smell of sap washing over them. A moment later Elliott heard the rattle of semi-automatic rifles. Elliott grabbed the man’s web belt and dragged him down. Down, stay down, he hissed, gesturing and pushing until all four of them were pressed tight to the granite, safe from the enemy, drawing strength from the earth. Wait. He sneaked up to where he could get a look around the end of a fallen tree trunk. The enemy soldiers had taken cover now. But it wasn’t those men down there he cared about. He was out here this morning to see if Rice had it in him to do another man serious harm. To see if Rice was for real.

Elliott backed down the slope to his three men. You, go up there. He directed one of them into a protected spot where he could cover the enemy. You, up here. Elliott lay on the cold lava stone, the earth’s energy flowing right into his belly. He chewed hard on his sucker, scrunching the last tiny ball of hard candy, talking around the stick. "And now, Schutze Rice, I’m going to show you what it’s all about."

Rice was eager. What’s our plan?

You two. You keep the enemy pinned down. Anything moves, just fire away. Elliott turned to Rice. Come with me. Crouching low, he retraced their path down the slope.

Where are you going? called one of the men Elliott was leaving behind.

Elliott and Rice moved swiftly down the slope. Rice was five foot six, tough and wiry, a mirror image of Elliott himself. All through training, Rice had worked extra hard, eager to please, sometimes showing a mean streak. If Elliott remembered right, Rice had lost a farm to the bank, had a son doing hard time, had his wife run off or die or something. The details didn’t matter, nothing was important but the quiet fury in those mean, blank eyes.

Elliott led Rice through the sparse forest until they reached a cold, still space between a tree and a sandstone wall. He pulled away a camouflaged hatch-cover to reveal a shoulder-wide hole that angled down steeply, then twisted out of sight.

Rice asked, Where’s it go?

Comes up behind the enemy.

Who dug it?

Me.

Got more of these? Rice was nervous now, stalling with his questions.

Years of digging, you can make a lot of tunnels.

Someone attacks, you’d be popping up all over the place.

Hand me your weapon. Elliott hid their M-16s behind the tree. This is going to be the real stuff. Hand-to-hand.

Rice crouched beside the hole and stared hard into the earth. I don’t think I can go down there, Elliott, he said. "Obergruppenfuhrer Elliott, I mean."

You trust me, don’t you?

I trust you. Just don’t want to go down no hole.

You scared?

I’m from what they call the Big Sky Country, Rice said. It could have been meant as a joke, if he’d had a sense of humor. I’m used to lots of nothin’ over my head.

We’re all scared, the first time.

Don’t care about being scared. Been scared before, probably going to be scared lots more times.

Elliott looked dead-on into Rice’s eyes. Hand-to-hand, he said. "This is it, Schutze Rice. The genuine thing."

Rice was breathing deep, trying to decide.

You ever get really angry? Elliott asked.

Sure.

So angry you just want to haul off and hit somebody?

All the time. Rice studied Elliott, but Elliott knew Rice wasn’t seeing anything but his own reflection in Elliott’s dark glasses.

It’s just a simple hole in the ground, said Elliott. I’m going down there, and when I get to the end of it, I’m going to turn around and see you coming out behind me. If you’re the kind of man I think you are. He gave Rice a sharp slap on the cheek. Rice didn’t even flinch. Elliott knew Rice would follow.

Elliott slipped his dark glasses into his breast pocket and snapped it shut, ducked his head into the hole, and surrendered to the earth.

Instantly, he was back in his element. His immense womb. Dense, dark, and comforting.

After just a few feet, one turn, the light was gone. There was no sound but his own scratching through the sandy soil. He was feeling his way with his elbows, every few yards squeezing between wooden shoring. He felt utterly secure down here, so comfortable that at one point he stopped, lay motionless in the earth, maybe even drifted off to sleep until Rice started shoving at his boot soles and got him moving again.

The tunnel dumped Elliott into a deep ravine, like he was being birthed back into the world. He lay in a puddle of slush, twisting onto his back, blinking until he’d got his glasses back on.

Rice came wriggling out. Elliott remembered what it was like, exiting from his very first tunnel — the preternaturally brilliant colors, the sparkle of his own hand, the amazement. Rice knelt there testing his arms and legs. There was a look of fury on his face: I crawled through that tunnel, I beat the bastard, I can do anything. Come on, Elliott, said Rice. Let’s get those sons of bitches.

With the flat of his hand, Elliott nailed Rice over one ear. The blow caught Rice off-balance and sent him sprawling into the slush, but he was too excited to have really felt it. What’d you do that for?

"Call him Enemy," said Elliott. He didn’t allow curse words at the Compound, any more than he allowed booze or cigarettes or sex or any of the other thousand filthy things that weaken body and soul. The people Elliott had known who used those words — gooks, chinks, ragheads — those people were all dead now. Killed early by their own lack of respect and caution.

Right, said Rice, remembering. "But come on, Elliott. Obergruppenfuhrer Elliott, I mean. Let’s go get ’em."

Take it easy, Elliott said. He took the mangled sucker stick out of his mouth and into his pocket, and he slipped in a fresh sucker and got it seated just right.

Come on, said Rice.

Nearby, rifle fire chattered.

Elliott drew the combat knife from the sheath along his calf and handed the knife to Rice. With this, he said. "Mano a mano."

Rice hefted the big knife, wiggled the rubber blade, fingered the massive, hard-plastic handle.

Elliott drew his Glock 9-milimeter, worked the slide, and checked the clip. Crouching low, he led Rice through the ravine. The rifle fire grew louder as they worked their way through sparse junipers. Powdery snow muffled their footsteps. Elliott took Rice’s shoulder and stopped him. Four enemy soldiers, directing their fire up the slope, lay prone ten yards away.

Elliott was about to point out the two enemy soldiers he wanted Rice to take, but Rice’s pent-up fury wouldn’t be contained another second. He was already running with the knife raised over his head, screaming, slipping once in the snow, then plunging in among the four men. He threw himself on one of them, knees slamming into the man’s back, raising the knife and driving it down into the man’s ribs.

He was doing it like Elliott had hoped he would, not bothering with the rubber blade, the knife turned around in his hand so he was smashing the hard plastic handle into the man’s back and neck and skull, causing some real pain.

Elliott knew he’d been right: Rice was going to be a good one.

The other three enemy soldiers began to roll over, struggling with their M-16s, puzzled looks on their faces.

Coolly, Elliott stood over them, pointed his pistol, and — one, two, three — put a bullet into each of their