The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man Read online

  After a couple of miles, he came to a crossroads. He went straight across, and half a mile further on, consulting the maps, he turned off the main road and down a dusty side road. A few hundred yards or so further on, the road narrowed down to a rutted track and then petered out in a field.

  Alex stood at the end of the track, maps in hand, looking about him. He held the maps up and turned to orient them with the main road. Then he looked up again. According to the maps, he should be standing outside the house Clayton’s people had organised for him. Looking about him, he could see no signs of habitation at all.

  Back at the main road, he looked in both directions. According to the maps, East Walden Lane was definitely on this side of the intersection. He trudged away from town for another twenty minutes or so, but he didn’t pass any more turn offs.

  “Well, okay,” he muttered to himself, and turned back towards town. A minute or so after crossing the intersection, he came upon a turn off. It was almost hidden by bushes, but he was still somewhat baffled that he’d managed to walk right past without seeing it. According to the map, it wasn’t there at all.

  Cursing the makers of hotel maps, he stomped off down the side road. It wound gently between fields and little stands of trees for about three quarters of a mile, and then just came to a stop in a wall of weeds. Alex checked his watch. It was going to start getting dark in another hour or so.

  Fine. He started back towards the main road, but after a hundred yards he came upon a track leading off the side road. Once again, he had walked right past it. He dithered at the junction for a minute. He wasn’t particularly worried about getting stuck out here after dark; he could always phone the hotel and no doubt a search party would be sent out to rescue him. But it would be intensely embarrassing. On the other hand, he was here, he’d walked a long way, his feet hurt, and he still hadn’t found East Walden Lane.

  Ah, sod it. He started to walk down the track.

  Almost immediately, it widened out again and became a paved road. A couple of minutes later he spotted a house sitting among the trees, and then another, and then another, and suddenly he came to a place where the road made a loop around a neatly mowed oval of grass, like a village green large enough to host a cricket match. Along one curve of the green a dozen or so houses were arranged, each perched at the back of shallowly sloping lawns. There were cars and trucks parked beside the houses, and a smallish powerboat sat on a trailer on one driveway.

  Okay. Feeling self-conscious, Alex walked along the line of houses. There were not twenty-four houses here, but one of the mailboxes did indeed have the number 24 on it. Alex stood looking at the house the box belonged to. It was a neat, white-painted two storey clapboard with a shingled roof and sash windows. Its lawn was freshly mown and the bushes dotted around it seemed well-tended. The house next door was not nearly as well kept; it looked dingy and disreputable and its lawn was overgrown and full of weeds.

  Well. There was still no indication that this was actually East Walden Lane; it might be best to be careful. He walked up onto the porch of Number Twenty-Four and rang the doorbell. He heard the sound echo in the space beyond the door and knew immediately that the house was empty, but he tried again anyway. Then he knocked. Still no response. He leaned forward and looked through the tinted and rippled glass panes of the door. He got an impression of a long hallway, but no sense of any movement.

  So, moment of truth. He took the bunch of keys from his pocket and looked from them to the two locks on the door. He tried one key but it wouldn’t go into either of the locks. Tried another and this time it slid in and turned easily, which suggested that he was at least in the right place.

  Heartened by this, he tried the other keys, and a few moments later the door was open and he was looking down the wood-floored and panelled hallway. On the left, a flight of stairs rose to a dogleg and on up to the first floor. On the right, three closed doors. Straight ahead in the failing light, he could see what seemed to be the appliances of a kitchen.

  “Hello?” he called. “Anyone here?”

  No answer, no sound of anyone moving about. He took a breath and stepped into the hallway. “Hello?” He closed the door behind him. The air in the house was cool and still and smelled ever so slightly musty. “Hello?”

  Fine. He found a switch on the wall by the door and clicked it. Five bulbs in a little brass chandelier halfway along the hallway ceiling came on. He walked towards the kitchen, trying the closed doors as he passed. The first opened onto a dining room with a big table and six chairs; the middle one turned out to be a cupboard containing a Hoover and shelves neatly stacked with cleaning products. The third was a big living room. Three-piece suite, a lounger, huge flatscreen television on the wall. There seemed to be no personal possessions here. Furniture, but no paintings or prints on the walls, no ornaments, no vases with flowers, no coats hanging on the rack in the hall. Whoever had lived here was gone.

  In the kitchen there was a range and a big fridge and an island with a tiled top and four stools. Under the window there was a Belfast sink large enough to bathe a Shetland pony. Alex tried the taps. Then he looked out of the window into the backyard and tipped his head to one side.

  There was a little old man standing in the backyard looking at him.

  The little old man was wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms, a grubby-looking sweatshirt and a tatty old towelling dressing gown that hung open, the ends of its belt trailing on the ground. On his feet was a pair of Converse All Stars. He looked at Alex for a while, then raised one hand and waved. Alex waved back, and the little old man moved out of view around the side of the house. A minute or so later, the doorbell rang. Alex stood where he was, thinking. Then he went to the door.

  The little old man was standing on the porch, a ragged unlit stub of a cigar plugged into one corner of his mouth.

  “Hello,” said Alex.

  “Are you burgling the place?” He was short and wiry and his voice was phlegmy.

  “No, I’m just taking a look round.”

  “Mm hm” He leaned to one side and looked past Alex down the hall. “What do you think?”

  “It’s very nice.”

  “Hm.” The little old man looked him up and down. “Ralph Ortiz,” he said. “I’m your neighbour.”

  “Alex Dolan. I don’t actually live here.” Leaving the yet hanging.

  “You’re the writer, yeah?”

  “I guess.”

  Ralph nodded. “I’m a writer too. Used to be, anyway. They said you were coming.”

  “‘They’?”

  “Danny Hofstadter and them.” He put out a hand. “Welcome.”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Alex said, but he shook Ralph’s hand anyway. They stood there a little awkwardly until he added, “Would you like to come in, Mr Ortiz?”

  “Ralph,” he said, stepping past into the house. “And yeah, that’s very kind of you, Mr Dolan.”

  “Alex,” said Alex, closing the door and following him down the hall.

  Ralph was looking in through every open door as he passed by. “So the Shanahans beat feet then.”

  “Shanahans?”

  “The people who used to live here.” He’d found his way to the kitchen and was looking in the fridge. “Can’t say I’ll miss them; their kids were little bastards. They shot my dog. Ah, good.” He reached into the fridge, and backed away holding two bottles of Budweiser.

  “I’m sorry,” Alex said. “About your dog.”

  He snorted. “It was a BB gun. They only winged him. Couldn’t prove anything, of course.” He held one of the beers out. “You have an opener?”

  Alex stood there holding the bottle, looking helplessly at the drawers and cupboards. “I have no idea.”

  “Never mind.” Ralph dug a Swiss army knife from a pocket of his dressing gown, levered the cap off his bottle, did Alex’s for him and handed it back. “So,” he said, pulling a stool away from the island and perching on it, “what do you think of Stanisław Clayton’s
little kingdom?”

  “I’ve only been here a couple of days. I’m still processing. Or not.”

  Ralph took a long drink of beer and belched. “Don’t let them railroad you.”

  “I don’t mean to pry, but what were you doing in the garden?”

  “Saw the lights come on. Thought I’d better scope things out before I called the Law.”

  “Right.” Alex took a sip of beer. “This is quite a hard place to find, isn’t it.”

  “Ah,” Ralph said with a satisfied smile. “That’s because it doesn’t exist.”

  “Does it not?”

  Ralph shook his head. “This is actually the independent township of East Walden. Or it would have been, if the developers hadn’t gone bust back in the eighties. They lasted long enough to build this street and then they just dried up and blew away. There’s been a case in the courts about our status ever since. Are we an independent entity? Are we part of Sioux Crossing? No one’s been in much of a hurry to sort it out.” He drank some more beer. “We’re a bit of a thorn in Clayton’s side; because of the legal case we can’t be sold, so this is the one part of the county he doesn’t actually own.”

  “He owns this house, though, I presume.”

  Ralph nodded. “He can’t buy the legal entity, but there’s nothing to stop him buying the properties privately.”

  Alex wondered if he had been deliberately parachuted into the situation, for reasons which would not become apparent until it was too late. He decided it was just too complicated to think about right now.

  “Anyway,” Ralph went on, “because a whole bunch of people have been arguing about it since the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, we appear on some maps and not on others. And I kind of like it like that.”

  “Why would he want to buy it, anyway? It’s miles from the Facility.”

  Ralph took another mouthful of beer. “Man like that, he sees something he can’t have, it just makes him want it all the more.”

  Alex looked out into the backyard. It was almost completely dark outside now. “This place is utterly fucked up, isn’t it.”

  “And they haven’t even turned the damn thing on yet.” Ralph raised his bottle in a toast, and the doorbell rang. They looked at each other. “Expecting guests?”

  “No,” said Alex. “I’m really not. Excuse me a moment.”

  He went back down the hall and opened the front door, and found himself staring at the chest of a quite enormous man wearing a police uniform. A badge with the word ROSEWATER was pinned to one of his breast pockets, at roughly the same level as Alex’s eyes. He tipped his head back, saw a shaven scalp, intelligent eyes and a kindly face. “Yes?”

  “Mr Dolan?” said the enormous man.

  “Yes.”

  He smiled. “I was driving by, saw the lights on, thought I’d better check.” This was patently a lie; nobody just ‘drove by’ on East Walden Lane. He put out a hand large enough to park a Volkswagen on. “Bud Rosewater, Chief of Police.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Alex surrendered his hand to the Chief’s vast grip, was mildly surprised when it was returned unharmed. “Would you like to come in?”

  “That’s very kind of you,” said Rosewater. “Just for a moment.”

  Alex led the way back down the hall, feeling a colossal displacement of air behind him. He didn’t see whether Chief Rosewater had to duck his head to get through the kitchen doorway, but when he turned he was standing there taking up more or less all the available space at that end of the room.

  “Ah, you have guests,” he said, nodding hello to Ralph. “Mr Ortiz.”

  “Bud,” Ralph said. He drank some more beer.

  “So,” Chief Rosewater said, “how are you settling in?”

  “I’m not,” Alex told him. “I haven’t decided whether I’m going to yet.”

  “Hey, that would be a shame,” the Chief said, shifting the utility belt that hung around his waist.

  “Would it?”

  “It would.” He looked round the kitchen. “This is a nice place.”

  “I was telling Alex about Vern and Pam,” Ralph piped up. “Where did they go off to? Duluth? Sioux City?”

  The Chief gave it some thought. “Twin Cities, I heard,” he mused. “Didn’t Pam have family in St Paul?”

  “Any place that’s seen a spike in dog shootings, that’s where they are.”

  Rosewater gave Ralph a good-natured and avuncular smile. “We never established that the boys were responsible for that, Ralph. And you’re giving Mr Dolan the wrong idea about the neighbourhood.”

  Ralph shook his head. “You’re a sad excuse for a law enforcement officer, Bud Rosewater. Did you catch that guy yet?”

  Rosewater gave him a Look. Alex had only just met him so he wasn’t familiar with all his facial expressions, but it was definitely a Look, and it did its job because Ralph looked at Alex and asked, “Do you have a dog?”

  “Me?” Alex’s life appeared to have entered a period of rapidly escalating surrealism. “No.”

  Ralph waved it away. “You’ll be fine then, probably.”

  Alex looked at them, feeling completely lost. It seemed that some fundamental anchor had come loose in his life around the time he boarded the flight to San Francisco, and it had let these people in. He said, “Gentlemen, it’s been great to meet you, but I’ve had a long couple of days and I’m not processing very well right now. I think maybe I’ll get back to the hotel.”

  “You’re not staying here?” Ralph asked.

  “No, Ralph, I’m not.”

  “I’ll give you a ride back to the New Rose,” said Rosewater. “I’m going that way.”

  “I can walk,” Alex said, but he didn’t put any force into it because he wasn’t at all certain he’d be able to find the main road in the dark.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Rosewater. “Easy for a stranger to get lost.”

  “Okay. If you promise to put the lights and the siren on.”

  Rosewater guffawed, and Alex thought he felt the entire kitchen relax. He wondered what he’d just witnessed, and whether or not he’d imagined it. “No,” said the Chief. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. I can’t remember the last time I fired up the lightbar.”

  “Maybe next time,” Alex said. He looked at Ralph, who showed every sign of having taken up residence. “I’m going now,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Ralph, levering himself unwillingly to his feet. “I guess.” He shook Alex’s hand again. “We have to get together again when you’re all moved in.”

  “I still haven’t decided,” Alex reminded him.

  “Yeah, well,” he said, going over to the fridge and opening it again. “You will.” He took a couple more bottles of beer, closed the door, and nodded to Rosewater. “Bud.”

  “Mr Ortiz,” said the Chief, who was clearly used to turning a blind eye to minor instances of theft.

  They watched him shamble down the hall towards the front door. When he’d gone, Alex said, “This has been quite a peculiar couple of days.”

  “Hey,” Rosewater said, landing a hand on Alex’s shoulder softly enough not to dislocate it, “if nothing else you’ve been to new places and met new people. Shall we?”

  Alex turned off the kitchen lights and followed him down the hallway to the door. A truck in Sioux Crossing PD livery was parked on the drive. Alex presumed it was difficult to find a normal police cruiser that fitted Chief Rosewater. He turned off the hall light, locked up the house, and climbed into the truck.

  The twisty, confusing combination of lanes and side roads which had kept him wandering around for what seemed hours were actually only a couple of minutes’ drive, and then they were back on the main road.

  After a couple of minutes or so, Alex said, “I may be new here, but even I know we’re going in the wrong direction.”

  “That’s right,” Rosewater said amiably without looking at him.

  “Are you kidnapping me, Chief?”

  He grunted. “My friends call
me Bud.”

  “Ralph calls you Bud.”

  “Well, Ralph and I have a complicated relationship.”

  “You might as well call me Alex,” Alex told him, staring out into the tunnel of headlight. “Because I think you and I are going to have a complicated relationship too.”

  “There’s something I want to show you,” the Chief said. “It won’t take long. I’ll have you back at the hotel in time for Happy Hour.”

  “There’s a Happy Hour? How did I miss that?”

  They drove for a couple of miles or so, then Bud took a right turn onto a bumpy dirt road between fields that seemed to run away into infinity under the light of the half-moon. A couple of minutes later he stopped the truck and opened his door. “Come on.”

  Alex followed, trying not to stumble on the uneven ground. They were parked in the middle of a great expanse of gently rolling farmland, row after long row of thigh-high plants. He could smell the vegetation and the damp soil. It suddenly occurred to him that Bud was armed and that there was no sign of human habitation.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Bud hitched up his belt and looked around him. “This used to be my family’s farm,” he said. “We farmed here for almost a hundred and fifty years. Now it belongs to some sort of hedge fund in Belgium and they lease it out to some damn agribusiness or other.”

  Alex wondered why he was telling a complete stranger about this. He didn’t seem angry; maybe a little wistful.

  “We used to own a lot of land,” he went on. “They named the county after my great-great-grandfather. Now? All gone.” He pointed out into the field. “This is soybean,” he said. “Once upon a time we’d sell every other row to China, but those days are long gone. The Chinese don’t want our soy any more. Farming families just dried up and blew away.”

  “People keep telling me this story,” Alex said.

  Bud nodded. “Well, the whole county was dying. And then the SCS came along, and now maybe two-thirds of the county work for the Facility and the other third have something to do with it.”