Black Wood Read online

  Her voice dropped again and this time I couldn’t hear what she was saying. There was a long pause, and then, she said, “So ...”

  “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time for thinking, Charlie.”

  They were silent for what seemed a very long time but might have only been seconds. I could hear the rhythm of my heartbeat as it pounded. This was the moment, I realised. Everything I had done, everything I had planned had all come to this. My whole life had led up to this moment. If he said no now, it was all over. I heard their voices again, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then Samantha called out to me.

  I walked back into the clearing, trying my best to look calm though my legs barely worked. When I reached where they were standing, Samantha looked at Charlie. He paused for a moment and then reached out his hand to me.

  “We’d like you to help us,” he said.

  I took his hand and shook it. His handshake was firm although the look in his eyes seemed less so. I didn’t care. I had done it.

  I was in the circle.

  After Charlie had left, I turned to Samantha.

  “That went well,” I said.

  She looked at me. “You think?”

  “Well, he didn’t strangle me with his bare hands. That’s a start.”

  “Oh, there’s still time,” she said, without a hint of a smile.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  When I wake up – even though I’m in my own bed – I wonder for a second where I am. I wonder because, glancing across, I see a beautiful naked woman lying beside me. And not just any naked woman – Samantha Pierce. She’s fast asleep, lying on her back. She tossed the sheets aside during the night and is lying there now, her naked body outstretched, her hair tousled on the pillow. I’m reminded of a line from a Leonard Cohen song, “Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm”.

  It was dark the night before, but now the sun is streaming in the window, landing on every perfect inch of her, carving her shape out in sunlight.

  I don’t want her to get out of the bed and get dressed. I want to look at her naked all day long. It’s not even about having sex; I just want to lie here and look at her. I want to look at her from behind, the curve of her back from her shoulders down to her derrière.

  Her body shows no signs of the past twenty years. It’s still as beautiful as the first day I saw it in the Black Wood. A little more tanned from the Californian sun than she had been in Concord, but otherwise, still the same.

  Her eyes flutter open. She looks at me.

  “Some things never change. You’re still a peeping Tom.”

  She climbs out of the bed and walks to the bathroom. She’s fearless, no pulling sheets around her or putting clothes on. I watch her walk, tall and thin, with grace-like movements. I’m reminded of that line “A tall drink of water”. That’s what she is.

  I lie there, taking in the moment, thinking about what just happened. I had spent the night with Samantha Pierce. How many nights had I lay on my bed back in our old house and thought about that? The amount of times I’d undressed her with my eyes, and now I’d woken up beside her, seen her naked in my bed, not even bothering to cover up.

  When she comes back from the bathroom, she goes to the window and lights up a cigarette. She stands there in the window, naked, oblivious to me or to any passers-by, dragging on the cigarette and exhaling. I watch as her prefect breasts rise and fall with each intake of breath. When she finishes, she tosses the butt out of the window and gets dressed.

  “You’re not going,” I say.

  “No. We are. We’ve got an appointment with a blackmailer, remember?”

  “Oh that. Well, at least, let’s have some breakfast first.”

  “I don’t eat breakfast. You can get something on the way. And bring a camera.”

  ***

  Breakfast turns out to be an Egg McMuffin.

  “These things will kill you, you know,” I say, as I pick at it in the front seat of her car.

  “Then don’t eat it.”

  “How can you not eat breakfast?”

  “You think I look like this eating breakfast?”

  “What are we going to do?” I ask her.

  “I’m going to show up. You’re going to do what you’re good at. Observe. Take photos. I’ll tell him I can get the money and arrange another meet. Then, we hightail it out of there with the photos and find out who he is. Then, we find a way of getting him.”

  “Wait ... a way of getting him. What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know yet. But everybody can be gotten to. That much I do know.”

  She pulls up across the street from the Manhattan Mall.

  “Okay. I’ll go in first. I’ll head straight for the Food Court. You come in a few minutes later and find me. But hang back. Wait for him to come up to me and then start taking photographs. Get as many as you can. We need to identify this guy.”

  Who is this new person I’m looking at this morning? I wonder. This isn’t the distraught and emotional Samantha I’d seen the night before. This is more like the old Samantha, and I wonder what happened between last night and this morning to

  have changed her so much. Not to be immodest but I’m hoping that our night of passion has reignited something inside her.

  She gets out of the car and walks across the road, with the same purposeful stride she’d gotten out of bed with this morning. It’s a fine thing to see. Especially from behind.

  I wait a few minutes, and then get out and follow her. Inside the mall, the lunchtime masses are gathering. I scan the crowd for Samantha and spot her sitting over at the edge of the Food Court. I scan the crowd again for any likely suspects fitting the bill of our blackmailer. It doesn’t take long. He’s standing in the line at “Sbarro” and he starts to walk over towards Samantha. He’s wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses and looks suitably shady. He certainly isn’t a master blackmailer, by the looks of it.

  I take out the camera and start clicking. Zoom in, click; zoom in, click. I can see from the digital screen that I’m getting some great close-up shots. Samantha will be pleased. But I’m not. I’m way out of earshot; I won’t hear anything that’s said. He reaches Samantha and says something to her. She says something back, and he sits down. There’s an empty chair directly behind him. I remember Charlie and Samantha in the café that first time. This will be like that. I walk over to the table and pull out the chair. Samantha looks at me with a panicked expression. She tries not to show it and looks back at him. I sit down with my back to him. They’re talking low, but I can make out what they’re saying. They’re in mid-conversation.

  “I told you,” I hear Samantha say. “I don’t have it with me. But I can get it.”

  “Why did you turn up without it?”

  “Because you said to meet you here at noon. If I hadn’t turned up, what would you have done?”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” he says.

  “You know I have the money. Otherwise, why would you be blackmailing me?”

  “I didn’t ask you if you have the money. Obviously, you have the money if you’re being blackmailed. I asked you, how do I know I can trust you? I was just supposed to come here and pick up the money.”

  “What?”

  “He’s not going to be happy.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy who knows your dirty, little secrets. Whatever they are.”

  “You don’t know what this is about?”

  “No. And I don’t wanna know. I was paid five large to show up here and collect the money. He’s not going to be happy we have to do this again. Not least, because he’s not going to want to pay me another five grand. Why don’t you take me to wherever you have the money, hand it over, I’ll be on my way, and this whole thing will be over.”

  “You fucking crazy? You think I’m going to hand you the money and you’re not even the guy? How did you know what I looked like?”

  �
��He showed me your photograph.”

  “Show it to me.”

  “Fuck you. Why don’t I just tell you his name?”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “You’re funny lady. And you got balls. I like that. But this meeting is over.”

  “Wait. You tell him I’ll have the money in two days. That’s how long it’s going to take me to get it together. But I will have it.”

  “I’ll tell him, but he ain’t gonna like it. I don’t know if you’re gonna get a second chance at this.”

  I watch him walk away, and then Samantha. I give her a minute or two and then, I follow. She’s waiting with the car running outside.

  “So, what do we do now?” I say. “We’re never going to get to see what this guy looks like. Maybe it’s time to pay up.”

  “Are you kidding me? That’s my life, that money. And there’s no guarantee that’s he’s not going to come back for more. Pay up, my ass. Get in. We’re gonna find this guy and we’re gonna fucking destroy him.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Observing Samantha and Charlie was one thing. It felt right. Observing her father, on the other hand, was ... disconcerting. Charlie and Samantha were part of my world. At the end of the day, everyone our age had something in common, no matter how different we were. We belonged to the same world, and that world had strict rules, rules that didn’t always apply in the real world. We all knew those rules, and we all played by them to a greater or lesser extent. But parents and teachers and other adults, they played by different rules, society’s rules. And I was about to enter that adult world.

  But I also realised that this was what I’d been put here to do. I wanted to be part of them, be close to them, to be them. Samantha was right. This was going to be the biggest thing that either of them had done in their lives and I was going to be part of it.

  And if the writing thing didn’t pan out, maybe I could have a career as a private detective.

  Of course, it wasn’t going to be as easy as Sam and Charlie. When I observed them it was usually outside, in some deserted location. In those environments it was easy to observe and listen to them. Not so, Mr. Pierce. It wasn’t that it would be hard to observe him. He was a creature of habit after all. At the office by eight, clock out by five, dinner at seven, lights out at eleven. The problem was all the places he went every day were places I couldn’t go, where I couldn’t hear. All I could do was observe from a distance.

  So many of the elements were different. Samantha and Charlie were always on foot. Following them was not a major problem. Mr. Pierce, on the other hand, drove a car. So, I had to stay as close as I could on my bike. Luckily, he didn’t drive very fast. Time was also an issue. I observed Samantha all day in school, and then, after school, with Charlie in the Black Wood. But, with Mr. Pierce, I had to skip school to observe him during the day. It helped that my studies were as advanced as they were. Also, that my teacher was gullible enough to read the forged letter from my parents telling him that I was sick.

  It’s also a lot less difficult to make yourself inconspicuous in high school than it is to make yourself inconspicuous standing across from an office from nine to five. I was forced to come up with inventive ways so as not to stand out like a sore thumb. Most the day was spent sitting in the café across the street pretending to study. Of course, eight hours sitting in a café was going to look suspicious, so I had to break up the chunks of time by coming up with other devices. Some of the time, I simply stood around on the street corner for as long as possible without attracting attention. As time went on, I came up with other inventive ways. I’d stand and wait for the bus, going around the corner as soon as I saw it coming, then coming back and waiting for the next one. Lucky for me, I didn’t have to repeat the process for too long. It only took three days before I hit paydirt.

  For the first two days, my doubts about Mr. Pierce supposed infidelities were confirmed. He went to the office, went home for dinner, and went to bed like a good husband. Then, on the third day, he went to lunch. This in itself wasn’t strange. The other two days he’d taken lunch in the office, but I figured there was probably days where he had to go meet clients, or he wanted to get out of the office to stretch his legs. Except, this day, his secretary went with him. Again, nothing earth-shattering in that, I thought. No crime in taking your secretary out for lunch. She was pretty though.

  I watched them get into his car and drive slowly through town. I followed them on my bike. Then, they got to the highway, and it became obvious they weren’t going to lunch. At least, not in Concord. The car took off, and that was the end of my observing. I had no way of following them.

  ***

  Samantha cornered me the next day in the school hall, out of earshot.

  “Well?” she said. “What did you find out?”

  “I need more time.”

  Her brow furrowed. “We don’t have more time.”

  “I need another couple of days.”

  “What did you see? You did follow him?”

  “Yes. But ... I don’t want to go into my initial findings just yet.”

  “Your initial findings? What is this? Night Court?”

  “Hey, you asked me to do this.”

  “All right, all right.”

  “A couple of days.”

  She stared at me for a moment and then said, “Alright. A couple of days.”

  “And I need to ask you something. Can Charlie drive?”

  She shrugged. “I dunno. He doesn’t have a car.”

  “But you could hire one. Just for the day.”

  “How?”

  “You have a fake ID, right?” I knew she did. All the girls had fake IDs, despite the fact that every bartender in town pretty much knew them by name.

  “You want a car?” she said, somewhat incredulously. “This isn’t a movie. You’re not going to go tailing my father.”

  “That’s exactly what I need to do. Samantha, I’m on a bike. If he goes over twenty, I’ve lost him.”

  “I don’t know ...”

  “If we don’t do this, we’re never going to know.”

  “There’s something going on though, right?”

  “I can’t say for sure yet. But this could be very important.”

  “When do you need the car?”

  “Tomorrow. And I need Charlie to drive.”

  She nodded. “I’ll ask him tonight.”

  I was on tenterhooks all night thinking about it. This was an unexpected twist, but a welcome one. I would get to spend time with Charlie, alone. I had to contain myself, so as not to race up to her the next morning.

  “He said he’d do it,” she said. “He wasn’t too keen, but I told him that it was important. It might be our only way to get the money.”

  Well, this was exciting.

  Road trippin’ with Charlie.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I told Charlie to meet me around the corner with the car at 12 o’clock. We could hide down the side street beside Mr. Pierce’s office and still be able to keep an eye on his car from there. I was nervous, I have to admit. This would only be the second time Charlie and I had ever spoken. To be honest, I didn’t even know if he’d show. He was notoriously distrustful. But, then again, he was good to his word, and he’d told Samantha he’d do it.

  I just hoped I was right. I might be right about her father and his extra-curricular activities, but I might be wrong about the day. Why did I think it would be today again? I don’t know. Writer’s gut instinct? Because he was a creature of habit? It was just a hunch.

  Charlie showed up at exactly twelve, which was a good sign. He pulled up in a ford Taurus, which was perfect, inconspicuous. He stared through the windshield at me, a look of distrust on his face. I jumped into the passenger seat.

  “Hi, Charlie,” I said.

  “What am I doing here?”

  “I needed a car to follow Samantha’s father.”

  “How have you been following him up ‘til now?”

 
“On my bike. He’s been mostly driving around town, so it’s been okay. But the other day, for lunch, he took off out Route 9 and I couldn’t keep up.”

  “So, you got Samantha to hire a car, and you got me to drive this car, so we could follow her father having lunch?”

  “He was having lunch with his secretary.”

  Charlie didn’t answer that one, but I could see he was impressed.

  We sat in silence for the next hour, with just the sound of the radio, until we saw Samantha’s father leave the office for lunch.

  With his secretary.

  Bingo. I was right. That career as a detective didn’t seem like such a long shot after all.

  Charlie started the car.

  “No, wait,” I said. “Too soon. We need to let a couple of cars go between us and him.”

  He looked at me, and I thought it was that look – the look I’d seen on Samantha’s face. The look that meant I’d changed in their estimation. I waited. Samantha’s father had driven away, and no cars were passing. I was panicking at the thought of losing him. It was now or never. If we didn’t catch him in the act today, we might never have a car again to do it. Finally, two more cars passed by.

  “Okay, go,” I said to Charlie. He didn’t look too happy taking orders but, nonetheless, he did it. He took off a little too fast out into the street. “We should take it slow,” I told him. “At least in town. He drives slow in town. He’ll speed up once he gets onto Route 9.”

  Charlie nodded. And this was indeed the case. Just like the previous day, as soon as he got to Route 9, he opened her up and took off. Now our problem was that there were no other cars on Route 9.

  “We’re gonna have to hang back ...”

  “Okay,” Charlie snapped. “I know how to follow someone.”

  “Really?” I said, but he didn’t take the bait.