No word from Vincent, and nothing from the man to Jorge either, so Jenna prepared herself for a suburban junket. While her roommates scurried off once again to Fire Island, she packed her duffel for some sort of outdoor encounter, her ultra-cool camera packed in its case very carefully. She could feel her sometime lover in its heavy leather strap. Did he know she’d absconded with it? No doubt yes, but so far he hadn’t said a word, nothing at all to her after what they’d done together. Though manifestly a crazy idea, she felt nagging guilt about Vince. Was she being disloyal, venturing off with someone else? What a mad thought, one that should be emphatically rejected, so she made her way to the Metro-North railroad line leaving out of Grand Central Station. On this Saturday, everyone else in town had also had the clever idea to avoid a Friday train, and the mayhem was total. The crowds, the vendors, even the man playing the violin, soliciting coins looked especially haggard. When finally she sat back in the cool railroad car, though, she felt blessed, freed at last from every care of that strange building she inhabited and the world of its ruler. About Inti’s world she hadn’t a clue, but she didn’t think it would lumber so mysteriously through her soul as Vincent Hull’s did right this very minute.
Inti stood waiting for her at the Rye station, reading a book and sipping on a soda. As the locomotive crawled into the station, Jenna watched anxiously through the window, and with sudden anxiety wondered whether this little outing would possibly involve sex. She wasn’t prepared for that and didn’t even want to let it enter her mind. Other people thought of these things, but she had been living in her own little Hull fantasy world, much removed from the reality of something like a real date with an available male. Now as she watched the young man standing there, she realized how beautiful he was, soulful but also slightly goofy, unlike any “face man” she’d been tempted to go out with in college. He had the sort of grace she associated with men in magazines, in his usual uniform of a blue T-shirt and beige linen trousers, but he didn’t seem vain or affected, or even really conscious of how good he looked. Instead he appeared preoccupied, a bit out of it.
Over fried chicken and biscuits at a diner, she learned more about him. The sheltered product of two professors at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, he had grown up on eccentricity and granola, at least that’s how it sounded to Jenna, and he played the cello. “My mother taught child psychology, my father anthropology, a people-of-many-lands thing. He was into the Skokomish and the Puyallup, all their artifacts, their way of life. One Christmas he put a teepee up in the back yard, and my sister and I had to spend the whole weekend there chanting weird songs with them about various gods. It was our version of a sweat lodge.”
She could barely imagine such a world but envied the idea of cultivated parents with interests beyond beer and bowling. Her own ever-shifting set of adults, some of whom appeared to have just wandered off, had never focused on any interest whatsoever, with the dramatic exception of her grandmother, who had concentrated on her. “How eccentric,” Jenna said, unsure what all this meant.
“Where we lived, we didn’t make too much of it. The Pacific Northwest, you know, home of the brave and the strange.”
“Really?” Jenna felt unbelievably ignorant about at least sixty percent of what he was saying. “So what’s the big mystery in Rye?”
“Small dogs and cats are disappearing at an alarming rate. Is there a pet killer about? Someone or something is going after them, always at night, and they end up mutilated. That’s why we have to camp out and watch and photograph at the epicenter of all this, if possible. Are you up for it?”
“Sure, I guess. Will there be any violence involved?”
“I certainly hope not, but just in case I have some Mace here, also some salt. Let’s see, a Snickers bar, hmm, a little pot. Want some?”
“Not right now.”
“We really lived on weed in Olympia. I think it was meant to combat the rain.”
“Any lasting damage?” Jenna said as he threw his coat over her shoulders even though it was a balmy night in Westchester County.
“Hard to tell. I am as you see me.” He lifted his arms out wide and gave a quick salute. “I consider myself blessed because you’re here.” This winningly nerdy speech made her laugh, and at once these last few weeks lost a touch of their fire. She vowed to enjoy herself and find more people her own age.
Armed with a bottle of wine and their duffle bags, the two set off into the woods of Rye. Inti had arranged for them to camp in the spacious backyard of one of the city fathers, not in his own guesthouse rental. That would have been too much sharing for him right now, but also there had been no disappearances in his area. Behind the white colonial house, they spent the next hour setting up their tent under a voluminous red maple tree, building their small, regulation fire, and setting out sleeping bags. Inside the tent, it was cozy, so much so that if she had not had on clothes meant to deter ticks and other critters, Jenna might have been tempted to take them off. Almost immediately Inti stripped down from his fashionable getup into a sweatshirt, and at that moment she saw the torso of someone seriously in shape, but she tried to look away. Sex occupied her too much of late. Vince had started her up again, and the engine thrilled at being able to turn over at all, like a car too long parked in the garage.
Once they settled in, Inti handed her a flashlight and a plastic cup of wine. “Two essentials for the night.”
“Don’t tell me about the little pets who died. I couldn’t stand it.”
“I know, Fluffy and Pooki and all that.”
“They deserve to live, too.”
“I’m a friend to the animals; why else would I be doing this? It would be a major scoop, at least around here, but also I’m guessing in the city as well. There have been several attacks there too.”
They waited for about an hour, during which time Inti told her his history as an aspiring cellist. All the while he talked, Jenna focused on his long dark eyelashes and his very nearly black eyes. He had a lovely passivity about him, not always moving forward, but sideways into the wind as it were, and he laughed a lot, in this instance very quietly, so unlike Vincent in every conceivable way. “My mother asked my famous Russian cello teacher whether I could be a professional someday. He said, ‘For a cellist, he would make a good insurance salesman.’ That did it for me. I switched to English literature.”
Silent now, they waited together a long, long time, watching at a tiny opening in the tent, listening to every waving branch, every twitch in the grass, anything that moved. After about twenty minutes, they heard one high pitched whine, then another fearsomely loud, inhuman scream. Inside, they huddled, hardly breathing. Inti opened the tent a crack and peered out. He saw a white tabby scampering away. “Just a cat making those terrible cat sounds,” he whispered.
“I’ve got to admit it, I don’t totally love cats. I’m more of a dog person.”
“Me too.”
They settled back to listen, and Jenna lay on her sleeping bag, exhausted by just about everything in her life, dozing. Inti stayed wide awake though, and after about an hour, they heard at once a rush, a pounding over leaves, and then something like animal keening, but after several moments, the eerie cries vanished into the night. In another instant they heard scratching sounds behind the tent. Jenna grabbed her camera and whispered, “Too bad we don’t have a gun.”
“Shh.” Inti put his hand over her mouth. The crunching of leaves grew louder, but then again more silence. He pointed toward the sound as he gently opened the tent wide, while she raised the Leica. Then a soft movement around them grew louder, and finally they heard the whiny meow of a cat slinking right across their field of vision. Out of the darkness a mangy dog-like creature sprang out toward the cat, who howled in terror, and at the same moment Inti leapt toward them and began shouting and waving his arms. The cat appeared ready for the fight and held its ground, slashing about with its paws. The wolfish thing lunged to bite but then unaccountably staggered backwards and fell down, dead it seemed. Jenna had jumped out of the tent, camera in hand and shot a number of pictures before the cat scooted away. “Damn, it was a coyote.” Inti stared down at the limp carcass.
“I got some good shots, I think. I might have caught a glimpse of the pack.”
They explained the whole scene to an animal control officer, who was accompanied by a policeman, and it seemed they had suspected coyotes for some time but hadn’t caught any. Now this female who got so close to a house and to people was probably sick. The animal was bagged for testing, even though to Jenna’s sympathetic eyes the poor creature just looked sad and starved to death.
“Poor creature, my ass,” Inti chided her. “She could kill a dog or even a small child.”
“Not any more, but still, I feel sorry for her.”
“And where did you get that incredible camera?”
“A perk, of sorts, for the work I do for Vincent.”
“Vincent, eh?” Inti didn’t have time to explore this thought, but instead put his arm around her while the officers tried to convince them not to stay in the tent that night. He refused to budge, didn’t want to miss a scoop, even if it was only for the Rye Register. “Be on the lookout for more of them. They normally travel in packs, and you’ll need shots if one of them bites you. Just make a lot of noise and expand your physical presence,” one of the animal control guys advised, throwing out his arms and flapping like a bird.
Jenna watched the officers retreat with their frightful prey wrapped in a towel, its tail sticking out. She, at least, was shaken, but Inti appeared energized. “It’s a terrific story. I was there first. And you’ve got pictures with that fancy camera of yours.”
What with the fear and the animal screechings and the officers, it all made for an emotionally-charged situation, and Jenna could feel this as the two settled into their respective sleeping bags. It was too much for her, and she wanted to defuse it, so as she snuggled a bit closer to him, she pulled her hoodie up over her head. “Want to tell ghost stories?” He ruffled her hair and pulled her toward him for a kiss. She responded, warmly, but the two were exhausted and covered in clothing. They fell asleep almost at the same moment.
The next morning the birds woke them before the sun, and as Jenna turned she saw that Inti was looking at her. She started up, uncomfortable from a night on the ground, but he gently pushed her back down. “Stay and rest. I’m going to look around the property for the cat and see what else might have happened.” She listened as his footsteps receded and, after what seemed like a long time, she fell back to sleep.
Inti was a man for whom women had done a lot. His mother had made him a fresh and often exotic sandwich every day for school. His sister, who bossed him around at every stage of their relationship, thought him her truest and best friend, though she had conditioned him on how to behave. She conceived a game called “Strongling and Weakling.” Whoever called out “Strongling” first meant that the other person had to fall down right away, crying “Weakling.” Inti was always the weakling because he never shouted the words first. She lurked and waited, the essence of the game, while he never gave it a thought until she screeched at him. He was greatly loved, though the cerebral atmosphere at home contained within it not a little pure coldness. His father lost himself in books and artifacts, and on the walls of their home grinning, ghoulish masks glared down upon them all. Things cheered up around cocktail time, and Inti had certainly noticed his father’s big cigar box of marijuana, the rolling papers, and the expert handling thereof.
Until Inti became one himself, his parents regarded journalists as children of the damned, but their son persisted, longing to exit that damp, boring sinkhole, as he called it to his friends, and move right along to a regular city, the bigger the better. No more government bureaucrats, no more chainsaw sculpture or people weaving lanyards out of painted leather. No, the homespun and the relentlessly artsy had lost their charms for him. He wanted new and clean and dry, though he remained a semi-committed expert on pot and its peculiar delights. Rye was the best he could do for now, since he distrusted Vincent Hull in whatever small dealings he’d had with him, worse yet had grown to detest the job at NewsLink and had gotten only a modestly positive reference from them for “good work in the field.”
Inti recognized Jenna as another lost soul, even more forlorn than himself, and it fascinated him to think of her swimming along in the dangerous fish tank that the NewsLink organization surely was. Also, he knew much more about Vincent Hull than he let on. The man had once been a hero to him, not just a rich dabbler in the magazine world, more like a force of nature willing to push and pull and grab and wrestle to the ground the beast that was a certain kind of journalism, that of the opinion piece. Of late, though, NewsLink had become more and more a tabloid, available to whoever shouted the loudest, and its headlines habitually regurgitated blood, guts, murder, revenge, big money, and any horrible person currently making noise. No matter how much serious reportage was done, print got overwhelmed by dead men and hookers. He didn’t necessarily want another job with the man, but he didn’t not want one either, and should the opportunity arise, he might even return to NewsLink once he had more credits. Coyotes were rumored in Central Park, so this subject had legs in more ways than one.
Inti didn’t share these views with Jenna, but on their way back into the city he rubbed her neck affectionately and kissed her now expertly and often. As the train pulled into Grand Central Station, he felt mad at himself for not having made a serious pass at her. “I’ll send you the pictures right away,” she promised. “Though don’t have high expectations, please.”
“I only have high expectations of you,” he said, but she was already walking away from him.