The Old Man(58)
The cabin had not decreased the man’s stress. He had spent so much money and effort to build the cabin that he had no choice but to try to recoup the expense by renting it. It was easy to rent out a cabin on a mountain lake in August when it hadn’t rained in Los Angeles for eight months and the temperature on Wilshire Boulevard was 105. It was even easier to rent during the winter holidays, when people wanted to ski. But it was not so easy after the kids were back in school and the weather in Los Angeles had reverted to being paradisiacal.
When Hank drove Marcia up to Big Bear to the cabin for the first time, he said little about the place except that it was “just right.” He appeared to be preoccupied during the shopping trip in San Bernardino. Hank had stayed in mountain cabins before, so he knew enough to bring all the supplies he could fit in a car.
When he drove up to the right address, they could see the view of the lake was beautiful. Hank said nothing as he took Marcia up to the front door. He simply unlocked the lock and swung the door open so she could see the gleaming black Steinway grand piano sitting across the large living room.
Marcia stepped past him in silence like a woman stalking something that might get up and take flight. She walked across the room, ran her hand along the mirror-smooth black wood, sat on the bench, opened the keyboard cover, and sounded a note. Then she played about seven bars of Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat Major. Finally, she stood up and ran to Hank. She hugged him hard, and when she pulled away from him, he could see she was crying. After a few seconds she whispered, “I love you.”
The log house was well designed, well made, and pristine. The place had probably been occupied no more than sixty days since it was built. The furniture, fixtures, and appliances had barely been used. The stockbroker had bought the piano in Los Angeles in the hope that his daughter would come up with her parents frequently and play, but she had come a few times and used the trip as an excuse to give her fingers a rest. Hank and Marcia moved in to the master bedroom upstairs, where there was a window that had been designed to frame the view of the lake.
They hiked the trails in the mornings. In the afternoons Marcia played the piano and Hank read, and occasionally took the canoe out to explore the lake. In the evenings they cooked, watched the cabin’s television set, and used the computers. They to ok baths in the oversized whirlpool tub and slept on the new California king bed.
Hank made Marcia spend a few hours each day practicing ways he had devised to deal with emergencies. He coached her in telling the life stories of Henry and Marcia Dixon so she would never be caught with a version that contradicted his. When she was flawless at it they tried it again, this time to be sure they didn’t tell stories using the same words.
Hank took care to remain vigilant. He kept the three unused prepaid telephones in their original wrapping so he could be sure Marcia didn’t get tempted to use them to call her children. When she was in the shower or practicing the piano, he would examine the laptop computer’s history to be sure she hadn’t used it to get in touch with her daughter or with anyone else. He even made sure that none of the computer’s history had been erased since he’d last used it. He also kept checking for any sign of news. He checked the Chicago Tribune’s personal ads once a week for any communication from James Harriman.
A month passed in the mountains. The trees at the altitude above the lake were nearly all pines, so they didn’t change colors or lose leaves. But the mornings were all cooler now. The Dixons wore jackets for their early walks, and brought knitted caps and leather gloves that they sometimes put on. Later in the day the sunshine bored through the clouds and burned off the mists, but there was no question that fall had taken possession of the mountains.
One day Hank drove them out of the mountains and into San Bernardino, where they shopped for things that would help them extend their stay at the cabin into the winter. They bought tire chains, antifreeze, ice scrapers with snow brushes on them, pairs of boots, and jackets rated for subzero weather.
On the way home Hank stopped at a gun store and bought two sets of ear protectors and plugs, a pair of shooting glasses for Marcia, and a supply of 9mm and .45 ACP ammunition. On the drive home Marcia said, “Why all the ammunition? Have you seen something I should worry about?”
Hank said, “I thought you and I might go out and get some target practice to keep us sharp.”
“Who said I was ever sharp? I’ve never held a firearm in my life. And where could we even do that?”
“I found a few ranges,” he said. “But I thought maybe we’d be better off just going out into the wild country. Otherwise you have to provide identification and all that.”
“Won’t just going out and shooting get us arrested?”
“San Bernardino County has a lot of space where you can fire a weapon legally. It’s the biggest county in the whole country. It’s got more area than Connecticut, Delaware, and New Jersey combined. Once you’re ten miles outside of any town, you’re pretty much by yourself.”
“You still haven’t told me why we’re doing this.”
“It’s something I want you to learn,” he said. “You said you would be useful. Having a second armed person to cover me in an emergency would be useful.”
The next day Hank drove out Route 38 to the east of Big Bear, and eventually found a flat dirt road that must have been a firebreak where they could pull off the highway about a mile before the country got too rocky and uneven. He parked among some scrubby trees and walked.