Face to Face

by Dwight Krauss

Part 1 appears
in this issue.

conclusion

It was a little town, this Ajo, California. Lane got off the bus, ticket courtesy of the old couple in Des Moines who had missed his deft movements and probably wouldn’t miss their cards for at least another week.

Lane kept an inner smile as he used their American Express to buy a cheap suit, some more hair lightener, and a gross pair of black horn-rimmed glasses. Calvin: Wear something stupid. That’s all they’ll remember. He traded it and the other cards for a badge blank and made a new set of credentials at Kinko’s.

“Good morning, Ma’am,” he said as he held the badge and credentials up to his face, typical goofball detective. “I’m looking for Mary Vincent.” Outwardly, he oozed business. Inwardly, he was an earthquake, staring hard at the older woman staring at him suspiciously from the cracked door. Was that you, Mom?

“Quién? Qué quieres? No la conozco!” and she made to slam the door but Lane already had his shoe in it. So, not her. Lane lapsed into playground Spanglish and the woman’s suspicion relented enough that she, at least, didn’t try to crush his toes. “Alejandro!” she called, “véngate!”

“What?” A petulant voice matched the petulant, torn T-shirted teen who frowned at Lane through the door. “What you want, man?” He pronounced it ‘mien.’

“I’m looking for Mary Vincent, Mary Lloyd Vincent?” Lane waved the badge in the punk’s face. Distraction, intimidation.

He wasn’t intimidated. “Do we look like our names are ‘Vincent’, man?” and he moved to slam the door.

“She used to live here,” Lane just barely kept the desperation out of his voice.

“Not anymore,” another move to slam.

“It would have been twenty years ago.”

The teen eyed him balefully. “Go next door. That old guy’s been here forever.” And this time he did slam.

The old guy, fat, bewhiskered, rolls of him falling out of what Lane swore was the same T-shirt as the teen, had been there forever. “Sí, la conocí. She got busted. Prostitution. Went to jail. Don’t know where she went after that. Why you ask?” and the old man scrutinized him and maybe there was a glimmer of recognition. Lane didn’t stay long enough for it to spark.

So, Henry had been right.

* * *

There were six Vincents listed in the Pemberton, New Jersey area. “Who?” they all responded to his query. “Not one of us.” He went to the local high school and looked through yearbooks, but she wasn’t there.

He sat in his car — Reminder: steal another one tomorrow — in the parking lot of the White Dotte, some kind of luncheonette, at the intersection of routes 38 and 206, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and idly sorting through the papers in the glove box for anything he could use.

So, what now? He shook his head. He could look up dear old Mom and Dad and pull out their fingernails until they gave the name of the adoption lawyer and then repeat the procedure until he got a more accurate fix on his mother. Messy. Time-consuming. And dangerous. He was about six steps ahead of the cops right now but, the longer this took, the more chance they’d get lucky, like run his plate while he was sitting here acting suspicious. Nervously, he glanced around and his eyes fell on a road sign.

Vincentown. 5 miles.

No way.

He pulled out of the parking lot, breaking traction in his sudden haste but no sirens so, okay. He followed the arrows and pulled up to the town hall.

“Mary Vincent’s a pretty common name around here,” the boozy redhead with the smoke-curdled skin snorted as she popped a Hershey’s kiss from a bowl set on the counter (hand-printed sign: “Take One!) into her mouth.

“I figured,” Lane looked properly abashed, “but she would have been born...” and he gave the date and place.

“In Pemberton?” Boozy’s eyes narrowed, “not Mt. Holly? That’s where the hospital is.”

“No, Pemberton. And her full name was Mary Lloyd Vincent.”

“Hmm, you know, that rings a bell.”

Bingo. Mary Lloyd Vincent was born in the basement of her Uncle John Lloyd’s house, located in the middle of Pemberton, when her mother went into sudden labor. Mary was home-schooled on the family farm about three miles out of Vincentown. “I remember her some,” Boozy said, “she was real wild when she got about fifteen. Ran away a lot.”

“Is she still here?” he tried to keep his voice casual.

“Could be,” Boozy shrugged, “I haven’t seen her in about twenty years, though. Farm’s still in the family. Say, are you a relative? ’Cause, ya know,” and Boozy squinted at him, “you sure got the look.”

“No,” he said hastily, “just doing research. Paper for college.”

“Little old for college, ain’cha?”

Lane could have smacked himself. “Graduate studies,” he said through a false smile. “Can I get directions?”

He was completely out of breath when he turned down the cedar-lined dirt driveway. The house, peeling white paint with gutters hanging haphazardly, brooded at the end. A fallen-down garage was next to it. Dizzy, he almost fell when he reached the porch. Oh, God, oh God, after all these years, after all this searching, the Grail. He knocked.

An old woman, dressed in a shiftless sack of a dress, one eye milky white to match her hair and smoking a giant cigar, yanked it open. “Wachawant?”

“Mary Vincent?” he steadied a hand on a porch column.

She puffed balefully at him. “No. I ain’t your mother.”

Lane’s jaw dropped.

“Why so shocked?” Another puff. “You look just like her.”

Something tight and painful suddenly loosed in Lane. “Where is she?” his voice was weak.

“Dead.” The tight and painful thing screwed itself right back into place and he staggered. The old lady flourished the cigar. “AIDS got her.”

“Are you her...” Lane took a stab, “mother?” Which made you grandmother. A real grandmother.

“Ha!” The cigar punctuated her amusement. “Naw, I ain’t your Maw-maw. I ain’t a Vincent. They ain’t no more Vincents. They all gone.”

“But, they said the farm was still in their name.”

“It is.”

“So then,” Lane’s confusion was evident.

Her eyes narrowed, “You ask a lot a questions.”

Ah. Place to crash, off the books, no one really checking. Good con.

“So you gonna claim the place now?” she waved the cigar over the swamp-puddled and weed-grown yard, the rot taking the foundations even as Lane watched.

“Probably not,” he said.

“Hm,” she grunted her satisfaction, “Good. Lots of back taxes on this place. You don’t look like you could cover them.”

Lane nodded. Don’t worry, Endora, your little hideaway is safe. For now. “Tell me about her.”

She shrugged. “Smarter than most. Your grands was these religious cultists. Real nuts, and she didn’t like it much. Paid ’em back. Ran the GI’s at Fort Dix. Had you.” She one-eyed him.

“How do you know all that?”

She shrugged, “We were business partners.” And she gave him a sly look. Her one eye was pretty expressive. Okay.

“So why’d she give me up?” Lane couldn’t help sounding peevish.

She picked up on it. “Listen,” her face darkened, “you be grateful for that. Saved your life. How you think you’d be if you grew up here?” She pointed at the malarial yard.

Grateful? He blinked. Be grateful? The painful thing twisted and hardened. You just don’t throw your children away, milk eye. You just don’t. His heart started to pound. She must have seen it because she grew alarmed.

“What did she look like?” His teeth were clenched.

“Get a mirror. That’s her.” She edged back a bit, “I ain’t got any more for ya.” And faster than her age would telegraph, she slammed and bolted the door.

Dammit! The rage roared through his head and arms and made them terrible. He slammed the door with both fists and felt it shake. “Goddamn bitch!” he bellowed, “Give me my mother!”

“You go away!” she shrieked. Lane measured the door. Couple of good kicks and it would come off the hinges and he’d have her pustule-laden liver-spotted neck in his hands. But she probably had a shotgun or, worse, some meth-head cooker hiding back there.

He whirled and stared at the car. Come flying at the house with it, take out the front, take her out at the same time. Then he’d have the whole place to search. Rage gripped his spine and head, blasting his senses, making him see the world red. Images flowed by: blonde sisters not his sisters, loving parents not his parents, his own darkness a beacon, marker, calling out his separation. He grabbed the sides of his head to squeeze it out, squeeze it all out, this shape under his skin, unknown, foreign, a cipher.

“Look in the mirror?” he turned and screamed at the house. “Look at what?” Someone lost, abandoned. No identity.

The blood-pounding lessened. He gasped, seeking air. The world resumed its colors and he felt the rage go back to its banks, settle around his heart. He breathed. All right, all right, forget the car. But, dammit all to hell! So close, so goddamn close!

“Do you have a picture, at least?” he asked the door.

“No,” the tremulous voice betrayed her terror. He could use that. “You know,” he called to Broomhilda, “I’ll bet this place would burn real good.” And he grinned.

“I know where she’s buried!” a hasty response from the other side.

Lane cocked his head. “Go on.”

“She was afraid of cremation. Got that from her parents. So she had a plot and some money set aside to make sure she got a real burial.”

Lane pulled the Bic out of his pocket and snapped it near the door so she could hear. “Near you!” Her voice went up a notch. “Where you was placed with the agency!”

Lane took a step back. “What?”

“She wanted to be buried near you.”

Lane stopped breathing.

“She felt real bad she had to give you up.”

Mom. Mom, Mom... It was mantra and something broke in Lane’s stomach. “Tell me where,” he whispered.

She did. My God, it was just one town over from home. “If you’re lying,” he said as he left, “it’ll take you three days to die.”

It took him three days to find her. The witch hadn’t been real specific, but persistence, frenzied, insane persistence, paid off.

Midnight, a leprous, cloud-shrouded moon peeking at him, shocked. Lane flipped it off and sank the shovel into the mossy earth.

Time to get acquainted, Mom.

Open Challenge 317...