Walkers. Part 1

WALKERS.

GARY BRANDNER.

Chapter 1.

At ten o'clock on the eleventh of June the party at the Marina Village was. .h.i.tting its stride. Colored spotlights played over the dancers while a driving disco record boomed from four huge speakers placed around the tile recreation deck. In the clumps of shrubbery that were scattered throughout the courtyard of the apartment complex, young couples sat together away from the music and talked softly about sweet private things. The long table where the food had been was a ruin of bent paper plates, crumpled napkins, chicken bones, chewed ribs, bits of salads, Frito crumbs, toothpicks, and bowls with just traces of dip remaining in the bottoms. Tubs of crushed ice contained cans of Michelob and jugs of Carlo Rossi burgundy. Beyond the dancers an empty, oversized swimming pool glittered a bright-lighted turquoise.

Joana Raitt danced easily and naturally to the thumping music. Her soft brown hair bounced at the nape of her neck, her hazel eyes were bright and alive under the stars. She looked good tonight in her clinging T-s.h.i.+rt and tight white jeans, and in a completely unaffected way she knew it.

Joana smiled up at the loose-jointed young man dancing with her. Glen Early tried gamely to move in time with the beat, but disco was simply not his style. No matter, he was obviously enjoying himself, and he was making Joana happy by being with her. Glen would not win any dancing prizes, but he was smart and kind and fun to be with. Joana had almost decided she was in love with him.

Out in the middle of the dancers, maneuvering over to where he could get a better look at Joana, was Peter Landau. He was the most spectacular dancer there, and at the moment was thinking that the three hundred dollars he had sunk into disco lessons was money well spent. Peter wore a white linen jacket and pants with the trendy wrinkled look. His Western s.h.i.+rt was open to the belt buckle, displaying a profusion of curly brown hair. He did not live at the Marina Village, but was at the party as the guest of a girl whose name had slipped his mind. Kathy or Linda or something like that. She was intent on following his intricate steps, but Peter was busy watching Joana Raitt. There is cla.s.s, he thought. Cla.s.s, and a nice firm body.

He managed to boogie over close and pointed a finger at Joana with his thumb raised like a c.o.c.ked pistol. "Hey, there, foxy lady,"

Joana gave him a quick, cool smile and returned her attention to Glen Early. For Peter it was as good as an invitation. He was pleased to see that the square-looking dude she was with could barely keep from falling over his own feet. He made up his mind that one way or another he would get that little brunette out and show her a few moves even John Travolta didn't have.

"Friend of yours?" Glen Early asked, grinning down at Joana.

"Never saw him before. Who is he, anyway?"

"He's with one of the girls who lives here. Claims to be a psychic or something. Whatever he is, the guy can sure dance."

Joana glanced over at the transported Peter Landau. "He obviously thinks so."

Glen frowned as he lost the beat for a moment, then grinned apologetically at Joana. "Some people got rhythm and some ain't."

"Want to take a break?" she said.

"Am I wearing you down?"

"It's hot work."

"I could use a beer," said Glen. "How about you?"

"Sounds good."

Keeping time more or less to the beat, they made their way through the gyrating bodies to the edge of the tile deck.

"I think I'll go for a dip to cool off while you get the beers," Joana said.

"Has it been long enough since you ate?"

Dear Glen, she thought, my protector. She said, "I don't know. How long are you supposed to wait, anyway?"

"I can never remember for sure," Glen said. "Thirty minutes, an hour, something like that."

"I think it's just a superst.i.tion," she said. "Folk medicine. Anyway, I didn't eat all that much."

"You went back for seconds on the potato salad."

"You noticed, you rat."

He patted her lean flank. "That's all right, you could use a little more padding."

"Like h.e.l.l. Go on and get the beers."

Glen circled the dancers, heading for the ice-filled tubs. Joana looked after him fondly for a moment, then crossed the strip of gra.s.s between the tile deck and the swimming pool. The water looked supremely inviting, all cool and clean and blue under the stars of June.

She pulled off her shoes and saw the young man she privately thought of as the Disco King detach himself from the blonde girl he was dancing with and come toward her.

"Hi," he said, "I'm Peter Landau. How you doing?"

"Fine. I'm Joana."

"I know. Joana Raitt." Peter inclined his head back toward the beer tubs. "You're here with the engineer, right?"

"Glen Early. Right."

"You've got good moves. You ought to try dancing with a little faster company."

"Meaning, you?"

"Meaning me."

"No, thanks. Excuse me now, I'm going for a swim."

"Maybe later we could get together?"

"I'm old-fas.h.i.+oned, I dance with the guy that brung me."

"I get it, he's the jealous type. How about if I call you some time?"

"I don't think so."

"Liberated, eh? Good, I like that." He took a card from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. "You call me, then."

"Don't hold your breath."

Peter smiled, displaying beautifully even white teeth. "If you don't get me, leave a message with my service and I'll get back to you. Ciao."

Joana shook her head as she watched him boogie on back to the blonde, who was growing noticeably impatient. Did anybody really say ciao anymore? In spite of his overdone come-on, she found it hard to dislike Peter Landau. He had an aura of hip innocence about him, if that was possible. She read his card.

Peter Landau Psychic Counseling There was an address in Laurel Canyon and a telephone number. Joana smiled and tucked the card into her jeans. Psychic Counseling. Wow.

She peeled off the T-s.h.i.+rt with the Los Angeles Dodgers logo printed across the front. Underneath she wore a new blue maillot with cutouts on the sides. Maybe n.o.body else felt like swimming tonight, but Joana had no intention of leaving the party without showing off the new suit.

She skinned down the tight French jeans and looked over to see Peter Landau and a number of other young men watching her with frank admiration. She smiled and waved to them and dived into the water.

Joana glided along beneath the surface, her arms stretched out in front of her, her legs straight out behind, toes pointed. The water was like a caress, just enough cooler than the warm night air to be refres.h.i.+ng. As the momentum of her dive faded she kicked her feet rhythmically. She watched the tiled bottom of the pool drop away as the water deepened. The beat of the recorded music was still audible under the water, but it was m.u.f.fled and distant, as though filtering through many layers of heavy cotton.

Joana planed her hands upward and kicked to the surface. She hung there for a moment treading water, breathing in the night air sweet with bougainvilleas. Over the rim of the pool she could see the bobbing heads and shoulders of the dancers. Somewhere a latecomer called a greeting to friends. A girl laughed. A bell buoy clanked out in the channel. It was a good party. Joana was glad she had come. The warm air, the cool water, the music, the other young people enjoying themselves, all made her feel good about her life. She rolled over into a crawl and started for the deepest part of the pool.

Something grabbed her by the leg.

The sudden pain was so intense Joana thought she was going to faint. She reached down for the back of her knee and felt the gracilis muscle bunched like a fist under the skin. Only when she opened her mouth to cry out did she realize she had sunk under the water.

Flailing with her arms, Joana clawed her way back to the surface. The cramp in her leg hurt her terribly, forcing the lower part of her leg to jacknife up against the back of her thigh. She coughed, and slipped beneath the surface again. Chlorine-tasting water filled her mouth and her throat. She tried to shout and a big bubble of air wobbled from her mouth.

I've got to get out of here!

She reached toward the surface and tried to kick her legs. It brought a spasm of agony to the cramped muscle, and Joana found herself somersaulting deeper.

She lost all sense of direction, but somehow broke through again to the air. She tried desperately to fill her lungs, but water and phlegm blocked the pa.s.sages. Only a few yards away the people danced on. Joana tried to call to them, but only a tiny sound came out. Several people looked over at her, smiled, waved, and kept on dancing.

Then she was under again. A great roaring filled her ears. Splotches of light danced before her eyes as the world began to grow dim.

This can't be happening!

Her brain sent messages that her muscles never received.

This is ridiculous. You don't drown in an apartment swimming pool with fifty people right over there and your boyfriend coming in a minute with two cans of beer.

Her arms and legs felt weighted with pounds of lead. She could no longer feel the pain from the cramped muscle, but it didn't matter since she couldn't move anything anyway. She saw mostly blackness now, with flashes of bright turquoise water.

G.o.d, I don't want to die! I'm only twenty-five years old and I haven't really done anything.

There was a ringing inside her head, hollow and echoing. All around her was dark. Her head ached fiercely. She had to breathe. She opened her mouth and pulled in water. Something inside her chest lurched, and there was no more pain.

Glen Early had watched Joana dive cleanly into the pool and glide across just below the surface of the water, graceful as a dolphin. She really looked great. Better still, she was bright and she was fun to be with. She broke the surface and laughed out of the sheer joy of being alive.

He dug two icy cans of Michelob out of one of the tubs and pulled a couple of big styrofoam cups from a stack on the table. Joana even enjoyed drinking beer, for G.o.d's sake, and liked baseball. Glen felt like a very lucky young man.

He looked over toward the crush of people disco-dancing on the deck. Most of them lived here in the Marina Village complex, others he hadn't seen before. Some, like Peter Landau, were recurring guests.

Peter was putting on a show. Glen had to admire the grace and confidence he put into the dance steps. Quite a few of the girls were watching him rather than their own partners. The guy had something, all right. But he didn't have Joana.

Why, Glen wondered, did all these people look so much alike to him tonight? Young, untroubled, their faces unetched by any sign of character. Living here, Glen should have been one of them, yet he never quite felt as though he fitted in. He liked a party and a good time well enough, but he had a strong sense of responsibility. He thought a lot about the future, and about the world outside the Marina, two subjects which seldom concerned his neighbors. Joana, he felt, was different too. She could be as joyful and full of h.e.l.l as any of them, but when he wanted to talk seriously, she would listen. Really listen. And she had ideas too. Yes, she was unquestionably something special.

Glen caught sight of her for a moment, splas.h.i.+ng in the deep part of the pool, waving at some of the dancers. He grabbed a tortilla chip, scooped up a last bit of clam dip, and made his way around the deck toward the pool to join her.

When he reached the edge of the pool he did not see Joana at first. Then he spotted her out near the center, swimming under water.

No, not swimming, hanging there suspended between the surface and the bottom. Her body rocked gently, weightless in the water.

It made him uneasy. "Come on, quit fooling around. The beer is here."

Joana did not respond.

Of course not, he told himself, she can't hear when she's underwater.

He set the cans of beer and the cups down on one of the metal tables at poolside. He popped open the first can and poured. Joana still hung there under the surface. Glen put the beer down and looked more closely. Joana rolled over lazily, her limbs waving in the water like tentacles. Her eyes were wide open. Her mouth.

"Oh, Jesus!" Glen took one long stride to the edge of the pool and plunged in. The weight of his clothes-chambray s.h.i.+rt, denim vest, jeans-dragged him under. He kicked frantically out of his suede boots and thrashed across the water to the spot where he could see Joana floating below. He dived and reached for her. The flesh of her arm was firm and cold, like an eel. He got one arm curled around her upper body, mas.h.i.+ng her b.r.e.a.s.t.s fiat, and fought his way up to the surface.

"Help! G.o.d, somebody help me!"

The people nearest the pool looked over and reacted at once to the look of panic on Glen's face and the lifeless form he was struggling with. Two of the young men ran to the pool. They jumped in and helped Glen pull Joana to the side and lift her up onto the strip of gra.s.s.

The dancing broke off in confusion and the rest of the people came running toward them. Glen knelt over Joana and stared into the white face and empty eyes. One of the girls turned away and vomited.

"Is she dead?" somebody asked.

"s.h.i.+t, look at her, man. She's dead."

Glen took her head between his hands. It seemed so small. Water ran from her mouth, her nose.

"Joana!" he cried. "Joana! Joana! Come back!"

Chapter 2.

After the last great spasm inside her chest, Joana gave up the fight. She knew it was useless to struggle any more. The moment she relaxed, the pain in her head, her lungs, and her cramped-up leg went away. She felt just fine. All warm and comfortable and absolutely at peace.

The ringing, roaring sound was gone from her ears. There was only a nice, easy silence. And there was darkness, but it was snug and cozy, like a blanket wrapped all around her.

Gradually it began to grow lighter. Dimly at first, then with sudden clarity, Joana could see again. Pictures racing by faster than she could think. Pictures inside her mind.

She saw the happy little girl being lifted high to the ceiling by the smiling giant who was her father. And again, playing with Jordy, the gentle golden retriever, in her parents' big backyard. The tears of the day Jordy went down under the wheels of a truck.

Joana saw again the terrifying separation from her mother on the first day of kindergarten. And there were faces of other children she had long since forgotten, but which were as fresh now as though she had seen them yesterday. The images flashed by at an impossible rate, yet each one registered a clear, sharp image on Joana's mind.

She watched as the little girl's body began to change in the fifth grade, and new, confusing emotions filled her days.

Then she was in junior high school-dancing, boys, the beach. Trying out for cheerleader in high school, making it, and thinking no triumph would ever be as sweet. Falling in love at seventeen with Bobby Mills, trying s.e.x and not liking it at all, then trying it again and deciding it wasn't so bad.

The sunny day she entered UCLA and stood in the long lines to register for cla.s.ses. Pledging Kappa Kappa Gamma and sitting together in a group at the basketball games in Pauley Pavilion where the Bruins always won.