into Dachau and Auschwitz. Only one had come out, but that one had achieved such success as was almost never heard of, and had arisen to the most exclusive of country places. It could be said of Forszak that his latest “country place” was to be so exclusive and remote that it didn’t even have any oxygen.
Already, the newspapers had made much of his ambition. But Forszak’s real concern was not his reputation; it was to say his prayers for the dead while gazing upon the planet that had been the scene of the crime, hoping perhaps that their scope would be greater from that perspective, and that they would get that much more quickly to God’s ear, not having the interference of the at mosphere to contend with.
Colt and Francie had been to Forszak’s Central Park place once and his Adirondack place twice, with a standing invite to come again any time they wanted. The Adirondack place was like a mansion, Colt had marveled afterward, but one made entirely of massive logs. Endangered logs, Forszak told him slyly, though he was probably joking. That was what you got when you were rou tinely one of the top five performers in a capital investment firm of over two hundred people. Even your boss tried to impress you a little.
Of course, it wasn’t the kind of invitation you took advantage
28 W ILLIAM K OWALSKI
of. One didn’t want to wear out one’s welcome with Forszak. It was enough just to have been invited to the Log Palace once. It was like a badge one could wear around the office. Out at Forszak’s last weekend. Great time. Great fishing. Great guy. These words, dropped casually into water-cooler conversation, had the effect of putting on stilts; Colt was suddenly elevated ten feet above every one else, breathing the same heady ether that inflated the lungs of all the great men of finance. The rank stench of the Cuban cigars that Forszak loved and handed out freely to his darlings was also the taste of wealth, all the more titillating because they were just the teensiest bit illegal. Don’t think of it as helping Castro’s economy , Forszak told him. Think of it as burning his fields . Colt laughed duly and lit up; the smoke deadened his tongue and lingered in his mouth, and he thought of it as a harsh but necessary poison that killed off any cells of mediocrity that might still be polluting his genetic structure.
❚ ❚ ❚
Kicking through a pile of leaves now, Colt stumbled over a metal FOR SALE sign. He pulled it up disdainfully, soiling his hands on the moist organic detritus underneath. A small community of potato bugs and centipedes briefly considered their options, then pan icked and fled from the gilded sunlight. Like some kind of me dieval disease, a pox of rust had spread across the face of the sign, rendering it O ALE .
“Would you look at this?” Colt remarked to Francie, who was sitting half in and half out of the car, trying without much luck to raise various preset stations on the radio. One slender leg extended from the car, the other resting inside. Her reddish blond hair was pulled into a ponytail, revealing the freckles that were scattered like snow across her usually concealed forehead, and the back of her neck. She noted with delight that they were out of the city’s broadcasting range.
The Good Neighbor 29
“Someone didn’t want to sell this place,” Colt said.
“What makes you say that?” Francie asked, without much in terest. She usually only half heard things Colt said until he had re peated them two or three times; it was a reflex she’d developed some years ago, after noticing that he rarely remembered what she said to him, or, for that matter, what he himself said to any one.
Colt cocked a hip impatiently. “Well, look,” he said. “They hid this sign under the leaves.”
Francie looked, paying attention now. “If someone really wanted to hide it they would have thrown it away,” she said. “Probably it just fell over and got covered up.”
This being the