The statue on the village green was of a guy called Caspar Teale who’d done something or other about a hundred years ago. More or less opposite Beckman Drive on the other side of the green was another residential street, running east, with a convenience store standing alone on the corner. And that was it. Not much of a town. Not much going on. Took me less than thirty
minutes to look over everything the place had to offer.
But it was the most immaculate town I had ever seen. It was amazing. Every single building was either brand-new or recently refurbished. The roads were smooth as glass, and the sidewalks were flat and clean. No potholes, no cracks, no heave. The little offices and stores looked like they got repainted every week. The lawns and the plantings and the trees were clipped to perfection. The bronze statue of old Caspar Teale looked like somebody licked it clean every morning. The paint on the church was so bright it hurt my eyes. Flags flew everywhere, sparkling white and glowing red and blue in the sun. The whole place was so tidy it could make you nervous to walk around in case you left a dirty footprint somewhere.
The convenience store on the southeastern corner was selling the sort of stuff which gave it a good enough excuse to be open on a Sunday morning. Open, but not busy. There was nobody in there except the guy behind the register. But he had coffee. I sat up at the little counter and ordered a big mug and bought a Sunday newspaper.
The President was still on the front page. Now he was in California. He was explaining to defence contractors why their gravy train was grinding to a halt after fifty glorious years. The aftershock from his Pensacola announcement about the Coast Guard was still rumbling on. Their boats were returning to their harbours on Saturday night. They wouldn’t go out again without new funding. The paper’s editorial guys were all stirred up about it.
I stopped reading and glanced up when I heard the door open. A woman came in. She took a stool
at the opposite end of the counter. She was older than me, maybe forty. Dark hair, very slender, expensively dressed in black. She had very pale skin. So pale, it was almost luminous. She moved with a kind of nervous tension. I could see tendons like slim ropes in her wrists. I could see some kind of an appalling strain in her face. The counter guy slid over to her and she ordered coffee in a voice so quiet I could barely hear it, even though she was pretty close by and it was a silent room.
She didn’t stay long. She got through half her coffee, watching the window all the time. Then a big black pickup truck pulled up outside and she shivered. It was a brand-new truck and obviously it had never hauled anything worth hauling. I caught a glimpse of the driver as he leaned over inside to spring the door. He was a tough-looking guy. Pretty tall. Broad shoulders and a thick neck. Black hair. Black hair all over long knotted arms. Maybe thirty years old. The pale woman slid off her stool like a ghost and stood up. Swallowed once. As she opened the shop door I heard the burble of a big motor idling. The woman got into the truck, but it didn’t move away. Just sat there at the kerb. I swivelled on my stool to face the counter guy.
`Who is that?’ I asked him.
The guy looked at me like I was from another planet.
`That’s Mrs Kliner,’ he said. `You don’t know the Kliners?’
`I heard about them,’ I said. `I’m a stranger in town. Kliner owns the warehouses up near the highway, right?’
`Right,’ he said. `And a whole lot more besides. Big deal round here, Mr Kliner.’
`He is?’ I said.
`Sure,’ the guy said. `You heard about the Foundation?’
I shook my head. Finished my coffee and pushed the mug over for a refill.
`Kliner set up the Kliner Foundation,’ the guy said. `Benefits the town in a lot of ways. Came here five years ago, been like Christmas ever since.’