He made a few cutting remarks, threw in one jab about her father, and guided her toward an early hang-up like a dog herding cattle toward an open gate. When she invited him to give her a call in a few days, he said not to count on it.
“I’m headed out of town for a while,” he said. “Few weeks, maybe a month.”
“Spontaneous vacation?” she said after a beat of silence.
“Work.”
“And where are you going?”
“Indiana,” he said, biting off the word with pain.
“How exotic.”
“It’s a hell of a story. Believe it or not, those don’t always come from Maui or Manhattan.”
“I’m just kidding. Tell me about the story.”
“Maybe later. I’ve got a lot to do, Claire.”
“Okay.” Her voice had some sorrow in it, and that pleased him. “Well, I hope it goes great for you, whatever it is.”
He swung a closed fist toward the wall, pulled the punch at the last minute, and landed it with a soft thump, no real pain. Damn her hopes for him, her well wishes, and her blessings.
“I’m sure that it will,” he said. “I’ve got a good feeling about it. Things just seem to be looking up for me lately.”
That was a cruel parting line, and he knew from her frigid Good-bye, Eric, and the click of the breaking connection that it had scored a direct hit. He turned off his phone and went to the kitchen and poured himself two fingers of Scotch. No, hell with it, pour four. He dropped an ice cube into that—Water the drink down a touch, and the quantity becomes no problem at all, right?—and then went into the living room and began scanning through the DVD collection, looking for something to take his thoughts away. Something by one of his old favorites, Huston or Peckinpah, maybe. Yes, Peckinpah. Make it bloody and loud. That seemed right tonight.
He’d watched Straw Dogs and had another Scotch and tried without success to sleep before he found himself back at the computer, researching again. He’d found there were matches for the correct Campbell Bradford—though it appeared in most formal circumstances he referred to himself as C. L. Bradford—but all of them had to do with his philanthropy. For a man of such great wealth, he’d lived a remarkably quiet existence. Eric couldn’t find so much as a short bio paragraph on the Web, just the name on list after list of contributors for various causes. His donations spanned a wide spectrum, too wide to tell Eric much about the man, but it was obvious he was partial to liberal politics and a supporter of the arts, particularly music. He’d made sizable donations to various community orchestras, but Eric noted that they seemed to be small or rural groups, with names like Hendricks County Philharmonic, rather than the prestigious symphonies. Perhaps he assumed—correctly, no doubt—that the large ones were better funded.
After cycling through pages of results without finding anything of interest, Eric went back and ran a search for Campbell along with the words “West Baden” and got nothing. He tried again with “French Lick” and was surprised to find three results. A closer look revealed all three were basically the same thing—a request for information on Campbell and a handful of others posted by an Indiana University graduate student named Kellen Cage. The student explained that he was researching the area’s history for a thesis and was hoping for any information about a handful of people—particularly, he’d written, Campbell Bradford and Shadrach Hunter. The latter name meant nothing to Eric. There was an e-mail address listed, though, so Eric went ahead and dropped him a note. If the kid was intrigued by Campbell, that meant he’d heard some stories already, which put him well ahead of Eric. And, for that matter, Campbell’s family.
After exhausting the minimal possibilities for Campbell, he turned to searching for Pluto Water and soon found some old ads that he’d have to include in the film. They were priceless. Pluto Water cured damn near everything, it seemed. Alcoholism, asthma, obesity, paralysis, pimples, hives, influenza, insomnia, malaria, and venereal disease all made the list. It turned out the product was nothing more than a laxative, but even after that was known, the company still made millions bottling and selling it with the charming slogan When nature won’t, Pluto will.
The ads themselves were amazing things, too, perfect images of a time and place and people. Women in flowing gowns, men in suits, and that silly smiling devil always present. Eric was particularly taken with one of a man standing in front of a basin sink and mirror. In the illustration he looked back at himself in what appeared to be true and total horror, and the text beside his head read, What’s wrong with me?