Everville (20 page)

Joe went down on his haunches beside Noah. "Not that weak," he said, wrenching his trouser leg from Noah's fist.

"I've tried three times," Noah replied, "but there's too much power at the threshold. It blinds me. It cracks my bones."

"And it won't crack mine?"

"Maybe it will. Maybe it will. But listen to me when I tell you I am a great man on the other side. Whatever you lack here I will provide there-"

"Whatever I lack, eh?" Joe mused, half to himself. The list was long.

"So if I carry you over this threshold... " he went on, wondering as he spoke if perhaps he hadn't slipped from the promontory and was lying somewhere conjuring this as he bled to death, "what happens?"

"If you carry me over, you can put every fear you harbor in this world aside, for power awaits you there, that I promise you. Power that would seem to you unlimited, for your skull does not contain ambition enough to exhaust it."

The syntax was fancier than Joe was used to, and thatalong with the distractions of tears and throbs-prevented him from entirely grasping what he was being told. But the broad strokes were plain enough. All he had to do was carry this creature ten, eleven, maybe twelve strides over the threshold and he'd be rewarded for the service.

He looked back at the light, trying to distinguish some detail in its midst, and as he did so, his opiated thoughts began to make sense of this mystery.

"That's your ship, isn't it?" he murmured. "It's a fuckin UFO." g "My ship?"

"My God... " He looked down at the creature with awe on his face, "Are there more of you?"

"Of course."

"How many?"

"I don't know. I haven't been home in more than a century."

"Well who's in the ship-"

"Why do you keep talking about a ship?"

"That!" Joe said, pointing towards the light. "What did you call it? Quiddity?" "Quiddity's not a ship. It's a sea." "But you came here in it?" "I sailed on it, yes, to reach this place. And I wish I'd not."

"Why?"

"Because I found only soffow here, and loneliness. I was in my prime when I first set foot here. Now look at me. Please, in the name of compassion, carry me over the threshold...." Noah's face began to sweat beads of dark fluid as he spoke, which gathered at the bridge of his nose and in the corners of his mouth. "Forgive my emotion," he said, "I have not dared hope until now......

The sentiment found an echo in Joe; one he could not be deaf to. "I'll do what I can," he said to Noah.

"You're a good man." Joe put his hands under Noah's body. "Just so you know," he said, "I'm not in such great shape myself. I'll do my best, but I'm not guaranteeing anything. Put your arm around my shoulder. Yeah, that's it. Here we go." He started to stand. "You're heavier than you look," he said, and teetered for a moment before he got his balance. Then he straightened up.

"I want to know what planet you come from," he said as he proceeded towards the threshold.

"What planet?"

"Yeah. And what galaxy it's in. All that shit. 'Cause you're gone, the only way I'm going to have a hope of vincing people of this is if I've got details."

"I don't believe I understand you."

"I want to know... " Joe began, but the question went unfinished, as he stepped clear of the cleft between the rocks, and finally grasped something of what lay ahead. There was no starship here; at least none that was visible. There was only the sky, and a crack in that sky, and a light through the crack in that sky that touched him like a loving gaze. Feeling it upon him he wanted nothing more than to step beneath whatever sun shed this light, and meet it eye to eye.

Noah was trembling in his arms. His brittle fingers dug deep into Joe's shoulder.

"Do you see?" he murmured now. "Do you see?"

Joe saw. Another heaven; and under it a shore. And beyond the shore a sea, the boom of whose waves had become as familiar as his heartbeat, the spice of whose air had made him shed waters of his own, as if in tribute.

"Quiddity... " Noah breathed.

Oh Lord, Joe thought, wouldn't it be fine to have Phoebe beside me right now, to share this wonder? Awed by the sight, Joe was scarcely aware that the ground underfoot was in flux until he was ankle-deep in liquid dirt; dirt that was flowing back and forth over the threshold. There was strength in it, and in order not to be thrown off his feet he had to halt a moment and better distribute the weight of his burden. He was no more than two strides from the crack itself, and the energies loose here were considerable. He felt his joints creaking, his guts churning, his blood thumping in his head as if it would burst out and flow into Quiddity of its own accord if he didn't pick up speed.

He took the hint, clasped Noah close to him and ducked down, like a man walking into a high wind. Then he strode forward again, the first stride hard, the second harder still, the third less a stride than a lunge. His eyes were closed tight against the onslaught of energies, but it wasn't black behind his lids. It was blue, a velvet blue, and through the roar of his ambitious blood he heard birds, their voices like streaks of scarlet in the blue, somewhere overhead.

"I don't know your name," somebody whispered to him, "but I hope you ear me.'

"Yes... " he imagined he said, "I hear you."

"Then open your eyes," the voice went on. It was Noah, he realized.

"And let's be on our way."

"Where are we going?" Joe asked. Thong instructed his eyes to open, the blue behind his lids was so serene he wasn't all that eager to desert it.

"We're going to Liverpool," Noah said.

"Liverpool?" said Joe. The few images he had of that city were gray and prosaic. "We've come all this way to visit Liverpool?"

"It's the ships we want. I can see them from here."

"What kind of ships?" Joe wanted to know. His lids still refused to open.

"See for yourself"

Why not? Joe thought. The blue will always be there, the moment I close my eyes. And so thinking, he opened them.

Friday morning, and it was too late for excuses. If the shelves weren't stocked, if the windows weren't polished, if the door wasn't painted, if the street wasn't swept, if the dog wasn't clipped, if the swing wasn't fixed, if the linen wasn't pressed, if the pies weren't ordered, well, it was too damn late. Folks were here, ready to spend some money and have some fun, so whatever had been left unfinished would have to stay that way.

"No doubt about it," Dorothy Bullard had announced to her husband as she rose to see the sun at the windowsill, "this is going to be the best year yet." She didn't need to look far for confirmation. When she drove down Main Street a little shy of eight, it was already busier than an ordinary Saturday noon, and among the faces on the sidewalk there were gratifyingly few she knew. These were visitors; folks who'd checked into their motels and boarding houses the night before, and had driven or walked into town to begin their weekend with ham, eggs, and a slice of Evervillian hospitality.

As soon as she got to the Chamber of Commerce she checked in with Gilholly, whose offices were just across the hall, to see if there was any news on the Phoebe Cobb business. Gilholly wasn't in yet, but Dorothy's favorite among the officers, Ned Bantam, was sitting behind his desk with a copy of the Festival Weekend edition of the Tribune and a carton of milk.

"Looks like it's going to be a fine weekend, Dottie baby," he grinned. This nickname was one she'd several times forbidden him to use, but he defied her with such charm she'd given up trying to enforce the ban.

"Did you arrest Joe Flicker?"

"Gotta find him first."

"You didn't find him?"

"If we'd found him we'd have arrested him, Dottie," Ned replied. "Don't look so grim. We'll get him."

"You think he's dangerous?"

"Ask Morton Cobb," Ned said. "I guess it's a bit late for that."

"What?"

"You didn't know?" Ned said. "Poor bastard died last night."

"Oh my Lord." Dorothy felt sick. "So we've got a murderhunt going on in the middle of Festival Weekend?"

"It should spice things up a bit, huh?" "That's not funny," Dorothy said. "We work all year@' "Don't worry," Ned said. "Flicker's probably in Idaho by now."

"And what about her?" Dorothy said. She knew Phoebe by sight only; the woman had airs and graces, was her impression.

"What about her?"

"Is she going to be arrested or what?"

"Jed had Barney watching her house all night, in case Flicker came back, but he's not going to do that. I mean, why'd he do that?"

Dorothy didn't reply, though there was an answer on the tip of her tongue. Love, of course. He'd come back for love.

"So there was no sign of him?"

Ned shook his head. Dorothy couldn't help but feel a little spurt of satisfaction that the Cobb woman's lover had not returned to find her. She'd had all the secret trysts she was going to get. Now she'd have to pay the price. Her anxieties salved somewhat, she asked Ned if he'd keep her up to date on the manhunt, and then went to work, content that even if the felon wasn't in Idaho, he was too far away to spoil the next seventy-two hours.

He hadn't come for her. That was the thought Phoebe had woken with. She'd waited and waited at the back door, until the day had driven every star from sight, and he hadn't come for her.

She sat at the kitchen table now, with the remains of a plateful of pancakes between her elbows, trying to work out what she should do next. Part of her said just go; go now, while you can. If you stay you'll be stuck playing the grieving widow for every damn person you meet. And then there'll be all the funeral arrangements to make, and the insurance policies to dig through. And don't forget Gilholly. He'll be back with more questions.

But then there was another voice, with conflicting advice. Leave town now and he'll never find you, the voice said. Maybe he got lost in the dark, maybe Morton did him more harm than she'd thought, maybe he was lying bleeding somewhere.

What it comes down to is this, the voice said: Do you trust him enough to believe he'll come for you? If you don't, go now. If you do, then put a brave face on things, and stay.

When it was made simple like that, she knew there was no question. Of course she trusted him. Of course, of course.

She brewed herself a pot of very strong coffee to help her get over her fatigue, then took a brisk shower, fixed her hair, and dressed. At eight forty-five, just as she was about to get out for the doctor's office, the telephone rang. She raced to it and snatched up the receiver, her heart crazed, only to be greeted by Gilholly's drear tones.

"Just checking on your whereabouts," he said.

"I'm just going to work," Phoebe said. "If that's all right with you, that is."

"I guess I'll know where to find you."

"I guess you will."

"Your boyfriend didn't come home last night."

She was about to say no, when she realized that he wasn't asking her a question, he was telling her. He already knew that Joe hadn't come back to the house. Which meant that he'd had one of his men patroling around all night; which in turn meant that there was every chance Joe had seen the man, and had kept his distance for fear of being caught. All this flashed through her mind in a matter of moments, but not so quickly that her stunned silence wasn't noted.

"Are you still there?" Gilholly said.

She was glad this was a telephone conversation, so that she didn't have to hide the smile that was spreading across her face.

"Yes," she said, doing her best to keep the relief from her voice. "Yes, I'm still here."

"If he makes any attempt to contact you@'

"I know, I know. I'll call you, Jed. I promise."

"Don't call me Jed, Mrs. Cobb," he replied sniffily. "We've got a professional relationship here. Let's keep it that way."

With that he was gone. She put the phone down, and sat on the stairs for a moment, trembling. Then, without warning tears of relief and happiness came, and it was fully ten minutes before she could get them sufficiently under control to go up and wash her face....

Despite the exertions of the night before, Buddenbaum had woken, as always, a few minutes before dawn, stiffed by a body-clock so perfectly calibrated he'd not missed a sunrise in the better part of eighty years. His business was the epic, after all, and he knew of no drama as primal as that which was played out every dawn and dusk. The victory of light over darkness, however, had carried a particular poignancy this morning, illuminating as it did the arena for a narrative that would, he hoped, be deemed as memorable as any in the human canon.

It was a century and a half since he'd sown the seed that had become Everville; a century and a half in which he had sown many such seeds in hope of apotheosis. Lonely and frustrating years, most of them, wandering from state to state, always a visitor, always an outsider. Of course there were advantages to his condition: not least a useful detachment from the crimes and torments and tragedies that had so quickly soured the pioneers' dream of Eden. There was little left, even in a town like Everville, of the fierce, pure vision of those souls with whom he'd mingled in Independence, Missouri. It had been a vision fueled by desperation, and nourished by ignorance, but whatever its frailties and its absurdities, it had moved him, after its fashion. It moved him still, in memory.

There had been something to die for in those hard hearts, and that was a greater gift than those blessed with it knew; a gift not granted those who'd come after. they were a prosaic lot, in Owen's estimations, the builders of suburbs and the founders of committees: men and women who had lost all sense of the tender, terrible holiness of things.

There were always exceptions, of course, like the kid lying asleep in the bed behind him. He and little Maeve O'Connell would have understood each other very well, Owen suspected. And after years of honing his instincts he was usually able to find one such as Seth within a few hours of coming to a new town. Every community had one or two youths who saw visions or heard hammerings or spoke in tongues. Regrettably, many of them had taken refuge in addiction, he found, particularly in the larger cities. He discovered them on seedy street corners dealing drugs with one eye on Heaven, and gently escorted them away to a room like this (how many like this had he been in? tens of thousands) where they would trade visions for sodomy, back and forth.