"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.
"Owen?"
The boy's hair was spread on the pillow as though he were floating.
"Good morning," Owen had replied.
"Are you going to come back to bed?"
"What time is it?"
"Just before seven," Seth had said. "We don't have to et up yet." He stretched, sliding down the bed as he did so.
Owen looked at the spiral of hair beneath the boy's arms and wondered at the workings of desire. "I have to go exploring today," he'd replied.
"Do you want to come with me?"
"It depends what you're going to explore," Seth said, shamelessly fingering himself beneath the sheet.
Owen smiled, and crossed to the bottom of the bed. The youth had turned from waif to coquette in the space of one night. He was Lifting the sheet up between his knees now, just high enough to give Owen a glimpse of his butthole.
"I suppose we could stay here an hour or so," Owen conceded, slipping the belt of his robe so that the boy could see what trouble he was inviting. Seth had flushed-his face, neck, and chest reddening in two heartbeats.
"I had a dream about that," he said.
"Liar."
"I did," Seth protested.
The sheet was still tented over his raised knees. Owen made no attempt to pull it off, but simply knelt between Seth's feet, and stared down at him, his prick peeping out from his robe.
"Tell me-" he said.
"Tell you what?"
"What you dreamed." Seth looked a little uncomfortable now. "Go on," Owen said, "or I'm going to cover it up again."
"Well," said Seth, "I dreamed@h Jeez, this sounds so dumb-"