The Dark Half

   'I imagine so,' Rawlie said . . . and then winked. It was a very subtle wink, a bare flutter of one puffed and wrinkled old eyelid . . . but it was very definitely there. Had he thought he had fooled Rawlie? Pigs might fly.

  Suddenly a new thought occurred to Thad. 'Rawlie, do you still teach that Folk Myth seminar?'

  'Every fall,' Rawlie agreed. 'Don't you read your own department's catalogue, Thaddeus? Dowsing, witches, holistic remedies, Hex Signs of the Rich and Famous. It's as popular now as ever. Why do you ask?'

   There was an all—purpose answer to that question, Thad had discovered; one of the best things about being a writer was that you always had an answer to Why do you ask? 'Well, I have a story idea,' he said. 'It's still in the exploration stage, but it's got possibilities, I think.'

  What did you want to know?'

  'Do sparrows have any significance in American superstition or folk myth that you know of?'

  Rawlie's furrowing brow began to resemble the topography of some alien planet which was clearly inimical to human life. He gnawed on the stem of his pipe. 'Nothing occurs right off the top of my head, Thaddeus, although . . . I wonder if that's really why you're interested.'

  Pigs might fly, Thad thought again. 'Well . . . maybe not, Rawlie. Maybe not. Maybe I just said that because my interest is nothing I could explain in a hurry.' His eyes flicked briefly to his watchdogs, then returned to Rawlie's face. 'I'm a bit pressed for time right now.

   Rawlie's lips quivered in the faintest ghost of a smile. 'I understand, I think. Sparrows . . . such common birds. Too common to have any deep superstitious connotations, I'd think. Yet . . . now that I think about it . . . there is something. Except I associate it with whippoorwills. Let me check. Will you be here awhile?'

'Not more than half an hour, I'm afraid.'

   'Well, I might find something right away in Barringer's book. Folklore of America. It's really not much more than a cookbook of superstitions, but it comes in handy. And I could always call you.'

'Yes. You could always do that.'

    'Lovely party you and Liz threw for Tom Carroll,' Rawlie said. 'Of course, you and Liz always throw the best parties. Your wife is much too charming to be a wife, Thaddeus. She should be your mistress.'

Thanks. I guess,'

    'Gonzo Tom,' Rawlie continued fondly. 'It's hard to believe Gonzo Tom Carroll has sailed into the Gray Havens of retirement. I've been listening to him cut those trumpet-blast farts of his in the next office for better than twenty years. I suppose the next fellow will be quieter. Or at least more discreet.'

  Thad laughed.

  'Wilhelmina also enjoyed herself,' Rawlie said. His eyelids drooped roguishly. He knew perfectly well how Thad and Liz felt about Billie.

    'That's fine,' Thad said. He found Billie Burks and the concept of enjoyment mutually exclusive . . . but since she and Rawlie had formed part of a badly needed alibi, he supposed he should be glad she had come. 'And if anything occurs to you about that other thing . . . '

  'Sparrows and their place in the Invisible World. Yes indeed.' Rawlie nodded to the two policemen behind Thad. 'Good afternoon, gentlemen.' He skirted them and continued on down to his office with a little more purpose. Not much, but a little.

  Thad looked after him, bemused.

  'What was that?' Garrison-or-Harrirnan asked.

  'DeLesseps,' Thad murmured. 'Chief grammarian and amateur folklorist.'

'Looks like the kind of guy who might need a map to find his way home,' the other cop said.

    Thad moved to the door of his office and unlocked it. 'He's more alert than he looks,' he said, and opened the door.

  He wasn't aware that Garrison-or-Harriman was beside him, one hand inside his specially tailored Tall Fella sport-coat, until he had flicked on the overhead lights. Thad felt a moment of belated fear, but the office was empty, of course — empty and so neat, after the soft and steady fallout of an entire year's clutter, that it looked dead.

   For no reason that he could place, he felt a sudden and nearly sickening wave of homesickness and emptiness and loss — a mix of feelings like a deep, unexpected grief. It was like the dream. It was as if he had come here to say goodbye.

  Stop being so goddam foolish, he told himself, and another part of his mind replied quietly: Over the deadline, Thad. You're over the deadline, and I think you might have made a very bad mistake in not at least trying to do what the man wants you to do. Short-term relief is better than no relief at all.

  'If you want coffee, you can get a cup in the common room,' he said. 'The pot will be full, if I know Rawlie.'

  'Where's that?' Garrison-or-Harriman's partner asked.

   'Other side of the hall, two doors up,' Thad said, unlocking the files. He turned and gave them a grin that felt crooked on his face. 'I think you'll hear me if I scream.'

'Just make sure you do yell, if something happens,' Garrison-or-Harriman said.

'I will.'

    'I could send Manchester here for the coffee,' Garrison-or-Harriman said, 'but I get the feeling that you're asking for a little privacy.'

  'Well, yeah. Now that you mention it.'

  'That's fine, Mr Beaumont,' he said. He looked at Thad seriously, and Thad suddenly remembered that his name was Harrison. Just like the ex-Beatle. Stupid to have forgotten it. 'You just want to remember those people in New York died from an overdose of privacy.'

  Oh? I thought Phyllis Myers and Rick Cowley died in the company of the police. He thought of saying this out loud and then didn't. These men were, after all, only trying to do their duty.

  'Lighten up, Trooper Harrison,' he said. 'The building's so quiet today a barefoot man would make echoes.'

  'Okay. We'll be across the hall in the what-do-you-call-it.'

  'Common room.'

  'Right.

  They left, and Thad opened the file marked HNRS APPS. In his mind's eye he kept seeing Rawlie DeLesseps dropping that quick, unobtrusive wink. And listening to that voice telling him he was over the deadline, that he had crossed to the dark side. The side where the monsters were.

4

The phone sat there and didn't ring.

  Come on, he thought at it, stacking the Honors folders on the desk beside his Universitysupplied IBM Selectric. Come on, come on, here I am, standing right next to a phone with no bug on it, so come on, George, give me a call, give me a ring, give me the scoop.

  But the phone only sat there and didn't ring.

    He realized he was looking into a file cabinet that wasn't just pruned but entirely empty. In his preoccupation he had pulled all the folders, not just the ones belonging to Honors students interested in taking creative writing. Even the Xeroxes of those who wanted to take Transformational Grammar, which was the Gospel according to Noam Chomsky, translated by that Dean of the Dead Pipe, Rawlie DeLesseps.