The four men were seated at the western side of the store, where Calder had set up some tables beside a picture window that looked out on his yard and the woods beyond. In summer there were picnic benches at which to sit, but for now icy snow still lay on the grass, and the air was pierced by a damp chill that made an old man’s bones hurt. To Thomas’s left, a locked door led into the gun shop, and beyond that was the gunsmithery itself. A tattered and yellowed sign on the door advised that an upfront deposit of $30 was required for each weapon accepted for service, with a further $25 levied if the weapon was presented without the required magazine. Thomas didn’t even know why the sign was still in place. The only people who presented Ben Pearson with weapons to be serviced were locals, and they were hardly likely to forget that they’d left them with Ben. Similarly, if they neglected to bring along the magazine, then they could just drop by with it later in the day.
Thomas’s wife Constance used Ben’s services occasionally – she had been a competitive rife shooter for most of her life, and hadn’t been far off Olympic standard as a young woman, although the gap between what she could do and what was required might as well have been as deep and wide as an abyss at that level – but she was one of the exceptions in Prosperous. Even allowing for those who hunted, the town had one of the lowest rates of gun ownership in the state. The gunsmith element of Ben Pearson’s business was little more than a hobby for him. He kept only a small range of rifles and pistols for sale, mostly high-end stuff, but he seemed to enjoy the metalwork aspect of the job, the threading and futing and jeweling. He was also reputed to make very fine custom-built stocks, if that was what floated your boat.
Thomas yawned and checked his watch. The whisky had gone to his head, and he was wishing for his bed. He glanced to his right. The light from their table illuminated only a few feet of snow on the yard outside. Beyond was darkness.
Something pale flickered in the shadows. It looked like a moth. As Thomas watched, it grew larger and larger. It took on the form of a young woman wearing a stained white dress, the color of it nearly lost against the snow so that he thought he might almost have been dreaming her. Her feet were bare as she ran, and there were leaves caught in her dark hair. Closer and closer she came. Thomas opened his mouth to speak, but no words emerged. He rose from his chair just as the girl impacted against the glass, shaking it in its frame. Her fingernails were torn. They left trails of blood on the window.
‘Help me,’ she cried. ‘Please help me.’
Her words turned to clouds on the air, and the wind snatched them and bore them into the listening woods.
3
Miles to the south, in the city of Portland, a homeless man was dying.
His name was Jude – no second name, just Jude – and he was well known both to his fellow street people and to those in law enforcement. He was not a criminal, although there were some in Portland who seemed to regard being homeless as a criminal act, punishable by the withdrawal of services and support until death took care of the problem. No, Jude had always been law-abiding, but he had spent so long on the streets that he knew every nook and cranny of them, every crack in the sidewalk, every raised brick. He listened carefully to the reports from others of his kind – the appearance of strangers among them, men of vicious demeanor, or the news of abandoned properties that had previously provided some shelter and were now being used by dealers of narcotics – and traded that information with the police. He did not do so for his own benefit, although there were times when the nights were cold and he was offered the comfort of a cell in which to rest, or even a ride to South Portland or further afield if a cop was feeling particularly generous or bored.
Jude functioned as a kind of father figure for the homeless of the city, and his relationship with the police allowed him to intervene on behalf of men and women who sometimes found themselves in trouble with the law for minor infractions. He also acted as a go-between for the operators of the city’s homeless services, keeping an eye on those who were most at risk and therefore least likely to maintain a consistent relationship with anyone who might be in a position to help them. Jude knew where everyone slept, and at any time he could name the number of homeless in the city to within a handful of people. Even the worst of them, the most violent and troubled, respected Jude. He was a man who preferred to go a little hungrier himself, and share what he had with a brother or sister, than see another starve.
What Jude declined to share with others was much of his own history, and he rarely sought anything beyond the most basic assistance with his own needs. He was clearly an educated man, and the backpack he wore on his shoulders always contained a book or two. He was well-versed in the great works of fiction, but preferred history, biography and works of social commentary. He spoke French and Spanish, some Italian and a little German. His handwriting was small and elegant, not unlike its practitioner. Jude kept himself clean, and as neatly turned out as his situation allowed. The Goodwill stores on Forest Avenue and out by the Maine Mall, and the Salvation Army on Warren Avenue, all knew his sizes by heart, and would often put aside items that they thought he might appreciate. By the standards of the streets, one might even have said that Jude was something of a dandy. He rarely spoke of any family, but it was known that he had a daughter. Of late, she had become a topic of conversation among Jude’s few intimates. It was whispered that Jude’s daughter, a troubled young woman, had fallen off the radar again, but Jude spoke little of her, and refused to bother the police with his private concerns.
Because of his efforts, and his decency, the city’s advocates for the homeless had tried to find Jude some permanent housing, but they soon learned that something in his character rendered him ill suited to settling down. He would stay in his new home for a week, or a month, and then a social worker would respond to a complaint and find that Jude had given up his apartment to four or five others, and had himself returned to the streets. In winter, he would seek a bed at the Oxford Street shelter or, if no such bed was available, as was often the case when the weather was harsh, he would lie down on a thin mat on the floor of the nearby Preble Street community center, or take a chair in the lobby of Portland’s general assistance office. On such nights, with the temperature at seventeen degrees and the wind so cold that it penetrated his layers of wool and cotton, of newspaper and flesh, right to his bones, he would wonder at those who claimed that Portland was too attractive to the homeless because it found a place for anyone who sought shelter. But he would consider, too, the flaws in his own personality that rendered him unable to accept the comforts that he sought for others. He knew that it meant he would die on the streets. He was not surprised, therefore, by the fact that death had now come for him at last, but merely by the form it had taken.
He had been living in the basement of a rundown and gutted condo near Deering Oaks for a week or more. He was eating little, apart from what he could scavenge and what the shelters provided, trying to balance the need to save money with the basic requirements of staying alive.