The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(32)

He leaned with his elbow on the little shelf, the phone to his ear.

Bobby?

I’m here.

What do you think it means?

I dont know. It’s your dream.

It’s just that it was so very real. I almost called you.

I guess I should stay out of burning buildings.

Are you doing anything dangerous?

No more than usual.

That’s not a no. I suppose you’re not even aware that you have a death wish.

I have a death wish.

Yes.

I think I need to supervise your reading more closely. You do believe in dreams I take it.

I dont know, Bobby. You mean can they predict things?

Yes.

Sometimes. I suppose. I believe in a woman’s intuition.

Are you working on that?

Always.

What is it that you think I should do?

I dont know, Baby. Just be careful.

All right. I will.

Western waited. This is a long silence, he said.

I know you, Bobby. You’re not even a fatalist.

Not even.

I know you dont believe in God. But you dont even believe that there is a structure to the world. To a person’s life.

It’s just a dream.

It’s not just that.

It’s just what then? Are you crying?

I’m sorry. I’m being silly.

What else?

Why is there something else?

I dont know. Is there?

I dont know, Bobby. It’s just that I’ve thought a lot about you lately. How many friends do you have who knew Alicia?

A few. You. John. People in Knoxville. Mostly you and John. The family of course. I dont want to talk about her.

All right.

You’re just being morbid. I’ll take you tomorrow if you like.

I dont have any time off.

I’ll call you.

All right. I have to go. I’m not trying to worry you Bobby.

I know.

Okay.

The next morning when he walked into Lou’s office Lou looked up and studied him. Then he sat back in his chair. Well. I can see you aint heard.

I guess not.

Red just left out of here. He’s on his way up to the bar.

All right. Heard what?

Sorry, Bobby. Oiler’s dead. No other way to say it.

Western went over and sat in one of the little metal chairs. Ah God, he said. You sorry sons of bitches.

I’m sorry, Bobby.

Have you called anybody?

Yes. I had his sister’s number. She lives in Des Moines Iowa.

She’s a schoolteacher.

I think that is right. Nobody’s answered yet.

What happened?

I dont know. Hard to get straight answers out of those people. He was dead in the bell. They brought him up in the bell.

I thought he was in saturation.

I dont know. Who are the sons of bitches you’re talkin about?

Dont pay any attention to me. They’ll bury him at sea. You watch. He wont be coming home.

How do you know that?

You watch.





IV


It may have been a dog that woke her. Something on the road in the night. Then the quiet. A shadow. When she turned there was a thing on her windowsill. Crouching on the banquette with its hands clawed upon its knees, leering, its head swiveling slowly. Elf’s ears and eyes cold as stone taws in the mercury yardlight raw upon the glass. It shifted and turned. A leather tail slithered over its lizard feet. The blind eyes searched her out. Swinging its head on its scrannel neck in the black iron collar it wore. She followed that lidless gaze. Something in the shadows beyond the dormer light. Breath of the void. A blackness without name or measure. She buried her face in her hands and whispered her brother’s name.

They came a few days later. No special day. Spring of the year. The woods were white with dogwood blossoms even in the night. She sat at the dressingtable which had belonged to her greatgrandmother and which had been taken out of the house in Anderson County at night even as the waters were rising. She studied herself in the flecked and yellowed glass. The slight warp of it made of her perfect face a pre-raphaelite portrait, long and gently skewed. In the glass behind her a pale horde of ancient familiars. Clad in graveclothes and naught but bone beneath the moldering rags. Clamoring silently. She all but smiled at them and they faded in the glass until it gave back only her face. In the drawer of the dressingtable was a packet of letters tied with a blue silk ribbon. Antique stamps and a script in brown ink penned with a quill. Addressed to a house whose stones now lay in the silt at the bottom of a lake. A comb and brush of tortoiseshell. An eveningpurse of dulled orrice once carried to a dance where promises were made of which none survive. A small sachet of satin cloth faint yet with musty lavender. Of the woman who once sat here as a bride she remembers little. A lingering scent. A voice on the stairs that said have I burned a rose in a dish and forgot?

The Kid slipped a ring of keys from one flipper to the other and folded them away from sight and passed the flipper before him at his waist and opened it to show the keys were gone. Hi, Sweetcakes, he said. Dya miss me?

No, she said. She turned on the worn velvet settee. Where are your friends?

Thought I’d scope things out first. Make sure the coast was clear.

Clear of what?

The Kid ignored her. He paced up and back, his flippers clasped behind him. He went to the window and stood. Well, he said. You know how things are.