The Mirror Thief(50)

When the sand feels firm and damp beneath his feet he sinks to his knees and sights up and down the shore, scanning the pattern of light at the sea’s edge: the white sand, the black water, the reflections splintered in the waves. This is a trick he has taught himself. As he kneels, he thinks of his long trip across the country, of a simple game he’d play to pass the time in boxcars. He’d look through the narrow gap of the sliding door and try to keep a count of what he saw: bridges, roads, barns, roosting hawks. At first, he played in competition with other bored hobos—it was something everybody did—but the game soon became frustrating, awkward. No one was ever any match for him. In fact, the other tramps were often unwilling to concede that things he spotted with little effort were possible to see at all. Stanley kept playing, but kept the game to himself, and over time he grew more ambitious, trying to count telephone poles, doves startled into flight, bathtub gondolas on passing trains—even, during one particularly slow stretch, all the crossties from Winslow to Flagstaff. The trick was to synchronize his vision to the rhythm of light as it flashed between objects. That pulse became a kind of code for Stanley. With it he could read just about anything.

Early last September, over a Sunday poker game in the bunkhouse of a cattle ranch in New Mexico, or maybe Colorado, it occurred to him that there might be a way to apply this same idea to the shuffle of a deck of cards. So far he’s been lax about pursuing this theory, preoccupied by other concerns.

The image of the full moon bobs on the water, multiplied into a lattice of ovals and oxbows, and Stanley’s eyes gradually translate it into a neutral screen. Two hundred yards south, maybe halfway to Brooks, a shapeless patch of black emerges: the ginger-bearded man and his dog. They’re meandering, changing direction. Stanley moves to put himself between them and the boardwalk, keeping them skylit as he goes. He can’t make out the man’s features but his outline is clear. The blackjack in Stanley’s pocket is chafing his thigh; he pulls it out, returns it to the small of his back.

A thread of pipesmoke carries on the shifting wind. The man is singing to himself, or maybe to the dog, in a language Stanley can’t place. It’s not Claudio’s Spanish, nor the Italian of the neighbor lady back home, but it’s like them. The man is walking toward Stanley now, closing the distance. Stanley keeps silent, holds his ground. He can see the orange glow of the man’s pipe as he sucks on it, the trail of smoke, the quavering air above its bowl. The night seems brittle, as if held together by an invisible armature of glass. A single word could shatter everything.

When he’s about fifteen feet away, the man spots Stanley. He gasps, comes to a halt. The dog strains at its leash, snuffling, then springs as if snakebit and starts to bark.

Hello, Stanley says. Excuse me.

The man switches the leash to his left hand; his right hand goes behind his back. He wears a tweed jacket over a sweater, the textures of the fabrics barely discernable in the dark. Stanley swallows hard.

I didn’t see you there, the man says. You gave me a start.

It’s okay, mister. I don’t mean you no trouble.

The man’s voice is tight, but steady. He seems scared. His right hand remains hidden. You shouldn’t be alone on this beach at night, he says. It’s not safe.

Stanley holds his arms out, spreads his fingers, but the man isn’t relaxing. His outline is shrinking back, balling up, and Stanley is pretty sure he’s about to get shot. For so long he has thought of what to say at this moment, but now nothing comes. All words seem to flee from him. He feels his mouth opening, closing. Adrian Welles? he says.

The man is stock-still, silent, an inert blot on the ocean’s silver curtain. The two of them stand there, not breathing, for what seems like a long time. Stanley is aware of the dog as it growls and paws the sand.

Who are you? the man says.

When Stanley speaks again, the voice that rises to his throat is utterly unfamiliar. In past moments of mortal terror his voice has sometimes reverted to that of his younger self; at other moments, when he’s been sad or tired, he’s heard his voice grow suddenly older, as if presaging a person he might one day become. But the voice that speaks now is neither of these. It belongs to someone unknown, from another life. Listen to it closely. You will never hear this voice again.

Are you Adrian Welles? Stanley says.

But he already knows the answer, and he is no longer afraid.





22


Welles is backing up, winding and bunching the dog’s leash. Trembling a bit. An old man in the dark. Don’t come any closer, he says. I have a pistol, and I will use it.

I been looking for you, Mister Welles, Stanley says. I don’t mean you any harm. You or your dog. I just want to talk about your book.

Welles takes a shallow breath, lets it out. My book, he says.

Yes sir. Your book. The Mirror Thief.

Stanley has never spoken the title aloud before. It feels clumsy in his mouth, and he regrets saying it. Loosed on the air, the words seem lifeless, insufficient for what they name.

Who are you? Welles says. Who sent you here?

This strikes Stanley as an odd question. Nobody sent me, he says. I just came.

Welles adjusts his footing on the sand. Then he says something in a foreign language. It sounds like Hebrew. Pardon me? Stanley says.

Welles repeats the phrase. It’s not Hebrew.

I’m sorry, Mister Welles, but I don’t have any goddamn idea what you just said.