Duma Key(171)

"Go away," I told it. "I don't want you anymore, go away and be dead."

It didn't. It wouldn't. Like the arm to which it had once been attached, the hand itched and throbbed and ached and refused to leave me.

"Then go find my daughter," I said, and the tears began to flow. "Bring her back, why don't you? Bring her to me. I'll paint anything you want, just bring her to me."

Nothing. I was just a one-armed man with a phantom itch. The only ghost was his own, drifting around just over his head, observing all this.

The creeping in my flesh grew worse. I picked the broom up, weeping now not just from grief but also from the horrible discomfort of that unreachable itch, then realized I couldn't do what I needed to do a one-armed man can't snap a broomhandle over his knee. I leaned it against the house again and stomped it with my good leg. There was a snap, and the bristle end went flying. I held the jagged end up in front of my streaming eyes and nodded. It would do.

I went around the corner of the house toward the beach, a distant part of my mind registering the loud conversation of the shells beneath Big Pink as the waves dashed into the darkness there and then withdrew.

I had one fleeting thought as I reached the wet and shining hardpack, dotted here and there with tennis balls: The third thing Elizabeth had said to Wireman was You will want to, but you mustn't.

"Too late," I said, and then the string tethering the Edgar over my head broke. He floated away, and for a little while I knew no more.

Chapter 17 The South End of the Key

i

I next remember Wireman coming along and picking me up. I remember walking a few steps, then recalling that Ilse was dead and collapsing to my knees. And the most shameful thing was that, even though I was heartbroken, I was also hungry. Starving.

I remember Wireman helping me in through the open door and telling me it was all a bad dream, that I'd been having the horrors, and when I told him no, it was true, Mary Ire had done it, Mary Ire had drowned Ilse in Ilse's own bathtub, he had laughed and said that now he knew it. For one horrible moment I believed him.

I pointed to the answering machine. "Play the message," I said, and went into the kitchen. Staggered into the kitchen. When Pam started in again Edgar, the police called and they say Illy's dead! I was eating fistfuls of Frosted Mini-Wheats straight from the box. I had a queer sense of being part of a prepared slide. Soon I would be placed under a microscope and studied. In the other room, the message ended. Wireman cursed and played it again. I kept eating cereal. The time I'd spent on the beach before Wireman came along was missing. That part of my memory was as blank as my early hospital stay after my accident.

I took a final handful of cereal, crammed it into my mouth, and swallowed. It stuck in my throat, and that was good. That was fine. I hoped it would choke me. I deserved to choke. Then it slid down. I went shuffle-limping back into the living room. Wireman was standing beside the answering machine, wide-eyed.

"Edgar... muchacho... what in God's name -?"

"One of the paintings," I said, and kept on shuffling. Now that I had something in my stomach, I wanted some more oblivion. If only for a little while. Only it was more than wanting, actually; it was needing. I had broken the broomhandle... then Wireman came along. What was in the ellipsis? I didn't know.

I decided I didn't want to know.

"The paintings...?"

"Mary Ire bought one. I'm sure it was one from the Girl and Ship series. And she took it with her. We should have known. I should have known. Wireman, I need to lie down. I need to sleep. Two hours, okay? Then wake me and we'll go to the south end."

"Edgar, you can't... I don't expect you to after..."

I stopped to look at him. It felt as though my head weighed a hundred pounds, but I managed. " She doesn't expect me to, either, but this ends today. Two hours."

Big Pink's open door faced east, and the morning sun struck brightly across Wireman's face, lighting a compassion so strong I could barely look at it. "Okay, muchacho. Two hours."

"In the meantime, try to keep everyone clear." I don't know if he heard that last part or not. I was facing into my bedroom by then, and the words were trailing away. I fell onto my bed, and there was Reba. For a moment I considered throwing her across the room, as I had considered throwing the phone. Instead I gathered her to me and pressed my face against her boneless body and began to cry. I was still crying when I fell asleep.

ii

"Wake up." Someone was shaking me. "Wake up, Edgar. If we're going to do this, we have to get rolling."

"I dunno I'm not sure he's going to come around." That voice was Jack's.

"Edgar!" Wireman slapped first one side of my face, then the other. Not gently, either. Bright light struck my closed eyes, flooding my world with red. I tried to get away from all these stimuli there were bad things waiting on the other side of my eyelids but Wireman wouldn't let me. " Muchacho! Wake up! It's ten past eleven!"

That got through. I sat up and looked at him. He was holding the bedside lamp in front of my face, so close I could feel the heat from the bulb. Jack was standing behind him. The realization that Ilse was dead my Illy struck at my heart, but I pushed it away. " Eleven! Wireman, I told you two hours! What if some of Elizabeth's relatives decide to-"