Charles L. Grant - Raven

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P
ast sunset in early February, the worst time of the year. Too far from Christmas and too far from spring. Too cold. Too
quiet. The light, never strong, too soon gone. Trees without leaves, scarred bark, empty nests, fading into the dark;
weeds along the roadside, trembling stiffly, shedding burrs, flaring in passing headlights, and fading into the dark;
house lights and streedamps and traffic signals growing brighter, growing brittle, trying desperately, and failing, not to
fade into the dark.
No snow.
No wind.
The landscape grey and dead.
While the county road from the interstate, two lanes and narrow, climbed the hills and crawled pocket val-leys,
skirted pastures and £rozen ponds, barely straighten-ing at each town several miles from its neighbor, barely lighted
when the woodland became a mottled wall on either shoulder reflecting the headlamps in grey bars and splotches, or
not at all; throwing shadows, pulling them back.
Throwing shadows.
Every so often, eyes gleaming above a branch, on a rock, in a ditch; every so often something dashing across the
blacktop, too far away for a name.
Climbing higher, leveling off, to a stretch without a curve for nearly half a mile. In its center, on the north side, a
streedamp litde more than a hooded bulb on a tall pole, woods behind it, blacktop below. There were other poles, three
of them, but they were useless and dark.
One light, and no stars bright enough to do more than prick weak holes in the night. Direcdy opposite, on the south
side, a crescent cleared and sloping downward from the verge to a creek. A large painted sign on chains be-tween two
tall logs cemented into the ground; hooded bulbs again, three, and MACLAREN'S FOOD AND LODGING, facing east.
In the middle of the crescent, a fine-gravel parking lot between the road and a log building one story high on a raised
stone foundation, low peaked roof, four large and long windows, its entrance in the center off a two-step concrete
stoop.
A light over the door.
Spotlights at the corners.
A man inside, looking out. From the road he was a shadow, he wasn't real, he wasn't there.
He grunted softly, shifted slightly, hands loose in his pockets, thumbs hanging out, head slightly bowed. Tall, but
without the weight that would have made strangers nervous. Fair-haired and lots of it, some of it combed, most of it
going its own way over his forehead and ears. His face marked the time he spent outdoors all year round, though the
lines there and the shading weren't part of a betrayal— he was handsome now with the lines; when he was young he
had been pretty. Hooded eyes, like the bulbs outside, seldom showing ail their light.
Checkered flannel shirt, dark chinos, dark shoes that should have been boots, hiking or Western.
A slow inhalation, and a touch of a finger to the door's ripple-glass upper half. It nearly burned. He kept it there, just
to be sure, then pulled his hand away and rubbed the finger thoughtfully against his side.
It was odd out there tonight. He didn't know why. Nothing was out of place that he could see, no one lurking with
evil intent or otherwise, no strange cars drifting past. The round-rail fence that fronted the road hadn't changed, hadn't
fallen; the faint lights he had put in the corners of the eaves hadn't burned out; no slavering, virgin-hunting monsters
lurched out of the woods across the way. It was just. . . odd. Slightly uncomfortable, but without a warn-ing. He raised
an eyebrow at his imagination and grunted quietly to himself, mocking. This was a reaction people from the city
usually had. He had been here over a decade and ought to know better.
The night was just the night.
A half smile and he put his back to the door, counted the customers in the room. Grunted again; there weren't many.
Three high-back booths on either side of the en-trance, eight square tables set for four and large enough for half a
dozen; beyond the tables, broad wood railings ex-tending chest-high from either wall, transformed into walls
themselves by tall and spreading potted plants stretching upward, meeting closely spaced spider plants in clay pots
hanging down from the ceiling. Bare hardwood floors comfortably chipped and worn. Lights hidden in the ex-posed
rafters. In one of the booths, a couple holding hands, not eating very much; at one table, a family of four, and at
another, a family of three. They smiled, they spoke softly.
He pulled at his nose, scratched a cheek. A curious thing—when there were people in here, the rough-pine walls
and airy ceiling made the place seem much larger; when it was empty, it didn't look much bigger than a closet.
He walked around the display counter, set perpendicular to the entrance, and opened the cash drawer of the register
atop it. The afternoon had been fair, the dinner hour not half bad. A handful of boisterous skiers escaping the city a
day early, the usual late lunchers from Hunter Lake and Deerfield, a few tourists passing through on their way to
Pennsylvania needing directions and a cup of coffee; noth-ing spectacular, nothing disastrous. Early February had
al-ways been a dead time here. The wont ol winter's storms—if they came at all; not much in the way of casual
weekend sightseers, and the locals hadn't quite been struck yet with cabin fever. Fair. What the hell. He would survive
until spring the way he always did, making a decent profit, banking some, spending some, making sure the small
res-taurant didn't look as if it were on its last legs while, at the same time, keeping up repairs on the seven one-room
cabins tucked in the trees and invisible from the road.
so what more do you want
He yawned, blinked rapidly in surprise and rubbed his eyes, told himself things would probably liven up later in the
evening; after all, it was Friday night. A roll of his eyes to prove he didn't much believe it. The most he could
reasonably expect this time of year would be a handful of people returning from the movies down in Sparta or New-ton
who might drop in for coffee or a drink; a few more late getting home from the city might drop in for a quick bite. And a
drink.
February.
The dead time.
But it was the territory; it all goes with the territory. And it sure beat getting his face shot off by some drug dealer
or crazy. Or lousy cigarette smuggler. A nod to himself, an-other yawn, and he made his way through the tables to the
gap in the middle of the foliage wall. Beyond it, two wide steps down, was the lounge: curved leather-and-brass-stud
booths along the left-hand wall, a handful of smaller tables in the center, the bar itself on the right.
The back wall was virtually all glass above darkwood wainscoting waist-high; the ground below and beyond
cleared and carefully sloped some sixty feet down to the wide, shallow creek. A few years ago, tired of looking at his
reflection in the glass, he had set a handful of low-wattage bulbs into the trees along the bank, three more into the
base of the foundation, so that drinkers and diners could see the water, could see the woodland and hill, could once in
a while see deer or possum, raccoons or just shadows. He had once considered building a deck off the lounge, a
pleasant way to spend a spring or summer evening, filtered through the leaves and setting sun; then he considered
the mosquitoes, the flies, the bees, the gnats, and changed his mind. Besides, with people out there, the animals
wouldn't come; it had taken them forever to get used to the light.
A scraping of chairs behind him.
He turned and saw that the families were ready to leave. He gave them their checks, took their payment, held the
door open and wished them a warm night. No waitress today. He could handle it himself and preferred it that way.
"Hey, Neil, got a minute?"
He looked to the occupied booth to the immediate left of the door. A young man, ruddy cheeks, freckled nose, a
mass of dark hair and a suit not quite large enough for his shoulders, beckoned with a grin. The woman seated
oppo-site him could have been his twin, except she wore a well-fitted ski sweater and jeans and her hair wasn't quite as
long.
"He lied," she complained lightly as Neil walked over. A high voice. Not childlike, but child-soft. "He said I didn't
have to get fancy or anything, then he went and wore his good clothes."
Neil stood there, waiting, patiently smiling. Ken Hav-vick and Trish Avery had been going together, off and on, for
what he figured from the gossip had been most of their lives. He wondered how they stood it. The gossip also
mentioned that Trish had been seeing other men as well, on the sly.
Havvick released his hold on her hand, exposing a small diamond ring on her finger. "We're gonna get married." A
wider grin pulled thick lips away from his teeth.
Trish giggled.
Neil made a show of scanning the empty room before looking back and shaking his hand. "You know, Ken, I have
always admired your dramatic sense of the romantic." He leaned over the table. "You mean to tell me you asked this
gorgeous woman here—who could certainly do a hell of a lot better, if I do say so myself, but it's her life, I
suppose—you asked her to marry you ... in here?"
Havvick nodded, still grinning.
Neil sighed loudly toward the ceiling, leaned over, and kissed the young woman's cheek, smelled the peach scent of
her hairspray, and wondered if the gossip was true. "Congratulations, Trish," he said warmly. "I'll bring some
champagne over in a minute, but don't you dare give this creep any. He doesn't deserve it."
She kissed him back, giggling, covering her mouth with both hands.
Oh brother, he thought, shook his head and left them, reached the bar steps and glanced back.
They were holding hands again, beaming at each other, trying to climb into each other's eyes, and they cast no
reflection in the drapery-framed window. There was noth-ing there but the night, and the faint glow of the blacktop
road beyond the fence at the top of the gentle slope.
Startled, somewhat unnerved, he leaned sideways a little, a spider plant's tendril caressing his cheek before he
brushed it away.
There it was.
It had been the angle.
Lustful ghosts set in ebony, a ghost room behind them.
The angle.
A silent suggestion that he'd been working too hard, and he hurried over to the bar. Behind it, the bartender, in
ruffled white shirt and snug black trousers, leaned back against the bottle shelf, reading a book. She glanced up as he
approached, staring at him as if he were a stranger, and an unwelcome one at that.
"Champagne," he said, dropping onto a leather stool, its curved back just high enough to keep him from toppling to
the floor. "Havvick finally popped the question."
"You're kidding."
"Kissed the bride-to-be myself."
"Hell," she muttered, "you wouldn't be the first." The book dropped to the bar. "Jackass. All he wants to do is get
laid for free."
"Hey, give the kid a break, Julia."
Her expression was doubtful, but she shrugged, it's his stupid funeral, blew a stray hair out of her eyes.
He acknowledged the unspoken apology with a wink, and allowed himself to watch her shirt, her trousers, stretch
and tighten as she reached under the bar for a chilled bottle and glasses. Maybe the cabins hadn't been such a great
idea since they were seldom ever occupied, and maybe he really ought to add the deck and the hell with the damn
animals cute or not if it brought in some extra profit, but hiring Julia Sanders to tend the drunks and the wine crowd
and the bourbon or scotch-forget-the-damn-water guys had been, even if he did say so himself, a touch of
unaccustomed brilliance. Dark flame for hair and dark em-eralds for eyes, she was attractive enough to keep the men
around for one drink more than they'd planned on, but not threatening enough to drive the ladies away.
And one night, during her second weekend, Nester Brandt had tried to pinch her, and Julia had decked him without
even looking away from the cocktail she'd been making. The subsequent applause from the assembled pa-trons had
startled, and obviously pleased, her; what pleased Neil more had been the way she had leapt effortlessly onto the bar,
taken a bow, and leapt down again without a word.
No one tried to pinch her, or pick her up again, either.
Except Ken Havvick.
A silver tray, bottle nestled in a silver ice bucket, tulip glasses with pressed white linen napkins folded just so. She
handed it to him, said, "Maybe she'll drown," and picked up her book.
He tried not to laugh as he delivered the gift, tried not to look at the window as he left. He did anyway. The
reflections were there.
Vacation, Maclaren, he told himself then; take a few days off and ... do what? Find someone to buy this place, that's
what. Get out from under. Hard work, nice people, a great bartender in Julia and a fine cook in Willie Ennin, and none
of it added up to a penny more for the pension. A few hours short of forty and not much to show for it but Maclaren's
and callused hands.
Not terrible.
Not terrific.
So what do you want then? he asked as he decided to get some fresh air, told Julia he was going to get something
from the house; aside from winning the lottery, hitting it big in Atlantic City, tearing Julia's clothes off and making love
to her on the bar, what the hell more do you want? You're not starving, for god's sake, so what else is there?
He put on his denim jacket, and stood on the stoop, huffing at the cold bitter and dry, watching the road.
He didn't know.
A wink shy of forty, and he goddamn didn't know.
He couldn't leave, though.
He couldn't.
There was no place else to go.
He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them quickly. This wasn't the way to think, what in hell was the matter with him
tonight? He liked it here. Hell, he loved it here. People left him alone. He left them alone. His regular customers were all
the company he required, with the infrequent women who shared his bed for a while and moved on, it's pretty damn
boring here, Maclaren, no offense, and none was ever taken.
He liked it here.
He did.
what more do you want?
Headlights to the east, winking through the bare branches, flaring as they rounded the sharp curve, steady-ing,
slowing as they reached the sign. The car didn't stop. The driver couldn't see him, could only see that Maclaren's
wasn't exactly lit up with fireworks and huge crowds, and sped up, dragging the dark after him, leaving him alone.
No, he realized; no.
Not alone.
He frowned puzzlement and looked left toward the flagstone path that led to the cabins.
Not alone, but nothing there.
Quietly he stepped down to the gravel and waited, lis-tening, hearing nothing and knowing that any sound, any
sound at all, would carry easily when the air was as brittle as it was tonight, as cold and as still. His vision soon
ad-justed to the outline of the restaurant, the outlines of the trees in the glow of the feeble streetlamp, and there was
still nothing out of place. The parking lot was empty except for Havvick's long gray van, not a flicker of traffic on the
road, nothing moving in the woods, not even a breeze.
Not alone.
He stiffened suddenly and pulled his hands from his pockets, flexed his fingers.
The Holgates.
His chin lifted and his head turned slowly as if he were sniffing the air, searching for a spoor. He wouldn't put it
past those idiots to try something again. They were trouble, Curt and Bally, seeming to have nothing to do with their
lives but give him grief and grin inanely about it. Just out of their teens and time on their hands, waiting until spring,
when their army enlistments began. Most days he didn't even see them and never gave them a thought. But at least
once a week they came by, their chrome-burdened pickup belching oil-smoke exhaust, perforated muffler sounding like
something belonging on a dirt track. They'd give Ennin and Julia a hard time, all the while smiling and nodding and
flashing their money to prove they were genuine, that they had rights just like everyone else, that it was all just
good-old-boy fun and games, nothing to get all bent out of shape over. They would leave just before Neil lost his
temper in front of the others. Perfect timing every time.
They hated him.
Twice, one of his front windows had been smashed with bricks; once, someone had taken a shotgun to his sign,
blowing a hole through his name, blowing out all the lights and perforating the shields. By the time he had reached the
road from his house, the vandals were gone.
But he knew the sound of the pickup.
It hadn't been enough for the police, however, despite their sympathy. What he thought he had heard, at night, in
the middle of nowhere, had no credence in any court.
He forced himself to breathe easily, flexed his fingers again, and stepped down to the ground, easing his weight to
minimize the crunch of gravel beneath his soles. If they were out there, they could see him, and all they had to do was
wait. And if he stood here much longer, he'd freeze solid.
They hated him for no other reason than that they thought him a coward.
That much he had figured a long time ago.
They hated him for what he was, because what he was now was a result of what he had once been.
A long while ago, not quite a lifetime and perhaps more than that, he had been a New Jersey State Trooper, seven
years right out of college, eventually and primarily patrol-ling the Turnpike and the Parkway. He hadn't been great; he
hadn't bagged millions in drugs or any of the FBI's most wanted; he had been okay, he had been competent. And
when, at the end of those seven years, he had been passed over for promotion for the third time in a row, he made an
appointment with his commander to complain and find out why. It hadn't taken very long. The senior officer, who liked
him well enough and knew his family, told him bluntly he was wasting his time, and the state's time and money, trying
to turn himself into something he didn't really want to be. Neil had been furious at the implied insult, then deeply hurt,
then filled with self-pity until the commander had said, gently, "Maclaren, face it, you're just not your father."
And he wasn't.
The bitch of it was ... he wasn't.
Mac Maclaren was dead, shot to death on the Jersey side of the Delaware Memorial Bridge. Smugglers. Two-bit
smugglers in an eighteen-wheeler, bringing untaxed ciga-rettes from Carolina for distribution in New York. Not guns.
Not drugs. Not white slavers. Lousy cigarette ban-dits, who shot Mac down when he tried to check their papers, while
Neil was still in school.
Until then, he hadn't known what he wanted to do with his life; eight months to the day after graduation he had his
first uniform on.
But the commander had been right—when the passion had subsided, there was nothing left but the job.
Two weeks after the meeting, Neil was packed and gone, feeling like a miner just back in the sun after being lost in
the tunnels, not knowing what to do, not knowing which turn to take, terrified without admitting it that he'd die there,
in the dark.
Although his former profession was no secret in town, he didn't think he owed anyone a detailed explanation. A
few knew, like Nester and Julia, and Willie in his way. As far as the others were concerned, he had been a cop once;
now he wasn't anymore.
Simple as that.
Curt and Bally Holgate, however, decided there was a secret, decided he'd run away, deserted under fire, some damn
nonsense like that.
Stupid bastards.
His shoes were loud on the gravel, his balance not quite even, as he walked to the corner of the building and down
the easy slope toward the worn hard-dirt path that led to his home, thirty yards back, huddling against the trees at the
back of an oblong. Cautiously. Checking the shadows. Finally concluding, almost reluctantly, that the Holgates
weren't around.
By the time he reached the house, a clapboard cottage with wraparound porch, five rooms, an unfinished stone
cellar, his temper had grown foul, his footsteps more like stomping. At the front door he stopped and checked over his
shoulder one more time. Lights from the bar turned the dead grass grey, and there were no mysterious figures wait-ing
in ambush between the trees' twisted boles.
Nothing there.
Damnit, nothing there.
An owl called softly from across the creek.
He could hear water running over a tiny waterfall he'd fashioned himself two springs ago.
He knew what it was then, and was surprised he'd been so spooked.
Storm coming.
Visitors thought it almost magic, the way he and the others who lived here all the time could tell by the feel, the
scent of the air that rain, or snow, was on the way. But the sky had been clear all day, not a cloud, not a wisp, and the
last forecast he had heard had declared good weather until Monday.
But it was still there—the feeling, if not the smell.
Curious.
He stepped back off the porch and looked up, trying to locate the moon, found it glaring without haze or halo, and
frowned again.
Okay, so if it isn't a storm, but it feels like a storm, what are we talking about here?
"Male menopause," he muttered, chuckling, and climbed the stairs, unlocked the door and reached around the
frame to turn the living-room light on. Now that he was here, he would have to find something to bring back to keep
Julia from ragging him for the rest of the night. But what? The account books, or a clean shirt, or what the hell did it
matter? He'd gotten his air, cleaned out his lungs, spooked himself royally, and decided that the Holgates were too
stupid to care about and too stupid to live. Julia's razor tongue he could live with, for a while.
A car pulled into the lot.
He turned the light back off and closed the door, feeling like a jerk.
The owl called as he started back.
Deep in the woods, something squealed, screamed, and died.
The moon died a few seconds later.
He saw it happen.
Standing on the stoop, hand ready to open the door, he looked up and saw the smoke. Cloud smoke. Drifting across
the face of the moon.
A gust of wind rattled the trees across the road.
A band of dead leaves slipped under the fence and scrab-bled toward him, vanishing under the chassis of a large,
unfamiliar automobile parked beside Kenny's van.
The moon died, slipping into the black slowly, crater by crater, star by star.
Something flew over the restaurant, the single flap of its wings like a sheet snapped in the wind.
They sat in the back corner booth, two women and a man, Julia taking their order, one hip cocked. She glared at him
as he came down the steps from the restaurant; he shrugged and moved around the bar's comer where it made a
rounded right turn to let the customers there look outside without having to leave their stools. Eight feet later it ended,
the rest rooms back there, a trapdoor leading down to the storeroom, and a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. He
pushed in and sighed at the warmth, the feel of steam.
"Willie?"
The small kitchen was mostly stainless steel and tile, a huge freezer, three ovens, a cozy alcove in the far corner
where Willie had a shelf he used as a desk when he needed to study and had some free time, a marked calendar on the
wall, a schedule of meals, a list of things Neil needed to order. Fluorescent lights embedded in the acoustical ceil-ing.
A center island of cabinets overhung with pots and pans and utensils he'd never been sure were any use, and topped
by a six-foot-long butcher's block scarred with blade marks and faintly stained with juice and blood.
"Hey, Willie."
A door looked out toward the cabins hidden by the fence and a wandering stand of black oak. Along the
flag-stones, marking the way, he and Willie had set electric lamps on three-foot black posts. They were out now as he
peered through the pane, shading his eyes against the room's glare. It didn't take him long; Willie was on one knee by
the gateless opening in the fence. In one hand he had a shoe box, in the other a trowel he used to scoop something up
from a patch of dead weeds.
Oh lord, he thought, and stepped away, waited, and when Willie walked back in, cheeks red and lips trembling, he
said, "What is it now?"
Ennin gasped in surprise, sputtered, hunched and hur-ried to his alcove where he dropped the box onto the desk.
He muttered something, shrugged, pushed past Neil to a sink where he began to wash his hands.
"Willie, what was it?"
"Mouse."
A glance toward the shoe box. Another customer for the graveyard his cook kept across the creek. The little man
never let a dead creature rot or become a scavenger's meal; if he saw it, no matter what state it was in, it was buried.
Ennin turned, his lips parted slightly in what passed for his smile. Not much taller than five feet, barely wider than a
shadow. His face too long for his height and always three days without a shave. Tiny eyes. Tiny feet. Dressed in
white that somehow, despite the cooking, the cleaning, the digging, the work, was never stained.
"Damn cold, Mr. Maclaren," he said, briskly drying his hands on his apron. "Damn cold."
"Willie—" He stopped; it was no use. Willie Ennin would leave a banquet for the president if an animal needed a
grave. "Never mind."
The cook grinned and pointed to the island, bread and lunch meat, lettuce and chopped onions. "Going to be
crowded tonight," he announced. "Gotta be ready."
"You think so, huh?"
Ennin frowned as if Neil ought to know better than to ask. "Sure. Can feel it in the air, Mr. Maclaren. Folks are going
to be cold, they're going to be hungry, they're going to want one of my famous sandwiches before going home." He
spread his hands. "Ain't that right?"
"If you say so."
"I'm always right, Mr. Maclaren." He eased Neil away from the work space without actually touching him. "If I
wasn't right, we wouldn't have this place anymore, people wouldn't come, they wouldn't eat, I'd have to buy my own
meals, you'd have to go back chasing the bad guys."
"Speeders, Willie, speeders," he corrected with a laugh, a hand on the man's shoulder before heading for the door.
"The worst guy I ever caught was some idiot from Virginia doing a hundred and thirty on the Turnpike."
"He could've killed somebody," Ennin said simply.
Neil didn't answer.
There was never an argument with Willie Ennin. For him, life was divided into things that were eaten, things that got
eaten unless he buried them first, and the Lone Ranger. It was sometimes frustrating as hell, but just as often, he
wondered if that wasn't the way to go. Simplify the hell out of things and let the world leave you alone.
And why not?
He sat two stools from the corner, so he could watch the room, be the host if he had to, and at the same time see
movement through the plants in case someone came in for a meal, or if Havvick was ready to leave.
Why not? There were worse ways to live.
"Philosophy with Willie," Julia guessed, drifting toward him, slipping an empty glass into soapy water. The book
was gone; she was back on duty.
He smiled. "How can you tell?"
"It's that look." She blew hair out of her eye. "The one that reminds you that there's a death penalty in this state." A
glass of water with a lemon twist placed on a cork mat. "Drink up, boss. It's good for what ails you."
One of the women stood up, and he said, "Oh my."
"Sexist," Julia whispered.
Although the lights were kept deliberately dim and aimed away from the booths toward the bar, it was still sufficient
for him to see that what she wore, and what there was of it, wasn't designed for the season—a knit dress that almost
made it to her knees, short sleeves, a neckline that, on a woman with a smaller bust, would have been just about right.
She hurried past toward the ladies' room, nodding once to him, hair bobbed several decades out of style.
Neil drank quickly and fanned himself with one hand.
Julia scowled.
He grinned, drank again, and glanced outside. Shivered. The glass looked too thin, the air too damn cold.
A burst of muffled laughter from over in the corner-When he looked, the man was trying mightily to get out from
around the booth's table, his companion convulsing each time he failed and fell back.
"They were smashed when they came in," Julia said. "Swear to God."
He didn't think they were drunk, and the more he watched, the more he was convinced. The man was acting,
playing the fool, and playing now to him as he tried to wave him over and nearly toppled his glass of beer.
"Oh my, don't you know 1 just live for days like this," he said as he stood and handed her his empty glass.
"I'll bet."
A barely heard chime from high behind the bar; some-one else had come in.
With apologies to Willie, Neil made his way over, forc-ing himself not to stare when he realized that the woman was
wearing the same dress as her friend, and the man was in a dark velvet tuxedo. This time he stood easily enough,
gracefully, and held out his hand.
"Hugh," he said, his voice professionally deep. "Hugh Davies. You, I take it, are the owner?"
Gleaming black hair combed straight back and tight from a high brow, Roman nose, cleft chin. Neil wondered how
much all that work had cost him.
"Neil Maclaren. Yes. This is mine."
Davies nodded to the woman—told you so, my dear, I'm never wrong about things like that—and took Neil's arm,
carefully guided him several steps toward the glass wall, so carefully, so skillfully, Neil found it difficult to take
offense.
"It's obvious I'm not from around here," the man said, slipping a cigarette from his inside jacket pocket, setting it
with a gold monogrammed lighter. "But I want you to know that what you have here, Mr. Maclaren, is a gold mine."
Neil waited.
"Potentially, of course."
Of course, Neil thought. And waited.
"I mean, it's just rustic enough to feel homey, you know what I mean? But it's not phony, either, it's not made of
clever plastic. People like me, we drive all the way out here, we see a place like this, we know we're going to have a
great meal, some good laughs, and we'll tell all our friends, you know what I mean?"
Neil watched the creek glint silver, shift to ink, shift to silver again. He didn't look at the man; he couldn't; he'd drop
to the floor, laughing. "New York," he said instead, "is almost two hours away the way the roads are. Nearly
seventy-five miles." He did look this time. "Nobody in their right mind is going to come all the way out here just for a
drink, a meal, and the hope of good times."
"And you're absolutely right," Davies agreed readily. Smoke blown at the ceiling. Hand brushing across his tie,
keeping it in line. "But they do come out every summer for the lakes and fishing, every winter for the skiing, am I
right?" He examined the room, watched a man come down the steps and head directly for the bar. "Aside from the
locals—Deerfield's what, a mile west, something like that?—seems to me you're not getting your fair share of the
trade." He turned to the woman for confirmation. "Am I right, Ceil? Don't you think I'm right?"
"Don't listen to him, Mr. Maclaren," she said with a trace of amusement, a shade of boredom, her face deep in
shadow, her bare arms pale as they rested on the table. "He's sweet, but he's a little dumb."
Davies laughed and shook his head.
Neil wasn't sure how to react. The man wasn't pushy or condescending, and he wasn't glib enough to be insulting.
Friendly enough to be serious; aloof enough to be teasing for no other reason than it was fun.
"Five million," he finally answered.
"What?"
The woman laughed. Deep in shadow.
"Five million and it's yours, lock, stock, and barrel." This time it was his hand that did the guiding. "Five million
dollars for ten prime acres, a fishing creek, seven cabins, this restaurant, the liquor license that goes with it. Out here,
that's a steal." He brought Davies to the bar, pointed to the newcomer busily emptying a snifter as if it were a shot
glass. "I'll throw in Nester here, too. See that pay phone on the wall beside the coatrack? Direct line to Nester's bookie
in Newark. Soon as he hits the big one, he'll buy you out and you'll double your investment, guar-anteed."
"Screw off, Maclaren," Brandt said, glaring, and grin-ning falsely.
Neil blew him a kiss and brought Davies home. "Think about it, okay? The next round's on the house."
"Thank you," the woman said. Face not quite clear. Pale arms. Chest not nearly as obvious as the other woman's. A
flare of something white near her throat. Pearl. Opal. "Ceil Davies. You've met my brother." She paused, leaned back.
"You've seen my sister. God help her, her name is Mandy."
Neil mumbled something he hoped sounded appropri-ate in whatever the hell kind of situation this was, shook
Davies's hand again, and retreated to the steps. He could see that Brandt was in no mood for company just yet, didn't
want to listen to Julia's sarcasm anymore, and wasn't at all sure what to make of Davies and his sisters.
Nuts; all of them.
And he snapped his fingers without moving them.
Be damned, maybe that's what was bothering him—it was going to be one of those nights.
They happened.
God, did they happen.
As if, on a single somehow hallowed occasion, all the loons were let out of their cages and given a map to his place.
Wives fought husbands with words and brandished forks, fathers argued red-faced with red-faced sons, drunks tried
to climb the spider plants, girlfriends found new boy-friends with their old boyfriends simmering in the next booth,
things not known to modern science were stuffed down the toilets. Every so often. It made no difference if the moon
was full or not. They came out, they came to Maclaren's, they made his life hell and they sometimes made him laugh.
Brandt, for example and by his current mood, had prob-ably had a battle royal with his wife of fifteen years. There
was a small rip on one sleeve above the elbow, his cheek was enflamed as if slapped or punched, what was left of his
hair hadn't seen a comb in several days. She had probably caught him with another woman. It didn't matter who; the
gambler wasn't fussy. And he seldom took precautions to prevent her from finding out. He bragged to his buddies.
She heard. They fought. He came here to scream at his bookie and snarl at Julia and drink the best whiskey and
brandy Neil had to offer. Sometimes, before midnight, he passed out; sometimes, after midnight, he'd take a bath in the
creek, with everyone in the bar looking on.
"So what?" he had once demanded, standing in the water, naked, skin like a mangy bear's pelt. He stabbed a branch
toward the lounge windows. "They ain't never seen a man before?"
"Not like you, pal," Neil had answered.
"Tough shit."
"C'mon, get out."
"Ain't done my armpits yet."
He sat down, knees up, and Neil had walked away.
There had been no talking to him then; there was no talking to him now.
On the top step he paused when music, loud enough to hear but not loud enough to distract, came over the audio
system he had installed last year, the speakers invisibly tucked into the rafters. Big Band music. Always. Benny
Goodman, Gene Krupa, easy on the tempo. He looked at Julia, standing by the receiver and the multidisc CD player,
which were beside the old-fashioned popcorn machine he'd rescued from a dying theater. She waggled a finger at him.
He saw Davies and one of his sisters dancing near the window, both her hands around his neck, his hand low on her
waist.
Sister, he thought, my ass; if they got any closer, it'd be incest.
Havvick and Trish were still in their booth, on the same side now, facing him and not seeing him.
He didn't look any closer.
One of those nights.
So look," Brandt said to Julia, elbows on the bar, leaning partway over to watch her clean glasses, bend down, stand
up, cock her head when the fruit in the tux danced by and gave her an order, some kind of fancy bourbon. "The damn
horse comes in, right? Long shot five lengths across the wire ahead of the favorite. The stupid son of a bitch sends
me my money instead of calling me to come get it. Sends it! Can you believe it? The old crone opens the mail, sees the
check ..." He shrugged sadly, elaborately, sipped dry a Chivas Regal, set the snifter down for a refill. "She says she's
going to divorce me." He rubbed his teeth with the side of a finger. "She won't, though. She loves me too much."
Striped button-down shirt, jeans tucked into wad-ing boots. "Besides, she's too fat and too old to find anyone else
this stage of the game. She's stuck with me. Lived in Deerfield all her life, she wouldn't know how to find her way out
of the county. She cashed the check, too, would you believe it? Bought one of them recliner things for in front of the
television and won't let me use it. Tells me I have to get another horse." He chuckled, and fumbled through his
pockets. "Damn, where's all that change 1 had this morning? She probably took that, too. She does that, you know.
When I'm sleeping, she goes through all my pockets just to make sure I'm not holding out on her. How the hell can I?
She's always going through my pockets." A sigh of discovery. He dropped a fifty-dollar bill on the bar. "I got my
ways, though. Look at me, you wouldn't think I'm a rich man, right? Not really rich. Better than some, though, you can
bet on it." He looked in the silver-edged mirror behind the neatly tiered bottles, patted a palm over his scalp. "You
think them places in New York that does the movie stars, they know how to make a fifty-five-year-old man with no hair
to speak of look good?" He patted his scalp again, scratched at it a little. "Cost a for-tune, right?" A thin mustache
that curled down past the corners of his mouth; he stroked it with his thumbs. "I ain't got a fortune, Julia, don't get me
wrong. Better than some, though. You'd think the old crone would know that, live with it, roll with the punches. Makes
sense, right? It's gotta make sense. Stupid bitch. One of these days I'm going to leave her, let her empty her own
pockets for a change. Jesus Christ, who are those guys over there? Hookers and pimp? What the hell's this place
coming to? Where the hell's Neil, I'm gonna complain."
摘要：

PastsunsetinearlyFebruary,theworsttimeoftheyear.ToofarfromChristmasandtoofarfromspring.Toocold.Tooquiet.Thelight,neverstrong,toosoongone.Treeswithoutleaves,scarredbark,emptynests,fadingintothedark;weedsalongtheroadside,tremblingstiffly,sheddingburrs,flaringinpassingheadlights,andfadingintothedark;ho...

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