

# Short Stories of Steven Arnett

## By

## Steven Arnett

Copyright © 2018 Steven Arnett

License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy.

### For my brothers and sister, Mike, Claudia, Jeff and Pete

### Thanks for your love and support throughout my life

### Table of Contents

### Hyperlinks to Stories in This Book

Introduction

Blizzard

Waiting for Dan

The Search

Last Laugh

A Chance Meeting

Payoffs

One Night Alone

The Nightmare

Unexpected Developments

Wendy

Summer Stranger

Author Biography
Introduction

Set in the 1970's and 80's, the decades I know the best, most of these stories, like "Waiting for Dan," "A Chance Meeting" and "One Night Alone," are about people trying to make their way through lives that are difficult and entirely different than the lives they had planned. They show a slice of people's lives when something has happened that completely shakes up their lives in a way they never could have imagined, and often leaves them questioning everything they have ever believed. Mostly the characters are rootless people at a pivotal, crucial turning point in their lives: People who are jolted into the realization that their lives have turned out so much different than they'd hoped and dreamed. As in life, and unlike many traditional short stories, many of these stories don't have a pat ending that leaves a sense of finality.

This collection also includes stories that fall into the category of the thriller genre, like "Blizzard" and "Last Laugh" and "The Nightmare," which at their core are about the hopes and fears and terror that lie in the deepest reaches of the human psyche. Finally, there's "The Search," a somewhat Kafkaesque adventure into a possible future world.

I am hoping that when you read these stories, you will like them enough to consider reading my novels. Below this introduction you can find out what they are about and read some of the reviews.

Steven Arnett

March 2018
Novels by Steven Arnett

Mr. Arnett's latest novel is The Summer of Robert Byron. Here's the scoop on it:

It's fall 1966, and Robert Byron has returned to his home town of Blue Spring in Michigan after serving in Vietnam. Everyone there tries to welcome him home, but he's unsocial and ends up alienating almost everyone. He pretty much keeps to himself through the winter, until the money he'd saved up in Vietnam runs outs, and he has to go back to work. He meets Jean Summers, a teacher at Blue Spring High School who'd just started her teaching career the previous fall herself, when Robert is hired by her landlord to do some work on the house she's renting. They're complete opposites in personality, but somehow, they're attracted to each other anyway. The Summer of Robert Byron is their story: Of how Jean tries to redeem through love Robert's alienation and the dark secret that he has brought home with him from the war. Can she succeed or is it too late to ever really bring him home again?

The Summer of Robert Byron and all the novels by Steven Arnett are available in paperback and in Kindle format from Amazon. You can also find them in the iTunes Store, Nook Store, the Google Play Store, Kobo, and other eBook platforms by searching on Steven Arnett.

Praise for Novels by Steven Arnett

**A reviewer wrote this about** _Winners and Losers:_

This book turned out to be one of the more enjoyable reads I've had in years. It's the first fiction book I can remember that kept me up reading too late at night and made me sorry it was over at the end. Skillfully written, lots of laugh-out-loud moments, unpredictable plot twists, and well-drawn characters. I've started a lot of fiction books in recent years and ended up quitting them, because I just wasn't enjoying them. This author hasn't forgotten that above all, a book should be fun to read.

Set in a small southern Michigan city in the early 1990s, _Winners and Losers_ stars Tom Slotrak, a young man who wins the jackpot in the Michigan Lottery and the crazy and (sometimes) adventures he has afterwards. He learns the hard way that money can't buy happiness but that it sure can lead to some very funny and bizarre experiences!

**Reviewer Jack Magnus wrote this about** _Death on Lake Michigan_ **for the Reader's Favorite Web site:**

Steven Arnett's noir murder mystery, Death on Lake Michigan, is an adroit pairing of investigative sleuthing and police procedural as O'Brien and his buddy on the local police force, Detective George Dirkman of the Lake County Sheriff's Department, work in tandem in their attempt to solve the mystery. Arnett provides plenty of red herrings to give the reader his/her own opportunities to consider the clues and guess at the culprit. The Gull Haven location is inspired and lovely, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if other readers will be as tempted to visit that little beach town as much as I was. Arnett's Mike O'Brien is everything you'd want in a noir detective or, in this case, investigative sleuth. He's got an eye for women and is relatively fearless in his quest for the truth. Death on Lake Michigan is highly recommended.

In the **5 star rated mystery novel** _Death on Lake Michigan_ , Mike O'Brien, once the crusading editor of the _Michigan State News_ , now the assistant editor of the _Gull Haven Observer_ , becomes obsessed with solving the murder of Rich Mallon, one of the most notorious and well-known summer citizens of Gull Haven—and finds love in the process.

**A reviewer wrote this about** _The Labyrinth:_

Labyrinth is really a gripping suspense thriller! A great, refreshing story, different from other thrillers. Readers are more interested in finding out the actual identity of John Jones than the motif of his assassination. It's a book impossible to put down that captivates from the very first page, and the story is wonderfully written. It's a must-read: absolutely riveting!

At 3 o'clock in the morning cabin in Wells River, New Hampshire, a man who had called himself John Jones is run over by a car. He had been out walking in the rain miles away from where he lived, and there is no rational way to explain why. A strange drifter, he'd been living in a rundown cabin on Crawford's Hill for a few months, but no one had really got to know him. The local sheriff, Jeremy Wright, searches the cabin but can find only one thing that might help him identify John Jones or that would tell him anything about his life: A pile of manuscript. Could be a novel or could it be an autobiography? There was no easy way to tell, but he knew he'd have to take on the job of reading through it to looks for clues.

_The Labyrinth_ , a romantic adventure wrapped in a thriller, chronicles John Jones's involvement in a murder when he was 15 years old that shaped his whole life afterward. It tells the story of how he ended up a thousand miles from where he had lived and grown up, in a place where he knew no one and no one knew him. His story ends up getting read by Jeremy, by his precocious 14 year old daughter, Mandy, his widowed mother, Dorothy, and George Teller, his English literature teacher brother-in-law. Each of them ends up with an entirely different picture of who John Jones was and even if that was really his name or if his story was true. They also end up with more questions than answers: Who really was John Jones? Does anyone really have a true identity, or does everyone really have a different identity to everyone who knows them or crosses their path in life?

_Winners and Losers_ , _Death on Lake Michigan_ , and _The Labyrinth_ can be purchased on Amazon and on all the other major eBook platforms, including iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and Google Play, by searching on Steven Arnett.

Please like Steven Arnett's Author Page at <https://www.facebook.com/arnettse/info>

You can search for postings about Steven Arnett on Facebook using #stevenarnett

Blizzard

The snow was falling in big, soft flakes, and Jim Nelson thought it was pretty as he was driving through it, especially because this was the Christmas season. It seemed just the right touch: The strings of colored lights on the houses and pine trees made him think happily of Christmases when he was a kid. It wasn't long, though, before he began to be concerned about it. He was driving into the Smoky Mountains, and he began to question his decision to drive to Atlanta. The problem was, he hated to fly. Whenever he did, a leaden, terrified feeling imprisoned him for days before his flight, and often he'd have horrible nightmares about crashing.

Soon the snow was coming down hard enough so that he had to slow down. Daylight was waning, and because of the storm it was pretty dark, but when Jim turned his headlights on, the snow seemed even heavier. There was no doubt about it, he thought: He'd left too late. There was no question of stopping, though. He simply had to make the annual sales meeting in the morning. All the other district sales managers for the Progressive Appliance Company would be there, and it would really look bad if he were missing. Besides, his district had just had its best quarter ever, and he wanted to impress the significance of that upon top management as strongly as possible. He'd worked for days on the presentation he was scheduled to give and had gone over and over in his head how it would be when he gave it, and how Mr. Quigley, the vice president for marketing, would congratulate him afterward.

The storm just kept getting worse, though, and all Jim could hope for was that somehow it would ease up or at least that some snow plows and salt trucks would be sent out. He already felt like kicking himself for taking the scenic route after Knoxville, rather than staying on the interstate. But the weather reports earlier in the day had been good, with no mention of a winter storm developing, and at the beginning of the drive it had been sunny out. He turned on the radio, hoping to get some idea of how long the storm was expected to last, but of course, he thought, when you want a weather report, you can never get one. When you didn't want one, though, it seemed like that's all you'd hear. It annoyed him, too, that all he could get were a couple of country music stations, and he hated country music.

He was getting more and more nervous. It just takes so much out of a guy to drive in weather like this, he thought. He found himself smoking one cigarette after another, even though he'd been trying to limit himself to a half pack a day to get ready for his New Year's resolution to quit. Christ, he thought, I've probably smoked half a pack in the last hour. At times the failing snow mesmerized him, and he'd have to shake his head to break its hypnotic effect.

He'd had to cut his speed down to just 20 miles an hour, and he thought it would be real late before he got to Atlanta, even if the storm did let up soon. He also ran out of cigarettes. He criticized himself severely for having been so stupid as to think that he could have got through the whole trip on just one pack, but in a way he was relieved to have an excuse to stop and take a break from the pressure of driving.

He had an eerie feeling, though, when he walked into Abel's General Store. An old man with a beard was sitting on a stool by a wood burning furnace puffing on a pipe, a big, muscular, sarcastic looking young man was standing on the other side of the woodburner, and a weathered man with a scar on his cheek was standing behind the counter. They stopped talking when Jim came in, and he didn't like the way they looked him over, like he was an intruder or like they resented him just because he happened to be wearing nice clothes. Christ, he thought, this looks like something out of Barney Google & Snuffy Smith. He asked for three packs of Tareytons, and still none of the men said anything while the guy behind the counter turned around to get the cigarettes.

"Anybody heard a weather report?" Jim said, looking around at each of the three men.

"Hit's gonna git real bad, I'd say," the old man said. Jim thought it highly unlikely the old man had actually heard a scientific weather forecast.

"How long do they wait around here before they start shoveling the roads or putting salt down?"

"There ain't no money for stuff like that around here," the man behind the counter said.

Jim dreaded the idea of going out in the storm again. But the idea of staying at the store for hours with nothing to do—well, almost anything seemed better to him than that. And what if he got snowed in, he thought? What was he supposed to do, ask one of these hillbillies if he could spend the night at his shack? The way the big guy smiled and stared at him gave him the creeps. He's probably thinking about rolling me, he thought. He also imagined what it would be like at the meeting if he weren't there—the other district managers joking about it and the frown on Mr. Quigley's face—and decided that he had to keep going. If things really got bad, he thought, he could always stop at a motel somewhere. He could get up at the crack of dawn and still be at the meeting hall in time to give his speech.

He turned and was just about to leave when the old man said, "Back in '48 Jethro Badgley got lost in the snow, and by the time they found 'em he was half et. Dowgs they figured did it, them packs of wild dowgs used to live up in the hills."

Jim didn't respond except to slam the door as he went out. Why in the hell would that old man want to tell him a story like that just as he was about to go out in a storm? he thought. For Christ's sake.

He wasn't back on the road a minute before bad news came over the radio.

"The National Weather Service has issued a severe storm warning for the entire Smoky Mountain region. Up to 3 feet of snow can be expected to fall at higher elevations, with severe blowing and drifting. The wind/chill factor could drop to sub-zero readings at higher elevations."

Now they tell me, Jim thought. Big help.

"All travelers in the WCYQ listening area are advised to seek shelter at once. Stay tuned to WCYQ for all the latest in weather, sports, and the best in country music. And now a country classic, "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" by Tammy Wynette."

Oh for cryin' out loud, Jim thought, and turned the radio off in disgust.

The wind picked up and the car shook as he drove. He had to slow down to just a crawl. Hell, it's hardly even worth bothering at this speed, he thought. It seemed to him that he must be driving right into the teeth of the storm. The wind was blowing so hard, he thought it could have stopped snowing and he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. It had become dark, and it was difficult for him to see anything around him but snow, and his nervousness turned to fear. A moment there was when whether or not he made it to the meeting lost all its importance, and just making it to someplace safe became to him the only thing in the world that mattered. He decided that the only sensible thing to do would be to turn around and go back to Abel's General Store. He hadn't seen any other building but houses since he'd stopped there, and not many of those. Who knows when he'd come to another place he could stop?

When he stopped and turned the wheel to make a U-turn, though, he couldn't get the car to move again. The wheels just kept spinning, and when he stepped on the gas more, the car slid wildly from side to side. His heart was racing, and he was sweating profusely. He threw his cigarette on the floor, realizing suddenly that he had the heater on way too high, and with a great feeling of disgust flicked it off. He backed the car up to a less elevated spot and tried turning it around again, and this time, just barely, he got it turned around, feeling a relief as great as any he could ever remember feeling before. He celebrated by lighting another cigarette—though his hand was shaking so much it was hard for him to light it—and turning the radio back on. Even country music sounded good to him now, and he smiled slightly as he listened to George Strait sing "All My Ex's Live in Texas."

His relief was short-lived, however. Though it had seemed when he was driving uphill that he was driving right into the wind, if anything, going the other way, the storm seemed worse. He could just barely see the pine trees that lined either side of the road. Then he couldn't even see them, and just as he was thinking that it must be because he was going by a field or something, the car took a sharp slide and abruptly hit an embankment. The impact threw him against the steering wheel and knocked his head against the windshield. He was dazed and shaking badly. The car had stalled out, and steam arose where rock had torn a hole in the radiator, and though Jim was—barely—able to get it started again, when he tried to back out of the embankment, the wheels just spun uselessly, even when he pressed the gas pedal down to the floor and the engine groaned and shook. He tried again and again, but the most movement he got out of the car was that the back of it swayed a little from side to side. It didn't even move an inch backward. I'll just have to dig out, he thought. When he got out of the car, if he'd had any rationality left, he would have realized that any attempt to get the car out by himself would be futile. It was practically at a 90 degree angle. But in a frenzied manner he began scooping snow away from the back of the car with his hands. When he'd made a clear space and got back in his car, though, it wouldn't start.

"Goddamn thing," he said, pounding the dashboard. All that money he'd paid for a Cadillac, and what the hell good had it done him?

The worst part about it, though, he thought, was that the heater would no longer kick out any hot air. If he had to walk, he was really hoping to get toasty warm before he started out, because he already felt frozen stiff. He came up with what he thought was a good idea, though: He'd run to keep himself warm, just as he had when he was a Boy Scout on cold mornings when his troop was on campouts.

When he got out, however, he found it was difficult even to walk, much less run. The snow was about two feet deep and his lungs were so clogged with smoke from all the cigarettes he'd smoked that day that he gasped for breath. It felt to him as if the wind were piercing into every cell of his body. He berated himself for having brought only a light top coat and driving gloves and not being prepared for any kind of serious cold weather. For shoes all he had were his wing tips. He remembered now with sarcasm how he'd thought before he'd left, who'd need a winter coat in Atlanta? The snow felt like pins being jabbed into his face, as it caked and melted in a continuous cycle. His fingers and toes were numb to the bone.

He wondered how far back that store could be. It seemed as if he'd driven almost as far back as he'd driven after he'd left it, yet he still seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere. He thought that he must be in a park or something, because there didn't seem to be any buildings around. Gathering up his strength, he started walking faster, but he got going too fast on the downslope and plunged headlong onto the ground. His mouth filled up with snow and his knee hit a rock, bruising it badly and causing him to cry out in pain. When he got up and started walking again, he was shivering terribly and was on the verge of crying. Somebody's got to drive by, he thought. That's my only chance. Numbness was creeping deeper into his arms and legs, and his face had so little circulation that it felt to him like a slab of granite. He wondered if frostbite had set in yet. He thought with bitter irony of his dying out there, the trivialness of it, that it could have been caused by a casual decision to take a scenic route on a drive to Atlanta. He imagined his wife, Millie, and his kids, Janie and David, back home in Cincinnati playing Parcheesi, with a good fire going, wondering how his trip was going.

He started becoming delirious, and in the whine of the wind thought he heard dogs howling. He stopped to listen more carefully and remembered the old hillbilly in the store telling the story about how wild dogs had eaten that guy who'd been lost in the snow. He imagined it happening to him, hounds running toward him, their eyes and sharp teeth shining in the dark, barking as if maddened, and jumping on him and bringing him down. Somehow he found the strength to start running again and happened to be going down a stretch where the snow wasn't as deep, where the wind had blown it into drifts at the side of the road. Soon, however, the last of his strength was gone, and, reaching deeper snow again, he collapsed into it. He scrunched his body up into a ball, thinking the dogs would reach him any second. The barking seemed relentless as he imagined them ripping into his flesh. Thinking of it made him try to get up again, but even though he tried with all his might, his arms and legs would barely move. Then his eyes closed, and there was just the wind and the swish of the snow. The snow piled up on him and he breathed it in.

"I wonder where he thought he was goin', on a night like that," the old man said, puffing on his pipe thoughtfully at Abel's General Store.

"I don't know, but the next time I see him, I'll be sure to ask him," the younger man standing on the other side of the woodburner said.

The old man went on as if he hadn't caught the sarcasm.

"Strange, with all them houses around him, he froze to death."

"In that storm he probably couldn't see his hand in front of his face," contemptuously.

"Makes me think back to '48, when ol' Jethro Badgely got lost in a big storm. They went up and kilt all them dowgs," shaking his head.

Waiting for Dan

It would be a Christmas like no other. That's what Laura Latimer thought as she lay on her bed and imagined it, late in the afternoon the day before Christmas. This was no time to be up in her room by herself, what with the rest of the family downstairs talking and laughing, especially since it was so seldom now that they were together. But she'd wanted to get away so she could think without anyone interrupting her, so that she could dream about what it would be like when Dan Avery came to visit her. It wasn't if anymore but when, so certain had she become, so much had she made of how things had been between them when he'd come into the drugstore the week before. He'd been so happy to see her, she thought. He'd looked into her eyes and smiled in a way that showed he still really cared about her, and without even thinking, she'd invited him to come out to the farm on Christmas Day.

"Sure, Laura," he'd said, smiling at her sweetly. "I'll make sure to come out there," and she'd rung up his toothpaste and Road & Track magazine, and ever since practically all she could think about was his coming over.

She had it all worked out, how he'd surprise her by coming out to the house without calling first, with a nice present for her, how she'd run into his arms and be so happy that nothing else in the world would matter, and even her older sister, Liz, would envy her. It would be her best Christmas ever. After a while Laura sat up and looked out the window, at the snow and the hay stubble and the barn, and the sky that was water color gray. She was there when her mother, Agnes, called from the bottom of the stairs.

"Come on down, Laura," she said. "You've been up there long enough. My goodness, what a time to want to be by yourself."

Laura frowned but decided she'd better go down. She didn't want to have to try to explain why she was keeping so much to herself, and she had looked forward to having the family together—even if Liz was annoying at times with all her talk about Chicago. When she came downstairs into the living room, she found her brother Matt and Grandpa having another of what she thought were their silly arguments.

"Nietzsche said, 'The strongest and most evil spirits have so far advanced humanity the most,'" Matt said. "'They have always rekindled the drowsing passions—all ordered society puts the passions to sleep.'"

Though just a freshman at Michigan State, he quoted the classics with as much self-assurance as if he'd held an endowed chair at Harvard.

"Nietzsche, Smee-chee," Grandpa said crustily, crunching up his newspaper. "There's more truth in one book of the Bible than there is in all of your philosophers put together. Don't ever let those communist professors tell you different, either."

There was a snap in the fireplace.

"But the Bible's irrelevant to the modern world," Matt said. "Any relevancy it had was lost when Darwin published his Origin of Species. And today it's certainly nothing but a quaint relic."

"Matthew!" Agnes said. "This is hardly the season for that kind of talk. What ideas those professors have filled your head with!"

"It has nothing to do with professors," Matt said loftily. "It's a historical imperative."

"Oh, phoo. If your majesty doesn't feel you're lowering yourself, I'd appreciate it if you'd set the table."

Laura had sat down on the sofa with her grandfather. The room was dark and the furniture old-fashioned and threadbare, but the fire cheered the room up, and a Christmas tree was nicely decorated in one corner. Liz was sitting in an easy chair with one leg hanging over an arm of the chair browsing through a fashion book. She worked as a fashion buyer for Marshall Field in Chicago. It amused Laura to wonder what Liz's Chicago friends would think if they could see the scruffy girl she was just a few years before, with dirt under her fingernails working in a potato field.

"So what can we expect from the fashion world in the coming months?" Laura said.

"There's no sense in me telling you about things you wouldn't be able to afford," Liz said, slowly smiling. "You'd just be jealous."

"It's probably all stuff no decent woman would wear anyway."

"That's hardly the case. And really, Laura, you ought to do something about the way you dress. Your clothes make you look like you're 50 years old."

"Oh, I suppose they'll do for Elkmont. And besides, you just said I can't afford any of that fancy stuff."

"Well, you could still do something. Even K-Mart would be an improvement over what you wear now."

"This is disgusting!" Grampa said as he was reading. "A bunch of students at California State University blew up the ROTC building last spring and the judge just let them off scot free. He suspended their sentences, for crying out loud. How can they expect anyone to obey the law anymore!"

"It's good to know there's at least one enlightened mind in the judiciary today," Matt shouted from the dining room as he was setting the table.

Grandpa was just winding up to respond when Agnes intercepted the argument by calling everyone to dinner, so he settled for just muttering "Hrumph." The dinner was one which normally would have made Laura's mouth water. Her mother had baked a ham and made peas with Parmesan cheese sauce, baked potatoes with sour cream, and she had a crumb cake baking in the oven. But with so much on her mind about Dan, Laura just picked at her food and didn't take part much in the conversations the others were having. After a while, though, she'd had about all she could take of Liz's bragging about her job and her rich boyfriend in Chicago.

"Why didn't you invite Rich to come to Elkmont for Christmas, so we could see for ourselves how great he is?" she said.

"Oh, my, I don't know what I'd do with him here," Liz said, laughing affectedly, and then suddenly laughing harder, as if it took a moment for a full realization of how funny such an occurrence would be to sink in. "Considering the kind of life he's used to, I'm sure he'd be bored out of his mind after the first hour."

"He might not mind it so much. He could saddle up Crackers and go practice polo shots out in the hay field to his heart's content."

"Methinks I detect a jealous woman."

"That'll be enough of that," their mother said. "Let's try to get along on Christmas Eve."

After dinner Laura went back to her room and stayed there until her mother insisted she come down to sing Christmas carols and have mincemeat pie and ice cream with the family. But as soon as she felt she could get away with it, she went back up to her room and got into bed. She wanted to be free to think to her heart's content about what it would be like and how happy she'd be when Dan came over and they were together again. It would be a Christmas like no other. And no, she thought, there could be no doubt about his intentions: He wanted her back, that's all there was to it. They'd be together and happy again.

She also had to work on the question of what she'd wear. She supposed Liz was right when she'd said she really must do something about her clothes. But she still thought she had one or two outfits that would do, that would show off her blue eyes and voluptuous figure to advantage and didn't look too old fashioned. Of course there'd be some ribbing from Liz and probably from Matt for wearing anything that dressy around the house, but that was the least of her worries right now. She imagined how happy and proud she'd feel at dinner with Dan beside her and how good everything would taste. She had it worked out how she'd bring him up to her room after her mother and Grandpa went to bed, and they'd make love and she'd know he was really hers again. By now she could no more have imagined that Dan wouldn't come than she could that the farm was located in Hawaii. She was so excited she could easily have lain awake all night just thinking, but she forced herself to sleep so that she wouldn't look tired and worn in the morning.

Still, she was up before the others Christmas Day and helped her mother prepare the turkey and pies while the others slept in. After breakfast, she changed into the dress she'd planned to wear and came down into the living room where everyone was getting ready to open presents.

"Where on earth did you get that thing?" Liz said, eyeing Laura critically. "Why you look like something out of a Currier and Ives print: Hoedown at Old McDonald's Farm. You're really going to have to come to Chicago so I can take you shopping."

"There's nothing wrong with this dress," Laura said. "Not everyone wants to dress like they do in Chicago, you know, with skirts up to their ass and their boobs falling out of their blouse."

"The fashions in Chicago are nothing like that, Laura, my dear," laughing. "My, you have some weird ideas. You've stayed in Elkmont far too long for your own good."

Matt had been listening with a feeling of lofty condescension.

"I can hardly imagine anything more irrelevant in today's world, fraught as it is with racism and pollution and poverty and the ever-present specter of nuclear war, than fashion," he said. "It makes me think of Nero fiddling while Rome burned."

"Oh, please," Liz said. "Mother, you really must make Matt transfer to a more conservative college and get all these crazy ideas out of his head. Is it too late to send him to the University of Alabama?"

"Right now, I'm more concerned with the ever-present specter of unopened presents," Agnes said, just barely smiling, and she began picking up presents to see who they were for and passing them around.

By the time they had got done opening everything, it was past one o'clock, and Laura thought she could expect Dan any time. She was starting to feel apprehensive about it, though, and decided to go out for a walk. The snow crunched under her feet as she walked, and the sun gleamed on the ice on the road as she walked along it. Out of the chimneys of the other farms she saw smoke rising, and Jack bringing in wood over at the McLaughlin place. She walked back to her house and stood by the road for quite a while hoping to spot Dan's car coming. While she was there, Liz came out.

"What are you doing standing outside in the cold, you silly thing?" she said.

"It's not silly," Laura said. "It's a beautiful day out."

"Well, I hope you're having a wonderful time. I'm going out visiting."

After Liz left, Laura walked back to the barn, where she brushed Crackers and fed him some oats and gave him some lumps of sugar. When she came out she stood for a while listening to a thrush sing, thinking it sounded sad and forlorn, but then she decided that it was foolish to think a bird could feel such things, and laughed. When she went back in the house she sat by the fireplace, where Matt had got the Yule log going, and thought about Dan as Matt and Grandpa argued about the Vietnam War.

"The war is totally immoral," Matt said. "The only reason we're fighting is so big corporations can gorge themselves on profit, as if they'd not making enough already."

"Horsefeathers," Grandpa said. "We're fighting to stop communism. The problem with you kids today is that you don't have any fight in you. You've had it so soft, you've turned into marshmallows. Just like Agnew was saying on TV."

"Oh, no, don't bring him into it. I might not be able to keep my lunch down."

As Laura sat there, it struck her how alone she really was, even among her family. None of them had any idea what she was going through, she thought, and there weren't any of them she would have felt comfortable talking with about it besides her mother. Even she would probably have limited her sympathy to practical advice like, "Oh, just forget about him, Laura. You're such a pretty girl, and there are so many others out there you could have," or "It doesn't pay to let yourself get so wrapped up in a man."

After Laura had warmed up, she went upstairs and got into bed. Until Uncle Bruce and his family came over for dinner, there would be a lull, and she thought no one would say anything if she went off by herself, though she went through in her mind how quickly she'd go about getting up and fixed up if Dan came over while she was up there. This was the most likely time for him to come over, she thought, so she had to be ready. Out at his place they'd be done opening presents, and it would be too early for dinner. It was the perfect time to go out visiting, just as Liz was doing.

As she lay in bed she smiled sadly as she thought how quiet it was in the house for a Christmas Day, compared to the noise there'd been all day when she and Matt and Liz were little, and her father was still alive. It made her think of a Christmas when she was sitting on her father's lap by the fire as he read her a Dr. Seuss book, Horton Hatches an Egg, as she clutched the doll she'd got from him as a present. Now she could hear only the soft clatter of her mother working in the kitchen, and once in a while Grandpa or Matt when an argument flared up. She imagined many more times how it would be when Dan arrived, just altering a couple of details each time because of some stray thought or to fit that he'd be coming over later than she might have imagined earlier. That he would come she still barely doubted at all. She felt an assurance about it that she rarely felt about anything, she who'd been too timid to leave home to go to college and make a life of her own the way Liz and Matt had. There was just something about the way Dan had looked into her eyes in the drugstore that day that made her feel so confident about it. He'd seemed so sincere and he'd smiled at her so sweetly, she thought. She could tell he was still in love with her.

Finally, though, she got tired of lying in bed and got up and went downstairs.

"I couldn't believe the way Billy Maitland was bragging about how well he's doing at that little hick company he works for," Liz was saying as Laura came into the living room. "You'd think he was president of General Motors or something. If he only knew how silly he looks." Laura frowned. "Well, look who'd decided to grace us with her presence. I thought you were going to hide away from us the rest of the day again. You've become such a recluse since I left home, Laura. You really ought to consider seeing a shrink about it."

"They don't have any in Elkmont, Liz. This isn't Chicago, where people feel they have to run to their psychiatrist every time they have a runny nose."

"Peace on earth, good will toward women," Matt said with quite an air of superiority.

"By the way, Laura, you'll never guess what I heard when I was over at the Slussers'. That sneak Dan Avery went off and got married yesterday. He's been driving a run to Port Huron and met this girl over there about six months ago. Even his folks didn't know about the marriage plans, and no one over here has even seen the girl. It's all very mysterious, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a baby on the way. It just goes to show how out of touch I am with Elkmont. I hadn't heard a thing about him since you and him broke up. Anyway, I thought you'd be interested to know."

Laura shrugged her shoulders.

"If that's what he wants to do. Why should I care after all this time?"

She thought Liz looked disappointed that she was being so blasé.

"I don't know. I thought you'd at least be interested. I know how silly you are about men. I thought you might even still be carrying a torch."

"No, I couldn't care less," but her voice broke, and in a moment she was up and running up the stairs.

Liz got up and went to the bottom of the stairs.

"I'm sorry, Laur," she said. "I really am, kid. I would have kept my big mouth shut if I'd known."

Laura slammed the door to her room and fell on her bed crying.

So many different feelings were running through her—heartbreak, anger at herself for building up such stupid hopes about Dan, embarrassment for letting her feelings about it show. It had been a year since she and Dan had broken up, and she felt sure that to the others she could only look ridiculous.

After a while, she finally cried herself out. She thought, bitterly, that maybe this was the jolt she needed to get her to break away from home and get out of Elkmont. Though she'd never told anyone, the thought that she might get back with Dan was what kept her home as much as anything. Now maybe she'd go to college. Enough was left from the insurance money they'd got after her father had died so she could go. That was especially what he'd wanted it used for. Maybe now she could get over her timidity and go to Michigan State with Matt. But then she remembered the time Dan had made her a bouquet of wildflowers when they went on a picnic over at Eagle Lake, and she burst into tears. She was determined, however, not to let such sentimentality influence her life any more. It had been a year, she thought. It was time to put Dan Avery behind her forever.

After an hour or so she was ready to start thinking about going back downstairs again and was even able to smile a little as she imagined Liz telling her that in Chicago they don't let any man bother them for more than a week after they've broken up. Uncle Bruce and his family had come over, and Laura wanted to be part of all the talk and the dinner that would soon be served.

Yes, she thought, this really would be a Christmas like no other.

The Search

Bennie knew it wouldn't be easy when he was riding into the place. The city seemed endless. Just when he'd think the bus station would have to be around the next corner, they'd ride for what would seem like another hour, past more buildings and streets teeming with people. It could really have got a guy frustrated, but Bennie had so been looking forward to this trip, to meeting his long lost brother, that even the long, tedious ride couldn't dampen his enthusiasm. With any luck Joe and I'll be together within an hour, he kept saying to himself.

Things didn't get off to any too good a start when Bennie finally arrived at the bus station, though, either. He was shoved and jostled, and people behind him said things like "Hurry up" and "I haven't got all day." When he went into the station, he found that he kept running into people, or they ran into him, even though it was a big, cavernous place and wasn't especially crowded. He finally made his way to a musty little alcove where he wouldn't get in anyone's way and looked over the map of the city he'd brought. The problem was that the Last Chance Hotel, where he'd been told his brother was staying, wasn't in the Mobil Travel Guide Bennie had, so he wasn't sure where it was located. Just then, though, he spotted a friendly-looking old man sitting on a bench in the center of the station reading a newspaper. Perhaps he could assist him, or even tell him what street the Last Chance was on. He went right over to him with his map still open.

"Excuse me, sir," Bennie said. "Would you happen to know where the Last Chance Hotel is located?"

The old man didn't say anything or look up at him. Perhaps he's hard of hearing, Bennie thought, so he leaned down toward the old man's ear and repeated his question, only much louder this time.

"Are you talking to me?" the old man said.

"Ye-yes, sir."

"I've never heard of the damn place. It sounds like some hooker joint. Why the hell don't you look it up in the phone book?"

"Why, thank you, I will."

Bennie shook his head and kind of laughed at himself. He hadn't even thought of such a simple thing. He quickly went to a phone booth and called and got directions to the Last Chance Hotel—the man wouldn't tell him over the phone if his brother were staying there or not. It was only a couple of miles away, so he decided to walk. After the long bus ride, he was glad to have a chance to stretch his legs. Virtually all the buildings he passed on the way to the Last Chance were dilapidated. Garbage overflowed from cans, and the streets were strewn with things like orange peelings and old newspapers. Groups of black guys eyed him suspiciously or laughed at him, and winos stared out at him blankly. A rat and a greasy cat darted across the street.

The Last Chance Hotel itself was in no better shape than the rest of the buildings, but it had a pink neon sign that made it stand out. Bennie hesitated before going inside. He was disappointed to find his brother living in such a dump. Inside the hotel, it was so quiet, and there was such an empty feeling, that Bennie wondered if anyone was even staying there. However, a couple of hookers were sitting on a sofa in the lobby—a black woman and a blonde, both heavily made up and smoking boredly. A man with a shaved head sat behind the reception desk.

"Excuse me, sir," Bennie said. "I'm looking for my brother, Joseph Block. The last anyone knew he was staying here."

"Oh yeah?" the man said. "Well, I've never heard of him."

"Are you sure? Would you mind checking your records?"

"Yeah, I'd mind a lot. I ain't got the time."

"But—you aren't doing anything."

"I still ain't got the time."

Bennie didn't know what to say.

"I've got a better idea if I was you, kid. See them two broads over there? I happen to know that for a hundred bucks plus twenty for the room they could both be yours. Salt and pepper. Anything you want, they do it."

"But that's not what I came for. How about if I pay you to look through your records?"

"Well, now you're talking," his eyes lighting up. "Why didn't you say something before? For twenty bucks paid up front I check all my records."

It was a lot of money to Bennie. He only had about a hundred dollars to last the whole trip. But he'd come so far to see Joe—he didn't feel he had any choice. So he paid the man, who proceeded to look listlessly through a file drawer for a few minutes.

"Nope—he ain't never been here. Sorry I couldn't help you. Now about them girls. They ain't too busy right now and I think I can swing you a deal..."

But Bennie was already walking away. It was obvious that the detective he'd hired back home to find his brother had played a cruel trick on him. He stood outside the Last Chance wondering what he should do next. He didn't get an opportunity to do much thinking, though, before a guy came up to him.

"Hey, man, whadaya say?" the guy said, putting his arm around him. "Wanna score some coke? How about some smack or some reds? I can get anything you want, man. Make you feel real-l-l good."

"Sorry, I'm not interested today," Bennie said.

Bennie started walking. Already other hustlers and panhandlers were heading toward him. But the guy who'd tried to sell him the dope stayed right beside him.

"How about some pussy then, man. I get you anything you want. White chick, black chick, Mexican. Fifty dollars for anything you want."

Bennie now had to fall back on Plan B. He'd go to the city's Office of Official Records and see what they had on his brother. He took the subway downtown and felt a lot better when he got up to the street. Things were so much nicer here. People were dressed well, even elegantly, the buildings were kept up, and there was hardly any litter on the streets. The exhaust fumes almost smelled good to him after the garbagy odors of that other area. But Bennie had to be extra careful here not to run into anyone because there were so many people walking along the sidewalks, and no one seemed to look at anyone else.

It was with high hopes that Bennie walked into the sleek skyscraper that housed the Office of Official Records. Surely, he was bound to get results in such a modern, efficient-looking place. The only problem was, he didn't have any idea which office to go to. There were no signs, and no one to ask where anything was. When he finally went into the nearest office area, everyone was running around or poring over computer terminals, and he was afraid to interrupt anyone.

"Do you have an authorization clearance to be here?" a clerk finally asked him brusquely.

"Why, no," Bennie said. "But I'm looking for my brother, Joseph Block. I've determined he's living in Neworld somewhere. I thought there'd be a record in this building that would tell me his address."

The clerk rolled his eyes.

"You've got the wrong department," sounding terribly put out. "This is Department 131!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What department should I go to?"

"That's out of my jurisdiction. You'll have to go to Department 327 and have them make a determination for you. Have a nice day."

So Bennie went to Department 327 and was directed from there to Department 733. But that department turned out to be walled off, except for a sliding glass window that wouldn't open from the outside. Bennie had a terrible time getting anyone's attention inside. People would sometimes look up at him, but no one would come over, even when he waved and gesticulated. Why, he must have waited half an hour. Finally, he got so frustrated he banged on the window. That made most of the people inside look at him angrily, but at least someone finally came over. A tough-looking woman, a Ms. Harridan, according to her badge, slid open the window.

"You're causing a disturbance out here that's seriously impacting the work area," she said. "If you don't leave immediately, I'll be procedurally mandated to call our Bureau of Security Services."

"But ma'am. They told me in Department 327 to come here. They said this is the place where I could obtain my brother's address."

"If that's the case, I'll have to see about getting them written up. They've totally failed to implement Article 819-23 of the Official Rules and Regulations. We're only open from ten to twelve on Fridays."

"But—but I was here before twelve and no one would come to the window."

"All I know is that the Official Clock gives a reading of 12:15, and we're closed until Monday morning. If you want after hours assistance, you'll have to go to Department 1492. If I help you, I could be severely reprimanded under Article 583-12. Have a nice day," and she slammed the window shut.

So Bennie tramped wearily up the seven flights of stairs—because he didn't have the computer coded card that would have enabled him to use the elevator—to Department 1492. But Department 1492 turned out to be the wrong department, too, and Bennie was rudely shuffled from there to another department. From one department to another he was sent and walked up and down flights of stairs until he was exhausted, and it seemed to him as if he'd been in every department in the building. The odd part about it was, that no matter how rude and insulting the officials were, they all seemed programmed to say, "Have a nice day" as he left. Finally, he sat down in a stairwell all alone trying to decide if he shouldn't just give up and take the next bus home. He just couldn't bring himself to do that, though, and decided he'd try one more department before calling it quits. At least at this department, No. 817, he wasn't made to wait, as he had been at so many of the others, and he took that as a good sign. The man who came over, Mr. Brown, even smiled—though there was something about the smile that made Bennie suspicious.

"I wonder if you could help me locate my brother?" Bennie said, sighing, because he'd repeated the same refrain so many times, and went on and explained his situation.

"Well, that's a little out of our line here," Mr. Brown said, smiling again. "But for a non-refundable service charge of $20 in cash, payable in advance, we'd be more than happy to screen our official records."

Mr. Brown held out his palm. Bennie hesitated as he tried to decide what to do, then awkwardly reached for his wallet and got out a $20 bill.

"Thank you very much," Mr. Brown said, pulling the bill out of Bennie's hand. "We'll be with you momentarily."

Bennie thought it odd that he kept saying "we" even though he appeared to be the only person working in this department. Mr. Brown soon came back with a pile of forms about as thick as a novel that he said Bennie would have to fill out in triplicate before he could start his search—regulations required it, he said.

"But this could take hours, maybe days," Bennie said as he flipped through the forms, most of which were loaded with fine print. "And I can already see that I don't have a lot of the information that's required."

"Those are all mandatory entries, too," Mr. Brown said, furrowing his brow, as if dismayed himself. He brought his hand to his chin and looked as if he were thinking hard.

"Well, we could go short form," he finally said.

"Short form? What's that mean?"

"That means you'd just have to fill out one form. But for that you'd have to pay on additional non-refundable $10 in cash, payable in advance, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to do that," turning his head a little and looking at Bennie askance. "If it were just up to me, I'd do it for free, but rules are rules."

"Ma-aybe I would," Bennie blurted out. He ended up getting out his wallet and pulling out a $10 bill, wondering what he was going to do for food if this drain on his money kept up much longer.

"Thank so much," Mr. Brown said, again pulling the bill out of Bennie's hand.

He came back in a moment with a half page form that didn't ask for much more than Bennie's name and address and his brother's name and last known address. Bennie filled it out quickly, and Mr. Brown looked it over.

"Everything seems to be in order," he said. "Have a seat and we'll be with you in two shakes of a lamb's tail."

Bennie looked around to see if he'd been mistaken and was going to say, "But there are no chairs," but Mr. Brown was already gone. He expected a long wait, so he was surprised when Mr. Brown came back quickly.

"We've met with success," he said. "I found the address you're looking for. Just sign here and you can be on your way."

Bennie thanked Mr. Brown profusely and was so happy that the hassles he'd gone through, and the money he'd spent since he'd come to Neworld, seemed but a trifle. It sounded like such a nice address, too: 324 Pleasant Street.

It seemed to Bennie like it was going to take him forever to get a cab. They just kept passing him by, even though he waved his arms and yelled "Taxi" as they zoomed by on their way to the nice hotels and big tips down the street. Finally, one did stop, but it was an odd, black cab from the Budget Cab Company that was different from any of the others. The driver, who introduced himself as Mr. Black, looked so much like Mr. Brown that Bennie would have sworn that they were twin brothers. When Bennie told him the address, he said he knew right where it was. Then he smiled that oily, meretricious smile that was so like Mr. Brown.

To Bennie the ride seemed endless. Street after street they went down and made so many turns that Bennie lost count. Past pawn shops and bag ladies they went, funeral homes and hotels. They passed punks hanging out on street corners, movie theaters and gutted buildings, and fashionably dressed women. They went by barber shops and an electronic sign that gave stock quotations, people sitting out on the porches of rundown houses, video game arcades and abandoned mansions, and a newsboy holding up a paper with the headline PRESIDENT PREDICTS NUCLEAR WAR. After a while, Bennie was certain they'd gone down some streets several times. Polite though he was, he finally decided that he'd have to bring his feelings about the matter to the attention of the driver. He tapped gently at the partition that separated him from Mr. Black, and Mr. Black turned around and opened it.

"Yes?" he said, smiling broadly.

"I think you must be lost. We keep going by the same places over and over again."

"Oh, no, I'd never do that," exaggeratedly. "We'll be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail."

But he still drove for a long time, and Bennie was certain that they again went down streets that they'd already been on. Finally, though, they stopped turning and went a long way out, into a suburban area, and Mr. Black stopped. He got out and ran around to let Bennie out, as if he'd been in a hurry all along, or was afraid Bennie might try to run away without paying. As soon as Bennie got out, Mr. Black held out his palm.

"That'll be $30 please, plus tip," smiling.

"Thirty dollars! That's almost all the money I've got left."

"Taxi drivers in Neworld aren't allowed to give discounts. The Amalgamated Transportation Workers Union has strict rules against it. The fare has to be $30, plus tip."

Bennie got out his wallet and reluctantly pulled out $30, which Mr. Black snatched quickly from his hand.

"Now there's just the matter of tip," holding his palm out again.

"I'm sorry, but I can't afford to give you a tip. You'll just have to go without one this time. Besides, you cheated me by going around and around in circles."

"All right, suit yourself," as if he thought Bennie were making a big mistake. "But you'll be blackballed and never be able to get a taxi in this city again." He got back in his taxi and was gone so fast that it seemed more like an image disappearing from a movie screen than real life.

Bennie was pleased to find that his brother was living in such a nice area, but there was something strange about this place—there were no people anywhere. The houses were big and varied in style, from Tudor to Georgian to modern, and each was set back on a large, well-kept lawn, but there was no sign that any of them were lived in. The only sound was of the sprinklers on some of the lawns, as if elves came in at night and kept up all the houses and lawns, and then went away in the morning after turning the sprinklers on. The only thing Bennie could figure was that perhaps everyone was just inside having dinner with their families. In front of his brother's house were signs which read ABSOLUTELY NO TRESPASSING and BEWARE OF EXTREMELY VICIOUS DOG. He was surprised because he'd always imagined that his brother would be the type who'd be friendly to everyone. They were probably his wife's idea, he thought. In any case, he started happily walking up the driveway. A brother could hardly be considered a trespasser, he thought.

Bennie knocked on the door and almost instantaneously a loud, blood-curdling growl issued from the house, followed by what sounded like a desperate attempt by the dog to get out the door, as if it would gladly have risked its life for the opportunity of tearing whoever was at the door to shreds. Perhaps they have a problem with prowlers in this area, Bennie thought. A sign on the door read: ABSOLUTELY NO SOLICITORS. Bennie couldn't help but wonder if he had the right house. No one answered the door, so he knocked again, though he wondered if anyone inside would be able to hear his knocking over the racket the dog was making. He was getting really nervous but knocked hard once more, and someone finally came to the door.

"Can't you read'?" an old man said. "The sign says ABSOLUTELY NO SOLICITORS."

"But I'm not here to sell anything!" Bennie said.

"Now look at how upset you've got Killer."

The dog, a pit bull, was straining at its leash, and Bennie's gaze went nervously back and forth between the old man and the dog. He was terrified that it would break away from its master.

"I'm sorry I sound so upset, but I've been on a long, exhausting search for my brother, Joseph Block. I was told at the Office of Official Records that he was living here."

"Of all the malarkey. I can see they're wasting my hard-earned tax dollars again."

"You mean he really doesn't live here after all?" crushed.

"I've never heard of any Joseph Block. This is the Herbert Blankman residence, and I've lived here for over twenty years. Now get off my private property."

Mr. Blankman smiled slyly as he pretended that he was losing his grip on the leash.

"Are you sure that he's not just living at another house in the neighborhood?" stepping away. "Maybe I've just got the wrong house number."

"I really couldn't tell you. I've never met any of the neighbors. If you're not off my private property in thirty seconds," looking at his watch, "I'll have Killer drag you off. Now scram!"

Sweating and scared, Bennie ran down the driveway, looking behind himself a couple of times to make sure Mr. Blankman didn't release the dog, which was still straining at its leash hysterically. When he got to the street, though, he stood before the house and saw that Mr. Blankman and his dog were already back in the house, and the neighborhood was just as eerily quiet and empty as it had been when he'd arrived.

His last hope was that his brother was really just living in another house on Pleasant Street. But he was so daunted and scared after the confrontation with Mr. Blankman and his dog that he stood on the street a long time before he could get up enough courage to go up to another door. Afraid to get too close to Mr. Blankman's house, he ended up going first to the house two doors down. But no one was home there, and when he tried other houses on the street, either no one was home, or the people inside wouldn't answer the door, even though Bennie could tell someone was home, or he was rudely turned away. None of the people he talked to had ever heard of his brother or would offer any help. His brother's name wasn't on any of the mailboxes, either. Even if Joe was living in one of the houses, Bennie concluded, he'd never find him.

He couldn't ever remember feeling more forlorn in his life, not even when he was living in the orphanage. The street as far up and down it as he'd gone was as lifeless as where he'd got out of the cab. He sat on a curb for a long while, not sure what to do or how to get back to the bus station. Obviously, there was no public transportation out this way. Finally he just started walking down Pleasant Street, looking down all the streets he crossed for something different, for a bus station or a Burger King or Kentucky Fried Chicken where he could sit down and have a cup of coffee and grab a bite to eat. But the streets all seemed alike.

Mile after mile Bennie walked, until he thought he'd collapse from exhaustion or lack of food or wear the imitation leather off the soles of his hoes. It was hours before he finally located a subway station. There he just barely had time to gulp down a New and Improved Hostess Twinkie and a New and Improved Pepsi before the last train of the day left for downtown. The subway seemed to Bennie like the appropriate place for him to be, especially because he was the only rider in the car he was in. The darkness and the isolation of the tunnels and the anonymity of the faces at the station mirrored what he felt was his relationship to the world.

When Bennie finally got back to the bus station and got on the bus to go home, the strangest thing of the entire trip happened. No matter how far they drove, they didn't get out of Neworld. The expanse of skyscrapers and houses and people just went on and on. Even when they did pass some bigger, nicer houses, and it seemed they were getting out of the city and into the suburbs, they'd soon be riding by tenements and stores and office buildings again, as if they'd started the trip all over. It seemed to Bennie, too, that they kept passing the same ads printed on walls and flashed out on electronic signs. They were everywhere, and Bennie's mind couldn't rest for a second without being assaulted by some ad: Marlboro men were trying to sell him cigarettes and smiling women Doublemint gum and sports stars Coca-Cola. Women in bathing suits were hawking tanning lotion and electronic signs told him of once in a lifetime sales. Everybody in the world, it seemed, was trying to sell something. No matter how many hills they went up and down, no matter how long they drove, it was just more of the same, and that, and all the dead ends he'd come up against in his search for Joe, made Bennie start questioning everything.

Maybe his brother didn't really exist, he thought, maybe his mother had just made up that story about Joe having to be put up for adoption, and that Bennie wouldn't be able to find him if he searched forever. Or maybe he just didn't remember the story right, because he'd only been eight when his mother had died. And maybe the place that he'd come to was really just a part of the place he'd left that he'd just never seen before. Everywhere you went any more, it seemed, things were so much alike.

So Bennie sat back in his seat as dusk set in and lights came on in myriads in the buildings all around him, and the bus rolled on into the heart of America.

Last Laugh

The timing was perfect, Jack thought. Just what they'd been waiting for. Wendell even brought it up first in a way, mentioning Miller's Swamp as they were sitting in the Lakewood Inn drinking. "Night Moves" by Bob Seger was playing on the juke box, and they could smell the sawdust on the floor.

"You ever hear the story about that old cottage out at the end of the swamp?" Jack said, looking at Wendell.

"Not really," Wendell said. "I just know it's supposed to be haunted or something. Kids are afraid to go out there."

"Sure, everybody knows that. But I mean the story behind why they think it's haunted, and why it was just abandoned."

"No, tell me about it." He seemed real interested. Even better. Jack looked over at Rhonda, and she smiled.

"Back in 1952 there was a couple living out there, John and Evelyn Mackie, who used to fight like cats and dogs. Everybody said they were weird, and they had these terrible fights you could hear clear out to Brady Road. Well, one night they had a fight that was worse than usual. Evelyn screamed something terrible, they say. There used to be a campground out there, and if it had been anybody else but the Mackies, somebody who worked at the campground would probably have called the cops. But they'd got use to the fights by that time, and the cops were sick of going out there. Not long after that, though, the Mackies were found murdered inside their cottage. Ax murdered, and the case was never solved."

"Weren't there any suspects?" Wendell said.

"Not really. One theory, the one I'm inclined to believe, is that after one of them axed the other, the other had just enough strength left to ax the one who'd started it before they died. You could see that, especially if it was Evelyn who axed John first.

"They tried for a couple of years after that to sell the place, but no one would buy it. A couple of times they got people from out of town all set to buy it, but just before they were going to sign the papers, they'd find out what'd happened there and back out. It was always some casual thing, they'd just mention they were going to buy the place when they were in a store around here, or some kid would tell them. Anyway, the real estate agent finally gave up trying to sell it, and it just deteriorated."

"What a waste of money."

"Any kid in town will tell you the place is haunted, and stories go around from time to time about people hearing screams out there in the middle of the night. The adults just laugh, but a couple of times I've offered to bet five hundred dollars to anyone who'd spend a night out there and didn't get a single taker. They'd just say I wouldn't really pay up, but I would've. The truth is nobody had the guts."

"You're kidding," Wendell said. "You'd actually pay someone a hundred bucks just to spend one night there?"

The cheap bastard, Jack thought. He'd probably do it for five bucks.

"That's right. Five C-notes for one night alone in the Mackie cottage."

"Well, hell, I'd do it for that. Is the offer still open?"

"Sure. But remember, if you don't make it you have to pay me five hundred dollars."

"Are you kidding? I'm probably the least superstitious person who ever lived. It'd be a snap."

"OK. As long as Rhonda'll let you."

They both looked over at her, though Wendell had never asked her permission to do anything.

"It's up to you, Wen," smiling her cool, enigmatic smile. "I'm not the one who'll have to go out there."

"When do you want to do it then?" Jack said, wanting Wendell to think it was really all up to him.

"Tomorrow night's fine with me. Five hundred bucks," shaking his head. "Just like that."

Jack Gillett had a cottage down the road from Wendell and Rhonda Koser's on Boone Lake outside of Willard, in the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan, though his was smaller and not nearly as luxurious. The cottages were on a quiet lake, in lovely pine woods. Jack was a carpenter and handyman who claimed he'd had a successful construction business until his partner had stabbed him in the back. He said he was 35 but looked older because his skin had a weathered look. Still, almost anyone would have called him handsome, with his black moustache and wavy black hair that was always in place and his quick smile. When he looked into your eyes, though, he left you feeling he wasn't someone you'd put much trust in. Wendell was a successful developer of strip malls who'd been an officer in Vietnam. He was quite well off but not as wealthy as he would have liked people to think. He did, however, have a large insurance policy that would pay off in case of his death. Rhonda had an icy kind of beauty, a blonde whose dark brown eyes made a striking contrast to her hair. Although Rhonda didn't usually say much, she intimidated all but the most self-confident men. Like Wendell and Jack.

The next night when Wendell was getting ready to go out to the Mackie cottage, Jack walked over to their place.

"I thought I'd better come by to certify that you really go out there," he said, smiling, as Wendell was packing a duffel bag. "C-notes aren't easy to come by these days."

"I think I've got everything I need," Wendell said. He looked down at his sleeping bag and open duffel bag, which contained a small pillow, a Walkman stereo/cassette player, an old blanket, a lantern, and a copy of Capital Gains for the Serious Investor, by David Weil.

"Just taking along some light reading, I see," Jack said. "Did you remember the cross and silver bullets?"

"Nope. I don't believe in any of that crap. I've just got what I need to be comfortable and entertained."

"Well, have fun out there. I expect you back by midnight or so. What the hell, I may even have that five hundred bucks in my pocket in time to go out and celebrate before the bars close."

"I hope you don't have too bad a night, Hon," Rhonda said. "This is so silly for just a lousy five hundred bucks."

"I'm doing it more to disprove a silly superstition than I am for the money."

Like hell, you asshole, Jack thought. You jump every time someone throws a nickel your way.

"I'll probably fall asleep fifteen minutes after I get there and sleep straight through until morning."

Jack and Rhonda drove Wendell to the road that led to the Mackie cottage and watched him walk in. You couldn't actually drive down it any more unless you had an off road vehicle, because it hadn't been maintained since the Mackies were murdered, and now was little more than a weed patch with chunks of concrete in it. The agreement was they'd pick Wendell up at eight the next morning. He scoffed at the idea he'd need a car there in case he decided to leave early.

"I'm scared as hell," Rhonda said, nervously smoking a cigarette, when she and Jack were back at her place. She'd fixed them Manhattans and they were sitting on the sofa. "If anything goes wrong— "

"Nothing's going to go wrong," Jack said. "He fell for the whole thing hook, line, and sinker. Christ, he was so anxious, I thought he was going to leave the bar last night and go right out there. All you have to do is dangle some money in front of him and the son-of-a-bitch tunes everything else out."

"I just have a bad feeling about it. He's so sharp."

"He's been fooled before. We've been fooling him all summer," putting his hand on her leg and smiling slyly. "And anyway, we've hit him in his weak spot. It's just a matter of following through with the plan. Let's go over it again. We'll go out there about two o'clock and sneak in as quietly as we can. I'll knife him while he's dreaming about stock certificates or whatever the fuck he dreams about, and he'll be dead before he knows what hit him. If he puts up any kind of struggle, you'll be there to let him have it with the gun. I want you to stand no more than three feet away, so there's no chance you'll miss. Then we'll take the body down the basement and put it in the old incinerator and burn it, and we'll be done. By the time the sun comes up, the smoke from the incinerator will be long gone and no one'll be the wiser.

"I just hope he didn't tell anyone. If he did, sooner or later they're going to talk, and the cops are going to go out and look for him."

"You can bank on it that he didn't. He wants everyone around here to think of him as a rich, successful businessman. If it got around that he lowered himself to do something like this for a stinking five hundred bucks, he'd be embarrassed, and people would start questioning how much he's worth. I'm sure he just wants to collect the money and not have anyone the wiser."

"I'll just be glad when this is over, and we can get out of this goddamn place, and I can get away from that penny-pinching bastard forever."

"The toughest part for you is going to be afterwards when the cops and everyone else ask you a million questions. You've got to act like you're really busted up about the whole thing and never change your story."

"He just said he was going to walk down to Grant's Store, right, and never came back?"

"Right. And don't bring my name up anywhere. If the pressure ever starts to get to you, just think how great it's going to be when we finally get out of here with all that money."

He moved closer to her and put his arm around her.

"I can't wait," Rhonda said in a honey soft voice, and they hugged and kissed.

"We'll be able to spend the whole winter in Acapulco if we want. We can just keep going to new places all the time, and if the cops decide they want to ask some more questions, they can just try to find you, right?" smiling.

"If I can just get through this damn night."

"Everything'll be fine. Everything's moving along smooth as silk."

"I need to get my mind off all of this," laughing a little as she put her hands inside his shirt and then undid his belt.

"Now you're talking," and he was already unbuttoning her shirt and put his hands on her breasts. They didn't even make it to the bedroom. They rolled onto the soft rug in the center of the huge front room of the log cabin and made love passionately on the floor, as a fire crackled in the fireplace. Afterwards, they laid down on Rhonda and Wendell's bed to get some rest but had too much on their minds to sleep. At 1:30 am, they got up to get ready to go. They'd been so preoccupied they hadn't really even noticed it had started to rain.

"Oh, fuck, it's raining," Rhonda said, when it finally hit her. "I never even thought of that."

"That's all right. It's even better. Sound doesn't travel as far, in case you have to shoot. And people will be less likely to notice smoke coming out of the incinerator."

She frowned, but they got up and set off. They parked in the place they'd dropped Wendell off and started walking down the old road.

"Christ, I hate this fucking rain," Rhonda said, as it dripped down her face.

"Well, in half an hour it'll all be over," Jack said. "We'll go back and take a hot shower together and celebrate. Just keep thinking of what the payoff'll be, and that nice sunshine down in Acapulco."

"Mr. Cheerful. I'm worried Jack might wake up."

"It would be some kind of record if he did. According to what you said, he falls asleep at the drop of a hat, and nothing'll wake the bastard up till he's good and ready. If you have no conscience, there's nothing to wake you up at night, no bad dreams. I heard that on some talk show. He'll never know what hit him then."

"Oh, fuck. I'm getting sick, Jack. I feel like I'm going to puke."

"Let's go over how we're going to handle this thing one last time," too worried about the murder to have really heard her.

"We've already gone over it about 300 fucking times."

"I just want to be sure there'll be no screws-ups. We won't get a second chance."

So he went over the murder plan again.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it the first time," Rhonda said disgustedly, interrupting him when he was about halfway through.

"Now we'd better not talk anymore," Jack said. "We're getting close."

"All right, don't fucking talk then."

Before long they reached the cottage. Jack stopped outside the door, the rain pouring down. They couldn't hear a single sound inside. Rhonda grabbed Jack by the arm.

"Let's go," she whispered insistently.

He turned on his penlight flash, and, carefully and slowly, started opening the door. Even as slowly as he went, though, it creaked and would hardly budge. His heart raced and the knife shook in his hand. Finally, he got the door open just enough so he could get through it and went inside, with Rhonda close behind. He walked a couple of steps and shined the penlight slowly around the room, over the smeared floor and spider webs and broken glass. A musty odor was heavy in the air. Finally, the light came to a sleeping bag. The way it was puffed out, he thought Wendell must be in it, but he thought it odd his head wasn't sticking out. What's the dumb fuck sleeping like that for, he thought? He turned back to Rhonda as if for reassurance, and she looked at him angrily, shaking the gun toward the sleeping bag, as if to say, "What are you waiting for?"

Jack went over to the sleeping bag and stabbed hard into it, only to find, however, that he'd stabbed into nothing. Nothing, that is, but old clothes. Confused and desperately fearful, he turned to Rhonda and whispered, "He's not in there."

"Oh, yeah? What else is new?" she whispered. "Of course I can see he's not in there, you asshole. Now what in the fuck are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know. It's almost like he knew what we were going to do and did this to trick us."

Then a lantern went on and Rhonda felt the barrel of a gun being stuck hard in her back, and she screamed.

"Drop the gun, Rhon, or I'll kill you," Wendell said.

She dropped it and Wendell pushed her toward Jack.

"Drop the knife, Jack."

He let the knife fall limply from his hand.

"So it's almost like I knew what you were going to do, eh?" smiling and then breaking into a laugh. "A real spoilsport, aren't I?"

Wendell shined the lantern brightly in their faces, but they could barely see him behind it. The only thing they could see really well was the gun he had pointed at them. Jack was shaking so badly he almost looked like he was standing in a strobe light.

"What a nice little plan you had going. It would have been so nice if it had worked, wouldn't it? You'd have had all my money, plus the insurance money, and you'd be together with me out of the picture."

"He made me do it, Wen," Rhonda said. "He blackmailed me."

"That's a big fucking lie," Jack said.

But Wendell went on as if he hadn't heard them.

"You don't think I made all that money by being dumb, do you? I knew you two were having an affair right from the start. I had a detective do a background check on you, Jack, in case I needed some dirt for divorce proceedings. I found out about the time you went to prison for running a con game. This five hundred dollar bet seemed like the perfect set-up for you to run a con game on me, so I made up a little plan of my own."

"So what the fuck are you going to do, kill us?" Jack said.

"Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I?" shouting it the second time. "I'll bet you thought you had the perfect crime, didn't you? A case that would never be solved, like the Mackie ax murders. A murder in a place nobody'd ever look for a body. Well, they'll never solve this one, either."

He clicked the safety off on his Taurus .38 Special.

"Please, Wen, please," Rhonda said. "Give me a break. For all the good times we had together. If you let me off, I promise I'll leave you no strings. I won't ask for a penny."

"Talk is cheap."

But then he had an idea. "Now that I think of it, maybe we can work something out. But you'll have to kill Jack, so I'll always have something on you in case you try to come after my money."

"What?" Jack said. "This is ridiculous. She'll never do it!"

"The hell I won't."

"All right. Pick up your gun and kill him then. And don't even start pointing it toward me unless you want to die instantly. You know how good a shot I am. I had a lot of practice in Vietnam."

"I can't believe you'd do this," Jack said, desperate, blubbering. "After what we've gone through together."

She let out a laugh of contempt.

"It didn't mean that much to me."

Jack started to bolt for the door, and Wendell fired two quick shots to bring him down and kicked Rhonda down, away from her gun. Jack flailed about and then lay dying as a pool of blood formed around him. Wendell and Rhonda stared at each other for a long moment without speaking.

"What a shame," Wendell finally said. "Now we can't go through with our deal."

"What? That's not fair, Wen! I would've done it. I was already reaching for the gun."

"You didn't do it, though. So no deal."

"You dirty bastard. We had a fucking deal. I was ready to kill him for you!" screaming.

"No. You were ready to kill him for yourself. I can't take a chance. It's just too much money. Sooner or later you'd come after it, especially with this hanging over my head," motioning his head toward Jack.

"You won't get away with it, Wen," shouting. "I told somebody. You'll get nailed."

"I'll just say you and Jack ran off together, and everybody'll feel sorry for me," laughing.

"You cheap fucking—" but he cut her off with a gunshot, and then another, then just stood there waiting for her to die and listening to the rain pour down. He had that same feeling he'd had in 'Nam when he'd killed, surprised at how little it bothered him. Being careful not to get any blood on his clothes, he dragged their bodies downstairs and threw them in the incinerator. He put in the wood Jack had carefully hidden under a burlap sack beside the incinerator and poured in gas from the can Jack had hid behind it. Then he washed away the blood and threw the rags in before lighting a fire and closing the incinerator door.

There are still a few details to be taken care of, he thought, as he walked back to the road. And he'd have to get down in his mind exactly what he'd tell the cops when he reported Rhonda missing. But slogging his way through the mud out of the woods, he felt pretty satisfied. He'd got rid of Rhonda and it hadn't cost him a dime. No, he hadn't made all that money by being dumb.

A Chance Meeting

She was sitting on a park bench, alone, reading some romance novel when I saw her. Though I'd known her years before in college, I might have walked by without noticing her if she hadn't looked up and smiled that cool, mysterious smile I remembered so well. I sat down, and she told me she was a fashion buyer for J.C. Penney, in town to make a call on the local store, part of a trip on which she was showing all the stores in west Michigan the spring line. She said she was on the road almost all the time now. I told her how I'd ended up working as an assistant manager of a Perry's drug store, then made some crack about Penney's and Perry's to try to hide that I was embarrassed about being in such an insignificant job. I didn't tell her about my recent engagement to Jennifer Long, though that was really the most significant thing in my life then. We talked about what had happened to people we'd known and watched a little boy and a dog chase a ball across the park, and the wind stir the autumn leaves. Then, somehow, we ended up in the Cafe Venezia across the street, and I forgot about the time and what I was supposed to do that day.

It seemed as if we were the only ones in the place. We sat at a booth with a candle that flicked shadows across our carafe of rosé.

"Let's see," Deanna said. "You were going to be a concert pianist and play with symphonies all over the world. I remember you used to talk about going to New York to make a name for yourself. You played so beautifully. Whatever happened to that?"

"I went to New York, all right. That's where I found out how many people there are who are better than me, or just as good, anyway," trying to make light of it. "You wouldn't believe how many there are. It seemed like half the people in New York City wanted to be concert pianists."

"You still play, don't you?"

"Not much. I don't have room in my apartment for a piano right now, and if you want to know the truth, I got tired of it. Sometimes at parties I'll play a little, and that's about it."

"I was going to be a world-renowned fashion designer, don't you know."

"How could I forget? You were going to be the darling of the rich and famous."

"You were going to be an actress, and I was going to learn to fly," singing a line from "The Taxi" by Harry Chapin, laughing.

"And what happened with you?"

"I—I found out there's no great demand for fashion designers from Muskegon, Michigan, so I took the best thing available," with a tinge of bitterness but trying to make a joke of it.

"Well, let's drink a toast," holding up my glass. "To what might have been, and what may still be," and we clinked glasses.

Deanna most always had a slight look of amusement in her eyes, as if she thought she were the only sane person in a world of fools. She was statuesque and if you didn't really know her, seemed aloof and imposing. I'd always liked her, though, and been attracted by the aura of mystery she had.

We weren't drunk but were feeling good when we got to my apartment, the feeling you get after three or four glasses of wine, exhilarated and relaxed.

I put "The Taxi" on my stereo as soon as we got there, and Deanna got a kick out of it.

"Our theme song," she said. "I'm glad you're playing it. I haven't heard it in a while."

"I'm just a sentimental old fool, I guess," with considerable irony.

"You've got an enormous place here," looking around my tiny apartment. "I don't know how you keep it all clean."

"I have a rather large staff of domestic servants," trying to imitate an upper crust British accent. "They really look sharp dressed up in their red uniforms. The gold buttons really shine."

"Oh, yeah? Where are they tonight?"

"The bums disappeared yesterday, with my uniforms yet. It's so hard getting good help these days, you know."

"Aw, isn't that too bad. I wish they were here right now. I'd like to lie back and have one feed me grapes like I was Cleopatra."

"I'd be glad to do that myself, but I don't have any grapes on hand. I had a lot of trouble with my vineyards this year. I sprayed tons of pesticides on them, but the bugs just kept coming back."

"Life is tough. Let's pretend then." She lay back on the sofa and I sat beside her. "I'm waiting."

I pretended to feed Deanna grapes, and she pretended to eat them. Then she smiled warmly, in a way that seemed out of character with her usual cool demeanor, and sat up.

"Those grapes were marvelous. Antony himself couldn't have done a better job."

"Thanks. I hope I don't sound like I'm bragging if I say I've always been known as an excellent grape feeder. I almost majored in it in college."

"Well, isn't that something..." She looked deeply into my eyes. "Doesn't it surprise you that we're here? That we just happened to run into each other after not seeing each other for years, and somehow ended up in your apartment together?"

"Nothing surprises me anymore."

"With me it's just the opposite. I can hardly believe the way my life's turned out. Everything's been a surprise, and it doesn't seem like anything's gone according to plan. Maybe I'd be just as bored if it had, though."

"You never know."

"Do I seem different from when you knew me before?"

"You're much more interesting. Before you thought you knew everything," laughing a little.

Deanna sat up and we moved close to each other, not really concentrating on what we were saying for a moment, just looking into each other's eyes, then we put our arms around each other and kissed. We lay down on the sofa, and after a while got up and went into the bedroom. When we made love there was something lacking, though, despite a lot of surface passion. There was a strange emptiness. I felt guilty because of Jenny and couldn't put her out of my mind and wasn't even sure I wanted to put her out of my mind. We'd only been engaged a month and here I was in bed with another woman already. If I could do this now, what would I be like after ten years of marriage? No matter how special this situation might seem, there was no excuse I could make for letting it happen. Afterward we sat up and Deanna switched on the tiny lamp beside the bed and picked up the pack of Kools from the table beside it. She took one out and held the pack toward me.

"Hope you don't mind," she said, "I'm too lazy to get up and get my own."

"That'll be three cents, please."

"I'll give you a dollar Tuesday for a cigarette today."

"Now that's a deal."

"I get the feeling your mind is somewhere else."

"Maybe. My mind wanders a lot, no matter what I'm doing or who I'm with.''

"Even when you're screwing?"

"Well—"

She laughed. "Sorry. I must sound terribly vulgar."

"You're not so bad."

Deanna looked serious for just a moment, then that look of amusement came into her eyes again.

"You seem really fatalistic," I said. "Like you've seen everything there is to see and decided it's all ridiculous, and all you can do now is laugh at it."

"Maybe you're right, though I've never thought of it that way. It's just that nothing lasts. Just when you have something wonderful, it seems to slip through your hands. I remember a line from a poem that goes, 'I only know that summer sang in me a little while and sings in me no more.' That's so sad. I only want things I can keep, and I can't keep anything, so I decided to laugh at it all instead."

"You were better off before you knew that."

"Maybe. But there's no going back now. And besides, now I'm never disappointed," with a hint of a smile.

"Either that or you're always disappointed, and you can't tell the difference anymore."

Suddenly we just seemed to run out of things to say, so I put my arms around Deanna and we lay down again and made love. It was a lot sweeter this time, maybe because it really did seem now like nothing mattered but the moment, and we really seemed to care about each other.

After we made love we lay there for a long time just kissing, then we talked for a while and Deanna fell asleep— _isn't it the man who's supposed to fall asleep afterward_? I thought with a smile—while I lay there listening to the rain tap on the roof. I started feeling pretty rotten again about where I was and what I'd been doing. Yet it had all seemed so inevitable, an innocent conversation leading to an innocent drink, and then...I was led back to the second thoughts I'd been trying to avoid. Did I really want the drab little life Jenny and I had planned? She was so plain compared to someone like Deanna. Was I really ready to give up this soon? I wondered at how a minor indiscretion can lead you to question your whole life, and how everything, like Deanna said, seems to turn out differently than you think it will.

Finally, though, I fell asleep, and had a strange dream. I dreamed I was at the bottom of a well full of snakes, and Deanna and Jenny were at the top of the well laughing at me, just their faces, like the faces that are isolated in old movies when someone thinks about someone who's far away. When I woke up, the sun was up, and Deanna was watching me.

"Thanks for waking up," she said. "I was getting lonely all by myself."

"What time is it, anyway?"

"Who knows, or cares?" shrugging her shoulders. "I don't have my watch on," with a little smirk.

"You'd look pretty funny if you did." I turned around and saw that it was 8:30. "I'd better get up. I've got a lot to do today."

"That's all in your mind. If you want to think so, nothing is more important than what you're doing right now. You could spend the whole day in bed with me if you wanted, and the world wouldn't give a damn."

She sounded more as if she were trying to psyche me out or needle me than as if she really wanted me to stay with her.

"Your world might not, but mine sure will. To be honest, that I've got a lot of things to do isn't the main reason I have to get up. The main thing is I'm engaged to be married, and I really shouldn't be doing this."

"Oh, I understand. Everything looks different in the morning, doesn't it? At night it's like you're looking at everything in a funhouse mirror, but when the sun comes up, the mirror disappears, and you see things the way they really are. If you'll move, I'll get up and get dressed and be on my way."

We both got up and began dressing, then I sat down on the bed while she finished dressing.

"I apologize for being such a rat. I should have told you about Jenny before we even left the park."

She shrugged her shoulders, as if she couldn't care less.

"Forget it. What do you think I expected? Maybe you didn't believe what I told you. I just want to remember that you came along one afternoon, and that we had fun and meant something to each other for a little while, and then went our separate ways."

"I'd like that, too."

"If there's nothing more then, I'll leave," with a little smile that was half smirk and half sad.

I listened as Deanna walked into the living room, put on her coat, and went out the door. Then I lay back on the bed and listened to the rain, which was really coming down hard now. I could smell Deanna's perfume on the pillow and couldn't help but wonder whether sending her away was what I really wanted. I'd always thought that by this point in my life I'd know what I wanted and that things would be easier. I knew now they would never be. I was thoughtful and tired. I wished Deanna was still with me. And I felt terribly vulnerable, as if I were standing naked in front of a thousand people.

Payoffs

Detroit

October 15, 1974

I don't know how much longer I can stall these guys. They don't fuck around. I could skip out on them, but they'd just be after my ass tomorrow and probably break my legs or something. You don't skip meetings when it's with them. They might even come out to the house, though it would almost be worth it to see the look on Alice's face. She'd probably think she was going through the DT's again. She doesn't even really know anything's wrong, or Lance, either, thank God. Mindy probably wouldn't give a damn even if she knew. All she cares about is parties and her goddamn boyfriend, certainly not me that you'd ever know it. Well here's where they told me to stop. Nothing around but a bunch of goddamn warehouses and railroad tracks. They always want to meet you in the most out of the way places, so they can kill you if they want to, I guess, and nobody'll see the proceedings.

Haven't been this nervous since my goddamn wedding. I just want to get it over with. It's OK for them to be late, but boy don't ever try being late on them. I'm sure they like to check out the area to make sure you don't bring any cops along. Makes you nervous waiting, too, they know that. I suppose they figure it'll make you easier to handle once they do show up. Intimidation is what it's all about. Here they are. Don't recognize the big goon with Tony. That's always the way they do it, a smart guy to do the talking and a muscleman in case you don't cooperate. Well I guess I better get out too. They always want to talk to you out in the street. Cops can't hide any wiretaps out there.

"All right, where's the fuckin' money?"

"I don't have it yet. But I'm going to close a deal on an office building out in Novi at the end of the week, then it won't be any problem."

Gotta stay cool. The more nervous you are the harder they give it to you.

"That's the same shit you gave us last time. Why the fuck should I believe the end of the week's gonna be any fuckin' different than now?"

"The deal's all set. The goddamn lawyers just have it tied up right now. You know how that is."

"Well, maybe you better hurry the fuckers along a little. Why don't you give this son-of-a-bitch a little motivatin', Sal?"

Christ my arm feels like it's gonna break. Can't stand the pain much longer.

"How does that feel? You like it? It'll be a lot worse if you don't pay us our fuckin' money back pretty soon."

"I'm getting it—as fast—as I can."

"All right. I think we finally got ourselves a fuckin' understanding, don't we?"

"Sure."

"So they'll be no more shit about fuckin' lawyers or any of the rest of it. Meet me here in three days at eight o'clock at night with all the money plus two thousand more for bein' late again. I don't even want to hear you talk. I just want you to hand me all the fuckin' money. I don't care what you have to do to get it. Sell your fuckin' daughter on the streets for all I care. Understand?"

"Yeah, I understand. I'll have it when I come back."

I'm glad that's over with. But this is it. Next time they'll kill me. I either have to pay up or leave town. So I've got to at least make a deal on the Novi property. How the hell could I have known the bottom was going to fall out of everything? Now I have to go home and act like nothing's wrong. Christ this arm is killing me.

Franklin, a suburb of Detroit

Nice place you've got here, Jim. Tall trees. Big white colonial. A loving wife and two adoring children. What a joke. I'll bet when people drive by they think the guy who lives here has the world by the nuts. Well I've got news for them. Felt that way myself when we first bought the place, though, before Randy went off to college and became a hippie and Mindy turned into a delinquent and Alice became a drunk. They only thing I've got left is Lance. Everything else has gone to pieces. Gotta get that money. Just gotta get that money. But the economy's shit right now and nobody's making any money. Well here goes. I'll have to pull off a helluvan acting job tonight. "Mood Indigo." That probably means she's plastered again. She usually is when she starts playing that old shit. Lance. Christ I love that kid!

"Hi, Daddy! I was wondering when you were going to get home."

"How's my big boy?"

"Pretty good. I was hoping we could play some catch."

"I don't know about catch, son, but we'll sure do something."

Christ I don't think I could even pick up a ball right now after the way that goon worked me over.

"Run along to your room for a minute, son, all right? I have to talk to Mommy. Then me and you'll do something together."

Here she comes. At least she's not dead drunk yet. I guess that's something.

"How did work go today?"

"Not bad, not bad. Things are picking up. It looks like I'll be able to close a deal on that Novi property in a couple of days. I finally found a serious buyer."

She doesn't even know what I'm talking about.

"We could use the money."

"Where's Mindy?"

"I don't have any idea. She never came home after school. I didn't know where to look."

"I thought we decided we weren't going to let this go on anymore!"

"What the hell do you want me to do? I told you I don't know where she is."

"You could try looking for her, for Christ's sake. You sure as hell aren't going to find her sitting by the fire drinking Manhattans and listening to records."

"I'm tired of it, Jim. I can't stand it anymore! I don't know what in the hell to do about her."

"If you keep that attitude, she'll end up walking the streets and shooting up heroin."

"Don't blame it all on me. If you were ever here when she needed you—"

I'll bet she's with Rick again. I told that dope peddling son-of-a-bitch I'd kill him if I ever caught him with Mindy again. Gotta find her. May be my last chance to do anything for the family.

"Well, I guess I'll have to go out and do your job for you. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get two hours of sleep tonight."

"That's up to you. You can go on all the wild goose chases you want to."

Glad to be out of there. Can't stand it anymore. Sorry about Lance, though. He really wanted to do something with his Dad. He's the only person in the world who gives a shit about me. Now where to look. No luck these days.

October 18

At home

Well today's my last chance to get the money. Jamieson's gotta come through on that deal. No other way out. I'll have to leave town or maybe I'd be better off just to let them kill me. At least I got Mindy back home. I don't know who'll keep her off the streets if I have to leave town. Might as well call the office. Jamieson should be there by now. I'll try, he said. There's a good chance. Well you better have tried, you bastard, or my ass is up a creek.

"Morning, Dick. How's it look on the Novi deal?"

"They pulled out on us. They said they just can't risk it until the auto business starts coming back. If it's still available in a few months, they might be interested, they said. They wondered if it might be available for leasing."

"Are you kidding? We need all the money now or we're busted. Where the fuck were you the last time we talked about this? Either we come up with some big money now or the whole business is sunk. There's not even enough left in the bank to pay the interest we owe this month. The fucking around time is over."

"I'm sorry, Jim. All I can tell you is what they told me. They just aren't willing to chance it right now."

"Did you tell them how we'd come down on price?"

"I told them everything. They said it wasn't a matter of price. They said they wouldn't pay two cents for it right now. They know they'd just end up getting stuck with it like we have."

Well that's it. There's no way I can get enough money in time now unless I rob a fuckin' bank or some miracle happens, like Jamieson calls back and says car sales are up 50% this quarter and those guys changed their mind. That Jamieson kills me. You'd think his half of the business was owned by some Chinaman rather than himself, for all the fuck he knows about what's going on. Never should have gone into partnership with him. Funny, now that the game is up I don't feel as bad as I thought I would. It's almost a relief, the load is off on the money stuff, now I just have to decide where I'm going to go. Charlotte North Carolina might not be too bad, like that guy was telling me at the barbershop the other day. There's a lot of building going on down there he says. Can't stay here, of course, be just like committing suicide once those Mafia bastards got a hold of me. Never should have gone to them in the first place, should have just let the fuckin' business go down the drain. It's all down the drain now anyway. Wouldn't mind leaving if it wasn't for Lance. Wish I could take him with me and just get a fresh start. That'd be great. Just him and me. But boy then I'd really have everyone after me, the FBI and the fuckin' Mafia and everybody. Wouldn't really work anyway, I suppose, being on the lam with a seven year old kid. Boy I'm really going to miss him though. Like to see Marie one last time, maybe she can get my mind off this mess. Won't tell her what's going on of course. She might do something to fuck up me getting out of here. Wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her when you come right down to it. She still thinks I'm Mr. Moneybags. Of course she'll probably find out the whole story sooner or later from somebody. Think I'll just drop by, she doesn't have to work till four. It's early, though, the bitch's probably still asleep. Might as well stop at the Hillcrest first and have a cup of coffee and read the Free Press.

"This is an unexpected pleasure."

You can never quite tell if she's being sarcastic or not. She's really good at that.

"I had to get out of that fuckin' office for a while. I thought you'd be up by now."

"I was going to make some breakfast pretty soon. You want anything?"

"Maybe a cup of coffee. I haven't had much of an appetite lately. How was work last night?"

"Not bad. A couple of guys got in a fight—over some girl apparently—and Gene had to call the police. A guy asked me out, but he didn't look rich so I said no."

Listen to her laugh. If she only knew how broke I am.

"You look nervous. Anything wrong?"

Yeah I don't have a dime left in the fuckin' world.

"Nothing I can't handle, Sugar. There's a lot to worry about when you're rich, you know." I don't think she'll catch the sarcasm.

"I think I know what's ailing you, and Dr. Marie has the cure."

That's not what I came for. I haven't even thought about it lately, had too much on my mind, but why not for old times' sake? She probably thinks this is the only reason I come over, but maybe she just wants it, you never know with women. Christ I'm glad I stopped by now. I feel like laughing, it's just so easy.

There's one thing I really want to do before I hit the road. Teach Rick a lesson he'll never forget. 'Bout time I got even with him for all his insults. I hate him, him and his slutty mother. Don't know what happened to his father, probably got sick of his wife whoring around and left her early in the game. Or drank himself to death. Stroke of luck I overheard Mindy and him on the phone talking about sneaking out together. He should be coming by here on his way home any minute unless the bastard's late or stole a car or something, just like him. I shouldn't have any problem with him. The skinny runt just talks big. Here he comes. I feel like running the son-of-a-bitch over. He's a sitting duck and doesn't know it, ha-ha. This is perfect, a vacant lot. No one around. I'll honk to get his attention and get out.

"Hey, Rick. Come here a minute."

Look at him look real suspicious.

"What do you want?"

Insolent mother fucker.

"I've got something for you."

Feels good to punch the bastard, see him scared shitless.

"Don't ever go near Mindy again. Understand?"

"Leave me alone."

The big baby. Don't try to kick me, you asshole.

"Keep your ass away from my daughter or I'll kill you. And if I'm not around don't think I won't know what's going on, either. If we have to discuss this again, I'll bring a gun."

"You can't tell me what to do. I'll see Mindy any time I want, and fuck her, too, just like I have before."

Why you little slime...

Boy that gash looks pretty nasty. I may have killed him, the way he just fell limp. But he just got me so pissed off and that brick was right there. There's a lot of blood, maybe I should call an ambulance anonymously, but if he lives and starts talking everything's fucked for me forever. Don't know what to do. Better not stand here though or somebody might come by, then my ass'll really be in trouble. Can't take it back now. Christ this just makes everything ten times more complicated. Never should have done it, got enough else to worry about. I feel like I'm going to puke. They're bound to figure out who did it sooner or later. Gotta get outta here but my feet feel like lead. Well I've still got to think about tomorrow whether Rick's dead or not. I'd better go home now and pack, in case somebody finds him or he gets up himself and calls the cops. Can't take chances with so much at stake. I'll tell Alice I've got an emergency meeting tomorrow in Chicago, a chance to sell some real estate to an investor over there. She'll probably be too drunk to get suspicious anyway, probably passed out in front of the TV by now. Be my last chance to see Lance too. Boy I love that kid. Wanted to spend my whole last night with him. Now I'll have to get in and get out as fast as I can. Then maybe I'll go to Harry's. Want to see the gang one more time. Nobody'd look for me there anyway, Alice doesn't even know I go there. Can't get my mind off Rick, as much as I hated him. I don't know, that gash, he could be dead. There was just so much blood. That's the hardest thing to get off my mind. I'll probably have nightmares about it for years. Wish I could see the expression on those guys' faces when they find out I've beat town and they won't get any money. What a laugh that would be. Tony'll probably really get his ass in hot water for not putting the screws on me sooner. I have to figure out some way I can still keep in touch with Lance after I leave. Christ I love that kid.

Harry's Bar

Hi Jim hi Jim they said. What'll it be Annie said. Usual I said. Christ if they only knew how much fuckin' trouble I'm in.

"Well, what do you think, Jimmy boy, do you think the Lions're going to win it all this year?"

"Shit, they'll be lucky if they win five games. They'll never be any good as long as Russ Thomas is general manager."

"Aw, come on. This is the year they're going to the Super Bowl."

The guy's slurring his words. Must have been in here drinking for hours.

"They haven't been any good since '57, when Bobby Layne was quarterback."

"I'll bet you on it. Give me ten to one and I'll bet the Lions win the Super Bowl."

"Are you kidding? What the hell have you been drinking?"

Fuckin' Rick. Shouldn't have done it. It was just so fuckin' stupid, but I was so pissed off I couldn't stop myself. Those guys'll find out where I am if I get thrown in jail. They can get to you in jail. They can get to you anywhere as long as they know where you are. They could have somebody slit my throat and nobody'd ever find out who was really behind it. What a stupid mistake. More I think about it the more I think I'd be better off in Miami. It's easy to get lost in a big city like that. So many damn murderers and con men the cops wouldn't have time to look for me. I could probably make some decent money too. Oranges beaches and wild women. I'll have to change my name. How about Clark Gable or Errol Flynn, ha-ha? No it'll have to be something not too flashy and not too plain, maybe something like Roy Henderson. Better change the last name and the first, that way if I hear somebody call me Jim I'll know I'm in trouble. That was a nasty cut. All that blood. Still a few spots, good thing I was wearing dark pants. I'd better blow out of here and get a motel room pretty quick, cops might even hunt me down here somehow. Can't enjoy it when I've got so much on my mind anyway. I'll get a hotel room somewhere around here tonight, then head out of town in the morning.

Holiday Inn

Well I suppose I must have killed Rick. Alice didn't mention a thing when I called. If he'da lived something would have filtered back to her or Mindy by now. He'll probably have to be gone a month before that slut of a mother of his'll start worrying. She probably figures he just ran away again or went to some all-night pot party. Really wish I hadn't done it now. May never be able to see Lance again because of it. Now I'll have to cut off the past forever. Glad I got to see him one more time. Christ I love that kid. I'll have to write him some day and explain all this, let 'em know his old man's not as bad as they'll all say. Well guess I'll stop by the office real quick and then head out. Couple of things there it'll make things a lot easier if I have them.

Gramling and Jamieson Enterprises

What the fuck the phone's ringing. Maybe I shouldn't even answer it, this business is null and void anyway.

"Gramling and Jamieson Enterprises."

"Morning, Jim. Great weather we're having, isn't it?"

"Have you been drinking Jamieson, or did you just want to soften me up before you tell me you botched another deal?"

"No, I've got good news this time. I just closed a deal with a couple of guys for all four properties. They think the economy's going to turn up within the next six months and they'll be able to resell the properties like hot cakes, because nobody else'll have anything ready for the market. They think they'll make a killing. They're the type of guys who think you should always do the opposite of what everybody else is doing if you want to make money. It's not perfect but we'll still make a profit. They said they could have a check for a hundred grand for us for a down payment by the end of the week. All I need is your John Hancock to make it official."

Christ what the fuck can I say?

"This just came up out of thin air?"

"I've been working on it a couple of weeks but didn't say anything to you in case it fell through like the other deals did. I know how hard you took it before. Jim? Jim?"

"Yeah. Great work. I'll call you back after I have time to let it sink in."

Christ! I can't believe it! I can't believe it! Everything would have been OK if I hadn't killed Rick! Could have paid off the loan shark and everything. Even as crumby as everything is it would have been worth staying for Lance's sake. Now I'm just as screwed as if the deal never came in!

One Night Alone

Now that Carrie Landry was there, she couldn't understand why she'd come. She'd never done it before and felt as uncomfortable as she'd always thought she would. She'd hoped that she'd feel less lonely and get her mind off Nick if she went out, but it hadn't worked. Rather, she'd hardly ever felt so lonely or thought so much about Nick before. No one was even there, really, she thought, probably because it was such a dreary, rainy night. There was just the bartender, who stood as unobtrusively as a piece of furniture at one end of the bar, and a man who sat a few seats down from her but didn't seem aware that she, or anything else, was in the room. There'd been a couple at one of the booths, but they'd left shortly after Carrie had come in. At least this is an elegant sort of loneliness, she thought as she looked around at the black marble furnishings and velvet booths, and the little fountain in one corner. She thought she'd probably have had more fun if she'd gone into some noisy honky-tonk where there was lots of life, instead of the City Lights lounge of the Regency Hotel. But she'd never have been able to bring herself to do that.

She thought of trying to strike up a conversation with the guy down the bar, and if she'd have thought that no one would hear her, would have laughed to think she could be so bold. Still, she was intrigued by him, and wondered what could be so absorbing his thoughts and brought him to come to this bar alone. She indulged herself for a while thinking he was romantic, that, say, he'd been in love with a beautiful woman who'd died and couldn't get over her, but then smiled as she thought he was probably just a traveling salesman silently plotting his next campaign. She thought how unlike her it would be to start a conversation with him, she who was a respectable school teacher now pushing middle age, who felt more comfortable at a book club than a bar. What would she even say to the guy, she wondered? What's a nice guy like you doing in a place like this? Come here often? Haven't I seen you someplace before? If nothing else, she got a kick out of thinking about it, and forgot her loneliness a little. But the more she thought about it, the more she thought she'd actually do it. After all, this was 1985, not 1955. It wouldn't be so out of line. Surely, she thought, smiling, Gloria Steinem or Bella Abzug were at a bar, they wouldn't hesitate to talk to any man they wanted to. She even began to worry that the guy might leave before she got a chance to talk to him but still couldn't quite get up the courage to say anything to him. He could make it so much easier, she thought, if he'd just look over her way and maybe smile a little, if he didn't appear so completely caught up in his own thoughts.

Still, she decided she'd order another tequila sunrise and do it, regardless of the consequences. She motioned for the bartender to come over, and before long a fresh drink had arrived, and she was out of excuses. She looked the guy's way as discreetly as she could. He still seemed as oblivious to her as ever, she thought, though he'd occasionally talked to the bartender.

"Would you like to join me?" she said.

He seemed surprised but looked at least somewhat friendly when he turned toward her.

"Sure," he said.

He sat next to her, and they looked into each other's eyes. In his Carrie saw a sharpness, a hardness that was intimidating. She felt she was losing her poise.

"I—I may seem out of line, but it just seemed silly to me that we should be sitting here all by ourselves and not saying anything."

"Is that so."

"I wasn't sure if I should invite you to join me or not. You looked like you had a lot on your mind. Maybe I was curious—" but her thought fell away, and she wasn't sure just what she'd meant to say. He didn't reply and looked away from her.

"Now that I've been so brazen, I suppose I should at least tell you my name. I'm Carrie Landry," holding out her hand.

He seemed surprised by the gesture, and there was a slight pause before he brought his hand up to shake hers. By now she felt more awkward than she ever had before in her life and would have given anything to just be able to slink away without anyone noticing.

"Well, I'm glad to meet you, Carrie Landry," he said as they shook hands. "I'm Mike Shadeler."

"Are you staying at the hotel?"

"No," drawing the word out as if he weren't sure.

"I'm not either. I just had this strange idea that I'd like it here."

He looked at her as if he indeed thought it was strange and smiled in a way that she thought was making fun of her.

"Believe it or not, I've never been in a bar by myself before."

"Oh, I believe it."

Suddenly she was mad, which brought her self-confidence back.

"Well, if you're going to act like this and not even really say anything, I'm leaving."

She grabbed her purse and opened it to look for her wallet to pay the bill.

"I wish you wouldn't. I really do," putting his hand on her arm. "I'm sorry I've been acting like such a jerk. I'm in a strange mood. Let me buy you a drink before you go."

"Well—OK, I suppose I could stand one more," closing up her purse. She turned toward him. "So who do you think's going to win the pennant this year—the Yankees or the Tigers?" and they both laughed.

They talked and laughed their way through two more drinks. About everything from amusement parks and dogs to who their favorite rock bands were they talked, though Carrie did most of the talking. A juke box with songs from the 40s in it was in the bar, and Carrie and Mike played some of them. After a while "Cheek to Cheek" came on.

"I know this is going to seem silly, but what would you say, Mr. Shadeler, if I asked you to dance with me?" Carrie said.

"I suppose I'd say, 'I thought you'd never ask' or some dumb thing like that."

"Well, you're the man," making fun of acting old fashioned, holding out her hand. "Lead me to the dance floor."

There was no dance floor, just a small area in a corner near the juke box, but they danced close and didn't need much room. When Carrie was turned a certain way, out of one eye she caught the bartender looking at them with some amusement. Still there were no other customers.

"This feels wonderful," Carrie said, intoxicated by the music and the tinkling of the little fountain and holding Mike close to her. "Even though it's so odd that this should be happening at all."

Mike smiled and looked as if it didn't seem so odd to him.

"I'd love to know more about you," Carrie said. "I almost think you're not saying much on purpose just to make yourself seem mysterious."

"It's nothing like that," as if he thought that were funny.

"For all I know you could be the Boston Strangler."

"I don't look enough like Tony Curtis," who'd starred in the movie about the Boston Strangler.

She laughed.

"It's too bad I don't know more about you. If I did, I might invite you to come back to my apartment."

"Maybe you will anyway. Maybe you'll decide how much you know about me isn't that important," looking right into her eyes.

"I don't know. It could be dangerous. Didn't you ever see Looking for Mr. Goodbar?"

"No. Never got around to it."

Carrie didn't reply, just put her head on Mike's shoulder. Nick was gone, and she was lonely, and so after the song and another drink they were on their way to her place. She was excited but nervous and a little scared and couldn't quite believe she was doing it. She had no idea whether she could really trust Mike. She imagined how shocked everyone she knew would be if they saw her now. She just wished Nick could see her and get mad and jealous. The thought made her want to laugh. On the ride she sobered up some and felt awkward when they finally got to her apartment. So many different thoughts and feelings were going through her, and she wasn't entirely sure this is what she wanted, but she wondered if any feeling she could have about it could be worse than the loneliness she'd felt lately. Not that she had to let things get real serious if she didn't want to. She could send him home after one drink, she assured herself. She'd never picked up a guy in a bar before, so she wasn't sure what she should do next. She hung up their coats, and they stood in the living room. For too long as they stood there, she wondered what she should say.

"I suppose I should offer you a drink, shouldn't I?" she said.

"If you want to," but he was standing close and put his arms around her, and they kissed, and he ran his hands along her sides and breasts.

"Well-l-l," she said, with a smirk. "What kind of drink did you say you'd like?"

"I didn't, but I'd like a Rob Roy if you've got it."

"I just may," knowing she didn't have either the scotch or the vermouth or the bitters that are required to make one.

"Let me check in the kitchen."

After offering Mike a seat, Carrie fooled around in the kitchen for a while as she continued to try to decide what she wanted to happen.

"I don't quite have all the ingredients for a Rob Roy, it turns out," Carrie said, back in the living room, shrugging. "I must have forgot to get bitters the last time I was out. I've got something close, though. How's a beer sound?"

"That would be fine," smiling.

In no time at all, it seemed to Carrie, they'd each finished a beer and were lying on the sofa, while a Wynton Marsalis album played softly on the stereo.

"I felt so lonely tonight I thought I was going to die," Carrie said. "I was in love with a guy and he left me, and I've never been the same. Sounds like a Tammy Wynette song or a soap opera, doesn't it?" smiling sadly. "That's how I, a prim and proper and mild-mannered school teacher, ended up going out alone to a bar. Then you were the only one there, and it seemed so strange."

"It's nice that it turned out with a happy ending, though, isn't it?" Mike said, and Carrie wasn't sure or not if she'd heard a note of mockery. But she'd already decided—no turning back now.

"I can't say that it has yet. You'll have to ask me later, which brings me to another subject. I'd like you to spend the night with me, if you don't happen to have any other plans."

"No, I'm free for the rest of the night," amused. "I'd like to stay."

They kissed and soon were undressing each between kisses, and before long they were in Carrie's bed making love. When it was over, though, Carrie felt more guilty and sad than she did satisfied. She even felt like crying, though she wasn't exactly sure why and wasn't about to if she could help it. She didn't want to look like that much of a wimp. So instead of crying she asked Mike for a cigarette, though she'd hardly ever smoked. He gave her one and lit it and lit one for himself, and they sat up in bed and smoked.

"I understand this is what you're supposed to do after you pick up a guy in a bar and invite him to your apartment for sex."

"So I've heard."

"I wouldn't know, you see, because even though I'm 35, I've never done it before. I've got so much to learn yet," her voice breaking at the end.

"Don't feel bad. I'll be gone tomorrow, and you can pretend it never happened if you want to. You can go back to being respectable, and no one will ever know the difference."

"That's easy for you to say. Are you trying to tell me in a subtle way that you don't want to see me again?" though she hadn't really given any thought to whether she wanted to see him again.

"What I told you at the bar is still true. I'm just here for a little while and then I have to go."

"You act like you don't have any choice in the matter."

"I really don't."

He stayed completely unperturbed.

"You married or something?"

"No," laughing. "It's nothing like that."

"Can't you even tell me where you're from?"

He shook his head.

"It's just like I told you before."

She looked into his eyes and saw the same sharpness, the same hardness she'd seen the first time she'd looked into them. He took the cigarette from her and put it out and put his out and turned the light out beside the bed. Then he pulled her close to him and they made love again, but this time she felt better about it and enjoyed it more. Later they drank wine in bed and talked until Carrie couldn't keep her eyes open any longer.

When she woke up in the morning, though, Mike was gone. She lay back and looked at the ceiling. She wondered how she could have missed him. She'd always been such a light sleeper. Almost anything would wake her up. She thought he might still be in the apartment but just not in the bedroom, but when she listened carefully for him, all she heard were children playing outdoors and birds singing.

No, he was definitely gone. She laughed, sadly, as she thought that maybe it hadn't even happened, that maybe it had just been a dream. Certainly, in some ways it was like a dream: It had that vagueness about it, that distorted quality. He was mysterious enough to be from a dream, and it had been so odd the way there was no one in the bar but them all that time. And of course, she thought, she was much too "nice," much too respectable, to pick up a stranger in a bar and sleep with him. She didn't even feel any guilt or shame the way she knew she should have. Just sadness. The desperate feeling of loneliness and heartache that had made her decide to go out to the City Lights lounge the night before hit her again, and she felt she could hardly stand it. She wondered where Mike was from, what tragedy or mistake could have turned him into such a mystery. She wondered if in a crime or a broken heart the answer could be found. But she didn't have an answer for anything right now.

She turned on her side and hugged her pillow. She really missed Nick. They'd had so much fun together. They'd been so happy. If she'd married him, her life could still have turned out the way she'd wanted it to, even though she'd have got a late start. But now, now she woke up in the morning feeling a loneliness that ached, now anything or nothing at all could happen, now she lay in bed mornings staring at the ceiling, wondering.

The Nightmare

Order had always been an important part of Leonard Wilson's life. It had an appeal for him he couldn't explain but that he'd been aware of even when he was a kid. Undoubtedly this love of order had influenced his choice of profession, that of accountant. He really got a feeling of satisfaction from seeing columns of figures that all lined up. Because of his love of order, Leonard was affected more powerfully than he might otherwise have been when a seemingly irrational force came into his life.

The first night Leonard had the nightmare, it was no big deal. A bunch of people from work were in it dressed in black leather outfits. In a dark room in which the walls and floor were vague and shadowy they taunted and pushed him, then Nick Garrett, the assistant marketing manager, punched him and he fell to the ground, where they kicked him and spit on him and taunted him more. He'd apparently done some terrible thing, but when he woke up, as hard as he tried, he couldn't remember a thing they'd said. Finally, Dana Policci, his boss's secretary, leaned down as if she were going to kiss him, as if she were going to say that it had all been a mistake and everything was going to be all right, but instead of kissing him she put her hands around his neck. Her jumpsuit was cut so low that Leonard thought her breasts might fall out of it, and as a result, even when she started tightening her grip around his neck he couldn't take his eyes off them. Then he started choking badly as Dana sank her thumbs deep into his windpipe, but she just smiled, and the others laughed sardonically. Leonard tried to struggle but his arms and legs felt so weak he could barely move them. Just as he was about to black out, when he thought he was going to die, he woke up. He was sweating badly and shaking and had a splitting headache.

But before long, as soon as he was able to order his thoughts, he calmed down. He was even able to laugh at the outfits that everyone in the dream had been wearing, and he savored the arousal he felt as he recalled Dana's breasts bouncing and nearly coming out of her jumpsuit. He chalked the nightmare up to the heat wave, the what seemed unbreakable hot spell that was making everyone in town feel a little batty. Leonard got up to take some Excedrin and soon fell back to sleep. By the time he got up in the morning, the nightmare was little more than an afterthought, and he really didn't think about it again until he got to work and started to run into some of the people who were in it. Even then, it was a busy day, and he didn't have time to dwell on it. As assistant chief of cost accounting for Morgan Plastics Company, he had too many other things on his mind. He'd done pretty well for himself, he thought. Here he was only 28 years old and already the number two man in his department, and likely to get the top job if his boss, Mr. Gardner, took early retirement in a couple of years. Mr. Stanley Morgan, the owner of the company, had practically assured him of it.

Something happened at lunch, though, that brought the nightmare powerfully to Leonard's mind. He was sitting in the cafeteria eating his usual lunch of a tuna fish sandwich and a Dr. Pepper when Dana and Nick walked in. He thought Dana looked even more gorgeous than usual. She was wearing a tight black and white striped top and a black skirt, an outfit Leonard thought perfectly matched her black hair and pale skin, and as usual he found it difficult to take his eyes off her. She was everything he most desired and most feared in a woman, and just the thought of her was enough to make his fiancée, Phyllis Smith, seem unbearably drab. Someone at the company claimed they'd seen her riding with a motorcycle gang, though she'd never said a word about anything like that to anyone at work. Leonard laughed as he thought that that was probably where the leather outfits came from in the nightmare: Some connection in his subconscious with Dana's maybe being in a motorcycle gang. He was envious as he watched her smiling and flirting with Nick and suddenly realized that he'd stared their way too long.

"Hey, Leonard, wake up," Dan Brock, who worked in engineering, said as he came by Leonard's table with his tray of food.

"I was thinking something over," Leonard said.

"Yeah, I could tell what the topic was," and he laughed and walked on.

Leonard was embarrassed and wondered how many people besides Brock had noticed. He had to watch things like that. They would make people think he was a fool, and ultimately, hurt his chances for promotion. He'd be more careful from now on. He went back to his tuna fish sandwich, but somehow it had lost all its taste.

That night Leonard had the nightmare again, and it seemed even more vivid than before. Dana and Nick and Old Man Gardner and the others seemed closer than before when they were taunting him, so close that he felt like he was going to suffocate, and they seemed to be talking even louder. Nick was more the ringleader this time than Dana was, but it was Dana again who put her hands around his neck to strangle him as the nightmare ended. He was choking when he woke up, and soon vomited. His heart was racing, and he was racked with fear. The room seemed to him unbearably hot. Like before, he found that he couldn't remember a word that anyone had said in the nightmare, couldn't figure out what he could have done that could have made them hate him so much, and that seemed to him like the most aggravating part about it. He became so frustrated thinking about it that he felt like crying. It was so messy for someone for whom order was so important, who made his living determining the precise production cost of plastic auto parts, to get so upset about a mere dream.

Leonard wasn't really able to sleep again for the rest of the night. When his alarm went off at 6:30, he felt more tired than he had when he'd gone to bed the night before, and felt sick, as if he had a hangover. Nevertheless, he dragged himself out of bed and started getting ready for work, thinking with his usual practicality that lying in bed will only make me feel worse. The longer he was up the better the more confident he felt, and he concentrated as hard as he could to put the nightmare out of his mind. That effort paid off as he got to work and got into his routine, until late that morning when Dana came into his office.

"Old Man Gardner has a question about this report," she said, standing close to Leonard and handing it to him. "He wondered if this column shouldn't really be over here," leaning toward him and pointing to a spread sheet that had several columns of figures on it.

Leonard was struck dumb for a moment as he looked into Dana's big, dark eyes that always, he thought, seemed to mock him. She was wearing a bewitching fragrance, which seemed to him to have been designed with the single purpose of driving him wild. As he looked at the columns of figures for what he knew was too long a time, he thought he could feel Dana becoming impatient. He recalled her putting her hands around his neck and her breasts nearly falling out of her jumpsuit in the nightmare.

"Uh—yeah—I think he's right about that," Leonard said.

"OK, I'll let 'em know," Dana said, with a mocking half smile.

Leonard was enraged at himself for acting like such a dolt in front of Dana, but he just didn't seem to be able to keep his cool when she was near him. Soon that didn't seem to matter, though, as fear and obsession with the nightmare crept up on him again. He wasn't sure how much time had gone by when Dana returned.

"Leonard, he looked over the numbers again and said there's still something seriously wrong," she said. "He wants to see you in his office this minute."

Who the hell does she think she is? he thought, to be scolding him like a child. Nonetheless, he sounded meek and mild when he replied to her.

"I—I'll be right down."

For the rest of the day Leonard mostly just sat at his desk and stared into space. Virtually all he could think about was the nightmare. It seemed to him to have taken on a life of its own such that it was neither quite real nor quite in the realm of dreams. He was still thinking about it that evening when Phyllis came over to his house. They sat on the sofa in his living room watching Charley's Angels.

"When we get married, I'm going to completely redo this whole room," Phyllis said. "The first thing I'm going to do is tear out this ugly brown carpet and put in something nice and bright. Then I'm going to buy a sofa and chair that match, maybe in a nice soft blue or green. Then I'm going to—Leonard. Leonard!"

He turned toward her.

"What?"

"You weren't even listening to me, were you?"

"Sure I was."

"All right then. What did I just say?"

"Uh—something about after we get married."

"Oh—you dumb ass! I should have known I couldn't get your attention with all those boobs bouncing around on TV."

He looked guilty but thought fast.

"Sorry, Phyl. I've got a lot on my mind about work. I'm under a lot of pressure, with production up so much."

"Well—I guess I can understand that. I do want you to be successful and make a lot of money."

She looked sympathetic and even smiled a little. Leonard moved close to her and they kissed. She wasn't much to look at, but Leonard could imagine she was Dana or Suzanne Somers or whoever when they were making love, and really enjoy it. He ran his hands along Phyllis's thighs and breasts a few times as they kissed, then unsnapped and unzipped her jeans.

"No, Leonard, not tonight. It's too hot."

Leonard dreaded going to bed that night, for fear of having the nightmare again, and it took him hours to fall asleep. When he woke up in the morning, though, he was relieved that he hadn't had it. Or had he? Even though he couldn't remember having it, he felt fearful and restless and exhausted, as if he hadn't slept much at all. He considered whether he might not have had the nightmare again and just not remembered it, the way he'd read in Reader's Digest that people don't remember most of their dreams. But the article had gone on to say that you wake up during a dream just before you die or when something traumatic happens. So he wondered, if he'd really had the nightmare, shouldn't he have woken up when Dana was strangling him? Leonard was absorbed by such questions as he shaved and showered and got dressed for work.

When he got to work, he found he wasn't able to concentrate at all on the business at hand. After about an hour he decided to knock off and go down to the cafeteria to grab a quick breakfast, even though he wasn't hungry, hoping it would perk him up. He'd just sat down with his scrambled eggs and bacon when he noticed that Dana and Nick were there on their coffee break. When Leonard looked at Dana it appeared to him that she was dressed in the leather jumpsuit that she wore in the nightmare. With a malevolent smile she seemed to stare at him, then Nick appeared to turn around and sneer at him and then laugh like he had in the nightmare, which seemed to set off a chain reaction that got everyone in the cafeteria laughing at him. He had to shake his head to break the illusion, which made everything normal again except that he thought Nick and Dana looked at him kind of funny as they were leaving, as if they'd noticed that something was wrong, or that he'd been staring at them. Feeling sick to his stomach now, he just picked at his bacon and eggs for a few more minutes and went back to his office.

It seemed as if he'd hardly sat down before his boss called him into his office.

"I want to talk to you about the quarterly report, Wilson," Mr. Gardner said. "It's bad. Really bad. I have to be absolutely sure it's right before I take it to Morgan. Heads are going to roll out on the floor if it's right. When a report's like this, we can't afford any screw-ups. If Morgan finds out it's wrong, it'll be my ass in the ringer."

"I'm sure it's correct, Mr. Gardner," Leonard said. "I went over the figures carefully three times. I've never made a mistake on a quarterly report."

Suddenly Leonard's boss appeared to him as he had in the nightmare, in a sleeveless leather shirt and leather pants, with a sardonic grin. He went into a reverie where he became entranced by the nightmare, the taunting and the grotesque laughter and Dana strangling him. It was all he could do to keep from screaming and running out of the building, and his boss had to yell at him to bring him out of it.

"Wilson, Wilson, what the hell's wrong with you? You've really got your head up your ass this morning."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Gardner. I've got the flu and haven't been sleeping well. Would it be possible for me to have the rest of the day off?" though he hadn't taken any sick time in the six years he'd been with the company.

"Sure, go ahead and take it before you infect the whole goddamn building. It doesn't look like you're going to do us any good today anyway. I'll have Wallace and Davies go over these numbers one more time. "

Leonard left the building as fast as he could without arousing suspicion and raced home in his car. There, he stripped off his tie and suit coat and turned on a rerun of The Andy Griffith Show to see if he could get his mind off the nightmare. It was futile. The nightmare came sharply back into his mind, and he couldn't do anything but dwell on it. Surely, he thought, he was going insane. Nothing else could explain what he was going through. He concluded that some long forgotten incident from his childhood must be coming back to haunt him or that some chemical reaction in his brain had gone haywire. Or maybe, he thought, it had something to do with the concussion he'd had when he'd fallen off his bike when he was a kid, some nerve or membrane that had been damaged and gradually deteriorated for twenty years.

He was far too much a materialist and a rationalist to believe that anything supernatural could be involved. Then he came up with what seemed in his bizarre and desperate state of mind like a brilliant idea: He'd invite Phyllis over to spend the night. If he slept with her, he thought, things would be different, and he might not have the nightmare. Usually they only slept together on weekends, but Leonard felt sure he could talk her into it. That was the answer. He'd invite Phyllis over for pizza and ice cream and to spend the night. Having her there would help get his mind off the nightmare before he went to bed, too, he thought. He felt better already. He raced to the phone to call her at work.

"Well—I don't know," she said. "This isn't Friday or anything. My apartment's a mess. I was going to dust and vacuum tonight."

"Aw, come on, Phyl. I really want to see you tonight. And I'm talking pizza and ice cream. It'll be great."

"Well—there's my diet to think of—but OK, if it means that much to you. What time should I come over?"

So Leonard felt better for a while, but when Phyllis came over, he found that he still couldn't shake thinking about the nightmare. He was jittery and only ate one slice of pizza, and Phyllis snapped at him for being so out of it. She was cold to him, too, and when they got ready for bed she put on a heavy-duty nightgown, curled up on her side of the bed with her back turned toward Leonard, and quickly fell asleep. Leonard didn't have nearly as much luck. He lay awake for hours fretful and fearful that he would have the nightmare if he let himself fall asleep. When he did finally fall asleep, it seemed he'd barely closed his eyes before the nightmare began again. Even kindly Mrs. Tuttle, Mr. Morgan's secretary, was in on it this time, staring at him with hateful eyes. Leonard tossed and turned as he dreamed, and just before he woke up, kicked Phyllis and woke her up.

"What in the hell are you doing?" she said. "Don't tell me you want to fuck in the middle of the night again. I've got to get up at six o'clock tomorrow morning. I knew I shouldn't have let you talk me into this."

Leonard mumbled something but was in too much of a daze to really understand what was going on. When he did finally wake up enough to realize where he was and that he'd just had the nightmare again, an uncontrollable fear seized him, worse than he'd ever felt before, that seemed to flood through every cell of his body. He screamed.

"What the hell's wrong with you, Leonard?" Phyllis said, scared and disgusted. "Have you lost your mind or something? I'm getting out of here." She threw off the covers and got up.

"I'm sorry, Phyl. I just had a nightmare. Give me a break," nearly crying.

But she kept on dressing.

"I've had about all I can take of this. I've done so much for you, and what do I get in return? Nothing, that's what. You've turned into a real weirdo. As far as I'm concerned, we're through."

But suddenly Leonard hardly cared and became completely withdrawn and self-absorbed. He didn't even notice when Phyllis left. He was obsessed by the nightmare and was sure that he was close to losing his mind. With the covers pulled up to his neck, he curled up into a fetal position. He tried to fight off the terror that was gripping him, and with what shred of rationality he had left, to imagine a way out of the terrible predicament he was in. One moment he was shivering, the next he was sweating like it was 110 degrees out. He felt immobilized, unable to get up or even to move. When a thunderstorm began, he barely noticed the thunder and rain. Images came to him of being dragged off in a strait jacket by men in white coats, of the cold white tile walls and linoleum floors and deranged men with bulging eyes that made up his idea of a mental hospital. The song "They're Coming to Take Me Away" that he and his friends had laughed so much about when he was a kid played in his mind. Insanity. It was the ultimate horror, and his fear of it was almost as great as his fear of the nightmare itself.

When morning came, Leonard still found himself unable to move. Because of the storm there was very little light, and what little there was did nothing to soften the terror he felt. He imagined what Phyllis would say, and Dana and Nick and Old Man Gardner if they found out he'd lost his mind. He pictured the people at work laughing about it, and Phyllis, crying and embarrassed. He imagined the disgrace his mother would feel. It was thinking about such things that finally made Leonard decide that he had to get up, to make what he saw as a superhuman effort to get out of bed and go to work. He was convinced that he'd have to get up and do something if was ever going to break the grip of fear the nightmare had him in. Nothing had really been lost yet, he thought. He'd just be a little late to work. Sure, Phyl had left and said she was through with him, but he knew she was more talk than anything, and didn't really think it would be that big a problem getting her back if he wanted her back. It wasn't like every guy in town would be wanting to take her out.

Yet it was quite a while before Leonard was able to get himself to move. At first, he was just able to move his arms and legs a little. When he did finally drag himself out of bed, he had a terrible time getting ready for work. His hands were so shaky that he nearly tore his face off shaving, and the sight of blood when he was finished made him queasy and was almost enough to make him panic and run back to bed.

The rain hadn't let up any by the time Leonard drove out of his garage into the street. It was raining so hard he could barely see where he was going, and he had to drive very slowly. The rain on the windshield gave everything a disturbed, surreal quality, but he wasn't sure how much of the distortion was caused by the rain and how much by his own mind. He thought he'd really gotten a bad break. It would have been so much easier, he thought, if the sun were out. But it hadn't exactly been his lucky week. The rain made it seem to Leonard as if he were totally isolated from the world outside his car, and as if the car were floating above the road. Panic and terror seized him again, as images of the nightmare flooded his mind in jumbled order, like a film that had been cut up and spliced back together in random order. And his headache felt as if it were rending every cell of his brain.

It was in this state of mind that Leonard reached the company parking lot, though it was raining so hard he couldn't be sure he was in his own reserved spot. Then what seemed to him the worst of all possible things at that moment happened: He looked in the back seat and found his umbrella was gone. He racked his brain trying to remember where he might have left it, and then it hit him: Phyl had taken it out the last time they'd gone to the mall, and who knows where it might be now? Again, he felt immobilized. Yet the longer he sat in the parking lot, the more he felt he was losing touch with reality. Finally, he made a dash for the building. But even though he ran as fast as he could, and wasn't outside half a minute, he was soaked to the skin by the time he got inside. His socks squished inside his shoes when he walked, and water dripped into his eyes.

"Good morning, Leonard," Ann Mokeski, the receptionist, said, looking alarmed. "This is some storm we're having, isn't it?"

But Leonard barely heard her and acted as if she didn't exist as he made his way to the nearest wash room. When he looked into the mirror, he realized the paper toweling there would be all but worthless as far as getting him really dry. After a futile attempt to dry himself, he went into one of the toilet stalls and sat. He went over a scenario of how it would be when he went to his office, how he'd joke about the rain and go into Old Man Gardner's office and explain why he'd been late, then go to his own office and try to get down to business. No matter how wet he was, he couldn't face going home and being alone. He had to be around people and do something. He decided it was time to get up, but as he began walking to his office, he felt like he was going to black out, and realized angrily that he'd forgotten to look in the mirror and neaten up. But no going back. They'd just have to understand. Anyone can get caught in the rain. But everything seemed strange and out of order, the walls seemed to bend and sway, and Leonard felt he had to hold his arms out sometimes to keep from falling. He was filled with dread and anguish, but he kept walking toward the Accounting Office like an automaton, so fixed had the idea become in him that if he could just get to work everything would be all right.

When he walked into the office, everyone stopped working and stared at him. Some were puzzled. Some were amused. But Leonard thought they were all staring at him maliciously, and that any moment they would begin yelling and swearing at him as they had in the nightmare. He felt a panic that made him freeze, that made him feel as if he couldn't move if his life depended on it. Old Man Gardner walked up and stood right in front of him.

"What the hell's going on here, Wilson?" he shouted. "You look like somebody dragged you out of a goddamn gutter."

When Leonard looked at his boss, he saw him grinning satanically and saw his own bedraggled face reflected in his boss's eyes. He tried to say something, but his mouth wouldn't move. His insides felt like jelly, and the walls of the office appeared to him to fade and blur like in the nightmare. Dana came up to Leonard, and he thought she was grimacing at him and that she was about to reach her hands up toward his neck. Fear and panic shot through him as if he were being electrocuted.

I can't stand it! I can't stand it! I CAN'T STAND IT! he thought.

"Ah-h-h-h!" he yelled, in a tone of fear and misery that was frightening and painful to hear. But somehow that made something snap inside him, and suddenly he no longer feared the nightmare. The grip it had had on him was broken. He felt normal again. It was too late now, though, because he was already being pushed to the floor.

"Hold him down!" Nick shouted as he and Old Man Gardner and several others grabbed Leonard's arms and legs. "He's completely lost it."

"Oh, my God," Mrs. Tuttle said as she gazed on the spectacle from a safe distance.

"Let me up! Let me up!" Leonard said. "This is all a big misunderstanding. I just had a nightmare, that's all. The heat got to me. I just need to go home and change. There's nothing wrong with me."

But everyone just ignored him or shook their heads pathetically. Company security guards soon came in and handcuffed Leonard and took him out of the Accounting Office, and before long he was being strapped down to a stretcher. He felt certain now that his career would be hurt, no matter how this thing came out.

"You don't understand," he kept saying, or something similar. "I can explain everything. I just had a bad dream!"

But no one would listen, and shortly Leonard was on his way, ironically, to the Isiah R. Morgan mental hospital, which Mr. Morgan's grandfather, out of the kindness of his heart, had put up the money to build.

It was all so unfair, Leonard thought, all so disorderly!

Unexpected Developments

Helen Sinclair had enjoyed staying up at the cabin by herself after her husband had gone back to Detroit, even though she'd felt at first as if he'd just abandoned her there. She'd taken some long walks in the woods and spent hours reading the pile of books she'd brought up to read. She'd barely been able to start one of them while Dave was there, what with his always wanting her to help him with some project or go who knows where or just listen to him talk. And since she'd got out of the hospital that last time, she hadn't wanted to be around people much, so she was glad to be by herself. When she was home, she felt as if people were always staring at her and wondering. But a few days after Dave had left it had started to rain, and the rain had hardly let up since. Several days there'd been of it now, and it was really starting to get Helen down. She was tired of reading and tired of looking out the window and tired of listening to the radio. She really wished they had a TV in the cabin, but Dave had always insisted that they get away from the damn thing when they were up there.

One afternoon Helen went out to the porch, hoping that she'd be able to see the clouds starting to break up, though as hard as it was raining, that hardly seemed likely. She took in a deep breath of the pine scent, and for quite a while just watched it rain. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a man run into the woods. She looked over that way but there was no sign of the man now. She thought that she might have made a mistake, that what she saw might really have been a bear or even a deer, what with the darkness of the afternoon and the rain coming down so hard and that she really hadn't got a good look at it. Or could it have been Bigfoot, she thought with a smile? But then she decided she was certain it was a man. If it really was a man, though, what was he doing out there? She soon went back inside, and without even thinking, really, locked the door.

She was scared but was determined not to get too carried away. After all, one reason she'd had to go into the hospital is she made too much of things, and she had resolved not to slip into that again, after she'd worked so hard at the hospital to get over it. To get her mind off the man or whatever it was she grabbed a book, "The Black Arts of Ancient England," and turned on the radio. Soon the news came on.

"Police this afternoon are scouring the Upper Peninsula for James Darden, a convicted rapist and murderer who escaped last night from Marquette Prison. Warden Gerald Nash said at a press conference held at the prison this morning that Darden apparently escaped by crawling through a heating duct from an office inside the prison. Persons throughout the WLUR listening area should be on the lookout for Darden, who's white, and stocky, with black hair and a prominent scar on his right cheek. He's considered extremely dangerous, and anyone who thinks they see him should call the police at once. We'll have the weather after this word from Close-up on how to make your teeth their brightest."

Helen turned off the radio disgustedly. Who cares about whether their teeth are bright when there's a killer on the loose, she thought! Did she dare to even think that what she had seen might be that man? Did she dare to even look out again to see if he (or whatever it was) was back? She made sure all the windows were locked down, and, after agonizing over whether she should do it or not, got out whiskey and vermouth and made herself a Manhattan—Dave had forgotten to take the liquor home as he'd meant to. She did this even though she knew, or at least the doctors at the hospital had told her, that a big part of her problem was that she drank too much, and one of the goals she'd set while she was there was to drink only on rare, social occasions. Yet she felt strongly that if she could just have one drink, she could face this matter of the escaped prisoner calmly.

The drink gave her a nice rush and did virtually wipe out her fear. It made her feel so good, in fact, that she decided to have another, and after that she was able to laugh at her fear. She even went so far as to go out on the porch, which gave her a thrill as she thought of the danger. She then went back inside, made herself another drink, and went back to her book. She really felt mellow, and after a while decided that even a fourth drink wouldn't be entirely out of line. Shortly after she finished that drink, though, she dozed off and dreamed that the escaped prisoner broke into the cabin with an ax. She screamed, but he just laughed and smiled the most malicious smile she'd ever seen. He got to her and grabbed her so quickly she didn't have any chance to try to run away. He had a stubble beard but the white scar clearly stood out on his cheek.

"It's about time you let me in," he said. "You don't care about anyone but yourself, do you?" but Helen was too scared to say anything in reply.

"Talk to me, you bitch," and he threw her on the floor, tearing her blouse open. He kneeled down over her and started to strangle her. She choked and gagged and struggled desperately for air but woke up when she fell off the sofa. Shaking, and unsure at first as to whether the dream was really over or not, she felt close to vomiting. The room appeared to her to weave and it took all her strength and concentration to get her balance and get back up on the sofa. The ceiling seemed to spin, and she wanted to get up and go to the bathroom but didn't have enough volition to do anything. She felt as panicky as she had when she was admitted to the hospital that last time. She wished she could just fall back to sleep and forget everything, but she couldn't sleep now either. She looked over at the clock and saw it was past 2 am.

For a long time, Helen lay there and just listened to the rain and the wind, which blew so hard that at times it sounded as if someone were spraying the cabin with a fire hose. She couldn't get the nightmare, or the prisoner, out of her mind. The news report played over and over in her head like a broken record but was distorted sometimes as if it were on a record player that kept slowing down. Her heart pounded and sweat poured out of her body. Surely, she thought, she was close to another breakdown. She reached over for the telephone and dialed the numbers jerkily, calming herself as much as she could.

"I want to come home, Dave," she said to her husband, crying, hating that he was the only person she could turn to. "It's done nothing but rain since you left, and there's an escaped murderer and rapist loose up here."

"Well, yeah," groggily. "I heard about that on the news. You should be safe from him. We're so far away from anything. How about if I come up Saturday?"

"I don't mean Saturday, I mean now, tonight. I'm really down. I feel like I'm losing it again. The last thing I want is to end up back in that damn hospital."

"I don't know if I can. I've got a super important meeting tomorrow afternoon. I doubt Conroy'll let me out of it, and you know how important it is for me to mind my p's and q's right now."

"Can't you get out of it somehow?" starting to cry. "This is serious, Dave. I don't know how much longer I can hang on."

"I'll come up as soon as I can. Try to get some sleep and if you need to talk to someone, call the Mortons."

Helen slammed the phone down in disgust. She turned on the radio and picked up her book, hoping somehow to distract her mind. But the words blurred and moved on the page, and she soon set it on the floor. On the radio there was no more mention of the escaped prisoner, but there was a prediction of at least another day of rain. "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" came on, and Helen thought that the DJ must be a real comedian. It made her smile and feel better. As soon as the song was over, though, there came a shattering crack of thunder and lightning that lit up the sky bright as day. The noise froze her, and fear and apprehension started creeping over her again, like a venomous spider crawling up her flesh. She braced herself against the sofa, and another jolting clap of thunder broke out, followed by a power outage that plunged the cabin into as complete a darkness as Helen had ever known. Suddenly there was only sound, of the rain and the thunder and her heartbeat.

For a long while, rigid from fear, she didn't move, her fingers dug into the cushions of the sofa. After a while the thunder stopped, and the rain let up some. Helen relaxed a little, but before long thought she heard a knock on the door. She concentrated hard as she could and thought she heard another knock. There was no doubt about it in her mind: The escaped prisoner was at the door! She had to do something. She got up and tried to grope her way to the fireplace to get the poker in case she had to defend herself. She could see a little better now and thought she'd be able to get it, but she ended up stubbing her toe against the corner of the brick hearth and fell down as the pain of it shot through her. She closed her eyes as tears began dripping down her face. She could feel blood running between her toes. This was all Dave's fault, she thought. He never should have let her stay up at the cabin by herself. And he should at least have been willing to come up and get her when she so desperately wanted him to. Somehow, she'd make him pay. Even if she were killed. She hoped that when she died she'd be able to come back and get even with the people who'd made her life miserable, as people had in some of the books she'd read. She thought she heard—she'd have sworn she heard even though it was difficult to make out the words—a man saying, "Let me in. Let me in, Helen," cold and impersonal, yet somehow more insistent and evil than if he'd shouted and raved. Suddenly, whatever shred of sanity she had left just snapped, and she started screaming uncontrollably, as bad as she had in her worst days at the hospital.

It was such a sunny day it was hard for people to get used to the light. When they went out, they shaded their eyes and blinked and looked as if they couldn't quite believe it, it had been so long since the sun had come out. The sun, the mist from the lake, and the gulls, had given Dave Sinclair a feeling of relief as he'd as he'd driven over the Mackinac Bridge into the Upper Peninsula. It made him feel that everything would be OK after all.

After Helen had called, he'd gone back and forth between being pissed off and thinking he'd be wasting his time going up to get her and worrying about her. He'd finally decided, though, that he really didn't have any other choice but to go and got dressed and left. The consequences if she went off the deep end again were too horrifying for him to take any chances. He knew he wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything else until he took care of her anyway. He'd had to skip the big meeting. He felt like kicking himself for leaving her up at the cabin by herself, but he'd reached a point where he felt that if he didn't get away from her for a while, he'd end up in a mental hospital himself.

It hadn't been easy getting the day off. Conroy'd been none too happy when he'd called him about an hour before from a Shell station, when it was already too late to get back to the office on time. He hadn't gone beyond saying a family emergency had come up, but he knew it would be obvious to him and everybody else at the office what the real reason was. He could just see them all joking about how Mrs. Sinclair had probably gone bonkers again. And he could just see the satisfied smile curling up on Henderson's face when he didn't make the meeting, knowing that he'd have one more point in his favor toward getting the vice president's job that was open instead of Dave. It was such a disadvantage in the business world having a wife like Helen. They'd come to hate each other and had been on the verge of getting a divorce many times, but always some crisis in her life had come up, and they'd put it off.

Despite the sunshine, Dave had an eerie feeling when he pulled up to the cabin. He could feel something wasn't right. When he went inside, he found that Helen wasn't there, and because the windows were all closed, he assumed that she wasn't just out for a walk or over at the Mortons. Yet nothing in the cabin was particularly out of place. Sure some of Helen's books about the occult were scattered around the sofa, and a blanket was on it as if Helen might have slept there, but if anything, that was more normal than if everything was neat and in place. As he looked around, though, a weird feeling came over him. Somehow, he could feel Helen's presence around him. He was nervous and felt anger that didn't seem to have any clear cause, and a terrible feeling of guilt about Helen crept over him, far more severe than he thought it was fair he should feel.

There was a note on the kitchen table in Mr. Morton's awkward printing.

COME ON OVER WHEN YOU SEE THIS NOTE, DAVE

GEORGE
It seemed an odd wording. Where the hell else does Morton think I'd go, he thought? It was pretty annoying to him and made him wonder more than ever what in the hell was going on. When Dave got to the Mortons, he saw that a police car was there. Surely, he thought, this must have something to do with Helen. Why else would the Mortons be involved with the police?

"We thought that would be you," George Morton said when he answered the door. "We've tried everything to get hold of you."

Dave saw George's wife, Vera, and a state trooper sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Vera sniffled and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief.

"Where the hell is she?" Dave said.

"We've got some awful news for you, Dave," George said. "There's been a terrible accident."

"That still doesn't answer my question."

"She's dead, Dave. Apparently she was out during the storm and fell and hit her head on a rock."

He hugged Dave, and Vera burst into tears, but frankly, Dave could have done very well without the theatrics. He felt anger and shock rather than grief, and he would like to have punched Vera Morton. That feeling of Helen's presence was stronger than ever.

"She mentioned that escaped prisoner when I last talked to her," Dave said, looking at the policeman. "Did it have anything to do with that?"

He seemed surprised.

"That guy? He was picked up in Wisconsin last night. I doubt if he was ever anywhere near here, and certainly he wasn't when your wife died."

"Are you sure it was a fall? Are you sure someone didn't hit her in the head with a rock?"

"Nobody saw it happen, but there's no reason to suspect it happened any differently than Mr. Morton said. From the severity of the blow we concluded that she must have been running when she fell and—"

"In other words, she was running from someone."

"There's no evidence to suggest anyone else was there, no footprints, no signs that anyone tried to break into the cabin, no evidence of a struggle. Considering your wife's psychological condition—but why don't you put that out of your mind right now. Why don't you have some coffee, and in a little while we'll go down so you can officially identify the body."

But Dave didn't really even hear what the officer said. He was suddenly and entirely caught up in a web of delusion. He felt himself becoming completely unhinged.

"I still say it could have been the escaped convict. He could have killed her and then gone to Wisconsin."

George and Vera were disgusted that Dave was making such a big deal out of this and not even seeming to care about the death itself. They could only think that he must be in shock, that he was trying to deny what had really happened. His eyes made him seem wildly disturbed.

"Why don't you face this thing like a man?" George said. "No matter how it happened, that kind of talk isn't going to bring her back."

"Look, I don't know about you, but I'm going to go out and look at that rock right now. Helen wouldn't lie about a thing like that."

"Who said anything about lying?" George said. "Are you crazy or something? Do you think she talked about what happened after she died?"

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about. You're all full of shit."

He stormed out, slamming the door behind him, talking to himself and gesticulating wildly with his hands. An image of Helen's face sneering at him came into his mind, and he felt a deep sense of panic. Although none of his friends or colleagues knew it, he'd actually met her in a psychiatric wing of a hospital, the first time she'd been committed to one. It was his darkest secret, and he didn't know anyone else anymore who knew it besides Helen. He thought he'd made a full recovery, the medicine the doctor had given him always seemed to keep him in check, but fear of losing his mind again always lurked at the edge of his consciousness. Now, it seemed, from the stress of dealing with Helen, from his mortal fear of people finding out about his past, he had indeed lost his mind again.

He'd often thought that Helen was destined to ruin his career. Had he been able to look at himself now as he was before, maybe he would have laughed perversely at the strange way that it had happened—that she would come back from the dead and take over his mind, just because he didn't want to ruin his career and run up to get her on a whim. Maybe he would even have laughed as hard as Henderson would when he heard what had become of him and said what a disaster it would have been if Sagamore Steel Company had made a vice president out of a guy like that.

Wendy

It's funny the way it began. I'd wasted a couple of hours at this staff meeting Parker called after school, and Harvey Caswell and Bill Reardon and I were standing around making sarcastic remarks about it afterwards when Wendy came up and suggested we go out to Trappers Alley with her and Candy Weil. They were the secretaries in the principal's office. Well, before I knew it, it was eleven o'clock and I was pretty loaded, and everyone had left but Wendy and me. The band had taken a break, and "Under My Thumb" was playing menacingly on the jukebox. She was sitting across from me in a booth, and I was trying to act nonchalant. She looked at me with whimsical satisfaction, as if she'd really pulled something off—the cat who swallowed the canary look.

"What do you know, it's down to just you and me," she said in the husky, sensuous voice that could turn just about any man into jelly. "I never thought I'd end up staying out this late."

"I wouldn't think your boyfriend would be too happy about it."

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled like we were both pretending to believe some lie.

"He knows he can only control me so much. And he doesn't expect me to be a nice girl. If I was, I don't suppose he'd like me very much," laughing.

"No, I don't suppose he would. Not that I know him, but—"

"Hey, I've got an idea. This place is getting to be a drag. What do you say we go to your place for a nightcap?"

I was too shocked, momentarily, to say anything. I mean, this woman would hardly give me the time of day before. Now, all of a sudden, she seemed to want us to be big buddies. Was she drunk, I wondered? And her boyfriend, whom she lived with apparently, was a tough guy and an amateur boxer people said they wouldn't want to mess with. That made me real nervous.

"Sure, if you're sure it's all right."

"I'll just tell Butch I stayed here late. He and his friends never come here. I like to get him pissed off every once in a while anyway. It helps me keep him in line," laughing.

On the ride to my apartment, we didn't talk much. A lot was going through my mind, though. In a way I was thrilled. I'd fantasized about Wendy more than about any woman I'd ever known. She had pretty green eyes, but she never let me look into them long, as if she was afraid I'd see something there she didn't want me to know. Beautifully thick auburn hair fell in lovely lush curls down her back. To my eye, she had a figure as perfect as any fantasy I could have conjured up in my head, voluptuous and graceful no matter what pose she was in. The anticipation of what might happen between us was electrifying. But it just seemed so odd. Judging from her boyfriend, I was the antithesis of what she was attracted to in a man, and he put a chill on the thoughts I had about her. I could never think he wasn't dangerous, no matter how far away he was or how unlikely he'd ever find out about us. Every so often Wendy looked over at me with a pleased look or as if she'd just thought of something funny, and the warm night air blew through her hair. It had been the warmest September anyone could remember.

She made herself right at home at my apartment. She kicked off her shoes and went over and opened the refrigerator.

"No wonder you're so thin," she said. "You eat out all the time or something?"

"I have a couple of private chefs who do most of my cooking," I said haughtily. "Burger King and Burger Chef." She laughed.

"As long as you got what it takes to make gin and tonics, I don't care about the rest of it."

As it turned out, I did—coincidentally, that was my last girlfriend's preferred drink— and before long we were sitting on the sofa drinking and watching Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show.

"This is pretty boring," Wendy said before too long. "It isn't that funny tonight. You have a pool here, don't you?"

"Yeah," slowly. "Why?"

"Why don't we go skinny dipping? It's a great night for it."

It took all my self-possession to keep from looking amazed or laughing out loud.

"It is that kind of night, isn't it? But I'm sure the pool's closed this late."

"Oh, so what? We can climb the fence. I've done that a million times."

How could I argue against logic like that? I didn't try, and besides, I wanted to go, even if it meant I might get kicked out of the complex if we got caught. I was thrilled by the idea of seeing her naked. So before long we were walking over to the clubhouse and pool area. We climbed over the chain-link fence and took our clothes off and jumped into the water, Wendy with a whoop. When we came to the surface we came together and kissed. Pretty hot and heavy we got.

"God, this feels great," Wendy said.

"I couldn't agree more," I said.

"Oh, Jerry, let's get out and make love. I want to so much."

We got out of the pool and spread our towels out and lay down. Nothing could have felt more real yet seem more like a fantasy of the wildest improbability, so at times even when we were making love, I felt like laughing at the strangeness of it. I was beyond worrying any more about her boyfriend finding out or getting caught outside making love, beyond any kind of practical thinking. She was as passionate as I'd imagined, the best lover by far that I'd ever been with, and I thought it was hilarious later when I noticed that I'd gotten some bruises from being on the cement but couldn't remember any pain. When we were done making love, Wendy smiled at me sweetly but with a touch of the smugness I'd seen on her face earlier in the evening at the bar.

"I've wanted this to happen for a long time," she said. "You'd be surprised how much I've thought about you. I've had a terrible crush on you for months."

"Since we're being upfront and honest, I'll admit I've thought about you a little myself," with a look so she'd know I'd thought about her a lot more than that.

"I'm so glad we finally got together."

We went in swimming again and then went back to my apartment, where we lay on a quilt watching TV and drinking gin and tonics. I'd lost track of time, but David Letterman was over, and John Wayne was riding the range looking for rustlers, so I knew it was late.

"What are you thinking?" Wendy said.

"You wouldn't want to know," I said.

"Oh, come on. Sure I would."

"I'm not even sure I'd know how to say what's on my mind right now."

"You're an English teacher. That should be a snap for you."

"We're up awful late for a school night, don't you think?"

"I've been up later. And besides, tomorrow's Friday. I can always slide through one day, no matter how bad a shape I'm in."

"We're never going to say anything about this to anyone, are we? It's just going to be between you and me."

"If that's the way you want it," shrugging her shoulders. "Makes no difference to me."

I thought that an odd thing to say, considering the obvious consequences there would be if it ever got out that we'd been together. And though I didn't ask her about it, I thought it over later after she left, and the next day when I was walking around the school like a zombie, with a hangover and on only about two hours sleep. I passed Wendy in the hall once, and she smiled slyly, and I smiled back and nodded, but we didn't talk. I thought she looked remarkably fresh, like she'd spent the last evening at home crocheting or watching TV and slept like a baby for nine or ten hours. I was amazed she could bounce back so well after a night like that. That day seemed slow and slightly surreal, as if my brain was trying to get in the dreams that it didn't get a chance to the night before but wasn't quite succeeding. When I got home I practically collapsed into bed, and it wasn't until I woke up about ten hours later, in the middle of the night, that I really started asking myself questions.

What could possibly be her motivation for getting involved with me, I wondered? When you come right down to it, everything that had happened that night had happened because of her, had been scripted by her. I'd just gone along for the ride, too amazed by what was happening to do anything more than enjoy it and marvel at it. But now what was I supposed to think? Making love with her had been the most pleasurable experience of my life, one that I'd savor and relive over and over in my imagination for years. But could I ever expect to be with her again? Had she just given way to an impulse or had she planned the whole thing? As sensual and impulsive as she seemed, I suspected there was a coldly calculating side to her that made the impulse theory seem unlikely. I wondered how she'd explained being MIA to her boyfriend. Though it scared the hell out of me thinking what might happen if he ever found out, yet in a way that added to the intrigue and attraction of being with her, as I skated a line of danger I'd barely ever come close to before. Finally I fell asleep, but I was awakened by a nightmare in which Butch caught Wendy and me in bed and went into a rage and beat me with a wrench until blood came pouring down my face. I was shaking when I woke up but tried to laugh it off, and eventually I fell back to sleep. When I woke up again, it was morning, but I didn't get up, just lay there dreaming of Wendy.

When I went back to school Monday, I ran into Wendy in the hall, and she smiled and said hi but again didn't stop to talk. I got the distinct feeling she was trying to avoid talking to me, though I wouldn't have been able to say for sure that was the case. She was really good at handling stuff like that: You were never quite sure just what she felt or wanted, which of course gave her an advantage over me and probably everyone else she knew. I was dying to talk with her, but the only words I got out of her that whole week were "hi" and "Jerry."

I'm basically a loner and don't have many friends, and I knew there was a huge risk in telling anyone about what had happened with Wendy: Very few people can keep their mouth shut when they hear any really shocking gossip. But finally I broke down one night and told Rick Burdick, a history teacher who was the only real friend I had in Wyandotte, which is a rundown factory town south of Detroit. We were out at The Keg, drinking beers after school Friday. He could hardly believe what I was telling him was true, and he laughed or looked amazed most of the while I was telling the story.

"Whew," he said when I was done. "I'm not sure whether I should envy you or administer last rites."

"I wouldn't take it back, I'll tell you that."

"So what's your next move? You going to challenge Butch to a rumble?"

"Yeah, sure. My gang against his. Are you crazy or something?" smiling.

"Wild and crazy maybe."

"No, it looks like it was just a one night stand. She played it pretty cool at school this week."

"It's a strange thing. I've always wondered if those wild stories about her are true. You wouldn't think they'd let her keep working at the school if they were."

He was referring to stories that she worked as a stripper at night and that her boyfriend was the bouncer at the strip joint where she worked.

"She's discrete about it, though. She never mentions it to anyone, and her boyfriend never picks her up at school."

"I've decided I envy you. Just one night with her—"

There was no need to complete the thought. We lifted our beers and drank, thoughtfully.

After a couple of weeks had passed, I thought it was unlikely that I'd ever be with Wendy again. I regretted that, naturally, but felt smug about what I thought I'd gotten away with, and when I was pretending to be reasonable about it, concluded that it was best that it had ended where it had. But really, I would have risked about anything even to spend just one more night with her. She'd broken me out of my rut, out of the cynical nothingness my life consisted of, and had made it starkly clear to me how empty it really was.

Then, strangely, she called me in the middle of the night. It must have been 2:30 or so. I was still half asleep when I picked up the phone, so at first it was hard for me to believe, or even realize, that it was her.

"Sorry to call this late," she said. "Butch kicked me out. I'm at a booth. Can I come over?"

"Yes, you may come over," smiling. "This is the time I ordinarily receive guests anyway."

She laughed. "All right. See you in a few."

I didn't know what to make of this. I was in a daze anyway from being roused from a sound sleep, and it was so unlikely I was tempted to chalk it up to dreamland. I'd given up trying to figure her out, though, and was too tired to strain my brain. Then she didn't show up for a long time. I mean, it must have been over an hour. It was annoying, and I wondered where in the hell she'd called from—I'd just assumed I wasn't more than a mile or so away. I'd dozed off on the sofa in the living room when a loud knock woke me up.

She was as casual as if it were a Saturday afternoon and I'd expected her visit for a month, and she seemed wide awake. She had a tote bag with her and some clothes on hangers.

"Would you mind if I stayed a few days?" she said. "I don't know what in the hell's gonna happen."

"I don't see why not," with what I hoped was a cool smile. "The Wyandotte Home for Wayward Women keeps it doors open seven days a week."

"Great. You're a real sweetheart," and she put her arms around me and we kissed, and she grabbed my hands and brought them up to her breasts.

"Pretty forward, aren't you?" she said. "I mean, I just got here."

At that, I just smiled. She was already unzipping my jeans, and I took them off as she began undressing, and before long we were on the floor making love. It was as good as before, and when we were done, I was absolutely drained. Wendy took a joint out of her purse and lit it, and we lay on the floor for quite a while passing it back and forth and not saying much.

"Sometime we ought to try the bed," I suggested after a while.

"I kind of prefer wall-to-wall carpeting myself. Gives you more room to maneuver," and we both laughed. "But maybe we can try it later on tonight."

"We may be too late for that. I've got a feeling Mr. Sun's going to poke his head over the horizon before too long."

"How poetic. I'm sure glad I decided to have an affair with an English teacher," and we laughed irrationally hard.

Before long we did get into bed, but just lay there talking, and everything seemed funny. We still hadn't slept any by 6 am, when we both called in sick to good old Wyandotte High, which was terribly irresponsible, and something I'd never done before. But we just laughed about that, too, and I laughed harder because I was imagining how shocked people at school would be if they knew why. When we finally fell asleep, we didn't wake up until the middle of the afternoon. For breakfast I made Wendy an omelet—the only thing in the kitchen I'm really noted for, and for which I received lavish compliments—while she listened to a Pink Floyd album and thumbed through my latest Rolling Stone magazine.

The rest of the day we delightfully wasted away, playing Trivial Pursuit in bed, dancing to Beatles records, watching old sitcoms on TV. We never got around to putting any street clothes on. It's a good thing I didn't think too much about what I was doing or what the consequences might be, because if I had, I probably would have laughed so hard Wendy would have thought I was crazy—or I would have gone crazy. It wasn't until that night, when we were lying in bed, that we had anything like a serious conversation.

"What do you think's going to come of this?" I said.

"Come?" with a sly smile.

"I mean, what's it going to lead to?"

"Why does it have to lead to anything?"

"I don't suppose that it has to. I was just wondering."

"It's silly to try to predict the way a relationship will turn out. It's more fun anyway to just let it happen."

"I hope you don't plan on mentioning any of this to Butch," smiling a little, as if he didn't really scare me.

"We're broke up. I don't plan to talk to him at all again," sullenly, looking away.

We finally went to sleep, but Wendy woke me up in the middle of the night.

"I couldn't sleep so I went out for a walk. I ended up calling Butch and we made up. He invited me to come back, so I guess I'll go."

"Oh, OK, whatever," I said sleepily, only half aware, I suppose, of what was happening.

"Thanks for putting up with me. I really enjoyed it," then she kissed me and was gone.

I fell back to sleep almost immediately and so didn't really give any thought to the matter until morning, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. The silence felt strange. That she had gone so abruptly made the day we'd spent together seem even more weird, made everything seem out of joint, and oddly, though I couldn't have said exactly why, I felt like she owed me something. I felt terribly sad and lonely.

I didn't really talk to Wendy again for a couple of weeks, until one afternoon when she told me to meet her in the cafeteria after school. I got there before she did and waved to Mr. Johnson, who was putting the tables up to get ready to wax the floor. It seemed as if I had to wait a long time, and I was nervously looking at my watch when Wendy came in. She rushed over and sat across from me.

"Bad news, Jerry. Butch found out about us. Don't ask me how because I don't know. Somebody must have seen us. We can't talk in here. Let's go outside."

"How could anyone have seen us?" I said as we were walking out the door. "We didn't go anywhere."

"Someone could have seen us out at the pool."

That seemed highly unlikely, but my thoughts were already racing ahead to what this would mean.

"You told him, didn't you?"

"No! Of course not," but from her eyes I thought she was lying.

"Now what? I suppose he wants to kill me, right?"

"That's the way he was talking last night. He got drunk and beat the hell out of me. I was afraid he was going to get some of the guys and go right out after you."

I remembered the stories in the Detroit Free Press from a few years ago when the Skulls motorcycle gang had killed a guy who was running around with one of the members' girlfriends, and how two of the members had been sent to Jackson prison for it.

"Oh, this is great. What am I supposed to do? Go out and hire a contingent of bodyguards!"

"It would be best if you left town for a while. It's not worth the risk staying. There's no telling what Butch might do. He could hurt you bad, even if he didn't kill you."

"He might not kill me, eh? Well, that's good news. What a relief. He might just do great bodily harm, like cut my balls off or maim me for life. You really know how to cheer a guy up."

My anger didn't seem to faze her.

"I really feel bad about it. But you'd better go now."

"What the fuck did you tell him for, for Christ's sake?"

"He beat it out of me," screaming, starting to cry. "Does it make you feel better to hear me say it?"

It seemed so incongruous for her to lose her composure that I didn't know what so say. Still, I had a hard time believing the emotion was real, and my mind was overwhelmed by the thought of having to just pick up and leave the area forever that afternoon. I stared at her hard and she looked at me sadly, as the chill autumn wind whipped through her hair. I started to walk away.

"Be careful! Butch could even be hiding somewhere around the school now."

So here I sit in a coffee shop in Nebraska, a thousand miles away from Wyandotte. I decided I couldn't take a chance that Wendy wasn't telling the truth and left town within an hour—but I left myself an out. I called the principal before I left and told him that my aunt, who'd raised me, had had a stroke, and that I really needed to go home because the doctors didn't think she'd pull through. I said I might be gone a couple of weeks. I left my furniture and most of my clothes back at my apartment. So it would be easy to go back if after hours and days and sleepless nights of agonizing over what I should do, I can come to a decision. Always, it seems, my thoughts run in the same circles.

Was Wendy telling the truth when she said Butch knew about us and wanted to kill me? Or did she just want to get rid of me so there was no chance he would find out, so that I wouldn't be able, say, to let it slip some night in a bar, and it would somehow get back to him? Maybe she was really afraid for herself. Is it possible, I wondered, that she could be so selfish that she'd be willing to wreak my life just so that she could make sure her boyfriend didn't find out about us? None of the answers I came up with made sense for long.

I thought it was funny how upset I was about having to leave Wyandotte, when I'd really never liked it, and at times even hated it. I suppose it was just inertia, or that side of everyone that resists change. Now that I've been away a while, though, I'm not sure I want to go back, whether Butch wants to kill me or not. Sometimes I think about the people and things at Wyandotte High and in Wyandotte that I can't stand, and the idea of not going back seems better and better.

I don't have any ties there worth keeping. In a way I don't feel any more rootless in this town where I know no one than I did back there, where I'd spent the last five years. Yet at other times I really wish I could go back and have things be the way they were before Wendy and I got together. That nothingness that was so comfortable. I feel like Hamlet but for a worthless cause, and sometimes I feel enraged at Wendy for peeling back the layers of my cynicism and forcing me to look at my life in such a cold, harsh light.

At the moment, I think I'll stay in Nebraska. The waitress here at the coffee shop, Diane, has been pretty flirty. She's blonde and has a hard kind of prettiness that makes me think she's been around quite a bit. And there aren't any street gangs in Nebraska, are there? They've got a help wanted sign up in front of this place for a short order cook. Maybe I'll apply for it. I've got a feeling Diane and I could become real good friends. Maybe after a few months I'll head out to California. I could get in to being a vagabond for a while. Or maybe I'll go back to Wyandotte and try to pretend that Wendy never happened, that I never looked into those green eyes that are as inscrutable in their own way as the Buddha.

Guess I'll have Diane bring me another cup of coffee and think about it some more. You never know.

Summer Stranger

She was there every day from the afternoon I checked in at the Hidden Heart Resort, sitting by the beach, drinking some exotic drink, and reading books. In the beginning, every time I saw the woman I came to know as Desirée, I also heard the waves from the ocean roll in, and the two things together made such a powerful impression on me that ever since when I've heard waves on a beach, I can't help but think of her. I'd come to the resort myself because I wanted a secluded spot and the right mood to finish my latest novel, a mystery called The Deadly Lover. It's about a jewel thief who meets a woman at a seaside resort who seduces and kills him for the jewels she thinks he has with him, and the extraordinary machinations the police go through to unravel the web of deception that she has built. However, because of Desirée, and because of what happened to us together, both my life and the novel became unraveled, and neither could ever be the same after that.

I'd taken a cottage by the beach in the off season, in hope it would allow me to concentrate for the last 6 weeks or so I figured it would take me to finish the book. So I didn't pay much attention to Desirée during the first few days I was there, as I sat for hours on the porch of the cottage with pen in hand working on The Deadly Lover. I loved the sound of the waves and the wind, and it seemed the perfect spot to do the thinking and writing I needed to do.

At first, I was just a little curious about Desirée. I barely thought of her at all. But as the days went on, and she was always in the same spot, nearly all day, I became more and more curious. Other people stayed at the resort during that time, too, but they would come and go a few days at a time, while Desirée stayed on. No one ever came to visit her. She never even went into the water. Sometimes she went out at night, but where she went, and what she did, I hadn't the slightest clue. Finally, after this went on for a few weeks, I can almost say I started to become obsessed.

During our first few days "together," if you can call it that, we never spoke, although if we happened to pass each other on the beach or in the resort somewhere, she would smile at me, and I would smile back. She never quite looked me in the eye, though, so I interpreted the smile as saying thanks for being friendly but please don't make the mistake of trying to get to know me. Something off putting there was about it, a smile that was friendly but also seemed to put up an invisible wall between us. At first, I was content to keep our relationship that way. I'd been burned hard enough in other relationships to not want to rush into another one, and I knew from bitter experience how easily my heart could be captured, and how easily I could make a fool of myself. Nope, I thought, I'm better off living through relationships in my novels than in real life. The real life ones were way too messy and painful and hard to control. Not that I had any intention of giving up women—I just didn't want to fall in love again.

Finally, though, my curiosity got the better of me, and I left my porch and as it turned out my life behind me and walked over to where she was sitting on the beach, feeling as awkward as a 14 year old kid getting ready to ask a girl out on a date for the first time in his life.

"Just thought I'd come over and say hello," I said.

She looked up from under her broad brimmed hat, a little amused and a little surprised, I thought. I noticed that the book she was reading was some sort of romance, with a castle in the background on the cover and a raven haired beauty with a long, flowing white gown looking out wistfully in the foreground.

"Well, hello to you," she said.

"My name is Vincent Lang. Are you planning to stay here long?"

"I haven't really decided yet. I may, or I may leave tomorrow or even this afternoon."

It seemed such an odd thing for a person to say who's been staying at a vacation resort for weeks, that I wasn't sure what to say next. She didn't even bother to tell me her name.

"I'm a little bit in that position myself. I'm working on a novel, and I'll leave when I finish it, but how long that will be, I can't really say."

I thought that would be sure to impress her, or at least pique her interest enough to ask me what the novel was about, especially since she seemed to be quite a reader herself. But she didn't seem the least bit interested, and just shrugged her shoulders a bit.

"Well, good luck with it," but then she looked back down at the book she was reading, the invisible wall that she had put up between us before went up again, and I seemed to have been dismissed by her.

I was lost for words at that point anyway, so I just walked back to my cottage and to the table on the porch where I was working, and that was that.

For a couple of weeks after that, my days were so much the same they could almost have been put into a cookie cutter: I got up early, sometimes even early enough to see the sun rise in shades of pink and gold and orange from the porch, drank coffee while I plugged away at The Deadly Lover throughout the morning, then in the afternoon took a long walk on the beach. In the late afternoon I would go over what I'd written in the morning, and at night I'd go into the town nearby and have dinner at one of the restaurants or hang out at one of the local bars. Every time I went out, and everywhere I went, I looked for Desirée and was always a little disappointed when I never ran into her. As with everything else about her, I got more and more curious about where she went when she left her cottage. It seemed after number of weeks I should have at least run into her somewhere in town—it wasn't that big a place—but it never happened.

Until one night.

I went into The Harbor Inn for dinner and saw her sitting at a table by herself. I was so surprised to see her after such a long time looking for her and not seeing her that I almost stopped in my tracks. But I was even more surprised when our eyes met, she smiled at me, and motioned with her hand for me to come over to her.

"Sit down and join me if you want. I just got here, and if you're with me, it will help me keep the flies away, if you know what I mean."

Suddenly, the invisible wall was gone.

"I'd be glad to," I said, smiling. "To be honest, I've been pretty lonely the past few days anyway."

"I know the feeling. I've been pretty lonely myself. Pretty much for a lifetime," with a laugh that had an edge to it.

Not able to think of a suitable reply to that remark, I nodded and sat down beside her.

"In case you don't have any other plans, I'd like it if you'd join me for dinner," even though she must have known by then I wasn't likely to have any other plans given that no one had visited me at my cottage at the Hidden Heart Resort in the entire time since I'd arrived there.

"I think I'll be able to fit it in," smiling, trying to seem cool.

And so began the mostly unlikely series of events in my entire life. I sat down beside her, and for the first time, I had a chance to really look at Desirée. She had long light brown hair that the sun had tinted honey blonde. Her thin features weren't what you'd quite call pretty, but she had the most amazing eyes. They were the deepest blue I've ever seen, an endless well of blue that was almost haunting in its intensity. They weren't what you would call warm, but they lit up with stars when she smiled. When I looked into them deeply, however, I also thought I saw a note of cruelty that I remembered vividly after the strange events that our relationship led to.

We ordered drinks—a scotch on the rocks for me and a screwdriver for her—and after that and a second drink, I felt mellow and a little bold.

"I have to admit that I've been fascinated by you almost since the first day I got to the resort. Every day that's gone by, you've seemed a bit more mysterious to me, and I've almost gotten to the point where I've written a novel in my head imagining what your story is."

She laughed pretty hard.

"You'll be crushed by the real story: I just went through a really bad divorce and felt like I had to get away from everything and everyone I knew for a while. I got a good enough settlement that I could afford to pretty much do anything I want."

"That must be a great feeling—I mean being able to afford to do anything you want without having to worry about money. Most people have to worry about it pretty much every day. I know I do."

"You must be doing pretty well to be able to afford to take off so much time to write a novel."

"I got an advance on The Deadly Lover. It's gonna run out pretty soon, though. I'll have to finish it soon and hope it sells pretty well, or I'll have to go back to making a real living for a change. The publisher thinks they can option it for a movie, more than they think it will sell a lot of copies on its own."

"I'll be sorry when you leave. I've actually gotten pretty fond of seeing you on your porch every day. Even though we hardly talked, I felt a little less lonely by you being there."

"That's funny. I felt the same way about you."

The waitress came, and Desirée ordered a lobster dinner and I swordfish. We ordered more drinks and I started feeling really mellow, and it seemed she did, too.

"You know it's a shame we didn't get to know each other earlier," she said. "I really like you, and we could really have enjoyed keeping each other company."

"It might not be too late. I can still hang around for at least a couple of weeks."

She took my hand and a thrill went through me that was all out of proportion to what I should have felt for such a small thing. Into my eyes she looked with her piercing gaze from those bluest eyes I've ever seen.

It was that simple. After weeks of dreaming about Desirée, fantasizing about her, after weaving enough imaginary stories around her to fill an epic, in barely an hour she'd become my lover and practically my girlfriend. She picked up the bill, we went back to the Hidden Heart Resort, we went to her cottage, and before long we were in bed making love. She was the most passionate woman I'd ever made love with. She moaned, she called my name, she practically screamed, and seemed as passionate as if we were on the first night of our honeymoon. Then we lay together and talked.

"Sorry if I got a little carried away."

"I can't say that I minded. I'm just glad the resort is practically deserted now so no one else could have heard us," laughing.

The next week was like paradise for me. Beautiful, perfect warm fall days passed by with the music of the waves from the sea providing background music day and night. Each day I would join Desirée on the beach and pretend I was working on my novel. It was warmer than normal for autumn, almost hot at times in the sun, but there was always a breeze to keep us comfortable. Desirée didn't want to go out to dinner again, but I found out she was a wonderful cook, and each day she sent me to the local grocery store to buy what we needed for that night's feast. We had wine with dinner but never got drunk. Although we watched TV or played chess sometimes after dinner—she was a remarkably good player and beat me almost every game—it wasn't usually long before we ended up back in bed again. I gave up my cottage and moved in with Desirée, which also, along with her, made me lose all sense of urgency about finishing The Deadly Lover. It was almost better than a honeymoon because it seemed there were no strings attached, and it had the sweet taste of being illicit. Almost everything good in life comes at a cost, but this seemed like it would have no cost. But then came the day that changed everything and made me realize how high the cost really was.

"Honey, I need you to help me with something," she said late one night just before we got undressed to go to bed.

"Sure, Honey. What do you have in mind?"

"I need you to deliver a package for me. I'll give you the address and directions where you need to deliver it, but I won't be able to tell you what's in it or anything else about it right now. You'll just need to trust me on it."

I looked at her intently and skeptically and didn't reply for a long moment.

"That's pretty strange."

"I know it is, Honey. But I was hoping we'd reached a point as a couple where you could trust me."

We'd never referred to each other as a couple before, and I admit if felt good to me when she said it. She came over and hugged me and gave me a French kiss.

"I'll tell you the whole story eventually. But for now I need to keep everything a secret."

Again, I looked at her intently and didn't reply for a long moment.

"All right. I'll do it. The only thing I'll ask about it is for you to assure me there's nothing illegal about it."

She smiled warmly and kissed me again.

"Of course not, Honey!"

"Writers need a lot of solitude, but a prison cell isn't very inspiring, if you know what I mean."

She laughed. "I'm sure it isn't."

She gave me another kiss and told me she'd give me the address and the directions in the morning. We got undressed and got into bed, and I didn't think much more of it before I fell asleep. But in the middle of the night there was a hard pounding at the door. We woke up and could see through the windows the lights of what seemed like an endless number of police cars. I looked over at Desirée and she shrugged, but I thought I could see a hint of terror in her eyes. We got up and quickly dressed.

"Open up! It's the police!"

I opened the door and Desirée stood behind me. There were two police officers with automatic weapons at the door, and I quickly learned that there were many others surrounding the house.

"Put your hands up and lie on the floor!" which we did, and after which the two cops rushed to cuff us as the other cops poured into the cottage.

They took Desirée away outside of the house and sat me on a chair, questioning me relentlessly as they tried to figure out where I fit into Desirée's life. The police questioned me for a long time in Desirée's cottage while she was in the back of the police car. The gist of the questions is they wanted to make sure I wasn't her partner, instead of just a lover she was using. Here the tiny bit of fame I had as an author seemed to help a little bit. They finally concluded that I must be an innocent party and agreed to let me go, with the proviso that I promised I would come to the police station the next day to sign a formal statement and answer any more questions they might be able to come up with after a night of questioning Desirée. It seemed especially weird because I'd been writing about crime my entire career without actually ever having been in the middle of one.

"We've been trying to track her down for a year," the cop who seemed to be the leader of the crew said. "You're pretty lucky, buddy. You could have ended up just like her last two lovers did—dead."

I was still too shaken up to even reply to reply for a moment, other than a small nod, but then I said stupidly, "You've got to be kidding!"

"She's the ultimate femme fatale. Her modus operandi is she's really cool to a guy at first, and he gets so fascinated by her that he can't stand not saying anything to her after a while, so he asks her out. She's great at making guys fall for her hook, line, and sinker. She kills her husbands for fun, then runs off with the insurance money."

"She doesn't have any insurance money on me, and I'm not her husband."

"The fact is, there's no one on god's green earth named Desirée Lee Spector. Her real name is Jane Barron, and she's as phony as if she was made in a factory. You may have read about her in the paper."

He looked at me like he was expecting a reply, but I said nothing.

"Why she let you off, I'll never know."

A small army of police arrived that was ridiculously out of proportion to the threat represented by one unarmed woman who might have weighed half of what one of them did. But I suppose they all wanted to get into the action. They all wanted to have stories to tell their wives or girlfriends or their buddies at whatever bars they hung out at and maybe even see their names in the next day's paper.

As they took Desirée away and put her in the police car, she looked back at me pathetically, sadly, pleadingly. I had no idea what I would do: Should I feel miraculously grateful that I'd escaped the fate of her other victims? Should I run down to the police station, hoping some terrible mistake had been made, or even if it hadn't, try to help her in some way and stay in contact with her? What was in the package she asked me to deliver that was so dangerous that she didn't dare deliver herself? What I actually did, however, is just stay frozen on the spot I was standing at in front of Desirée's cottage for a long time, long after the police cars had disappeared in the distance.

I suppose I should have just felt tremendous relief, as if I'd just been in a plane crash and was the only one to survive or as if I'd just been rescued from shark infested waters. Instead of feeling relief, however, I felt shattered and broken hearted. I realized I loved Desirée, perhaps a bit like a circus performer who loves the tigers and lions he trains and performs with, even though he knows they might turn on a dime and kill him.

I knew I'd never be the same or ever trust people again in the same way. Desirée made me wonder about people. She made me wonder about life. She made me wonder if you can ever really know anything or anyone for sure, if there is anything in life that you can count on more than a crap shoot, and even if it's worth caring about anything.

Nevertheless, I got in my car and drove to the police station to see her.

NOT THE END
Author Biography

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Steven Arnett was born in Detroit, Michigan, and enjoys writing fiction and poetry. He has degrees from Michigan State University and the University of Maine. He currently lives in Johns Creek, Georgia, with his wife, Delphine, and daughter, Vivienne.

