myself: No! No, it can’t be! There’s a mind behind all this, a reason. I started going to church. There’s nothing to do here on Sunday anyway. Not even a golf course. And I prayed: Please, God, don’t let this sonofabitch get away with it!
Over on Main Street there’s a place called the Okay Café. Everybody knows you can find me there just about any morning between eight and ten. I have my breakfast in the corner booth, and then just hang around reading the papers and talking to the different guys, local businessmen, that stop by for a cup of coffee.
Last Thanksgiving Day, I was having breakfast there as usual. I had the place pretty much to myself, it being a holiday and all; and I was in low spirits anyway—the Bureau was putting the final pressure on me to close this case and clear out. Christ, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to dust off this damn town! Isure as hell did. But the idea of quitting, of leaving that devil to dance on all those graves, made me sick to my guts. One time, thinking about it, I did vomit. I actually did.
Well, suddenly Adelaide Mason walked into the café. She came straight to my table. I’d met her many times, but I’d never really talked to her. She’s a schoolteacher, teaches first grade. She lives here with her sister, Marylee, a widow. Addie Mason said: “Mr. Pepper, surely you’re not going to spend Thanksgiving in the Okay Café? If you haven’t other plans, why don’t you take dinner at our house? It’s just my sister and myself.” Addie isn’t a nervous woman, but despite her smiles and cordiality, she seemed, hmnn, distracted. I thought: Maybe she considers it not quite proper for an unmarried lady to invite an unmarried man, a mere acquaintance, to her home. But before I could say yes or no, she said: “To be truthful, Mr. Pepper, I have a problem. Something I need to discuss with you. This will give us the chance. Shall we say noon?”
I’ve never eaten better food—and instead of turkey they served squabs with wild rice and a good champagne. All during the meal Addie kept the conversation moving in a very amusing manner. She didn’t appear nervous at all, but her sister did.
After dinner we sat down in the living room with coffee and brandy. Addie excused herself from the room, and when she came back she was carrying—
TC: Two guesses?
JAKE: She handed it to me, and said: “This is what I wanted to discuss with you.”
(Jake’s thin lips manufactured a smoke ring, then another. Until he sighed, the only sound in the room was the meowing wind clawing at the window.)
You’ve had a long trip. Maybe we ought to call it a night.
TC: You mean you’re going to leave me hanging out here?
JAKE (seriously, but with one of his mischievously ambiguousgrins): Just until tomorrow. I think you should hear Addie’s story from Addie herself. Come along; I’ll walk you to your room.
(Oddly, sleep struck me as though I’d been hit by a thief’s blackjack: it had been a long journey, my sinus was troubling me, I was tired. But within minutes I was awake; or, rather. I entered some sphere between sleep and wakefulness, my mind like a crystal lozenge, a suspended instrument that caught the reflections of spiraling images: a man’s head among leaves, the windows of a car streaked with venom, the eyes of serpents sliding through heat-mist, fire flowing from the earth, scorched fists pounding at a cellar door, taut wire gleaming in the twilight, a torso on a roadway, a head among leaves, fire, fire, fire flowing like a river, river, river. Then a telephone rings.)
MAN’S VOICE: How about it? Are you going to sleep all day?
TC (the curtains are drawn, the room is dark, I don’t know where I am, who I am): Hello?
MAN’S VOICE: Jake Pepper speaking. Remember him? Mean guy? With mean blue eyes?
TC: Jake! What time is it?
JAKE: A little after eleven. Addie Mason’s expecting us in about an hour. So jump under the shower. And wear something warm. It’s snowing
Over on Main Street there’s a place called the Okay Café. Everybody knows you can find me there just about any morning between eight and ten. I have my breakfast in the corner booth, and then just hang around reading the papers and talking to the different guys, local businessmen, that stop by for a cup of coffee.
Last Thanksgiving Day, I was having breakfast there as usual. I had the place pretty much to myself, it being a holiday and all; and I was in low spirits anyway—the Bureau was putting the final pressure on me to close this case and clear out. Christ, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to dust off this damn town! Isure as hell did. But the idea of quitting, of leaving that devil to dance on all those graves, made me sick to my guts. One time, thinking about it, I did vomit. I actually did.
Well, suddenly Adelaide Mason walked into the café. She came straight to my table. I’d met her many times, but I’d never really talked to her. She’s a schoolteacher, teaches first grade. She lives here with her sister, Marylee, a widow. Addie Mason said: “Mr. Pepper, surely you’re not going to spend Thanksgiving in the Okay Café? If you haven’t other plans, why don’t you take dinner at our house? It’s just my sister and myself.” Addie isn’t a nervous woman, but despite her smiles and cordiality, she seemed, hmnn, distracted. I thought: Maybe she considers it not quite proper for an unmarried lady to invite an unmarried man, a mere acquaintance, to her home. But before I could say yes or no, she said: “To be truthful, Mr. Pepper, I have a problem. Something I need to discuss with you. This will give us the chance. Shall we say noon?”
I’ve never eaten better food—and instead of turkey they served squabs with wild rice and a good champagne. All during the meal Addie kept the conversation moving in a very amusing manner. She didn’t appear nervous at all, but her sister did.
After dinner we sat down in the living room with coffee and brandy. Addie excused herself from the room, and when she came back she was carrying—
TC: Two guesses?
JAKE: She handed it to me, and said: “This is what I wanted to discuss with you.”
(Jake’s thin lips manufactured a smoke ring, then another. Until he sighed, the only sound in the room was the meowing wind clawing at the window.)
You’ve had a long trip. Maybe we ought to call it a night.
TC: You mean you’re going to leave me hanging out here?
JAKE (seriously, but with one of his mischievously ambiguousgrins): Just until tomorrow. I think you should hear Addie’s story from Addie herself. Come along; I’ll walk you to your room.
(Oddly, sleep struck me as though I’d been hit by a thief’s blackjack: it had been a long journey, my sinus was troubling me, I was tired. But within minutes I was awake; or, rather. I entered some sphere between sleep and wakefulness, my mind like a crystal lozenge, a suspended instrument that caught the reflections of spiraling images: a man’s head among leaves, the windows of a car streaked with venom, the eyes of serpents sliding through heat-mist, fire flowing from the earth, scorched fists pounding at a cellar door, taut wire gleaming in the twilight, a torso on a roadway, a head among leaves, fire, fire, fire flowing like a river, river, river. Then a telephone rings.)
MAN’S VOICE: How about it? Are you going to sleep all day?
TC (the curtains are drawn, the room is dark, I don’t know where I am, who I am): Hello?
MAN’S VOICE: Jake Pepper speaking. Remember him? Mean guy? With mean blue eyes?
TC: Jake! What time is it?
JAKE: A little after eleven. Addie Mason’s expecting us in about an hour. So jump under the shower. And wear something warm. It’s snowing
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