Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler Page A

couldn’t quite explain why he and Bundy were friends. It was surely none of his doing. But from the day they’d met, at a St. Dyfrig teachers’ meeting one September, Bundy had seemed to view Liam with a mixture of fascination and … well, glee would have to be the word for it. And Liam, almost against his will, found himself playing into that view. Leading Bundy through the apartment this evening, for instance, he flung open the closet door to show off his new tie rack. “A separate little spoke for each tie! And see how it revolves for easy access.” Bundy rocked back on his heels, grinning.
    When it grew apparent that the apartment’s air conditioning couldn’t handle the heat of the oven, they moved their meal to the patio. They sat out on the tiny square of concrete in two rotting canvas butterfly chairs left behind by the previous tenant, and they ate from makeshift trays formed by several folded newspaper sections laid across their knees.
    Bundy shook his head when he heard about the intruder. He said, “Ah, man. And you’re in the county now!” But he showed less sympathy for Liam’s memory lapse. “Shoot,” he said, “that happens to me just about every weekend. No big deal about that.”
    Then he drifted into St. Dyfrig gossip—the headmaster’s latest cockamamie piece of foolishness, the latest dispute with some pigheaded parent. He knew all of Liam’s old students and could tell him what most were up to, since he was in charge of athletics for St. Dyfrig’s summer program. Brucie Winston had been caught selling drugs, which was something of a dilemma since Brucie’s parents had just single-handedly funded the new auditorium. Lewis Bent was failing his make-up math course and there was talk of holding him back next year.
    Liam had never much liked Brucie Winston, but Lewis was a whole other story. He tsk-ed and said, “Well, that’s a shame.” He wondered if there were something he should have done differently while Lewis was in his class.
    When they’d polished off the dessert (a pint of pistachio ice cream) and it was time for Bundy to go, Liam led him back through the apartment, carelessly leaving the patio door unlocked behind them. Even as he was telling Bundy good night he had an edgy awareness of that unlocked door at his rear. “Sure, you’re welcome; any time,” he said, almost pushing Bundy out. But it wasn’t anxiety that made him hurry back to the patio; it was a sort of mag-netic pull, a half-guilty, compelling attraction. All for nothing, as it happened. No one was trying to get in.
    That night he dreamed that he woke to a sense of someone standing over his bed. He dreamed that he lay very still, curled on his side, pretending to be asleep. He could hear soft, steady breathing. He could feel a thread-thin blade of cold steel placed lightly against his bare neck. Then the blade was raised in the air to strike the fatal blow.
    Who would have guessed that a killer would make that trial move first? Like setting a cleaver against a joint of meat before lifting it to chop, Liam thought. The horror of that image caused his eyes to fly open in the dark. His heart was beating so violently that it rustled his pajamas.
    Noah’s Compass: A Novel

5
    There was a parking space in front of the Mission for Indigent Men, but Liam didn’t stop there.
    He drove on past it, past Cope Development and Curtis Plumbing Supply, and turned right at the corner and pulled in at a meter halfway up the next block. When he got out of his car he found he didn’t have any quarters—the only coins the meter accepted—but he decided to take his chances.
    He walked back to Bunker Street, turned left, and slowed until he was nearly at a stand-still. Already, at not even nine a.m., the sun felt uncomfortably hot on his head and the back of his neck. He came to a halt near a hydrant and painstakingly, deliberatively rolled his shirtsleeves up, flattening each fold with great care. Two men in suits strode