“Nola Jean’s sister.”
He got off the bench and I tensed. But he sat back down again, pushed back and forth by restless energy.
“Richard played around with both of ‘em at one time or another. Then he brought ’em over here and the trouble started. I guess it appealed to his sense of humor. Two screwed-up sisters and two screwed-up brothers. I remember him saying that one time. Nola thought it was funny as hell.”
“Did anybody ever ask Jonelle what became of her sister?”
“She didn’t know either. That’s what she told the people that investigated the fire. Me, I didn’t give a damn. Good riddance, we all thought. Then Jonelle moved away too.”
“And she and Jeffords landed in Taos.”
“Apparently so.”
“And ended up together.”
“I guess that proves some damn thing. Fairy tales come true or something. Jonelle always had this crazy lust for Charlie Jeffords. But Nola Jean always took Jonelle’s men away from her. It came as natural as breathing. She tortured Charlie Jeffords and drove that poor bastard nuts. Diddled and teased him and never even gave him a good look at it.”
The telephone rang. He didn’t want to answer it. But we both knew who it was, and he picked it up just as the recording started to kick in.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, he’s here now.”
Then Crystal told him something that made his mouth hang open.
He held the phone away from him, looked at me, and said, “I’ve got to take this.”
“Sure.”
“Shut that door but don’t go away. We’re not done yet.”
I stepped back into the front room and closed the door. I couldn’t hear anything. Crystal seemed to be doing all the talking.
I looked down at the desk, at Eleanor’s letter. Picked it up and put it in my pocket.
What’s a little federal crime at this stage of the game, I thought, and I walked out.
I crossed the street and stood in the dark place between buildings. I watched his storefront and I waited. He seemed to be back there a long time. When he did come out, he came slowly. He came to the front door and out onto the sidewalk.
“Janeway,” he called up the empty block.
I didn’t move.
“Janeway!”
He jumped in his truck and drove away, leaving his door wide open. I let him get well ahead. I wasn’t worried. I knew where he was going.
53
Archie, she wrote. I’ve done it again. Took one of the books thinking I’d put it back in a day or so. Then got busted and the book’s still in my car, wrapped in a towel under the
front seat. I know, you’ve warned me about it, but he never seems to miss them and it brightens my life when I’ve got one with me. I love them so much. I wish I could love people that way but I can’t. The books never disappoint me. They are eternally lovely and true, they’ve been at the core of my life for as long as I can remember. Even when I’m far away, just knowing they’re there can lift me out of the gutter and make me fly again. Just the possibility that he might destroy them fills me with despair. I think I would die if that happened, especially if the cause was some stupid act of my own. So please get the book and put it back in the room, so he won’t notice it’s gone. Here are my keys so you can get in. Think good thoughts and smile for me. Love ya. Ellie.
There were three keys in the envelope—one for a car, two for more substantial locks. I put them in my pocket, got out of the car, and started across country through the woods.
It was easy going. The ground was damp but hard: the underbrush sparse. I followed my flashlight till the trees began to thin out and a clear beam of moonlight appeared to light the way. I saw the Rigby house in the distance as I approached from the east, moving along the edge of the silver glade. Dark clouds drifted across the moon in wisps, and the meadow seemed to flutter and undulate in the stillness around it. The light from the kitchen window stood out like a beacon, the darkened printshop squatting like a bunker behind it. I stayed at the edge of the trees, skirting the dark wall to blend in with the night. As I walked, the printshop seemed to drift until it slowly covered the light from the window like an eclipse. When the blackout was full, I turned and walked straight across the meadow.
I came up to the back of the shop and eased along the outer wall. The clouds had covered the moon and again the night was full. The glow from the kitchen was a muted sheen at the comer of the shop, a suggestion of radiance from some black hole. I turned the other way, circled the building from the south, and came to the front door at the corner where there was plenty of dark cover.
I was looking into the front yard and, beyond it, down the side of the house. Rigby’s truck was gone but Moon’s was there at the front steps. The only light anywhere was the one cast out of the kitchen. I slipped along the front of the shop, keeping in shadow as much as I could. A clock had begun ticking in my head, a sense of urgency that drove me on.
I reached the door with the keys in my hand. Fished out the car key and dropped it in my other pocket. The heavy brass key slipped in easily on the first try and the lock snapped free. I put that key away too and stepped inside the shop. The smell of the leadpot, faint but unmistakable, was the evidence that Rigby had been here plying his trade. I flipped up the switch one notch on the flashlight, so it could be flicked on and off at a touch. I flicked it once, satisfied myself that nothing stood between me and the back room: then I locked the front door, crossed the room, and went into Grayson’s workshop.
Funny to think of it that way, as Grayson’s, though that had been my thought the first time I’d seen it. I knew the back-room lights could not be seen from the house, but it was not a chance I wanted to take. I flicked my light, three quick flashes around the room. Saw the high steel chair where Rigby had been sitting three hours ago and the open space where Crystal and I had squared off as if in battle. Across the room was the door I had noticed with the half-frivolous thought perhaps it’s in there, the answer to everything .
The padlock was a heavy-duty Yale, the same color as the third key in my hand. I snapped it open, gave a soft push, and the door creaked inward.
It’s a wine cellar, was my first thought.
A cool, windowless room, perfect for storing things away from heat and light. But something else, not wine, was aging on those shelves.
Books.
Dozens of books.
Scores…
Hundreds…
Hundreds!
And they were all The Raven .
A Disneyland of Ravens , row after row, elegantly bound and perfect-looking, all the same, all different. Some so different they seemed to mock the others for their sameness.
Funny thoughts race through your head.
Eureka!
Dr. Livingstone, I presume…
And Stewart Granger, buried alive in that African mountain, crawling into a treasure chamber with a torch over his head and the miracle of discovery on his lips.
King Solomon’s Mines!
That’s how it felt.
I took down a book and opened it to the title page.
1969.
I looked at another one.
1969.
Another one…and another one…and another one…
1969…
…1969…
…1969…
A year frozen forever, with no misspelled words.
I try not to presume too much in this business. That’s how mistakes are made.
But it was probably safe to say I had found the Grayson Raven .
54
I couldn’t shake the thrill of it, or chase away the faceless man who had made it. I stood at the dark front door, watching the house and not knowing what to do next. Then the second impact hit and I had to go back for another look. The room was different now, transposed in a kind of shivery mystical brew. It was alive and growing, nowhere yet near whatever it was trying to become. Twenty years ago it had been empty. Then the first book came and life began.