"Good. Go there, please. And wait."
"All right. I understand."
He hung up, then I did. Weird. And troubling. An obvious attempt to circumvent an eavesdropper's discovering where we were going to meet. Who? Why? And how many?
I departed the Union quickly, since I had mentioned it in our conversation. Headed north from the campus, three blocks. Then two blocks over and part way up a side street. It was a little bookstore I liked to visit about once a week, just to see what new titles had come in. Hal used to go along with me every now and then.
I browsed for perhaps half an hour, regarding the reversed titles in the backward shop. Occasionally, I paused to read a page or so of text for the practice of doing it that way-just in case things stayed topsy-turvy for any great length of time. The first sentence in one of maerD ehT sgnoS by namyrreB nhoJ took on a peculiar, personal meaning:
rodirroc siht nwod rorrim ym klats I
... rettil seceip ym
And I began thinking of the pieces of myself, scattered all over, from dronehood to raisinhood and thereafter. Was it worth it to stalk the mirror? I wondered. I had never really tried. But then-
I was considering buying the book when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
"Fred, come on."
"Hi, Hal. I was wondering-"
"Hurry," he said. "Please. I'm double-parked."
"Okay."
I restored the book to its rack and followed him out. I saw the car, went to it, got in. Hal climbed in his side and began driving. He did not say anything as he worked his way through the traffic, and since it was obvious that length of time. The first sentence in one of Songs Dream was ready to tell me about it. I lit a cigarette and stared out the window.
It took him several minutes to get us out of the sprawl and onto a more sedate stretch of road. It was only then that he spoke.
"In the note that you left you said that you had had a peculiar idea and were going to check it out. I take it that this involved the stone?"
"It involved the whole mess," I said, "so I guess the stone figures in, somehow. I am not at all sure how."
"Will you start at the beginning and tell me about it?"
"What about this urgent business of yours?"
"I want to hear everything that happened to you first. All right?"
"All right. Where are we going, anyway?"
"Just driving for now. Please, tell me everything, from the time you left my place through today."
So I did. I talked and I talked and the buildings all ran away after a time and the grasses rushed up to the roadside, grew taller, were joined by shrubbery, tentative trees, an occasional cow, boulders and random jack rabbits. Hal listened, nodded, asked a question every now and then, kept driving.
"Then, say, right now, it looks to you as if I'm driving from the wrong side of the car?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Fascinating."
I saw then that we were nearing the ocean, moving through an area dotted by summer cottages, mostly deserted this time of year. I had gotten so involved in my story that I had not realized we had been driving for close to an hour.
"And you've got a bona fide doctorate now?"
"That's what I said."
"Very strange."
"Hal, you're stalling. What's the matter? What is it that you don't want to tell me?"
"Look in the back seat," he said.
"Okay. It's full of junk, as usual. You should really clean it out some-"
"The jacket in the comer. It's wrapped in my jacket."
I brought the jacket up front and unrolled it.
"The stone! Then you had it all along!"
"No, I didn't" he said.
"Then where did you find it? Where was it?"
Hal turned up a side road. A pair of gulls dipped past.
"Study it," he said. "Look at it carefully. That's it, isn't it?"
"Sure looks like it. But I never really scrutinized it before."
"It has to be it," he said. "Believe that I just found it in the bottom of a trunk I hadn't unpacked till now. Stick to that."
"What do you mean, ‘Stick to that'?"
"I got into Byler's lab last night and took it from the shelf. There were several. It's just as good as the one he gave us. You can't tell the difference, can you?"
"No. but I'm no expert. What's going on?"
"Mary has been kidnaped," he said.
I looked over at him. His face was expressionless, which was the way I knew it would be if something like that were true.
"When? How?"
"We'd had a misunderstanding and she had gone home to her mother's, that night you stopped over ... "
"Yes, I remember."
"Well, I was going to call the next day and try to smooth things over. But the more I considered it the more I kept thinking how much nicer it would be if she called me first. I'd have some sort of little moral victory that way, I decided. So I waited. I came close to phoning a number of times, but I'd always put it off just a little longer-hoping she would call. She didn't, though, and I had let it get fairly late. Too late, really. So I decided to give it another night. I did, and then I called her mother's place in the morning. Not only was she not there, but she hadn't been there at all. Her mother hadn't even heard from her. I figured, okay, she has good sense. She had had second thoughts, didn't want to turn the thing into a family issue. She had changed her mind and gone to stay with one of her girl friends. I started calling them. Nothing.
"Then, between calls," he went on, "someone called me. It was a man, and he asked if I knew where my wife was. My first thought was that there had been an accident of some sort. But he said that she was all right, that he would even let me talk to her in a minute. They were holding her. They had held her for a day to make me sweat. Now they were going to tell me what they wanted in return for her release, unharmed."
"The stone, of course."
"Of course. And also, of course, he did not believe me when I said I did not have it. He told me they would give me a day in which to get hold of it, and when they got in touch with me again they would tell me what to do with it. Then he let me talk to Mary. She said she was all right, but she sounded scared. I told him not to hurt her, and I promised to look for it. Then I started searching. I looked through everything that I have. No stone. Then I tried your place. I still have my key."
"Anybody there toasting the Queen?"
"No signs of your visitors at all. Then I proceeded to look for the stone in every possible place. Finally, I gave up. It's just gone, that's all."
He grew silent. We twisted along the narrow road, occasional glimpses of the sea appearing through gaps in the foliage off to my left/his right.
"So?" I said. "What then?"
"He called again the next day, asked if I had it. I told him I did not-and he said they were going to kill Mary. I pleaded with him, said I'd do anything-"
"Wait. You did not call the police?"
He shook his head.
"He told me not to-the first time that we talked. Any sort of police involvement, he said, and I would never see her again. I thought about calling the cops, but I was scared. If I called the police and he found out ... I just couldn't take the chance. What would you have done?"
"I don't know," I said. "But go ahead. What happened next?"
"He asked me if I knew where you were, said you could probably help find it-"
"Ha! Sorry. Go on."
"Again, I had to tell him I did not know but that I was expecting to hear from you soon. He said they would give me another day to find the stone or to find you. Then he hung up. Later, I thought about the stones in Paul's lab, got to wondering whether any of them were still there. If they were, why not try to pass one off as the real thing? They were obviously good fakes. The man who made them had even been fooled by one himself for a time. I was able to force the lock and get into his lab later in the day. I was desperate enough to try anything. There were four of them on the shelf, and I took the one you are holding now. I took it home with me and I waited. He phoned me again this morning-right before you called-and I told him I had come across it in the bottom of an old trunk. He sounded happy then. He even let me talk to Mary again and she said she was still okay. He told me where to take the stone, said they would meet me and make the exchange-her for it."