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“I do not believe what my eyes are seeing” Russell squawked. “Do we have another victim of The Patron Saint of Barber Shops?”

Jason and Richie looked at each other with blank expressions. Almost simultaneously they flipped their long hair out of their eyes. It was almost eerie how similar they were; they were both tall and well-built with long brown hair. But it was their mannerisms that made them seem like they should be brothers instead of just friends. People said it was this weird link that made them so dominant as quarterback and receiver, because they almost seemed to know what the other was thinking. Some people just assumed they were queers.

“What do you mean, Russell?” It was Jason, but both boys were staring at Russell with equal confusion.

As the comb and scissors flew through Denny’s hair, Russell kicked into storyteller mode. “Back in the sixties, when the Beatles first came on the Ed Sullivan Show, the country went crazy. Well, the country was already half-crazy because of President Kennedy being assassinated. But the Beatles, they made people crazy in a good way. But they were also the death knell for barbers. Kids saw those floppy mops and it was goodbye haircuts. I read that sixty percent of barber shops went out of business since the early sixties. Everyone wanted their hair long, like you boys.”

Jason and Richie exchanged glances. “But what did you mean about The Patron Saint of Barber Shops, Russell?”

“I was getting to that. It was finally this year that things started turning around for this business. Let me guess, you boys want your hair cut short, above the ears, kind of feathered back?”

Russell had them. They both nodded, then flipped their hair back again. Denny thought it was an unconscious gesture that was going to look pretty stupid when they had short hair.

“Let me ask you another question: have you seen any movies lately that you really liked?”

Again they exchanged a look. “We saw Saturday Night Fever at the Grand a couple weeks ago.” Richie said almost timidly. “That Vinnie Barbarino guy can really dance.”

Russell barked out a laugh. “I rest my case, your honor. John Travolta, Vinnie Barbarino, Tony Manero… call him whatever you want. To us barbers, he is the Patron Saint. Just like in the sixties everyone wanted to be the Beatles, now everyone wants to be a disco king.”

When Denny’s haircut was done and the talcum was settling, Russell slipped his hand into the massage gadget and turned it on. Denny stiffened when it first touched his back, but immediately relaxed. It was a magical feeling that almost tickled but not quite, and it seemed to sap the energy out of his muscles. Denny felt like he was turning to liquid. In his own eerie vibrating voice, he said “Russell, if I had a wife I’d offer to trade her for that thing too.”

That got Russell and Dom laughing so hard Denny thought they might actually fall on the floor and start rolling around.

Denny left the barber shop feeling great for the first time in a while. He loved the clean-cut feeling of just having his haircut, and the Al Capone might have been the best thing he’d ever felt. With the bell jingling behind him, he counted the money he had left, found enough for a milk shake at Leo’s Drugstore, and headed that way.

When Denny arrived at the practice field, Billy was just finishing up and walked over to meet him. “Hey, Denny, my dad should be right along.”

“Okay… Billy…” Denny had been thinking about what he’d heard at Russell’s and was concerned for Paul’s safety.

Billy knew immediately something was wrong. “Denny, what happened?”

“I think we need to tell Chief Crawford what we found at the caves.” He quickly relayed what West End Willy had said about guys taking matters into their own hands. “I think they are going to do something. And soon. I’m scared for Paul.”

“I think you’re right. Let’s go in the morning before school. I’ll crash at your house tonight and we’ll take our bikes. We can still get to school on time.”

Denny was nodding. “Thanks Billy. I’d hate to see him get hurt after everything he’s been through. Your dad is a good friend, just like you are, and Paul deserves another chance.”

“You’re not going to try to hug me, are you?” Billy said, then punched Denny’s arm. “Let’s go, there’s my dad.”

(54)

Father McCarthy snapped his head up quickly and looked around the room slightly confused. He picked the book off his chest and folded the page over where he had been reading before dozing off. The book was the very same one Denny had asked about the night he had shown up here after getting jumped by Crawford and his gang. McCarthy got up and went over to one of the bookshelves and traced a finger along the titles until he found what he was looking for. As usual, curiosity had gotten the best of him when Denny had mentioned this particular book. He had read through most of it before finding what Denny must have found, the story about the origin of Haven. Just as Denny had done, McCarthy did some quick math and concluded that if the curse held true, not that he believed in curses, Haven would suffer terrible tragedy this year.

McCarthy thought of everything that had happened since he had arrived in Haven with Paul. It seemed, curse or not, that the tragedy was already upon them. He shuddered to think what would have happened to Paul if they had not been together when the Peroit girl’s baby disappeared. Crawford had shown up at McCarthy’s door loaded for bear, clearly deflated when McCarthy told him that Paul had been there all day, preparing for a mandatory three-day seminar designed to re-acclimate long-term prisoners to society, then at lunch in town. Thankfully Paul would be in Boston for the next few days, away from the madness that Haven had turned into.

He pulled another worn volume from the shelf and carried it to his reading chair, willing himself not to look at the clock on the way by. He knew the night was more than half gone and he had barely slept. Not that this was unusual for him. He thumbed through the leather-bound journal until he came to the dated entries he was looking for.

He came to some notes from August of 1944, the year the Army ammunition base had exploded, killing everyone. Something had started scratching way back in his memory, trying to get to the surface when he had realized that based on the so-called curse 1944 was one of the years, like this one, that Haven would suffer. He flipped the page and found an article taped onto the page. Underneath it, in his own writing from so long ago, was the date and source of the article: The Haven Sun, July 29, 1944. McCarthy quickly read through the story, which was basically another account of the explosion and some possible explanations. There it was! That name; it rang a bell but he couldn’t quite make the connection.

He read aloud, “General Hamilton Gunlinger issued an emotional, if somewhat confusing statement regarding the incident in Haven. ‘I knew almost every person killed in that explosion, many of them I considered close friends. It puts a terrible burden on one’s beliefs when something like this happens. You begin to ask yourself why God would do such a thing, so seemingly random and pointless. Then you realize that your faith is all you have to cling to. We are not privy to God’s plan, nor can we try to supersede it with our own plans. That is now perfectly clear to me.’”

McCarthy scanned the rest of the article, which gave a brief biography of Gunlinger, and closed by saying he had transferred to a base in California when the decision was made not to rebuild the base in Haven. He reread the quotes from Gunlinger. What did that mean? Why was the name so familiar? McCarthy searched his mind for the answer, his gaze falling on the window across the room, where he could see the black night sky beginning to awaken to a lighter shade in the east. He would need to get some sleep; knowing the answer would come to him eventually. The way things were going in Haven he hoped it would come in time. He flipped through the journal, going forward in time from that entry. When he came to the final entry in December of 1945, he closed the book and went to the shelf to get the next series. The answer was here somewhere. McCarthy had kept a journal faithfully for most of his life. Somewhere there was a connection. As the sky outside went from a purplish gray to a flaming red-orange, McCarthy’s journal fell to his chest and he slept fitfully, the answer to the riddle just out of his grasp.