"How do you feel?"
Sawyer found the key he wanted. "Fine. Got out of the hospital that night. After a few hours, all I had was a headache. Even the bruises went away. I don't keep bruises long, never have. What brings you up here?"
"My mother knew the man who owned these houses."
Sawyer tilted his head and waited for more.
"She died five days ago. I was hoping I might be able to talk to him."
His eyes seemed to change shape. "They were close?"
"Once upon a time," I said.
"What was his name, this friend of your mother's?"
"Edward Rinehart."
"You got the wrong address, sorry to say. I've been coming here twice a week for ten, fifteen years, and I never heard of him."
"This is the right place," I said. "Mr. Sawyer, who hired you? The owner?"
"Could be."
"Was his name Wilbur Whateley? Or Charles Dexter Ward?"
All expression drained from Sawyer's face, and his eyes momentarily retreated. A shy smile flickered over his mouth. He surveyed the stable doors on either side. "You surprised me with that one, my friend."
"So I noticed," I said.
He chuckled. “I was thinking, this guy got the address all wrong, and you come up with Charles Dexter Ward."
"Do you know Mr. Ward?"
"Never met him." Sawyer came up beside me and faced the bottom of the lane, as if to ensure that no one would overhear. “I answered an ad in theEcho. Thirty dollars a week for checking in on these properties, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Now it's up to fifty a week. I think I'll stay on. You know? Fifty dollars a week, quick trip on the bus, in and out."
His nod said it was better than stealing and twice as easy.
"How do you report to Mr. Ward?"
"He calls every Saturday, six P. M. sharp. 'Any problems?' he says. 'No problems, sir,' I say. Monday afternoon, a kid from Lavender Lane hands me an envelope with five ten-dollar bills. Nolly Wheadle." Sawyer chuckled at the image of the boy who had led me out of Hatchtown on the night Robert had first shown himself. "One time, years back, I had a rotten cold and missed a Wednesday. Mr. Ward called on the Saturday, and I said, 'No problem,' same as always. Mr. Ward—let's say I learned not to lie to Mr. Ward. My next envelope had only ten dollars in it."
"How did he know?"
"You got me. He comes here two or three times a month, though. There'll be glasses in the sink at Number One. A different stack of books on the table in Number Two."
"Mr. Sawyer," I said, “I know I'm asking an enormous favor, but would you let me look inside?"
He pursed his lips and jiggled his keys. "Your mother was a friend of Mr. Ward's?"
"Yes," I said.
"What was her name?"
I told him. He bounced the keys in his hand and debated with himself. "Just keep your hands off Mr. Ward's belongings."
Sawyer opened the door of number 1 onto a musty, charcoal-colored space shining with ghostly shapes. He slipped away to the left, and I heard the clicking of a switch. An overhead fixture shed reluctant light over the contents of Edward Rinehart's living room. Empty bookshelves covered the wall to my right. A Fisher amplifier, a Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorder, and an A.R. turntable, stereo components that would have knocked your eyes out in 1957, lined a shelf on the near side of the fireplace. A Spanish bullfight poster and a reproduction of Picasso'sThree Musicians hung over the sound equipment. A shelf lined with LP records bracketed the fireplace on its far side, and past the records was a narrow door. A sofa and three chairs draped in languorous-looking sheets accounted for the ghostly shapes I had seen from the entrance.
"The door goes into Number Two," Sawyer told me.
Here, Rinehart had conducted his parties and unofficial seminars. He had posed in front of the fireplace and read passages of his work. He had draped himself across the sofa and murmured provocations. Albertus students, poor damned Erwin "Pipey" Leake, and people like Donald Messmer had streamed up Buxton Place and brought their various passions through the front door.
Earl Sawyer walked to the far end of the room and into the kitchen, where garbage overflowed from a metal washtub. We went upstairs and looked into a room with a bare double bed, an oak dresser and table. "Any of this interest you?" Sawyer asked.
"All of it interests me," I said. I had probably been conceived on that bed. Robert seemed to flicker into being alongside me—I felt his demanding presence—and disappeared without having been any more than an illusion.
"What?"
“I thought I heard something."
"These places make noises by themselves," Sawyer said.
Downstairs, he opened the door beside the record shelf. The room beyond gaped like the mouth of an abandoned mine. "Wait a second. I'll get the lights."
Sawyer walked into the darkness and became a thick shadow. I heard a thump and the sound of wood sliding over wood, then another thump, like the opening and closing of a drawer. “I always hit that damn table."
He turned on a lamp atop a side table. A book-lined wall came into view. Sawyer moved to a larger table in the middle of the room and switched on a lamp surrounded by mounds of yellowed newspapers and empty food containers. Tall bookshelves took shape on all sides. "Come on in."
Rinehart had turned the cottage into a library. The shelves extended upward to the roof and all the way to the back of the house. An iron ladder curved up to a railed catwalk. There were thousands of books in that room. I looked at the spines: H. P. Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft. I moved to the ladder and went up a couple of rungs. Multiple copies of every edition of each of Lovecraft's books lined the shelves, followed by their translations into what looked like every possible foreign language. First editions, paperbacks, trade paperbacks, collections, library editions. Some of the books looked almost new, others as though they had been picked up in paperback exchange stores. Rinehart had spent time and money buying rare copies, but he had also purchased almost every Lovecraft volume he had seen, whether or not he already owned it. “I think I know the name of his favorite writer," I said.
"Mr. Ward thinks H. P. Lovecraft was the greatest writer whoever lived." Sawyer scanned the shelves with mute, secondhand pride. "Years back, I started reading a couple stories when I finished my job. Mr. Lovecraft put a lot in them, but not everything he knew. I've had a lot of time to think about this subject."
This was the source of his pride—his theories about Lovecraft.
"You know what a parable is, I hope."
“I went to Sunday school," I said.
His smile vanished before the significance of what he had to say. "A parable is a story with a concealed meaning. You might not see it, but it's there."
"Some parables seem to have lots of meanings," I said. "The more you think about them, the less you can be sure what they say."
"No, you're reading them all wrong, they wouldn't beany good that way. A parable has only one meaning, but the trick is, you have to look for it. Mr. Lovecraft's stories are the same. They can teach you a lot, if you're strong enough to accept the truth."
I had seen the same kind of pleasure in the faces of men devoted to theoretical, Hydra-headed conspiracies that connected the Kennedy assassinations, the FBI, organized crime, the military-industrial complex, and Satanic cabals. The stink of craziness always enveloped these people.
"Look there." Sawyer pointed at a shelf filled with copies ofFrom Beyond. "A friend of his wrote that book. Mr. Ward said it ought to be famous, and he's right. It's a great book. Maybe my favorite."