The dog dangled in its sling, back and forth, its legs hanging foolishly. Its hat blew off. Frosticos cursed as Yamoto jumped for it and missed, the hat sailing away into the darkness just as a toppled lawn chair shook in the teeth of the wind and rose into the air, blowing away with the hat. The dog swung in a little circle over the wall. They lowered him in jolts onto William’s lawn, grinning and whispering encouragement. Mrs. Pembly stood with her arms crossed, still staring, deadly serious.
In a moment the dog was airborne once more, its filthy goal accomplished. William was speechless with horror and loathing. It was his tweed jacket the dog wore. He was sure of it. They’d stolen it, the bastards — sneaked in under the cover of the wind and slipped out with it. They could have slit his throat, drugged him, beaten him, but they didn’t. They were toying with him. He was furious. They’d pay. The lot of them would pay.
The dog disappeared behind the wall. Yamoto clambered up onto the fence and pulled himself onto a branch, wrenching at the device in the tree. That was for Edward’s benefit. There’d be no evidence of machinations in the morning, no explaining the horror in the yard.
Yamoto dropped back onto the fence, grinning. He crouched, peered toward William who stood frozen with terror, and ran along the copings toward the old Koontz house, toward William’s sanctuary, his white, billowing trousers lit by moonlight. He was far older than William remembered. William had seen his face before, and recently too. He had a little droopy beard and wore earrings beneath the brim of his bowler hat — dangling goldfish with the face of Giles Peach. Yamoto’s face was empty of expression. Dead. And he seemed to run on and on along the fencetop, sure as a cat, scampering closer and closer.
William gasped with terror. Choked with it. Tried to move, but could do nothing but watch Yamoto running toward him through the wind, his white robes whipping and snapping like loose sails on a mast. He saw suddenly that a steamer trunk lay propped against the wall, its lid slamming shut and falling open, bang, bang, bang, until the entire chest rose above the ground, hovering and dancing for a moment before sailing off, shrinking in the distance. Yamoto ran inexorably along and was suddenly lifted by the wind and flung head over heels, his bowler hat spinning away and he following after, an untethered kite, glowing and dwindling in the agitated moonlight. The roof of the Pembly house blew loose and spun off. The elm cracked and bent and tore out bodily, pinwheeling away. Clouds raced in the sky, and through the rents torn by the wind, William could see shooting stars, showers of them, blown through space, the wild gale sweeping the heavens clean and piling stars and planets, bowler hats and lawn chairs against some rusted and teetering chainlink fence in the void.
Chapter 21
Sunlight shone through the curtainless window, straight into William’s eyes. It was eight o’clock. It had been a hellish night. The wind still blew, but somehow daylight masked the sound of the rustling palm fronds. William remembered having nightmares. It was impossible, though, to say when he’d fallen asleep, and whether he had seen anything at all out the back window. It was all peculiarly real to him.
He was damned if he was going to spend the day in the empty house. He’d have been wise to sneak home before dawn, but he’d just have to risk it now. He’d never been quite so desperate for a cup of coffee. Edward would sweat at the idea of him exposing himself so, but c’est la vie, as the Frenchman said. He’d lock himself in and not answer the door or telephone. He could always nip back over the fence in a crisis.
He stood for a moment at the back door, watching the Pembly house. Nothing stirred. He opened the door and darted out, hunched and running toward the fence. He stopped, peeked over, saw nothing once again, and then clambered up onto a pile of brick and over the wall into the door of the aquarium shed. From the maze shed he looked out again. There was no use taking chances. He started out, then checked himself, stopping and staring at the grass under the elm where a clump of dog waste gathered a multitude of early morning flies.
William’s heart smashed away in his chest, half in anger, half in fear. There was no sign of a winch in the treetop. Of course there wasn’t. They’d taken it out. If he looked over the wall, there it would be, rusting in the weeds, the picture of innocence. He came to himself suddenly and hurried into the house.
The morning dragged along. He tried to read, but couldn’t. So he tried to write, but it was a waste of time. He came up with nothing but nonsense, nothing but first paragraphs full of mystery and promise that led to the wastepaper basket. He roamed the house, poking into closets, flipping on lights and flipping them off again. He spent more and more time watching through the window, speculating on the activities of his neighbor. He arranged the drapes. The hibiscus hadn’t grown so much as to obscure his view, but until almost noon, there was nothing at all to see. Mrs. Pembly remained invisible, ignoring her weeds. Once she came outside with something for the dog, an enormous knucklebone, from the look of it, or, thought William giggling at his post by the drapes, the boiled head of her husband. She disappeared straightaway into the house. William didn’t like it a bit. It was unnatural. Something was in the air.
At around noon William dozed in the green chair. He awoke with a jerk, but couldn’t remember what it was that had roused him — a noise of some sort, vaguely threatening. He listened, cocking an ear toward the street. There was a creak and a bang, the sound of a tailgate being lowered. William stood up and crept to the front window, and there was Yamoto, in his trousers, messing with a bamboo rake and a grass catcher, scrabbling in the little bed of begonias that separated part of the Pembly lawn from William’s own.
William was furious. He could see in his mind a crouched and running Yamoto, wearing a bowler hat, his white clothes fluttering, the remnants of a nightmare. He shuddered and paced back and forth. A tiny Edward St. Ives sat on his shoulder, admonishing him, belaboring his conscience and his better judgment. William brushed him off onto the floor. “I know what they’re up to,” he said aloud. He stopped in front of the window. Yamoto was weeding with a triangular hoe, dangerously close to William’s side of the begonias. If he touched the orange tuberous …!
A man can’t be pushed that far, thought William.
“Discretion is the better part of valor,” said a tiny, irritating voice.
“Discretion! Don’t talk to me about discretion. And I hate cliché. Look at that! He’s jarred my angel wing! Those green stalks can’t take that kind of abuse. The butcher!”
William raged around the room. The tiny Edward vanished. And just as well for him. This was an affair of honor. The white glove had been cast long ago, and it was time for William to pluck it up and slap Yamoto silly with it. The old lady too. Their villainy had reached new heights the past night.
But William was shrewd. He thought of his lesson with the toothpaste tube. Slow and easy, that was his way now. Yamoto would be at it for an hour at least. There was time for preparation. He routed out an old backpack and hauled it into the kitchen, shoving in a package of saltines. A can of peaches followed along with a can opener. He found part of a bag of Oreo cookies in the cupboard and put that in, then added a half dozen little cardboard cartons of raisins, an apple, and a piece of salami.
He dug out a one-quart canteen and filled it with water, found a flashlight — not quite the bone crusher he was used to, but heavy enough in his hand to lend him a certain contempt for the casual villain — and finally the third of the army-navy store miner’s helmets. It belonged to Russel Latzarel, but he would understand. He wouldn’t need it aboard the diving bell anyway. William set the stuffed backpack, the canteen, and the miner’s helmet by the back door. Then, considering, he fetched the copy of Pince Nez, a compass, and one of the little penlights he’d gotten from Phillip Mays. He stuffed the lot of it into his pack, slipped out through the maze shed, and dumped them over the fence into the back yard of the vacant Koontz house. He might, after all, be moving quickly.