He was soon in the house. Although he could not see the Doctor, he knew immediately where he was—in the flailing knot of humanity lumped in the middle of the living room. Were these people mad? Were they trying to crush the life out of the Doctor? How long had he been under them? He had to get to him!
Ba waded into the crowd, roughly pushing aside anyone who was in his way until he reached the knot.
The lights flickered, then went out. It didn't matter to Ba. He simply reached into the knot and yanked on anyone he contacted, using the sporadic flashes of lightning through the windows to adjust his course. He worked hard, knowing he didn't have much time. The people here were more determined—some fiercely so. They struck back at him, aiming fists at his face, kicks at his groin. Ba was rougher on these, literally hurling them aside. The room became filled with sound, shouts of pain and anger breaking through the nearly continuous roar of the thunder.
The lights suddenly went on again and he found himself standing over the form of Dr. Bulmer, white-faced, gasping, disheveled. He held his hand out to the man. As the Doctor grasped it and pulled himself to his feet, Ba heard the babble of voices around him die to the point where he could understand snatches of sentences here and there.
… "Who the hell is he?"—"Where'd he come from?"— "Gawd he's big!"—"Looks sicker than you, pal!"…
The people backed away, leaving Ba and the Doctor in a rough circle of clear floor. Ba knew that his appearance was forbidding as he stood there dripping water, his thin wet hair plastered to his skull and hanging over his forehead. Perhaps that alone would be enough to get them out to the car without further violence.
"The Missus awaits you in her car," he told Dr. Bulmer.
The Doctor nodded. "Thanks, but I'll be okay."
Ba knew that was a very slim possibility. "Perhaps, but would you please speak to her to assure her of your safety?"
"Sure." He started toward the door.
A man stepped in his way. "You ain't goin' nowhere till you've seen my sister, pal."
Ba stepped forward but the man was apparently waiting and ready for him: Without warning, he swung a vicious uppercut at Ba's jaw. Ba blocked the blow with his palm and wrapped his long fingers around the man's fist. He would have to make an example of this one. He held the man's hand trapped in his own so that all could see how powerless he was, and then he twisted it back sharply. There was a loud crack and the man screamed and went down on his knees.
"Jesus!" the Doctor said. "Don't hurt them!"
"The Missus awaits you."
"Okay," said the Doctor. He turned to the crowd. "I want you all out of here when I get back."
Amid angry murmuring, Ba followed him out through the rain to the car. As the Doctor opened the door to the Graham, and leaned in, people began to shout.
… "Sure! He's got plenty of time for the rich but none for us!"—"Is that what I've got to do to get to him, buy a classic car?"…
Over the roar of the thunder, Ba heard glass crash behind him as he reached the curb. He turned and saw a lamp land on the lawn after smashing through a front window. More shattering: Some of the people were pulling bricks from a garden border and hurling them through the windows. Others were turning Ba's way. Even before the bricks started flying toward him and the car, Ba was moving. He pushed Dr. Bulmer into the back seat and closed the door after him. Then he jumped into the driver's seat, threw the car into gear, and sped off.
"What in the name of—" the Doctor said from the back, and then a brick bounced off the trunk with a loud thunk.
"My car!" the Missus cried, turning to stare out the tiny rear window. "Why would they want to hurt my Graham?"
"They're angry, frustrated, and afraid," the Doctor said.
The Missus laughed. "Anybody else I'd call a sap for saying something like that. But you, Alan, you've really got the curse."
"What curse?"
"Empathy."
Peering through the rain as he drove toward Toad Hall, Ba realized that his own reply to the Doctor would have been, "The Dat-tay-vao."
___32.___
At Toad Hall
Sylvia stood at the library doors and watched Alan as he gazed out the tall windows at the lightning. She wished the drapes were drawn. Lightning had terrified her ever since five-year-old Sylvia Avery in Durham, Connecticut, had seen a bolt of lightning split a tree and set it ablaze not twenty feet from her bedroom window. She had never forgotten the terror of that moment. Even now, as an adult, she could not bear to watch a storm.
Alan must have sensed her presence, for he turned and smiled at her.
"Good fit," he said, tugging on the lapels of the blue bathrobe he was wearing. "Almost perfect. You must have known I was coming."
"Actually, it belongs to Charles," she said, and watched closely for his reaction.
His smile wavered. "He must be a pretty regular visitor."
"Not as regular as he used to be."
Was that relief in his eyes?
"Your clothes will be out of the dryer soon."
He turned back to the windows. "My memory keeps betraying me—I could swear you told me the new peach tree was on the right."
"I did. It's just that it's been growing like crazy. It's now bigger than the older one."
The phone rang and she picked it up on the first ring.
It was Lieutenant Sears of the Monroe Police Department, asking for Dr. Bulmer. "For you," she said, holding it out to him.
The first thing he had done upon arriving at Toad Hall was to call the police and report the disturbance at his home. He had said he didn't want to press charges, just wanted everybody out of his house and off his property. The lieutenant was probably calling to say mission accomplished.
She watched him speak a few words, then saw his face go slack. He said something like, "What? All of it? Completely?" He listened a bit longer, then hung up. His face was ashen when he turned to her.
"My house," he said in a small voice. "It's burned to the ground."
Sylvia's body tightened in shock. "Oh no!"
"Yeah." He nodded slowly. "Jesus, yeah. They don't know if it was the mob or lightning or what. But it's gone. Right down to the foundation."
Sylvia fought the urge to take him in her arms and say it would be all right, everything would be all right. She just stood there and watched him go back to the window and stare out at the storm. She let him have a few moments to gather himself together.
"You know what keeps going through my mind," he said at last with a hollow laugh. "It's crazy. Not that I lost my clothes or all that furniture, or even the house itself. My records! My moldy-goldy-oldy forty-fives are gone, reduced to little black globs of melted vinyl. They were my past, you know. I feel like someone's just erased a part of me." He shrugged and turned toward her. "Well, at least I've still got the cassettes I duped off the records. Got them in my office and my car. But it's not the same."
Something about his speech had been bothering her since he had leaned into the car during the storm. Now she identified it: A trace of Brooklyn accent was slipping through. He had used it jokingly before; now it seemed part of his speech. Probably due to the tremendous strain he was under.
"Maybe you'd better call your wife," Sylvia said. "She'll be worried if she calls and learns the phone's out of order."
Sylvia knew his wife was in Florida. She didn't know exactly why, but assumed that the lady found the storm around her husband easier to weather from a thousand or so miles away.
"Nah. Don't worry about that," Alan said as he walked around the room, inspecting the titles on the shelves. "Ginny hasn't much to say to me these days. Lets her lawyer do her talking for her. His latest message was a packet of divorce papers that arrived today."