"Sorry, sorry. Look, I'll see you tomorrow."
As Holly left the courtroom, Elliot Joseph was shuffling in his shackles back to the cells. She glanced back at him only once, but before he was jostled through the door she could see that he was mouthing the single wordRavenat her, over and over.Raven Raven Raven and with everyRavenhe was shaking his head at her in the way that a shaman shakes his medicine stick.
The Various Shapes of Fear
Holly and George rode a streetcar back to their offices. It was so crowded that they had to stand in the aisle, hanging onto the straps, and Holly was almost suffocated by a man standing next to her in a woolly bobble hat and a huge blue puffa jacket. The morning was so gloomy that it was difficult to believe it wasn't even 11:30 yet. The temperature had dropped, too, like a stone down a well. George said, "Feels like the end of the world, doesn't it?"
Holly said, "Tell me about Raven."
"Raven?Any particular reason?"
"I'm trying to understand why Elliot did what he did."
George shrugged. "Well, if hedidthink that Daniel was possessed by Raven, he would have blamed the poor kid for everything that went wrong in his life. Like I said, Raven is a scavenger who takes away people's luck. He takes it piece by piece. First your livelihood, then your home, then your loved ones, and last of all your happiness. Then, when you don't have any luck left, he takesyou,and rips you apart, and feeds off your utter hopelessness.
"There are dozens of stories about Raven-hundreds-but in every one it's human misery that gets his juices flowing."
"You said he takes different shapes."
"That's right." George ducked his head so that he could see where they were. "He usually looks like a big black bird. Sometimes he doesn't have a beak, because there's some story about him turning into a man and trying to steal a fish from some fishermen, only the fishermen were too strong for him and pulled his jaw off. But most times he appears as someone you know even someone you really like. Other times he's nothing but a shadow, or a cat, or a dog. Or even something inanimate, like a chair."
"Can anybody send him after you? I mean, if somebody really didn't like you and they wanted you to lose all of your luck, could they ask Raven to do that?"
George smiled. "That's a strange question."
"I'm interested, that's all."
"You got anybody specific in mind? Not that Lutz guy you were telling me about, the one in Accounts? The guy who keeps coming up to you at the water-cooler and breathing onion-ring breath all over you?"
Holly gave him a wan smile. "Oh, no. I wasn't thinking of trying it myself. I just wondered if that was part of the legend you know, that somebody could send Raven looking for somebody else, to get their revenge or something?"
"This is my stop. I can talk to you later if you like."
"No, I'll come with you. I can walk the rest of the way."
They stepped down from the streetcar, which rang its bell, closed its double doors, and hummed off northward toward the Pearl District, although to Holly it glided away in utter silence. The wind was growing blustery, so that the signs outside the coffeehouses and bookstores started to swing, and Holly had to tug down her black beret and button her long black trench coat up to the neck.
George linked arms with her. "So far as I know, the only time that you can ask Raven to do you a favor is if you see through one of his disguises and catch him before he can change back into a bird and fly away."
"Like Elliot Joseph did with Daniel?"
"That's right."
"So Elliot Joseph could send Raven looking for one of us?"
"According to the legends, yes. But- Hey, what is this? It's only a story."
Holly stopped. On the opposite side of the street, parked outside the Bellman Bookstore, was a silver Porsche Spyder with its convertible top down. She stared at it for so long that George nudged her arm.
"What's the matter? I've been trying to talk to you and you haven't been looking."
"I'm sorry. It's nothing. I'm sorry. Look, why don't we meet up tomorrow morning and talk about this interface idea?"
"Okay I'll check my diary and give you a call. You take care of yourself; you look like you could use a strong cup of coffee."
Holly stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. "Talk to you later, okay?" George disappeared through the reflecting glass doors of his office building, almost like a stage magician, but Holly stayed where she was, still staring at the Porsche. It was the same model, same year, same color, that James Dean had been driving when he was killed in California in 1955. James Dean had been David's hero, and David had owned a Porsche almost exactly like it. And died in it too.
Now here it was, parked on Salmon Street, outside David's favorite bookstore, as if all the pages of the calendar had flurried back six and a half years, and David was still alive and still inside the store, browsing through the movie section.
Don't Look Behind You
She crossed the street and peered in through the bookstore window, shading her eyes with her hand, but it was too dark inside for her to be able to make out anything but occasionally shifting shadows. She turned back to the car. Seeing it parked there made her feel as if she had stepped up to her neck in icy-cold water. Only ninety models had been made, and of those only seventy-eight had been sold to the public, so the odds were that this was actually David's car, repaired and resprayed. A large cellophane-wrapped bouquet of yellow roses lay on the backseat.
She had hated this car. David had bought it out of a legacy from his aunt from Forest Grove. They could have used the money for a house, but when David heard the Porsche was up for auction he immediately put in a bid for it. He drove everywhere with the engine bellowing and the tires screaming like the Hallelujah Chorus. "You know, Jimmy said there were only two speeds in the Little Bastard: dead stop andbanzai!"The way David used to talk about "Jimmy," you would have thought that James Dean had been his lifelong buddy.
Holly had agreed to take a ride in the Porsche only once. Even when she first climbed into it she felt as if she were sitting in her own coffin. David had grinned at her. He hadn't realized that he was sitting in his.
She hesitated briefly, and then she pushed open the door of the bookstore and stepped inside. She still couldn't catch her breath. The store was lined from floor to ceiling with secondhand books on every subject from fly-fishing to feng shui, and stacks of old magazines likeLifeandThe Saturday Evening Post. The only light came from a row of windows at the rear of the shop, which were glazed with amber and yellow orchids.
There was thesmell,too, of thousands of books whose former owners had no longer wanted. A sour and unhealthy smell, like that of a dayroom in a retirement home.
Holly walked cautiously along one of the aisles. A tall young man was standing at the very end, reading. He was silhouetted against the windows, so it was impossible for her to make out his face. But he was wearing a dark green Burberry, like David's, and his fringe brushed forward the way that David's had been. And as she came closer, she could see that he was standing in front of the movie section.
She had seen David dead. She knew beyond any question at all that he was dead. Yet, why was she walking toward this man half-expecting him to be David, returned from the grave as if he hadn't driven under a flatbed trailer at more than seventy miles per hour?