Charley didn’t seem to know how to answer. ‘I guess?’
Ben turned back to Anabeth. ‘So what are we missing?’
She folded her arms as if she’d tired of waiting for him to arrive at the obvious on his own. ‘You’ve encountered the creature in person, you tell me. Will the police be able to protect you?’
‘The police have more guns than I do. Thicker walls, too.’
‘And you’re willing to bet your life that they’re thick enough?’ She tilted her head toward Charley. ‘You’re willing to bet his?’
Ben felt another flash of anger, but he swallowed it. Because they were finally getting somewhere.
Of course he didn’t think the cops would be able to protect them. Not even if they did listen to a word he had to say. Ben had already speculated about how a stranger might see him if all they had to go on was Reuben Wasserman’s incomplete scrapbook. What if all they had to go on were snapshots from the last two days? They’d see a broke, divorced, mid-life self-destructive type who had a) learned that he was about to lose his job; b) learned that he was about to lose regular visits with his son; and c) finally lost his marbles. That’s what they’d see. Each wrong move he made from this point on could only serve to dig him in deeper. Which only put Charley in more danger than he was already.
Besides, he’d already seen Wasserman’s creature walk through cinderblock as if it were cardboard. He’d watched the thing absorb a load of buckshot with its face, then throw it back at him. It was – somehow, against everything Ben thought he’d learned about the world through four decades of walking around on it – an actual, legitimate supernatural being. Did the cops have a gun for that?
‘Because the creature won’t stop,’ Abe went on. She sidled a little closer to Charley, draping an arm around his shoulders. Ben marveled at Charley’s seeming acceptance of this gesture from a complete stranger. If he or Christine tried to touch him these days, he squirmed away like he was part eel, but somehow Anabeth had tamed him as effortlessly as she had the feral tomcat on the porch. ‘It’ll just keep … coming.’
‘I might be moving away,’ Charley said. ‘If it matters.’
Ben looked at him. ‘You know about that?’
‘Overheard Mom and Tony fighting about it.’
Abe rested her head briefly against Charley’s. ‘Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. But it doesn’t.’
Fighting about it? Ben thought, then wiped the thought from his head. What the hell was the matter with him? ‘Maybe I’ll move, too,’ he said. ‘That thing wasn’t built when the world had cars.’
‘Move to the other side of the planet every few years, if that’s how you want to live your life.’ She tousled Charley’s hair. ‘Hope against hope that this dreamy devil here never gives you a grandchild to worry about. Forget about all the collateral damage you’ll be trailing behind you everywhere you go. Not your problem!’
‘Look, you can spare me the—’
‘But the creature will keep coming,’ she finished. ‘Forever. Until it’s done the job it was made to do.’
‘OK,’ Ben said. ‘The creature keeps coming. Fine. Why do you care?’
Abe looked sincerely hurt by the question. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, what’s it to you if I turn us in to the cops, or this mud monster gets us, or I jump off a cliff? Until the day before yesterday, you and I had never spoken. We don’t even know each other.’
‘Ahhh.’ She nodded slowly. ‘Now I get it.’
‘That makes one of us.’
‘You’re being incredibly childish right now, you know.’
‘Am not.’
Anabeth sighed. ‘I know I’ve been withholding, and I’m sorry for that. My story is long, and it needs to be told properly. Once we’ve reached a place where I can truly do that, you’ll understand everything. I promise.’
Ben made a show of looking around the room. ‘Seems like as good a place as any to me.’
‘Ow,’ Charley said.
Abe seemed to notice that the hand she’d flopped across his shoulder had turned itself into a claw. Her slim knuckles had gone white from squeezing.
‘Oops.’ She retracted her stiff grip and gave him a quick, almost motherly smooch on his head. ‘Sorry about that, doll.’
‘It’s OK. He brings it out of people.’
‘I believe you.’
‘Maybe you’re the one who’s running from the cops,’ Ben suggested.
‘Oh, criminy, Ben. Those cops out there are the least of anyone’s problems.’ She pointed her finger toward the cheap hollow door currently standing between them and those cops out there. ‘Forget about the cops a minute. Actually, you know what? Forget about the creature, too.’
‘What creature?’
‘Aren’t you hilarious.’ Abe dropped her pointer finger and looked him in the eye. ‘But know this: Malcom Frost is on his way. If the cops are here, he may well be here already.’ Her expression darkened. ‘We are not ready for Malcom Frost. Please trust me on that.’
‘I do,’ Wasserman said from the corner.
Ben couldn’t help noticing the fresh new worry flickering across Charley’s face at the mention of the sinister albino-looking dude she called Frost, last seen snarling at them from behind steam-fogged glass.
He was completely out of his depth. And then there was Abe’s comment about collateral damage. How much of that had he caused already? In wasting any more time here, Ben could be making the worst mistake of his life, and there were plenty to choose from.
Then again, maybe all that was exactly how Anabeth Glass – whoever she was – needed him to feel. For all he knew, her goal might be to deliver them to somebody even scarier than this Frost character. How was he supposed to make the right decision if she wouldn’t play fair?
So instead of doing something smarter, he said, ‘Malcom Frost. Who’s that again?’
Charley’s eyes widened. He looked back and forth between them, waiting to see what would happen next.
Ben waited, too. Abe looked at Charley as if to ask: Can I get a little help, here?
Charley dropped his gaze to the floor. Sheepishly, he said, ‘You did sort of promise.’
Anabeth merely hung her head. Her slim shoulders rose slowly, then fell.
‘Have it your way,’ she finally said.
After nearly two hours of looping and backtracking – essentially meandering their way unproductively through the hardwood bluffs running up and down the Missouri River valley like some cosmic corn farmer’s idea of a proper mountain range – Frost finally conceded to a temporary stoppage in order to regroup.
He pulled into the rock-topped strip that passed for a parking lot at the Twisted Tail Steakhouse & Saloon – a shake-roofed structure that looked to Frost like a Pony Express depot with Harley-Davidsons instead of horses. They’d passed by the same establishment twice now, it being the most prominently visible operation at this otherwise unremarkable crossing of roads that called itself Beebeetown, Iowa. The town itself did not appear on Frost’s map.
In fairness, that might not have been the town’s fault. He switched off the ignition.
‘We home already?’ Lucius asked from the passenger seat.
‘Oh, good,’ Frost said. ‘You’re awake. How’s the shoulder?’
Lucius creaked one eye open, used it to scan his immediate surroundings, then closed it again. He never moved his head from the seat rest. ‘Feel better after a steak, I bet. Big ole bloody one.’
‘Perhaps later in the day.’ Frost switched the key on again. The Lincoln’s engine gave an uncharacteristic cough, then turned over and purred back to life. ‘Right now, I’m afraid the satellite system needs a swift rebooting.’
Something had been haywire ever since they’d crossed the river, although it had taken Frost nearly thirty miles’ travel in the wrong direction before piecing that together with certainty.
Or had it been the correct direction after all? The way the GPS software now insisted on
lagging, freezing, and redrawing itself in unexpected new vectors made it impossible to know for sure.
Now, as the car went through its digital start-up routine and the system gradually came back online, the screen seemed to have fritzed entirely. Frost could see their reflections strobing in the glass of the flickering display module.
He sighed. Best case scenario: some kind of temporary solar interference playing havoc with the satellite signal. Worst case: the Glass tramp had damaged something in the car’s electronics when she’d rammed them after all.
‘Looks like we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way,’ he said, removing the Khorkhoi Cube from its dock. ‘Hold this, please.’
‘Um, no thanks.’
‘It’s perfectly safe.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I simply need you to translate,’ Frost explained. ‘The cube has six sides, each with an indicator. Let’s name the sides up, down, north, south, east, and west. When the squirmer touches a side, the corresponding cube face vibrates, and the indicator illuminates. A corner-touch activates two sides at once.’
As if by way of example, the panel under Frost’s thumb gave a quick sizzle, and its integrated micro-LED glowed to life. West.
Frost turned the active panel toward Lucius and pointed. ‘Like so. Do you see?’
Lucius finally opened his eyes and sat up. ‘You go ahead and hang on to it. I’ll point you to Wasserman myself.’
‘Wouldn’t that be impressive?’ Almost as soon as Frost had rotated the cube, the indicator had extinguished. Now the cube vibrated again on its opposite side. ‘Lucius, you know how much I value your skill set. But let’s not let adversity and store-bought narcotics make us ornery.’
‘Didn’t I ever tell you? I got my own little squirmer. Right up here.’ Lucius raised a hand to his forehead. ‘It’s waking up now. It’s saying … hang on … it’s saying … get back on 66 and take it straight west out of town.’
‘That’s already the plan. Do you know why?’
‘I give up.’
‘Because the device I’m holding cost nearly a million dollars to perfect, three lives to properly stock, and it’s telling me to go west.’ He tapped the corresponding cube face with his index finger. ‘See?’
‘Where’s it tell you to go after that?’
‘That’s why I need you to navigate.’
‘That’s what I’m doing.’ Lucius tapped his forehead with a finger. ‘Boss, you ever hear the story of John Henry and the steam drill?’
‘I have.’ Frost could feel his patience expiring. ‘The protagonist died, if memory serves.’
‘Tell you what. I find our boy before the bug does, you buy me a steak.’
‘Worm,’ Frost corrected. ‘Olgoi-khor—’
‘Porterhouse,’ Lucius said. ‘Rare as hell. And a baked potato.’
A shadow fell over them, followed by a knock upon Frost’s window. Frost looked up to see a large man with a long, braided gray beard. The man wore a POW-MIA bandana on his head and several rings on each hand, most of them shaped like either lightning bolts or skulls. The gap between his grease-stained t-shirt and his grimy, sagging jeans showcased ample tufts of belly hair. He offered a neighborly smile, leaning down as Frost lowered his window.
‘You boys need directions?’ The man recoiled involuntarily as Frost turned up his face in greeting. ‘Sweet Jesus. I mean … aw, hell. Sorry about that, fella. I get rude when I’m startled sometimes.’
‘That’s quite all right,’ Frost said. ‘And so are we. But you’re a true modern-day Samaritan.’
‘Actually, partner, tell me,’ Lucius interjected. ‘Good riding up in these bluffs, I bet?’
‘You bet right.’
‘This road here. That the best way up to Missouri Valley, or should we head back to the interstate?’
‘Interstate could be faster, but thisaway’s prettier.’
‘That’s what I figured. Thanks. Keep the shiny side up, now, hear?’
‘I’d tell you the same,’ the old biker said, scanning the exterior of the Lincoln. ‘But it looks like you boys already flipped the cage.’
‘Good thing it’s a rental.’ Frost raised the window. ‘Thanks again.’
As the old biker ambled his way along to the building, hauled open the door, and disappeared inside, Lucius said, ‘Whatcha think, boss? Faster or prettier?’
Frost turned to face him. ‘Missouri Valley?’
‘Dumb shits are holed up there in a Super 8,’ Lucius said. ‘All three of ’em.’
‘And how do you know that?’
Lucius reached up to his right ear, previously concealed from Frost’s view, and removed an audio bud. He fished out his mobile phone and showed Frost the screen. ‘Police scanner app,’ he said. ‘$4.99. Took about thirty-five seconds to download.’
Frost sat in silence for a moment, pondering Lucius Weatherbee. He pondered the cube in his fingertips. He focused on his breathing. Finally, he said: ‘Faster, then, I suppose.’
Lucius leaned his head back and closed his eyes again. ‘You’re the boss.’
Frost put the car in gear and got them back on the road.
‘You’ll have to settle for the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version,’ Abe said, sitting down on the bed. ‘But if this is the only way to get you cooperating, I’ll start with a confession.’
Charley said, ‘The what version?’
‘Never mind,’ Ben told him. He took a seat on the air-conditioning unit and motioned Charley back to his chair. ‘Confess away.’
‘I just remembered that I did lie to you.’
‘Which time?’
‘The day we met. I told you I was thirty. That’s not strictly true.’
Ben copied what he’d seen Catholic priests do in the movies and crossed the air in front of him: you’re forgiven. ‘Is this important to the story?’
‘Kind of.’
‘Then I’m still listening.’
‘I also told you I was married, and I was. I told you it ended, and it did. But I let you believe that my marriage had broken up. That’s not strictly true, either.’
‘If it matters, what’s the strictly truth?’
She folded her hands in her lap. ‘My husband died.’
‘I’m very sorry.’
Anabeth shrugged. ‘I’ve had time to accept it. We had a happy life, all things considered, and I was with him when it ended.’
Charley asked, ‘Was he sick?’
She smiled and shook her head. ‘Natural causes.’
Ben said, ‘I’m confused.’
‘And I turned 162 this past May,’ Anabeth Glass replied.
THE WATER CARRIER’S WIFE
iv. Cow Town, USA
Kansas City
Silas Wasserman, the water carrier, carried on.
It was true, especially during those first lonesome years, that he missed home to the point of soul-sickness at times. On the brighter side, Silas imagined that there must have been far duller places to be moored for the rest of one’s natural life than Kansas City, Missouri, between 1857 and the dawn of the twentieth century.
It was a time of great change. Upheaval, yes. Unrest, inevitably. But also unparalleled growth and prosperity.
When he’d first arrived, the whole of the town could fit within a single square mile; fewer than 3,000 souls called the newly minted City of Kansas home. By the end of the Civil War, they had a railroad. Half a decade beyond the Battle of Westport, they’d gained 30,000 people and 100,000 steers. When the century finally turned, the stockyards had grown to rival even Chicago’s.
It was, in a sense both figurative and literal, like having front-row tickets at the Theater of Manifest Destiny. From his meager little clapboard hovel, tucked away in a gritty, cobbled corner of the boisterous West Bottoms, Silas Wasserman watched a thriving American city climb up out of the ground and tack itself together around his ears.
Of course, none of it would have seemed to amount to much, had he not �
� by his own outrageous good fortune, and at such long last! – found a harmonious soul to take in the show with him.
And what an extraordinary soul he’d found.
Or had she found him? Silas would spend the rest of his life wondering how such an undeserved gift had come to be his. She had a smile like sunrise and eyes like the smoky dusk; to lowly, dutiful Silas Wasserman, she may as well have been the rising and setting sun. Inexplicably, she loved him. And oh, how very deeply he loved her.
Her name was Anabet Glacz.
‘Filthy Gyppo whore,’ the man snarled in her face. ‘I’ll melt a snowbank with yer guts.’
Anabet clawed at his face, trying for his rheumy black eyes, her screams making white plumes in the cold. He was a big, stinking ox of a man, with fur-lined boots and pelts on his back and breath reeking of whiskey and tallow. He’d taken her for Romani, which she was, and therefore a thief, which she was not. But such men rarely bothered themselves with distinctions. And every settlement along this river had such men.
This one had torn off her diklo, taken her by the hair, and shoved her into the alley between the blacksmith’s and the livery. Not to punish her for thieving (although that, surely, would have been his claim, had Anabet made the wiser mistake of crossing his path in a place where the constables came around). No. Merely because he’d considered it his warrant to do with her as he pleased.
Their relationship had soured after Anabet’s knee found him square in his overripe plums. Now a filthy hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her breath and making her gag; she heard the wicked steel of his Bowie knife scraping free of its scabbard. Saw the enormous blade winking at her in the silvery moonlight.
Anabet only fought harder; she thrashed against his grip, squirming beneath his crushing weight as he pressed her flat against a plank of rough pine.
‘Let … me … go!’
‘Get ready now, girlie,’ he panted, his foul breath hot in her ear. ‘Here it comes.’
Just then, a young Jew wandered past. He saw them and stopped in his tracks at the mouth of the alley: short of stature, slight of build, his flat-brimmed hat and long, corkscrew sidecurls making a distinctive silhouette in the wintry gloam.
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