I
Finding the crossroads where Maeve O’Connell had buried the medallion had proved more difficult than Buddenbaum had anticipated. With Seth in tow, he’d spent two hours following Main Street north-northwest and south-southeast from the square, assuming (mistakenly, as it turned out) that the intersection he was seeking—that crossroads where his journey would end—would be close to the center of town. He found it eventually, two-thirds of a mile from the square; a relatively insignificant spot on Everville’s map. There was a modest establishment called Kitty’s Diner on one corner, opposite it a small market, and on the other two a rundown garage and what had apparently been a clothing store, its naked mannequins and everything must go signs all that remained of its final days.
“What exactly are you looking for?” Seth asked him as they stood surveying the crossroads.
“Nothing now,” Buddenbaum replied.
“How do you know this is the right crossroads?”
“I can feel it. It’s in the ground. You look up. I look down. We’re complementaries.” He locked his fingers together. “Like that.” He pulled, to demonstrate their adhesion.
“Can we go back to bed soon?” Seth said.
“In a while. First I’d like to take a look up there.” He nodded towards the windows above the empty store. “We’re going to need a vantage point.”
“For the parade?” Seth asked.
Buddenbaum laughed. “No. Not for the parade.”
“What for then?”
“How do I best explain?”
“Any way you like.”
“There are places in the world where things are bound to happen,” Buddenbaum said. “Places where powers come, where . . . ” He fumbled for the words a moment, “Where avatars come.”
“What’s an avatar?”
“Well, it’s a kind of face. The face of something divine.”
“Like an angel?”
“More than an angel.”
“More?” Seth breathed.
“More.”
Seth pondered this a moment. Then he said, “These things—”
“Avatars.”
“Avatars. They’re coming here?”
“Some of them.”
“How do you know?”
Buddenbaum stared down at the ground. “I suppose the simplest answer is that they’re coming because I asked them to.”
“You did?” Seth said with a little laugh. It clearly delighted him that he was chatting on a street corner with a man who made invitations to divinities. “And they just said yes?”
“It isn’t the first time,” Buddenbaum replied. “I’ve supplied many—how shall I put this?—many entertainments for them over the years.”
“What kind of things?”
“All kinds. But mostly things that ordinary people would shudder at.”
“They like those the best, do they?”
Buddenbaum regarded the youth with frank amazement. “You grasp things very quickly,” he said. “Yes. They like those the best. The more bloodshed the better. The more tears, the more grief, the better.”
“That’s not so different from us, is it?” Seth said, “We like that stuff too.”
“Except that this isn’t make-believe,” Buddenbaum said. “This isn’t fake blood and glycerine tears. They want the real thing. And it’s my job to deliver it.” He paused, watching the flow of traffic on street and sidewalk. “It isn’t always the most pleasant of occupations,” he said.
“So why do you do it?”
“I couldn’t begin to answer that. Not here. Not now. But if you stay by my side, the answer will become apparent. Trust me.”
“I do.”
“Good. Well, shall we go?”
Seth nodded, and together they headed across the street towards the untenanted building.
Only when they were on the opposite side of the street, standing in the doorway of the clothing store, did Seth ask Buddenbaum, “Are you afraid?”
“Why would I be afraid?”
Seth shrugged. “I would be. Meeting avatars.”
“They’re just like people, only more evolved,” Buddenbaum replied. “I’m an ape to them. We’re all apes to them.”
“So when they watch us, it’s like us going to the zoo?”
“More like a safari,” Buddenbaum replied, amused by the aptness of this.
“So maybe they’re the nervous ones,” Seth remarked. “Coming into the wild.”
Buddenbaum stared hard at the kid. “Keep that to yourself,” he said forcibly.
“It was only—”
Buddenbaum cut him short. “I shouldn’t even have told you,” he said.
“I won’t say anything,” Seth replied. “I mean, who would I tell?” Buddenbaum looked unamused. “I won’t say anything, to anybody,” Seth said. “I swear.” He drew a little closer to Buddenbaum, put his hand on Buddenbaum’s arm. “I want to do whatever makes you happy with me,” he said, staring into Buddenbaum’s face. “You just tell me.”
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry I snapped. I guess I am a little nervous.” He leaned closer to the youth, his lips inches from his ears and whispered. “I want to fuck you. Right now.” And with one apparently effortless motion he forced the lock on the door and led Seth inside.
This little scene had not gone unnoticed. Since his encounter with the foul-mouthed virago, Bosley had been on the alert for any further sign of Godless behavior, and had witnessed the curious intimacy between the Lundy boy, whom he’d known was crazy for years, and the stranger in the well-cut suit. He said nothing about it to Della, Doug, or Harriet. He simply told them he was going to take a short walk and slipped out, keeping his eyes locked on the empty store as he crossed the street.
The subject of sex had never been of much interest to Bosley. Three or four months might pass without him and Leticia being moved to perform the act, and when they did it was over within a quarter of an hour. But sex kept finding him, however much he attempted to purify his little corner of the world. It came in on the radio and television, it came in magazines and newspapers, dirtying what he tried so hard to keep clean.
Why, when the Lord had raised man from dust, and given him dominion over the beasts of the field, did people have such an urge to act like beasts, to go naked like beasts, to rut and roll in dirt like beasts?
It distressed him. Angered him sometimes too, but mostly distressed him, seeing the young people of Everville, denied the guiding principles of faith, stumbling and succumbing to the basest appetites. For some reason, perhaps because of the boy’s mental disturbance, he’d thought Seth Lundy a bystander to these debaucheries. Now he suspected otherwise. Now he suspected the Lundy boy was doing something worse than his peers, far worse.
He pushed open the front door and stepped into the store. It was cooler inside than out, for which he was grateful. He paused a moment a yard over the threshold, listening for the whereabouts of the boy and his companion. There were footsteps above, and murmured voices. Weaving between the debris left by the Gingerichs, he made his way to the door out the back of the store, moving lightly and quietly. The door led in to a small storage room, beyond which lay a steep, murky flight of stairs. He crossed the room and started his ascent. As he did so, he realized the voices had stopped. He froze on the stairs, fearful his presence had been discovered. He was taking his life in his hands, spying on creatures that lived in defiance of morality. They were capable of anything, including, he didn’t doubt, murder.
There was no footfall, however, and after a short pause he started up the stairs again, until he reached the door at the top. It stood an inch or two ajar. He pushed it a little wider, and listened.
Now he heard them. If dirt and depravity had a sound, then what he heard was it. Panting and slobbering and the slap of flesh on flesh. It made his skin itch to hear it, as though the air was filthy with their noise. He wanted to turn and go but he knew that was cowardice. He had to call the wrongdoers on their wrongs, the way he had the vi
rago, or else wouldn’t the world just become filthier and filthier, until people were buried in their own ordure?
The door creaked as he pushed it open, but the beasts were making too much din to hear it. The room was so configured he could not yet see them; he had to edge his way along a wall before he came to a corner around which to peep. Drawing breath in preparation, he did so.
They were there, coupling on the bare boards in a patch of sunlight, the Lundy boy naked but for his socks, his sodomizer with his trousers around his ankles. He had his eyes closed, as did the boy—how could he feel pleasure at this act, delving into a place of excrement?—but within two thrusts the sodomite opened his eyes and stared at Bosley. There was no shame on his face, nor in his voice. Only outrage.
“How dare you?” he said. “Get out of here!”
Now Lundy opened his eyes. Unlike his violator, he had the good grace to blush, his hand going up between his legs to conceal his sex.
“I told you, get out!” the sodomite said. Bosley didn’t retreat; nor did he advance. It was the boy who made the next move. Sliding forward until he’d disengaged himself he turned to his impaler and said, “Make him go.”
The sodomite started to pull up his pants, and while he was doing so, and vulnerable, Bosley took the offensive.
“Animals!” he raged, coming at the sodomite with his raised arms.
“Owen!” the boy yelled, but the warning came too late. As the violator started to straighten up, Bosley’s weight struck him, carrying him backwards in a flailing stumble.
The boy was getting to his feet now—Bosley saw him from the corner of his eye—a wordless cry of rage roaring from his throat. Bosley glanced round at him, saw the feral look on his sallow face, teeth bared, eyes wild, and started to step out of his path. But as he did so he heard the sound of breaking glass, and looked back to see that the sodomite had fallen against the window. He had a moment only to register the fact, then the Lundy boy was on him, naked and wet.
Panic erupted in him, and a shrill sound escaped him. He tried to thrust Lundy off him, but the boy was strong. He clung to Bosley as if he wanted kisses; pressed his body hard against Bosley’s body, his breath hot on Bosley’s face.
“No-no-no!” Bosley shrieked, thrashing to free himself of the embrace. He succeeded in detaching himself, and retreated, gasping, almost sobbing, towards the door.
Only then did he realize that the sodomite had gone.
“Oh Christ . . . ” he murmured, meaning to begin a prayer. But further words failed him. All he could do was stumble back towards the broken window, murmuring the same words over and over. “Oh Christ. Oh Christ. Oh . . . ”
Lundy ignored him now. “Owen!” he yelled and was at the window in three strides, slicing his body on the jagged glass as he leaned out. Bosley was beside him a moment later, his litany ceased, and there on the sidewalk below lay the sodomite, his trousers still halfway down his thighs. Traffic had come to a halt at the crossroads, and horns were already blaring in all directions.
Dizzy with vertigo and panic, Bosley retreated from the window.
“Fuckhead!” the Lundy kid yelled, and apparently thinking Bosley meant to escape, came after him afresh, blood running from his wounded flank.
Bosley tried to avoid the youth’s fists, but his heel caught in a tangle of discarded clothes and he fell backwards, the breath knocked from him when he hit the ground. Lundy was on him in a second, setting his skinny butt on Bosley’s chest and pinning Bosley’s upper arms with his knees. That was how they were found, when the first witnesses came racing up the stairs: Bosley on his back, sobbing Oh Christ, Oh Christ, Oh Christ while the naked, wounded Seth Lundy kept him nailed to the boards.
* * *
II
Whatever speculations Erwin had entertained where death was concerned, he’d not expected the experience to be hard on the feet. But he’d walked further in the last six hours than in the previous two months. Out from the house, then back to the house, then down to Kitty’s Diner, then back to the house again, and now, drawn by the sight of an ambulance careening down Cascade Street, back to the diner again. Or rather, to the opposite corner, in time to see a man who’d been pushed from an upper window being loaded into the back of an ambulance and taken off to Silverton. He hung around the crowd, picking up clues as to what had happened, and quickly pieced the story together. Apparently Bosley Cowhick had done the deed, having discovered the pushee in the middle of some liaison with a local boy. Erwin knew Bosley by reputation only: as a philanthropist at Christmas, when he and several good Christian souls made it their business to take a hot dinner to the elderly and the housebound, and as a rabid letter writer (barely a month would go by without a missive in the Register noting some fresh evidence of Godlessness in the community). He had never met the man, nor could even bring his face to mind. But if it was notoriety he was after, he’d plainly got it this afternoon.
“Damn strange,” he heard somebody say, and scanning the dispersing crowd saw a man in his late fifties, early sixties, gray hair, gray eyes, badly fitting suit, looking straight at him.
“Are you talking to me?” Erwin said.
“Yeah,” said the other, “I was saying, it’s damn strange—”
“You can’t be.”
“Can’t be what?”
“Can’t be talking to me. I’m dead.”
“That makes two of us,” the other man replied, “I was saying, I’ve seen some damn strange things around here over the years.”
“You’re dead too?” Erwin said, amazed and relieved. Finally, somebody to talk to.
“Of course,” the man said. “There’s a few of us around town. Where did you come in from?”
“I didn’t.”
“You mean you’re a local man?”
“Yeah. I only just, you know—”
“Died. You can say it.”
“Died.”
“Only some people come in for the Festival. They make a weekend of it.”
“Dead people.”
“Sure. Hey, why not? A parade’s a parade, right? A few of us even tag along, you know, between the floats. Anything for a laugh. You gotta laugh, right, or you’d break your heart. Is that what happened? Heart attack?”
“No . . . ” Erwin said, still too surprised by this turn of events to have his thoughts in order. “No, I . . . I was—”
“Recent, was it? It’s cold in the beginning. But you get used to that. Hell, you can get used to anything, right? Long as you don’t start looking back, regretting things, ’cause there’s not a hell of a lot you can do about it.”
“Is that right?”
“We’re just hanging on awhile, that’s all. What’s your name, by the way?”
“Erwin Toothaker.”
“I’m Richard Dolan.”
“Dolan? The candy store owner?”
The man smiled. “That’s me,” he said. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the empty building. “This was my store, back in the good old days. Actually, they weren’t so good. It’s just, you know, when you look back—”
“The past’s always prettier.”
“That’s right. The past’s always—” He halted, frowning. “Say, were you around when I owned the store?”
“No.”
“So how the hell do you know about it?”
“I heard a confession by a friend of yours.”
Dolan’s easy smile faded. “Oh?” he said. “Who’s that?”
“Lyle McPherson?”
“He wrote a confession?”
“Yep. And it got lost, till I found it.”
“Sonofabitch.”
“Is he, I mean McPherson, is he still . . . in the vicinity?”
“You mean is he like us? No. Some people hang around, some people don’t,” Dolan shrugged. “Maybe they move on, somewhere or other, maybe they just”—he clicked his fingers—“disappear. I guess I wanted to stay and he didn’t.”
“These aren’t our real bodie
s, you know that?” Erwin said. “I mean, I’ve seen mine.”
“Yeah, I got to see mine too. Not a pretty sight.” He raised his hands in front of him, scrutinizing his palms. “But whatever we’re made of,” he said, “it’s better than nothing. And you know it’s no better or worse than living. You get good days, you get bad days . . . ” He trailed away, his gaze going to the middle of the street. “ ’Cept I think maybe all that’s comin’ to an end.”
“What makes you say that?”
Dolan drew a deep breath. “After a while you get to feel the rhythm of things, in a way you can’t when you’re living. Like smoke.”
“What’s like smoke?” he said.
“We are. Floatin’ around, not quite solid, not quite not. And when there’s something weird in the wind, smoke knows.”
“Really?”
“You’ll get the hang of it.”
“Maybe I already did.”
“What’d you mean?”
“Well if you want to see something weird, you don’t have to look any further than my house. There’s a guy there called Fletcher. He looks human, but I don’t think he is.”
Dolan was fascinated. “Why’d you invite him in?”
“I didn’t. He . . . just came.”
“Wait a minute . . . ” Dolan said, beginning to comprehend. “This guy Fletcher, is he the reason you’re here?”
“Yes . . . ” Erwin said, his voice thickening. “He murdered me. Sucked out my life, right there in my own living room.”
“You mean he’s some kind of vampire?”
Erwin looked scornful. “Don’t be absurd. This isn’t a late-night movie, it’s my life. Was my life. Was! Was!” He was suddenly awash in tears. “He didn’t have any right—any right at all—to do this to me. I had thirty years in me, thirty good years, and he just—just takes them away. I mean, why me? What have I ever done to anybody?” He looked at Dolan. “You did something you shouldn’t have done, and you paid the price. But I was a useful member of society.”
“Hey, wait up,” Dolan said testily. “I was as useful as you ever were.”
“Come on now, Dolan. I was an attorney. I was dealing with matters of life and death. You sold cavities to kids.”