Thanks to the interstate highway system, the RVs had always served their purposes, and would this time. A small raiding party, with new drivers taking the wheel every six hours, could get from Sidewinder to northern New England in less than thirty hours.
"All right," she said, mollified. "What have we got along I-90 in upstate New York or Massachusetts?"
Crow didn't hem and haw or tell her he'd have to get back to her on that. "EZ Mail Services, in Sturbridge, Massachusetts."
She flapped her fingers at the edge of the sheet of incomprehensible chemistry Nut was holding in his hand. "Have this stuff sent there. Use at least three cutouts so we have complete deniability if something goes wrong. Really bounce it around."
"Do we have that much time?" Crow asked.
"I don't see why not," Rose said--a remark that would come back to haunt her. "Send it south, then into the Midwest, then into New England. Just get it to Sturbridge by Thursday. Use Express Mail, not FedEx or UPS."
"I can do that," Crow said. No hesitation.
Rose turned her attention to the True's doctor. "You better be right, Walnut. If you do OD her instead of just putting her to sleep, I'll see you're the first True to be sent into exile since Little Big Horn."
Walnut paled a little. Good. She had no intention of exiling anyone, but she still resented being interrupted.
"We'll get the drug to Sturbridge, and Nut will know how to use it," Crow said. "No problem."
"There's nothing simpler? Something we can get around here?"
Nut said, "Not if you want to be sure she doesn't go Michael Jackson on us. This stuff is safe, and it hits fast. If she's as powerful as you seem to think, fast is going to be impor--"
"Okay, okay, I get it. Are we done here?"
"There's one more thing," Walnut said. "I suppose it could wait, but . . ."
She looked out the window and, ye gods and little fishes, here came Jimmy Numbers, bustling across the parking lot adjacent to the Overlook Lodge with his own sheet of paper. Why had she hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on her doorknob? Why not one that said Y'ALL COME?
Rose gathered all her bad temper, stuffed it in a sack, stored it at the back of her mind, and smiled gamely. "What is it?"
"Grampa Flick," Crow said, "is no longer holding his fudge."
"He hasn't been able to hold it for the last twenty years," Rose said. "He won't wear diapers, and I can't make him. No one can make him."
"This is different," Nut said. "He can barely get out of bed. Baba and Black-Eyed Susie are taking care of him as well as they can, but that camper of his smells like the wrath of God--"
"He'll get better. We'll feed him some steam." But she didn't like the look on Nut's face. Tommy the Truck had passed two years ago, and by the way the True measured time, that might have been two weeks ago. Now Grampa Flick?
"His mind's breaking down," Crow said bluntly. "And . . ." He looked at Walnut.
"Petty was taking care of him this morning, and she says she thinks she saw him cycle."
"Thinks," Rose said. She didn't want to believe it. "Has anyone else seen it happen? Baba? Sue?"
"No."
She shrugged as if to say there you are. Jimmy knocked before they could discuss it farther, and this time she was glad for the interruption.
"Come in!"
Jimmy poked his head through. "Sure it's okay?"
"Yes! Why don't you bring the Rockettes and the UCLA marching band while you're at it? Hell, I was only trying to get in a meditation groove after a few pleasant hours of spewing my guts."
Crow was giving her a look of mild reproof, and maybe she deserved it--probably she deserved it, these people were only doing the True's work as she had asked them to do it--but if Crow ever stepped up to the captain's chair, he'd understand. Never a moment to yourself, unless you threatened them with pain of death. And in many cases, not even then.
"I got something you may want to see," Jimmy said. "And since Crow and Nut were already here, I figured--"
"I know what you figured. What is it?"
"I went hunting around on the internet for news about those two towns you zeroed in on--Fryeburg and Anniston. Found this in the Union Leader. It's from last Thursday's paper. Maybe it's nothing."
She took the sheet. The main item was about some podunk school shutting down their football program because of budget cuts. Beneath it was a shorter item, which Jimmy had circled.
"POCKET EARTHQUAKE" REPORTED IN ANNISTON
How small can an earthquake be? Pretty small, if the people of Richland Court, a short Anniston street that dead-ends at the Saco River, are to be believed. Late Tuesday afternoon, several residents of the street reported a tremor that rattled windows, shook floors, and sent glassware tumbling from shelves. Dane Borland, a retiree who lives at the end of the street, pointed out a crack running the width of his newly asphalted driveway. "If you want proof, there it is," he said.
Although the Geological Survey Center in Wrentham, MA, reports there were no temblors in New England last Tuesday afternoon, Matt and Cassie Renfrew took the opportunity to throw an "earthquake party," which most of the street's residents attended.
Andrew Sittenfeld of the Geological Survey Center says the shaking felt by Richland Court residents might have been a surge of water through the sewer system, or possibly a military plane breaking the sound barrier. When these suggestions were made to Mr. Renfrew, he laughed cheerfully. "We know what we felt," he said. "It was an earthquake. And there's really no downside. The damage was minor, and hey, we got a terrific party out of it."
(Andrew Gould)
Rose read it twice, then looked up, eyes bright. "Good catch, Jimmy."
He grinned. "Thanks. I'll leave you guys to it, then."
"Take Nut with you, he needs to check on Grampa. Crow, you stay a minute."
When they were gone, he closed the door. "You think the girl caused that shake in New Hampshire?"
"I do. Not a hundred percent certain, but at least eighty. And having a place to focus on--not just a town but a street--will make things a hell of a lot easier for me tonight, when I go looking for her."
"If you can stick a come-along worm in her head, Rosie, we may not even need to knock her out."
She smiled, thinking again that Crow had no idea how special this one was. Later she would think, Neither did I. I only thought I did. "There's no law against hoping, I suppose. But once we have her, we'll need something a little more sophisticated than a Mickey Finn, even if it's a high-tech one. We'll need some wonder drug that'll keep her nice and cooperative until she decides it's in her best interest to cooperate on her own."
"Will you be coming with us when we go to grab her?"
Rose had assumed so, but now she hesitated, thinking of Grampa Flick. "I'm not sure."
He didn't ask questions--which she appreciated--and turned to the door. "I'll see that you're not disturbed again."
"Good. And you make sure Walnut gives Grampa a complete exam--I mean from asshole to appetite. If he really is cycling, I want to know tomorrow, when I come out of purdah." She opened the compartment under the floor and brought out one of the canisters. "And give him what's left in this."
Crow was shocked. "All of it? Rose, if he's cycling, there's no point."
"Give it to him. We've had a good year, as several of you have pointed out to me lately. We can afford a little extravagance. Besides, the True Knot only has one grampa. He remembers when the people of Europe worshipped trees instead of time-share condos. We're not going to lose him if we can help it. We're not savages."
"The rubes might beg to differ."
"That's why they're rubes. Now get out of here."
3
After Labor Day, Teenytown closed at 3 p.m. on Sundays. This afternoon, at quarter to six, three giants sat on benches near the end of the mini-Cranmore Avenue, dwarfing Teenytown Drug and the Teenytown Music Box Theater (where, during tourist season, you could peek in the window and see teeny film clips playing on
a teeny screen). John Dalton had come to the meeting wearing a Red Sox hat, which he placed on the head of the teeny Helen Rivington statue in the teeny courthouse square. "I'm sure she was a fan," he said. "Everybody up this way is a fan. Nobody spares a little admiration for the Yankees except exiles like me. What can I do for you, Dan? I'm missing supper with the family for this. My wife's an understanding woman, but her patience only stretches so far."
"How would she feel about you spending a few days with me in Iowa?" Dan asked. "Strictly on my dime, you understand. I have to make a Twelfth Step call on an uncle who's killing himself with booze and cocaine. My family's begging me to step in, and I can't do it alone."
AA had no rules but many traditions (that were, in fact, rules). One of the most ironclad was that you never made a Twelfth Step call on an active alcoholic by yourself, unless the alkie in question was safely incarcerated in a hospital, detox, or the local bughouse. If you did, you were apt to end up matching him drink for drink and line for line. Addiction, Casey Kingsley liked to say, was the gift that kept on giving.
Dan looked at Billy Freeman and smiled. "Got something to say? Go ahead, feel free."
"I don't think you got an uncle. I'm not sure you've got any family left at all."
"Is that it? You're just not sure?"
"Well . . . you never talk about em."
"Plenty of people have family and don't talk about them. But you know I don't have anyone, don't you, Billy?"
Billy said nothing, but looked uneasy.
"Danny, I can't go to Iowa," John said. "I'm booked right into the weekend."
Dan was still focused on Billy. Now he reached into his pocket, grabbed something, and held out his closed fist. "What have I got?"
Billy looked more uneasy than ever. He glanced at John, saw no help there, then back to Dan.
"John knows what I am," Dan said. "I helped him once, and he knows I've helped a few others in the Program. You're among friends here."
Billy thought about it, then said: "Might be a coin, but I think it's one of your AA medals. The kind they give you every time you get in another year sober."
"What year's this one?"
Billy hesitated, looking at Dan's fisted hand.
"Let me help you out," John said. "He's been sober since the spring of 2001, so if he's carrying a medallion around, it's probably a Year Twelve."
"Makes sense, but it ain't." Billy was concentrating now, two deep vertical lines grooving his forehead just about his eyes. "I think it might be . . . a seven?"
Dan opened his palm. The medallion had a big VI on it.
"Fuckaroo," Billy said. "I'm usually good at guessing."
"You were close enough," Dan said. "And it's not guessing, it's shining."
Billy took out his cigarettes, looked at the doctor sitting on the bench next to him, and put them back. "If you say so."
"Let me tell you a little about yourself, Billy. When you were small, you were great at guessing things. You knew when your mother was in a good mood and you could hit her for an extra buck or two. You knew when your dad was in a bad one, and you steered clear of him."
"I sure knew there were nights when bitchin about having to eat leftover pot roast would be a goddam bad idea," Billy said.
"Did you gamble?"
"Hoss-races down Salem. Made a bundle. Then, when I was twenty-five or so, I kinda lost the knack of picking winners. I had a month when I had to beg an extension on the rent, and that cured me of railbirding."
"Yes, the talent fades as people grow older, but you still have some."
"You got more," Billy said. No hesitation now.
"This is real, isn't it?" John said. It really wasn't a question; it was an observation.
"You've only got one appointment this coming week you really feel you can't miss or hand off," Dan said. "It's a little girl with stomach cancer. Her name is Felicity--"
"Frederika," John said. "Frederika Bimmel. She's at Merrimack Valley Hospital. I'm supposed to have a consult with her oncologist and her parents."
"Saturday morning."
"Yeah. Saturday morning." He gave Dan an amazed look. "Jesus. Jesus Christ. What you have . . . I had no idea there was so much of it."
"I'll have you back from Iowa by Thursday. Friday at the latest."
Unless we get arrested, he thought. Then we might be there awhile longer. He looked to see if Billy had picked up that less-than-encouraging thought. There was no sign that he had.
"What's this about?"
"Another patient of yours. Abra Stone. She's like Billy and me, John, but I think you already know that. Only she's much, much more powerful. I've got quite a lot more than Billy, and she makes me look like a fortune-teller at a county fair."
"Oh my God, the spoons."
It took Dan a second, then he remembered. "She hung them on the ceiling."
John stared at him, wide-eyed. "You read that in my mind?"
"A little more mundane than that, I'm afraid. She told me."
"When? When?"
"We'll get there, but not yet. First, let's try for some authentic mind-reading." Dan took John's hand. That helped; contact almost always did. "Her parents came to see you when she was just a toddler. Or maybe it was an aunt or her great-gram. They were concerned about her even before she decorated the kitchen with silverware, because there was all sorts of psychic phenomena going on in that house. There was something about the piano . . . Billy, help me out here."
Billy grabbed John's free hand. Dan took Billy's, making a connected circle. A teeny seance in Teenytown.
"Beatles music," Billy said. "On the piano instead of the guitar. It was . . . I dunno. It made em crazy for awhile."
John stared at him.
"Listen," Dan said, "you have her permission to talk. She wants you to. Trust me on this, John."
John Dalton considered for almost a full minute. Then he told them everything, with one exception.
That stuff about The Simpsons being on all the TV channels was just too weird.
4
When he was finished, John asked the obvious question: How did Dan know Abra Stone?
From his back pocket Dan produced a small, battered notebook. On the cover was a photo of waves crashing against a headland and the motto NO GREAT THING IS CREATED SUDDENLY.
"You used to carry this, didn't you?" John asked.
"Yes. You know Casey K.'s my sponsor, right?"
John rolled his eyes. "Who could forget, when every time you open your mouth in a meeting, you start with 'My sponsor, Casey K., always says.' "
"John, nobody loves a smartass."
"My wife does," he said. "Because I'm a studly smartass."
Dan sighed. "Look in the book."
John paged through it. "These are meetings. From 2001."
"Casey told me I had to do ninety-in-ninety, and keep track. Look at the eighth one."
John found it. Frazier Methodist Church. A meeting he didn't often go to, but one he knew. Printed below the notation, in elaborate capital letters, was the word ABRA.
John looked up at Dan not quite unbelievingly. "She got in touch with you when she was two months old?"
"You see my next meeting just below it," Dan said, "so I couldn't have added her name later just to impress you. Unless I faked the whole book, that is, and there are plenty of people in the Program who'll remember seeing me with it."
"Including me," John said.
"Yeah, including you. In those days, I always had my meeting book in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. They were my security blankets. I didn't know who she was then, and I didn't much care. It was just one of those random touchings. The way a baby in a crib might reach out and brush your nose.
"Then, two or three years later, she wrote a word on a scheduling blackboard I keep in my room. The word was hello. She kept in contact after that, every once in awhile. Kind of touching base. I'm not even sure she was aware she was doing it. But I was there. When she needed help, I was the
one she knew, and the one she reached out to."
"What kind of help does she need? What kind of trouble is she in?" John turned to Billy. "Do you know?"
Billy shook his head. "I never heard of her, and I hardly ever go to Anniston."
"Who said Abra lives in Anniston?"
Billy cocked a thumb at Dan. "He did. Didn't he?"
John turned back to Dan. "All right. Say I'm convinced. Let's have the whole thing."
Dan told them about Abra's nightmare of the baseball boy. The shapes holding flashlights on him. The woman with the knife, the one who had licked the boy's blood off her palms. About how, much later, Abra had come across the boy's picture in the Shopper.
"And she could do this why? Because the kid they killed was another one of these shiners?"
"I'm pretty sure that's how the initial contact happened. He must have reached out while these people were torturing him--Abra has no doubt that's what they did--and that created a link."
"One that continued even after the boy, this Brad Trevor, was dead?"
"I think her later point of contact may have been something the Trevor kid owned--his baseball glove. And she was able to link to his killers because one of them put it on. She doesn't know how she does it, and neither do I. All I know for sure is that she's immensely powerful."
"The way you are."
"Here's the thing," Dan said. "These people--if they are people--are led by the woman who did the actual killing. On the day Abra came across the picture of Brad Trevor on a missing-children page in the local rag, she got in this woman's head. And the woman got in Abra's. For a few seconds they looked through each other's eyes." He held up his hands, made fists, and rotated them. "Turn and turn about. Abra thinks they may come for her, and so do I. Because she could be a danger to them."
"There's more to it than that, isn't there?" Billy asked.
Dan looked at him, waiting.
"People who can do this shining thing have something, right? Something these people want. Something they can only get by killing."
"Yes."
John said, "Does this woman know where Abra is?"