Finished with Raphael’s dental hygiene, Annamaria puts the toothbrush aside and uses the hand towel to mop his face once more. The retriever grins like the Joker.
As she picks up a grooming comb and begins to work on Raphael’s silky coat, she says, “The little finger on her right hand ended between the second and third knuckles.”
“Who? The waitress? Holly? You said she was normal.”
“There’s nothing abnormal about losing part of a finger in an accident. It’s not in the same category as eating a fly.”
“Did you ask her how it happened?”
“Of course not. That would have been rude. The little finger on her
“Wait, wait, wait. Two chopped little fingers is
“Both injuries could have happened in the same accident.”
“Yeah, of course, you’re right. She could have been juggling a meat cleaver in each hand when she fell off the unicycle.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, young man.”
I don’t know why her mild disapproval stings, but it does.
As though he understands that I have been gently reprimanded, Raphael stops grinning. He favors me with a stern look, as though he suspects that if I’m capable of being sarcastic with Annamaria, I might be the kind of guy who sneaks biscuits from the dog-treat jar and eats them himself.
I say, “Donny the mechanic has a huge scar across his face.”
“Did you ask
“I would have, but then Sweet Donny became Angry Donny, and I thought if I asked, he might demonstrate on
“Well, I’m pleased that you’re making progress.”
“If this is the rate of progress I can expect, we better rent the cottages by the year.”
As she makes long, easy strokes with the comb, the teeth snare loose hairs from the dog’s glorious coat. “You haven’t already stopped snooping for the night, have you?”
“No, ma’am. I’ve just begun to snoop.”
“Then I’m sure you’ll get to the truth of things shortly.”
Raphael decides to forgive me. He grins at me once more, and in response to the tender grooming that he’s receiving, he lets out a sound of pure bliss — part sigh, part purr, part whimper of delight.
“You sure do have a way with dogs, ma’am.”
“If they know you love them, you’ll always have their trust and devotion.”
Her words remind me of Stormy, the way we were with each other, our love and trust and devotion. I say, “People are like that, too.”
“Some people. Generally speaking, however, people are more problematic than dogs.”
“The bad ones, of course.”
“The bad ones, the ones adrift between good and bad, and some of the good ones. Even being loved profoundly and forever doesn’t necessarily inspire devotion in them.”
“That’s something to think about.”
“I’m sure you’ve thought about it often, Oddie.”
“Well, I’m off to snoop some more,” I declare, turning toward the door, but then I don’t move.
After combing the long, lush fringe of fur on the dog’s left foreleg, which retriever aficionados call feathers, Annamaria says, “What is it?”
“The door is closed.”
“To keep out the mercurial mechanic, Donny, about whom you have so effectively warned me.”
“It only opens itself when I’m approaching it from outside.”
“Your point being — what?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying.”
I look at Raphael. Raphael looks at Annamaria. Annamaria looks at me. I look at the door. It remains closed.
Finally, I take the knob in hand and open the door.
She says, “I knew you could do it.”
Gazing out at the night-shrouded motor court, where the trees discreetly shiver, I dread the bloodshed that I suspect I will be required to commit. “There’s no real harmony in Harmony Corner.”
She says, “But there’s a corner in it. Make sure you’re not trapped there, young man.”
FOUR
In case I am being watched, I don’t immediately continue my snooping, but return to my cottage and lock the door behind me.
Not many years ago, nearly 100 percent of people who thought they were being constantly watched were certifiable paranoids. But recently it was revealed that, in the name of public safety, Homeland Security and more than a hundred other local, state, and federal agencies are operating aerial surveillance drones of the kind previously used only on foreign battlefields — at low altitudes outside the authority of air-traffic control. Soon, the bigger worry will not be that, as you walk your dog, you are secretly being watched but that the rapidly proliferating drones will begin colliding with one another and with passenger aircraft, and that you’ll be killed by the plummeting drone that was monitoring you to be sure that you picked up Fido’s poop in a federally approved pet-waste bag.
Having returned to my cottage, I consider switching on the TV to a channel running classic movies, to see if Katharine Hepburn or Cary Grant will suggest that I should sleep. But the caffeine will soon pin my eyelids open, and I suspect that I need to be at least on the brink of nodding off before the invader — whoever or whatever it might be — can access me through the television.
I switch off most of the lights, so that from outside it might appear that I’m finished exploring Harmony Corner and am leaving one lamp aglow as a night-light. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I eat a candy bar.
One of the benefits of living in almost constant jeopardy is that I don’t need to worry about things like cholesterol and tooth decay. I’m sure to be killed long before my arteries can be closed by plaque. As for dental cavities, I tend instead to lose my teeth in violent confrontations. Not yet twenty-two, I already have seven teeth that are man-made implants.
I eat the second candy bar. Soon, thanks to all the sugar and caffeine, I should be so wired that I’ll be able to receive the nearest tower-of-power radio broadcast through the titanium pins that lock those seven artificial teeth into my jawbone. I hope it won’t be a greatest-hits station specializing in seventies disco tunes.
I switch off the last lamp, which is on a nightstand.
Beyond the bed, in the back wall of the cottage, one crank-operated casement window offers a view of the night woods. The two panes open inward to provide fresh air, and a screen keeps out moths and other pests. The screen is spring-loaded from the top and easily removed. From outside, I reinstall it with little noise.
The final aspect of my sixth sense is what Stormy called psychic magnetism. If I need to find someone whose whereabouts I do not know, I keep his name at the forefront of my thoughts and his face in my mind’s eye. Then I walk or bicycle, or drive, with no route intended, going where whim takes me, although in fact I am being drawn toward the needed person by an uncanny intuition. Usually within half an hour, often faster, I locate the one I seek.
Psychic magnetism also works — although less well — when I’m searching for an inanimate object, and occasionally even when I’m searching for a place that I can name only by its function. For instance, in this case, wandering behind the arc of cottages and through the moonlit woods, I keep in mind the word
A unique Presence is at work in Harmony Corner, someone or something that can travel by television and push a drowsy man into deep sleep, entering his dreams with the expectation that, while he sleeps, his lifetime of
