Cottle’s sunburned and blood-fused face could not turn pale, but his small purse of a mouth, snugged tight with self-satisfaction after his rant, now loosened and poured forth the dull coins of a counterfeit apology. “Mr. Wiles, sir, please don’t take offense at my bad mouth. I can’t control what comes out of it any more than I can control what I pour into it.”
“He wanted to be sure you told me about the face in the jar, didn’t he?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t consult with me, sir. He just put words in my mouth to bring to you, and here I am because I want to live.”
“Why?”
“Sir?”
“Look at me, Ralph.”
101
Cottle met his eyes.
Billy said, “Why do you want to live?”
As though Cottle had never considered it before, the question seemed to pin down some fluttering thing in his mind, like a rare moth to a specimen board, some ever-restless and ever-contentious and ever-bitter aspect of himself that for a moment he seemed at last disposed to consider. Then his eyes became evasive, and he clasped both hands, not just one, around the pint of whiskey.
“Why do you want to live?” Billy persisted.
“What else is there?” Avoiding Billy’s eyes, Cottle raised the bottle in both hands, as if it were a chalice. “I could use just a taste,” he said, as though asking for permission.
“Go ahead.”
He took a small sip, but then at once took another.
“The freak made you tell me about the face in the jar because he wants that image in my head.”
“If you say so.”
“It’s about intimidation, about keeping me off balance.”
“Are you?”
Instead of answering the question, Billy said, “What else did he send you here to tell me?”
As if getting down to business, Cottle screwed the cap on the bottle again and this time returned the pint to his coat pocket. “You’ll have five minutes to make a decision.”
“What decision?”
“Take off your wristwatch and prop it on the porch railing.”
“Why?”
“To count off the five minutes.”
“I can count them with the watch on my wrist.”
“Putting it on the railing is a signal to him that the countdown has started.”
Woods to the north, shadowy and cool in the hot day. Green lawn, then tall golden grass, then a few well- crowned oaks, then a couple of houses downslope and to the east. To the west lay the county road, trees and fields beyond it.
102
“He’s watching now?” Billy asked.
“He promised he would be, Mr. Wiles.”
“From where?”
“I don’t know, sir. Just please, please take off your watch and prop it on the railing.”
“And if I won’t?”
“Mr. Wiles, don’t talk that way.”
“But if I won’t?” Billy pressed.
His baritone rasp thinned to a higher register as Cottle said, “I told you, he’ll take my face, and me awake when he does. I told you.”
Billy got up, removed his Timex, and propped it on the railing so that the watch face could be seen from both of the rocking chairs.
As the sun approached the zenith of its arc, it penetrated the landscape and melted shadows everywhere but in the woods. The green-cloaked conspiratorial trees revealed no secrets.
“Mr. Wiles, you’ve got to sit down.”
Brightness fell from the air, and a chrome-yellow glare hazed the fields and furrows, forcing Billy to squint at numberless places where a man could lie in the open, effectively camouflaged by nothing more than spangled sunlight.
