Four Past Midnight

medicine, but it never did the job. And when I got into AA, that was the one thing that always drove me back. The thing in that room, you know. That thing has a name, Mr Peebles - its name is Ardelia Lortz. After I was sobered up awhile, I would start having bad dreams. Mostly I dreamed of the posters I did for her - the ones that scared the children so bad - but they weren't the worst dreams.'

His voice had fallen to a trembling whisper.

'They weren't the worst ones by a long chalk.'

'Maybe you better rest a little,' Sam said. He had discovered that no matter how much might depend on what Dave had to say, a part of him didn't want to hear it. A part of him was afraid to hear it.

'Never mind resting,' he said. 'Doctor says I'm diabetic, my pancreas is a mess, and my liver is falling apart. Pretty soon I'm going on a permanent vacation. I don't know if it'll be heaven or hell for me, but I'm pretty sure the bars and package stores are closed in both places, and thank God for that. But the time for restin isn't now. If I'm ever goin to talk, it has to be now.' He looked carefully at Sam. 'You know you're in trouble, don't you?'

Sam nodded.

'Yes. But you don't know just how bad your trouble is. That's why I have to talk. I think she has to ... has to lie still sometimes. But her time of bein still is over, and she has picked you, Mr Peebles. That's why I have to talk. Not that I want to. I went out last night after Naomi was gone and bought myself a jug. I took it down to the switchin yard and sat where I've sat many times before, in the weeds and cinders and busted glass. I spun the cap off and held that jug up to my nose and smelled it. You know how that jug wine smells? To me it always smells like the wallpaper in cheap hotel rooms, or like a stream that has flowed its way through a town dump somewhere. But I have always liked that smell just the same, because it smells like sleep, too.

'And all the time I was holdin that jug up, smellin it, I could hear the bitch queen talkin from inside the room where I locked her up. From behind the bricks, the bureau, the sheet steel, the boards and locks. Talkin like someone who's been buried alive. She was a little muffled, but I could still hear her just fine. I could hear her sayin, 'That's right, Dave, that's the answer, it's the only answer there is for folks like you, the only one that works, and it will be the only answer you need until answers don't matter anymore.'

'I tipped that jug up for a good long drink, and then at the last second it smelled like her ... and I

remembered her face at the end, all covered with little threads ... and how her mouth changed ... and I threw that jug away. Smashed it on a railroad tie. Because this shit has got to end. I won't let her take another nip out of this town!'

His voice rose to a trembling but powerful old man's shout. 'This shit has gone on long enough!'

Naomi laid a hand on Dave's arm. Her face was frightened and full of trouble. 'What, Dave? What is it?'

'I want to be sure,' Dave said. 'You tell me first, Mr Peebles. Tell me everything that's been happening to you, and don't leave out nothing.'

'I will,' Sam said, 'on one condition.'

Dave smiled faintly. 'What condition is that?'

'You have to promise to call me Sam ... and in return, I'll never call you Dirty Dave again.'

His smile broadened. 'You got you a deal there, Sam.'

'Good.' He took a deep breath. 'Everything was the fault of that goddam acrobat,' he began.

7

It took longer than he had thought it would, but there was an inexpressible relief -a joy, almost - in telling it all, holding nothing back. He told Dave about The Amazing Joe, Craig's call for help, and Naomi's suggestion about livening up his material. He told them about how the Library had looked, and about his meeting with Ardelia Lortz. Naomi's eyes grew wider and wider as he spoke. When he got to the part about the Red Riding Hood poster on the door to the Children's Library, Dave nodded.

'That's the only one I didn't draw,' he said. 'She had that one with her. I bet they never found it, either. I bet she still has that one with her. She liked mine, but that one was her favorite.'

'What do you mean?' Sam asked.

Dave only shook his head and told Sam to go on.

He told them about the library card, the books he had borrowed, and the strange little argument they had had on Sam's way out.

'That's it,' Dave said flatly. 'That's all it took. You might not believe it, but I know her. You made her mad. Goddam if you didn't. You made her mad ... and now she's set her cap for you.'

Sam finished his story as quickly as he could, but his voice slowed and nearly halted when he came to the visit from the Library Policeman in his fog-gray trenchcoat. When Sam finished, he was nearly weeping and his hands had begun to shake again.

'Could I have a glass of water?' he asked Naomi thickly.

'Of course,' she said, and got up to get it. She took two steps, then returned and kissed Sam on the cheek. Her lips were cool and soft. And before she left to get his water, she spoke three blessed words into his ear: 'I believe you.'

8

Sam raised the glass to his lips, using both hands to be sure he wouldn't spill it, and drank half of it at a draught. When he put it down he said, 'What about you, Dave? Do you believe me?'

'Yeah,' Dave said. He spoke almost absently, as if this were a foregone conclusion. Sam supposed that, to Dave, it was. After all, he had known the mysterious Ardelia Lortz firsthand, and his ravaged, too-old face suggested that theirs had not been a loving relationship.

Dave said nothing else for several moments, but a little of his color had come back. He looked out across the railroad tracks toward the fallow fields. They would be green with sprouting corn in another six or seven weeks, but now they looked barren. His eyes watched a cloud shadow flow across that Midwestern emptiness in the shape of a giant hawk.

At last he seemed to rouse himself and turned to Sam.

'My Library Policeman - the one I drew for her - didn't have no scar,' he said at last.

Sam thought of the stranger's long, white face. The scar had been there, all right - across the cheek, under the eye, over the bridge of the nose in a thin flowing line.

'So?' he asked. 'What does that mean?'

'It don't mean nothing to me, but I think it must mean somethin to you, Mr - Sam. I know about the badge ... what you called the star of many points. I found that in a book of heraldry right there in the Junction City Library. It's called a Maltese Cross. Christian knights wore them in the middle of their chests when they went into battle durin the Crusades. They were supposed to be magical. I was so taken with the shape that I put it into the picture. But ... a scar? No. Not on my Library Policeman. Who was your Library Policeman, Sam?'

'I don't ... I don't know what you're talking about,' Sam said slowly, but that voice - faint, mocking, haunting - recurred: Come with me, son ... I'm a poleethman. And his mouth was suddenly full of that taste again. The sugar-slimy taste of red licorice. His tastebuds cramped; his stomach rolled.

But it was stupid. Really quite stupid. He had never eaten red licorice in his life. He hated it.

If you've never eaten it, how do you know you hate it?

'I really don't get you,' he said, speaking more strongly.

'You're getting something,' Naomi said. 'You look like someone just kicked you in the stomach.'