Black House

“The two of them related?” Jack asks, and when Henry replies “Fuck, yeah,” something his friend would never say in the ordinary course of things, Jack understands that while Henry may have avoided a migraine this time, that Rat is still running in his head. Jack has heard similar bits of George Rathbun pop out from time to time, unexpected fat exultations from Henry’s slim throat, and there is the way Henry often says good-bye, throwing a Ding-dong or Ivey-divey over his shoulder: that’s just the Sheik, the Shake, the Shook coming up for air.

“Where exactly is it?” Jack asks.

“That’s hard to say,” Henry replies. He now sounds a bit testy. “Out by the farm equipment place . . . Goltz’s? As I recall, the driveway’s so long you might as well call it an access road. And if there was ever a sign, it’s long gone. When Ed Gilbertson sold his last microbe-infested chili dog, Jack, you were probably in the first grade. What’s all this about?”

Jack knows that what he’s thinking of doing is ridiculous by normal investigatory standards—you don’t invite a John Q. to a crime scene, especially not a murder scene—but this is no normal investigation. He has one piece of bagged evidence that he recovered in another world, how’s that for abnormal? Of course he can find the long- defunct Ed’s Eats; someone at Goltz’s will no doubt point him right at it. But—

“The Fisherman just sent me one of Irma Freneau’s sneakers,” Jack says. “With Irma’s foot still inside it.”

Henry’s initial response is a deep, sharp intake of breath.

“Henry? Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Henry’s voice is shocked but steady. “How terrible for the girl and her mother.” He pauses. “And for you. For Dale.” Another pause. “For this town.”

“Yes.”

“Jack, do you want me to take you to Ed’s?”

Henry can do that, Jack knows. Easy as pie. Ivey-divey. And let’s get real—why did he call Henry in the first place?

“Yes,” he says.

“Have you called the police?”

“No.”

He’ll ask me why not, and what will I say? That I don’t want Bobby Dulac, Tom Lund, and the rest of them tromping around out there, mixing their scents with the doer’s scent, until I get a chance to smell for myself? That I don’t trust a mother’s son of them not to fuck things up, and that includes Dale himself?

But Henry doesn’t ask. “I’ll be standing at the end of my driveway,” he said. “Just tell me when.”

Jack calculates his remaining chores with the evidence, chores that will end with stowing everything in the lockbox in the bed of his truck. Reminds himself to take his cell phone, which usually does nothing but stand on its little charging device in his study. He’ll want to call everything in as soon as he has seen Irma’s remains in situ and finished that vital first walk-through. Let Dale and his boys come then. Let them bring along the high school marching band, if they want to. He glances at his watch and sees that it’s almost eight o’clock. How did it get so late so early? Distances are shorter in the other place, this he remembers, but does time go faster as well? Or has he simply lost track?

“I’ll be there at eight-fifteen,” Jack says. “And when we get to Ed’s Eats, you’re going to sit in my truck like a good little boy until I tell you you can get out.”

“Understood, mon capitaine.”

“Ding-dong.” Jack hangs up and heads back out to the porch.

Things aren’t going to turn out the way Jack hopes. He’s not going to get that clear first look and smell. In fact, by this afternoon the situation in French Landing, volatile already, will be on the verge of spinning out of control. Although there are many factors at work here, the chief cause of this latest escalation will be the Mad Hungarian.

There’s a dose of good old small-town humor in this nickname, like calling the skinny bank clerk Big Joe or the trifocal-wearing bookstore proprietor Hawkeye. Arnold Hrabowski, at five foot six and one hundred and fifty pounds, is the smallest man on Dale Gilbertson’s current roster. In fact, he’s the smallest person on Dale’s current roster, as both Debbi Anderson and Pam Stevens outweigh him and stand taller (at six-one, Debbi could eat scrambled eggs off Arnold Hrabowski’s head). The Mad Hungarian is also a fairly inoffensive fellow, the sort of guy who continues to apologize for giving tickets no matter how many times Dale has told him that this is a very bad policy, and who has been known to start interrogations with such unfortunate phrases as Excuse me, but I was wondering. As a result, Dale keeps him on desk as much as possible, or downtown, where everyone knows him and most treat him with absent respect. He tours the county grammar schools as Officer Friendly. The little ones, unaware that they are getting their first lessons on the evils of pot from the Mad Hungarian, adore him. When he gives tougher lectures on dope, drink, and reckless driving at the high school, the kids doze or pass notes, although they do think the federally funded DARE car he drives—a low, sleek Pontiac with JUST SAY NO emblazoned on the doors—is way cool. Basically, Officer Hrabowski is about as exciting as a tuna on white, hold the mayo.

But in the seventies, you see, there was this relief pitcher for St. Louis and then the Kansas City Royals, a very fearsome fellow indeed, and his name was Al Hrabosky. He stalked rather than walked in from the bullpen, and before beginning to pitch (usually in the ninth inning with the bases juiced and the game on the line), Al Hrabosky would turn from the plate, lower his head, clench his fists, and pump them once, very hard, psyching himself up. Then he would turn and begin throwing nasty fastballs, many of them within kissing distance of the batters’ chins. He was of course called the Mad Hungarian, and even a blind man could see he was the best damn reliever in the majors. And of course Arnold Hrabowski is now known, must be known, as the Mad Hungarian. He even tried to grow a Fu Manchu mustache a few years back, like the one the famed reliever wore. But whereas Al Hrabosky’s Fu was as fearsome as Zulu warpaint, Arnold’s only provoked chuckles—a Fu sprouting on that mild accountant’s face, just imagine!—and so he shaved it off.

The Mad Hungarian of French Landing is not a bad fellow; he does his absolute level best, and under normal circumstances his level best is good enough. But these aren’t ordinary days in French Landing, these are the slippery slippage days, the abbalah-opopanax days, and he is exactly the sort of officer of whom Jack is afraid. And this morning he is, quite without meaning to, going to make a bad situation very much worse.