stuff. A person could be mistaken about things like that, and of
course he hadn't really studied the painting before buying it. Also,
there had been the distraction of Mrs. Diment, who could probably
talk the cock off a brass monkey.
But there was also punch number two, and that wasn't subjective.
In the darkness of the Audi's trunk, the blond young man had
turned his left arm, the one cocked on the door, so that Kinnell
could now see a tattoo which had been hidden before. It was a
vine-wrapped dagger with a bloody tip. Below it were words.
Kinnell could make Out DEATH BEFORE, and he supposed you
didn't have to be a big best-selling novelist to figure out the word
that was still hidden. DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR was, after
all, just the sort of a thing a hoodoo traveling man like this was apt
to have on his arm. And an ace of spades or a pot plant on the other
one, Kinnell thought.
'You hate it, don't you, Auntie?' he asked.
'Yes,' she said, and now he saw an even more amazing thing: she
had turned away from him, pretending to look out at the street
(which was dozing and deserted in the hot afternoon sunlight), so
she wouldn't have to look at the picture. 'In fact, Auntie loathes it.
Now put it away and come on into the house. I'll bet you need to
use the bathroom.'
Aunt Trudy recovered her savoir faire almost as soon as the
watercolor was back in the trunk. They talked about Kinnell's
mother (Pasadena), his sister (Baton Rouge), and his ex-wife, Sally
(Nashua). Sally was a space-case who ran an animal shelter out of
a double-wide trailer and published two newsletters each month.
Survivors was filled with astral info and supposedly true tales of
the spirit world; Visitors contained the reports of people who'd had
close encounters with space aliens. Kinnell no longer went to fan
conventions which specialized in fantasy and horror. One Sally in
a lifetime, he sometimes told people, was enough.
When Aunt Trudy walked him back out to the car, it was fourthirty
and he'd turned down the obligatory dinner invitation. 'I can get
most of the way back to Derry in daylight, if I leave now.'
'Okay,' she said. 'And I'm sorry I was so mean about your picture.
Of course you like it, you've always liked your ... your oddities. It
just hit me the wrong way. That awful face. ' She shuddered. 'As
if we were looking at him . . . and he was looking right back.'
Kinnell grinned and kissed the tip of her nose. 'You've got quite an
imagination yourself, sweetheart.'
'Of course, it runs in the family. Are you sure you don't want to
use the facility again before you go?'
He shook his head. 'That's not why I stop, anyway, not really.'
'Oh? Why do you?'
He grinned. 'Because you know who's being naughty and who's
being nice. And you're not afraid to share what you know.'
'Go on, get going,' she said, pushing at his shoulder but clearly
pleased. 'If I were you, I'd want to get home quick. I wouldn't want
