Vicious Grace

inside. An old man with skin the color of weathered wood and white hair as short as his beard crossed in front of us with an air of utter superiority. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. It wasn’t going to make things easier if I went into this freaking myself out.

Souder Roof and Tile was tucked between a Payless shoe store and a three-bay car service joint called Merlin’s. The sign was jauntier and more optimistic than the building. There were only two cars in the parking lot, and neither of them had been made in the last ten years. Aubrey pulled into the space nearest the glass-paneled office door as the faux-British GPS voice told us we had arrived. He killed the engine. We sat for a few seconds, looking at the place.

“Any idea what you’re going to tell this guy?” Aubrey asked.

“Nope,” I said. “Figured I’d wing it.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said.

Sounds like one of my plans, I thought, but I popped open the car door, and we headed in. The interior wasn’t much more inspiring than the outside had been. The cool air smelled a little bit like dampness and old fish. Carpet patterned in beige and brown almost hid a few old stains. The white walls were hung with pictures of houses sporting new roofs. The lone desk was topped with bright glass, an Apple computer, and a pile of three-ring binders advertising products like coal tar pitch, polyiso roof insulation, and waterproof caulk. The woman sitting at the desk looked up at us with bare surprise in her expression. The door closed behind us.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m looking for David Souder. Is he . . . ?”

I pointed at a door behind the woman with a plastic Staff Only sign tacked to it and started walking toward it as if the sign clearly couldn’t apply to me.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said, shaking her head. “Big Dave’s not in the office today. Was there something I could help you with?”

I smiled and tried to decide whether I believed her. Maybe forty-five, maybe fifty, she seemed like the kind of woman I’d grown up around: careful makeup lightly applied, bright blouse and skirt in a lemony yellow that didn’t quite suit her. An empty cross hung from the silver chain around her neck. Her concerned and helpful expression was so practiced that I couldn’t tell whether she was lying or not.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s not a business thing. I just need to talk to him.”

Her hands gave her away. I’d just let her off the hook, told her that whatever this intrusion into her world was about, it at least wasn’t her problem. Her hands should have relaxed, even if just a little.

They tensed.

“I’m really sorry,” she said. “I can leave him a message if you want.”

“Cell phone number?” I said.

The woman laughed, but there wasn’t much mirth in the sound. Instead there was something rueful. I glanced back at Aubrey. The slight pursing of his lips and the carefully blank expression told me he was seeing the same things I was.

“More than that. I’ve even got his cell phone,” she said. “Big Dave leaves it in the office when he’s not on-site somewhere.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, could I get his home address, then? I can swing by there.”

“I’m sorry. We can’t give that out. There’s a policy. But if you want to leave a message, I’ll get it to him as soon as he comes in,” she said. “I don’t know when exactly that’ll be, but I’ll make sure he calls you back.”

Calls you back. Not he’ll see it. Not that he knows you came by. She was promising to make him act on it. I was pretty sure by now that she wasn’t lying. The way she held herself, the way she spoke, reminded me of my mother talking about someone from church. Someone who wasn’t doing well.

There was probably a graceful way to do this. Something subtle and clever. The right words. But since I didn’t know what they were, I went for blunt.

“He’s in trouble,” I said. “You know he’s in trouble, right?”

Her smile didn’t vanish, but the air went out of it. She swallowed once, and when she spoke her voice had lost its cheerfulness.

“Big Dave’s doing fine.”

“Something’s been wrong with him, though,” I said. “Acting strange. Missing work. Maybe he doesn’t look as good as he used to. Like he’s not sleeping?”

“Well, I don’t know that—”

“It started about a year ago,” I said. And then, “It’s getting worse.”

The smile collapsed like a mask falling away. With the concern and fear clear on her face, she looked more genuine. When she spoke, it was like hearing her for the first time.

“How do you know him?” she asked.

It would have been easy to lie, but I had the sense that the woman was watching me very closely. I shook my head.

“My uncle knew a lot about him,” I said. “I’d never heard of him until yesterday. But if there’s something eating him, I know what it is. And I can help.”

She looked down at the table. Her jaw was set firmly. The computer chirped once and the screen changed. In my peripheral vision, Aubrey leaned against the wall, his arms folded.

“If I’m right,” I said softly, “I may be the only one who can help.”

“Can you tell me what’s the matter?” she said. “Is it drugs?”

“It’s not drugs. And it’s not gambling. And it’s not women. But it is important.”

“Can’t you just tell me?”

I could, but it would blow my chances of holding her trust. I didn’t say anything, and let the silence drag. The woman sighed, leaned back, and pulled the thin top drawer of the desk open. She didn’t look at me as she picked out a business card and a pen. She wrote with small, fast strokes, like someone brushing away sand. When she did look up, she seemed almost angry.

“We love Big Dave,” she said. “We need him back.”

“I’m on it,” I said, taking the card. She’d written a street address on it. I put it in my pocket, turned to catch Aubrey’s gaze, and then nodded to the door.

“I’m trusting you,” she said as we walked out.

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I didn’t try.

WE PULLED up at the place. Two stories, windows obscured by cream-colored drapes, a tree in the front yard with a tire swing on an ancient, untrustworthy rope. The green grass lawn got a little patchy at the edges, and the black fake-iron house numbers by the front door had chipped. A dog was barking somewhere nearby in a lazy, conversational way.

Aubrey walked just ahead of me up the thin concrete path, and I had a small cascade of memories—Trevor chiding Aubrey for putting himself in harm’s way to protect me, another house we’d walked to about a year ago when a haugtrold had nearly killed us both, Chogyi Jake warning me not to push the wards and protections that kept me safe. And then I was at the door. I fidgeted with my backpack and took a deep breath.

“I hate this part,” I said.

Aubrey nodded.

“Hi,” he said, “can I talk to you about your relationship to immaterial, abstract parasites? Does kind of make the Jehovah’s Witnesses seem plausible by comparison, doesn’t it?”

“And yet,” I said, “it’s what we do.”

I rang the doorbell. The dog, wherever it was, took note and stepped up its color commentary. We waited. I knocked.

“Not home?” Aubrey said.

“Maybe not.”

The doorknob felt surprisingly cool. The door wasn’t locked, and the hinges were silent. I looked at Aubrey looking at me, and then I swung the door wide.

“Hello?” I called as we stepped into the living room. “Anybody here? David?”

Piles of paper littered the room—magazines, newspapers, printed websites, sketchbooks. The smell of rotting food was faint but distinct, almost more taste than odor. A worn leather couch dominated the room, a wide, low