Mr. X

    “Is Cobbie all right?'

    “I told him you helped calm his father down.' She moved through the doorway, sighed, and rested her head on my shoulder. 'The poor kid should fall asleep in about a minute and a half.'

    “I hope so,' I said. 'Cobbie didn't need that.' I kissed the top of her head, and she clung to me a moment longer.

    “I reallyam grateful, Ned.' She looked up at me and smiled. 'Did you get my message?'

    'Yes. Thanks.'

    'You didn't tell me it was your birthday! I had to find out from Nettie.'

    “I didn't want you to go to any trouble,' I said.

    She raised her mouth for a kiss. 'Until you got here, was it a nice birthday?'

    I laughed. 'You could say that.'

    'What did you do?'

    'My aunts had a party for me. I've kind of been on the run ever since.'

    'They must have had a barbecue. Your jacket smells like smoke.' She leaned back with her arms still around me and smiled beautifully up. “It's a verysuburban sort of jacket.'

    'May magpied it for me,' I said. 'Do you like it?'

    'Of course. After the way you handled Stewart, I want to keep you in a good mood. You look gorgeous in pink. You should always wear pink pants, pink shirts, and pink suits with little sailboats and nautical flags.'

    Her ability to reduce the ugly scene into a shared joke pulled me into her private aura. I felt the deep tug of having whatever troubled me being met with this same teasing, dissolving irony. Then the thought came to me that seeing it in this way meant that I had already separated myself from it.

    “I'm sorry if I frightened you.'

    'Stewartfrightened me. You impressed me.'

    'You knew you were going to take care of things, in the end. Maybe I made it worse.'

    'Hardly.' She kissed me again. 'After demolishing my china cabinet, I think he was going to move on to the glasses. Will you help me clean up the wreckage?' She glanced at the folders under my arm. 'What's that?'

    “I'll show you later.' I put the folders on the coffee table, and we went into the kitchen and started sweeping up broken plates. Shards and sections of china lay in archipelagos down the floor and made irregular islands on the counters. Shaken, Posy came in and began picking up the mess beside the butcher block. 'Cobbie finally went to sleep, but I practically had to read every book he owns. Is everything all right?'

    'Ned was heroic,' Laurie said. 'You should have seen him. Stewart pulled a knife.'

    'A paring knife,' I said. 'Even he was embarrassed.'

    When we had bagged all the broken china, Posy asked if she could do anything else.

    'No, we're fine,' Laurie said.

    “I'm glad Ned came along to drive out the wild beast.'

    I bowed, and she blew me a kiss and left the kitchen. Her soft footsteps went up the stairs.

    'Wouldn't you say we deserve a drink?' Laurie asked.

    “I don't think we can catch up with Stewart,' I said, 'but I'm willing to give it a try. I'm going to have a whopper of a bruise on the side of my head, and my hand hurts. No wonder boxers wear gloves.'

    Laurie took a glass from the shelf and another from beside the sink, pressed them against the ice lever in the refrigerator door, and brought out a liter of the late Tobias Kraft's favorite liquor. She poured whiskey over the ice until the glasses were three-fourths full.

    'You were having a drink when Stewart showed up,' I said.

    'Was I?' I could not tell if she had forgotten, or was pretending to have forgotten. Then I saw that she was presenting me with a mild challenge. 'Oh, yes. I gave you a clean glass, but I took this one from the counter. Ah, I see. Whilst enumerating my flaws, Stewart included heavy drinking.'

    'He skipped that one. People who drink as much as Stewart don't think it's a flaw.'

    'Good point,' Laurie said. 'God, let's sit down.' She put an arm around me, and we moved into the living room.

    We settled on the long sofa in front of the coffee table. The big room seemed as vibrantly empty as an abandoned airline terminal.

    “I'm sorry about yelling,' Laurie said. 'Vastly to my surprise, I discovered that I felt sorry for Stewart.'

    I took a slug of Scotch.

    She let her head roll back on the cushion. 'What do you think is going to happen to him? Is he going to be all right?'

    'You want to know what's going to happen to good old Stewart?' I said. 'Let me tell you. After a year in prison, Stewart will have a personal encounter with Jesus and become a born-again Christian. For the rest of his sentence, he'll lead prayer groups and Bible study classes. When he gets out, he'll get ordained by some third-rate Bible college and devote a few years to a prison ministry. He'll send out press releases, and a lot of articles will be written about him. Let's face it, it's a great story—civic leader and heir to private fortune falls into crime, finds salvation in jail, devotes himself to good works. The guy can't miss. In three years, he'll have his own church and a good-sized staff. When he describes his past, Ellendale will sound like Sodom and Gomorrah. Rare steaks, fancy cars, expensive suits, chains, leather, and whips. His congregation will quadruple, and he'll buy a new building with a television facility. Then he'll write a book and get on talk shows.'

    The bit about chains and leather popped out while I was rolling along. That so much anger still boiled away within me came as a surprise.

    She was clear-eyed and amused. “I bet you're right. Where did you get the stuff about chains and whips? He's too normal for S and M.'

    “I threw it in for the sake of a better conversion story. Once Stewart's locked up, I should write him that fiction is way more effective than reality.'

    Laurie looked at me with the same contemplative speculation I had seen from over the roof of my car. 'You said you were sick of Hatches coming at you with knives.'

    'Heat of the moment.'

    'You threw that in, too? How many Hatches are there, after all?'

    Oh, no,I thought.

    Her eyes underwent a subtle change. 'What? I don't get it.'

    I swallowed another mouthful of whiskey, preparing myself. I did not want to prepare myself.

    'Ned?'

    'You're right,' I said. “I have to explore something with you.'

    'You were going to show me those folders.' Her crisp voice rose wonderfully to the challenge. Laurie sounded like an army poised at the top of a hill, pennants flying and weapons at the ready. I felt nothing but admiration.

    'First you have to hear about the past two days. I owe that to you. You introduced me to Hugh Coventry, and you helped me learn about Edward Rinehart.'

    'That's what you want to explore?' The pennants rippled beautifully in the wind.

    'That's what we have to explore,' I said.

 •123

 •I began with Buxton Place and Earl Sawyer. After leaving the cottages, I said, I had come to Blueberry Lane and seen the caretaker's name in Posy's Lovecraft collection.

    'That's why you got so strange?' Laurie said. 'Posy and I couldn't understand what happened to you.'

    “I know, I'm sorry. I had to get away and think.'

    'Well, thank God, you came back. What then?'

    'At Toby's funeral, someone implied that Stewart owned my aunts' block on Cherry Street. It didn't make