Mr. X

    'You should probably start him on piano lessons with a good teacher. Five years later, get him a great teacher and hire a lawyer whose nickname is Jaws.'

    She straightened up and stared at me, almost exactly as Cobbie had done while explaining that E and B were colored red and blue.

    'What impresses me most is that he's such a good kid. I think he's going to need as much protection as encouragement. Apart from that, just stand back and enjoy the show. But, hell, I'm just making this stuff up, I don't know anything.'

    Laurie moved against me once more, put an arm around my back, and then broke apart and held out a slip of paper. 'Posy found a listing for a Donald Messmer in Mountry. While I spend a little time with Cobbie, would you like to see what he has to say?'

    I took the paper from her.

    The fireplace came through into a kind of television room or den with track lighting aimed down at half- empty shelves. Toy trucks and children's books were scattered across the carpet. I sat on the sofa and picked up the telephone, but the first person I called was Nettie.

    'Your Mountry trash came around this morning,' she said. “I told that sorry excuse for a man he needed more than a big mouth and a baseball bat to scareme. Sent them away with their tails between their legs. You don't happen to have a piece, do you?'

    I laughed. 'No, I don't have a gun.'

    'Get one. Show iron to fools like that, they get out of your face lickety-split.'

    Rinehart's book dug into my side, and I took it out of my pocket before dialing the other number.

    Posy's CD-ROM had located the right Donald Messmer, but it took me a couple of minutes to get him talking.

    'You saw my name on the marriage license, and you got curious about me, huh? Guess I can't blame you for that.'

    I thanked him and called him Mr. Messmer.

    'Star let you know I wasn't your dad, I hope?'

    We spoke a little more. Messmer said, “I'm real sorry about your mom. If you don't mind my saying so, I was nuts about her. I would have done anything for Star Dunstan.'

    It was the reason he had married her. Two months after getting pregnant and moving in with Rinehart, Star's infatuation had curdled into fear. When she had confided to Messmer that she thought Rinehart intended to injure her, the child, or both of them, Messmer helped her escape from Buxton Place. They were married by a justice of the peace and fled across Ohio and into Kentucky, where Messmer had family. When his relatives proved hostile to Star, the couple went to Cleveland. They took jobs in restaurants and lived together in reasonable happiness. A month later, Star went for a medical checkup, and everything changed.

    “I was this stupid kid,' he said. “If something was more than five minutes ahead of me, I couldn't think about it. The idea of having a child was almost more than I could handle, so I just tried to forget it, figuring it would work itself out. When she came back from the doctor and said it was twins, it was like, Sorry, Don, you're spending the next twenty years in slavery.'

    'And the twins weren't yours,' I said.

    “I'm glad you can understand that. A week later, I was shaving in front of the mirror, and this corpse looked back at me. I packed my stuff and took off. I should have been a better guy, but I did what I did. Does that make sense to you?'

    'You did her a favor by getting her away from Rinehart.'

    'That's a nice thing to say. The truth is, we wouldn't have stayed together anyhow.'

    After arriving in Mountry, he tended bar until he had saved enough money to buy his own place, which he still ran. His wife had died three years ago, and he had two daughters and six grandchildren. When Messmer looked back at the young man who had run away from Edgerton with Star Dunstan, he saw a person he could scarcely recognize.

    'Do you know a man named Joe Staggers?'

    'Everybody in Mountry knows Joe Staggers. Most wish they didn't. Why, you run into him somewhere?'

    “It's all a mistake, but Staggers thinks he has a grudge against me.'

    'The asshole's whole life is a mistake.' I could hear him wondering how far he wanted to go. 'This grudge, was a guy named Minor Keyes involved in that?'

    'So I hear,' I said.

    “If you're going to be around more than a couple days, you might see can you borrow a weapon from someone. Staggers is a mean son of a bitch.'

 •Cobbie was polishing off his spaghetti at a table in a windowed alcove next to the kitchen door. Laurie asked, 'How did it go?'

    'He's a nice guy. Have you ever been to Mountry?'

    She shook her head. 'Why?'

    'Let's promise never to go there.'

    Cobbie chanted, 'Somewhere, somehow, someone'sgotta be kissed.'

    Posy sprang from her chair. 'Bedtime for the Rat Pack.' She wiped the red smears from Cobbie's face. 'All right. Upstairs.'

    'Do I have to?'

    She put her hands on her hips. 'Would I lie to you?'

    'Have to have to?'

    She looked at me. 'Cobbie wondered if you could make out a list of CDs he would like.'

    “I'll try to hold it down to the top one hundred.'

    'Maybe we can get Ned to say good night to you once you're in bed.'

    Cobbie looked at me with a blast of anticipatory joy. I would have, bet anything that Stewart never tucked him in or read to him at night.

    'And I'll read you a book,' I said, 'but it has to be a short one.'

    'Goodnight Moon,'he said. I felt an inexplicable chill of resistance.

    'Goodnight Moon?'Posy said.

    Laurie said, “Isn't that a little babyish for you?'

    He shook his head.'Goodnight Moon.'

    'Sure,' I said. “It's about the perfect way to go to sleep.' The same part of me that had resisted 'Something's Gotta Give' was sayingno no no to Cobbie's chosen book. I knew it came from the same place, wherever that was.

    'You're a lucky kid,' Posy said.

    Laurie smiled at me and told Cobbie, 'Just once.'

    He kissed her and flew out of the kitchen, Posy behind him.

    Laurie drank the last of the wine in her glass without taking her eyes from my face. “I don't suppose you have three or four children you play with every afternoon and read to every night, one after the other.'

    'Six,' I said. 'Plus the twins inBoulder.'

    My mouth went dry. I had intended to say 'San Diego,' butBoulder had come out as if a wizard had put a spell on my tongue. For the third time, a powerful and irrational unease spread its wings. Boulder?

    Laurie stood up to get the bottle. 'You know, Stewart never read to Cobbie at bedtime, not once. What happened to your glass?'

    “I left it in the other room,' I said. 'Hold on, I'll find the dog sled.' When I returned, I sat down next to her and putFrom Beyond on the table.

    Laurie flipped through random pages. Something made her snicker, and I said, 'What?'

    She grinned. ''Mr. Waterstone,' creaked the old librarian from the musty darkness of his sinister lair, 'the means by which you acquired that ancient text are of no interest to me.' In books, I don't think people shouldcreak or anything else like that. They should just say