Mr. X

    Clark wobbled down the steps with the hint of a strut. Nettie and May filed out into the brightness of Paddlewheel Road, and I came down behind them. The Buick gleamed from a parking meter two spaces from Commercial Avenue. A feeling of unreality clung to me. I had given away about a million and a half dollars.

    Clark inspected the sleeves of his jacket. 'Seems to me I'm in danger of falling a little bit behind the current styles. How much are we supposed to get from Toby?'

    'Four hundred and eighty thousand,' Nettie said.

    “It isn't that much, considered in the cold light of day. You couldn't say that a man with four hundred and eighty thousand dollars in the bank is a man of wealth, so don't start putting us in that category.'

    “I want a big gas range with a griddle,' Nettie said. 'And I'm going to get one, no matter what category we're in.'

    'Do you know what I'd like?' May said. 'A home entertainment center and a satellite dish, instead of my no-good little TV that only gets three stations.'

    'We can both have one,' Nettie said. 'But I can't get over the idea it's wrong to pay for a frivolity like that.'

    'We don't have topay for our home entertainment centers,' May said. “I'd just like one, that's all.'

    'New clothes,' Clark said. 'The day we get that first check, I'm going into Lyall's and coming outclean. Then I'll stroll over to the Speedway and buy Cassie a double Johnnie Walker Black in honor of old Toby, God rest his soul.'

    'Clark,' I said. 'There's something you should know.'

    'Toby Kraft will rest easier now,' May said. “I have always said that in spite of his faults, Toby was a very loyal man.'

    I said, 'Clark, this morning—'

    Nettie broke in. 'Since he did not wish us to aggravate our grief, we should honor his wishes and let him have the dignified burial he requested. Reverend Swing is officiating at Star's burial, Neddie. Reverend Swing is famous for his funerals.'

    “I'm sure I'll love Reverend Swing,' I said. 'But I have to tell Clark—'

    'You don't want to go against the last wishes of a dying man,' Clark broke in.

    'Clark,'I said, too loudly. 'You won't be buying any drinks for Cassie Little.'

    Irritated, he said, 'And why is that, pray tell?'

    'She's dead.'

    'You're mistaken. She had a little cold the other day, but otherwise that girl's in the pink.'

    “I'm sorry, Uncle Clark.' It was too late to go back and do this the right way. Ashen shock was already moving into his face. 'Cassie was killed in her apartment last night. Her boyfriend, Frenchy, was killed too, in a cell at Police Headquarters.'

    May said, 'They were in that Clyde Prentiss gang. Killed to keep them quiet, that's what they were.'

    Clark's eyes looked glazed.

    'Bruce McMicken found her body. It was in the paper this morning.'

    Clarkclosed his mouth, opened it, closed it again. 'That's cold, boy. Cold. You should have broken the news a little easier.'

    “I tried,' I said, 'but everybody kept interrupting.'

    'You should have more respect for a man's grief.' He sneered ferociously at the sidewalk. 'That Frenchy murdered her to keep her away from other men, and then he killed himself in remorse. I hope I can get my new clothes in time for her funeral rites.'

    'Here we are, baking on the sidewalk,' Nettie said. 'Time to get home.'

    I said, “I'll see you at Little Ridge, ten o'clock tomorrow morning.'

    'They can't put her in the ground all that fast,' Clark wailed.

    “It's Star's funeral tomorrow, not your girlfriend's. Open up that car, so it airs out.' Nettie brought a slip of paper from her bag. 'You had calls this morning, Ned, from Mrs. Rachel Milton and your friend

    Mrs. Hatch. We had a nice conversation. I wrote down their numbers.' She thrust the slip at me.

 •92

 •I felt as though I were no longer quite anchored in reality, or in what I had assumed to be reality. In Merchants Park the grass flared brilliant green. Hard, white-gold light shattered across the tops of the cars. I alternated between gliding above the pavement and slogging against a heavy current. Toby Kraft's blood-soaked body and disgruntled face kept swimming into view.

    Glittering darkness beckoned from the entrances to the lanes along Word Street. Bruce McMicken barreled head-down across the sidewalk and yanked open the door of the Speedway. The ghost of Frenchy La Chapelle jittered along behind him. A blue neon sign above a narrow window saidpeep inn, and when I peeped in I saw a man stroking the bare arm of the young woman whose head blocked his face. She lifted her profile and exposed a slender neck. The man leaned forward to say something that made her laugh. My heart stuttered and turned cold.

    Robert put a cigarette to his lips. His mouth tightened as he inhaled, and hot, acrid smoke poured into my lungs. I turned from the window and stumbled ahead, coughing. I raised my hand to wipe my forehead and found I could see through it, as if through a smeary, hand-shaped piece of glass, to the buildings along Word Street.

    I held the other beside it, my fingers spread. Indistinctly, the pavement was visible through both of them. I rushed to a shop window to see if my entire body was disappearing. The window reflected a thoroughly visible face. Normal, nontransparent hands emerged from my sleeves. I started to breathe again. When I looked back at the shop window, the reflection of the giant in the dashiki who had spoken to me on Pine Street was disapprovingly regarding me from three feet away.

    'What's wrong with you now?' he asked.

    I laughed. “I hardly know where to begin.'

    'Give it a try.'

    'This morning, I found a dead man covered in blood. This afternoon, I discovered that the dead man had left me about two million dollars in his will. I gave three-fourths of the money away. And about five seconds ago, I started to disappear.'

    The giant threw back his head and boomed out spacious laughter. I couldn't help responding any more than I had been able to do with Stewart Hatch, and I laughed along with the giant until I had to wipe my eyes.

    'Well,' said the giant, still emitting subterranean rumbles, “If you can laugh at your own foolishness, at least you're not crazy. But you're a study, Ned Dunstan, I have to say that.'

    'How do you know my name?'

    'There could be a lot of reasons why a man might start to disappear. People disappear all the time, for reasons good and bad. But getting a boatload of money is the worst one I ever heard.' He shook his head, grinning.

    'How do you know my name?' I asked again.

    'Ned.' He looked down at me with an expression critical only to the extent that it remarked what I had failed to notice. 'How do you think I know your name?'

    I moved back to take in all of him. He was about six foot eight and 275 pounds, with a chiseled face, gleaming eyes, and teeth white enough for toothpaste commercials. A woven African cap covered his scalp from hairline to the inch of gray above his ears. He wore black, sharply creased silk trousers and black, polished loafers no smaller than size 13. The dashiki, darker and subtler than the one I had seen Friday on Pine Street, combined deep greens and blues with widely spaced crimson stripes. His skin shone like burnished mahogany. He looked like the culmination of an ancient line of African royalty. His dazzling grin widened.

    No, I thought,he doesn't look like a king, he looks like a—

    A wave of compacted light and warmth rolled out from the center of his being, and my thoughts died before the recognition that, whatever this man might have been, he was mysteriously of my own kind, not a Dunstan butakin to the Dunstans. A sense of protectiveness and security accompanied the surge of warmth, and I wanted to clasp his hand and ask for his help.