Mr. X

 •It was a few minutes past 3:00p.m. when I walked past the shop windows on Fairground Road and turned into Buxton Place. The sunlight abruptly died. Beneath their Gothic rooftops, the cottages looked like malignant dwarfs. I was beginning to feel as though I had been strapped to a treadmill, and for a moment I thought about going back to my room for a nap.

    The windows of 1 Buxton Place showed me no more than my own reflection. The same was true next door. I was wasting my time. The answers I needed were to be found in the present, not the past, and the nap was the best idea I'd had since telling the Reverend Swing about my mother's taste in music. Something Star said to me long ago, a description of an alto saxophone solo on 'These Foolish Things' she had heard at a concert before I was born, came back to me, evoking her with painful clarity. I turned away, took a step toward the brilliant shaft of light at the end of the lane, and a man in a black Kangol cap and a short-sleeved blue shirt turned the corner and walked into the darkness. Moving over the cobbles with the trace of a limp, he began fingering through a crowded key ring. His dark skin had the dead pallor of flesh too long deprived of sunlight.

    'Mr. Sawyer,' I said. 'How are you doing?'

    Startled, Earl Sawyer looked up from his keys.

    “I'm Ned Dunstan. I saw you in the ICU at St. Ann's.'

    “I remember.' He took a slow step forward, then another.

    'How do you feel?'

    Sawyer found the key he wanted. 'Fine. Got out of the hospital that night. After a few hours, all I had was a headache. Even the bruises went away. I don't keep bruises long, never have. What brings you up here?'

    'My mother knew the man who owned these houses.'

    Sawyer tilted his head and waited for more.

    'She died five days ago. I was hoping I might be able to talk to him.'

    His eyes seemed to change shape. 'They were close?'

    'Once upon a time,' I said.

    'What was his name, this friend of your mother's?'

    'Edward Rinehart.'

    'You got the wrong address, sorry to say. I've been coming here twice a week for ten, fifteen years, and I never heard of him.'

    'This is the right place,' I said. 'Mr. Sawyer, who hired you? The owner?'

    'Could be.'

    'Was his name Wilbur Whateley? Or Charles Dexter Ward?'

    All expression drained from Sawyer's face, and his eyes momentarily retreated. A shy smile flickered over his mouth. He surveyed the stable doors on either side. 'You surprised me with that one, my friend.'

    'So I noticed,' I said.

    He chuckled. “I was thinking, this guy got the address all wrong, and you come up with Charles Dexter Ward.'

    'Do you know Mr. Ward?'

    'Never met him.' Sawyer came up beside me and faced the bottom of the lane, as if to ensure that no one would overhear. “I answered an ad in theEcho. Thirty dollars a week for checking in on these properties, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Now it's up to fifty a week. I think I'll stay on. You know? Fifty dollars a week, quick trip on the bus, in and out.'

    His nod said it was better than stealing and twice as easy.

    'How do you report to Mr. Ward?'

    'He calls every Saturday, six P. M. sharp. 'Any problems?' he says. 'No problems, sir,' I say. Monday afternoon, a kid from Lavender Lane hands me an envelope with five ten-dollar bills. Nolly Wheadle.' Sawyer chuckled at the image of the boy who had led me out of Hatchtown on the night Robert had first shown himself. 'One time, years back, I had a rotten cold and missed a Wednesday. Mr. Ward called on the Saturday, and I said, 'No problem,' same as always. Mr. Ward—let's say I learned not to lie to Mr. Ward. My next envelope had only ten dollars in it.'

    'How did he know?'

    'You got me. He comes here two or three times a month, though. There'll be glasses in the sink at Number One. A different stack of books on the table in Number Two.'

    'Mr. Sawyer,' I said, “I know I'm asking an enormous favor, but would you let me look inside?'

    He pursed his lips and jiggled his keys. 'Your mother was a friend of Mr. Ward's?'

    'Yes,' I said.

    'What was her name?'

    I told him. He bounced the keys in his hand and debated with himself. 'Just keep your hands off Mr. Ward's belongings.'

    Sawyer opened the door of number 1 onto a musty, charcoal-colored space shining with ghostly shapes. He slipped away to the left, and I heard the clicking of a switch. An overhead fixture shed reluctant light over the contents of Edward Rinehart's living room. Empty bookshelves covered the wall to my right. A Fisher amplifier, a Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorder, and an A.R. turntable, stereo components that would have knocked your eyes out in 1957, lined a shelf on the near side of the fireplace. A Spanish bullfight poster and a reproduction of Picasso'sThree Musicians hung over the sound equipment. A shelf lined with LP records bracketed the fireplace on its far side, and past the records was a narrow door. A sofa and three chairs draped in languorous-looking sheets accounted for the ghostly shapes I had seen from the entrance.

    'The door goes into Number Two,' Sawyer told me.

    Here, Rinehart had conducted his parties and unofficial seminars. He had posed in front of the fireplace and read passages of his work. He had draped himself across the sofa and murmured provocations. Albertus students, poor damned Erwin 'Pipey' Leake, and people like Donald Messmer had streamed up Buxton Place and brought their various passions through the front door.

    Earl Sawyer walked to the far end of the room and into the kitchen, where garbage overflowed from a metal washtub. We went upstairs and looked into a room with a bare double bed, an oak dresser and table. 'Any of this interest you?' Sawyer asked.

    'All of it interests me,' I said. I had probably been conceived on that bed. Robert seemed to flicker into being alongside me—I felt his demanding presence—and disappeared without having been any more than an illusion.

    'What?'

    “I thought I heard something.'

    'These places make noises by themselves,' Sawyer said.

    Downstairs, he opened the door beside the record shelf. The room beyond gaped like the mouth of an abandoned mine. 'Wait a second. I'll get the lights.'

    Sawyer walked into the darkness and became a thick shadow. I heard a thump and the sound of wood sliding over wood, then another thump, like the opening and closing of a drawer. “I always hit that damn table.'

    He turned on a lamp atop a side table. A book-lined wall came into view. Sawyer moved to a larger table in the middle of the room and switched on a lamp surrounded by mounds of yellowed newspapers and empty food containers. Tall bookshelves took shape on all sides. 'Come on in.'

    Rinehart had turned the cottage into a library. The shelves extended upward to the roof and all the way to the back of the house. An iron ladder curved up to a railed catwalk. There were thousands of books in that room. I looked at the spines: H. P. Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft. I moved to the ladder and went up a couple of rungs. Multiple copies of every edition of each of Lovecraft's books lined the shelves, followed by their translations into what looked like every possible foreign language. First editions, paperbacks, trade paperbacks, collections, library editions. Some of the books looked almost new, others as though they had been picked up in paperback exchange stores. Rinehart had spent time and money buying rare copies, but he had also purchased almost every Lovecraft volume he had seen, whether or not he already owned it. “I think I know the name of his favorite writer,' I said.

    'Mr. Ward thinks H. P. Lovecraft was the greatest writer whoever lived.' Sawyer