Stone Junction

Daniel was exhausted and sickened by the televised news. If Elwood and Emmett were international drug dealers, he was the ghost of Elvis Presley. Their murders had been professional all right, and so was the ‘official speculation.’ But it didn’t make sense that the CIA would put his description on an APB. Volta had predicted with virtual certainty and Daniel had seen the logic in his reasoning, that the CIA would fear the exposure of its incompetence and its secrets more than the loss of the Diamond.

He tried to remember the scene around the Cutlass. Four cars. Two city police with their flashers, one sheriff, and one more – an unmarked gray Ford, a little off to the side, whose radio described his bowling shirt. Two guys inside, coats and slacks. The spooks. He made a surmise he liked – the cops merely had the Cutlass on the hot- sheet from the Tindells’ original theft, but the CIA, having somehow snagged the Tindell brothers, knew the car had been boosted again, and by whom. So they knew he had been crying over his mother’s dream, that the Diamond was likely in the bowling bag, and that he could disappear – if they believed the Tindell brothers, which might have been difficult.

Daniel was disgusted with himself. He’d gotten cute and vanished when he could have as easily handled the Tindells with Tao Do Chaung. He’d had to show them what real power was all about. If he’d just kicked them senseless, they’d probably still be alive. The ‘unnamed sources’ wanted to remain that way, and weren’t likely to tolerate people like Elwood and Emmett swearing up and down in national media that they’d seen this disappearing bowler who claimed he had the Grail, and that even the CIA had questioned them. But who would have believed their proofless account of a hitchhiking bowler who vanished? Their deaths had been unnecessary.

He was so tired he almost missed the message: We know who you are and we’re not fucking around. That’s why the bodies had been dumped where they’d be discovered immediately. Pressure. Every time you reveal yourself, someone will pay the consequences.

He couldn’t allow himself any more foolishness. No more fun. Frivolity was fatal. He winced recalling his righteousness with Volta: The Diamond is my responsibility now. Dumb. The only thing he could honestly claim responsibility for was the dangerous indulgence of mindless whims. He’d been acting as if all this was make-believe in Meta Land. This was the real world, even if he wasn’t in it. Real terror the Tindells had felt. He wondered if they called out to each other as they knelt beside the road. He started to cry. He closed his eyes tightly against the tears, but his hands suddenly felt wet with blood and he had to open his eyes to check. His hands were dry. He pressed them hard to his face, pushing his head down into the pillow.

‘That’s right,’ he said aloud, ‘if you can’t indulge your funny little whimsies, indulge the guilt.’

And what about Bunny Boy Carl and Max Robbins, his boss? Daniel tried to concentrate. He assumed Carl had washed the pitcher and glass, but decided to check. Carl had left before he’d vanished with the money and contract – good, no prints there – but Carl would probably get questioned. Not as hard as Max, though, especially if he started babbling about a case full of money and a guy who just seemed to vanish. Daniel realized it had been stupid not to hang around invisible and listen to Max’s conversation with the cops. Yet the worst Max could tell them was the crazy truth, and Max hadn’t struck him as the sort to make himself look dumb. Whatever Max’s story, it was out of Daniel’s control.

That left the prints in the car. And maybe the pitcher and glass at the pizzeria. Daniel sagged, but he had to do it. He exchanged his bowling shirt for the first one that fit from one of the aisles of hangered costumes. It was white with muted ruffles down the front, a riverboat gambler’s shirt. A cutaway black coat went with it. No hat. Oh well. He started to take the Diamond and decided that a riverboat gambler going bowling at 2 a.m. was too whimsical. He hid it in a costume box labeled SWISS MAID SIZE 12.

He walked back to the pizzeria, staying visible until he approached the empty parking lot. He walked through the Jackrabbit Pizza wall. The pitcher and glass had either been washed or taken by the cops. He called a cab to meet him on the corner. He told the cabbie his girlfriend had gotten busted for drunk driving and they’d impounded his car. The cabbie knew where to go.

Daniel loitered in front of the Stolen Car Impound till the cabbie was out of sight, then he vanished. He walked into the car, hunched down, and reappeared, quickly wiping it down. He’d just vanished when the fingerprint team arrived to start dusting.

Daniel reappeared in a phone booth down the block, called a cab to let him off a half mile from Hothman’s Theatrical Supply, vanished, and walked the rest of the way. He reappeared in front of the box holding the Diamond, took it into the tiny bedroom with him, lay down, thought responsibility is hard, serious work, and fell asleep without a thought of vanishing.

He awoke late in the afternoon. After first checking the warehouse to be sure no one was working weekends, he showered in the small bathroom. Refreshed, he returned to the bedroom, shed his towel, and stretched out naked on the bed to think about what to do next. The possibilities overwhelmed him. As he took a deep breath, he saw the faint image of a young blond girl offering him a sphere with a gold center, saying something. He was not sure if this was memory or a desperate hallucinatory invention, but her face floated out of formlessness like an image rising in a darkroom tray. He strained to hear what she was saying, but she was too distant, the words wouldn’t carry. He concentrated on her lips as she began to fade, tried to hear the shape of her sounds as she dissolved. He thought he heard, ‘It’s a bead.’

The mind is the shadow of the light it seeks.

The mind is a mess.

Daniel felt he understood. A bead. Yes, yes, yes. The Diamond was a bead on the Solar Necklace, strung on the golden spiral of flame through its center. The notion of a Necklace of Light, a circle of spherical diamonds, each reflecting all, containing all, emptying all the golden light back into the Infinite Dazzle, excited Daniel’s imagination. He reached down and patted the bowling bag. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’

Where exactly, he wasn’t sure, but he intended to make the journey one careful step at a time. First, he needed to understand if the Diamond was a bead out of its proper order, whether it needed to be returned to its place.

Daniel decided to head for the Rockies. He’d outfit himself for long hauls and hike the wild high country considering the Diamond until he was sure of his next move.

He had a sudden insight, as if in reward for his wisdom: he’d been heading west because that was the direction to Nameless Lake. Daniel cringed. Wild Bill, he felt certain, would know that, and would be waiting there, maybe with Volta. He felt a deep surge of admiration for the clarity and strength Volta brought to responsibility, and a new appreciation for the cost of that commitment. Daniel decided that if his time in the mountains proved futile, he would take the Diamond to Volta, combine forces with him and whoever else they agreed should join. He figured he’d be humbled enough by then to bless any help he could beg.

He needed a new identity for the trip.