Symphony - [Millennium Quartet 01] Page 8

  Kay wouldn’t help him. She watched his discomfort until she couldn’t stand it anymore, then propped herself on her elbows and fed him the latest hot gossip—that Mabel and Moss were going to be married in two weeks. She giggled at his expression, and told him Mabel had come in only an hour ago with the news; she was also hunting for Casey.

  “Me?” His hand went to his chest. “Dear Lord, surely she doesn’t want me to ... not...”

  She nodded. “Absolutely. Cheaper than a judge is what she told me.”

  “Wonderful. What a recommendation.”

  “You’ll love it, and you know it,” she told him as he nearly ran for the exit, “She figures the UFO guys will be at the reception.”

  He opened the door and paused.

  She waited, but he said nothing, just shook his head and left.

  She watched him drive away, and cursed herself for not asking him to dinner. It had been her day’s plan, ever since Doc Farber had told her Casey was on his rounds. Experience had taught her he’d be back just before five, that he’d be sad, feeling helpless, and starving because he would have forgotten to eat anything since breakfast. But just like all the other times, she had lost her nerve the moment she saw him-—not just the size of him, but the sheer him of him. He overwhelmed her just by standing there, making her wish she had Cora Bowes’s figure or Helen Gable’s quick sharp tongue; then she’d at least be able to make a dent in him, one way or the other.

  As it was, he was gone, and now she’d have to contrive to see him at the diner, or in Mackey’s, or. ..

  “Shit,” she said, angrily tossing the shrink-wrap into the wastebasket. “Shit. Shit!”

  She stormed around the small shop, straightening the empty video boxes, swearing fiercely at customers who didn’t put them back in the proper place, damning UPS for not delivering the new titles on time, cursing distributors who never sent her the right numbers of the top films that kept her business going, marching into the back room where all the cassettes were kept in coded black cases and nearly screaming when she saw that Nate had mixed up an entire month’s worth of returns, which meant he’d probably screwed it up in the computer, too.

  She stormed to the back of the long narrow room, to the black metal desk where she kept her ledgers, the computer, and what seemed like four hundred empty boxes of tissue paper. Next to it was a door that led to a bathroom barely large enough for its sink and toilet. That was probably filthy too. Which was what she got for hiring a kid instead of someone like Tessa or Bobby.

  The problem was, Bobby didn’t know from movies, and Nate had apparently seen every one ever made. The perfect recommender. People trusted his judgment, just as she trusted him not to rip her off.

  Before she reached either place, however, she stopped, panting, sweat on her brow, sweat running between her breasts, and realized she was wrong.

  Nothing was out of place.

  Nate had even dusted.

  She felt the tears then, frustration bitter.

  “Okay, be cool,” she whispered. “Be cool. It’s not the end of the world.”

  A calming breath, and a vow to apologize to Nate as soon as she saw him. He wouldn’t get it, but it would make her feel better. Which would be something of a rarity these days. Being unable to rent her two cabins had put a hell of a crimp in her budget, increasing the pressure she had put on herself to succeed. Nate, the poor darling, was often the brunt of her short-lived tempests. God, if he were only ten years older. Hell, five.

  She giggled.

  “Nice talk,” she told the tapes. “Cradle robber.” She giggled again. “Horny bitch.”

  She was about to head for the bathroom to splash some water on her face, when she heard the door’s bell warn her of a customer. “Damn,” she whispered, and with one hand brushing uselessly at her bangs, she returned to the front.

  “Hey,” she said.

  Dimitri stood by the counter. “My mom said to bring these back.” He nodded to a pair of black cassette cases he had placed by the register.

  She took a step toward him, and stopped.

  In his other hand he carried a gun.

  Her eyes widened. “Dimitri?’’

  “Gonna die,” the boy said, no expression at all.

  She wanted to smile, to show him she got the joke but didn’t think it very funny. But she screamed instead when, holding the gun in both hands, those beautiful big eyes wide and unblinking, he fired, taking a gouge from the jamb by her shoulder.

  She screamed again when he fired again, putting a three-inch furrow in the floor, not far from her right foot.

  She threw herself into the back room when he fired a third time, knocking over a half dozen cases, cassettes skittering across the floor when the cases snapped open. She fell on her hip, seeing too many colors and too much light, wondering why the hell nobody else was here; Jesus Christ, couldn’t they hear?

  She pushed herself backward on her rump as he stepped over the threshold.

  “Miss Pollard, you okay?”

  No gun.

  “Dimitri, I think ...”

  No cases on the floor, no furrow.

  Oh my God, she thought, shuddering violently; oh, God.

  “Miss Pollard, I... I have to go now.”

  No gun; just the boy.

  She reached out, hoping he would help her to her feet, but he only backed away uncertainly, then bolted for the exit. He didn’t know what was wrong with her, why she had started yelling and running and jumping like that, but he sure didn’t want to be here anymore. And once outside he also decided he didn’t want to go home right away. His parents were home now, but it didn’t look like supper would be coming real soon.

  He headed west instead, balancing on the uneven curb, thinking maybe he could talk with Arlo. He liked Arlo. Sonya thought he looked stupid with those beads and headbands and his hair longer than their mother’s. But Arlo was silly, and he could do magic. Maybe he could tell him why Miss Pollard had gone all we.ird. He giggled. She sure did look funny, scooting away on her rear end like that. Maybe she was on drugs or something. Arlo would know. He knew just about everything. Except maybe why the birds talked. Well, not really talked. But when they sang, he could tell what they were singing. So maybe Arlo could tell him why the birds were singing they were all gonna die.

  Maybe he couldn’t.

  Ahead, Black Oak began its first step toward the river. He could see people walking, going in and out of the Moonglow and weird Mabel’s store, an old lady coming out of the sick place with a white hat on with a white veil, a white purse in her white-gloved hands. He knew who she was but he couldn’t remember her name. She called him “child’’ all the time, and he didn’t think she could see very well.

  A blue jay glided swiftly across the street, scolding, vanishing into the trees beside the church.

  Moss Tully’s no-name beagle sat on the bench in front of the hardware store, wire tail wagging a zillion times a minute.

  He heard hoofbeats behind him.

  Now that was weird. Mr. Palmer never let his horses ride anyplace but on the trails. Maybe it was—

  He looked over his shoulder and nearly stumbled off the curb.

  The horse walked slowly down the center of the street. He didn’t know what the right names were; this one was dark brown, its mane and tail long, its head high and bobbing with each step.

  Hooves loud on the blacktop.

  No one rode it.

  No one walked beside it.

  “Wow,” he whispered, looked for someone to help him, then decided he would have to catch the horse himself. But it was so big. Bigger than any horse he had ever seen in his life. His hands fluttered as he tried to decide how to stop it. Maybe jump in front of it and wave his arms, yell at it, tell it to go home; maybe grab its mane and swing onto its back and ride it home.

  He took a deep breath and stepped into the street. “Hey,” he said, remembering to keep his voice friendly and not make any sudden moves. “Hey, boy, you lost or som
ething?”

  The horse stopped, and looked at him.

  He smiled broadly and held his hands away from his sides. “See? I’m okay. You don’t—”

  It tossed its head, mane slapping its neck.

  The smile faltered, and he swallowed nervously. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. Maybe he should just run down to the Moonglow and get one of the men to do this.

  He took a step back, and the horse instantly lunged into a charging gallop, huge teeth bared, ears flat back.

  Dimitri froze for a full second before he bolted.

  He didn’t think to head for the nearest house or tree; he ran as fast as he could down the slope, screaming, waving his arms, not looking back because he could hear the horse right behind him, snorting, hooves pounding, so big and so fast that he knew he would be trampled, knew he was gonna die, which made him scream louder, vision blurred now with tears, chest burning, legs not moving nearly fast enough, screaming until an arm grabbed his waist and swung him off his feet.

  He shrieked, beating the air with his heels, hearing the horse bearing down, hearing the breathing, hearing the hooves, seeing an unfocused face nose-to-nose with him, hearing a voice tell him to calm down, it’s okay, what’s the prob, man?

  His legs went limp, with exhaustion, not relief.

  “Hey, buddy, what’s going on?”

  “There!” he yelled, pointing up the hill.

  Reed Turner followed the finger. “Mrs. Racine?”

  Dimitri gaped.

  The horse was gone.

  The only thing he could see was the old lady all in white, crossing the street with tiny, careful steps.

  “But...” He wriggled impatiently until Reed set him back on the ground. “But I saw ...”

  “It’s the heat, Dimmy,” Reed said, squeezing his shoulder quickly. “You ran full-out like that, you know you’re going to get nailed by the heat.”

  He blinked several times, looked up at his friend and was suddenly swamped with a dismay that sent him racing back toward home. He cried out once.

  “What?” Reed called after him.

  The boy didn’t answer, so intent on his flight that he nearly collided with Mrs. Racine, who didn’t even notice him.

  “Dimmy!” Reed called again, worried now that something was wrong, that maybe the other little kids had been after him, and all he had wanted was a little protection.

  “It’s all right.”

  Reed looked at the Moonglow entrance. “What do you mean? He was scared to death.”

  “Has a right to be,” Odam said, chewing on a toothpick. “Scary shit going on around here lately, boy, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  Reed hadn’t, but he didn’t feel like asking questions. He could see the man was in another one of his pissy moods. It was better just to mumble, give him a vague wave, and head for home. Besides, he was tired. His arms ached, his legs as they carried him past the diner down Hickory Street were wobbly, and his face felt as if it had been baked in an oven; his own fault. The temperature drop, the cool breeze, had tricked him into thinking he didn’t need much protection on the river today. Wrong. Real wrong. Nate had teased him all the way back, until Reed’s scowl had sent him on his way, muttering, then laughing loudly.

  Jerk, he thought, maybe at Nate, maybe at himself, and lifted a disgusted hand when a large moth dove out of the shade at his face. He swatted it away, feather touch against his knuckles, and swore when it came at him again a few seconds later. He hit it, saw it fall, and crushed it beneath his sole.

  It didn’t make a sound.

  Whole world’s going nuts, he decided, wiping the back of his neck, drying his hand on his shirt. Yesterday, some dumb-ass Philly tourist tried to drown his wife just because she wouldn’t sit in the back of the canoe. It took him, Nate, and Micah to pull the man off and calm him down.

  Two weeks ago, a fight in Mackey’s Bar had sent three men and a woman to the hospital, and closed the place down for a day so Arlo could patch up the walls and scrub up the blood; and Cora had snuck into the church Sunday night and rung the damn bell.

  Maybe not scary shit, but it was definitely weird shit.

  Halfway home, he turned and walked backward, thinking the world’s most beautiful woman might be back there, following him to see where he lived. Naked. Real naked.

  “Yeah,” he said, grinning. “Tell me another.”

  He faced front and walked on, keeping to the middle of the blacktop. No chance of anything coming. Except maybe a woodchuck searching for water. .

  He whistled a single note soft and low, glanced behind him, saw the tree shade moving, looked away and whistled again.

  Nothing naked back there.

  He giggled, and slapped his hands against his legs.

  In the middle of the block he passed a streetlamp, and slowed. Even though it was still a while before sunset, it was on and the bulb under its metal hood was nearly dark with moths of all sizes swarming frantically over the surface, dozens more fluttering wildly around it, swinging away and swinging back while the dead spiraled to the ground, some of them still, others flopping over the grass on curling burned wings.

  He was tempted to check it out, but the distant sound of a screen door slamming moved him on, angling to the left until he reached the man-high stump of a tree split and hollowed by lightning not long after he’d been born. A slope of grass served as a curb. Beyond was a two-story house with a pair of dormers on the roof. A brick walk to the porch.

  He looked at his watch and sat, his back against the dead tree. He hadn’t been there a minute before the front door opened, and a man came toward him.

  Reed looked up. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” his father said. “You’re home.”

  “Right on time.”

  “Any trouble?”

  He shook his head. “The water’s so low, I could’ve walked the whole way.”

  Harve Turner scratched his chest under his shirt, and belched. “I’ll tell your mother you’re here.”

  “Okay.”

  “You coming in?”

  Reed shook his head. “Not for a while, if that’s okay. It’s too hot in there.”

  Turner grunted, scratched again. “I’ll be fixing the air conditioner tomorrow. Damn thing’s working too hard, all this heat, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  Turner walked back to the house. “Not too late, all right? Your mother wants her supper soon.”

  “Sure.”

  The door opened, closed quietly, but not before he heard his mother ask a question.

  He reached between his legs and grabbed a handful of grass, crushing it and throwing it at the space where his father had stood. Then he closed his eyes and rested his head against the stump. Maybe he’d get lucky and fall asleep; maybe he’d get lucky, and his father would fall asleep; maybe the ground would open and swallow the whole town.

  The son of a bitch was already drunk again.

  And someone was watching him.

  He felt it, like a feather barely touching the back of his neck.

  He snapped his eyes open and looked around quickly, feeling like a jerk when he saw nothing but trees and empty lawns and, up the street, the moths still killing themselves, still falling.

  Dimitri, he decided. Whatever had spooked him must have rubbed off.

  Shit, he thought, and pushed himself to his feet. A glance at the house, and he decided to bum a meal off Nate and his mother. And while he was there, the world’s most beautiful woman would walk in the door, take his hand, drag him upstairs, and—

  He laughed. “Yeah. Right.”

  * * * *

  3

  8:40 p.m.

  D

  usk to full dark. Pale streetlamps, one to a block, washed pallid grey through the black. On Birch Street, on the Crest, a loose shutter on an empty house creaked and sighed with the slow evening breeze. In the stables at the end of Sycamore Road, a roan gelding pawed monotonously at the floor, a faint fleck of fo
am bubbling at the corner of its mouth. On Hickory Street, Harve Turner stood at the screen door, scratching his belly, wondering where the hell his snotnose kid had gone. In the woods at the north end of Hunter Lane, a black bear and her undersized cub tore at the carcass of a yearling buck, lapping its blood. The river whispered through tall reeds that hadn’t been there two weeks ago.

  There were no crickets.