Black House (Page 115)

Certainty fills her heart like cold water. "What do you know?" she asks. "Why did you come?"

"Know!" croaks the Crow Gorg, nodding its beak briskly up and down. "Come!"

And does it wink? Good God, does it wink at her?

"Who killed her?" Tansy Freneau whispers. "Who killed my pretty baby?"

The crow’s eyes fix her, turn her into a bug on a pin. Slowly, feeling more in a dream than ever (but this is happening, on some level she understands that perfectly), she crosses to the table. Still the crow watches her, still the crow draws her on. Night’s Plutonian shore, she thinks.

Night’s Plutonian f**kin’ shore.

"Who? Tell me what you know!"

The crow looks up at her with its bright black eyes. Its beak opens and closes, revealing a wet red interior in tiny peeks.

"Tansy!" it croaks. "Come!"

The strength runs out of her legs, and she drops to her knees, biting her tongue and making it bleed. Crimson drops splatter her U of W sweatshirt. Now her face is on a level with the bird’s face. She can see one of its wings brushing up and down, sensuously, on the glass side of the coffee-brandy bottle. The smell of Gorg is dust and heaped dead flies and ancient urns of buried spice. Its eyes are shining black portholes looking into some other world. Hell, perhaps. Or Sheol.

"Who?" she whispers.

Gorg stretches its black and rustling neck until its black beak is actually in the cup of her ear. It begins to whisper, and eventually Tansy Freneau begins to nod. The light of sanity has left her eyes. And when will it return? Oh, I think we all know the answer to that one.

Can you say "Nevermore"?

16

6:45 P.M. FRENCH LANDING is fogged out, fagged out, and uneasy in its heart, but quiet. The quiet won’t last. Once it has started, slippage never stops for long.

At Maxton’s, Chipper has stayed late, and considering the leisurely (and really quite sensational) blow job being administered to him by Rebecca Vilas as he sits sprawled in his office chair, his decision to put in a little overtime isn’t that surprising.

In the common room, the old folks sit transfixed by Julie Andrews and The Sound of Music. Alice Weathers is actually crying with happiness — Music is her all-time favorite movie. Singin’ in the Rain comes close, but close never won the cigar. Among those MEC inmates who are ambulatory, only Burny is missing . . . except no one here misses him at all. Burny is deep in sleep. The spirit that now controls him — the demon, we might as well say — has its own agenda in French Landing, and it has used Burny roughly over these last few weeks (not that Burny’s complaining; he is a very willing accomplice).

On Norway Valley Road, Jack Sawyer is just pulling his Dodge Ram into Henry Leyden’s driveway. The fog out here is thinner, but it still turns the truck’s headlamps into soft coronas. Tonight he will recommence Bleak House at chapter 7 ("The Ghost’s Walk") and hopefully reach the end of chapter 8 ("Covering a Multitude of Sins"). But before Dickens, he has promised to listen to the Wisconsin Rat’s latest candidate for hot rotation, a number called "Gimme Back My Dog" by Slob-berbone.

"Every five years or so, another great rock-‘n’-roll song comes break-dancing out of the woodwork," Henry has told him over the phone, and Jack’s damned if he can’t hear the Rat screaming around the edges of his friend’s voice, popping wheelies out there on the edge of darkness. "This is a great rock-‘n’-roll song."

"If you say so," Jack replies dubiously. His idea of a great rock-‘n’-roll song is "Runaround Sue," by Dion.

At 16 Robin Hood Lane (that sweet little Cape Cod honey of a home), Fred Marshall is down on his hands and knees, wearing a pair of green rubber gloves and washing the floor. He’s still got Tyler’s baseball cap balanced on his head, and he’s weeping.

Out at the Holiday Trailer Park, the Crow Gorg is dripping poison into the porches of Tansy Freneau’s ears.

In the sturdy brick house on Herman Street where he lives with the beautiful Sarah and the equally beautiful David, Dale Gilbertson is just getting ready to head back to the office, his movements slightly slowed by two helpings of chicken pot pie and a dish of bread pudding. When the telephone rings, he is not terribly surprised. He’s had that feeling, after all. His caller is Debbi Anderson, and from her first word he knows that something has popped.

He listens, nodding, asking an occasional question. His wife stands in the kitchen doorway, watching him with worried eyes. Dale bends and jots on the pad beside the phone. Sarah walks over and reads two names: Andy Railsback and M. Fine.

"You’ve still got Railsback on the line?" he asks.

"Yes, on hold — "

"Patch me in."

"Dale, I don’t know if I know how to do that." Debbi sounds uncharacteristically flustered. Dale closes his eyes a moment, reminds himself that this isn’t her usual job.

"Ernie’s not there yet?"

"No."

"Who is?"

"Bobby Dulac . . . I think Dit might be in the shower . . ."

"Put Bobby on," Dale says, and is relieved when Bobby is able to patch him quickly and painlessly through to Andy Railsback in Morty Fine’s office. The two men have been upstairs to room 314, and one look at the Polaroids scattered on the floor of George Potter’s closet has been enough for Morty. He’s now as pale as Andy himself. Maybe paler.

Outside the police station, Ernie Therriault and Reginald "Doc" Amberson meet in the parking lot. Doc has just arrived on his old (but perfectly maintained) Harley Fat Boy. They exchange amiable greetings in the fog. Ernie Therriault is another cop — sort of — but relax: he’s the last one we’ll have to meet (well, there is an FBI agent running around here someplace, but never mind him right now; he’s in Madison, and he’s a fool).