more than a little relieved by McGovern's silent attentiveness. He began by sketching in things Bill already knew about-the incident between Ed and the truck-driver in the summer of '92, and how similar Ed's rantings on that occasion had been to the things he had said on the day he had beaten Helen for signing the petition. As Ralph spoke, he began to feel more strongly than ever that there were connections between all the odd things which had been happening to him, connections he could almost see.
He told McGovern about the auras, although not about the silent cataclysm he had experienced less than half an hour before-that was also further than he was willing to go, at least for the time being.
McGovern knew about Charlie Pickering's attack on Ralph, of course, and that Ralph had averted a much more serious injury by using the spray Helen and her friend had given him, but now Ralph told him something he had held back on Sunday night, when he'd told McGovern about the attack over a scratch dinner: how the spray-can had magically appeared in his jacket pocket. Except, he said, he suspected that the magician had been Old Dor.
"Holy shit!" McGovern exclaimed. "You've been living dangerously, Ralph!"
"I guess so."
"How much of this have you told Johnny Leydecker?"
Very little, Ralph started to say, then realized that even that would be an exaggeration. "Almost none of it. And there's something else I haven't told him. Something a lot more... well, a lot more substantive, I guess. To do with what happened up there." He pointed toward May Locher's house, where a couple of blue-and-white vans had just pulled up. MAINE STATE POLICE was written on the sides. d they were the forensics people Leydecker had mentioned.
"May?" McGovern leaned a little further forward in his chair.
"You know something about what happened to May?"
"I think I do." Speaking carefully, moving from word to word like a man using steppingstones to cross a treacherous brook, Ralph told McGovern about waking up, going into the living room, and seeing two men come out of Mrs. Locher's house. He recounted his successful rummage for the binoculars, and told McGovern about the scissors he had seen one of the men carrying. He did not mention his nightmare of Carolyn or the glowing tracks, and he most certainly did not mention his belated impression that the two men might have come right through the door; that would have finished off any remaining tatters of credibility he might still possess. He ended with his anonymous call to 911 and then sat in his chair, looking at McGovern anxiously.
McGovern shook his head as if to clear it. "Auras, oracles, mysterious housebreakers with scissors... you have been living dangerously."
"What do you think, Bill?"
McGovern sat quietly for several moments. He had rolled his newspaper up while Ralph was talking, and now he began to tap it absently against his leg. Ralph felt an urge to phrase his question even more bluntly-Do you think I'm crazy, Bill?-and quashed it.
Did he really believe that was the sort of question to which people gave honest answers... at least without a healthy shot of sodium pentothal first? That Bill might say Oh yes, I think you're just as crazy as a bedbug, Ralphie-bak'V, so why don't we call juniper Hill right away and see if they have a bed for you? Not very likely.
... and since any answer Bill gave would mean nothing, it was better to forgo the question.
"I don't exactly know what I think," Bill said at last. "Not yet, at least. What did they look like?"
"Their faces were hard to make out, even with the binoculars, 2 Ralph said. His voice was as steady as it had been yesterday, when he had denied making the 911 call.
"You probably don't have any idea of how old they were, either?"
"No."
"Could either of them have been our old pal from up the street?"
"Ed Deepneau?" Ralph looked at McGovern in surprise. "No, neither one was Ed."
"What about Pickering?"
"No. Not Ed, not Charlie Pickering. I would have known either of them. What are you driving at? That my mind just sort of buckled and put the two guys who've caused me the most stress in the last few months on May Locher's front stoop?"
"Of course not," McGovern replied, but the steady tap-tap-tap of the newspaper against his leg paused and his eyes flickered. Ralph felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach. Yes; that was in fact exactly