In the night room Page 0,101

change in any obvious way moment by moment, and certainly without moving so much as a finger, Kalendar then demonstrated that Cyrax had known what was coming. Inch by inch, cell by cell, and hair by hair, Kalendar mutated into a sleek, smooth black-haired man with a gambler’s mustache and extremely white teeth. Kalendar hated showing his face, and good old Tim had kindly stepped in to provide a handsome alternative. Faber was wearing a tuxedo, but he looked nothing like a headwaiter. Grinning like a dog, Mitchell Faber took a step toward Underhill, whose foremost response was the impulse to turn and run. Make haste make haste . . . the Dark Man cometh, he had written in his last book, and here he was, a literally Dark Man. Against Faber’s burnished, olive-complected skin his onyx eyebrows shone, the whites of his eyes gleamed. He looked purely carnivorous. In his wake floated many more corpses than Joseph Kalendar had created. If you gave Faber fifteen more years, a run of bad luck, and a stretch in prison, he would wind up looking a lot like Jasper Dan Kohle.

Tim refused to give him what he wanted, a show of fear, although fear now occupied the entire center of his body. He was incapable of speech. Faber advanced another gliding step and then was gone, leaving an insolent vacancy where he had been. The air moved again. Willy came up from out of the car and closed the door. When she saw his face, she said, “You really don’t want to do this, do you?”

Tim ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “I was a little dizzy. Let’s meet the groom.”

With a sudden desire for a show of ceremony, he took Willy’s arm and escorted her down the sidewalk to his brother’s house. The attention made her happy, and she leaned her head against his shoulder.

A second after Tim rang the bell, the door flew open upon a transformed Philip Underhill. In place of a boxy suit, cheap white shirt, and deliberately nondescript necktie, a uniform Philip had worn nearly every day of the past twenty-five years, he had on a blue button-down shirt and khakis—hardly a revolutionary getup, but pretty radical for Philip. The rimless glasses had been replaced by tortoiseshell frames; his thinning hair was parted on the left and had grown long enough to touch the tops of his ears. He had lost at least thirty pounds. Most amazing of all was that he appeared to be smiling.

Although Tim had been prepared in advance by their recent telephone conversation, his first response to this transformation was to think, That woman ruined my brother! His second reflection was that the effects of ruination had been entirely beneficial. The immediate result of these changes in style had been to make Philip Underhill look more intelligent. He also appeared to be a good deal friendlier than his earlier incarnation.

“Boy,” Tim said, holding out a hand. “You aren’t even recognizable.”

Philip grasped his forearm and pulled him into an embrace. Well past the sort of phenomenon described as “astonishing,” this verged upon the miraculous. So did his greeting.

“Good, I don’t want to be recognizable. I’m so glad you’re here! That’s the perfect wedding present, Tim.”

“I’ll come to all your weddings,” Tim said.

Philip drew him into the house and demanded to be introduced to “this beautiful companion of yours.”

Tim’s efforts to think of some way to account for Willy disintegrated when he took in what had happened to the living room. “You changed everything. Where’s the old furniture?”

“Goodwill or the junk heap. China helped me pick out this new stuff. I want to know what you think, but, please, first introduce me to your friend.”

Tim pronounced Willy’s name and stalled, unable to think of what to say next.

“I’m one of your brother’s fictional characters,” Willy said, shaking Philip’s hand. “It’s a wonderful job, full of excitement, but the money’s no good.”

“My brother should pay you just for spending time with him.”

Another amazement—Philip had made a joke.

“Oh, he’s easy to spend time with. I’m quite attached to him.”

As Philip dealt with the possibilities suggested by Willy’s statement, Tim let his initial impression of the living room separate itself out into the details of what had stunned him. The transformation was so great that Philip might as well have moved to a different house. Prints and framed photographs hung on the walls. The floor had been sanded and waxed and polished to a