horse back in the Arvada days, but I know it, just the same. I go down the hall, not wanting to, but my feet just keep moving—you know how dreams are. By then she’s really whamming on the door, beating on it with both fists, it sounds like, and I’m thinking of this horror story we had to read in English when I was in high school. I think it was called ‘August Heat.’”
Not “August Heat,” I thought. “The Monkey’s Paw.” That’s the one with the door-pounding in it.
“I reach for the knob, and then I wake up, all in a sweat. What do you make of that? My subconscious, trying to get me ready for the big exit scene?”
“Maybe,” I agreed, but my head had left the conversation. I was thinking about another door. A small one covered with dead ivy.
• • •
Jacobs called on July first. I was in one of the studios, updating the Apple Pro software. When I heard his voice, I sat down in front of the control board and looked through the window into a soundproof rehearsal room that was empty except for a disassembled drumkit.
“The time has almost come for you to keep your promise,” he said. His voice was mushy, as if he’d been drinking, although I’d never seen him take anything stronger than black coffee.
“All right.” My voice was calm enough. Why not? It was the call I had been expecting. “When do you want me to come?”
“Tomorrow. The day after at the latest. I suspect you won’t want to stay with me at the resort, at least to start with—”
“You suspect right.”
“—but I’ll need you no more than an hour away. When I call, you come.”
That made me think of another spooky story, one titled “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad.”
“All right,” I said. “But Charlie?”
“Yes?”
“You get two months of my time, and that’s it. When Labor Day rolls around, we’re quits no matter what happens.”
Another pause, but I could hear his breathing. It sounded labored, making me think of how Astrid had sounded in her wheelchair. “That’s . . . acceptable.” Acsheptable.
“Are you okay?”
“Another stroke, I’m afraid.” Shtroke. “My speech isn’t as clear as it once was, but I assure you my mind is as clear as ever.”
Pastor Danny, heal thyself, I thought, and not for the first time.
“Bit of news for you, Charlie. Robert Rivard is dead. The boy from Missouri? He hung himself.”
“I’m shorry to hear that.” He didn’t sound sorry, and didn’t waste time asking for details. “When you arrive, call me and tell me where you are. And remember, no more than an hour away.”
“Okay,” I said, and broke the connection.
I sat there in the unnaturally quiet studio for several minutes, looking at the framed album covers on the walls, then dialed Jenny Knowlton, in Rockland. She answered on the first ring.
“How’s our girl doing?” I asked.
“Fine. Putting on weight and walking a mile a day. She looks twenty years younger.”
“No aftereffects?”
“Nothing. No seizures, no sleepwalking, no amnesia. She doesn’t remember much about the time we spent at Goat Mountain, but I think that’s sort of a blessing, don’t you?”
“What about you, Jenny? Are you okay?”
“Fine, but I ought to go. We’re awfully busy at the hospital today. Thank God I’ve got vacation coming up.”
“You won’t go off somewhere and leave Astrid alone, will you? Because I don’t think that would be a good id—”
“No, no, certainly not!” There was something in her voice. Something nervous. “Jamie, I’ve got a page. I have to go.”
I sat in front of the darkened control panel. I looked at the album covers—actually CD covers these days, little things the size of postcards. I thought about a time not too long after I’d gotten my first car as a birthday present, that ’66 Ford Galaxie. Riding with Norm Irving. Him pestering me to put the pedal to the metal on the two-mile stretch of Route 9 we called the Harlow Straight. So we could see what she’d do, he said. At eighty, the front end began to shimmy, but I didn’t want to look like a wuss—at seventeen, not looking like a wuss is very important—so I kept my foot down. At eighty-five the shimmy smoothed out. At ninety, the Galaxie took on a dreamy, dangerous lightness as its contact with the road lessened, and I realized I’d reached the edge of control. Careful not to touch the brake—I knew from my father that could mean