one thing confuses me, Becky,’ said the Collector. ‘Who was the passenger that Darina mentioned? Who was on that plane? Someone like you? One of the Backers? Should I start trying names?’
Becky managed to shake her head slightly. This, like the child, she would not give him.
‘Never mind,’ said the Collector. ‘I’m sure that it will all become clear in time.’
A look of sorrow crossed his face, and the soulless Hollow Men crowded around him in expectation of another joining their ranks. Tears welled up in Becky’s eyes. She tried to speak, her tongue beating weakly inside her ruined mouth like the flutterings of a trapped moth.
‘Hush, hush, Becky,’ said the Collector. ‘There’s no more to say.’
With the tip of his blade, he lifted the simple gold chain from around her neck. It had been given to her by her mother, and was her favorite item of jewelry. She watched as it was dropped into a pocket of his overcoat.
‘For my collection,’ he said. ‘Just so that you won’t be forgotten.’
The blade came close to her again.
‘You have been found wanting,’ said the Collector. ‘For your sins, I adjudge your life, and your soul, to be forfeit. Goodbye, Becky.’
And slowly, almost tenderly, he cut her throat.
32
Ray Wray was eating breakfast at Marcy’s Diner on Oak Street in Portland. He was also reading a copy of the Portland Press Herald that someone had kindly left on the next table, minus the sports section, which annoyed Ray Wray more than somewhat. It meant that he was forced to make do with the main paper and the local section, and, in general, Ray Wray couldn’t give a damn what happened in Portland. Just because he was a native of the state didn’t mean he had to like its principal city or show any interest in its activities. Ray came from the County, and County folk regarded Portland with suspicion.
Ray did like Marcy’s Diner, though. He liked the food, and the fact that it was comfortable without being kitsch, and played WBLM, the classic rock station. He liked the fact that it opened early and closed early, and only accepted cash. This suited Ray Wray down to the ground as he had a credit history so bad that he sometimes wondered if he was personally responsible for the collapse of the economy. Ray Wray owed more money than Greece, and whatever cash he had was usually in his pocket. He got by, but only just.
This was his first week back in Maine since taking a ‘city bullet’ down in New York: eight months on Rikers Island for felonious assault arising out of a disagreement with a Korean restaurateur who believed that Ray should have complained about the quality of the food on his plate before he’d eaten it all instead of after, and disputed Ray’s right to refuse payment for the meal. There had been some shouting, and a little pushing, and somehow the little Korean lost his balance and banged his head on the corner of a table, and the next thing Ray knew there were Koreans all over him, closely followed by cops and the judiciary of the state of New York. The sentence didn’t bother Ray much – he was flat broke anyway, and had been facing the prospect of living on the streets – but the food really had been terrible in that Korean place, and he’d only eaten it because he was so damn hungry.
Now here he was back in Maine with the hunting season almost over, and he hadn’t picked up any guide work worth talking about. He’d been forced to stay in Portland, where an ex-girlfriend had an apartment off Congress, not to mention a tolerant attitude to Ray Wray. She’d made it clear to him that her tolerance only extended so far, though, and didn’t involve him sharing her bed, or staying in her place beyond the end of November. She worked as a nurse over at Maine Medical so she wasn’t around much, which suited him just fine. There was a reason why she was his ex-girlfriend, and he remembered what it was after only a couple of days in her company.
He couldn’t stand her, was why.
His inability to secure guide work rankled. He was no longer a registered guide, but he knew those woods as well as anyone, and he still had contacts in some of the lodges and hunting stores. He’d spent time in the warden service before his temper and his drinking