Tears prickled in Shadow’s eyes, and he rolled over in his bed.
Wednesday, he thought, and with just a thought a window opened and he was watching from a corner of the room in the Motel 6, watching two figures thrusting and rolling in the semi-darkness.
He felt like a Peeping Tom, turned his thoughts away, willed them to come back to him. He could imagine huge black wings pounding through the night toward him, he could see the lake spread out below him as the wind blew down from the Arctic, breathed its cold on the land, forcing any remaining liquids to become solid, prying jack-frost fingers a hundred times colder than the fingers of any corpse.
Shadow’s breath came shallowly now, and he was no longer cold. He could hear a wind rising, a bitter screaming around the house, and for a moment he thought he could hear words on the wind.
If he was going to be anywhere, he might as well be here, he thought, and then he slept.
Meanwhile. A Conversation.
Dingdong.
“Miz Crow?”
“Yes.”
“You are Samantha Black Crow?”
“Yes.”
“Do you mind if we ask you a few questions, ma’am?”
“Yeah. I do, actually.”
“There’s no need to take that attitude, ma’am.”
“Are you cops? What are you?”
“My name is Town. My colleague here is Mister Road. We’re investigating the disappearance of two of our associates.”
“What were their names?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Tell me their names. I want to know what they were called. Your associates. Tell me their names and maybe I’ll help you.”
“…Okay. Their names were Mister Stone, and Mister Wood. Now, can we ask you some questions?”
“Do you guys just see things and pick names? ‘Oh, you be Mister Sidewalk, he’s Mister Carpet, say hello to Mister Airplane’?”
“Very funny, young lady. First question: we need to know if you’ve seen this man. Here. You can hold the photograph.”
“Whoa. Straight on and profile, with numbers on the bottom…and big. He’s cute, though. What did he do?”
“He was mixed up in a small-town bank robbery, as a driver, some years ago. His two colleagues decided to keep all the loot for themselves and ran out on him. He got angry. Found them. Came close to killing them with his hands. The state cut a deal with the men he hurt: they testified and got a suspended sentence, Shadow here got six years. He served three. You ask me, guys like that, they should just lock them up and throw away the key.”
“I’ve never heard anyone say that in real life, you know. Not out loud.”
“Say what, Miz Crow?”
“Loot. It’s not a word you ever hear people say. Maybe in movies people say it. Not for real.”
“This isn’t a movie, Miz Crow.”
“Black Crow. It’s Miz Black Crow. My friends call me Sam.”
“Got it, Sam. Now about this man—”
“But you aren’t my friends. You can call me Miz Black Crow.”
“Listen, you snot-nosed little—”
“It’s okay, Mister Road. Sam here—pardon, ma’am,—I mean, Miz Black Crow wants to help us. She’s a law-abiding citizen.”
“Ma’am, we know you helped Shadow. You were seen with him, in a white Chevy Nova. He gave you a ride. He bought you dinner. Did he say anything that could help us in our investigation? Two of our best men have vanished.”
“I never met him.”
“You met him. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking we’re stupid. We aren’t stupid.”
“Mm. I meet a lot of people. Maybe I met him and forgot already.”
“Ma’am, it really is to your advantage to cooperate with us.”
“Otherwise, you’ll have to introduce me to your friends Mister Thumbscrews and Mister Pentothal?”
“Ma’am, you aren’t making this any easier on yourself.”
“Gee. I’m sorry. Now, is there anything else? Cos I’m going to say ‘buh-bye now’ and close the door and I figure you two are going to go and get into Mister Car and drive away.”
“Your lack of cooperation has been noted, ma’am.”
“Buh-bye now.”
Click.
CHAPTER TEN
I’ll tell you all my secrets
But I lie about my past
So send me off to bed for evermore
—TOM WAITS, “TANGO TILL THEY’RE SORE”
A whole life in darkness, surrounded by filth, that was what Shadow dreamed, his first night in Lakeside. A child’s life, long ago and far away, in a land across the ocean, in the lands where the sun rose. But this life contained no sunrises, only dimness by day and blindness by night.
Nobody spoke to him. He heard human voices, from outside, but he could understand human speech no better than he understood the howling of the owls or the yelps of dogs. He remembered, or thought he remembered, one night, half a lifetime ago, when one of the big people had entered, quietly, and had not cuffed him or fed him, but had picked him up to her breast and embraced him. She smelled good. She had made crooning noises. Hot drops of water had fallen from her face to his. He had been scared, and had wailed loudly in his fear.
She put him down on the straw, hurriedly, and left the hut, fastening the door behind her.
He remembered that moment, and he treasured it, just as he remembered the sweetness of a cabbage-heart, the tart taste of plums, the crunch of apples, the greasy delight of roasted fish.
And now he saw the faces in the firelight, all of them looking at him as he was led out from the hut for the first time, which was the only time. So that was what people looked like. Raised in darkness, he had never seen faces. Everything was so new. So strange. The bonfire light hurt his eyes. They pulled on the rope around his neck, to lead him to the space between the two bonfires, where the man waited for him.
And when the first blade was raised in the firelight, what a cheer went up from the crowd and the child from the darkness began to laugh and laugh with them, in delight and in freedom.
And then the blade came down.
Shadow opened his eyes and realized that he was hungry and cold, in an apartment with a layer of ice clouding the inside of the window glass. His frozen breath, he thought. He got out of bed, pleased he did not have to get dressed. He scraped at a window with a fingernail as he passed, felt the ice collect under the nail, then melt to water.
He tried to remember his dream, but remembered nothing but misery and darkness.
He put on his shoes. He figured he would walk into the town center, walk across the bridge across the northern end of the lake, if he had the geography of the town right. He put on his thin jacket, remembering his promise to himself that he would buy a warm winter coat, opened the apartment door and stepped out onto the wooden deck. The cold took his breath away: he breathed in, and felt every hair in his nostrils freeze into rigidity. The deck gave him a fine view of the lake, irregular patches of gray surrounded by an expanse of white.
He wondered how cold it was. The cold snap had come, that was for sure. It could not be much above zero, and it would not be a pleasant walk, but he was certain he could make it into town without too much trouble. What did Hinzelmann say last night—a ten-minute walk? And Shadow was a big man. He would walk briskly and keep himself warm.