Ash Wednesday (45 page)

He would not, however, have entered the newsstand under any circumstance, and did not even drive past it, taking side streets and alleyways rather than pass by its green-blinded windows. He bought his papers and magazines, as did nearly all of Marie Snyder's former patrons, at the Turkey Hill Mini-Mart on Oak Street. The selection was minimal, but at least the clerks were living.

In time, Clyde Thornton forgot the fear that Marie Snyder and her knowledge had caused him. It was almost natural that Thornton, all his life nothing but an unheralded petty bureaucrat in a faceless bureau, should come to think of his now-meteoric course as inspired by something beyond his understanding. Everything that had happened here had been for the best—at least
his
best. He was known nationwide, he was receiving large amounts of money for doing next to nothing (and that was only the beginning—after all this was over he could make a mint on the speaker circuit, he was sure of it), and the only thing that had stood in his way was gone, gotten rid of forever.

And
he
had gotten rid of it, neatly, tidily, the only evidence a blue half ghost that could say nothing. And though Clyde Thornton had not believed in a God since his tenth birthday, he was now beginning to believe very strongly in a destiny of his own making, and to slowly see himself as something more than one of the poor, blind fools who walked the streets of sad, chilly Merridale.

I am meant for something more, Clyde Thornton thought as he carefully took his money and even more carefully disposed of it. I am meant for greatness, he thought as in the cocktail lounges he took his pick of the lonely ladies who were so hungry to fuck fame.

And how much more? he wondered. He was what, forty-two? Not too old to do big things, was it? He was known, he had charisma, he had trust, and soon he would have money as well. Politics? He had already proven he could lead. The people in Merridale thought he could walk on water. He had their trust and their respect. It still amazed him how quickly they'd turned to him, leaving their own mayor in the lurch.

He grinned as he remembered Tom Markley's wife after the town meeting just a week ago, the two of them suddenly alone in the lobby. She had made it damn plain what she wanted, and he'd almost been ready to take her up on it when he thought it might be getting a little too close to home. Divorcees and single women (and all right, maybe an occasional married one, very discreetly) were one thing, but the mayor's wife was another. Besides, she was older, nearly fifty, he guessed (though a damn
solid
fifty), and he could do better. But if Markley became any more of a prick than he already was, well, maybe he'd still consider it. Hell, Clyde Thornton could have whatever he wanted.

~*~

"Whatever he wants,
y'know
?
Livin
' out there in that big house. I bet your ass he's got orgies out there." Fred
Hibbs
popped the tab on a can of Rolling Rock and took a swig. The top of the can reeked of cigarette smoke that had accumulated from weeks of sitting in the Anchor's cooler, but Fred didn't seem to mind.

Eddie Karl did, and he poured his beer into a glass with "America-200 Years of Glory 1776-1976" etched crudely on the side, leaned his chair back, and propped his shoes on the edge of his kitchen table. "He don't have no orgies," he said.

"How do
you
know?"

"Nobody's never had no orgies in Merridale. It's in the town code. If you have an orgy, you get hit by lightning.”

“Bull
shit
," said Fred
Hibbs
.

"You ever read the town code?"

"Well, maybe he don't have orgies, but I bet he fucks a lot of women."

"
Nothin
' about
that
in the town code," Eddie said. "I even heard he's fuckin'
Mim
Markley."

"Now
that's
bullshit."

"Why? You think she wouldn't?"

"No, I think maybe she would.
Women're
damn funny when it comes to
doin
' it and who they'll do it with." Eddie stuck out his lower lip and balanced the salt shaker on top of the pepper shaker. "I don't think
he'd
do it."

"Thornton?"

"Uh-huh. Besides, I got spies. They'd tell me if
Mim
was
screwin
' around."

"What spies?"

"Ned Phillips for one. He's right near Markley's."

Fred screwed up his face and pushed his chair back from the table. "I'm gonna watch TV."

"
Ned'd
know."

"News is on." Fred stood up and moved toward the living room.

Eddie looked at Fred's retreating form. "You don't think Ned would know, do ya?"

"Ned is
dead
,
goddammit
!" Fred shouted, twisting around. "He's
dead!
Now how the hell is he gonna tell you
anything?
”

“Well, you
could
humor me," said Eddie, standing up.

"You're supposed to humor us loonies,
y'know
?"

"I
tried
to humor you, you old fart, but you kept
at
me! Now can we just forget it and go in and watch the dumbass news?"

"Can't tonight."

"Why not?"

"I got a date."

"What in hell are you
talkin
' about?"

"I'm
takin
' Harriet
Viner
to the movies, if it's any of your business."

"Aw, shit." Fred shook his head in frustration. Harriet
Viner
had died in a rest home ten years before, and the town's sole movie theater had closed its doors for good in 1974. "I'm gonna watch the news." He walked into the dimly lit living room, turned the switch on the old Emerson, and committed his bulk to the tired cushions of the
highbacked
davenport.

"
Ain'tcha
gonna wish me a good time?" asked Eddie, standing in the doorway.

"Have a good time."

"
Goin
' to the Anchor after the movie. If I ain't home tonight, you'll know I got lucky. Or maybe I'll bring her back here.”

Fred
Hibbs
swallowed heavily, closed his eyes, and kept them closed until he heard the front door open and shut. When he looked, Eddie was gone.

It's nice here, Fred thought. It is nice here. There were no ghosts—nowhere in the house and none in the small backyard. There, garages encroached upon the property, hiding any distant blue forms from view, so that when you stood outside the back door, it was as though you were in Merridale before the phenomenon had taken place. From the front of the house, which looked out onto the street, the forms were visible, but they kept the front shades drawn. Fred
Hibbs
spent nearly all his time in the house, going out only to cash his Social Security check, or to have breakfast at the Hitching Post or to help Eddie with the grocery shopping. It was not an unpleasant prison. The house, though small from the outside, used its space wisely. It was a frame two-story building built at the turn of the century. Though its front door was less than six feet from the sidewalk on Market Street, it was in the southern, less busy section of town, where the residential atmosphere was broken only occasionally by a convenience store or gas station. The rooms, devoid of a woman's touch for decades, were nonetheless cozy and comfortable, the walls dark, the furniture old and friendly. Fred had been amazed by the great quantity of books that, jammed into homemade bookcases of every conceivable size and shape, filled each corner of each room.
Hardcovers
from the twenties shared shelf space with eighties paperbacks, the smaller books stuffed above and beside the hardbacks as though used for packing. One cellar room held a profusion of magazines, from a stack of 1932
Argosy
, to fifties'
Popular Mechanics
, to last year's
Susquehanna
.

"Jesus, Eddie," said Fred when he first saw them. "I didn't know you read so much."

"Gotta do somethin' when you're a single man.
Whatta
you
do with your time?"

Fred had shrugged. "Watch TV a lot, I guess."

"Well, I got one. Don't watch much myself, though I liked that
Charlie's Angels
show. And Milton
Berle
. Not much worth watching now."

"How come you keep all these?"

"The books? I keep 'em long enough I forget I read 'em, so it's like
readin
' a new book. But don't worry, there ain't too many of 'em in your room." And there weren't just one small bookcase by the bed, filled mostly with Executioner and Nick Carter—
Killmaster
novels. Fred tried to read one, but the word-by-word effort he had to put forth was not worth it, and he put it aside after three chapters, thankful that the television worked.

To Fred's surprise, he had gotten along well with Eddie for the first few weeks. They cooked and ate together, watched TV (Eddie discovered that he liked the
Star Trek
reruns Fred tuned in), played cards (gin was the favorite, Eddie winning most of the time), and drank on Saturday nights. They'd start with a few beers at Ted's Place, a small neighborhood bar a few blocks away, and then wend their way back to Eddie's, where they would 'split a six-pack of Rolling Rock. Fred
Hibbs
was a Schmidt's drinker, but Eddie protested that Schmidt's made him fart.

Five beers each over a two-hour period never made either of them drunk, but it did slip them into a garrulous camaraderie, the ease of which later extended into their comparatively sober moments. At such times, Eddie seemed to forget his half promise not to be cozy with the dead when Fred was around. Lounging with his feet up on the shabby elephant-foot ottoman, Eddie would launch into a narrative of whom he had run into that day, both dead and alive. Fred would feel his stomach churn the way it did when he'd had to go into the kitchen of his own house, and he'd try to change the subject. But Eddie would be nonplussed, rambling on about
Clete
Wilkins or
Rouamie
Hack, and how goddamn good they looked for their age, until Fred would finally get mad and call Eddie a loony and Eddie would laugh and tell Fred to sit down, sit down, and then start to talk about something else.

It had been getting worse, though, in the last week or two. It was bad enough when Fred walked the streets with Eddie, and Eddie would call out a greeting to a dim, blue shape or, even more absurdly, stop and chat with empty air. But lately Eddie had taken to talking to the dead in his own house (
their
house, Fred thought). As yet he had not done it in front of Fred, but Fred had heard him from another room and, at first thinking there was someone in the house, had gone to see who was there. But it was only Eddie, Eddie alone, who snapped his mouth shut in
midword
and glared at Fred as though irked at having been interrupted.

Late that same night Fred had lain awake in his bed, listening to Eddie's voice droning in his own bedroom. The words were soft, and Fred was unsuccessful at interpreting any complete sentences. But the few words he was able to understand told him that Eddie Karl was talking to a woman, telling her how lovely she was as he ran his hand over her body, or the memory of her body.

Fred got out of bed, pulled his flannel bathrobe tightly around his pajama-clad body, and stepped quietly into the short, upstairs hall. Keeping against the wall so the floorboards would creak as little as possible, he shuffled the few steps to Eddie's door, from under which poured a puddle of dim, yellow light. What Fred
wanted
to do was to throw the door open and shout, "Shut up, shut up, you crazy old fart," but there was something about the singsong voice, an intensity, an
edge
, that prevented him.

In truth, Fred
Hibbs
was afraid of what he would see if he opened that door. At the least it would repulse him; at the worst, horrify him. Turning and walking away would leave him with the idea (
illusion?
) that he was the guest of only a harmless old coot with cobwebs where some of his brains used to be, and not a truly fucked-up, whacked-out pervert weirdo madman who really
had
seen the dead people before anybody else. So he turned slowly, hesitating for a moment as he noticed the keyhole and thought about how easy it would be to peek through it.