She was in Eagle Point, in the backyard outside her mother’s big house.
She stood in the cold, which she did not feel anymore or which she felt all the time, she stood outside the house that her mother had bought in 1989 with the insurance money after Laura’s father, Harvey McCabe, had passed on, a heart attack while straining on the can, and she was staring in, her cold hands pressed against the glass, her breath not fogging it, not at all, watching her mother, and her sister and her sister’s children and husband in from Texas, home for Christmas. Out in the darkness, that was where Laura was, unable not to look.
Tears prickled in Shadow’s eyes, and he rolled over in his bed.
He felt like a Peeping Tom, turned his thoughts away, willed them to come back to him: he could see the lake spread out below him as the wind blew down from the arctic, prying jack-frost fingers a hundred times colder than the fingers of any corpse.
Shadow’s breath came shallowly now. 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.
V
Dingdong.
“MizCrow?”
“Yes.”
“Miz Samantha Black Crow?”
“Yes.”
“Do you mind if we ask you a few questions, 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)4you 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.”
“Whoah. 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 against him. 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.