The image of the full moon bobs on the water, multiplied into a lattice of ovals and oxbows, and Stanley’s eyes gradually translate it into a neutral screen. Two hundred yards south, maybe halfway to Brooks, a shapeless patch of black emerges: the ginger-bearded man and his dog. They’re meandering, changing direction. Stanley moves to put himself between them and the boardwalk, keeping them skylit as he goes. He can’t make out the man’s features but his outline is clear. The blackjack in Stanley’s pocket is chafing his thigh; he pulls it out, returns it to the small of his back.
A thread of pipesmoke carries on the shifting wind. The man is singing to himself, or maybe to the dog, in a language Stanley can’t place. It’s not Claudio’s Spanish, nor the Italian of the neighbor lady back home, but it’s like them. The man is walking toward Stanley now, closing the distance. Stanley keeps silent, holds his ground. He can see the orange glow of the man’s pipe as he sucks on it, the trail of smoke, the quavering air above its bowl. The night seems brittle, as if held together by an invisible armature of glass. A single word could shatter everything.
When he’s about fifteen feet away, the man spots Stanley. He gasps, comes to a halt. The dog strains at its leash, snuffling, then springs as if snakebit and starts to bark.
Hello, Stanley says. Excuse me.
The man switches the leash to his left hand; his right hand goes behind his back. He wears a tweed jacket over a sweater, the textures of the fabrics barely discernable in the dark. Stanley swallows hard.
I didn’t see you there, the man says. You gave me a start.
It’s okay, mister. I don’t mean you no trouble.
The man’s voice is tight, but steady. He seems scared. His right hand remains hidden. You shouldn’t be alone on this beach at night, he says. It’s not safe.
Stanley holds his arms out, spreads his fingers, but the man isn’t relaxing. His outline is shrinking back, balling up, and Stanley is pretty sure he’s about to get shot. For so long he has thought of what to say at this moment, but now nothing comes. All words seem to flee from him. He feels his mouth opening, closing. Adrian Welles? he says.
The man is stock-still, silent, an inert blot on the ocean’s silver curtain. The two of them stand there, not breathing, for what seems like a long time. Stanley is aware of the dog as it growls and paws the sand.
Who are you? the man says.
When Stanley speaks again, the voice that rises to his throat is utterly unfamiliar. In past moments of mortal terror his voice has sometimes reverted to that of his younger self; at other moments, when he’s been sad or tired, he’s heard his voice grow suddenly older, as if presaging a person he might one day become. But the voice that speaks now is neither of these. It belongs to someone unknown, from another life. Listen to it closely. You will never hear this voice again.
Are you Adrian Welles? Stanley says.
But he already knows the answer, and he is no longer afraid.
22
Welles is backing up, winding and bunching the dog’s leash. Trembling a bit. An old man in the dark. Don’t come any closer, he says. I have a pistol, and I will use it.
I been looking for you, Mister Welles, Stanley says. I don’t mean you any harm. You or your dog. I just want to talk about your book.
Welles takes a shallow breath, lets it out. My book, he says.
Yes sir. Your book. The Mirror Thief.
Stanley has never spoken the title aloud before. It feels clumsy in his mouth, and he regrets saying it. Loosed on the air, the words seem lifeless, insufficient for what they name.
Who are you? Welles says. Who sent you here?
This strikes Stanley as an odd question. Nobody sent me, he says. I just came.
Welles adjusts his footing on the sand. Then he says something in a foreign language. It sounds like Hebrew. Pardon me? Stanley says.
Welles repeats the phrase. It’s not Hebrew.
I’m sorry, Mister Welles, but I don’t have any goddamn idea what you just said.
What is your name, son?
I’m Stanley.
Your full name. What is it?
Stanley can’t see the man’s face well enough to read his expression. His short fingers are still absently gathering his dog’s leash. His spectacles pick up the coppery glare from the boardwalk, and both lenses are split down the middle by a dark shape, like the pupil of a cat’s eye, which Stanley realizes is his own shadow.
Glass, Stanley says. It’s Stanley Glass. Sir.
Welles’s right hand comes back into view. He wipes it against his jacket, rests it on his hip, lets it drop to his side. I saw you tonight, he says. In the café. Why didn’t you say something to me then?
I wasn’t sure it was you at first. I thought maybe, but I didn’t know. You, uh, probably oughta slack up on that leash a little bit, Mister Welles.
The leather braid has spooled thickly around Welles’s first two fingers, and the dog is twisting and backpedaling, thrashing the air with its forelegs, winched partway off the sand. Its growls have faded to a jowly sputter. Oh, Welles says. Yes.
Stanley looks out to sea, then down at the beach. He shuffles his feet, nervous again. He has so many questions, a labyrinth in his mind, one that seems at no point to intersect with the realm of normal human speech. This is much harder than he expected. I read your book, he says.
Yes.
And I have some questions about it.
Yes. All right.