Sometimes, in a fury of despair, he would switch off the screen and toy with the notion of unplugging the whole system; leaving the tale-tellers to babble on in silence and darkness. But he would always return to his chair after a time, addict that he was, guiltily turn the screens back on to study whatever bizarrities the Reef had accrued in his absence. In early spring, the beast Sclerosis had suddenly become ambitious; within the space of a month he felt twenty years of frailties overtake him. He was prescribed heavier medications, which he diligently took, and the doctor offered advice about planning for disability, which he just as diligently ignored. He would never go into a wheelchair; that much he'd decided. He'd take an overdose one night, and slip away; it would be easier that way. He had no wife to hold on for; no children to watch grow just another day. He had only the screens, and the tales they told; and they would gd until the end of the world, with or without him.
And then, in early June, a strange thing: There was a sudden escalation in the number of reports, the systems besieged every hour of the day and night with people wanting to share their secrets. There was no coherent pattern in this onslaught, but the sheer scale of it made him wonder if the madness was not reaching critical mass.
Around that time Tesia had checked in from New Mexico, and he'd told her what was going on. She'd been in one of her fatalistic moods (too much peyote, he suspected) and not much interested. When he'd called Harry D'Amour in New York, however, the response had been entirely different. D'Amour, the sometime detective whose cases had invariably turned into metaphysical excursions, was eager for information. they had spoken at least twice daily over a three-week period, with D'Amour demanding chapter and verse of any report that smacked of the Satanic, particularly if it originated in New York. Grillo found D'Amour's faith in the vocabulary of Catholicism absurd, but he played along. And yes, there were a number of reports that fitted the description. Two mutilation-murders in the Bronx, involving nails through the hands and feet, and a triple suicide at a convent in Brooklyn (all of which D'Amour had already investigated); then a host of other more minor oddities which he was not aware of, some of which clearly supported some thesis or other. D'Amour had declined to be explicit, even on a safe line, as to the precise nature of that thesis, until their last conversation. Then he'd solemnly told Grillo he had good reason to believe that the return of the Anti-Christ was being plotted in New York City. Grillo had not been entirely able to disguise how laughable he thought the notion.
"Oh you don't like the wordy, is that it?" D'Amour had replied. "We'll find something different, if you prefer. Call it the lad. Call it the Enemy. It's all the Devil by another name." they hadn't spoken after that, though Grillo had several times attempted to make further contact. There were new reports from the five boroughs almost every day, it seemed, many of them involving acts of sickening brutality. Several times Grillo had wondered if perhaps one of the bodies found rotting on the city's wastelands that summer was not that of Harry D'Amour. And wondered too what name he might call the Devil if it came looking for D'Amour's informer, here in Omaha.
Sclerosis, perhaps.
And then there'd come this recent call from Tesla, asking about sightings of Fletcher, and he'd finished the exchange with such an emptiness inside him, he was almost ready to take the overdose there and then. Why could he not bear the notion of her coming to see him?
Because he looked too much like his father now; legs like sticks, hair gray and brittle? Because he was afraid she'd turn away, unable to see him like this? She'd never do that. Even in her crazy times (and she'd had more than her share) she never lost her grip on the feelings between them.
No, what he feared was regret. What he feared was her seeing him in decline, and saying: Why didn't we do better with what we feel for each other? Why didn't we enjoy what was in our hearts, instead of hiding it away? What he feared was being told it was too late, even though he already knew it.
Once again, the Reef had saved him from utter despair. After her call he'd brooded for a while-thinking of the pills, thinking of his stupidities-and then, too weary to think any more but too stirred up to sleep, he'd gone back to his place in front of the monitors, to see if he could find any convincing reports of the Fletcher's presence.
It was not Fletcher he found, however. Sifting through the reports logged in the last couple of weeks, he came across a tale that had previously gone unread. It came from a regular and, he thought, reliable source: a woman in Illinois who printed up crime-scene photographs for a local county sheriff's department. She had a horrible account to make. A young couple had been attacked in late July, the female victim, who was seven months pregnant, killed outright and then opened up by the attacker, who had taken his leisurely time to examine her in front of her wounded lover," then removed the fetus and absconded with it. The father had died a day later, but not before he passed a strange description along to the police, which had been kept out of the newspapers because of its bizarrity, but which Grillo's informer felt needed relating. The killer had not been alone, the dying man had said. He'd been surrounded by a cloud of dust "full of screams and faces."
"I begged him," he'd gone on to say, "begged him not to mess up Louise, but he kept saying he had to, he had to. He was the Death-Boy, he said, and that's what Death-Boys did."
That, in essence, had been the report. Having read it Grillo sat for half an hour in front of the screen, as confounded as he was intrigued. What was happening out there in the real world? Fletcher had died in the mall at Palomo Grove. Cremated; gone to flame and spirit. Tommy-Ray McGuire, the son of the Jaff, the Death-Boy, had died a few days later, at a spot in New Mexico called Trinity. He too had been cremated, but in a more terrible fire than had consumed Fletcher.
they were both dead, their parts in the tangled tale of humanity and the dream-sea over. Or so everyone had supposed.
was it possible everyone had been wrong? That somehow they'd defied oblivion and each returned to pick up the threads of their ambition? If so, there was only one explanation as to how. Both had been touched by the Nuncio during their lives. Perhaps evolution's message was more extraordinary than anyone had guessed, and it had put them beyond the reach of death.
He shuddered, daring to think that. Beyond the reach of death. Now there was a promise worth living for.
He called California. A bleary Tesia answered the phone.
"Tes, it's me."
"What time is it?"
"Never mind the time. I've been going through the Reef, looking for stuff about Fletcher."
"I know where he's headed," Tesia said. "At least I think I know."
"Where?"
"This town in Oregon, called Everville. Has it ever turned up in the street?"
"It doesn't ring a bell, but that doesn't mean much."
"So why are you calling? It's the middle of the fucking night."
"Tommy-Ray." "Hub?" "What do you hear about Tommy-Ray?"
"Nothing. He died in the Loop." "Did he?" There was a hush from the other end. Then Tesla said, "Yeah. 11 "You got out. So did Jo-Beth and Howie-"
"What are you saying?" "I've found a report in the Reef about a killer calling himself the Death-Boy-"
"Grillo," Tesia said. "You wake me up-" "And he's surrounded by a cloud of dust. And the dust's screaming." Tesla drew a long breath, and expelled it slowly. "When was this?" she said softly. "Less than a month ago." "What did he do?" "Killed a couple in Illinois. Ripped a baby out of the woman. Left the guy for dead." "Careless. Is that the only report?"
"It's the only one I've found so far, but I'll keep looking."
"I'll check in on my way up to Oregon@' "I was thinking@'Grillo began.
"You should talk to Howie and Jo-Beth." "Yeah, I will. I was thinking about Fletcher." "When did you last talk to them?" "A couple of weeks ago." "And?" Tesla pressed. "they were fine," Grillo replied.
"Tommy-Ray had the hots for her, you know. They're twins-2' "I know@'
"One egg, one soul. I swear, he was crazy about her-"
"Fletcher," Grillo said. "What about him?"
"If he's there in Everville I'm going to come meet him." "What for?" There was a short pause. Then Grillo said, "For the Nuncio."
"What are you talking about? There is no Nuncio. I destroyed the last of it." "He's got to have kept some for himself." "He was the one that asked me to destroy it, for God's sake." "No. He kept some." "What the hell's all this about?" "I'll tell you some other time. You find Fletcher, and I'll try tracing Tommy-Ray."
"Try sleeping first, Grillo. You sound like shit."
"I don't sleep much these days, Tes. It's a waste of time."
SEVEN
Howie had started working on the car just after eight, intending to get his tinkering over and done with before the sun got too hot. This was the fifth blistering summer they'd lived in Illinois, and he was determined it would be the last. He'd thought returning to the state where he'd been born and raised would be reassuring in a time of uncertainty. Not so. All it had done was remind him of how radically his life had changed in the last half-decade, and how few of those changes had been for the better.
But whenever his spirits were down-which was often since he'd lost his job in March-he only had to look at Jo-Beth cradling Amy and he would feel them rise again.
It was five years since he'd first laid eyes on Jo-Beth in Palomo Grove; five years since their fathers had waged war on the streets to keep them apart. Years in which they'd lived under an assumed name in a suburb where nobody cared about your life because they'd given up caring about their own. Where the sidewalks were littered and the cars dirty and smiles hard to come by. It wasn't the life he'd wanted to give his wife and his daughter, but D'Amour had put it to them this way: If they lived in plain sight as Mr. and Mrs. Howard Katz, they would be found within months and murdered. they knew too much about the secret life of the world to be allowed to survive. Forces sworn to protect that life would silence them, and call themselves heroes for doing so. This was certain.
So they had hidden themselves away in Illinois, and only called each other Howie and Jo-Beth when the doors were bolted and the windows locked. And so far the trick had kept them alive. But it had taken its toll. It was hard, living in shadow, not daring to plan too much, to hope too hard. Once every couple of months Howie would talk to D'Amour, and ask him for some sense of how things were going. How long, he'd say, before they've forgotten who the hell we are, and we can get out into the light again? D'Amour was no great diplomat, but time after time Howie could hear him doing his best to prettify the truth a little; to find some way of keeping them from despair.
But Howie was out of patience. This was the last summer they'd be in this God forsaken hole of a place, he told himself as he sweated under the hood; the last summer he'd pretend he was somebody he wasn't to satisfy D'Amour's paranoia. Maybe once he and Jo-Beth had some part to play in the drama they'd glimpsed half a decade before; but that time had surely passed. The forces D'Amour had evoked to intimidate them-the murderous heroes who would slaughter them in their beds-had more urgent matters on their minds than pursuing two people who'd chanced to swim in Quiddity once upon a time.
The phone was ringing in the house. Howie stopped work, and picked up a rag to clean his hands. He'd skinned his knuckles, and they were stinging. He was sucking at the bloodiest when Jo-Beth appeared on the step, squinting in the sun just long enough to say, "It's for you," then disappearing into the darkness of the house.
It was Grillo.
"What's up?" Howie said. "Nothing much," came the reply. "I was calling to see if you were okay,"
"Amy's keeping us up most nights, but otherwise@'
"Still no job?"
"No job. I keep looking, but@'
"It's tough."
"We're going to have to move, Nathan. Just get out there and start a proper life."
"This... may not be the best time to do it."
:'Things are going to look up." 'I'm not talking economics."
"What then?" Silence. "Nathan?" "I don't want to alarm you-"
"But?" "It's probably nothing-"
"Will you spit it out, for God's sake?" "It's Tommy-Ray." "He's dead, Grillo." "I know that's what we've assumed-" Howie lowered his voice to a fierce whisper. "What the hell are you telling me?" "We're not exactly sure."
"We?"
"Tesla and me." "I thought she'd disappeared." "She did for a time. Now she's on her way up to Oregon-"
"Go on."
"She says your father's up there." Howie was a heartbeat from slamming the phone down. "I know how this sounds@' Grillo said quickly.
"it sounds like shit is what it sounds like," Howie said.
"I wasn't ready to believe it either. But these are strange times, Howie."
"Not for us they're not," Howie replied. "They're just a fucking waste, okay? We're wasting our fucking lives waiting for somebody to tell us something that makes sense and all you can do-" He wasn't whispering any longer, he was shouting, "all you can do is tell me my father-who's dead, Grillo, he's dead-is wandering around Oregon, and Tommy-Ray@' He heard Jo-Beth let out a sob behind him. "Shit!" he said. "Just stay out of our lives from now on, Grillo. And tell D'Amour to do the same, okay? We've had it with this crap!" He slammed down the phone, and turned to look at Jo-Beth. She was standing in the doorway, with that woebegone look on her face she wore so often these days. "What do they fucking take us for?" he said, covering his eyes with his hand. they were burning.
"You said Tommy-Ray."
"It was just-"
"What about Tommy-Ray?"
"Shit. That's all it was. Grillo's fucking shit." He glanced up at her. "It's nothing, sweetie," he said.