Ernie shrugged. “The kid wants to help. He likes painting.”
“That’s right, ma’am,” said Bob. “I do. Really.”
“Okay, but Ernie will do the rest,” she said. “My mother-in-law wants to see you.”
“Me?” said Bob.
“She’s in there.” Eileen gestured towards the office. “I don’t know what it’s about, but she sent me to get you. Give Ernie the brush and come along.”
Bob surrendered the brush and followed Eileen Denicola towards the office. She turned back to tell Ernie to be ready to take the boat out right after lunch. “Don’t be late,” she warned. “We’ve got to go to Kelleher’s and get gas. There will be forty-three people here at seven tomorrow morning and we won’t have time then.”
“Yes, Mrs. Denicola,” said Ernie, and he began to paint faster.
Bob smiled. Obviously Eileen Denicola was used to being obeyed. She marched in front of him now with her red hair bouncing at every step. Old Mrs. Denicola came out of the office to meet them.
“We will go to the house,” said the older woman. She gestured to Bob. “You, young man, you come with me.”
Bob followed her to the house, wondering what was going on. She led him into a living room that had a stiff, rather foreign air, with great high-backed armchairs and a long, very ugly sofa.
“Sit down.” Mrs. Denicola pointed to a chair that stood at right angles to the sofa. They both sat. The old woman folded her hands in the lap of her black dress. Then she looked at Bob with eyes that were so keen that Bob had to look away.
“I have seen you before,” she said.
“I . . . I don’t think so,” said Bob.
“You would not know of it, but I have seen you,” said Mrs. Denicola. “It was in a dream that I saw you, and then I saw you again out there.” She waved towards the window. “I think you should not be here.”
She seemed to expect some reply. Bob opened his mouth to speak, but his voice had deserted him. What came out was something between a choke and a cough. He closed his mouth and took a deep breath, then cleared his throat.
“I was just . . . just helping with the painting,” he said. “I was never here before, and . . .”
He stopped, suddenly feeling awkward and anxious. He did not want to offend this old woman, or to displease her, but he felt scared of the power he sensed in her. She reminded him of the oracles in the old myths–those wise women of ancient times who lived hidden away in caves, and who foretold the future and warned men when doom would come upon them.
It was stuffy in the little house, and yet Bob felt cold.
Mrs. Denicola bent towards him, her hands still folded against her black dress. Her face was an arrangement of crags and shadowy hollows. She looked gaunt and weary.
“You should not be here,” she said again. “You came for some purpose, I think. Why did you come?”
“W-why?” whispered Bob. He was surprised to find himself whispering, yet he could not speak more loudly. “No reason. I was only . . . only killing time.”
Then he looked away, sure that the old woman could see into his mind and know that he lied.
“You are in danger,” she said. “You must go away. Go now and do not come back. If you stay, there will be a great trouble. A terrible thing will happen. In my dream you were in a place that twisted and shook. There was a loud noise and you were falling and the place was falling, too, and all around the earth was tearing apart.”
Bob stared at her, frightened. He realized his hands were clenched into fists. He forced them to relax.
Eileen Denicola had told Jupiter that the old woman sometimes dreamed true dreams. And the old woman had told Jupe she had dreamed of a blind man who picked up a wallet from the ground. Now she had dreamed of the earth tearing apart and Bob falling. What did it mean?
An earthquake! She had dreamed of an earthquake! But what good did it do to tell Bob about it? He could not escape an earthquake by leaving the pier.
She sighed. “You think I am a crazy old woman,” she said sadly. “Perhaps I should not tell you of my dream. You will go and bring other boys and they will laugh and call me an old witch–a crazy old Italian witch! But it is true that I saw you in this place that was breaking to pieces and I . . . I was there, too!”
The front door of the house opened and a gust of fresh air blew into the house. Eileen Denicola appeared in the hall and looked in on them. Her face was amused, but there was concern, too.
“What’s going on?” she said. There was a note of forced heartiness in her voice. “Not another dream, I hope.”
“And so? If there is?” said the old woman. She leaned forward and touched Bob’s knee. “I sense this boy is a good, hard-working boy,” she said. “I am telling him he should do well and go far–so long as he listens to the advice of those who wish him well.”
She stood up. “I think I must hurry now,” she told Eileen. “Our guest will come before the afternoon is half over, and there is much to do.”
She went out without speaking to Bob again.
“Everything all right?” said Eileen Denicola.
“Yes,” said Bob weakly. “Thank you.”
He got up and went out past the younger woman in a rush. This place gave him the creeps. He couldn’t wait to get away!
14
Ernie Makes a Deal
THE TWO YOUNG MEN who roomed with Ernie were coming back down the beach towards the pier. Ernie was still painting away at the wheelhouse. Everything was as it had been twenty minutes earlier, and yet it was all changed.
Danger! Mrs. Denicola had spoken of danger.
About a hundred metres down the highway there was a tiny shopping plaza. Bob saw a little market, a launderette, and a real-estate office. And he saw a telephone in front of the market. He went down to it and dialled the Headquarters of The Three Investigators.
Pete answered immediately. When he heard Bob on the telephone he said, “You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I guess I am. But the old lady–old Mrs. Denicola–she told me she had a dream about me. You remember that her daughter-in-law said she dreamed true dreams? Well, in this dream she had about me, I was in danger. I was in a place where everything was twisting and falling. Like in an earthquake. She told me I shouldn’t be here. Creepy, huh?”
There was silence for a second. Then Pete said, “Hey! Hey, Bob, if that old lady really does dream true dreams, maybe you should get away from there. You want me to come and take over for you?”
“It was only a dream,” said Bob. He said it more to convince himself than to persuade Pete.
“Well, listen, be careful, huh?” said Pete.
“I will,” Bob promised. “I don’t want to leave right now. There’s something up. You know those two guys who are Ernie’s room-mates? They’re churning around the dock today, talking Spanish with Ernie. They’re really excited about something.”
A pickup truck was coming slowly down the highway. It turned in at Denicola’s drive and stopped in the parking area. A tall, rangy man in khaki work clothes got out and started towards the pier.
“Stay by the phone,” said Bob. “I’ll keep in touch with you.”
Bob hung up and stepped out of the phone booth. There were campers and vans and cars parked along the highway, and Bob kept these between himself and the pier as he walked back towards Denicola’s.
The newcomer from the pickup truck had joined Ernie and his friends on the dock beside the Maria III. Bob paused and watched Ernie talk to the man. Ernie’s expression was angry, and he gestured with great animation.
Bob edged around a parked van and stepped down from the shoulder of the road to the beach. The men did not notice as he crossed the sand, and in a few minutes he was under the pier. Ignoring his bicycle, which was padlocked to a piling, he headed down to the waterline.
When Bob reached the edge of the water, he stopped and listened. He could hear the voices of the four men, but he could not make out what they were saying. They were still too far away, and the noise of the breaking surf was too near.
Bob frowned. Probably he could make no sense of the conversation even if he could hear it. They were probably speaking in Spanish.
But then there were footsteps on the pier. The men were coming closer. They walked, then stopped to talk for a moment, arguing about something, and then walked again. They came nearer, and nearer, and then they were directly over Bob’s head and he was moving with them, looking up, listening, his feet noiseless on the sand.