threatening-perhaps because it held the truth that would force him to
step off his narrow mental perch into one world of chaos or another.
He remembered reading somewhere that only mad people were dead certain
of their sanity. He was dead-certain of nothing, but he took no comfort
from that. Madness was, he suspected, the very essence of uncertainty ,
a frantic but fruitless search for answers, for solid ground.
Sanity was that place of certainty above the whirling chaos.
Holly pulled to the curb in front of Handahl’s Pharmacy at the east end
of Main Street. “Let’s start here.”
first “Why?”
“Because it’s the first stop we made when you were pointing out places
that had meant something to you as a kid.”
He stepped out of the Ford under the canopy of a Wilson magnolia, one of
several interspersed with other trees along both sides of the street.
That landscaping softened the hard edges but contributed to the
unnatural look and discordant feeling of the town.
When Holly pushed open the front door of the Danish-style building, its
two glass panes glimmered like jewels along their beveled edges, and a
bell had tinkled overhead. They went inside together.
but Jim’s heart was hammering. Not because the pharmacy seemed likely
to actually be a place where anything significant had happened to him in
his children hood, but because he sensed it was the first step on a path
to the truth.
The cafe and soda fountain were to the left, and through the archway Jim
saw a few people at breakfast. Immediately inside the door was the
small newsstand, where morning papers were stacked high, mostly the
Santa Barbara daily; there were also magazines, and to one side a
revolving wire rack filled with paperback books.
“I used to buy paperbacks here,” he said. “I loved books even back then
couldn’t get enough of them.”
The pharmacy was through another archway to the right. It resembled any
modern American pharmacy in that it stocked more cosmetics, beauty aids,
and hair-care products than patent medicines.
Otherwise, it was pleasantly quaint: wood shelves instead of metal or
fiberboard; polished granite counters; an appealing aroma composed of
Bayberry candles, nickle candy, cigar-tobacco efiluvium filtering from
the humidified case in behind the cash register, faint traces of ethyl
alcohol, and sundry pharmaceuticals.
Though the hour was early, the pharmacist was on duty, serving as his
own checkout clerk. It was Corbett Handahl himself, a heavy
wide-shouldered, man with a white mustache and white hair, wearing a
crisp blue starched. shirt under his starched white lab jacket.
He looked up and said, “Jim Ironheart, bless my soul. How long’s it
been-at least three, four years?”
They shook hands.
dead- “Four years and four months,” Jim said. He almost added, since
grandpa died, but checked himself without quite knowing why.
Spritzing the granite prescription-service counter with Windex, Corbett
Handahl wiped it with paper towels. He smiled at Holly.
“And whoever you are, I am eternally grateful to you for bringing beauty
into this gray morning.”
Corbett was the perfect smalltown pharmacist: just jovial enough to seem
like ordinary folks in spite of being placed in the town’s upper social
class by virtue of his occupation, enough of a tease to be something of
a local character, but with an unmistakable air of competence and
probity that made you feel the medicines he compounded would always be
safe.
Townfolk stopped in just to say hello, not only when they needed
something, and his genuine interest in people served his commerce. He
had been working at the pharmacy for thirty-three years and had been the
owner since his father’s death twenty-seven years ago.
Handahl was the least threatening of men, yet Jim suddenly felt
threatened by him. He wanted to get out of the pharmacy before. . .
Before what?
Before Handahl said the wrong thing, revealed too much.
But what could he reveal?
“I’m Jim’s fiancee,” Holly said, somewhat to Jim’s surprise.
“Congratulations, Jim,” Handahl said. “You’re a lucky man. Young lady,
I just hope you know, the family changed its name from Ironhead, which
was more descriptive. Stubborn group.” He winked and laughed.
Holly said, “Jim’s taking me around town, showing me favorite places