neither the cat nora more fearsome pursuer.
Nevertheless, I said to Orson, “Damn, but it’s starting to feel like
the end of the world.”
He chuffed in agreement as we left the stench of death behind us and
walked toward the glow of the quaint ship lanterns that were mounted on
massive teak pilasters at the main pier entrance.
Moving out of an almost liquid gloom beside the marina office, Lewis
Stevenson, the chief of police, still in uniform as I had seen him
earlier in the night, crossed into the light. He said, “I’m in a mood
here.”
For an instant, as he stepped from the shadows, something about him was
so peculiar that a chill bored like a corkscrew in my spine. Whatever
I had seen-or thought I’d seen-passed in a blink, however, and I found
myself shivering and keenly disturbed, overcome by an extraordinary
perception of being in the presence of something unearthly and
malevolent, without being able to identify the precise cause of this
feeling.
Chief Stevenson was holding a formidable-looking pistol in his right
hand. Although he was not in a shooting stance, his grip on the weapon
wasn’t casual. The muzzle was trained on Orson, who was two steps
ahead of me, standing in the outer arc of the lantern light, while I
remained in shadows.
“You want to guess what mood I’m in?” Stevenson asked, stopping no
more than ten feet from us.
“Not good,” I ventured.
“I’m in a mood not to be screwed with.”
The chief didn’t sound like himself. His voice was familiar, the
timbre and the accent unchanged, but there was a hard note when before
there had been quiet authority. Usually his speech flowed like a
stream, and You found yourself almost floating on it, calm and warm and
assured; but now the flow was fast and turbulent, cold and stinging.
“I don’t feel good,” he said. “I don’t feel good at all. In fact, I
feel like shit, and I don’t have much patience for anything that makes
me feel even worse. You understand me?”
Although I didn’t understand him entirely, I nodded and said, “Yes.
Yes, sir, I understand.”
Orson was as still as cast iron, and his eyes never left the muzzle of
the chief’s pistol.
I was acutely aware that the marina was a desolate place at this
hour.
The office and the fueling station were not staffed after six
o’clock.
Only five boat owners, other than Roosevelt Frost, lived aboard their
vessels, and they were no doubt sound asleep. The docks were no less
lonely than the granite rows of eternal berths in St. Bernadette’s
cemetery.
The fog muffled our voices. No one was likely to hear our conversation
and be drawn to it.
Keeping his attention on Orson but addressing me, Stevenson said, “I
can’t get what I need, because I don’t even know what it is I need.
Isn’t that a bitch?”
I sensed that this was a man at risk of coming apart, perilously
holding himself together. He had lost his noble aspect. Even his
handsomeness was sliding away as the planes of his face were pulled
toward a new configuration by what seemed to be rage and an equally
powerful anxiety.
“You ever feel this emptiness, Snow? You ever feel an emptiness so
bad, You’ve got to fill it or You’ll die, but You don’t know where the
emptiness is or what in the name of God You’re supposed to fill it
with?”
Now I didn’t understand him at all, but I didn’t think that he was in a
mood to explain himself, so I looked solemn and nodded
sympathetically.
“Yes, sir. I know the feeling.”
His brow and cheeks were moist but not from the clammy air; he
glistened with greasy sweat. His face was so supernaturally white that
the mist seemed to pour from him, boiling coldly off his skin, as
though he were the father of all fog. “Comes on You bad at night,” he
said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Comes on You anytime, but worse at night.” His face twisted with what
might have been disgust. “What kind of damn dog is this, anyway?”
His gun arm stiffened, and I thought I saw his finger tighten on the