back in his chair, blinking dully, as if he were not quite sure where
he was.
After he was silent for a minute, the raven became silent, too, and
Zena said, “Conrad, you aren’t going to find Ellen’s child. Why don’t
you just give up?”
“Never,” he said, slightly hoarse.
“For ten years you had a bunch of private detectives on it. One after
the other. Several at the same time. You spent a small fortune on
them. And they didn’t find anything. Not a clue.” “They were all
incompetent,” he said sullenly.
“For years you’ve been looking on your own without any luck.” “I’ll
find what I’m after.”
“You were wrong again tonight. Did you really think you’d stumble
across her kids here? At the Coal County, Pennsylvania, Spring Fair?
Not a very likely place, if you ask me.”
“As likely as any other.” “Maybe Ellen didn’t even live long enough to
start a family with another man.
Have you thought of that? Maybe she’s long dead.” “She’s alive.”
“You can’t be sure.”
Y’m positive.” “Even if she’s alive, she might not have children.”
“She does. They’re out there–somewhere.” “Damn it, you have no
reason to be so sure of that!” “I’ve been sent signs. Portents.”
Zena looked into his cold, crystalline blue eyes, and she shivered.
Signs?
Portents? Was Conrad still only half-mad–or had he gone all the way
over the edge?
The raven tapped its beak against the metal bars of its cage.
Zena said, “If by some miracle you do find one of Ellen’s kids, what
then?” “I’ve told you before.” “Tell me again,” she said, watching
him closely.
“I want to tell her kids what she did,” Conrad said. “I want them to
know she’s a baby killer. I want to turn them against her. I want to
use all of my power as a pitchman to convince them that their mother is
a vicious, despicable human being, the worst kind of criminal. A baby
killer. I’ll make them hate her as much as I hate her. In effect,
I’ll be taking her kids away from her, though not as brutally as she
took my little boy.”
As always, when he talked about exposing Ellen’s past to her family,
Conrad spoke with conviction.
As always, it sounded like a hollow fantasy.
And as always, Zena felt that he was lying. She was sure that he had
something else in mind, an act of revenge even more brutal than what
Ellen had done to that strange, disturbing, mutated baby twenty-five
years ago.
If Conrad intended to kill Ellen’s children when (and if) he found
them, Zena wanted no part of that. She didn’t want to be an accomplice
to murder.
Yet she continued to assist him in his search. She helped him only
because she didn’t believe he would ever find what he was looking
for.
Helping him seemed harmless, she was merely humoring him. That was
all. Nothing more than humoring him. His quest was hopeless. He
would never find Ellen’s kids, even if they did exist.
Conrad looked away from her, turned his gaze on the raven.
The bird fixed him with one of its oily black eyes, and as their gazes
locked, the raven froze.
Outside, on the midway, there was calliope music. The hundred thousand
sounds of the closing-night crowd blended into a rhythmic susurration
like the breathing of an enormous beast.
In the distance the giant, mechanical funhouse clown laughed and
laughed.
WHEN AMY STEPPED into the house at a quarter till twelve, she heard
muffled voices in the kitchen. She thought her father was still awake,
though he usually went to bed early Saturday night in order to get up
in time for the first Mass on Sunday, thus freeing the rest of the day
for his hobby–building miniature sets for model train layouts. When
Amy got to the kitchen, she found only her mother. The voices were on
the radio, it was tuned to a telephone talk show on a Chicago station,
and the volume was turned low.
The room smelled vaguely of garlic, onions, and tomato paste.
There wasn’t much light. A bulb burned above the sink, and the hood