“What’s that?” Joshua asked.
“To confuse his mother when she came back from the grave looking for him.”
“Of course,” Joshua said sarcastically. “How silly of me not to think of that.”
“You misunderstand,” Hawthorne said. “I know you’re a skeptic. I’m not saying that she actually came back. I don’t have enough information to make up my mind about that. But Mr. Frye was absolutely convinced that she had come back. He might have thought that hiring a double would provide him with some protection.”
Joshua had to admit that Hawthorne’s idea made more than a little sense. “What you’re saying is that the easiest way to figure this out is to try to put myself in Frye’s head, try to think like he did, like a paranoid schizophrenic.”
“If he was a paranoid schizophrenic,” Hawthorne said. “As I told you, I scoff at nothing.”
“And I scoff at everything,” Joshua said. “Well … thank you for your time and trouble, Mr. Hawthorne.”
“No trouble. I’ll be waiting for your call.”
Don’t hold your breath, Joshua thought.
After he put down the receiver, Joshua stood up, stepped to the big window, and stared out at the valley. The land was now settling into shadows under the gray clouds and the purple-blue edges of the oncoming darkness. Day seemed to be changing into night much too rapidly, and, as a sudden cold wind rattled the windowpanes, it also seemed to Joshua that autumn was giving way to winter with the same unnatural haste. The evening looked as if it belonged in gloomy, rainy January rather than early October.
In Joshua’s mind, Latham Hawthorne’s words spun like dark filaments of a black web on some monstrous spider’s loom: His time is coming, Mr. Rhinehart. There are signs and portents. Soon now. Quite soon.
For the past fifteen years or so, the world had seemed to be rushing downhill with no brakes, totally out of control. A lot of strange people were out there. Like Hawthorne. And worse. Far worse. Many of them were political leaders, for that was the line of work that jackals often chose, seeking power over others; they had their hands on the controls of the planet, lunatic engineers in every nation, grinning maniacally as they pushed the machine toward derailment.
Are we living in the final days of the earth? Joshua wondered. Is Armageddon drawing near?
Bullshit, he told himself. You’re just transferring your own intimations of mortality to your perception of the world, old man. You’ve lost Cora, and you’re all alone, and you’re suddenly aware of growing old and running out of time. Now you have the incredible, grand, egomaniacal notion that the entire world will go with you when you die. But the only doomsday drawing nigh is a very personal one, he told himself. The world will be here after you’ve gone. It’ll be here a long, long time, he assured himself.
But he really wasn’t certain of that. The air seemed to be full of ominous currents.
Someone knocked on the door. It was Karen Farr, his industrious young secretary.
“I didn’t realize you were still here,” Joshua said. He glanced at his watch. “Quitting time was almost an hour ago.”
“I took a long lunch. I have a few things to catch up on.”
“Work is an essential part of life, my dear. But don’t spend all your time at it. Go home. You’ll catch up tomorrow.”
“I’ll be finished in ten minutes,” she said. “And just now two people came in. They want to see you.”
“I don’t have any appointments.”
“They’ve come all the way from Los Angeles. His name’s Anthony Clemenza, and the woman with him is Hilary Thomas. She’s the one who was–”
“I know who she is,” Joshua said, startled. “By all means, show them in.”
He walked out from behind his desk and met the visitors in the middle of the room. There were awkward introductions, then Joshua saw to it that they were comfortably seated, offered drinks, poured Jack Daniel’s for both of them, and pulled up chair opposite the couch where they were seated side by side.
Tony Clemenza had an air about him that appealed to Joshua. He seemed pleasantly self-assured and competent.