Page 42 of The Furies

“Did he ever talk to you about a man named Raum Buker?” I said.

“Yeah, I know Raum some,” said Eleanor. “I ought to. After all, I slept with him.”

CHAPTER L

Kepler, clad only in a towel, folded the copy of the New York Times and consigned it to the trash can in his motel room. The newspaper dated from May 2003, and its lead story reported the then president’s contention that major combat operations in Iraq had come to an end. This, as subsequent events proved, was optimistic at best, and deluded at worst, especially when one took into account the history of the region, which no one in that benighted U.S. administration had done. But then, Kepler had a longer memory than was the norm, even if the gaps in it could be frustrating for him, requiring that they be filled in as, and when, he was able. Kepler’s sanctuary in eastern Ontario was quiet and dark, and its occupant could sleep whole seasons away, like a spider in hibernation, waking only to feed as required. Long life was not an uncomplicated blessing or an unqualified curse, and even the oldest of trees required careful tending.

He looked at the clock by his bedside, with its runic symbols, its complications within complications, dials within dials. It was of his own design, and made sense only to him, but had it been monitored closely, even by one unfamiliar with it, the retardation of its workings would, in recent days, have become apparent. The movements were slowing, nearing cessation, and with it Kepler’s time on earth would draw to a close, but he would not surrender without a fight. The application of gentle pressure on Raum Buker had produced no result, and Kepler had been on the verge of instituting more direct and painful measures when Buker had vanished. Now he would have to expend energy rooting him from his hiding place.

But Kepler was weak, so weak, and Buker’s failure to return to the Braycott Arms was disturbing. If he had intended to relocate elsewhere, why had he not taken his possessions with him? One of the Strange women might know where he was, but to approach them directly would mean hurting them, and that would attract further attention. He had already left too many bodies behind, and would, in the end, add Buker to their number, not only because there might be no other way to force him to surrender what he had stolen but also to punish him for his effrontery. Yet Kepler remained concerned that, in a confrontation with Buker, he would come off the worst. By their actions, Buker and Towle had set in motion corruptive elements: Kepler could see and feel himself rotting. Buker was playing for time because he believed it was against Kepler, like a boxer keeping out of reach of a fading opponent’s punches.

Kepler drew his laptop toward him and pulled up the screenshot of the private investigator, Parker. Kepler had lived too long, and put too many inquisitive men in the ground, to be worried by this latest incarnation of the breed. Here, though, was one adept at finding those who did not wish to be found. Kepler had been reading up on him, and Wadlin, the manager at the Braycott, had also been a useful source of information. If Parker was as good as he was said to be, there was a chance that he might already have found out that Buker and Towle were trying to sell stolen coins. He might even have established the identity of the coins’ true owner, which had obvious perils for Kepler, but could equally be turned to his advantage. Parker and Buker, it emerged, had been involved in a confrontation at a bar called the Great Lost Bear, where the former was well known. Sometimes, Kepler knew, one had to cast bait upon the waters, and let the prey mistake itself for the predator.

Keeping his gaze averted from the mirror, so that he would not have to look upon his ravaged self, Kepler slowly, arduously, began to dress.

CHAPTER LI

Eleanor Towle folded her arms and waited for my reaction to the news that Raum Buker had shared her bed. For a man with very few redeeming features that I could identify, Raum was quite a hit with women of a certain age. He ought to have published a book. There appeared to be no delicate way to broach the subject, so I decided to dive straight in.

“How familiar with him were you before you—?”

“Made the beast with him?” she finished. “I thought I’d save you the trouble of concluding the question, seeing as how you’re looking so uncomfortable about it all. By the way, is that also disapproval I see on your face?”

“It’s puzzlement. I struggle to see his appeal.”

“I slept with him,” said Eleanor. “I didn’t say I was going to marry him. Anyway, he told me he had a woman up in Maine, so it wasn’t as though I was planning our life together.”

“Actually,” I corrected, “he has two women up in Maine, or did.”

“Tattletale. Are they the ones you’re worried about?”

“That’s right—assuming Raum wasn’t sleeping with anyone else, which isn’t beyond the bounds of possibility on current evidence. Did he happen to mention the name of the particular woman he was seeing?”

“Just the last: Strange. He thought I’d find it funny.”

“And did you?”

“I might have found it funnier if he’d told me before I had sex with him.”

“It must have slipped his mind.”

“Must have. I reckon men’s memories are flawed that way. How it happened was, he and Egon were celebrating, I joined in, and one thing led to another. There hasn’t been a whole lot for me to celebrate lately, what with my mom dying and all, and I was grateful for the distraction. As for sleeping with Raum, I hadn’t been with a man in three years. I’m not exactly inundated with suitors. Sometimes you take what you can get, and you’re grateful for it.”

“How did he end up here?”

“Egon invited him. It was the first time I’d met him, although I was already familiar with the name. Egon had told me about Raum during prison visits, and I’d seen him at a distance, although we’d never been formally introduced. He and Egon had become close—not in a freaky way, though. Well, everything to do with Egon is freaky, I guess, but you know what I mean.”

“They weren’t lovers.”

“No. They didn’t have much in common, not that I could see, beyond both being out of favor with the law, but somehow they got along, and Raum looked out for my brother. Later, after we’d done the deed, Raum told me that Egon had gotten him interested in all that occult stuff. In fact, I’d even have said that Raum was more committed to it than my brother, which is saying something. I mean, whatever his obsession, Egon never went and got himself a pentacle tattoo. He’s too conservative for that.”

“And what did you think of that tattoo?”

“What did I think of it? I thought it made him look like one of those goth kids who hang out by the movie theater at the Mountain Valley Mall. A man his age had no business getting a tattoo like that, and I told him so. I also figured it had been done with a dirty needle, it was weeping so bad. It was never going to heal either, not the way Raum was fussing at it.”

“Did he tell you why he’d had it done?”

She puffed on the vape.

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