Page 113 of The Furies

Vero knew that all this had probably been under discussion for weeks. What Pirato had seen and heard at the Hitch Knot only confirmed for him the wisdom of the final decision. Few would object, and then—if they were wise—solely in the privacy of their own hearts. Even Luca Z would know better than to kick at the installation of Pirato.

“Do you ever think about dying, Dante?” asked Pirato.

Vero was thrown by the sudden change of subject. When a man like Adio Pirato asked one about dying, it was usually wise to listen, just in case the question might have an imminent, personal relevance.

“Some days,” said Vero.

“I think about it every day, more and more. I imagine I will continue to think about it until, at last, I have no thoughts at all.”

“Do you fear it?”

“I fear the manner of it. Dying, I expect, will be hard—although, se Dio vuole, not for long.”

“And what brought this on, Adio?”

“I think it was meeting Parker,” said Pirato. “It’s rare that a man lives up to his billing, but I feel he did. You don’t agree?”

“It may be that I was not watching him as closely as you were.”

Pirato tapped the index finger of his right hand against his cheekbone.

“It was in the eyes,” he said. “You know, it was once posited that the eyes of the dead retained an image of their final sight, so that a murderer might be identified by an examination of the victim’s retina. I have a different theory: that the eyes of the living, if forced to look too much on death, become altered by it.”

“Like undertakers?”

Pirato laughed.

“Or certain men of our acquaintance,” he said. “But that’s different. That’s staring at the faces of strangers, or the unloved. This Parker, he was forced to look on his dead wife and child. What he saw is imprinted on him still. It has made him what he is.”

“And what is that?”

“I’m not sure,” said Pirato. “I know only that it is nothing I would wish to be, and I would not care to share his dreams.”

CHAPTER XLI

Veale stood at the basement door. The hallway was scattered with the detritus of an emergency: discarded wrappings, a near-empty roll of adhesive bandage, the plastic protective cover from a syringe. He had no idea why such materials should have been required if the old woman was already dead. Possibly, he thought, the medics had tried to resuscitate her. If so, they should have saved their energy.

The door was locked, but locks had never been a deterrent to him, and a couple of hard kicks dealt with the obstacle. The basement smelled musty, but beneath it hung a harsh medicinal odor. Glass crunched under his feet as he entered, and he saw that a broken mirror and a cracked framed print of a lighthouse lay against the wall to his left. He supposed the damage was caused by the medics as they tried to get to the woman. The light from the hallway didn’t extend much farther than a couple of feet. When he tried the switch by the door, nothing happened. He took out his phone and used its flashlight instead. He’d read how users could be tracked through their cell phones, but the only person who had his number was Pantuff. Veale had seen no reason to share it with anyone else. Anyway, even had he wanted to disseminate it more widely, he would have been reduced to writing it on a bathroom wall, because he spoke to no one but Pantuff, if it could be helped. He also left the business side of the operation to his partner, who was more sociable, or less particular, depending on one’s perspective.

Veale shone the flashlight across the basement. It was filled with used furniture, most of it dull, devoid of vivid color. An area had been cleared close to an alcove at the rear, presumably where the old woman had been found. Veale had forgotten to ask Wadlin her name, but it was of no consequence, since it wasn’t as though he was going to be invited to deliver her eulogy. He walked to where she had died, picking his way over a lamp, an umbrella stand, and a busted chair along the way. Before him lay the alcove, like the entrance to a cave. He pointed the beam at it, but the light failed to penetrate its depths. The murk swallowed it up, so that all he could see were shadows fading to black.

But amid those shadows, something moved. He heard it, and felt in turn its interest in him. It was regarding him, but not with pleasure, because he had sinned against it, against its mother. Its hostility caused his skin to prickle, and the whispering that had been troubling him for days suddenly ceased entirely, for he was now in the company of the one who had been calling to him, the dead child. In that instant, in the quiet and dark, Veale understood that destroying the relics would not put an end to it, because it was not for him to dismiss it from this world. If he tried, it would find a way to punish him. It was both beyond and within him. It had wormed its way into his consciousness. He could not force it to leave. It would have to depart of its own volition, and it did not wish to, not yet.

It, not she. This, too, he comprehended: he would no longer vacillate between the two. The presence in the alcove had sloughed gender and name, and what was left was a sexless amalgam of love, grief, and fury, at once both an autonomous being and the construct of another. All Veale’s conceptions of existence, the structures and connections both received and self-created, fell away; he shed them like scales, leaving his essence exposed and acutely vulnerable. He foresaw how it might feel to die here, in this cold place, at the hands of something that was once a child. For the first time since his youth, Veale was frightened, both of the pain that was imminent and what might come after.

Now it was approaching, cleaving the gloom. He could perceive the shape of it, its paleness against the black. The child had been buried entirely in white, even down to its stockings, but its feet had worn through them, and bare toes poked from the tatters. Its hands were black with dirt and dust, but still he could not make out its face. It remained blurred, chimerical, leaving only the impression of eyes and a mouth, like holes cut in gray fabric. Onward it came, until it stood before him in a space created by mortality. Slowly Veale directed the light from the phone toward the floor, for he had seen enough. The child was obscured once again, only its silhouette persisting, as of an image briefly glimpsed against the sun.

And then Veale felt it brush by him, its fingers barely touching his. They were dry and cool, but not unpleasantly so. When he turned, it was already gone from the room, but he saw that it was waiting for him to follow, the hallway light flickering in its presence. He knew what it wanted. He thought that he had always known, ever since he had woken to the sound of its footsteps dancing outside his room, ever since it had chosen to reach out to him and not to Pantuff. He had tried to ignore it, but like all children, it would not be ignored.

Veale raised the phone and used the glare to help him navigate his way back to the door. He did not want to injure himself, not now. If he were to trip and fall, the child would have no patience with him. It would return, he knew, the door closing behind it, and he would spend his final moments alone with it.

But he made it to the hallway without incident, and heard the child already ascending.

Veale followed the sound.

CHAPTER XLII

Donnie Packard was staying close to Melissa Thombs, following her around like a dog that had nipped its owner and now sought to make amends for its behavior. He arrived with a bucket and cloth as she was mopping the bathroom floor, and set about cleaning the toilet, a task that she could never recall his having undertaken before. After a couple of hours they had the place resembling something like a home again. Donnie opened beers for both of them, and ordered her to take a seat at the kitchen counter while he prepared his once-in-a-blue-moon specialty, spaghetti with meatballs, which even Melissa had to admit he did well. He found a Grover Washington playlist on Spotify, and soon he was humming to himself while he chopped onions and carrots, crushed tomatoes heating in a saucepan beside him. The knife was very sharp, and he was making fast work of the vegetables. The onions weren’t bringing him to tears, but then Melissa had never witnessed him cry, not once, and she’d been with him when he’d buried friends.

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