Page 14 of The Furies

Reuben did as he was told. It took him three tries to get the key in place, his hands were shaking so much.

“Are you here to rob me?” he said.

“I’m no thief.” The man sounded affronted.

“Then what do you want?”

“My name is Kepler,” said the intruder, “and I think you may have something that belongs to me.”

CHAPTER XV

Will Quinn was a Christian man. He attended St. George’s Episcopal every Sunday, and his company donated generously to local charities at Christmas. I wasn’t sure what his experience of the arcane might have been, but I was prepared to bet good money that it was fairly narrow, and limited to late-night movies on cable.

“Have you seen Buker since he got back?” said Will.

“We had a moment at the Bear. I hadn’t planned on arranging another reunion.”

“Did you happen to get a look at the latest tattoo on his arm?”

“I saw it. It’s a pentacle.”

“I know what it is,” said Will. “I looked it up on the Internet. It’s an occult symbol. It’s used in the invocation of spirits.”

The best thing about the Internet was that it was easily accessible and available to most. The worst thing about the Internet, meanwhile, was that it was easily accessible and available to most. Technically, what Will had read was true, but on a more benign level the pentacle also symbolized the cycle of life and the connections among the five elements. I knew because I, too, had looked it up. I pointed this out to Will.

“You think Raum Buker got himself tattooed because he’s in touch with the cycle of life?” Will responded. “You did say you’d met him, right?”

He had a point. Raum didn’t strike me as a cycle-of-life type of guy, and the only time the word “benign” might ever be used in connection with him would be if he developed a tumor.

“Will, half the men who do time come out tattooed, and a few of the women, too. Have you any idea the number of contrariwise swastikas I’ve noticed on the backs of ex-cons? Most of them are too dumb even to get that much right. They only ever see it in the mirror, so they think it looks okay.”

“This isn’t a swastika,” said Will, “and Buker’s many things, but dumb isn’t one of them. Even Dolors says he’s different. I’m troubled for her safety.”

So I was not alone in regarding Raum Buker as a transformed man.

“Different how?”

“Meaner, certainly, and odder. He’s nervy, and he told her he has problems sleeping, or it might be she knows that for herself.”

I saw his mouth form a cussword, but he bit it back. He wasn’t the swearing type, even when tormented by a vision of the woman he loved in bed with another man.

“That’s me being paranoid,” he said, “and it’s unfair to Dolors. Forget I said it. But Buker—”

He hesitated.

“Go on,” I said.

“Dolors says he smells of burning.”

* * *

WILL QUINN LEFT TWIN Lights not exactly happy, but a little less unhappy than when he’d arrived. Against my better judgment, I’d agreed to speak with Dolors Strange about Raum Buker. Will had insisted on paying me for my time, and I’d consented to bill him by the hour. In reality, I didn’t expect to be charging him for more than however long it took me to drive to Dolors Strange’s place of business, listen to her tell me to get lost, find somewhere else to buy coffee, and drive straight back home again.

Before Will left, I asked him about the relationship between Dolors and her sister, Ambar.

“It’s solid now,” he said. “Their mother died a year ago come March, and it made them realize that each of them was all the other had. It also helped that Buker wasn’t around any longer. He ran with both of them for a while.”

Will shook his head silently, although whether in wonder or disgust was unclear. It might have been a combination of both.

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