Page 30 of The Furies

I saw him poised to scratch the brand at the mention of it. He caught himself, and stopped, but his fingers still itched to get at it.

“I saw it in a book,” he said. “I thought it looked interesting, different. I’m sorry I bothered. I think it’s infected.”

“That I can believe. What are you frightened of, Raum?”

“Not you and your friends, that’s for sure,” he said, and the old Raum, the blowhard Raum, raised his head for a moment before sinking into silence. The new Raum’s heart wasn’t in it, and evinced only embarrassment at the bravado of his alter ego.

“Look,” he said, “I don’t want any more conflict with you or the Fulcis. I shouldn’t have gone to the Bear that night, and time will tell if I should even have come back to Portland, but I’m here, and I have business to conclude.”

“What kind of business?”

“None of yours, but once I’m done, you won’t see me again. I’ll stay out of the way of Dolors and Ambar. You could say they’ve cooled on me some. As for you and me, we got no quarrel, not unless you want to make one.”

And then the strangest thing happened. The only way I can describe it is that Raum Buker’s face contorted into a grin, but the grin wasn’t his; and a presence peered from behind his eyes that had no right to be in his head, like an intruder peering out from the windows of a familiar house.

“Is that what you want, Mr. Parker?” said Raum, and his voice held a dissonant countermelody, like plainsong in a ragged key. “Because I’d advise against it.”

While he was speaking, his right hand surrendered to the urge to claw at his left arm, which began to bleed again. I pointed at his hand, from which redness was dripping.

“You should get that looked at,” I said, and left him to his pain.

CHAPTER XXXVI

That evening I dropped by Will Quinn’s home to update him on what we in the investigative trade like to term “progress,” usually when we’re billing someone and haven’t made a great deal of it. I didn’t hold much back, because there wasn’t a lot worth holding back, and I had no obligations to anyone involved but Will. The only detail I kept to myself, for the present, was the odd change to Raum Buker’s voice and expression at the end of my encounter with him. I didn’t want Will to get the impression that I jumped at shadows, even if I could have given him chapter and verse on why I’d had cause to do so in the past.

“So you think that mark on the mirror might be a warning?” he asked.

We were sitting in his kitchen. He’d done all the joinery and cabinetwork in the house himself, and it was a hymn to exposed wood. He was a fine craftsman, but the place could have done with a few rugs and a bit of color to liven it up. It was like spending time in a casket without the plush.

“I think it’s more that someone wanted Raum to know his room had been searched,” I said. “There’s no other reason for entering a man’s lodgings when he isn’t there and leaving a calling card.”

“But why?”

“To light a fire under him. Either whoever searched it didn’t find what they were looking for, and thought a scare might spur him into doing something that would reveal its whereabouts, or they were reminding him of an obligation. I’ll admit it’s theatrical, but it was also effective. Raum didn’t look happy when we parted, and it wasn’t alone because of me.”

“You didn’t follow him to see where he went?”

TV shows and movies have made everyone an armchair expert on forensics and the mechanisms of detection. If viewers applied the same principle to medical dramas, half the population would be offering helpful advice to surgeons while they operated, or cutting out the middleman and performing their own amputations at home.

“That approach might have been too obvious,” I said, “even for me. And so far, Raum hasn’t done anything wrong, other than interfere with your love life.”

Will grew wistful, then morose, as though I’d just reminded him of what he was missing while being forced to keep his distance from Dolors Strange.

“Do you think Buker meant it when he told you he was done with Dolors and her sister?” said Will.

“Going on past experience,” I said, “Raum might have been sincere at that moment because he wanted me out of his face, but if circumstances change, or he gets in a fix, he’ll be back—if not to Dolors, then to Ambar. I might be wrong, but Ambar strikes me as more vulnerable than her sister, and her feelings toward Raum may be more ambivalent.”

Will examined his hands. They were those of a workingman, pitted and scarred. He probably couldn’t recall a day that hadn’t ended without fresh cuts to his skin, or didn’t involve digging out splinters. He’d been alone for a long time, and might even have given up on ever meeting someone until Dolors Strange came into his life. Now he’d invested his future in her, but it was being threatened by her past.

“What would you do,” he said at last, “if I were you?”

It wasn’t how the question was usually posed—“if you were me” was more typical—but I understood the reason. Will was asking what I, as a private investigator, would do if I found myself in love with a woman like Dolors Strange, and at odds with a man like Raum Buker as a consequence.

“I’d be honest with Dolors,” I said. “I’d tell her how I felt, and that I wasn’t about to stand by and leave her alone to deal with whatever was coming down the pike—because, Will, my presentiment is that something is coming. You’ll just have to trust me on that. Depending on how bad it is, and how deeply Raum has screwed up, it may buffet the Sisters Strange, or it could strike them with force, but they’re in its path because of their history with him.”

“And then?” he said.

“I’d try to find out exactly what Raum has done,” I said. “I’d go looking for the source of that tattoo, which might take a degree of effort.”

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