Page 74 of The Furies

“You heard footsteps,” he said, once he’d swallowed. “And you didn’t hear footsteps where footsteps have no right to be. You didn’t hear them walking up the walls, or on the ceiling. You heard them in a hallway, which is where folks walk, even little kids.”

“But there were no kids. The manager said.”

“The manager was mistaken. For Christ’s sake, his clock stopped in 1889.”

“He wasn’t mistaken,” said Veale. “I doubt there’s a fissure in the walls that he doesn’t know about.”

“Then he could try filling some of them in,” said Pantuff, “and get rid of the cobwebs while he’s at it.”

“Give me another explanation,” said Veale.

“I can give you ten, a hundred. Tiredness, to begin with. Overwork. You could be running a fever. When I run a fever, I hear show tunes. I can’t get them out of my head for a night, two nights, then they go away.”

“I’m not tired,” said Veale. “I don’t have a job, and I haven’t broken a sweat in days.”

“Jesus!”

Pantuff threw his silverware on the table. What kind of world was it in which a man couldn’t even enjoy his first meal of the day in relative peace? A few of the braver or more foolhardy diners glanced their way before wisely deciding to mind their own business.

Pantuff closed his eyes and took a deep breath. There was no percentage in getting annoyed with Veale. Veale didn’t like shouting, expressly so when it was directed at him. After a certain point, his instinct was to put a stop to it. Raging at Veale was like throwing a ball against a wall: it just bounced back at you, but the more force you put behind it, the more likely it was to hit you in the face.

“Listen to me,” said Pantuff, softer now. “I haven’t heard anything, and the only times we’ve been apart lately is when one or the other of us has gone to the john. As for smells, all I get from that dump is old clothes and cheap sanitizer. Even if, by some quirk of the universe—and it’s a big if, one that I’m only acknowledging out of politeness and respect—you were being haunted by the Sawyer kid, why should the guy down the hall have heard the child too?”

“Because it’s real,” said Veale, and he spoke so matter-of-factly that any reservations Pantuff might previously have entertained about his insanity vanished forever. “It’s out in the world, so why wouldn’t he hear it? You were asleep. And it comes at night.”

The way he said those last five words made Pantuff’s skin crawl, because for the first time since he’d known him, Veale sounded uneasy.

“Okay,” said Pantuff, “you believe what you want. If it’s true, all the more reason to get this thing taken care of quickly. And if it isn’t, we need to get it sorted out anyway, just so we’re not stuck up here with a virus and a million hicks.”

He called for the check, and paid it with grubby fives and ones. The tip was just enough: not too high, not too low. He now regretted raising his voice earlier. In everything he did, Pantuff tried to pass unnoticed, even as his physiognomy and mien conspired against his best efforts.

“I think you’re wrong about something else,” said Veale.

“You keeping a list now?” said Pantuff. “We ought to get married, because this is like having an old lady.”

Veale didn’t want to marry Pantuff. He didn’t want to marry anyone. If he married someone, he’d have to be with them always. Even if they didn’t insist on talking to him, he’d know they were there. Veale considered there to be two general types of people in the world: mediocrities and everyone else. Both types were ultimately to be avoided.

“I don’t need to keep lists,” said Veale. “I have a good memory. And it’s about the Sawyer woman. She’s not stupid. I was the one shadowing her, and I could tell. She learned to hide it, I think because of her husband, but she’s very smart.”

Pantuff was already on his feet and moving toward the door. Veale followed.

“Then,” said Pantuff over his shoulder, “she’ll do as she’s told.”

“She has no reason to trust us,” said Veale. “If I were her, I’d be working the angles. We should be following her.”

“Then we risk being seen.” Pantuff took a moment to check the street again before leaving the diner. He sighted a patrol car in the distance, but it was heading downtown, away from them. Portland, Maine, he had already concluded, possessed far too many police, with too much time on their hands. When he was happy the surroundings were clear, he led the way back to the car.

“If she’s as smart as you say,” said Pantuff, “she’ll be keeping an eye out for surveillance. Wait a minute, what am I even saying? Fucking surveillance. We took a couple of baubles from her, some pictures. Sure, they have sentimental value, which we’re looking to monetize, because otherwise we wouldn’t be doing this, but ‘angles,’ ‘surveillance’? No, it’s a simple exchange. She knows we can’t sell them, so why would we screw her over? She’s the payday, no one else.”

“But we’re not going to return them, are we?” said Veale. “We are going to screw her over.”

Pantuff started the car.

“If so,” he said, “it’s no more than the bitch deserves for keeping a rat in her bed. A killer rat, too.”

Even Veale looked askance at him when he said this, given Pantuff’s own treatment of women and his oft-expressed view that Nate Sawyer’s victims had almost certainly asked for what had befallen them, if only for being dumb enough to let him get close. Veale thought Pantuff might have been envious of Sawyer. Pantuff had never killed a woman, but Veale knew he fantasized about it. He’d spoken about femicide often enough.

Pantuff was still hungry. It would play havoc with his mood for the rest of the day. Not even lunch and dinner would help, and now Veale was sowing doubts in his mind, which would further interfere with his appetite. But when Veale spoke, it was a good idea to listen. His unique psychological makeup gave him the clarity of an ascetic. He saw the world in black and white—well, principally black, but the point remained valid. Pantuff wasn’t about to go so far as to accept that the Sawyer woman might be actively intelligent, but he was prepared to concede that she could be sneaky. In his world, “foxy” wasn’t a compliment.

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