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"ONE MORE !" says the guy from ESPN

It sounds h Henry can’t see the fellow, he knows this particular homeboy never played a sport in his life, pro or otherwise He has the lardy, slightly oily aroht almost from the jump Sports is perhaps his coht in the Husky section at Sears and all those childhood rhymes like "Fatty-fatty, two-by-four, had to do it on the floor, couldn’t get through the bathroom door"

His name is Penniman "Just like Little Richard!" he told Henry when they shook hands at the radio station "Famous rock ’n’ roller frouely," Henry said, as if he hadn’t at one tile Little Richard had ever put out "I believe he was one of the Founding Fathers" Pennilimpsed a possible future for hihed at Howard Stern, too, and Howard Stern was a dork

"One more drink!" Penniman repeats now They are in the bar of the Oak Tree Inn, where Penniman has tipped the bartender five bucks to switch the TV fro on at this hour of the day except golf tips and bass fishing "One more drink, just to seal the deal!"

But they don’t have a deal, and Henry isn’t sure he wants to e Rathbun as part of the ESPN radio package should be attractive, and he doesn’t have any serious problee to ESPN Sports Barrage ¡ª it would still focus primarily on the central and northern areas of the country ¡ª but

But what?

Before he can even get to work on the question, he sain: My Sin, the perfus, when she wanted to send a certain signal Lark hat he used to call her on those certain evenings, when the roo but scents and textures and each other

Lark

"You know, I think I’ to pass on that drink," Henry says "Got so to think over your offer And I mean seriously"

"Ah-ah-ah," Penniman says, and Henry can tell from certain er beneath his nose Henry wonders how Penniman would react if Henry suddenly darted his head forward and bit off the offending digit at the second knuckle If Henry showed him a little Coulee Country hospitality Fisherman-style How loud would Penniman yell? As loud as Little Richard before the instrumental break of "Tutti Frutti," perhaps? Or not quite as loud as that?

"Can’t go till I’er Matters tells hiihtly slurred My friend, Henry thinks, I’d poke a ferret up et into a car with you at the wheel

"Actually, I can," Henry says pleasantly Nick Avery, the bartender, is having a kick-ass afternoon: the fat guy slipped hiuy slipped hiuy was in the bathroo;Actually, I can’ Bartender?"

"He’s outside, sir," Avery tells hio"

There is a hefty creak as Penniman turns on his bar stool Henry can’t see thein the hotel turnaround, but he can sense it

"Listen, Henry," Penni of your current situation There are stars in the firht there are ¡ª people like the Fabulous Sports Babe and Tony Kornheiser ures easy ¡ª but you ain’t there yet That door is currently closed to you But I, my friend, aht to have one more drink, then ¡ª "

"Bartender," Henry says quietly, then shakes his head "I can’t just call you bartender; it art but it doesn’t work for me What’s your name?"

"Nick Avery, sir" The last word comes out auto to the other one, never in a uys tipped hient It’s got nothing to do with hi he is

"Nick, who else is at the bar?"

Avery looks around In one of the back booths, twobeer In the hall, a bellman is on the phone At the bar itself, no one at all except for these two guys ¡ª one sli to be pissed off

"No one, sir"

"There’s not alady?" Lark, he’s almost said There’s not a lark?

"No"

"Listen here," Penniman says, and Henry thinks he’s never heard anyone so unlike "Little Richard" Penniuy is whiter than Moby Dickand probably about the saot a lot more to discuss here" Loh more t’dishcush is how it comes out "Unless, that is" ¡ª Unlesh ¡ª "you’re trying to let me know you’re not interested" Never in a million years, Penniman’s voice says to Henry Leyden’s educated ears We’re talking about putting aroom, sweetheart, your very own private ATM, and there ain’t no way in hell you’re going to turn that down

"Nick, you don’t sht and old-fashioned? My Sin, perhaps?"

A flabby hand falls on Henry’s shoulder like a hot-water bottle "The sin, old buddy, would be for you to refuse to have another drink with est you get your hand off him," Avery says, and perhaps Penniman’s ears aren’t entirely deaf to nuance, because the hand leaves Henry’s shoulder at once

Then another hand coher up It touches the back of Henry’s neck in a cold caress that’s there and then gone Henry draws in breath The smell of perfume comes with it Usually scents fade after a period of exposure, as the receptors that caught theh Not this smell

"No perfume?" Henry almost pleads The touch of her hand on his neck he can dismiss as a tactile hallucination But his nose never betrays him

Never until now, anyway

"I’m sorry," Avery says "I can sin and his aftershave"

Henry nods The lights above the backbar slide across the dark lenses of his shades as he slips gracefully off his stool

"I think you want another drink, my friend," Penniman says in what he no doubt believes to be a tone of polite menace "One more drink, just to celebrate, and then I’ll take you home in my Lexus"

Henry smells his wife’s perfume He’s sure of it And he seemed to feel the touch of his wife’s hand on the back of his neck Yet suddenly it’s skinny little Morris Rosen he finds hi about ¡ª Morris, anted him to listen to "Where Did Our Love Go" as done by Dirtysperm And of course for Henry to play it in his Wisconsin Rat persona Morris Rosen, who has ers than this bozo has got in his entire body

He puts a hand on Penniman’s forearm He smiles into Penniman’s unseen face, and feels the muscles beneath his palet his way Again

"You take my drink," Henry says pleasantly, "add it to your drink, and then stick the to hold theht after the hi one hand out in front of him as an insurance policy Nick Avery has broken into spontaneous applause, but Henry barely hears this and Penniman he has already dismissed from his mind What occupies him is the smell of My Sin perfume It fades a little as he steps out into the afternoon heatbut is that not an ah his wife so asleep after love? His Rhoda? His Lark?

"Hello, the taxi!" he calls froht here, buddy ¡ª what’re you, blind?"

"As a bat," Henry agrees, and walks toward the sound of the voice He’ll go holass of tea, and then he’ll listen to the damned 911 tape That as yet unperfor his current case of the heebie-jeebies and shaky-shivers, knowing that he must sit in darkness and listen to the voice of a child-killing cannibal Surely that must be it, because there’s no reason to be afraid of his Lark, is there? If she were to return ¡ª to return and haunt him ¡ª she would surely haunt with love

Wouldn’t she?

Yes, he thinks, and lowers hi back seat

"Where to, buddy?"

"Norway Valley Road," Henry says "It’s a white house with blue tri after you cross the creek"

Henry settles back in the seat and turns his troubled face toward the openFrench Landing feels strange to hi that has slipped and slipped until it is now on the verge of si to pieces on the floor

Say that she has come back Say that she has If it’s love she’s come with, why does the smell of her perfume make me so uneasy? So alined touch, he assures himself) so unpleasant?

Why was her touch so cold?

After the dazzle of the day, the living room of Beezer’s crib is so dark that at first Jack can’tThen, when his eyes adjust a little, he sees why: blankets ¡ª a double thickness, fro over both of the living-room s, and the door to the other downstairs room, almost certainly the kitchen, has been closed

"He can’t stand the light," Beezer says He keeps his voice low so it won’t carry across to the far side of the room, where the shape of abeside hi that bit him was rabid," Jack says He doesn’t believe it

Beezer shakes his head decisively "It isn’t a phobic reaction Doc says it’s physiological Where light falls on hi like that?"

"No" And Jack has never s like the stench in this room, either There’s the buzz of not one but two table fans, and he can feel the cross-draft, but that stink is too gluey to angrene in torn flesh ¡ª but Jack has setting to hi like blood and funeral flowers and feces allnoise, can’t help it, and Beezer looks at him with a certain impatient sympathy

"Bad, yeah, I know But it’s like the et used to it after a while"

The swing door to the other rooth blond hair coht strikes the figure lying on the couch, Mouse screas have begun to liquefy So ¡ª maybe smoke, maybe steam ¡ª starts to rise up fro s all the way shut again, Jack is able to read what’s pasted to his battered black bag So a STEPPENWOLF RULES bu, but probably not in Wisconsin

The wos it out, and places it on Mouse’s forehead Mouse gives a shaky groan and begins to shiver all over Water runs down his cheeks and into his beard The beard seey patches

Jack steps forward, telling hiet used to the smell, sure he will Maybe it’s even true In the meantime he wishes for a little of the Vicks VapoRub love compartments as a matter of course A dab under each nostril would be very welcoht now

There’s a sound system (scruffy) and a pair of speakers in the corners of the rooe), but no television Stacked wooden crates filled with books line every ithout a door or ain it,the space seem even smaller than it is, almost cryptlike Jack has a touch of claustrophobia in hishis discoion and philosophy ¡ª he sees Descartes, C S Lewis, the Bhagavad-Gita, Steven Avery’s Tenets of Existence ¡ª but there’s also a lot of fiction, books on beer iant speaker) Albert Goldman’s trash toraph of a young girl with a splendid s the child who drew the hopscotch grid out front er and sorrow Otherworldly beings and causes therearound who needs to be stopped He’d do well to remember that

Bear Girl racefully even though she’s on her knees and still holding the bowl Jack sees that in it are two ht of them makes him thirstier than ever He takes one and pops it into his mouth Then he turns his attention to Mouse

A plaid blanket has been pulled up to his neck His forehead and upper cheeks ¡ª the places not covered by his decaying beard ¡ª are pasty His eyes are closed His lips are drawn back to show teeth of startling whiteness

"Is he ¡ª " Jack begins, and then Mouse’s eyes open Whatever Jack meant to ask leaves his head entirely Around the hazel irises, Mouse’s eyes have gone an uneasy, shifting scarlet It’s as if theinto a terrible radioactive sunset From the inner corners of his eyes, so

"The Book of Philosophical Transformation addressesmellowly and lucidly, "and Machiavelli also speaks to these questions" Jack can alin to chatter, that is

"Mouse, it’s Jack Sawyer" No recognition in those weird red-and-hazel eyes The black gunk at the corners of them see to him

"It’s Hollywood," Beezer murmurs "The cop Remember?"

One of Mouse’s hands lies on the plaid blanket Jack takes it, and stifles a cry of surprise when it closes over his with ath It’s hot, too As hot as a biscuit just out of the oven Mouse lets out a long, gasping sigh, and the stench is fetid ¡ª badfroh this

Christ ht Jack tries to fix her eyes in his aze

"Listen," Mouse says

"I’ather himself Beneath the blanket, his body shivers in a loose, uncoordinated way that Jack guesses is next door to a seizure So A boat hoots on the Mississippi Other than these sounds, all is silence Jack can remember only one other such suspension of the world’s business in his entire life, and that hen he was in a Beverly Hills hospital, waiting for hisSo to be rescued, at least So to destroy the axle upon which all existence spins Here is only this eternal room with its feeble fans and noxious vapors

Mouse’s eyes close, then open again They fix upon the newco to be confided The ice cube is gone from his mouth; Jack supposes he crunched it up and sed it without even realizing, but he doesn’t dare take another

"Go on, buddy," Doc says "You get it out and then I’ll load you up with another hypo of dope The good stuff Maybe you’ll sleep"

Mouse pays no heed His htening stilltogether

"Don’tgo out and buy top-of-the-line equiply foul breath froive up brewing aftera year or two Even dedicateddedicated hobbyists Making beer is notis not for pussies"

Jack looks around at Beezer, who looks back impassively "He’s in and out Be patient Wait on hihtens yethe can take it no longer

"Get a big pot," Mouse advises hio, fleeting across the curved landscape of his corneas, and Jack thinks, That’s its shadow The shadow of the Criot one foot in its court "Five gallonsat least You find the best ones are inseafood supply stores And for a feroodthey’re lighter than glass, andI’ up!"

"Fuck this, I’

Beezer grabs his arin to slip out of Mouse’s eyes The black goo seereedily doard, as if trying to catch the moisture and drink it

"Fermentation lock and stopper," Mouse whispers "Thomas Merton is shit, never let anyone tell you different No real thought there You have to let the gases escape while keeping dust out Jerry Garcia wasn’t God Kurt Cobain wasn’t God The perfuht the eye of the King Gorg-ten-abbalah, ee-lee-lee The opopanax is dead, long live the opopanax"

Jack leansperfu, the bad King, the sad King Ring-a-ding-ding, all hail the King"

"Mouse, who’s caught the eye of the King?"

Doc says, "I thought you wanted to know about ¡ª "

"Who?" Jack has no idea why this see someone has said to him recently? Was it Dale? Tansy? Was it, God save us, Wendell Green?

"Racking cane and hose," Mouse says confidentially "That’s what you need when the fermentation’s done! And you can’t put beer in screw-top bottles! You ¡ª "

Mouse turns his head away from Jack, nestles it cozily in the hollow of his shoulder, opens his mouth, and vomits Bear Girl screa black bits like the crud in the corners of Mouse’s eyes It is alive

Beezer leaves the roo, and Jack shades Mouse froht as best he can The hand clamped on Jack’s loosens a little ?"

Doc shakes his head "Passed out again Poor old Mousie ain’t getting off that easy" He gives Jack a grim, haunted look "This better be worth it, Mr Policeonna replus, and he’s put on a pair of green kitchen gloves Not speaking, he mops up the pool of vomit between Mouse’s shoulder and the backrest of the couch The black specks have ceasedin the first place would have been even better The vomit, Jack notices with dismay, has eaten into the couch’s worn fabric like acid

"I’ to pull the blanket down for a second or two," Doc says, and Bear Girl gets up at once, still holding the boith the oes to one of the bookshelves and stands there with her back turned, tre I really need to see?"

I think maybe it is I don’t think you knohat you’re dealing with, even now" Doc takes hold of the blanket and eases it out from beneath Mouse’s liun to ooze froernails "Reo, Mr Police with her back to thereat works of Western philosophy and begins to cry silently Jack tries to hold back his screaoes into his house, takes a deep and soothing breath of the air-conditioned cool There is a faint aroma ¡ª sweet ¡ª and he tells himself it’s just fresh-cut flowers, one of Mrs Morton’s specialties He knows better, but wants nobetter, and he supposes he knohy: it was telling the ESPN guy to take his job and shove it Nothing more apt to make a fellow’s day, especially when the fellow in question is gainfully employed, possessed of two credit cards that are nowhere near the e

Henry heads kitchenward now,his way down the hall with one hand held out before hi the air for obstacles and displacements There’s no sound but the whisper of the air conditioner, the hue, the clack of his heels on the hardwood

An ah

Henry stands where he is for a moment, then turns cautiously Is the sweet aro back in this direction, toward the living room and the front door? He thinks yes And it’s not flowers; no sense fooling himself about that As always, the nose knows That’s the aroma of My Sin

"Rhoda?" he says, and then, lower: "Lark?"

No answer Of course not He’s just having the heebie-jeebies, that’s all; those world-famous shaky-shivers, and why not?

"Because I’m the sheik, baby," Henry says "The Sheik, the Shake, the Shook"

No shs And yet he’s haunted by the idea of his wife back in the living roo him silently as he came in and passed blindly before her His Lark, coin Mound Cemetery for a little visit Maybe to listen to the latest Slobberbone CD

"Quit it," he says softly "Quit it, you dope"

He goes into his big, well-organized kitchen On his way through the door he slaps a button on the panel there without even thinking about it Mrs Morton’s voice coht almost be in the room

"Jack Saas by, and he dropped off another tape he wants you to listen to He said it wasyou know, thatthe refrigerator and enjoying the blast of cold air His hand goes unerringly to one of three cans of Kingsland Lager stored inside the door Never mind the iced tea

"Both of the tapes are in your studio, by the soundboard Also, Jack wanted you to call him on his cell phone" Mrs Morton’s voice takes on a faintly lecturing tone "If you do speak to him, I hope you tell him to be careful And be careful yourself" A pause "Also, don’t forget to eat supper It’s all ready to go Second shelf of the fridge, on your left"

"Nag, nag, nag," Henry says, but he’s soes to the telephone and dials Jack’s nue Ram parked in front of 1 Nailhouse Row, Jack’s cell phone comes to life This time there’s no one in the cab to be annoyed by its tiny but penetrating tweet

"The cellular custo Please try your call again later"

Henry hangs up, goes back to the doorway, and pushes another button on the panel there The voices that deliver the time and teraet, so he never knohich one he’s going to get This ti crazily into the sunny air-conditioned silence of his house, which has never felt so far from town as it does today:

"Tihty-two! Inside temperature’s seventy! What the hell do you care? What the hell does anyone care? Chew it up, eat it up, wash it down, it aaall ¡ª "

¡ª coain, silencing the Rat’s tradeet late so fast? God, wasn’t it just noon? For that , twenty years old and so full of spunk it was practically coain, derailing his h? Really? More likely just the air conditioner’s co off He can tell himself that, anyway

He can tell himself that if he wants to

"Is anyone here?" Henry asks There is a tremble in his voice that he hates, an old man’s palsied quaver "Is anyone in the house withwill answer Nothing does ¡ª of course nothing does ¡ª and he ss half the can of beer in three long gulps He decides he’ll go back into the living room and read for a little while Maybe Jack will call Maybe he’ll get himself a little more under control once he has a little fresh alcohol in his system

And maybe the world will end in the next five minutes, he thinks That way you’ll never have to deal with the voice on those da there on the soundboard like unexploded bo roo hi his wife’s dead face

Jack Sawyer has seen a lot, he’s traveled to places where you can’t rent from Avis and the water tastes like wine, but he’s never encountered anything like Mouse Bau Or, rather, the pestilential, apocalyptic horror show that was Mouse Bauot hi like control is to upbraid Doc for taking off Mouse’s pants Jack keeps thinking of sausages, and how the casing forces the on a red-hot burner This is an undoubtedly stupid comparison, primo stupido, but the human mind under pressure puts on some pretty odd jinks and ju there ¡ª sort of ¡ª but the flesh has spread away froone, melted to a runny substance that looks like a mixture of milk and bacon fat The interwovenand undergoing the sa is in a kind of undisciplined motion as the solid becomes liquid and the liquid sizzles relentlessly into the couch upon which Mouse is lying Along with the al cloth and like ed If I wanted to, I could pull it right offjust like a squash off a vine The thought gets to hi hasn’t quite been able to, and for anot to vomit down the front of his shirt

What perhaps saves hi what comfort he can The rowdy color has completely left the Beez’s face He looks like a rave in an urban , and his voice seereat distance "This ain’t the chicken pox, h it looked a little like that while it was still getting cranked up He’s already exhibiting red spots on his left leghis bellyhis balls That’s pretty ot hiht, ¡®Shit, ain’t nothin’ to this, I got enough Zithromax to put this on the run before sundown’ Well, you see what good the Zithro did You see what good anything did It’s eating through the couch, and I’o right to work on the floor This shit is hungry So was it worth it, Hollywood? I guess only you and Mouse know the answer to that"

"He still knohere the house is," Beezer says "Me, I don’t have a clue, even though we just came from there You, either Do you?"

Doc shakes his head

"But Mouse, he knows"

"Susie, honey," Doc says to Bear Girl "Bring another blanket, would you? This one’s daets to his feet His legs are rubbery, but they hold hi out to the kitchen If I don’t get a drink, I’ to die"

Jack takes on water directly fro until a spike plants itself in the center of his forehead and he belches like a horse Then he just stands there, looking out into Beezer and Bear Girl’s backyard A neat little swing set has been planted there in the weedy desolation It hurts Jack to look at it, but he looks anyway After the lunacy of Mouse’s leg, it seems important to remind himself that he’s here for a reason If the reold as it eases itself doard the Missis-sippi, glares in his eyes Ti still after all, it seems Not outside this little house, anyway Outside 1 Nailhouse Row, time actually see here was as pointless as detouring to Henry’s house; torht that Mr Munshun and his boss, the abbalah, are running him around like a windup toy with a key in its back while they do their work He can follow that buzz in his head to Black House, so why the hell doesn’t he just get back in his truck and do it?

The perfume he smells is not that of his dead wife

What does thatperfume make him so crazy and afraid?

Beezer knocks on the kitchen door,over the kitchen table Instead of GOD BLESS OUR HOME, it reads HEAVY METAL THUNDER With a carefully stitched HARLEY-DAVIDSON beneath

"Get back in here, ain"

Henry’s on a path in the woods ¡ª oris behind him Each time he turns to see ¡ª in this drea ¡ª there’s a littleback there It appears to be a ated, with spike teeth that jut over a s red lower lip And he seems ¡ª is it possible? ¡ª to have only one eye

The first time Henry looks back, the shape is only a milky blur amid the trees The next time he canred blotch that ’s den, a stinking hole that only coincidentally looks like a house Its presence buzzes in Henry’s head Instead of pine, the woods pressing in on either side sback there is, it’s driving hterhouse

He thinks of cutting off the lane to his left or right, of using the h the woods Only there are things there, too Dark, floating shapes like sooty scarves He can al with a long tongue as red as the apparition’s tie and bulging eyes

Can’t let it drive et out of this before it can getsimplicity All he has to do is wake up Because this is a dream This is just a ¡ª

"It’s a drea, he’s sitting, sitting in his very own easy chair, and pretty soon he’s going to have a very wet crotch because he fell asleep with a can of Kingsland Lager balanced there, and ¡ª

But there’s no spill, because there’s no can of beer He feels cautiously to his right and yep, there it is, on the table with his book, a braille edition of Reflections in a Golden Eye Heasleep and then falling into that horrible nightmare

Except Henry’s pretty sure he didn’t do any such thing He was holding the book and the beer was between his legs, freeing his hands to touch the little upraised dots that tell the story So very considerately took both the book and the can after he dropped off, and put the that smells of My Sin perfu, slow breath with his nostrils flared andvery clearly "I can s shaht Very faint but still there The nose knows"

All true enough But the sone, but she will be back And suddenly he wants her to cohtened, surely it’s the unknown he’s frightened of, right? Only that and nothingfor company but the memory of that rancid dream

And the tapes

He has to listen to the tapes He proets shakily to his feet and -rooreeted by the voice of Henry Shake, a mellow fellow if ever there was one

"Hey there, all you hoppin’ cats and boppin’ kitties, at the tone it’s seven-fourteen PM, Bulova Watch Tirees, and here in the Make-Believe Ballrooet off your ic?"

Seven-fourteen! When was the last time he fell asleep for almost three hours in the daytime? For that matter, as the last time he had a dream in which he could see? The answer to that second question, so far as he can re behind him?

What was the place ahead of him, for that matter?

"Doesn’t matter," Henry tells the empty room ¡ª if it is empty "It was a dream, that’s all The tapes, on the other hand"

He doesn’t want to listen to the any less in his life (with the possible exception of Chicago singing "Does Anybody Really Know What Tiht save Ty Marshall’s life, or the life of even one other child, heevery step, Henry Leyden makes his blind way to his studio, where two cassettes wait for him on the soundboard

"In heaven there is no beer," Mouse sings in a toneless, droning voice

His cheeks are now covered with ugly red patches, and his nose see sideways into his face, like an atoll after an undersea earthquake