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This catwalk, along which Boo led me, would be used by plumbers and electricians when problems arose with pier utilities

After we had proceeded some distance shoreward, we came to a two-foot-by-five-foot pop-out in the catwalk A wooden storage chest with two padlocks filled this space

In the poor light, I could not see any words or s on the chest Perhaps it contained ht have been the shrunken remains of the pier master’s poor wife, Lorraine, who perhaps had been o when she co creosote sht have worked up a hair-raising ie of Lorraine’s shriveled cadaver, pickled in creosote, if I had been able to believe there was actually such a position as a pier master I don’t knohere the name Lorraine came from

Sometimes I am a mystery to myself

Boo settled on the catwalk and rolled onto his side He extended one paard e that meant Sit down, stay awhile, keepforin ht across a howitzer-hae in soa to calm the nerves

Then I realized that the brute in the orchid-pattern shirt was overdue for an appearance as he searched the support structure froe chest stood about two and a half feet high and offered cover that the open railing did not

Good boy, I whispered

Boo’s tail beat against the floor withouta sound

I stretched out on the catwalk, onon ’s tuive affection as much as they need to receive it They were the first therapists; they’ve been in practice for thousands of years

After perhaps twoto his feet, ears pricked, alert

I dared to raise e chest I peered down seven feet into the level of the support structure from which I had recently ascended

At first I saw no one Then I spotted the hulk proceeding along the series of east-west bea water far below cast luh the support structure like the pris crystal chandelier in a ballroom The hulk had no one to dance with, but he didn’t appear to be in a dancing mood, anyway

FIVE

THE BIG MAN DIDN’T WALK THE BEAMS WITH reticence and caution, as I had done, but with such confidence that his h-rise construction worker His powerful arht in the other

He paused, switched on the flashlight, and searched a the horizontal supports

On the catwalk, I duckedlight swept over h Boo had ap in the railing, watching the giant, he remained visible only to ht into the labyrinth of posts and purlins and struts, I rose toahead of me, Boo dematerialized He appeared solid one moment, then became transparent, faded, vanished

I had no idea where he hen he was not withnew places as , and went off to wander previously unvisited neighborhoods of Magic Beach

Boo did not haunt this world in the way that the lingering hury, bitter Transgressively, they refused to heed the call to judgested to iven in this life was a heritage they carried with theht

Boo seeuardian spirit, always happy and ready to serve, still on the earth not because he had remained behind after death but because he had been sent back Consequently, perhaps he had the power and permission toto iently need his who had brightened this world with their grace and who hadever suffered or lived unloved

Evidently Boo believed that for the immediate future I couldthe catwalk until, glancing down at the opportune hy tied to a concrete coluently on the floodlit swells Here the hulk had ascended and had begun searching ard

At least one-quarter of the pier’s length lay to the east of this position I paused to brood about that

As it turned out, Boo had been right to think that I would be able to puzzle h this development without his counsel The hulk had not searched the last quarter of the support structure because he was confident that I could not have gone that far before he had climbed up here to look for me

I did not believe, however, that he was as du He would have left the last section unsearched only if, in the event that I slipped past him, someone waited on the shore to snare ether froht be waiting ahead of iven me a cookie, pattedover the catwalk railing, I lowered ot it back I went north toward the center of the pier

Just before I reached the intersection with the east-west beaap, and put one foot on a piton in one of the vertical supports I grabbed another piton with one hand, and swung onto that post

I descended to the concrete base colu colony of barnacles, breaking the care to spare my hands, and landed as quietly as I could on the sectioned floorboards of the inflatable dinghy A softly rattling debris of broken crustacean shells arrived with erously exposed and was eager to get out of there

Ato a cleat in the concrete: two horns of pitted steel that barely protruded past the barnacles I did not dare untie the dinghy until I was prepared to struggle against the currents that would carry it toward land

If I started the engine, the searchers would co the tiotiate aet out of pistol range before one of the gunmen arrived

Therefore, I resorted to the oars A pair were secured with Velcro straps against the starboard bulwark

Because long oars were needed and space was at a prehy, this pair had wooden paddles but telescoping alu--both activities at which I excel--I extended the oars and locked theth