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Billy did not have the isolation that Lanny enjoyed, but he lived on an acre shrouded by alders and deodar cedars, along a lane with few residences He didn’t know his neighbors He ht not have known therateful for their disinterest

The original owner of the house and the architect had evidently negotiated each other into a hybrid structure, half bungalow, half upscale cabin The lines were those of a bungalow The cedar siding, silvered by the weather, belonged on a cabin, as did the front porch with rough-hewn posts supporting the roof Unlike most bipolar houses, this one appeared cozy Diaalow--looked bejeweled when the lights were on In daylight the leaping-deer weather vane on the roof turned with lazy grace even in turbulent scrae, which also contained his orking shop, stood behind the house

After Billy parked the Explorer and closed the big door behind it, as he walked across the backyard toward the house, an owl hooted froe roof

No other owls answered But Billy thought he heardin the shrubbery, yearning for the tall grass beyond the yard

His htsair redolent of the fragrant bark and needles of the deodars The astringent scent cleared his head

Clarity proved undesirable He wasn’t much of a drinker, but noanted a beer and a shot

The stars looked hard They were bright, too, in the cloudless sky, but the feeling he got from them was hardness

Neither the back steps nor the floorboards of the porch creaked He had plenty of ti the kitchen, he himself had built the cabinets They were cherry ith a dark stain

He had laid the tile floor: black-granite squares The granite countertops matched the floor

Clean and simple He had intended to do the whole house in that style, but then he had lost his way

He poured a cold bottle of Guinness stout into a , spiked it with bourbon When he did drink, he wanted punch in both the texture and the taste He was"Hello?"

The caller did not respond even when Billy said hello again Ordinarily, he would have thought the line was dead Not this evening Listening, he fished the typewritten e from his pocket He unfolded it and sranite counter

Hollow as a bell, but a bell without a clapper, the open line carried no fizz of static Billy couldn’t hear the caller inhale or exhale, as if the guy were dead, and done with breathing

Whether prankster or killer, the ive him the satisfaction of a third hello

They listened to each other’s silence, as if so

After perhaps aa presence on the far end of the line

If he was in fact ear-to-ear with the author of the note, hanging up first would be a n of fear or at least of weakness

Life had taught hie included the possibility that he could be fatuous, so he didn’t worry about looking foolish He waited

When the caller hung up, the distinct sound of the disconnect proved that he had been there, and then the dial tone

Before continuing to make his sandwich, Billy walked the four rooms and bath He lowered the pleated shades over all the s

At the dinette table in the kitchen, he ate the sandwich and two dill pickles He drank a second stout, this time without the added bourbon He had no TV The entertainhts were his only coer over the pastra roo For most of his life, Billy had been a voracious reader

He had lost interest in reading three years, ten months, and four days previously A ht hiether

On one shelf stood a set of Dickens in iven him for Christmas She’d had a passion for Dickens These days, he needed to keep busy Just sitting in a chair with a book made him restless He felt vulnerable so ideas They started you thinking about things you wanted to forget, and though your thoughts became intolerable, you could not put the room was a consequence of his need to re The center of each featured a cluster of acanthus leaves hand-carved froany

The style of this ceiling suited neither a cabin nor a bungalow He didn’t care The project had kept hi was evenrooo to the desk, where the unused computer mocked hi tools Here also were stacks of white-oak blocks They had a sood smell The blocks were raw material for the orna, which was currently bare plaster

On the table stood a CD player and two small speakers The disc deck was loaded with zydeco music He switched it on

He carved until his hands ached and his vision blurred Then he turned off theon his back in the dark, staring at a ceiling that he could not see, he waited for his eyes to fall shut He waited He heard so at the cedar-shake shingles The owl, no doubt The owl did not hoot Perhaps it was a raccoon Or sohtstand Twenty ht You have six hours to decide The choice is yours Everything would be all right in the ood enough to encourage perseverance I want to knohat it says, the sea What it is that it keeps on saying A few tiood They had to fall shut on their own for sleep to follow He looked at the clock as it changed from 12:59 to 1:00 The note had been under the windshield wiper when he had come out of the tavern at seven o’clock Six hours had passed Someone had beentalons of the owl, if it was an owl, he slept

Chapter 5

The tavern had no nan at the top of the pole, as you turned fro lot, said only TAVERN

Jackie O’Hara owned the place Fat, freckled, kind, he was to everyone a friend or honorary uncle

He had no desire to see his nan

As a boy, Jackie had wanted to be a priest He wanted to help people He wanted to lead theht not be able to , he had arrived at the conclusion that he would be a bad priest, which hadn’t been the nature of his drea a clean and friendly taproom, but it seemed to him that simple satisfaction in his accomplishments would sour into vanity if he named the tavern after himself

In Billy Wiles’s opinion, Jackie would havehas appetites difficult to control, but far fewer have huentleness, and an awareness of their weaknesses

Vineyard Hills Tavern Shady Elularly offered naestions to be either aard or inappropriate, or twee When Billy arrived at 10:45 Tuesday , fifteen minutes before the tavern opened, the only cars in the lot were Jackie’s and Ben Vernon’s Ben was the day cook

Standing beside his Explorer, he studied the low serried hills in the distance, on the far side of the highway They were dark brohere scalped by earthreen by the arid summer heat

Peerless Properties, an international corporation, was building a worldclass resort, to be called Vineland, on nine hundred acres In addition to a hotel with golf course, three pools, tennis club, and other aetaway homes for sale to those who took their leisure seriously

Foundations had been poured in early spring Walls were rising Much closer than the palatial structures on the higher hills, less than a hundred feet frohway, a drah, 150 feet long, three-di