reassurance. As he started for the door, Isaac spoke quickly. Perhaps too quickly.
“Evan, why don’t you come to Biloxi with me? Take some time off. I’m not leaving for another five or six days. That will give you time to make some arrangements. We could play some golf, maybe spend a day at the track. What do you say?”
“Idiot!” Isaac’s mind barked at his spontaneous request. “What are you doing? You’re going to Biloxi to look for a serial killer! And you’re inviting a depressed priest to keep you company? Great idea. Why not take the entire catechism class as well…make it a field trip…”
But the weary priest solved his dilemma. “No, thanks. I wouldn’t be good company, though I do thank you for the offer. Something tells me that I need to spend more time alone with this. But I’ll see you at Mass before you leave.”
He stepped across the threshold of the door, leaving Isaac relieved, concerned, and more than a little anxious.
He had almost confessed to Evan the mess that he was in. But Evan’s problems precluded that. And if he couldn’t confess it to the priest, at least for now, then he couldn’t share it with anyone.
Chapter Six
F ive days later he was sprawled beside a pool on the Biloxi strand, sipping a Cotes de Provence. The bone-dry Rose had a mineral crispness that was the perfect antidote to the humid afternoon. Aside from the habit of enjoying an expensive wine, he was involved in his other habit…waiting. He was trying to absorb a Kesey novel, but the fluid prose kept catching in the rocky shallows of his preoccupation. A stranger was about to die. He or she might be out on the streets right now, looking for a handout, a kindness from some unconcerned passerby. But, if his theories were correct, that person would be dead within a week, and would no longer depend upon the used-up compassion of a used-up world.
He daubed sunscreen on his flaking nose. He was trying to accept the last true warmth of the season even as he was trying to accept his purpose here. The spectrum of emotions wrapped up in this matter utterly fatigued him. This was no place for a grieving, past-dwelling old man to be. And he consciously knew it. His days should be spent in the writing of memoirs and the tender handling of faded photographs. That was all he wanted, and nothing more. To draw the shades and lean back in a chair…and think of her in terms of there, and there. To wait, to wait…for that hopeful evening, that last lonely night when he would finally close his eyes and there would be no more dreams…there would be only Lessa, always.
But for now he was here. Reading the papers twice a day, anticipating a death that was perhaps even now moving among its potential victims.
He found himself drinking too much as he waited. This had always been a lurking problem. For fifty years he had kept a wary eye on that jinni. Now, with time to kill—time waiting for the kill—he was turning more and more to the liquid easings of a troubled conscience.
Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of his involvement with these murders was the fact that his nocturnal imagining were becoming increasingly vivid and disturbing. Memories he had thought mostly buried were suddenly lumbering like zombies among the landscapes of his dreams: the camp, the cries, the foot-dragging shuffle of the oven-feeders. He hadn’t slept well since Atlanta. “Hell,” he thought sourly, “I haven’t slept well since my wedding night.”
He shaded his eyes and looked obliquely at the sun to judge the time. He never wore a watch. Time had never been his friend, so why remind himself of its cruel passage? It looked to be about two. He would waste another hour and then go in for a shower and a brief nap. The sun and the wine were draining his resolve, and he had probably spent too much time in the company of both already.
He closed his eyes behind his sunglasses, felt the muscled tension of his fatigue and tried to pinpoint it but
“Evan, why don’t you come to Biloxi with me? Take some time off. I’m not leaving for another five or six days. That will give you time to make some arrangements. We could play some golf, maybe spend a day at the track. What do you say?”
“Idiot!” Isaac’s mind barked at his spontaneous request. “What are you doing? You’re going to Biloxi to look for a serial killer! And you’re inviting a depressed priest to keep you company? Great idea. Why not take the entire catechism class as well…make it a field trip…”
But the weary priest solved his dilemma. “No, thanks. I wouldn’t be good company, though I do thank you for the offer. Something tells me that I need to spend more time alone with this. But I’ll see you at Mass before you leave.”
He stepped across the threshold of the door, leaving Isaac relieved, concerned, and more than a little anxious.
He had almost confessed to Evan the mess that he was in. But Evan’s problems precluded that. And if he couldn’t confess it to the priest, at least for now, then he couldn’t share it with anyone.
Chapter Six
F ive days later he was sprawled beside a pool on the Biloxi strand, sipping a Cotes de Provence. The bone-dry Rose had a mineral crispness that was the perfect antidote to the humid afternoon. Aside from the habit of enjoying an expensive wine, he was involved in his other habit…waiting. He was trying to absorb a Kesey novel, but the fluid prose kept catching in the rocky shallows of his preoccupation. A stranger was about to die. He or she might be out on the streets right now, looking for a handout, a kindness from some unconcerned passerby. But, if his theories were correct, that person would be dead within a week, and would no longer depend upon the used-up compassion of a used-up world.
He daubed sunscreen on his flaking nose. He was trying to accept the last true warmth of the season even as he was trying to accept his purpose here. The spectrum of emotions wrapped up in this matter utterly fatigued him. This was no place for a grieving, past-dwelling old man to be. And he consciously knew it. His days should be spent in the writing of memoirs and the tender handling of faded photographs. That was all he wanted, and nothing more. To draw the shades and lean back in a chair…and think of her in terms of there, and there. To wait, to wait…for that hopeful evening, that last lonely night when he would finally close his eyes and there would be no more dreams…there would be only Lessa, always.
But for now he was here. Reading the papers twice a day, anticipating a death that was perhaps even now moving among its potential victims.
He found himself drinking too much as he waited. This had always been a lurking problem. For fifty years he had kept a wary eye on that jinni. Now, with time to kill—time waiting for the kill—he was turning more and more to the liquid easings of a troubled conscience.
Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of his involvement with these murders was the fact that his nocturnal imagining were becoming increasingly vivid and disturbing. Memories he had thought mostly buried were suddenly lumbering like zombies among the landscapes of his dreams: the camp, the cries, the foot-dragging shuffle of the oven-feeders. He hadn’t slept well since Atlanta. “Hell,” he thought sourly, “I haven’t slept well since my wedding night.”
He shaded his eyes and looked obliquely at the sun to judge the time. He never wore a watch. Time had never been his friend, so why remind himself of its cruel passage? It looked to be about two. He would waste another hour and then go in for a shower and a brief nap. The sun and the wine were draining his resolve, and he had probably spent too much time in the company of both already.
He closed his eyes behind his sunglasses, felt the muscled tension of his fatigue and tried to pinpoint it but
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