"The little one? He broke his little finger?" Mrs. Fletcher grabbed hold of Carolyn's sleeve.

"Yes, yes, the little pinkie on the left hand."

They were ecstatic. They hugged and kissed each other as if it was the end of the war. Mrs. Fletcher looked at me and her eyes were brimming with tears. The whole thing was crazy.

"You must be the one, Tom. Now it's all going right again." Her face was radiant. Her dog had just been killed and her face was radiant.

"Can I give you a kiss, Mr. Abbey? I mean, only if it's okay with you."

Carolyn gave me a hot peck on the cheek and then twittered away, back into the fog. I didn't know if it was creepier out there or in here.

Mrs. Fletcher gave me another delighted look. "Ever since you started work on his book, Tom, everything here has gone right. Anna knew what she was doing with you, boy." She took my hand and held it in both of hers.

"But what about Nails, Mrs. Fletcher? He was just run over. He's dead."

"I know. I'll see you in the morning, Tom." She waved once when she got to the top of the stairs, and then she closed the door that separated her world from ours.

I went back into our apartment and silently closed the door behind me. Nails was dead. The dog that had talked to me was dead. That was bad enough (or good enough, depending on how you looked at it), but then the joy on both women's faces when Carolyn gave the news…

I didn't understand anything, but on the other hand I remembered a section from The Land of Laughs where the Queen of Oil says to one of her children:

The questions are the danger.

Leave them alone and they sleep.

Ask them, awake them, and more than you

know will begin to rise.

"Thomas? Are you there? What happened?"

I saw the yellow light spilling out of the kitchen and I heard Saxony's portable radio tinnily blasting out the new rock song that was being constantly played then. She called it "The Chinese Water Torture Song."

When I walked in, she looked up from her carving and shrugged. "What was that all about?"

4

"Anna?"

She pushed the hair out of her eyes and put one bare arm behind her neck. "Yes?"

"Do you know about Mrs. Fletcher's dog?" I looked at her breasts. The small nipples were still hard and dark in the cold bedroom.

"Yes, I heard that he was run over last night. It's sad, isn't it?" Her voice didn't sound very sad. I didn't know if I wanted to see her face when I asked the next question. The bedroom was dark and shadowy. It smelled of love and old wooden furniture exposed to winter's cold. For the first time I was aware of both the smell and the fact that I didn't like it much.

"I was there when she heard about it." The first two fingers on my right hand started tapping on the part of the blanket down around our waists.

"Hmm?"

"I said that I was there when she heard about it. Do you know what she did?"

She turned her head slowly to me. "What did she do, Thomas?"

"She smiled. She was delighted. She made it sound like it was the best thing she had heard in years."

"She is a crazy old woman, Thomas."

"I know, you keep telling me that. But Carolyn Cort's not crazy, is she?"

"What about Carolyn Cort? How do you know her?" She sounded peeved.

"She was the one who came out to the house to tell Mrs. Fletcher. She was smiling too. She gave me a kiss when she left." I took a handful of blanket and squeezed it.

"Goddamn them!" She sat up in bed and reached to the floor on her side for her sweatshirt and blue jeans. I didn't know whether to move or stay where I was. You didn't want to get in Anna's way when she was mad.

She was dressed in two minutes. When she was done, she stood next to the bed with her hands on her hips and scowled at me. For a moment I thought that she was going to give me a smack or something.

"Petals!" She stared right at me while she bellowed for the dog in a very un-Anna-like voice. "Petals, get in here!" We looked at each other while we waited. I heard toenails clicking on the wooden stairs, then feet padding down the hall rug. Anna walked to the bedroom door and opened it. Petals trotted in and, after a cursory glance at me, sat down on Anna's foot and leaned against her.

"Petals, tell Thomas who you are."

The dog looked at her with that stony blank face.

"Go on, tell him! It's all right – it's time. We have to let him know."

The dog whimpered and dipped its head. It put a paw out, as if it was trying to shake hands.

"Tell him!"

"Wil-Wilma Inkler."

I started to move up and out of the bed. The voice was the same as Nails's. A dwarf's voice, only this one was more macabre or perverse because it was distinctly feminine. A woman was in there somewhere. Dwarf or bull terrier, it was a woman's voice, loud and clear.

"Tell him what Nails's real name was."

The dog closed its eyes and sighed as if it was in great pain. "Gert Inkler. He was my husband."

"Fucking A! The guy in the train-station book! The guy who walked around the world!"

I was talking to a dog. "What am I, nuts? I'm talking to a goddamned dog!"

"I'm not a dog! I'm just one now, but all of that changes today! Today it's over for me! Over! Forever!" Petals was indignant. Her face still had no expression, but she spoke in a higher, more adamant voice. Don't ask me what was going through my head, I couldn't begin to explain. I'm naked, sitting in Anna France's bed, talking with a bull terrier who is saying that she won't be a bull terrier after today.

"Wilma, go out for a while and let us talk. I'll call you back in in a few minutes."

I watched her leave. I felt like a tight ball of yarn was beginning to unravel in my head. I expected to feel dizzy when I stood up, but I didn't.

"Do you understand yet, Thomas?"

I sat back down on the bed, defeated. I had only gotten as far as my white underpants.

"Understand what, Anna? That you've got talking dogs here? No. The fact that you knew that little boy was going to die? No. The fact that people around here celebrate when a dog gets run over? A talking dog, by the way. No. Do you have any other questions for me? The answer to them is no too."

"How do you know about Nails?"

"He talked to me right before he died. Purely by accident – I came on him when he was napping. He talked in his sleep."

"Are you frightened?"

"Yes. Where are my pants?"

"You don't look frightened."

"If I stopped moving around now, I'd have a spastic attack. Where are my fucking pants?" I jumped up and moved madly around the room. I was scared to death, exhausted from fucking, curious as hell.

She grabbed my leg and pulled me toward her. "Do you want me to explain everything to you?"

"Explain what, Anna? Will you please let me go? What the hell is there to explain?"

"Galen. My father. Everything."

"You mean that none of what you've said so far is the truth? Well, that's wonderful. Shit, where is my goddamned shirt?"

"Please stop, Thomas. What you have gotten so far is true, but it's only part of it. Please stop pacing around. I want to tell you all of this, and it's important!"

I saw a corner of my shirt sticking out from beneath one of the pillows, but Anna's voice was so strong and insistent that I didn't go over to retrieve it. There was an old Mission morris chair near the bed, so I sat down on it. I didn't want her touching me while she said whatever she had to say. I looked at my bare feet and felt the cold wood floor coming up through my heels. I didn't want to look at Anna. I didn't even know if I could look at her then.

I heard a car horn honking outside. Maybe old Richard Lee was going to come over and join us. I wondered what Saxony was doing.