"Listen,” Pierce said.

"My brother's something of a woodworker. Maybe we can knock up some bookshelves for you."

"No, listen.” He buttoned his coat, and picked up his bookbag, thrust some papers into it that he didn't want as though he wanted them very much, had come only for them and was now gone, out of here.

"I'll go over the water system with you again. It was some little thing you did. Or didn't do.” What operation had he had, what pills had been given him? His burnished face glowed like a cartoon sun. “Anyway it's a long time till then. It's nice now. Days are getting longer, you notice? Warmer. Pretty soon you'll be wanting these windows open.” He unzipped his own coat. “I'm back. The winter's over."

"I've got to go,” said Pierce.

"Tell me you'll think about it,” Mr. Winterhalter said. “We don't want to be hasty. A lease is, as you know, a legal document.” He had stepped into the bathroom, and Pierce thought he meant to throw open the bedroom door, but instead he turned the porcelain handles of the hot and cold faucets at the sink. Water came out of them, stopped; they coughed and gagged, their tracheae trembling noisily; then more water, brownish, then clear. Mr. Winterhalter held out a hand to them and one to Pierce, grinning as though to say, Come, drink and wash, it's all right.

* * * *

Not thinking where he would go, wanting only to leave Littleville behind and not turn yet toward Stonykill and Arcady—where he imagined Rosie ensconced amid Boney's books and papers, awaiting him and his tale—Pierce turned off and up Hopeful Hill toward the other side of the Faraways. He found himself then at the Shadowland crossroads, with nowhere to turn but back toward the Jambs or up the Shadow River road and Mount Whirligig. As though he played snakes and ladders here, or some such game without exits, only returns.

Halfway toward the turn to The Woods he came upon the driveway of the little cabin Rose had lived in the summer before. The windows (he glimpsed as he went by; not for anything would he stop, he might have to do it all again if he did) were still covered in gray plywood, sheets he had himself put up.

But not much farther was the road down to the Faraway Lodge. There, he thought, he could visit. And just as he came within sight of it, and of Brent Spofford's Ram parked in the lot, the car he drove expired.

* * * *

"So how are they doing, those two?” Val the bartender and owner asked when he'd told her of his run-in with his landlord. They stood in the sun on the Lodge's porch. Brent Spofford was examining the ancient and probably dry-rotted beams that supported the sagging roof, with an eye to giving Val a price for repairs. “I hear one's been sick."

"The man or the wife?” Pierce asked.

Val looked at him as though either he knew something astonishing, something that it was inconceivable she didn't know herself, or he was a complete idiot. “There's no wife,” she said. “Just the two of them."

"The two,” Pierce said.

"Mort, and. Mort. I forget the other brother's name.” She chucked the Kent she had smoked to the filter. “He used to be a chef, one of the big fancy places around here. I think he's the one who's not doing well."

"No, it's the other brother,” Spofford said. “The one that's not sick is not the chef."

"The other brother?” Pierce said.

"They're inseparable,” Val said.

"Oh God,” Pierce said, who had not separated them. “Identical?” he asked.

"Jeez, I don't know. They are a lot alike. But opposite, sort of, you know?"

"Complementary,” said Pierce. “Oh Lord."

What is it, what accounts for the delight we feel when the world with a grin and a tug on the strings reverses the figure, delivers the punch line, a delight so pure it can even color our chagrin and make it hilarious too? Of course sometimes our souls are wrung and harrowed by a peripeteia, appalling knowledge given all in a moment, but—it's the difference between the joyous plunge of a roller coaster and a bad fall downhill—just as often not. More often, even, in lucky worlds. Pierce lifted his face to Heaven, and laughed aloud.

What was so funny, they wanted to know.

"Nothing. Nothing. I knew all that. All along. Sure."

So maybe, he thought, I really won't have to live there; maybe they can't make me. You're all nothing but a pack of cards. He laughed and laughed, and Val shook her head at him.

She and Spofford walked with Pierce down to inspect his stopped car, which he had been unable to get started, hadn't dared try too hard to cajole or insist with turning of the key and pumping of the gas, the battery seemed a little. The Firebird lay sullen and unapologetic on the soft shoulder. Val kicked the tire, more punitively than diagnostically, Pierce thought. “Christ,” she said.

"Vapor lock,” Spofford said when Pierce described the sudden ceasing of the engine. “Can't get fuel through the line.” It was exactly the last car Spofford's father had bought for himself, and still drove down there in Tampa as far as Spofford knew: a car so deficient in every real virtue that you could only think of it as a deliberate trick played by the maker on sheeplike Americans, who fell for it too. Huge and clumsy, yet with almost no room inside; absurd streamlining and speed lines; fabulously expensive but starting to fall apart as soon as delivered. He had watched his father, proud yet not really gratified, get behind the wheel, and had felt pity and anger, shame too. “Start it up now and it'll be all right. Even odds."

"I've got to get something of my own,” Pierce said. “I guess I'll start looking in the papers. Or the lots."

"Well,” Spofford said. “There's one other option. It's sort of taking a chance, but it could work out for you. Has, for people I know."

Pierce waited.

"There's a guy in Fair Prospect who's a dealer, out of the business now, retired I guess, but he still's got a license and he makes a little on the side. What he does is, he takes you to these auctions that car dealers go to, where a hundred cars, two hundred, get sold in a day. Only licensed dealers can bid. You look over the cars, and give him your choice, and a top price you'll pay. He bids. You give him a hundred, hundred fifty in cash on the side."

"Huh."

"You can't beat the prices.

"Well, sure."

Val lit a cigarette. “Are you talking about Barney Corvino?” she asked. “Jeez, I don't think he's doing it anymore. Ugh, that's a sad story. Sad.” She waved away their inquiries. “He doesn't do much. Last I heard."

"Worth a call,” Spofford said.

* * * *

Just as Spofford promised, the Firebird started again after its rest, and now Pierce had had a drink, and a chat, catching up with the local gossip, and there was no longer any way to put off what he must do next.

She was digging in the earth around the foundations of Arcady, wearing a pair of huge bright yellow gloves like a clown's, and overalls over a raveling sweater. She ran toward the unknown car when she saw who it was inside, pulling off the gloves and waving. He was inordinately glad to see her, his heart soared in fact, with only a touch of guilt, which seemed small after all. He got out of the car with some difficulty—the door was bent somehow and ground horribly as he pushed it open with his foot—and then she was in his arms exulting. Why so glad?

"You talked to Spofford?” she asked.

"Yes. At the Faraway Lodge."

"The Faraway Lodge!” she cried in cheerful indignation. “What the hell's he doing there?"

"Getting advice. He said."

"Advice! Well, maybe he needs it."