“Mike, you don’t have to do this.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But I am going to do it. You just try and stop me.” I’d called meaning to tell her what had happened to me—giving her the humorous version—but that now seemed like the worst idea in the world. “This custody thing is going to be over before you know it, and if you can’t find anyone brave enough to put you to work down here once it is, I’ll find someone up in Derry who’ll do it. Besides, tell me the truth—aren’t you starting to feel that it might be time for a change of scenery?” She managed a scrap of a laugh. “I guess you could say that.”

“Heard from John today?”

“Actually, yes. He’s visiting his parents in Philadelphia but he gave me the number there. I called him.” He’d said he was taken with her. Perhaps she was taken with him, as well. I told myself the thorny little tug I felt across my emotions at the idea was only my imagination. Tried to tell myself that, anyway. “What did he say about you losing your job the way you did?”

“The same things you said. But he didn’t make me feel safe. You do. I don’t know why.” I did. I was an older man, and that is our chief attraction to young women: we make them feel safe. “He’s coming up again Tuesday morning. I said I’d have lunch with him.” Smoothly, not a tremor or hesitation in my voice, I said: “Maybe I could join you.” Mattie’s own voice warmed at the suggestion; her ready acceptance made me feel paradoxically guilty.

“That would be great! Why don’t I call him and suggest that you both come over here? I could barbecue again. Maybe I’ll keep Ki home from V.B.S. and make it a foursome. She’s hoping you’ll read her another story. She really enjoyed that.”

“That sounds great,” I said, and meant it. Adding Kyra made it all seem more natural, less of an intrusion on my part. Also less like a date on theirs. John could not be accused of taking an unethical interest in his client. In the end he’d probably thank me. “I believe Ki might be ready to move on to “Hansel and Gretel.” How are you, Mattie? All right?”

“Much better than I was before you called.”

“Good. Things are going to be all right.”

“Promise me."

“I think I just did.” There was a slight pause. “Areyou all right, Mike?

You sound a little… I don’t know… a little strange.”

“I’m okay,” I said, and I was, for someone who had been pretty sure he was drowning less than an hour ago. “Can I ask you one question before I go? Because this is driving me crazy.”

“Of course.”

“The night we had dinner, you said Devore told you his great-grandfather and mine knew each other.

Pretty well, according to him.”

“He said they shit in the same pit. I thought that was elegant.”

“Did he say anything else? Think hard.” She did, but came up with nothing. I told her to call me if something about that conversation did occur to her, or if she got lonely or scared, or if she started to feel worried about anything. I didn’t like to say too much, but I had already decided I’d have to have a frank talk with John about my latest adventure. It might be prudent to have the private detective from Lewiston George Kennedy, like the actor—put a man or two on the TR to keep an eye on Mattie and Kyra. Max Devote was mad, just as my caretaker had said. I hadn’t understood then, but I did now. Any time I started to doubt, all I had to do was touch the back of my head. I returned to the fridge and once more forgot to open it. My hands went to the magnets instead and again began moving them around, watching as words formed, broke apart, evolved. It was a peculiar kind of writing… but it was writing. I could tell by the way I was starting to trance out.

That half-hypnotized stare is one you cultivate until you can switch it on and off at will… at least you can when things are going well. The intuitive part of the mind unlocks itself when you begin work and rises to a height of about six feet (maybe ten on good days). Once there, it simply hovers, sending black-magic messages and bright pictures. For the balance of the day that part is locked to the rest of the machinery and goes pretty much forgotten… except on certain occasions when it comes loose on its own and you trance out unexpectedly, your mind making associations which have nothing to do with rational thought and glaring with unexpected images. That is in some ways the strangest part of the creative process. The muses are ghosts, and sometimes they come uninvited. My house is haunted. Sara Laughs has always been haunted… you’ve stirred em up. stirred, I wrote on the refrigerator. But it didn’t look right, so I made a circle of fruit and vegetable magnets around it. That was better, much. I stood there for a moment, hands crossed over my chest as I crossed them at my desk when I was stuck for a word or a phrase, then took off stirr and put on haunt, making haunted. “It’s haunted in the circle,” I said, and barely heard the faint chime of Bunter’s bell, as if in agreement. I took the letters off, and as I did found myself thinking how odd it was to have a lawyer named Romeo—(romeo went in the circle)

— and a detective named George Kennedy. (george went up on the fridge) I wondered if Kennedy could help me with Andy Drake(drake on the fridge)

— maybe give me some insights. I’d never written about a private detective before and it’s the little stuff (rake off, leave the d, add etaih) — that makes the difference. I turned a 3 on its back and put an I beneath it, making a pitchfork. The devil’s in the details. From there I went somewhere else. I don’t know where, exactly, because I was tranced out, that intuitive part of my mind up so high a search-party couldn’t have found it. I stood in front of my fridge and played with the letters, spelling out little pieces of thought without even thinking about them. You mightn’t believe such a thing is possible, but every writer knows it is. What brought me back was light splashing across the windows of the foyer. I looked up and saw the shape of a car pulling to a stop behind my Chevrolet. A cramp of terror seized my belly. That was a moment when I would have given everything I owned for a loaded gun.

Because it was Footman. Had to be. Devore had called him when he and Whitmore got back to Warrington’s, had told him Noonan refuses to be a good Martian so get over there and fix him. When the driver’s door opened and the dome-light in the visitor’s car came on, I breathed a conditional sigh of relief. I didn’t know who it was, but it sure wasn’t “daddy.” This fellow didn’t look as if he could take care of a housefly with a rolled-up newspaper… although, I supposed, there were plenty of people who had made that same mistake about Jeffrey Dahmer. Above the fridge was a cluster of aerosol cans, all of them old and probably not ozone-friendly. I didn’t know how Mrs. M. had missed them, but I was pleased she had. I took the first one my hand touched—Black Flag, excellent choice—thumbed off the cap, and stuck the can in the left front pocket of my jeans. Then I turned to the drawers on the right of the sink. The top one contained silverware. The second one held what Jo called “kitchenshit" — everything from poultry thermometers to those gadgets you stick in corncobs so you don’t burn your fingers off. The third one down held a generous selection of mismatched steak knives. I took one, put it in the right front pocket of my jeans, and went to the door.

The man on my stoop jumped a little when I turned on the outside light, then blinked through the door at me like a nearsighted rabbit. He was about five-four, skinny, pale. He wore his hair cropped in the sort of cut known as a wiffle in my boyhood days. His eyes were brown. Guarding them was a pair of horn-rimmed glasses with greasy-looking lenses. His little hands hung at his sides. One held the handle of a flat leather case, the other a small white oblong. I didn’t think it was my destiny to be killed by a man with a business card in one hand, so I opened the door. The guy smiled, the anxious sort of smile people always seem to wear in Woody Allen movies. He was wearing a Woody Allen outfit too, I saw—faded plaid shirt a little too short at the wrists, chinos a little too baggy in the crotch. Someone must have told him about the resemblance, I thought. That’s got to be it. “Mr. Noonan?”