The Library Policeman

THREE PAST MIDNIGHT:

A note on 'The Library Policeman'

On the morning when this story started to happen, I was sitting at the breakfast 
table with my son Owen. My wife had already gone upstairs to shower and dress. 
Those two vital seven o'clock divisions had been made: the scrambled eggs and 
the newspaper. Willard Scott, who visits our house five days out of every seven, 
was telling us about a lady in Nebraska who had just turned a hundred and four, 
and I think Owen and I had one whole pair of eyes open between us. A typical 
weekday morning chez King, in other words.
Owen tore himself away from the sports section just long enough to ask me if I'd 
be going by the mall that day - there was a book he wanted me to pick up for a 
school report. I can't remember what it was - it might have been Johnny Tremain 
or April Morning, Howard Fast's novel of the American Revolution - but it was 
one of those tomes you can never quite lay your hands on in a bookshop; it's 
always just out of print or just about to come back into print or some damned 
thing.
I suggested that Owen try the local library, which is a very good one. I was 
sure they'd have it. He muttered some reply. I only caught two words of it, but, 
given my interests, those two words were more than enough to pique my interest. 
They were 'library police.'
I put my half of the newspaper aside, used the MUTE button on the remote control 
to strangle Willard in the middle of his ecstatic report on the Georgia Peach 
Festival, and asked Owen to kindly repeat himself.
He was reluctant to do so, but I pressed him. Finally he told me that he didn't 
like to use the library because he worried about the Library Police. He knew 
there were no Library Police, he hastened to add, but it was one of those 
stories that burrowed down into your subconscious and just sort of lurked there. 
He had heard it from his Aunt Stephanie when he was seven or eight and much more 
gullible, and it had been lurking ever since.
I, of course, was delighted, because I had been afraid of the Library Police 
myself as a kid - the faceless enforcers who would actually come to your house
if you didn't bring your overdue books back. That would be bad enough ... but 
what if you couldn't find the books in question when those strange lawmen turned 
up? What then? What would they do to you? What might they take to make up for 
the missing volumes? It had been years since I'd thought of the Library Police 
(although not since childhood; I can clearly remember discussing them with Peter 
Straub and his son, Ben, six or eight years ago), but now all those old 
questions, both dreadful and somehow enticing, recurred.
I found myself musing on the Library Police over the next three or four days, 
and as I mused, I began to glimpse the outlines of the story which follows. This 
is the way stories usually happen for me, but the musing period usually lasts a 
lot longer than it did in this case. When I began, the story was titled 'The 
Library Police,' and I had no clear idea of where I was going with it. I thought 
it would probably be a funny story, sort of like the suburban nightmares the 
late Max Shulman used to bolt together. After all, the idea was funny, wasn't 
it? I mean, the Library Police! How absurd!
What I realized, however, was something I knew already: the fears of childhood 
have a hideous persistence. Writing is an act of self-hypnosis, and in that 
state a kind of total emotional recall often takes place and terrors which 
should have been long dead start to walk and talk again.
As I worked on this story, that began to happen to me. I knew, going in, that I 
had loved the library as a kid - why not? It was the only place a relatively 
poor kid like me could get all the books he wanted - but as I continued to 
write, I became reacquainted with a deeper truth: I had also feared it. I feared 
becoming lost in the dark stacks, I feared being forgotten in a dark corner of 
the reading room and ending up locked in for the night, I feared the old 
librarian with the blue hair and the cat's-eye glasses and the almost lipless 
mouth who would pinch the backs of your hands with her long, pale fingers and 
hiss 'Shhhh!' if you forgot where you were and started to talk too loud. And 
yes, I feared the Library Police.
What happened with a much longer work, a novel called Christine, began to happen 
here. About thirty pages in, the humor began to go out of the situation. And 
about fifty pages in, the whole story took a screaming left turn into the dark 
places I have travelled so often and which I still know so little about. 
Eventually I found the guy I was looking for, and managed to raise my head 
enough to look into his merciless silver eyes. I have tried to bring back a 
sketch of him for you, Constant Reader, but it may not be very good.
My hands were trembling quite badly when I made it, you see.

CHAPTER 1 - The Stand-In
1
Everything, Sam Peebles decided later, was the fault of the goddamned acrobat. 
If the acrobat hadn't gotten drunk at exactly the wrong time, Sam never would 
have ended up in such trouble.
It is not bad enough, he thought with a perhaps justifiable bitterness, that 
life is like a narrow beam over an endless chasm, a beam we have to walk 
blindfolded. It's bad, but not bad enough. Sometimes, we also get pushed.
But that was later. First, before the Library Policeman, was the drunken 
acrobat.
2
In Junction City, the last Friday of every month was Speaker's Night at the 
local Rotarians' Hall. On the last Friday in March of 1990, the Rotarians were 
scheduled to hear - and to be entertained by - The Amazing Joe, an acrobat with 
Curry & Trembo's All-Star Circus and Travelling Carnival.
The telephone on Sam Peebles's desk at Junction City Realty and Insurance rang 
at five past four on Thursday afternoon. Sam picked it up. It was always Sam who 
picked it up - either Sam in person or Sam on the answering machine, because he 
was Junction City Realty and Insurance's owner and sole employee. He was not a 
rich man, but he was a reasonably happy one. He liked to tell people that his 
first Mercedes was still quite a distance in the future, but he had a Ford which 
was almost new and owned his own home on Kelton Avenue. 'Also, the business 
keeps me in beer and skittles,' he liked to add ... although in truth, he hadn't 
drunk much beer since college and wasn't exactly sure what skittles were. He 
thought they might be pretzels.
'Junction City Realty and In - '
'Sam, this is Craig. The acrobat broke his neck.'
'What?'
'You heard me!' Craig Jones cried in deeply aggrieved tones. 'The acrobat broke 
his fucking neck!'
'Oh,' Sam said. 'Gee.' He thought about this for a moment and then asked 
cautiously, 'Is he dead, Craig?'
'No, he's not dead, but he might as well be as far as we're concerned. He's in 
the hospital over in Cedar Rapids with his neck dipped in about twenty pounds of 
plaster. Billy Bright just called me. He said the guy came on drunk as a skunk 
at the matinee this afternoon, tried to do a back-over flip, and landed outside 
the center ring on the nape of his neck. Billy said he could hear it way up in 
the bleachers, where he was sitting. He said it sounded like when you step in a 
puddle that just iced over.'
'Ouch!' Sam exclaimed, wincing.
'I'm not surprised. After all - The Amazing Joe. What kind of name is that for a 
circus performer? I mean, The Amazing Randix, okay. The Amazing Tortellini, 
still not bad. But The Amazing Joe? It sounds like a prime example of brain 
damage in action to me.'
'Jesus, that's too bad.'
'Fucking shit on toast is what it is. It leaves us without a speaker tomorrow 
night, good buddy.'
Sam began to wish he had left the office promptly at four. Craig would have been 
stuck with Sam the answering machine, and that would have given Sam the living 
being a little more time to think. He felt he would soon need time to think. He 
also felt that Craig Jones was not going to give him any.
'Yes,' he said, 'I guess that's true enough.' He hoped he sounded philosophical 
but helpless. 'What a shame.'
'It sure is,' Craig said, and then dropped the dime. 'But I know you'll be happy 
to step in and fill the slot.'
'Me? Craig, you've got to be kidding! I can't even do a somersault, let alone a 
back-over fl - '
‘Thought you could talk about the importance of the independently owned business 
in small-town life,' Craig Jones pressed on relentlessly. 'If that doesn't do it 
for you, there's baseball. Lacking that, you could always drop your pants and 
wag your wing-wang at the audience. Sam, I am not just the head of the Speaker's 
Committee - that would be bad enough. But since Kenny moved away and Carl quit 
coming, I am the Speaker's Committee. Now, you've got to help me. I need a 
speaker tomorrow night. There are about five guys in the whole damn club I feel 
I can trust in a pinch, and you're one of them.'
'But - '
'You're also the only one who hasn't filled in already in a situation like this, 
so you're elected, buddy-boy.'
'Frank Stephens pinch-hit for the guy from the trucking union last year when the 
grand jury indicted him for fraud and he couldn't show up. Sam - it's your turn 
in the barrel. You can't let me down, man. You owe me.'
'I run an insurance business!' Sam cried. 'When I'm not writing insurance, I 
sell farms! Mostly to banks! Most people find it boring! The ones who don't find 
it boring find it disgusting!'
'None of that matters.' Craig was now moving in for the kill, marching over 
Sam's puny objections in grim hobnailed boots. 'They'll all be drunk by the end 
of dinner and you know it. They won't remember a goddam word you said come 
Saturday morning, but in the meantime, I need someone to stand up and talk for 
half an hour and you're elected!'
Sam continued to object a little longer, but Craig kept coming down on the 
imperatives, italicizing them mercilessly. Need. Gotta. Owe.
'All right!' he said at last. 'All right, all right! Enough!'
'My man!' Craig exclaimed. His voice was suddenly full of sunshine and rainbows. 
'Remember, it doesn't have to be any longer than thirty minutes, plus maybe 
another ten for questions. If anybody has any questions. And you really can wag 
your wing-wang if you want to. I doubt that anybody could actually see it, but - 
'
'Craig,' Sam said, 'that's enough.'
'Oh! Sorry! Shet mah mouf!' Craig, perhaps lightheaded with relief, cackled.
'Listen, why don't we terminate this discussion?' Sam reached for the roll of 
Turns he kept in his desk drawer. He suddenly felt he might need quite a few 
Turns during the next twenty-eight hours or so. 'It looks as if I've got a 
speech to write.'
'You got it,' Craig said. 'Just remember - dinner at six, speech at seventhirty. 
As they used to say on Hawaii Five-0, be there! Aloha!'
'Aloha, Craig,' Sam said, and hung up. He stared at the phone. He felt hot gas 
rising slowly up through his chest and into his throat. He opened his mouth and 
uttered a sour burp - the product of a stomach which had been reasonably serene 
until five minutes ago.
He ate the first of what would prove to be a great many Tums indeed.
3
Instead of going bowling that night as he had planned, Sam Peebles shut himself 
in his study at home with a yellow legal pad, three sharpened pencils, a package 
of Kent cigarettes, and a six-pack of Jolt. He unplugged the telephone from the 
wall, lit a cigarette, and stared at the yellow pad. After five minutes of 
staring, he wrote this on the top line of the top sheet:
SMALL-TOWN BUSINESSES: THE LIFEBLOOD OF AMERICA
He said it out loud and liked the sound of it. Well ... maybe he didn't exactly 
like it, but he could live with it. He said it louder and liked it better. A 
little better. It actually wasn't that good; in fact, it probably sucked the big 
hairy one, but it beat the shit out of 'Communism: Threat or Menace.' And Craig 
was right - most of them would be too hung over on Saturday morning to remember 
what they'd heard on Friday night, anyway.
Marginally encouraged, Sam began to write.
'When I moved to Junction City from the more or less thriving metropolis of Ames 
in 1984
4
and that is why I feel now, as I did on that bright September morn in 1984, that 
small businesses are not just the lifeblood of America, but the bright and 
sparkly lifeblood of the entire Western world.'
Sam stopped, crushed out a cigarette in the ashtray on his office desk, and 
looked hopefully at Naomi Higgins.
'Well? What do you think?'
Naomi was a pretty young woman from Proverbia, a town four miles west of 
Junction City. She lived in a ramshackle house by the Proverbia River with her 
ramshackle mother. Most of the Rotarians knew Naomi, and wagers had been offered 
from time to time on whether the house or the mother would fall apart first. Sam 
didn't know if any of these wagers had ever been taken, but if so, their 
resolution was still pending.
Naomi had graduated from Iowa City Business College, and could actually retrieve 
whole legible sentences from her shorthand. Since she was the only local woman 
who possessed such a skill, she was in great demand among Junction City's 
limited business population. She also had extremely good legs, and that didn't 
hurt. She worked mornings five days a week, for four men and one woman -two 
lawyers, one banker, and two realtors. In the afternoons she went back to the 
ramshackle house, and when she was not caring for her ramshackle mother, she 
typed up the dictation she had taken.
Sam Peebles engaged Naomi's services each Friday morning from ten until noon, 
but this morning he had put aside his correspondence - even though some of it 
badly needed to be answered - and asked Naomi if she would listen to something.
'Sure, I guess so,' Naomi had replied. She looked a little worried, as if she 
thought Sam - whom she had briefly dated - might be planning to propose 
marriage. When he explained that Craig Jones had drafted him to stand in for the 
wounded acrobat, and that he wanted her to listen to his speech, she'd relaxed 
and listened to the whole thing - all twenty-six minutes of it - with flattering 
attention. 
'Don't be afraid to be honest,' he added before Naomi could do more than open 
her mouth.
'It's good,' she said. 'Pretty interesting.'
'No, that's okay - you don't have to spare my feelings. Let it all hang out.'
'I am. It's really okay. Besides, by the time you start talking, they'll all be 
- '
'Yes, they'll all be hammered, I know.' This prospect had comforted Sam at 
first, but now it disappointed him a little. Listening to himself read, he'd 
actually thought the speech was pretty good.
'There Is one thing,' Naomi said thoughtfully.
'Oh?'
'It's kind of ... you know . . . dry.'
'Oh,' Sam said. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. He had been up until nearly one 
o'clock this morning, first writing and then revising.
'But that's easy to fix,' she assured him. 'Just go to the library and get a 
couple of those books.'
Sam felt a sudden sharp pain in his lower belly and grabbed his roll of Tums. 
Research for a stupid Rotary Club speech? Library research? That was going a 
little overboard, wasn't it? He had never been to the Junction City Library 
before, and he didn't see a reason to go there now. Still, Naomi had listened 
very closely, Naomi was trying to help, and it would be rude not to at least 
listen to what she had to say.
'What books?'
'You know - books with stuff in them to liven up speeches. They're like . . .' 
Naomi groped. 'Well, you know the hot sauce they give you at China Light, if you 
want it?'
'Yes - '
'They're like that. They have jokes. Also, there's this one book, Best Loved 
Poems of the American People. You could probably find something in there for the 
end. Something sort of uplifting.'
'There are poems in this book about the importance of small businesses in 
American life?' Sam asked doubtfully.
'When you quote poetry, people get uplifted,' Naomi said. 'Nobody cares what 
it's about, Sam, let alone what it's for.'
'And they really have joke-books especially for speeches?' Sam found this almost 
impossible to believe, although hearing that the library carried books on such 
esoterica as small-engine repair and wig-styling wouldn't have surprised him in 
the least.
'Yes.'
'How do you know?'
'When Phil Brakeman was running for the State House, I used to type up speeches 
for him all the time,' Naomi said. 'He had one of those books. I just can't 
remember what the name of it was. All I can think of is Jokes for the John, and 
of course that's not right.'
'No,' Sam agreed, thinking that a few choice tidbits from Jokes for the John 
would probably make him a howling success. But he began to see what Naomi was 
getting at and the idea appealed to him despite his reluctance to visit the 
local library after all his years of cheerful neglect. A little spice for the 
old speech. Dress up your leftovers, turn your meatloaf into a masterpiece. And 
a library, after all, was just a library. If you didn't know how to find what 
you wanted, all you had to do was ask a librarian. Answering questions was one 
of their jobs, right?
'Anyway, you could leave it just the way it is,' Naomi said. 'I mean, they will 
be drunk.' She looked at Sam kindly but severely and then checked her watch. 
'You have over an hour left - did you want to do some letters?'
'No, I guess not. Why don't you type up my speech instead?' He had already 
decided to spend his lunch hour at the library.
CHAPTER 2
The Library (I)
1
Sam had gone by the Library hundreds of times during his years in Junction City, 
but this was the first time he had really looked at it, and he discovered a 
rather amazing thing: he hated the place on sight.
The Junction City Public Library stood on the corner of State Street and Miller 
Avenue, a square granite box of a building with windows so narrow they looked 
like loopholes. A slate roof overhung all four sides of the building, and when 
one approached it from the front, the combination of the narrow windows and the 
line of shadow created by the roof made the building look like the frowning face 
of a stone robot. It was a fairly common style of Iowa architecture, common 
enough so Sam Peebles, who had been selling real estate for nearly twenty years, 
had given it a name: Midwestern Ugly. During spring, summer, and fall, the 
building's forbidding aspect was softened by the maples which stood around it in 
a kind of grove, but now, at the end of a hard Iowa winter, the maples were 
still bare and the Library looked like an oversized crypt.
He didn't like it; it made him uneasy; he didn't know why. It was, after all, 
just a library, not the dungeons of the Inquisition. just the same, another 
acidic burp rose up through his chest as he made his way along the flagstone 
walk. There was a funny sweet undertaste to the burp that reminded him of 
something ... something from a long time ago, perhaps. He put a Turn in his 
mouth, began to crunch it up, and came to an abrupt decision. His speech was 
good enough as it stood. Not great, but good enough. After all, they were 
talking Rotary Club here, not the United Nations. It was time to stop playing 
with it. He was going to go back to the office and do some of the correspondence 
he had neglected that morning.
He started to turn, then thought: That's dumb. Really dumb. You want to be dumb? 
Okay. But you agreed to give the goddam speech; why not give a good one?
He stood on the Library walk, frowning and undecided. He liked to make fun of 
Rotary. Craig did, too. And Frank Stephens. Most of the young business types in 
Junction City laughed about the meetings. But they rarely missed one, and Sam 
supposed he knew why: it was a place where connections could be made. A place 
where a fellow like him could meet some of the not-so-young business types in 
Junction City. Guys like Elmer Baskin, whose bank had helped float a strip 
shopping center in Beaverton two years ago. Guys like George Candy - who, it was 
said, could produce three million dollars in development money with one phone 
call ... if he chose to make it.
These were small-town fellows, high-school basketball fans, guys who got their 
hair cut at Jimmy's, guys who wore boxer shorts and strappy tee-shirts to bed 
instead of pajamas, guys who still drank their beer from the bottle, guys who 
didn't feel comfortable about a night on the town in Cedar Rapids unless they 
were turned out in Full Cleveland. They were also Junction City's movers and 
shakers, and when you came right down to it, wasn't that why Sam kept going on 
Friday nights? When you came right down to it, wasn't that why Craig had called 
in such a sweat after the stupid acrobat broke his stupid neck? You wanted to 
get noticed by the movers and shakers ... but not because you had fucked up. 
They'll all be drunk, Craig had said, and Naomi had seconded the motion, but it 
now occurred to Sam that he had never seen Elmer Baskin take anything stronger 
than coffee. Not once. And he probably wasn't the only one. Some of them might 
be drunk ... but not all of them. And the ones who weren't might well be the 
ones who really mattered.
Handle this right, Sam, and you might do yourself some good. It's not 
impossible.
No. It wasn't. Unlikely, of course, but not impossible. And there was something 
else, quite aside from the shadow politics which might or might not attend a 
Friday-night Rotary Club speaker's meeting: he had always prided himself on 
doing the best job possible. So it was just a dumb little speech. So what?
Also, it's just a dumb little small-town library. What's the big deal? There 
aren't even any bushes growing along the sides.
Sam had started up the walk again, but now he stopped with a frown creasing his 
forehead. That was a strange thought to have; it seemed to have come right out 
of nowhere. So there were no bushes growing along the sides of the Library -what 
difference did that make? He didn't know ... but he did know it had an almost 
magical effect on him. His uncharacteristic hesitation fell away and he began to 
move forward once more. He climbed the four stone steps and paused for a moment. 
The place felt deserted, somehow. He grasped the door-handle and thought, I bet 
it's locked. I bet the place is closed Friday afternoons. There was something 
strangely comforting in this thought.
But the old-fashioned latch-plate depressed under his thumb, and the heavy door 
swung noiselessly inward. Sam stepped into a small foyer with a marble floor in 
checkerboard black and white squares. An easel stood in the center of this 
antechamber. There was a sign propped on the easel; the message consisted of one 
word in very large letters.
SILENCE!
it read. Not
SILENCE IS GOLDEN
or
QUIET, PLEASE
but just that one staring, glaring word:
SILENCE!
'You bet,' Sam said. He only murmured the words, but the acoustics of the place 
were very good, and his low murmur was magnified into a grouchy grumble that 
made him cringe. It actually seemed to bounce back at him from the high ceiling. 
At that moment he felt as if he was in the fourth grade again, and about to be 
called to task by Mrs Glasters for cutting up rough at exactly the wrong moment. 
He looked around uneasily, half-expecting an ill-natured librarian to come 
swooping out of the main room to see who had dared profane the silence.
Stop it, for Christ's sake. You're forty years old. Fourth grade was a long time 
ago, buddy.
Except it didn't seem like a long time ago. Not in here. In here, fourth grade 
seemed almost close enough to reach out and touch.
He crossed the marble floor to the left of the easel, unconsciously walking with 
his weight thrown forward so the heels of his loafers would not click, and 
entered the main lobby of the Junction City Library.
There were a number of glass globes hanging down from the ceiling (which was at 
least twenty feet higher than the ceiling of the foyer), but none of them were 
on. The light was provided by two large, angled skylights. On a sunny day these 
would have been quite enough to light the room; they might even have rendered it 
cheery and welcoming. But this Friday was overcast and dreary, and the light was 
dim. The corners of the lobby were filled with gloomy webs of shadow.
What Sam Peebles felt was a sense of wrongness. It was as if he had done more 
than step through a door and cross a foyer; he felt as if he had entered another 
world, one which bore absolutely no resemblance to the small Iowa town that he 
sometimes liked, sometimes hated, but mostly just took for granted. The air in 
here seemed heavier than normal air, and did not seem to conduct light as well 
as normal air did. The silence was thick as a blanket, as cold as snow.
The library was deserted.
Shelves of books stretched above him on every side. Looking up toward the 
skylights with their crisscrosses of reinforcing wire made Sam a little dizzy, 
and he had a momentary illusion: he felt that he was upside down, that he had 
been hung by his heels over a deep square pit lined with books.
Ladders leaned against the walls here and there, the kind that were mounted on 
tracks and rolled along the floor on rubber wheels. Two wooden islands broke the 
lake of space between the place where he stood and the checkout desk on the far 
side of the large, high room. One was a long oak magazine rack. Periodicals, 
each encased in a clear plastic cover, hung from this rack on wooden dowels. 
They looked like the hides of strange animals which had been left to cure in 
this silent room. A sign mounted on top of the rack commanded:
RETURN ALL MAGAZINES TO THEIR PROPER PLACES!
To the left of the magazine rack was a shelf of brand-new novels and nonfiction 
books. The sign mounted on top of the shelf proclaimed them to be seven-day 
rentals.
Sam passed down the wide aisle between the magazines and the seven-day 
bookshelf, his heels rapping and echoing in spite of his effort to move quietly. 
He found himself wishing he had heeded his original impulse to just turn around 
and go back to the office. This place was spooky. Although there was a small, 
hooded microfilm camera alight and humming on the desk, there was no one manning 
- or womaning - it. A small plaque reading
A. LORTZ
stood on the desk, but there was no sign of A. Lortz or anyone else.
Probably taking a dump and checking out the new issue of Library journal.
Sam felt a crazy desire to open his mouth and yell, 'Everything coming out all 
right, A. Lortz?' It passed quickly. The Junction City Public Library was not 
the sort of place that encouraged amusing sallies.
Sam's thoughts suddenly spun back to a little rhyme from his childhood. NO more 
laughing, no more fun; Quaker meeting has begun. If you show your teeth or 
tongue, you must pay a forfeit.
If you show your teeth or tongue in here, does A. Lortz make you pay a forfeit?
he wondered. He looked around again, let his nerve-endings feel the frowning 
quality of the silence, and thought you could make book on it.
No longer interested in obtaining a joke-book or Best Loved Poems of the 
American People, but fascinated by the library's suspended, dreamy atmosphere in 
spite of himself, Sam walked toward a door to the right of the seven-day books. 
A sign over the door said this was the Children's Library. Had he used the 
Children's Library when he had been growing up in St Louis? He thought so, but 
those memories were hazy, distant, and hard to hold. All the same, approaching 
the door of the Children's Library gave him an odd and haunting feeling. It was 
almost like coming home.
The door was closed. On it was a picture of Little Red Riding Hood, looking down 
at the wolf in Grandma's bed. The wolf was wearing Grandma's nightgown and 
Grandma's nightcap. It was snarling. Foam dripped from between its bared fangs. 
An expression of almost exquisite horror had transfixed Little Red Riding Hood's 
face, and the poster seemed not just to suggest but to actually proclaim that 
the happy ending of this story - of all fairy tales - was a convenient lie. 
Parents might believe such guff, Red Riding Hood's ghastly-sick face said, but 
the little ones knew better, didn't they?
Nice, Sam thought. With a poster like that on the door, I bet lots of kids use 
the Children's Library. I bet the little ones are especially fond of it.
He opened the door and poked his head in.
His sense of unease left him; he was charmed at once. The poster on the door was 
all wrong, of course, but what was behind it seemed perfectly right. Of course 
he had used the library as a child; it only took one look into this scale-model 
world to refresh those memories. His father had died young; Sam had been an only 
child raised by a working mother he rarely saw except on Sundays and holidays. 
When he could not promote money for a movie after school - and that was often - 
the library had to do, and the room he saw now brought those days back in a 
sudden wave of nostalgia that was sweet and painful and obscurely frightening.
It had been a small world, and this was a small world; it had been a 
well-lighted world, even on the grimmest, rainiest days, and so was this one. No 
hanging glass globes for this room; there were shadow-banishing fluorescent 
lights behind frosted panels in the suspended ceiling, and all of them were on. 
The tops of the tables were only two feet from the floor; the seats of the 
chairs were even closer. In this world the adults would be the interlopers, the 
uncomfortable aliens. They would balance the tables on their knees if they tried 
to sit at them, and they would be apt to crack their skulls bending to drink 
from the water fountain which was mounted on the far wall.
Here the shelves did not stretch up in an unkind trick of perspective which made 
one giddy if one looked up too long; the ceiling was low enough to be cozy, but 
not low enough to make a child feel cramped. Here were no rows of gloomy 
bindings but books which fairly shouted with raucous primary colors: bright 
blues, reds, yellows. In this world Dr Seuss was king, Judy Blume was queen, and 
all the princes and princesses attended Sweet Valley High. Here Sam felt all 
that old sense of benevolent after-school welcome, a place where the books did 
all but beg to be touched, handled, looked at, explored. Yet these feelings had 
their own dark undertaste.
His clearest sense, however, was one of almost wistful pleasure. On one wall was 
a photograph of a puppy with large, thoughtful eyes. Written beneath the puppy's 
anxious-hopeful face was one of the world's great truths: IT IS HARD TO BE GOOD. 
On another wall was a drawing of mallards making their way down a riverbank to 
the reedy verge of the water. MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS! the poster trumpeted.
Sam looked to his left, and the faint smile on his lips first faltered and then 
died. Here was a poster which showed a large, dark car speeding away from what 
he supposed was a school building. A little boy was looking out of the passenger 
window. His hands were plastered against the glass and his mouth was open in a 
scream. In the background, a man - only a vague, ominous shape - was hunched 
over the wheel, driving hell for leather. The words beneath this picture read:
NEVER TAKE RIDES FROM STRANGERS!
Sam recognized that this poster and the Little Red Riding Hood picture on the 
door of the Children's Library both appealed to the same primitive emotions of 
dread, but he found this one much more disturbing. Of course children shouldn't 
accept rides from strangers, and of course they had to be taught not to do so, 
but was this the right way to make the point?
How many kids, he wondered, have had a week's worth of nightmares thanks to that 
little public service announcement?
And there was another one, posted right on the front of the checkout desk, that 
struck a chill as deep as January down Sam's back. It showed a dismayed boy and 
girl, surely no older than eight, cringing back from a man in a trenchcoat and 
gray hat. The man looked at least eleven feet tall; his shadow fell on the 
upturned faces of the children. The brim of his 1940s-style fedora threw its own 
shadow, and the eyes of the man in the trenchcoat gleamed relentlessly from its 
black depths. They looked like chips of ice as they studied the children, 
marking them with the grim gaze of Authority. He was holding out an ID folder 
with a star pinned to it - an odd sort of star, with at least nine points on it. 
Maybe as many as a dozen. The message beneath read:
AVOID THE LIBRARY POLICE!
GOOD BOYS AND GIRLS RETURN THEIR BOOKS ON TIME!
That taste was in his mouth again. That sweet, unpleasant taste. And a queer. 
frightening thought occurred to him: I have seen this man before. But that was 
ridiculous, of course. Wasn't it?
Sam thought of how such a poster would have intimidated him as a child - of how 
much simple, unalloyed pleasure it would have stolen from the safe haven of the 
library - and felt indignation rise in his chest. He took a step toward the 
poster to examine the odd star more closely, taking his roll of Tums out of his 
pocket at the same time.
He was putting one of them into his mouth when a voice spoke up from behind him. 
'Well, hello there!'
He jumped and turned around, ready to do battle with the library dragon, now 
that it had finally disclosed itself.
2
No dragon presented itself. There was only a plump, white-haired woman of about 
fifty-five, pushing a trolley of books on silent rubber tires. Her white hair 
fell around her pleasant, unlined face in neat beauty-shop curls.
'I suppose you were looking for me,' she said. 'Did Mr Peckham direct you in 
here?'
'I didn't see anybody at all.'
'No? Then he's gone along home,' she said. 'I'm not really surprised, since it's 
Friday. Mr Peckham comes in to dust and read the paper every morning around 
eleven. He's the janitor - only part-time, of course. Sometimes he stays until 
one -one-thirty on most Mondays, because that's the day when both the dust and 
the paper are thickest - but you know how thin Friday's paper is.'
Sam smiled. 'I take it you're the librarian?'
'I am she,' Mrs Lortz said, and smiled at him. But Sam didn't think her eyes 
were smiling; her eyes seemed to be watching him carefully, almost coldly. 'And 
you are ... ?'
'Sam Peebles.'
'Oh yes! Real estate and insurance! That's your game!'
'Guilty as charged.'
'I'm sorry you found the main section of the library deserted - you must have 
thought we were closed and someone left the door open by mistake.'
'Actually,' he said, 'the idea did cross my mind.'
'From two until seven there are three of us on duty,' said Mrs Lortz. 'Two is 
when the schools begin to let out, you know - the grammar school at two, the 
middle school at two-thirty, the high school at two-forty-five. The children are 
our most faithful clients, and the most welcome, as far as I am concerned. I 
love the little ones. I used to have an all-day assistant, but last year the 
Town Council cut our budget by eight hundred dollars and . . .' Mrs Lortz put 
her hands together and mimed a bird flying away. It was an amusing, charming 
gesture.
So why, Sam wondered, aren't I charmed or amused?
The posters, he supposed. He was still trying to make Red Riding Hood, the 
screaming child in the car, and the grim-eyed Library Policeman jibe with this 
smiling small-town librarian.
She put her left hand out - a small hand, as plump and round as the rest of her 
-with perfect unstudied confidence. He looked at the third finger and saw it was 
ringless; she wasn't Mrs Lortz after all. The fact of her spinsterhood struck 
him as utterly typical, utterly small-town. Almost a caricature, really. Sam 
shook it.
'You haven't been to our library before, have you, Mr Peebles?'
'No, I'm afraid not. And please make it Sam.' He did not know if he really 
wanted to be Sam to this woman or not, but he was a businessman in a small town 
- a salesman, when you got right down to it - and the offer of his first name 
was automatic.
'Why, thank you, Sam.'
He waited for her to respond by offering her own first name, but she only looked 
at him expectantly.
'I've gotten myself into a bit of a bind,' he said. 'Our scheduled speaker 
tonight at Rotary Club had an accident, and -'
'Oh, that's too bad!'
'For me as well as him. I got drafted to take his place.'
'Oh-oh!' Ms Lortz said. Her tone was alarmed, but her eyes crinkled with 
amusement. And still Sam did not find himself warming to her, although he was a 
person who warmed up to other people quickly (if superficially) as a rule; the 
kind of man who had few close friends but felt compelled nonetheless to start 
conversations with strangers in elevators.
'I wrote a speech last night and this morning I read it to the young woman who 
takes dictation and types up my correspondence -'
'Naomi Higgins, I'll bet.'
'Yes - how did you know that?'
'Naomi is a regular. She borrows a great many romance novels - Jennifer Blake, 
Rosemary Rogers, Paul Sheldon, people like that.' She lowered her voice and 
said, 'She says they're for her mother, but actually I think she reads them 
herself.'
Sam laughed. Naomi did have the dreamy eyes of a closet romance reader.
'Anyway, I know she's what would be called an office temporary in a big city. I 
imagine that here in Junction City she's the whole secretarial pool. It seemed 
reasonable that she was the young woman of whom you spoke.'
'Yes. She liked my speech - or so she said - but she thought it was a bit dry. 
She suggested - '
'The Speaker's Companion, I'll bet!'
'Well, she couldn't remember the exact title, but that sure sounds right.' He 
paused, then asked a little anxiously: 'Does it have jokes?'
'Only three hundred pages of them,' she said. She reached out her right hand - 
it was as innocent of rings as her left - and tugged at his sleeve with it. 
'Right this way.' She led him toward the door by the sleeve. 'I am going to 
solve all your problems, Sam. I only hope it won't take a crisis to bring you 
back to our library. It's small, but it's very fine. I think so, anyway, 
although of course I'm prejudiced.'
They passed through the door into the frowning shadows of the Library's main 
room. Ms Lortz flicked three switches by the door, and the hanging globes lit 
up, casting a soft yellow glow that warmed and cheered the room considerably.
'It gets so gloomy in here when it's overcast,' she said in a confidential 
we're-in-the-real-Library-now voice. She was still tugging firmly on Sam's 
sleeve. 'But of course you know how the Town Council complains about the 
electricity bill in a place like this or perhaps you don't, but I'll bet you can 
guess.'
'I can,' Sam agreed, also dropping his voice to a near-whisper.
'But that's a holiday compared to what they have to say about the heating 
expenses in the winter.' She rolled her eyes. 'Oil is so dear. It's the fault of 
those Arabs ... and now look what they are up to - hiring religious hit-men to 
try and kill writers.'
'It does seem a little harsh,' Sam said, and for some reason he found himself 
thinking of the poster of the tall man again - the one with the odd star pinned 
to his ID case, the one whose shadow was falling so ominously over the upturned 
faces of the children. Falling over them like a stain.
'And of course, I've been fussing in the Children's Library. I lose all track of 
time when I'm in there.'
'That's an interesting place,' Sam said. He meant to go on, to ask her about the 
posters, but Ms Lortz forestalled him. It was clear to Sam exactly who was in 
charge of this peculiar little side-trip in an otherwise ordinary day.
'You bet it is! Now, you just give me one minute.' She reached up and put her 
hands on his shoulders - she had to stand on tiptoe to do it - and for one 
moment Sam had the absurd idea that she meant to kiss him. Instead she pressed 
him down onto a wooden bench which ran along the far side of the seven-day 
bookshelf. 'I know right where to find the books you need, Sam. I don't even 
have to check the card catalogue.'
'I could get them myself - '
'I'm sure,' she said, 'but they're in the Special Reference section, and I don't 
like to let people in there if I can help it. I'm very bossy about that, but I 
always know where to put my hand right on the things I need ... back there, 
anyway. People are so messy, they have so little regard for order, you know. 
Children are the worst, but even adults get up to didos if you let them. Don't 
worry about a thing. I'll be back in two shakes.'
Sam had no intention of protesting further, but he wouldn't have had time even 
if he had wanted to. She was gone. He sat on the bench, once more feeling like a 
fourth-grader ... like a fourth-grader who had done something wrong this time, 
who had gotten up to didos and so couldn't go out and play with the other 
children at recess.
He could hear Ms Lortz moving about in the room behind the checkout desk, and he 
looked around thoughtfully. There was nothing to see except books -there was not 
even one old pensioner reading the paper or leafing through a magazine. It 
seemed odd. He wouldn't have expected a small-town library like this to be doing 
a booming business on a weekday afternoon, but no one at all?
Well, there was Mr Peckham, he thought, but he finished the paper and went home. 
Dreadfully thin paper on Friday, you know. Thin dust, too. And then he realized 
he only had the word of Ms Lortz that a Mr Peckham had ever been here at all.
True enough - but why would she lie?
He didn't know, and doubted very much that she had, but the fact that he was 
questioning the honesty of a sweet-faced woman he had just met highlighted the 
central puzzling fact of this meeting: he didn't like her. Sweet face or not, he 
didn't like her one bit.
It's the posters. You were prepared not to like ANYBODY that would put up 
posters like that in a children's reading room. But it doesn't matter, because a 
side-trip is all it is. Get the books and get out.
He shifted on the bench, looked up, and saw a motto on the wall:
If you would know how a man treats his wife and his children, see how he treats 
his books.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sam didn't care much for that little homily, either. He didn't know exactly why 
. . . except that maybe he thought a man, even a bookworm, might be expected to 
treat his family a little better than his reading matter. The motto, painted in 
gold leaf on a length of varnished oak, glared down at him nevertheless, seeming 
to suggest he better think again.
Before he could, Ms Lortz returned, lifting a gate in the checkout desk, 
stepping through it, and lowering it neatly behind her again.
'I think I've got what you need,' she said cheerfuly. 'I hope you'll agree.'
She handed him two books. One was The Speaker's Companion, edited by Kent 
Adelmen, and the other was Best Loved Poems of the American People. The contents 
of this latter book, according to the jacket (which was, in its turn, protected 
by a tough plastic overjacket), had not been edited, exactly, but selected by 
one Hazel Felleman. 'Poems of life!' the jacket promised. 'Poems of home and 
mother! Poems of laughter and whimsey! The poems most frequently asked for by 
the readers of the New York Times Book Review!' It further advised that Hazel 
Felleman 'has been able to keep her finger on the poetry pulse of the American 
people.'
Sam looked at her with some doubt, and she read his mind effortlessly.
'Yes, I know, they look old-fashioned,' she said. 'Especially nowadays, when 
self-help books are all the rage. I imagine if you went to one of the chain 
bookstores in the Cedar Rapids mall, you could find a dozen books designed to 
help the beginning public speaker. But none of them would be as good as these, 
Sam. I really believe these are the best helps there are for men and women who 
are new to the art of public speaking.'
'Amateurs, in other words,' Sam said, grinning.
'Well, yes. Take Best Loved Poems, for instance. The second section of the book 
- it begins on page sixty-five, if memory serves - is called "Inspiration". You 
can almost surely find something there which will make a suitable climax to your 
little talk, Sam. And you're apt to find that your listeners will remember a 
well-chosen verse even if they forget everything else. Especially if they're a 
little-'
'Drunk,' he said.
'Tight was the word I would have used,' she said with gentle reproof, 'although 
I suppose you know them better than I do.' But the gaze she shot at him 
suggested that she was only saying this because she was polite.
She held up The Speaker's Companion. The jacket was a cartoonist's drawing of a 
bunting-draped hall. Small groups of men in old-fashioned evening dress were 
seated at tables with drinks in front of them. They were all yucking it up. The 
man behind the podium - also in evening dress and clearly the after-dinner 
speaker - was grinning triumphantly down at them. It was clear he was a roaring 
success.
'There's a section at the beginning on the theory of after-dinner speeches,' 
said Ms Lortz, 'but since you don't strike me as the sort of man who wants to 
make a career out of this - '
'You've got that right,' Sam agreed fervently.
'- I suggest you go directly to the middle section, which is called "Lively 
Speaking." There you will find jokes and stories divided into three categories: 
"Easing Them In," "Softening Them Up," and "Finishing Them Off."
Sounds like a manual for gigolos, Sam thought but did not say.
She read his mind again. 'A little suggestive, I suppose - but these books were 
published in a simpler, more innocent time. The late thirties, to be exact.'
'Much more innocent, right,' Sam said, thinking of deserted dust-bowl farms, 
little girls in flour-sack dresses, and rusty, thrown-together Hoovervilles 
surrounded by police wielding truncheons.
'But both books still work,' she said, tapping them for emphasis, 'and that's 
the important thing in business, isn't it, Sam? Results?'
'Yes ... I guess it is.'
He looked at her thoughtfully, and Ms Lortz raised her eyebrows - a trifle 
defensively, perhaps. 'A penny for your thoughts,' she said.
'I was thinking that this has been a fairly rare occurrence in my adult life,' 
he said. 'Not unheard-of, nothing like that, but rare. I came in here to get a 
couple of books to liven up my speech, and you seem to have given me exactly 
what I came for. How often does something like that happen in a world where you 
usually can't even get a couple of good lambchops at the grocery store when 
you've got your face fixed for them?'
She smiled. It appeared to be a smile of genuine pleasure . . . except Sam 
noticed once again that her eyes did not smile. He didn't think they had changed 
expression since he had first come upon her - or she upon him - in the 
Children's Library. They just went on watching. 'I think I've just been paid a 
compliment!'
'Yes, ma'am. You have.'
'I thank you, Sam. I thank you very kindly. They say flattery will get you 
everywhere, but I'm afraid I'm still going to have to ask you for two dollars.'
'You are?'
'That's the charge for issuing an adult library card,' she said, 'but it's good 
for three years, and renewal is only fifty cents. Now, is that a deal, or what?'
'It sounds fine to me.'
'Then step right this way,' she said, and Sam followed her to the checkout desk.
3
She gave him a card to fill out - on it he wrote his name, address, telephone 
numbers, and place of business.
'I see you live on Kelton Avenue. Nice!'
'Well, I like it.'
'The houses are lovely and big - you should be married.'
He started a little. 'How did you know I wasn't married?'
'The same way you knew I wasn't,' she said. Her smile had become a trifle sly, a 
trifle catlike. 'Nothing on the third left.'
'Oh,' he said lamely, and smiled. He didn't think it was his usual sparkly 
smile, and his cheeks felt warm.
'Two dollars, please.'
He gave her two singles. She went over to a small desk where an aged, skeletal 
typewriter stood, and typed briefly on a bright-orange card. She brought it back 
to the checkout desk, signed her name at the bottom with a flourish, and then 
pushed it across to him.
'Check and make sure all the information's correct, please.'
Sam did so. 'It's all fine.' Her first name, he noted, was Ardelia. A pretty 
name, and rather unusual.
She took his new library card back - the first one he'd owned since college, now 
that he thought about it, and he had used that one precious little - and placed 
it under the microfilm recorder beside a card she took from the pocket of each 
book. 'You can only keep these out for a week, because they're from Special 
Reference. That's a category I invented myself for books which are in great 
demand.'
'Helps for the beginning speaker are in great demand?'
'Those, and books on things like plumbing repair, simple magic tricks, social 
etiquette ... you'd be surprised what books people call for in a pinch. But I 
know.'
'I'll bet you do.'
'I've been in the business a long, long time, Sam. And they're not renewable, so 
be sure to get them back by April sixth.' She raised her head, and the light 
caught in her eyes. Sam almost dismissed what he saw there as a twinkle . . . 
but that wasn't what it was. It was a shine. A flat, hard shine. For just a 
moment Ardelia Lortz looked as if she had a nickel in each eye.
'Or?' he asked, and his smile suddenly didn't feel like a smile - it felt like a 
mask.
'Or else I'll have to send the Library Policeman after you,' she said.
4
For a moment their gazes locked, and Sam thought he saw the real Ardelia Lortz, 
and there was nothing charming or soft or spinster-librarian about that woman at 
all.
This woman might actually be dangerous, he thought, and then dismissed it, a 
little embarrassed. The gloomy day - and perhaps the pressure of the impending 
speech - was getting to him. She's about as dangerous as a canned peach . . . 
and It isn't the gloomy day or the Rotarians tonight, either. It's those goddam 
posters.
He had The Speaker's Companion and Best Loved Poems of the American People under 
his arm and they were almost to the door before he realized she was showing him 
out. He planted his feet firmly and stopped. She looked at him, surprised.
'Can I ask you something, Ms Lortz?'
'Of course, Sam. That's what I'm here for - to answer questions.'
'It's about the Children's Library,' he said, 'and the posters. Some of them 
surprised me. Shocked me, almost.' He expected that to come out sounding like 
something a Baptist preacher might say about an issue of Playboy glimpsed 
beneath the other magazines on a parishioner's coffee table, but it didn't come 
out that way at all. Because, he thought, it's not just a conventional 
sentiment. I really was shocked. No almost about it.
'Posters?' she asked, frowning, and then her brow cleared. She laughed. 'Oh! You 
must mean the Library Policeman ... and Simple Simon, of course.'
'Simple Simon?'
'You know the poster that says NEVER TAKE RIDES FROM STRANGERS? That's what the 
kids call the little boy in the picture. The one who is yelling. They call him 
Simple Simon - I suppose they feel contempt for him because he did such a 
foolish thing. I think that's very healthy, don't you?'
'He's not yelling,' Sam said slowly. 'He's screaming.'
She shrugged. 'Yelling, screaming, what's the difference? We don't hear much of 
either in here. The children are very good - very respectful.'
'I'll bet,' Sam said. They were back in the foyer again now, and he glanced at 
the sign on the easel, the sign which didn't say
SILENCE IS GOLDEN
or
PLEASE TRY TO BE QUIET
but just offered that one inarguable imperative:
SILENCE!
'Besides - it's all a matter of interpretation, isn't it?'
'I suppose,' Sam said. He felt that he was being maneuvered - and very 
efficiently - into a place where he would not have a moral leg to stand on, and 
the field of dialectic would belong to Ardelia Lortz. She gave him the 
impression that she was used to doing this, and that made him feel stubborn. 
'But they struck me as extreme, those posters.'
'Did they?' she asked politely. They had halted by the outer door now.
'Yes. Scary.' He gathered himself and said what he really believed. 'Not 
appropriate to a place where small children gather.'
He found he still did not sound prissy or self-righteous, at least to himself, 
and this was a relief.
She was smiling, and the smile irritated him. 'You're not the first person who 
ever expressed that opinion, Sam. Childless adults aren't frequent visitors to 
the Children's Library, but they do come in from time to time - uncles, aunts, 
some single mother's boyfriend who got stuck with pick-up duty . . . or people 
like you, Sam, who are looking for me.'
People in a pinch, her cool blue-gray eyes said. People who come for help and 
then, once they HAVE been helped, stay to criticize the way we run things here 
at the Junction City Public Library. The way I run things at the Junction City 
Public Library.
'I guess you think I was wrong to put my two cents in,' Sam said good-naturedly. 
He didn't feel good-natured, all of a sudden he didn't feel good-natured at all, 
but it was another trick of the trade, one he now wrapped around himself like a 
protective cloak.
'Not at all. It's just that you don't understand. We had a poll last summer, Sam 
-it was part of the annual Summer Reading Program. We call our program Junction 
City's Summer Sizzlers, and each child gets one vote for every book he or she 
read. It's one of the strategies we've developed over the years to encourage 
children to read. That is one of our most important responsibilities, you see.'
We know what we're doing, her steady gaze told him. And I'm being very polite, 
aren't I? Considering that you, who have never been here in your life before, 
have presumed to poke your head in once and start shotgunning criticisms.
Sam began to feel very much in the wrong. That dialectical battlefield did not 
belong to the Lortz woman yet - at least not entirely - but he recognized the 
fact that he was in retreat.
'According to the poll, last summer's favorite movie among the children was A 
Nightmare on Elm Street, Part 5. Their favorite rock group is called Guns n 
Roses - the runner-up was something named Ozzy Osbourne, who, I understand, has 
a reputation for biting the heads off live animals during his concerts. Their 
favorite novel was a paperback original called Swan Song. It's a horror novel by 
a man named Robert McCammon. We can't keep it in stock, Sam. They read each new 
copy to rags in weeks. I had a copy put in Vinabind, but of course it was 
stolen. By one of the bad children.'
Her lips pursed in a thin line.
'Runner-up was a horror novel about incest and infanticide called Flowers in the 
Attic. That one was the champ for five years running. Several of them even 
mentioned Peyton Place!'
She looked at him sternly.
'I myself have never seen any of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. I have 
never heard an Ozzy Osbourne record and have no desire to do so, nor to read a 
novel by Robert McCammon, Stephen King, or V. C. Andrews. Do you see what I'm 
getting at, Sam?'
'I suppose. You're saying it wouldn't be fair to . He needed a word, groped for 
it, and found it. ' . . . to usurp the children's tastes.'
She smiled radiantly - everything but the eyes, which seemed to have nickels in 
them again.
'That's part of it, but that's not all of it. The posters in the Children's 
Library -both the nice, uncontroversial ones and the ones which put you off - 
came to us from the Iowa Library Association. The ILA is a member of the Midwest 
Library Association, and that is, in turn, a member of The National Library 
Association, which gets the majority of its funding from tax money. From John Q. 
Public -which is to say from me. And you.'
Sam shifted from one foot to the other. He didn't want to spend the afternoon 
listening to a lecture on How Your Library Works for You, but hadn't he invited 
it? He supposed so. The only thing he was absolutely sure of was that he was 
liking Ardelia Lortz less and less all the time.
'The Iowa Library Association sends us a sheet every other month, with 
reproductions of about forty posters,' Ms Lortz continued relentlessly. 'We can 
pick any five free; extras cost three dollars each. I see you're getting 
restless, Sam, but you do deserve an explanation, and we are finally reaching 
the nub of the matter.'
'Me? I'm not restless,' Sam said restlessly.
She smiled at him, revealing teeth too even to be anything but dentures. 'We 
have a Children's Library Committee,' she said. 'Who is on it? Why, children, of 
course! Nine of them. Four high-school students, three middleschool students, 
and two grammar-school students. Each child has to have an overall B average in 
his schoolwork to qualify. They pick some of the new books we order, they picked 
the new drapes and tables when we redecorated last fall ... and, of course, they 
pick the posters. That is, as one of our younger Committeemen once put it, "the 
funnest part." Now do you understand?'
'Yes,' Sam said. 'The kids picked out Little Red Riding Hood, and Simple Simon, 
and the Library Policeman. They like them because they're scary.'
'Correct!' she beamed.
Suddenly he'd had enough. It was something about the Library. Not the posters, 
not the librarian, exactly, but the Library itself. Suddenly the Library was 
like an aggravating, infuriating splinter jammed deep in one buttock. Whatever 
it was, it was ... enough.
'Ms Lortz, do you keep a videotape of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Part 5 in the 
Children's Library? Or a selection of albums by Guns n Roses and Ozzy Osbourne?'
'Sam, you miss the point,' she began patiently.
'What about Peyton Place? Do you keep a copy of that in the Children's Library 
just because some of the kids have read it?'
Even as he was speaking, he thought, Does ANYBODY still read that old thing?
'No,' she said, and he saw that an ill-tempered flush was rising in her cheeks. 
This was not a woman who was used to having her judgments called into question. 
'But we do keep stories about housebreaking, parental abuse, and burglary. I am 
speaking, of course, of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears,"
"Hansel and Gretel", and "Jack and the Beanstalk." I expected a man such as 
yourself to be a little more understanding, Sam.'
A man you helped out in a pinch is what you mean, Sam thought, but what the 
hell, lady - isn't that what the town pays you to do?
Then he got hold of himself. He didn't know exactly what she meant by la man 
such as himself,' wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he did understand that this 
discussion was on the edge of getting out of hand - of becoming an argument. He 
had come in here to find a little tenderizer to sprinkle over his speech, not to 
get in a hassle about the Children's Library with the head librarian.
'I apologize if I've said anything to offend you,' he said, 'and I really ought 
to be going.'
'Yes,' she said. 'I think you ought.' Your apology is not accepted, her eyes 
telegraphed. It is not accepted at all.
'I suppose,' he said, 'that I'm a little nervous about my speaking debut. And I 
was up late last night working on this.' He smiled his old good-natured Sam 
Peebles smile and hoisted the briefcase.
She stood down - a little - but her eyes were still snapping. 'That's 
understandable. We are here to serve, and, of course, we're always interested in 
constructive criticism from the taxpayers.' She accented the word constructive 
ever so slightly, to let him know, he supposed, that his had been anything but.
Now that it was over, he had an urge - almost a need - to make it all over, to 
smooth it down like the coverlet on a well-made bed. And this was also part of 
the businessman's habit, he supposed . . . or the businessman's protective 
coloration. An odd thought occurred to him - that what he should really talk 
about tonight was his encounter with Ardelia Lortz. It said more about the 
small-town heart and spirit than his whole written speech. Not all of it was 
flattering, but it surely wasn't dry. And it would offer a sound rarely heard 
during Friday-night Rotary speeches: the unmistakable ring of truth.
'Well, we got a little feisty there for a second or two,' he heard himself 
saying, and saw his hand go out. 'I expect I overstepped my bounds. I hope there 
are no hard feelings.'
She touched his hand. It was a brief, token touch. Cool, smooth flesh. 
Unpleasant, somehow. Like shaking hands with an umbrella stand. 'None at all,' 
she said, but her eyes continued to tell a different story.
'Well then . . . I'll be getting along.'
'Yes. Remember - one week on those, Sam.' She lifted a finger. Pointed a 
well-manicured nail at the books he was holding. And smiled. Sam found something 
extremely disturbing about that smile, but he could not for the life of him have 
said exactly what it was. 'I wouldn't want to have to send the Library Cop after 
you.'
'No,' Sam agreed. 'I wouldn't want that, either.'
'That's right,' said Ardelia Lortz, still smiling. 'You wouldn't.'
5
Halfway down the walk, the face of that screaming child
(Simple Simon, the kids call him Simple Simon I think that's very healthy, don't 
you)
recurred to him, and with it came a thought - one simple enough and practical 
enough to stop him in his tracks. It was this: given a chance to pick such a 
poster, a jury of kids might very well do so ... but would any Library 
Association, whether from Iowa, the Midwest, or the country as a whole, actually 
send one out?
Sam Peebles thought of the pleading hands plastered against the obdurate, 
imprisoning glass, the screaming, agonized mouth, and suddenly found that more 
than difficult to believe. He found it impossible to believe.
And Peyton Place. What about that? He guessed that most of the adults who used 
the Library had forgotten about it. Did he really believe that some of their 
children - the ones young enough to use the Children's Library - had 
rediscovered that old relic?
I don't believe that one, either.
He had no wish to incur a second dose of Ardelia Lortz's anger - the first had 
been enough, and he'd had a feeling her dial hadn't been turned up to anything 
near full volume - but these thoughts were strong enough to cause him to turn 
around.
She was gone.
The library doors stood shut, a vertical slot of mouth in that brooding granite 
face.
Sam stood where he was a moment longer, then hurried down to where his car was 
parked at the curb.
CHAPTER 3
Sam's Speech
It was a rousing success.
He began with his own adaptations of two anecdotes from the 'Easing Them In' 
section of The Speaker's Companion - one was about a farmer who tried to 
wholesale his own produce and the other was about selling frozen dinners to 
Eskimos - and used a third in the middle (which really was pretty arid). He 
found another good one in the subsection titled 'Finishing Them Off,' started to 
pencil it in, then remembered Ardelia Lortz and Best Loved Poems of the American 
People. You're apt to find your listeners will remember a well-chosen verse even 
if they forget everything else, she had said, and Sam found a good short poem in 
the 'Inspiration' section, just as she had told him he might.
He looked down on the upturned faces of his fellow Rotarians and said: 'I've 
tried to give you some of the reasons why I live and work in a small town like 
Junction City, and I hope they make at least some sense. If they don't, I'm in a 
lot of trouble.'
A rumble of good-natured laughter (and a whiff of mixed Scotch and bourbon) 
greeted this.
Sam was sweating freely, but he actually felt pretty good, and he had begun to 
believe he was going to get out of this unscathed. The microphone had produced 
feedback whine only once, no one had walked out, no one had thrown food, and 
there had only been a few catcalls - good-natured ones, at that.
'I think a poet named Spencer Michael Free summed up the things I've been trying 
to say better than I ever could. You see, almost everything we have to sell in 
our small-town businesses can be sold cheaper in big-city shopping centers and 
suburban malls. Those places like to boast that you can get just about all the 
goods and services you'd ever need right there, and park for free in the 
bargain. And I guess they're almost right. But there is still one thing the 
small-town business has to offer that the malls and shopping centers don't, and 
that's the thing Mr Free talks about in his poem. It isn't a very long one, but 
it says a lot. It goes like this.
''Tis the human touch in this world that counts.
The touch of your hand and mine,
Which means far more to the fainting heart Than shelter and bread and wine;
For shelter is gone when the night is o'er, And bread lasts only a day,
But the touch of the hand and the sound of a voice
Sing on in the soul always.'
Sam looked up at them from his text, and for the second time that day was 
surprised to find that he meant every word he had just said. He found that his 
heart was suddenly full of happiness and simple gratitude. It was good just to 
find out you still had a heart, that the ordinary routine of ordinary days 
hadn't worn it away, but it was even better to find it could still speak through 
your mouth.
'We small-town businessmen and businesswomen offer that human touch. On the one 
hand, it isn't much ... but on the other, it's just about everything. I know 
that it keeps me coming back for more. I want to wish our originally scheduled 
speaker, The Amazing Joe, a speedy recovery; I want to thank Craig Jones for 
asking me to sub for him; and I want to thank all of you for listening so 
patiently to my boring little talk. So ... thanks very much.'
The applause started even before he finished his last sentence; it swelled while 
he gathered up the few pages of text which Naomi had typed and which he had 
spent the afternoon amending; it rose to a crescendo as he sat down, bemused by 
the reaction.
Well, it's just the booze, he told himself. They would have applauded you if 
you'd told them about how you managed to quit smoking after you found Jesus at a 
Tupperware party.
Then they started to rise to their feet and he thought he must have spoken too 
long if they were that anxious to get out. But they went on applauding, and then 
he saw Craig Jones was flapping his hands at him. After a moment Sam understood. 
Craig wanted him to stand up and take a bow.
He twirled a forefinger around his ear: You're nuts!
Craig shook his head emphatically and began elevating his hands so energetically 
that he looked like a revival preacher encouraging the faithful to sing louder.
So Sam stood up and was amazed when they actually cheered him.
After a few moments, Craig approached the lectern. The cheers at last died down 
when he tapped the microphone a few times, producing a sound like a giant fist 
wrapped in cotton knocking on a coffin.
'I think we'll all agree,' he said, 'that Sam's speech more than made up for the 
price of the rubber chicken.'
This brought another hearty burst of applause.
Craig turned toward Sam and said, 'If I'd known you had that in you, Sammy, I 
would have booked you in the first place!'
This produced more clapping and whistling. Before it died out, Craig Jones had 
seized Sam's hand and began pumping it briskly up and down.
'That was great!' Craig said. 'Where'd you copy it from, Sam?'
'I didn't,' Sam said. His cheeks felt warm, and although he'd only had one gin 
and tonic - a weak one - before getting up to speak, he felt a little drunk. 
'It's mine. I got a couple of books from the Library, and they helped.'
Other Rotarians were crowding around now; Sam's hand was shaken again and again. 
He started to feel like the town pump during a summer drought.
'Great!' someone shouted in his ear. Sam turned toward the voice and saw it 
belonged to Frank Stephens, who had filled in when the trucking-union official 
was indicted for malfeasance. 'We shoulda had it on tape, we coulda sold it to 
the goddam JayCees! Damn, that was a good talk, Sam!'
'Oughtta take it on the road!' Rudy Pearlman said. His round face was red and 
sweating. 'I dam near cried! Honest to God! Where'd you find that pome?'
'At the Library,' Sam said. He still felt dazed ... but his relief at having 
actually finished in one piece was being supplanted by a kind of cautious 
delight. He thought he would have to give Naomi a bonus. 'It was in a book 
called -' But before he could tell Rudy what the book had been called, Bruce 
Engalls had grasped him by the elbow and was guiding him toward the bar. 'Best 
damned speech I've heard at this foolish club in two years!' Bruce was 
exclaiming. 'Maybe five! Who needs a goddam acrobat, anyway? Let me buy you a 
drink, Sam. Hell, let me buy you two!'
2
Before he was able to get away, Sam consumed a total of six drinks, all of them 
free, and ended his triumphant evening by puking on his own WELCOME mat shortly 
after Craig Jones let him out in front of his house on Kelton Avenue. When his 
stomach vapor-locked, Sam had been trying to get his housekey in the lock of his 
front door - it was a job, because there appeared to be three locks and four 
keys - and there was just no time to get rid of it in the bushes at the side of 
the stoop. So when he finally succeeded in getting the door open, he simply 
picked the WELCOME mat up (carefully, holding it by the sides so the gunk would 
pool in the middle) and tossed it over the side.
He got a cup of coffee to stay down, but the phone rang twice while he was 
drinking it. More congratulations. The second call was from Elmer Baskin, who 
hadn't even been there. He felt a little like Judy Garland in A Star Is Born, 
but it was hard to enjoy the feeling while his stomach was still treading water 
and his head was beginning to punish him for his overindulgence.
Sam put on the answering machine in the living room to field any further calls, 
then went upstairs to his bedroom, unplugged the phone by the bed, took two 
aspirin, stripped, and lay down.
Consciousness began to fade fast - he was tired as well as bombed - but before 
sleep took him, he had time to think: I owe most of it to Naomi ... and to that 
unpleasant woman at the Library. Horst. Borscht. Whatever her name was. Maybe I 
ought to give her a bonus, too.
He heard the telephone start to ring downstairs, and then the answering machine 
cut in.
Good boy, Sam thought sleepily. Do your duty - I mean, after all, isn't that 
what I pay you to do?
Then he was in blackness, and knew no more until ten o'clock Saturday morning.
3
He returned to the land of the living with a sour stomach and a slight headache, 
but it could have been a lot worse. He was sorry about the WELCOME mat, but glad 
he'd offloaded at least some of the booze before it could swell his head any 
worse than it already was. He stood in the shower for ten minutes, making only 
token washing motions, then dried off, dressed, and went downstairs with a towel 
draped over his head. The red message light on the telephone answering machine 
was blinking. The tape only rewound a short way when he pushed the PLAY MESSAGES 
button; apparently the call he'd heard just as he was drifting off had been the 
last.
Beep! 'Hello, Sam.' Sam paused in the act of removing the towel, frowning. It 
was a woman's voice, and he knew it. Whose? 'I heard your speech was a great 
success. I'm so glad for you.'
It was the Lortz woman, he realized.
Now how did she get my number? But that was what the telephone book was for, of 
course ... and he had written it on his library-card application as well, hadn't 
he? Yes. For no reason he could rightly tell, a small shiver shook its way up 
his back.
'Be sure to get your borrowed books back by the sixth of April,' she continued, 
and then, archly: 'Remember the Library Policeman.'
There was the click of the connection being broken. On Sam's answering machine, 
the ALL MESSAGES PLAYED lamp lit Up.
'You're a bit of a bitch, aren't you, lady?' Sam said to the empty house, and 
then went into the kitchen to make himself some toast.
4
When Naomi came in at ten o'clock on the Friday morning a week after Sam's 
triumphant debut as an after-dinner speaker, Sam handed her a long white 
envelope with her name written on the front.
'What's this?' Naomi asked suspiciously, taking off her cloak. It was raining 
hard outside, a driving, dismal early-spring rain.
'Open it and see.'
She did. It was a thank-you card. Taped inside was a portrait of Andrew Jackson.
'Twenty dollars!' She looked at him more suspiciously than ever. 'Why?'
'Because you saved my bacon when you sent me to the Library,' Sam said. 'The 
speech went over very well, Naomi. I guess it wouldn't be wrong to say I was a 
big hit. I would have put in fifty, if I'd thought you would take it.'
Now she understood, and was clearly pleased, but she tried to give the money 
back just the same. 'I'm really glad it worked, Sam, but I can't take th - '
'Yes you can,' he said, 'and you will. You'd take a commission if you worked for 
me as a salesperson, wouldn't you?'
'I don't, though. I could never sell anything. When I was in the Girl Scouts, my 
mother was the only person who ever bought cookies from me.'
'Naomi. My dear girl. No - don't start looking all nervous and cornered. I'm not 
going to make a pass at you. We went through all of that two years ago.'
'We certainly did.' Naomi agreed, but she still looked nervous and checked to 
make sure that she had a clear line of retreat to the door, should she need one.
'Do you realize I've sold two houses and written almost two hundred thousand 
dollars' worth of insurance since that damn speech? Most of it was common group 
coverage with a high top-off and a low commission rate, true, but it still adds 
up to the price of a new car. If you don't take that twenty, I'm going to feel 
like shit.'
'Sam, please!' she said, looking shocked. Naomi was a dedicated Baptist. She and 
her mother went to a little church in Proverbia which was almost as ramshackle 
as the house they lived in. He knew; he had been there once. But he was happy to 
see that she also looked pleased ... and a little more relaxed.
In the summer of 1988, Sam had dated Naomi twice. On the second date, he made a 
pass. It was as well behaved as a pass can be and still remain a pass, but a 
pass it was. Much good it had done him; Naomi, it turned out, was a good enough 
pass deflector to play in the Denver Broncos' defensive backfield. It wasn't 
that she didn't like him, she explained; it was just that she had decided the 
two of them could never get along 'that way.' Sam, bewildered, had asked her why 
not. Naomi only shook her head. Some things are hard to explain, Sam, but that 
doesn't make them less true. It could never work. Believe me, it just couldn't. 
And that had been all he could get out of her.
'I'm sorry I said the s-word, Naomi,' he told her now. He spoke humbly, although 
he doubted somehow that Naomi was even half as priggish as she liked to sound. 
'What I mean to say is that if you don't take that twenty, I'll feel like 
caca-poopie.'
She tucked the bill into her purse and then endeavored to look at him with an 
expression of dignified primness. She almost made it ... but the corners of her 
lips quivered slightly.
'There. Satisfied?'
'Short of giving you fifty,' he said. 'Would you take fifty, Omes?'
'No,' she said. 'And please don't call me Omes. You know I don't like it.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Apology accepted. Now why don't we just drop the subject?'
'Okay,' Sam said agreeably.
'I heard several people say your speech was good. Craig Jones just raved about 
it. Do you really think that's the reason you've done more business?'
'Does a bear - ' Sam began, and then retraced his steps. 'Yes. I do. Things work 
that way sometimes. It's funny, but it's true. The old sales graph has really 
spiked this week. It'll drop back, of course, but I don't think it'll drop back 
all the way. If the new folks like the way I do business - and I like to think 
they will - there'll be a carry-over.'
Sam leaned back in his chair, laced his hands together behind his neck, and 
looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling.
'When Craig Jones called up and put me on the spot, I was ready to shoot him. No 
joke, Naomi.'
'Yes,' she said. 'You looked like a man coming down with a bad case of poison 
ivy.'
'Did I?' He laughed. 'Yeah, I suppose so. It's funny how things work out 
sometimes - purest luck. If there is a God, it makes you wonder sometimes if He 
tightened all the screws in the big machine before He set it going.'
He expected Naomi to scold him for his irreverence (it wouldn't be the first 
time), but she didn't take the gambit today. Instead she said, 'You're luckier 
than you know, if the books you got at the Library really did help You out. It 
usually doesn't open until five o'clock on Fridays. I meant to tell you that, 
but then I forgot.'
'Oh?'
'You must have found Mr Price catching up on his paperwork or something.'
'Price?' Sam asked. 'Don't you mean Mr Peckham? The newspaper-reading janitor?'
Naomi shook her head. 'The only Peckham I ever heard of around here was old 
Eddie Peckham, and he died years ago. I'm talking about Mr Price. The 
librarian.' She was looking at Sam as though he were the thickest man on earth 
... or at least in Junction City, Iowa. 'Tall man? Thin? About fifty?'
'Nope,' Sam said. 'I got a lady named Lortz. Short, plump, somewhere around the 
age when women form lasting attachments to bright-green polyester.'
A rather strange mix of expressions crossed Naomi's face - surprise was followed 
by suspicion; suspicion was followed by a species of faintly exasperated 
amusement. That particular sequence of expressions almost always indicates the 
same thing: someone is coming to realize that his or her leg is being shaken 
vigorously. Under more ordinary circumstances Sam might have wondered about 
that, but he had done a land-office business all week long, and as a result he 
had a great deal of his own paperwork to catch up on. Half of his mind had 
already wandered off to examine it.
'Oh,' Naomi said and laughed. 'Miss Lortz, was it? That must have been fun.'
'She's peculiar, all right,' Sam said.
'You bet,' Naomi agreed. 'In fact she's absolutely-'
If she had finished what she had started to say she probably would have startled 
Sam Peebles a great deal, but luck - as he had just pointed out - plays an 
absurdly important part in human affairs, and luck now intervened.
The telephone rang.
It was Burt Iverson, the spiritual chief of Junction City's small legal tribe. 
He wanted to talk about a really huge insurance deal - the new medical center, 
comp-group coverage, still in the planning stages but you know how big this 
could be, Sam - and by the time Sam got back to Naomi, thoughts of Lortz had 
gone entirely out of his mind. He knew how big it could be, all right; it could 
land him behind the wheel of that Mercedes-Benz after all. And he really didn't 
like to think just how much of all this good fortune he might be able to trace 
back to that stupid little speech, if he really wanted to.
Naomi did think her leg was being pulled; she knew perfectly well who Ardelia 
Lortz was, and thought Sam must, too. After all, the woman had been at the 
center of the nastiest piece of business to occur in Junction City in the last 
twenty years ... maybe since World War II, when the Moggins boy had come home 
from the Pacific all funny in the head and had killed his whole family before 
sticking the barrel of his service pistol in his right ear and taking care of 
himself as well. Ira Moggins had done that before Naomi's time; it did not occur 
to her that l'affaire Ardelia had occurred long before Sam had come to Junction 
City.
At any rate, she had dismissed the whole thing from her mind and was trying to 
decide between Stouffer's lasagna and something from Lean Cuisine for supper by 
the time Sam put the telephone down. He dictated letters steadily until twelve 
o'clock, then asked Naomi if she would like to step down to McKenna's with him 
for a spot of lunch. Naomi declined, saying she had to get back to her mother, 
who had Failed Greatly over the course of the winter. No more was said about 
Ardelia Lortz.
That day.
CHAPTER 4
The Missing Books
1
Sam wasn't much of a breakfast-eater through the week - a glass of orange juice 
and an oat-bran muffin did him just fine - but on Saturday mornings (at least on 
Saturday mornings when he wasn't dealing with a Rotary-inspired hangover) he 
liked to rise a little late, stroll down to McKenna's on the square, and work 
his way slowly through an order of steak and eggs while he really read the paper 
instead of just scanning it between appointments.
He followed this routine the next morning, the seventh of April. The previous 
day's rain was gone, and the sky was a pale, perfect blue - the very image of 
early spring. Sam took the long way home following his breakfast, pausing to 
check out whose tulips and crocuses were in good order and whose were a little 
late. He arrived back at his own house at ten minutes past ten.
The PLAY MESSAGES lamp on his answering machine was lit. He pushed the button, 
got out a cigarette, and struck a match.
'Hello, Sam,' Ardelia Lortz's soft and utterly unmistakable voice said, and the 
match paused six inches shy of Sam's cigarette. 'I'm very disappointed in you. 
Your books are overdue.'
'Ah, shit!' Sam exclaimed.
Something had been nagging at him all week long, the way a word you want will 
use the tip of your tongue for a trampoline, bouncing just out of reach. The 
books. The goddam books. The woman would undoubtedly regard him as exactly the 
sort of Philistine she wanted him to be - him with his gratuitous judgments of 
which posters belonged in the Children's Library and which ones didn't. The only 
real question was whether she had put her tongue-lashing on the answering 
machine or was saving it until she saw him in person.
He shook out the match and dropped it in the ashtray beside the telephone.
'I explained to you, I believe,' she was going on in her soft and just a little 
too reasonable voice, 'that The Speaker's Companion and Best Loved Poems of the 
American People are from the Library's Special Reference section, and cannot be 
kept out for longer than one week. I expected better things of you, Sam. I 
really did.'
Sam, to his great exasperation, found he was standing here in his own house with 
an unlit cigarette between his lips and a guilty flush climbing up his neck and 
beginning to overrun his cheeks. Once more he had been deposited firmly back in 
the fourth grade - this time sitting on a stool facing into the corner with a 
pointed dunce-cap perched firmly on his head.
Speaking as one who is conferring a great favor, Ardelia Lortz went on: ‘I have 
decided to give you an extension, however; you have until Monday afternoon to 
return your borrowed books. Please help me avoid any unpleasantness.' There was 
a pause. 'Remember the Library Policeman, Sam.'
'That one's getting old, Ardelia-baby,' Sam muttered, but he wasn't even 
speaking to the recording. She had hung up after mentioning the Library 
Policeman, and the machine switched itself quietly off.
2
Sam used a fresh match to light his smoke. He was still exhaling the first drag 
when a course of action popped into his mind. It might be a trifle cowardly, but 
it would close his accounts with Ms Lortz for good. And it also had a certain 
rough justice to it.
He had given Naomi her just reward, and he would do the same for Ardelia. He sat 
down at the desk in his study, where he had composed the famous speech, and drew 
his note-pad to him. Below the heading (From the Desk of SAMUEL PEEBLES), he 
scrawled the following note:
Dear Ms Lortz,
I apologize for being late returning your books. This is a sincere apology, 
because the books were extremely helpful in preparing my speech. Please accept 
this money in payment of the fine on the tardy books. I want you to keep the 
rest as a token of my thanks.
Sincerely yours,
Sam Peebles
Sam read the note over while he fished a paper clip out of his desk drawer. He 
considered changing '. . . returning your books' to '. . . returning the 
library's books' and decided to leave it as it was. Ardelia Lortz had impressed 
him very much as the sort of woman who subscribed to the philosophy of l'etat 
c'est moi, even if l'etat in this case was just the local library.
He removed a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and used the clip to attach it 
to the note. He hesitated a moment longer, drumming his fingers restlessly on 
the edge of the desk.
She's going to look at this as a bribe. She'll probably be offended and mad as 
hell.
That might be true, but Sam didn't care. He knew what was behind the Lortz 
woman's arch little call this morning - behind both arch little calls, probably. 
He had pulled her chain a little too hard about the posters in the Children's 
Library, and she was getting back at him - or trying to. But this wasn't the 
fourth grade, he wasn't a scurrying, terrified little kid (not anymore, at 
least), and he wasn't going to be intimidated. Not by the ill-tempered sign in 
the library foyer, nor by the librarian's 
you're-one-whole-day-late-you-bad-boy-you nagging.
'Fuck it!' he said out loud. 'If you don't want the goddam money, stick it in 
the Library Defense Fund, or something.'
He laid the note with the twenty paper-clipped to it on the desk. He had no 
intention of presenting it in person so she could get shirty on him. He would 
bind the two volumes together with a couple of rubber bands after laying the 
note and the money into one of them so it stuck out. Then he would simply dump 
the whole shebang into the book-drop. He had spent six years in Junction City 
without making Ardelia Lortz's acquaintance; with any luck, it would be six 
years before he saw her again.
Now all he had to do was find the books.
They were not on his study desk, that was for sure. Sam went out into the dining 
room and looked on the table. It was where he usually stacked things which 
needed to be returned. There were two VHS tapes ready to go back to Bruce's 
Video Stop, an envelope with Paperboy written across the front, two folders with 
insurance policies in them ... but no Speaker's Companion. No Best Loved Poems 
of the American People, either.
'Crap,' Sam said, and scratched his head. 'Where the hell -'
He went out into the kitchen. Nothing on the kitchen table but the morning 
paper; he'd put it down there when he came in. He tossed it absently in the 
cardboard carton by the woodstove as he checked the counter. Nothing on the 
counter but the box from which he had taken last night's frozen dinner.
He went slowly upstairs to check the rooms on the second story, but he was 
already starting to get a very bad feeling.
3
By three o'clock that afternoon, the bad feeling was a lot worse. Sam Peebles 
was, in fact, fuming. After going through the house twice from top to bottom (on 
the second pass he even checked the cellar), he had gone down to the office, 
even though he was pretty sure he had brought the two books home with him when 
he left work late last Monday afternoon. Sure enough, he had found nothing 
there. And here he was, most of a beautiful spring Saturday shot in a fruitless 
search for two library books, no further ahead.
He kept thinking of her arch tone - remember the Library Policeman, Sam -and how 
happy she would feel if she knew just how far under his skin she had gotten. If 
there really were Library Police, Sam had no doubt at all that the woman would 
be happy to sic one on him. The more he thought about it, the madder he got.
He went back into his study. His note to Ardelia Lortz, with the twenty 
attached, stared at him blandly from the desk.
'Balls!' he cried, and was almost off on another whirlwind search of the house 
before he caught himself and stopped. That would accomplish nothing.
Suddenly he heard the voice of his long-dead mother. It was soft and sweetly 
reasonable. When you can't find a thing. Samuel, tearing around and looking for 
it usually does no good. Sit down and think things over instead. Use your head 
and save your feet.
It had been good advice when he was ten; he guessed it was just as good now that 
he was forty. Sam sat down behind his desk, closed his eyes, and set out to 
trace the progress of those goddamned library books from the moment Ms Lortz had 
handed them to him until ... whenever.
From the library he had taken them back to the office, stopping at Sam's House 
of Pizza on the way for a pepperoni-and-double-mushroom pie, which he had eaten 
at his desk while he looked through The Speaker's Companion for two things: good 
jokes and how to use them. He remembered how careful he'd been not to get even 
the smallest dollop of pizza sauce on the book - which was sort of ironic, 
considering the fact that he couldn't find either of them now.
He had spent most of the afternoon on the speech, working in the jokes, then 
rewriting the whole last part so the poem would fit better. When he went home 
late Friday afternoon, he'd taken the finished speech but not the books. He was 
sure of that. Craig Jones had picked him up when it was time for the Rotary Club 
dinner, and Craig had dropped him off later on - just in time for Sam to baptize 
the WELCOME mat.
Saturday morning had been spent nursing his minor but annoying hangover; for the 
rest of the weekend he had just stayed around the house, reading, watching TV, 
and - let's face it, gang - basking in his triumph. He hadn't gone near the 
office all weekend. He was sure of it.
Okay, he thought. Here comes the hard part. Now concentrate. But he didn't need 
to concentrate all that hard after all, he discovered.
He had started out of the office around quarter to five on Monday afternoon, and 
then the phone had rung, calling him back. It had been Stu Youngman, wanting him 
to write a large homeowner's policy. That had been the start of this week's 
shower of bucks. While he was talking with Stu, his eye had happened on the two 
library books, still sitting on the corner of his desk.
When he left the second time, he'd had his briefcase in one hand and the books 
in the other. He was positive of that much.
He had intended to return them to the Library that evening, but then Frank 
Stephens had called, wanting him to come out to dinner with him and his wife and 
their niece, who was visiting from Omaha (when you were a bachelor in a small 
town, Sam had discovered, even your casual acquaintances became relentless 
matchmakers). They had gone to Brady's Ribs, had returned late -around eleven, 
late for a weeknight - and by the time he got home again, he had forgotten all 
about the library books.
After that, he lost sight of them completely. He hadn't thought of returning 
them - his unexpectedly brisk business had taken up most of his thinking time 
-until the Lortz woman's call.
Okay - I probably haven't moved them since then. They must be right where I left 
them when I got home late Monday afternoon.
For a moment he felt a burst of hope - maybe they were still in the car! Then, 
just as he was getting up to check, he remembered how he'd shifted his briefcase 
to the hand holding the books when he'd arrived home on Monday. He'd done that 
so he could get his housekey out of his right front pocket. He hadn't left them 
in the car at all.
So what did you do when you got in?
He saw himself unlocking the kitchen door, stepping in, putting his briefcase on 
a kitchen chair, turning with the books in his hand 
'Oh no,' Sam muttered. The bad feeling returned in a rush.
There was a fair-sized cardboard carton sitting on the shelf by his little 
kitchen woodstove, the kind of carton you could pick up at the liquor store. It 
had been there for a couple of years now. People sometimes packed their smaller 
belongings into such cartons when they were moving house, but the cartons also 
made great hold-alls. Sam used the one by the stove for newspaper storage. He 
put each day's paper into the box after he had finished reading it; he had 
tossed today's paper in only a short time before. And, once every month or so 
'Dirty Dave!' Sam muttered.
He got up from behind his desk and hurried into the kitchen.
4
The box, with Johnnie Walker's monocled ain't-I-hip image on the side, was 
almost empty. Sam thumbed through the thin sheaf of newspapers, knowing he would 
find nothing but looking anyway, the way people do when they are so exasperated 
they half-believe that just wanting a thing badly enough will make it be there. 
He found the Saturday Gazette - the one he had so recently disposed of - and the 
Friday paper. No books between or beneath them, of course. Sam stood there for a 
moment, thinking black thoughts, then went to the telephone to call Mary Vasser, 
who cleaned house for him every Thursday morning.
'Hello?' a faintly worried voice answered.
'Hi, Mary. This is Sam Peebles.'
'Sam?' The worry deepened. 'Is something wrong?'
Yes! By Monday afternoon the bitch who runs the local Library is going to be 
after me! Probably with a cross and a number of very long nails!
But of course he couldn't say anything like that, not to Mary; she was one of 
those unfortunate human beings who have been born under a bad sign and live in 
their own dark cloud of doomish premonition. The Mary Vassers of the world 
believe that there are a great many large black safes dangling three stories 
above a great many sidewalks, held by fraying cables, waiting for destiny to 
carry the doom-fated into the drop zone. If not a safe, then a drunk driver; if 
not a drunk driver, a tidal wave (in Iowa? yes, in Iowa); if not a tidal wave, a 
meteorite. Mary Vasser was one of those afflicted folks who always want to know 
if something is wrong when you call them on the phone.
'Nothing,' Sam said. 'Nothing wrong at all. I just wondered if you saw Dave on 
Thursday.' The question wasn't much more than a formality; the papers, after 
all, were gone, and Dirty Dave was the only Newspaper Fairy in Junction City.
'Yes,' Mary agreed. Sam's hearty assurance that nothing was wrong seemed to have 
put her wind up even higher. Now barely concealed terror positively vibrated in 
her voice. 'He came to get the papers. Was I wrong to let him? He's been coming 
for years, and I thought - '
'Not at all,' Sam said with insane cheerfulness. 'I just saw they were gone and 
thought I'd check that - '
'You never checked before.' Her voice caught. 'Is he all right? Has something 
happened to Dave?'
'No,' Sam said. 'I mean, I don't know. I just - ' An idea flashed into his mind. 
'The coupons!' he cried wildly. 'I forgot to clip the coupons on Thursday, so - 
'
'Oh!' she said. 'You can have mine, if you want.'
'No, I couldn't do th - '
'I'll bring them next Thursday,' she overrode him. 'I have thousands.' So many 
I'll never get a chance to use them all, her voice implied. After all, somewhere 
out there a safe is waiting for me to walk under it, or a tree is waiting to 
fall over in a windstorm and squash me, or in some North Dakota motel a 
hair-dryer is waiting to fall off the shelf and into the bathtub. I'm living on 
borrowed time, so what do I need a bunch of fucking Folger's Crystals coupons 
for?
'All right,' Sam said. 'That would be great. Thanks, Mary, you're a peach.'
'And you're sure nothing else is wrong?'
'Not a thing,' Sam replied, speaking more heartily than ever. To himself he 
sounded like a lunatic top-sergeant urging his few remaining men to mount a 
final fruitless frontal assault on a fortified machine-gun nest. Come on, men, I 
think they might be asleep!
'All right,' Mary said doubtfully, and Sam was finally permitted to escape.
He sat down heavily in one of the kitchen chairs and regarded the almost empty 
Johnnie Walker box with a bitter eye. Dirty Dave had come to collect the 
newspapers, as he did during the first week of every month, but this time he had 
unknowingly taken along a little bonus: The Speaker's Companion and Best Loved 
Poems of the American People. And Sam had a very good idea of what they were 
now.
Pulp. Recycled pulp.
Dirty Dave was one of Junction City's functioning alcoholics. Unable to hold 
down a steady job, he eked out a living on the discards of others, and in that 
way he was a fairly useful citizen. He collected returnable bottles, and, like 
twelve-year-old Keith Jordan, he had a paper route. The only difference was that 
Keith delivered the Junction City Gazette every day, and Dirty Dave Duncan 
collected it - from Sam and God knew how many other homeowners in the Kelton 
Avenue section of town - once a month. Sam had seen him many times, trundling 
his shopping cart full of green plastic garbage bags across town toward the 
Recycling Center which stood between the old train depot and the small homeless 
shelter where Dirty Dave and a dozen or so of his compadres spent most of their 
nights.
He sat where he was for a moment longer, drumming his fingers on the kitchen 
table, then got up, pulled on a jacket, and went out to the car.
CHAPTER 5
Angle Street (I)
1
The intentions of the sign-maker had undoubtedly been the best, but his spelling 
had been poor. The sign was nailed to one of the porch uprights of the old house 
by the railroad tracks, and it read:
ANGLE STREET
Since there were no angles on Railroad Avenue that Sam could see - like most 
Iowa streets and roads, it was as straight as a string - he reckoned the 
sign-maker had meant Angel Street. Well, so what? Sam thought that, while the 
road of good intentions might end in hell, the people who tried to fill the 
potholes along the way deserved at least some credit.
Angle Street was a big building which, Sam guessed, had housed railroad company 
offices back in the days when Junction City really had been a railway Junction 
point. Now there were just two sets of working tracks, both going east-west. All 
the others were rusty and overgrown with weeds. Most of the cross-ties were 
gone, appropriated for fires by the same homeless people Angle Street was here 
to serve.
Sam arrived at quarter to five. The sun cast a mournful, failing light over the 
empty fields which took over here at the edge of town. A seemingly endless 
freight was rumbling by behind the few buildings which stood out here. A breeze 
had sprung up, and as he stopped his car and got out, he could hear the rusty 
squeak of the old JUNCTION CITY sign swinging back and forth above the deserted 
platform where people had once boarded passenger trains for St Louis and Chicago 
- even the old Sunnyland Express, which had made its only Iowa stop in Junction 
City on its way to the fabulous kingdoms of Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
The homeless shelter had once been white; now it was a paintless gray. The 
curtains in the windows were clean but tired and limp. Weeds were trying to grow 
in the cindery yard. Sam thought they might gain a foothold by June, but right 
now they were making a bad job of it. A rusty barrel had been placed by the 
splintery steps leading up to the porch. Opposite the Angle Street sign, nailed 
to another porch support post, was this message:
NO DRINKING ALLOWED AT THIS SHELTER!
IF YOU HAVE A BOTTLE, IT MUST GO HERE BEFORE YOU ENTER!
His luck was in. Although Saturday night had almost arrived and the ginmills and 
beerjoints of Junction City awaited, Dirty Dave was here, and he was sober. He 
was, in fact, sitting on the porch with two other winos. They were engaged in 
making posters on large rectangles of white cardboard, and enjoying varying 
degrees of success. The fellow sitting on the floor at the far end of the porch 
was holding his right wrist with his left hand in an effort to offset a bad case 
of the shakes. The one in the middle worked with his tongue peeking from the 
corner of his mouth, and looked like a very old nursery child trying his level 
best to draw a tree which would earn him a gold star to show Mommy. Dirty Dave, 
sitting in a splintered rocking chair near the porch steps, was easily in the 
best shape, but all three of them looked folded, stapled, and mutilated.
'Hello, Dave,' Sam said, mounting the steps.
Dave looked up, squinted, and then offered a tentative smile. All of his 
remaining teeth were in front. The smile revealed all five of them.
'Mr Peebles?'
'Yes,' he said. 'How you doing, Dave?'
'Oh, purty fair, I guess. Purty fair.' He looked around. 'Say, you guys! Say 
hello to Mr Peebles! He's a lawyer!'
The fellow with the tip of his tongue sticking out looked up, nodded briefly, 
and went back to his poster. A long runner of snot depended from his left 
nostril.
'Actually,' Sam said, 'real estate's my game, Dave. Real estate and insur-'
'You got me my Slim Jim?' the man with the shakes asked abruptly. He did not 
look up at all, but his frown of concentration deepened. Sam could see his 
poster from where he stood; it was covered with long orange squiggles which 
vaguely resembled words.
'Pardon?' Sam asked.
'That's Lukey,' Dave said in a low voice. 'He ain't havin one of his better 
days, Mr Peebles.'
'Got me my Slim Jim, got me my Slim Jim, got me my Slim Fuckin Slim Jim?' Lukey 
chanted without looking up.
'Uh, I'm sorry - ' Sam began.
'He ain't got no Slim Jims!' Dirty Dave yelled. 'Shut up and do your poster, 
Lukey! Sarah wants em by six! She's comin out special!'
'I'll get me a fuckin Slim Jim,' Luckey said in a low intense voice. 'If I 
don't, I guess I'll eat rat-turds.'
'Don't mind him, Mr Peebles,' Dave said. 'What's up?'
'Well, I was just wondering if you might have found a couple of books when you 
picked up the newspapers last Thursday. I've misplaced them, and I thought I'd 
check. They're overdue at the Library.'
'You got a quarter?' the man with the tip of his tongue sticking out asked 
abruptly. 'What's the word? Thunderbird!'
Sam reached automatically into his pocket. Dave reached out and touched his 
wrist, almost apologetically.
'Don't give him any money, Mr Peebles,' he said. 'That's Rudolph. He don't need 
no Thunderbird. Him and the Bird don't agree no more. He just needs a night's 
sleep.'
'I'm sorry,' Sam said. 'I'm tapped, Rudolph.'
'Yeah, you and everybody else,' Rudolph said. As he went back to his poster he 
muttered: 'What's the price? Fifty twice.'
'I didn't see any books,' Dirty Dave said. 'I'm sorry. I just got the papers, 
like usual. Missus V. was there, and she can tell you. I didn't do nothing 
wrong.' But his rheumy, unhappy eyes said he did not expect Sam to believe this. 
Unlike Mary, Dirty Dave Duncan did not live in a world where doom lay just up 
the road or around the corner; his surrounded him. He lived in it with what 
little dignity he could muster.
'I believe you.' Sam laid a hand on Dave's shoulder.
'I just dumped your box of papers into one of my bags, like always,' Dave said.
'If I had a thousand Slim Jims, I'd eat them all,' Lukey said abruptly. 'I would 
snark those suckers right down! That's chow! That's chow! That's chow-de-dow!'
'I believe you,' Sam repeated, and patted Dave's horribly bony shoulder. He 
found himself wondering, God help him, if Dave had fleas. On the heels of this 
uncharitable thought came another: he wondered if any of the other Rotarians, 
those hale and hearty fellows with whom he had made such a hit a week ago, had 
been down to this end of town lately. He wondered if they even knew about Angle 
Street. And he wondered if Spencer Michael Free had been thinking about such men 
as Lukey and Rudolph and Dirty Dave when he wrote that it was the human touch in 
this world that counted - the touch of your hand and mine. Sam felt a sudden 
burst of shame at the recollection of his speech, so full of innocent 
boosterism. and approval for the simple pleasures of small-town life.
'That's good,' Dave said. 'Then I can come back next month?'
'Sure. You took the papers to the Recycling Center, right?'
'Uh-huh.' Dirty Dave pointed with a finger which ended in a yellow, ragged nail. 
'Right over there. But they're closed.'
Sam nodded. 'What are you doing?' he asked.
'Aw, just passin the time,' Dave said, and turned the poster around so Sam could 
see it.
It showed a picture of a smiling woman holding a platter of fried chicken, and 
the first thing that struck Sam was that it was good - really good. Wino or not, 
Dirty Dave had a natural touch. Above the picture, the following was neatly 
printed:
CHICKEN DINNER AT THE 1 ST METHODIST CHURCH
TO BENEFIT 'ANGEL STREET' HOMELESS SHELTER
APRIL 15TH
6:00 To 8:00 P.M.
COME ONE COME ALL
'It's before the AA meeting,' Dave said, 'but you can't put nothing on the 
poster about AA. That's because it's sort of secret.'
'I know,' Sam said. He paused, then asked: 'Do you go to AA? You don't have to 
answer if you don't want to. I know it's really none of my business.'
'I go,' Dave said, 'but it's hard, Mr Peebles. I got more white chips than 
Carter has got liver pills. I'm good for a month, sometimes two, and once I went 
sober almost a whole year. But it's hard.' He shook his head. 'Some people can't 
never get with the program, they say. I must be one of those. But I keep 
trying.'
Sam's eyes were drawn back to the woman with her platter of chicken. The picture 
was too detailed to be a cartoon or a sketch, but it wasn't a painting, either. 
It was clear that Dirty Dave had done it in a hurry, but he had caught a 
kindness about the eyes and a faint slant of humor, like one last sunbeam at the 
close of day, in the mouth. And the oddest thing was that the woman looked 
familiar to Sam.
'Is that a real person?' he asked Dave.
Dave's smile widened. He nodded. 'That's Sarah. She's a great gal, Mr Peebles. 
This place would have closed down five years ago except for her. She finds 
people to give money just when it seems the taxes will be too much or we won't 
be able to fix the place up enough to satisfy the building inspectors when they 
come. She calls the people who give the money angels, but she's the angel. We 
named the place for Sarah. Of course, Tommy St John spelled part of it wrong 
when he made the sign, but he meant well.' Dirty Dave fell silent for a moment, 
looking at his poster. Without looking up, he added: 'Tommy's dead now, a 
course. Died this last winter. His liver busted.'
'Oh,' Sam said, and then he added lamely, 'I'm sorry.'
'Don't be. He's well out of it.'
'Chow-de-dow!' Lukey exclaimed, getting up. 'Chow-de-dow! Ain't that some fuckin 
chow-de-dow!' He brought his poster over to Dave. Below the orange squiggles he 
had drawn a monster woman whose legs ended in sharkfins Sam thought were meant 
to be shoes. Balanced on one hand was a misshapen plate which appeared to be 
loaded with blue snakes. Clutched in the other was a cylindrical brown object.
Dave took the poster from Lukey and examined it. 'This is good, Lukey.'
Lukey's lips peeled back in a gleeful smile. He pointed at the brown thing. 
'Look, Dave! She got her a Slim Fuckin Slim Jim!'
'She sure does. Purty good. Go on inside and turn on the TV, if you want. Star 
Trek's on right away. How you doin, Dolph?'
'I draw better when I'm stewed,' Rudolph said, and gave his poster to Dave. On 
it was a gigantic chicken leg with stick men and women standing around and 
looking up at it. 'It's the fantasy approach,' Rudolph said to Sam. He spoke 
with some truculence.
'I like it,' Sam said. He did, actually. Rudolph's poster reminded him of a New 
Yorker cartoon, one of the ones he sometimes couldn't understand because they 
were so surreal.
'Good.' Rudolph studied him closely. 'You sure you ain't got a quarter?'
'No,' Sam said.
Rudolph nodded. 'In a way, that's good,' he said. 'But in another way, it really 
shits the bed.' He followed Lukey inside, and soon the Star Trek theme drifted 
out through the open door. William Shatner told the winos and burnouts of Angle 
Street that their mission was to boldly go where no man had gone before. Sam 
guessed that several members of this audience were already there.
'Nobody much comes to the dinners but us guys and some of the AA's from town,' 
Dave said, 'but it gives us something to do. Lukey hardly talks at all anymore, 
'less he's drawing.'
'You're awfully good,' Sam told him. 'You really are, Dave. Why don't you - ' He 
stopped.
'Why don't I what, Mr Peebles?' Dave asked gently. 'Why don't I use my right 
hand to turn a buck? The same reason I don't get myself a regular job. The day 
got late while I was doin other things.'
Sam couldn't think of a thing to say.
'I had a shot at it, though. Do you know I went to the Lorillard School in Des 
Moines on full scholarship? The best art school in the Midwest. I flunked out my 
first semester. Booze. It don't matter. Do you want to come in and have a cup of 
coffee, Mr Peebles? Wait around? You could meet Sarah.'
'No, I better get back. I've got an errand to run.'
He did, too.
'All right. Are you sure you're not mad at me?'
'Not a bit.'
Dave stood up. 'I guess I'll go in awhile, then,' he said. 'It was a beautiful 
day, but it's gettin nippy now. You have a nice night, Mr Peebles.'
'Okay,' Sam said, although he doubted that he was going to enjoy himself very 
much this Saturday evening. But his mother had had another saying: the way to 
make the best of bad medicine is to swallow it just as fast as you can. And that 
was what he intended to do.
He walked back down the steps of Angle Street, and Dirty Dave Duncan went on 
inside.
2
Sam got almost all the way back to his car, then detoured in the direction of 
the Recycling Center. He walked across the weedy, cindery ground slowly, 
watching the long freight disappear in the direction of Camden and Omaha. The 
red lamps on the caboose twinkled like dying stars. Freight trains always made 
him feel lonely for some reason, and now, following his conversation with Dirty 
Dave, he felt lonelier than ever. On the few occasions when he had met Dave 
while Dave was collecting his papers, he had seemed a jolly, almost clownish 
man. Tonight Sam thought he had seen behind the make-up, and what he had seen 
made him feel unhappy and helpless. Dave was a lost man, calm but totally lost, 
using what was clearly a talent of some size to make posters for a church 
supper.
One approached the Recycling Center through zones of litter - first the 
yellowing ad supplements which had escaped old copies of the Gazette, then the 
torn plastic garbage bags, finally an asteroid belt of busted bottles and 
squashed cans. The shades of the small clapboard building were drawn. The sign 
hanging in the door simply read CLOSED.
Sam lit a cigarette and started back to his car. He had gone only half a dozen 
steps when he saw something familiar lying on the ground. He picked it up. It 
was the bookjacket of Best Loved Poems of the American People. The words 
PROPERTY OF THE JUNCTION CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY were stamped across it.
So now he knew for sure. He had set the books on top of the papers in the 
Johnnie Walker box and then forgotten them. He had put other papers -Tuesday's, 
Wednesday's, and Thursday's - on top of the books. Then Dirty Dave had come 
along late Thursday morning and had dumped the whole shebang into his plastic 
collection bag. The bag had gone into his shoppingcart, the shopping-cart had 
come here, and this was all that was left - a bookjacket with a muddy 
sneaker-print tattooed on it.
Sam let the bookjacket flutter out of his fingers and walked slowly back to his 
car. He had an errand to run, and it was fitting that he should run it at the 
dinner hour.
It seemed he had some crow to eat.
CHAPTER 6
The Library (II)
1
Halfway to the Library, an idea suddenly struck him - it was so obvious he could 
hardly believe it hadn't occurred to him already. He had lost a couple of 
library books; he had since discovered they had been destroyed; he would have to 
pay for them.
And that was all.
It occurred to him that Ardelia Lortz had been more successful in getting him to 
think like a fourth-grader than he had realized. When a kid lost a book, it was 
the end of the world; powerless, he cringed beneath the shadow of bureaucracy 
and waited for the Library Policeman to show up. But there were no Library 
Police, and Sam, as an adult, knew that perfectly well. There were only town 
employees like Ms Lortz, who sometimes got overinflated ideas of their place in 
the scheme of things, and taxpayers like him, who sometimes forgot they were the 
dog which wagged the tail, and not the other way around.
I'm going to go in, I'm going to apologize, and then I'm going to ask her to 
send me a bill for the replacement copies, Sam thought. And that's all. That's 
the end.
It was so simple it was amazing.
Still feeling a little nervous and a little embarrassed (but much more in 
control of this teapot tempest), Sam parked across the street from the Library. 
The carriage lamps which flanked the main entrance were on, casting soft white 
radiance down the steps and across the building's granite facade. Evening lent 
the building a kindness and a welcoming air it had definitely been lacking on 
his first visit - or maybe it was just that spring was clearly on the rise now, 
something which had not been the case on the overcast March day when he had 
first met the resident dragon. The forbidding face of the stone robot was gone. 
It was just the public library again.
Sam started to get out of the car and then stopped. He had been granted one 
revelation; now he was suddenly afforded another.
The face of the woman in Dirty Dave's poster came back to him, the woman with 
the platter of fried chicken. The one Dave had called Sarah.
That woman had looked familiar to Sam, and all at once some obscure circuit 
fired off in his brain and he knew why.
It had been Naomi Higgins.
2
He passed two kids in JCHS jackets on the steps and caught the door before it 
could swing all the way closed. He stepped into the foyer. The first thing that 
struck him was the sound. The reading room beyond the marble steps was by no 
means rowdy, but neither was it the smooth pit of silence which had greeted Sam 
on Friday noon just over a week ago.
Well, but it's Saturday evening now, he thought. There are kids here, maybe 
studying for their midterm exams.
But would Ardelia Lortz condone such chatter, muted as it was? The answer seemed 
to be yes, judging from the sound, but it surely didn't seem in character.
The second thing had to do with that single mute adjuration which had been 
mounted on the easel.
SILENCE!
was gone. In its place was a picture of Thomas Jefferson. Below it was this 
quotation:
'I cannot live without books.'
- Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to John Adams)
June 10th, 1815
Sam studied this for a moment, thinking that it changed the whole flavor in 
one's mouth as one prepared to enter the library.
SILENCE!
induced feelings of trepidation and disquiet (what if one's belly was rumbling, 
for instance, or if one felt an attack of not necessarily silent flatulence 
might be imminent?).
'I cannot live without books,'
on the other hand, induced feelings of pleasure and anticipation - it made one 
feel as hungry men and women feel when the food is finally arriving.
Puzzling over how such a small thing could make such an essential difference, 
Sam entered the Library ... and stopped dead.
3
It was much brighter in the main room than it had been on his first visit, but 
that was only one of the changes. The ladders which had stretched up to the dim 
reaches of the upper shelves were gone. There was no need of them, because the 
ceiling was now only eight or nine feet above the floor instead of thirty or 
forty. If you wanted to take a book from one of the higher shelves, all you 
needed was one of the stools which were scattered about. The magazines were 
placed in an inviting fan on a wide table by the circulation desk. The oak rack 
from which they had hung like the skins of dead animals was gone. So was the 
sign reading
RETURN ALL MAGAZINES TO THEIR PROPER PLACES!
The shelf of new novels was still there, but the 7-DAY RENTALS sign had been 
replaced with one which said READ A BEST-SELLER - JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT!
People - mostly young people - came and went, talking in low tones. Someone 
chuckled. It was an easy, unselfconscious sound.
Sam looked up at the ceiling, trying desperately to understand what in hell had 
happened here. The slanted skylights were gone. The upper reaches of the room 
had been hidden by a modem suspended ceiling. The old-fashioned hanging globes 
had been replaced by panelled fluorescent lighting set into the new ceiling.
A woman on her way up to the main desk with a handful of mystery novels followed 
Sam's gaze up to the ceiling, saw nothing unusual there, and looked curiously at 
Sam instead. One of the boys sitting at a long desk to the right of the magazine 
table nudged his fellows and pointed Sam out. Another tapped his temple and they 
all snickered.
Sam noticed neither the stares nor the snickers. He was unaware that he was 
simply standing in the entrance to the main reading room, gawking up at the 
ceiling with his mouth open. He was trying to get this major change straight in 
his mind.
Well, they've put in a suspended ceiling since you were here last. So what? It's 
probably more heat-efficient.
Yes, but the Lortz woman never said anything about changes.
No, but why would she say anything to him? Sam was hardly a library regular, was 
he?
She should have been upset, though. She struck me as a rock-ribbed 
traditionalist. She wouldn't like this. Not at all.
That was true, but there was something else, something even more troubling. 
Putting in a suspended ceiling was a major renovation. Sam didn't see how it 
could have been accomplished in just a week. And what about the high shelves, 
and all the books which had been on them? Where had the shelves gone? Where had 
the books gone?
Other people were looking at Sam now; even one of the library assistants was 
staring at him from the other side of the circulation desk. Most of the lively, 
hushed chatter in the big room had stilled.
Sam rubbed his eyes - actually rubbed his eyes - and looked up at the suspended 
ceiling with its inset fluorescent squares again. It was still there.
I'm in the wrong library! he thought wildly. That's what it is!
His confused mind first jumped at this idea and then backed away again, like a 
kitten that has been tricked into pouncing on a shadow. Junction City was fairly 
large by central Iowa standards, with a population of thirty-five thousand or 
so, but it was ridiculous to think it could support two libraries. Besides, the 
location of the building and the configuration of the room were right ... it was 
just everything else that was wrong.
Sam wondered for just a moment if he might be going insane, and then dismissed 
the thought. He looked around and noticed for the first time that everyone had 
stopped what they were doing. They were all looking at him. He felt a momentary, 
mad urge to say, 'Go back to what you were doing - I was just noticing that the 
whole library is different this week.' Instead, he sauntered over to the 
magazine table and picked up a copy of US News & World Report. He began leafing 
through it with a show of great interest, and watched out of the corners of his 
eyes as the people in the room went back to what they had been doing.
When he felt that he could move without attracting undue attention, Sam replaced 
the magazine on the table and sauntered toward the Children's Library. He felt a 
little like a spy crossing enemy territory. The sign over the door was exactly 
the same, gold letters on warm dark oak, but the poster was different. Little 
Red Riding Hood at the moment of her terrible realization had been replaced by 
Donald Duck's nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. They were wearing bathing trunks 
and diving into a swimming pool filled with books. The tag-line beneath read:
COME ON IN! THE READINGS FINE!
'What's going on here?' Sam muttered. His heart had begun to beat too fast; he 
could feel a fine sweat breaking out on his arms and back. If it had been just 
the poster, he could have assumed that La Lortz had been fired ... but it wasn't 
just the poster. It was everything.
He opened the door of the Children's Library and peeked inside. He saw the same 
agreeable small world with its low tables and chairs, the same bright-blue 
curtains, the same water fountain mounted on the wall. Only now the suspended 
ceiling in here matched the suspended ceiling in the main reading room, and all 
the posters had been changed. The screaming child in the black sedan
(Simple Simon - they call him Simple Simon they feel contempt for him I think 
that's very healthy, don't you)
was gone, and so was the Library Policeman with his trenchcoat and his strange 
star of many points. Sam drew back, turned around, and walked slowly to the main 
circulation desk. He felt as if his whole body had turned to glass.
Two library assistants - a college-age boy and girl - watched him approach. Sam 
was not too upset himself to see that they looked a trifle nervous.
Be careful. No ... be NORMAL. They already think you're halfway to being nuts.
He suddenly thought of Lukey and a horrible, destructive impulse tried to seize 
him. He could see himself opening his mouth and yelling at these two nervous 
young people, demanding at the top of his voice that they give him a few Slim 
Fucking Slim Jims, because that was chow, that was chow, that was chow-de-dow.
He spoke in a calm, low voice instead.
'Perhaps you could help me. I need to speak to the librarian.'
'Gee, I'm sorry,' the girl said. 'Mr Price doesn't come in on Saturday nights.'
Sam glanced down at the desk. As on his previous trip to the library, there was 
a small name-plaque standing next to the microfilm recorder, but it no longer 
said
A. LORTZ.
Now it said
MR PRICE.
In his mind he heard Naomi say, Tall man? Thin? About fifty?
'No,' he said. 'Not Mr Price. Not Mr Peckham, either. The other one. Ardelia 
Lortz.'
The boy and girl exchanged a puzzled glace. 'No one named Ardelia Lord works 
here,' the boy said. 'You must be thinking of some other library.'
'Not Lord,' Sam told them. His voice seemed to be coming from a great distance. 
'Lortz.'
'No,' the girl said. 'You really must be mistaken, sir.'
They were starting to look cautious again, and although Sam felt like insisting, 
telling them of course Ardelia Lortz worked here, he had met her only eight days 
ago, he made himself pull back. And in a way, it all made perfect sense, didn't 
it? It was perfect sense within a framework of utter lunacy, granted, but that 
didn't change the fact that the interior logic was intact. Like the posters, the 
sky-lights, and the magazine rack, Ardelia Lortz had simply ceased to exist.
Naomi spoke up again inside his head. Oh! Miss Lortz, was it? That must have 
been fun.
'Naomi recognized the name,' he muttered.
Now the library assistants were looking at him with identical expressions of 
consternation.
'Pardon me,' Sam said, and tried a smile. It felt crooked on his face. I'm 
having one of those days.'
'Yes,' the boy said.
'You bet,' the girl said.
They think I'm crazy, Sam thought, and do you know what? I don't blame them a 
bit.
'Was there anything else?' the boy asked.
Sam opened his mouth to say no - after which he would beat a hasty retreat -and 
then changed his mind. He was in for a penny; he might as well go in for a 
pound.
'How long has Mr Price been the head librarian?'
The two assistants exchanged another glance. The girl shrugged. 'Since we've 
been here,' she said, 'but that's not very long, Mr - ?'
'Peebles,' Sam said, offering his hand. 'Sam Peebles. I'm sorry. My manners seem 
to have flown away with the rest of my mind.'
They both relaxed a little - it was an indefinable thing, but it was there, and 
it helped Sam do the same. Upset or not, he had managed to hold onto at least 
some of his not inconsiderable ability to put people at ease. A 
real-estate-and-insurance salesman who couldn't do that was a fellow who ought 
to be looking for a new line of work.
'I'm Cynthia Berrigan,' she said, giving his hand a tentative shake. 'This is 
Tom Stanford.'
'Pleased to meet you,' Tom Stanford said. He didn't look entirely sure of this, 
but he also gave Sam's hand a quick shake.
'Pardon me?' the woman with the mystery novels asked. 'Could someone help me, 
please? I'll be late for my bridge game.'
'I'll do it,' Tom told Cynthia, and walked down the desk to check out the 
woman's books.
She said, 'Tom and I go to Chapelton junior College, Mr Peebles. This is a 
work-study job. I've been here three semesters now - Mr Price hired me last 
spring. Tom came during the summer.'
'Mr Price is the only full-time employee?'
'Uh-huh.' She had lovely brown eyes and now he could see a touch of concern in 
them. 'Is something wrong?'
'I don't know.' Sam looked up again. He couldn't help it. 'Has this suspended 
ceiling been here since you came to work?'
She followed his glance. 'Well,' she said, 'I didn't know that was what it's 
called, but yes, it's been this way since I've been here.'
'I had an idea there were skylights, you see.'
Cynthia smiled. 'Well, sure. I mean, you can see them from the outside, if you 
go around to the side of the building. And, of course, you can see them from the 
stacks, but they're boarded over. The sky-lights, I mean - not the stacks. I 
think they've been that way for years.'
For years.
'And you've never heard of Ardelia Lortz.'
She shook her head. 'Uh-uh. Sorry.'
'What about the Library Police?' Sam asked impulsively.
She laughed. 'Only from my old aunt. She used to tell me the Library Police 
would get me if I didn't bring my books back on time. But that was back in 
Providence, Rhode Island, when I was a little girl. A long time ago.'
Sure, Sam thought. Maybe as long as ten, twelve years ago. Back when dinosaurs 
walked the earth.
'Well,' he said, 'thanks for the information. I didn't mean to freak you out.'
'You didn't.'
'I think I did, a little. I was just confused for a second.'
'Who is this Ardelia Lortz?' Tom Stanford asked, coming back. 'That name rings a 
bell, but I'll be darned if I know why.'
'That's just it. I don't really know,' Sam said.
'Well, we're closed tomorrow, but Mr Price will be in Monday afternoon and 
Monday evening,' he said. 'Maybe he can tell you what you want to know.'
Sam nodded. 'I think I'll come and see him. Meantime, thanks again.'
'We're here to help if we can,' Tom said. 'I only wish we could have helped you 
more, Mr Peebles.'
'Me too,' Sam said.
4
He was okay until he got back to the car, and then, as he was unlocking the 
driver's-side door, all the muscles in his belly and legs seemed to drop dead. 
He had to support himself with a hand on the roof of his car to keep from 
falling down while he swung the door open. He did not really get in; he simply 
collapsed behind the wheel and then sat there, breathing hard and wondering with 
some alarm if he was going to faint.
What's going on here? I feel like a character in Rod Serling's old show.
'Submitted for your examination, one Samuel Peebles, ex-resident of Junction 
City, now selling real estate and whole life in ... the Twilight Zone.'
Yes, that was what it was like. Only watching people cope with inexplicable 
happenings on TV was sort of fun. Sam was discovering that the inexplicable lost 
a lot of its charm when you were the one who had to struggle with it.
He looked across the street at the Library, where people came and went beneath 
the soft glow of the carriage lamps. The old lady with the mystery novels was 
headed off down the street, presumably bound for her bridge game. A couple of 
girls were coming down the steps, talking and laughing together, books held to 
their blooming chests. Everything looked perfectly normal ... and of course it 
was. The abnormal Library had been the one he had entered a week ago. The only 
reason the oddities hadn't struck him more forcibly, he supposed, was because 
his mind had been on that damned speech of his.
Don't think about it, he instructed himself, although he was afraid that this 
was going to be one of those times when his mind simply wouldn't take 
instruction. Do a Scarlett O'Hara and think about it tomorrow. Once the sun is 
up, all this will make a lot more sense.
He put the car in gear and thought about it all the way home.
CHAPTER 7
Night Terrors
1
The first thing he did after letting himself in was to check the answering 
machine. His heartbeat cranked up a notch when he saw the MESSAGE WAITING lamp 
was lit.
It'll be her. I don't know who she really is, but I'm beginning to think she 
won't be happy until she's driven me completely crackers.
Don't listen to it, then, another part of his mind spoke up, and Sam was now so 
confused he couldn't tell if that was a reasonable idea or not. It seemed 
reasonable, but it also seemed a little cowardly. In fact, he realized that he 
was standing here in a sweat, gnawing his fingernails, and suddenly grunted - a 
soft, exasperated noise.
From the fourth grade to the mental ward, he thought. Well, I'll be damned if 
it's going to work that way, hon.
He pushed the button.
'Hi!' a man's whiskey-roughened voice said. 'This is Joseph Randowski, Mr 
Peebles. My stage name is The Amazing Joe. I just called to thank you for 
filling in for me at that Kiwanis meeting or whatever it was. I wanted to tell 
you that I'm feeling a lot better - my neck was only sprained, not broke like 
they thought at first. I'm sending you a whole bunch of free tickets to the 
show. Pass em out to your friends. Take care of yourself. Thanks again. Bye.'
The tape stopped. The ALL MESSAGES PLAYED lamp came on. Sam snorted at his case 
of nerves - if Ardelia Lortz wanted him jumping at shadows, she was getting 
exactly what she wanted. He pushed the REWIND button, and a new thought struck 
him. Rewinding the tape that took his messages was a habit with him, but it 
meant that the old messages disappeared under the new ones. The Amazing Joe's 
message would have erased Ardelia's earlier message. His only evidence that the 
woman actually existed was gone.
But that wasn't true, was it? There was his library card. He had stood in front 
of that goddamned circulation desk and watched her sign her name on it in large, 
flourishing letters.
Sam pulled out his wallet and went through it three times before admitting to 
himself that the library card was gone, too. And he thought he knew why. He 
vaguely remembered tucking it into the inside pocket of Best Loved Poems of the 
American People.
For safekeeping.
So he wouldn't lose it.
Great. Just great.
Sam sat down on the couch and put his forehead in his hand. His head was 
starting to ache.
2
He was heating a can of soup on the stove fifteen minutes later, hoping a little 
hot food would do something for his head, when he thought of Naomi again - 
Naomi, who looked so much like the woman in Dirty Dave's poster. The question of 
whether or not Naomi was leading a secret life of some sort under the name of 
Sarah had taken a back seat to something that seemed a lot more important, at 
least right now: Naomi had known who Ardelia Lortz was. But her reaction to the 
name ... it had been a little odd, hadn't it? It had startled her for a moment 
or two, and she'd started to make a joke, and then the phone had rung and it had 
been Burt Iverson, and Sam tried to replay the conversation in his mind and was 
chagrined at how little he remembered. Naomi had said Ardelia was peculiar, all 
right; he was sure of that, but not much else. It hadn't seemed important then. 
The important thing then was that his career seemed to have taken a quantum leap 
forward. And that was still important, but this other thing seemed to dwarf it. 
In truth, it seemed to dwarf everything. His mind kept going back to that modern 
no-nonsense suspended ceiling and the short bookcases. He didn't believe he was 
crazy, not at all, but he was beginning to feel that if he didn't get this thing 
sorted out, he might go crazy. It was as if he had uncovered a hole in the 
middle of his head, one so deep you could throw things into it and not hear a 
splash no matter how big the things you threw were or how long you waited with 
your ear cocked for the sound. He supposed the feeling would pass - maybe - but 
in the meantime it was horrible.
He turned the burner under the soup to LO, went into the study, and found 
Naomi's telephone number. It rang three times and then a cracked, elderly voice 
said, 'Who is it, please?' Sam recognized the voice at once, although he hadn't 
seen its owner in person for almost two years. It was Naomi's ramshackle mother.
'Hello, Mrs Higgins,' he said. 'It's Sam Peebles.'
He stopped, waited for her to say Oh, hello, Sam or maybe How are you? but there 
was only Mrs Higgins's heavy, emphysemic breathing. Sam had never been one of 
her favorite people, and it seemed that absence had not made her heart grow 
fonder.
Since she wasn't going to ask it, Sam decided he might as well. 'How are you, 
Mrs Higgins?'
'I have my good days and my bad ones.'
For a moment Sam was nonplussed. It seemed to be one of those remarks to which 
there was no adequate reply. Pm sorry to hear that didn't fit, but That's great, 
Mrs Higgins! would sound even worse.
He settled for asking if he could speak to Naomi.
'She's out this evening. I don't know when she'll be back.'
'Could you ask her to call me?'
'I'm going to bed. And don't ask me to leave her a note, either. My arthritis is 
very bad.'
Sam sighed. 'I'll call tomorrow.'
'We'll be in church tomorrow morning,' Mrs Higgins stated in the same flat, 
unhelpful voice, 'and the first Baptist Youth Picnic of the season is tomorrow 
afternoon. Naomi has promised to help.'
Sam decided to call it off. It was clear that Mrs Higgins was sticking as close 
to name, rank, and serial number as she possibly could. He started to say 
goodbye, then changed his mind. 'Mrs Higgins, does the name Lortz mean anything 
to you? Ardelia Lortz?'
The heavy wheeze of her respiration stopped in raid-snuffle. For a moment there 
was total silence on the line and then Mrs Higgins spoke in a low, vicious 
voice. 'How long are you Godless heathens going to go on throwing that woman in 
our faces? Do you think it's funny? Do you think it's clever?'
'Mrs Higgins, you don't understand. I just want to know - '
There was a sharp little click in his ear. It sounded as if Mrs Higgins had 
broken a small dry stick over her knee. And then the line went dead.
3
Sam ate his soup, then spent half an hour trying to watch TV. It was no good. 
His mind kept wandering away. It might start with the woman in Dirty Dave's 
poster, or with the muddy footprint on the cover of Best Loved Poems of the 
American People, or with the missing poster of Little Red Riding Hood. But no 
matter where it started, it always ended up in the same place: that completely 
different ceiling above the main reading room of the Junction City Public 
Library.
Finally he gave it up and crawled into bed. It had been one of the worst 
Saturdays he could remember, and might well have been the worst Saturday of his 
life. The only thing he wanted now was a quick trip into the land of dreamless 
unconsciousness.
But sleep didn't come.
The horrors came instead.
Chief among them was the idea that he was losing his mind. Sam had never 
realized just how terrible such an idea could be. He had seen movies where some 
fellow would go to see a psychiatrist and say, 'I feel like I'm losing my mind, 
doc,' while dramatically clutching his head, and he supposed he had come to 
equate the onset of mental instability with an Excedrin headache. It wasn't like 
that, he discovered as the long hours passed and April 7 gradually became April 
8. It was more like reaching down to scratch your balls and finding a large lump 
there, a lump that was probably a tumor of some kind.
The Library couldn't have changed so radically in just over a week. He couldn't 
have seen the skylights from the reading room. The girl, Cynthia Berrigan, had 
said they were boarded over, had been since she had arrived, at least a year 
ago. So this was some sort of a mental breakdown. Or a brain tumor. Or what 
about Alzheimer's disease? There was a pleasant thought. He had read someplace - 
Newsweek, perhaps - that Alzheimer's victims were getting younger and younger. 
Maybe the whole weird episode was a signal of creeping, premature senility.
An unpleasant billboard began to fill his thoughts, a billboard with three words 
written on it in greasy letters the color of red licorice. These words were
LOSING MY MIND.
He had lived an ordinary life, full of ordinary pleasures and ordinary regrets; 
a pretty-much-unexamined life. He had never seen his name in lights, true, but 
he had never had any reason to question his sanity, either. Now he found himself 
lying in his rumpled bed and wondering if this was how you came untethered from 
the real, rational world. If this was how it started when you
LOST YOUR MIND.
The idea that the angel of Junction City's homeless shelter was Naomi - Naomi 
going under an alias - was another nutso idea. It just couldn't be ... could it? 
He even began to question the strong upsurge in his business. Maybe he had 
hallucinated the whole thing.
Toward midnight, his thoughts turned to Ardelia Lortz, and that was when things 
really began to get bad. He began to think of how awful it would be if Ardelia 
Lortz was in his closet, or even under his bed. He saw her grinning happily, 
secretly, in the dark, wriggling fingers tipped with long, sharp nails, her hair 
sprayed out all around her face in a weird fright-wig. He imagined how his bones 
would turn to jelly if she began to whisper to him.
You lost the books, Sam, so it will have to be the Library Policeman ... you 
lost the books ... you looosssst them ...
At last, around twelve-thirty, Sam couldn't stand it any longer. He sat up and 
fumbled in the dark for the bedside lamp. And as he did, he was gripped by a new 
fantasy, one so vivid it was almost a certainty: he was not alone in his 
bedroom, but his visitor was not Ardelia Lortz. Oh no. His visitor was the 
Library Policeman from the poster that was no longer in the Children's Library. 
He was standing here in the dark, a tall, pale man wrapped in a trenchcoat, a 
man with a bad complexion and a white, jagged scar lying across his left cheek, 
below his left eye and over the bridge of his nose. Sam hadn't seen that scar on 
the face in the poster, but that was only because the artist hadn't wanted to 
put it in. It was there. Sam knew it was there.
You were wrong about the bushes, the Library Policeman would say in his lightly 
lisping voice. There are bushes growing along the sideth. Loth of bushes. And 
we're going to ecthplore them. We're going to ecthplore them together.
No! Stop it! Just . . . STOP it!
As his trembling hand finally found the lamp, a board creaked in the room and he 
uttered a breathless little scream. His hand clenched, squeezing the switch. The 
light came on. For a moment he actually thought he saw the tall man, and then he 
realized it was only a shadow cast on the wall by the bureau.
Sam swung his feet out onto the floor and put his face in his hands for a 
moment. Then he reached for the pack of Kents on the nightstand.
'You've got to get hold of yourself,' he muttered. 'What the fuck were you 
thinking about?'
I don't know, the voice inside responded promptly. Furthermore, I don't want to 
know. Ever. The bushes were a long time ago, I never have to remember the bushes 
again. Or the taste. That sweet sweet taste.
He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.
The worst thing was this: Next time he might really see the man in the 
trenchcoat. Or Ardelia. Or Gorgo, High Emperor of Pellucidar. Because if he'd 
been able to create a hallucination as complete as his visit to the Library and 
his meeting with Ardelia Lortz, he could hallucinate anything. Once you started 
thinking about skylights that weren't there, and people who weren't there, and 
even bushes that weren't there, everything seemed possible. How did you quell a 
rebellion in your own mind?
He went down to the kitchen, turning on lights as he went, resisting an urge to 
look over his shoulder and see if anyone was creeping after him. A man with a 
badge in his hand, for instance. He supposed that what he needed was a sleeping 
pill, but since he didn't have any - not even one of the over-the-counter 
preparations like Sominex - he would just have to improvise. He splashed milk 
into a saucepan, heated it, poured it into a coffee mug, and then added a 
healthy shot of brandy. This was something else he had seen in the movies. He 
took a taste, grimaced, almost poured the evil mixture down the sink, and then 
looked at the clock on the microwave. Quarter to one in the morning. It was a 
long time until dawn, a long time to spend imagining Ardelia Lortz and the 
Library Policeman creeping up the stairs with knives gripped between their 
teeth.
Or arrows, he thought. Long black arrows. Ardelia and the Library Policeman 
creeping up the stairs with long black arrows clamped between their teeth. How 
about that image, friends and neighbors?
Arrows?
Why arrows?
He didn't want to think about it. He was tired of thoughts which came whizzing 
out of the previously unsuspected darkness inside him like horrid, stinking 
Frisbees.
I don't want to think about it, I won't think about it.
He finished the laced milk and went back to bed.
4
He left the bedside lamp on, and that made him feel a little calmer. He actually 
began to think he might go to sleep at some point before the heat-death of the 
universe. He pulled the comforter up to his chin, laced his hands behind his 
head, and looked at the ceiling.
SOME Of it must have really happened, he thought. It can't ALL have been a 
hallucination ... unless this is Part of It, and I'm really in one of the rubber 
rooms up in Cedar Rapids, wrapped in a straitjacket and only imagining I'm lying 
here in my own bed.
He had delivered the speech. He had used the jokes from The Speaker's Companion, 
and Spencer Michael Free's verse from Best Loved Poems of the American People. 
And since he had neither volume in his own small collection of books, he must 
have gotten them from the Library. Naomi had known Ardelia Lortz - had known her 
name, anyway - and so had Naomi's mother. Had she! It was as if he'd set a 
fire-cracker off under her easy chair.
I can check around, he thought. If Mrs Higgins knows the name, other people 
will, too. Not work-study kids from Chapelton, maybe, but people who've been in 
Junction City a long time. Frank Stephens, maybe. Or Dirty Dave ...
At this point, Sam finally drifted off. He crossed the almost seamless border 
between waking and sleeping without knowing it; his thoughts never ceased but 
began instead to twist themselves into ever more strange and fabulous shapes. 
The shapes became a dream. And the dream became a nightmare. He was at Angle 
Street again, and the three alkies were on the porch, laboring over their 
posters. He asked Dirty Dave what he was doing.
Aw, just passin the time, Dave said, and then, shyly, he turned the poster 
around so Sam could see it.
It was a picture of Simple Simon. He had been impaled on a spit over an open 
fire. He was clutching a great bundle of melting red licorice in one hand. His 
clothes were burning but he was still alive. He was screaming. The words written 
above this terrible image were:
CHILDREN DINNER IN THE PUBLIC LIBRARY BUSHES
TO BENEFIT THE LIBRARY POLICE FUND
MIDNITE TO 2 A. M.
COME ONE COME ALL
'THAT'S CHOW-DE-DOW!'
Dave, that's horrible, Sam said in the dream.
Not at all. Dirty Dave replied. The children call him Simple Simon. They love to 
eat him. I think that's very healthy, don't you?
Look! Rudolph cried. Look, it's Sarah!
Sam looked up and saw Naomi crossing the littered, weedy ground between Angle 
Street and the Recycling Center. She was moving very slowly, because she was 
pushing a shopping cart filled with copies of The Speaker's Companion and Best 
Loved Poems of the American People. Behind her, the sun was going down in a 
sullen furnace glare of red light and a long passenger train was rumbling slowly 
along the track, headed out into the emptiness of western Iowa. It was at least 
thirty coaches long, and every car was black. Crepe hung and swung in the 
windows. It was a funeral train, Sam realized.
Sam turned back to Dirty Dave and said, Her name isn't Sarah. That's Naomi. 
Naomi Higgins from Proverbia.
Not at all, Dirty Dave said. It's Death coming, Mr Peebles. Death is a woman.
Lukey began to squeal then. In the extremity of his terror he sounded like a 
human pig. She got Slim Jims! She got Slim Jims! Oh my God, she got all Slim 
Fuckin Slim Jims!
Sam turned back to see what Lukey was talking about. The woman was closer, but 
it was no longer Naomi. It was Ardelia. She was dressed in a trenchcoat the 
color of a winter stormcloud. The shopping cart was not full of Slim Jims, as 
Lukey had said, but thousands of intertwined red licorice whips. While Sam 
watched, Ardelia snatched up handfuls of them and began to cram them into her 
mouth. Her teeth were no longer dentures; they were long and discolored. They 
looked like vampire teeth to Sam, both sharp and horribly strong. Grimacing, she 
bit down on her mouthful of candy. Bright blood squirted out, spraying a pink 
cloud in the sunset air and dribbling down her chin. Severed chunks of licorice 
tumbled to the weedy earth, still jetting blood.
She raised hands which had become hooked talons.
'Youuuu losst the BOOOOOKS!' she screamed at Sam, and charged at him.
5
Sam came awake in a breathless jerk. He had pulled all the bedclothes loose from 
their moorings, and was huddled beneath them near the foot of the bed in a 
sweaty ball. Outside, the first thin light of a new day was peeking under the 
drawn shade. The bedside clock said it was 5:53 A.M.
He got up, the bedroom air cool and refreshing on his sweaty skin, went into the 
bathroom, and urinated. His head ached vaguely, either as a result of the 
early-morning shot of brandy or stress from the dream. He opened the medicine 
cabinet, took two aspirin, and then shambled back to the bed. He pulled the 
covers up as best he could, feeling the residue of his nightmare in every damp 
fold of sheet. He wouldn't go back to sleep again - he knew that - but he could 
at least lie here until the nightmare started to dissolve.
As his head touched the pillow, he suddenly realized he knew something else, 
something as surprising and unexpected as his sudden understanding that the 
woman in Dirty Dave's poster had been his part-time secretary. This new 
understanding also had to do with Dirty Dave ... and with Ardelia Lortz.
It was a dream, he thought. That's where I found out.
Sam fell into a deep, natural sleep. There were no more dreams and when he woke 
up it was almost eleven o'clock. Churchbells were calling the faithful to 
worship, and outside it was a beautiful day. The sight of all that sunshine 
lying on all that bright new grass did more than make him feel good; it made him 
feel almost reborn.
CHAPTER 8
Angle Street (II)
1
He made himself brunch - orange juice, a three-egg omelette loaded with green 
onions, lots of strong coffee - and thought about going back to Angle Street. He 
could still remember the moment of illumination he had experienced during his 
brief period of waking and was perfectly sure that his insight was true, but he 
wondered if he really wanted to pursue this crazy business any further.
In the bright light of a spring morning his fears of the previous night seemed 
both distant and absurd, and he felt a strong temptation - almost a need - to 
simply let the matter rest. Something had happened to him, he thought, something 
which had no reasonable, rational explanation. The question was, so what?
He had read about such things, about ghosts and premonitions and possessions, 
but they held only minimal interest for him. He liked a spooky movie once in 
awhile, but that was about as far as it went. He was a practical man, and he 
could see no practical use for paranormal episodes ... if they did indeed occur. 
He had experienced ... well, call it an event, for want of a better word. Now 
the event was over. Why not leave it at that?
Because she said she wanted the books back by tomorrow - what about that?
But this seemed to have no power over him now. In spite of the message she had 
left on his answering machine, Sam no longer exactly believed in Ardelia Lortz.
What did interest him was his own reaction to what had happened. He found 
himself remembering a college biology lecture. The instructor had begun by 
saying that the human body had an extremely efficient way of dealing with the 
incursion of alien organisms. Sam remembered the teacher saying that because the 
bad news - cancer, influenza, and sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis 
- got all the headlines, people tended to believe they were a lot more 
vulnerable to disease than they really were. 'The human body,' the instructor 
had said, 'has its own Green Beret force at its disposal.
When the human body is attacked by an outsider, ladies and gentlemen, the 
response of this force is quick and without mercy. No quarter is given. Without 
this army of trained killers, each of you would have been dead twenty times over 
before the end of your first year.'
The prime technique the body employed to rid itself of invaders was isolation. 
The invaders were first surrounded, cut off from the nutrients they needed to 
live, then either eaten, beaten, or starved. Now Sam was discovering - or 
thought he was - that the mind employed exactly the same technique when it was 
attacked. He could remember many occasions when he had felt he was coming down 
with a cold only to wake up the next morning feeling fine. The body had done its 
work. A vicious war had been going on even as he slept, and the invaders had 
been wiped out to the last man ... or bug. They had been eaten, beaten, or 
starved.
Last night he had experienced the mental equivalent of an impending cold. This 
morning the invader, the threat to his clear, rational perceptions, had been 
surrounded. Cut off from its nutrients. Now it was only a matter of time. And 
part of him was warning the rest of him that, by investigating this business 
further, he might be feeding the enemy.
This is how it happens, he thought. This is why the world isn't full of reports 
of strange happenings and inexplicable phenomena. The mind experiences them ... 
reels around for awhile ... then counterattacks.
But he was curious. That was the thing. And didn't they say that, although 
curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought the beast back?
Who? Who says?
He didn't know ... but he supposed he could find out. At his local library. Sam 
smiled a little as he took his dishes over to the sink. And discovered he had 
already made his decision: he would pursue this crazy business just a little 
further.
Just a little bit.
2
Sam arrived back at Angle Street around twelve-thirty. He was not terribly 
surprised to see Naomi's old blue Datsun parked in the driveway. Sam parked 
behind it, got out, and climbed the rickety steps past the sign telling him he'd 
have to drop any bottles he might have in the trash barrel. He knocked, but 
there was no answer. He pushed the door open, revealing a wide hall that was 
barren of furniture ... unless the pay telephone halfway down counted. The 
wallpaper was clean but faded. Sam saw a place where it had been mended with 
Scotch tape.
'Hello?'
There was no answer. He went in, feeling like an intruder, and walked
down the hall. The first door on the left opened into the common room. Two signs 
had been thumbtacked to this door.
FRIENDS OF BILL ENTER HERE!
read the top one. Below this was another, which seemed at once utterly sensible 
and exquisitively dumb to Sam. It read:
TIME TAKES TIME.
The common room was furnished with mismatched, cast-off chairs and a long sofa 
which had also been mended with tape - electrician's tape, this time. More 
slogans had been hung on the wall. There was a coffeemaker on a little table by 
the TV. Both the TV and the coffeemaker were off.
Sam walked on down the hall past the stairs, feeling more like an intruder than 
ever. He glanced into the three other rooms which opened off the corridor. Each 
was furnished with two plain cots, and all were empty. The rooms were 
scrupulously clean, but they told their tales just the same. One smelled of 
Musterole. Another smelled unpleasantly of some deep sickness. Either someone 
has died recently in this room, Sam thought, or someone is going to.
The kitchen, also empty, was at the far end of the hall. It was a big, sunny 
room with faded linoleum covering the floor in uneven dunes and valleys. A 
gigantic stove, combination wood and gas, filled an alcove. The sink was old and 
deep, its enamel discolored with rust stains. The faucets were equipped with 
old-fashioned propeller handles. An ancient Maytag washing machine and a 
gas-fired Kenmore drier stood next to the pantry. The air smelled faintly of 
last night's baked beans. Sam liked the room. It spoke to him of pennies which 
had been pinched until they screamed, but it also spoke of love and care and 
some hard-won happiness. It reminded him of his grandmother's kitchen, and that 
had been a good place. A safe place. 
On the old restaurant-sized Amana refrigerator was a magnetized plaque which 
read:
GOD BLESS OUR BOOZELESS HOME.
Sam heard faint voices outside. He crossed the kitchen and looked through one of 
the windows, which had been raised to admit as much of the warm spring day as 
the mild breeze could coax in.
The back lawn of Angle Street was showing the first touches of green; at the 
rear of the property, by a thin belt of just-budding trees, an idle vegetable 
garden waited for warmer days. To the left, a volleyball net sagged in a gentle 
arc. To the right were two horseshoe pits, just beginning to sprout a few weeds. 
It was not a prepossessing back yard - at this time of year, few country yards 
were - but Sam saw it had been raked at least once since the snow had released 
its winter grip, and there were no cinders, although he could see the steely 
shine of the railroad tracks less than fifty feet from the garden. The residents 
of Angle Street might not have a lot to take care of, he thought, but they were 
taking care of what they did have.
About a dozen people were sitting on folding camp chairs in a rough circle 
between the volleyball net and the horseshoe pits. Sam recognized Naomi, Dave, 
Lukey, and Rudolph. A moment later he realized he also recognized Burt Iverson, 
Junction City's most prosperous lawyer, and Elmer Baskin, the banker who hadn't 
gotten to his Rotary speech but who had called later to congratulate him just 
the same. The breeze gusted, blowing back the homely checked curtains which hung 
at the sides of the window through which Sam was looking. It also ruffled 
Elmer's silver hair. Elmer turned his face up to the sun and smiled. Sam was 
struck by the simple pleasure he saw, not on Elmer's face but in it. At that 
moment he was both more and less than a small city's richest banker; he was 
every man who ever greeted spring after a long, cold winter, happy to still be 
alive, whole, and free of pain.
Sam felt struck with unreality. It was weird enough that Naomi Higgins should be 
out here consorting with the unhomed winos of Junction City - and under another 
name, at that. To find that the town's most respected banker and one of its 
sharpest legal eagles were also here was a bit of a mind-blower.
A man in ragged green pants and a Cincinnati Bengals sweatshirt raised his hand. 
Rudolph pointed at him. 'My name's John, and I'm an alcoholic,' the man in the 
Bengals sweatshirt said.
Sam backed away from the window quickly. His face felt hot. Now he felt not only 
like an intruder but a spy. He supposed they usually held their Sunday-noon AA 
meeting in the common room - the coffeepot suggested it, anyway - but today the 
weather had been so nice that they had taken their chairs outside. He bet it had 
been Naomi's idea.
We'll be in church tomorrow morning, Mrs Higgins had said, and the first Baptist 
Youth Picnic of the season is tomorrow afternoon. Naomi has promised to help. He 
wondered if Mrs Higgins knew her daughter was spending the afternoon with the 
alkies instead of the Baptists and supposed she did. He thought he also 
understood why Naomi had abruptly decided two dates with Sam Peebles was enough. 
He had thought it was the religion thing at the time, and Naomi hadn't ever 
tried to suggest it was anything else. But after the first date, which had been 
a movie, she had agreed to go out with him again. After the second date, any 
romantic interest she'd had in him ceased. Or seemed to. The second date had 
been dinner. And he had ordered wine.
Well for Christ's sake - how was I supposed to know she's an alcoholic? Am I a 
mind-reader?
The answer, of course, was he couldn't have known ... but his face felt hotter, 
just the same.
Or maybe it's not booze ... or not just booze. Maybe she's got other problems, 
too.
He also found himself wondering what would happen if Burt Iverson and Elmer 
Baskin, both powerful men, found out that he knew they belonged to the world's 
largest secret society. Maybe nothing; he didn't know enough about AA to be 
sure. He did know two things, however: that the second A stood for Anonymous, 
and that these were men who could squash his rising business aspirations flat if 
they chose to do so.
Sam decided to leave as quickly and quietly as he could. To his credit, this 
decision was not based on personal considerations. The people sitting out there 
on the back lawn of Angle Street shared a serious problem. He had discovered 
this by accident; he had no intention of staying -and eavesdropping - on 
purpose.
As he went back down the hallway again, he saw a pile of cut-up paper resting on 
top of the pay phone. A stub of pencil had been tacked to the wall on a short 
length of string beside the phone. On impulse he took a sheet of the paper and 
printed a quick note on it.
Dave,
I stopped by this morning to see you, but nobody was around. I want to talk to 
you about a woman named Ardelia Lortz. I've got an idea you know who she is, and 
I'm anxious to find out about her. Will you give me a call this afternoon or 
this evening, if you get a chance? The number is 555-8699. Thanks very much.
He signed his name at the bottom, folded the sheet in half, and printed Dave's 
name on the fold. He thought briefly about taking it back down to the kitchen 
and putting it on the counter, but he didn't want any of them - Naomi most of 
all -worrying that he might have seen them at their odd but perhaps helpful 
devotions. He propped it on top of the TV in the common room instead, with 
Dave's name facing out. He thought about placing a quarter for the telephone 
beside the note and then didn't. Dave might take that wrong.
He left then, glad to be out in the sun again undiscovered. As he got back into 
his car, he saw the bumper sticker on Naomi's Datsun.
LET GO AND LET GOD,
it said.
'Better God than Ardelia,' Sam muttered, and backed out the driveway to the 
road.
3
By late afternoon, Sam's broken rest of the night before had begun to tell, and 
a vast sleepiness stole over him. He turned on the TV, found a Cincinnati-Boston 
exhibition baseball game wending its slow way into the eighth inning, lay down 
on the sofa to watch it, and almost immediately dozed off. The telephone rang 
before the doze had a chance to spiral down into real sleep, and Sam got up to 
answer it, feeling woozy and disoriented.
'Hello?'
'You don't want to be talking about that woman,' Dirty Dave said with no 
preamble whatsoever. His voice was trembling at the far edge of control. 'You 
don't even want to be thinking about her.'
How long are you Godless heathens going to go on throwing that woman in our 
faces? Do you think it's funny? Do you think it's clever?
All of Sam's drowsiness was gone in an instant. 'Dave, what is it about that 
woman? Either people react as though she were the devil or they don't know 
anything about her. Who is she? What in the hell did she do to freak you out 
this way?'
There was a long period of silence. Sam waited through it, his heart beating 
heavily in his chest and throat. He would have thought the connection had been 
broken if not for the sound of Dave's broken breathing in his ear.
'Mr Peebles,' he said at last, 'you've been a real good help to me over the 
years. You and some others helped me stay alive when I wasn't even sure I wanted 
to myself. But I can't talk about that bitch. I can't. And if you know what's 
good for you, you won't talk to anybody else about her, neither.'
'That sounds like a threat.'
'No!' Dave said. He sounded more than surprised; he sounded shocked. 'No -I'm 
just warnin you, Mr Peebles, same as I'd do if I saw you wanderin around an old 
well where the weeds were all grown up so you couldn't see the hole. Don't talk 
about her and don't think about her. Let the dead stay dead.'
Let the dead stay dead.
In a way it didn't surprise him; everything that had happened (with, perhaps, 
the exception of the message left on his answering machine) pointed to the same 
conclusion: that Ardelia Lortz was no longer among the living. He - Sam Peebles, 
small-town realtor and insurance agent - had been speaking to a ghost without 
even knowing it. Spoken to her? Hell! Had done business with her! He had given 
her two bucks and she had given him a library card.
So he was not exactly surprised ... but a deep chill began to radiate out along 
the white highways of his skeleton just the same. He looked down and saw pale 
knobs of gooseflesh standing out on his arms.
You should have left it alone, part of his mind mourned. Didn't I tell you so?
'When did she die?' Sam asked. His voice sounded dull and listless to his own 
ears.
'I don't want to talk about it, Mr Peebles!' Dave sounded nearly frantic now. 
His voice trembled, skipped into a higher register which was almost falsetto. 
and splintered there. 'Please!'
Leave him alone, Sam cried angrily at himself. Doesn't he have enough problems 
without this crap to worry about?
Yes. And he could leave Dave alone - there must be other people in town who 
would talk to him about Ardelia Lortz ... if he could find a way to approach 
them that wouldn't make them want to call for the men with the butterfly nets, 
that was. But there was one other thing, a thing perhaps only Dirty Dave Duncan 
could tell him for sure.
'You drew some posters for the Library once, didn't you? I think I recognized 
your style from the poster you were doing yesterday on the porch. In fact, I'm 
almost sure. There was one showing a little boy in a black car. And a man in a 
trenchcoat - the Library Policeman. Did you - '
Before he could finish, Dave burst out with such a shriek of shame and grief and 
fear that Sam was silenced.
'Dave? I - '
'Leave it alone!' Dave wept. 'I couldn't help myself, so can't you just please 
leave - '
His cries abruptly diminished and there was a rattle as someone took the phone 
from him.
'Stop it,' Naomi said. She sounded near tears herself, but she also sounded 
furious. 'Can't you just stop it, you horrible man?'
'Naomi - '
'My name is Sarah when I'm here,' she said slowly, 'but I hate you equally under 
both names, Sam Peebles. I'm never going to set foot in your office again.' Her 
voice began to rise. 'Why couldn't you leave him alone? Why did you have to rake 
up all this old shit? Why?'
Unnerved, hardly in control of himself, Sam said: 'Why did you send me to the 
Library? If you didn't want me to meet her, Naomi, why did you send me to the 
goddam Library in the first place?'
There was a gasp on the other end of the line.
'Naomi? Can we -'
There was a click as she hung up the telephone.
Connection broken.
4
Sam sat in his study until almost nine-thirty, eating Tums and writing one name 
after another on the same legal pad he had used when composing the first draft 
of his speech, He would look at each name for a little while, then cross it off. 
Six years had seemed like a long time to spend in one place ... at least until 
tonight. Tonight it seemed like a much shorter period of time - a weekend, say.
Craig Jones, he wrote.
He stared at the name and thought, Craig might know about Ardelia ... but he'd 
want to know why I was interested.
Did he know Craig well enough to answer that question truthfully? The answer to 
that question was a firm no. Craig was one of Junction City's younger lawyers, a 
real wannabe. They'd had a few business lunches ... and there was Rotary Club, 
of course ... and Craig had invited him to his house for dinner once. When they 
happened to meet on the street they spoke cordially, sometimes about business, 
more often about the weather. None of that added up to friendship, though, and 
if Sam meant to spill this nutty business to someone, he wanted it to be to a 
friend, not an associate that called him ole buddy after the second sloe-gin 
fizz.
He scratched Craig's name off the list.
He'd made two fairly close friends since coming to Junction City, one a 
physician's assistant with Dr Melden's practice, the other a city cop. Russ 
Frame, his PA friend, had jumped to a better-paying family practice in Grand 
Rapids early in 1989. And since the first of January, Tom Wycliffe had been 
overseeing the Iowa State Patrol's new Traffic Control Board. He had fallen out 
of touch with both men since - he was slow making friends, and not good at 
keeping them, either.
Which left him just where?
Sam didn't know. He did know that Ardelia Lortz's name affected some people in 
Junction City like a satchel charge. He knew - or believed he knew - that he had 
met her even though she was dead. He couldn't even tell himself that he had met 
a relative, or some nutty woman calling herself Ardelia Lortz. Because 
I think I met a ghost. In fact, I think I met a ghost inside of a ghost. I think 
that the library I entered was the Junction City Library as it was when Ardelia 
Lortz was alive and in charge of the place. I think that's why it felt so weird 
and off-kilter. It wasn't like time-travel, or the way I imagine time-travel 
would be. It was more like stepping into limbo for a little while. And it was 
real. I'm sure it was real.
He paused, drumming his fingers on the desk.
Where did she call me from? Do they have telephones in limbo?
He stared at the list of crossed-off names for a long moment, then tore the 
yellow sheet slowly off the pad. He crumpled it up and tossed it in the 
wastebasket.
You should have left it alone, part of him continued to mourn.
But he hadn't. So now what?
Call one of the guys you trust. Call Russ Frame or Tom Wycliffe. Just pick up 
the phone and make a call.
But he didn't want to do that. Not tonight, at least. He recognized this as an 
irrational, half-superstitious feeling - he had given and gotten a lot of 
unpleasant information over the phone just lately, or so it seemed - but he was 
too tired to grapple with it tonight. If he could get a good night's sleep (and 
he thought he could, if he left the bedside lamp on again), maybe something 
better, something more concrete, would occur to him tomorrow morning, when he 
was fresh. Further along, he supposed he would have to try and mend his fences 
with Naomi Higgins and Dave Duncan ... but first he wanted to find out just what 
kind of fences they were.
If he could.
CHAPTER 9
The Library Policeman (I)
He did sleep well. There were no dreams, and an idea came to him naturally and 
easily in the shower the next morning, the way ideas sometimes did when your 
body was rested and your mind hadn't been awake long enough to get cluttered up 
with a load of shit. The Public Library was not the only place where information 
was available, and when it was local history - recent local history -you were 
interested in, it wasn't even the best place.
'The Gazette!' he cried, and stuck his head under the shower nozzle to rinse the 
soap out of it.
Twenty minutes later he was downstairs, dressed except for his coat and tie, and 
drinking coffee in his study. The legal pad was once more in front of him, and 
on it was the start of another list.
1. Ardelia Lortz - who is she? Or who was she?
2. Ardelia Lortz - what did she do?
3. Junction City Public Library - renovated? When? Pictures?
At this point the doorbell rang. Sam glanced at the clock as he got up to answer 
it. It was going on eight-thirty, time to get to work. He could shoot over to 
the Gazette office at ten, the time he usually took his coffee break, and check 
some back issues. Which ones? He was still mulling this over - some would 
undoubtedly bear fruit quicker than others - as he dug in his pocket for the 
paperboy's money. The doorbell rang again.
'I'm coming as fast as I can, Keith!' he called, stepping into the kitchen 
entryway and grabbing the doorknob. 'Don't punch a hole in the damn d -'
At that moment he looked up and saw a shape much larger than Keith Jordan's 
bulking behind the sheer curtain hung across the window in the door. His mind 
had been preoccupied, more concerned with the day ahead than this Monday-morning 
ritual of paying the newsboy, but in that instant an icepick of pure terror 
stabbed its way through his scattered thoughts. He did not have to see the face; 
even through the sheer he recognized the shape, the set of the body . . . and 
the trenchcoat, of course.
The taste of red licorice, high, sweet, and sickening, flooded his mouth.
He let go of the doorknob, but an instant too late. The latch had clicked back, 
and the moment it did, the figure standing on the back porch rammed the door 
open. Sam was thrown backward into the kitchen. He flailed his arms to keep his 
balance and managed to knock all three coats hanging from the rod in the 
entryway to the floor.
The Library Policeman stepped in, wrapped in his own pocket of cold air. He 
stepped in slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, and closed the door 
behind him. In one hand he held Sam's copy of the Gazette, neatly rolled and 
folded. He raised it like a baton.
'I brought you your paper,' the Library Policeman said. His voice was strangely 
distant, as if it was coming to Sam through a heavy pane of glass. 'I was going 
to pay the boy as well, but he theemed in a hurry to get away. I wonder why.'
He advanced toward the kitchen - toward Sam, who was cowering against the 
counter and staring at the intruder with the huge, shocked eyes of a terrified 
child, of some poor fourth-grade Simple Simon.
I am imagining this, Sam thought, or I'm having a nightmare - a nightmare so 
horrible it makes the one I had two nights ago look like a sweet dream.
But it was no nightmare. It was terrifying, but it was no nightmare. Sam had 
time to hope he had gone crazy after all. Insanity was no day at the beach, but 
nothing could be as awful as this man-shaped thing which had come into his 
house, this thing which walked in its own wedge of winter.
Sam's house was old and the ceilings were high, but the Library Policeman had to 
duck his head in the entry, and even in the kitchen the crown of his gray felt 
hat almost brushed the ceiling. That meant he was over seven feet tall.
His body was wrapped in a trenchcoat the leaden color of fog at twilight. His 
skin was paper white. His face was dead, as if he could understand neither 
kindness nor love nor mercy. His mouth was set in lines of ultimate, passionless 
authority and Sam thought for one confused moment of how the closed library door 
had looked, like the slotted mouth in the face of a granite robot. The Library 
Policeman's eyes appeared to be silver circles which had been punctured by tiny 
shotgun pellets. They were rimmed with pinkish-red flesh that looked ready to 
bleed. They were lashless. And the worst thing of all was this: it was a face 
Sam knew. He did not think this was the first time he had cringed in terror 
beneath that black gaze, and far back in his mind, Sam heard a voice with the 
slightest trace of a lisp say: Come with me, son ... I'm a poleethman.
The scar overlaid the geography of that face exactly as it had in Sam's 
imagination - across the left cheek, below the left eye, across the bridge of 
the nose. Except for the scar, it was the man in the poster ... or was it? He 
could no longer be sure.
Come with me, son ... I'm a poleethman.
Sam Peebles, darling of the Junction City Rotary Club, wet his pants. He felt 
his bladder let go in a warm gush, but that seemed far away and unimportant. 
What was important was that there was a monster in his kitchen, and the most 
terrible thing about this monster was that Sam almost knew his face. Sam felt a 
triple-locked door far back in his mind straining to burst open. He never 
thought of running. The idea of flight was beyond his capacity to imagine. He 
was a child again, a child who has been caught red-handed
(the book isn't The Speaker's Companion)
doing some awful bad thing. Instead of running
(the book isn't Best Loved Poems of the American People)
he folded slowly over his own wet crotch and collapsed between the two stools 
which stood at the counter, holding his hands up blindly above his head.
(the book is)
'No,' he said in a husky, strengthless voice. 'No, please - no, please, please 
don't do it to me, please, I'll be good, please don't hurt me that way.'
He was reduced to this. But it didn't matter; the giant in the fog-colored 
trenchcoat
(the book is The Black Arrow by Robert Louts Stevenson)
now stood directly over him.
Sam dropped his head. It seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. He looked at the 
floor and prayed incoherently that when he looked up - when he had the strength 
to look up - the figure would be gone.
'Look at me,' the distant, thudding voice instructed. It was the voice of an 
evil god.
'No,' Sam cried in a shrieky, breathless voice, and then burst into helpless 
tears. It was not just terror, although the terror was real enough, bad enough. 
Separate from it was a cold deep drift of childish fright and childish shame. 
Those feelings clung like poison syrup to whatever it was he dared not remember, 
the thing that had something to do with a book he had never read: The Black 
Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Whack!
Something struck Sam's head and he screamed.
'Look at me!'
'No, please don't make me,' Sam begged.
Whack!
He looked up, shielding his streaming eyes with one rubbery arm, just in time to 
see the Library Policeman's arm come down again.
Whack!
He was hitting Sam with Sam's own rolled-up copy of the Gazette, whacking him 
the way you might whack a heedless puppy that has piddled on the floor.
'That'th better,' said the Library Policeman. He grinned, lips parting to reveal 
the points of sharp teeth, teeth which were almost fangs. He reached into the 
pocket of his trenchcoat and brought out a leather folder. He flipped it open 
and revealed the strange star of many points. It glinted in the clean morning 
light.
Sam was now helpless to look away from that merciless face, those silver eyes 
with their tiny birdshot pupils. He was slobbering and knew it but was helpless 
to stop that, either.
'You have two books which belong to uth,' the Library Policeman said. His voice 
still seemed to be coming from a distance, or from behind a thick pane of glass. 
'Mith Lorth is very upthet with you, Mr Peebles.'
'I lost them,' Sam said, beginning to cry harder. The thought of lying to this 
man about
(The Black Arrow)
the books, about anything, was out of the question. He was all authority, all 
power, all force. He was judge, jury, and executioner.
Where's the janitor? Sam wondered incoherently. Where's the janitor who checks 
the dials and then goes back into the sane world? The sane world where things 
like this don't have to happen?
‘I … I ... I ... I ... I’
'I don't want to hear your thick ecthcuses,' the Library Policeman said. He 
flipped his leather folder closed and stuffed it into his right pocket. At the 
same time he reached into his left pocket and drew out a knife with a long, 
sharp blade. Sam, who had spent three summers earning money for college as a 
stockboy, recognized it. It was a carton-slitter. There was undoubtedly a knife 
like that in every library in America. 'You have until midnight. Then. . .'
He leaned down, extending the knife in one white, corpselike hand. That freezing 
envelope of air struck Sam's face, numbed it. He tried to scream and could 
produce only a glassy whisper of silent air.
The tip of the blade pricked the flesh of his throat. It was like being pricked 
with an icicle. A single bead of scarlet oozed out and then froze solid, a tiny 
seed-pearl of blood.
' . . . then I come again,' the Library Policeman said in his odd, lisprounded 
voice. 'You better find what you lotht, Mr Peebles.'
The knife disappeared back into the pocket. The Library Policeman drew back up 
to his full height.
'There is another thing,' he said. 'You have been athking questions, Mr Peebles. 
Don't athk any more. Do you underthand me?'
Sam tried to answer and could only utter a deep groan.
The Library Policeman began to bend down, pushing chill air ahead of him the way 
the flat prow of a barge might push a chunk of river-ice. 'Don't pry into things 
that don't conthern you. Do you underthand me?'
'Yes!' Sam screamed. 'Yes! Yes! Yes!'
'Good. Because I will be watching. And I am not alone.'
He turned, his trenchcoat rustling, and recrossed the kitchen toward the entry. 
He spared not a single backward glance for Sam. He passed through a bright patch 
of morning sun as he went, and Sam saw a wonderful, terrible thing: the Library 
Policeman cast no shadow.
He reached the back door. He grasped the knob. Without turning around he said in 
a low, terrible voice: 'If you don't want to thee me again, Mr Peebles, find 
those bookth.'
He opened the door and went out.
A single frantic thought filled Sam's mind the minute the door closed again and 
he heard the Library Policeman's feet on the back porch: he had to lock the 
door.
He got halfway to his feet and then grayness swam over him and he fell forward, 
unconscious.
CHAPTER 10
Chron-o-lodge-ick-a-lee Speaking
1
'May I ... help you?' the receptionist asked. The slight pause came as she took 
a second look at the man who had just approached the desk.
'Yes,' Sam said. 'I want to look at some back issues of the Gazette, if that's 
possible.'
'Of course it is,' she said. 'But - pardon me if I'm out of line - do you feel 
all right, sir? Your color is very bad.'
'I think I may be coming down with something, at that,' Sam said.
'Spring colds are the worst, aren't they?' she said, getting up. 'Come right 
through the gate at the end of the counter, Mr - ?'
'Peebles. Sam Peebles.'
She stopped, a chubby woman of perhaps sixty, and cocked her head. She put one 
red-tipped nail to the corner of her mouth. 'You sell insurance, don't you?'
'Yes, ma'am,' he said.
'I thought I recognized you. Your picture was in the paper last week. Was it 
some sort of award?'
'No, ma'am,' Sam said, 'I gave a speech. At the Rotary Club.' And would give 
anything to be able to turn back the clock, he thought. I'd tell Craig Jones to 
go fuck himself.
'Well, that's wonderful,' she said ... but she spoke as if there might be some 
doubt about it. 'You looked different in the picture.'
Sam came in through the gate.
'I'm Doreen McGill,' the woman said, and put out a plump hand.
Sam shook it and said he was pleased to meet her. It took an effort. He thought 
that speaking to people - and touching people, especially that - was going to be 
an effort for quite awhile to come. All of his old ease seemed to be gone.
She led him toward a carpeted flight of stairs and flicked a light-switch. The 
stairway was narrow, the overhead bulb dim, and Sam felt the horrors begin to 
crowd in on him at once. They came eagerly, as fans might congregate
around a person offering free tickets to some fabulous sold-out show. The 
Library Policeman could be down there, waiting in the dark. The Library 
Policeman with his dead white skin and red-rimmed silver eyes and small but 
hauntingly familiar lisp.
Stop it, he told himself. And if you can't stop it, then for God's sake control 
it. You have to. Because this is your only chance. What will you do if you can't 
go down a flight of stairs to a simple office basement? Just cower in your house 
and wait for midnight?
'That's the morgue,' Doreen McGill said, pointing. This was clearly a lady who 
pointed every chance she got. 'You only have to - '
'Morgue?' Sam asked, turning toward her. His heart had begun to knock nastily 
against his ribs. 'Morgue?'
Doreen McGill laughed. 'Everyone says it just like that. It's awful, isn't it? 
But that's what they call it. Some silly newspaper tradition, I guess. Don't 
worry, Mr Peebles - there are no bodies down there; just reels and reels of 
microfilm.'
I wouldn't be so sure, Sam thought, following her down the carpeted stairs. He 
was very glad she was leading the way.
She flicked on a line of switches at the foot of the stairs. A number of 
fluorescent lights, embedded in what looked like oversized inverted ice-cube 
trays, went on. They lit up a large low room carpeted in the same dark blue as 
the stairs. The room was lined with shelves of small boxes. Along the left wall 
were four microfilm readers that looked like futuristic hair-driers. They were 
the same blue as the carpet.
'What I started to say was that you have to sign the book,' Doreen said. She 
pointed again, this time at a large book chained to a stand by the door. 'You 
also have to write the date, the time you came in, which is - ' she checked her 
wristwatch - 'twenty past ten, and the time you leave.'
Sam bent over and signed the book. The name above his was Arthur Meecham. Mr 
Meecham had been down here on December 27th, 1989. Over three months ago. This 
was a well-lighted, well-stocked, efficient room that apparently did very little 
business.
'It's nice down here, isn't it?' Doreen asked complacently. 'That's because the 
federal government helps subsidize newspaper morgues - or libraries, if you like 
that word better. I know I do.'
A shadow danced in one of the aisles and Sam's heart began to knock again. But 
it was only Doreen McGill's shadow; she had bent over to make sure he had 
entered the correct time of day, and 
- and HE didn't cast a shadow. The Library Policeman. Also ...
He tried to duck the rest and couldn't.
Also, I can't live like this. I can't live with this kind of fear. I'd stick my 
head in a gas oven if it went on too long. And if it does, I will. It's not just 
fear of him -that man, or whatever he is. It's the way a person's mind feels, 
the way it screams when it feels everything it ever believed in slipping 
effortlessly away.
Doreen pointed to the right wall, where three large folio volumes stood on a 
single shelf. 'That's January, February, and March of 1990,' she said. 'Every 
July the paper sends the first six months of the year to Grand Island, Nebraska, 
to be microfilmed. The same thing when December is over.' She extended the plump 
hand and pointed a red-tipped nail at the shelves, counting over from the shelf 
at the right toward the microfilm readers at the left. She appeared to be 
admiring her fingernail as she did it. 'The microfilms go that way, 
chronologically,' she said. She pronounced the word carefully, producing 
something mildly exotic: chron-o-lodge-ick-a-lee. 'Modern times on your right; 
ancient days on your left.'
She smiled to show that this was a joke, and perhaps to convey a sense of how 
wonderful she thought all this was. Chron-o-lodge-ick-a-lee speaking, the smile 
said, it was all sort of a gas.
'Thank you,' Sam said.
'Don't mention it. It's what we're here for. One of the things, anyway.' She put 
her nail to the corner of her mouth and gave him her peek-a-boo smile again. 'Do 
you know how to run a microfilm reader, Mr Peebles?'
'Yes, thanks.'
'All right. If I can help you further, I'll be right upstairs. Don't hesitate to 
ask.'
'Are you - ' he began, and then snapped his mouth shut on the rest: - going to 
leave me here alone?
She raised her eyebrows.
'Nothing,' he said, and watched her go back upstairs. He had to resist a strong 
urge to pelt up the stairs behind her. Because, cushy blue carpet or not, this 
was another Junction City Library.
And this one was called the morgue.
2
Sam walked slowly toward the shelves with their weight of square microfilm 
boxes, unsure of where to begin. He was very glad that the overhead fluorescents 
were bright enough to banish most of the troubling shadows in the corners.
He hadn't dared ask Doreen McGill if the name Ardelia Lortz rang a bell, or even 
if she knew roughly when the City Library had last undergone renovations. You 
have been athking questions, the Library Policeman had said. Don't pry into 
things that don't conthern you. Do you underthand?
Yes, he understood. And he supposed he was risking the Library Policeman's wrath 
by prying anyway ... but he wasn't asking questions, at least not exactly, and 
these were things that concerned him. They concerned him desperately.
I will be watching. And I am not alone.
Sam looked nervously over his shoulder. Saw nothing. And still found it 
impossible to move with any decision. He had gotten this far, but he didn't know 
if he could get any further. He felt more than intimidated, more than 
frightened. He felt shattered.
'You've got to,' he muttered harshly, and wiped at his lips with a shaking hand. 
'You've just got to.'
He made his left foot move forward. He stood that way a moment, legs apart, like 
a man caught in the act of fording a small stream. Then he made his right foot 
catch up with his left one. He made his way across to the shelf nearest the 
bound folios in this hesitant, reluctant fashion. A card on the end of the shelf 
read:
1987 - 1989.
That was almost certainly too recent - in fact, the Library renovations must 
have taken place before the spring of 1984, when he had moved to Junction City. 
If it had happened since, he would have noticed the workmen, heard people 
talking about it, and read about it in the Gazette. But, other than guessing 
that it must have happened in the last fifteen or twenty years (the suspended 
ceilings had not looked any older than that), he could narrow it down no 
further. If only he could think more clearly! But he couldn't. What had happened 
that morning screwed up any normal, rational effort to think the way heavy 
sunspot activity screwed up radio and TV transmissions. Reality and unreality 
had come together like vast stones, and Sam Peebles, one tiny, screaming, 
struggling speck of humanity, had had the bad luck to get caught between them.
He moved two aisles to the left, mostly because he was afraid that if he stopped 
moving for too long he might freeze up entirely, and walked down the aisle 
marked
1981 - 1983.
He picked a box almost at random and took it over to one of the microfilm 
readers. He snapped it on and tried to concentrate on the spool of microfilm 
(the spool was also blue, and Sam wondered if there was any reason why 
everything in this clean, well-lighted place was color coordinated) and nothing 
else. First you had to mount it on one of the spindles, right; then you had to 
thread it, check; then you had to secure the leader in the core of the take-up 
reel, okay. The machine was so simple an eight-year-old could have executed 
these little tasks, but it took Sam almost five minutes; he had his shaking 
hands and shocked, wandering mind to deal with. When he finally got the 
microfilm mounted and scrolled to the first frame, he discovered he had mounted 
the reel backward. The printed matter was upside down.
He patiently rewound the microfilm, turned it around, and rethreaded it. He 
discovered he didn't mind this little setback in the least; repeating the 
operation, one simple step at a time, seemed to calm him. This time the front 
page of the April 1, 1981, issue of the Junction City Gazette appeared before 
him, right side up. The headline bannered the surprise resignation of a town 
official Sam had never heard of, but his eyes were quickly drawn to a box at the 
bottom of the page. Inside the box was this message:
RICHARD PRICE AND THE ENTIRE STAFF OF THE JUNCTION CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY REMIND 
YOU THAT APRIL 6TH - 13TH IS NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK COME AND SEE US!
Did I know that? Sam wondered. Is that why I grabbed this particular box? Did I 
subconsciously remember that the second week of April is National Library Week?
Come with me, a tenebrous, whispering voice answered. Come with me, son ... I'm 
a poleethman.
Gooseflesh gripped him; a shudder shook him. Sam pushed both the question and 
that phantom voice away. After all, it didn't really matter why he had picked 
the April 1981 issues of the Gazette; the important thing was that he had, and 
it was a lucky break.
Might be a lucky break.
He advanced the reel quickly to April 6th, and saw exactly what he had hoped 
for. Over the Gazette masthead, in red ink, it said:
SPECIAL LIBRARY SUPPLEMENT ENCLOSED!
Sam advanced to the supplement. There were two photos on the first page of the 
supplement. One was of the Library's exterior. The other showed Richard Price, 
the head librarian, standing at the circulation desk and smiling nervously into 
the camera. He looked exactly as Naomi Higgins had described him - a tall, 
bespectacled man of about forty with a narrow little mustache. Sam was more 
interested in the background. He could see the suspended ceiling which had so 
shocked him on his second trip to the Library. So the renovations had been done 
prior to April of 1981.
The stories were exactly the sort of self-congratulatory puff-pieces he expected 
- he had been reading the Gazette for six years now and was very familiar with 
its ain't-we-a-jolly-bunch-of-JayCees editorial slant. There were informative 
(and rather breathless) items about National Library Week, the Summer Reading 
Program, the Junction County Bookmobile, and the new fund drive which had just 
commenced. Sam glanced over these quickly. On the last page of the supplement he 
found a much more interesting story, one written by Price himself. It was 
titled.
THE JUNCTION CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY
One Hundred Years of History
Sam's eagerness did not last long. Ardelia's name wasn't there. He reached for 
the power switch to rewind the microfilm and then stopped. He saw a mention of 
the renovation project - it had happened in 1970 - and there was something else. 
Something just a little off-key. Sam began to read the last part of Mr Price's 
chatty historical note again, this time more carefully.
With the end of the Great Depression, our Council voted $5,000 to repair the 
extensive water damage the Library sustained during the Flood Of '32, and Mrs 
Felicia Culpepper took on the job of Head Librarian, donating her time without 
recompense. She never lost sight of her goal: a completely renovated Library, 
serving a Town which was rapidly becoming a City.
Mrs Culpepper stepped down in 1951, giving way to Christopher Lavin, the first 
Junction City Librarian with a degree in Library Science. Mr Lavin inaugurated 
the Culpepper Memorial Fund, which raised over $15,000 for the acquisition of 
new books in its first year, and the Junction City Public Library was on its way 
into the modern age!
Shortly after I became Head Librarian in 1964, I made major renovations my 
number one goal. The funds needed to achieve this goal were finally raised by 
the end of 1969, and while both City and Federal money helped In the 
construction of the splendid building Junction City 'bookworms' enjoy today, 
this project could not have been completed without the help of all those 
volunteers who later showed up to swing a hammer or run a bench-saw during 
'Build Your Library Month' in August Of 1970!
Other notable projects during the 1970's and 1980's included ...
Sam looked up thoughtfully. He believed there was something missing from Richard 
Price's careful, droning history of the town Library. No; on second thought, 
missing was the wrong word. The essay made Sam decide Price was a fussbudget of 
the first water - probably a nice man, but a fussbudget just the same - and such 
men did not miss things, especially when they were dealing with subjects which 
were clearly close to their hearts.
So - not missing. Concealed.
It didn't quite add up, chron-o-lodge-ick-a-lee speaking. In 1951, a man named 
Christopher Lavin had succeeded that saint Felicia Culpepper as head librarian. 
In 1964, Richard Price had become city librarian. Had Price succeeded Lavin? Sam 
didn't think so. He thought that at some point during those thirteen blank 
years, a woman named Ardelia Lortz had succeeded Lavin. Price, Sam thought, had 
succeeded her. She wasn't in Mr Price's fussbudgety account of the Library 
because she had done ... something. Sam was no closer to knowing what that 
something might have been, but he had a better idea of the magnitude. Whatever 
it was, it had been bad enough for Price to make her an unperson in spite of his 
very obvious love of detail and continuity.
Murder, Sam thought. It must have been murder. It's really the only thing bad 
enough to f-
At that second a hand dropped on Sam's shoulder.
3
If he had screamed, he would undoubtedly have terrified the hand's owner almost 
as much as she had already terrorized him, but Sam was unable to scream. 
Instead, all the air whooshed out of him and the world went gray again. His 
chest felt like an accordion being slowly crushed under an elephant's foot. All 
of his muscles seemed to have turned to macaroni. He did not wet his pants 
again. That was perhaps the only saving grace.
'Sam?' he heard a voice ask. It seemed to come from quite a distance -somewhere 
in Kansas, say. 'Is that you?'
He swung around, almost falling out of his chair in front of the microfilm 
reader, and saw Naomi. He tried to get his breath back so he could say 
something. Nothing but a tired wheeze came out. The room seemed to waver in 
front of his eyes. The grayness came and went.
Then he saw Naomi take a stumble-step backward, her eyes widening in alarm, her 
hand going to her mouth. She struck one of the microfilm shelves almost hard 
enough to knock it over. It rocked, two or three of the boxes tumbled to the 
capet with soft thumps, and then it settled back again.
'Omes,' he managed at last. His voice came out in a whispery squeak. He 
remembered once, as a boy in St Louis, trapping a mouse under his baseball cap. 
It had made a sound like that as it scurried about, looking for an escape hatch.
'Sam, what's happened to you?' She also sounded like someone who would have been 
screaming if shock hadn't whipped the breath out of her. We make quite a pair, 
Sam thought. Abbot and Costello Meet the Monsters.
'What are you doing here?' he said. 'You scared the living shit out of me!'
There, he thought. I went and used the s-word again. Called you Omes again, too. 
Sorry about that. He felt a little better, and thought of getting up, but 
decided against it. No sense pressing his luck. He was still not entirely sure 
his heart wasn't going to vapor-lock.
'I went to the office to see you,' she said. 'Cammy Harrington said she thought 
she saw you come in here. I wanted to apologize. Maybe. I thought at first you 
must have played some cruel trick on Dave. He said you'd never do a thing like 
that, and I started to think that it didn't seem like you. You've always been so 
nice . - .'
'Thanks,' Sam said. 'I guess.'
' . . . and you seemed so ... so bewildered on the telephone. I asked Dave what 
it was about, but he wouldn't tell me anything else. All I know is what I heard 
... and how he looked when he was talking to you. He looked like he'd seen a 
ghost.'
No, Sam thought of telling her. I was the one who saw the ghost. And this 
morning I saw something even worse.
'Sam, you have to understand something about Dave ... and about me. Well, I 
guess you already know about Dave, but I'm - '
'I guess I know,' Sam told her. 'I said in my note to Dave that I didn't see 
anyone at Angle Street, but that wasn't the truth. I didn't see anyone at first, 
but I walked through the downstairs, looking for Dave. I saw you guys out back. 
So ... I know. But I don't know on purpose, if you see what I mean.'
'Yes,' she said. 'It's all right. But ... Sam ... dear God, what's happened? 
Your hair . . .'
'What about my hair?' he asked her sharply.
She fumbled her purse open with hands that shook slightly and brought out a 
compact. 'Look,' she said.
He did, but he already knew what he was going to see.
Since eight-thirty this morning, his hair had gone almost completely white.
4
'I see you found your friend,' Doreen McGill said to Naomi as they climbed back 
up the stairs. She put a nail to the corner of her mouth and smiled her 
cute-little-me smile.
'Yes.'
'Did you remember to sign out?'
'Yes,' Naomi said again. Sam hadn't, but she had done it for both of them.
'And did you return any microfilms you might have used?'
This time Sam said yes. He couldn't remember if either he or Naomi had returned 
the one spool of microfilm he had mounted, and he didn't care. All he wanted was 
to get out of here.
Doreen was still being coy. Finger tapping the edge of her lower lip, she cocked 
her head and said to Sam, 'You did look different in the newspaper picture. I 
just can't put my finger on what it is.'
As they went out the door, Naomi said: 'He finally got smart and quit dyeing his 
hair.'
On the steps outside, Sam exploded with laughter. The force of his bellows 
doubled him over. It was hysterical laughter, its sound only half a step removed 
from the sound of screams, but he didn't care. It felt good. It felt enormously 
cleansing.
Naomi stood beside him, seeming to be bothered neither by Sam's laughing fit nor 
the curious glances they were drawing from passersby on the street. She even 
lifted one hand and waved to someone she knew. Sam propped his hands on his 
upper thighs, still caught in his helpless gale of laughter, and yet there was a 
part of him sober enough to think: She has seen this sort of reaction before. I 
wonder where? But he knew the answer even before his mind had finished 
articulating the question. Naomi was an alcoholic, and she had made working with 
other alcoholics, helping them, part of her own therapy. She had probably seen a 
good deal more than a hysterical laughing fit during her time at Angle Street.
She'll slap me, he thought, still howling helplessly at the image of himself at 
his bathroom mirror, patiently combing Grecian Formula into his locks. She'll 
slap me, because that's what you do with hysterical people.
Naomi apparently knew better. She only stood patiently beside him in the 
sunshine, waiting for him to regain control. At last his laughter began to taper 
off to wild snorts and runaway snickers. His stomach muscles ached and his 
vision was water-wavery and his cheeks were wet with tears.
'Feel better?' she asked.
'Oh Naomi -'he began, and then another hee-haw bray of laughter escaped him and 
galloped off into the sunshiny morning. 'You don't know how much better.'
'Sure I do,' she said. 'Come on - we'll take my car.'
'Where . . .'He hiccupped. 'Where are we going?'
'Angel Street,' she said, pronouncing it the way the sign-painter had intended 
it to be pronounced. 'I'm very worried about Dave. I went there first this 
morning, but he wasn't there. I'm afraid he may be out drinking.'
'That's nothing new, is it?' he asked, walking beside her down the steps. Her 
Datsun was parked at the curb, behind Sam's own car.
She glanced at him. It was a brief glance, but a complex one: irritation, 
resignation, compassion. Sam thought that if you boiled that glance down it 
would say You don't know what you're talking about, but it's not your fault.
'Dave's been sober almost a year this time, but his general health isn't good. 
As you say, falling off the wagon isn't anything new for him, but another fall 
may kill him.'
'And that would be my fault.' The last of his laughter dried up.
She looked at him, a little surprised. 'No,' she said. 'That would be nobody's 
fault ... but that doesn't mean I want it to happen. Or that it has to. Come on. 
We'll take my car. We can talk on the way.'
5
'Tell me what happened to you,' she said as they headed toward the edge of town. 
'Tell me everything. It isn't just your hair, Sam; you look ten years older.'
'Bullshit,' Sam said. He had seen more than his hair in Naomi's compact mirror; 
he had gotten a better look at himself than he wanted. 'More like twenty. And it 
feels like a hundred.'
'What happened? What was it?'
Sam opened his mouth to tell her, thought of how it would sound, then shook his 
head. 'No,' he said, 'not yet. You're going to tell me something first. You're 
going to tell me about Ardelia Lortz. You thought I was joking the other day. I 
didn't realize that then, but I do now. So tell me all about her. Tell me who 
she was and what she did.'
Naomi pulled over to the curb beyond Junction City's old granite firehouse and 
looked at Sam. Her skin was very pale beneath her light make-up, and her eyes 
were wide. 'You weren't? Sam, are you trying to tell me you weren't joking?'
'That's right.'
'But Sam . . .' She stopped, and for a moment she seemed not to know how she 
should go on. At last she spoke very softly, as though to a child who has done 
something he doesn't know is wrong. 'But Sam, Ardelia Lortz is dead. She has 
been dead for thirty years.'
'I know she's dead. I mean, I know it now. What I want to know is the rest.'
'Sam, whoever you think you saw -'
'I know who I saw.'
'Tell me what makes you think -'
'First, you tell me.'
She put her car back in gear, checked her rear-view mirror, and began to drive 
toward Angle Street again. 'I don't know very much,' she said. 'I was only five 
when she died, you see. Most of what I do know comes from overheard gossip. She 
belonged to The First Baptist Church of Proverbia - she went there, at least 
-but my mother doesn't talk about her. Neither do any of the older parishioners. 
To them it's like she never existed.'
Sam nodded. 'That's just how Mr Price treated her in the article he wrote about 
the Library. The one I was reading when you put your hand on my shoulder and 
took about twelve more years off my life. It also explains why your mother was 
so mad at me when I mentioned her name Saturday night.'
Naomi glanced at him, startled. 'That's what you called about?'
Sam nodded.
'Oh, Sam - if you weren't on Mom's s-list before, you are now.'
'Oh, I was on before, but I've got an idea she's moved me up.' Sam laughed, then 
winced. His stomach still hurt from his fit on the steps of the newspaper 
office, but he was very glad he had had that fit - an hour ago he never would 
have believed he could have gotten so much of his equilibrium back. In fact, an 
hour ago he had been quite sure that Sam Peebles and equilibrium were going to 
remain mutually exclusive concepts for the rest of his life. 'Go ahead, Naomi.'
'Most of what I've heard I picked up at what AA people call "the real meeting," 
' she said. 'That's when people stand around drinking coffee before and then 
again after, talking about everything under the sun.'
He looked at her curiously. 'How long have you been in AA, Naomi?'
'Nine years,' Naomi said evenly. 'And it's been six since I had to take a drink. 
But I've been an alcoholic forever. Drunks aren't made, Sam. They're born.'
'Oh,' he said lamely. And then: 'Was she in the program? Ardelia Lortz?'
'God, no - but that doesn't mean there aren't people in AA who remember her. She 
showed up in Junction City in 1956 or '57, I think. She went to work for Mr 
Lavin in the Public Library. A year or two later, he died very suddenly - it was 
a heart attack or a stroke, I think - and the town gave the job to the Lortz 
woman. I've heard she was very good at it, but judging by what happened, I'd say 
the thing she was best at was fooling people.'
'What did she do, Naomi?'
'She killed two children and then herself,' Naomi said simply. 'In the summer of 
1960. There was a search for the kids. No one thought of looking for them in the 
Library, because it was supposed to be closed that day. They were found the next 
day, when the Library was supposed to be open but wasn't. There are skylights in 
the Library roof -'
'I know.'
' - but these days you can only see them from the outside, because they changed 
the Library inside. Lowered the ceiling to conserve heat, or something. Anyway, 
those skylights had big brass catches on them. You grabbed the catches with a 
long pole to open the skylights and let in fresh air, I guess. She tied a rope 
to one of the catches - she must have used one of the track-ladders that ran 
along the bookcases to do it - and hanged herself from it. She did that after 
she killed the children.'
'I see.' Sam's voice was calm, but his heart was beating slowly and very hard. 
'And how did she ... how did she kill the children?'
'I don't know. No one's ever said, and I've never asked. I suppose it was 
horrible.'
'Yes. I suppose it was.'
'Now tell me what happened to you.'
'First I want to see if Dave's at the shelter.'
Naomi tightened up at once. 'I'll see if Dave's at the shelter,' she said. 
'You're going to sit tight in the car. I'm sorry for you, Sam, and I'm sorry I 
jumped to the wrong conclusion last night. But you won't upset Dave anymore. 
I'll see to that.'
'Naomi, he's a part of this!'
'That's impossible,' she said in a brisk this-closes-the-discussion tone of 
voice.
'Dammit, the whole thing is impossible!'
They were nearing Angle Street now. Ahead of them was a pick-up truck rattling 
toward the Recycling Center, its bed full of cardboard cartons filled with 
bottles and cans.
'I don't think you understood what I told you,' she said. 'It doesn't surprise 
me; Earth People rarely do. So open your ears, Sam. I'm going to say it in words 
of one syllable. If Dave drinks, Dave dies. Do you follow that? Does it get 
through?'
She tossed another glance Sam's way. This one was so furious it was still 
smoking around the edges, and even in the depths of his own distress, Sam 
realized something. Before, even on the two occasions when he had taken Naomi 
out, he had thought she was pretty. Now he saw she was beautiful.
'What does that mean, Earth People?' he asked her.
'People who don't have a problem with booze or pills or pot or cough medicine or 
any of the other things that mess up the human head,' she nearly spat. 'People 
who can afford to moralize and make judgments.'
Ahead of them, the pick-up truck turned off onto the long, rutted driveway 
leading to the redemption center. Angle Street lay ahead. Sam could see 
something parked in front of the porch, but it wasn't a car. It was Dirty Dave's 
shopping-cart.
'Stop a minute,' he said.,
Naomi did, but she wouldn't look at him. She stared straight ahead through the 
windshield. Her jaw was working. There was high color in her cheeks.
'You care about him,' he said, 'and I'm glad. Do you also care about me, Sarah? 
Even though I'm an Earth Person?'
'You have no right to call me Sarah. I can, because it's part of my name - I was 
christened Naomi Sarah Higgins. And they can, because they are, in a way, closer 
to me than blood relatives could ever be. We are blood relatives, in fact - 
because there's something in us that makes us the way we are. Something in our 
blood. You, Sam - you have no right.'
'Maybe I do,' Sam said. 'Maybe I'm one of you now. You've got booze. This Earth 
Person has got the Library Police.'
Now she looked at him, and her eyes were wide and wary. 'Sam, I don't underst -'
'Neither do I. All I know is that I need help. I need it desperately. I borrowed 
two books from a library that doesn't exist anymore, and now the books don't 
exist, either. I lost them. Do you know where they ended up?'
She shook her head.
Sam pointed over to the left, where two men had gotten out of the pick-up's cab 
and were starting to unload the cartons of returnables. 'There. That's where 
they ended up. They've been pulped. I've got until midnight, Sarah, and then the 
Library Police are going to pulp me. And I don't think they'll even leave my 
jacket behind.'
6
Sam sat in the passenger seat of Naomi Sarah Higgins's Datsun for what seemed 
like a long, long time. Twice his hand went to the door handle and then fell 
back. She had relented ... a little. If Dave wanted to talk to him, and if Dave 
was still in any condition to talk, she would allow it. Otherwise, no soap.
At last the door of Angle Street opened. Naomi and Dave Duncan came out. She had 
an arm around his waist, his feet were shuffling, and Sam's heart sank. Then, as 
they stepped out into the sun, he saw that Dave wasn't drunk ... or at least not 
necessarily. Looking at him was, in a weird way, like looking into Naomi's 
compact mirror all over again. Dave Duncan looked like a man trying to weather 
the worst shock of his life ... and not doing a very good job of it.
Sam got out of the car and stood by the door, indecisive.
'Come up on the porch,' Naomi said. Her voice was both resigned and fearful. 'I 
don't trust him to make it down the steps.'
Sam came up to where they stood. Dave Duncan was probably sixty years old. On 
Saturday he had looked seventy or seventy-five. That was the booze ' Sam 
supposed. And now, as Iowa turned slowly on the axis of noon, he looked older 
than all the ages. And that, Sam knew, was his fault. It was the shock of things 
Dave had assumed were long buried.
I didn't know, Sam thought, but this, however true it might be, had lost its 
power to comfort. Except for the burst veins in his nose and cheeks, Dave's face 
was the color of very old paper. His eyes were watery and stunned. His lips had 
a bluish tinge, and little beads of spittle pulsed in the deep pockets at the 
corners of his mouth.
'I didn't want him to talk to you,' Naomi said. 'I wanted to take him to Dr 
Melden, but he refuses to go until he talks to you.'
'Mr Peebles,' Dave said feebly. 'I'm sorry, Mr Peebles, it's all my fault, isn't 
it? I -'
'You have nothing to apologize for,' Sam said. 'Come on over here and sit down.'
He and Naomi led Dave to a rocking chair at the corner of the porch and Dave 
eased himself into it. Sam and Naomi drew up chairs with sagging wicker bottoms 
and sat on either side of him. They sat without speaking for some little time, 
looking out across the railroad tracks and into the flat farm country beyond.
'She's after you, isn't she?' Dave asked. 'That bitch from the far side of 
hell.'
'She's sicced someone on me,' Sam said. 'Someone who was in one of those posters 
you drew. He's a ... I know this sounds crazy, but he's a Library Policeman. He 
came to see me this morning. He did . . .' Sam touched his hair. 'He did this. 
And this.' He pointed to the small red dot in the center of his throat. 'And he 
says he isn't alone.'
Dave was silent for a long time, looking out into the emptiness, looking at the 
flat horizon which was broken only by tall silos and, to the north, the 
apocalyptic shape of the Proverbia Feed Company's grain elevator. 'The man you 
saw isn't real,' he said at last. 'None of them are real. Only her. Only the 
devil-bitch.'
'Can you tell us, Dave?' Naomi asked gently. 'If you can't, say so. But if it 
will make it better for you ... easier ... tell us.'
'Dear Sarah,' Dave said. He took her hand and smiled. 'I love you - have I ever 
told you so?'
She shook her head, smiling back. Tears glinted in her eyes like tiny specks of 
mica. 'No. But I'm glad, Dave.'
'I have to tell,' he said. 'It isn't a question of better or easier. It can't be 
allowed to go on. Do you know what I remember about my first AA meeting, Sarah?'
She shook her head.
'How they said it was a program of honesty. How they said you had to tell 
everything, not just to God, but to God and another person. I thought, "If 
that's what it takes to live a sober life, I've had it. They'll throw me in a 
plot up on Wayvern Hill in that part of the boneyard they set aside for the 
drunks and all-time losers who never had a pot to piss in nor a window to throw 
it out of. Because I could never tell all the things I've seen, all the things 
I've done. " '
'We all think that at first,' she said gently.
'I know. But there can't be many that've seen the things I have, or done what I 
have. I did the best I could, though. Little by little I did the best I could. I 
set my house in order. But those things I saw and did back then ... those I 
never told. Not to any person, not to no man's God. I found a room in the 
basement of my heart, and I put those things in that room and then I locked the 
door.'
He looked at Sam, and Sam saw tears rolling slowly and tiredly down the deep 
wrinkles in Dave's blasted cheeks.
'Yes. I did. And when the door was locked, I nailed boards across it. And when 
the boards was nailed, I put sheet steel across the boards and riveted it tight. 
And when the riveting was done, I drawed a bureau up against the whole works, 
and before I called it good and walked away, I piled bricks on top of the 
bureau. And all these years since, I've spent telling myself I forgot all about 
Ardelia and her strange ways, about the things she wanted me to do and the 
things she told me and the promises she made and what she really was. I took a 
lot of forgetting medicine, but it never did the job. And when I got into AA, 
that was the one thing that always drove me back. The thing in that room, you 
know. That thing has a name, Mr Peebles - its name is Ardelia Lortz. After I was 
sobered up awhile, I would start having bad dreams. Mostly I dreamed of the 
posters I did for her - the ones that scared the children so bad - but they 
weren't the worst dreams.'
His voice had fallen to a trembling whisper.
'They weren't the worst ones by a long chalk.'
'Maybe you better rest a little,' Sam said. He had discovered that no matter how 
much might depend on what Dave had to say, a part of him didn't want to hear it. 
A part of him was afraid to hear it.
'Never mind resting,' he said. 'Doctor says I'm diabetic, my pancreas is a mess, 
and my liver is falling apart. Pretty soon I'm going on a permanent vacation. I 
don't know if it'll be heaven or hell for me, but I'm pretty sure the bars and 
package stores are closed in both places, and thank God for that. But the time 
for restin isn't now. If I'm ever goin to talk, it has to be now.' He looked 
carefully at Sam. 'You know you're in trouble, don't you?'
Sam nodded.
'Yes. But you don't know just how bad your trouble is. That's why I have to 
talk. I think she has to ... has to lie still sometimes. But her time of bein 
still is over, and she has picked you, Mr Peebles. That's why I have to talk. 
Not that I want to. I went out last night after Naomi was gone and bought myself 
a jug. I took it down to the switchin yard and sat where I've sat many times 
before, in the weeds and cinders and busted glass. I spun the cap off and held 
that jug up to my nose and smelled it. You know how that jug wine smells? To me 
it always smells like the wallpaper in cheap hotel rooms, or like a stream that 
has flowed its way through a town dump somewhere. But I have always liked that 
smell just the same, because it smells like sleep, too.
'And all the time I was holdin that jug up, smellin it, I could hear the bitch 
queen talkin from inside the room where I locked her up. From behind the bricks, 
the bureau, the sheet steel, the boards and locks. Talkin like someone who's 
been buried alive. She was a little muffled, but I could still hear her just 
fine. I could hear her sayin, "That's right, Dave, that's the answer, it's the 
only answer there is for folks like you, the only one that works, and it will be 
the only answer you need until answers don't matter anymore."
'I tipped that jug up for a good long drink, and then at the last second it 
smelled like her ... and I remembered her face at the end, all covered with 
little threads ... and how her mouth changed ... and I threw that jug away. 
Smashed it on a railroad tie. Because this shit has got to end. I won't let her 
take another nip out of this town!'
His voice rose to a trembling but powerful old man's shout. 'This shit has gone 
on long enough!'
Naomi laid a hand on Dave's arm. Her face was frightened and full of trouble. 
'What, Dave? What is it?'
'I want to be sure,' Dave said. 'You tell me first, Mr Peebles. Tell me 
everything that's been happening to you, and don't leave out nothing.'
'I will,' Sam said, 'on one condition.'
Dave smiled faintly. 'What condition is that?'
'You have to promise to call me Sam ... and in return, I'll never call you Dirty 
Dave again.'
His smile broadened. 'You got you a deal there, Sam.'
'Good.' He took a deep breath. 'Everything was the fault of that goddam 
acrobat,' he began.
7
It took longer than he had thought it would, but there was an inexpressible 
relief -a joy, almost - in telling it all, holding nothing back. He told Dave 
about The Amazing Joe, Craig's call for help, and Naomi's suggestion about 
livening up his material. He told them about how the Library had looked, and 
about his meeting with Ardelia Lortz. Naomi's eyes grew wider and wider as he 
spoke. When he got to the part about the Red Riding Hood poster on the door to 
the Children's Library, Dave nodded.
'That's the only one I didn't draw,' he said. 'She had that one with her. I bet 
they never found it, either. I bet she still has that one with her. She liked 
mine, but that one was her favorite.'
'What do you mean?' Sam asked.
Dave only shook his head and told Sam to go on.
He told them about the library card, the books he had borrowed, and the strange 
little argument they had had on Sam's way out.
'That's it,' Dave said flatly. 'That's all it took. You might not believe it, 
but I know her. You made her mad. Goddam if you didn't. You made her mad ... and 
now she's set her cap for you.'
Sam finished his story as quickly as he could, but his voice slowed and nearly 
halted when he came to the visit from the Library Policeman in his fog-gray 
trenchcoat. When Sam finished, he was nearly weeping and his hands had begun to 
shake again.
'Could I have a glass of water?' he asked Naomi thickly.
'Of course,' she said, and got up to get it. She took two steps, then returned 
and kissed Sam on the cheek. Her lips were cool and soft. And before she left to 
get his water, she spoke three blessed words into his ear: 'I believe you.'
8
Sam raised the glass to his lips, using both hands to be sure he wouldn't spill 
it, and drank half of it at a draught. When he put it down he said, 'What about 
you, Dave? Do you believe me?'
'Yeah,' Dave said. He spoke almost absently, as if this were a foregone 
conclusion. Sam supposed that, to Dave, it was. After all, he had known the 
mysterious Ardelia Lortz firsthand, and his ravaged, too-old face suggested that 
theirs had not been a loving relationship.
Dave said nothing else for several moments, but a little of his color had come 
back. He looked out across the railroad tracks toward the fallow fields. They 
would be green with sprouting corn in another six or seven weeks, but now they 
looked barren. His eyes watched a cloud shadow flow across that Midwestern 
emptiness in the shape of a giant hawk.
At last he seemed to rouse himself and turned to Sam.
'My Library Policeman - the one I drew for her - didn't have no scar,' he said 
at last.
Sam thought of the stranger's long, white face. The scar had been there, all 
right - across the cheek, under the eye, over the bridge of the nose in a thin 
flowing line.
'So?' he asked. 'What does that mean?'
'It don't mean nothing to me, but I think it must mean somethin to you, Mr - 
Sam. I know about the badge ... what you called the star of many points. I found 
that in a book of heraldry right there in the Junction City Library. It's called 
a Maltese Cross. Christian knights wore them in the middle of their chests when 
they went into battle durin the Crusades. They were supposed to be magical. I 
was so taken with the shape that I put it into the picture. But ... a scar? No. 
Not on my Library Policeman. Who was your Library Policeman, Sam?'
'I don't ... I don't know what you're talking about,' Sam said slowly, but that 
voice - faint, mocking, haunting - recurred: Come with me, son ... I'm a 
poleethman. And his mouth was suddenly full of that taste again. The sugar-slimy 
taste of red licorice. His tastebuds cramped; his stomach rolled. 
But it was stupid. Really quite stupid. He had never eaten red licorice in his 
life. He hated it.
If you've never eaten it, how do you know you hate it?
'I really don't get you,' he said, speaking more strongly.
'You're getting something,' Naomi said. 'You look like someone just kicked you 
in the stomach.'
Sam glanced at her, annoyed. She looked back at him calmly, and Sam felt his 
heart rate speed up.
'Let it alone for now,' Dave said, 'although you can't let it alone for long, 
Sam -not if you want to hold onto any hope of getting out of this. Let me tell 
you my story. I've never told it before, and I'll never tell it again ... but 
it's time.'
CHAPTER 11
Dave's Story
1
'I wasn't always Dirty Dave Duncan,' he began. 'In the early fifties I was just 
plain old Dave Duncan, and people liked me just fine. I was a member of that 
same Rotary Club you talked to the other night, Sam. Why not? I had my own 
business, and it made money. I was a sign-painter, and I was a damned good one. 
I had all the work I could handle in Junction City and Proverbia, but I 
sometimes did a little work up in Cedar Rapids, as well. Once I painted a Lucky 
Strike cigarette ad on the right-field wall of the minor-league ballpark all the 
way to hell and gone in Omaha. I was in great demand, and I deserved to be. I 
was good. I was what they call a "graphic artist" these days, but back then I 
was just the best sign-painter around these parts.
'I stayed here because serious painting was what I was really interested in, and 
I thought you could do that anywhere. I didn't have no formal art education - I 
tried but I flunked out - and I knew that put me down on the count, so to speak, 
but I knew that there were artists who made it without all that speed-shit 
bushwah - Gramma Moses, for one. She didn't need no driver's license; she went 
right to town without one.
'I might even have made it. I sold some canvases, but not many - I didn't need 
to, because I wasn't married and I was doing well with my sign-painting 
business. Also, I kept most of my pitchers so I could put on shows, the way 
artists are supposed to. I had some, too. Right here in town at first, then in 
Cedar Rapids, and then in Des Moines. That one was written up in the Democrat, 
and they made me sound like the second coming of James Whistler.'
Dave fell silent for a moment, thinking. Then he raised his head and looked out 
at the empty, fallow fields again.
'In AA, they talk about folks who have one foot in the future and the other in 
the past and spend their time pissin all over today because of it. But sometimes 
it's hard not to wonder what might have happened if you'd done things just a 
little different.'
He looked almost guiltily at Naomi, who smiled and pressed his hand. 
'Because I was good, and I did come close. But I was drinkin heavy, even back 
then. I didn't think much of it - hell, I was young, I was strong, and besides, 
don't all great artists drink? I thought they did. And I still might have made 
it - made something, anyway, for awhile - but then Ardelia Lortz came to 
Junction City.
'And when she came, I was lost.'
He looked at Sam.
'I recognize her from your story, Sam, but that wasn't how she looked back then. 
You expected to see an old-lady librarian, and that suited her purpose, so 
that's just what you did see. But when she came to Junction City in the summer 
Of '57, her hair was ash-blonde, and the only places she was plump was where a 
woman is supposed to be plump.
'I was living out in Proverbia then, and I used to go to the Baptist Church. I 
wasn't much on religion, but there were some fine-looking women there. Your mom 
was one of em, Sarah.'
Naomi laughed in the way women do when they are told something they cannot quite 
believe.
'Ardelia caught on with the home folks right away. These days, when the folks 
from that church talk about her - if they ever do - I bet they say things like 
"I knew from the very start there was somethin funny about that Lortz woman" or 
"I never trusted the look in that woman's eye," but let me tell you, that wasn't 
how it was. They buzzed around her - the women as well as the men - like bees 
around the first flower of spring. She got a job as Mr Lavin's assistant before 
she was in town a month, but she was teachin the little ones at the Sunday 
School out there in Proverbia two weeks before that.
'Just what she was teachin em I don't like to think - you can bet your bottom 
dollar it wasn't the Gospel According to Matthew - but she was teachin em. And 
everyone swore on how much the little ones loved her. They swore on it, too, but 
there was a look in their eyes when they said so ... a far-off look, like they 
wasn't really sure where they were, or even who they were.
'Well, she caught my eye ... and I caught hers. You wouldn't know it from the 
way I am now, but I was a pretty good-lookin fella in those days. I always had a 
tan from workin outdoors, I had muscles, my hair was faded almost blond from the 
sun, and my belly was as flat as your ironin board, Sarah.
'Ardelia had rented herself a farmhouse about a mile and a half from the church, 
a tight enough little place, but it needed a coat of paint as bad as a man in 
the desert needs a drink of water. So after church the second week I noticed her 
there - I didn't go often and by then it was half-past August - I offered to 
paint it for her.
'She had the biggest eyes you've ever seen. I guess most people would have 
called them gray, but when she looked right at you, hard, you would have sworn 
they were silver. And she looked at me hard that day after church. She was 
wearin some kind of perfume that I never smelled before and ain't never smelled 
since. Lavender, I think. I can't think how to describe it, but I know it always 
made me think of little white flowers that only bloom after the sun has gone 
down. And I was smitten. Right there and then.
'She was close to me - almost close enough for our bodies to touch. She was 
wearin this dowdy black dress, the kind of dress an old lady would wear, and a 
hat with a little net veil, and she was holdin her purse in front of her. All 
prim and proper. Her eyes weren't prim, though. Nossir. Nor proper. Not a bit.
' "I hope you don't want to put advertisements for bleach and chewing tobacco 
all over my new house," she says.
' "No ma'am," I says back. "I thought just two coats of plain old white. Houses 
aren't what I do for a livin, anyway, but with you bein new in town and all, I 
thought it would be neighborly - "
' "Yes indeed," she says, and touches my shoulder.'
Dave looked apologetically at Naomi.
'I think I ought to give you a chance to leave, if you want to. Pretty soon I'm 
gonna start tellin some dirty stuff, Sarah. I'm ashamed of it, but I want to 
clean the slate of my doins with her.'
She patted his old, chapped hand. 'Go ahead,' she told him quietly. 'Say it 
all.'
He fetched in a deep breath and went on again.
'When she touched me, I knew I had to have her or die tryin. just that one 
little touch made me feel better - and crazier - than any woman-touch ever made 
me feel in my whole life. She knew it, too. I could see it in her eyes. It was a 
sly look. It was a mean look, too, but somethin about that excited me more than 
anything else.
' "It would be neighborly, Dave," she says, "and I want to be a very good 
neighbor."
'So I walked her home. Left all the other young fellows standin at the church 
door, you might say, fumin and no doubt cursin my name. They didn't know how 
lucky they were. None of them.
'My Ford was in the shop and she didn't have no car, so we were stuck with 
shank's mare. I didn't mind a bit, and she didn't seem to, neither. We went out 
the Truman Road, which was still dirt in those days, although they sent a town 
truck along to oil it every two or three weeks and lay the dust.
'We got about halfway to her place, and she stopped. It was just the two of us, 
standin in the middle of Truman Road at high noon on a summer's day, with about 
a million acres of Sam Orday's corn on one side and about two million of Bill 
Humpe's corn on the other, all of it growin high over our heads and rustlin in 
that secret way corn has, even when there's no breeze.
My granddad used to say it was the sound of the corn growin. I dunno if that's 
the truth or not, but it's a spooky sound. I can tell you that.
' "Look!" she says, pointin to the right. "Do you see it?"
'I looked, but I didn't see nothing - only corn. I told her so.
' "I'll show you!" she says, and runs into the corn, Sunday dress and high heels 
and all. She didn't even take off that hat with the veil on it.
'I stood there for a few seconds, sorta stunned. Then I heard her laughin. I 
heard her laughin in the corn. So I ran in after her, partly to see whatever it 
was she'd seen, but mostly because of that laugh. I was so randy. I can't begin 
to tell you.
'I seen her standin way up the row I was in, and then she faded into the next 
one, still laughin. I started to laugh, too, and went on through myself, not 
carin that I was bustin down some of Sam Orday's plants. He'd never miss em, not 
in all those acres. But when I got through, trailin cornsilk off my shoulders 
and a green leaf stuck in my tie like some new kind of clip, I stopped laughin 
in a hurry, because she wasn't there. Then I heard her on the other side of me. 
I didn't have no idea how she could have got back there without me seein her, 
but she had. So I busted back through just in time to see her runnin into the 
next row.
'We played hide n seek for half an hour, I guess, and I couldn't catch her. All 
I did was get hotter and randier. I'd think she was a row over, in front of me, 
but I'd get there and hear her two rows over, behind me. Sometimes I'd see her 
foot, or her leg, and of course she left tracks in the soft dirt, but they 
weren't no good, because they seemed to go every which way at once.
'Then, just when I was startin to get mad - I'd sweat through my good shirt, my 
tie was undone, and my shoes was full of dirt - I come through to a row and seen 
her hat hangin off a corn-plant with the veil flippin in the little breeze that 
got down there into the corn.
' "Come and get me, Dave! " she calls. I grabbed her hat and busted through to 
the next row on a slant. She was gone - I could just see the corn waverin where 
she'd went through - but both her shoes were there. In the next row I found one 
of her silk stockins hung over an ear of corn. And still I could hear her 
laughin. Over on my blind side, she was, and how the bitch got there, God only 
knows. Not that it mattered to me by then.
'I ripped off my tie and tore after her, around and around and dosey-doe, pantin 
like a stupid dog that don't know enough to lie still on a hot day. And I'll 
tell you somethin - I broke the corn down everywhere I went. Left a trail of 
trampled stalks and leaners behind me. But she never busted a one. They'd just 
waver a bit when she passed, as if there was no more to her than there was to 
that little summer breeze.
'I found her dress, her slip, and her garter-belt. Then I found her bra and 
step-ins. I couldn't hear her laughin no more. There wasn't no sound but the 
corn. I stood there in one of the rows, puffin like a leaky boiler, with all her 
clothes bundled up against my chest. I could smell her perfume in em, and it was 
drivin me crazy.
' "Where are you?" I yelled, but there wasn't no answer. Well, I finally lost 
what little sanity I had left ... and of course, that was just what she wanted. 
"Where the fuck are you?" I screamed, and her long white arm reached through the 
corn-plants right beside me and she stroked my neck with one finger. It jumped 
the shit out of me.
' "I've been waiting for you," she said. "What took you so long? Don't you want 
to see it?" She grabbed me and drawed me through the corn, and there she was 
with her feet planted in the dirt, not a stitch on her, and her eyes as silver 
as rain on a foggy day.'
2
Dave took a long drink of water, closed his eyes, and went on.
'We didn't make love there in the corn - in all the time I knew her, we never 
made love. But we made somethin. I had Ardelia in just about every way a man can 
have a woman, and I think I had her in some ways you'd think would be 
impossible. I can't remember all the ways, but I can remember her body, how 
white it was; how her legs looked; how her toes curled and seemed to feel along 
the shoots of the plants comin out of the dirt; I can remember how she pulled 
her fingernails back and forth across the skin of my neck and my throat.
'We went on and on and on. I don't know how many times, but I know I didn't 
never get tired. When we started I felt horny enough to rape the Statue of 
Liberty, and when we finished I felt the same way. I couldn't get enough of her. 
It was like the booze, I guess. Wasn't any way I could ever get enough of her. 
And she knew it, too.
'But we finally did stop. She put her hands behind her head and wriggled her 
white shoulders in the black dirt we was layin in and looked up at me with those 
silvery eyes of hers and she says, "Well, Dave? Are we neighbors yet?"
'I told her I wanted to go again and she told me not to push my luck. I tried to 
climb on just the same, and she pushed me off as easy as a mother pushes a baby 
off n her tit when she don't want to feed it no more. I tried again and she 
swiped at my face with her nails and split the skin open in two places. That 
finally damped my boiler down. She was quick as a cat and twice as strong. When 
she saw I knew playtime was over, she got dressed and led me out of the corn. I 
went just as meek as Mary's little lamb.
'We walked the rest of the way to her house. Nobody passed us, and that was 
probably just as well. My clothes were all covered with dirt and cornsilk, my 
shirttail was out, my tie was stuffed into my back pocket and flappin along 
behind me like a tail, and every place that the cloth rubbed I felt raw. Her, 
though - she looked as smooth and cool as an ice-cream soda in a drugstore 
glass. Not a hair out of place, not a speck of dirt on her shoes, not a strand 
of cornsilk on her skirt.
'We got to the house and while I was lookin it over, tryin to decide how much 
paint it would take, she brought me a drink in a tall glass. There was a straw 
in it, and a sprig of mint julep. I thought it was iced tea until I took a sip. 
It was straight Scotch.
' "Jesus!"I says, almost chokin.
"Don't you want it?" she asks me, smilin in that mockin way she had. "Maybe 
you'd prefer some iced coffee."
' "Oh, I want it," I says. But it was more than that. I needed it. I was tryin 
not to drink in the middle of the day back then, because that's what alcoholics 
do. But that was the end of that. For the rest of the time I knew her, I drank 
pretty near all day, every day. For me, the last two and a half years Ike was 
President was one long souse.
'While I was paintin her house - and doin everything she'd let me do to her 
whenever I could - she was settlin in at the Library. Mr Lavin hired her first 
crack outta the box, and put her in charge of the Children's Library. I used to 
go there every chance I got, which was a lot, since I was self-employed. When Mr 
Lavin spoke to me about how much time I was spendin there, I promised to paint 
the whole inside of the Library for free. Then he let me come and go as much as 
I wanted. Ardelia told me it would work out just that way, and she was right - 
as usual.
'I don't have any connected memories of the time I spent under her spell - and 
that's what I was, an enchanted man livin under the spell of a woman who wasn't 
really a woman at all. It wasn't the blackouts that drunks sometimes get; it was 
wantin to forget things after they were over. So what I have is memories that 
stand apart from each other but seem to lie in a chain, like those islands in 
the Pacific Ocean. Archie Pelligos, or whatever they call em.
'I remember she put the poster of Little Red Ridin Hood up on the door to the 
Children's Room about a month before Mr Lavin died, and I remember her takin one 
little boy by the hand and leadin him over to it. "Do you see that little girl?" 
Ardelia asked him. "Yes," he says. "Do you know why that Bad Thing is getting 
ready to eat her?" Ardelia asks. "No," the kid says back, his eyes all big and 
solemn and full of tears. "Because he forgot to bring back his library book on 
time," she says. "You won't ever do that, Willy, will you?" "No, never," the 
little boy says, and Ardelia says, "You better not." And then she led him into 
the Children's Room for Story Hour, still holdin him by the hand. That kid - it 
was Willy Klemmart, who got killed in Vietnam - looked back over his shoulder at 
where I was, standin on my scaffold with a paintbrush in my hand, and I could 
read his eyes like they were a newspaper headline. Save me from her, his eyes 
said. Please, Mr Duncan. But how could I? I couldn't even save myself.'
Dave produced a clean but badly wrinkled bandanna from the depths of one back 
pocket and blew a mighty honk into it.
'Mr Lavin began by thinkin Ardelia just about walked on water, but he changed 
his mind after awhile. They got into a hell of a scrap over that Red Ridin Hood 
poster about a week before he died. He never liked it. Maybe he didn't have a 
very good idea of what went on durin Story Hour - I'll get to that pretty soon 
-but he wasn't entirely blind. He saw the way the kids looked at that poster. At 
last he told her to take it down. That was when the argument started. I didn't 
hear it all because I was on the scaffold, high above them, and the acoustics 
were bad, but I heard enough. He said somethin about scaring the children, or 
maybe it was scarring the children, and she said somethin back about how it 
helped her keep "the rowdy element" under control. She called it a teachin tool, 
just like the hickory stick.
'But he stuck to his guns and she finally had to take it down. That night, at 
her house, she was like a tiger in the zoo after some kid has spent all day 
pokin it with a stick. She went back and forth in great big long strides, not a 
stitch on, her hair flyin out behind her. I was in bed, drunk as a lord. But I 
remember she turned around and her eyes had gone from silver to bright red, as 
if her brains had caught afire, and her mouth looked funny, like it was tryin to 
pull itself right out of her face, or somethin. It almost scared me sober. I 
hadn't ever seen nothin like that, and never wanted to see it again.
' "I'm going to fix him," she said. "I'm going to fix that fat old whoremaster, 
Davey. You wait and see."
'I told her not to do anything stupid, not to let her temper get the best of 
her, and a lot of other stuff that didn't stand knee-high to jack shit. She 
listened to me for awhile and then she ran across the room so fast that ... 
well, I don't know how to say it. One second she was standin all the way across 
the room by the door, and the next second she was jumpin on top of me, her eyes 
red and glaring, her mouth all pooched out of her face like she wanted to kiss 
me so bad she was stretchin her skin somehow to do it, and I had an idea that 
instead of just scratchin me this time, she was gonna put her nails into my 
throat and peel me to the backbone.
'But she didn't. She put her face right down to mine and looked at me. I don't 
know what she saw - how scared I was, I guess - but it must have made her happy, 
because she tipped her head back so her hair fell all the way down to my thighs, 
and she laughed. "Stop talking, you damned souse," she said, and stick it in me. 
What else are you good for?"
'So I did. Because stickin it in her - and drinkin - was all I was good for by 
then. I surely wasn't paintin pitchers anymore, I lost my license after I got 
clipped for my third OUI - in '58 or early '59, that was - and I was gettin bad 
reports on some of my jobs. I didn't care much how I did them anymore, you see; 
all I wanted was her. Talk started to circulate about how Dave Duncan wasn't 
trustworthy no more ... but the reason they said I wasn't was always the booze. 
The word of what we were to each other never got around much. She was careful as 
the devil about that. My reputation went to hell in a handbasket, but she never 
got so much as a splash of mud on the hem of her skirts.
'I think Mr Lavin suspected. At first he thought I just had a crush on her and 
she never so much as knew I was makin calfs eyes at her from up on my scaffold, 
but I think that in the end he suspected. But then Mr Lavin died. They said it 
was a heart attack, but I know better. We were in the hammock on her back porch 
that night after it happened, and that night it was her that couldn't get enough 
of it. She screwed me until I hollered uncle. Then she lay down next to me and 
looked at me as content as a cat that's had its fill of cream, and her eyes had 
that deep-red glow again. I am not talking about something in my imagination; I 
could see the reflection of that red glow on the skin of my bare arm. And I 
could feel it. It was like sitting next to a woodstove that's been stoked and 
then damped down. "I told you I'd fix him, Davey," she says all at once in this 
mean, teasin voice.
'Me, I was drunk and half killed with fuckin - what she said hardly registered 
on me. I felt like I was fallin asleep in a pit of quicksand. "What'd you do to 
him?" I asked, half in a doze.
' "I hugged him," she said. "I give special hugs, Davey - you don't know about 
my special hugs, and if you're lucky, you never will. I got him in the stacks 
and put my arms around him and showed him what I really looked like. Then he 
began to cry. That's how scared he was. He began to cry his special tears, and I 
kissed them away, and when I was done, he was dead in my arms."
' "His special tears." That's what she called them. And then her face . it 
changed. It rippled, like it was underwater. And I seen something . . .'
Dave trailed off, looking out into the flatlands, looking at the grain elevator, 
looking at nothing. His hands had gripped the porch rail. They flexed, loosened, 
flexed again.
'I don't remember,' he said at last. 'Or maybe I don't want to remember. Except 
for two things: it had red eyes with no lids, and there was a lot of loose flesh 
around its mouth, lyin in folds and flaps, but it wasn't skin. It looked ... 
dangerous. Then that flesh around its mouth started to move somehow and I think 
I started to scream. Then it was gone. All of it was gone. It was only Ardelia 
again, peepin up at me and smilin like a pretty, curious cat.
' "Don't worry," she says. "You don't have to see, Davey. As long as you do what 
I tell you, that is. As long as you're one of the Good Babies. As long as you 
behave. Tonight I'm very happy, because that old fool is gone at last. The Town 
Council is going to appoint me in his place, and I'll run things the way I 
want."
'God help us all, then, I thought, but I didn't say it. You wouldn't've, either, 
if you'd looked down and seen that thing with those starin red eyeballs curled 
up next to you in a hammock way out in the country, so far out nobody would hear 
you screamin even if you did it at the top of your lungs.
'A little while later she went into the house and come back out with two of 
those tall glasses full of Scotch, and pretty soon I was twenty thousand leagues 
under the sea again, where nothing mattered.
'She kept the Library closed for a week . . . "out of respect for Mr Lavin" was 
how she put it, and when she opened up again, Little Red Ridin Hood was back on 
the door of the Children's Room. A week or two after that, she told me she 
wanted me to make some new posters for the Children's Room.'
He paused, then went on in a lower, slower voice.
'There's a part of me, even now, that wants to sugarcoat it, make my part in it 
better than it was. I'd like to tell you that I fought with her, argued, told 
her I didn't want nothin to do with scarin a bunch of kids ... but it wouldn't 
be true. I went right along with what she wanted me to do. God help me, I did. 
Partly it was because I was scared of her by then. But mostly it was because I 
was still besotted with her. And there was something else, too. There was a 
mean, nasty part of me - I don't think it's in everyone, but I think it's in a 
lot of us - that liked what she was up to. Liked it.
'Now, you're wonderin what I did do, and I can't really tell you all of it. I 
really don't remember. Those times is all jumbled up, like the broken toys you 
send to the Salvation Army just to get the damned things out of the attic.
'I didn't kill anyone. That's the only thing I'm sure of. She wanted me to ... 
and I almost did ... but in the end I drew back. That's the only reason I've 
been able to go on livin with myself, because in the end I was able to crawl 
away. She kept part of my soul with her - the best part, maybe - but she never 
kept all of it.'
He looked at Naomi and Sam thoughtfully. He seemed calmer now, more in control; 
perhaps even at peace with himself, Sam thought.
'I remember going in one day in the fall of 1959 - I think it was '59 - and her 
telling me that she wanted me to make a poster for the Children's Room. She told 
me exactly what she wanted, and I agreed willingly enough. I didn't see nothing 
wrong with it. I thought it was kind of funny, in fact. What she wanted, you 
see, was a poster that showed a little kid flattened by a steamroller in the 
middle of the street. Underneath it was supposed to say HASTE MAKES WASTE! GET 
YOUR LIBRARY BOOKS BACK IN PLENTY OF TIME!
'I thought it was just a joke, like when the coyote is chasing the Road Runner 
and gets flattened by a freight train or something. So I said sure. She was 
pleased as punch. I went into her office and drew the poster. It didn't take 
long, because it was just a cartoon.
'I thought she'd like it, but she didn't. Her brows drew down and her mouth 
almost disappeared. I'd made a cartoon boy with crosses for eyes, and as a joke 
I had a word-balloon comin out of the mouth of the guy drivin the steamroller. 
"If you had a stamp, you could mail him like a postcard," he was saying.
'She didn't even crack a smile. "No, Davey," she says, "you don't understand. 
This won't make the children bring their books back on time. This will only make 
them laugh, and they spend too much time doing that as it is."
' "Well," I says, "I guess I didn't understand what you wanted."
'We were standin behind the circulation desk, so nobody could see us except from 
the waist up. And she reached down and took my balls in her hand and looked at 
me with those big silver eyes of hers and said, "I want you to make it 
realistic."
'It took me a second or two to understand what she really meant. When I did, I 
couldn't believe it. "Ardelia," I says, "you don't understand what you're sayin. 
If a kid really did get run over by a steamroller - "
'She gave my balls a squeeze, one that hurt - as if to remind me just how she 
had me - and said: "I understand, all right. Now you understand me. I don't want 
them to laugh, Davey; I want them to cry. So why don't you go on back in there 
and do it right this time?"
'I went back into her office. I don't know what I meant to do, but my mind got 
made up in a hurry. There was a fresh piece of posterboard on the desk, and a 
tall glass of Scotch with a straw and a sprig of mint in it, and a note from 
Ardelia that said, "D. - Use a lot of red this time."
He looked soberly at Sam and Naomi.
'But she'd never been in there, you see. Never for a minute.'
3
Naomi brought Dave a fresh glass of water, and when she came back, Sam noticed 
that her face was very pale and that the corners of her eyes looked red. But she 
sat down very quietly and motioned for Dave to go on.
'I did what alcoholics do best,' he said. 'I drank the drink and did what I was 
told. A kind of ... of frenzy, I suppose you'd say ... fell over me. I spent two 
hours at her desk, workin with a box of five-and-dime watercolors, sloppin water 
and paint all over her desk, not givin a shit what flew where. What I came out 
with was somethin I don't like to remember ... but I do remember. It was a 
little boy splattered all over Rampole Street with his shoes knocked off and his 
head all spread out like a pat of butter that's melted in the sun. The man 
drivin the steamroller was just a silhouette, but he was lookin back, and you 
could see the grin on his face. That guy showed up again and again in the 
posters I did for her. He was drivin the car in the poster you mentioned, Sam, 
the one about never takin rides from strangers.
'My father left my mom about a year after I was born, just left her flat, and I 
got an idea now that was who I was tryin to draw in all those posters. I used to 
call him the dark man, and I think it was my dad. I think maybe Ardelia prodded 
him out of me somehow. And when I took the second one out, she liked it fine. 
She laughed over it. "It's perfect, Davey!" she said. "It'll scare a whole 
mountain of do-right into the little snotnoses! I'll put it up right away!" She 
did, to, on the front of the checkout desk in the Children's Room. And when she 
did, I saw somethin that really chilled my blood. I knew the little boy I'd 
drawn, you see. It was Willy Klemmart. I'd drawn him without even knowin it, and 
the expression on what was left of his face was the one I'd seen that day when 
she took his hand and led him into the Children's Room.
'I was there when the kids came in for Story Hour and saw that poster for the 
first time. They were scared. Their eyes got big, and one little girl started to 
cry. And I liked it that they were scared. I thought, "That'll pound the 
do-right into em, all right. That'll teach em what'll happen if they cross her, 
if they don't do what she says." And part of me thought, You're gettin to think 
like her, Dave. Pretty soon you'll get to be like her, and then you'll be lost. 
You'll be lost forever.
'But I went on, just the same. I felt like I had a one-way ticket and I wasn't 
goin to get off until I rode all the way to the end of the line. Ardelia hired 
some college kids, but she always put em in the circulation room and the 
reference room and on the main desk. She kept complete charge of the kids ... 
they were the easiest to scare, you see. And I think they were the best scares, 
the ones that fed her the best. Because that's what she lived on, you know - she 
fed on their fright. And I made more posters. I can't remember them all, but I 
remember the Library Policeman. He was in a lot of them. In one - it was called 
LIBRARY POLICEMEN GO ON VACATION, TOO - he was standin on the edge of a stream 
and fishin. Only what he'd baited his hook with was that little boy the kids 
called Simple Simon. In another one, he had Simple Simon strapped to the nose of 
a rocket and was pullin the switch that would send him into outer space. That 
one said LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AT THE LIBRARY - BUT BE SURE TO 
DO RIGHT AND GET YOUR BOOKS BACK ON TIME.
'We turned the Children's Room into a house of horrors for the kids who came 
there,' Dave said. He spoke slowly, and his voice was full of tears. 'She and I. 
We did that to the children. But do you know what? They always came back. They 
always came back for more. And they never, never told. She saw to that.'
'But the parents!' Naomi exclaimed suddenly, and so sharply that Sam jumped. 
'Surely when the parents saw - '
'No!' Dave told her. 'Their parents never saw nothing. The only scary poster 
they ever saw was the one of Little Red Ridin Hood and the wolf. Ardelia left 
that one up all the time, but the others only went up during Story Hour - after 
school, on Thursday nights, and Saturday mornings. She wasn't a human bein, 
Sarah. You've got to get that straight in your mind. She was not human. She knew 
when grownups was comin, and she always got the posters I'd drawn off the walls 
and the other ones - regular posters that said things like READ BOOKS JUST FOR 
THE FUN OF IT - up before they came.
'I can remember times when I'd be there for Story Hour - in those days I never 
left her if I could stay close, and I had lots of time to stay close, because 
I'd quit paintin pictures, all my regular jobs had fell through, and I was livin 
on the little I'd managed to save up. Before long the money was gone, too, and I 
had to start sellin things - my TV, my guitar, my truck, finally my house. But 
that don't matter. What matters is that I was there a lot, and I saw what went 
on. The little ones would have their chairs drawn up 'm a circle with Ardelia 
sittin in the middle. I'd be in the back of the room, sittin in one of those 
kid-sized chairs myself, wearin my old paint-spotted duster more often than not, 
drunk as a skunk, needin a shave, reekin of Scotch. And she'd be readin - readin 
one of her special Ardelia-stories - and then she'd break off and cock her head 
to one side, like she was listenin. The kids would stir around and look uneasy. 
They looked another way, too - like they was wakin out of a deep sleep she'd put 
em into.
' "We're going to have company," she'd say, smiling. "Isn't that special, 
children? Do I have some Good-Baby volunteers to help me get ready for our Big 
People company?" They'd all raise their hands when she said that, because they 
all wanted to be Good Babies. The posters I'd made showed em what happened to 
Bad Babies who didn't do right. Even I'd raise my hand, sittin drunk in the back 
of the room in my filthy old duster, lookin like the world's oldest, tiredest 
kid. And then they'd get up and some would take down my posters and others would 
take the regular posters out of the bottom drawer of her desk. They'd swap em. 
Then they'd sit down and she'd switch from whatever horrible thing she'd been 
tellin em to a story like "The Princess and the Pea," and sure enough, a few 
minutes later some mother'd poke her head in and see all the do-right Good 
Babies listenin to that nice Miss Lortz readin em a story, and they'd smile at 
whatever kid was theirs, and the kid would smile back, and things would go on.'
'What do you mean, "whatever horrible thing she'd been telling them?"
Sam asked. His voice was husky and his mouth felt dry. He had been listening to 
Dave with a mounting sense of horror and revulsion.
'Fairy tales,' Dave said. 'But she'd change em into horror stories. You'd be 
surprised how little work she had to do on most of em to make the change.'
'I wouldn't,' Naomi said grimly. 'I remember those stories.'
'I'll bet you do,' he said, 'but you never heard em like Ardelia told em. And 
the kids liked them - part of them liked the stories, and they liked her, 
because she drew on them and fascinated them the same way she drew on me. Well, 
not exactly, because there was never the sex thing - at least, I don't think so 
- but the darkness in her called to the darkness in them. Do you understand me?'
And Sam, who remembered his dreadful fascination with the story of Bluebeard and 
the dancing brooms in Fantasia, thought he did understand. Children hated and 
feared the darkness ... but it drew them, didn't it? It beckoned to them,
(come with me, son)
didn't it? It sang to them,
(I'm a poleethman)
didn't it?
Didn't it?
'I know what you mean, Dave,' he said.
He nodded. 'Have you figured it out yet, Sam? Who your Library Policeman was?'
'I still don't understand that part,' Sam said, but he thought part of him did. 
It was as if his mind was some deep, dark body of water and there was a boat 
sunk at the bottom of it - but not just any boat. No - this was a pirate 
schooner, full of loot and dead bodies, and now it had begun to shift in the 
muck which had held it so long. Soon, he feared, this ghostly, glaring wreck 
would surface again, its blasted masts draped with black seaweed and a skeleton 
with a million-dollar grin still lashed to the rotting remains of the wheel.
'I think maybe you do,' Dave said, 'or that you're beginning to. And it will 
have to come out, Sam. Believe me.'
'I still don't really understand about the stories' 'Naomi said.
'One of her favorites, Sarah - and it was a favorite of the children, too; you 
have to understand that, and believe it - was "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." 
You know the story, but you don't know it the way some people in this town 
-people who are grownups now, bankers and lawyers and big-time farmers with 
whole fleets of John Deere tractors - know it. Deep in their hearts, it's the 
Ardelia Lortz version they keep, you see. It may be that some of them have told 
those same stories to their own children, never knowing there are other ways to 
tell them. I don't like to think that's so, but in my heart I know it is.
'In Ardelia's version, Goldilocks is a Bad Baby who won't do right. She comes 
into the house of the Three Bears and wrecks it on purpose - pulls down Mamma 
Bear's curtains and drags the washin through the mud and tears up all of Papa 
Bear's magazines and business papers and uses one of the steak-knives to cut 
holes in his favorite chair. Then she tears up all their books. That was 
Ardelia's favorite part, I think, when Goldilocks spoiled the books. And she 
don't eat the porridge, oh no! Not when Ardelia told the story! The way Ardelia 
told it, Goldilocks got some rat poison off a high shelf and shook it all over 
the porridge like powdered sugar. She didn't know anything about who lived in 
the house, but she wanted to kill them anyway, because that's the kind of Bad 
Baby she was.'
'That's horrible!' Naomi exclaimed. She had lost her composure - really lost it 
-for the first time. Her hands were pressed over her mouth, and her wide eyes 
regarded Dave from above them.
'Yes. It was. But it wasn't the end. Goldilocks was so tired from wreckin the 
house, you see, that when she went upstairs to tear their bedrooms apart, she 
fell asleep in Baby Bear's bed. And when the Three Bears came home and saw her, 
they fell upon her - that was just how Ardelia used to say it - they fell upon 
her and ate that wicked Bad Baby alive. They ate her from the feet up, while she 
screamed and struggled. All except for her head. They saved that, because they 
knew what she had done to their porridge. They smelled the poison. "They could 
do that, children, because they were bears," Ardelia used to say, and all the 
children - Ardelia's Good Babies - would nod their heads, because they saw how 
that could be. "They took Goldilocks' head down to the kitchen and boiled it and 
ate her brains for their breakfast. They all agreed it was very tasty ... and 
they lived happily ever after."
4
There was a thick, almost deathly silence on the porch. Dave reached for his 
glass of water and almost knocked it off the railing with his trembling fingers. 
He rescued it at the last moment, held it in both hands, and drank deeply. Then 
he put it down and said to Sam, 'Are you surprised that my boozing got a little 
bit out of control?'
Sam shook his head.
Dave looked at Naomi and said, 'Do you understand now why I was never able to 
tell this story? Why I put it in that room?'
'Yes,' she said in a trembling, sighing voice that was not much more than a 
whisper. 'And I think I understand why the kids never told, either. Some things 
are just too ... too monstrous.'
'For us, maybe,' Dave said. 'For kids? I don't know, Sarah. I don't think kids 
know monsters so well at first glance. It's their folks that tell em how to 
recognize the monsters. And she had somethin else goin for her. You remember me 
tellin you about how, when she told the kids a parent was comin, they looked 
like they were wakin up from a deep sleep? They were sleepin, in some funny way. 
It wasn't hypnosis - at least, I don't think it was - but it was like hypnosis. 
And when they went home, they didn't remember, in the top part of their minds, 
anyway, about the stories or the posters. Down underneath, I think they 
remembered plenty ... just like down underneath Sam knows who his Library 
Policeman is. I think they still remember today - the bankers and lawyers and 
big-time farmers who were once Ardelia's
Good Babies. I can. still see em, wearin pinafores and short pants, sittin in 
those little chairs, lookin at Ardelia in the middle of the circle, their eyes 
so big and round they looked like pie-plates. And I think that when it gets dark 
and the storms come, or when they are sleepin and the nightmares come, they go 
back to bein kids. I think the doors open and they see the Three Bears - 
Ardelia's Three Bears - eatin the brains out of Goldilocks' head with their 
wooden porridge-spoons, and Baby Bear wearin Goldilocks' scalp on his head like 
a long golden wig. I think they wake up sweaty, feelin sick and afraid. I think 
that's what she left this town. I think she left a legacy of secret nightmares.
'But I still haven't got to the worst thing. Those stories, you see - well, 
sometimes it was the posters, but mostly it was the stories - would scare one of 
them into a crying fit, or they'd start to faint or pass out or whatever. And 
when that happened, she'd tell the others, "Put your heads down and rest while I 
take Billy ... or Sandra ... or Tommy ... to the bathroom and make him feel 
better."
'They'd all drop their heads at the same instant. It was like they were dead. 
The first time I seen it happen, I waited about two minutes after she took some 
little girl out of the room, and then I got up and went over to the circle. I 
went to Willy Klemmart first.
' "Willy!" I whispered, and poked him in the shoulder. "You okay, Will?"
'He never moved, so I poked him harder and said his name again. He still didn't 
move. I could hear him breathin - kinda snotty and snory, the way kids are so 
much of the time, always runnin around with colds like they do - but it was 
still like he was dead. His eyelids were partway open, but I could only see the 
whites, and this long thread of spit was hangin off his lower lip. I got scared 
and went to three or four of the others, but wouldn't none of them look up at me 
or make a sound.'
'You're saying she enchanted them, aren't you?' Sam asked. 'That they were like 
Snow White after she ate the poisoned apple.'
'Yes,' Dave agreed. 'That's what they were like. In a different kind of way, 
that's what I was like, too. Then, just as I was gettin ready to take hold of 
Willy Klemmart and shake the shit out of him, I heard her comin back from the 
bathroom. I ran to my seat so she wouldn't catch me. Because I was more scared 
of what she might do to me than anything she might have done to them.
'She came in, and that little girl, who'd been as gray as a dirty sheet and half 
unconscious when Ardelia took her out, looked like somebody had just filled her 
up with the finest nerve-tonic in the world. She was wide awake, with roses in 
her cheeks and a sparkle in her eye. Ardelia patted her on the bottom and she 
ran for her seat. Then Ardelia clapped her hands together and said, "All Good 
Babies lift your heads up! Sonja feels much better, and she wants us to finish 
the story, don't you, Sonja?"
"Yes, ma'am," Sonja pipes up, just as pert as a robin in a birdbath. And their 
heads all came up. You never would have known that two seconds before that room 
looked like it was full of dead kids.
'The third or fourth time this happened, I let her get out of the room and then 
I followed her. I knew she was scarin them on purpose, you see, and I had an 
idea there was a reason for it. I was scared almost to death myself, but I 
wanted to see what it was.
'That time it was Willy Klemmart she'd taken down to the bathroom. He'd started 
havin hysterics during Ardelia's version of "Hansel and Gretel." I opened the 
door real easy and quiet, and I seen Ardelia kneelin in front of Willy down by 
where the washbasin was. He had stopped cryin, but beyond that I couldn't tell 
anything. Her back was to me, you see, and Willy was so short she blocked him 
right out of my view, even on her knees. I could see his hands were on the 
shoulders of the jumper she was wearin, and I could see one sleeve of his red 
sweater, but that was all. Then I heard somethin - a thick suckin sound, like a 
straw makes when you've gotten just about all of your milkshake out of the 
glass. I had an idea then she was ... you know, molestin him, and she was, but 
not the way I thought.
'I walked in a little further, and slipped over to the right, walkin high up on 
the toes of my shoes so the heels wouldn't clack. I expected her to hear me just 
the same, though - she had ears like goddam radar dishes, and I kept waitin for 
her to turn around and pin me with those red eyes of hers. But I couldn't stop. 
I had to see. And little by little, as I angled over to the right, I began to.
'Willy's face came into my sight over her shoulder, a little piece at a time, 
like a moon coming out of a 'clipse. At first all I could see of her was her 
blonde hair -there was masses of it, all in curls and ringlets - but then I 
began to see her face, as well. And I seen what she was doin. All the strength 
ran out of my legs just like water down a pipe. There was no way they were goin 
to see me, not unless I reached up and started hammerin on one of the overhead 
pipes. Their eyes were closed, but that wasn't the reason. They were lost in 
what they were doin, you see, and they were both lost in the same place, because 
they were hooked together.
'Ardelia's face wasn't human anymore. It had run like warm taffy and made itself 
into this funnel shape that flattened her nose and pulled her eyesockets all 
long and Chinese to the sides and made her look like some kind of insect ... a 
fly, maybe, or a bee. Her mouth was gone again. It had turned into that thing I 
started to see just after she killed Mr Lavin, the night we were layin in the 
hammock. It had turned into the narrow part of the funnel. I could see these 
funny red streaks on it, and at first I thought it was blood, or maybe veins 
under her skin, and then I realized it was lipstick. She didn't have lips 
anymore, but that red paint marked where her lips had been.
'She was usin that sucker thing to drink from Willy's eyes.'
Sam looked at Dave, thunderstuck. He wondered for a moment if the man had lost 
his mind. Ghosts were one thing; this was something else. He didn't have the 
slightest idea what this was. And yet sincerity and honesty shone on Dave's face 
like a lamp, and Sam thought: If he's lying, he doesn't know it.
'Dave, are you saying Ardelia Lortz was drinking his tears?' Naomi asked 
hesitantly.
'Yes ... and no. It was his special tears she was drinkin. Her face was all 
stretched out to him, it was beatin like a heart, and her features were drawn 
out flat. She looked like a face you might draw on a shopping bag to make a 
Halloween mask.
'What was comin out of the corners of Willy's eyes was gummy and pink, like 
bloody snot, or chunks of flesh that have almost liquefied. She sucked it in 
with that slurpin sound. It was his fear she was drinkin. She had made it real, 
somehow, and made it so big that it had to come out in those awful tears or kill 
him.'
'You're saying that Ardelia was some kind of vampire, aren't you?' Sam asked.
Dave looked relieved. 'Yes. That's right. When I've thought of that day since 
-when I've dared to think of it - I believe that's just what she was. All those 
old stories about vampires sinking their teeth into people's throats and drinkin 
their blood are wrong. Not by much, but in this business, close is not good 
enough. They drink, but not from the neck; they grow fat and healthy on what 
they take from their victims, but what they take isn't blood. Maybe the stuff 
they take is redder, bloodier, when the victims are grownups. Maybe she took it 
from Mr Lavin. I think she did. But it's not blood.
'It's fear.'
5
'I dunno how long I stood there, watchin her, but it couldn't have been too long 
-she was never gone much more than five minutes. After awhile, the stuff comin 
from the corners of Willy's eyes started to get paler and paler, and there was 
less and less of it. I could see that ... you know, that thing of hers . . .'
'Proboscis,' Naomi said quietly. 'I think it must have been a proboscis.'
'Is it? All right. I could see that probos-thing stretchin further and further 
out, not wanting to miss any, wanting to get every last bit, and I knew she was 
almost done. And when she was, they'd wake up and she'd see me. And when she 
did, I thought she'd probably kill me.
'I started to back up, slow, one step at a time. I didn't think I was going to 
make it, but at last my butt bumped the bathroom door. I almost screamed when 
that happened, because I thought she'd got behind me somehow. I was sure of that 
even though I could see her kneelin there right in front of me.
'I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep the scream in and pushed out through 
the door. I stood there while it swung shut on the pneumatic hinge. It seemed to 
take forever. When it was closed, I started for the main door. I was half crazy; 
all I wanted to do was get out of there and never go back. I wanted to run 
forever.
'I got down into the foyer, where she'd put up that sign you saw, Sam - the one 
that just said SILENCE! - and then I caught hold of myself. If she led Willy 
back to the Children's Room and saw I was gone, she'd know I'd seen. She'd chase 
me, and she'd catch me, too. I didn't even think she'd have to try hard. I kept 
rememberin that day in the corn, and how she'd run rings all around me and never 
even worked up a sweat.
'So I turned around and walked back to my seat in the Children's Room instead. 
It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but somehow I managed to do 
it. My ass wasn't on the chair two seconds before I heard them coming. And of 
course Willy was all happy and smilin and full of beans, and so was she. Ardelia 
looked ready to go three fast rounds with Carmen Basilio and whip him solid.
' "All Good Babies lift your heads up!" she called, and clapped her hands. They 
all raised their heads and looked at her. "Willy feels lots better, and he wants 
me to finish the story. Don't you, Willy?"
' "Yes, ma'am," Willy said. She kissed him and he ran back to his seat. She went 
on with the story. I sat there and listened. And when that Story Hour was done, 
I started drinkin. And from then until the end, I never really stopped.'
6
'How did it end?' Sam asked. 'What do you know about that?'
'Not as much as I would have known if I hadn't been so dog-drunk all the time, 
but more than I wish I knew. That last part of it, I'm not even sure how long it 
was. About four months, I think, but it might have been six, or even eight. By 
then I wasn't even noticin the seasons much. When a drunk like me really starts 
to slide, Sam, the only weather he notices is inside of a bottle. I know two 
things, though, and they are really the only two things that matter. Somebody 
did start to catch onto her, that was one thing. And it was time for her to go 
back to sleep. To change. That was the other.
'I remember one night at her house - she never came to mine, not once, she said 
to me, "I'm getting sleepy, Dave. All the time now I'm sleepy. Soon it will be 
time for a long rest. When that time comes, I want you to sleep with me. I've 
grown fond of you, you see."
'I was drunk, of course, but what she said still gave me a chill. I thought I 
knew what she was talkin about, but when I asked her, she only laughed.
' "No, not that," she said, and gave me a scornful, amused kind of look. "I'm 
talking about sleep, not death. But you'll need to feed with me."
'That sobered me up in a hurry. She didn't think I knew what she was talkin 
about, but I did. I'd seen.
'After that, she began to ask me questions about the kids. About which ones I 
didn't like, which ones I thought were sneaky, which ones were too loud, which 
ones were the brattiest. "They're Bad Babies, and they don't deserve to live," 
she'd say. "They're rude, they're destructive, they bring their books back with 
pencil marks in them and ripped pages. Which ones do you think deserve to die, 
Davey?"
'That was when I knew I had to get away from her, and if killin myself was the 
only way, I'd have to take that way out. Something was happenin to her, you see. 
Her hair was gettin dull, and her skin, which had always been perfect, started 
to show up with blemishes. And there was something else - I could see that 
thing, that thing her mouth turned into - all the time, just under the surface 
of her skin. But it was starting to look all wrinkled and dewlapped, and there 
were strings like cobwebs on it.
'One night while we were in bed she saw me lookin at her hair and said, "You see 
the change in me, don't you, Davey?" She patted my face. "It's all right; it's 
perfectly natural. It's always this way when I'm getting ready to go to sleep 
again. I will have to do it soon, and if you mean to come with me, you will have 
to take one of the children soon. Or two. Or three. The more the merrier!" She 
laughed in the crazy way she had, and when she looked back at me, her eyes had 
gone red again. "In any case, I don't mean to leave you behind. All else aside, 
it wouldn't be safe. You know that, don't you?"
'I said I did.
' "So if you don't want to die, Davey, it has to be soon. Very soon. And if 
you've made up your mind not to, you should tell me now. We can end our time 
together pleasantly and painlessly, tonight."
'She leaned over me and I could smell her breath. It was like spoiled dogfood, 
and I couldn't believe I'd ever kissed the mouth that smell was coming out of, 
sober or drunk. But there was some part of me - some little part - that must 
have still wanted to live, because I told her I did want to come with her, but I 
needed a little more time to get ready. To prepare my mind.
' "To drink, you mean," she said. "You ought to get down on your knees and thank 
your miserable, unlucky stars for me, Dave Duncan. If not for me, you'd be dead 
in the gutter in a year, or even less. With me, you can live almost forever. 
'Her mouth stretched out for just a second, stretched out until it touched my 
cheek. And somehow I managed to keep from screaming.'
Dave looked at them with his deep, haunted eyes. Then he smiled. Sam Peebles 
never forgot the eldritch quality of that smile; it haunted his dreams ever 
after.
'But that's all right,' he said. 'Somewhere, down deep inside of me, I have been 
screaming ever since.'
7
'I'd like to say that in the end I broke her hold over me, but that'd be a lie. 
It was just happenstance - or what Program people call a higher power. You have 
to understand that by 1960, I was entirely cut off from the rest of the town. 
Remember me tellin you that once I was a member of the Rotary Club, Sam? Well, 
by February of '60, those boys wouldn't have hired me to clean the urinals in 
their john. As far as Junction City was concerned, I was just another Bad Baby 
livin the life of a bum. People I'd known all my life would cross the street to 
get out of my way when they saw me comin. I had the constitution of a brass 
eagle in those days, but the booze was rustin me out just the same, and what the 
booze wasn't takin, Ardelia Lortz was.
'I wondered more'n once if she wouldn't turn to me for what she needed, but she 
never did. Maybe I was no good to her that way ... but I don't really think that 
was it. I don't think she loved me - I don't think Ardelia could love anybody 
-but think she was lonely. I think she's lived, if you can call what she does 
living, a very long time, and that she's had . . .'
Dave trailed off. His crooked fingers drummed restlessly on his knees and his 
eyes sought the grain elevator on the horizon again, as if for comfort.
'Companions seems like the word that comes closest to fittin. I think she's had 
companions for some of her long life, but I don't think she'd had one for a very 
long time when she came to Junction City. Don't ask what she said to make me 
feel that way, because I don't remember. It's lost, like so much of the rest. 
But I'm pretty sure it's true. And she had me tapped for the job. I'm pretty 
sure I would have gone with her, too, if she hadn't been found out.'
'Who found her out, Dave?' Naomi asked, leaning forward. 'Who?'
'Deputy Sheriff John Power. In those days, the Homestead County sheriff was 
Norman Beeman, and Norm's the best argument I know for why sheriffs should be 
appointed rather than elected. The voters gave him the job when he got back to 
Junction City in '45 with a suitcase full of medals he'd won when Patton's army 
was drivin into Germany. He was a hell of a scrapper, no one could take that 
away from him, but as county sheriff he wasn't worth a fart in a windstorm. What 
he had was the biggest, whitest smile you ever saw, and a load of bullshit two 
mules wide. And he was a Republican, of course. That's always been the most 
important thing in Homestead County.
I think Norm would be gettin elected still if he hadn't dropped dead of a stroke 
in Hughie's Barber Shop in the summer of 1963. I remember that real clear; by 
then Ardelia had been gone awhile and I'd come around a little bit.
'There were two secrets to Norm's success - other than that big grin and the 
line of bullshit, I mean. First, he was honest. So far as I know, he never took 
a dime. Second, he always made sure he had at least one deputy sheriff under him 
who could think fast and didn't have no interest in runnin for the top job 
himself. He always played square with those fellows; every one of them got a 
rock-solid recommendation when he was ready to move on and move up. Norm took 
care of his own. I think, if you looked, you'd find there are six or eight town 
police chiefs and State Police colonels scattered across the Midwest who spent 
two or three years here in Junction City, shovelling shit for Norm Beeman.
'Not john Power, though. He's dead. If you looked up his obituary, it'd say he 
died of a heart attack, although he wasn't yet thirty years old and with none of 
the bad habits that cause people's tickers to seize up early sometimes. I know 
the truth - it wasn't a heart attack killed john any more than it was a heart 
attack that killed Lavin. She killed him.'
'How do you know that, Dave?' Sam asked.
'I know because there were supposed to be three children killed in the Library 
on that last day.'
Dave's voice was still calm, but Sam heard the terror this man had lived with so 
long running just below the surface like a low-voltage electrical charge. 
Supposing that even half of what Dave had told them this afternoon was true, 
then he must have lived these last thirty years with terrors beyond Sam's 
capacity to imagine. No wonder he had used a bottle to keep the worst of them at 
bay.
'Two did die - Patsy Harrigan and Tom Gibson. The third was to be my price of 
admission to whatever circus it is that Ardelia Lortz is ringmaster of. That 
third was the one she really wanted, because she was the one who turned the 
spotlight on Ardelia just when Ardelia most needed to operate in the dark. That 
third had to be mine, because that one wasn't allowed to come to the Library 
anymore, and Ardelia couldn't be sure of gettin near her. That third Bad Baby 
was Tansy Power, Deputy Power's daughter.'
'You aren't talking about Tansy Ryan, are you?' Naomi asked, and her voice was 
almost pleading.
'Yeah, I am. Tansy Ryan from the post office, Tansy Ryan who goes to meetins 
with us, Tansy Ryan who used to be Tansy Power. A lot of the kids who used to 
come to Ardelia's Story Hours are in AA around these parts, Sarah -make of it 
what you will. In the summer of 1960, I came very close to killin Tansy Power 
... and that's not the worst of it. I only wish it were.'
8
Naomi excused herself, and after several minutes had dragged by, Sam got up to 
go after her.
'Let her be,' Dave said. 'She's a wonderful woman, Sam, but she needs a little 
time to put herself back in order. You would, too, if you found out that one of 
the members of the most important group in your life once came close to murderin 
your closest friend. Let her abide. She'll be back - Sarah's strong.'
A few minutes later, she did come back. She had washed her face - the hair at 
her temples was still wet and slick - and she was carrying a tray with three 
glasses of iced tea on it.
'Ah, we're getting down to the hard stuff at last, ain't we, dear?' Dave said.
Naomi did her best to return his smile. 'You bet. I just couldn't hold out any 
longer.'
Sam thought her effort was better than good; he thought it was noble. All the 
same, the ice was talking to the glasses in brittle, chattery phrases. Sam rose 
again and took the tray from her unsteady hands. She looked at him gratefully.
'Now,' she said, sitting down. 'Finish, Dave. Tell it to the end.'
9
'A lot of what's left is stuff she told me,' Dave resumed, 'because by then I 
wasn't in a position to see anything that went on first hand. Ardelia told me 
sometime late in '59 that I wasn't to come around the Public Library anymore. If 
she saw me in there, she said she'd turn me out, and if I hung around outside, 
she'd sic the cops on me. She said I was gettin too seedy, and talk would start 
if I was seen goin in there anymore.
"'Talk about you and me?" I asked. "Ardelia, who'd believe it?"
' "Nobody," she said. "It's not talk about you and me that concerns me, you 
idiot."
"Well then, what does?"
"Talk about you and the children," she said. I guess that was the first time I 
really understood how low I'd fallen. You've seen me low in the years since we 
started goin to the AA meetins together, Sarah, but you've never seen me that 
low. I'm glad, too.
'That left her house. It was the only place I was allowed to see her, and the 
only time I was allowed to come was long after dark. She told me not to come by 
the road any closer than the Orday farm. After that I was to cut through the 
fields. She told me she'd know if I tried to cheat an that, and I believed her - 
when those silver eyes of hers turned red, Ardelia saw everything. I'd usually 
show up sometime between eleven o'clock and one in the morning, dependin on how 
much I'd had to drink, and I was usually frozen almost to the bone. I can't tell 
you much about those months, but I can tell you that in 1959 and 1960 the state 
of Iowa had a damned cold winter. There were lots of nights when I believe a 
sober man would have frozen to death out there in those cornfields.
'There wasn't no problem on the night I want to tell you about next, though - it 
must have been July of 1960 by then, and it was hotter than the hinges of hell. 
I remember how the moon looked that night, bloated and red, hangin over the 
fields. It seemed like every dog in Homestead County was yarkin up at that moon.
'Walkin into Ardelia's house that night was like walkin under the skirt of a 
cyclone. That week - that whole month, I guess - she'd been slow and sleepy, but 
not that night. That night she was wide awake, and she was in a fury. I hadn't 
seen her that way since the night after Mr Lavin told her to take the Little Red 
Ridin Hood poster down because it was scarin the children. At first she didn't 
even know I was there. She went back and forth through the downstairs, naked as 
the day she was born - if she ever was born - with her head down and her hands 
rolled into fists. She was madder'n a bear with a sore ass. She usually wore her 
hair up in an old-maidy bun when she was at home, but it was down when I let 
myself in through the kitchen door and she was walkin so fast it went flyin out 
behind her. I could hear it makin little crackly sounds, like it was full of 
static electricity. Her eyes were red as blood and glowin like those railroad 
lamps they used to put out in the old days when the tracks were blocked 
someplace up the line, and they seemed to be poppin right out of her face. Her 
body was oiled with sweat, and bad as I was myself, I could smell her; she stank 
like a bobcat in heat. I remember I could see big oily drops rollin down her 
bosom and her belly. Her hips and thighs shone with it. It was one of those 
still, muggy nights we get out here in the summer sometimes, when the air smells 
green and sits on your chest like a pile of junk iron, and it seems like there's 
cornsilk in every breath you pull in. You wish it would thunder and lightnin and 
pour down a gusher on nights like that, but it never does. You wish the wind 
would blow, at least, and not just because it would cool you off if it did, but 
because it would make the sound of the corn a little easier to bear ... the 
sound of it pushin itself up out of the ground all around you, soundin like an 
old man with arthritis tryin to get out of bed in the mornin without wakin his 
wife.
'Then I noticed she was scared as well as mad this time - someone had really 
looped the fear of God into her. And the change in her was speedin up. Whatever 
it was that happened to her, it had knocked her into a higher gear. She didn't 
look older, exactly; she looked less there. Her hair had started to look finer, 
like a baby's hair. You could see her scalp through it. And her skin looked like 
it was startin to grow its own skin - this fine, misty webbing over her cheeks, 
around her nostrils, at the corners of her eyes, between her fingers. Wherever 
there was a fold in the skin, that was where you could see it best. It fluttered 
a little as she walked. You want to hear something crazy? When the County Fair 
comes to town these days, I can't bear to go near the cotton-candy stands on the 
midway. You know the machine they make it with? Looks like a doughnut and goes 
round and round, and the man sticks in a paper cone and winds the pink sugar up 
on it? That's what Ardelia's skin was starting to look like -those fine strands 
of spun sugar. I think I know now what I was seein. She was doin what 
caterpillars do when they go to sleep. She was spinnin a cocoon around herself.
'I stood in the doorway for some time, watchin her go back and forth. She didn't 
notice me for a long while. She was too busy rollin around in whatever bed of 
nettles it was she'd stumbled into. Twice she hammered her fist against a wall 
and smashed all the way through it - paper, plaster, and lath. It sounded like 
breakin bones, but it didn't seem to do her no hurt at all, and there was no 
blood. She screamed each time, too, but not with pain. What I heard was the 
sound of a pissed-off she-cat ... but, like I said, there was fear underneath 
her anger. And what she screamed was that deputy's name.
'"John Power!" she'd scream, and whack! Right through the wall her fist would 
go. "God damn you, John Power! I'll teach you to stay out of my business! You 
want to look at me? Fine! But I'll teach you how to do it! I'll teach you, 
little baby of mine!" Then she'd walk on, so fast she was almost runnin, and her 
bare feet'd come down so hard they shook the whole damn house, it seemed like. 
She'd be mutterin to herself while she walked. Then her lip would curl, her eyes 
would glare redder'n ever, and whack! would go her fist, right through the wall 
and a little puff of plaster comin out through the hole. "John Power, you don't 
dare!" she'd snarl. "You don't dare cross me!"
'But you only had to look into her face to know she was afraid he did dare. And 
if you'd known Deputy Power, you'd have known she was right to be worried. He 
was smart, and he wasn't afraid of nothing. He was a good deputy and a bad man 
to cross.
'She got into the kitchen doorway on her fourth or fifth trip through the house, 
and all at once she saw me. Her eyes glared into mine, and her mouth began to 
stretch out into that horn shape - only now it was all coated with those 
spidery, smoky threads - and I thought I was dead. If she couldn't lay hands on 
John Power, she'd have me in his place.
'She started toward me and I slid down the kitchen door in a kind of puddle. She 
saw that and she stopped. The red light went out of her eyes. She changed in the 
wink of an eye. She looked and spoke as if I'd come into a fancy cocktail party 
she was throwin instead of walking into her house at midnight to find her, 
rammin around naked and smashin holes in the walls.
' "Davey!" she says. "I'm so glad you're here! Have a drink. In fact, have two!"
'She wanted to kill me - I saw it in her eyes - but she needed me, and not just 
for a companion no more, neither. She needed me to kill Tansy Power. She knew 
she could take care of the cop, but she wanted him to know his daughter was dead 
before she did him. For that she needed me.
' "There isn't much time," she said. "Do you know this Deputy Power?"
'I said I ought to. He'd arrested me for public drunkenness half a dozen times.
' "What do you make of him?" she asked.
' "He's got a lot of hard bark on him," I says.
' "Well, fuck him and fuck you, too!"
'I didn't say nothing to that. It seemed wiser not to.
'"That goddam square head came into the Library this afternoon and asked to see 
my references. And he kept asking me questions. He wanted to know where I'd been 
before I came to Junction City, where I went to school ' where I grew up. You 
should have seen the way he looked at me, Davey - but I'll teach him the right 
way to look at a lady like me. You see if I don't."
' "You don't want to make a mistake with Deputy Power," I said. "I don't think 
he's afraid of anything."
' "Yes, he is - he's afraid of me. He just doesn't know it yet," she said, but I 
caught the gleam of fear in her eyes again. He had picked the worst possible 
time to start askin questions, you see - she was gettin ready for her time of 
sleeping and change, and it weakened her somehow.'
'Did Ardelia tell you how he caught on?' Naomi asked.
'It's obvious,' Sam said. 'His daughter told him.'
'No,' Dave said. 'I didn't ask - I didn't dare, not with her in the mood she was 
in -but I don't think Tansy told her dad. I don't think she could have - not in 
so many words, at least. When they left the Children's Room, you see, they'd 
forget all about what she'd told them ... and done to them in there. And it 
wasn't just forgetting, either - she put other memories, false memories into 
their heads, so they'd go home just as jolly as could be. Most of their parents 
thought Ardelia was just about the greatest thing that ever happened to the 
Junction City Library.
'I think it was what she took from Tansy that put her father's wind up, and I 
think Deputy Power must have done a good deal of investigating before he ever 
went to see Ardelia at the Library. I don't know what difference he noticed in 
Tansy, because the kids weren't all pale and listless, like the people who get 
their blood sucked in the vampire movies, and there weren't any marks on their 
necks. But she was takin something from them, just the same, and John Power saw 
it or sensed it.'
'Even if he did see something, why did it make him suspicious of Ardelia?' Sam 
asked.
'I told you his nose was keen. I think he must have asked Tansy some questions - 
nothing direct, all on the slant, if you see what I mean - and the answers he 
got must have been just enough to point him in the right direction. When he came 
to the Library that day he didn't know anything ... but he suspected something. 
Enough to put Ardelia on her mettle. I remember what made her the maddest - and 
scared her the most - was how he looked at her. "I'll teach you how to look at 
me," she said. Over and over again. I've wondered since how long it had been 
since anyone looked at her with real suspicion ... how long since anyone got 
into sniffin distance of what she was. I bet it scared her in more ways than 
one. I bet it made her wonder if she wasn't finally losin her touch.'
'He might have talked to some of the other children, too,' Naomi said 
hesitantly. 'Compared stories and got answers that didn't quite jibe. Maybe they 
even saw her in different ways. The way you and Sam saw her in different ways.'
'It could be - any of those things could be. Whatever it was, he scared her into 
speedin up her plans.
' "I'll be at the Library all day tomorrow," she told me. "I'll make sure plenty 
of people see me there, too. But you - you're going to pay a visit to Deputy 
Power's house, Davey. You're going to watch and wait until you see that child 
alone - I don't think you'll have to wait long - and then you're going to snatch 
her and take her into the woods. Do whatever you want to her, but you make sure 
that the last thing you do is cut her throat. Cut her throat and leave her where 
she'll be found. I want that bastard to know before I see him."
'I couldn't say nothing. It was probably just as well for me that I was 
tongue-tied, because anything I said she would have taken wrong, and she 
probably would have ripped my head off. But I only sat at her kitchen table with 
my drink in my hand, starin at her, and she must have taken my silence for 
agreement.
'After that we went into the bedroom. It was the last time. I remember thinkin I 
wouldn't be able to have it off with her; that a scared man can't get it up. But 
it was fine, God help me. Ardelia had that kind of magic, too. We went and went 
and went, and at some point I either fell asleep or just went unconscious. The 
next thing I remember was her pushin me out of bed with her bare feet, dumpin me 
right into a patch of early-morning sun. It was quarter past six, my stomach 
felt like an acid bath, and my head was throbbin like a swollen gum with an 
abscess in it.
' "It's time for you to be about your business," she said. "Don't let anybody 
see you on your way back to town, Davey, and remember what I told you. Get her 
this morning. Take her into the woods and do for her. Hide until dark. If you're 
caught before then, there's nothing I can do for you. But if you get here, 
you'll be safe. I'll make sure today that there'll be a couple of kids at the 
Library tomorrow, even though it's closed. I've got them picked out already, the 
two worst little brats in town. We'll go to the Library together ... they'll 
come . . . and when the rest of the fools find us, they'll think we're all dead. 
But you and I won't be dead, Davey; we'll be free. The joke will be on them, 
won't it?"
'Then she started to laugh. She sat naked on her bed with me grovellin at her 
feet, sick as a rat full of poison bait, and she laughed and laughed and 
laughed. Pretty soon her face started to change into the insect face again, that 
probos-thing pushin out of her face, almost like one of those Viking horns, and 
her eyes drawin off to the side. I knew everything in my guts was going to come 
up in a rush so I beat it out of there and puked into her ivy. Behind me I could 
hear her laughin ... laughin ... and laughin.
'I was puttin on my clothes by the side of the house when she spoke to me out 
the window. I didn't see her, but I heard her just fine. "Don't let me down, 
Davey," she said. "Don't let me down, or I'll kill you. And you won't die fast. 
"
"'I won't let you down, Ardelia," I said, but I didn't turn around to see her 
hangin out of her bedroom window. I knew I couldn't stand to see her even one 
more time. I'd come to the end of my string. And still ... part of me wanted to 
go with her even if it meant goin mad first, and most of me thought I would go 
with her. Unless it was her plan to set me up somehow, to leave me holdin the 
bag for all of it. I wouldn't have put it past her. I wouldn't have put nothin 
past her.
'I set off through the corn back toward Junction City. Usually those walks would 
sober me up a little, and I'd sweat out the worst of the hangover. Not that day, 
though. Twice I had to stop to vomit, and the second time I didn't think I was 
goin to be able to quit. I finally did, but I could see blood all over the corn 
I'd stopped to kneel in, and by the time I got back to town, my head was achin 
worse than ever and my vision was doubled. I thought I was dyin, but I still 
couldn't stop thinkin about what she'd said: Do whatever you want to her, but 
you make sure that the last thing you do is cut her throat.
'I didn't want to hurt Tansy Power, but I thought I was goin to, just the same. 
I wouldn't be able to stand against what Ardelia wanted ... and then I would be 
damned forever. And the worst thing, I thought, might be if Ardelia was tellin 
the truth, and I just went on livin ... livin almost forever with that thing on 
my mind.
'In those days, there was two freight depots at the station, and a loadin dock 
that wasn't much used on the north side of the second one. I crawled under there 
and fell asleep for a couple of hours. When I woke up, I felt a little better. I 
knew there wasn't any way I could stop her or myself, so I set out for John 
Power's house, to find that little girl and snatch her away. I walked right 
through downtown, not lookin at anyone, and all I kept thinkin over and over 
was, "I can make it quick for her - I can do that, at least. I'll snap her neck 
in a wink and she'll never know a thing." '
Dave produced his bandanna again and wiped his forehead with a hand which was 
shaking badly.
'I got as far as the five-and-dime. It's gone now, but in those days it was the 
last business on O'Kane Street before you got into the residential district 
again. I had less than four blocks to go, and I thought that when I got to the 
Power's house, I'd see Tansy in the yard. She'd be alone . and the woods weren't 
far.
'Only I looked into the five-and-dime show window and what I saw stopped me 
cold. It was a pile of dead children, all staring eyes, tangled arms, and busted 
legs. I let out a little scream and clapped my hands against my mouth. I closed 
my eyes tight. When I looked again, I saw it was a bunch of dolls old Mrs Seger 
was gettin ready to make into a display. She saw me and flapped one of em at me 
- get away, you old drunk. But I didn't. I kept lookin in at those dolls. I 
tried to tell myself dolls were all they were; anyone could see that. But when I 
closed my eyes tight and then opened em again, they were dead bodies again. Mrs 
Seger was settin up a bunch of little corpses in the window of the five-and-dime 
and didn't even know it. It came to me that someone was tryin to send me a 
message, and that maybe the message was that it wasn't too late, even then. 
Maybe I couldn't stop Ardelia, but maybe I could. And even if I couldn't, maybe 
I could keep from bein dragged into the pit after her.
'That was the first time I really prayed, Sarah. I prayed for strength. I didn't 
want to kill Tansy Power, but it was more than that - I wanted to save them all 
if I could.
'I started back toward the Texaco station a block down - it was where the Piggly 
Wiggly is now. On the way I stopped and picked a few pebbles out of the gutter. 
There was a phone booth by the side of the station - and it's still there today, 
now that I think of it. I got there and then realized I didn't have a cent. As a 
last resort, I felt in the coin return. There was a dime in there. Ever since 
that morning, when somebody tells me they don't believe there's a God, I think 
of how I felt when I poked my fingers into that coin-return slot and found that 
ten-cent piece.
'I thought about calling Mrs Power, then decided it'd be better to call the 
Sheriff's Office. Someone would pass the message on to John Power, and if he was 
as suspicious as Ardelia seemed to think, he might take the proper steps. I 
closed the door of the booth and looked up the number - this was back in the 
days when you could sometimes still find a telephone book in a telephone booth, 
if you were lucky - and then, before I dialled it, I stuck the pebbles I'd 
picked up in my mouth.
'John Power himself answered the phone, and I think now that's why Patsy
Harrigan and Tom Gibson died ... why John Power himself died ... and why Ardelia 
wasn't stopped then and there. I expected the dispatcher, you see - it was 
Hannah Verrill in those days - and I'd tell her what I had to say, and she'd 
pass it on to the deputy.
'Instead, I beard this hard don't-fuck-with-me voice say, "Sheriffs Office, 
Deputy Power speaking, how can I help you?" I almost swallowed the mouthful of 
pebbles I had, and for a minute I couldn't say anything.
'He goes "Damn kids," and I knew he was gettin ready to hang up.
' "Wait!" I says. The pebbles made it sound like I was talkin through a mouthful 
of cotton. "Don't hang up, Deputy!"
"Who is this?" he asked.
"Never mind," I says back. "Get your daughter out of town, if you value her, and 
whatever you do, don't let her near the Library. It's serious. She's in danger."
'And then I hung up. just like that. If Hannah had answered, I think I would 
have told more. I would have spoken names - Tansy's, Tom's, Patsy's ... and 
Ardelia's, too. But he scared me - I felt like if I stayed on that line, he'd be 
able to look right through it and see me on the other end, standin in that booth 
and stinkin like a bag of used-up peaches.
'I spat the pebbles out into my palm and got out of the booth in a hurry. Her 
power over me was broken - makin the call had done that much, anyway - but I was 
in a panic. Did you ever see a bird that's flown into a garage and goes swoopin 
around, bashin itself against the walls, it's so crazy to get out? That's what I 
was like. All of a sudden I wasn't worryin about Patsy Harrigan, or Tom Gibson, 
or even Tansy Power. I felt like Ardelia was the one who was lookin at me, that 
Ardelia knew what I'd done, and she'd be after me.
'I wanted to hide - hell, I needed to hide. I started walkin down Main Street, 
and by the time I got to the end, I was almost runnin. By then Ardelia had 
gotten all mixed up in my mind with the Library Policeman and the dark man - the 
one who was drivin the steamroller, and the car with Simple Simon on it. I 
expected to see all three of them turn onto Main Street in the dark man's old 
Buick, lookin for me. I got out to the railway depot and crawled under the 
loadin platform again. I huddled up in there, shiverin and shakin, even cryin a 
little, waitin for her to show up and do for me. I kept thinkin I'd look up and 
I'd see her face pokin under the platform's concrete skirt, her eyes all red and 
glaring, her mouth turnin into that horn thing.
'I crawled all the way to the back, and I found half a jug of wine under a pile 
of dead leaves and old spiderwebs. I'd stashed it back there God knows when and 
forgot all about it. I drank the wine in about three long swallows. Then I 
started to crawl back to the front of that space under the platform, but halfway 
there I passed out. When I woke up again, I thought at first that no time at all 
had gone by, because the light and the shadows were just about the same. Only my 
headache was gone, and my belly was roarin for food.' 
'You'd slept the clock around, hadn't you?' Naomi guessed.
'No - almost twice around. I'd made my call to the Sheriffs Office around ten 
o'clock on Monday mornin. When I came to under the loadin platform with that 
empty jug of wine still in my hand, it was just past seven on Wednesday morning. 
Only it wasn't sleep, not really. You have to remember that I hadn't been on an 
all-day drunk or even a week-long toot. I'd been roaring drunk for the best part 
of two years, and that wasn't all - there was Ardelia, and the Library, and the 
kids, and Story Hour. It was two years on a merry-go-round in hell. I think the 
part of my mind that still wanted to live and be sane decided the only thing to 
do was to pull the plug for awhile and shut down. And when I woke up, it was all 
over. They hadn't found the bodies of Patsy Harrigan and Tom Gibson yet, but it 
was over, just the same. And I knew it even before I poked my head out from 
under the loadin platform. There was an empty place in me, like an empty socket 
in your gum after a tooth falls out. Only that empty place was in my mind. And I 
understood. She was gone. Ardelia was gone.
'I crawled out from under and almost fainted again from hunger. I saw Brian 
Kelly, who used to be freightmaster back in those days. He was countin sacks of 
somethin on the other loadin platform and makin marks on a clipboard. I managed 
to walk over to him. He saw me, and an expression of disgust came over his face. 
There had been a time when we'd bought each other drinks in The Domino - a 
roadhouse that burned down long before your time, Sam - but those days were long 
gone. All he saw was a dirty, filthy drunk with leaves and dirt in his hair, a 
drunk that stank of piss and Old Duke.
' "Get outta here, daddy-O, or I'll call the cops," he says.
'That day was another first for me. One thing about bein a drunk - you're always 
breakin new ground. That was the first time I ever begged for money. I asked him 
if he could spare a quarter so I could get a cuppa joe and some toast at the 
Route 32 Diner. He dug into his pocket and brought out some change. He didn't 
hand it to me; he just tossed it in my general direction. I had to get down in 
the cinders and grub for it. I don't think he threw the money to shame me. He 
just didn't want to touch me. I don't blame him, either.
'When he saw I had the money he said, "Get in the wind, daddy-O. And if I see 
you down here again, I will call the cops."
' "You bet," I said, and went on my way. He never even knew who I was, and I'm 
glad.
'About halfway to the diner, I passed one of those newspaper boxes, and I seen 
that day's Gazette inside. That was when I realized I'd been out of it two days 
instead of just one. The date didn't mean much to me - by then I wasn't much 
interested in calendars - but I knew it was Monday morning when Ardelia booted 
me out of her bed for the last time and I made that call.
Then I saw the headlines. I'd slept through just about the biggest day for news 
in Junction City's history, it seemed like. SEARCH FOR MISSING CHILDREN 
CONTINUES, it said on one side. There was pictures of Tom Gibson and Patsy 
Harrigan. The headline on the other side read COUNTY CORONER SAYS DEPUTY DIED OF 
HEART ATTACK. Below that one there was a picture of John Power.
'I took one of the papers and left a nickel on top of the pile, which was how it 
was done back in the days when people still mostly trusted each other. Then I 
sat down, right there on the curb, and read both stories. The one about the kids 
was shorter. The thing was, nobody was very worried about em just yet - Sheriff 
Beeman was treatin it as a runaway case.
'She'd picked the right kids, all right; those two really were brats, and birds 
of a feather flock together. They was always chummin around. They lived on the 
same block, and the story said they'd gotten in trouble the week before when 
Patsy Harrigan's mother caught em smokin cigarettes in the back shed. The Gibson 
boy had a no-account uncle with a farm in Nebraska, and Norm Beeman was pretty 
sure that's where they were headed - I told you he wasn't much in the brains 
department. But how could he know? And he was right about one thing -they 
weren't the kind of kids who fall down wells or get drownded swimmin in the 
Proverbia River. But I knew where they were, and I knew Ardelia had beaten the 
clock again. I knew they'd find all three of them together, and later on that 
day, they did. I'd saved Tansy Power, and I'd saved myself, but I couldn't find 
much consolation in that.
'The story about Deputy Power was longer. It was the second one, because Power 
had been found late Monday afternoon. His death'd been reported in Tuesday's 
paper, but not the cause. He'd been found slumped behind the wheel of his 
cruiser about a mile west of the Orday farm. That was a place I knew pretty 
well, because it was where I usually left the road and went into the corn on my 
way to Ardelia's.
'I could fill in the blanks pretty well. John Power wasn't a man to let the 
grass grow under his feet, and he must have headed out to Ardelia's house almost 
as soon as I hung up that pay telephone beside the Texaco station. He might have 
called his wife first, and told her to keep Tansy in the house until she heard 
from him. That wasn't in the paper, of course, but I bet he did.
'When he got there, she must have known that I'd told on her and the game was 
up. So she killed him. She ... she hugged him to death, the way she did Mr 
Lavin. He had a lot of hard bark on him, just like I told her, but a maple tree 
has hard bark on it, too, and you can still get the sap to run out of it, if you 
drive your plug in deep enough. I imagine she drove hers plenty deep.
'When he was dead, she must have driven him in his own cruiser out to the place 
where he was found. Even though that road - Garson Road - wasn't much travelled 
back then, it still took a heap of guts to do that. But what else could she do? 
Call the Sheriffs Office and tell em John Power'd had a heart attack while he 
was talkin to her? That would have started up a lot more questions at the very 
time when she didn't want nobody thinkin of her at all. And, you know, even Norm 
Beeman would have been curious about why John Power had been in such a tearin 
hurry to talk to the city librarian.
'So she drove him out Garson Road almost to the Orday farm, parked his cruiser 
in the ditch, and then she went back to her own house the same way I always went 
- through the corn.'
Dave looked from Sam to Naomi and then back to Sam again.
'I'll bet I know what she did next, too. I'll bet she started lookin for me.
'I don't mean she jumped in her car and started drivin around Junction City, 
pokin her head into all my usual holes; she didn't have to. Time and time again 
over those years she would show up where I was when she wanted me, or she would 
send one of the kids with a folded-over note. Didn't matter if I was sittin in a 
pile of boxes behind the barber shop or fishin out at Grayling's Stream or if I 
was just drunk behind the freight depot, she knew where I was to be found. That 
was one of her talents.
'Not that last time, though - the time she wanted to find me most of all - and I 
think I know why. I told you that I didn't fall asleep or even black out after 
makin that call; it was more like goin into a coma, or bein dead. And when she 
turned whatever eye she had in her mind outward, looking for me, it couldn't see 
me. I don't know how many times that day and that night her eye might have 
passed right over where I lay, and I don't want to know. I only know if she'd 
found me, it wouldn't have been any kid with a foldedover note that showed up. 
It would have been her, and I can't even imagine what she would have done to me 
for interfering with her plans the way I did.
'She probably would have found me anyway if she'd had more time, but she didn't. 
Her plans were laid, that was one thing. And then there was the way her change 
was speedin up. Her time of sleep was comin on, and she couldn't waste time 
lookin for me. Besides, she must have known she'd have another chance, further 
up the line. And now her chance has come.'
'I don't understand what you mean,' Sam said.
'Of course you do,' Dave replied. 'Who took the books that have put you in this 
jam? Who sent em to the pulper, along with your newspapers? I did. Don't you 
think she knows that?'
'Do you think that she still wants you?' Naomi asked.
'Yes, but not the way she did. Now she only wants to kill me.' His head turned 
and his bright, sorrowful eyes gazed into Sam's. 'You're the one she wants now.'
Sam laughed uneasily. 'I'm sure she was a firecracker thirty years ago,' he 
said, 'but the lady has aged. She's really not my type.'
'I guess you don't understand after all,' Dave said. 'She doesn't want to fuck 
you, Sam; she wants to be you.'
10
After a few moments Sam said, 'Wait. just hold on a second.'
'You've heard me, but you haven't taken it to heart the way you need to,' Dave 
told him. His voice was patient but weary; terribly weary. 'So let me tell you a 
little more.
'After Ardelia killed John Power, she put him far enough away so she wouldn't be 
the first one to fall under suspicion. Then she went ahead and opened the 
Library that afternoon, just like always. Part of it was because a guilty person 
looks more suspicious if they swerve away from their usual routines, but that 
wasn't all of it. Her change was right upon her, and she had to have those 
children's lives. Don't even think about asking me why, because I don't know. 
Maybe she's like a bear that has to stuff itself before it goes into 
hibernation. All I can be sure of is that she had to make sure there was a Story 
Hour that Monday afternoon . . . and she did.
'Sometime during that Story Hour, when all the kids were sittin around her in 
the trance she could put em into, she told Tom and Patsy that she wanted em to 
come to the Library on Tuesday morning, even though the Library was closed 
Tuesdays and Thursdays in the summer. They did, and she did for em, and then she 
went to sleep ... that sleep that looks so much like death. And now you come 
along, Sam, thirty years later. You know me, and Ardelia still owes me a 
settling up, so that is a start ... but there's something a lot better than 
that. You also know about the Library Police.'
'I don't know how -'
'No, you don't know how you know, and that makes you even better. Because 
secrets that are so bad that we even have to hide them from ourselves ... for 
someone like Ardelia Lortz, those are the best secrets of all. Plus, look at the 
bonuses - you're young, you're single, and you have no close friends. That's 
true, isn't it?'
'I would have said so until today,' Sam said after a moment's thought. 'I would 
have said the only good friends I made since I came to Junction City have moved 
away. But I consider you and Naomi my friends, Dave. I consider you very good 
friends indeed. The best.'
Naomi took Sam's hand and squeezed it briefly.
'I appreciate that,' Dave said, 'but it doesn't matter, because she intends to 
do for me and Sarah as well. The more the merrier, as she told me once. She has 
to take lives to get through her time of change ... and waking up must be a time 
of change for her, too.'
'You're saying that she means to possess Sam somehow, aren't you?' Naomi asked.
'I think I mean a little more than that, Sarah. I think she means to destroy 
whatever there is inside Sam that makes him Sam - I think she means to clean him 
out the way a kid cleans out a pumpkin to make a Halloween jack-o-lantern, and 
then she's going to put him on like you'd put on a suit of new clothes. And 
after that happens - if it does - he'll go on lookin like a man named Sam 
Peebles, but he won't be a man anymore, no more than Ardelia Lortz was ever a 
woman. There's somethin not human, some it hidin inside her skin, and I think I 
always knew that. It's inside . . . but it's forever an outsider. Where did 
Ardelia Lortz come from? Where did she live before she came to Junction City? I 
think, if you checked, you'd find that everything she put on the references she 
showed Mr Lavin was a lie, and that nobody in town really knew. I think it was 
John Power's curiosity about that very thing that sealed his fate. But I think 
there was a real Ardelia Lortz at one time . . . in Pass Christian, Mississippi 
... or Harrisburg, Pennsylvania ... or Portland, Maine ... and the it took her 
over and put her on. Now she wants to do it again. If we let that happen, I 
think that later this year, in some other town, in San Francisco, California ... 
or Butte, Montana ... or Kingston, Rhode Island ... a man named Sam Peebles will 
show up. Most people will like him. Children in particular will like him ... 
although they may be afraid of him, too, in some way they don't understand and 
can't talk about.
'And, of course, he will be a librarian.'
CHAPTER 12
By Air to Des Moines
1
Sam looked at his wristwatch and was astounded to see it was almost 3:00 P.M. 
Midnight was only nine hours away, and then the tall man with the silver eyes 
would be back. Or Ardelia Lortz would be back. Or maybe both of them together.
'What do you think I should do, Dave? Go out to the local graveyard and find 
Ardelia's body and pound a stake through her heart?'
'A good trick if you could do it,' he replied, 'since the lady was cremated.'
'Oh,' Sam said. He settled back into his chair with a little helpless sigh.
Naomi took his hand again. 'In any case, you won't be doing anything alone,' she 
said firmly. 'Dave says she means to do us as well as you, but that's almost 
beside the point. Friends stand by when there's trouble. That's the point. What 
else are they for?'
Sam lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. 'Thank you - but I don't know 
what you can do. Or me, either. There doesn't seem to be anything to do. Unless 
. . .' He looked at Dave hopefully. 'Unless I ran?'
Dave shook his head. 'She - or it - sees. I told you that. I guess you could 
drive most of the way to Denver before midnight if you really put your foot down 
and the cops didn't catch you, but Ardelia Lortz would be right there to greet 
you when you got out of your car. Or you'd look over in some dark mile and see 
the Library Policeman sittin next to you on the seat.'
The thought of that - the white face and silver eyes, illuminated only by the 
green glow of the dashboard lights - made Sam shiver.
'What, then?'
'I think you both know what has to be done first,' Dave said. He drank the last 
of his iced tea and then set the glass on the porch. 'Just think a minute, and 
you'll see.'
Then they all looked out toward the grain elevator for awhile. Sam's mind was a 
roaring confusion; all he could catch hold of were isolated snatches of Dave 
Duncan's story and the voice of the Library Policeman, with his strange little 
lisp, saying I don't want to hear your thick ecthcuses ... You have until 
midnight ... then I come again.
It was on Naomi's face that light suddenly dawned.
'Of course!' she said. 'How stupid! But . . .'
She asked Dave a question, and Sam's own eyes widened in understanding.
'There's a place in Des Moines, as I recall,' Dave said. 'Pell's. If any place 
can help, it'll be them. Why don't you make a call, Sarah?'
2
When she was gone, Sam said: 'Even if they can help, I don't think we could get 
there before the close of business hours. I can try, I suppose . . .'
'I never expected you'd drive,' Dave said. 'No - you and Sarah have to go out to 
the Proverbia Airport.'
Sam blinked. 'I didn't know there was an airport in Proverbia.'
Dave smiled. 'Well ... I guess that is stretchin it a little. There's a 
half-mile of packed dirt Stan Soames calls a runway. Stan's front parlor is the 
office of Western Iowa Air Charter. You and Sarah talk to Stan. He's got a 
little Navajo. He'll take you to Des Moines and have you back by eight o'clock, 
nine at the latest.'
'What if he's not there?'
'Then we'll try to figure out somethin else. I think he will be, though. The 
only thing Stan loves more than flyin is farmin, and come the spring of the 
year, farmers don't stray far. He'll probably tell you he can't take you because 
of his garden, come to that - he'll say you shoulda made an appointment a few 
days in advance so he could get the Carter boy to come over and babysit his back 
ninety. If he says that, you tell him Dave Duncan sent you, and Dave says it's 
time to pay for the baseballs. Can you remember that?'
'Yes, but what does it mean?'
'Nothing that concerns this business,' Dave said. 'He'll take you, that's the 
important thing. And when he lands you again, never mind comin here. You and 
Sarah drive straight into town.'
Sam felt dread begin to seep into his body. 'To the Library.'
'That's right.'
'Dave, what Naomi said about friends is all very sweet - and maybe even true 
-but I think I have to take it from here. Neither one of you has to be a part of 
this. I was the one responsible for stirring her up again -'
Dave reached out and seized Sam's wrist in a grip of surprising strength. 'If 
you really think that, you haven't heard a word I've said. You're not 
responsible for anything. I carry the deaths of John Power and two little 
children on my conscience - not to mention the terrors I don't know how many 
other children may have suffered - but I'm not responsible, either. Not really. 
I didn't set out to be Ardelia Lortz's companion any more than I set out to be a 
thirty-year drunk. Both things just happened. But she bears me a grudge, and she 
will be back for me, Sam. If I'm not with you when she comes, she'll visit me 
first. And I won't be the only one she visits. Sarah was right, Sam. She and I 
don't have to stay close to protect you; the three of us have to stay close to 
protect each other. Sarah knows about Ardelia, don't you see? If Ardelia don't 
know that already, she will as soon as she shows up tonight. She plans to go on 
from Junction City as you, Sam. Do you think she'll leave anybody behind who 
knows her new identity?'
'But -'
'But nothing,' Dave said. 'In the end it comes down to a real simple choice, one 
even an old souse like me can understand: we share this together or we're gonna 
die at her hands.'
He leaned forward.
'If you want to save Sarah from Ardelia, Sam, forget about bein a hero and start 
rememberin who your Library Policeman was. You have to. Because I don't believe 
Ardelia can take just anyone. There's only one coincidence in this business, but 
it's a killer: once you had a Library Policeman, too. And you have to get that 
memory back.'
'I've tried,' Sam said, and knew that was a lie. Because every time he turned 
his mind toward
(come with me, son ... I'm a poleethman)
that voice, it shied away. He tasted red licorice, which he had never eaten and 
always hated . . . and that was all.
'You have to try harder,' Dave said, 'or there's no hope.'
Sam drew in a deep breath and let it out. Dave's hand touched the back of his 
neck, then squeezed it gently.
'It's the key to this,' Dave said. 'You may even find it's the key to everything 
that has troubled you in your life. To your loneliness and your sadness.'
Sam looked at him, startled. Dave smiled.
'Oh yes,' he said. 'You're lonely, you're sad, and you're closed off from other 
people. You talk a good game, but you don't walk what you talk. Up until today I 
wasn't nothing to you but Dirty Dave who comes to get your papers once a month, 
but a man like me sees a lot, Sam. And it takes one to know one.'
'The key to everything,' Sam mused. He wondered if there really were such 
conveniences, outside of popular novels and movies-of-the-week populated with 
Brave Psychiatrists and Troubled Patients.
'It's true,' Dave persisted. 'Such things are dreadful in their power, Sam. I 
don't blame you for not wantin to search for it. But you can, you know, if You 
want to. You have that choice.'
'Is that something else you learn in AA, Dave?' 
He smiled. 'Well, they teach it there,' he said, 'but that's one I guess I 
always knew.'
Naomi came out onto the porch again. She was smiling and her eyes were 
sparkling.
'Ain't she some gorgeous?' Dave asked quietly.
'Yes,' Sam said. 'She sure is.' He was clearly aware of two things: that he was 
falling in love, and that Dave Duncan knew it.
3
'The man took so long checking that I got worried,' she said, 'but we're in 
luck.'
'Good,' Dave said. 'You two are goin out to see Stan Soames, then. Does the 
Library still close at eight durin the school year, Sarah?'
'Yes - I'm pretty sure it does.'
'I'll be payin a visit there around five o'clock, then. I'll meet you in back, 
where the loadin platform is, between eight and nine. Nearer eight would be 
better - n safer. For Christ's sake, try not to be late.'
'How will we get in?' Sam asked.
'I'll take care of that, don't worry. You just get goin.'
'Maybe we ought to call this guy Soames from here,' Sam said. 'Make sure he's 
available.'
Dave shook his head. 'Won't do no good. Stan's wife left him for another man 
four years ago - claimed he was married to his work, which always makes a good 
excuse for a woman who's got a yen to make a change. There aren't any kids. 
He'll be out in his field. Go on, now. Daylight's wastin.'
Naomi bent over and kissed Dave's cheek. 'Thank you for telling us,' she said.
'I'm glad I did it. It's made me feel ever so much better.'
Sam started to offer Dave his hand, then thought better of it. He bent over the 
old man and hugged him.
4
Stan Soames was a tall, rawboned man with angry eyes burning out of a gentle 
face, a man who already had his summer sunburn although calendar spring had not 
yet run its first month. Sam and Naomi found him in the field behind his house, 
just as Dave had told them they would. Seventy yards north of Soames's idling, 
mud-splashed Rototiller, Sam could see what looked like a dirt road ... but 
since there was a small airplane with a tarpaulin thrown over it at one end and 
a windsock fluttering from a rusty pole at the other, he assumed it was the 
Proverbia Airport's single runway.
'Can't do it,' Soames said. 'I got fifty acres to turn this week and nobody but 
me to do it. You should have called a couple-three days ahead.'
'It's an emergency,' Naomi said. 'Really, Mr Soames.'
He sighed and spread his arms, as if to encompass his entire farm. 'You want to 
know what an emergency is?' he asked. 'What the government's doing to farms like 
this and people like me. That's a dad-ratted emergency. Look, there's a fellow 
over in Cedar Rapids who might -'
'We don't have time to go to Cedar Rapids,' Sam said. 'Dave told us you'd 
probably say -'
'Dave?' Stan Soames turned to him with more interest than he had heretofore 
shown. 'Dave who?'
'Duncan. He told me to say it's time to pay for the baseballs.'
Soames's brows drew down. His hands rolled themselves up into fists, and for 
just a moment Sam thought the man was going to slug him. Then, abruptly, he 
laughed and shook his head.
'After all these years, Dave Duncan pops outta the woodwork with his IOU rolled 
up in his hand! Goddam!'
He began walking toward the Rototiller. He turned his head to them as he did, 
yelling to make himself heard over the machine's enthusiastic blatting. 'Walk on 
over to the airplane while I put this goddam thing away! Mind the boggy patch 
lust on the edge of the runway, or it'll suck your damned shoes off!'
Soames threw the Rototiller into gear. It was hard to tell with all the noise, 
but Sam thought he was still laughing. 'I thought that drunk old bastard was 
gonna die before I could quit evens with him!'
He roared past them toward his barn, leaving Sam and Naomi looking at each 
other.
'What was that all about?' Naomi asked.
'I don't know - Dave wouldn't tell me.' He offered her his arm. 'Madam, will you 
walk with me?'
She took it. 'Thank you, sir.'
They did their best to skirt the mucky place Stan Soames had told them about, 
but didn't entirely make it. Naomi's foot went in to the ankle, and the mud 
pulled her loafer off when she jerked her foot back. Sam bent down, got it, and 
then swept Naomi into his arms.
'Sam, no!' she cried, startled into laughter. 'You'll break your back!'
'Nope,' he said. 'You're light.'
She was . . . and his head suddenly felt light, too. He carried her up the 
graded slope of the runway to the airplane and set her on her feet. Naomi's eyes 
looked up into his with calmness and a sort of luminous clarity. Without 
thinking, he bent and kissed her. After a moment, she put her arms around his 
neck and kissed him back. 
When he looked at her again, he was slightly out of breath. Naomi was smiling.
'You can call me Sarah anytime you want to,' she said. Sam laughed and kissed 
her again.
5
Riding in the Navajo behind Stan Soames was like riding piggyback on a pogo 
stick. They bounced and jounced on uneasy tides of spring air, and Sam thought 
once or twice that they might cheat Ardelia in a way not even that strange 
creature could have foreseen: by spreading themselves all over an Iowa 
cornfield.
Stan Soames didn't seem to be worried, however; he bawled out such hoary old 
ballads as 'Sweet Sue' and 'The Sidewalks of New York' at the top of his voice 
as the Navajo lurched toward Des Moines. Naomi was transfixed, peering out of 
her window at the roads and fields and houses below with her hands cupped to the 
sides of her face to cut the glare.
At last Sam tapped her on the shoulder. 'You act like you've never flown 
before!' he yelled over the mosquito-drone of the engine.
She turned briefly toward him and grinned like an enraptured schoolgirl. 'I 
haven't!' she said, and returned at once to the view.
'I'll be damned,' Sam said, and then tightened his seatbelt as the plane took 
another of its gigantic, bucking leaps.
6
It was twenty past four when the Navajo skittered down from the sky and landed 
at County Airport in Des Moines. Soames taxied to the Civil Air Terminal, killed 
the engine, then opened the door. Sam was a little amused at the twinge of 
jealousy he felt as Soames put his hands on Naomi's waist to help her down.
'Thank you!' she gasped. Her cheeks were now deeply flushed and her eyes were 
dancing. 'That was wonderful!'
Soames smiled, and suddenly he looked forty instead of sixty. 'I've always liked 
it myself,' he said, 'and it beats spendin an afternoon abusin my kidneys on 
that Rototiller ... I have to admit that.' He looked from Naomi to Sam. 'Can you 
tell me what this big emergency is? I'll help if I can - I owe Dave a little 
more'n a puddle-jump from Proverbia to Des Moines and back again.'
'We need to go into town,' Sam said. 'To a place called Pell's Book Shop. 
They're holding a couple of books for us.'
Stan Soames looked at them, eyes wide. 'Come again?'
'Pell's -'
'I know Pell's,' he said. 'New books out front, old books in the back. Biggest 
Selection in the Midwest, the ads say. What I'm tryin to get straight is this: 
you took me away from my garden and got me to fly you all the way across the 
state to get a couple of books?'
'They're very important books, Mr Soames,' Naomi said. She touched one of his 
rough farmer's hands. 'Right now, they're just about the most important things 
in my life . . . or Sam's.'
'Dave's, too,' Sam said.
'If you told me what was going on,' Soames asked, 'would I be apt to understand 
it?'
'No,' Sam said.
'No,' Naomi agreed, and smiled a little.
Soames blew a deep sigh out of his wide nostrils and stuffed his hands into the 
pockets of his pants. 'Well, I guess it don't matter that much, anyway. I've 
owed Dave this one for ten years, and there have been times when it's weighed on 
my mind pretty heavy.' He brightened. 'And I got to give a pretty young lady her 
first airplane ride. The only thing prettier than a girl after her first plane 
ride is a girl after her first -'
He stopped abruptly and scuffed at the tar with his shoes. Naomi looked 
discreetly off toward the horizon. Just then a fuel truck drove up. Soames 
walked over quickly and fell into deep conversation with the driver.
Sam said, 'You had quite an effect on our fearless pilot.'
'Maybe I did, at that,' she said. 'I feel wonderful, Sam. Isn't that crazy?'
He stroked an errant lock of her hair back into place behind her ear. 'It's been 
a crazy day. The craziest day I can ever remember.'
But the inside voice spoke then - it drifted up from that deep place where great 
objects were still in motion - and told him that wasn't quite true. There was 
one other that had been just as crazy. More crazy. The day of The Black Arrow 
and the red licorice.
That strange, stifled panic rose in him again, and he closed his ears to that 
voice.
If you want to save Sarah from Ardelia, Sam, forget about bein a hero and start 
rememberin who your Library Policeman was.
I don't! I can't! I ... I mustn't!
You have to get that memory back.
I mustn't! It's not allowed!
You have to try harder or there's no hope.
'I really have to go home now,' Sam Peebles muttered.
Naomi, who had strolled away to look at the Navajo's wing-flaps, heard him and 
came back.
'Did you say something?'
'Nothing. It doesn't matter.' 
'You look very pale.'
'I'm very tense,' he said edgily.
Stan Soames returned. He cocked a thumb at the driver of the fuel truck. 'Dawson 
says I can borrow his car. I'll run you into town.'
'We could call a cab -' Sam began.
Naomi was shaking her head. 'Time's too short for that,' she said. 'Thank you 
very much, Mr Soames.'
'Aw, hell,' Soames said, and then flashed her a little-boy grin. 'You go on and 
call me Stan. Let's go. Dawson says there's low pressure movin in from Colorado. 
I want to get back to Junction City before the rain starts.'
7
Pell's was a big barnlike structure on the edge of the Des Moines business 
district - the very antithesis of the mall-bred chain bookstore. Naomi asked for 
Mike. She was directed to the customer-service desk, a kiosk which stood like a 
customs booth between the section which sold new books and the larger one which 
sold old books.
'My name is Naomi Higgins. I talked to you on the telephone earlier?'
'Ah, yes,' Mike said. He rummaged on one of his cluttered shelves and brought 
out two books. One was Best Loved Poems of the American People; the other was 
The Speaker's Companion, edited by Kent Adelmen. Sam Peebles had never been so 
glad to see two books in his life, and he found himself fighting an impulse to 
snatch them from the clerk's hands and hug them to his chest.
'Best Loved Poems is easy,' Mike said, 'but The Speaker's Companion is out of 
print. I'd guess Pell's is the only bookshop between here and Denver with a copy 
as nice as this one ... except for library copies, of course.'
'They both look great to me,' Sam said with deep feeling.
'Is it a gift?'
'Sort of.'
'I can have it gift-wrapped for you, if you like; it would only take a second.'
'That won't be necessary,' Naomi said.
The combined price of the books was twenty-two dollars and fifty-seven cents.
'I can't believe it,' Sam said as they left the store and walked towards the 
place where Stan Soames had parked the borrowed car. He held the bag tightly in 
one hand. 'I can't believe it's as simple as just ... just returning the books.'
'Don't worry,' Naomi said. 'It won't be.'
8
As they drove back to the airport, Sam asked Stan Soames if he could tell them 
about Dave and the baseballs.
'If it's personal, that's okay. I'm just curious.'
Soames glanced at the bag Sam held in his lap. 'I'm sorta curious about those, 
too,' he said. 'I'll make you a deal. The thing with the baseballs happened ten 
years ago. I'll tell you about that if you'll tell me about the books ten years 
from now.'
'Deal,' Naomi said from the back seat, and then added what Sam himself had been 
thinking. 'If we're all still around, of course.'
Soames laughed. 'Yeah . . . I suppose there's always that possibility, isn't 
there?'
Sam nodded. 'Lousy things sometimes happen.'
'They sure do. One of em happened to my only boy in 1980. The doctors called it 
leukemia, but it's really just what you said - one of those lousy things that 
sometimes happens.'
'Oh, I'm so sorry,' Naomi said.
'Thanks. Every now and then I start to think I'm over it, and then it gets on my 
blind side and hits me again. I guess some things take a long time to shake out, 
and some things don't ever shake out.'
Some things don't ever shake out.
Come with me, son ... I'm a poleethman.
I really have to go home now ... is my fine paid?
Sam touched the corner of his mouth with a trembling hand.
'Well, hell, I'd known Dave a long time before it ever happened,' Stan Soames 
said. They passed a sign which read AIRPORT 3 MI. 'We grew up together, went to 
school together, sowed a mess of wild oats together. The only thing was, I 
reaped my crop and quit. Dave just went on sowin.'
Soames shook his head.
'Drunk or sober, he was one of the sweetest fellows I ever met. But it got so he 
was drunk more'n he was sober, and we kinda fell out of touch. It seemed like 
the worst time for him was in the late fifties. During those years he was drunk 
all the time. After that he started going to AA, and he seemed to get a little 
better ... but he'd always fall off the wagon with a crash.
'I got married in '68, and I wanted to ask him to be my best man, but I didn't 
dare. As it happened, he turned up sober - that time - but you couldn't trust 
him to turn up sober.'
'I know what you mean,' Naomi said quietly.
Stan Soames laughed. 'Well, I sort of doubt that - a little sweetie like you 
wouldn't know what miseries a dedicated boozehound can get himself into - but 
take it from me. If I'd asked Dave to stand up for me at the wedding, Laura - 
that's my ex - would have shit bricks. But Dave did come, and I saw him a little 
more frequently after our boy Joe was born in 1970. Dave seemed to have a 
special feeling for all kids during those years when he was trying to pull 
himself out of the bottle.
'The thing Joey loved most was baseball. He was nuts for it - he collected 
sticker books, chewing-gum cards ... he even pestered me to get a satellite dish 
so we could watch all the Royals games - the Royals were his favorites - and the 
Cubs, too, on WGN from Chicago. By the time he was eight, he knew the averages 
of all the Royals starting players, and the won-lost records of damn near every 
pitcher in the American League. Dave and I took him to games three or four 
times. It was a lot like taking a kid on a guided tour of heaven. Dave took him 
alone twice, when I had to work. Laura had a cow about that - said he'd show up 
drunk as a skunk, with the boy left behind, wandering the streets of KC or 
sitting in a police station somewhere, waiting for someone to come and get him. 
But nothing like that ever happened. So far as I know, Dave never took a drink 
when he was around the boy.
'When Joe got the leukemia, the worst part for him was the doctors telling him 
he wouldn't be able to go to any games that year at least until June and maybe 
not at all. He was more depressed about that than he was about having cancer. 
When Dave came to see him, Joe cried about it. Dave hugged him and said, "If you 
can't go to the games, Joey, that's okay; I'll bring the Royals to you."
'Joe stared up at him and says, "You mean in person, Uncle Dave?" That's what he 
called him - Uncle Dave.
"'I can't do that," Dave said, "but I can do somethin almost as good."'
Soames drove up to the Civil Air Terminal gate and blew the horn. The gate 
rumbled back on its track and he drove out to where the Navajo was parked. He 
turned off the engine and just sat behind the wheel for a moment, looking down 
at his hands.
'I always knew Dave was a talented bastard,' he said finally. 'What I don't know 
is how he did what he did so damned fast. All I can figure is that he must have 
worked days and nights both, because he was done in ten days ... and those 
suckers were good.
'He knew he had to go fast, though. The doctors had told me and Laura the truth, 
you see, and I'd told Dave. Joe didn't have much chance of pulling through. 
They'd caught onto what was wrong with him too late. It was roaring in his blood 
like a grassfire.
'About ten days after Dave made that promise, he comes into my son's hospital 
room with a paper shopping-bag in each arm. "What you got there, Uncle Dave?" 
Joe asks, sitting up in bed. He had been pretty low all that day - mostly 
because he was losing his hair, I think; in those days if a kid didn't have hair 
most of the way down his back, he was considered to be pretty low-class - but 
when Dave came in, he brightened right up.
'The Royals, a course," Dave says back. "Didn't I tell you?"
'Then he put those two shopping-bags down on the bed and spilled em out. And you 
never, ever, in your whole life, saw such an expression on a little boy's face. 
It lit up like a Christmas tree ... and ... and shit, I dunno . . .'
Stan Soames's voice had been growing steadily thicker. Now he leaned forward 
against the steering wheel of Dawson's Buick so hard that the horn honked. He 
pulled a large bandanna from his back pocket, wiped his eyes with it. then blew 
his nose.
Naomi had also leaned forward. She pressed one of her hands against Soames's 
cheek. 'If this is too hard for you, Mr Soames -'
'No,' he said, and smiled a little. Sam watched as a tear Stan Soames had missed 
ran its sparkling, unnoticed course down his cheek in the late-afternoon sun. 
'It's just that it brings him back so. How he was. That hurts, miss, but it 
feels good, too. Those two feelings are all wrapped up together.'
'I understand,' she said.
'When Dave tipped over those bags, what spilled out was baseballs - over two 
dozen of them. But they weren't just baseballs, because there was a face painted 
on every one, and each one was the face of a player on the 1980 Kansas City 
Royals baseball team. They weren't those whatdoyoucallums, caricatures, either. 
They were as good as the faces Norman Rockwell used to paint for the covers of 
the Saturday Evening Post. I've seen Dave's work - the work he did before he got 
drinking real heavy - and it was good, but none of it was as good as this. There 
was Willie Aikens and Frank White and U. L. Washington and George Brett ... 
Willie Wilson and Amos Otis . . . Dan Quisenberry, lookin as fierce as a 
gunslinger in an old Western movie ... Paul Splittorff and Ken Brett ... I can't 
remember all the names, but it was the whole damned roster, including Jim Frey, 
the field manager.
'And sometime between when he finished em and when he gave em to my son, he took 
em to KC and got all the players but one to sign em. The one who didn't was 
Darrell Porter, the catcher. He was out with the flu, and he promised to sign 
the ball with his face on it as soon as he could. He did, too.'
'Wow,' Sam said softly.
'And it was all Dave's doing - the man I hear people in town laugh about and 
call Dirty Dave. I tell you, sometimes when I hear people say that and I 
remember what he did for Joe when Joey was dying of the leukemia, I could -'
Soames didn't finish, but his hands curled themselves into fists on his broad 
thighs. And Sam - who had used the name himself until today, and laughed with 
Craig Jones and Frank Stephens over the old drunk with his shoppingcart full of 
newspapers - felt a dull and shameful heat mount into his cheeks.
'That was a wonderful thing to do, wasn't it?' Naomi asked, and touched Stan 
Soames's cheek again. She was crying.
'You shoulda seen his face,' Soames said dreamily. 'You wouldn't have believed 
how he looked, sitting up in his bed and looking down at all those faces with 
their KC baseball caps on their round heads. I can't describe it, but I'll never 
forget it.
'You shoulda seen his face.
'Joe got pretty sick before the end, but he didn't ever get too sick to watch 
the Royals on TV - or listen to em on the radio - and he kept those balls all 
over his room. The windowsill by his bed was the special place of honor, though. 
That's where he'd line up the nine men who were playing in the game he was 
watching or listening to on the radio. If Frey took out the pitcher, Joe would 
take that one down from the windowsill and put up the relief pitcher in his 
place. And when each man batted, Joe would hold that ball in his hands. So -'
Stan Soames broke off abruptly and hid his face in his bandanna. His chest 
hitched twice, and Sam could see his throat locked against a sob. Then he wiped 
his eyes again and stuffed the bandanna briskly into his back pocket.
'So now you know why I took you two to Des Moines today, and why I would have 
taken you to New York to pick up those two books if that's where you'd needed to 
go. It wasn't my treat; it was Dave's. He's a special sort of man.'
'I think maybe you are, too,' Sam said.
Soames gave him a smile - a strange, crooked smile - and opened the door of 
Dawson's Buick. 'Well, thank you,' he said. 'Thank you kindly. And now I think 
we ought to be rolling along if we want to beat the rain. Don't forget the 
books, Miss Higgins.'
'I won't,' Naomi said as she got out with the top of the bag wrapped tightly in 
her hand. 'Believe me, I won't.'
CHAPTER 13
The Library Policeman (II)
1
Twenty minutes after they took off from Des Moines, Naomi tore herself away from 
the view - she had been tracing Route 79 and marvelling at the toy cars bustling 
back and forth along it - and turned to Sam. What she saw frightened her. He had 
fallen asleep with his head resting against one of the windows, but there was no 
peace on his face; he looked like a man suffering from deep and private pain.
Tears trickled slowly from beneath his closed lids and ran down his face.
She leaned forward to shake him awake and heard him say in a trembling 
little-boy's voice: 'Am I in trouble, sir?'
The Navajo arrowed its way into the clouds now massing over western Iowa and 
began to buck, but Naomi barely noticed. Her hand paused just above Sam's 
shoulder for a moment, then withdrew.
Who was YOUR Library Policeman, Sam?
Whoever it was, Naomi thought, he's found him again, I think. I think he's with 
him now. I'm sorry, Sam ... but I can't wake you. Not now. Right now I think 
you're where you're supposed to be ... where you have to be. I'm sorry, but 
dream on. And remember what you dreamed when you wake up. Remember.
Remember.
2
In his dream, Sam Peebles watched as Little Red Riding Hood set off from a 
gingerbread house with a covered basket over one arm; she was bound for Gramma's 
house, where the wolf was waiting to eat her from the feet up. It would finish 
by scalping her and then eating her brains out of her skull with a long wooden 
spoon.
Except none of that was right, because Little Red Riding Hood was a boy in this 
dream and the gingerbread house was the two-story duplex in St Louis where he 
had lived with his mother after Dad died and there was no food in the covered 
basket. There was a book in the basket, The Black Arrow by Robert Louis 
Stevenson, and he had read it, every word, and he was not bound for Gramma's 
house but for the Briggs Avenue Branch of the St Louis Public Library, and he 
had to hurry because his book was already four days overdue.
This was a watching dream.
He watched as Little White Walking Sam waited at the comer of Dunbar Street and 
Johnstown Avenue for the light to change. He watched as he scampered across the 
street with the book in his hand ... the basket was gone now. He watched as 
Little White Walking Sam went into the Dunbar Street News and then he was 
inside, too, smelling the old mingled smells of camphor, candy, and pipe 
tobacco, watching as Little White Walking Sam approached the counter with a 
nickle package of Bull's Eye red licorice - his favorite. He watched as the 
little boy carefully removed the dollar bill his mother had tucked into the 
card-pocket in the back of The Black Arrow. He watched as the clerk took the 
dollar and returned ninety-five cents ... more than enough to pay the fine. He 
watched as Little White Walking Sam left the store and paused on the street 
outside long enough to put the change in his pocket and tear open the package of 
licorice with his teeth. He watched as Little White Walking Sam went on his way 
- only three blocks to the Library now - munching the long red whips of candy as 
he went.
He tried to scream at the boy.
Beware! Beware! The wolf is waiting, little boy! Beware the wolf! Beware the 
wolf!
But the boy walked on, eating his red licorice; now he was on Briggs Avenue and 
the Library, a great pile of red brick, loomed ahead.
At this point Sam - Big White Plane-Riding Sam - tried to pull himself out of 
the dream. He sensed that Naomi and Stan Soames and the world of real things 
were just outside this hellish egg of nightmare in which he found himself. He 
could hear the drone of the Navajo's engine behind the sounds of the dream: the 
traffic on Briggs Avenue, the brisk brrrinnng!-brrrinnng! of some kid's 
bike-bell, the birds squabbling in the rich leaves of the midsummer elms. He 
closed his dreaming eyes and yearned toward that world outside the shell, the 
world of real things. And more: he sensed he could reach it, that he could 
hammer through the shell 
No, Dave said. No, Sam, don't do that. You mustn't do that. If you want to save 
Sarah from Ardelia, forget about breaking out of this dream. There's only one 
coincidence in this business, but it's a killer: once You had a Library 
Policeman, too. And you have to get that memory back.
I don't want to see. I don't want to know. Once was bad enough.
Nothing is as bad as what's watting for you, Sam. Nothing.
He opened his eyes - not his outer eyes but the inside ones; the dreaming eyes.
Now Little White. Walking Sam is on the concrete path which approaches the east 
side of the Public Library, the concrete path which leads to the Children's 
Wing. He moves in a kind of portentous slow motion, each step the soft swish of 
a pendulum in the glass throat of a grandfather clock, and everything is clear: 
the tiny sparks of mica and quartz gleaming in the concrete walk; the cheerful 
roses which border the concrete walk; the thick drift of green bushes along the 
side of the building; the climbing ivy on the red brick wall; the strange and 
somehow frightening Latin motto, Fuimus, non sumus, carved in a brief semicircle 
over the green doors with their thick panes of wire-reinforced glass.
And the Library Policeman standing by the steps is clear, too.
He is not pale. He is flushed. There are pimples on his forehead, red and 
flaring. He is not tall but of medium height with extremely broad shoulders. He 
is wearing not a trenchcoat but an overcoat, and that's very odd because this is 
a summer day, a hot St Louis summer day. His eyes might be silver; Little White 
Walking Sam cannot see what color they are, because the Library Policeman is 
wearing little round black glasses - blind man's glasses.
He's not a Library Policeman! He's the wolf! Beware! He's the wolf! The Library 
WOLF!
But Little White Walking Sam doesn't hear. Little White Walking Sam isn't 
afraid. It is, after all, bright daylight, and the city is full of strange - and 
sometimes amusing - people. He has lived all his life in St Louis, and he's not 
afraid of it. That is about to change.
He approaches the man, and as he draws closer he notices the scar: a tiny white 
thread which starts high on the left cheek, dips beneath the left eye, and 
peters out on the bridge of the nose.
Hello there, son, the man in the round black glasses says.
Hello, says Little White Walking Sam.
Do you mind telling me thomething about the book you have before you go inthide? 
the man asks. His voice is soft and polite, not a bit threatening. A faint lisp 
clips lightly along the top of his speech, turning some of his s-sounds into 
diphthongs. I work for the Library, you thee.
It's called The Black Arrow, Little White Walking Sam says politely, and it's by 
Mr Robert Louis Stevenson. He's dead. He died of toober-clue-rosis. It was very 
good. There were some great battles.
The boy waits for the man in the little round black glasses to step aside and 
let him go in, but the man in the little round black glasses does not stand 
aside. The man only bends down to look at him more closely. Grandpa, what little 
round black eyes you have.
One other question, the man says. Is your book overdue?
Now Little White Walking Sam is more afraid.
Yes ... but only a little. Only four days. It was very long, you see, and I have 
Little League, and day camp, and 
Come with me' son ... I'm a poleethman.
The man in the black glasses and the overcoat extends a hand. For a moment Sam 
almost runs. But he is a kid; this man is an adult. This man works for the 
Library. This man is a policeman. Suddenly this man - this scary man with his 
scar and his round black glasses - is all Authority. One cannot run from 
Authority; it is everywhere.
Sam timidly approaches the man. He begins to lift his hand - the one holding the 
package of red licorice, which is now almost empty - and then tries to pull it 
back at the last second. He is too late. The man seizes it. The package of 
Bull's Eye licorice falls to the walk. Little White Walking Sam will never eat 
red licorice again.
The man pulls Sam toward him, reels him in the way a fisherman would reel in a 
trout. The hand clamped over Sam's is very strong. It hurts. Sam begins to cry. 
The sun is still out, the grass is still green, but suddenly the whole world 
seems distant, no more than a cruel mirage in which he was for a little while 
allowed to believe.
He can smell Sen-Sen on the man's breath. Am I in trouble, sir? he asks, hoping 
with every fiber of his being that the man will say no.
Yes, the man says. Yes, you are. In a LOT of trouble. And if you want to get out 
of trouble, son, you have to do eahactly as I thay. Do you underthand?
Sam cannot reply. He has never been so afraid. He can only look up at the man 
with wide, streaming eyes.
The man shakes him. Do you underthand or not?
Ye -yes! Sam gasps. He feels an almost irresistible heaviness in his bladder.
Let me tell you ectliactly who I am, the man says, breathing little puffs of 
Sen-Sen in Sam's face. I am the Briggth Avenue Library Cop, and I am in charge 
of punishing boyth and girlth who bring their books back late.
Little White Walking Sam begins to cry harder. I've got the money! he manages 
through his sobs. I've got ninety-five cents! You can have it! You can have it 
all!
He tries to pull the change out of his pocket. At the same moment the Library 
Cop looks around and his broad face suddenly seems sharp, suddenly the face of a 
fox or wolf who has successfully broken into the chicken house but now smells 
danger.
Come on, he says, and jerks Little White Walking Sam off the path and into the 
thick bushes which grow along the side of the Library. When the poleethman 
tellth you to come, you COME! It is dark in here; dark and mysterious. The air 
smells of pungent juniper berries. The ground is dark with mulch. Sam is crying 
very loudly now.
Thut up! the Library Policeman grunts, and gives Sam a hard shake. The bones in 
Sam's hand grind together painfully. His head wobbles on his neck. They have 
reached a little clearing in the jungle of bushes now, a cove where the junipers 
have been smashed flat and the ferns broken off, and Sam understands that this 
is more than a place the Library Cop knows; it is a place he has made.
Thut up, or the fine will only be the beginning! I'll have to call your mother 
and tell her what a bad bay you've been! Do you want that?
No! Sam weeps. I'll pay the fine! I'll pay it, mister, but please don't hurt me!
The Library Policeman spins Little White Walking Sam around.
Put your hands up on the wall! Thpread your feet! Now! Quick!
Still sobbing, but terrified that his mother may find out he has done something 
bad enough to merit this sort of treatment, Little White Walking Sam does as the 
Library Cop tells him. The red bricks are cool, cool in the shade of the bushes 
which lie against this side of the building in a tangled, untidy heap. He sees a 
narrow window at ground level. It looks down into the Library's boiler room. 
Bare bulbs shaded with rounds of tin like Chinese coolie hats hang over the 
giant boiler; the duct-pipes throw weird octopustangles of shadow. He sees a 
janitor standing at the far wall, his back to the window, reading dials and 
making notes on a clipboard.
The Library Cop seizes Sam's pants and pulls them down. His underpants come with 
them. He jerks as the cool air strikes his bum.
Thdeady, the Library Policeman pants. Don't move. Once you pay the fine, son, 
it's over ... and no one needth to know.
Something heavy and hot presses itself against his bottom. Little White Walking 
Sam jerks again.
Thdeady, the Library Policeman says. He is panting harder now; Sam feels hot 
blurts of breath on his left shoulder and smells Sen-Sen. He is lost in terror 
now, but terror isn't all that he feels: there is shame, as well. He has been 
dragged into the shadows, is being forced to submit to this grotesque, unknown 
punishment, because he has been late returning The Black Arrow. If he had only 
known that fines could run this high -!
The heavy thing jabs into his bottom, thrusting his buttocks apart. A horrible, 
tearing pain laces upward from Little White Walking Sam's vitals. There has 
never been pain like this, never in the world.
He drops The Black Arrow and shoves his wrist sideways into his mouth, gagging 
his own cries.
Thdeady, the Library Wolf pants, and now his hands descend on Sam's shoulders 
and he is rocking back and forth, in and out, back and forth, in and out. 
Thdeady ... thdeaady ... oooh! Thdeeeaaaaaaddyyyyy 
Gasping and rocking, the Library Cop pounds what feels like a huge hot bar of 
steel in and out of Sam's bum; Sam stares with wide eyes into the Library 
basement, which is in another universe, an orderly universe where gruesome 
things like this don't ever happen. He watches the janitor nod, tuck his 
clipboard under his arm, and walk toward the door at the far end of the room. If 
the janitor turned his head just a little and raised his eyes slightly, he would 
see a face peering in the window at him, the pallid, wide-eyed face of a little 
boy with red licorice on his lips. Part of Sam wants the janitor to do just that 
- to rescue him the way the woodcutter rescued Little Red Riding Hood - but most 
of him knows the janitor would only turn away, disgusted, at the sight of 
another bad little boy submitting to his just punishment at the hands of the 
Briggs Avenue Library Cop.
Thdeadeeeeeeeeeee! the Library Wolf whisper-screams as the janitor goes out the 
door and into the rest of his orderly universe without looking around. The Wolf 
thrusts even further forward and for one agonized second the pain becomes so bad 
Little White Walking Sam is sure his belly will explode, that whatever it is the 
Library Cop has stuck up his bottom will simply come raving out the front of 
him, pushing his guts ahead of it.
The Library Cop collapses against him in a smear of rancid sweat, panting 
harshly, and Sam slips to his knees under his weight. As he does, the massive 
object - no longer quite so massive - pulls out of him, but Sam can feel wetness 
all over his bottom. He is afraid to put his hands back there. He is afraid that 
when they come back he will discover he has become Little Red Bleeding Sam.
The Library Cop suddenly grasps Sam's arm and pulls him around to face him. His 
face is redder than ever, flushed in puffy, hectic bands like warpaint across 
his cheeks and forehead.
Look at you! the Library Cop says. His face pulls together in a knot of contempt 
and disgust. Look at you with your panth down and your little dingle out! You 
liked it, didn't you? YOU LIKED It!
Sam cannot reply. He can only weep. He pulls his underwear and his pants up 
together, as they were pulled down. He can feel mulch inside them, prickling his 
violated bottom, but he doesn't care. He squirms backward from the Library Cop 
until his back is to the Library's red brick wall. He can feel tough branches of 
ivy, like the bones of a large, fleshless hand, poking into his back. He doesn't 
care about this, either. All he cares about is the shame and terror and the 
sense of worthlessness that now abide in him, and of these three the shame is 
the greatest. The shame is beyond comprehension.
Dirty boy! the Library Cop spits at him. Dirty little boy!
I really have to go home now, Little White Walking Sam says, and the words come 
out minced into segments by his hoarse sobs: Is my fine paid?
The Library Cop crawls toward Sam on his hands and knees, his little round black 
eyes peering into Sam's face like the blind eyes of a mole, and this is somehow 
the final grotesquerie. Sam thinks, He is going to puntsh me again, and at this 
idea something in his mind, some overstressed strut or armature, gives way with 
a soggy snap he can almost hear. He does not cry or protest; he is now past 
that. He only looks at the Library Cop with silent apathy.
No, the Library Cop says. I'm letting you go, thatth all. I'm taking pity on 
you, but if you ever tell anyone ... ever ... I'll come back and do it again. 
I'll do it until the fine is paid. And don't you ever let me catch you around 
here again, son. Do you underthand?
Yes, Sam says. Of course he will come back and do it again if Sam tells. He will 
be in the closet late at night; under the bed; perched in a tree like some 
gigantic, misshapen crow. When Sam looks up into a troubled sky, he will see the 
Library Policeman's twisted, contemptuous face in the clouds. He will be 
anywhere; he will be everywhere.
This thought makes Sam tired, and he closes his eyes against that lunatic 
mole-face, against everything.
The Library Cop grabs him, shakes him again. Yeth, what? he hisses. Yeth what, 
son?
Yes, I understand, Sam tells him without opening his eyes.
The Library Policeman withdraws his hand. Good, he says. You better not forget. 
When bad boys and girls forget, I kill them.
Little White Walking Sam sits against the wall with his eyes closed for a long 
time, waiting for the Library Cop to begin punishing him again, or to simply 
kill him. He wants to cry, but there are no tears. It will be years before he 
cries again, over anything. At last he opens his eyes and sees he is alone in 
the Library Cop's den in the bushes. The Library Cop is gone. There is only Sam, 
and his copy of The Black Arrow, lying open on its spine.
Sam begins to crawl toward daylight on his hands and knees. Leaves tickle his 
sweaty, tear-streaked face, branches scrape his back and spank against his hurt 
bottom. He takes The Black Arrow with him, but he will not bring it into the 
Library. He will never go into the Library, any Library, ever again: this is the 
promise he makes to himself as he crawls away from the place of his punishment. 
He makes another promise, as well: nobody will ever find out about this terrible 
thing, because he intends to forget it ever happened. He senses he can do this. 
He can do it if he tries very, very hard, and he intends to start trying very, 
very hard right now.
When he reaches the edge of the bushes, he looks out like a small hunted animal. 
He sees kids crossing the lawn. He doesn't see the Library Cop, but of course 
this doesn't matter; the Library Cop sees him. From today on, the Library Cop 
will always be close.
At last the lawn is empty. A small, dishevelled boy, Little White Crawling Sam, 
wriggles out of the bushes with leaves in his hair and dirt on his face. His 
untucked shirt billows below him. His eyes are wide and staring and no longer 
completely sane. He sidles over to the concrete steps, casts one cringing, 
terrified look up at the cryptic Latin motto inscribed over the door, and then 
lays his book down on one of the steps with all the care and terror of an orphan 
girl leaving her nameless child on some stranger's doorstep. Then Little White 
Walking Sam becomes Little White Running Sam: he runs across the lawn, he sets 
the Briggs Avenue Branch of the St Louis Public Library to his back and runs, 
but it doesn't matter how fast he runs because he can't outrun the taste of red 
licorice on his tongue and down his throat, sweet and sugar-slimy, and no matter 
how fast he runs the Library Wolf of course runs with him, the Library Wolf is 
just behind his shoulder where he cannot see, and the Library Wolf is whispering 
Come with me, son ... I'm a poleethman, and he will always whisper that, through 
all the years he will whisper that, in those dark dreams Sam dares not remember 
he will whisper that, Sam will always run from that voice screaming Is it paid 
yet? Is the fine paid yet? Oh dear God please, IS MY FINE PAID YET? And the 
answer which comes back is always the same: It will never be paid, son; it will 
never be paid. Never. Nev 
CHAPTER 14
The Library (III)
1
The final approach to the dirt runway which Stan called the Proverbia Airport 
was bumpy and scary. The Navajo came down, feeling its way through stacks of 
angry air, and landed with a final jarring thump. When it did, Sam uttered a 
pinched scream. His eyes flew open.
Naomi had been waiting patiently for something like this. She leaned forward at 
once, ignoring the seatbelt which cut into her middle, and put her arms around 
him. She ignored his raised arms and first instinctive drawing away, just as she 
ignored the first hot and unpleasant outrush of horrified breath. She had 
comforted a great many drunks in the grip of the d.t.'s; this wasn't much 
different. She could feel his heart as she pressed against him. It seemed to 
leap and skitter just below his shirt.
'It's okay. Sam, it's okay - it's just me, and you're back. It was a dream. 
You're back.'
For a moment he continued trying to push himself into his scat. Then he 
collapsed, limp. His hands came up and hugged her with panicky tightness.
'Naomi,' he said in a harsh, choked voice. 'Naomi, oh Naomi, oh dear Jesus, what 
a nightmare I had, what a terrible dream.'
Stan had radioed ahead, and someone had come out to turn on the runway landing 
lights. They were taxiing between them toward the end of the runway now. They 
had not beaten the rain after all; it drummed hollowly on the body of the plane. 
Up front, Stan Soames was bellowing out something which might have been 
'Camptown Races.'
'Was it a nightmare?' Naomi asked, drawing back from Sam so she could look into 
his bloodshot eyes.
'Yes. But it was also true. All true.'
'Was it the Library Policeman, Sam? Your Library Policeman?'
'Yes,' he whispered, and pressed his face into her hair.
'Do you know who he is? Do you know who he is now, Sam?'
After a long, long moment, Sam whispered: 'I know.' 
2
Stan Soames took a look at Sam's face as he and Naomi stepped from the plane and 
was instantly contrite. 'Sorry it was so rough. I really thought we'd beat the 
rain. It's just that with a headwind -'
'I'll be okay,' Sam said. He was, in fact, looking better already.
'Yes,' Naomi said. 'He'll be fine. Thank you, Stan. Thank you so much. And Dave 
thanks you, too.'
'Well, as long as you got what you needed?'
'We did,' Sam assured him. 'We really did.'
'Let's walk around the end of the runway,' Stan told them. 'That boggy place'd 
suck you right in to your waist if you tried the shortcut this evening. Come on 
into the house. We'll have coffee. There's some apple pie, too, I think.'
Sam glanced at his watch. It was quarter past seven.
'We'll have to take a raincheck, Stan,' he said. 'Naomi and I have to get these 
books into town right away.'
'You ought to at least come in and dry off. You're gonna be soaked by the time 
you get to your car.'
Naomi shook her head. 'It's very important.'
'Yeah,' Stan said. 'From the look of you two, I'd say it is. Just remember that 
you promised to tell me the story.'
'We will, too,' Sam said. He glanced at Naomi and saw his own thought reflected 
in her eyes: If we're still alive to tell it.
3
Sam drove, resisting an urge to tromp the gas pedal all the way to the floor. He 
was worried about Dave. Driving off the road and turning Naomi's car over in the 
ditch wasn't a very effective way of showing concern, however, and the rain in 
which they had landed was now a downpour driven by a freshening wind. The wipers 
could not keep up with it, even on high, and the headlights petered out after 
twenty feet. Sam dared drive no more than twenty-five. He glanced at his watch, 
then looked over at where Naomi sat, with the bookshop bag in her lap.
'I hope we can make it by eight,' he said, 'but I don't know.'
'Just do the best you can, Sam.'
Headlights, wavery as the lights of an undersea diving bell, loomed ahead. Sam 
slowed to ten miles an hour and squeezed left as a ten-wheeler rumbled by - a 
half-glimpsed hulk in the rainy darkness.
'Can you talk about it? The dream you had?'
'I could, but I'm not going to,' he said. 'Not now. It's the wrong time.'
Naomi considered, this, then nodded her head. 'All right.'
'I can tell you this much - Dave was right when he said children made the best 
meal, and he was right when he said that what she really lived on is fear.'
They had reached the outskirts of town. A block further on, they drove through 
their first light-controlled intersection. Through the Datsun's windshield, the 
signal was only a bright-green smear dancing in the air above them. A 
corresponding smear danced across the smooth wet hide of the pavement.
'I need to make one stop before we get to the Library,' Sam said. 'The Piggly 
Wiggly's on the way, isn't it?'
'Yes, but if we're going to meet Dave behind the Library at eight, we really 
don't have much time to spare. Like it or not, this is go-slow weather.'
'I know - but this won't take long.'
'What do you need?'
'I'm not sure,' he said, 'but I think I'll know it when I see it.'
She glanced at him, and for the second time he found himself amazed by the 
foxlike, fragile quality of her beauty, and unable to understand why he had 
never seen it before today.
Well, you dated her, didn't you? You must have seen SOMETHING.
Except he hadn't. He had dated her because she was pretty, presentable, 
unattached, and approximately his own age. He had dated her because bachelors in 
cities which were really just overgrown small towns were supposed to date ... if 
they were bachelors interested in making a place for themselves in the local 
business community, that was. If you didn't date, people ... some people ... 
might think you were
(a poleethman)
a little bit funny.
I WAS a little funny, he thought. On second thought, I was a LOT funny. But 
whatever I was, I think Pm a little different now. And I am seeing her. There's 
that. I'm really SEEING her.
For Naomi's part, she was struck by the strained whiteness of his face and the 
look of tension around his eyes and mouth. He looked strange ... but he no 
longer looked terrified. Naomi thought: He looks like a man who has been granted 
the opportunity to return to his worst nightmare ... with some Powerful weapon 
in his hands.
She thought it was a face she might be falling in love with, and this made her 
deeply uneasy.
'This stop ... it's important, isn't it?'
'I think so, yes.'
Five minutes later he stopped in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly store. Sam 
was out at once and dashing for the door through the rain.
Halfway there, he stopped. A telephone booth stood at the side of the parking 
lot - the same booth, undoubtedly, where Dave had made his call to the Junction 
City Sheriffs Office all those years before. The call made from that booth had 
not killed Ardelia . . . but it had driven her off for a good long while.
Sam stepped into it. The light went on. There was nothing to see; it was just a 
phone booth with numbers and graffiti scribbled on the steel walls. The 
telephone book was gone, and Sam remembered Dave saying, This was back in the 
days when you could sometimes still find a telephone book in a telephone booth, 
if you were lucky.
Then he glanced at the floor, and saw what he had been looking for. It was a 
wrapper. He picked it up, smoothed it out, and read what was written there in 
the dingy overhead light: Bull's Eye Red Licorice.
From behind him, Naomi beat an impatient tattoo on the Datsun's horn. Sam left 
the booth with the wrapper in his hand, waved to her, and ran into the store 
through the pouring rain.
4
The Piggly Wiggly clerk looked like a young man who had been cryogenically 
frozen in 1969 and thawed out just that week. His eyes had the red and slightly 
glazed look of the veteran dope-smoker. His hair was long and held with a 
rawhide jesus thong. On one pinky he wore a silver ring beaten into the shape of 
the peace sign. Beneath his Piggly Wiggly tunic was a billowy shirt in an 
extravagant flower print. Pinned to the collar was a button which read
MY FACE IS LEAVING IN 5 MINUTES BE ON IT!
Sam doubted if this was a sentiment of which the store manager would have 
approved ... but it was a rainy night, and the store manager was nowhere in 
sight. Sam was the only customer in the place, and the clerk watched him with a 
bemused and uninvolved eye as he went to the candy rack and began to pick up 
packages of Bull's Eye Red Licorice. Sam took the entire stock - about twenty 
packages.
'You sure you got enough, dude?' the clerk asked him as Sam approached the 
counter and laid his trove upon it. 'I think there might be another carton or 
two of the stuff out back in the storeroom. I know how it is when you get a 
serious case of the munchies.'
'This should do. Ring it up, would you? I'm in a hurry.'
'Yeah, it's a hurry-ass world,' the clerk said. His fingers tripped over the 
keys of the NCR register with the dreamy slowness of the habitually stoned.
There was a rubber band lying on the counter beside a baseball-card display. Sam 
picked it up. 'Could I have this?'
'Be my guest, dude - consider it a gift from me, the Prince of Piggly Wiggly, to 
you, the Lord of Licorice, on a rainy Monday evening.'
As Sam slipped the rubber band over his wrist (it hung there like a loose 
bracelet), a gust of wind strong enough to rattle the windows shook the 
building. The lights overhead flickered.
'Whoa, dude,' the Prince of Piggly Wiggly said, looking up. 'That wasn't in the 
forecast. Just showers, they said.' He looked back down at the register. 
'Fifteen forty-one.'
Sam handed him a twenty with a small, bitter smile. 'This stuff was a hell of a 
lot cheaper when I was a kid.'
'Inflation sucks the big one, all right,' the clerk agreed. He was slowly 
returning to that soft spot in the ozone where he had been when Sam came in. 
'You must really like that stuff, man. Me, I stick to good old Mars Bars.'
'Like it?' Sam laughed as he pocketed his change. 'I hate it. This is for 
someone else.' He laughed again. 'Call it a present.'
The clerk saw something in Sam's eyes then, and suddenly took a big, hurried 
step away from him, almost knocking over a display of Skoal Bandits.
Sam looked at the clerk's face curiously and decided not to ask for a bag. He 
gathered up the packages, distributed them at random in the pockets of the 
sport-coat he had put on a thousand years ago, and left the store. Cellophane 
crackled busily in his pockets with every stride he took.
5
Naomi had slipped behind the wheel, and she drove the rest of the way to the 
Library. As she pulled out of the Piggly Wiggly's lot, Sam took the two books 
from the Pell's bag and looked at them ruefully for a moment. All this trouble, 
he thought. All this trouble over an outdated book of poems and a self-help 
manual for fledgling public speakers. Except, of course, that wasn't what it was 
about. It had never been about the books at all.
He stripped the rubber band from his wrist and put it around the books. Then he 
took out his wallet, removed a five-dollar bill from his dwindling supply of 
ready cash, and slipped it beneath the elastic.
'What's that for?'
'The fine. What I owe on these two, and one other from a long time ago - The 
Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson. This ends it.'
He put the books on the console between the two bucket seats and took a package 
of red licorice out of his pocket. He tore it open and that old, sugary smell 
struck him at once, with the force of a hard slap. From his nose it seemed to go 
directly into his head, and from his head it plummeted into his stomach, which 
immediately cramped into a slick, hard fist. For one awful moment he thought he 
was going to vomit in his own lap. Apparently some things never changed.
Nonetheless, he continued opening packages of red licorice, making a bundle of 
limber, waxy-textured candy whips. Naomi slowed as the light at the next 
intersection turned red, then stopped, although Sam could not see another car 
moving in either direction. Rain and wind lashed at her little car. They were 
now only four blocks from the Library. 'Sam, what on earth are you doing?'
And because he didn't really know what on earth he was doing, he said: 'If fear 
is Ardelia's meat, Naomi, we have to find the other thing - the thing that's the 
opposite of fear. Because that, whatever it is, will be her poison. So ... what 
do you think that thing might be?'
'Well, I doubt if it's red licorice.'
He gestured impatiently. 'How can you be so sure? Crosses are supposed to kill 
vampires - the blood-sucking kind - but a cross is only two sticks of wood or 
metal set at right angles to each other. Maybe a head of lettuce would work just 
as well ... if it was turned on.'
The light turned green. 'If it was an organized head of lettuce,' Naomi said 
thoughtfully, driving on.
'Right!' Sam held up half a dozen long red whips. 'All I know is that this is 
what I have. Maybe it's ludicrous. Probably is. But I don't care. It's a by-God 
symbol of all the things my Library Policeman took away from me - the love, the 
friendship, the sense of belonging. I've felt like an outsider all my life, 
Naomi, and never knew why. Now I do. This is just another of the things he took 
away. I used to love this stuff. Now I can barely stand the smell of it. That's 
okay; I can deal with that. But I have to know how to turn it on.'
Sam began to roll the licorice whips between his palms, gradually turning them 
into a sticky ball. He had thought the smell was the worst thing with which the 
red licorice could test him, but he had been wrong. The texture was worse ... 
and the dye was coming off on his palms and fingers, turning them a sinister 
dark red. He went on nevertheless, stopping only to add the contents of another 
fresh package to the soft mass every thirty seconds or so.
'Maybe I'm looking too hard,' he said. 'Maybe it's plain old bravery that's the 
opposite of fear. Courage, if you want a fancier word. Is that it? Is that all? 
Is bravery the difference between Naomi and Sarah?'
She looked startled. 'Are you asking me if quitting drinking was an act of 
bravery?'
'I don't know what I'm asking,' he said, 'but I think you're in the right 
neighborhood, at least. I don't need to ask about fear; I know what that is. 
Fear is an emotion which encloses and precludes change. Was it an act of bravery 
when you gave up drinking?'
'I never really gave it up,' she said. 'That isn't how alcoholics do it. They 
can't do it that way. You employ a lot of sideways thinking instead. One day at 
a time, easy does it. live and let live, all that. But the center of it is this: 
you give up believing you can control your drinking. That idea was a myth you 
told yourself, and that's what you give up. The myth. You tell me - is that 
bravery?'
'Of course. But it's sure not foxhole bravery.'
'Foxhole bravery,' she said, and laughed. 'I like that. But you're right. What I 
do - what we do - to keep away from the first one ... it's not that kind of 
bravery. In spite of movies like The Lost Weekend, I think what we do is pretty 
undramatic.'
Sam was remembering the dreadful apathy which had settled over him after he had 
been raped in the bushes at the side of the Briggs Avenue Branch of the St Louis 
Library. Raped by a man who had called himself a policeman. That had been pretty 
undramatic, too. just a dirty trick, that was all it had been - a dirty, 
brainless trick played on a little kid by a man with serious mental problems. 
Sam supposed that, when you counted up the whole score, he ought to call himself 
lucky; the Library Cop might have killed him.
Ahead of them, the round white globes which marked the Junction City Public 
Library glimmered in the rain. Naomi said hesitantly, 'I think the real opposite 
of fear might be honesty. Honesty and belief. How does that sound?'
'Honesty and belief,' he said quietly, tasting the words. He squeezed the sticky 
ball of red licorice in his right hand. 'Not bad, I guess. Anyway, they'll have 
to do. We're here.'
6
The glimmering green numbers of the car's dashboard clock read 7:57. They had 
made it before eight after all.
'Maybe we better wait and make sure everybody's gone before we go around back,' 
she said.
'I think that's a very good idea.'
They cruised into an empty parking space across the street from the Library's 
entrance. The globes shimmered delicately in the rain. The rustle of the trees 
was a less delicate thing; the wind was still gaining strength. The oaks sounded 
as if they were dreaming, and all the dreams were bad.
At two minutes past eight, a van with a stuffed Garfield cat and a mom's TAXI 
sign in its rear window pulled up across from them. The horn honked, and the 
Library's door - looking less grim even in this light than it had on Sam's first 
visit to the Library, less like the mouth in the head of a vast granite robot - 
opened at once. Three kids, junior-high-schoolers by the look of them, came out 
and hurried down the steps. As they ran down the walk to MOM'S TAXI, two of them 
pulled their jackets up to shield their heads from the rain. The van's side door 
rumbled open on its track, and the kids piled into it. Sam could hear the faint 
sound of their laughter, and envied the sound. He thought about how good it must 
be to come out of a library with laughter in your mouth. He had missed that 
experience, thanks to the man in the round black glasses.
Honesty, he thought. Honesty and belief. And then he thought again: The fine is 
paid. The fine is paid, goddammit. He ripped open the last two packages of 
licorice and began kneading their contents into his sticky, nasty-smelling red 
ball. He glanced at the rear of MOM'S TAXI as he did so. He could see white 
exhaust drifting up and tattering in the windy air. Suddenly he began to realize 
what he was up to here.
'Once, when I was in high school,' he said, 'I watched a bunch of kids play a 
prank on this other kid they didn't like. In those days, watching was what I did 
best. They took a wad of modelling clay from the Art Room and stuffed it in the 
tailpipe of the kid's Pontiac. You know what happened?'
She glanced at him doubtfully. 'No - what?'
'Blew the muffler off in two pieces,' he said. 'One on each side of the car. 
They flew like shrapnel. The muffler was the weak point, you see. I suppose if 
the gases had backflowed all the way to the engine, they might have blown the 
cylinders right out of the block.'
'Sam, what are you talking about?'
'Hope,' he said. 'I'm talking about hope. I guess the honesty and belief have to 
come a little later.'
Mom's TAXI pulled away from the curb, its headlights spearing through the 
silvery lines of rain.
The green numbers on Naomi's dashboard clock read 8:06 when the Library's front 
door opened again. A man and a woman came out. The man, awkwardly buttoning his 
overcoat with an umbrella tucked under his arm, was unmistakably Richard Price; 
Sam knew him at once, even though he had only seen a single photo of the man in 
an old newspaper. The girl was Cynthia Berrigan, the library assistant he had 
spoken to on Saturday night.
Price said something to the girl. Sam thought she laughed. He was suddenly aware 
that he was sitting bolt upright in the bucket seat of Naomi's Datsun, every 
muscle creaking with tension. He tried to make himself relax and discovered he 
couldn't do it.
Now why doesn't that surprise me? he thought.
Price raised his umbrella. The two of them hurried down the walk beneath it, the 
Berrigan girl tying a plastic rain-kerchief over her hair as they came. They 
separated at the foot of the walk, Price going to an old Impala the size of a 
cabin cruiser, the Berrigan girl to a Yugo parked half a block down. Price 
U-turned in the street (Naomi ducked down a little, startled, as the headlights 
shone briefly into her own car) and blipped his horn at the Yugo as he passed 
it. Cynthia Berrigan blipped hers in return, then drove away in the opposite 
direction.
Now there was only them, the Library, and possibly Ardelia, waiting for them 
someplace inside.
Along with Sam's old friend the Library Policeman.
7
Naomi drove slowly around the block to Wegman Street. About halfway down on the 
left, a discreet sign marked a small break in the hedge. It read
LIBRARY DELIVERIES ONLY.
A gust of wind strong enough to rock the Datsun on its springs struck them, 
rattling rain against the windows so hard that it sounded like sand. Somewhere 
nearby there was a splintering crack as either a large branch or a small tree 
gave way. This was followed by a thud as whatever it was fell into the street.
'God!' Naomi said in a thin, distressed voice. 'I don't like this!'
'I'm not crazy about it myself,' Sam agreed, but he had barely heard her. He was 
thinking about how that modelling clay had looked. How it had looked bulging out 
of the tailpipe of the kid's car. It had looked like a blister.
Naomi turned in at the sign. They drove up a short lane into a small paved 
loading/unloading area. A single orange arc-sodium lamp hung over the little 
square of pavement. It cast a strong, penetrating light, and the moving branches 
of the oaks which ringed the loading zone danced crazy shadows onto the rear 
face of the building in its glow. For a moment two of these shadows seemed to 
coalesce at the foot of the platform, making a shape that was almost manlike: it 
looked as if someone had been waiting under there, someone who was now crawling 
out to greet them.
In just a second or two, Sam thought, the orange glare from that overhead light 
will strike his glasses - his little round black glasses - and he will look 
through the windshield at me. Not at Naomi; just at me. He'll look at me and 
he'll say, 'Hello, son; I've been waiting for you. All theeth yearth, I've been 
waiting for you. Come with me now. Come with me, because I'm a poleethman.'
There was another loud, splintering crack, and a tree-branch dropped to the 
pavement not three feet from the Datsun's trunk, exploding chunks of bark and 
rot-infested wood in every direction. If it had landed on top of the car, it 
would have smashed the roof in like a tomato-soup can.
Naomi screamed.
The wind, still rising, screamed back.
Sam was reaching for her, meaning to put a comforting arm around her, when the 
door at the rear of the loading platform opened partway and Dave 
Duncan stepped into the gap. He was holding onto the door to keep the wind from 
snatching it out of his grasp. To Sam, the old man's face looked far too white 
and almost grotesquely frightened. He made frantic beckoning gestures with his 
free hand 
'Naomi, there's Dave.'
'Where -? Oh yes, I see him.' Her eyes widened. 'My God, he looks horrible!'
She began to open her door. The wind gusted, ripped it out of her grasp, and 
whooshed through the Datsun in a tight little tornado, lifting the licorice 
wrappers and dancing them around in dizzy circles.
Naomi managed to get one hand down just in time to keep from being struck -and 
perhaps injured - by the rebound of her own car door. Then she was out, her hair 
blowing in its own storm about her head, her skirt soaked and painted against 
her thighs in a moment.
Sam shoved his own door open - the wind was blowing the wrong way for him, and 
he did literally have to put his shoulder to it - and struggled out. He had time 
to wonder where in the hell this storm had come from; the Prince of Piggly 
Wiggly had said there had been no prediction for such a spectacular capful of 
wind and rain. Just showers, he'd said.
Ardelia. Maybe it was Ardelia's storm.
As if to confirm this, Dave's voice rose in a momentary lull. 'Hurry up! I can 
smell her goddam perfume everywhere!'
Sam found the idea that the smell of Ardelia's perfume might somehow precede her 
materialization obscurely terrifying.
He was halfway to the loading-platform steps before he realized that, although 
he still had the snot-textured ball of red licorice, he had left the books in 
the car. He turned back, muscled the door open, and got them. As he did, the 
quality of the light changed - it went from a bright, penetrating orange to 
white. Sam saw the change on the skin of his hands, and for a moment his eyes 
seemed to freeze in their sockets. He backed out of the car in a hurry, the 
books in his hand, and whirled around.
The orange arc-sodium security lamp was gone. It had been replaced by an 
old-fashioned mercury-vapor streetlight. The trees dancing and groaning around 
the loading platform in the wind were thicker now; stately old elms 
predominated, easily overtopping the oaks. The shape of the loading platform had 
changed, and now tangled runners of ivy climbed the rear wall of the Library - a 
wall which had been bare just a moment ago.
Welcome to 1960, Sam thought. Welcome to the Ardelia Lortz edition of the 
Junction City Public Library.
Naomi had gained the platform. She was saying something to Dave. Dave replied, 
then looked back over his shoulder. His body jerked. At the same moment, Naomi 
screamed. Sam ran for the steps to the platform, the tail of his coat billowing 
out behind him. As he climbed the steps, he saw a white hand float out of the 
darkness and settle on Dave's shoulder. It yanked him back into the Library .
'Grab the door!' Sam screamed. 'Naomi, grab the door! Don't let it lock!'
But in this the wind helped them. It blew the door wide open, striking Naomi's 
shoulder and making her stagger backward. Sam reached it in time to catch it on 
the rebound.
Naomi turned horrified dark eyes on him. 'It was the man who came to your house, 
Sam. The tall man with the silvery eyes. I saw him. He grabbed Dave!'
No time to think about it. 'Come on.' He slipped an arm around Naomi's waist and 
pulled her forward into the Library. Behind them, the wind dropped and the door 
slammed shut with a thud.
8
They were in a book-cataloguing area which was dim but not entirely dark. A 
small table lamp with a red-fringed shade stood on the librarian's desk. Beyond 
this area, which was littered with boxes and packing materials (the latter 
consisted of crumpled newspapers, Sam saw; this was 1960, and those polyethylene 
popcorn balls hadn't been invented yet), the stacks began. Standing in one of 
the aisles, walled in with books on both sides, was the Library Policeman. He 
had Dave Duncan in a half-nelson, and was holding him with almost absent ease 
three inches off the floor.
He looked at Sam and Naomi. His silver eyes glinted, and a crescent grin rose on 
his white face. It looked like a chrome moon.
'Not a thtep closer,' he said, 'or I'll thnap his neck like a chicken bone. 
You'll hear it go.'
Sam considered this, but only for a moment. He could smell lavender sachet, 
thick and cloying. Outside the building, the wind whined and boomed. The Library 
Policeman's shadow danced up the wall, as gaunt as a gantry. He didn't have a 
shadow before, Sam realized. What does that mean?
Maybe it meant the Library Policeman was more real now, more here ... because 
Ardelia and the Library Policeman and the dark man in the old car were really 
the same person. There was only one, and these were simply the faces it wore, 
putting them on and taking them off again with the ease of a kid trying on 
Halloween masks.
'Am I supposed to think you'll let him live if we stand away from you?' he 
asked. 'Bullshit.'
He began to walk toward the Library Policeman.
An expression which sat oddly on the tall man's face now appeared. It was 
surprise. He took a step backward. His trenchcoat flapped around his shins and 
dragged against the folio volumes which formed the sides of the narrow aisle in 
which he stood.
'I'm warning you!'
'Warn and be damned,' Sam said. 'Your argument isn't with him. You've got a bone 
to pick with me, don't you? Okay - let's pick it.'
'The Librarian has a score to thettle with the old man!' the Policeman said, and 
took another step backward. Something odd was happening to his face, and it took 
Sam an instant to see what it was. The silver light in the Library Policeman's 
eyes was fading.
'Then let her settle it,' Sam said. 'My score is with you, big boy, and it goes 
back thirty years.'
He passed beyond the pool of radiance thrown by the table lamp.
'All right, then!' the Library Cop snarled. He made a half-turn and threw Dave 
Duncan down the aisle. Dave flew like a bag of laundry, a single croak of fear 
and surprise escaping him. He tried to raise one arm as he approached the wall, 
but it was only a dazed, half-hearted reflex. He collided with the 
fire-extinguisher mounted by the stairs, and Sam heard the dull crunch of a 
breaking bone. Dave fell, and the heavy red extinguisher fell off the wall on 
top of him.
'Dave!' Naomi shrieked, and darted toward him.
'Naomi, no!'
But she paid no attention. The Library Policeman's grin reappeared; he grabbed 
Naomi by the arm as she tried to go past and curled her to him. His face came 
down and was for a moment hidden by the chestnut-colored hair at the nape of her 
neck. He uttered a strange, muffled cough against her flesh and then began 
kissing her - or so it appeared. His long white hand dug into her upper arm. 
Naomi screamed again, and then seemed to slump a little in his grip.
Sam had reached the entrance to the stacks now. He seized the first book his 
hand touched, yanked it off the shelf, cocked his arm back, and threw it. It 
flew end over end, the boards spreading, the pages riffling, and struck the 
Library Policeman on the side of the head. He uttered a cry of rage and surprise 
and looked up. Naomi tore free of his grasp and staggered sideways into one of 
the high shelves, flagging her arms for balance. The shelf rocked backward as 
she rebounded, and then fell with a gigantic echoing crash. Books flew off 
shelves where they might have stood undisturbed for years and struck the floor 
in a rain of slaps that sounded oddly like applause.
Naomi ignored this. She reached Dave and fell on her knees beside him, crying 
his name over and over. The Library Policeman turned in that direction.
'Your argument isn't with her, either,' Sam said.
The Library Policeman turned back to him. His silver eyes had been replaced with 
small black glasses that gave his face a blind, molelike look.
'I should have killed you the firtht time,' he said, and began to walk toward 
Sam. His walk was accompanied by a queer brushing sound. Sam looked down and saw 
the hem of the Library Cop's trenchcoat was now brushing the floor. He was 
growing shorter.
'The fine is paid,' Sam said quietly. The Library Policeman stopped. Sam held up 
the books with the five-dollar bill beneath the elastic. 'The fine is paid and 
the books are returned. It's all over, you bitch ... or bastard ... or whatever 
you are.'
Outside, the wind rose in a long, hollow cry which ran beneath the eaves like 
glass. The Library Policeman's tongue crept out and slicked his lips. It was 
very red, very pointed. Blemishes had begun to appear on his cheeks and 
forehead. There was a greasy lens of sweat on his skin.
And the smell of lavender sachet was much stronger.
'Wrong!' the Library Policeman cried. 'Wrong! Those aren't the bookth you 
borrowed! I know! That drunk old cockthucker took the bookth you borrowed! They 
were -'
'- destroyed,' Sam finished. He began to walk again, closing in on the Library 
Policeman, and the lavender smell grew stronger with every step he took. His 
heart was racing in his chest. 'I know whose idea that was, too. But these are 
perfectly acceptable replacements. Take them.' His voice rose into a stern 
shout. 'Take them, damn you!'
He held the books out, and the Library Policeman, looking confused and afraid, 
reached for them.
'No, not like that,' Sam said, raising the books above the white, grasping hand. 
'Like this.'
He brought the books down in the Library Policeman's face - brought them down 
hard. He could not remember ever feeling such sublime satisfaction in his life 
as that which he felt when Best Loved Poems of the American People and The 
Speaker's Companion struck and broke the Library Policeman's nose. The round 
black glasses flew off his face and fell to the floor. Beneath them were black 
sockets lined with a bed of whitish fluid. Tiny threads floated up from this 
oozy stuff, and Sam thought about Dave's story - looked like it was startin to 
grow its own skin, he had said.
The Library Policeman screamed.
'You can't!' it screamed. 'You can't hurt me! You're afraid of me! Besides, you 
liked it! YOU LIKED it! YOU DIRTY LITTLE BOY, YOU LIKED IT!'
'Wrong,' Sam said. 'I fucking hated it. Now take these books. Take them and get 
out of here. Because the fine is paid.'
He slammed the books into the Library Policeman's chest. And, as the Library 
Policeman's hands closed on them, Sam hoicked one knee squarely into the Library 
Policeman's crotch.
'That's for all the other kids,' he said. 'The ones you fucked and the ones she 
ate.'
The creature wailed with pain. His flailing hands dropped the books as he bent 
to cup his groin. His greasy black hair fell over his face, mercifully hiding 
those blank, thread-choked sockets.
Of course they are blank, Sam had time to think. I never saw the eyes behind the 
glasses he wore that day ... so SHE couldn't see them, either.
'That doesn't pay your fine,' Sam said, 'but it's a step in the right direction, 
isn't it?'
The Library Policeman's trenchcoat began to writhe and ripple, as if some 
unimaginable transformation had begun beneath it. And when he ... It ... looked 
up, Sam saw something which drove him back a step in horror and revulsion.
The man who had come half from Dave's poster and half from Sam's own mind had 
become a misshapen dwarf. The dwarf was becoming something else, a dreadful 
hermaphroditic creature. A sexual storm was happening on its face and beneath 
the bunching, twitching trenchcoat. Half the hair was still black; the other 
half was ash-blonde. One socket was still empty; a savage blue eye glittered 
hate from the other.
'I want you,' the dwarfish creature hissed. 'I want you, and I'll have you.'
'Try me, Ardelia,' Sam said. 'Let's rock and r -'
He reached for the thing before him, but screamed and withdrew his hand as soon 
as it snagged in the trenchcoat. It wasn't a coat at all; it was some sort of 
dreadful loose skin, and it was like trying to grip a mass of freshly used 
teabags.
It scuttered up the canted side of the fallen bookshelf and thumped into the 
shadows on the far side. The smell of lavender sachet was suddenly much 
stronger.
A brutal laugh drifted up from the shadows.
A woman's laugh.
'Too late, Sam,' she said. 'It's already too late. The deed is done.'
Ardelia's back, Sam thought, and from outside there was a tremendous, rending 
crash. The building shuddered as a tree fell against it, and the lights went 
out.
9
They were in total darkness only for a second, but it seemed much longer. 
Ardelia laughed again, and this time her laughter had a strange, hooting 
quality, like laughter broadcast through a megaphone.
Then a single emergency bulb high up on one wall went on, throwing a pallid 
sheaf of light over this section of the stacks and flinging shadows everywhere 
like tangles of black yarn. Sam could hear the light's battery buzzing noisily. 
He made his way to where Naomi still knelt beside Dave, twice almost falling as 
his feet slid in piles of books which had spilled from the overturned case.
Naomi looked up at him. Her face was white and shocked and streaked with tears. 
'Sam, I think he's dying.'
He knelt beside Dave. The old man's eyes were shut and he was breathing in 
harsh, almost random gasps. Thin trickles of blood spilled from both nostrils 
and from one ear. There was a deep, crushed dent in his forehead, just above the 
right eyebrow. Looking at it made Sam's stomach clench. One of Dave's cheekbones 
was clearly broken, and the fire-extinguisher's handle was printed on that side 
of his face in bright fines of blood and bruise. It looked like a tattoo.
'We've got to get him to a hospital, Sam!'
'Do you think she'd let us out of here now?' he asked, and, as if in answer to 
this question, a huge book - the T volume of The Oxford English Dictionary -came 
flying at them from beyond the rough circle of light thrown by the emergency 
unit mounted on the wall. Sam pulled Naomi backward and they both went sprawling 
in the dusty aisle. Seven pounds of tabasco, tendril, tomcat and trepan slammed 
through the space where Naomi's head had been a moment before, hit the wall, and 
splashed to the floor in an untidy, tented heap.
From the shadows came shrill laughter. Sam rose to his knees in time to see a 
hunched shape flit down the aisle beyond the fallen bookcase. It's still 
changing, Sam thought. Into what, God only knows. It buttonhooked to the left 
and was gone.
'Get her, Sam,' Naomi said hoarsely. She gripped one of his hands. 'Get her, 
please get her.'
'I'll try,' he said. He stepped over Dave's sprawled legs and entered the deeper 
shadows beyond the overturned bookcase.
10
The smell freaked him out - the smell of lavender sachet mixed with the dusty 
aroma of books from all those latter years. That smell, mingled with the 
freight-train whoop of the wind outside, made him feel like H. G. Wells's Time 
Traveller ... and the Library itself, bulking all around him, was his time 
machine.
He walked slowly down the aisle, squeezing the ball of red licorice nervously in 
his left hand. Books surrounded him, seemed to frown down at him. They climbed 
to a height that was twice his own. He could hear the click and squeak of his 
shoes on the old linoleum.
'Where are you?' he shouted. 'If you want me, Ardelia, why don't you come on and 
get me? I'm right here!'
No answer. But she would have to come out soon, wouldn't she? If Dave was right, 
her change was upon her, and her time was short.
Midnight, he thought. The Library Policeman gave me until midnight, so maybe 
that's how long she has. But that's over three and a half hours away .
Dave can't possibly wait that long.
Then another thought, even less pleasant, occurred: suppose that, while he was 
mucking around back here in these dark aisles, Ardelia was circling her way back 
to Naomi and Dave?
lie came to the end of the aisle, listened, heard nothing, and slipped over into 
the next. It was empty. He heard a low whispering sound from above him and 
looked up just in time to see half a dozen heavy books sliding oat from one of 
the shelves above his head. He lunged backward with a cry as the books fell, 
striking his thighs, and heard Ardelia's crazy laughter from the other side of 
the bookcase.
He could imagine her up there, clinging to the shelves like a spider bloated 
with poison, and his body seemed to act before his brain could think. He slewed 
around on his heels like a drunken soldier trying to do an about face and threw 
his back against the shelf. The laughter turned to a scream of fear and surprise 
as the stack tilted under Sam's weight. He heard a meaty thud as the thing 
hurled itself from its perch. A second later the stack went over.
What happened then was something Sam had not foreseen: the stack he had pushed 
toppled across the aisle, shedding its books in a waterfall as it went, and 
struck the next one. The second fell against a third, the third against a 
fourth, and then they were all falling like dominoes, all the way across this 
huge, shadowy storage area, crashing and clanging and spilling everything from 
Marryat's works to The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales. He heard Ardelia scream 
again and then Sam launched himself at the tilted bookcase he had pushed over. 
He climbed it like a ladder, kicking books out of his way in search of 
toe-holds, yanking himself upward with one hand.
He threw himself down on the far side and saw a white, hellishly misshapen 
creature pulling itself from beneath a jackstraw tumble of atlases and travel 
volumes. It had blonde hair and blue eyes, but any resemblance to humanity 
ceased there. Its illusions were gone. The creature was a fat, naked thing with 
arms and legs that appeared to end in jointed claws. A sac of flesh hung below 
its neck like a deflated goiter. Thin white fibers stormed around its body. 
There was something horridly beetlelike about it, and Sam was suddenly screaming 
inside - silent, atavistic screams which seemed to radiate out along his bones. 
This is it. God help me, this is it. He felt revulsion, but suddenly his terror 
was gone; now that he could actually see the thing, it was not so bad.
Then it began to change again, and Sam's feeling of relief faded. It did not 
have a face, exactly, but below the bulging blue eyes, a horn shape began to 
extrude itself, pushing out of the horror-show face like a stubby elephant's 
trunk. The eyes stretched away to either side, becoming first Chinese and then 
insectile. Sam could hear it sniffing as it stretched toward him.
It was covered with wavering, dusty threads.
Part of him wanted to pull back - was screaming at him to pull back - but most 
of him wanted to stand his ground. And as the thing's fleshy proboscis touched 
him, Sam felt its deep power. A sense of lethargy filled him, a feeling that it 
would be better if he just stood still and let it happen. The wind had become a 
distant, dreamy howl. It was soothing, in a way, as the sound of the vacuum 
cleaner had been soothing when he was very small.
'Sam?' Naomi called, but her voice was distant, unimportant. 'Sam, are you all 
right?'
Had he thought he loved her? That was silly. Quite ridiculous, when you thought 
about it ... when you got right down to it, this was much better.
This creature had ... stories to tell.
Very interesting stories.
The white thing's entire plastic body now yearned toward the proboscis; it fed 
itself into itself, and the proboscis elongated. The creature became a single 
tube-shaped thing, the rest of its body hanging as useless and forgotten as that 
sac below its neck had hung. All its vitality was invested in the horn of flesh, 
the conduit through which it would suck Sam's vitality and essence into itself.
And it was nice.
The proboscis slipped gently up Sam's legs, pressed briefly against his groin, 
then rose higher, caressing his belly.
Sam fell on his knees to give it access to his face. He felt his eyes sting 
briefly and pleasantly as some fluid - not tears, this was thicker than tears - 
began to ooze from them.
The proboscis closed in on his eyes; he could see a pink petal of flesh opening 
and closing hungrily inside there. Each time it opened, it revealed a deeper 
darkness beyond. Then it clenched, forming a hole in the petal, a tube within a 
tube, and it slipped with sensual slowness across his lips and cheek toward that 
sticky outflow. Misshapen dark-blue eyes gazed at him hungrily.
But the fine was paid.
Summoning every last bit of his strength, Sam clamped his right hand over the 
proboscis. It was hot and noxious. The tiny threads of flesh which covered it 
stung his palm.
It jerked and tried to draw back. For a moment Sam almost lost it and then he 
closed his hand in a fist, digging his fingernails into the meat of the thing.
'Here!' he shouted. 'Here, I've got something for you, bitch! I brought it all 
the way from East St Louis!'
He brought his left hand around and slammed the sticky ball of red licorice into 
the end of the proboscis, plugging it the way the kids in that long-ago parking 
lot had plugged the tailpipe of Tommy Reed's Pontiac. It tried to shriek and 
could produce only a blocked humming sound. Then it tried again to pull itself 
away from Sam. The ball of red licorice bulged from the end of its convulsing 
snout like a blood-blister.
Sam struggled to his knees, still holding the twitching, noisome flesh in his 
hand, and threw himself on top of the Ardelia-thing. It twisted and pulsed 
beneath him, trying to throw him off. They rolled over and over in the heaped 
pile of books. It was dreadfully strong. Once Sam was eye to eye with it, and he 
was nearly frozen by the hate and panic in that gaze.
Then he felt it begin to swell.
He let go and scrambled backward, gasping. The thing in the book-littere aisle 
now looked like a grotesque beachball with a trunk, a beachball covered with 
fine hair which wavered like tendrils of seaweed in a running tide. It rolled 
over in the aisle, its proboscis swelling like a firehose which has been tied in 
a knot. Sam watched, frozen with horror and fascination, as the thing which had 
called itself Ardelia Lortz strangled on its own fuming guts.
Bright red roadmap lines of blood popped out on its straining hide. Its eyes 
bulged, now staring at Sam in an expression of dazed surprise. It made one final 
effort to expel the soft blob of licorice, but its proboscis had been wide open 
in its anticipation of food, and the licorice stayed put.
Sam saw what was going to happen and threw an arm over his face an instant 
before it exploded.
Chunks of alien flesh flew in every direction. Ropes of thick blood splattered 
Sam's arms, chest, and legs. He cried out in mingled revulsion and relief.
An instant later the emergency light winked out, plunging them into darkness 
again.
Once more the interval of darkness was very brief, but it was long enough for 
Sam to sense the change. He felt it in his head - a clear sensation of things 
which had been out of joint snapping back into place. When the emergency lights 
came back on, there were four of them. Their batteries made a low, 
self-satisfied humming sound instead of a loud buzz, and they were very bright, 
banishing the shadows to the furthest corners of the room. He did not know if 
the world of 1960 they had entered when the arc-sodium light became a 
mercury-vapor lamp had been real or an illusion, but he knew it was gone.
The overturned bookcases were upright again. There was a litter of books in this 
aisle - a dozen or so - but he might have knocked those off himself in his 
struggle to get on his feet. And outside, the sound of the storm had fallen from 
a shout to a mutter. Sam could hear what sounded like a very sedate rain falling 
on the roof.
The Ardelia-thing was gone. There were no splatters of blood or chunks of flesh 
on the floor, on the books, or on him.
There was only one sign of her: a single golden earring, glinting up at him.
Sam got shakily to his feet and kicked it away. Then a grayness came over his 
sight and he swayed on his feet, eyes closed, waiting to see if he would faint 
or not.
'Sam!' It was Naomi, and she sounded as if she were crying. 'Sam, where are 
you?'
'Here!' He reached up, grabbed a handful of his hair, and pulled it hard. 
Stupid, probably, but it worked. The wavery grayness didn't go away entirely, 
but it retreated. He began moving back toward the cataloguing area, walking in 
large, careful strides.
The same desk, a graceless block of wood on stubby legs, stood in the 
cataloguing area, but the lamp with its old-fashioned, tasselled shade had been 
replaced with a fluorescent bar. The battered typewriter and Rolodex had been 
replaced by an Apple computer. And, if he had not already been sure of what time 
he was now in, a glance at the cardboard cartons on the floor would have 
convinced him: they were full of poppers and plastic bubble-strips.
Naomi was still kneeling beside Dave at the end of the aisle, and when Sam 
reached her side he saw that the fire-extinguisher (although thirty years had 
passed, it appeared to be the same one) was firmly mounted on its post again . . 
. but the shape of its handle was still imprinted on Dave's cheek and forehead.
His eyes were open, and when he saw Sam, he smiled. 'Not ... bad,' he whispered. 
'I bet you ... didn't know you had it ... in you.'
Sam felt a tremendous, buoyant sense of relief. 'No,' he said. 'I didn't.' He 
bent down and held three fingers in front of Dave's eyes. 'How many fingers do 
you see?'
'About ... seventy-four,' Dave whispered.
'I'll call the ambulance,' Naomi said, and started to get up. Dave's left hand 
grasped her wrist before she could.
'No. Not yet.' His eyes shifted to Sam. 'Bend down. I need to whisper.'
Sam bent over the old man. Dave put a trembling hand on the back of his neck. 
His lips tickled the cup of Sam's ear and Sam had to force himself to hold 
steady -it tickled. 'Sam,' he whispered. 'She waits. Remember ... she waits.'
'What?' Sam asked. He felt almost totally unstrung. 'Dave, what do you mean?'
But Dave's hand had fallen away. He stared up at Sam, through Sam, his chest 
rising shallowly and rapidly.
'I'm going,' Naomi said, clearly upset. 'There's a telephone down there on the 
cataloguing desk.'
'No,' Sam said.
She turned toward him, eyes glaring, mouth pulled back from neat white teeth in 
a fury. 'What do you mean, no? Are you crazy? His skull is fractured, at the 
very least! He's -'
'He's going, Sarah,' Sam said gently. 'Very soon. Stay with him. Be his friend.'
She looked down, and this time she saw what Sam had seen. The pupil of Dave's 
left eye had drawn down to a pinpoint; the pupil of his right was huge and 
fixed.
'Dave?' she whispered, frightened. 'Dave?'
But Dave was looking at Sam again. 'Remember,' he whispered. 'She W ... ‘
His eyes grew still and fixed. His chest rose once more ... dropped ... and did 
not rise again.
Naomi began to sob. She put his hand against her cheek and closed his eyes. Sam 
knelt down painfully and put his arm around her waist.
CHAPTER 15
Angle Street (III)
1
That night and the next were sleepless ones for Sam Peebles. He lay awake in his 
bed, all the second-floor lights turned on, and thought about Dave Duncan's last 
words: She waits.
Toward dawn of the second night, he began to believe he understood what the old 
man had been trying to say.
2
Sam thought that Dave would be buried out of the Baptist Church in Proverbia, 
and was a little surprised to find that he had converted to Catholicism at some 
point between 1960 and 1990. The services were held at St Martin's on April 
11th, a blustery day that alternated between clouds and cold early-spring 
sunshine.
Following the graveside service, there was a reception at Angle Street. There 
were almost seventy people there, wandering through the downstairs rooms or 
clustered in little groups, by the time Sam arrived. They had all known Dave, 
and spoke of him with humor, respect, and unfailing love. They drank ginger ale 
from Styrofoam cups and ate small finger sandwiches. Sam moved from group to 
group, passing a word with someone he knew from time to time but not stopping to 
chat. He rarely took his hand from the pocket of his dark coat. He had made a 
stop at the Piggly Wiggly store on his way from the church, and now there were 
half a dozen cellophane packages in there, four of them long and thin, two of 
them rectangular.
Sarah was not here.
He was about to leave when he spotted Lukey and Rudolph sitting together in a 
corner. There was a cribbage board between them, but they didn't seem to be 
playing.
'Hello, you guys,' Sam said, walking over. 'I guess you probably don't remember 
me -'
'Sure we do,' Rudolph said. 'Whatcha think we are? Coupla feebs? You're Dave's 
friend. You came over the day we was making the posters.'
'Right!' Lukey said.
'Did you find those books you were lookin for?' Rudolph asked.
'Yes,' Sam said, smiling. 'I did, eventually.'
'Right!' Lukey exclaimed.
Sam brought out the four slender cellophane packages. 'I brought you guys 
something,' he said.
Lukey glanced down, and his eyes lit up. 'Slim Jims, Dolph!' he said, grinning 
delightedly. 'Look! Sarah's boyfriend brought us all fuckin Slim Jims! 
Beautiful!'
'Here, gimme those, you old rummy,' Rudolph said, and snatched them. 'Fuckhead'd 
eat em all at once and then shit the bed tonight, you know,' he told Sam. He 
stripped one of the Slim Jims and gave it to Lukey. 'Here you go, dinkweed. I'll 
hang onto the rest of em for you.'
'You can have one, Dolph. Go ahead.'
'You know better, Lukey. Those things burn me at both ends.'
Sam ignored this byplay. He was looking hard at Lukey. 'Sarah's boyfriend? Where 
did you hear that?'
Lukey snatched down half a Slim Jim in one bite, then looked up. His expression 
was both good-humored and sly. He laid a finger against the side of his nose and 
said, 'Word gets around when you're in the Program, Sunny Jim. Oh yes indeed, it 
do.'
'He don't know nothing, mister,' Rudolph said, draining his cup of ginger ale. 
'He's just beating his gums cause he likes the sound.'
'That ain't nothin but bullshit!' Lukey cried, taking another giant bite of Slim 
Jim. 'I know because Dave told me! Last night! I had a dream, and Dave was in 
it, and he told me this fella was Sarah's sweetie!'
'Where is Sarah?' Sam asked. 'I thought she'd be here.'
'She spoke to me after the benediction,' Rudolph said. 'Told me you'd know where 
to find her later on, if you wanted to see her. She said you'd seen her there 
once already.'
'She liked Dave awful much,' Lukey said. A sudden tear grew on the rim of one 
eye and spilled down his cheek. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. 'We 
all did. Dave always tried so goddam hard. It's too bad, you know. It's really 
too bad.' And Lukey suddenly burst into tears.
'Well, let me tell you something,' Sam said. He hunkered beside Lukey and handed 
him his handkerchief. He was near tears himself, and terrified by what he now 
had to do ... or try to do. 'He made it in the end. He died sober. Whatever talk 
you hear, you hold onto that, because I know it's true. He died sober.'
'Amen,' Rudolph said reverently.
'Amen,' Lukey agreed. He handed Sam his handkerchief. 'Thanks.'
'Don't mention it, Lukey.'
'Say - you don't have any more of those fuckin Slim Jims, do you?'
'Nope,' Sam said, and smiled. 'You know what they say, Lukey - one's too many 
and a thousand are never enough.'
Rudolph laughed. Lukey smiled ... and then laid the tip of his finger against 
the side of his nose again.
'How about a quarter ... wouldn't have an extra quarter, wouldja?'
3
Sam's first thought was that she might have gone back to the Library, but that 
didn't fit with what Dolph had said - he had been at the Library with Sarah 
once, on the terrible night that already seemed a decade ago, but they had been 
there together; he hadn't 'seen' her there, the way you saw someone through a 
window, or 
Then he remembered when he had seen Sarah through a window, right here at Angle 
Street. She had been part of the group out on the back lawn, doing whatever it 
was they did to keep themselves sober. He now walked through the kitchen as he 
had done on that day, saying hello to a few more people. Burt Iverson and Elmer 
Baskin stood in one of the little groups, drinking ice-cream punch as they 
listened gravely to an elderly woman Sam didn't know.
He stepped through the kitchen door and out onto the rear porch. The day had 
turned gray and blustery again. The back yard was deserted, but Sam thought he 
saw a flash of pastel color beyond the bushes that marked the yard's rear 
boundary.
He walked down the steps and crossed the back lawn, aware that his heart had 
begun to thud very hard again. His hand stole back into his pocket, and this 
time came out with the remaining two cellophane packages. They contained Bull's 
Eye Red Licorice. He tore them open and began to knead them into a ball, much 
smaller than the one he'd made in the Datsun on Monday night. The sweet, sugary 
smell was just as sickening as ever. In the distance he could hear a train 
coming, and it made him think of his dream - the one where Naomi had turned into 
Ardelia.
Too late, Sam. It's already too late. The deed is done.
She waits. Remember, Sam - she waits.
There was a lot of truth in dreams, sometimes.
How had she survived the years between? All the years between? They had never 
asked themselves that question, had they? How did she make the transition from 
one person to another? They had never asked that one, either. Perhaps the thing 
which looked like a woman named Ardelia Lortz was, beneath its glamours and 
illusions, like one of those larvae that spin their cocoons in the fork of a 
tree, cover them with Protective webbing, and then fly away to their place of 
dying. The larvae in the cocoons lie silent, waiting ... changing ...
She waits. .
Sam walked on, still kneading his smelly little ball made of that stuff the 
Library Policeman - his Library Policeman - had stolen and turned into the stuff 
of nightmares. The stuff he had somehow changed again, with the help of Naomi 
and Dave, into the stuff of salvation.
The Library Policeman, curling Naomi against him. Placing his mouth on the nape 
of her neck, as if to kiss her. And coughing instead.
The bag hanging under the Ardelia-thing's neck. Limp. Spent. Empty.
Please don't let it be too late.
He walked into the thin stand of bushes. Naomi Sarah Higgins was standing on the 
other side of them, her arms clasped over her bosom. She glanced briefly at him 
and he was shocked by the pallor of her cheeks and the haggard look in her eyes. 
Then she looked back at the railroad tracks. The train was closer now. Soon they 
would see it.
'Hello, Sam.'
'Hello, Sarah.'
Sam put an arm around her waist. She let him, but the shape of her body against 
his was stiff, inflexible, ungiving. Please don't let it be too late, he thought 
again, and found himself thinking of Dave.
They had left him there, at the Library, after propping the door to the loading 
platform open with a rubber wedge. Sam had used a pay phone two blocks away to 
report the open door. He hung up when the dispatcher asked for his name. So Dave 
had been found, and of course the verdict had been accidental death, and those 
people in town who cared enough to assume anything at all would make the 
expected assumption: one more old sot had gone to that great ginmill in the sky. 
They would assume he had gone up the lane with a jug, had seen the open door, 
wandered in, and had fallen against the fire-extinguisher in the dark. End of 
story. The postmortem results, showing zero alcohol in Dave's blood, would not 
change the assumptions one bit - probably not even for the police. People just 
expect a drunk to die like a drunk, Sam thought, even when he's not.
'How have you been, Sarah?' he asked.
She looked at him tiredly. 'Not so well, Sam. Not so well at all. I can't sleep 
... can't eat ... my mind seems full of the most horrible thoughts ... they 
don't feel like my thoughts at all ... and I want to drink. That's the worst of 
it. I want to drink ... and drink ... and drink. The meetings don't help. For 
the first time in my life, the meetings don't help.'
She closed her eyes and began to cry. The sound was strengthless and dreadfully 
lost.
'No,' he agreed softly. 'They wouldn't. They can't. And I imagine she'd like it 
if you started drinking again. She's waiting . . . but that doesn't mean she 
isn't hungry.'
She opened her eyes and looked at him. 'What ... Sam, what are you talking 
about?'
'Persistence, I think,' he said. 'The persistence of evil. How it waits. How it 
can be so cunning and so baffling and so powerful.'
He raised his hand slowly and opened it. 'Do you recognize this, Sarah?'
She flinched away from the ball of red licorice which lay on his palm. For a 
moment her eyes were wide and fully awake. They glinted with hate and fear.
And the glints were silver.
'Throw that away!' she whispered. 'Throw that damned thing away!' Her hand 
jerked protectively toward the back of her neck, where her brownish-red hair 
hung against her shoulders.
'I'm talking to you,' he said steadily. 'Not to her but to you. I love you, 
Sarah.'
She looked at him again, and that look of terrible weariness was back. 'Yes,' 
she said. 'Maybe you do. And maybe you should learn not to.'
'I want you to do something for me, Sarah. I want you to turn your back to me. 
There's a train coming. I want you to watch that train and not look back at me 
until I tell you. Can you do that?'
Her upper lip lifted. That expression of hate and fear animated her haggard face 
again. 'No! Leave me alone! Go away!'
'Is that what you want?' he asked. 'Is it really? You told Dolph where I could 
find you, Sarah. Do you really want me to go?'
Her eyes closed again. Her mouth drew down in a trembling bow of anguish. When 
her eyes opened again, they were full of haunted terror and brimming with tears. 
'Oh, Sam,. help me! Something is wrong and I don't know what it is or what to 
do!'
'I know what to do,' he told her. 'Trust in me, Sarah, and trust in what you 
said when we were on our way to the Library Monday night. Honesty and belief. 
Those things are the opposite of fear. Honesty and belief.'
'It's hard, though,' she whispered. 'Hard to trust. Hard to believe.'
He looked at her steadily.
Naomi's upper lip lifted suddenly, and her lower lip curled out, turning her 
mouth momentarily into a shape that was almost like a horn. 'Fuck yourself!' she 
said. 'Go on and fuck yourself, Sam Peebles!'
He looked at her steadily.
She raised her hands and pressed them against her temples. 'I didn't mean it. I 
don't know why I said it. I ... my head ... Sam, my poor head! It feels like 
it's splitting in two.'
The oncoming train whistled as it crossed the Proverbia River and rolled into 
Junction City. It was the mid-afternoon freight, the one that charged through 
without stopping on its way to the Omaha stockyards. Sam could see it now.
'There's not much time, Sarah. It has to be now. Turn around and look at the 
train. Watch it come.'
'Yes,' she said suddenly. 'All right. Do what you want to do, Sam. And if you 
see ... see it isn't going to work ... then push me. Push me in front of the 
train. Then you can tell the others that I jumped ... that it was suicide.' She 
looked at him pleadingly - deathly-tired eyes staring into his from her 
exhausted face. 'They know I haven't been feeling myself - the people in the 
Program. You can't keep how you feel from them. After awhile that's just not 
possible. They'll believe you if you say I jumped, and they'd be right, because 
I don't want to go on like this. But the thing is . Sam, the thing is, I think 
that before long I will want to go on. '
'Be quiet,' he said. 'We're not going to talk about suicide. Look at the train, 
Sarah, and remember I love you.'
She turned toward the train, less than a mile away now and coming fast. Her 
hands went to the nape of her neck and lifted her hair. Sam bent forward . . . 
and what he was looking for was there, crouched high on the clean white flesh of 
her neck. He knew that her brain-stem began less than half an inch below that 
place, and he felt his stomach twist with revulsion.
He bent forward toward the blistery growth. It was covered in a spiderweb skein 
of crisscrossing white threads, but he could see it beneath, a lump of pinkish 
jelly that throbbed and pulsed with the beat of her heart.
'Leave me alone!' Ardelia Lortz suddenly screamed from the mouth of the woman 
Sam had come to love. 'Leave me alone, you bastard!' But Sarah's hands were 
steady, holding her hair up, giving him access.
'Can you see the numbers on the engine, Sarah?' he murmured.
She moaned.
He drove his thumb into the soft glob of red licorice he held, making a well a 
little bigger than the parasite which lay on Sarah's neck. 'Read them to me, 
Sarah. Read me the numbers.'
'Two ... six ... oh Sam, oh my head hurts ... it feels like big hands pulling my 
brain into two pieces . . .'
'Read the numbers, Sarah,' he murmured, and brought the Bull's Eye licorice down 
toward that pulsing, obscene growth.
'Five ... nine . . . five . . .'
He closed the licorice gently over it. He could feel it suddenly, wriggling and 
squirming under the sugary blanket. What if it breaks? What if it just breaks 
open before I can pull it off her? It's all Ardelia's concentrated poison ... 
what if it breaks before I get it off?
The oncoming train whistled again. The sound buried Sarah's shriek of pain.
'Steady
He simultaneously pulled the licorice back and folded it over. He had it; it was 
caught in the candy, pulsing and throbbing like a tiny sick heart. On the back 
of Sarah's neck were three tiny dark holes, no bigger than pinpricks.
'It's gone!' she cried. 'Sam, it's gone!'
'Not yet,' Sam said grimly. The licorice lay on his palm again, and a bubble was 
pushing up its surface, straining to break through 
The train was roaring past the Junction City depot now, the depot where a man 
named Brian Kelly had once tossed Dave Duncan four bits and then told him to get 
in the wind. Less than three hundred yards away and coming fast.
Sam pushed past Sarah and knelt by the tracks.
'Sam, what are you doing?'
'Here you go, Ardelia,' he murmured. 'Try this.' He slapped the pulsing, 
stretching blob of red licorice down on one of the gleaming steel rails.
In his mind he heard a shriek of unutterable fury and terror. He stood back, 
watching the thing trapped inside the licorice struggle and push. The candy 
split open ... he saw a darker red inside trying to push itself out ... and then 
the 2:20 to Omaha rushed over it in an organized storm of pounding rods and 
grinding wheels.
The licorice disappeared, and inside of Sam Peebles's mind, that drilling shriek 
was cut off as if with a knife.
He stepped back and turned to Sarah. She was swaying on her feet, her eyes wide 
and full of dazed joy. He slipped his arms around her waist and held her as the 
boxcars and flatcars and tankers thundered past them, blowing their hair back.
They stood like that until the caboose passed, trailing its small red lights off 
into the west. Then she drew away from him a little - but not out of the circle 
of his arms - and looked at him.
'Am I free, Sam? Am I really free of her? It feels like I am, but I can hardly 
believe it.'
'You're free,' Sam agreed. 'Your fine is paid, too, Sarah. Forever and ever, 
your fine is paid.'
She brought her face to his and began to cover his lips and cheeks and eyes with 
small kisses. Her own eyes did not close as she did this; she looked at him 
gravely all the while.
He took her hands at last and said, 'Why don't we go back inside, and finish 
paying our respects? Your friends will be wondering where you are.'
'They can be your friends, too, Sam ... if you want them to be.'
He nodded. 'I do. I want that a lot.'
'Honesty and belief,' she said, and touched his cheek.
'Those are the words.' He kissed her again, then offered his arm. 'Will you walk 
with me, lady?'
She linked her arm through his. 'Anywhere you want, sir. Anywhere at all.'
They walked slowly back across the lawn to Angle Street together, arm in arm.