Stillness & Shadows by John Gardner (accelerated reader books TXT) 📕

too expensive. Undergraduates have daddies.” He hurried on, pointing his pipe stems at Meakins. “Also, check out this clipping.” He groped for, found, and jimmied himself into his shoulder holster, clumsily, as if he’d never before done it, and shoved in the .357 magnum. Hannah looked alarmed, and no wonder, no wonder; -something had gotten into him. Though his hands were shaking badly, he felt unnaturally calm. He glanced at Royce, who was pouring himself coffee. And now back again came the frightening, ungraspable memory. The room flashed white and it seemed to him that blood came out of Royce’s mouth. He struggled to think clearly, get control of himself, and immediately everything was perfectly normal, except distant, as if seen through clear, high-quality tinted glass. Meakins was supporting him, looking at him oddly, with his mouth open, but helping him into his old brown suit coat and, after that, into his limp gray overcoat.

Meakins said, “You mean you want us to—”

Craine nodded. “That’s what I mean. Exactly.”

Hannah, over by the window, cried out suddenly, “Craine, there’s somebody watching us!”

Craine turned, in fact jumped, and looked out in pure terror. Despite the weakness of his eyes, he spotted immediately a frail, dwarfish creature with a ratty brown beard and a rounded back, lumpy shoes that toed inward. He was standing in plain view in the parking lot—Craine had seen him before, though he couldn’t think where. His hands were crammed down into the pockets of a beltless, uneven trench coat—now one hand came up to touch his beard—and he stood bent forward, looking up as if myopically, like a rabbi, at Craine’s window. He had on the back of his head a wide-brimmed gray hat that might have come from an old-time gangster movie. Craine’s heart hammered.

Royce, who had sharp eyes, gave a laugh like an explosion. “It’s her,” he said. “She’s put on a Goddamn phony beard.”

“You gotta be kidding,” Hannah said. She leaned closer to the window and her faced moved toward righteous indignation. “Damn if you ain’t right,” she said. She looked at Craine.

Craine showed no surprise. The truth clicked in his mind as if he’d known it from the start.

Royce laughed again, harder this time. “Jesus Christ if that don’t beat hell!” he said, and slapped his knee. With the coffee cup in one hand, he towed Meakins toward the window with the other. “Lookee that,” he said. He doubled up with laughter, balancing the cup, never spilling a drop, so that the whole performance looked fraudulent, ugly. Meakins merely looked, troubled and sorrowful, then glanced at Royce with distaste, then over at Craine, who was watching Royce’s antics with the look of a man from a distant planet. Not even Hannah smiled. Royce wound himself down, still pretending it was funny. He was aware by now that his amusement wasn’t catching. He went back to his chair, still shaking his head, laughing as if just beginning to get control, balancing the coffee, then sat against the wall, whipped out his pistol, left-handed, and raised it to his temple as if to shoot himself.

Strange, strange man, Craine mused, cold of eye as a surgeon. Somehow it made him think of something he’d read about, a word—in some African language—that meant only itself, no outside referent. I must remember to think about that, Craine thought. He knew he would never remember.

At last Craine said, “I’ll tell you what I’ve got in mind, Emmit.” He paused, startled by a new idea, an idea that brightened in his mind slowly, tantalizing. He squinted again, unconsciously touching the gun at his armpit. The three of them were watching him as if they believed he’d gone crazier—which he had, he understood.

Falsely casual, smoothing down his dyed-black hair, Craine crossed to the door of the coat closet and took, from the shelf above where the coats hung, a curious black object. He held it up, smiling, for them to see. It was a gift from some friend, some practical joker. He could remember the face, piglike; the name was gone.

What Craine held up for his associates’ inspection was a single-piece moustache, beard, and wig. It was a ridiculous, outrageous object, the fur of some animal, perhaps a black bear, and when you put it against your face it scraped like hell’s torment, dry as blowing sand. He pulled it on and, with some difficulty, fastened the metal catch on the black elastic strap.

“I’ll tell you what I have in mind,” he said in an artificial voice, high, almost womanish, turning his head from side to side like a creature on the late late late show. Hannah laughed, uneasy.

Craine put the back of his hand to his mouth, or rather to his fur, remembering the bottle of Scotch on his desk, and after a moment’s reflection he went over to it, screwed on the bottlecap, and screwed the bottle down into his overcoat pocket. It passed through the pocket and went on down into the lining and bumped against his leg. He let it be; it would ride.

Royce, still seated, stared at him over the rim of his cup. He said, “What the fuck you doin, Craine?”

Craine smiled behind the false moustache and beard. He pulled on his hat and tipped the brim down.

Royce and Meakins looked at Hannah. She wrinkled her face up, thoughtful. “That poor girl,” she said. She picked up the letter from the top of his desk and held it out to him, shaking it a little. “What if it’s all true, what she wrote in here? Craine, I don’t b’lieve you ought to do this.”

But Craine’s mind was not available for debate. He jerked his head toward the door. Royce pursed his lips, thoughtful, then got up and crossed to it.

Two

This was Craine’s plan:

Disguised, but not unrecognizably so—at least not to anyone who’d seen before that miserable slouch, that trailing, mud-spattered, buttonless overcoat—Craine would slink out into the street, by the Baptist Book Store entrance, carrying in his