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

“It’s not!” she said, indignant. “What do you mean? How come?”

He knew for sure now how Elaine was in class. He could see her in third grade, nodding eagerly, shooting her hand up, flashing her furious, black-eyed glances at fools who thought six threes were twelve.

“Shoot a beam of light from anywhere,” Craine said, “it will curve around with space and come back to where it started—right?” She nodded, but guardedly. He jerked forward. “Wrong! Because the universe is expanding!”

“Hey!” she said. He saw her making speed-of-light connections: sex, funeral tumps, sperm-light, Stonehenge as observatory, the spiralling universe. “Hey!” she said, half out of her seat.

Craine laughed—in fact cackled—and glanced around to see who’d noticed. Ice went up his back and made his neck hair rise. At the cash register, carefully not looking at them, stood a handsome, clean-shaven, sullen young man in a satiny blue and white runner’s jacket.

“Hannah,” he said, bent forward, shielding the telephone mouthpiece with his hand, “get me a trace on this license. Belongs to an old red Volkswagen—college boy, looks like. Maybe graduate assistant, otherwise a sneak; he’s got a faculty sticker on his windshield. Get me everything you can on him.” He gave her the number.

When she’d read it back, double-checking, she said, “Craine?”

“No time for chitchat, Hannah.”

The world had come alive, alive past all denying, this time—exactly as if a cadaver had suddenly opened its eyes, slightly startled, then grinned. He understood, of course, that it was only himself that had come alive; nothing had changed in the smooth, rich blacktop of the parking lot, the car rear ends lined up gleaming across from the window where Craine stood peering out. He understood too that it was what he would call, in another mood, illusion: the girl had switched on his denial-of-death machine—maybe had switched it on days ago; maybe that was why suddenly he was remembering things, his grandfather, Aunt Harriet, his childhood pleasure in prowling after dark. It was not, he sensed, an idea he’d be wise to pursue—such questions as: What was it about her, a girl not much more than a third his age, that had snapped Craine out of whatever he’d been in, headlong dive toward oblivion, withdrawal toward divinity and death. No need to ask; he knew the answers in advance. The twists of the miserable human psyche were his business. Anyway, such sober-minded questions were irrelevant, like the discouraging facts of aerodynamics to a bumblebee. It was stupid, no denying it, this excitement he’d finally quit fighting, allowed to take him over: Tarzan arm-wrestling elephants for Jane. Worse, in fact, if you looked at the thing cold-bloodedly: a sick, maybe dying alcoholic detective living in a town where a mass murderer was loose, the detective in possession of information that might possibly throw light on the murders but taking no time to get word to the police, throwing himself wholeheartedly into the fantasy of a half-crazy girl, betting all he had on her … Well, no news. When was the denial-of-death machine not shameless?

“Craine, don’t hang up,” Hannah said. “Did McClaren get hold of you yet?”

Elaine Glass was coming from the cash register now, where she’d collected his change. She looked no less flustered, no less panic-stricken, than when he’d given her the check and the money, telling her he had to go, call of nature. “Mr. Craine!” she’d cried out; but he’d had no time to take pity on her; had to see where that kind in the runner’s jacket went, what car he drove, if any. Now Elaine was looking to left and right, perhaps afraid Craine had skipped out on her. He said into the mouthpiece, speaking more quickly now, turning his back to Elaine, “Put Meakins on it, Hannah. I wanna know how many times a day that boy pisses.”

“Did you hear what I said, Craine?” Hannah asked. “McClaren’s been burning up the telephone. He says to tell you it’s urgent.”

“Of course I heard you.”

There was a brief hesitation. “You drunk again, Craine?”

“Not me, sister!” He grinned. On reflection he saw that he was, yes, drearily drunk again already, but sober enough to be annoyed by it—he could be downright furious, if he let himself—and annoyed by his own theatrics. “Tell you when I get in,” he said. “Any word on Carnac?”

“He’s come to,” Hannah said. “McClaren mentioned it.”

“Does he know who beat him up?”

“He says St. Cyril.”

“Jesus.” Craine slightly turned, peeking past his shoulder, making sure Elaine Glass was still there.

“You know the man?” Hannah asked.

“Died a long time ago,” Craine said, brusque. “Martyred some Egyptian witch, if I’m not mistaken—alchemist, mathematician; I forget.”

“You think it means anything?”

“Not likely. Listen, why don’t you see if you can talk to him. Maybe with you—”

“You think we should get involved, Craine? McClaren said—”

“We are involved, or anyway I am. They dumped him on my doorstep.”

“Dumped him?”

“Tell you about it later,” he said. Then: “Hannah?” He glanced in Elaine’s direction. She’d seen him now and was coming toward the phone booth, her face slightly puzzled, maybe hurt. “Hannah,” Craine said, “what happened to that Bible I had? White one—you know the one I mean?” As he spoke of the Bible a kind of tingle went through him, premonition of the terrible white flash. DT’s, yes, he knew that; but what did it mean? A sober man—a doctor, an analyst—could explain the thing till hell froze over. Thanatos-fixated; unresolved conflict of blood in the toilet bowl and his aunt’s sweet face singing hymns. Yes, true, all true. Nevertheless, maybe he was onto something—that was how it felt—one foot in an alien universe, territory of devils, old, sleeping gods.

When his mind came back, Hannah was saying, “It’s here. I brought it from Denhams’. What you want with it?” He strained to pay attention. He could see her squinting at the phone, perplexed.

“ ’Fraid I lost it, that’s all. Wanna know how it comes out. Listen.” He glanced at Elaine