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

“Well, in that case—”

They’d come to the house. Craine eased over to the curb and parked. He left the motor running. The girl’s lips were pursed, and Craine thought without a trace of intent of kissing her.

She put her hand on the door handle, then said, staring forward, “You say you’ve noticed how I’ve been. How have I?”

He lit his pipe, taking his time, then shut off the engine. On the porch of the house where she had her apartment, three students sat talking, looking without interest at the truck.

“Well,” Craine said, “talkative. Eager to give no offense.” He rolled down the window to let the smoke out. Warmth rushed in. “Desperate, you might say. Scared half to death because you think I’m a crazy old drunk.”

She nodded.

“Which I am, of course. Though it seems to me I’m the best hope you’ve got.”

To his surprise, she nodded again, brow furrowed, eyes still gazing straight ahead. He risked closing the fingers of his left hand around the neck of the bottle in his pocket.

“You don’t believe he means to kill me,” she said.

“No.”

“But you believe he exists.”

“I’m not sure about that yet.” The pipe had gone out and the matchbook was empty. He reached in front of her—she pressed back against the seat—to open the glove compartment and get out more matches.

“You think it’s someone who heard that paper of mine.”

Craine lit his pipe. “It could be that.”

She continued to sit with her hand on the door handle, gazing forward. “Is it really too late for tornadoes?”

“They’re not likely, anyway, this time of year. I suppose it’s possible.”

She considered it, or considered something else. He had no choice but to smoke and wait. Suddenly something flew straight at the windshield then shot up and right. He started, but inwardly. Elaine, he saw, had missed it. He tightened his grip on the matchbook. She said, “Why did you ask me that … question about men?”

“Just groping,” he said. He blew smoke out the window, masking his alarm. There was that tingle. Something stirred behind him, or perhaps stirred in the truck’s side mirror—flash of steel, sudden light—and he froze. But the street was empty—an old Pontiac down the block, moseying home like an old woman who’s been to market; nothing more.

The girl said, “I’m not really as bad as I sounded in that letter. Once a teacher of mine, an older man—”

The flash came, ghostly, too brief to register except as an afterimage. “I don’t need to know,” Craine said. “It’s all right.”

“He was married.”

“Don’t tell me. I shouldn’t have asked.” He pocketed the matches, put the pipe on the dashboard. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the girl’s hand on the door handle was trembling, all wrinkled and spotted, not a young girl’s hand but a palsied old woman’s. He turned to look straight at it and it resumed its former shape.

“Look, if there’s something I can tell you that will help,” she was saying.

“I’m a detective,” Craine said. “Just a detective.”

She turned her head to look at him, her eyes brimming tears, and then, with sudden violence, she pushed down the door handle and opened the door.

“Wait!” he said, and grabbed her arm. His mind snapped clear. He was as surprised by what he’d done as she was, and said quietly, “I’m sorry.”

They sat for an instant like statues, both of them painfully embarrassed. He should let go of her arm, he was thinking. He should check into a madhouse. If an objective observer should see him now …

“Mr. Craine, I really have to go,” she said.

He nodded. “One more minute.” And now, thinking about it, he did let go. She made no move to get out, sat motionless a moment longer, then turned her face away. “Listen,” Craine said, “you don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m your friend, or anyway I’m trying to be. That’s the truth.”

She said nothing. He wanted to touch her arm again, fatherly. The softness of it was still in his fingertips. Instead, he put the pipe on the dashboard with his right hand and with his left drew out his whiskey. He unscrewed the cap and took three swallows. She said nothing.

“ ‘Why do you always have to drink, Mr. Craine?’ That’s what you’re thinking.” She slid her eyes in his direction, then away. He put the cap back on. “ ‘What is it you’re afraid of?’ That’s what you’d like to know.” He smiled.

“I really do have to go,” she said. She shifted a little as if to do so. “I believe you about wanting to be my friend.”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” he said, “it’s not death I’m afraid of. I’ve thought about it, I’ve watched myself. It’s something, all right, but not that.”

She nodded, and Craine felt a lunatic urge to ask her what it was, this unholy dread in him. He said, “I’ve been shot at, I’ve been in car wrecks—more wrecks than you’ve had years in your life, Miss Glass. It doesn’t faze me—maybe speeds up my pulse, that’s all. I could tell you about fear.”

She sat miserably listening, head bowed, enduring. Her right hand was still on the door handle. With her left she was bunching up then smoothing then bunching up then smoothing her coat. He couldn’t make out, at the moment, what was wrong with her, though he was certain he’d understood a minute ago.

He said, “The first time people were afraid in this world was the minute they killed something and ate it. So they made up bear gods and grain gods and so on…” She threw him a look, but he continued. “The second time was the minute somebody killed a human being, or else when somebody made himself king over all the other people, and forced them to do what was good for them, or so he thought. So they made up gods to blame the rules