"What did he look like?"

"Gingerbread, I guess you'd say, although-"

"The man, asshole-what did he look like?"

Her forehead got all cross, the way it used to: kind of funny now, with her eyes like that, and no belt buckles possible. "Look like?" she said."I'm afflicted with vision problems, or can't you get it through your thick skull?"

Not that funny. Smack. He did it then, but who wouldn't have? And it felt good; why hadn't he done it long ago? He picked her up off the floor, sat her at the table. "What I'm trying to find out, Ma-I know you like when I call you Ma-is would you know him if you heard him again?"

Ma repositioned her dentures, gave him one of her hateful looks, but not so hateful now with no eye power behind it, and said, "Honor thy father and mother."

"Accidents happen. Would you know him if you heard him again, yes or no?"

"You could try saying please."

"If I do you won't like it."

One of the best things he ever said. It silenced her. At last she hung her head-oh, why hadn't he done it long, long ago?-and said, "I'd know him."

"'Cause why?"

"He talked fancy." She sniffled.

"Fancy?"

"You know."

"I don't."

"Fancy. Like with Harry. Harry has these long claws. The gentlest possible cat, but long claws. And this preacher man said they gave him an inadvertent scratch. Inadvertent, Donald. Now, who on God's earth talks like that?"

Whitey knew the answer to that; he didn't know what or why, but he knew who. He was nobody's fucking bullfrog, nobody's . . . puppet. Did Roger really think of himself as the master? Whitey would see about that.

First things first. It took him no time to find his mother's purse, pocket what was in it, walk out the door without another word, a six-pack of Pepsi in his hand.

Lawton Ferry, 97 Carp Road. No pickup: an unpromising deficiency, but not definitive, and because not definitive, Roger took the ax with him when he left his car and went to the door.

He knocked.

"Donald? Is that you?"

"A friend of his."

Pause. "I know your voice."

"I'm your friend, too."

Pause. How slow people were. "But how could you be Donald's friend? You don't know him."

Slow, and they didn't even get there. "I prayed for him. Doesn't that make me his friend?"

"I don't know." Pause. "Harry disappeared the day you came."

"But he's right here, by the trash can."

"You don't mean it."

"As I live and breathe."

Pause. "Are you sure it's him?"

Roger described the animal as he remembered it.

"Merciful God-it's Harry!"

"Why don't I bring him in?"

"I'd be obliged."

"Here, kitty," said Roger into the night. "Kitty, kitty, kitty."

The door opened. The woman had a split lip, far too insignificant to account for all the blood Roger saw-on the kitchen table, the counter, the refrigerator, down the hall to the back.

"Have you got him?" said the woman, her sightless eyes gazing up at him. He didn't like seeing sightless eyes again so soon, therefore was a little gruff perhaps when he said, "He's absconded once more."

"I don't understand," the woman said. "Harry," she called, leaning outside, "Harry."

Roger went past her into the house. He followed blood down to the bathroom; formed meaning from gauze, tape, needle, thread; returned to the kitchen; saw the open purse, a hideous object made of shiny green plastic; made meaning of it, too.

"Harry, Harry."

"It's useless," he said. "Close the door. Snow's coming in."

"But he'll freeze."

"Harry? He's a survivor."

"Do you really think so?"

"Without question. Nine lives, and all that related folklore."

She closed the door, came inside. "You're right. Harry's a survivor."

"Then shall we agree not to worry about him? The pertinent question is-what are we going to do about Whitey?"

"Donald."

"Donald."

"Good question." She moved to the table, sat down, closed her eyes. A tear or two escaped her almost lashless slits. "He wasn't the nicest boy to his mother, not tonight, not anytime. And after all the sacrifices I made." She gazed up at Roger, unseeing. "Do you know what I've done for him?"

"What you could,I'm sure. Now our job is to help him, don't you agree?"

"But how?"

"You must think."

"Should we say another prayer?"

"In a minute. But first, we should establish where he's gone."

"He didn't tell me."

Roger laid the ax silently on the table. "Perhaps he let slip some clue."

"Clue? You talk like a cop." She turned her head sideways, trying to catch a glimpse of him. "What's your name,anyway?"

"Harry."

"But that's the cat's name."

"No matter. What matters is where your son has gone."

"No need to raise your voice. That's the same thing I said to him. Now I suppose you'll smack me, too."

"What a suggestion. All I'm saying is that surely even someone of your-surely you can appreciate that in order to help him, I have to know where he is."

"He didn't say. Maybe back to New Horizons."

"It's a thought."

"You know about New Horizons?"

Her face tilted up in inquiry. This, as Roger had suspected for some time, was an impossible situation. Simply put, oversimply perhaps, this woman was negative. She knew all of the bad and none of the good: a potential witness of the most damaging kind.

"Useless now, dangerous in future."

"What's that?"

"Did I say something?" Roger rose.

"It sounded like a prayer, the beginning of prayer. Like the next line is oh Lord, hear my humble call."

"Yes," he said. "Why not?"

"We're going to pray for Donald?"

"Let us kneel."

They knelt.

"Maybe that's a good omen," she said, "you having the same name as Harry."

"There are no omens," said Roger.

Still, how odd, his idle thought at their previous encounter of the ease of snapping her neck. And now here they were. Data: her memory of his voice, the timing of his visits, her knowledge of his awareness of New Horizons-those were his rationale; her split lip, Whitey's bloodstains, the psychiatrist's testimony establishing motive-those were his protection. Anything else? Oh, yes, the gloves, still on his hands, rendering him immaculate. His gloved hands: he raised them.

She lifted her head in unseeing synchrony, waiting for his prayerful words, exposing her scrawny neck. Roger performed the logical act, but it wasn't as easy as he'd anticipated, in the doing.

28.

Francie tucked her car in behind a plow and stayed there, creeping along through the rolling country on the west side of the river at twenty miles an hour. In the darkness of late afternoon, she could see nothing but the back of the plow, lit in a way not at all comforting, more like an alien spaceship with monstrous creatures hidden inside. An alien spaceship leading her on to her wretched task: Francie tried rehearsing the little speech for Ned in her mind. It sounded pitiful; aloud, would be even worse.

At the intersection of the lane that led to Brenda's gate, the plow continued north and Francie turned east, out of its shelter. Any local could earn extra money by clearing the roads, and someone had done a quick job on the lane, perhaps an hour or two before. Blowing wind and fresh snow were undoing it almost as quickly, but the lane was still drivable, and Francie was halfway to the gate when her car phone buzzed.

"Hello?"

"Francie?" It was Ned.

"Yes."

"Are you on the way already?"

"I am."

"I hope you haven't gone too far."

"I just left," she said, lying because she sensed what was coming, didn't want to waste emotion, his or hers, on what would now be a side issue.

"Still in the city?"

"Yes."

"That's a relief," Ned said. "Because I'm not going to be able to make it. Something's come up, and I just can't."

"Something about Anne?"

"No, no. Nothing like that. Work related. I'll explain later."

"It doesn't matter," Francie began, and prepared to blurt out the whole thing, get it over with. Why had she cared about the setting in the first place? Why had she wanted to pretty it up? Doing it, getting it done, was all that counted. "It doesn't matter, Ned," she repeated, "because-"