33

Big fire. The same fire. Old friend.

Petals of ash falling.

Wind.

Petals of ash like cherry blossoms.

Smell, like rubber.

Old wounds.

Wake up and don’t worry about it.

Big wind. Ash falling into the prairie, the clearing, open ground, whatever you would call it.

Wake up, don’t worry.

Someone screaming, of course. The scream an old friend, like the scars.

Then wake up.

No edges to get hold of. Drown in fire. Drown in a dream of fire. Or wake up.

Fred, covered with sweat, opened his eyes.

At least he hadn’t thrashed around this time and wakened Molly.

The room was black-dark. Molly’s clock, beside her on the bedside table, showed almost three.

Molly was in a delicious sleep. He could wake her. She wouldn’t mind. Probably she’d be grateful to be included in Fred’s old friendship.

The subconscious was a slow animal, catching up now with events. The dream was the afterlife of Fred’s concern from the night before: concern for Russell and the danger he was in, concern that he’d have to take a life or lose it, or be maimed in some way.

Well, that was over. Done. Fixed. If Clay’s letter didn’t turn up at all, it was no big deal. He had done all he could and had saved Clayton a lot of money in the process.

Fred was now awake. He’d flipped onto his back while he was dreaming, to face the wounds and fire again. Molly was curled on her side, sleeping soundly. She must have turned the TV off after he went to sleep and climbed back in beside him.

Fred stared into the dark room, his eyes growing able to distinguish objects, his ears alert, making the change from listening to the dream to listening to the dark house in the night of Arlington.

Was he listening for footsteps around the house?

No need. It was not that kind of house. Unless he was in it.

He heard a small snort from Molly, as if she were listening to him think.

Fred couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else he should be doing.

He had the Heade to deal with tomorrow. No, later today, this afternoon. But though the stakes were high, that would be relatively smooth sailing. He’d find out how high Clay wanted him to go, and go that high if need be, then stop. He would either attend in person, if Clay wanted him to be seen and wanted a report later on who else had been bidding, or bid on the telephone, if Clay wanted his role to be kept quiet. The auction house would not reveal the name of the purchaser any more than it would normally reveal the name of the original owner, the consignor.

The biggest potential problem was Finn, if he had stumbled onto the same clue Fred and Clayton had. There was no other way to explain his continued presence on the scene.

Unless …

Fred heard himself chuckle. Don’t wake Molly, he told himself.

But why not consider and acknowledge the obvious—that Finn had finally met his match in the fair Ophelia?

O! what a noble mind is here o’erthrown. The observ’d of all observers quite, quite down. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough.

Fred started laughing. Molly stirred and protested.

It was not for nothing that Fred had played that small role in Hamlet during his brief, disastrous Harvard career.

He got up quietly and reached the door, about to wander naked through the house. That would not do. He pulled his pants on and went down to the kitchen, where he could laugh.

Ophelia, Ophelia. If thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool. God has given you one face, and you make yourself another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp, and make your wantonness your ignorance. If you marry a fool, let it be Finn.

Fred stood in front of Molly’s fridge. Did he really want a beer? At three-thirty in the morning?

Well, then, coffee?

Molly had instant in the cabinet, and Fred put water on to boil. He took the screamer off so as not to wake the house.

He was so close to it, so occupied with his own business, so taken by Clayton’s paranoia, that he’d forgotten about love. And he knew Ophelia so well that he’d never considered that anyone else in the world could take her seriously for a moment. He’d sold Ophelia short, the sister-in-law complex.

That woman at the Charles, Fran, at the reception desk—how full of starry admiration she had been for the way Ophelia’s influence had changed her life!

Hadn’t Ophelia been married three times, each time to a man of substance—at least until the divorce settlement?

And wasn’t Ophelia Molly’s sister?

The water boiling, Fred made his coffee and let it steam in front of him at the kitchen table.

Fires and wounds and dreams and floating ash, indeed. Finn was in love. Ophelia had bewitched him. Finn, like a puffed and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance tread, and recked not Clayton Reed.

Ophelia was a past mistress of the judo twitch that lets your own weight fell you. Ophelia, who could sell anything to anybody, had sold Finn the image of himself as the darling of a TV series: the host, the pundit, the pander.

How nice that it should happen to Finn.

How pleased Clayton would be when he found out.

Taking his coat from the back of the chair, Fred put it on over his skin and strolled outside, carrying the end of the coffee. He stood in Molly’s cold backyard to drink the rest of it. He pulled her back door closed. Let them be warm in there.