CHAPTER TEN

The stink of petrol flooded the trail to Kinnoull Tower, pooling in puddles along its red needles and brown earth, thickening the air between the trees. To Dennis, it smelled as though a heavy lorry had driven to the top, where it had continued to rumble and sputter fumes that flowed back down the hillside and into his sinuses.

The rumbling and sputtering, however, did not come from a vehicle. In the clearing, Dennis could see large swaths of the tower walls had been draped with a rough brown fabric. Several large bags of sand and lime mortar lay open at the foot of the farthest wall, around the base of a large gas generator, painted green on top and rusted brown beneath. He recognized the apparatus it was currently powering—a forced-action mixer, like the ones he’d seen during some of his father’s home repair escapades.

Above it all perched Eddie, impossibly defying gravity; he clung to the vertical surface like Spider Man. After a few moments Dennis realized the goblin’s toes had a firm grip on a miniscule protrusion, while his right index finger gripped the tiniest of cracks. In the other hand, he wielded a trowel. His jeans were rolled up to mid-calf—a gummy, blistery blackened-red burn still visible on his leg—and his grey T-shirt was covered in mortar dust and sand.

“Oi!” Dennis shouted over the ruckus.

“I know, I know you’re here, give me a second!” Eddie dabbed a small amount of mortar into a niche between stones, leaped backwards, landed on his feet beside the generator, and snapped it off with one hand.

“What do you think? It isnae bad for a day’s work, aye?”

“You’ve…it looks like you’ve done half the tower!” Had Eddie been human, Dennis might have not believed a moment of it.

“Aye, that’s about right.” Eddie pointed upwards with the trowel and wiped his other hand on his pants. “The thing of it is, Dennis, it’s not as simple as I’d expected. These were Victorians built this. A 19th century interpretation of what a ruined tower might look like. I’m used to real masonry—in real castles, hundreds of years older.”

Dennis lifted the edge of one of the damp sheets of fabric and ran his fingers along the edge of wet, grey stone surrounded on all sides by lime mortar. “Jesuuuuuh, I mean, jeepers, Eddie—you cut new stone?”

“Aye, of course!” Eddie frowned. “D’ye think I’d leave it half-arsed? Hardly have a quarry nearby, so I’ve had to be a wee bit huntery-gathery with it. Luckily, it’s mostly repointing work, lad—filling up the gaps. Maybe do some turf capping, but I’m not convinced the Council wants that look. Important to retain the look, disnae matter otherwise.”

“And all this?” Dennis gestured to the fabric.

“Hessian!” Eddie tugged lightly on one of the pieces that draped the wall. “Stops the mortar drying out too quickly. If it dries too quickly, it falls out, white and crumbly. See, lime mortar doesn’t dry out and harden—it carbonates. It’s a chemical reaction, not a drying reaction, so—”

“Zzzzzzzzzzz.”

“Sod off. I’m explaining it to you.”

“Then get to the point.”

“I’ll get to the point, and then I’ll take that point and use it to gouge out your eyeballs, you impatient bastard.”

“Easy, little fella.”

Eddie shut his eyes and held his breath a moment.

“Okay, sorry about the little fella business,” Dennis laughed. “What does it all mean?”

“It means this’ll cure hard in a couple days, but it’s a managed curing process.”

“Managed curing process!” Dennis laughed again. “The red cap is overseeing a managed curing process.”

“As a matter of fact,” Eddie said defensively, “yes, I am.”

“Where in the world did you get the water?”

Eddie tossed a thumb over his shoulder towards several enormous barrels tucked behind the wall.

“Those must weigh—”

“One thousand kilograms per cubic metre,” the red cap said with a dismissive wave.

“Eddie, how in the name of all that is holy did you get it up here?”

Eddie smiled. “Now isn’t that something you’d like to have seen?”

Dennis smiled in return. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

The two stood a moment, silently regarding the sun on its downward arc. A fine sheen of gold and silver reflected off the damp sackcloth.

“It all came from the same yard,” Eddie said as he continued to stare into the horizon. “Seems the proprietor of said yard had a minor disagreement with the missus, and in order to set things right, he’s taken her to Toulouse, though, really, why Toulouse, I’ve no idea. I’ve got six more days to finish up and return what amounts to four-fifths of his business investment. Sadly, I can’t replenish his materials at this time.”

“Maybe you can cut him a cheque once you’ve been paid,” Dennis said dryly.

“Maybe you can teach me how to open a bank account,” Eddie replied.

“Maybe you can find yourself that elusive national insurance number.”

“There are going to be complications, aren’t there, Dennis?”

“You can’t open a bank account without identification,” Dennis said. “Eventually we’ll have to get you some. I don’t know how or from where or from whom, but some day, you will…”

“…spring fully formed from the forehead of forgery,” Eddie concluded.

Dennis smiled and nodded his head towards the tower. “Don’t go too fast, now. They’ll never believe one man could do it all so quickly.”

“I’ll keep it at a human pace,” replied Eddie. “An extraordinarily competent human, but human all the same.”

“Thanks. These days, any form of competency will look good on me.”

“Nae borra.” Eddie wiped more grit from his hands. “Though this plan of yours, this plan to help Margaret…it makes me question your competency.”

“What’s wrong with a benefit concert?”

“You need a performer.”

“I’ve chosen a performer.”

“You’ve chosen a performer?”

“Yes.”

“And…?”

“Ah,” said Dennis, “yes. Well. Um…I think we should approach Kit Carson.”

“Kit Carson?” Eddie looked aghast.

“Bad choice?”

“Best choice I can imagine since he had the biggest single of the spring and then completely went to ground, making him twice as famous. The thing is, he’s a practically a child, with depression and anxiety issues, and, as I say, he’s gone to ground. You can’t get him because you can’t find him. Aye?”

“I checked out North Inch,” Dennis continued as if he had not heard. “If we keep it modest, their Council’s not opposed to us going ahead.”

“Dennis—”

“Now we’ve got to get about making posters—”

“—Dennis, for the sake of all that is holy, do you know where he is?”

“What was the question again?” Dennis seemed sincerely confused.

“Do you know. Where. He. Is.”

“Not remotely, no.”

“Ah.” Eddie nodded. “Well. At least you’re tilting at the biggest of windmills. Idiot.”

“It’s not a windmill,” Dennis insisted. “Listen, Eddie, when all these supernatural shenanigans began, I pulled Kit Caron’s name out of my ass. That was where I said I was going—to work with Kit Carson. If boarding passes and violent punters and accidental trains and notices on the Tesco bulletin boards and bloody goblins could bring me to this point, if they’re all connected somehow, then…it’s the only sensible choice. It’s as though fate wants this to happen.”

You don’t believe in fate.

No, but he also didn’t believe in goblins, and he’d helped one remove his iron boots all the same. Goblins and boarding passes and unexplained music in his head…all of it so surreal, a big box of crazy that he had come to accept. It was surreal, but it wasn’t unreal. It was real real. With that logic, the box of crazy became a toolbox of crazy, with which he could draft and develop various feats of mental engineering to suspend his disbelief. Was it unlikely that he could find Kit Carson? Yes. What it unlikely that the boy would play even if he found him? Absolutely. Yet given the events of the summer, the term “unlikely” had become relative.

“Listen,” he replied. “If we go through the usual channels, it’s a definite no-go. But…you. You do have certain…abilites.”

“Dinnae even start, Dennis. I’m a red cap, not a superhero private eye. I cannae find him. But you, master of every situation, have an alternative plan.”

Dennis squinted. “What did you call me?”

“The alternative plan, Dennis. What is it?”

“We find him,” said Dennis.

“We find him?”

“We find him,” Dennis repeated.

“…”

“Then, when we’ve found him, we skip the famey-fortuney crap. If he’s hiding from his publicists and the press, we act like he’s a regular person, and we go in person. We make a personal appeal.”

“A personal appeal.”

“Yes. He knows Margaret, she used to teach him a while back.”

“So, two strangers pulling into his drive and asking him to play for free for the benefit of a former teacher, this is the best approach.”

“Former substitute teacher.”

“This is the best approach.”

“I’ll admit, it’s a long shot.”

“I’ll admit you’re an idiot.” Eddie stalked away, towards the generator, and slapped it back on again with the palm of his hand.

“What are you doing?” Dennis shouted over the noise. When there was no response, he followed Eddie to the generator and turned it off again.

“What are you doing?” he repeated.

“Getting back to work,” the red cap replied. “Hoping you’ll come to your senses.”

“So you won’t help me find Carson?” Dennis asked. “The magic little creature won’t have a little faith in the unlikely?”

Eddie stared at Dennis a moment, amusement stirring in his eyes. “I didnae say that,” he said. “I’ve plenty of faith in the unlikely.”

“You just aren’t sure you have faith in me.”

“Forgive me, lad, but you’re right.” Eddie sounded reluctant to admit it. “Every time I think about this plan, I think about your half-baked scheme to land your band a record deal. I can’t help but think this scheme is headed in the same direction. But I’ll go with you, lad. I’ll go. On one condition.”

“Oh, this should be good.”

“You take me into town tomorrow,” Eddie said.

“Okay.”

Eddie looked up at Dennis, his eyes searching Dennis’ face for sarcasm.

“No, that was a serious okay, Eddie. We’ll go into town. By daylight. Wear sunglasses and keep your mouth shut, and I think you’ll be okay.”

“You dinnae think I’ll terrify the locals?”

“I think you’ll pass for human,” Dennis replied.

Eddie nodded sharply, as if concluding a business deal, and turned back to the tower and the work at hand.

*

“Look at that,” grumbled Eddie as they passed their reflection in a shop window. “We’re in need of a whimsical soundtrack.”

The window revealed a harsh reality—they looked ridiculous. The Captain of Kinnoull Hill and his tiny friend. He removed the captain’s hat and marveled at how his hairline had begun to reposition itself, moving ever-so-slightly up and away from his wide-set eyes. Beside him, the Gollum-hued, nearly thousand-year-old creature and emergent Scotsman sported Ray-ban sunglasses, the ancient suggestions of blood and gore stained into the fabric of his cap.

Dennis loomed a full head-and-torso above the goblin, whose cap and sunglasses made him resemble some sort of poorly outfitted 1970’s undercover policeman or an unconvincingly disguised whistleblower. To Dennis, the loose, greyish skin on Eddie’s face—ultimately not so different than that of an elderly man, though decidedly ashen—appeared looser and greyer than the wizened knees of an elephant. The dichotomy between his height and his visage was so great, even Dennis was taken aback by the unlikely sight. Beneath the sunglasses, the flicker of fire was invisible, but the cap itself was a stinking, blotchy mess; if someone were to lean in too close for a whiff, Dennis would be helpless to explain the odour, like rusty iron and rotting flesh, that wafted about Eddie’s head and attracted the more-than-occasional insect.

“Whimsical soundtrack,” Dennis repeated. “More like a sad trombone.”

For his part, Eddie was entirely unconcerned about how he looked. He was concerned with how he behaved. Every simple step they took—getting on the bus, counting out change, using the public restroom (red caps, it seemed, also needed to pee)—required a softly-spoken sentence of explanation, followed by some mild assurance, and completed with a louder, slightly more exasperated reassurance. Eddie knew Dennis was as tense as he, and forgave him the exasperation.

At one point, Dennis leaned towards Eddie as they approached an intersection.

“Okay, this is a stoplight. Red means stop. You’re—”

“Oh, red means stop?” Eddie placed both palms against his cheeks in mock surprise. “I assumed it meant to immediately start stabbing your neighbor.”

“Funny.”

“I’m improvising.”

“Your improv needs work.” Dennis massaged the back of his neck, rigid as oak from pretending not to look at Eddie, at others, into mirrors, et cetera.

“Your textbook needs an upgrade,” snapped Eddie. “I know what a bloody stoplight is.”

The duo crossed, ordered venison sandwiches at the sandwich shop, and sat on the same benches where Dennis had sat with Abby on a day that now seemed long ago.

“Listen,” Dennis said. “Maybe it’s just as easy if I go about my business and you just wander through the streets yourself.”

It was a bluff, and Eddie sniffed it as such, but he felt the cold hand of fear close around the base of his spine. Eddie gazed about the square, already filled with an early lunch crowd. Once upon a time, they would have been lunch.

“I dinnae think that’s a step I’m ready to make.”

Humility and wonder. How new are these emotions for him?

“Then again,” Eddie continued, “just mimicking your movements, your actions, your interactions—seems to nudge me in the direction of being human. A surly, sarcastic and pathetic excuse for a human perhaps, but—”

“Careful. I’m the only sensei you’ve got.”

Eddie said nothing.

“Hurry up and finish your sandwich, little fella.”

Eddie stopped mid bite. “Do. Not. Ever. Call me. Little. Fella.”

Dennis grinned. “I told you I was an asshole. Now hurry up. We’ve got one more place to go.”

“Another errand?”

Dennis swallowed his last bite and stood.

“You’ll see.”

*

Red flowers lined the edges of the strikingly green lawn of the A.K. Bell Library. Though his eyes were shielded by sunglasses, Dennis saw, from the shift in the wrinkles on Eddie’s forehead, that the creature’s eyes had flown open wide in recognition.

“The library!”

“Of course,” Dennis said, pleased at Eddie’s surprise. “You didn’t think we’d skip the library, did you?”

“I’ve never seen it in the daytime.” Eddie’s voice was distant, as if floating away.

“Good afternoon, Dennis,” said Meaghan Behind The Counter, whom Dennis had stopped thinking of as a rolly-polly little bat-faced girl, and now simply thought of as Meaghan.

“Afternoon, Meaghan. You’re looking sparkly this afternoon.”

Meaghan Behind The Counter blushed and clutched at the line of sub-rhinestone stick-ons that bejeweled her sweatshirt. “It’s a bit sparkly, I know.”

“Do you like it?”

“…yeeees,” Meaghan replied cautiously.

“Then sparkle away.”

As usual, Meaghan flushed, but this time, something was different. Not for her—she heard the same casual flattery she heard every week. This time, however, Dennis’ sentence lacked its usual thick sediment of sarcasm.

“Your usual?”

“Yeah, an hour of internet, please.”

Dennis glanced about for Eddie, but the goblin was gone, lost among the stacks, where Dennis guessed he might remain for the rest of the day; he’d have to scout him out when it was time to leave. Once Dennis logged into his computer, though, he felt the creature’s presence by his side.

“So,” he said to Dennis, “this is the fabled Internet.”

“Says the fabled creature.”

“So much information.”

“So much to ignore.”

“If your books are the best and worst of you,” Eddie said solemnly, “then the internet will be the extreme best and extreme worst. Can I—”

“Git!” Dennis swatted Eddie’s hand away from the mouse. “We’ll come back, buddy. I want to get this Carson stuff out of the way first. Check some of the message boards, see if anyone’s got a real idea where he might be.”

“As far as you know, he’s on the other side of the ocean,” Eddie sulked, still wounded by the rebuke. “Or in Vladivostok, or on the bloody moon.”

“It doesn’t matter. It has to happen. We have to find him.”

“Hello, Mr. Carson.” Eddie’s voice elevated to a pitch of mock cordiality. “We would be honoured if you’d come home from Fiji to play our benefit on the North Inch for some woman you barely remember!”

“He’s not in Fiji.”

Eddie and Dennis looked over their shoulders at Meaghan, looking sheepish.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to eavesdrop or intrude, but he’s not in Fiji.”

“Ah.”

“He’s at home with his parents.” Meaghan reddened under the intensity of Dennis and Eddie’s unblinking stares. “He’s…he’s just taking a little time off. One song, one viral video, and suddenly he’s the big heartthrob superstar and you know, he just wants to play music, and I suppose he…”

“Got spooked,” offered Eddie.

“Yes.”

Despite all his talk of having faith in the unlikely, it was this conversation that struck Dennis as the unlikeliest of all events.

“And you know all this because…?” he asked.

Meaghan looked down at her bejeweled bosom. “I’d rather not say. I probably shouldn’t be telling you any of this and I don’t want to get people in trouble. I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, either.”

Thank God you were, thought Dennis.

“It’s okay, Meaghan, your secret’s safe with us. We’re glad you told us. We really need to find him. We wanted to put on a charity concert, something small, something local. Something that might help him ease back into public life again, too. Something for everyone, if you will. That’s what we’re looking to do.”

“What’s your charity?” asked Meaghan.

“Ah…the…”

“Friends of the Rat and Raven,” Eddie said.

“Animal rights, then?”

“Yeah, sure,” Dennis replied.

“He really likes any charity that involves children and the arts,” Meaghan said. “Musical instruments for children, that sort of thing. For the right cause, he might just do it.”

“Thank you, Meaghan,” said Eddie, “you’ve helped us immensely. If you’ve time, perhaps you can help us convince him!”

Meaghan shook her head stiffly. “No, no, I can’t do that. I haven’t the power. You’ll have to convince the father. It isn’t Carson. It’s his father.

“Bankfoot,” she added in a half-whisper. “It’s not even a twenty minutes’ drive.”

The bell at the front desk dinged, and Meaghan closed her eyes in relief.

Dennis started to ask another question, but before he opened his mouth, she was off.

*

The car park at the foot of Kinnoull was a narrow strip of asphalt, deep enough for one automobile to park perpendicular to the road. There were only a handful of spaces, and as the sun disappeared behind the hill, the day’s hikers retired to the city below. Dennis and Eddie crested the Cairneyhill Road and saw what Eddie had found in the night.

“A Citroën?”

It was a 1987 model at best, rust-laced and dent-adorned. Its trunk, tied shut with red wire, was plastered with pro-John Major bumper stickers.

“Bah!” Eddie spat into the dust at the side of the road. “You wanted a Range Rover?”

“No, this’ll do,” Dennis replied. “Actually, this isn’t too bad.”

“It’s going back tomorrow, you covetous fathead.” Eddie picked a fleck of rust from the rear driver’s side bumper. “I’ve ‘borrowed’ enough for the sake of us, don’t you think?”

“Sure. You wouldn’t have had to borrow anything if you’d just agreed to, you know, magic me up there the way you did the night you saved my ass.”

“And when the Dunlops call the coppers to have you arrested for harassment and/or trespassing, you can explain to them why we came twenty mile on foot.”

“Driving it is, then.”

“And I’m driving,” Eddie muttered hesitantly.

“What!?” Dennis laughed and held out his hand for the keys. “Okay, and when the ‘coppers’ pull us over because they can’t see a person in the drivers’ seat, you can explain to them why you’re driving without a license.”

“It’s a manual transmission.”

Dennis let his shoulders fall in an exaggerated pose of frustration.

“You know I can’t drive standard. You did that on purpose.”

“Of course I did it on purpose!” Eddie bounced from one foot to another like an excited child. “Dennis, I developed a taste for it last night. More fun than I would have expected. You’ll not regret it. I’ll not do anything stupid.”

“It’s not stupidity I’m worried about, it’s legality. You have no human identity, let alone a driver’s license.”

“There’s a child’s booster in the back,” Eddie said as he pushed past Dennis and into the driver’s seat. “Pass it to me and at least I’ll be able to see the road.”

“Then you can’t reach the pedals.”

“Well, dammit, which is more important?”

“A bit of both would be good.”

So Eddie pulled the Citroën smoothly out of its parking spot and began to coast down the hill, feet barely able to rest tip-toe on the pedals, eyes barely above the horizontal line of the dashboard.

“Hey,” pondered Dennis aloud. “Why in hell do you drive a stick shift?”

Eddie said nothing, and continued to say nothing, the entire length of the A9. They drove in silence for nearly ten minutes, along the A9 headed north. In truth, it was not a silence, but an absence of words; Eddie tapped his fingers on the wheel, hummed, and occasionally giggled to himself as the car rattled and shook along the asphalt.

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” Dennis said.

Eddie nodded and continued to hum to himself, a sound at once guttural and gurgly at the back of his throat, like a kitten’s growl. When Dennis finally recognized the tune, he laughed aloud.

“Are you humming ‘Born to Be Wild?’” he asked. “You know that’s about motorcycles, not cars, right?”

“Shut up and let me enjoy the freedom of the open A9, Duckworth.”

“‘Born To Be Wild’,” Dennis continued. “You weren’t born, you were conjured.”

“I wisnae conjured.” Eddie frowned. “I was believed.”

“Believed?”

“Believed into existence.”

“That statement doesn’t really explain itself, Eddie.”

“Well, I’ve ne’er given the semantics of it much thought, lad.”

“Too bad they didn’t have cars back then. Did they even have wheels?”

“Och, shut it.”

“Did you saddle up a dinosaur like Fred Flintstone?”

“I’ll slap you back to the Jurassic if you don’t stop with the age jokes.”

“Since when are you sensitive about age jokes?” Dennis stared out the window a moment. The Scottish countryside rolled past, peaceful like a river, like the Tay itself, gentle. “Is it because you’re, uh…coming over to our side?”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Well, I mean, you’re old and it doesn’t matter that you’re old. But you want to become human.”

“As close as possible for a creature like myself, yes.”

“Humans die.”

“I know.” Eddie stopped tapping the wheel. “I’ve dispatched a few myself, thanks for the reminder. While you’re at it, why don’t you just give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?”

“Wow. Reaching back to old Billy Crystal movies for jokes. Timely. No, you twit, I meant…everybody you know, starting with me and ending with whomever you encounter for the rest of your life, is going to die.”

“Who says I’m not going to die?” Eddie asked.

Dennis glanced at his driver, perched forward on his seat as if in anticipation of the road, and laughed. Eddie glanced over quickly and returned his eyes to the road.

“Who says I’m not going to die?” Eddie repeated. “Theoretically, red caps don’t die of old age. Theoretically, we also don’t eat, watch Rob Reiner films, wear sneakers and let humans live peaceably without raining down violence upon them. The only way we’re supposed to die is if this dries out.”

Eddie pinched the edge of his cap lightly between his thumb and forefinger. It was the only accoutrement that remained from his previous wardrobe; Eddie now dressed like a casual preppie, which seemed the best he could do in the children’s section at Marks and Sparks. He kept his scraggly mop in a ponytail and tucked it under the cap, which worked well enough, but the cap continued to be damp to the touch at best, glistening with gore at worst.

“This stinking, blood-soaked cap.” Eddie sounded disgusted. “Ugly, unsanitary, smelling like the death rot of the ages. I want to be done with it, but I’m afraid. Then again…I’ve started to wonder if I haven’t already started dying.”

“What do you mean?” Dennis felt something akin to alarm at the red cap’s tone.

“I don’t know if I ever believed, in any real sense, that using rabbit blood would keep the magic alive,” Eddie confessed. “I still dip it in blood, but out of…I don’t know. Trepidation? Tradition? Ritual?”

“Do you feel…I don’t know, weaker?”

“Do I appear weaker?” Eddie scoffed. “I’m as sprightly as the day I was believed.”

“You really need to stop saying that. It doesn’t make sense.”

“But what am I supposed to feel if I’m dying?” Eddie said. “I suppose I’ll not know until the time comes that I die. Red caps don’t think much about their own demise, so I don’t know what that will feel like. I can’t imagine it.”

“Most of us feel immortal until we’re dying,” Dennis said. “It’s not a concept we can wrap our heads around, either.”

“Well, then, there’s something we all have in common, humans and goblins alike.”

They pulled off the motorway and glided down quiet, tree-sheltered streets until they came upon a short laneway. At the end of it sat a blue-grey cottage, nicer than the suburban homes in Perth proper yet still distinctly weathered in that now-familiar Scottish way, almost begging for the first frost so it could lay comfortably under a light snowfall with a tendril of smoke rising from the chimney. Dusk had fallen, and they could see clearly through the wide windows into the warmly lit living room. Idyllic seemed too harsh a word.

There were no visible signs of life, but through another window, they could hear the faintest tinkle of dishes in a sink.

“Well, this is it, then,” said Eddie.

“Indeed,” Dennis agreed.

“You think it’ll work?”

Dennis stepped out of the car. “Will it work? Hell, no.”

“Laddie, it’s not too late to abandon ship!” Eddie scurried along behind Dennis, whose determined stride belied his pessimism. “Wait until you get paid for the restoration, give her the—”

“I’ll be too late, Eddie.” Dennis mounted the front steps, onto a tiny porch lined with herb pots, half of which were filled with damp cigarette butts. “Margaret will have lost the pub, and I’d have no money to get home. I have to get home, Eddie.”

“Why are you obsessed with home, Duckworth?” Eddie leapt up the steps behind Dennis.

“You know why.”

“Of course I know why, you beetle-headed git. I’m being rhetorical. It’s your asinine plan to cheat your way into a record deal. If you think befriending a powrie on a hillside in Scotland was unlikely, that has nothing on what you’ve got up our sleeve.”

Dennis glowered. “You have a better idea? I’ve screwed enough people. You made me make a list, remember? A sorely incomplete yet still painfully lengthy list. I can’t let everyone down. I have to get home and save this deal. I can do it. I will do it. It’s my last chance.”

“Och,” Eddie spat. “There’s no such thing as a last chance, Dennis. Not if you’re willing to take the next one.”

“We’re standing uninvited on the front porch of Scotland’s newest young, handsome, enigmatic singer-songwriter, who just happens to have disappeared from the public eye,” Dennis replied. “Don’t talk to me about taking chances. Remember, don’t talk. And don’t smile.”

Eddie observed his reflection in the darkened glass of the screen door.

“They’re going to think me just lovely.”

“They’ll think you’re old and unpleasant,” agreed Dennis, “but if you smile at them, they’ll run screaming from the room.”

Dennis rang the doorbell.

You can do this, Dennis. You’ve sweet-talked plenty of people.

It occurred to him that his sweet-talking stakes were usually not so high, and usually didn’t involve the futures and livelihoods of others.