6

Pace had kept the book Dr. Furbo had given him on the train, even though the pages were blank. Perhaps there was a point to the lack of content other than the French word for End. Pace removed the Guide to Furbotics from his suitcase and re-read the subtitle. Perhaps this bizarre creature Dr. Furbo meant to signify that people should just quit complaining; “the eradication of caterwauling” could be interpreted that way. Where was it that Furbo claimed to have established his clinic? Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Pace remembered. He decided to call information in Lake Geneva to find out if there really was such an institution.

“Hello, operator, do you have a listing in Lake Geneva for a Dr. Furbo, or a medical clinic, health farm or spa with that name? You do? Furbo Reinclination and Redefinition Projects. That must be it. Is there an address? Yes, please. Thank you.” Pace wrote down the telephone number and address the operator gave him. Perhaps Dr. Furbo wasn’t just a nut. Pace decided to go to Lake Geneva and find out.

Pace rented a car and drove from Chicago into Wisconsin, a state he had never entered before. Unfortunately, whenever he thought about Wisconsin, he recalled reading about the gruesome murders committed by a farmer named Ed Gein, back in the early 1960’s; and, more recently, the equally ghastly killings conducted in Milwaukee by Jeffrey Dahmer. Both men had apparently been guilty of cannibalism; and, in Gein’s case, using human skin to make lampshades, as the Nazis had done after flaying the corpses of Jews and Gypsies. The other things Pace associated with Wisconsin were beer and cheese.

Lake Geneva was a resort town: swimming and hiking in summer, skiing in winter. Pace drove to the center of town and stopped into a convenience store where he bought a bottle of root beer—they didn’t carry Barq’s, so he settled for Dad’s—and asked the clerk at the register for the best route to Warren Spahn Road. The clerk, who, Pace guessed, was in his late teens or very early twenties, told him to head east four and a half miles and he’d run into it.

“Do you know who Warren Spahn was?” Pace asked the clerk.

“No, sir.”

“The winningest left-handed pitcher in major league history. Won three hundred sixty three games. Pitched mostly for the Milwaukee Braves in the 1950’s and ’60s. He’s in the Hall of Fame.”

“He must be an old man now.”

“He’s dead.”

Pace gave the boy a dollar and told him to keep the change.

“Sorry, sir,” said the clerk, “but the root beer’s a dollar and a half.”

Pace dug another dollar out of one of his pockets, put it down on the counter, said, “Forgot I’m up north,” and walked out of the store.

He found Warren Spahn Road and bent right, the only direction he could go. There were no houses on either side of the road, only birch trees, which Pace found quite beautiful. He thought about Spahn pitching against Juan Marichal in a famous game in which they each posted goose eggs until Willie Mays homered for the Giants in the bottom of the sixteenth inning to beat the Braves. Both pitchers used a high leg kick when they wound up to disguise the ball and throw off the hitter’s timing. Pace could not think of a single pitcher in the major leagues who employed that technique in the present day.

The deeper Pace drove into the woods the darker it got. The sun was going down fast and Pace sped up. After several miles, he turned on the headlights. Just as the final sliver of daylight slipped away, Pace saw a sign at the entrance to a gravel driveway on the driver’s side of the road. Hand-lettered in black on a white board were the words: DR. BORIS FURBO, SCIENTIST-PHILOSOPHER-ENGINEER OF HUMAN SOLACE, ENTER HERE BUT KEEP IN MIND THAT THERE IS ALWAYS A TRADE OFF.

Pace turned in and headed up the driveway. Lights were on in a two-story house. Parked in front of the house was a 1955 black Cadillac hearse. Pace pulled up next to it, cut his engine, got out of the car and slowly walked toward the house.