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good man. I wondered if he would have been disappointed at the man I had
become.
My thoughts were disturbed by the sound of a car pulling into my drive.
Seconds later a black Cirrus drew up at the edge of the grass. There were two
people inside, a man driving and a woman sitting in the passenger seat. The
man killed the engine and stepped from the car, but the woman remained seated.
His back was to the sun so he was almost a silhouette at first, thin and dark
like a sheathed blade. The Smith & Wesson lay beneath the arts section of the
Times, its butt visible only to me. I watched him carefully as he approached,
my hand resting casually inches from the gun. The approaching stranger made me
uneasy. Maybe it was his manner, his apparent familiarity with my property; or
it could have been the woman who stared at me through the windshield, straggly
gray brown hair hanging to her shoulders.
Or perhaps it was because I recalled this man eating an ice cream on a cool
morning, his lips sucking busily away like a spider draining a fly, watching
me as I drove down Portland Street.
He stopped ten feet from me, the fingers of his right hand unwrapping
something held in the palm of his left, until two cubes of sugar were
revealed. He popped them into his mouth and began to suck, then folded the
wrapper carefully and placed it in the pocket of his jacket. He wore brown
polyester trousers held up with a cheap leather belt, a once bright yellow
shirt that had now faded to the color of a jaundice victim's face, a vile
brown-and-yellow tie, and a brown check polyester jacket. A brown hat shaded
his face, and now, as he paused, he removed it and held it loosely in his left
hand, patting it against his thigh in a slow, deliberate rhythm.
He was of medium height, five-ten or so, and almost emaciated, his clothes
hanging loosely on his body. He walked slowly and carefully, as if he were so
fragile that a misstep might cause his leg to snap. His hair was wiry, a
combination of red and gray through which patches of pink skin showed. His
eyebrows were also red, as were the lashes. Dark brown eyes that were far too
small for his face peered out from beneath strange hoods of flesh, as if the
skin had been pulled down from his forehead and up from his cheeks, then
stitched in place by the corners of his eyes. Blue red bags swelled up from
below, so that his vision appeared to be entirely dependent on two narrow
triangles of white and brown by the bridge of his nose. That nose was long and
elongated at the tip, hanging almost to his upper lip. His mouth was very thin
and his chin was slightly cleft. He was probably in his fifties, I thought,
but I sensed that his apparent fragility was deceptive. His eyes were not
those of a man who fears for his safety with every footstep.
 Warm today, he said, the hat still slapping softly against his leg.
I nodded but didn't reply.
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He inclined his head back in the direction of the road.  I see you had an
accident with your mailbox. He smiled, revealing uneven yellow teeth with a
pronounced gap at the front, and I knew immediately that he had been
responsible for the recluses.
 Spiders, I replied.  I burned them all.
The smile died.  That's unfortunate.
 You seem to be taking it kind of personally.
His mouth worked at the sugar lumps while his eyes locked on mine.  I like
spiders, he said.
 They certainly burn well, I replied.  Now, can I help you?
 I do hope so, he said.  Or perhaps I can help you. Yes sir, I feel certain
that I can help you.
His voice had an odd nasal quality that flattened his vowels and made his
accent difficult to place, a task complicated further by the formal locutions
of his speech. The smile gradually reappeared but those hooded eyes failed to
alter in response. Instead, they maintained a watchful, vaguely malevolent
quality, as if some entity had taken over the body of this odd, dated-looking
man, hollowing out his form and controlling his progress by looking through
the empty sockets in his head.
 I don't think I need your help.
He waggled a finger at me in disagreement, and for the first time, I got a
good look at his hands. They were thin, absurdly so, and there was something
insectlike about them as they emerged from the sleeves of his jacket. The
middle finger seemed to be about five inches long and, in common with the rest
of his digits, tapered to a point at the tip: not only the nail but the entire
finger appeared to grow narrower and narrower. The fingernails themselves
looked to be a quarter of an inch at their widest point and were stained a
kind of yellow-black. There were patches of short red hair below each of the
knuckles, gradually expanding to cover most of the back of his hand and
disappearing in tufts beneath his sleeve. They gave him a strange, feral
quality.
 Now, now, sir, he said, his fingers waving the way an arachnid-will
sometimes raise its legs when it finds itself cornered. Their movements
appeared to be unrelated to his words or to the language of the rest of the
body. They were like separate creatures that had somehow managed to attach
themselves to a host, constantly probing gently at the world around them.
 Don't be hasty, he continued.  I admire independence as much as the next
man, indeed I do. It is a laudable attribute in a man, sir, a laudable
attribute, make no mistake about that, but it can lead him to do reckless
things. Worse, sir, worse; it can cause him to interfere with the rights of
those around him, sometimes without him even knowing. His voice assumed a
tone of awe at the ways of such men, and he shook his head slowly.  There you
are, living your own life as you see fit, and you are causing pain and
embarrassment to others by doing so. It's a sin, sir, that's what it is, a
sin.
He folded his slim fingers across his stomach, still smiling, and waited for a
response.
 Who are you? I said. There was an element of awe in my own voice as well. He
was comical yet sinister, like a bad clown.
 Permit me to introduce myself, he said.  My name is Pudd, Mr. Pudd. At your
service, sir. He extended his right hand in greeting, but I didn't reach out
to take it. I couldn't. It revolted me. A friend of my grandfather's had once
kept a wolf spider in a glass tank and one day, on a dare from the man's son,
I had touched its leg. The spider had shot away almost instantly, but not
before I had felt the hairy, jointed nature of the thing. It was not an
experience I wanted to repeat.
The hand hung in midair for a moment, and once again the smile faltered
briefly. Then Mr. Pudd took back his hand, and his fingers scuttled inside his
jacket. I eased my right hand a few inches to the left and took hold of the
gun beneath the newspapers, my thumb flicking the safety off. Mr. Pudd didn't
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appear to notice the movement. At least, he gave no indication that he had,
but I felt something change in his attitude toward me, like a black widow that
believes it has cornered a beetle only to find itself staring into the eyes of
a wasp. His jacket tightened around him as his hand searched and I saw the
telltale bulge of his gun.
 I think I'd prefer it if you left, I said quietly.
 Sadly, Mr. Parker, personal preference has nothing to do with this. The
smile faded, and Mr. Pudd's mouth assumed an expression of exaggerated sorrow.
 If the truth be known, sir, I would prefer not to be here at all. This is an
unpleasant duty, but one that I am afraid you have brought upon yourself by [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]