“Aaron, shut up!”

“—many times,” Deepneau finished calmly.

There was a pop. Eddie jumped, sending a fresh throb of pain up his leg from the hole in his shin. It was a match. Roland was lighting another cigarette. The filter lay on the oilcloth covering the table with two others. They looked like little pills.

“Here is what you said to me,” Eddie said, and all at once he was calm. The rage was out of him, like poison drawn from a snakebite. Roland had let him do that much, and despite his bleeding tongue and bleeding palms, he was grateful.

“Anything I said … I was under stress … I was afraid you might kill me yourself!”

“You said you had an envelope from March of 1846. You said there was a sheet of paper in the envelope, and a name written on the paper. You said—”

“I deny—”

“You said that if I could tell you the name written on that piece of paper, you’d sell me the lot. For one dollar. And with the understanding that you’d be getting a great deal more—millions—between now and … 1985, let’s say.”

Tower barked a laugh. “Why not offer me the Brooklyn Bridge while you’re at it?”

“You made a promise. And now your father watches you attempt to break it.”

Calvin Tower shrieked: “I DENY EVERY WORD YOU SAY!”

“Deny and be damned,” Eddie said. “And now I’m going to tell you something, Cal, something I know from my own beat-up but still beating heart. You’re eating a bitter meal. You don’t know that because someone told you it was sweet and your own tastebuds are numb.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about! You’re crazy!”

“No,” Aaron said. “He’s not. You’re the one who’s crazy if you don’t listen to him. I think … I think he’s giving you a chance to redeem the purpose of your life.”

“Give it up,” Eddie said. “Just once listen to the better angel instead of to the other one. That other one hates you, Cal. It only wants to kill you. Believe me, I know.”

Silence in the cabin. From the pond came the cry of a loon. From across it came the less lovely sound of sirens.

Calvin Tower licked his lips and said, “Are you telling the truth about Andolini? Is he really in this town?”

“Yes,” Eddie said. Now he could hear the whuppa-whuppa-whup of an approaching helicopter. A TV news chopper? Wasn’t this still about five years too early for such things, especially up here in the boondocks?

The bookstore owner’s eyes shifted to Roland. Tower had been surprised, and he’d been guilt-tripped with a vengeance, but the man was already regaining some of his composure. Eddie could see it, and he reflected (not for the first time) on how much simpler life would be if people would stay in the pigeonholes where you originally put them. He did not want to waste time thinking of Calvin Tower as a brave man, or as even second cousin to the good guys, but maybe he was both those things. Damn him.