It was a storage area much bigger than Jake had expected—almost as big as a warehouse and stacked high with books in every direction. He guessed that some of those stacks, held in place by pairs of upright beams that provided shoring rather than shelving, had to be fourteen or sixteen feet high. Narrow, crooked aisles ran between them. In a couple he saw rolling platforms that made him think of the portable boarding ramps you saw in smaller airports. The smell of old books was the same back here as in front, but ever so much stronger, almost overwhelming. Above them hung a scattering of shaded lamps that provided yellowish, uneven illumination. The shadows of Tower, Balazar, and Balazar’s friends leaped grotesquely on the wall to their left. Tower turned that way, leading his visitors to a corner that really was an office: there was a desk with a typewriter and a Rolodex on it, three old filing cabinets, and a wall covered with various pieces of paperwork. There was a calendar with some nineteenth-century guy on the May sheet Jake didn’t recognize…and then he did. Robert Browning. Jake had quoted him in his Final Essay.

Tower sat down in the chair behind his desk, and immediately seemed sorry he’d done that. Jake could sympathize. The way the other three crowded around him couldn’t have been very pleasant. Their shadows jumped up the wall behind the desk like the shadows of gargoyles.

Balazar reached into his suitcoat and brought out a folded sheet of paper. He opened it and put it down on Tower’s desk. “Recognize this?”

Eddie moved forward. Jake grabbed at him. “Don’t go close! They’ll sense you!”

“I don’t care,” Eddie said. “I need to see that paper.”

Jake followed, not knowing what else to do. Oy stirred in his arms and whined. Jake shushed him curtly, and Oy blinked. “Sorry, buddy,” Jake said, “but you have to keep quiet.”

Was the 1977 version of him in the vacant lot yet? Once inside it, that earlier Jake had slipped somehow and knocked himself unconscious. Had that happened yet? No sense wondering. Eddie was right. Jake didn’t like it, but he knew it was true: they were supposed to be here, not there, and they were supposed to see the paper Balazar was now showing Calvin Tower.

Eleven

Eddie got the first couple of lines before Jack Andolini said, “Boss, I don’t like this. Something feels hinky.”

Balazar nodded. “I agree. Is someone back here with us, Mr. Toren?” He still sounded calm and courteous, but his eyes were everywhere, assessing this large room’s potential for concealment.

“No,” Tower said. “Well, there’s Sergio; he’s the shop cat. I imagine he’s back here somew—”