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spiral, coming to rest at last on the top of one of the guard towers, and I
could see that this was no bird, and I knew it for what it was.
The dark angel s body was emaciated, its arms black mummified skin over slim
bones, its face elongated and predatory, its eyes dark and knowing. It rested
a clawed hand on the glass and its great wings, feathered in darkness, beat a
low cadence against the air. Slowly, it was joined by others, each silently
taking up a position on the walls and the towers, until it seemed at last that
the prison was black with them. They made no move toward me but I sensed their
hostility, and something more: their sense of betrayal, as if I were somehow
one of them and had turned my back upon them.
 Ravens, said a voice at my side. It was an elderly woman. She carried a
brown paper bag in her hand, filled with some small items for one of the
inmates: a son, perhaps, or a husband among the old men in 7 Dorm.  Never seen
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so many before, or so big.
And now they were ravens: two feet tall at least, the fingered wing tips
clearly visible as they moved upon the walls, calling softly to one another.
 I didn t think they came together in those numbers, I said.
 They don t, she said.  Not normally, nohow, but who s to say what s normal
these days?
She continued walking. I got in my car and began to drive away, but in the
rearview mirror the black birds did not seem to decrease in size as I left
them behind. Instead, they seemed to grow larger even as the prison receded,
taking on new forms.
And I felt their eyes upon me as the preacher s saliva colonized my body like
a cancer.
My gift to you, that you might see as I see.
Apart from the prison and the prison craft shop there isn t a whole lot to
keep a casual visitor in Thomaston, but the town has a pretty good diner at
its northern end, with homemade pies and bread pudding served piping hot to
locals and those who come to talk after meeting their loved ones across a
table or through a screen farther up the road. I bought another bottle of
mouthwash at the drugstore and sluiced my mouth out in the parking lot before
heading into the diner.
The small eating area with its mismatched furniture was largely empty, with
the exception of two old men who sat quietly, side by side, watching the
traffic go by, and a younger man in an expensively tailored suit who sat in a
wooden booth by the wall, his overcoat folded neatly beside him, a fork
resting among the cream and crumbs on his plate, a copy of USA Today beside
it. I ordered a coffee and took a seat across from him.
 You don t look so good, said the man.
I felt my gaze drawn toward the window. I could not see the prison from where
I sat. I shook my head, clearing it of visions of dark creatures crowding on
prison walls, waiting. They were not real. They were just ravens. I was ill,
nauseated by Faulkner s assault.
They were not real.
 Stan, I said, to distract myself.  Nice suit.
He turned the jacket to show me the label inside.  Armani. Bought it in an
outlet store. I keep the receipt in the inside pocket, just in case I get
accused of corruption.
My coffee arrived, and the waitress retreated behind the counter to read a
magazine. Somewhere, a radio played sickly M.O.R. The Rush revival begins
here.
Stan Ornstead was an assistant district attorney, part of the team assembled
to prosecute the Faulkner case. It was Ornstead who had convinced me to face
Faulkner, with the full knowledge of deputy D.A. Andrus, and who had arranged
for the interview to be conducted at the cell so that I could see the
conditions that he appeared to have created for himself. Stan was only a few
years younger than I was and was considered a hot prospect for the future. He
was going places; he just wasn t going there fast enough for him. Faulkner, he
had hoped, might have changed that situation, except, as the warden had
indicated, the Faulkner case was turning into something very bad indeed,
something that threatened to drag everyone involved down with it.
 You look kind of shaken up, Stan said, after I d taken a couple of
fortifying sips from my coffee.
 He has that effect on people.
 He didn t give too much away.
I froze, and he raised his palms in a what-you-gonna-do? gesture.
 They mike sub-acute cells? I asked.
 They don t, if you mean the prison authorities.
 But somebody else has taken up the slack.
 The cell has been lojacked. Officially, we know nothing about it.
 Lojacking was the term used to describe a surveillance operation not
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endorsed by a court. More particularly, it was the term used by the FBI to
describe any such operation.
 The Feebs?
 The trenchcoats don t have too much faith in us. They re worried that
Faulkner may walk on our beef so they want to get as much as they can, while
they can, in case of federal charges or a double prosecution. All
conversations with his lawyers, his doctors, his shrink, even his
nemesis that s you, in case you didn t know are being recorded. The hope is
that, at the very least, he ll give something away that might lead them to
others like him, or even give them a lead to other crimes he might have
committed. All inadmissible, of course, but useful if it works.
 And will he walk?
Ornstead shrugged.
 You know what he s claiming: he was kept a virtual prisoner for decades and
had no part in, or knowledge of, any crimes committed by the Fellowship or
those associated with it. There s nothing to link him directly to any of the
killings, and that underground nest of rooms he lived in had bolts on the
outside.
 He was at my house when they tried to kill me.
 You say, but you were woozy. You told me yourself you couldn t see straight.
 Rachel saw him.
 Yes, she did, but she d just been hit on the head and had blood in her eyes.
She herself admits that she can t remember a lot of what was said, and he
wasn t there for what followed. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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