)W York Times Bestselling Author

>

»

s

//

V

i i:

BERKLEY

$7.99 U.S.

$10.99 CAN

Praise for

0

\

"Here is a novel guaranteed to double the national nightmare quotient,
so watch out!" -Cosmopolitan

"Buy it today. Anything by Straub is worth several thousand John Sauls
and a million V. C. Andrewses."

-The Philadelphia Inquirer

"A deliciously imaginative story of hauntings and monsters."

-San Francisco Chronicle

"A book that positively bubbles with invention, jammed with characters,
color, events, hackle-raising twists of fate, horrific monsters,
terrifying nightmares, and a reality that shimmers and shifts as much as
the noxious steam from a witch's cauldron." -Book World

ii Berkley Books by Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON SHADOWLAND

iii PETER STRAUB

BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK

iv If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that
this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed"
to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received
any payment for this "stripped book."

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either

are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously,
and any

resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,

events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

FLOATING DRAGON

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

G. P. Putnam's Sons hardcover edition / February 1983 First Berkley
mass-market edition / March 1984

Copyright ©1982 by Peter Straub. "Introduction" by Peter Straub
copyright ©2003 by Peter Straub.

Cover design by Marc Cohen. Cover art: Dragon by Owen Franken/Corbis;
rope by Getty One.

"When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along" by Harry

Woods copyright ©1926 by Callicoon Music (pursuant to section 304 [c]

and 402 [b] of the U.S. Copyright Law).

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced

in any form without permission.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or

via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and

punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions,

and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted

materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ISNB: 0-425-18964-3 I

BERKLEY®]

Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, :

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., j

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. |

BERKLEY and the "B" design 1

are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc. j

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ]

40 39 38 37 36 35 34 33 32 31 30 }

FOR EMMA SYDNEY VALLI STRAUB

v CONTENTS

Introduction

ix

The Death of Stony Friedgood

1

Part One: Entry

23

Part Two: Establishment

195

Part Three: Dominion

365

After the Moon

1 xii

Introduction

daily, whether I liked it or not. Richard and Laura Allbee recapitulate
most of the upsets and discoveries my wife and I encountered during the
first year of our reentry into the country we had left a decade earlier.
No one ever expects to get culture shock from their own country, but
stay away long enough and you can't avoid it-America refuses to stand
still. As we were, the Allbees are as amazed as rubes by the plenitude
and abundance of goods in the local supermarket. As we did, they
inwardly recoil from the astonishingly intimate confessions uttered by
total strangers. (In front of the meat department in Waldbaum's
stupendous grocery, a woman turned to me and said, "My first four
abortions were absolute murder." "Ah," I said, backpedaling.) In
England, everybody smoked and drank, what fun, but in Westport everybody
jogged, and the only person choosing a pack from the drugstore's
staggering cigarette cornucopia was me. People assumed intimacy; they
actually hid behind a kind of sincerity, of all possible stances; they
didn't know that conversation was supposed to be entertainment, a game,
a giddy free-for-all, instead of deadly anecdotes punctuated with
opinions about sports and politics, plus financial advice. All of this
went into the book, as did some of the locals: Barbara Baxter became
cheerful Ronnie Riggley, her cop boyfriend Bobo Farnsworth, Ben Rohr
passed virtually unchanged into Ben Roehm, and the social columnist in
the Westport News turned into the Hampstead Gazette's Sarah Spry.

At first, I was vaguely planning to do something Scott Fitzgerald-ish,
but the book snapped into clearer focus when the evening news reported
that five workmen found mysteriously dead in a Stamford factory had been
declared victims of carbon monoxide poisoning. A colorless, odorless gas
had seeped into their chamber and before they had any idea of being in
peril, killed them all with the efficiency of a machine gun. Suppose the
gas were not carbon monoxide but something worse, something more complex
and sinister; suppose it traveled like a thinking cloud northward above
1-95 the twenty miles from Stamford to Westport and there settled to
Earth, creating a bizarre, hallucinatory, generally corpse-strewn
disorder? That would make half of the kind of book I wanted to write.
The other half came from thinking about why such a colorful tragedy
might descend upon charming little Westport/Hampstead.

Without ever admitting it to myself, I knew that this book

Introduction

xiii

would be at least a temporary farewell to the supernatural material that
had been my daily fare since I first began to butter my own bread by
driving a succession of Staedtler MarsLumograph 100 B and Blackwing 602
pencils across hundreds of sheets of paper. Undead things in bandages,
ancient curses, paranormal powers, the inanimate alarmingly animated,
spontaneous combustion, visionary apprehensions, human beings uniting
into ad hoc families to combat hideous literal evils, ghosts, ravening
beasts, beckoning mirrors, vampiric entities, external horrors, that
whole gaudy blaring blinding circus of metaphor made real-at a level
just below consciousness, I had decided to take my leave of all this
dear, goofy imagery by wrapping it all together in one gigantic package
and then... blowing it up! Anything like restraint or good taste was
verboten, the aesthetic was grounded in a single principle, that of excess.

As a narrative rooted in the principle of excess, Floating Dragon
proceeds through a series of sustained, escalating set pieces toward a
climactic moment of outright lunacy. Our band of illuminated heroes
bursts into "Bye, Bye Blackbird"; a shotgun mutates into a glowing,
outrageously phallic sword; a literal dragon explodes into a mountain of
fire; an entire town more or less detonates. It is completely shameless.
However, it is not without a measure of deliberate and conscious craft.

During the late seventies, I discovered the work of the English novelist
Paul Scott, whose Raj Quartet seemed to me a master class in how to
organize a great mass of complex material in a way that actually
represented its complexity. Scott broke his material into a shifting
continuum of third person accounts, quoted documents, and flashbacks in
the form of stories told by the characters. The ongoing narrative was in
constant motion, refracted through many different points of view. For
sheer novelistic technique, I had never seen anything like it, and I
went through the Quartet's more than two thousand pages in a trance of
awed delight. My whizbang, Floating Dragon, could never attain or even
aspire to Scott's moral seriousness, but I could at least do my best to
honor his method, which seemed the most promising way to stretch my
canvas over dozens of different characters each intent on his or her own
ends, and four or five separate eras in Hampstead's history.

I wrote the first third of the novel in my usual old way, by hand, in
pencil, then typing up what I had written. At that point

2 XIV

Introduction

Stephen King and I signed the contract for our first collaboration, The
Talisman, and agreed to buy computers before we began the work. To
accustom myself to a keyboard, I bought an IBM Selectric typewriter,
which hummed and buzzed reassuringly through the middle section of
Floating Dragon. Before beginning the final third, I bought an IBM
Display writer, one of the first word processors-it was so expensive
that for a couple of days two staff people from IBM headquarters in
Stamford showed up to teach me how to use it. (King bought a machine he
liked to call his "big Wang.") I wrote the final section in pencil
across something like three hundred pages of lined journal, then typed
the results up onto my brand-new monitor and printed them out. At the
time, I thought that the epilogue was one of the best things I'd ever
written, and I still do. It's full of the lovely, delicious agony of
leave-taking.

I also thought that dedicated horror readers would love my exuberant
valentine to their favorite genre, for it represented a kind of love
letter to them. Instead, they scorned the book: I had forgotten that
true believers dislike and distrust anyone who appears to be having fun
with the object of their faith. Ordinary readers, on the other hand,
practically vacuumed the book off the shelves, which was extremely
reassuring.

-Peter Straub

3 Now time and the land are identical,

Linked forever.

-John Ashbery, Haunted Landscape

The devil is a dumb spirit. All the devil knows is what you tell him
with your own big fat mouth.

-Frederick K. Price

4

drivers and passengers leaning to glimpse the mansions behind the gates.
Locally, Mount Avenue was "The Golden Mile," though it was twice longer
than that; it was the original road between Hillhaven, the Victorian
suburb of Patchin and Hampstead. Mount Avenue, the site of the original
farni settlements of Hampstead and Hillhaven, had once been the
principal coaching road north to New Haven, but its hectic days were
long past. Manufacturers with plants in Bridgeport or Woodville, a
doctor, and the head of Patchin County's biggest legal practice lived in
the impressive houses, along with others like them, older people who
wished no excitement in their private lives. Tourists rubbernecking
along the Golden Mile rarely saw them-there might be a visiting movie
star taking the sea-laden air along the coastal road or a college
president pausing for breath before he made his pitch for funds, but the
owners of the houses were invisible.

Outside the gray stone house, however, those taking a fast peek through
the opened gates in 1969 might have seen a tall dark-haired man in
tennis whites playing with a small boy Perhaps a uniformed nanny would
have been hovering on the steps before the front door, her posture
inexplicably tense And perhaps the boy's posture too would have seemed
awkward, inhabited by the same tension, as if little Tabby Smithfield
were half-aware that he was not supposed to be playing with his father.
They make an oddly static and incomplete scene, father and son and
nanny. They are badly composed: one figure is missing.

1964

Stony Friedgood's first affair after her marriage was in 1964 with the
husband of a friend, a neighbor in their neat row of I tract houses: he
was unlike Leo, being jovial and blond and I easygoing, a very junior
banker, and Leo invariably spoke of l him with contempt. This affair
endured only two months

Stony's delicate face, which was sharp-featured and framed in shining
brown hair, became familiar in galleries and art museums, in certain
bars at certain times. Considered from a utilitarian point of view, one
neither Stony's nor Leo's parents could have understood, the Friedgoods
had a successful marriage. By the time Leo was promoted twice and trans-

FLOAT1NG DRAGON 5

ferred to Telpro's New York offices, their income had doubled and Stony
weighed only a pound more than when she was a student at Scripps. She
left behind her yoga classes, a half-completed gourmet-cooking course,
four unused tickets to a concert series, the undigested and already
vague memories of six or seven men. Leo left nothing at all behind-the
company paid to ship east his sailboat and the eight cases he called his
"cellar."

1968

Monty Smithfield, his grandfather, was the great figure in Tabby's early
childhood. It was Monty who kissed him first when he returned from
nursery school, and Monty and his mother took him to his first haircut.
Birthdays and Christmases Monty gave him stupefying presents, vast train
sets and every possible sort of preschool vehicle from walkers to Big
Wheels, even a dwarf pony stabled at a riding school. This was presented
with much fanfare at Tabby's third birthday. August, 1968. Monty had
provided a party for twenty children, a band playing Beatle songs and
tunes from Disney movies, an ice sculpture of a brontosaurus-Tabby loved
dinosaurs then, and only evolution kept Monty Smithfield from buying his
grandson a baby monster. "Come on, Clark," called the jubilant old man
as the gardener led out the shaggy little pony. "Mount your son on this
great beast." But Clark Smithfield had gone inside to his bedroom and
was at that moment whacking a tennis ball against the elaborate
headboard with a well-worn Spaulding racket, trying to chip the paint
off one of the wooden curlicues.

Like any child, Tabby had no idea of what his father did for a living,
no idea that there was a living to be earned. Clark Smithfield was at
home four or five days every week, playing his rock records in the
living room of their wing of the big house, going out to tennis matches
whenever he could. If at the age of three or four Tabby had been asked
what his father did, he would have answered that he played games. Clark
never took him to the company of which he was a nominal vice-president;
his grandfather did, and showed him off to the secretaries, announcing
that here was the future chairman of the board of Smithfield Systems,
Inc. Before he

11

showed Tabby the computer room, the old man opened a door and said, "For
the record, this is your father's office." It was a small dusty room
containing an almost bare desk and many photographs of Tabby's father
winning college tennis tournaments; also a Richard Nixon dart board, as
dusty as everything else. "Does my daddy work here?" Tabby asked with
sweet innocence, and one of the secretaries snickered. "He does," Tabby
insisted valiantly. "He does work here. Look! He plays tennis here!" A
spasm of distaste passed over Monty Smithfield's tidy features, and the
old man did not smile for the remainder of the tour.

Whenever his father and grandfather were in the same room-at the family
dinners Clark could not avoid, at any occasion when Monty came into his
son's living quarters-an almost visible atmosphere of dislike frosted
the air. At these times Tabby saw his father shrink to a child only
slightly older than himself. "Why don't you like Grandpa?" he asked his
father once, when Clark was reading him a bedtime story. "Oh, it's too
complicated for you," Clark sighed.

At times, more frequently as he grew closer to five, Tabby heard them
fighting.

Clark and his father argued about the length of Clark's hair, about
Clark's aspirations as a tennis player (which his, father scorned),
about Clark's attitude. Clark and Monty Smithfield normally kept a cool
distance from each other, but when Monty decided to harangue his son,
they shouted-in the dining room, in both living rooms, in the hallway,
on the lawn. These arguments always ended with Clark storming away from
his father.

"What are you going to do?" Monty called out to him after a wrangle
Tabby witnessed. "Leave home? You can't afford to-you couldn't get
another job."

Tabby's face went white-he didn't understand the words, but he heard the
scorn in them. That day he did not speak until dinnertime.

Clark's wife and mother were the glue that held the two families in
their uneasy harmony: Monty genuinely liked Jean, Tabby's mother, and
Jean and her mother-in-law kept Clark in his job. Maybe if Clark
Smithfield had been either a twenty-percent-better tennis player than he
was, or a twentypercent-worse one, the misery in the old house on Mount
Avenue would have dissipated. Or if he had been less intransigent, his
father less adamant. But Jean and her mother-in-

FLOATING DRAGON 7

law, thinking that the passage of time would reconcile Clark to his job
and Monty to his son, kept the families together. And so they stayed, in
their sometimes almost comfortable antagonism. Until the first truly
terrible thing that happened to Tabby and his family.

1975

The Friedgoods, who appeared to be a model couple, moved to a builder's
colonial in Hampstead in 1975, when Tabby Smithfield was ten years old
and living with his father and stepmother in South Florida. As Leo
Friedgood was on his way upward into the world he coveted, Clark
Smithfield appeared to be running out his meager luck: he had a job as a
bartender, quit that to take a job as salesman for Hollinsworth
Vitreous, was fired from that when he got drunk on the yacht belonging
to the president of the company and vomited on Robert Hollinsworth's
carpet-weave slippers, did another stint tending bar, and took a job as
a security guard. He worked nights and nipped from a bottle whenever his
round took him back to the security station. Like his first wife, his
mother was also dead-Agnes Smithfield had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage
one warm May morning as she discussed the installation of a rock garden
with the groundsman and her life had fled before her body struck the
ground. Monty Smithfield had sold his big house on Mount Avenue and
moved with the housekeeper and cook into a house called "Four Hearths"
on Hermitage Road, five minutes inland. His end of Hermitage Road was
only two wooded hilly blocks from the place the Friedgoods bought.

Leo was now a division vice-president for Telpro, making nearly fifty
thousand dollars a year; he bought his suits at Tripler, grew a thick
aggressive mustache and let his hair get long enough to be bushy. Always
fleshy, he had put on twenty extra pounds despite a daily mile-long jog,
and now- arrogant eyes, dark mustache and unrestrained hair-he had the
faintly lawless, buccaneerlike appearance of many a corporate executive
who sees himself as a predator in a jungle full of predators.

In 1975, the first year on Cannon Road in Hampstead, Stony joined New
Neighbors, High Minds-a book discus-

12

Peter Straub

sion group-the League of Women Voters and a cooking class, the YMCA, and
the library. She would have looked for a job, but Leo did not want her
to work. She would have tried to get pregnant, but Leo, whose own
childhood was an epic of maternal bullying, became irrational when she
tried to discuss it. In the Hampstead Gazette she read an ad for a yoga
class and quit the New Neighbors. Soon after, she left High Minds and
the League too.

The Hampstead Gazette came twice weekly. The little tabloid was Stony's
chief source of information about her new town. From it she learned of
the Women's Art League, and joined that, thinking she would meet
painters-one of the boys in California had been a painter. And because
she wanted to, of course she did. Pat Dobbin was celebrated locally,
neither especially good nor bad; he lived alone in a small house in the
woods; he did illustrations-these much better than his paintings-to make
a living. During one of Leo's business trips, she attended an Art League
dinner with the painter: she was aware that the midge-sized red-haired
woman carrying a notebook was Sarah Spry, author of the weekly social
column "What Sarah Saw" in the Gazette, but was not prepared to see this
item in the next week's column:

Sarah Saw: Thistown's brilliant painter and illustrator pat dobbin
(can't say enough about the boy! Caught his stunning new abstract
seascapes at palmer gallf-ry yet?) at the Women's Art League bash
parading in elegant black tie and showing off a lovely mystery woman.
Who's the unknown beauty, Pat? Fess up and tell Sarah. <

When Leo returned from his trip, he read this paragrapraj and asked,
"Did you enjoy the Art League thing Friday! night? Too bad I couldn't
have gone with you." His eyesl were bright and ironic.

November 1970

Unlike her husband, Jean Smithfield was a careful driver. When she and
Clark left their son with his grandparents for an evening, she always
insisted on driving home if Clark went over his normal limit of two
drinks before dinner and a couple

FLOATING DRAGON 9

of glasses of wine while they ate. On nights when Clark cornplained more
than usually about his father or reminisced through ancient tennis
matches, she drove home even if it meant listening to Clark railing
about her relationship with his father. He would say, "You actually like
that old buzzard! Do you know what that does to me? Christ, sometimes I
think he turns you on-all those pinstripe suits get to you, don't they?
You dig white hair. You don't have any more loyalty to me than to let
the old man's phony charm get to you." If Clark were really bad, he'd
pass out before they pulled through the gates. "He'll never get Tabby,"
he would mutter. "He'll never forget I existed and make Tabby into his
son. One thing he'll never do." Jean did her best to ignore this ranting.

They usually ate at a French restaurant up toward Patchin on the Post
Road. One night in late November in 1970, Jean took a dollar from her
bag as they went outside and stationed herself where the valet could see
her. "I can drive," Clark grumped. "Not tonight," she said, and gave the
bill to the boy when he got out of their car. "We ought to have a
goddamned Mercedes," Clark said as he let himself into the passenger
seat. "All it takes is money," she informed him.

Jean pulled out across the oncoming lane and pointed the car toward
Pigeon Lane, the next traffic light.

"He's at it again," Clark muttered. "He wants to send Tabby to the
Academy-public school isn't good enough for his grandson."

"You went to the Academy," Jean said.

"Because my father could afford it!" Clark screamed. "Don't you get the
point, dammit? I'm Tabby's father, dammit, and ..."

Jean was looking at him and she saw his face go slack as the sentence
died away. Clark no longer looked angry or drunk. He looked worried.

She snapped her head forward and saw a station wagon sliding across the
dividing line, coming toward them. Ice, she thought, a patch of. . .

"Move it!" Clark shouted. And Jean twisted the wheel to fhe right.
Another car which had pulled out of the restaurant just behind them
struck her left-rear bumper so hard that Jean's hands flew off the
steering wheel.

The station wagon, which had been going nearly fifty miles an hour
before it struck the slick of ice, slammed straight into

13

Peter Straub

her door. Jean Smithfield tried to say "Tabby" before she died, but the
door had crushed her chest and she did not have time.

In the mansion on Mount Avenue, her son woke up screaming.

The nineteen-year-old driver of the station wagon fell out of his car
and tried to crawl away across the frozen road. He was bleeding from his
scalp. Clark Smithfield, completely unharmed, took one look at his wife
and threw up in his lap. Then he got out of the car and fell to his
knees. Clark saw the boy who had killed his wife and yelled at him to
stop. He struggled to his feet. The boy sat up twenty feet from his
ruined car and was covered with snow and black mush that had been snow.
Blood dripped from his nose and chin. Clark instantly recognized a
fellow drunk. "Animal!" he screamed.

Tabby was rushing around his bedroom still yelling, feeling blindly for
the light switch. He knew where nothing was; he was in an inside-out
world. He caromed into his bed, slipped on a rag rug, and his screams
went up an octave. Within seconds his grandfather and his nanny were at
the door.

It took the Hampstead police ten minutes to reach the tangle of cars on
the Post Road.

May 17, 1980

On May 17, 1980, the dragon came to Patchin County-no, did not come, for
it had been there all along, but decided to show itself. Richard and
Laura Allbee, after twelve years in London, had just arrived at their
rented house on Fairytale Lane in Hampstead that noon: they were tired
and confused, disoriented after two days in New York, more disoriented
by suddenly finding themselves in the situation they had been projecting
themselves into for months. Clark Smithfield had moved his wife and son
into "Four Hearths," the old colonial on Hermitage Road, only two weeks
earlier, and was already practicing the deception that would ruin his
son's faith in him. A small, pretty woman named Patsy McCloud spent most
of the day reading War and Remembrance. And what was Graham Williams,
the mortal remains of a writer once notorious, doing? What he did every
day in April and May of

1980. He had risen from an odoriferous bed at seven, put

FLOATING DRAGON

11

clothes on over his pajamas, splashed water in the direction of his
face, and sat at his desk and put his head in his hands. When he heard
the mailman's truck outside, he ignored it. Chances were that his
mailbox had been cherry-bombed anyhow. After thirty minutes of silent
prayer, ha ha, he wrote a sentence. Fifteen minutes later, he decided
that it was banal and erased it. That was how Graham Williams
customarily spent his waking hours.

The Allbees were pretending to be happier than they felt, old Williams
was pretending to himself that his book could still catch fire, Patsy
McCloud pretended that any minute she was going to get up and do
something, Clark Smithfield's pretense was particularly elaborate. Leo
Friedgood's deception was simpler than all of these, for he was not in
New York at all, but twenty minutes down 1-95 from Hampstead, at a
Telpro plant in a small city called Woodville. And his wife had just
decided to have another adventure.

Stony found a parking place in the station lot, went into a lively bar
called Franco's, sat at a table near the bar and opened a book. It took
less than fifteen minutes for a man to say, "Do you mind?" and sit down
beside her. He was a man she knew, but even though this man was
respected in Hampstead, none of the other men in the bar would have met
him. His profession kept him from male company. Handsome in a weathered
way, professionally discreet, this man was perfect for Stony. Very soon
they left the bar, and Stony's leaf-colored Toyota led the way over the
bridge across the Nowhatan River and down the green, already summery
streets.

8

Christmas 1970

After Jean Smithfield's burial on the last day of November

1970, Clark stayed home with Tabby for a solid week, and ror once his
father did not insist on his going to the office. Neither did he blame
Clark for getting too drunk to go to the funeral. "I should have been
driving," Clark said more than once. "I wanted to drive-she wanted to
protect me, can you bear it? She wanted to protect me." After the day of
the funeral, he did not take a drink until Christmas.

For Tabby, the world had become as it was on the night of tos mother's
death; inside out, unknown, dark. His grand-

14

Peter Straub

"I don't know, sir. He just said it."

"They were kissing, Daddy! Like this!" Tabby pursed his lips and moved
his blond head from side to side. Then he burst into gleeful laughter.

"Yes," Clark said. "Emily, you can leave us for a while. I have to take
Tabby out for a little bit."

"You want me to leave?" she asked, getting up from the toy-strewn floor.

"Yes, please, that's fine," Clark said. "We'll be gone a couple of
hours. Don't worry about anything."

"I won't," the girl said. "Give Emily a good-bye kiss, Tabby." She bent
toward him.

"Kissing, Daddy," Tabby shouted, and tilted his head to meet Emily's
lips with his own.

When the nanny had gone, Clark pulled a green bookbag- Tabby's
catch-all-from a shelf and began stuffing it with random toys and books.

"Hey, don't do that, Daddy!" Tabby said.

"We're just going to take a little trip," Clark said. "On an airplane.
Would you like that? It's a surprise."

"A surprise for Grandpa?" Tabby shouted.

"A surprise for us." From Tabby's closet he pulled a small blue case and
threw underwear, socks, shirts, and pants intoi it. "We'll need some
clothes for you, and then we can go."

For ten minutes Tabby supervised the packing of his i clothes, making
sure that his father put his favorite T-shirts in the case. Tabby put on
his own coat, mittens, and stocking hat. Clark took his own suitcase
from under his bed. "All right, Tabby," he said, kneeling before his
son. "Now, we're going to go right downstairs, out the door, and into
the car. Just this once, we won't say good-bye to Emily. Do you understand?"

"I already said good-bye to Emily," Tabby said.

"Okay. Nice and quiet."

"Nice and quiet," Tabby called out, and they went down the stairs to the
front door. The voices of Emily and the housekeeper drifted quietly from
the kitchen.

Clark opened the door. Frigid January air cut into them. The ground was
frosted with white, pocked here and there with the tracks of squirrels
and raccoons. "Daddy," Tabby whispered. Clark looked once more back at
the interior of the house, back at the marble hall, the thick rugs and
plush furniture, the big paintings of ships. "Daddy."

FLOATING DRAGON

15

"What?" He closed the door behind them.

"That man was bad."

"What man, Tabby?"

Tabby looked confused and lost for a moment-an expression on his son's
face that Clark had come to know well. "It doesn't matter, Tabby," he
said. "There aren't any bad

men."

He threw the suitcases into the backseat and drove through the open gates.

When they turned west on the thru way, Tabby shouted out, "We're going
to You Nork!"

"We're going to the airport, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, the airport. To ride on the airplane. For a surprise."

"Yeah," Clark said. And pushed the car up to seventy.

11

May 17, 1980

When Stony pushed open the bedroom door with her hip, she saw that the
man was already in bed. He had propped himself up on two pillows. His
skin was very white-against the pink sheets, his face and hairless chest
were the color of cottage cheese. His whole face looked glazed. She
said, "You don't waste any time."

"Time," the man said. "Never do."

"You're sure you're all right?" His clothes were thrown on the floor
beside the bed. Stony held out his drink, but the man appeared not to
notice-he was gazing at her glasseyed-and she put the drink on the
bedside table.

"I'm really all right."

Stony shrugged, sat down and took off her shoes.

"I was here before," the man said.

Stony pushed her skirt over her hips. "Do you mean in this house? Before
we moved in? Did you know the Allenbys?"

He shook his head. "I was here before."

"Oh, we've all been here before," Stony said. "This is bigger than
football."

16

Peter Straub

12

May 17, 1980

You were dreaming for a long time and then you were not. You were asleep
in a place you did not know, and when you awakened you were someone
else. You had a drink in your hand and a woman was looking at you and
Dragon the world was yours again.

15

January 6, 1971

"Airplane," Tabby said once in a voice full of wonder, and then was
silent as Monty Smithfield's car rolled down the thru way past the lower
end of Hampstead, past fields and houses, past Norrington, past the
office buildings and highrise motels of Woodville with their bright
signs, under, bridges and past the crank of the window at toll booths,
past j Kingsport, into Westchester County where the thruway grew grimy
and pitted, into Queens.

"What's the matter?" his father asked brusquely as they took the
interchange which led to Long Island. For some time everything they
passed looked bleakly threatening. From the j trim hills and sparkling
landscapes of Patchin County they j had gone into the land of the alien.
Tabby felt that here was 1 the world that had killed his mother. "Don't
you want to take i a trip?"

"No."

His father cursed. Cars gray with filth complained about them.

"I want to be home," Tabby said.

"From now on we're going to have a new home. Everything's going to be
different, Tabby."

"Everything's different now."

"I don't have any choice, Tabs-I have a new job." The first time he was
to utter that lie; it would become habitual.

Clark left the car in the long-term parking garage. Gray concrete blocks
mounted tomblike on all sides; the air too was gray, smelling of dust
and grease. When Tabby opened his door and climbed out, he saw a wide
stain on the concrete beside him and thought it was a living thing. A
hoarse shout

FLOATING DRAGON

17

boomed from the level beneath. Portents of a world without love or grace.

"Move it, Tabby. I can't help it-I'm nervous." Tabby moved it. He
trotted beside his father all the way to the elevator and stood in the
shelter of his legs.

The elevator lurched downward. Inspected by. Permit issued by. In case
of emergency use telephone. "The emergency is getting to the airport,"
said a man in cowboy boots and a leather jacket. A woman with lion hair
laughed, exposing feral lipstick-stained teeth. When she saw Tabby
staring at her, she mussed his hair and said, "Cute."

"Stop daydreaming," Clark said, pushing his way into cold air. Doors
whooshed open; they entered the terminal. Clark loaded the suitcase on
the scale, produced a folder. "Nonsmoking," he said. "Daddy," Tabby
said. "Please, Daddy." "What? What the hell is it now?" "We didn't bring
Spiderman." "We'll get another one." "I don't want-"

Clark grabbed his hand and jerked him toward the escalator. Tabby cried
out in fear and despair, for in that second he saw the wide crowded
terminal as filled with dead people- corpses flung here and there, one
naked man covered with crawling white sores. It was only the vision of a
moment, less than a second even, and when it passed his mouth was still
making that noise. "Tabby," his father said more gently, "you'll get a
new one."

"Uh huh," Tabby said, not knowing what had happened to him, but knowing
that somewhere on the edges of what he had seen had been a boy with
burning clothes, and that the boy had been the most important part of
what he had seen. Because he was the boy. Bright red and yellow lights
filled his vision, and he swayed on his feet. The little dots of light
swarmed.

His father was kneeling beside him, holding him up. They were no longer
on the escalator, and people were pushing past them. "Hey, Tabs," his
father was saying. "Are you okay? You want some water?" "No. Fine."

"Pretty soon we'll be on that old airplane. Then we have a nice ride,
and then we'll be in Florida. It's nice and warm in Florida. There'll be
sun and palm trees and places to swim.

23

Peter Straub

And good tennis courts we can play on. Everything's going to be great."

Tabby looked past his father's shoulder and saw a corridor endlessly
long down which some half-ran, others rode on a moving belt. "Sure," he
whispered.

"We need this, Tabby."

The boy nodded.

"Have you ever seen the tops of clouds? We'll be able to look down and
see what's on top of the clouds."

Tabby looked up with a flicker of interest.

His father stood; they stepped on the moving belt. Tabby thought of the
tops of clouds, of an upside-down world.

Then ahead of them was a wall of light-a curved wall of windows,
blindingly bright with sun, before which huge numbers blazed: 43, 44,
45. People eaten by the sunlight lined at desks. Floppy suit bags
claimed chairs in the bays before the windows. Animated uniforms
strutted down a shadowed arch.

Tabby saw a familiar body, a flame of silver hair. ' 'Grandpa!''

14

May 17, 1980

You carelessly put down the drink and it spilled to the floor. You
watched the woman's face change and you took her not without tenderness
by the wrist.

15

January 6, 1971

"I thought you'd try a dumb stunt like this," said the old man. "Did you
actually think you'd get away with it?"

Tabby froze between the two men.

"You can come to me, Tabby," his grandfather said. He extended a hand.
"We'll all go home again and forget about this."

"To hell with you," his father said. "Stay put, Tabby. No-go sit down on
one of the chairs in there."

"Just stay there, Tabby," his grandfather said. "Clark, I pity you.
There's no way in the world this crazy stunt could have worked."

FLOATING DRAGON

19

"Quit calling it a stunt," Clark said.

The old man shrugged. "Call it what you like. The boy is staying here.
You can do what you like."

"Sit down over there, Tabby," Clark ordered. Tabby was incapable of
going anywhere. "How'd you know I was going to be here?"

"You talk like a child. Nothing could have been easier than to figure
out what you were up to. All right, Clark? Are you ready to give up this
ridiculous idea?"

"Go to hell. You're not going to get my son."

"Come to me, Tabby. We'll let your father decide how crazy he wants to be."

Tabby made his own decision; for that comforting voice, for the softness
of the cashmere coat and suit with chalky stripes. In that way he
thought he was deciding for both of them, for a present that was like
the past. He expected no more than that.

He stepped toward Monty Smithfield, and heard his father scream,
"Tabby!" His grandfather bent down and took his hand.

"Let go of my son!" his father screamed.

Tabby felt his world shredding- "Get away from him, nogood!" his
grandfather yelled-and his soul, what seemed to be his soul, divided in
two as if sliced by a cleaver. In such confusion, no reason. Monty's
hand closed hard around his own, hard enough to make him cry out.

"Let go of my son," Clark growled, "you old bastard." He took Tabby's
other hand and tried to pull the boy toward him.

For what seemed an endless time, neither of them let go. Tabby was too
panicked and shocked to utter a sound. His father and grandfather hauled
on his arms as if they wanted to pull him apart. He was only dimly aware
of other people rushing toward them. "Let go," his grandfather barked in
a voice not his. "You can't have him, you can't have him," his father
said. In their voices he heard that they would indeed pull him apart.

"Daddy, I see something!" he screamed.

He did. He saw something that would not happen for nine years, four
months, and eleven days.

24

Peter Straub

16

May 17, 1980

For a moment you paused in your occupation; you had a witness.

From Stony Baxter Friedgood, the last of life bubbled out.

17

January 6, 1971

"I see something, Daddy!" Tabby wailed, unable to say any more.

He became aware that his grandfather had dropped his hand. When he
opened his eyes he saw a tall man in a blue uniform grasping his
grandfather's shoulder; he was on his knees in front of his father,
looking up dazedly, seeing the angry pilot and his grandfather and the
others behind them. His grandfather's face was very red.

"Are we going to settle this here or do we call the cops?" the pilot asked.

Tabby got slowly to his feet.

"I've had enough of you," his grandfather said. "You're totally
irresponsible. Go. Get out of my sight."

"Just what I had in mind," his father said in a ragged voice.

"You'll deserve everything that happens to you. But my grandson will
not. That's the terrible pity-he'll pay for your stupidity."

"At least there's one thing you won't pay for."

The old man shrugged himself away from the pilot. "If you think that's
an answer, I'm sorry for you."

"Okay?" the pilot asked.

"No," said Monty Smithfield.

"If he leaves the terminal," said Clark, "yeah, sure." There was triumph
in it.

Tabby backed away and leaned against a sand-filled ashtray. He watched
his grandfather shake out his sleeves and turn away down the long
corridor. "That bitch Emily called him," his father said.

Tabby's legs were trembling.

FLOATING DRAGON

21

"What was all that about seeing something?" his father asked. Both of
them were watching the old man march straight-backed down the corridor
to the moving belt.

"I don't know."

They sat in the lounge twenty minutes, neither of them speaking. The
animated uniforms glanced at them anxiously from time to time, as if
suspecting that it might have been wiser after all to have called the
police.

After the Eastern 727 took off, Clark Smithfield unbuckled his seat belt
and turned grinning to his son. "From now on we're a couple of poor guys."

25 What Sarah Didn't See

May 17, 1980; a wonderful day, you would have said if you lived in
Patchin County. No clouds, no moisture to spoil anybody's picnic on this
Saturday-there would be a drought, but now the grass was still green and
sappy. At Franco's, Pat Dobbin and his fellows had a few beers before
lunch and looked out the front window at the train station and pitied
the commuters so dogged that they went to work in New York on a Saturday
like this (Dobbin left before Stony Friedgood came in-he had drawings
for a children's book called The EagleBear Stories he wanted to get back
to). Bobby Fritz, the gardener for most of the big houses above
Gravesend Beach, rolled back and forth on his giant lawnmower, already
working on his summer's tan. Graham Williams erased a sentence, wrote it
inside-out, and smiled. Patsy McCloud carried her Herman Wouk novel
outside and sat in a lawn chair to read in the sun. When her husband,
Les, jogged by in his red playsuit, she lowered her head and
concentrated on the page; and when Les saw her perched on the chair, her
neck bent like an awkward bird, he bellowed, "Lunch, girl! Lunch! Get
busy!" Patsy read until the end of the chapter. Les would not make the
swing back into Charleston Road for half an hour. Then she went inside,
not to make the roast-beef-and-onion sandwich he would demand, but to
write in her diary.

For we are in the company of diarists. Graham Williams kept a journal,
Richard Allbee had done the same since he was a famous twelve-year-old
boy, one of the stars of Daddy's Here, which was brought to several
million American homes by the National Broadcasting Company, Ivory soap,
Ipana toothpaste, and the Ford Motor Company. Richard did not make an
entry until ten at night, Laura already in bed exhausted from packing,
when he wrote: Home.

26

Peter Straub

But this isn't home. May it become so. He paused a moment, looked out
the window at enfolding night, and put down Still it is beautiful here.
Casa nueva, vida nueva.

If, on that day which was Stony Friedgood's last and the Allbees' first
day in Patchin County, we had an aerial view of Hampstead, Connecticut,
we would first have noticed the profusion of trees-Greenbank, where the
Allbees would live, in particular looked forested. The Sound cradled the
eastern edge of the town, and here are two strips of bright gold:
Sawtell Beach, near the country club, is where most of the town goes to
swim and sunbathe. Gravesend Beach is smaller and somewhat rockier. This
is where the fishermen come at six in the morning, looking for bluefish
from June to late September: it is Greenbank's local beach. Above it on
a steep bluff perches the old Van Home house. Along what should be the
southern edge of town runs the Nowhatan River, fifty feet wide just
before it narrows down at the parking lot beside Hampstead's business
district. (In fact, the town extends a mile or two south of the river.)
The Yacht Club, a vast assemblage of moored boats, sits in the curve of
the estuary across from the country club and its smaller marina-from the
air all these boats are little fluttering stamps, brown, red, blue, and
white. Hampstead itself, roughly trapezoidal, is divided by the Conrail
tracks, highway 1-95, and the Post Road. All three of these go through
Hillhaven and Patchin, and through Norrington and Woodville as well on
their way to New York: but from the look of this town, you would never
know that New York existed. On Hampstead's northwestern edge lie placid
little manmade lakes and reservoirs. The great bossy heads of the trees
half-obscure the houses and roads beneath them, and obscure too the
Mercedeses and Volvos, the Datsuns and Toyotas and Volkswagens which
cruise along them. As the lights go on, you can see the massive
whitecolumned front of the Congregational Church on the Post Road just
before it dips into the business district-it is flanked, on either side
of its extensive lawn, by a bank (which has copied its style), and a
mansard-roofed shopping center with a record store, a theater, an
ice-cream parlor, a healthfood store, a craft shop (macrame holders for
pots and giant effigies of Snoopy), and a store where you can buy down
jackets and woolly hats for twice what they would cost in Norrington or
Woodville.

FLOATING DRAGON

27

And very late in the day, when Richard Allbee wrote God help us both in
his unpretentious little book, you would have seen the streaming
headlamps and flickering rooflights of two patrol cars speeding from the
police station along the Post Road, then down leafy Sawtell Road, and up
the Greenbank Road to the Friedgood house. Where every window poured light.

Seconds before they reached the Friedgood house, a light went out in the
offices of the Hampstead Gazette on Main Street, just across from the
bookstore. Sarah Spry finished her column for Wednesday's paper, and was
going home. Once again, Hampstead's famous, near-famous, and obscure had
been immortalized in the Gazette.

This is part of what Sarah wrote for that Wednesday's column:

WHAT SARAH SAW

Thistown presents a shifting kaleidoscope of moods and impressions.
Thistown gives us memories and joys and ever-changing beauties. Our
wonderful painters and writers and musicians give us spice . . . how
many of you know that famed f. scott fitzgerald (the Gatsby man) and his
family lived a stone's throw from Sawtell Beach, in the Mr. and Mrs.
Irving Fisher house on Bluefish Hill, in the twenties? Or that eugene
o'neill and john barrymore and george s. kaufman too sojourned for a
time here on the shores of Long Island Sound with us? If you ask Ada
Hoff of that grand ol' institution, the Books 'n Bobs Bookstore right
across Main Street from this great newspaper (chuckle), she might tell
you of the day when poet w. h. auden dropped in to buy a cookbook by
Thistown's tommy bigelow-way to go, Tommy! Just thought I'd mention it,
dear ones. This is a week when my poor old brain wanders through the
delights of Thistown, admiring our beautiful old Main Street, our grand
old churches of all denominations, our precious shoreline, and our
colonial past which is preserved in so many of our homes. Why, a week
like this makes your tough old scribe feel positively Bi-Centennial!

28

Peter Straub

And as that dashing young dragon-slaying lawyer ulick byrne said to
Sarah the other day, Ain't it grand to live somewhere where absolutely
nothing happens at least twice a week?

But you want to know what's going on, you say?

Sarah saw: That richard allbee, that darling boy from Daddy's Here
(catch a rerun on the late-nite tube and see what a cutie he was), is
moving in with his bride, Laura-which is one of my alltime favorite
names! Will we be seeing you around the Playhouse, Richard? (But rumor
has it he acts no more, alas. . . .)

Sarah saw: a yummy long letter from former residents bunny and thaxter
bainbridge in Los Claros, California, where they met Thistown's jix and
pete peters, out there visiting grandkids. . . .

A slow week for Sarah.

For Leo Friedgood, there would never be any slow weeks ever again,
though of this he was happily ignorant when he took the telephone call
at the Yacht Club that Saturday morning. He was puttering with his boat,
as he did most warm Saturdays. His eighteen-foot Lightning sloop, the
Juicy Lucy, had been in the water only a week, and he wanted to repaint
some of the interior trim. Bill Terry, whose Grand Banks boat was docked
at the next slip, answered the phone when it rang on the dock and called
out, "For you, Leo." Leo said, "Shit," put down his paintbrush, and
paddled down the gently swaying slip. He was sweaty and his right arm
was sore. Despite his bushy bristling appearance, Leo was not at heart a
physical man. His ancient keep on truckin' sweatshirt bulged over his
belly, his jeans bore a constellation of white specks. He wanted another
bottle from the six-pack of Coors on the sloop's deck. "Yeah," he said
into the phone. The mouthpiece stank of cigarettes.

"Mr. Friedgood?" came the anonymous female voice.

"Yeah."

"This is Mrs. Winthrop, General Haugejas' secretary," the woman said,
and Leo felt something icy stir in his gut. General Henry Haugejas-Leo
had seen him only once, at a

FLOATING DRAGON

29

Telpro general meeting, a gray-flannel slab of a man whose face was the
color of cooling iron. The face was slablike too. He had been a hero in
the Korean War and looked as though he took no more pleasure in that
than in anything else; a willful tide of strength and propriety, of
sternness and distaste emanated from the stiff red face and armor of
gray flannel.

"Oh, yes," Leo said, regretting that he was not already out on the
still-frigid water.

"General Haugejas has requested that you go to our Woodville plant
immediately."

"We don't have a plant in Woodville," Leo said.

Mrs. Winthrop silkily answered, "We do if the General says so. I
understand that it will be new to you. Here's how you get there." She
gave him an exit number on 1-95, and then a complicated set of
directions that seemed designed as much to confuse as to elucidate. "The
General wants you there in thirty minutes," she concluded.

"Hey, hold on," Leo wailed. "I can't make that. I'm on my boat. I'll
have to change my clothes. I don't even have I.D. I can't get into some-"

"They'll have your name at the gate," she said, and Leo could have sworn
he heard that she was smiling. "As soon as you check into things, the
General wants you to call him at this number." She rattled off a 212
telephone number he did not recognize. He repeated it, and the secretary
hung up.

In Woodville Leo got lost. Following the directions the secretary had
given him, he had found himself in the city's extensive slums, driving
past rotting houses, abandoned gas stations, and tiny bars where groups
of black men congregated on the sidewalks. It seemed to Leo that all of
them stared at him, a white man conspicuous in a shiny car. He drove in
circles, the secretary's complex set of rights and lefts now a hopeless
muddle in his mind. He began to sweat again, knowing that the thirty
minutes the General had given him had passed. For a time, no matter
where he turned, he seemed to swing back and forth between two poles,
the thruway and the Red Devil Lounge with its crowd of lounging, already
drunken men.

Going for the third time up a dingy street, he noticed the narrow track
between two houses which he had previously taken for a driveway-this
time he looked in and saw an iron gate before a slice of high gray wall.
As he cruised past the

30

Peter Straub

little track, he glimpsed a guardhouse just inside the gate. Leo
reversed his car and turned in between the houses, feeling like a
trespasser.

For a second he thought he was wrong again, and frustrated rage burned
in him. A sign on the gate read woodville solvent. A uniformed man
jumped out of the guardhouse and pulled open the gate. When he
approached the car, Leo lowered his window and said, "Hey, do you know
where the Telpro plant-"

"Mr. Friedgood?" the guard asked, looking suspiciously at Leo's grubby
clothes.

"Yeah," Leo said.

"They want you in Research. You're late."

"Where's Research?" Leo stifled the impulse to tell the man to go to hell.

The guard, moon-faced and moon-shaped, pointed across a vast, nearly
empty parking lot. His belly wobbled as his arm rose. The only cars in
the lot were near a windowless metal door in the high blank facade. "You
go in there."

Leo sped across the lot and parked his Corvette diagonally across two
spaces.

A white-coated man with sandy hair and rabbit teeth darted toward him as
he reached the top of the iron stairs. "You're the Telpro man? Mr.
Friedgood?"

Leo nodded. He glanced toward the little group of men and women the man
addressing him had just left. They too wore white jackets, like doctors.
His eyes snagged on a bank of television monitors. "Who are you?" he
asked, not looking at the man.

"Ted Wise, the director of research here. Did anybody fill you in?"

Leo was self-conscious in his sweatshirt and paint-spotted jeans. One of
the monitors before him showed his mop of hair, the back of his
sweatshirt hoisted up above a roll of skin. His self-consciousness fed
his anger at finding himself thrown into a plant Telpro had not trusted
him to know about until there was a disaster. He yanked the shirt down
over his belt. It had come to him that General Haugejas had sent him

FLOATING DRAGON

31

to the plant the same way he would send a first lieutenant over a
hill-because he was expendable.

"Look, the General wants me to report back to him," Leo said. "Suppose
you just stop worrying about what I do or do not know and fill me in
fast." He was still taking in the room; white walls,
black-and-white-checkerboard tiles on the floor. The television monitors
were set above a desk on which sat a time sheet, a telephone, and a pen.
A nervous-looking girl sat at the desk. She swallowed when he glared at her.

In fact the entire group assembled here at this second-floor foyer was
as nervous as cats-more than nervous, Leo was realizing. Even as Ted
Wise groped for words, the other three men and two women before him
exuded a gloom of panic and fear. They were rigid as poles, restraining
themselves because he had appeared. Not sensitive, Leo was an
intelligent man, and he could see them holding in their twitches-if they
let go, they'd roll across the floor like marbles.

At the moment that Wise nerved himself to ask Leo for some
identification, Leo finally began to assess what sort of abyss might be
before him.

"You want what?" he asked Wise aggressively.

"Just as a precaution, sir."

He was covering himself; as the General was covering himself by sending
Leo Friedgood into this . . . mental hospital. For that was what the
interior of the plant resembled. In disgust Leo took his wallet from his
back pocket and showed Wise his driver's license. "The General got me
off my boat," he said grandly. "He wanted me to take care of this thing
as quickly as possible. Just show me the problem and then all you basket
cases can take a Valium or whatever the hell it is you need."

"This way, Mr. Friedgood," Wise said, and the tense little group of five
parted to let them pass through a door.

"We have been in this plant since 1978," Wise said. "After Woodville
Solvent went under a couple of years before, the referee in the
bankruptcy sold the buildings and the name to Telpro."

"Yeah, yeah," Leo said, as if he knew all about it.

"It took almost six months to make the necessary alterations. When we
moved in, we sort of picked up where we left off in Wyoming. All of
us-the bunch you see here-had

32

Peter Straub

been working out there in another Telpro facility. Until we had to shut
down."

"Something go wrong there too?" Leo asked. Wise was opening another
door, and blinked at the question. "We had been sited in a chemical
factory, and the pipes in the drainage system were corroded. Some of the
waste penetrated the aquifer to a very minor extent, two parts per
million. It was not a serious problem. There was very little feedback."

Leo peered into the room beyond the door. Sullen-looking monkeys peered
back from cages. Zoo odors drifted through the open door. "Primate
section," Wise said. "We have to go through it to get to the testing area."

"Why don't you just tell me about your work," Leo said wearily.

Of course he had known that Telpro had certain Defense Department
contracts. One of the divisions he oversaw, a plant in Trenton,
manufactured the latching mechanism used in half-tracks; another factory
in New Jersey put together circuitry panels that later formed a small
part of the Minuteman missile. "But we're Special Weapons," Wise said as
the seven of them stood in the room full of caged monkeys. Special
Weapons was a separate endeavor which reported only to General Haugejas
and his staff. They were two microbiologists, a physicist, a chemist,
and a research assistant. Other research assistants and laboratory
technicians were hired from the local pool. For eighteen months they had
been working on a single project. "It's more complex physically and
chemically than this, but for our purposes let's call it a gas," Wise
said. "It's odorless and invisible, like carbon monoxide, and highly
dispersible in water. It doesn't have a name yet, but the code is DRG.
It's a ... you'd have to call it a real wild card. We've been working to
refine it down so we could increase the predictability factor."

Predictability was the problem, Leo learned. The Pentagon and Defense
Department had been excited about DRG since it had been first
synthesized in the early fifties by a German biochemist at MIT named
Otto Bruckner. Bruckner had not known what to do with his invention, and
the government had happily taken it away from him. "For a long time the
project was in limbo," Wise said. "The government had a lot of simpler
concepts it tried to develop, mostly unsuccessfully. In the late
seventies, interest in DRG revived again. From the

FLOATING DRAGON

33

point it came to us, Special Weapons-all of us here-had the job of
localizing the effect of Bruckner's brainchild. We put it through a
dozen changes-from ADG 1 and 2 all the way up to what we've got now. But
it's still very random in effect. Some people are not affected at all,
though only a very few. In some cases inhalation is immediately fatal.
Lack of effect and termination are within acceptable parameters, from
five to eight percent each. And as a sideline here, let me assure you
that the agents in it which cause fatality are relatively short-lived.
An exposed population is at immediate risk for no more than twenty-five
minutes. It's with the mid-range that we're most concerned. You've heard
of the Army's experiments with LSD?"

Leo nodded.

"Of course that was regrettable in the extreme. We have been at pains to
avoid any taint of that sort of thing, and our brief does not extend
that far in any case. DRG, originally ADG, is far more various in effect
than LSD, and all we've been working on is the isolation of a strain
which would consistently reproduce a single effect." Wise now seemed
very nervous. "We had quite a range of choice. Some of the wilder
effects take months to appear. Skin lesions, hallucinations, outright
madness, flu, changes in pigmentation, even narcotization-some
percentage of a treated population will simply be mildly tranquilized.
There may even have been evidence of fugue state and telepathic ability
... to tell you the truth, the stuff is so various that after a year and
a half we're just beginning to get a handle on it."

"Okay," Leo said. "Let's get to the good part. What happened?"

"Barbara," Wise said, and a tall dark-haired young woman with puffy eyes
came past the wall of cages to open another door.

Leo saw a room within a room, the top half of the inner room lined with
glass. Stepping in behind Barbara, he vaguely took in a clutter of
laboratory tables, tissue slides, projectors, gas burners. His attention
was focused on the three bodies in the glass enclosure. The two farthest
from him lay sprawled a few feet apart on a black floor. Their eyes were
open, their mouths yawned. They had clean innocent dead faces.

Wise coughed into his fist; his face was pink. ' 'The people m there
were preparing the chamber for an infusion of

34

Peter Straub

DRG-16." He wiped his face, and his hands were shaking. "The man nearest
the wall is Frank Thorogood, and the man next to him is Harvey
Washington. They were research technicians-Thorogood was a graduate
student at Patchin University and Washington had no academic
qualifications. He performed low-level tasks for all of us. One of them
was supposed to connect a line from the storage facility to the
vaporizer, which in turn is connected to the mask you see on the floor.
Instead he plugged it accidentally into the vent line immediately below
the vaporizer, and undiluted DRG flooded into the chamber. Washington
and Thorogood died immediately."

Leo was staring in horror at the third body in the glass chamber. It had
bloated-at first Leo thought the body had burst. Lathery white scum
coated the hands. The man's head, a white sponge, had seemed to leak
toward a drain in the center of the chamber's floor. It took Leo a
moment to realize that the lather that had once been skin was moving. As
he watched-his eyes incapable of shifting away-the froth of the head
crawled into the drain. "The third man was torn Gay, who was one of our
best researchers, though he had been working with us only six months or so."

The woman named Barbara began to cry. One of the men put his arm around her.

"You can see the effect of the lesions. He died only a few minutes
before you arrived. We had to watch him go. He knew he couldn't open the
chamber."

"Jesus Christ," Leo said, shocked out of his pose. "Look what happened
to him."

Wise said nothing.

"Is it safe to go in there now? Can you get rid of that stuff? I mean, I
don't care what the hell mess you people get yourselves into, but I'm
not going in there." Leo jammed his hands into his pockets. He saw wads
of brown hair floating on the lather, and turned away from the glass,
his stomach lurching.

"It will be safe in about fifteen minutes. As safe as we can make it,
anyhow."

"Then you go in."

Wise abruptly turned an alarming scarlet. "I'm afraid that isn't all.
The circulators will more or less vacuum out the traces of DRG-16."

"It's still your job, baby." «-l

FLOATING DRAGON

35

"I was going to say, Harvey Washington would have replaced the filters
on the exterior vents immediately after the chamber was empty. But Bill
Pierce here switched on the circulators before we realized that the
filters were still in their boxes."

"Why the hell don't you leave the filters in all the time?"

Bill Pierce spoke up. He was taller than Leo, built like a football
player, and the sole scientist to wear a beard. "We don't do that
because they have a strong odor, which very quickly leaks back into the
chamber. The smell prejudices the experiments. Our procedure was to seal
the chamber, make our observations, and to have Harvey Washington
install the filters while we dissected the subject. Then we switched on
the circulators." He glared at Leo, full of guilt and challenge. "But
when I saw torn Gay going crazy in there, I just thought of getting the
DRG out of the air. I was thinking that if I could change the air fast
enough, I could save torn anyhow-the other two just dropped where they
were standing. And I guess I had our old procedure in the back of my mind."

"So where did that stuff go?" Leo asked. "Wait. Let me guess. The
circulators circulated it right outside. That's the good part, isn't it?
You dummies pumped a batch of this stuff straight into the air right
after it zapped three guys in the monkey chamber here. So in about a
second and a half we got a million dead shwartzes in Woodville. Right?
Right?" Leo inhaled deeply. "And! Not only that, but we got a million
lawsuits-and I'm supposed to get you jerks off the hook." Leo clapped
his hands over his eyes.

"Mr. Friedgood," Wise said, "we've just lost three of our colleagues.
Bill was acting in accordance with former procedure-for months we did
keep the filters in place."

"You think that's a defense?" Leo bellowed. "You want me to feel sorry
for you?"

"I'm sorry," Wise said around his rabbit teeth. "We are not quite in
control of ourselves. Things may not be as bad as you imagine. Let me
explain." The words were confident, but Ted Wise was still the most
scared-looking man Leo had ever seen.

36

Peter Straub

5

"I'll do better than write a statement," Leo was telling the General
thirty minutes later. "I'll get us out of this whole mess. Telpro will
never come into it. First of all, these geniuses that you have up here
say that because this DRG was vented from the roof of the factory, it'll
carry for miles before it settles. We've got a pretty good breeze going
right now"- Leo was remembering the sloops, Marlins, and Lightnings,
whipping along out on the Sound while he worked on his boat that
morning-"and the stuff is going to travel. It could get to Rhode Island
before it settles. Maybe it'll get all the way to Canada. No one in the
world is ever going to connect it to Telpro-and if we're lucky, it'll
blow out over the Sound and kill a few fish. And if we have a good rain
anytime in the next week, the worst will never happen at all. Water
dilutes the effect fantastically. Bottom line? Somewhere north of here
could have a few deaths almost immediately. In a month or two, some
citizens of Pawtucket or Stowe might start to go funny in the head-Wise
says that the mental effects can take that long to show up. We've got no
exposure, that's the bottorn line."

He listened to the General's voice for a time.

"Months. That was what Wise said."

The General spoke again.

"He guarantees it, sir."

Leo heard the General out once more.

"That's right. Our problem now is to take care of the situation right
here. That's what my idea is all about. One of these geniuses gave me
the idea when he said that this DRG stuff is sort of like carbon
monoxide. We'll rig it, is what we'll do. As far as anybody knows, this
is Woodville Solvent. We'll keep it that way. And we'll give an
anonymous phone call to the television stations in New York, we'll call
the Times, we'll get all the agencies and public-health people out here,
and we'll have the place all cleaned up and looking like a factory."

Pause.

Leo swept his eyes across the six people staring at him from the other
side of the desk. "No, they won't say a word. We'll announce that the
plant is closing while safety inspections are carried out, and you can
move them somewhere else

FLOATING DRAGON

37

and start up all over again after everybody forgets about this. In the
meantime, we can talk to this Bruckner guy in Boston and see if he can
give us any help. He invented this crap, he ought to know if we can do
anything about it."

Pause.

"Thank you, sir." He hung up the phone and turned to the scientists.
"Let's go down and take a look at your furnace. We're going to hide this
mess in plain «ight. Some of you yoyos are going to make the
eleven-o'clock news."

An hour and a half after his arrival at the plant, Leo Friedgood was
seated on a wooden crate in the basement, watching Ted Wise and Bill
Pierce work on the furnace. Two unmarked green trucks from an army base
in New Jersey sat in the parking lot, and a team of soldiers was
carrying out the monkey cages, canisters, crates of laboratory
equipment, and boxes of records. What remained of the body of Thomas Gay
had been scooped into a zippered bag and removed.

Two hours after that, Leo stood at a window and watched a CBS car pull
into the lot just behind a police car. The temperature in the office was
over eighty degrees. Everybody knew his lines. Leo turned back to the
desk and called the Environmental Protection Agency. Then he called the
Patchin County Health Department. At the start of both conversations he
introduced himself as Theodore Wise. Turning back to the window, he saw
the research director and Bill Pierce leaving the building to confront
the police. A tall lean figure in a blue suit-the reporter-a technician
and a man carrying a video camera and Portapak left the CBS car. The
reporter drifted toward Wise and the policeman. When a sound truck came
through the gates, Leo left the window to go downstairs.

Barbara, the research assistant, and two of the scientists stood by the
desk in the foyer. Leo smiled at them, descended the stairs, and ambled
out of the building.

The famous reporter from CBS stood next to Bill Pierce and held a
microphone between them. "Is there any proof to the rumor that this
tragedy occurred because of carbon-monoxide poisoning?"

"To the best of my knowledge ..." Pierce began.

Thus, for several hours, it went. By the time the police had finished,
calm still night had descended. And by the time he left to drive home,
Leo Friedgood had almost forgotten about

38

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

39

the invisible, odorless cloud of something called DRG-16 which was
floating high up in the air currents over Patchin County.

Eventually, when Ted Wise and Bill Pierce broke their silence, they and
a hundred newspapers would blame this almost thinking cloud for
everything that befell Hampstead and Patchin and Old Sarum, Witchley and
Redhill and King George, all these excellent towns between Norrington
and New Haven with their commuters and artists and country clubs and
granite hills and saltbox houses. There would be investigations, there
would be indictments, petitions, demonstrations, lawsuits. There would
be speeches, pompous, selfserving, and well-meant. All of this would be
proper, but beside the point. For the blame for the months of coming
turmoil was not the sentient cloud's.

It was yours, you who lay on your bed now, dazed and satisfied. You who
had to begin discovering yourself once more.

Your history, Hampstead's history. . . .

Two hundred years ago, there was no Hampstead, only JH Greenbank, a
collection of farms and a church above Graves- jH end Beach. The
Beachside Trail (now Mount Avenue) con- ^M nected Greenbank to Hillhaven
and Patchin, of which it was Jfl considered an adjunct. Thus when
General Try on sailed down 1H from New Haven to burn Patchin and landed
on Kendall Point JH in 1779, a small detachment of soldiers, only ten or
eleven, |H went down the Beachside Trail to burn Greenbank too. ^M
Patchin's men took potshots over hedges and fences with their jV Brown
Besses, the women and children and animals took jfl; shelter on Fairlie
Hill or in Patchin Woods; and some lingered A in their town, boys and
women. Reports said that one or two B male residents joined the
destruction. The Reverend Eliot, fl Patchin's vicar: "The burning
parties carried on their business fl with horrid alacrity, headed by one
or two persons who were 11

born and bred in the neighboring towns." A boy (one of nine fatalities)
was shot and killed, at such range that his clothes began to burn. The
other eight murders are known to have been committed by Jaegers-German
mercenaries-and British soldiers; this one, the murder of the boy, was
unobserved and so remains a mystery.

This event, the killing of a thirteen-year-old boy in the midst of a
general destruction, is the second stain on the land.

Ten years later, George Washington, the President of the thirteen United
States, visited Patchin. His diary mentions that along his route-he took
the Beachside Trail-he saw many chimneys standing in the ruins of burned
houses.

For the next two hundred years, the same names recur in the parish
records: Barr, Wakehouse, Jennings, Annabil, Williams, Winter, Allen,
Kent, Moorman, Buddington, Smithfield, Sayre, Green, Tayler. The names
go backward, too; the original four farmers on the Beachside Trail,
settled in 1640, were named Williams, Smyth, Green, and Tayler. In 1645
they were joined by a landholder named Gideon Winter. (Monty
Smithfield's manor on Mount Avenue was built on the site of Gideon
Winter's farmhouse.)

And some of the names appear in Hampstead criminal records. In 1841, a
traveling man who had camped himself like a Gypsy in the woods bordering
Anthony Jennings' onion fields murdered two children named Sarah Allen
and Thomas Moorman and roasted the bodies in a pit before he was
captured by a posse of farmers led by Jennings. By torchlight they led
him back to the Hampstead Common (now lost, cut in half by the Post
Road), and under the eye of the town sheriff, put a rope around his neck
and tried him on the spot. From his elegant house in Patchin, Judge
Thaddeus Barr rode down the Beachside Trail on his bay gelding. He wore
his robes and hanging hat and sentenced the man to death-he knew he
could never have got the murderer to the county courthouse in
Norrington. Under Barr's questioning, the murderer refused to give his
name, saying only, "I am one of your own, Judge." After his death, he
was recognized by a man in the crowd as a feeble-witted cousin of the
Tayler family who had been sent to the poor farm as a boy.

In 1898, Robertson Green-known as "Prince" to his friends-a
twenty-two-year-old man who had dropped out of divinity school in New
Haven and lived in separate quarters in his parents' big clapboard house
on Gravesend Avenue,

40

Peter Straub

was tried and convicted for the murder in the spring of that year of a
prostitute in Woodville. Details of Prince Green's life emerged during
the trial, and they were bizarre enough to be taken up by the New York
tabloids. His habits had altered after his return from New Haven-he had
insisted on sleeping in an oaken coffin which he had ordered from
Bornley and Holland, the Hampstead undertakers. He never opened his
curtains; he invariably dressed in black; he was addicted to laudanum,
then readily available at any pharmacist's shop. He had been visiting
the Norrington and Woodville prostitutes since his return from New Haven
(Hampstead assumed), and four of these women had been butchered by an
unknown person from May to September 1897. Prince Green never confessed
to these killings, but he was sentenced to be executed as surely for
their deaths as for that of the woman over whose body he was discovered
in a Woodville slum back street- Redbone Alley. The New York Journal
American quoted the young man's father as stating that his son had been
deranged by excessive absorption in the verse of the decadent poets
Dowson and Swinburne. Early on, they had begun calling Green "The
Connecticut Ripper"; in some later editions he was called "The
Ripper-Poet." "There were days," his father said to the reporter, "when
he behaved as though he did not know his mother's name or mine."

In 1917, legalized murder occurred in France, and boys named Barr and
Moorman and Buddington were killed in the trenches. Their names are on
the World War I monument erected on the Post Road, just opposite where
the Lobster House Restaurant is now.

The model for the soldier who appears on the monument, a lean and
handsome young man in puttees and campaign hat, was Johnny Sayre, who in
1952 took his own life with a .45 automatic pistol on the grass leading
down to the dock behind the Sawtell Country Club. No one at the time
understood what made the fifty-three-year-old John Sayre, who had been a
lawyer and a power in town and much admired, decide to end his life. He
had canceled his appointments that morning; his secretary told the
police that Sayre had seemed distracted and short-tempered for days.
Bonnie Sayre told the police that she had not wanted them to go to the
club that evening, but that John had insisted-they'd had a date with
Graham Williams for two weeks, a premature birthday celebration for
John. On his actual birthday, they would be in London. The

FLOATING DRAGON

41

secretary said that he had skipped lunch and stayed in his office;
Bonnie Sayre reported that he had ordered only a salad for dinner. While
the rest of them were having their drinks, John had excused himself.
Then he had gone outside-he must have been carrying the gun in his belt
all the time. They had heard the shot a few minutes later, but it had
sounded like a car backfiring in the parking lot, like a door slamming
in the rear of the club's restaurant. A waiter on his break had
discovered the body.

Neither Bonnie nor the secretary thought it worthwhile to tell the
police that John Sayre had written two names on the jotting pad beside
his desk phone on the morning of his suicide: Prince Green and Bates Krell.

The secretary, who had lived in Hampstead only two years, did not know
the names. Bonnie Sayre had only the dimmest memory of Prince Green's
crimes. There had been a big house on Gravesend Avenue before which she
and her sisters had been forbidden to linger: in it lived two old people
who never came out. There was a shadowy memory of shame, of disgrace: of
scandal. Bates Krell, now . . . When Bonnie Sayre saw the name deeply
scratched into the telephone pad two days after her husband's death,
some half-fledged feeling stirred in her, and it took her a moment to
recognize it as unease. He had been of the generation immediately before
hers, which is to say, the generation following Prince Green's. Bates
Krell had owned a lobster boat, docked it on the Nowhatan River where
the Spaulding Oil Company was now. He had been disreputable, perhaps
threatening-a broad, filthy man, bearded and agate-eyed, who hired boys
to assist him with his nets and beat them for the most minor
infractions. One day he had vanished. His boat sat moored in the
Nowhatan River until the state impounded and sold it. There was a story
which went through Bonnie's school, a husband or a father ordering Bates
Krell out of town, a story of wives or daughters out on the lobster boat
at night . . . but why would her husband invoke this name before he
killed himself?

Prince Green, Bates Krell. John Sayre's pen had nearly torn through the
paper.

Now there are no lobster boats along the river, no fishermen at all
where once there were many; now there are Spaulding Oil and the
Riverside Building, which houses dentists and an insurance company; the
Seagull Restaurant and

42

Peter Straub

the Blue Tern Bar, where teenagers drink; the Marina Restaurant; and the
offices, in a little dingy section of warehouses, of the Scientology
movement.

Now no one knows the old Hampstead names; now the hateful anti-Semitism
of the twenties and thirties in Hampstead is gone, and the town is more
than a quarter Jewish; now people move in from New York and Arizona and
Texas; and move out to Washington and Virginia and California. The
publisher who bought the green house does not know that eighty years ago
well-brought-up girls were ordered by their parents to walk quickly past
his six-bedroom brown clapboard house, nor that in his home office on
the side of the house a dazed boy used to sleep in a coffin and dream of
traveling through the sky on wings like a gull's, his mouth and hands
stained red.

Now Hampstead has a trailer park (carefully hidden behind a screen of
trees on the Post Road), two burglaries every hour, five movie theaters,
two health-food stores, more than a dozen liquor stores, twenty-one
trains a day to New York. Thirteen millionaires live at least a part of
the year in Hampstead. There are five banks and three famous actors, a
private psychiatric hospital with an active drug-rehabilitation program.
In 1979, Hampstead had two rapes and no murders. Until 1980, murders
were almost unknown here since the days of Robertson "Prince" Green, who
had observed decorum by committing his crimes in Woodville.

The first murder of 1980 was discovered just after nineforty-five at
night on the seventeenth of May when the vie- \ tim's husband entered
his bedroom. It would be a long time \ before anyone thought to remember
Prince Green and Bates] Krell or even John Sayre, the statue of whom at
seventeen 1 everyone we shall be concerned with in this story drove
past, I seeing it or not, four or five times a week. \

8

The thinking cloud, a thousand feet above Woodville and Norrington,
preceded Leo Friedgood on his way toward Hampstead. It moved without
haste, ultimately without direction. When a curl of air sent its wings
sifting down, it brushed random lives.

FLOATING DRAGON

43

A week-old infant lying asleep near an open window on this warm May
night suddenly died-stiffened and ceased to breathe while her parents
watched television in a downstairs room. Six blocks away (we are in
Norrington now, in an area called Cumberland Acres), a fourteen-year-old
boy cruising past a row of mailboxes on stakes pitched off his bike and
lay still on a little mound of gravel, his bicycle sprawled a few feet
beside him.

Joseph Ricci, the third of the Dragon's accidental victims, had been
traveling home-much later than usual-to Stratford from a bar near the
Kingsport offices of Loewen & Loewen, the accounting firm where he
worked. It was a fiftyminute drive each way, but Joe Ricci had grown up
in Stratford and could not yet afford a house in Kingsport, which
because it was closest to New York was the most expensive of Patchin
County's towns. Joe was twenty-eight; he and his wife, Mary Louise, had
a three-year-old son who had his father's black hair and dark blue eyes.

Joe reached the first of the two toll stations he would have to pass
through before he got home. This was at the southwestern edge of
Hampstead; the next toll came just before his exit. Joe cranked down his
window, held out the book of tickets, and the uniformed woman in the
booth extracted the loose ticket from the pack. It was ten past
eight-he'd told Mary Louise to expect him at eight, and he still had
half an hour's drive before him. Joe Junior would be in bed already. It
irritated Joe to miss his son's bedtime, especially for an unhappy
reason like tonight's. His immediate superior, Tony Flippo, had asked
him the day before to save Saturday night for him. They had to have an
important talk. When Tony had asked him to come to Kingsport, Joe
assumed that his boss and friend was going to go over some business
ideas. They had talked in the past about starting their own office. But
tonight Tony had not wanted to talk about Patchin County real estate, in
which he fervently wished to invest, nor about the leasing company which
was his other fantasy: he'd wanted to complain about his marriage. He
wanted to hear himself rehearse his arguments for divorce. Tony was
halfway to being in love with Michelle Sparks, one of the firm's typists.

It had been a pointless evening. Joe Ricci left his window down and
gunned his car into the left lane. Two cars sped on

44

Peter Straub

before him; his mirror showed a phalanx of cars and a semi pushing on to
the northeast. For no reason at all, he found himself reminiscing about
his high-school girlfriend.

Then suddenly the almost empty scene before him changed. His first
impression was that 1-95 was crowded with wrecked cars, bleeding people
stumbling toward him; he saw a huge truck canted over on the guardrail,
the flashing lights of police cars and ambulances. This vision jumped
into his eyes with the power of reality and for a moment he could not
breathe or think.

He slammed on his brakes and cut his wheels to the side, realizing
finally that he could swerve around the dreadful scene by using the
shoulder. His head was buzzing oddly and painfully: for a fraction of a
second he was conscious that the fillings in his teeth were vibrating.
Yet in the midst of this buzzing pain, he knew that none of what he saw
ahead could really be there. He took his foot off the brake and slammed
it on the accelerator, wanting only to get past whatever it was on the
highway, and the back end of his car fishtailed around.

When he saw his hands on the wheel, he bit through his tongue. Bit right
through it-blood oozed over his lips. His hands were covered with white
bugs. That was all he could make of the shifting, almost fluid white
surface coating his fingers and the backs of his hands. Joe opened his
mouth but could not scream. His car was moving toward a swarm of lights.
Banshee noises, unearthly screeches, battered him.

The truck behind him, which had been blasting its air horn, crushed in
the side of his car and slammed it into the guardrail. Another car
struck the rear of the semi, shearing off its roof. It began to burn in
a quiet, almost apologetic fashion beneath the truck. A green Ford
rolled end over end like a flipping domino, and the car which had struck
it piled into the side of the semi and the burning car wedged beneath it.

By the time they closed the Hampstead toll station, there were eight
dead. Four cars, including Joe Ricci's, had incinerated. The state
police and two officers from the Hampstead police force watched
helplessly as the burning cars smoked and sparked. Twenty minutes later,
a tow truck from the garage on that day's rota sheet began to separate
the wrecks.

A Hampstead policeman named Bobo Farnsworth, who had responded to an
assist call from the state police, peered in the shattered window of a
demolished Le Baron and was amazed to see only charred upholstery and a
sagging melted wheel-

FLOATING DRAGON

45

no grisly mummy lay across the ruined seat. Bobo had seen enough
burned-out wrecks to know that in this one a roasted body was
inevitable-the hands should be fried to the chest, and the whole black
thing no larger than the size of a big dog. He looked closer at the
rubble within the car and saw the glint of a belt buckle resting on
black liquid near an exposed spring. Mary Louise Ricci, still knowing
none of this, fell asleep in the Riccis' most comfortable chair just as
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid blew up a train and picked themselves
up from the Bolivian dust in a shower of paper money.

Leo sat in his car while the engine idled, pushing forward a foot every
fifteen minutes. From the two out of five toll booths that were open,
lines of stationary cars snaked backward halfway to Norrington and Exit
16. Outlaw cars cruised down the two left lanes, which had been
officially closed, and tried to nose in farther ahead. Leo noticed with
satisfaction that drivers were keeping almost bumper to bumper, refusing
to let the outlaws improve their place in line. Ahead, on the other side
of the Hampstead toll station, he from time to time saw flickers and
flashes of red lights. So there had been a bad accident.

At nine o'clock, still fifty cars from the booth, he switched on his
radio and turned to the Woodville station. The news reader described the
latest confusion in Iran, and announced the number of days Americans had
been hostaged there. He moved onto the fracas about property
reassessment in Hampstead. Leo listened to all this with faint interest.
Then the news reader pronounced the words "Woodville Solvent." Leo
straightened in his seat and turned up the sound. "This bizarre tragedy
resulted in the deaths of two men, Frank Thorogood of Patchin and Harvey
Washington, a Woodville resident. Investigations conducted by the Public
Health Department indicate that carbon-monoxide poisoning was the cause
of death. The plant has been closed indefinitely so that
safety-monitoring measures and repairs may be carried out." The nervous,
straining sound of Ted Wise lying through his rabbity teeth cut in. "We
became aware of the problem when

no one could feel a greater sense of loss than I ...

46

Peter Straub

possible that our owners may decide to terminate ..." That was new to
Leo-he must have been listening to Pierce when Wise decided to be cute
and refer to our owners. Of course he had not decided to be cute: he had
been too rattled to be anything but stupid. But this was a lapse which
only Leo would notice. By the time the news reader had moved on to the
weather and the traffic report, Leo was almost smiling with
self-satisfaction.

All traffic funneled into one lane. An imperious policeman waved a
flashlight, flares burned, the bars of light on the tops of police cars
flashed blue and white and red. The wreckers had towed away most of the
crumpled automobiles, but the sixteen-wheeler still sagged against the
guardrail: a recumbent elephant. The three lanes blocked off by conical
orange markers were littered with broken glass, hubcaps and detached
tires, a fender dented in half like a huge silver V. The smell of
scorched metal and rubber hung over it all. As Leo inched into his place
in the single line of cars, he looked sideways past the policeman with
the flashlight and saw an unrecognizable car jammed beneath the
undercarriage of the truck. The entire top of the car was sliced off
down to the door handles. Inside that improbable cripple had been a
human being. Stony, Leo thought, and then recalled with terrible clarity
the two young dead men on their backs in the glass room, eyes and mouths
open: and again saw white froth sliding toward a drain. He pushed these
visions backward into some dark empty chamber in his mind and snapped
his head forward as the tall officer waved the flashlight past his window.

Exit 18 was only three miles ahead. Now he was in a sweat to get home.
It seemed that a massive and cruel movement of ill luck had touched him,
brushing past with muscular haste; or had not brushed past but clung to
him as if he were its epicenter. Darts of alarming light irradiated his
mirror, burned across his face. At a mule's pace he crawled the three
miles to his exit.

Rational, Leo knew that nothing had happened to his wife; he understood
that his fears were the product of his work at the plant in Woodville
and of the sudden reminder of mortality slipping behind him on the
highway. He was not as tough as he had been impelled to be in Woodville,
and now his mind was taking the toll for that callousness. You escaped

FLOATING DRAGON

47

that, his mind was saying, but this you shall not so easily escape. And
after all, were not the news items he had heard proof that his strategy
had worked? His mind was punishing itself for that success.

All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be
well.

Again he saw the two young men, Washington and Thorogood, on their backs
in the glass room. He squirted out of the line of cars at his exit,
gunned his Corvette up the ramp, and faked a pause at the stop sign.

Leo wound through the quiet Hampstead streets. Lights burned in the big
frame houses, ordinary family life went on. A man walked a dog, a large
woman in a sweatsuit thumped down Charleston Road. On his corner, a
lost-looking teenage boy stood at the edge of the road, gazing at the
sky as if for direction. For a second, for less than that, Leo thought
he knew the boy, who was fair-haired, perhaps slightly undersized, and
wore a striped rugby shirt with the sleeves pushed up on his thin arms.
The headlights swept past him, the boy jerked away, and Leo swerved into
Cannon Road

On their acre-and-a-half lots, the houses sedately marched uphill,
pronouncing themselves good investments, not as grand as the houses on
Hermitage Avenue up the hill, but shining forth from their lighted
windows a solid affluence. In this world all children were blond, all
refrigerators stocked with mineral water, expensive jogging shoes
scuffed or virginal sat in every closet. Four houses up, Leo saw Stony's
car parked in the driveway. Then he saw that all the windows were dark.
The car left out of the garage, the black empty windows: Leo exhaled,
seeing these first signs of disorder. The top of his head suddenly went
cold. He turned into the driveway and pulled ahead of his wife's car.

On his way to the front door, he paused on the gravel drive and looked
about him. The boy had vanished from the Charleston Road corner. The big
trees loomed up into the darkness, where they coalesced into one tree.
All was silence and growing dark. Mr. Leo Friedgood returns home on a
Saturday evening from a noble day's work. Mr. Leo Friedgood surveys his
estate. His chest felt tight. Leo turned around and went quickly to his
front door.

It was unlocked. The house was darker than the outside,

and he switched on the hall light. "Stony." No answer.

'Stony?" He stepped forward, still thinking that there was a

48

Peter Straub

happy explanation-she had gone for a walk, she had stepped next door for
a drink. But Stony never did either of those things, not at night. Leo
turned on the dining-room lights and saw the empty table ringed with
solid wooden chairs. "Stony?" The conviction that something terrible had
taken place, which had begun in him when he had passed the wrecks on the
highway, blossomed out urgently. He was afraid to go into the kitchen.

Okay. Let's get to the good part. What happened? They had stood beside a
wall of gloomy monkeys in cages.

Leo pushed open the kitchen door.

A room within a room, a structure like a glass cube, a tile floor ...

The mute presences of the range and refrigerator bulked in the dark
kitchen. His own tile floor, red, was a shadowy sea. Leo flicked the
light. He saw the Johnnie Walker bottle, the only thing out of place,
upright beside the sink. His fingers gently found it. They pushed the
bottle back into the corner where the draining board met the wall.

Slowly Leo left the kitchen and went back to the dining \. room. He
glanced up the stairs and continued into the living] room. Here were
silvery couches and padded chairs, a murky; glass table, their colors
drained by moonlight streaming in; through the window. A tall clock
ticked resonantly from the\ corner. He had seen when he had come in that
the room was| empty. Still he turned on the nearest lamp, and the rooml
sprang into life. 1

In a little alcove on a far side of the living room was aj "den" with
bookshelves and a desk. A previous tenant had! outfitted this alcove
with track lighting which Leo never used J He switched on the desk lamp.
Framed diplomas stare<H down, as did a photograph taken at a Telpro
institutional pre-1 sentation of himself in the proximity of Red
Buttons. Ofl course Stony was not in this little corner. 1

Irresolutely Leo wandered back to the entry. He looked up| the stairs.
He called out his wife's name. Leo went up threel steps, peering into
the darkness above him. He wiped hisi palms on the front of his
sweatshirt. Then, grasping the hand-J rail, he went up to the top and
switched on the light. The doorl to his bedroom was closed. 1

Leo went down the hall to the door and put his hand on thel brass knob.
This is an empty room, he told himself. Nothing! has happened,
everything is just the same. When I open the

FLOATING DRAGON

49

door, I'll know that nothing's happened and that Stony will be back in a
few minutes. He turned the knob and pushed open the door. As soon as he
leaned forward and put his head into the room, he smelled the peaty
aroma of whiskey. Stony's flat black shoes sat on the floor beside a
neat pile of her clothes. Finally Leo caught the odor of blood, which in
fact was very strong in the room. He glanced at what was on the bed, and
then found himself back in the upstairs hall without any memory of
having left the bedroom.

10

At ten minutes to ten the lights of two police cars streamed along the
leafy streets toward Greenbank and the Sound; having finished her
column, Sarah Spry finally left the Gazette building, unaware that the
first page would have to be reset on Sunday afternoon. Richard Allbee
put down his journal, undressed, got into the water bed in his rented
house, touched Laura's shoulder and found that she was trembling. Graham
Williams heard the sirens pass by on the street behind his house and
rolled over in bed. Tabby Smithfield, still outside, watched the cars
streak past him and stood riveted to the grass before an unknown house
on Cannon Road, incapable of moving because a long-forgotten memory had
nailed his feet to the ground.

Patsy McCloud did not hear the sirens or see the cars. As he did several
times a year, her husband was hitting her upper arms and shoulders,
every third or fourth blow slapping her face with his open palm, and she
was making too much noise to hear anything but herself. The beating
lasted until she ceased any signs of resistance and simply bowed her
head into the protection of her raised forearms. Finally the blows were
no more than a succession of taps. "You know you drive me crazy
sometimes," Les McCloud said. "Go wash your face, for God's sake."

11

Leo Friedgood, still being questioned by the police, missed fhe
eleven-o'clock news, which reported the apparent suicide, in Boston, of
an MIT scientist named Otto Bruckner. Leo

50

Peter Straub

would not be left alone until past midnight, when he would take a room
at the Colonial Motel on the Post Road and sleep in his clothes, so
tranquilized by the police doctor that the noises from the discotheque
in the motel's basement never disturbed him. But on the local news, Ted
Wise spoke his piece, Pierce spoke his, and the famous reporter stood
sleekly and elegantly upright as he announced that all the agencies had
attributed the deaths of the two workers to carbon-monoxide fumes
emanating from a faulty furnace. The famous reporter did not neglect to
remind his audience of a similar incident in the Bronx four months earlier.

The Sunday edition of the New York Times carried a footlong obituary of
Dr. Otto Bruckner. There were anecdotes about his modesty and
absentmindedness, a list of his awards, a reasonable assessment of his
place in the development of modern biochemistry. In death Dr. Bruckner
was treated fairly by the Times, which is to say he was accorded more
stature than he would ever have ascribed to himself. His obituary did
not mention his work on DRG.

Nor did the Sunday Times discuss the murder of Stony Baxter Friedgood.
There would be only a short article in Monday's paper. But Stony was not
to be forgotten in death. Her photograph would appear four times in the
newspaper, the first in a row of black-bordered photographs. In thirteen
weeks, over the rest of May, through June and July, six more people were
to be murdered just as Stony was. After that the news which came from
this section of Patchin County was spotty and unreliable.

TheAllbees

For Richard Allbee, the first real shock of being back in his native
country had come late at night in the hotel suite he and Laura had taken
to wait out the availability of the house on Fairytale Lane. Moving
house ranks just behind divorce and death of a spouse as cause for
anguish, and Richard had been unable to sleep; he felt as though he had
just made the mistake of his life. Nervously he had wandered into the
living room, switched on the television and been confronted-in the most
concrete possible way-with his own past.

Daddy's Here was showing on an independent station, as it did every
night at twelve-thirty in New York. In almost every large American city,
the old series surfaced once a day on one of the less distinguished
channels, offering its spurious vision of family life to anyone so
fixated that he watched television after midnight or before six in the
morning. Daddy's Here was a staple, it was fodder for the softest
programming hours, but Richard had not seen it since the days of its
first airing.

In London, that the almost thirty-year-old series still had a life had
been curious and funny, but no one in London had seen it-the program had
been something to joke about at parties. The ten-year-old me is still
going strong, that's right. What's more, he's still getting paid. The
ten-year-old me had an excellent lawyer. This was truer than he had
known at the time: along with Carter Oldfield, the only other principal
actor still alive and the star of the series, Richard got a residual
check every month of his life. The excellent lawyer, Phil Sawyer, had
been Carter Oldfield's, and he had persuaded Richard's parents to accept
a lower salary for the trade-off of an income even he had not expected
to be lifelong. "Out here, nobody knows how long they're going to work,
so make the program the boy's annuity," had been the persua-

52

Peter Straub

sive sentence. Annuity was a magical word to Mrs. Mary Allbee. The other
two chief cast members had turned down Sawyer's suggestion, but for
Richard, beginning ten years after the program's cancellation, the
residuals had begun to arrive. He had been twenty-four, and the
unexpected money gave him a freedom he badly needed. There it was every
month, enough to keep a young couple afloat as they moved happily into
the early days of their marriage. Richard had gone to graduate school in
architecture, worked for two years in an architect's office, moved to
England and tried to write a novel, had finally found the work that
satisfied him most. For three years the monthly checks had been
invested, not spent-they had given the Allbees seven years of wandering
without undue care, and after Richard and Laura had settled down in
Kensington, the checks had been almost an embarrassment, like a youthful
habit not quite outgrown. Richard had his work, Laura was an editor for
a women's magazine, and the green rectangle that meant Daddy's Here was
going into its umpteenth year in Cleveland and Little Rock simply went
into Lloyd's Bank and slowly multiplied itself.

Six years' worth of episodes, more than two hundred of them circling
around the United States, showing the hardworking little Richard Allbee
growing from eight to fourteen: growing through a youth utterly unlike
his own real one. In the world of Daddy's Here, no problem existed that
was not amusing and could not be solved by Ted Jameson-Carter
Oldfield-in thirty minutes. There was no crime, no death or disease, no
poverty, no alcoholism: the problems had to do with homework,
girlfriends, buying birthday presents.

With a kind of fascinated dread, Richard sat down on the suite's stiff
couch and watched himself move through his professional paces. I He had
missed the first five or six minutes, and so had also \ missed the line,
thank God. The line, the sentence which his \ character, Spunky Jameson,
uttered in three programs out of j five, which brought sacks full of
cookies to the studio, had "< become a curse; at fourteen he had hoped
never to hear it again, and he still hated cookies. The black-and-white
images of his past would spare him that much, anyhow. The Jame sons were
seated around the table in their pine-and-Formica kitchen, and lovely
Ruth Branden-Grace Jameson-was in a dither because she had dented a
fender on the family car. She wanted to get it repaired before she told
Ted. Flustered,

FLOATING DRAGON

53

she put salt into Ted's coffee and sprinkled sugar on the roast. Ted
sampled his coffee, squinted, made a quizzical face. "Hey, what's the
matter, Pop?" asked David Jameson, played by Billy Bentley.

"This coffee just doesn't taste right," said Carter Oldfield, projecting
kindliness and wisdom as well as momentary puzzlement. "Switch brands,
honey?"

Ten-year-old Richard Allbee giggled right on cue-he knew about the bent
fender.

That was how it had gone, more or less, for six years.

Richard could not help thinking of their fates, of what had happened to
the four of them. None of the other three had found fame in movies that
each, to different degrees, had desired. Ruth Branden, that beautiful
woman, the most professional actor on the set, had contracted breast
cancer a year after their cancellation; while working on the pilot for
another series, she had collapsed, and the doctors found that a new
cancer had spread throughout her internal organs. She was dead in three
months. Carter Oldfield was the only one of the cast to still have a
career in television-that aura of kindly wisdom had been
inextinguishable throughout Oldfield's sieges of depression and boozing.
Oldfield had moved from Daddy's Here to another long-running series
about a law practice in a small Midwestern town. Now he appeared in
ubiquitous commercials for a brand of orange juice; "the juice that
wakes up your body." His hair had gone from dark brown to silvery gray,
but he still looked much the same. In fact age had improved him-now he
was like a hybrid of James Stewart and Melvyn Douglas. Richard smiled,
remembering in how many scenes Carter Oldfield had kept his hands in his
pockets because they were shakier than poplar leaves. Still, he had
survived, and Richard could now think of him with affection. It was not
the love with which he remembered Ruth Branden, but the man was a better
actor than anyone credited him with being; he had only a one-octave
keyboard, but he played it beautifully.

But Billy Bentley . . . that was painful to remember, even more painful
than seeing Ruth Branden again. In the days of Daddy's Here, Richard
Allbee had been a boy without a father, without brothers or sisters-his
father had apparently vanished days after baby Richard's arrival home
from the hospital. Richard had idolized Billy Bentley. There was
something of James Dean in him, something sensitive and

54

Peter Straub

rebellious. Ten years old to Richard's eight, fourteen to his twelve, he
had looked five years older, with his dark broad face and fall of hair
over his forehead. Billy had been a great, though an unschooled, dancer
and had a small but real talent for music. Billy drank beer, smoked
cigarettes, drove his own car around the studio lot, and shouted comic
things at script girls. At twelve and fourteen, he had been innocently
wild. Drugs had ruined him. And that had ruined Daddy's Here. On a
street corner in West Los Angeles, he had tried to buy two nickle bags
of heroin from a narcotics detective-he was seventeen and he looked at
least twenty-five. The publicity had scuttled the series, scuttled Billy
Bentley too.

Billy had disappeared into penal institutions for two years. In his
absence he had been like a large unpaid bill, a nagging guilty center of
awareness. He had written three times to his "brother." You still
gettiri high on Seven-Up, Spunky? Walkin through "fields of flowers"? In
here we got the whole elite of junior dope fiends and life ain't too
bad, Spunks, not too bad. We ain't finished yet. We'll see the old red,
red robin again someday. In his sophomore year in college, Richard had
read that Billy, now twenty-two, had been arrested again on a drug
charge. He was still Billy Bentley, actor and former child star of
Daddy's Here. Four years later, out again, he had called Richard in New
York-he wanted to do a film about drug addiction, and he was looking for
money. Richard had sent him a couple of thousand dollars against Laura's
opposition. Chances were, it went straight into Billy's arm.

Richard had not cared-he felt he owed him at least that much. He had
loved Billy, loved him just as if he had been a real brother. But he had
refused to work with him.

That had come up first in Paris, where Richard and Laura were living for
six months. Billy had called up in the middle of the night, full of an
idea for his resurrection. "Hey man, there are all these dinner theaters
out there now-all over the East Coast, man. We're naturals. They'd drop
dead to get us. We just find the right play, and we're in. And we get on
pretty good-hell, I practically raised you." Richard thought of the last
time he had seen Billy: he had looked into the window of Horn and
Hardart's on East Forty-second Street and seen him at a table, his face
still broad and dark but all the innocence burned out of it. He wore the
clothes of the hip

FLOATING DRAGON

55

urban poor, corduroy jeans and a Salvation Army suit jacket too large
for him. His face was oddly pocked, full of small shadowy scars. Billy
looked dangerous, sitting at the table in Horn and Hardart's; he looked
like he did not belong in daylight. "Are you clean now?" Richard asked him.

"Hey, don't be a drag. I'm on the methadone program, I can get clean
anytime I want. I'm ready for work, Spunks. Let's get something
together. People want to see all that old stuff again."

Richard had said no and felt it like a betrayal. In the second year in
London, there had been another midnight phone call-Billy was still
thinking about dinner theater. "Billy," Richard had said, "I was an
actor because my mother wanted to see my footprints outside the Chinese
Theater. It was fun, but that's over for me. I'm sorry."

"I need you, man," Billy had told him. "Like you needed a dad in the
red, red robin days."

"I'll send you some money," Richard had said. "That's the best I can do."

"Money ain't Spunks," Billy said, and hung up before Richard could ask
for his address. Not long after, Richard read of his death in Newsweek.
He had been shot to death in what the magazine called "an altercation
over drugs."

Richard thought of all this while watching the innocuous twenty minutes
of Daddy's Here. In the morning, he knew, Laura would listen
sympathetically and then say, "Billy didn't belong to you, lunkhead. You
didn't wreck his life, he did." That was true-but Laura had not heard
Billy Bentley's half-whispered / need you, and responded with an offer
of money. Sorry, Billy, I can't save your life right now, how about a
nice fat check instead?

Welcome home, Richard.

He switched off the set as soon as "When The Red, Red Robin Goes Bob,
Bob, Bobbin Along," the theme song, began to swing joyously beneath the
credits.

It must have been because of the accident of unexpectedly seeing himself
and Billy Bentley as the children they had been that Richard dreamed of
being back in the series on his

56

Peter Straub

second night in Hampstead. Richard and Laura spent the Sunday unpacking
their clothes-the summer clothes only, for all the rest could wait until
they had their own place. The house on Fairytale Lane was theirs for two
months only. Already they knew that this was a blessing. Hampstead was
even now very humid, and the rented house was not air-conditioned: the
attic fan cooled the bedroom floor, but it roared like a jet engine. The
huge fireplace in the living room, though spotless, stank of ashes. The
kitchen had only a few feet of counter space. What could have been a
useful spot beneath some of the upper cabinetry was occupied by a
microwave oven, the first one the Allbees had seen. The four bedrooms
were small and dark, the stairs ominously steep. Whenever he rolled over
on the hated water bed, the resulting wave threatened to knock Laura
onto the floor. In the vest-pocket dining room, a large water stain
announced that the ceiling would one day introduce itself to the table.
All the wiring, to Richard's experienced eye, had been installed before
the second war. A third of the window frames had rotted, leaving a
papery, waferlike layer of paint. All in all, the house was a good
candidate for Richard's professional services. He was a restorer of such
rotting beauties.

He had worked on a dozen large houses in London, starting with his own,
and had built a reputation based on care, exactness, and hard work. He
took a deep satisfaction in bringing these abused Victorian and
Edwardian structures back to life. What showed in his work was that the
man behind it understood where the beauty in such houses lay and knew
how to make it shine again. Richard had put himself to school to the
buildings an earlier generation had dismissed as monstrosities, and in a
short time, guided by an instinct he had not known was his, had learned
their secrets. In a few years, he had even a small kind of fame-two
magazines had done features about his houses, he was offered more work
than he could accept. This would happen, he fervently hoped, in America
too. Two couples, one in Rhode Island and the other in Hillhaven, had
already contracted for his services. The commissions had given him the
impetus to move back to America-that and the impending birth of his
child. His son or daughter would be American, and would sound like one.
Before he conceived a child, he had not imagined that to be important,
but important it was. The child of Laura and him-

FLOATING DRAGON

57

self would not have a Kensington accent-it would have the accent of
Connecticut, where both his parents and Laura's had been born: where he
and Laura too had been born, on the same day a year apart. Richard also
felt easier about enrolling Lump-the only name they had yet-in a Patchin
County school than sending her/him to a London comprehensive.

Her/him? Lump would be a girl, Richard secretly knew, and loved the
knowledge.

Shortly before the packers had come, while the London house was still
recognizable, Richard had dreamed that he was walking in Kensington
Gardens. It was a day five or six years in the future. The sunshine
which fell on the lovely broad lawn was sunlight still far out in space;
the grass and flowers were the grandchildren of the grass and flowers he
knew. The trees were slightly though noticeably taller. This atmosphere
of futurity extended to Richard, who in the dream was slightly heavier
than his actual hundred and sixty pounds. A child was tugging at his
hand. He was taking this future child out to play in the future park,
and all was well. DreamRichard dared not look down at his child, for
fear of weeping with joy. Lump was tugging him along toward the Round
Pond, and he let Lump pull him, for the moment simply and quietly
stunned with happiness. At last he did look down. She was a small,
vibrant child with Laura's straight reddish-blond hair. She wore a
little print dress and black childish shoes. Pride and love burst in his
chest, and he sobbed, overwhelmed by the force of these emotions, and
his bursting feeling woke him up. He had seen her, and she was perfect.
The calm radiance of this dream had stayed with him for days.

He had never told Laura about seeing their child in the dream.

Neither did he tell her of the other dream. Husbands and wives divide
psychic responsibilities, and Richard's duty was to represent the
optimistic side of the wrenching move; it was Laura who could express
their joint fears and doubts.

So it was Laura who asked, "Is this really going to work?" They were
taking a walk, that first Sunday, plunging off into unknown territory.
The Allbees had gone down to the steep end of Fairytale Lane and
wandered across a bridge, gone past immense trees entangled with
creeping vines, been

58

Peter Straub

briefly joined by an amiable scurry of rotund dogs. All the houses
seemed huge, set at vast distances from each other. A chain saw burped
and spat from behind a screen of trees.

"Sure it is," he said. He put his arm around her shoulders. "It might be
a little tough at the start, but good things are going to happen to us
here. I already have two customers. That's a good start."

"I'm in culture shock." Laura said.

"We grew up here," Richard pointed out.

"You grew up in Los Angeles. I grew up in Chicago. This whole state
looks like Lake Forest."

"Can't be bad." He caught the flash of her eye and said, "Oh, I know
what you mean."

They had been born here, but it was strange to them: Laura's father had
been transferred to Illinois and she had grown up in a town house
similar to their London house; he had grown up in a series of apartments
and small rented houses. His first house had been the one he and Laura
had bought together. They were used to terraces-row houses- and shops
close enough to walk to, they were used to traffic and pubs and parks.
Hampstead, neither city nor country, had a dissociated, unreal quality.
The name conjured up pictures of the Everyman Cinema and Holly Hill,
Galsworthy's serene white house and brick walks, for both of them.

"I think it will take a year or two," he said, "but we'll adjust to this
funny place."

"I'm not sure I want to adjust," Laura said, and he silently applauded.

At that point a pack of men in short pants and sweatstained T-shirts
burst from around a corner and pounded toward them. "Hey!" shouted the
leader, a Viking with flowing hair and a blond bouncing beard. Richard,
who was wearing a tweed jacket and a necktie, suddenly felt overdressed
for this sunny May morning.

One of the things they had noticed already was that Patchin County was
resolutely healthy. Not only did joggers come down Fairytale Lane at all
hours, but the stupefyingly lavish grocery stores were filled with
people returning from or going to tennis matches. The local drugstore
was stocked with an amazing array of cigarettes, but he had been the
only person buying them.

Of course there was a culture shock. When Laura went to

FLOATING DRAGON

59

the grocery store where the customers all seemed to be modeling tennis
clothes, she did not recognize the cuts of meat. Most of the breakfast
cereals were pap coated with sugar. And strangers spoke to you with
astounding directness. "My sister died," a woman said to Laura over the
frozen yogurt. "She just fell over and died, and of course her husband
never changed a diaper in his life." "What a shame," Laura replied,
backpedaling. The men, like the Viking jogger, looked you in the eye and
beamed, showing a million white teeth- they looked like talk-show hosts.
There was an assumption of intimacy in that glad dopey gaze.

They would get used to all these things-which were finally
unimportant-because they had to. And Richard knew that their first days
in America were particularly strained because they were supposed to be
at home with everything here. That was another expectation, one they had
of Themselves.

The Allbees went early to bed that night. While Richard read aloud from
their current project, Madame Bovary, they from time to time stroked
each other's thighs, caresses full of cornfortable marital tenderness.
Laura occasionally smiled to herself as the baby moved, which it had
only lately begun to do. Tonight the baby was active, and she wanted
Richard to feel it steeplechasing. He fell asleep with his hand on the
rising loaf of her belly.

Sometime in the night, he dreamed of being back on the set of Daddy's Here.

He was not ten years old: he was his own thirty-six. He was saying the
line. Billy Bentley, likewise adult, smirked from out of his shadowy,
pitted face. "Not tonight, darling," Ruth Branden said, bustling onto
the set through the door from the kitchen. "Don't you remember? There
was an awful murder. There's something terrible outside. I couldn't make
cookies with that on my mind."

"Oh, sure, Mom," he said. "I remember now. No, cookies sure would be a
bad idea."

"Booga-booga-booga," Billy Bentley said. "There's a big bad killer and
he's going to get you."

An episode about a killer? Surely that was wrong. The sponsors would
never have . . .

"He's gonna pounce on you outta the closet." Billy Bentley grinned at
him. "The door is going to swi-i-i-ng

60

Peter Straub

open, and he's gonna crawl on out, coming to get you, babe."

"Now, David," said Ruth Branden. "That's not nice."

"Dad's been looking a little weird lately," Billy said. "The old juicer
needs a jolt. About time Dr. Feelgood gave him a happy pill. We'll be
lucky if he makes it to the end of the season."

"I won't have you saying such things about your father," said Ruth
Branden, still imperturbably in character.

They were not on the set, Richard finally noticed. They were eating in
the vest-pocket dining room. There were no cameras and no crowds of
stagehands and studio people looking on.

"Hey, Mom," he said.

"I want you to go to your bedroom now," Ruth said. "Lock your door. And
make sure the windows are locked too."

"This isn't the-"

"Get upstairs," Ruth Branden shouted, and for a second her face was
cronelike, raddled and drawn. "Get up there and lock your door!"

The room had four walls, but somewhere a camera was recording all this.
"Scene Two," called a voice. "Places."

He was up in the bedroom: pajamas: night. Model airplanes covered the
desk, a college pennant was tacked to the wall over the bed. aphoolie.
(Arhoolie?) This was the set bedroom, and he was now truly Spunky
Jameson, for he was in his ten-year-old body. A pair of skis leaned
against the wall by the closet. A tennis racket in its zippered case;
all the old boyish clutter. He touched his face, ran his hand over his
crewcut. Yes. All was right.

He knew what the script called for. SPUNKY walks to window, looks out
anxiously, turns back to DAVID. Richard went to the window. He
remembered that view. The back wall of the studio, unused flats,
dangling ropes. He looked out. What he saw was not the view of the
studio, but a street, grass, a neighbor's picket fence. In moonlight,
streetlamps marched down Maple Lane, a street which had never existed. A
1954 Chevy went by, its headlights making lines of tar in the road
blackly shine.

He turned around, his mouth dry. "Hey," he said.

SPUNKY: Hey.

FLOATING DRAGON

61

Laura lay asleep on the water bed, her hair spilling over the pillow.
Billy Bentley, his face barely visible in the darkness, lay beside her,
grinning at him. Richard knew that Billy was naked under the sheets.

"Booga-booga-booga," Billy said in an evil voice. "Bad stuff coming your
way."

FRONT DOOR SLAMS.

The front door slammed.

DAVID: Guess it's here now, bro.

"Guess it's here now, bro," Billy said. "You sure you got the door locked?"

In shock, Richard gaped at the spectacle of Billy Bentley naked in bed
with Laura. There was a definite atmosphere of postcoital ease. Laura
breathed in and out through slack beautiful, blissfully unconscious
lips. "Hell of a good woman you got there," Billy said, and Richard, in
the midst of a searing blast of resentment, felt his powerlessness
before Billy Bentley's adult body. "This is one woman who's got it all,
you know what I mean?" Billy's spatulate hand, black in the dark room,
rubbed Laura's sheeted rump. "But if you don't mind my saying so, you
got yourself another little problem now, Spunks. I ain't too sure you
locked that door after all."

"The door?"

"The bedroom door, Spunks. Bad ole thing a-comin'."

Richard could hear terrible noises coming from downstairs. A heavy
object fell to the ground, accompanied by the sound of breaking glass
and china. Ruth Branden screamed. A heavy vicious splintering sound, as
of an ax repeatedly striking wood. Ruth screamed once more: there came a
series ol heavy thuds, and Ruth's screams abruptly stopped.

"Better get your ass in gear," Billy said.

Someone was shouting downstairs.

Richard went to the door and punched in the button on the knob.

"Kinda lost his cool when he saw that dent in the fender." Billy was
still grinning at him, still rubbing Laura's rump.

BEDROOM DOOR RATTLES.

The door noisily shook against the lock. The person on the other side
knocked once, then twice more. "Spunky? Hey, Spunky? Let me in, will
you?" It was Carter Oldfield's expressive voice, but the voice sounded
ragged and out oi breath. "I paid for this house, I own it. Let me in,
you little

62

Peter Straub

creep." The voice also sounded drunk-Richard had heard that dragging
slur before.

"Go away," he said. And Billy Bentley chuckled from the bed.

"Don't tell me to go away," roared Carter Oldfield. "I've got some
business to take care of with you."

The ax began to strike the door with great thudding splintering blows.

Richard shuddered into wakefulness, his heart thundering in his chest.
The digital clock on the bedside table read 4:04. Laura whiffled in her
sleep, disturbed by the sloshing Richard had created when he had
awakened. Striped wallpaper he would never have chosen shone for a
moment on the walls, picked out by the glowing scoops of a passing car's
headlights.

On Monday morning the Allbees met the real-estate person, Ronnie
Riggley, at her office at one of the shopping centers on the Post Road.
Ronnie was a big brash transplanted Calif ornian with an eager laugh and
short shining platinum hair. She had the physical grace and confidence
that follows some former athletes throughout their lives, and Richard
supposed that she had been a good high-school swimmer or diver back in
Marin County. When the Allbees had arrived the previous spring to look
at rentals, two innocent know-nothings, Ronnie had taken them in hand.
Despite its flaws, the Fairytale Lane house had been the most suitable
of all the houses they had seen that spring. Ronnie had treated them
fairly, had even steered them away from rentals less suitable and more
expensive. They liked her: she made the wearying business of
house-hunting more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise.

"Let's hit the trail." Ronnie held up a sheaf of listings. "We'll look
at three this morning, have a nice lunch somewhere, and then hit two
more this afternoon. I want you to get an idea of what's available in
your price range."

They got into her car, a blue Datsun with RONNI license plates. "I hope
you're sleeping all right," she said. "It can be hard, in an unfamiliar
place."

FLOATING DRAGON

63

"Not really," Laura said from the backseat. "The bed sloshes."

Ronnie whooped with laughter. "Oh, darn, I forgot-that house has a water
bed! But don't you think you'll get used to it?"

"I'd rather not get used to it," Richard said. "Surfing is surfing and
sleeping is sleeping, and never the twain shall meet."

He picked up the first of the listing sheets between himself and Ronnie.
"Is this where we're going first?"

Ronnie nodded. "Say, I feel a little tacky, asking this, but I just have
to do it. Could you ... I mean, would you mind saying it for me? You
know what I mean."

She wanted him to say the line. He glanced at Laura, who was grinning
wickedly at him from the backseat.

"Or do you just hate it when people ask you to do that?"

"Nobody's asked me to say it in ten years at least. Okay. 'Hey, Mom, I
want a whole plate of cookies!'"

Both women laughed.

"Well, my voice changed."

Laura said, "Thar wasn't so bad, was it, dear?"

"Not so bad? It was wonderful," Ronnie said. "I just had to ask-I can't
believe that was you. I told my boyfriend- you know, Bobo, the guy who's
a cop?-I was showing you houses, and Bobo said, ask him to say it.
Sometimes when Bobo's on eight-to-twelve we watch your program after he
gets back. It's on nearly every night, you know. I think it's just so
neat that you're moving back to Hampstead."

"Of course, we hardly knew it," Richard said. "Both of us were
practically babies when we left."

"Oh, you'll love it here-there's always something going on. When we had
our big office party for our customers last Christmas, Jane Frobisher,
she works with me, came up to some people I just sold a house to and she
said, 'You just moved into Hampstead? You're so young to get divorced!'

"Oh, my gosh, listen, do you know about the murder yet?" Ronnie broke
into their laughter. "Bobo told me about it. It happened Saturday night,
and after Bobo got back to the station after that big accident on the
thruway, everybody was talking about it. I hate to talk about the wages
of sin and all that, but I guess the lady got turned into lamb patties
by her Mr. Goodbar while her husband was out working."

64

Peter Straub

That was how the Allbees first heard of Stony Friedgood.

"Madame Bovary in Patchin County," Laura said.

"So there's another house for sale in Hampstead," Richard said.

"Oh, it's not for you," Ronnie said quickly. "I know that house. It's
strictly IBM. I Been Moved."

If, during lunch at the same French restaurant Clark and Jean Smithfield
had liked, Ronnie Riggley went into perhaps too much detail about the
circumstances of Stony Friedgood's death; if these circumstances
suddenly reminded Richard Allbee of his nightmare about a crazed Carter
Oldfield battering at a bedroom door with an ax; if none of the houses
they had seen were right-the affordable ones needed so much work Richard
would have had to neglect his clients-and if even three houses tended to
blur into each other after an ice-cold martini and a glass of the
excellent house white, still the three of them began to experience the
glow of a beginning friendship. Richard even told a few well-worn
anecdotes about Carter Oldfield's tantrums on the set of Daddy's Here.
Laura lovingly described the Kensington house (which gave Ronnie some
very specific ideas about what to show the Allbees). Ronnie gave them
hope that life in Patchin County could be satisfying, interesting, and
fun too: sitting across from them with her smile, her swimmer's
shoulders and shining helmet of hair, she was a signpost toward a future
where the things that shadowed them could be weightless. She even
offered the hope of an infant social life by saying that they should all
go out to dinner with Bobo some night during the next week. "Then you'll
really get the lowdown on Hampstead," Ronnie said. "Bobo knows it all.
And he's a great guy besides. Well, I would think so, I'm only in love
with him."

And she gave Laura the name of a good doctor. "Everybody uses Dr. Van
Home," she said. "He's the best gynie man in town. He's extremely
sensitive, which you'd think was pretty special if you had gone to some
of the turkeys I trusted with my life before I switched to him. He'll
treat you like a queen and recommend a good O.B. person too."

FLOATING DRAGON

65

She smiled at Laura. "Lump. I think that's so cute. Lump Allbee, the
healthiest kid in Stride-Rites."

Laura pulled a notebook from her bag and wrote down: Dr. Wren Van Home, Gyn.

67

Instinct tells me that now is the time to emerge from the cover of the
godlike narrator who knows what all his characters are thinking and
doing at all times and who takes an impartial stance toward them.
Already this pose has slipped, never more so than when I alluded to
myself. This is me, Graham Williams, writing this account. Call me
Graham. No, you damn well better not. Call me Mr. Williams, unless you
happen to be within at least a decade of my age, which is seventy-six. I
have outlived every doctor who had warned me that I was smoking and
drinking myself into a premature grave, and I am a cranky old party. My
views are fixed and my bowels are still good. I have twelve of my
original teeth, which is pretty fair going, and a lot of expensive
bridgework. I wrote thirteen novels, only three of them crappy, a
selfconsciously harrowing memoir of my years on the booze, and seven
screenplays. At least one of these still sounds pretty perky when the
movie shows up on the tube. This was Glenda, which starred Mary Astor as
and Gary Cooper and James Cagney as lover and husband of. I am a failure
and a coward. As a young man I learned to undermine my enemies by
knocking myself before anybody else got the chance.

Of course these days I don't have any enemies left to speak of, which is
a damn shame. All those battles turn into ancient history when your foes
die off. Nobody cares about them any- \ more, and when you talk to a
bunch of kids about the time ; you went head to head with some crass
knucklebrained demi- ; god of a studio boss, their eyes turn to stone.
You might as I well be talking about cave men and saber-toothed tigers.
Even that sweaty weasel who bitched my life, the junior senator ; from
Wisconsin, tail-gunner Joe, died a long time ago, and so \

66

FLOATING DRAGON

67

did most of his fellow weasels on HUAC. Sterling Hayden- there's a man.
Him I could talk to.

The reason for coming out of cover and talking directly like this is
that I lived through everything that happened in the lower end of
Patchin County, and the book I was writing turned into this one. What I
didn't know about, I had to make up, but it all could have happened, and
maybe did, just the way I wrote it. I kept my eyes open, and I saw
plenty. At the end of it Richard Allbee said to me, "Why don't you sit
down and tell the whole story?" And that's how this book will end, if
you're one of those folks who has to turn to the last page to see how it
all comes out. My friends let me read their diaries, and that's where a
lot of this stuff comes from.

But a lot comes from what I saw and heard, as I said. Consider where I
lived. My house was on Beach Trail in Greenbank, right across the street
from the old Sayre house, which the Allbees finally bought. "Four
Hearths," where Tabby went with his father and stepmother, is just two
minutes up the hill. Patsy and Les McCloud lived catty-corner across
from my backyard. Mount Avenue, the Golden Mile, runs up toward
Hillhaven just down the end of Beach Trail-I knew Monty Smithfield, not
well, and I met Stony Friedgood when she was in that book group, High
Minds. (If I stood on my roof, I could chunk a rock right through the
window of the bedroom where they found Stony, at least I could have
twenty years ago.) High Minds was talking about one of my books that
week, Twisted Hearts, and Stony asked me if the husband in the novel
understood that he was forcing his wife into the affair with my hero.
"Forcing her?" I asked. "They finally got a new paperback deal for
Twisted Hearts because some editor thought it was a feminist statement."
"From the neck down, no," Ms. Friedgood replied.

Gary Starbuck, the professional thief who played a minor role in some of
our lives and who will appear in these pages soon, rented the roomy old
Frazier Peters house only two blocks away, and after his death I walked
through the astonishing display of stolen silver, television sets,
paintings, and furniture with most of my neighbors before Bobo Farns-

68

Peter Straub

worth and the other cops sealed the place. And I knew that rascal Pat
Dobbin, because I had seen him grow up: his father was a friend of mine
in the boozing days I wrote about in Lost Time. I rescued myself, Dan
Dobbin didn't, but he was a better illustrator than his son.

But more important than all of that-or as important anyhow-I couldn't
look at Mount Avenue without seeing the Jaegers running down it with
their torches in 1779, I couldn't look at Monty Smithfield's big house
without seeing the wooden shack enigmatic Gideon Winter had put up on
that spot in 1645. I knew the area, my father knew it, and my
great-great-grandfather too. When I looked at some happy kid named
Moorman or Green, some kid in jeans and braces, I saw in him the
leathery old onion farmer or blacksmith who'd had the same name and had
given him a sixteenth of his genes.

One thing is more important than my eccentric knowledge of the genetic
makeup of fifth-graders whose names were on the oldest tombstones in
Gravesend Cemetery. I was one of the first to see the immediate effects
of what I called the thinking cloud after it settled down over us. Of
course I made no more sense of it than anyone else at the time, having
no idea that there was sense to be made.

Effects, I said. Two effects. I encountered the first of these, the
second ten minutes later, while I was taking a walk down Beach Trail on
Sunday morning, the eighteenth of May. On most sunny mornings I limp
down the street to Mount Avenue, turn right and walk past the gates of
the Academy and turn into the short public road to Gravesend Beach. I
look at the water and the people moving up and down on the beach. I
breathe in the salt air, which has kept me alive all this time. No salt
on your food, lots of good salt air in your lungs. If I see them, I
generally say hello to Harry and Babe Zimmer, who materialize in their
beat-up old Ford pickup around eight

FLOATING DRAGON

69

or nine to fish off the breakwater. Harry and Babe are a couple of kids
in their mid-sixties. They look like old jack o'lanterns left outside
since last Halloween. Harry and Babe call me Mr. Williams. Then I crawl
back. The whole exercise should take about ten minutes, but it takes me
over half an hour.

That morning I never got as far as the beach. There had been a small
interruption in the epic wander while I inspected the latest damage to
my mailbox, several heavy bangs and dents I took as a homicide attempt.
The mailbox killer had apparently switched from cherry bombs to blunt
instruments. After the inspection, I resumed the death-defying journey.

I was just toiling past the immaculate lawn of the last house on my side
of Beach Trail when I saw a body on the grass. The immaculate lawn was
Bobby Fritz's work (Bobby knew every blade, every tree, every flower
surrounding these houses, except for the poor stuff on my lawn), the
body was Charlie Antolini's. Charlie appeared to be deader than my
mailbox, and I scuttled up on the lawn to get a closer look.

Charlie was a toughie, about forty, the son of the family that owned the
Lobster House and a couple of other restaurants in Patchin and
Westchester counties. As a kid he had been a hustler-at nine or ten,
back in the days before mailbox assassinations, he was my newsboy. Even
then he was a nuts-and-bolts human being, jittery with the need to make
more money, money, money. He had finally accumulated enough to put
himself and his family into the big green clapboard on Mount Avenue. The
wrong side, not the Sound side, but still Mount Avenue.

"Need any help, Charlie?" I asked. I had seen right away that he was not
dead. He was very still, but his green eyes were open and he was smiling
a little. This was not a typical Charlie Antolini smile. It was
positively blissful. He was wearing pale blue silk pajamas. "Liable to
get a nasty burn, Charlie," I said.

"Hi there, Mr. Williams," he said.

Charlie had not addressed me by name since about 1955. I thought he
figured that a grubby old scribbler like me sort of lowered the tone of
the neighborhood. "You sure you're all right?" I asked.

"Just fine, Mr. Williams," he said, giving me that smile his mother
wouldn't recognize.

70

Peter Straub

"Felt like taking the air, hey? It's a good idea, Charlie. Keeps the
tubes clear. Why don't you come down to the beach with me, say hello to
Harry and Babe?"

"Got up this morning and felt great," he said. "Just
unfucking-believable. Got outside. Felt even better. Felt too good to go
to work."

"It's Sunday, Charlie," I said. "Nobody goes to work on Sunday." Then I
remembered that he was probably due at the Lobster House to help out
with the brunch crowd.

"Sunday," he said. "Oh, yeah."

I looked up at his house. His wife was semaphoring from the living-room
window. "I think you ought to get off the lawn, Charlie," I said.
"Florence looks pretty upset." Then I spotted his mailbox, formerly one
of the apples of Charlie's eye. Metal like mine, but twice as large, it
was painted the same shade of green as his house. Over the green
Charlie'd had someone paint a pattern of flowers and vines trailing
through a big red antolini. Now this contraption lay on the driveway,
knocked right off its pole. The side was bashed in, and shiny aluminum
shone through the paint. I said, "Say, the gang that killed my box got
yours too. Yours is more of a case of outright decapitation."

"Just feel that sun," Charlie said.

Flo Antolini was waggling her arms behind the window, either telling me
to clear off or to pick Charlie up and carry him inside. The latter was
out of the question. Charlie must have weighed about two-forty. Under
the blue silk and the flab, he still looked like the halfback he'd been
on the J. S. Mill High School football team in 1959. I couldn't have
lifted one of his legs. I shrugged to Flo, put my hands in my pockets,
said, "Well, enjoy yourself" to Charlie and prepared to maneuver myself
back onto the sidewalk.

I had just accomplished this when I heard a woman screaming Charlie's
name. "Mr. Antolini! Mr. Antolini!"

"Better hustle inside, Charlie," I said, figuring that one of the
neighbor ladies had taken offense at the sight of him beached out there
on his beautiful lawn. This was Hampstead, after all, not Dogpatch.

Then I saw the woman from across the street barreling toward us. Evelyn
Hughardt, Mrs. Dr. Hughardt. She was wearing a pink housecoat and had
pink fuzzy things on her feet. She looked terrible.

"Mr. Antolini, please," she yelled, and ran across the

FLOATING DRAGON

71

street without bothering to look both ways. When she got closer I saw
how terrible she really looked. Normally she was a nice looking blond
lady, almost as big and healthy as that real estate woman, Ronnie
Riggley. Plenty of tennis keeps them that way.

She damn near knocked me over and knelt down on the grass beside
Charlie. She grabbed one of his hands and tried to yank him sideways.
"It's Dr. Hughardt, my husband," she said. "Oh, please. I don't know
what to do, and he'd be so ashamed of me . . ."

"Hi there, Evvy," Charlie said, giving her that beautiful green-eyed smile.

"Come on, please, Mr. Antolini, please please help me."

"Gosh," Charlie said.

"Too much sun," I said. "Knocked him flat. Damn shame. Maybe I can give
you a hand."

When she looked up at me I realized that she literally had not noticed
me before. She blinked me away and went back to yanking on Charlie's paw.

"No help there, like I said," I offered. "He's just been born again. An
uncle of mine did the same thing at a chautauqua on Fairlie Hill in
1913. Went down like an ox. But I'm pleased to offer my own services."

She gave an agonized pull at Charlie's hand once more and then looked up
at me. "Please, Mr. Williams," she said. Her voice was all trembly.
"Help me with the Doctor."

"Lead the way," I said, and followed her at a quarter of her pace across
the street. She had the door open and was waving me in when I was only
half way there.

Norm Hughardt was what I guess they call an internist today, now that
G.P.'s are out of date, and he was a pretty good doctor and a very good
snob. His dad used to be the same way. When I was some kind of a
hotshot, old Dr. Hughardt was happy to see me and tell me to lose
weight, change my habits, etc., but after I fell into disgrace he wasn't
so happy about it any more. Norm went to J. S. Mill about ten years
before Charlie Antolini did. After that he went to the University of
Virginia and Yale Medical School. When he was about Charlie's age he
returned to Virginia for some kind of semi-

73 Peter Straub

nar and met this big blond tennis player and brought her back here. He
was in practice with his father, but after his father gave up on me (the
old man died pretty soon after) he wouldn't take me as a patient because
he thought I was a Communist, which was a lot of bilge. Still, he was
supposed to be the second best doctor in Hampstead, the best one being
Wren Van Home, who shines up the plumbing of half the ladies in town.
Wren and I went back a good ways, but he was no good to me as a doctor.

I guess Norm told his wife to always refer to him as Dr. Hughardt in
front of other people. He had a pointy little beard and an impressive
bald head. He couldn't be bothered with you unless you were famous or
likely to be. He worked on all the actors and illustrators around town.
When he thought of something funny, he called up Sarah Spry so she could
put it in her column. He hadn't spoken to me in twenty years, I bet.
Maybe twenty-five.

Evelyn was sort of hissing at me when I got to the front door. I could
tell that even though she was too rattled to do anything herself, she
wasn't easy about letting me in the house. I was Joe Stalin's nephew, or
some similar nonsense. Besides that, I wasn't even dressed up to the
pink housecoat and fuzzy footgear standard. I was wearing a pair of old
black hightop basketball shoes, lumpy baggy tweed suit-pants, and a
green turtleneck sweater with ragged holes at the elbows. Also, I had
not shaved. I almost never shave under my chin anyhow. I don't want to
cut my throat.

"Well, what is it, Evelyn?" I asked. The entry was papered with framed
cartoons, and I recognized the styles of Hampstead's and Hillhaven's
half-dozen famous cartoonists. The one signed Hope this hurts you more
than it does me. Best, Pat Dobbin showed a little bald guy with a pointy
beard sawing into the belly of a Dobbin lookalike while bills and coins
spilled out of the wound. Pat Dobbin had made himself look the way he
likely looked to himself in the medicine chest mirror, which is to say
handsomer than he really was.

"Please," she said. "Come to the back, Mr. Williams. Dr. Hughardt was
just going outside to check on the sprinkler system . . . and ... I saw
him fall and ..." She was pulling on the ratty old turtleneck, trying to
get me to increase my speed.

"He fell, did he?" I asked. "Tripped, maybe?"

She let out a sob.

FLOATING DRAGON

73

"You just call the ambulance, Evelyn," I said. "They'll get here in a
jiffy." I knew this from experience, and I told her the number. "Tell
them Norm's unconscious and give them your address. I can find my own
way to the back door. I've been in this house a hundred times."

Sure I had. About that, anyhow, back in the twenties. The kitchen had
been enlarged into the butler's pantry and the range looked like a
spaceship and a big copper hood floated in the middle of the room, but
the back door was in the same place. It banged to and fro in the little
breeze we had that morning. I heard Evelyn dialing the phone.

I got outside and stood there, breathing hard. The sun seemed a lot
warmer than it had been while I inspected the damage to my mailbox. Norm
Hughardt was lying down on the dry part of his lawn. Water from
underground sprinklers sprayed up just beyond him, wetting most of the
grass and the red brick wall at the back of his property. A hopeful
little rainbow arched over one of the fountains. Three of the jets, the
nearest ones, seemed to be out of whack. Norm's face was in the grass
and the toes of his shoes pointed straight down. He didn't look anything
like Charlie Antolini, or even like my Uncle Hobart, who collapsed on
Fairlie Hill when he discovered Jesus.

I moved myself toward him. "Norm?" I said. "How you feelin'?"

Norm did not answer. Stroke? Heart attack? I knelt effortfully beside
him. He was dressed in the vest and pants of a blue three-piece suit.
His shirt was clean and starched. I bent over to look at his face and
saw that his eyes were open and staring into Bobby Fritz's springy
grass. "Oh, damnation," I said and pushed at his shoulder. His top half
pitched over. Under the vest was a neat red and blue striped tie. I used
both hands to push at his hip and rolled him over. Now he was staring
straight up into the sky. "Norm, you stuffy bastard," I said. "Wake up."
I wondered not for the first time why someone so right-wing would wear
chin hair like Lenin's.

I put my head to his chest. Nothing moved in there. Then I put my face
up against his mouth. No breath, just the smell of cologne and
mouthwash. I pinched his nostrils and breathed into his mouth the way
they do on TV. I was sweating. It was terrible, that someone so much
younger than myself was dead. I repeated the breathing gimmick.

74

Peter Straub

"What are you doing?" his wife screeched from the back door.

"My best, Evelyn," I said. "You called them?"

She gulped and nodded. Then she fluttered near Norm and me. "Mr.
Williams," she breathed, "do you think he's . . . do you think he's ...
do you think . . ."

"Best to wait for the medics," I said.

"He looks so normal," she said. Which was pretty close to the truth.

"Help me up," I said. And stuck out my arm. She gaped at my outstretched
hand as if it were holding a turd. "Give me a pull for God's sake,
Evelyn," I said. And she grabbed hold and got me up on my feet. Both of
us stood there looking down at Norm Hughardt lying face up on the grass.

"He is. He's dead," Evelyn said.

"Does sorta look that way," I allowed. "What a damn shame. Not a mark on
him."

It could be that this was a tactless remark. Evelyn Hughardt stepped
away from me, wrapped her arms around herself and went into the house.
But maybe she had heard the bell, for after a few seconds she reappeared
with my old acquaintances of the Emergency Services Medical team.

They froze when they saw me. "You again?" the big mustached one said,
and the cop with them shook his head. This was a blowhard named Tommy
"Turtle" Turk, the worst cop on the Hampstead force. He was only a
couple of months away from retirement and had a belly the size of a half
grown walrus, but he still liked to use his fists.

"Not me, Turtle," I said. "Open your eyes."

I sometimes call the paramedics when I get my bad chest pains.

By this time the boys were all over Norm Hughardt, hooking him up to the
stuff I hope they never have to use on me. Turtle got tired with trying
to slap me down with his eyes and went over to grill the widow. I
watched the boys jolting Norm with one of those things that resemble
truck batteries. Norm jerked, but not with anything like life.

"He's gone," said the big one with the mustache. Then he looked up at me
and said, "This is the second one this morning for us, and the other
crew had one of their own. What the hell's going on here?"

"Three heart attacks?"

"Who the hell knows?" he said, and sent one of the other

FLOATING DRAGON

75

boys out to the ambulance for a stretcher and a blanket.

I wandered over to Turtle and Evelyn. Turtle was asking her if they'd
had an argument before the Doctor went outside. He glared at me, then he
glared back at Evelyn.

"No," she said.

"Okay, what are you doing here?" Turtle bellowed at me.

"This lady asked me to help. I rolled Norm over. I told her to call the
medics. I was just walking by."

"You mean you were-" he stopped, and I wondered what word he had
censored. Slinking? Oozing? Turtle hitched up his belly and grinned like
an ape. "I scare you, don't I? I know I do, Williams."

"Mr. Williams," I said.

"And I know why. You're yellow. You're as yellow as they come. I know
all about you, Mr. Williams."

"Nuts," I said. "Good-bye, Evelyn. I'm very sorry this happened. Call me
if you need anything."

She blinked. I wanted to hug her. Turtle would probably have jugged me
for attempted rape. I went slowly through the house and out the front door.

Charlie Antolini was still lying blissfully on his immaculate lawn. Flo
Antolini squatted beside him, weeping but talking fast.

I crossed the street. "Norm Hughardt keeled over in his back yard," I
said. "Damn shame. You want any help?" This was sheer bravado. I needed
to lie down, bad.

"He won't get up, Mr. Williams," Flo said. "I can't make him come inside."

I craned over to look at Charlie. "How you feelin' Charlie?"

' 'Beautiful.'' Beyoodiful.

"It's time to go inside now. We might get a little rain soon."

"Okay," he said, and held out his arms like a child. I took one, Flo the
other. He almost pulled us over, but Flo planted her legs and kept us
steady.

"Jeez, that was nice," Charlie said. "I never did that before."

Flo thanked me and began to lead Charlie toward the house. He kept
stopping to admire the grass and the daffodils, but finally she got him
inside. The curtains closed with a silent crash.

Turtle blasted away from the curb with a big manly roar of

76

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

77

the patrol car. The paramedics were just bringing the stretcher out of
Norm Hughardt's house.

I looked up and down Mount Avenue and mentally saw a crowd of Jaegers
and lobsterbacks racing toward me, waving torches and muskets. I saw the
storm, the bolts of lightning of that night. The big houses were
burning. Rest was imperative. Among the German mercenaries and the
British soldiers there was one other, the one the Reverend Andrew Eliot
had mentioned. . . . headed by one or two persons who were born and bred
in the neighboring towns. One person, I knew, born and bred in
Greenbank. (Reverend Eliot, a decent man, had been protecting one of his
own.) I could almost see his face. He looked a lot like me. Out there
was a dead child-a real child, though I did not know it then. The
ambulance zipped past me, blowing the illusion apart. I got myself
turned around and went home.

Now suppose that the thinking cloud had been born in Hampstead instead
of Woodville. Suppose also that Dr. Wise knew what he was talking about.
We have about twenty-five thousand people in town. If the immediate
death rate was from 5 to 8 percent, between twelve hundred fifty and two
thousand people would have dropped dead Saturday night. The streets
would have been full of bodies. Instead, only five people died in
Hampstead over Saturday night and Sunday morning. The murder of Stony
Friedgood stole everybody's attention, especially when it was followed
by another murder like it, and we never got around to putting things
together.

The oldest person to go was a guy my age, a retired boat dealer who
lived on Gravesend Road. The youngest was a seven-year-old boy. That
bites at me. No kid should die from something like that. It could have
been Tabby, see, it could have been Tabby Smithfield. The kid's parents
had only moved here eighteen months before.

Somewhere in between the boy and the boat dealer was a friend of mine. I
heard about it when I got home. The phone was ringing. It was Harry
Zimmer. Babe was dead, he said. She'd had a little emphysema, but that
wasn't what killed her. She had just dropped dead as soon as she got out
of the pickup-fell down, a goner, in the parking lot at Gravesend

Beach. Wasn't that a hell of a note? Harry was crying. "I just wanted
you to know, Mr. Williams,"^ie said. "Babe always said you were a real
gentleman." I said the things you say.

Hell and double hell. I can't write in my own voice anymore. Savage old
Turtle was right, and I'm yellow. This is a screwball way to write a
book anyhow.

So what I'm going to do is put down about the Allbees buying the house
across the street and how they met Patsy McCloud. "Pasta is prologue,"
and that. Pretty soon we'll get back to Tabby, and then I'll tell you
about Gary Starbuck, the thief, and the little gang Tabby almost got
into, and the stories Pat Dobbin was illustrating. It all belongs here,
believe me-or don't, you'll find out anyhow.

Then we'll get to the part I hate to write about. I loved Wren Van Home,
he was only eight years younger than I, and we grew up here together.
But I loved Babe Zimmer too, that nice pumpkin-faced old lady who
thought I was a real gentleman.

If I'd been like Tabby when I was a kid, I wouldn't have ended up this way.

79 Recognitions

"The husband didn't do it," Ronnie Riggley told the Allbees on Wednesday
morning as she turned out of the shopping center. "There was something
funny going on with that lady. I don't mean she was the town pickup or
anything, but she definitely gave out her favors. Bobo thinks that her
husband knew about it. On Saturday she came into Franco's and met some
guy there. They didn't stay long, and none of the dummies at the bar
recognized the man."

"From out of town," Laura suggested.

"Could be, but we always say that in Hampstead." Ronnie laughed. "If
someone's house gets broken into, which happens all the time, people
always say the burglar came from Norrington or Bridgeport. But what
happened is that the guys at the bar looked at Stony and didn't even
bother to look twice at the guy. Bobo says they have about five
different descriptions of him. He could be a blond guy in his forties,
or a white-haired guy in his sixties. The only thing they agreed on was
that he wasn't a regular at Franco's. But I guess a few of the guys
recognized Stony. I shouldn't be telling you this before you even move
here, but I gather that some of our executive wives hang around
Franco's. I don't know, what do they think they're going to find?
Lumberjacks? I'm probably too straitlaced, but I think that's so dumb."

"It still could have been the husband," Laura said. "You said he knew
about her affairs."

"Oh, he's got an alibi," Ronnie said. "Good old Leo Friedgood was in
Woodville all afternoon. He works for some giant corporation, and not
only could a couple of people vouch for him down there, he spoke to
General Haugejas a couple of times on the phone."

78

FLOATING DRAGON

79

"Henry Haugejas?" Richard said in surprise. "The one who was in Korea?"

"Is there another one?" Ronnie asked. "Iron Hank. One of the detectives
talked to him personally. He told Bobo he felt like standing up the
whole time he was on the phone."

"A real character, I guess," Richard said. "Still carries his guns
around with him."

"He shot a mugger two years ago," Ronnie said. "Can you imagine that? It
was in midtown New York." Ronnie laughed. "We're going to look at a
four-bedroom house right on the Hampstead-Old Saram border first. It has
lots of character. And then we'll look at a house in Greenbank. I have a
feeling about that one."

Ronnie was doing her best, Richard knew. Any real-estate agent is
limited by the range of houses actually on the market. Besides that,
house prices in Patchin County had tripled in the past ten years,
mortgage rates were currently at their highest level in history, and
many houses he and Laura would have liked were now far beyond their
price range.

"Old Sarum is a lot more rural than Hampstead," Ronnie said-quite
unnecessarily-after they had gone for nearly a mile without seeing a
house of any sort. "A lot of people like that."

Laura made a noncommittal sound from the backseat.

"Unfortunately, the owner will be in the house while I'm showing it.
Something happened, I guess. She really wanted to stay home. She's a widow."

Finally they reached an overgrown driveway. The house was a cottage to
which rooms had been added by various owners. A glassed-in studio topped
the modern garage. The whole thing had been built on the side of a
densely wooded hill, and appeared to swarm over it, working its way
toward the top like a bank of ivy.

Laura asked, "Can we really afford this one?"

"Mrs. Bamberger wants a quick sale," Ronnie said as they left the car.
"She's going to Florida in a couple of weeks. I thought it was worth a
look anyhow." She gave Laura and Richard a rueful look. "I'm afraid
she'll talk your ears off."

80

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

81

Mrs. Bamberger, a wide old woman in a dark blue pantsuit, met them at
the door. Gold eyeglasses dangled from a chain around her neck. "Hello,
Mrs. Riggley," she said to Ronnie. "Mr. and Mrs. Allbee? Just come in
and poke around. I'll stay out of your way."

But as Ronnie had predicted, she did not stay out of their way. Mrs.
Bamberger accompanied them on their tour, describing the house and her
possessions. These were uniformly eccentric. The rooms were so crowded
with heavy antique furniture that Richard had to strain to get an idea
of their true size. Some of the rooms were interconnected, so that going
through them was like passing down a line of railroad cars. In some
cases they had to go up a set of steps to enter the next chamber. Mrs.
Bamberger talked and talked. That fire screen we bought in. All that
Meissen was a gift from. Don't you love fireplaces. My children once.
The ceilings in most of the house were only a few inches above Richard's
and Ronnie's heads. Mrs. Bamberger kept up her commentary until they
reached the studio over the garage, where she seemed to relax.

"This is the only part we added ourselves," she said. "It's a wonderful
place to come to see the animals outside. The birds too. It's on a
separate zone, so you can sit here in the cold season without spending
your money on heating the rest of the house."

"That's nice," Richard said, thinking and then you take a quarter-mile
hike to get to the kitchen.

"You'd probably like it if the rest of the house were like this," Mrs.
Bamberger said. "Most young people feel that way. My husband and I just
love the old cottage, low ceilings and all. It reminded us of Miss Marple."

Richard smiled: that was perfect. The original building needed only a
thatched roof to make it an English country cottage in an Agatha
Christie novel.

"Is there anything else you'd like to ask Mrs. Bamberger about the
house?" Ronnie put in a little desperately.

The Allbees looked at each other. Let's get out of here.

"Of course I have too much imagination," Mrs. barn-, berger said.
"That's what my husband used to say. But II know something that's not
imagination. You're Richard All-1 bee, aren't you?" 1

"Yes," Richard said. Here it comes, he thought.

"You were born in Hampstead at the end of the war? And you moved out to
California before you went to school?"

Puzzled, Richard nodded.

"Then I knew your father," she said.

Richard's mouth fell open. "I never did," he managed to say. "I never
knew him, I mean. Apparently he didn't care much for babies."

Mrs. Bamberger was fixing him with a very steady gaze. She suddenly
reminded him of his fifth-grade teacher. "Never should have married,
that's what. But he gave you your handsome face. He was shortish, like
you. A very well-mannered man. But Michael Allbee was a butterfly. Could
never stick to anything."

Richard felt as if the floor were swaying. He knew he would always
remember these moments, they would be part of him forever: the fat old
woman in a polyester pantsuit standing before a bookshelf in a room with
a glass wall. Then I knew your father. Michael Allbee. He had never
heard his father's first name before. "What else can you tell me?" he asked.

"He was good with his hands. Are you?"

"Yes. Yes, I am."

"And he was pure charm. He only lived down the road. Michael used to
come here to help out with the repairs and the lawn. He worked on houses
all over this town. After he met Mary Green he stopped coming here, and
pretty dam near broke my husband's heart. We were going to help put him
through college. But then he had the Green money to back him up, so he
didn't need us anymore." She smiled at Richard. "Most ways, he was a
good man. Nothing to be ashamed of. He didn't marry for money. Your
father wasn't that sort."

"He worked on houses?" Richard asked, scarcely believing it.

"As much as he did anything, that was what he did. My husband always
thought he could have been an architect. But he could have been a
contractor, anything of that sort."

"Do you know if he's alive?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. He was one of those people who never
spend a minute thinking about the future, so it could be he still has
one. He'd be in his early sixties today."

82

Peter Straub

Somewhere in the world a white-haired man with his face was buying a
paper or cutting the grass. Living in a flophouse. Playing with children
who would be Richard's own nieces and nephews. Standing on the deck of a
cargo ship smoking a pipe. Asleep in a hut on a beach. Begging from
strangers in Billy Bentley clothes.

"Is your mother still alive?" Mrs. Bamberger asked.

"No. She died six years ago."

"Mary was the strong one. I bet she made you work. She would have been
afraid of that irresponsible streak."

"Yes. Yes, I worked."

"Well, you've come to the right place," the old woman said. "On your
mother's side, you go right back to the earliest days in these parts.
Your great-great-great- and a couple more greats grandfather settled
this town in 1645. Josiah Green. One of the original Greenbank farmers.
You've got pure Hampstead blood all through you. Greenbank blood. That's
where we started."

"How do you know all this?" Richard asked.

"I know more about this town than anyone except old Graham Williams and
Stanley Crane up at the library. And maybe I know almost as much as they
do. I studied it, Mr. Allbee. I know all about those Greenbank farmers.
A sharpie named Gideon Winter came in and got most of their land from
them. I have a few ideas about him, but you wouldn't be interested in
them. You're looking for a house, and you don't want to listen to an old
woman talk all morning long."

"No," Richard said. "No, that's not true. I, uh, I ..."

She squared her shoulders. "Are you going to buy my house?"

"Well, we have to talk about it, there are a lot of factors ..."

She kept on looking into his eyes.

"No," he said.

"Then someone else will. I'll take you back to your car."

As she opened the door for them, she said to Richard, "Your father had a
lot to offer. I hope you have as much, young man."

When they were safely in Ronnie's Ford, Laura asked, "How do you feel?"

"I don't know. I'm glad we came. I'm sort of stunned."

"Let's go back to town for lunch or coffee or something," Ronnie said.
"You look like you could use it."

FLOATING DRAGON

83

He nodded, and she backed out of the driveway. Just before she pulled
out onto the street, Ronnie said, "Do you want to go up the other way?
You could see where your father lived-there are only two other houses up
this way. It has to be one of them."

"No," he said. "No, thanks. Let's just go back to town."

That was how the Allbees came to Greenbank and Beach Trail. They came in
the afterglow of a revelation, and they bought the first house they saw.

"I think you'll like this one," Ronnie said as she took them down
Sawtell Road. They turned right at the traffic light into Greenbank
Road. "It belongs to another widow, Bonnie Sayre. Mrs. Sayre moved out
last week, and the house has only been on the market a couple of days.
We got the listing Monday. The Sayre house has four bedrooms, a living
room, and a beautiful study Richard could use as an office. Both the
living room and the study have fireplaces. There's a nice porch too. The
house was built in the 1870's by the Sayre family, and it's never been
on the market before. The Sayres' son is in Arizona, and his mother went
there to live with him."

She went over the bridge which crossed 1-95 and then the smaller, almost
humpbacked railway bridge just beyond it. "And Greenbank is a special
sort of area. It has its own zip code and post office, and it's the
oldest part of Hampstead. Well, you know that. It might even have been
named for one of your ancestors."

"My mother never talked about Hampstead much," Richard said. "All I knew
was that we and my father were born here. Laura's parents too."

"Is that right?" Ronnie asked, delighted. "So this is a real homecoming.
Oh, take a look to your right. That big house right on the Sound is Dr.
Van Home's. We're on Mount Avenue now. They call it the Golden Mile."

"How much would a place like that cost?" Richard asked. Dr. Van Home's
house, three stories of spotless white clapboard, was as long as a
hotel. Its front looked directly over the last stretch of Gravesend
Beach. A long drive wound through parklike grounds.

84

Peter Straub

"Right now, I'd have to say nearly eight hundred thousand dollars. And
that's without a tennis court or in-ground pool."

"We can't afford this neighborhood," Laura said matterof-factly.

"The Sayre house is priced lower than the carriage house we were looking
at," Ronnie said. "It has two drawbacks. Don't groan yet. The first is
that it faces backward-you see the rear of the house as you drive up.
There's a little hill, and the original Sayre, the one who built it, I
guess wanted to look down into the forest that was there."

"What's the second reason?" Laura asked.

"Well, Mrs. Sayre lived alone for a long time, I guess. She took in a
lot of cats. I guess she got a little crazy a few years after her
husband died. In fact, she took in all the cats. She must have had a
hundred of them. When I heard about her, people just called her the cat
lady."

"Oh, no," Laura said.

"Well, they're not still there," Ronnie said. "But the memory does
linger on. Be grateful! If it weren't for all those cats, the house
would have been sold on Monday. There was an offer in for the asking
price, but the prospect backed out when he got a whiff."

"It's really bad?" Laura asked.

"It's rank, just rank," Ronnie said, laughing.

"I know how to handle that," Richard said simply. "White wine, vinegar,
and baking soda. Then a lot of soap and water.''

The car turned up Beach Trail. Ronnie knew, but did not tell the
Allbees, the reason why all the shades were drawn in the Hughardt home.
Charlie Antolini, still too happy to go to work, waved from his porch
swing. They went past an impoverished-looking party in black tennis
shoes, Yankee cap, and baggy black sweatshirt. The old party was pushing
himself home on the last leg of the daily constitutional, and his own
last legs. They never noticed him, but being inquisitive, he noticed them.

I saw your mother, Lump. You would have been beautiful.

A second or two later the Allbees beheld their house for the first time.

FLOATING DRAGON 85

5

From the journals of Richard Allbee:

We're house owners again, or will be as soon as I get a mortgage. We
signed the papers and paid the first small check this afternoon in
Ronnie's office. Does anybody know if he's doing the right thing when he
buys a house? I can see myself waking up in the middle of the night
tonight, wondering if the kitchen is even smaller and darker than I
remember. Are all the sash cords broken? Will I find some way to run
wires down through the house without knocking holes in the walls? (The
wiring is ancient.) How much water got in past the deterioriated
flashing on the roof? Rotted timbers? And will one of those chimneys
have to come down? The list of these questions could go on forever. And
there's the smell, of course. It's bad enough to cause brain damage. The
whole house was one huge catbox.

But it's a beautiful house. When Laura and I walked in, we had one of
those flashes of marital ESP and simultaneously said, "This is it." I
think Laura will love it, and that makes everything else unimportant.
It's a Second Empire house: mansard roof, rounded dormer windows,
pillars beside the door, lots of good ornamentation. Very much the kind
of house Laura and I hoped we'd find but were afraid we couldn't afford.
The back, which faces the street, is very plain, but the front is
stunning, and even the view into the gardens down the little hill is
wonderful. I'm high on the place-I'm even pleased by its looking
backward, which seems so appropriate to my work. And when I look into
the future-our future, Laura's and mine-I think the old Sayre house will
be a perfect place to raise our children. Big rooms, two acres of nice
ground, an attic to make into a playroom- what fantastic, fantastic
luck. I asked God to help us a couple of nights back, and I guess He did.

This day I acquired both a house and a father, and I cannot keep the
latter out of my thoughts for long. Michael Allbee. I am sure he is
still living. And I wonder if he might have worked on the old Sayre
house while he lived in Hampstead. If he was a sort of free-lance
carpenter, it's possible.

Maybe luck really has visited us and our troubles will begin to leave.
Maybe, at least, I will stop dreaming of Billy Bentley.

86

Peter Straub

This is such a happy entry that I don't want to mention last night's
dream-but for the sake of having something to smile at years from now,
I'll put it down. I was in the living room of a strange house. It was
stripped bare. I was waiting for something. Outside was a streaming
violent storm. I looked out the window and saw a figure pacing on the
front lawn, and when I looked more closely I saw that it was Billy
Bentley. In that instant he whirled around to face me directly. He
scared me. That is the simple way to put it. He was grimacing at me
fiercely. Rain had plastered his long hair to his skull. He was the
embodiment of bad luck, of coming doom. The sky raged, and a ragged bolt
of lightning sizzled into the ground behind him. Billy knew I wanted to
keep him out of the house-that was suddenly the crucial element. He had
to be kept outside in the storm. In agitation, I began to move around
the empty room, and I woke up barely able to keep myself from going
downstairs to make sure the doors were locked.

Enough of such stuff. As soon as we have the house tied up, I'll go to
Rhode Island to locate a contractor for the work up there. I have a
couple of leads. . . .

Telpro had given Leo Friedgood a week off, and he had requested another
week, promising to be back in the office on Monday, the second of June.
For seven days he had seen policemen almost every waking hour, either in
his house or in a dingy little room of the cramped old Hampstead police
station. During these sessions he had been forced to admit that his wife
had been intimate with several other men, and that he had condoned, if
not encouraged, her sexual activities. Admitting this had made Leo feel
stripped bare. It was a humiliation deeper than any he had ever known.
The police, at first sympathetic, had turned cold, almost contemptuous
toward him. A massive old uniformed cop the others called Turtle smacked
his lips at Leo the third or fourth time he went to the station. That
this ravaged old brute, a failure even by police standards, might be
expressing an attitude held by the other officers and detectives gnawed
at Leo. He was a success, they were not. (By Leo's standards, no
policeman could be a suc-

FLOATING DRAGON

87

cess.) He paid more in property taxes and mortgage payments than they
made in a year. He was more powerful than they, more an engine in the
world. His wristwatch was worth a third of their salary, his car
three-fourths. But these things which meant so much to Leo seemed to
count very little with the police who questioned him. Even when he was
no longer even faintly a suspect, he had felt their contempt. "How many
times a month did your wife go to Franco's? How many times in the past
month? Didn't you ever ask her the names of the men she brought back?
Did you ever take any pictures?"

The face of that fat old wreck called Turtle pushing out his meaty
lips-bah! He was sure they laughed about him in those little rooms. This
knowledge as much as his genuine mourning for Stony kept him home,
incapable of working.

For the first time in his life, Leo drank at night. He warmed TV dinners
or burned hamburgers under the grill, and invaded his cellar for good
wines to waste on these terrible meals. Before dinner there would have
been several whiskeys. With rubbery salt-heavy goulash in a tin tray he
would drink a bottle of Brane-Cantenac 1972 Margaux while the television
blared out soothing stupidities. When the uneaten half of the awful
dinner went into the garbage, he began on malt whiskey or cognac until
he passed out. One day he found an Israeli liqueur made of chocolate,
and downed the entire bottle in two nights. He could not weep-as if the
sight of Stony's mutilated body disarrayed on their bed had burned all
the tears from him. Sometimes he put on a record and shuffled around the
living room in a drunken lonely dance, his eyes closed, glass slopping
in his fist, pretending he was a stranger dancing with his wife.

Doesn't your husband mind your doing this sort of thing?

Mind? It's how he gets off.

He slept in the guest room. If he managed to get to bed before
unconsciousness felled him, he took a glass with him. Two mornings, he
woke up and caught an odor like that of death from a half-filled tumbler
perfectly balanced on his chest.

The pale brown duvet bore a damp kidney-shaped stain that smelled
equally of the distillery and the graveyard. The television set facing
the bed showed crazed American couples leaping openmouthed before an
oleaginous gent with a racetrack suit and dyed hair. A game show. "Oh,
my God," Leo

88

Peter Straub

said. Head, mouth, stomach, all were in disorder. He was due at the
police station in three hours. Maybe Turtle Turk would be there again,
leering at him.

Hurriedly he got out of bed, switched off the television set, and went
into the bathroom. His bowels released a ribbon of flame into the
toilet. He dialed the shower up to an uncomfortable hotness and stepped
in. The water boiled his hair and face. His hands found the soap. Leo
lathered his chest, belly, balls. The stink of the night before sluiced
toward the drain. He soaped himself again and more luxuriously, now
feeling no worse than on the nine previous mornings. Leo let the water
drum on his skin, needle against his tongue. For a moment he forgot
about Turtle Turk, about Stony, about General Haugejas, about Woodville
Solvent and DRG.

When he turned off the shower he noticed the specks on his hands.

He stared at them with incomprehension, dimly aware that the appearance
of white spots on his hands meant something important to him but
momentarily unaware of what they signified. Then he remembered what had
happened to the body of torn Gay.

"Hey," Leo said, grabbing for a towel. He dried himself quickly and
inexpertly, all the while trying to keep his hands in view. Blue jeans,
polo shirt, boat shoes. He licked at the spots and encountered
slipperiness. He scrubbed the backs of his hands on his jeans. A few of
the spots were now pink- like pitted little mouths. Leo watched in dread
as the pinkness gradually filled in with white.

"Oh, my God," he said. His mind seemed frozen by the touch of an icy
thread emanating from his belly. Panic recalled to him an irrelevant
vision of a burning car wedged beneath a truck, the more pertinent
memory of the three bodies in the glass room. "Oh, God. Oh, God."

The telephone rang four times behind him, then ceased.

Leo was staring at the backs of his hands, which were flattened on the
rumpled duvet. How many spots were there? Ten altogether? On his left
hand they described an irregular oval from the bottom of his thumb to
the base of his little finger; on his right they fanned upward from his
wrist. He prodded with his index: a trace of slipperiness came off. Leo
shuddered. Still in the first stages of his panic, he began to pace
aimlessly around the bedroom, holding his hands out before him.

FLOATING DRAGON

89

Atop the dresser were strewn coins, books of matches, loose collar
stays, rolled belts, a pair of suspenders, and a red Swiss Army knife
Stony had given him years before. He seized the knife and sat on the bed.

Leo pulled out the smaller of the two blades and scraped at one of the
specks. The white stuff gathered transparently on the blade and
instantly began to replenish itself. He scraped again, to the same
effect. More recklessly, he jabbed the point of the little blade into
the speck at the base of his little finger and revolved it. A second's
flash of minor pain: blood welled out from the cavity. When he dabbed at
the spot with his handkerchief he saw that the bleeding had stopped. A
tiny spot of white lay at the center of the red pit.

Leo ran into the bathroom to inspect his face in the mirror. Some dark
webbing beneath his eyes, no white spots. He tore off his shirt and
pushed down his jeans. One of the little specks rode just above the bone
on his left shoulder, another rested in the fat part of his upper left
arm. Below his waist there was nothing.

Again and with perfect clarity Leo saw the white lathery sponge which
had been torn Gay's head-saw it leaking into the drain.

But that had happened instantly. Maybe these few spots on his own body
were unrelated to the fate of torn Gay; maybe they were just some kind
of infection? He experimentally squeezed the spot on the underside of
his left arm. A trace of blood appeared through the whiteness, which
told him nothing. Naked, Leo went back to the bedroom and took the
matches off the dresser.

Seated at the desk, he lit a match and applied the flame to one of the
spots on his left hand. The pain made him squirm.

"Burn it out," he said to himself. He lit another match and touched it
to three more of the spots. Sweating, he used another match to sear the
last speck on his left hand. He smelled burned flesh. His left hand was
now in agony. It looked like an illustration from a medical textbook.
Grimacing, he went back into the bathroom and held his hand under the
cold tap. When the pain had subsided, Leo wrapped the injured hand in a
towel and sat on the edge of the tub. Cold porcelain on his buttocks. He
closed his eyes, and his head was swimming. He tasted bile and a cottony
afterwash of whiskey. Like his head, the floor too seemed to wobble.

At length he dared to unwrap the towel. The back of his

90

Peter Straub

left hand looked appallingly unfamiliar. Blisters surmounted blackened
and reddened flesh from which clear fluid drained. Leo closed his eyes
again. He had seen no whiteness. After a moment, he got up to bandage
his hand and return to the matches.

From the journals of Richard Allbee:

Today I heard from the bank-we have the mortgage we wanted, at a rate
that is almost reasonable for these days. We called Ronnie, who was
jubilant, and celebrated with a bottle of champagne. So it is settled:
we're in the land of our fathers and grandfathers.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to shed what seems to be my
obsession with Daddy's Here. I know what it is now- it's going back to
where Michael Allbee lived and waking up everything about him I buried
inside me without even knowing it. Daddy's Here. Daddy's here. It's got
to be that simple. But knowing the reason does not keep me from having
those dreams about Carter Oldfield battering at the bedroom door with an
ax and poor Billy outside in the rain. Billy in bed with Laura, Billy
coming toward the window to break in. The theme is the same: chaos,
violence, disorder are out there and I have to keep them from breaking in.

Stray thought: maybe it is Laura I fear for, not myself. Pregnant and in
a strange place ... it is unsettling for her.

But I don't dream of Laura in danger.

Unless, another thought, Laura is the house in these dreams. ... I don't
know where to take this idea. Restoring our new house = restoring Laura
to her old self? Saving the house = saving Laura? I can see that she is
close to tears often, in a state where boredom and depression are very
close. When we talk, she says only that she misses London, misses it in
almost a physical way, wants to see Kensington High Street and Holland
Park, to walk down Ilchester Place. She wants to go to the Standard
Restaurant for an Indian meal, take the tube into the West End for
lunch, go back to her office in Covent Garden. She knows the name of the
hospital where our baby should be born-that big new hospital

FLOATING DRAGON 9

on the Holland Road. That is where her thoughts went whih we drank
champagne to our new house.

I didn't want to put this down, but now I guess I have to The other day
Laura and I were in one of the shopping center; on the Post Road. Our
arms were full of grocery bags. W< were going up toward our car. We
passed a sort of cafe- what I'm used to calling a caff. A diner. A
counter in front little tables in the back. I glanced in. Laura said,
"What's th< matter?" I shook my head. I followed her to the car. Nothing
was the matter. But I didn't tell her that for a second, when ; first
looked in the window, I'd seen Carter Oldfield, Rut! Branden, and Billy
sitting at one of the little tables in th< rear-seen them very clearly.
I could describe the clothe; they were wearing. Billy was in his
urban-waif clothes, < tweed cap on his head, and he was looking at me.

And the expression on his face . . . triumph, pure triumph

As soon as I shook my head, my little family transformec themselves into
the teenage boys they had been all along. One of them, the one not a
monster, was staring at me, but aftei all, I had been staring at him, no
doubt with a peculiar ex pression on my face. Our glances held, and I
was sure tha the boy, who was slight and fair-haired, knew me or though
he knew me-there was recognition in his face, but there wa; also pure
fright. One of the twin monsters, the one with bit overalls, jabbed his
hand with a fork, and the boy's eyes jerked away from mine.

No dreams tonight, I hope.

8

From the journals of Richard Allbee:

Nice days, terrible nights. My subconscious ignored my pie* for relief
from those absurd nightmares about Carter Oldfielc and Billy Bentley.
Evidently I'm still worried at some leve about the effect of this move
on Laura and me, about chaos vs. order, the legacy of Michael Allbee-who
probably nevei spent a minute of his life worrying about such things.
There have been two cases of chaos intruding on our little version oi
order here, one slight, one serious, but I'll get to those. I met the
famous Sarah Spry near the produce counter ir

92

Peter Straub

Greenblatt's grocery. She said, "Allbee. Richard Allbee. You look just
the same. I've been meaning to call you. I hope you saw your name in my
column." She's about fifty, very tiny and energetic, with owlish glasses
and skinned-back hair redder than Laura's. She knew we were buying the
old Sayre house. "John Sayre killed himself, you know," she said.
"Lovely man. No wonder poor Bonnie went crackers afterward. When can you
give me an interview? I'd like to do it as soon as you move in." She's
not a woman you can fob off with vague excuses, so I'm being interviewed
on the day we move. Half an hour, she said, nobody's life being so
interesting that it should take more than thirty minutes of her time.
What she didn't say was that in half an hour she'd wring anybody dry.
But maybe the interview will drum up some new business.

On Sunday night we're invited to another house very near our new one, an
evening Ronnie Riggley arranged. The people are named McCallum?
McClaren? Ronnie sold them their house too. We'll finally meet Bobo,
something I look forward to.

Now for the two intrusions. Our mailbox here on Fairytale Lane was
pounded to a pulp last night. We heard the noise about ten o'clock, and
it scared both of us. I went outside and saw a black car streaking off.
Besides the mailbox, the vandals also broke a half-dozen pickets in the
fence, just snapped them in half. They must have used a baseball bat or
something similar. It's funny how even minor violence upsets you-as
though it promises more to come, when of course it's just kids who roam
the streets looking for something to break. But I'll have to repair the
pickets and buy a new mailbox.

And to save the worst for last, there's been another murder. This
happened yesterday, Friday the thirtieth. As before, a woman was killed
in her house. Ronnie knew all the details, which were gory. Apparently
there were no signs of a breakin; the body was in the kitchen, more or
less eviscerated- Hester Goodall was her name, in her late forties,
active in church work. This time there was no question of promiscuity.
Her children were at school, the husband out of town. The Goodalls live
out near the Country Club and Sawtell Beach, according to Ronnie.

Whoever he is, I hope they catch him fast.

FLOATING DRAGON 91

9

From Mount Avenue the Allbees turned into Beach Trail, wen past Cannon
Road, looked speculatively and pridefully at thei new house, turned into
Charleston Road and found number '. just where Ronnie had said it was-a
long two-story hous< with brown shingles on a short lawn beside a
stained split-rai fence. The blue Datsun with RONNI plates was already
pulle< around the side of the house, and Richard swung in beside it s(
that he too was parked facing the double garage doors. / magnolia beside
the drive had dropped a carpeting of pink tear shaped petals over the
grass and the asphalt, and Richard am Laura walked over these as they
left their car.

"Did Ronnie tell you anything about the McCallisters?"

"Their name is McCloud," Laura said. "Patsy and Les McCloud. Ronnie sold
them their house, and she says they're 'a lot of fun,' whatever that
means. I guess Les McCloud is some kind of executive, and they've moved
around a lot."

"Real Patchin County people," Richard said, and rang the bell.

A giant opened the door. At least six-foot-six, he wore z tan corduroy
jacket and a chocolate turtleneck over a massive chest. With his wide
white smile, fuzzy mustache, and froth) curly hair, he looked no older
than twenty-five. "Hey there," he said. "Come on in."

"Mr. McCloud?"

The giant laughed, gripping Richard's hand. "Jeez no, I'm just Bobo
Farnsworth, the neighborhood cop. Les is up there in the kitchen and
Patsy and my girlfriend are in the game room." He ushered them into the
little entry. Now they were crowded into an area about three feet
square, in fact a landing on a staircase that led up to the main part of
the house and down to a family room that shared a wall with the garage.
"You must be Richard, the famous actor guy. And I guess you're Laura."
He beamed down at her. Richard saw thai Bobo was well suited for Ronnie
Riggley.

"If you're the neighborhood cop, I feel safer already," Richard said.

Bobo laughed again, motioning them toward the stairs. "I take tall pills."

Richard led the way up. As soon as he entered the living room-long
modular sofa with zigzag purple and blue stripes and shiny black coffee
table on a dark blue carpet, a framed

94

Peter Straub

poster of a Steinberg New Yorker cover-he heard a voice shouting, "Is
that Dick Allbee? I'll be right out!"

A man six inches shorter than Bobo Farnsworth strode into the room,
holding out a damp hand. He had close-cut sandy hair, a beefy face of
the sort that always looks tan. "Patsy!" he yelled. "Dick Allbee's here!"

The cold wet hand closed, and Les McCloud put his face within three
inches of Richard's as he pumped his arm. A clear wave of alcohol, also
of somehow possessive intimacy, came from him. "Loved your show, just
loved it-that was a helluva good series, you know? Patsy!" (this over
his shoulder.) "I gotta respect what you people can do, you know? I'm
Les McCloud, welcome, welcome. You met the fuzz here? Good. And this
must be your Frau. Nice to meet you. Laura? Great. Patsy'11 be here in a
sec, and you can talk woman talk. Hey, Dick, you got all dressed up."

Les was wearing a pink crewneck sweater and cuffed wash pants. He looked
like Dartmouth, vintage '59. "Get that tie off, Dick. Or do they call
you Dickie?"

"Richard."

"Whatever." McCloud finally let go of Richard's hand. "Just putting ice
cubes in glasses. What do you fancy? How about you, Laura? I make the
best martinis in the whole of Connecticut."

"Nothing for me," Laura said, and "Just a beer," from Richard.

"You want that nothing with olives or a twist? Are you in the theater
too, Laura?"

"No, I-"

"Two nondrinkers tonight. What do you people do to unwind? Do you sail
or do you flail?" He was still staring directly into Richard's face with
friendliness so aggressive it was like hostility.

"Neither one," Richard said. "We don't have a boat, and it's been a long
time since we played tennis."

"What a relief," said Patsy McCloud, and both the Allbees turned to her.
Standing next to Ronnie Riggley's largeboned blond health, she looked
fragile, with her thin exposed shoulders and enormous brown eyes under
lank, rather untidy dark hair. Her face was very finely drawn. Nearly
invisible creases bracketed her mouth when she smiled. The smile exposed
small white slightly irregular teeth. She looked like her husband's
appetizer. "Now please tell me that you don't jog

FLOATING DRAGON

95

either. I'm Patsy McCloud. Welcome, Richard and Laura." Her handshake
was fleeting and graceful.

"I don't jog, and Laura can't," Richard said.

"Anybody can jog," Les asserted.

"Not pregnant women," Patsy said. "At least, I don't think so. Do you
have any other children?"

Laura's face relaxed at Patsy's intuitive remark. "No, it's our first."

Les ducked away into the kitchen and Ronnie kissed both Allbees. "I'm so
happy you two are moving here."

"Thanks."

"Yes."

"Have you and your husband been here long?" Richard asked.

"Two years. Before that, we were in Los Angeles for a year. Before that,
England. Les has been very successful." This last seemed ambiguous to
Richard, as if Patsy were distancing herself from her husband's travels
as well as his career.

"We were in Belgravia," Patsy went on. "Les hated it. He couldn't wait
to get back here. He absolutely detested England. I was in no condition
to argue with him." She wrapped long fingers around the chunky glass she
carried. "I'd just had a miscarriage."

Even Bobo Farnsworth seemed chastened for a moment, and when Les came
back in with Richard's beer, he said, "What a dead bunch. Patsy must
have said something. My wife can murder cheerfulness like nobody's
business. Happen to tell these good folks something gloomy, little
girl?" His jaw colored: Richard finally saw that the man was already
drunk. The evening would be a torture. "Let's do it now, honey. What do
you say?"

Patsy nodded in a gloomy, distant manner.

Les McCloud looked up and beamed fiercely at Richard. The class bully,
grown up. "Hey, Dick, do us a favor, will you? Say what you used to say.
Say Hey, Mom, I want a whole plate of cookies.''

"Hey, Mom, I want a whole plate of cookies," Richard said. He was
grateful for Ronnie Riggley's laugh.

"Gotcha," Les said, and ran back to the kitchen. He returned with a bowl
filled with Oreos. "Go on, take one. I got them for you."

Bobo Farnsworth: "Oh, no." But Les pushed the bowl to-

96

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

97

ward Richard, who took one and slipped it into his pocket. Patsy
McCloud, in evident desperation, asked, "Would you like the obligatory
tour of the house?"

The evening toiled on. They toured the house, admired the pinball
machines and jukebox in the game room, made the appropriate noises
during dinner, which had a hasty, absentminded quality. The fettuccine
("Pasta is prologue," Richard said, winning one of Patsy McCloud's best
smiles) was overcooked, and the lamb raw in the middle. Les McCloud
drank unceasingly, refilling Patsy's glass only slightly less frequently
than his own. Laura grew exhausted early, and Richard wanted only to get
her home.

Bobo Famsworth almost saved the evening. Unquenchably good-tempered, he
drank Coke, ate hugely, and talked funnily about police work. Like
Ronnie, he had taken to the Allbees on sight. Anecdotes poured from him.
"Here I am in the patrol car, cruising down the Post Road behind this
runaway horse, and I turned on my lights. Pull over, buddy, I said to
the horse ..." Bobo was doing his best to lighten the evening, and the
Allbees were grateful for his presence. Patsy McCloud winced when Les,
competing with Bobo, told an obscene joke.

"Okay, you don't like jokes," Les said. "I don't like the way you do
police work. Why don't you catch that guy who's killing women? That's
what you're paid for. You're not paid to sit here and eat my food,
you're supposed to be out there catching creeps."

"And there are a lot of creeps out there, Les," Bobo said in a
magnanimous tone. "We're working on it."

"Hey, why don't we all go sailing next weekend?" Les asked. "This is a
great bunch. We'll go out on the boat, and my wife will do her party trick."

Patsy looked down at her plate.

"She won't tell you what it is. Hell, she doesn't even want me to tell you."

"I don't do any tricks." Patsy looked genuinely discomfited.

"Her trick is she's weird," Les said, and smiled as if he said something
funny. "Dick, you and Patsy have something in common. Didn't Ronnie say
that your family helped found this area? Well, Patsy's family did too.
She was a Tayler. They moved in here even before the real estate had any
value. But that's not why she's weird. Listen to this. When we were

in college, Patsy used to be able to predict how I'd do on my exams to
the exact number! A couple of times, she guessed the football scores,
too." Les looked at all of them immobile in their chairs. "Does that run
in your old swamp-Yankee families? You ever do anything like that, Dick?"

Patsy McCloud's discomfiture had multiplied itself into embarrassment.
She looked pale, stricken. The enormous brown eyes in her grown-up
child's face seemed to reach out to Richard, begging for help. He
thought she might faint, or cry out-it was as though her husband had
struck her.

He did strike her, Richard suddenly knew. That was the meaning of this
scene. Les McCloud beat his wife, and poor trapped Patsy let him do it.
And a second thought came to him: not a thought but an image. Patsy's
horrified face called back to him the face of a teenage boy staring at
him through the window of a Post Road diner.

"Silence means assent. Another weird swamp Yankee," Les McCloud shouted
gleefully.

He would have to repair this rapidly. Laura too had grown more uneasy
than anything in the situation called for. "Not exactly," he said.
"Nothing like that, no."

"Well, what?"

"Just a couple of bad dreams," he said.

"You ought to see Patsy's shrink," Les told him. "Good old Dr.
Lauterbach. Or get out on the golf course, take in some fresh air. You
golf, don't you?"

"I'm sorry, but I'm very tired," Patsy said. She stood up. Her long
fingers trembled. Her eyes met only Richard's, and this time too he
understood their plea. Don't judge us by this. We're not always this
bad. "I must apologize, but please stay on. You're all having so much
fun." Then a bright brisk smile for everyone* and she left them. Les
reached out for her, but Bobo intercepted his hand. "Got to run myself,
Les-I'm on twelve to eight tonight." Then all of them were standing,
smiling as falsely as Patsy, trying not to move too obviously toward the
stairs.

"Let's do it again, huh? I guess I shouldn't have . . . you know. In
vino veritas and all that. Come over anytime. We'll go out for a sail
some weekend."

"Sure, anytime," Richard said. "As soon as our house is fixed up. Lots
of busy weekends ahead."

Finally they got out the door. The four of them said nothmg until they
had reached their cars. Ronnie whispered,

98

Peter Straub

"Gosh, I'm sorry I got you into this. They seemed so nice whenever I met
them before. I don't know what got into Les. Honestly, he was just
terrible."

Bobo said, "Let's the four of us get together later, okay? Hey, I never
met the guy before. I didn't know he was a sadist."

"Yes," Richard said. "Yes, let's meet. And yes, he is a sadist. That
poor woman."

"All she has to do is walk out," Laura said. "Let's get home. Please."

RONNI pulled out ahead of them, and Laura moved close to Richard on the
front seat of their car. "I can't stand it, I can't stand it," she said.
"That man, that fat carnivore. Are these the people we're going to have
to live with? I hate this, Richard-I just hate it."

"I do too."

"I want to make love. Let's get back to that awful bed as fast as we can."

10

So on that mild night in Hampstead, Connecticut, at least two couples
renewed themselves in the best way. While twentyeight-year-old Bobo
Farnsworth showered before going to work, Ronnie Riggley shed her
clothes and popped her big luxuriant forty-one-year-old body next to his
under the warm spray. She was giggling, and Bobo let out a great whoop
of laughter. Together they rid themselves of the aftertaste of Les
McCloud, and Bobo went to work jubilant. In the bedroom on Fairytale
Lane, the Allbees undressed together, but on opposite sides of the bed,
as married people do. And as married people do, they hung up their clothes.

"He beats her, doesn't he?"

"I think so."

"I saw a bruise on her arm when the top of that thing she was wearing
slipped. He hits her on the arms so no one will know."

"Oh, maybe she likes it," he said, and felt it as treachery. Even then,
he knew that this was untrue, and crudely so.

Laura stood like a tribal totem, her watercolor hair down, her breasts
huge, her belly a soft pronounced bulge of taut skin and blue veins.
Richard had not suspected how sexually

FLOATING DRAGON

99

beautiful women became when they were pregnant. Nature, having
accomplished her aim, rewarded her servants in her own coin.

But Laura's face was almost as tense and drawn as Patsy McCloud's. She
grasped his shoulders when they were on the rolling bed, gripped him
hard enough to cut off his breath. "I don't want to lose you, Richard."

He extracted his throat from all of her flesh: she seemed exactly his
size, her arms round and soft, her legs enfolding him. "You won't lose
me, not unless you suffocate me."

"Do you really have to go to Providence?"

"Only for a day or two. Do you want to come along?"

"And sit in a hotel room while you talk about gesso and masonry with
some contractor?"

"That's what I have to do."

"I'll stay here. But I'll miss you."

"Oh, my God," he groaned, at this moment unable to believe that he could
part himself for longer than a breath from his wife. He kissed one of
her nipples, rolling it on his tongue; licked the underside of the
breast. A delicious sweetness exuded from her skin.

"You know I hate it here, don't you? I do. I do hate it. But I love you,
Richard. I never want to lose you. But that man- it's so horrible here,
and I want my friends back."

Throbbing, he held her. Her body was a furnace, a potbellied stove.

"I do love being in bed with you," she said. His fingers were brushing,
rubbing, sliding. "Oh, yes." The amazing fullness of her belly pushed
hard into him. "Sorry, baby."

He was still able to slide into her while they lay on their sides,
facing each other, her hip up on his, knotted together in the closest
embrace. They exhaled in unison, moving together gently. The bed
comically yawned and pitched.

"Such a sweet man. You even said you'd go out on his boat."

"I'd rather be here in your boat."

Silence for a time. Intense, bursting pleasure: pleasure stretched so
taut it imitated pain and made them gasp.

"Stop having nightmares," Laura breathed into his ear. "Don't stop this,
just please stop having nightmares. They scare me."

Together, they brought themselves home.

Richard awakened hours later, feeling clean and refreshed

100

Peter Straub

in spirit, aerated-as if his soul had been laundered. Gently he drew his
arm from beneath Laura's shoulder. Kissed her back and tasted salt and
cloves; eased back down into sleep. No nightmares: none of the old
nightmares ever now, not at night.

11

Graham

My own journals remind me that I saw this Sunday night as peaceful, even
dull, and so it was for me, at least until some short time after I made
my constipated entry. I had read the book section of the Times in a
complicated state yoking ire and disbelief, then written several pages.
After dinner of a cheese sandwich and an orange, I napped at my desk
with my pencil in my hand. I dreamed about my pages and understood that
they would not do. In these pages, a woman had just met the man who
would become her lover. The problem was to lei us know how she first
sees him. There had to be an erotic undercurrent, and this I had
flubbed. My own experience of erotic undercurrents of any kind was sadly
out-of-date. Yet 1 could remember meeting my first wife, also meeting my
second. Both events took place in courtrooms. The emotions experienced
were primarily boredom and lust. The rest came later.

Currents of another kind, not erotic, rolled through Hampstead. The bars
were open until one, Tabby Smithfield was out wandering with his new
friends, Bobo Farnsworth patrolled happily in his black-and-white and
decided to do a good deed. Gary Starbuck had already robbed a house on
Redcoat Lane and was preparing himself to rob another. Dr. Wren Van
Home, my fellow widower and old friend, sat up late at night in his
conspicuous mansion and thought about buying a mirror for a spot he had
just cleared on his livingroom wall. Charlie Antolini lay in his
hammock, smiling blissfully at the stars while his wife wept in the
bedroom. On this night, birds began to fall dead and dying out of the
sky. In my imagination, ghostly German mercenaries ran whooping down a
Mount Avenue denuded of all its grand houses. Among these was a fellow
to whom my mind gave the flat whiskery face of Bates Krell, the lobster
fisherman who had

FLOATING DRAGON

101

decamped, as it seemed. He had not decamped. I had killed him with a
sword, tra la la. And Joe Kletzka, the chief of police in those days,
knew I did it. He didn't believe a word I said about it, not consciously
he didn't, but he pretty well believed that Bates Krell had accounted
for the disappearances of four women, and he saw the bloodstains on the
lobster boat when I pointed them out to him.

One other person soon knew about me and Bates Krell. Tabby Smithfield.
He knew because he saw it the way I see the burning of Greenbank by
General Tryon's men, mentally. Tabby saw it the first time he met me,
which was late that Sunday night. Put purely and simply, he recognized
me, and that, tra la la, scared the living piss out of both of us. Wake
up, wake up, indeed, you sleepyhead. Sleepyhead. Not Tabby-even though I
could still smack him for keeping quiet about the Norman brothers the
way he did.

103 FLOATING DRAGON

103

The Smithfields and the McClouds

Skippy Peters had gone crazy, that was the problem, though to speak
absolutely factually, he had always been a little bit crazy. In the
sixth grade he had shaved off his eyebrows and replaced them with shoe
polish-at the time he had been talking on the telephone with Dicky and
Bruce Norman, the twins from the large irregular family that lived in
the trailer park Mr. Norman managed, and he had tried to persuade them
to do the same. The next day, the Norman twins (who had agreed to
Skippyrs suggestion) showed up at school with their eyebrows intact on
their bulbous heads, and screamed with laughter when the teacher sent
Skippy home. In the eighth grade, when they were in the Middle School
next to J. S. Mill, Skippy Peters had been caught masturbating in the
shower room by the gym teacher, who had looked back in to check why he
was taking so long: a two-week suspension. On their first day in high
school, he had defined himself by falling down in Cancer Corner-the back
corner of the parking lot, where the older kids went to smoke-and
pretending to foam at the mouth. He had once tried to get himself
tattooed on his rump with the Marine Corps insignia, but the tattooist
had thrown him out of his shop.

The Norman twins valued Skippy especially for his willingness to do
anything they suggested. By the time they were fifteen and sophomores at
J. S. Mill, the twins weighed two hundred and ten pounds apiece and had
long Indian-black hair which fell to their shoulders. Their faces were
round, fatcheeked, sallow. If it had not been for their eyes, which were
hooded and knowing, they would have looked retarded, with these sallow,
inhuman, otherwise monstrously dimpled and innocent faces; but they
looked like born malefactors. The

102

twins had been blamed, most often correctly, for every trouble which had
occurred in their vicinity since they had outgrown Pampers. They lived
on their own in an abandoned trailer down the weedy drive from the
trailer where their parents and four sisters carried on their rackety
disordered lives. They sometimes ate in their parents' trailer, most
often at Burger King or Wendy's. At night they drove the rusty black
Oldsmobile they had repaired over to Riverfront Avenue and the Blue Tern
Bar and bullied college students into bringing six-packs out to them.
The Blue Tern bouncers and bartenders all knew them and would not let
them in. When Bobo Farnsworth or another Hampstead cop drove around the
parking lots of the Blue Tern and the nearby warehouses, the twins sat
in the Olds's backseat and grinned-they thought Bobo Farnsworth was a
twink. All the Hampstead cops were twinks except for Turtle Turk, who
had once actually scared Bruce Norman by lifting him off the ground and
threatening to drop him off the overpass at Exit 18. They hated Turtle Turk.

Nobody trusted Dicky and Bruce, they attracted suspicion as fighters
attract bruises, and so someone like Skip Peters was useful to them. The
child of affluent, well-traveled, distant parents, Skippy was an outcast
who at least looked normal. In grade school Dicky and Bruce had
discovered that they could send Skip into Greenblatt's with a list of
things to steal, and he would come out with twice what they asked for.
Hostess cupcakes, bottles of Coke, steaks, whole chickens. Mars bars,
jars of Planter's cashews: he was a walking shopping bag. Skip Peters
looked so honest, also so nervous, that even if he were caught,
shopkeepers felt sorry for him and sent him away with a warning.

But toward the end of May this eager erratic instrument of the Norman
twins began to lose both his usefulness and his amusement value. One
Tuesday during first-period geometry class, Skippy stood up from his
seat in the last row and started shouting at Mr. Nord, the teacher. "You
jerk! You dumb jerk! You're doing it wrong!"

Mr. Nord had turned around from the blackboard in a state between terror
and rage. "Sit down, Peters. What am I doing wrong?"

"The problem, you dumb jerk. Don't you see that the angle is ... is ..."
He burst into loud sobs. Mr. Nord had excused him from the class.

104

Peter Straub

In the hallway between classes, Skip was waiting for the Norman twins.
"Hey, man," Bruce said. "What's happenin'?"

Skippy was even paler than usual, his eyes red as a rabbit's. "You're a
dumb pig, that's what's happening. Tell me to multiply any two numbers."

"What?"

"Go on. Any two numbers."

"Four hundred sixty-eight and three thousand nine hundred forty-two."

"One million, eight hundred and forty-four thousand, eight hundred and
fifty-six."

Bruce hit him just below the ear and knocked him into a bank of lockers.

They must have talked together, the Norman twins; when Jix and Pete
Peters removed Skippy from J. S. Mill a day later and shipped him off to
a place like a resort hotel with a golf course, a gymnasium and an
indoor and outdoor pool, the Norman twins must have lazed around their
funky trailer and talked about the new boy. They must, while pushing
chocolate cake into their mouths, while passing joints back and forth,
while drinking beer and watching The Thing on their stolen television
set, have measured his usefulness. They had a plan.

On the Friday that a holidaying, already sunburned Chicago priest named
Francis Leary walked into his sister's luxurious kitchen and in shock
and terror dropped a heavy grocery bag into what seemed a lake of her
blood, Tabby Smithfield looked up startled when a slopping cup of Pepsi
Cola encased in a grease-blackened fist thumped down before him on the
lunchroom table. "Hey, new kid," said a voice from above him, "you
thirsty?" Tabby looked up and was unable to speak. The two most
threatening people in his class were grinning down at him from their
monstrous faces. One wore overalls over a T-shirt, the other a filthy
sweatshirt which still, though barely, read roll over. They put their
trays on the table and sat down on either side of him. "I'm Bruce and
he's Dicky," said the one in the sweatshirt. "Go on, drink it, we got it
for you. We're the Welcome Wagon ladies."

By the time the Goodall lawn was filled with Goodall neighbors, and Bobo
Farnsworth was simultaneously trying to keep Turtle Turk from popping a
state cop in the jaw and lead

FLOATING DRAGON

105

the two hysterical Goodall children to the house of whatever Goodall
neighbor could be coaxed away from the kitchen windows, Tabby Smithfield
was seated in the last row of his world-history class. Dicky and Bruce
Norman hulked beside him like a pair of huge watchdogs. "Tell him about
Skippy and the eyebrows," Bruce whispered to Dicky. Both of the brothers
smelled-to Tabby, quite nostalgically-of beer.

Relations between Clark and Monty Smithfield had eased and mellowed as
the seventies came to their end. Tabby was the reason for this. Though
Monty had sworn to himself, after the terrible embarrassment of the
scene in the airport, that he would live as though his son were dead, he
was incapable of pretending to himself that he no longer had a grandson.
He dreamed of Tabby, several times a month sat in Tabby's old room and
stared at the rows of toys his grandson had left behind. And because
they had led to the loss of Tabby, he eventually came to regret the
insults he had spoken to his son. Maybe he should not have scoffed at
Clark's tennis. Maybe he should not have insisted that Clark join him in
the company- maybe he should have let Clark bum around out West, playing
tennis, as Clark had wanted to do after college. Maybe it had been a
mistake to give half the house over to Clark and Jean- maybe that
closeness had been the worst mistake of all. These recriminations chased
each other through his mind.

After a couple of months he looked up some of Clark's old friends and
classmates. He promised that he would not interfere with his son's life,
that he wanted only to send money from time to time. An old man holding
out his checkbook as if it were his heart-two of Clark's friends took
pity on him. One of them had an address in Miami, the other a street
number in Fort Lauderdale. Monty called Information in both cites, but
Clark was not a telephone subscriber. On Tabby's birthday he sent checks
and notes to both addresses; two weeks later he received a thank-you
letter in Tabby's childish writing from Fort Lauderdale.

On Clark's birthday Monty sent him a thousand dollars, but the letter
was returned unopened. Thereafter, Monty sent a small check to Tabby
every month and Tabby wrote him whenever he and his father made one of
their frequent moves.

106

Peter Straub

On his eighth birthday he sent his grandfather a photograph of himself
from Key West-a brown barefoot Tabby Smithfield standing on the end of a
pier. Sun-bleached hair and puzzling eyes.

Shortly after Tabby's eleventh birthday-another photograph, Tabby in a
peacock wicker rocker, sent from Orlando-Monty received an almost
telegraphically brief note from Clark telling him that he had a new
daughter-in-law. Her name was Sherri Still well Smithfield. Sherri and
Clark had been married a month.

Monty, having learned his lesson, bided his time. He wrote a letter
expressing congratulations and good wishes and sent it with a very
generous check; this was not returned. Two weeks after the canceled
check came back with his bank statement, Monty finally got a telephone
call from his son. Monty told Clark, "I want you to know one thing. I'm
leaving you this house when I go-it'll be yours free and clear. And if
you want to bring Tabby and your wife back here to live in it, that's fine."

During all of these years, Tabby's life was odder than the Norman twins
would ever have imagined.

He and his father had lived in single rooms, beer-fragrant apartments
above roughhouse taverns, in transient hotels where they had to cook on
a hot plate and swat roaches off tables; in a bad time they had spent a
week living in Clark's old car. He had known many boys who promised to
grow up just like the Norman twins-violence, stupidity, and craftiness
were nothing new to Tabby. He had seen his father swim perilously into
alcoholism and most of the way out; he had seen his father briefly go to
jail, for what crime he never knew; by the time he was ten, he had
finished only one year in the same school where he had begun it. Once he
had seen, his father come home flushed and triumphant and spread oil on
the kitchen table three thousand dollars he had won play* ing tennis. He
had seen two men die, one knifed in a bai where Clark was working, one
shot to death during a fight i| the street. And once when he had opened
the bathroom dool without first knocking, he had seen a friend of his
father's, I skinny ghostly Key West transvestite named Poche or Poacli
sitting on the toilet and shooting heroin into his arm.

When he was fourteen he wrote down all the addresses in could remember
of the places he and his father had lived

FLOATING DRAGON

107

beginning with the house on Mount Avenue: without even hesitating, he
listed nine addresses, including three places that called themselves
hotels, one boardinghouse, and one foster home. After thinking for a few
minutes, he was able to list three more.

Sherri Stillwell eventually changed all that. She was a hard-bitten
loyal blond woman, half Cuban, five years younger than Clark. An earlier
husband had walked out on her and she had become a regular at the bar,
the No Name, where Clark worked in Key West. Sherri's father had been a
Texas oil rigger, often away from home for long periods, and she had
helped raise three smaller brothers: she liked children. There was still
a lot of Texas in Sherri. When she moved in with Clark, she insisted
that Tabby stay home with her at night and do his homework instead of
messing around in the streets all night or sitting mascotlike in a
corner of the bar. Sherri filled out Clark's tax returns, noisily got
rid of worthless and criminal hangers-on like Poche, and made Clark
promise that he would never lie to her.

"Honey, my first husband filled me so full of lies I thought the sky was
red. Once is enough. If you fool around, you tell me who it is and I'll
straighten it out fast. I want one thing, you being straight with me.
Tell me one lie-one-and I cut out." With her peroxide hair and black
eyes, Sherri looked like no one who had ever set foot in the house on
Mount Avenue, but Monty Smithfield would have recognized her goals for
her lover and his son. She encouraged Clark's occasional hustling
because it could bring in immediate money, but she wanted him to stop
tending bar and get into some business. She circled want ads. She made
appointments for him. Finally it was because of Sherri that Clark got a
job as a salesman. By this time they were in Orlando, in a little
twobedroom house with a scrubby sandy lawn, and they had begun to save
some money. With the check Monty had sent them as a wedding present,
they bought a new car and some furniture. It was Sherri who ultimately
talked Clark around to telephoning his father.

During these years Tabby had successfully managed to repress nearly all
the traces of the misfortunes which had preceded and accompanied his
departure from Connecticut. He thought about his mother, but carefully
avoided thinking about the vision of the interior of her coffin which
had assaulted him just before her funeral; the odd visions he'd had

108

Peter Straub

in the airport, part of a general and numbing panic, were more difficult
to suppress. Of his life in Connecticut he could remember chiefly
tilings so opulent they seemed invented- the front of their house, his
pony and a profusion of mechanical toys, the way his grandfather had
looked and dressed. Just when he was trembling on the edge of puberty,
he was hit in the head with a Louisville Slugger and knocked unconscious
while he played catcher in a school baseball game-coming to on the
coarse grass of the diamond with everybody bending over him, he
momentarily remembered seeing a man cutting into a woman with a knife, a
vision that had the taste of nostalgia. A teacher kneeling beside him
kept saying, oh my God, oh my God. He did not recognize the teacher for
a moment, nor any of the boys above him. Two naked people on a bed, one
of them thrashing in her own blood? In the middle of his awesome
headache, he saw the scene freshly again, as if it had filled his mind
while he was unconscious, and again it seemed as though he had been
there and watched it happen.

"Oh, my God," the teacher said again, and suddenly he remembered her
name. The odd and potent vision left him. His eyes focused.

"How do you feel?" the teacher asked.

Tabby told her, "My dad said there are no bad men."

At only two other times during his life in Rorida did Tabby Smithfield
demonstrate that he might be something other than the quiet normal boy,
the son of an itinerant bartender, that he appeared to be.

The first occurred just after Clark had bought the little house in
Orlando. They had moved in that morning, and Sherri was fussing from
living room to kitchen and back again, trying to pretend that she was
not ecstatic. The U-Haul trailer was still in the driveway, unhitched
because Clark was at work, and boxes full of dishes and clothes were all
over the floors. Sherri was waiting for the delivery truck from Sears- a
new bed was on the way. Tabby had found his Monopoly game in one of the
boxes, and was playing it by himself on the bare floor of his new
bedroom. There were four Tabbys, and when one of them rolled the dice,
the others hoped he'd

FLOATING DRAGON

109

land on one of their hotels. Tabby II was winning so far, and Tabby in
had had nothing but penalties. Sherri had buzzed into the room, seen
what he was doing, said, "You're the craziest kid, I swear," buzzed out
again. Sounds of drawers opening, boxes being ripped apart.

"Damn," Sherri shouted from the living room. "I can't find it!"

He was Tabby IV then, a good cautious Tabby, not as reckless as Tabby II
or as unlucky as Tabby in, with a good chance to overtake II and
eventually win the game, and he yelled out, "Can I help?"

"I can't find it!" Sherri squalled, pushed over the edge by frustration.
Tabby understood-moving house was hard on the nerves. And then he-or, to
be precise, the part of him that was unlucky Tabby III-understood even
more. Sherri had misplaced her wallet, and she was going crazy because
she was afraid she'd have to tip the men bringing the bed and would not
have any money. He understood all this in an instant, and then, just as
if Tabby in across the table with his diminishing supply of funny money
leaned over to whisper in his ear, an instant later he saw it: he saw
Sherri take the wallet out of her oversized bag and absentmindedly put
it on top of the refrigerator.

Tabby never stopped to question this vision or to wonder where it came
from. He put down the dice and went into the living room, where Sherri
was pacing around with her hands stuck in her hair. "Your wallet's on
top of the 'frigerator," he said. "You kidding me?" Sherri said, and
went off to the kitchen at a trot. A moment later she returned, wallet
in her hand, with a grateful look on her face. "You're a genius, kid,"
she said. "Now, tell me what happened to the charm bracelet I lost when
I was sixteen."

"Okay," Tabby said. "It fell down behind the backseat of your cousin
Hector's car. That was a '49 Dodge. It stayed there a long time, but
when Hector sold the car for junk the guy in the junkyard found it after
they took the seats out." All this information was coming from Tabby in.
"He gave it to his little girl, but then she lost it at a party, and
somehow it went down a storm drain. . . ." He stopped because Tabby in
had just given him a very clear picture of Sherri, sixteen years old,
with her shirt and bra off. Her hair was as black as her eyes.

110

Peter Straub

Sherri was staring at him with her mouth open. "My cousin Hector? My
sweet Jesus. Did I ever say anything about him to you?"

The bell rang. "They're here. Hey, thanks, Tabby. I was going nuts." She
turned away, but not before giving him a puzzled, almost frightened look
out of her black eyes.

The second event happened three years later, in March of

1980, just a month before they moved back to Hampstead. Monty Smithfield
had died of a stroke, and his lawyer had written Clark that he was now
owner of "Four Hearths." Clark wanted to leave immediately; Sherri did
not want to leave at all, and they were fighting about it. Besides the
house, there was an amount of money that seemed fabulous to them all,
hundreds of thousands of dollars. "What about your job?" "They can stuff
my job. I'll get another job there. Sherri, I won't even need a job for
a long time." "I don't want to move up North." "You want to stay here?
In this crackerbox?" "I won't know how to act. I won't fit in. I won't
have any friends. I want to stay here where I belong."

Clark had now swung part of the way back into alcoholism, and he was
drunk. As in the old days on Mount Avenue, he skipped work two days
every week. Clark and Sherri had begun to fight about these matters.
"Where you belong is wherever I take you," Clark yelled.

"So I am like something you pack in a suitcase?" Whenever Sherri got
mad, her voice became much more Spanish.

Tabby slipped out the door, wanting only to get away from the sounds of
their fight. He scuffed across the weedy lawn. Sherri's voice rose up
like a flag from the house behind him. A glass shattered.

Then it happened again. He was somewhere else. For the first time he
understood that he was seeing forward, seeing what would happen. It was
night, a few degrees cooler than the actual night. The noises of the
fight had vanished, and Tabby knew without looking back that his house
had vanished too. Tall dark trees stood all about him: before him was a
meeting of two roads. Light from a number of large houses shone steadily
through and around the trees. He knew that this was not the countryside
it appeared to be, but a rich neighborhood that imitated northern
country. Once he had known this place. A bad thing had happened here.
Lights from a car, set low to the ground, swept toward him. In a moment
they were on him, dazzling his eyes.

FLOATING DRAGON

4

111

So he stood there, in real time, six weeks later, on the night of May
17. His father claimed he had already found a job: when he got home at
night he talked about the "accounts" he was getting, the commissions he
was earning, all the while drinking steadily. Sherri had grown puffy
with misery. She hated Connecticut. Tabby knew that Hampstead felt
entirely snooty and unforgiving to her. He wandered the streets, looking
for something. Twice he found himself in front of the gates on Mount
Avenue, staring at his grandfather's old house. Still unaccustomed to
the spaciousness of his new home, he could scarcely believe that he and
his father had once lived in such a mansion. It was twice the size of
"Four Hearths." Wondering, he turned away. A feeling of immanence drove
him. Something, he knew not what, was due: some contract was to be
sealed. He was silent and inconspicuous at school, half-thinking that
his real life lay elsewhere, out on the quiet Greenbank streets at night
where it was.

On that Saturday, Tabby was tormented by the certainty that it was about
to happen. He still had no idea what it was, but it lay over Hampstead
like a thundercloud. His anxiety kept him from eating his French toast
at breakfast, would not permit him to read a book or watch Spaced-Out
Films on Channel 9. Clark said, "Such a nice day, why don't we go out
and play catch?" and Tabby's feeling of coming doom stripped half his
skills from him. He dropped balls, threw them wildly. "Pay attention!"
his father yelled, and finally gave up in anger and disgust. Tabby
walked for miles-all the way down to Sawtell Beach, where he bought a
chili dog at the concession stand and looked at the faces of the people
lazing in the sun. Will it happen to you? Will you do it? He trudged
back up Greenbank Road, looking at the faces in the cars that passed.

At one o'clock he sat on Gravesend Beach and fell asleep: vivid,
clamorous dreams, filled with cries for help, chased themselves through
his mind. When he awakened, he was looking at the Van Home house,
shining whitely up on its bluff above a concrete seawall. He groaned. It
would come, and he would not be able to stop it. Seagulls wheeling over
the little combers mocked the cries he had heard in his sleep.

112

Peter Straub

He dragged himself home.

After dinner Tabby let himself out again. This time he turned not toward
Mount Avenue, but into the little maze of streets inland from it.
Charleston Road, Hermitage, Beach Trail, Gravesend Avenue, Cannon Road.
He stared into windows and scrutinized faces. A patrol car passed him,
then swung around for another look. A woman jogged past, and he managed
to say hello. Imperceptibly the light died.

While he walked up Charleston Road for the third time, a wave of
dizziness and nausea struck him. He smelled death, as clearly as if he
stood over a body, and for a second remembered a scuffle in a Fort Myers
tavern, one man punching a blade into another: it had happened, he knew,
and then was swept by a series of images too rushed and incoherent to be
understood. A sweatshirt that read Keep on Truckin', a boy falling from
a bicycle into a heap of gravel, a huge truck canted on its side. A
woman screaming for help in a bird's voice.

It, it was going on or had gone on behind him. Tabby staggered, turned
around, ran back down Charleston Road- and found himself on a corner in
a stand of old oak trees with headlights set low to the ground reaching
toward him. He looked sideways up Cannon Road. There was the house: its
windows black: it had happened in there. The headlights of the car fixed
him for a moment, and then the Corvette sped by around the corner. For a
moment he saw the frozen, desperate look on the face of the man driving.
He was where the sense of immanence had led him, in the place where he
had seen himself weeks before.

Tabby could not move until the police cars roared past him. Then he
recoiled backward as if stung, and ran between the trees and houses
until he came out on the next street. He ran uphill to the far end of
Hermitage Road; home. Once inside, he could hear his father and Sherri
in their bedroom. They were noisily, frantically making love.

"Skippy used to stick his head in the mailboxes sometimes," Bruce Norman
said. "To see if the cherry bombs were duds. Man, he liked to have blown
his head off a couple of times. What a crazy dude."

FLOATING DRAGON

113

Tabby Smithfield, lately an intimate of the Norman twins, was seated
between them in the backseat of their rusted old car in the Blue Tern's
parking lot. Dicky Norman had pushed bills into the hands of a suddenly
nervous crewneck-sweatered college boy, placed his order, and now the
three of them were mildly high, Tabby less so than the twins, on beer.
It was ten-thirty on Sunday night, the thirty-first of May. Dicky and
Bruce had scarcely let Tabby out of their sight since the previous
Friday. At first a little frightened by them, Tabby had come to see that
though the twins were obviously destined for inglorious ends, they were
still just childish troublemakers. Their size and their menacing faces
led the world to expect much worse. They shoplifted, vandalized, smoked
dope, and loved heavy metal music. Tabby had known lots like them. He
preferred the music of Ben Sidran and Steve Miller, but was not about to
announce it.

"Anyhow, we gave up on cherry bombs," Bruce said. "Now we get 'em with
the Devastator." He fondled the taped handle of a baseball bat. This had
been lacquered black, but splintery white showed through all the nicks
and dents. "Even makes a better sound, sort of a more honest sound. You
cruise along, take a good swing with the Devastator, and the whole
goddamned side of the box caves in. Ba-joing! How about going out on a
run with us a little later, hey?"

"Okay," Tabby said. "I'll come along for the ride."

Dicky sat up, looked in the rearview mirror, and groaned. "Bobo the
Clown." All three boys put their cans of beer on the floor behind their
legs.

A moment later a police car pulled up beside them. A grinning Bobo got
out and ambled over to their window. "Well, the Bobbsey Twins. Shouldn't
you be home in bed?"

"Whatever you say, Officer Farnsworth."

"Who's your playmate? He looks too normal to be a friend of yours."

Tabby gave his name, and the officer looked him over with a friendly and
distant regard.

"Well, kids, time for you to go. I'm going to check out the bar, and
when I come back I don't want to see your car here.

111 tell you something. I'm sorry you guys ever turned sixteen."

"It's a bitch, getting old," Bruce said.

"I don't think you'll ever get that far, Brucie." Bobo slapped the top
of their car and turned away.

114

Peter Straub

As soon as Bobo had gone inside the Blue Tern, Bruce drained his beer
and opened his door to get into the front seat. "That twink," he said as
he turned the key. "Callin' me Brucie. Fuckhead clown." He loudly
belched. "Let's drive around a little bit. Dicky, why don't you sort of
set things up for Tabs?"

"You ever hear of a guy named Gary Starbuck?" Dicky asked.

It was barely possible that Clark Smithfield, if not Tabby, might have
actually met Gary Starbuck in Key West in the early seventies. Gary
Starbuck had been told by his father that the only way to keep out of
jail was to keep moving-work a town for a while, then pick up and go at
least five hundred miles away. Following his father's trade as Clark
Smithfield had refused to do, Starbuck had lived off the pickings in Key
West while Clark worked at the No Name Bar. In Key West, Starbuck was
Delbert Tory; in Houston, Charles Beard; in Springfield, Illinois,
Lawrence Ringler; in Cleveland, Keith Pepper. When he rented the Frazier
Peters house on Beach Trail he called himself Nelson Sutter. From his
father he had also learned to avoid meeting people; to sit alone in
bars; to cultivate a professional politeness. This Starbuck was a squat
youngish fellow, dark-haired and broad-shouldered, beardless. His face
was solemn and large of nose, out of key with his top-heavy body. Off
duty he wore pastel polo shirts and chinos; drove an anonymous gray van.
When he worked he carried a pistol.

When he had first come to Hampstead, he had rented a trailer in the lot
off the Post Road. The twins had seen his van parked beside the trailer
day after day; sometimes it was gone on weekends, most often at night.
Eventually-just about the time Starbuck found a house to rent-Bruce and
Dicky decided to take a look inside both the trailer and the van.

Bruce got into the van one day while Starbuck must have been asleep. It
was as clean inside as its owner kept the exterior: clean and empty. But
Bruce looked into the glove cornpartment and saw that the California
registration was in another name than the one under which the trailer
had been rented.

FLOATING DRAGON

115

"We got something here, Dicky," he told his brother. The next night they
used one of their spare keys to enter the trailer.

And that was even better than they expected, filled with television
sets, silverware, racks of suits-and half a dozen shoe boxes stacked
with money. "Hey, this guy's the real thing," Bruce said, so impressed
he looked poleaxed.

After school the next day they visited the trailer again. They rang the
bell. The tenant came to the door and looked at them suspiciously. Bruce
said, "Mr. Starbuck? Excuse me, I mean Mr. Sutter?"

When they left, they had a new television set and a Baggie full of good
Mexican weed. Gary Starbuck had remembered more of his father's advice:
"When you got partners, even partners you don't want, treat them right.
A partner's a partner even when he's no good, and sooner or later a
little grease will keep your ass out of the jug." He was sure he could
find a use for the Norman twins.

Patsy McCloud lived with one big simple fear, and even on the night of
her failed dinner party for the Allbees and Ronnie Riggley, it
overshadowed all the other little fears. When she was seven her parents
had taken her to the mental hospital where her Grandmother Tayler
lived-her parents saw Grandmother Tayler two or three times a year, but
this was Patsy's first visit. Her father had been grumpy on the long
drive from Hampstead to Hartford, for he opposed allowing his daughter
to meet his mother; but Patsy's mother, who had answered the old woman's
increasingly frequent requests with uncomfortable evasions, had held firm.

They had been shown into a wide room painted in primary colors, like a
nursery school. The nurses beamed at Patsy, who was already uneasy
because of the tension between her parents and the odd, damaged people
wandering through the ward. People whose heads were too large for their
bodies, people whose tongues seemed too large for their heads. One man
obsessively pacing off the length of a wall had a shovelshaped dent two
inches deep in his forehead. The locks and bars she had seen on the way
up to this room made her feel she was a prisoner in the hospital. Maybe
it was a trick, a

116

Peter Straub

trick to get her here, and her parents would leave her in this place!
Though she was the only child in the room, it seemed appointed for
children, with its desks covered with crayons and crude childish
pictures taped to the wall.

Her grandmother appeared through a bright orange door. Two male nurses
accompanied her. She was talking to herself. Patsy's first thought was
that her grandmother was the oldest person she had ever seen; then that
she belonged here. Her white hair was sparse and dull, her eyes glazed.
White whiskers sprouted from her chin. She paid no attention to Patsy's
parents but sat in the chair where the nurses put her and looked down at
her lap and muttered.

"We brought Patsy," her mother said. "Remember that you were asking for
her? We wanted you to meet her, Mother Tayler."

Her father made a disgusted noise and turned his back on them.

Patsy was looking into the old woman's vague, inward face.

"Don't you want to say hello to your granddaughter, Mother Tayler?"

"A man is hanging in his backyard," her grandmother startled Patsy by
mumbling. "Just swinging on a rope. Too many bills, bills, bills.
They'll find him next week, I guess. You brought Danny's girl?" The
vague pale eyes lifted to meet Patsy's. "Poor girl," her grandmother
said. "She's another one. Pretty thing. She doesn't like it here, does
she? She thinks you'll leave her with me. Poor girl. Will they find him
next week, little girl?" |

The pale eyes lost a portion of their vagueness, and Patsy | had seen
the man hanging from the branch of a tree: through a| window she saw a
desk covered with paper. "I don't know,"f Patsy said, shocked.

"I'll love you, if you'll live with me," said Grandmother Tayler, and
that had abruptly ended the interview. Her father scooped her up and
carried her down to the car. Ten minutes later her mother joined them.
Neither of them had ever suggested bringing Patsy to see Mother Tayler
again.

Two days later she asKed her father if they had found that man yet. Her
father had not known what she meant. She understood that her father felt
deep angry shame, both for himself and for her.

FLOATING DRAGON

117

But she remembered Grandmother Tayler's acceptance. Poor girl. She's
another one. When the old woman's eyes had finally met hers, she had
felt as transparent as glass. In those eyes had been a matter-of-fact
despair and an understanding beyond death. The only difference between
Patsy and her grandmother was that Grandmother Tayler was better at it.
Before she reached puberty, Patsy was able to move small objects across
a table, to switch on lights and open doors, just by seeing these
occurrences in her mind and surrounding them with a yellow glow of
intention. This ability was her secret, her best secret. She had known
instantly that Grandmother Tayler could do much more than that-that if
she'd wanted, Grandmother Tayler could have brought down the hospital on
all sides of her and walked away free and unharmed. But Grandmother
Tayler didn't want. For Patsy, the old woman with her deliberately vague
face and fractured mind was an inexorable image of her own future.

When she had her first period, the ability to shift objects at will left
her. It simply was not there anymore: womanhood had taken it away and
left cramps and blood in its place. For almost a year she was like every
other girl she knew, and she was grateful.

Then a new girl had come into their class. Marilyn Foreman, a mousy
creature with glasses, dull hair, and an implacable mouth. The minute
Marilyn Foreman had appeared in the door, Patsy had known. And Marilyn
had recognized her in the same way. The other girl had been an
unavoidable fact: Marilyn was her destiny, as her grandmother had been.
At recess, the other girl had come up to her and claimed her. "What do
you do? I can see things, and they always happen." "Get away from me,"
Patsy said, but halfheartedly, and Marilyn stayed. Patsy was passive
before her knowledge that Marilyn Foreman was to drive away all her
other friends, and the two of them were to belong to each other. "It'll
hapPen," Marilyn said in her grating, drawling voice. "It'll happen to
you too. I know." Even without affection between them, for the other
girl did not require affection, she and Marilyn became so close that
they began to look alike, in a middle ground between Patsy's prettiness
and Marilyn's Plainness. Sometimes Patsy caught herself speaking in
Marilyn's voice. The Taylers never understood why their popular,
attractive daughter allowed herself to be so influenced by nondescript
Marilyn Foreman.

118

Peter Straub

Together they traveled: their word, Marilyn's idea. They sat side by
side, nights when they were supposed to be doing homework, linked hands,
and closed their eyes. Patsy invariably felt a sick thrill of fear,
half-enjoyable, as their minds seemed to join and float upward.
Traveling, they saw strange landscapes, hot molten colors-they never
knew what they would see. It might just be people eating in a
restaurant, or a boy in their class taking a walk along Sawtell Beach.
Once they saw two of their teachers, not married to each other, making
love on the floor of an empty room. Another time, they saw a man they
recognized as the shop teacher at J. S. Mill deep in a green wood, lying
naked over a boy who was on the high-school football team. "That's
filthy dirty," Marilyn said. But in general, Marilyn never cared what
they saw while they traveled. She was as happy watching strangers eat a
meal she could not taste in a restaurant she could not recognize as with
their more colorful visions.

Another vision seemed to be located in the past, and would have been
unusual for that reason alone. The two girls saw a street that was
obviously Riverfront Avenue, but the oil corn pany and office buildings
were gone. Short chunky fishing boats were docked at piers; snub-nosed
old cars had been pulled up on a grassy bank long since turned into
parking lots. On one of the boats a bearded man in a knit cap was
pouring wine into a coffee cup and a wineglass. A woman in a silk dress
lolled against the boat's railing. "This is wrong," Marilyn said. "I
don't like this." She had tried to extricate her hand, but Patsy gripped
harder: this was for her, and Marilyn Foreman was not going to take it
from her even if it was terrible. For it would be terrible, she knew.
The bearded man smiled at the woman and started his engines. The boat
putted out into the river and went slowly seaward. The man grasped the
woman and pretended to dance. He swayed, shuffled his feet; the woman
held to him and laughed. Patsy saw that the fisherman was handsome as a
bull is handsome, uncaringly. "Nasty," Marilyn said. Smiling, the man
stroked the woman's neck with his blunt fingers. Then he closed his
hands and pressed into the soft flesh of her neck with his thumbs. His
eyes glittered. He leaned into the woman and toppled her to the shiny
deck. Their bodies struggled and rolled until the man lifted the woman's
head and battered it against the deck. All his movements were
concentrated and intent. Marilyn began to shake. After the woman stopped
moving, the man fetched a

FLOATING DRAGON

119

roll of oilcloth from a locker and tied her into it. When he had thrown
the wrapped, still-living body into the Nowhatan, he finished the wine.
Patsy tingled with revulsion: as soon as the picture of the fisherman
standing alone on his boat melted into that of another strange man, this
one in a double-breasted suit and standing on what Patsy recognized as
the country club beach, she dropped Marilyn's hand. She felt as if these
scenes of death and violence would cynically unreel as long as she
invited them.

Will they find him next week, little girl?

After the Foremans moved to Tulsa, Patsy never tried to travel on her
own. She and Les both went to Connecticut State College: they watched
the days-long drama of the Kennedy assassination on the television set
in Les's fraternity house. Sometimes she would amaze Les by correctly
predicting the grades he would earn on his exams. If she had prophetic
dreams, she kept them to herself. Les was already calling her a "swamp
Yankee." After they married in 1964, they lived in Hartford, New York
City, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, and were transferred back to New
York. They bought their house in Hampstead, and Les commuted to New York
to, as he put it, "burn ass." Now they never spoke of anything personal.
Les in fact rarely spoke to her at all. He had started to beat her in
Chicago, after his first really significant promotion had followed the
best efficiency reports of his life.

8

Les did not beat Patsy that Sunday night; he sourly and drunkenly told
her that compared to Ronnie Riggley and Laura Allbee she was not a
woman. He roamed around the house, finishing a bottle, while Patsy
retreated to the bedroom. Now and then she heard him muttering about
"pansy actors." When she heard him come up the stairs to go to bed,
Patsy fled into the spare bedroom next to theirs, where she had set up
some bookshelves, a desk, and a couch that folded out into a double bed.
A black-and-white Sony with a sixinch screen sat on top of the
bookshelf, and she switched it on to watch a movie until Les was safely
asleep.

At twelve-thirty a noise of crashing and splintering from outside jolted
her out of a doze. Les too had been awakened

120

Peter Straub

by the noises from the street, and she heard him thrashing around in the
dark bedroom. The door banged. She called out his name, but instead of
an answer heard the front door slam shut.

Patsy looked out the window of her hideaway. In the yellow glow from the
security lights angling out from most of the houses, she saw a rusty
black car speeding around the corner of Charleston Road. A second later
she saw Les chasing after the car in his bathrobe and slippers. He was
carrying a gun in his hand.

She knew Les well enough to know that if Richard Allbee and Bobo
Famsworth had not been in their house Les would have left the gun
behind. But the youth and strength of one, and the fame, however
meaningless, of the other, had provoked him. Patsy looked down the
stairs to the landing, opened the door and ran down the street after her
husband.

A dying sparrow fluttered pathetically on the grate of a storm drain
beneath a lamp. Ordinarily she would have stopped, but she heard the
crowing of a police siren around the corner ahead of her and ran toward
it past the trembling sparrow.

At the comer where Charleston Road swung into Beach Trail stood a second
streetlamp, and a child, a little girl with glasses and limp brown hair,
stood directly beneath it, looking at her. Patsy at first thought that
it was very late for a child to be outside, then that the child looked
familiar. Her anxiety for Les kept her running until she was directly
abreast of the streetlamp. She could see a patrol car nosed in toward a
driveway on Beach Trail, that of the house which backed directly onto
hers. A policeman stood beside a hunched old man and a slight teenage
boy, and Les was crouched down before them, holding his pistol out in
the firing position.

"Oh, my God," Patsy breathed. Les had gone crazy and was about to shoot
someone, unless the policeman shot him first.

Then she realized that the child beneath the streetlamp was Marilyn
Foreman. She involuntarily turned from the sight of her husband aiming
his pistol at a policeman, and looked sideways at the child. Marilyn
Foreman, with her ribbon bow tie and rolled white socks and pale
indomitable face. Marilyn stood in the light and cast no shadow. "No,"
Patsy said. "It's not . . ." Marilyn opened her mouth and spoke, but no

FLOATING DRAGON

121

words issued from her mouth. Patsy heard the sound of a shot, very loud
in the quiet street.

9

"Gary Starbuck is a pro," Dicky Norman told Tabby as they turned onto
the Bridge Road and crossed the Nowhatan. "He's the real thing. Nobody
even knows his real name besides us. Boy, does he have his shit together."

"What do you mean, a pro?"

Both brothers laughed. They were speeding up Greenbank Road, the Olds's
rebuilt engine doing everything but shooting flames out the exhaust.

"He takes things," Bruce said. "Out of people's houses. Man, when he's
done with a house, there's nothing left but termites. I bet Gary
Starbuck makes more money in a year than anybody around here, I bet he's
a fuckin' millionaire, man, the stuff he's got."

"Oh," Tabby said.

"And we're gonna hook up with him," Dicky crowed.

"That's not for me," Tabby quickly put in.

"Oh, not tonight. Tonight we're just going to exercise the Devastator.
In Greenbank. We've got it all timed. We'll get in Greenbank just about
ten minutes after that twink Bobo the Clown pulls out on his way toward
the Post Road. We got that sucker down, man. We know his every move. And
he's gonna look like a real asshole."

"Didn't you just get a few mailboxes in Greenbank?" asked Tabby, who had
seen the evidence of the twins' enthusiasms.

"Yeah, but this is specially for Bobo," said Dicky, rapPing the bat
against the palm of his hand. "And afterward, maybe we can hook up with
Gary Starbuck for a little talk. Unless you think you got to get home,
little buddy."

"I think I do."

||We'll settle that later," Bruce said from the front seat.

"I don't steal from people's houses, and I don't want to meet anybody
who does," Tabby said, his nervousness making him sound prissy. "I don't
even especially want to cave ln my neighbors' mailboxes." Dicky patted
him on the head. "Hey, man."

122

Peter Straub

"It's my neighborhood."

"Hey, it's his neighborhood, man," Bruce said.

Dicky cranked his window down all the way and stuck out the bat just as
they sped around a corner. A mailbox separated from its post with a
crack like the breaking of a neck. Dicky shouted with glee, "Got that
suckah!"

"Hey, we don't want you to do anything special," Bruce said. "We're just
friends, okay?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know, you don't sound too friendly," Dicky said, slapping the
bat against his palm again.

"Burglary's out of my league," Tabby said. "That's all I meant."

"Hey, but this guy takes all the risks," Bruce told him. "We ain't as
dumb as we look."

Tabby said nothing.

"Here comes another one," Dicky said. They were driving near to the
gates of Greenbank Academy. He stuck the bat out the window as Bruce
slowed the car. One-handed, Dicky raised the bat and swung it hard
toward the Academy mailbox. There was a loud flat crumpling sound, and
Dicky whooped again as Bruce sped off.

When Bruce turned up Beach Trail, Tabby protested, "This is right where
I live, you guys."

"Tabs, you're starting to piss me off," Dicky said.

Why am I here? Tabby suddenly wondered. Because these two lumps bought
me a Whopper and a Coke? "This might sound crazy," he said, "but have
you two guys ever thought about becoming cops? I bet you'd be a couple
of great cops."

"Shit," Dicky said, and Bruce simultaneously. "Ain't no vaon-ee, Tabs,
no mon-^e. Hampstead cops all live in Norrington, man, you know that?"

"You get the next one, Tabs," Dicky said. They were circling aimlessly
up Cannon Road, and did not see Bobo Farnsworth's patrol car, which was
parked beside trees on Leo Friedgood's driveway. Leo had stopped turning
on his yard lights.

"You know what I'd really like to do?" Bruce offered. "I'd like to off
somebody really big someday-like the president, man, or John Denver. I'd
like to be the first guy that actually tried to off John Denver."

Dicky pushed the bat into Tabby's chest. "Get on the other side of the
road, Bruce."

FLOATING DRAGON

123

"Not my own," Tabby said, seeing where Bruce was going. "I won't do it."

"Pisses me off."

"Hey, okay."

Bruce swung into Charleston Road and swerved across to the wrong side of
the street. "You better do this one, Tabs."

In anger and despair Tabby thrust the bat out the window, holding the
taped handle with both hands. He had never wanted to do anything less.
The bat met the mailbox with what seemed terrific force, and almost
jolted out of Tabby's hands. "All right," Bruce sighed. "You're blooded,
man." Dicky pounded him on the back. His arms ached from the impact,
which seemed to have traveled undiminished up the bat and registered in
his biceps and shoulders.

Bruce accelerated. "One more for tonight-but lemme tell you about what
we want to do. You know that parking lot in front of the diner, the one
with the big sign that goes around?"

"Hey, some guy's running after us," Dicky called out, amused. "He thinks
he's gonna get the license number. He's clean out of his gourd."

Tabby looked around and saw a man in pajamas pounding after their car. ^ -.

"Bye-bye," Bruce said, and gunned the car around the Beach Trail corner.
He reached in back, and Dicky placed the bat in his hand.

"Hey, I'm almost home," Tabby said hastily. "Why don't you-"

Bruce veered across the road and smacked a mailbox off its post.

As the mailbox sailed over the driveway, they heard the sound of a
police siren coming down Cannon Road.

"Let me out," Tabby insisted.

^Jesus!" Dicky yelled. "Peel!"

"Hey, it's like with Skippy, man," Bruce calmly said to his brother.
"Let's let him out."

Dicky quickly pushed Tabby toward the door.

"Dummy up," he hissed. "You'll be okay. Just dummy up."

Tabby opened the door and scrambled out thirty seconds before Bobo
Farnsworth, siren going and lights flashing, turned into Beach Trail.
Behind Bobo, Les McCloud ran up rrom Charleston Road, waving his gun and
screaming obscenities.

124

Peter Straub

10

In Greenbank, as in most of Hampstead, few lights burned from the
houses. High-voltage yard and security lights lit up the lawns like
stage sets. No one awake on the upper end of Charleston Road, though two
second-story windows were alight in the McCloud house-Patsy and Les were
in different rooms, Bobo Farnsworth deduced with no surprise. Sometime
he would be called there to interrupt a fight, and find that tense
pretty woman with a bulging eye and a broken jaw. And after Les spent a
night in a cell, Patsy would take him back and come up with a story
about falling off a ladder. No lights on in Beach Trail. He turned into
Cannon Road, and saw from the corner that though the yard lights were
off, the living- and dining-room windows in Leo Friedgood's house were
ablaze with light. Insomnia. And he had forgotten to close his curtains.
Unless Leo were stinking drunk, the odds were that he would welcome company.

Bobo pulled his car into the driveway and parked it next to a row of
trees. No need to have a neighbor out for a midnight stroll get the idea
that Hampstead's finest were still questioning Leo Friedgood. As he
looked up toward the lighted win- ] dows he saw a shadow move across the
living-room wall. «Bobo went up the steps and rang the doorbell. I

Friedgood did not answer, and Bobo rang the bell again. i "Who's there?"
called a muffled voice from just on the j other side of the door. |

"It's Officer Farnsworth. I was on my patrol, and I thought I'd stop by
and see if you needed anything."

Friedgood gave no reply. >

"Maybe you just want to talk?"

"Get away from here," the voice said. "You don't sound so good. Are you
all right, Mr. Friedgood?"

The curtains on the windows to Bobo's left slid shut. ;

Friedgood seemed to be uttering panicked, fretful sounds. j

"Open the door, Mr. Friedgood. Let me help you." j

"You think you can help? Open the door." \

Bobo turned the knob and pushed open the door. Almost \

instantly he smelled the odor of burned meat. Friedgood was |

walking away from him into the living room to his left. Bobo !

saw with surprise that Friedgood was wearing a hat. Fried-

FLOATING DRAGON

125

good switched off the living-room lights before he turned around.

Bobo first saw that the man's eyes were covered with dark aviator-style
glasses. The hat was pulled low on his forehead. His hands were gloved.
Half of Friedgood's face seemed puffy, distorted; the other half, from
under the rim of the glasses, and down into the collar of his shirt, was
as red as raw steak. The bushy mustache was gone.

"Stay away," Friedgood said. His lips were white and looked lipsticked.
"I've got something. Don't come any nearer.''

"Who's your doctor?" Bobo got out. Friedgood lifted his right hand and
drew it over the red side of his face. Even in the darkness, Bobo saw
that the glove came away bloody. It looked as though Friedgood had the
world's worst case of acne, and had tried to solve it by cutting off his
skin. Or by burning it off.

"My doctor can't help," Friedgood backed farther into the gloom.
"Satisfied? Now get out. I don't want your cornpany."

Bobo peered at Friedgood hanging back in the dark-the left side of his
face, the puffy side, was as white as his lips. The cheek on that side,
either the bone or the pad of skin over it, appeared to be moving
independently, like a mouse twitching in its sleep. "Take off your hat
and glasses," Bobo said. "Jesus, I never saw anything like it."

He heard what sounded like an explosion from somewhere outside, and his
heart nearly stopped.

Friedgood giggled. A car roared away.

"I'd better get going," Bobo said. "That's another one of those damned
mailboxes. But if I can get anything, help anyhow ..."

"Leave me alone," Friedgood said. "You can't do anything for me, just
get out."

Bobo turned and half-ran out the door, his skin creeping. When he got to
his car he saw that Friedgood had turned off all his lights. Bobo had a
momentary image of the man in that big dark house, his ruined skin
phosphorescently shining . . . and gunned his car into the street,
scattering gravel.

He was looking for the speeding taillights of a car as he swung round
the corner into Charleston Road, but noticed out of the side of his eye
that Les McCloud's mailbox had been

131

Peter Straub

pounded in on one side. As he went by the house, the front door swung
open, releasing a shaft of light-Les going out to inspect the damage.
Bobo cruised by, looking quickly up and down the intersections for a
flash of red light. The vandals could have circled around the little
maze of streets in this section of Greenbank, or they could have turned
down Beach Trail to get to Mount Avenue. That, he bet himself, was what
they would have done.

Then he heard again the popping, banging sound of a mailbox being
destroyed, and he switched on his siren and swung into Beach Trail.

A block down he saw movement, but no car. In front of a weathered old
house a dented mailbox had rolled halfway across the street, and a boy
was stooping to pick it up. When the boy heard the siren, he looked in
Bobo's direction but did not run. He carried the box back toward its stump.

Bobo swung onto the side of the road, cut the lights and the siren, and
got out of his car. "Hold it, son," he said to the boy. "You see any car
going by-you see who did that?"

The boy shook his head, and Bobo stepped nearer. "Hey, I just saw you.
You were with the Normans."

"Yes," Tabby said. "I live up on Hermitage Road. I saw this mailbox in
the street."

"Don't even bother nailing the box to the stump anymore," came a
resonant voice from up on the lawn. Both Tabby and Bobo turned their
heads to see a bent old man in a gray sweatshirt and voluminous white
trousers slowly making his way toward them through the darkness. "If I
did, some harebrain would come along and make it even worse-see, they
gave it a pretty good knock, last time they killed it they didn't even
knock its head off."

Bobo saw the boy give the old man a wild, startled look of recognition:
as if, Bobo thought, the old man was someone famous, some kind of movie
star. Bobo looked at the old man more closely. He was no movie star. A
silvery, gossamer fur clung to his neck and the underside of his chin.
The face was deeply seamed, the cheeks sunken. Eyes bright under
bristling, straggly eyebrows. White hair fell from the back of the man's
bald, freckled crown and floated around his large ears. The face was
withered but powerful. The old man was somebody, Bobo knew instantly,
even if he didn't recognize him, and he altered the tone he would
otherwise have taken.

FLOATING DRAGON

127

The old man took in the boy's astonished stare, which seemed to Bobo to
be widening out with every second, and then turned a humorous glance on
Bobo. "The name is Graham Williams. I don't suppose this boy is the
famous mailbox killer, do you? Are you, boy? You the Ramon Mercador of
mailboxes?"

Neither Bobo nor Tabby recognized the name of Leon Trotsky's assassin,
but Bobo's ear was caught by the old man's name. "Williams-I heard of you."

"Ask Turtle about me," the old man said. "He'll tell you a pack of lies.
Thirty, forty years ago, I got into trouble with a couple of polecats
named Nixon and McCarthy. A whole other bunch of polecats wanted me to
testify before a committee. And I almost-"

Shouts from down the street stopped Bobo from saying that the only
reason he recognized the man's name was that he had heard it from the
Emergency Medical Services team.

All three of them looked toward the source of the shouting. A man in a
flapping bathrobe was running toward them up the street. His bedroom
slippers made a clapping noise on the surface of the road. "Hold it
right there!" he yelled. "I gotcha now!"

Tabby's widening gaze went back to the old man. He whispered something
Bobo did not catch, but which seemed to startle Williams.

The old man reared back and inspected the boy. "You're Monty
Smithfield's grandson? The one they call Tabby?"

"On a boat," Tabby said.

"Hold it yourself, Les," said Bobo, who did not bother trying to make
sense of this exchange. "There's nothing to get excited about." Then
Bobo saw Les's pistol, and he held out his left hand to distract Les
while he undipped the strap on his holster with his right. "Did you see
a car, Les?" Bobo asked quietly.

"Get out of the way and leave your gun in the holster," Les shouted. Now
he was walking, puffing from his run.

'^You're drunk, Les. Put that gun away."

"To hell with you," Les said, and braced himself in the firing position,
both arms out straight and knees slightly bent. "That kid just destroyed
my property."

"You got the wrong boy," Bobo said. Over Les's shoulder he could see
Patsy rounding the corner from Charleston Road.

132

Peter Straub

She seemed to be moving in a daze, and stopped to stare at a lamppost
almost as raptly as the kid was staring at Graham Williams.

"And that's Patsy Tayler," the old man said. "She's got that bony Tayler
face. Can't you get that man to drop his gun?"

"You're shielding a vandal!" Les screamed.

"Les," Bobo said quietly, "are you crazy? If you don't put that gun
down, I'll have to drop you."

' 'Get out of the way!''

Graham Williams stepped in front of Tabby. "I suppose that's your wife
back there," he said in a carrying voice.

The muzzle flashed, the pistol made a sound louder than a cough, softer
than a thunderclap. Les whirled around after firing, and let the pistol
dangle in his fingers. Patsy had begun to race toward him.

Bobo had his .44 in his hand, aiming it at Les McCloud's back. He
realized with gratitude that this would not be the first time he had to
fire his revolver on duty. Les McCloud was tottering like a man on
stilts. "Don't! Don't!" Patsy was shouting as she ran. The pistol
dropped from Les's hand and clattered on the ground. A second later Les
sat down like an infant, his legs bowing out. Bobo heard old Williams
exhaling, and quickly checked to see that he and the boy were unharmed.
Williams had his arm around the boy's shoulders. "Stay there," he
ordered, and walked toward Les and Patsy.

As he went he could hear Les sobbing with rage. Bobo bent and picked up
the gun, which was a short-barreled .22.

"I aimed over your head, you bastard," Les told him. Then he turned his
red, bloated face to his wife. "Get the hell out of here, Patsy. I don't
want to see you."

"Jesus, I ought to take you in and lock you up," Bobo said. "What the
hell do you think you're doing? You could be put away for this. What do
you suppose you'd get for attempted murder? Fifteen years? Twenty?"

"I was protecting my property." He was still crying, and he clamped his
eyes shut.

"You dumb ass," Bobo said. Then, to Patsy: "You going to be okay? You
want me to take him in for tonight?"

Patsy shook her head. She looked stricken and half-dead with shock, but
determined. A good lady, Bobo thought to himself, too good for this jerk
here.

"I'll take him home, Bobo," she whispered. "Please."

FLOATING DRAGON

129

"No, you won't," Les said, still sitting in the middle of the street
with his legs out before him.

Patsy reached out to him, but he swatted her hand away.

"You're getting your tail home," Bobo said, and put his hands under
Les's arms and lifted him to his feet. "You come around to the station
in a couple of days for this twenty-two. And I want to see your permit."

"I got a permit," Les grumped.

"If I hadn't just eaten dinner with you, you'd be facing at least
reckless use of a firearm. That's the least."

"I aimed over your head." Les reeled sideways, then straightened himself
with the aplomb of a long-term drinker.

"With this shitty gun, that's more dangerous than aiming at me," Bobo
said. "Get home."

Les took a few staggering steps up the street. When Patsy tried to take
his arm to steady him, he batted at her.

"Let him go," Bobo said. "Jesus, that's the first time anybody took a
shot at me, and I don't even get the satisfaction of an arrest." He
looked at Patsy's drawn face. "How are you?''

"Not so good," Patsy said. "Do you have to ask?"

"Give him half an hour. Maybe you better sleep in the spare room tonight."

Patsy nodded. "Does anybody around here have a cup of coffee?"

133 Graham Again

"You killed a man," was what Tabby had whispered to me as crazy Les
McCloud was yelling at us to hold it. Luckily, the big cop didn't catch
the words, but even if he had, I don't suppose he would have run me in.
I took my first good look at the kid. Up until then, I'd been thinking
that he was just some kind of rich juvenile delinquent. He was old
Monty's grandson, the one he had lost after having such hope for him.
Losing him had been at least half Monty's fault, I knew- he'd always
been too rough on Clark. All the old faces are dying out, they're all
turning into the same round bland American potato-face, but in this kid
I could see some Tabb, that's where he got the big wide eyes and fair
hair, and a lot more Smithfield. Monty and Clark had once had the same
sensible chin and generous forehead, but they had turned flinty in Monty
and self-pitying in Clark.

"On a boat," the boy said.

And I knew.

He had the gift-that gift that never makes anybody happy, that bitches
up lives right and left. The boy had seen me and Bates Krell out on the
lobster boat that night in 1924, it had just unrolled behind his eyes
like some kind of movie, and he was starting to shake. The last time I'd
seen anybody with the gift so strong it was old Josephine Tayler, and
she'd been shut away before she was forty.

Some people have the gift only for a minute or two, and then spend the
rest of their lives wondering if it really happened-as I wondered after
I met Bates Krell-and other people have it hung around their necks all
their lives. I wouldn't want to be one of them. I can remember damn near
everything that happened to me, but there are some things it makes me
dizzy and short of breath to bring back. The first

130

FLOATING DRAGON

131

time I saw Bates Krell, in pure fact everything that has to do with
Bates Krell, is in that category. And part of that package is the
afternoon on his boat. That this kid with the matter-offact Smithfield
chin could see it when he looked at me scared me a lot worse than Les
McCloud's pistol, which he started waving around at about this point.

Right then I saw Patsy Tayler, Les's wife, kind of wandering toward us.
At first I thought she was drunk, since her husband was obviously
stinko. But she was not drunk. I knew that a second later. I knew that
she was sober, and seeing something the rest of us could not see. She
was another like the Smithfield boy. The gift had skipped a generation
in the Tayler family and gone straight from Josephine to her
granddaughter. I'd seen this wispy girl grow up pretty near, not
counting the years I was in California and the three years I spent
abroad, and I'd never seen before that she'd inherited something besides
Josephine's endearing good looks.

And that rocked me too. Maybe if Tabby hadn't said what he did about me
killing a man on a boat, I would have gone on thinking that the Tayler
girl was just a drunk like her husband. But he had said it, you see, and
that took me back into the one time in my life when I was at least a
little bit like those two. I looked back at Tabby and then at Patsy
again, and they were alike. For a second it was like looking at two
photographic negatives, two people light where they should have been
dark and dark where they should have been light. I felt pity and love
and fear: fear because even then I knew that the appearance of two such
people-no, these two people- in this one particular square mile of earth
meant the coming of awful things, that we were all going to be shaken up
as if by an earthquake, by a volcano, by an old-time Kansas twister. I
didn't have to know anything about Ted Wise and DRG-16 to foresee that.

And then right on cue, the world told me I was right. None of the others
saw it, they were all looking at poor drunk Les and his peashooter, but
I looked up and saw a bird falling right out of the sky. Dead. It landed
on my lawn not far from the stump where I set my mailbox, a little
squashy puffball of feathers.

"Get out of the way!" Les screamed, and I got myself moving. I put
myself right in front of Tabby. Because if things were going to be so
bad, I'd rather be dead myself, as dead as the fallen bird, than live to
see it. Certainly better me

134

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

135

their hooks. The two of them, sitting silently and nervously on my
kitchen chairs, set up reverberations so strong. Having seen so much in
each other, they could not speak. They would not have known where to
begin, the subject of their commonality was so vast.

It was as though they were two old lovers who decades ago had destroyed
their marriages, abandoned their children, left an entire town flaming
with outrage and rumor; or two generals who had once jointly directed a
massacre. You see where I am going with these farfetched comparisons.
Part of the immensity of the feeling that made me turn away from them
was shame-guilt, too. They had learned to repress and hide their
differences from other people. Now each was face to face with the one
person who instantly saw through that disguise. They exposed each other.
And this was much more difficult for Patsy than for the boy: she had
lived longer with her disguise, and it was thinner than Tabby's.

At last I could stand it no longer. "We might as well speak," I said,
and took three cups to the blackened pot on the range.

They stirred on their chairs, and pretended to be interested in the
scars on the wooden table.

I set the coffee down before them. Tabby muttered his thanks, and Patsy
sort of minimally nodded.

"The two of you know what you are," I said. "And if you don't want to
talk about that in front of me, that's fine. I know a little bit about
it anyhow-at least enough to recognize it when I see it." Tabby was
looking at me alertly, Patsy concentrated on her cup. "And I knew your
grandmother, Patsy. I remember what she was like and what she could do,
though ninety percent of the people in this town just thought she was a
good-looking woman who had a screw loose somewhere."

Patsy glanced up at me. "Was she attractive? I never knew her before she
was . . . um . . . before."

"As attractive as you are yourself," I said. "And she chose to leave the
world, to put it that way. Nobody cornmitted her. She wanted to be
there-I think she saw too many monstrosities on the outside-she didn't
feel she could face them anymore."

I could not have selected a better noun. She had just used it herself in
her diary.

"Monstrosities, yes," Patsy said, almost relaxing for the

first time. The dishes would have stopped rattling, the cups ceased to
revolve. "I'm afraid I've become familiar with monstrosities."

She darted an inquisitive look at the boy, silently and shyly asking a
question. I think it was the first time in twenty years that Patsy had
ever, even so slightly, imagined that there might be this comfort in her
talent, that it might be shared. But Tabby shook his head; and then he
saved it for her. "I guess I have too. From when I was a little kid. One
time. Maybe twice-I don't remember."

"Maybe three," I said. "Don't forget me and Bates Krell on his boat."

Tabby swallowed, and Patsy kept glancing at him as if he were about to
burst into flame.

"Well, what have you seen?" I asked her.

Startled, she lifted her head. "You say you knew my grandmother. What
did she see?"

"She knew when people were going to die," I told her flatly. "That's
what I gathered, anyhow."

"I want to go home," Tabby said.

"Do you see people die?" Patsy half-whispered to him.

"How do you mean? Once I saw a guy get stabbed in a bar where my father
worked."

"So Clark was a bartender. That must have given Monty the black-and-blue
fits," I said. "But you know what she means, Tabby. Did you ever see it
before it happened?"

Reluctantly he nodded. "Okay, if you have to know. I saw something when
I was five. It was that woman, that Mrs. Friedgood, getting killed."

"Did you see who did it?" I asked, trying to stay calm. I was dog-tired,
and my chest hurt: I was beginning to realize how much of the
unthinkable was opening up before us.

"Sort of."

I kept looking at him, and he sipped at the coffee. "It was a long time
ago." Then he glared at me with a fifteen-yearold's resentment. "What do
you know about it, anyhow?" For a second I thought he would cry, he must
have been thrust back into that moment with his father and grandfather
»n JFK airport, but he refused to show that weakness before us- I got
the full blast of his resentment again. "Nothing's worse than that. You
think it's fun to have stuff like that happen in your head?"

136

Peter Straub

All during Tabby's speech, Patsy kept up a silent accompaniment of nods.

Mrs. Friedgood probably thought there was something worse, I almost
said, but could not. The atmosphere in that room was extraordinary.
Patsy and Tabby had united at last, even if it was against me. They had
found each other; they could admit to themselves that they had found
each other, with all that involved, and the release of emotion was like
what you feel when you open the door of a blazing woodstove.

"He's right," Patsy said, reaching across the table to take Tabby's hand.

"To an extent."

"Is that what you think? Is that all you know? Do you know what it feels
like to think-to know-that you're going crazy?"

"I did when I saw Bates Krell for the first time," I said. "And when I
went out behind the Sawtell Country Club with John Sayre's wife and saw
John dead on the grass with a pistol still in his hand." They could have
made me weep then, with their beauty and their certainty. "I'll tell you
all about that, because I'll have to. There are things you both have to
learn."

"Why?" Tabby asked. Patsy's support made him almost belligerent.

"Why?" I echoed him mildly. "For one reason, because Johnny Sayre was a
decent and brave man. His ghost deserves that you know what I think the
real story of his suicide was. And for another, because the three of us
are connected. Connected by history, which is something I know about, at
least in this part of the world." I smiled at him. "I could tell you
about it, but I'd rather show you."

"Show me?"

"Would you mind taking a short walk? You too, Patsy. It'll only take
five minutes, even for me."

"I'm not going to that house," Tabby said. He blinked when he realized I
didn't know what he meant. "The Friedgood house."

"No." I understood. He had been driven to look at it already. The day of
the murder? During the murder? At that moment, I began to fear for him;
for Patsy too; and for myself. I believed him, but I could have no
guarantee that he would believe the crazy story I would tell him; the
more so

FLOATING DRAGON

137

since it was less a story than a messy assemblage of hints and
intuition. "I don't suppose you ever heard of the Dragon?"

Two blank looks met me.

"And I suppose you don't know that your name wasn't always Smithfield,"
I said to Tabby.

He shook his head: disbelief was already setting in.

"I'll just get a flashlight," I said.

The English term for "flashlight" is "torch," Richard Allbee reminded me
when he looked at these pages, and my big heavy-duty emergency flash
certainly glowed like a torch as we went down Beach Trail to Mount
Avenue in the middle of the night. I was thinking of those other torches
that came waving down this road, but the other two were not. They
impatiently went before me, trying to get me to speed up I guess so they
could get it over with and go home.

At the corner I could hear the sea hissing and slapping on the stretch
of private beaches up from Gravesend Beach. A few forlorn streetlamps
burned in the mist just beginning to appear in the lower patches of
Mount Avenue. Down by the long drive to the Van Home house, a tall
looming tree picked out by the light was skull-shaped, the point of the
chin nearly touching the ground and the great round crown far up in the
black sky. "Just a little way down," I said.

I suddenly felt rejuvenated-my chest stopped paining me, my back
straightened enough to remind me of what it was like to be young. I'd
need more of this, if everything I thought was true.

"The Dragon had a name," I said, making the most of the opportunity to
be cryptic, and led them along the high stone wall toward the Academy.

In a bank of dark green myrtle my "torch" found the low marker, a bronze
plate set in granite, the beachside trail, read the first line.

"Five, six years ago the Historical Society put this thing here," I
said. "Nobody ever stops to read it, of course. Which might be okay,
since it tells about a tenth of the real story. But look at the names.
Read them out loud."

Patsy silently read the stuff about this being the site of the first
settlement here, and when she got to the names of the

138

Peter Straub

farmers, she read them out. "Ebenezer Williams, Roger Smyth, Josiah
Green, and Benjamin Tayler."

"Okay," I said. "You're a Tayler, I'm a Williams, and Tabby is a Smyth.
They changed their name around 1880 when a Smyth bought up all this land
here-he thought Smithfield sounded grander than Smyth, I guess. His
grandson sold the whole thing after the Civil War, and eventually the
Vanderbilts bought it and put up the building the school uses now. But
the name stayed."

"So what?"

"We're the last of these families, for one thing. That's important. Now
I almost think that the last Green descendant has to be here somewhere
in town-"

"Well, he is," Patsy said. "I had dinner with him and his wife tonight.
Richard Allbee. He just bought the house across the street from you."

"Does he have children?"

"His wife is pregnant," Patsy said.

They were the people I had seen pulling into the driveway of the Sayre
house.

"But there's another name," Tabby said, leaning over to read the raised
lettering. "It's-"

"It's the Dragon," I said. "That's what they called him."

Tabby read the sentence out loud. "In 1645 a fifth farmer named Gideon
Winter joined these men."

"I wonder if they used that wording on purpose," I said. "But that would
be to presuppose that Gideon Winter wasn't a man, and I guess he must
have been-a man in most senses, anyway. Born like others, more ambitious
than most. Or just greedier. Well, not 'just.' I can't think he was
'just' anything."

And now the darkness around the area I was illuminating depressingly
reminded me of everything I did not and would never know about Gideon
Winter, and I switched off the big emergency flash. The sea rattled on
the private beaches down the cliffs on the other side of the mansions.

"Two years after Gideon Winter's arrival," I told them, "most of the
crops failed. There are no records of livestock sold, so I think most of
the stock died." Patsy and Tabby were dimly back-lighted by the
streetlamp at the entrance to Gravesend Beach. Because of the mist, the
night was very slightly chilly. They still didn't get it. "In three
years, most of the children were dead too. The first church was up the

FLOATING DRAGON

139

hill-Clapboard Hill in those days, but it doesn't have a name now-and
that's where the children were buried. It would have been very near
where your house is now, on Hermitage. Remember they had big families in
those days. Five to eight children in a family was common. By 1648 our
families were lucky to have one or two left. And Gideon Winter owned
most of Greenbank. He had no children, at least none that were
legitimate. All that is what they didn't put on the marker. And maybe it
didn't happen. Maybe I just made it up out of sketchy old parish
records. But Winter wound up with most of the land. And they did call
him the Dragon. I can show it to you in the books." Now I felt exhausted
again: my rejuvenation had been brief. I was breathing hard and I wanted
to sit down.

"What happened to Gideon Winter?" Patsy asked.

"I think they finally killed him," I said. "I think they finally decided
he was a devil instead of a man, and killed him." I didn't just want to
sit down, I wanted to go to bed. Twenty-five years ago, I would have
pulled a flask out of my pocket and had a couple belts of good cognac.
"But that wasn't the crime, not the real crime. That was the response of
a bunch of barely literate, superstitious farmers. The real crime was
what their victim had done to them."

"But how could anybody do that-make crops and animals die? Make children
die?" Tabby asked. He didn't sound shocked, but I heard in his voice
that he had given up his belligerence and was almost interested enough
to be believing me now.

"I hope we never have to find out," I said. "I don't even think we
could. We're twentieth-century people. They were mid-seventeenth-century
people, and for all practical purposes they lived on the edge of an
endless forest. They believed in magic, in witches and demons."

I let them think for a second about what they believed in. "But here's
one fact for you. Patsy, you and your husband moved here how long ago?
Eight, nine months?" She nodded. "And, Tabby, your grandfather died
about three months ago. So you've been in 'Four Hearths,' what, six
weeks?" He too nodded. "And Mary Green's son moved back to Hampstead
only days ago, I suppose. Williams, Smyth, Tayler, Green. Their
descendants haven't all been together here since before World War II.
The Taylers lived in New York. Tabby's grandfather lived in New York
until he moved

140

Peter Straub

Smithfield Systems to Woodville in 1950. No member of the Green family
has lived near Greenbank since 1944 or '45, I forget which, when Mary
went out to California. Williams, Smyth, Tayler, Green. We're back. This
place is ours, do you see? That's magic, if you like."

"And if we're back, you're saying ..." Patsy began.

"Yes. If we are, maybe he is too. Because it's not just that you have
come back, but come back so strong, if you see what I mean."

Tabby said, "That's screwy."

"I'm on your side, kid," I said. "Just protect your flank. When I first
met Bates Krell, I had a damn funny experience. I thought I was looking
at a devil, and I'm an agnostic. I've always thought politics was a hell
of a lot more interesting than theology."

We began to go back toward Beach Trail in the dark. I didn't have the
heart to turn on the torch again. It was screwy, as Tabby said, but with
the streetlamps way up on Mount Avenue shining on the huge trees on both
sides of the road, I could almost feel myself back in the world I had
tried to resurrect for them, a world that was a few poor farms on the
crumbling edge of a great forest. Patsy and Tabby kept trying to sneak
looks at each other when the other wouldn't notice. Huge black wings
were unfolded over us all. I thought so, I still hoped not.

That was the night the Norman twins met Gary Starbuck in the parking lot
of a Post Road diner and began to set up their big score; three nights
before a Hampstead policeman named Royce Griffen shot himself in his car.

We stopped before my house. I sighed. The tasks, both tasks, seemed
impossible. "Will you meet with me once more? Talk it over, do what you
like, but I think we have to see each other again. Tabby, maybe you
could arrange to run into this Richard Allbee. It might help convince
you somehow, if it's like ..." I nodded toward Patsy. "Another meeting?"

Reluctantly they agreed. We went toward our separate houses in the misty
intermittent dark.

FLOATING DRAGON

4

141

When you think about it, what could I have said to them? A being who
killed animals and children three centuries ago is now murdering women
in our little corner of Connecticut? And this same being was a
lobsterman in 1924, when I looked at him from Rex Road across the
Nowhatan and almost fainted because I knew I had seen the face of evil?
And that someone we might even know, someone who moved freely through
Hampstead, now wore that face?

Give me a break, Tabby could have said, and I would not have blamed him.
Especially since what I had already told him and Patsy was that they and
I and this Richard Allbee character had made him stronger just by being
in Greenbank. And had meant that Gideon Winter was only a part of the
madness hurtling toward us. Wake up, I really should have said,
sleepyhead wake up, but I didn't know that then.

143

FLOATING DRAGON

143

Not long after Graham Williams finally confessed his idea to Patsy
McCloud and Tabby Smithfield-about the time that Dr. Van Home was
picking through the antique shops of Patchin County for the right mirror
to hang on the space he had cleared on his wall-Pat Dobbin became
concerned enough about the white spots which speckled his shoulders,
chest, and arms to see his doctor. This was Tuesday, June 3. Dobbin
still could not think that the spots meant that anything was seriously
wrong with him. He certainly did not imagine that he had any sort of
disease. He went to his doctor because he did not want the white spots
to spread to his face.

In this regard, Dobbin's doctor was not very satisfactory. He did not
produce a tube of salve (Dobbin's fantasy) and say, "Rub this on the
area twice a day and your problem will disappear." Instead, he examined
the spots carefully and asked a lot of questions about where they had
begun and how quickly they had spread. He had leafed through a textbook
on diseases of the skin and found nothing that quite corresponded to
Dobbin's affliction. He had all but scratched his head. Instead of a
salve, what the doctor produced was an appointment at the Yale Medical
Center in New Haven.

Dobbin drove to the medical center two days later, still* thinking that
his congenial expensive doctor had overlooked! some simple explanation.
Parking his car, walking into thCI vast modern structure which was the
medical center, he still felt a robustly healthy man. He knew he was
booked in foil three days, but he saw this time as a kind of eccentric
vaca| tion-he brought pencils and sketch pads, intending to con-l tinue
his work. |

The first morning his clothes were taken from him and hei was swabbed,
scratched, and stabbed thirty times for a series!

142 I

of allergy tests; he was X-rayed and wired up to a variety of machines,
only a few of which he recognized. Doctors came into his room in such
number that he never got their names straight. They seemed to enjoy his
skin condition far more than they did him. One doctor told him that
every bite of food he took would have to be weighed and measured;
another who looked as though he had just graduated from high school told
him that all of his waste would have to be examined-he could not use the
toilet in his room. The white stuff coating his lesions was scraped from
his hands and shoulders by a man-a doctor?-with Coke-bottle glasses and
stringy hair to his shoulders.

By Dobbin's second day, he no longer felt healthy. He learned that he
was mildly allergic to certain pollens, certain kinds of pipe tobacco,
cat hair, and starch. Even his unaffected skin was inflamed and bruised
from the results of these tests. His blood pressure and cholesterol
levels were high, his red count was low, he had a vitamin B12 shortage.
One of the vertebrae in his lower back was a quarter-inch too close to
the next vertebra, so he had an incipient back problem, he had low-grade
sinusitis and a very slight heart murmur and his liver was damaged. On
top of everything else, one of the doctors informed him in passing that
he could probably expect to develop gallstones sometime in the next five
to ten years.

But none of this explained what was happening to his skin.

On the morning of his third day, the senior doctor assigned to him asked
if he wouldn't mind staying in another four days.

He was popular for his sketches of the doctors and the dayshift nurses.
He became so institutionalized that he watched television all day long.
He ate and drank what they gave him and eliminated into Tupperware.

He answered what seemed to be several million questions about his life
and habits. He listed every place he had been in the past decade, all of
his living relatives, the liquor he drank, his sexual partners. The
answers to this question created, he thought, a little stir on the
fourth floor: New Haven was not so far from Hampstead.

On the fifth day Dobbin noticed the first of the lesions on his face, a
tiny white speck at one corner of his mouth.

On the sixth, his next to last, day in the medical center, the senior
doctor entered his room and sat in the chair by the bed.

144

Peter Straub

By now of course Dobbin knew his name, Dr. Chaney; he had drawn half a
dozen much-appreciated caricatures of his face, which was aloof and
thin, underslung, like a giraffe's. Chaney smiled at Dobbin and perhaps
absentmindedly began to take his pulse. "We've been looking very
carefully at the material taken from your lesions, Mr. Dobbin," he said.

"Nice of you," Dobbin replied.

Chaney dropped his wrist and looked up from his watch. "It turned out to
be a bit of a surprise for us. We found that it is a liquefied
integument containing melanin, sebum, the cells of blood vessels and
lymph channels, the characteristic material of nerve endings, epithelium
cells, in short all the matter to be found in the dermis and epidermis."

"So it's skin," Dobbin said. He had recognized the last two nouns.

"Correct."

"That white stuff is skin."

"Correct again."

"Well ..." Dobbin lolled handsomely back against his raised pillow. "I
don't get it. What does it mean?"

"That your skin in a sense is becoming colloidal, not connected. And the
function of skin is that it is connective-that is the meaning of
integument." Dr. Chaney helpfully linked his fingers together to
demonstrate. "Not many laymen think of it this way, but our skin is an
organ, just as the heart and liver are organs. In your case, this organ
is spontaneously losing the characteristics of a solid." He smiled
again. "You're rather a rare bird, Mr. Dobbin. Your skin is liquefying."

Dobbin could not speak.

"Now, you're scheduled to go home tomorrow. And I think we will keep to
that schedule. I shall want to see you back here in a week-"

Dobbin interrupted. "You mean I'm not allergic to anything? I don't have
VD or cancer or what the hell, the mumps or even pimples? What are you
guys going to do to stop me from turning into a puddle?"

"Well, you do have some allergies," the doctor said. "But that isn't the
problem with your skin. That problem can only be a reaction to something
you have encountered-like an infection, but in this case there is no
virus and no bacterial cause. We are going to take some further samples
of your skin, from both the affected and the unaffected areas, and

FLOATING DRAGON

145

we'll turn our computers loose on the problem. We will come up with some
possibilities, Mr. Dobbin."

"You mean you hope you will."

"Our computers can assemble data faster than a roomful of researchers
working twenty-four hours a day. We'll find out what sort of agent might
cause a reaction such as yours. Then we will be able to halt the
reaction. After that a few skin grafts will see you back to normal,
should they be necessary."

"Jesus."

"There is nothing to worry about at this point," Chaney said. "Let's
just leave it all to the computers, shall we?"

"Do we have a choice?"

Dobbin spent another day with the game shows, the soap operas, and
made-for-television movies. His mind, protecting itself, chimed with
commercial jingles for designer jeans and mouthwash. He ate three more
hospital meals and slept with the aid of a powerful tranquilizer. Dr.
Chaney did not appear again in his room, but the young doctor with
cobweb hair came along to poke another needle in his hand, slice off an
inch-long section of skin, and tape a thick bandage over the wound.

The hospital released his clothes, his car keys, and his money, and gave
him an appointment card for his return. Half in a daze, he drove back
down 1-95 to Hampstead. This was the day of the third murder, though
neither Dobbin nor anyone else in Hampstead would know it had happened
until two days later.

When he turned into his driveway, his house looked smaller than he had
remembered it. His mailbox was jammed with bills, magazines, and fliers
with supermarket coupons.

Dobbin marked the date of his return to the medical center on his
calendar. He wandered into his workroom and watered the plants. After he
sat down at his draftsman's table, he looked through the drawings he had
done-half of them he destroyed. Dobbin began again. This time he gave
Baldur the Bad, the evil magician of The Eagle-Bear Stories, the face of
Dr. Chaney.

146

Peter Straub

2

While Pat Dobbin was in New Haven waiting to hear that he had contracted
some new kind of super-herpes (for that had been his latest, and last,
fantasy about the origin of his lesions), Hampstead suffered the
visitation of an unseasonal flu. In the first week of May, there had
been the usual wave of colds, brought on by the shift in the weather;
but the flu was a winter affliction; it had no place in the first week
of June.

For example, this was the last week of school at J. S. Mill, and the
teachers were busy with year-end reports and grade computations. The
students were supposed to be studying for their final exams. But the
principal and four of his staff, too weak to get out of bed, missed the
entire week. Tabby's class had a particularly large number of
victims-forty of the one hundred and five sophomores missed at least
three days of school.

Graham Williams spent three days moving, when he had to move, from his
bed to his toilet and back again-he was too sick to think further about
the subject he had brought up to Patsy McCloud and Tabby Smithfield.

Les McCloud felt a pain in his gut as he was driving home from the
police station after showing his permit and getting a lecture from Bobo
Farnsworth-his forehead began to drip perspiration, and he stopped his
car on the stretch of Greenbank Road which paralleled the thruway and
staggered out in time to vomit into a patch of wild chicory. Just as he
was wiping his mouth, his bowels burst into agony and exploded.' He lay
down in the weeds and toed off his loafers. He] thanked God he was not
at his office in New York. Les un-i buckled his belt and pushed off his
trousers. Within view of] several dozen cars proceeding up 1-95, he
gingerly removed; his boxer shorts and tossed them aside. Then his
stomach j convulsed, and he threw up again. He felt like Job. Panting,^
he waited for his bowels to trumpet again, which they did. I Then he
wiped himself with weeds, slid his trousers on, and 1 staggered back to
his car. He drove the rest of the way home| very slowly. As soon as he
got inside the front door, he began! yelling for Patsy.

At Greenblatt's checkout counter only two of the girls I showed up for
work all the first week of June. Bobo Farnsworth never got sick, and so
he found himself filling in for

FLOATING DRAGON

147

those who did: he worked twelve-hour shifts for two weeks straight,
twelve on and eight off, and when Ronnie was finally able to get out of
bed she made him his favorite dinner at eight o'clock in the
morning-southern-fried chicken and hash-browns. "What's it like out
there these days?" she asked him. Ronnie herself could not eat the
chicken; the smell of the oil turned her stomach. "Like a hospital,"
Bobo said. "I hope the killer's puking his guts out, damn him."

Hampstead's doctors saw their waiting rooms crowded with people they
could not help. "It's a new strain," they told the victims. "There's no
magic pill, just drink plenty of liquids and stay in bed."

The victims told each other: "The worst part is, you know it's not going
to kill you." This was not completely accurate. Nobody who caught it
actually wished to die, but several did. They were all male, and all
over sixty. Graham Williams was lucky to have survived. Harry Zimmer
followed Babe to Gravesend Cemetery only three weeks after her death. He
felt a tickle in his throat while fishing orT the breakwater Monday
morning, and thought he must have caught a cold from Lee Wilcox, who had
marched next to him, carrying the VFW flag, in the Memorial Day parade.
By afternoon his nose was streaming, and his head ached. He disgusted
one of the summer people, a chunky New York blond with sunglasses stuck
in her hair, by sneezing all over her in the supermarket when he
couldn't get his handkerchief out in time. The next day he nearly
fainted when he tried to get out of bed. The freezer was full of frozen
fish, but he was too weak to thaw and cook it. His only food for a day
and a half was bourbon, peanut butter, and a yellowing lettuce he found
in the crisper at the bottom of his refrigerator. He had a quart of
milk, but it had turned bad-since Babe's death, Harry's housekeeping was
erratic. He called his doctor twice, and both times the line was busy.
He died in bed on the fifth night of the illness, never knowing that Lee
Wilcox had died too. Harry's grandson discovered him a day later.

Four of the five older men who died were members of Hampstead's VFW
post, and two were members of J. S. Mill's class of 1921, which meant
that Graham Williams became the last surviving member of that class.
"I'm a walking reunion," he told Tabby months later. "Now I owe it to my
class to live forever." The fifth man, Dr. Harold Rubin, was a New York
psychiatrist who came to Hampstead every sum-

148

Peter Straub

mer and took a house on "Shrinks' Row," a series of pastel frame houses
on a spit of land off the Millpond where cars were not allowed. Dr.
Rubin caught a cold on his second day in Hampstead, took his sloop out
anyhow, and two hours later thought he was seasick. His excellent lunch
from the country club went overboard. He never made it to the cocktail
party that evening given by his summer neighbor, Dr. Harvey Blau. He
would have driven back to New York that night, but he did not think he
could walk all the way to the parking lot at the end of the leafy
mile-long spit of land. He died on the bathroom floor the next day, and
his remains were not discovered until September. By that time, all his
neighbors were dead too, though not from the flu.

Hampstead's only other fatality during these ten days was a
seventy-year-old woman who died of a heart attack while eating lunch on
the terrace of a French restaurant overlooking Main Street. Unlike Dr.
Rubin, the elderly woman died in full view of fifteen to twenty
citizens, Tabby Smithfield and Patsy McCloud among them.

For ten to fifteen days, Hampstead's doctors were under siege. The flu,
which seemed to be local and spontaneous, doubled, tripled, quadrupled
itself during this initial period. If, during this time, they saw
patients with other complaints, they barely had time to properly attend
to their symptoms: in any case, the few people who turned up complaining
of the sudden appearance of ugly white spots on their hands or shoulders
did not require immediate help. For a month after the initial wave of
flu patients, the disease continued, though with less intensity, and the
doctors still were not alarmed if the patients with the tiny skin
lesions returned with a few more of them; in fact they paid no
particular attention to these patients until another doctor sent a man
to the Yale Medical Center and word came back about Pat Dobbin, who by
midJuly was in full-time care. Soon after the second, and then the
third, patient arrived at the medical center, Dr. Chaney had submitted a
paper to The Lancet, the British medical journal, on the subject of what
he called "Dobbin's Syndrome." By September Dr. Chaney could add a
footnote to his article, alluding to the events of May 17 and the
accidental exposure of Hampstead's citizens to DRG-16. He speculated
that the missing researcher, Thomas Gay, was very likely the first
victim of the syndrome he had identified but concluded with a defense of
the name he had given it: "It may seem that

FLOATING DRAGON

149

'Gay's Syndrome' should be adopted as the appellation for these
symptoms, but for several medical reasons I hold to the original
appellation. Patrick Dobbin was the first patient presenting these
symptoms to the profession, and his surname is irresistibly literary
(Vanity Fair); and I submit that this is in many of its 'unmedicaF and
'spiritual' characteristics a prototypically literary and Victorian
disease."

Perhaps Dr. Chaney deserved what his patient had done to him in his
illustrations.

On the Tuesday morning that Dobbin first went to see his doctor, Tabby
Smithfield sat in the kitchen with his father, eating pancakes Sherri
had made. "Come on, eat a couple anyhow," Clark said. "You're acting
like the cook around here."

Sherri had perched herself on a stool before the range. "That's how you
treat me, why shouldn't I act that way?"

Clark flushed, and swabbed up maple syrup with a section of pancake.
"This is our home," he tried again. "I want you to eat with us. You're
sitting there like a vulture."

"Come on, Dad," Tabby said.

"I don't feel good," Sherri admitted. "I couldn't eat nothing."

"You sick?" Clark looked again at Sherri, who did not in the least
resemble a vulture. Her face was pale and doughy, her eyes puffy. Black
roots were visible at the part in her hair.

"I want to go lie down. But I have to clean the kitchen first."

"Suit yourself," Clark said.

Clark was no longer the slim young man who had played ball with Tabby on
the lawn before the Mount Avenue house. His body had thickened, a
network of red veins had blossomed over his cheekbones. The petulance
Graham Williams had noticed was now a permanent part of his features,
and it spoiled what had been handsomeness. In fact, Tabby, who had
finished his breakfast and was waiting to talk to his father, could see
none of Clark's old attractiveness in the porcine face across the table.
"Why don't you try to get some rest, Sherri?" he asked his stepmother.

150

Peter Straub

"Let her do what she wants," Clark said. "When's the school bus come,
anyhow?"

"About fifteen minutes."

"So read a book, do some homework. How's it going at school anyhow, Tabs?"

"Pretty fair."

Clark shrugged.

"How's your work going?" Tabby asked.

"How's my work going, he asks. Like work, that's how it's going. You'll
find out."

"You going to see some accounts today?"

"That's what they pay me for, kid."

"What accounts?"

Clark put his napkin on the table and gave Tabby a flat glare. "You want
to know what accounts I'm going to today? Okay. Bloomingdale's. That
satisfy you? Caldor's. A couple others in Woodville. Then I get over to
Mount Kisco and Pound Ridge. Satisfied?"

"He won't give a straight answer," Sherri said from her stool. "Don't
even try."

"Hey, lay off, okay? What's it to you, anyway? I work, I come home.
That's enough. I don't have to pass an exam on it."

"I was just interested, Dad."

"Okay. But do I pump you about school? Do I ask you who your friends
are, what you do at night? Do I? Hell no. I got enough of that from my
old man. You do what you want, that's fine with me."

"Did you know that our name wasn't always Smithfield?" Tabby asked quietly.

"I suppose it used to be Morales," Clark said, and Sherri got off her
stool and left the room.

"She looks sick," Tabby said.

"She's sick of Hampstead, that's what she's sick of. You'd think she'd
be grateful to be in a house like this. Don't worry about her, Tabs.
She'll adjust."

"I sure hope so."

His father snorted; wiped his lips with a napkin. "What's that garbage
about our name?"

"I heard it used to be Smyth. With ay."

"News to me. Where did you hear that?"

"A kid at school."

FLOATING DRAGON

151

"Well, I don't know. Don't pay any attention about what those kids say.
Just do your work, okay?"

"Okay."

"Anything else on your mind, Tabs?"

Tabby shook his head, and his father stood up. In a minute he would be
gone; when he came home he would be drunk. "Well, maybe," Tabby said.

Clark waited silently.

"Do you know anything about a fisherman being killed on his boat a long
time ago, here in town? I know it sounds crazy."

"What the hell. Tabby. Go out to the bus stop." Clark pulled his suit
jacket from a chair and turned toward the kitchen door.

"His name was Bates Krell."

"Never heard of him."

"Or did you hear of a farmer here named Gideon Winter?"

"Nobody's had a farm here for a hundred years," Clark said. "Get your
ass in gear, Tabs. You'll miss your bus."

Tabby gathered up his books and papers and went outside to wait on the
corner. His father drove past in his new red Mercedes and waved as he
turned into Beach Trail.

When Tabby got near to J. S. Mill, he saw the Norman twins through the
window of the bus. They were talking to a dark-haired man who looked
muscular but not athletic. The three of them were across the street from
the school's entrance, and the man was leaning against the side of a
gray van.

"So you got another kid," Gary Starbuck said to Dicky and Bruce. "Does
he know what he's supposed to do?"

"Hey, man," Bruce protested. "We don't even know what we're supposed to
do yet."

"You know."

"What are we supposed to be, mind readers?"

Starbuck sighed. "Listen, it's a job, right? That's what you know.
You're going in with me on a job, right? That's what you wanted, right?"

"Right," Bruce said.

152

Peter Straub

"So you got this other kid." "Well, yeah." "Is he a big kid?" Dicky and
Bruce shook their heads. "That's okay. He don't have to be big. He has
to be smart, is important."

"He's smart," Bruce said. Tabby had somehow duped Bobo the Clown on
Sunday night. Bruce had expected him to do it, but it at least proved
his intelligence.

Starbuck sighed again. "I ought to have my head examined." He crossed
his arms over his chest, and his biceps bulged. "Okay. You know that
house just above the little beach there? A doctor's house?" The twins
nodded. "Van Home," Dick said. "You got it. We're going in next
Saturday. I'll take the locks off, we go in nice and clean. There's no
alarms on the house. Lotta goodies in that place. I even know a guy
who'll take his piano. You guys can lift a piano, is my guess. I'll give
you five hundred apiece, okay? Then we're straight, right? After
Saturday, you never heard of me. You get your thousand, you're cool."

"You mean we all go in?" Dicky asked. "No, I go in and you play checkers
on the porch. What the hell do you mean? Sure you go in." "What about
Tabby?"

"The other kid? He's the lookout. He sits in the van with the radio. If
he sees a cop, he tells us. He gets fifty bucks, plus whatever you guys
give him."

"We get five hundred apiece," Bruce said. "That's our deal."

Dicky and Bruce gave each other a look of perfect understanding. "We'll
give him fifty apiece," Bruce said.

"Sure you will," Gary Starbuck said. "Just meet me in the Lobster House
parking lot at eleven o'clock. This is an old guy here, he goes to bed
at nine."

"But why not go in on a weekday?" Bruce asked. "I don't | get this. He's
a doctor, he goes out of the house all day." \

"He's got a housekeeper and a cook, is why," Gary said. "The
housekeeper's as old as he is and the cook drives in from Bridgeport.
Eleven is the right time. We could do it later, but why should we waste
the whole night?"

"One more thing," Bruce said. "You got a piece, right? When you go in,
you're carrying."

FLOATING DRAGON

153

"Just forget about that," Gary said. "I never used it yet. I do good
clean work, just like my daddy taught me."

Dr. Wren Van Home looked better than he had in years: his receptionist
had told him, his colleagues at the Hampstead Clinic (in which he and
they had substantial shares) had told him, even his patients were
telling him that. Hilda du Plessy, who had been Wren Van Home's patient
for forty years and had adored him for each of them, had found something
new to admire in Dr. Van Home on her last visit. "You're getting
younger!" she gasped. "Why, Dr. Van Home! It's true. You look ten years
younger."

"Well, then in a year or so I shall be passing you, Hilda," Dr. Van Home
purred at the old dear-who half an hour later as she piloted her ancient
Bentley into the parking lot between the river and Main Street was still
thinking about him. Her thoughts were generally of the kind widows are
prone to have about the doctors with whom they are infatuated-the words
gentle and firm never actually expressed, buzzed beneath her reverie-but
also incorporated observations with the detail of more than half a
lifetime's experience. Hilda du Plessy was right; Wren Van Home did not
just look better, he looked younger. His eyes were clearer, his back
straighten The crepe beneath his eyes was nearly gone. His hair looked
somehow fuller: "Blow-drying," Hilda said to herself as she walked
through the Waldenbooks store to emerge onto Main Street. "He's
blow-drying his hair after all this time-why, I could have told him
about that ages ago, if he'd paid any attention to me."

Hilda du Plessy passed right through Waldenbooks because she would never
have bought a book there: Ada Hoff at Books 'n Bobs up the street knew
what she wanted. Ada Hoff was a real book woman, Hilda considered,
unlike the young people who worked at the big chain bookstores. Ada Hoff
knew her customers by name and understood that some people had special
tastes-there would be a nice little pile of new things waiting for Hilda
behind the counter.

On the day each month that Hilda drove from her house on the Old Sarum
border to her medical appointment, she gave herself a series of treats.

154

Peter Straub

She pushed in the door of the rambling yellow colonial at the top of
Main Street that was the Books 'n Bobs and went past the display counter
of best-sellers without a glance. Ada Hoff was standing behind the front
desk dabbing at her nose with a linen handkerchief the same daffodil
shade of yellow as the bookstore-it was Ada's favorite color. "Feeling
all right, Ada?" Hilda inquired.

"Rotten cold," Ada said. She was a large round-faced woman a few years
younger than Hilda herself. Ada usually wore a blue blazer and a yellow
shirt, or a yellow blazer and a blue shirt, as today. Her hair was
elaborately black, somehow so mannered it looked painted. "We've all got
it. Spence and Thom didn't even come to work today." Spence and Thom,
two bachelors who lived together, were Ada's assistants. Spence did all
the packing and unpacking and the bookkeeping, and Thom arranged the
windows and spelled Ada behind the counter. Hilda considered Spence and
Thom excellent company and could spend hours near the pottery and
macrame sections gossiping with either one. The news that they were not
in the store spoiled her day a little-Ada was too businesslike for gossip.

"Oh, what a shame," Hilda said. "Don't give it to me, please, Ada-I've
just come from the doctor."

"Which reminds me. I have some new things to show you," Ada said, and
searched under the counter for a time before placing in front of Hilda a
stack of two hardbound and three paperback books. The hardbacks were
Nurse Thompson's Dilemma by Janet Randall Minor and The Hero in White by
Carrie Engelbart Hoskins; the paperbacks, Love in a Ward, Dr. Batholomew
and Dr. Dare, and Dr. Peachtree Makes His Rounds, were all by Florence
M. Hobart. Hilda gazed at them for a moment of unalloyed delight. Her
addiction was hospital novels. And a new Janet Randall Minor on the same
day as three rediscovered Florence M. Hobarts was almost miraculous for
her. The little splash of disappointment of Spence and Thorn's not being
in the store burned to nothing in the blaze of Hilda's intense satisfaction.

"There are still five or six more of those Hobarts," Ada said. "Some are
out of stock and some are reprinting, so they say. We'll have them in
for you when they're available again."

"Oh, my goodness, thank you, but this is lovely," Hilda

FLOATING DRAGON

155

gushed. "I'll take them all, of course. Charge them, please. I don't
know how I'll ever decide which to read first."

Hilda signed the charge slip and left the bookstore to walk down Main
Street, still virtually humming with delight. She heard a finch warbling
in the branches of one of the dwarf fruit trees in oaken barrels strung
out along the sidewalk, and tilted her head and whistled back at it. The
heavy bag in her hand was full of treasure-soon she would be sorting
through that treasure, sifting and weighing it. Hilda crossed the
street, walked past the office of the Hampstead Gazette, and ascended
the brick steps of a French restaurant called Framboise.

Here too one of the stages of her monthly ritual of treats began badly.
The headwaiter was not posted by the lectern which supported a telephone
and the reservation book. Hilda peered into the restaurant. Only two
parties, a man and a woman at a table for two and a group of four men at
a center table, were in the main dining room. The man and woman were
conspicuously drunk. Another false note. Three waiters in dark blue
waistcoats and black bow ties had congregated around a service trolley
at the back. Hilda waited for the headwaiter to appear. One of the
waiters glanced at her, then coughed rheumily into his fist. Hilda set
her book bag on the floor beside the lectern and pointedly looked at the
reservation book. There was her name, a version of it anyhow: diplessi.
She said "Ahem" in a clear loud voice. One of the waiters picked up a
menu from the trolley and lounged toward her across the room.

"Where is Francois today?" Hilda asked.

"Home sick," the boy said.

"I am du Plessy, which you have misspelled in your reservations book.
Will you please conduct me to my customary table?"

The boy in the blue waistcoat looked at Hilda blankly.

"Outside. On the corner of the terrace. More properly, the balcony.
Which you are pleased to call the terrace. That is where I sit."

"This way, ma'am," the boy said, galvanized by Hilda's tone. Hilda
picked up her bag of treasure and followed the boy through the
restaurant and out onto the balcony, where four tables were lined up
beneath a striped awning.

"Mine is the end table," Hilda said when he paused before

156

Peter Straub

the middle table. At her table, she sat facing the street and said, "I
should like a drink, please. A brandy Manhattan, please."

"Rocks?"

"Without ice, please. In one of those glasses with a stem-you know." She
sketched the shape of the glass with her fingers.

The boy skulked away. Hilda lifted her bag to her lap and extracted the
books. Intense satisfaction: contemplation of the jacket art, the
familiar shapes of the authors' names, the title pages, dedications,
margins, bindings, whether or not the authors' initials were stamped on
the front covers of the hardbacks. (They were not.) She examined the
typeface in the hardbacks, and then looked at the blurbs. These were
invariably nitwitted, and Hilda took little notice of them.

Then she made her choice: The Hero in White by Carrie Engelbart Hoskins.
The Janet Randall Minor would be a deferred pleasure.

Hilda delicately opened the chosen book. The loutish boy put her drink
down before her. With intense pleasure Hilda glanced out at the sweep of
Main Street before her, and then-unable to wait a second longer-read the
first sentence:

Edward Waterhouse was born to be of use.

Now that was the real thing.

Others had said it often of him, he was even given to admitting it
himself in paraphrases such as: ' 7 reckon I'm happiest when I'm helping
someone." From another these remarks would have sought approval and
approbation; from Dr. Waterhouse they sought nothing. He was speaking
only the truth as he had come to know it over the course of his
forty-two years.

Fairly purring with bliss, Hilda sipped her drink and read on.

Forty-two: indeed that was Dr. Waterhouse's age, and the years suited
him well, having given him compassionate lines at the corners of his
eyes, and elegant streaks of gray at his temples.

FLOATING DRAGON

157

Wren Van Home in early middle age, Hilda thought, and I could not have
described him better myself.

If his age was an advantage to him in many ways, it was a disadvantage
perhaps only in one. Dr. Edward Waterhouse was at the far edge of those
years in which a man must marry, if he is to marry at all.

All of which went to prove that Carrie Engelbart Hoskins was still under
forty, Hilda thought. She looked up from the page, "a trifle irritated,"
Carrie E. Hoskins would have said, and surveyed Main Street once again.
Across the street an intense young woman writing notes to herself and
men in blue jeans and beards sat at the outside tables before
Deli-icious. Hilda's eyes swept over the window of the Olden and Golden
Antique Shop, the smaller window of Hampstead Pizza. A wellknown actor
left the hardware store on the other side of the delicatessen, and the
bearded men frankly stared at him. Then Hilda's glance returned to the
window of the antique shop. Couldn't she see, on the other side of the
gilt lettering, the man she had just been thinking about?

She had become almost unpleasantly excited. Hilda bent forward and
peered at the window. The owner, short and bald, was now visible beyond
the gilt letters. Dr. Waterhouse had vanished from Hilda's mind, and she
muttered, "Move- please move,'' flustering the waiter, who had returned
to take her order. The boy and the shopowner moved simultaneously, and
Hilda saw that the gray-haired man behind the window was indeed Wren Van
Home. Standing there gesturing, the doctor looked even younger than he
had in his office an hour earlier.

"You want me to stand here?" the waiter disbelievingly asked from
somewhere behind her; Hilda glanced upward as if asking for help, and
saw another of the small orange-breasted finches just as it fell from a
lower branch of the oak tree in front of the restaurant and plummeted
lifelessly to the sidewalk.

You knew it was time for the mirror: did not know what it meant, but
knew it was time.

158

Peter Straub

Dr. Van Home had canceled two of his afternoon appointments, and now was
standing rather vaguely in the midst of the clutter of the Olden and
Golden Antique Shop. "It must be special," he was saying to the owner,
who did not know him but had clearly taken in his age and bearing, his
white linen suit and panama hat and assigned him to the diminishing
category of Old Hampstead Money. "Very special, if you see what I mean."
He smiled, which did nothing to dissipate the impression of his
vagueness. "I'll recognize it, you see, but what I mean is that it
should recognize me as well."

"Well." Mr. Bundle was not sure where to begin answering a request so
irrational. "There are some new things in-" "Yes, of course. I've spent
hours looking already-I went to Redhill two days ago, and before that I
drove down to King George, many interesting antique shops down there,
and all of them had mirrors, but none of them . . . They weren't right."
He swept his arm around in a gesture of wholehearted negation. "Not at
all. What I need-now, that's what we ought to be talking about, isn't
it? I cleared a space on a wall in my house-at the time wasn't even sure
what it was for. I just knew I had to get those paintings down because I
needed the space. Then I knew. A mirror. Must be quite tall, and must be
oval. Can't be new. New won't do at all."

Dr. Van Home looked impishly at Mr. Bundle. "And today as I was sitting
in my office, it came to me, just came to me, that you had precisely the
mirror I needed. Isn't that extraordinary?"

"Well, it is extraordinary, because just this morning I took possession
of some furniture I bought at an estate auction last week," Mr. Bundle
said. "And there's a mirror very like what you describe." "I knew it."

"Um. Yes. Extraordinary. Will you come back with me to see it?"

Dr. Van Home nodded and followed Mr. Bundle to the rear of the shop.
Here furniture was heaped and piled in crowded disarray, unpolished and
untagged. Secretaries and ; sideboards, leather-topped desks and
mahogany dining tables; | the leaves for the tables were spread out on a
canopied bed. | "Now, I haven't properly priced these things yet, but I
imagine we could come to some. . . ?" He cocked an eyebrow at the doctor.

FLOATING DRAGON

159

"Oh yes. Oh yes." The doctor had stopped prowling through the dark
clutter of furniture and was staring at the top, visible half of a large
oval mirror in an elaborately carved gilt frame. "That's it. I used to
own it."

"You owned it? It came from the auction I mentioned. The mirror's French
and I date it roughly at 1790, but it may be even earlier. I think one
of the Greens imported most of these things himself. They're all gone
now, of course."

"I owned it," his customer said.

"Yes. I see, sir."

As they looked into the speckled surface of the mirror, something
greasily dark seemed to move within it, a greasy shadow that made Mr.
Bundle widen his eyes and bend forward to see more clearly. But then it
was gone.

"Ah, there you are. It recognizes me."

"Needs a good cleaning," Mr. Bundle muttered.

Patsy pushed the bedroom door open with her hip and carried the tray to
the bed where Les lay in a happy clutter of newspapers, boxes of
tissues, magazines, and apple cores and peach pits in a bowl. Papers and
reports from his office lay across his chest, atop a folded copy of The
Wall Street Journal. He peered up at her with a thin and unshaven face.
"What's that?"

"Your breakfast. Whole-wheat toast, cottage cheese, orange juice."

"You call that breakfast? Cottage cheese?"

Patsy set the tray beside Les. "Your stomach needs something mild."

"Oh yeah, I know, but Jesus . . . how about a poached egg or something?"

"Eat this and see how you feel. I have my appointment with Dr.
Lauterbach in half an hour. If your stomach's okay when I get back, I'll
poach an egg for you."

^1 do feel pretty weak."

"You don't look good," Patsy said. She sat in the chair in the far end
of the room, her feet flat on the floor, her knees apart, her chin
cupped in her hand. "In fact, you look terrible."

160

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

161

"You don't look so good yourself." Les spoke almost reflexively, feeling
himself under attack, but there was truth in what he said. Patsy looked
worn and tired-forlorn, a more sensitive man than Les would have said.

"Why should I look good? I feel awful. And it's not the flu, Les. Maybe
I should just say what I think and admit it's you."

"I can't help getting sick," Les said. "Half the town's got the flu."

"I don't mean the flu. I mean our marriage."

Les picked up a memo from the papers on his chest and expressionlessly
scrutinized it.

"I suppose that's an example of what I mean. You won't even look at me now."

Les set the memo aside and turned wearily toward Patsy.

"The point is, I don't think we have a marriage at all."

"You don't."

"I have a husband who doesn't talk to me, who never wants to do anything
with me, and who needs me only when he's so sick he craps in his pants.
Does that sound like much of a marriage?"

"I don't accept your description."

"It doesn't look that way to you? You think that we share things? The
closest we ever get is when you decide that you have to knock me around.
You'd rather do that than make love. That's true, you know. You'd rather
hit me than screw me."

"Jesus, you really like to blame it all on me. And your timing's great
too-you clobber me with all this stuff when I'm so sick I can hardly get
out of bed."

"The clobbering is all one-sided," Patsy said. Against her; will, she
had become very angry. "We don't have a mar-; riage. I really don't see
why we live together." .]

"Don't you love me?" Les asked. ;

"I don't know. I don't feel very loving toward you." j

"Well, goddammit, I'm sick," Les wailed.

Patsy looked at her watch. i

"Oh, I know-I get this now. Dr. Lauterbach. You go to this shrink, and
you tell him about how miserable I am, and he tells you that you ought
to leave me. He probably holds! your hand while he's doing it." 1

"I have to go now," Patsy said. She stood. I

"Remind this guy where the money comes from," Lesi

said, propping himself up on one elbow and letting the papers and the
memos cascade onto the tray. "See how fast he decides that I'm pretty
damn good after all."

"Good-bye," Patsy said, and moved toward the door.

"Good-bye? You mean, for good? You're just walking out?" He was smiling
grimly.

"I don't know," Patsy screamed at him. "If I did, at least I wouldn't
have to see you pointing guns at policemen!"

Les was going to shout back at her but he restrained himself. "You know
why that happened."

"Better than you." Patsy closed the door and went swiftly down to the
door. Les was calling something out but she ignored him and descended
the steps to the family room and the garage. Fifteen minutes later she
was going slowly down Main Street looking for a place to park.

In fact Patsy had seen Dr. Karl Lauterbach only once. His consulting
room was in the Hampstead Clinic where Wren Van Home had his offices,
and on the day of her first appointment Patsy had walked up and down the
concrete steps from the parking lot to the modernist huddle of low brick
buildings three times. She had arrived half an hour early, and still was
not sure she could go through with it. How much of her real life could
she admit to this doctor? And how much could she conceal without
falsifying her prospective analysis?

Patsy had seen herself on a dissecting table, her mind spread out like a
clock under repair.

Finally she let herself into the building and looked at the nameplates
on the broad oaken doors. She was still twenty minutes early. She found
the door and admitted herself to a small dim waiting room. A
receptionist behind a glass window smiled at her. She had spent what
seemed an endless time looking at her hands folded in her lap.

Two minutes before the hour, a short bearded man with a stern, searching
face had opened the consulting-room door and called her by name. He was
no older than she-Patsy thought that despite the deep groove between his
eyebrows, he might even have been younger. "Please," he said, motioning
her in and toward the couch against one wall.

"I want to sit up," she said. "On a chair."

"Whatever you like. I'd rather you use the couch, however."

Patsy put herself in a chair before his desk.

162

Peter Straub

"Why did you want to see me?" Dr. Lauterbach asked.

"I'm unhappy," she had blurted out.

"Everybody is unhappy," Dr. Lauterbach said, and Patsy knew that it was
not going to work. How could this gruff and pessimistic man help her?
"I'm unhappy that you want to start out by fighting me. We have a long
way to go together, Mrs. McCloud, and we ought to begin with cooperation."

The analyst's deep somber eyes met Patsy's, and on the spot she burst
into tears. He knew all about her already, she thought; he had simply
opened up her brain with his eyes and seen everything-Les, Marilyn
Foreman, her grandmother, everything. Patsy had not been able to stop
crying. Dr. Lauterbach said nothing, and Patsy wept into her cupped
hands. Not only exposed, she had felt humiliated.

Still weeping, she had stood up and left his office.

She had known that she would never return, and she never did. In a way
that curiously paralleled Clark Smithfield's occupations, Patsy set off
every day as if for her appointment but instead did things therapeutic
in the simple sense that they made her feel better. She trailed through
Hampstead art galleries or had coffee while reading a book at one of the
tables in the deli; or walked along Sawtell Beach, feeling as light and
irresponsible as a gull; or drove to Woodville and reveled in
Bloomingdale's dress department. Normally Patsy resented shopping and
the time spent on it; during Dr. Lauterbach's hour, she relished it.

But this was not a day for Bloomingdale's; nor did she feel like walking
on the beach. The scene with Les, which had taken a direction she had
not foreseen, still knotted her stomach. It was true, what she had said.
She really did not know why she and Les were still married. That she
loved him had always been the answer to that painful question, and now
Patsy wondered if her "love" had been instead a means of never putting
the painful question to herself. Since she had seen him pointing the gun
at Bobo Farnsworth and the other two, what she had thought of as her
love for her husband had somehow curdled. She had seen him as exposed as
she had been herself in Dr. Lauterbach's office, and she could not now
ever go back to seeing him in her old way. She realized, and the very
realization was the knot in her stomach, that if she never went back to
Les McCloud she would not miss

FLOATING DRAGON

163

him. Les was like someone who had died and was pretending life: no one
had killed him, he had killed himself: he had murdered his feelings and
intuitions and his generosity because he thought his company demanded it.

Thank you, Dr. Lauterbach, Patsy said to herself, entering the delicatessen.

When she emerged she carried a plastic cup of coffee to one of the
outside tables. The men at the other tables momentarily inspected her
legs, her breasts, her face. "Oink," Patsy said, loudly enough for the
two men closest to hear, and then took her novel and her diary from her
bag. She put the book to one side and began to write.

Men I could go to bed with, she wrote. Richard Allbee. Bobo Farnsworth.
Alan Alda. Patsy was amusing herself. John Updike. Hie Nastase. Sam
Shepard. "And Rex, the Wonder Horse," she said to herself. Patsy closed
the book on her pen, smiling, and looked at the potted trees bordering
Main Street. Tabby Smithfield was walking toward her from the lower end
of the street. Tabby did not see her, in fact he saw nothing; his face
was averted, and he trudged as if he were kicking through leaves. Or
wading in water ankle-deep. She hoped the boy would not glance up, would
pass by, but when he drew up level with her he looked so wretched that
she had to speak. "Hello, Tabby."

He snapped his head sideways and met her with a look of intense
gratitude. So he had given her the option.

Tabby came shyly toward her. "Come sit down," she said, indicating the
chair beside her. He sat. He looked at her again, not shyly, and Patsy
knew: she said, "You just had another, ah, journey, didn't you?" and
took his hand.

"That's a good word for it," Tabby said.

8

He had avoided the Normans as long as he could, knowing that the man
they had been speaking to was the thief, but after the first class the
twins loomed up beside him in the corridor outside the school library.
Because of the unexpected shortage of teachers, Tabby's class had been
divided into two study groups, and he and the Normans were in the group
assigned to the library.

164

Peter Straub

"Hey, Tabs," Bruce said, putting his arm around him, "you were cool. I
don't know what you did, but you did it right."

"I didn't do anything," Tabby said. They stepped out of the line and let
the others file into the library. A pungent odor from Bruce's body
floated almost visibly about Tabby's head.

"That's always best," Bruce said, and began to pull Tabby down the
corridor toward an exit. "Let's get out of this place. We got only one
more class today anyway, last period. Why should we stick around?
Nobody's going to do anything important, so many kids gone."

"I suppose," Tabby said. The Normans were always one step more daring
than he would have been himself.

"Bobo didn't say anything about us?" Dicky asked.

"Hey, don't be stupid, man, Tabs was cool," Bruce said. "Let's just fade
on out the door while nobody's looking, okay?" He drew Tabby along with
him, and Tabby could not escape his odor, which was that of a bear.
Bruce was excited, and the overpowering bear smell was the odor of
violence. He rubbed his hands roughly on Tabby's back. "Bobo never
mentioned our names, did he, Tabs? Nobody at all mentioned our names,
did they?"

"No." Tabby separated himself from Bruce. "He thought I was just walking
home."

Bruce punched his bicep. "My man." He pushed down the bar on the door,
and the three of them went out onto a narrow asphalt path that ran the
length of the rear of the school. The air was still and humid. "Pity
about the flu," Bruce said, and Dicky laughed.

They circled the side of the building and began to walk across the
parking lot.

"I don't suppose you would mind making fifty bucks," Bruce said.

"Nope," Tabby said. "Depends on what I'd have to do. But I'm not
breaking into anybody's house."

"No way, Tabs," Bruce said. "No way at all. Want a ride downtown with us?"

"Okay. But I'm not having anything to do with a burglary."

Bruce winked at Dicky, and they all climbed into the black car. "We just
want you to do some work Saturday night."

"It's with that guy," Tabby said. "He was here this morn-

FLOATING DRAGON

165

ing, wasn't he? I saw you talking to him from the bus. I'm not doing it."

"I'll tear your fucking ears off," Dicky said. "No shit."

"Tabby, you gotta see this is our big chance," said Bruce. "Dicky's all
excited, and it's not even happening for four days."

Bruce drove out of the school lot and turned into a hilly suburban
street. Colonials with basketball hoops over the garage doors; Volvo
station wagons parked on the driveways; monstrous fleshy rhododendron
hedges. "Just think about this, Tabby. Everybody here's got insurance,
right? If they lose something, they get it right back again. Only the
insurance companies lose, and they got millions-man, they got so much
money they loan it to the government. And why do they get so much money?
Because people like these pay it to them just in case they get robbed or
lose something. So they might as well get robbed."

"I can't do it," Tabby said.

"Dicky and I'll give you another twenty-five apiece," Bruce said.
"You'll go home with a hundred bucks in your pocket. Tabs, we need you.
This deal won't work without you."

"I can't."

"Then I'll tear your fucking ears off," Dicky calmly repeated.

"He's an animal, he means it," Bruce said. "Look, we got four days.
Thursday or Friday we'll see you at school, okay? All you have to do is
sit in the van and see nobody comes up the drive. You got a radio, and
if anybody comes, you tell us. But nobody's going to come. We can put
the van under the trees and nobody'11 see it."

''Where is this going to be?" Tabby asked.

"You'll find out Saturday. Get in the guy's van, get a hundred bucks."

"Or I'll maul you," Dicky said. "No shit, Tabs."

Bruce turned into Main Street. "You want a Coke or something, Tabs?"

Tabby shook his head. He did not see how he could escape P|cky and Bruce
and avoid a terrible beating. Breaking mailboxes was bad enough; he had
to avoid being made an accessory to burglary. Dicky was grinning at him:
he had that bear smell too. Both the Normans would maul him, he knew.

166

Peter Straub

They would probably take an ear apiece.

Then he saw his father's car parked on the street. It looked like a
beacon, like a lighthouse. His father would be able to help him. "Let me
out of here," he said.

"Sure, Tabs," Bruce said. "Whatever you say." He pulled over and stopped
the car. "You going to hitch home?"

Tabby nodded, left the car, and felt almost safe again.

After Bruce had driven away, Tabby looked in the shop windows closest to
the Mercedes. His father was not at the counter in the Camera Center, in
Hampstead's Jewelers, or the Winery. Tabby crossed the street and looked
in the windows there. Clark was not visible in the small market, Laura
Ashley, or Enfants du Paradise, a store that sold children's clothing.
Tabby walked up the street peering in the windows-County Trust, Rawhide
(leather boots and jackets), Waldenbooks. Tabby crossed the street again
and entered Anhalt's. Here were home computers and cameras, stationer)'
and books, records and office supplies. Tabby even looked in the
children's book department, but Clark was nowhere in the store.

And what was his father doing in Hampstead anyhow? Today he was supposed
to be in Woodville, then Pound Ridge and Mount Kisco. Tabby hesitated on
the canopied sidewalk before Anhalt's.

If he waited long enough, he'd eventually see his father. All he had to
do was sit in the car, and before long his father would come out of one
store or another. . . . Tabby suddenly knew that he would not wait in
the car. There was one window he had not inspected. This was tinted so
dark that it was mirrorlike for anyone on the street side, and red
letters spread ? across it in the rise and fall of an arch:
o'halligan's. It was ' the only bar on Main Street. ;

Tabby dodged between the cars again and took up a posi- ; tion across
the street and a few doors down from the bar. He j stood in a brick
alleyway which led from a parking lot toMain Street, and if he stepped
close to the brick wall to his ; left, someone leaving O'Halligan's
would be unable to see j him. \

He did not have to wait long. A few minutes after he had; secreted
himself in the narrow alleyway, O'Halligan's doon opened and his father
swayed out into the sunlight. He got across the sidewalk and stood over
the curb, scowling down j

FLOATING DRAGON

167

at the gutter. Then Clark turned around and stared moodily at
O'Halligan's door.

"No, Dad," Tabby said.

A tall woman with black hair and electrically bright lipstick came out
of the door after Clark. She wore a white sleeveless shirt and baggy tan
shorts; she had, Tabby saw, beautiful legs. Then Tabby saw that she had
heavy gold jewelry around her neck and both wrists. She made Sherri
Still well look like a scrubwoman. This woman was not as drunk as Clark.
She linked her arm through his and said something that looked
conciliatory. Clark shrugged, then shook his head. The woman pretended
to drag Clark back into the bar and Clark slapped at her hand on his
arm. The woman gestured up Main Street, said something else; now Clark
nodded. They began to move up the street. And where were they going? To
Framboise, for a few more drinks and then a long lunch? And after that,
to a Norrington motel?

Tabby watched them make their way up the sunny street. Now and then they
paused so the black-haired woman could look into the shop windows-his
father was used to this woman's company, Tabby understood. Of course.
His father did not have a job at all. He just pretended to go to work.
He had moved into "Four Hearths," bought the Mercedes he had yearned
for, and settled down to the job of spending Monty Smithfield's money.

Tabby wanted to cry. He fled back down Main Street, his eyes hot. Had he
actually thought that his father could help him with the Norman twins?
His father's dishonesty was so vast that the betrayal it implied was too
large for Tabby to contain: it spilled out of him, staining the sidewalk
and the windows he saw. Dishonest, dishonest. Tabby saw his father as a
ruined man; saw himself as ruined too.

He had reached the entrance of the big stone Hampstead library on the
corner of the Post Road and Main Street, just before the bridge over the
Nowhatan. He had to sit down; he nad to think about himself and his
father and Sherri. Tabby Pulled the door open and entered the cool library.

He pushed through a turnstile and stood on a checked tile Jioor before a
long desk. One of the two women at the desk jooked curiously at Tabby,
who frowned and darted past her. Me would be able to hide himself in the
midst of the tall magazine racks beyond the desk. Tabby felt as though
every-

168

Peter Straub

body in the library-the old men reading newspapers at the tables, the
women at the card file, even the small boy going upstairs to the
children's library-were watching him, aware of his shame.

The library seemed to lengthen and widen, the black-andwhite pattern of
the floor to tremble and vibrate. A round schoolhouse clock behind the
desk had ceased to move: the vividly black second hand hung between the
two and three as if nailed to the face.

The magazine racks were swaying. No; rippling, Tabby decided, like
seaweed growing underwater; like heat rising from a highway.

He stood in wonder more than fear in the altering library. His shame had
gone. The walls seemed gently to be bowing out. At the same time that
Tabby took in the warnings of the stopped clock and trembling floor, he
was lulled by them.

Something was going to happen to him, he knew. The library seemed filled
with a magical and transforming light.

His feet took him to the history section. Here were two long stacks with
a narrow aisle between. Tabby stepped between the stacks and heard the
broad room hum like a dynamo. His aisle was smokily dark: for a second,
surrounded by the high wall of books, Tabby thought he saw puffs of
brown dust rise between his feet.

Ah.

A fat, slow-moving bolt of lightning angled down out of a dark sky,
lengthening itself like a telescope.

"So here is the boy," a voice said behind him.

The stacks and the library were gone, and he was outside,
standing-hiding?-by the side of a wooden house. The night was full of
noise-he could hear fire, loud curses, a dog furiously barking.

"You should have gone to Fairlie Hill, boy, with the others."

Hiding, yes. Tabby reached out and touched the smoothly planed wood of
the house. His feet were caught in flowers.

"Master Smyth," the boy said. "Do you wish a ball in the back?"

Tabby turned around. He had been afraid that he would know the face, but
he did not. It was long and arrogant and slightly crazed. The chin was
wet with drool. The teeth were large and discolored; the tea-colored
eyes, the worst part of

FLOATING DRAGON

169

the face because the least human, glittered as if they had been varnished.

"Your father is on a British prison ship, Master Smyth," the man said.
"I believe he has not long to suffer. Nor shall you."

A long, weightless-looking musket swung up in the man's hand. When the
barrel was six inches from Tabby's chest, the musket exploded.

Tabby sprawled backward into the flowers at the side of the house. There
had been no pain, only that enormous blow. The tea-colored eyes gloated
down over him. His shirt had been ignited in a dozen places by the
flashing powder, and it was burning against his skin.

The reason that he could not feel his skin blistering was that he was
dead. With a kind of impatience Tabby rose visibly out of the body in
the flowers and saw that the boy's face was not his. Yet it was like his.

"Two of them this night," the man said, his chin gleaming with his
drool. "Farmer Williams and the Smyth boy. They shall not go forward."

The spirit or soul which was Tabby rose above the men and the dead boy
with burning clothes. The red of a hundred fires irradiated the sky.

Tabby saw a long white corridor before him, a pulsing incandescent light
at its end. Radiations of bright color darted through the ball of light.
The corridor and the light soothed and vivified him; he knew that in its
midst would be the very sensations of heaven, which came to him as the
touch of music against his skin, as cool and awakening as seawater. He
began to move toward the pulsing light.

Then he was on his side, uncomfortable, on the floor between the stacks
of books in the history section. One book lay open and face-down beside
him. History ofPatchin, by D. B. Bach.

'Son?" It was one of the women from behind the desk. Are you all right?"

Yes, thanks," Tabby said automatically. He got up on his Knees, and his
head swam. "Just a little weak. Don't know wnat happened."

The librarian bent over and, instead of taking his hand as

Je expected, removed the book from his grasp. "If you're a

s- Mill boy, you're supposed to be in school," she said.

170

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

171

"No classes today," Tabby said, finally getting to his feet. "The flu."

"The flu is what you've got," the librarian said. "Go home and go to
bed, young man. Don't stay here and infect the rest of us."

Clamping History of Patchin firmly under her elbow, she led him back to
the turnstile and out the door.

Tabby stumbled as the sun struck him. He looked over his shoulder; the
librarian was waving him away. Tabby went to the curb and sat, so that
his head would stop swaying. His fingers found a long twig and dragged
it through the loose dirt beneath the hedge.

Then he saw that the line he had drawn in the dirt was filling with red
liquid: with blood: as if a lake of blood underlay the earth's surface.
He drew another line in the dirt with his stick, and that too became a
channel filled with blood. Sluggishly the red liquid reached the top of
the grooves in the earth and overflowed to pool in the dust. In horror
Tabby dropped the stick into the pooling blood.

Tabby's legs forced him upright. He turned the corner and went blindly
up Main Street. When he reached the little pizza restaurant he saw Patsy
McCloud sitting and writing at one of the little tables outside
Deli-icious. If he turned around and walked away she would surely think
he was snubbing her; but he did not want to force his company on her.
She looked so ethereal, so much too good for Deli-icious ... if she
stamped one of her beautiful feet on the sidewalk, would blood darken
just under the surface of the concrete?

Feeling as if every step were taking him deeper into exile by taking him
farther from Patsy, Tabby walked past the front of the deli.

Then he heard her light, sailing voice, and could have fallen down out
of gratitude. He looked shyly toward her: she was one of his own.

"Yes, I saw his face," he was telling Patsy five minutes later. "It was
a crazy face-like a mean old dog. His eyes looked like someone was
holding a match up behind them. He didn't even bother to think about
shooting me, he just shot.''

"And it wasn't a face you know."

"I never saw it before."

"And you think it might have been Gideon Winter?"

"Well, that's what he'd say, isn't it?"

"Yes," Patsy said. "I think he would."

They were silent for a moment; Tabby, who had no idea what he thought of
the things that had happened to him that morning, also had no idea what
Patsy was thinking. From the expression on her face, she could have been
wondering if it was time to have her car serviced, or if she wanted new
stockings.

"What was the book you were holding?" she eventually asked.

"A history book. History of Patchin, by someone named Bach."

"I think we ought to get a copy," Patsy said. "I'll do it." She smiled.
"We don't want you to make a career of fainting in libraries."

He tried to return her smile.

"You see backward," Patsy said. "That's interesting. Did you ever see
forward?"

"I guess," Tabby said, flushing. "Once. When I was five. You know-I saw
Mrs. Friedgood." His flush deepened. "But mostly I saw backward."

"I've never seen backward," Patsy said. "Well, we make a dandy pair."

"I can't believe we're sitting out in front of Deli-icious talking about
this," Tabby said. "In fact, I can hardly believe I'm talking about it
at all." He shook his head. "There's another thing, too. After I left
the library, I saw the ground bleed. I saw blood come out of the ground.
I did."

Patsy looked questioningly at the concrete sidewalk, and Tabby
remembered his fancy about her stamping there with her loafered foot. . . .

Both Patsy and he jerked their heads up in the following second, for a
woman somewhere across the street had begun to scream. Everyone, the
people passing by, the clerks from the hardware store, Mr. Bundle from
the antique shop, the bearded men at the next table, was outside and
standing up, looking across the street, trying to find the source of the
screams.

Then a man was pointing, and then Patsy pointed, and then Tabby saw her
too. A thin old woman in a loose black dress, standing beside one of the
tables on the balcony of the French restaurant. Her hands were pressed
to her eyes, and her mouth was open wide as a cave. More noise came from her

172

Peter Straub

than it seemed her body could produce: there was nothing left in her but
the bellows which created that high ragged sound.

People from the restaurant burst out onto the balcony as Tabby and the
others watched from below. His father was the third man to emerge from
the interior, and seconds before his father could reach the woman, she
collapsed.

Tabby knew that the old woman was dead: it was as if he knew that a
person could not live after making such sounds because a person could
not survive whatever had caused those sounds.

Tabby saw his father let the waiter kneel beside the old woman. Though
the screams had finished, he could still hear them. Tabby watched his
father wander past the kneeling man and the dead woman toward the
railing-he was trying to see what had happened.

His father looked down at the sidewalk beneath the balcony; looked at
the street; and then his father looked at the little crowd before the
hardware store, the delicatessen, and the antique shop. And his father's
eyes found him.

Hilda du Plessy watched in dismay and distress as the little finch
struck the sidewalk. Her appetite had gone: she could not eat her lunch
while a dead bird lay unnoticed on the pavement beneath her. | "Your
order, lady?" the waiter said from behind her. ] "Ah . . . nothing-just
a salad," Hilda said. "Just salad? What salad?" j "Any salad.
Watercress. Tomato. Spinach. I don't care,| you fool." ^ "House salad,"
the waiter said, and then mumbled something Hilda did not understand and
which would have astounded her if she had.

In agitation Hilda sat at her table, The Hero in White forgotten beside
her bread dish. She could no longer see Dr. Van Home through the window
of the antique shop. More than anything else at that moment, she longed
to see his reassuring features-if he saw her on the terrace, he would
smile and wave. Perhaps he would call out her name. Perhaps-if he were
not busy-he would come to her table and join her

FLOATING DRAGON

173

for lunch. In the world of Florence M. Hobart, such things happened
regularly.

In the novels of Florence M. Hobart, birds warbled, birds cooed and
nested, birds printed their shapes against the sky at dawn, but birds
assuredly did not fall dead from trees. Hilda glanced down at the
sidewalk, hoping that the finch might have flown off while she spoke to
the boy, but it was still there, an inert ungainly thing, with one
fanlike wing extended.

She put her bag in her lap and nearly stood up to leave.

But mere was Dr. Van Home at the window of Olden and Golden: he had
found something he liked, and was paying for it. Now, that was more in
the key of things. That was more suitable for Hampstead in Patchin
County on a fine sunny June morning. The town's best and most
distinguished doctor buys some fine old thing . . .yes, that was proper,
that was perfect in fact, as perfect as a moment in a myth. On such a
moment, Florence M. Hobart or Carrie Engelbart Hoskins might have said,
eternity could fairly put her seal.

Hilda relaxed back into her chair to wait for her salad.

Only a few seconds later Dr. Van Home appeared at the door of Olden and
Golden. The owner held the door for him, and out he came onto the
sidewalk. He carried a large heavy mirror-his car was directly in front
of the shop. In his white suit and white hat, the doctor resembled a
hero from the movies, or some famous author or painter. Though large,
the mirror seemed light in his grasp. Hilda waggled her fingers at the
doctor, hoping breathlessly that he would look up.

Dr. Van Home walked around to the street side of his car. He set the
mirror on end and held it upright with one hand while he opened his
passenger door with the other.

"Oh, Doctor!" Hilda tinkled.

He looked up. He did not know from where the sound came.

Dr. Van Home?" Hilda waggled her fingers again.

He saw her at her balcony table. But he did not smile. His features, his
eyes, did not respond to her. Dr. Van Home's mythic aspect crumbled at
once. For an instant, he looked almost slow-witted to Hilda.

The mirror had turned black. It had been reflecting the potted trees,
the steps up to the entrance of Framboise and the canopy, and then it
had quite impossibly lost its light and

174

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

175

L

filled with boiling smoke. Now it was black. The blackness seemed
three-dimensional, like a corridor leading down from the oval door of
the frame.

Hilda's fingers ceased to waggle. She was not even breathing.

Something was happening inside that mirror, she saw. A face flickered in
the gloom of the long corridor. She saw a hand; eyes; teeth. Then she
saw this little section of Main Street rotting and decayed, the
buildings shattered, the canopies ripped into flags, garbage blowing
onto the steps. She recoiled. Now from within this decaying scene Dr.
Van Home regarded her. His ears hung below his jaw, his eyebrows twisted
into peaks, his nose was a curved beak. His teeth came to points. Hilda
screamed without knowing that! she was going to do it, and found she
could not stop. \

Some part of Hilda knew that she was attracting attention, that she was
making a spectacle of herself, but still the screams insisted on tearing
through her throat. They were runaway horses, dragging her after them.

10

When Clark Smithfield finally came home that Tuesday night, he was
drunker than usual upon his return to "Four Hearths." His necktie hung
untied over his belly, his suit was rumpled and creased. It was nine
o'clock. Tabby and Sherri were sitting together on the living-room couch
watching the ABC Tuesday Night Movie, Magnum Force, which had just
begun. They had eaten hours before; Clark's dinner was keeping warm in
the oven. Clark slammed the front door and Sherri jumped but did not
look up from the television. Seconds later the door to the living room
flew open.

"Cozy, aren't you?" Clark said, leaning against the jamb.

"I suppose you two have me all wrung out and dried bV|

now." I

Sherri glanced at him, looked back at the screen. 1

"Oh, yeah," Clark said. 1

"Have a good day?" Sherri asked. 1

"Yeah, great. You fucking hypocrite. Don't pretend ttm

kid didn't tell you all about it." Clark slouched into the

room, tore off his jacket, and threw it onto a chair. He sat

heavily in his rocker.

Sherri looked darkly at Tabby, then back at her husband.

"Get me a drink," Clark said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean, what I mean, is you should get off your lazy ass and pour
about three inches of Irish whiskey into a glass with ice and then put
the glass in my hand, or is that too complex for you?"

"Excuse me," Tabby said. "I'm going to my room."

"Yeah, get out, fink," his father said. "You couldn't wait to get home
and tell her, could you?"

"Tell me what?"

"Well, her name is Berkeley, and she's about seven feet tall and she's
thirty years old, and she's got this great mouth just like a fishhook,
and the reason she's so tall is that her legs start way up here and
don't stop until they get to the ground and ..."

Tabby heard Sherri turning over the coffee table just as he closed the
door. They were shouting at each other by the time he reached his bedroom.

Two hours later Sherri knocked at his door. He knew what she was going
to say, so he was trembling as he opened it for her.

"Ah, you poor kid," Sherri said. Her hair hung wildly about her head,
her face was puffy and smeared with makeup. As soon as the words were
out of her mouth, she began to cry.

"Oh no," Tabby said. "Please."

Sherri walked into the room and sat on his bed. "He never even had a job
here. That was a lie from the first day." Now she was not crying, but
angry. "He met that woman about a month ago. All he wanted to do was
party and spend the money. I can't live with him anymore, Tabby."

"What are you going to do?" Tabby asked. He sat on the noor and looked
up at this raddled, severe Sherri, who seemed to be speaking oraclelike
through a badly drawn mask.

"I already called the taxi," she said. "I'd take the car just °spite
him, but of course he's out driving around the bars because I'm such a
bitch." She managed to smile. "I'm taking the train to New York tonight.
I'm going back to Florida.

1 a(lways hated it here, you know."

I know."

You can come with me if you want," Sherri said. "We

176

Peter Straub

can always find something. I'm a worker, even if he isn't."

Now Tabby was nearly crying.

"I love you," Sherri said. "I loved you since you were a skinny little
kid in Key West."

Tabby could not hold back the tears.

"You always looked so lost," Sherri said, and hugged him. They were both
crying. Tabby was remembering the tough confident Sherri who had
mothered him in Florida. He let his face rest on her shoulder as he wept
for the loss of her.

"You can come with me," Sherri said into his ear.

"I can't," Tabby said. "But I love you too, Sherri."

"You'd better." She put her hand on the back of his head. "I'll send you
a postcard. Write to me sometimes, Tabby. Like with your grandfather."

"I will."

"You'll have to take care of him. I tried, Tabby-I tried real hard, but
if I stay here he'll kill me."

"Do you have enough money?" Tabby's eyes were dry now, but he kept the
side of his face resting on her shoulder.

"Enough for now. I can always get a job. I'm not worried about money."

"I'll send you money."

"Out of your allowance?"

"I'll have money to send you."

"Worry about your father, not about me. Clark's going to need your help."

They heard the doorbell ring, and Sherri hugged him more tightly. "He
lied to me," she said to him. "It's not that woman, Tabby. You believe
that-it's important." She kissed his forehead. "I'm going to miss you."

He followed her out into the hall. She picked up a suitcase at the top
of the stairs. Together they went down.

At the door he hugged her; then she went into the cab and was gone. He
knew he would never see her again.

All this might have happened if Hilda du Plessy had not been sitting on
the balcony of the Framboise; but that it happened on Tuesday night was
a direct result of her presence there. The connections between Hilda du
Plessy and what befell Richard Allbee the Wednesday following Hilda's
death are less straightforward, but still clear. Again it is more a
matter of timing than of the events themselves, which-and this too is
clear-would have happened had Hilda been stillborn.

FLOATING DRAGON

177

On Wednesday morning Richard had driven to the offices of Ulick Byrne,
the Sayres' attorney in Hampstead, and picked up the keys. Along with
the keys came a sour look and a lecture from the woolly-haired young Mr.
Byrne. "This is really irregular, and in fact, Mr. Allbee, I've never
before handed over the keys to a residence before the exchange of
contracts. I advised against it. Very strongly. At least I am assured
that you have your mortgage. All I can say is that being on television
every night has some advantages. But"- he extended a thick index finger
like a gun to Richard's chest-"the Sayres and I are holding you
responsible for any damage to that property before we close. If you burn
it down, you're buying what's left. And I advise you to be extremely
grateful to Mrs. Sayre and her son, who insisted on giving you an
opportunity the law usually does not accommodate." A snuffy atmosphere
of illness still hung around the young lawyer; if he were stronger,
Richard sensed, he would have fought the Sayres' kindly decision.

"Extremely grateful is just what I am," Richard truthfully said. "Mrs.
Sayre's son must have been thinking about what it would be like to move
into a house that smelled like an ammonia factory when he decided to let
us have the keys early."

"When he priced the house, anyhow," the lawyer said. "Mr. Barbasch and I
will be talking very shortly." John Barbasch was the Allbees' lawyer: he
too was unhappy about the keys.

From Byrne's offices near Main Street they drove to Greenbank and Beach
Trail. Richard had been itching to touch his new house, literally to get
his hands on it-to test the sash cords and the smoothness of the
windows, to get a good light into the attic and have another look at the
beams. The inspection had answered most of his old questions, but had
brought up new ones. Another week's wait would have been torture tor
him. Fairytale Lane seemed dingier and more depressing every day they
spent in it.

This revulsion from Fairytale Lane was, he knew, the measure of his
eagerness to begin their "real life" at number 32 Beach Trail,
Greenbank. At that address was a truly bad atmosphere, but one wholly
physical and feline in nature. As soon as the Allbees let themselves in,
it struck them. "We need gas masks!" Laura said, rushing to the nearest
window.

178

Peter Straub

Soon all the windows on the ground floor and landing were wide open.

Richard began tugging at the stair carpet, yanking the tacks out of the
wood. Like the living-room carpet, it had once been good-wool, light
tan, with a Chinese pattern woven through it. These carpets had not been
cleaned since the fifties, Richard thought-now they were composed as
much of cat hairs as of wool. The stink came off them in waves, as if
the carpets exhaled ancient urine. It was a shame to throw away
carpeting that had once been beautiful, but Richard knew that even after
a dozen cleanings, the cat ghosts would drift out on every damp afternoon. \

Tread by tread, he pulled it up. \

Sweating already, he rolled it into a fat tube at the bottom j of the
stairs and tugged it toward the door. The Greenbank j garbage man was
going to be earning a fortune in tips. When j the stinking carpet was
next to the driveway, he went backj inside. Laura had a mop and a bucket
and was wading! through suds on the kitchen floor. Richard began taking
upl the carpet in the living room. Beneath it he was relieved toi find a
good oak floor, snugly joined and still smoothly pol-1 ished. Some
craftsman had done his best for this house, and! Richard blessed him. 1

When he had half the living-room carpet rolled up, he satj on the smooth
oaken floor and looked up at the intricate! molding around the
twelve-foot ceilings. I'm going to love% this place, he thought. He
could hear Laura humming to her-J self as she slopped water on the
kitchen floor. This is evem better than the Kensington house. He looked
through the bigl dirty windows at the tops of maples and evergreens. 1

Together he and Laura got the heavy carpet out the door Jj "Can you help
me move it to the driveway?" he asked,! "Wait. Is there any strong cord
or string in the house?" jj

Laura returned with a ball of twine left behind in a kitcheijj drawer;
also with an odd look in her eye. Richard began loopjl ing the twine
around the ends of the fat tube of carpeting, sm that he could roll it
to the side of the driveway. m

"Do you believe in ghosts?" Laura unexpectedly askeffl| him. 1

Richard wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked aH her, expecting a
joke. "Only on television." Jj

"Well, you know how you say the smells in the house awi the ghosts of
cats?" He nodded. "Well, I just saw one." ]

FLOATING DRAGON

179

"You saw the ghost of a cat." Richard raised his eyebrows.

"When I went in to get you the twine. I'm not kidding, Richard."

"Were you scared?"

"No. I was sort of charmed."

"How did you know it was a ghost? What did it look like?"

"It was sitting on the counter next to the sink. It was pale gray, very
pretty really. A big gray torn. It had one paw lifted, as if it had been
licking it. When I came in the kitchen, it looked at me-it looked
pleased that I was there. Then ..." Laura ducked her head, and her
beautiful hair swung over her shoulders. "This is the part you won't
believe. Then it vanished. Poof. It disappeared."

"You want me to believe this, don't you?" Richard leaned on the thick
roll of carpeting and searched her face.

"Since it happened, I guess I do."

"How did you feel?"

Laura shrugged. "I guess it made me feel good, in a funny way. Like the
house was welcoming me."

"So will the psychiatrists," Richard said, grinning openly now. Laura
swung her fist playfully at him, he bent backward out of the way, and
they both laughed.

"It happened," Laura said. "I saw it."

"Okay," Richard said. "But check the draining board for cat footprints."

"I did, smartass," she said, going back into the house.

Still smiling, Richard rolled the thick wad of smelly carpet over the
back lawn to the driveway. When he had it lined up beside the stair
carpeting, he swabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief. A nimbus of
dirty cat hair seemed to be floating over the two rolls. Dingy ropes of
hair clung to Richard's palms. Sweat dripped from his forehead and
trickled behind his ears. He rubbed his damp palms on the rough exposed
back of the larger roll, ridged with burlap and the knots of the design.
Now he would help Laura wash floors until she'd had enough . . . then
tomorrow they would finish the first washing) and he would mix up some
of his formula to scrub into tne floors and stairs.

He turned around, and his heart kicked. From across the nyeway, in the
shadow of a stucco wall overgrown with ivy,

v Bentley was grinning at him. His arms were crossed

180

Peter Straub

over his chest. A snap-brim hat rested on the back of his curly head.
Billy unfolded his arms, and a long knife blade shone against the green
of the ivy.

"No, no," Richard said. He barely knew why.

Billy's face was gleeful. He made a mock jab with the knife. A large
gray cat jumped from the edge of the wall and twined through Billy's
legs. Billy took a step forward out of the shadow of the wall.

Richard had to keep Billy out of the house-hadn't that been the message
of his recurrent nightmare? Billy was not there, but Billy had to be
kept away from Laura even though he was not there.

Richard turned his back for a moment on the specter of Billy Bentley
stalking him with a knife, jumped up on the back porch, opened the door
and punched the lock button.

He whirled around, breathing hard, and Billy was gone. From the driveway
a series of indentations marched across the grass-four of them, as if
Billy had taken as many steps.

The big gray tomcat padded into his vision, looked at him, and gradually
became transparent, fading away into the green of the grass and the
black of the driveway. ]

"Oh, my God," Richard breathed. "I'm going crazy.] Billy Bentley and the
Cheshire Cat." 1

"What's that?" someone asked. |

Up the drive came an old man in a Yankee cap, blue T-1 shirt over large
bony shoulders and concave chest, and tanj wash pants. His black
basketball shoes scuffed on the asphalt. I

"Just talking to myself," Richard said. The old manl looked familiar,
but Richard could not think where he had! seen him before. He just
wished he would go away. |

"Better watch that," the old boy said, stopping to put nisi hands on his
hips, and wrenched his spine backward. "You'llJ lower the tone of this
ritzy neighborhood." m

"You have a point." Richard's heart had ceased to bangja he was
decompressing, returning to normal. M

The old man reverted to his habitual stoop and continued on toward
Richard. "Guess I'd better introduce myself," h|| said. His voice was
younger than he, clear and resonant^ "I'm Graham Williams. Live across
the street." He waveal toward a colonial in need of paint which sat far
back on m lawn notable for its weeds. m

"Oh, Graham Williams," Richard said. That was why th*

FLOATING DRAGON

181

old man had looked familiar. "You're the one who agreed to talk before
the committee-right? And then didn't."

"And then didn't," Williams said. "Good memory you've got there. I hid
out in England for a couple of years instead, wrote a bunch of crummy
scripts under a pseudonym. Ancient history. Surprised you remember it."
Williams' manner had begun to seem less friendly to Richard; his eyes
glinted out from the shade of the cap's visor.

"I read your book about alcoholism. I thought it was very good."

"Now I shall fall down all atremble. Did you really? Product of another
age, that book was. We all thought we had to kill ourselves with booze
to prove that we were sensitive. Something like that. A lot of criminal
nonsense."

"Like HUAC," Richard said. He still wanted the old man to leave, but he
at least wanted Williams to know that he supported his decision.

"Most bartenders I knew were not in agreement." Williams nodded toward
the back door. "There's a pregnant woman fighting your door there."

"Oh. It's locked." Richard turned away and went up the steps. Laura was
twisting the knob from the inside; she rattled the door in frustration.
The top half of the door was the original glass; imperfections made
Laura's face swim and distort. "Turn the bolt," he said, and she clicked
the lock open.

When she came outside onto the back porch, he said, "I just saw your
cat. And this is our neighbor, Graham Williams. He lives across the street."

"I thought I'd invite you two over for a drink later in the week,"
Williams said. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Allbee."

"And you, Mr. Williams," Laura said. "You saw it, Richard? The cat?"

"No cats left around here," Williams said. "Man from the pound cleared
'em all out a month ago."

"Well, we both saw it," Laura said. "Did Mrs. Sayre nave a large gray torn?"

'She might have had twenty. I could never tell 'em apart. You know, I
knew the Sayres most of my life. In fact, I was their guest at the club
the night John Sayre shot himself."

Laura put one hand flat on her protruding belly.

* didn't mean to upset you, Mrs. Allbee," the old man sa«d. "All that
happened nearly thirty years ago-1952. Even

182

Peter Straub

after Bonnie Sayre turned this place into a ranch for stray cats, you
could tell that it was supposed to be beautiful. Of course, Bonnie
Sayre's felines are long gone, all but the smell, I reckon."

"Well, this feline is a ghost," Laura said-Richard understood that she
was paying back Williams for the remark about John Sayre's suicide.

"Seeing ghosts and talking to yourself," Williams said. "What are we
coming to?" This was offered lightly, but Richard saw that the old man
had been affected by Laura's remark. His eyes had dimmed, and he was
riffling the white scurf under his chin. "Saturday night, I was
thinking. We can talk about ghosts, if you like. I thought your husband
might be interested in hearing something about the history of the area,
Mrs. Allbee."

"You mean because of his mother? Because of the Green family?"

"Yes. I'm glad you know about that already. I'm another one. And of
course Patsy McCloud is too. Kind of interesting, our families being
back here after all these years."

"Yes," Laura said. "Kind of."

"Well, there are some interesting chapters in our history," Williams
said. "Come over after dinner if you like." He shook Laura's hand, then
Richard's. "Maybe you want some . . . explanations? I don't know, does
that sound mysterious?"

"I'll take all the explanations I can get," Richard said. "Did you know
my parents, Mr. Williams?"

"I knew most people in Hampstead, back in the forties," Williams said.
He was looking questioningly at Richard. "I knew Mary Green by sight-she
was a nice little thing. Had a real sense of duty. I used to see your
father, too. He was good with his hands. Michael used to do work around
Greenbank. That was how he met Mary. Pleasant young fellow. Full of smiles."

"Did he work on this house?" Richard almost held his breath.

"Don't believe so. But he left his mark on a lot of places in Greenbank.
Come on over Saturday, and we'll talk about it."

"I'll have to see."

After Graham Williams had slowly walked back across the

FLOATING DRAGON

183

street, Laura said, "I didn't like him, Richard. That old man gave me
the creeps. I don't want to see him Saturday."

"I might learn something from him," Richard said. "You know, I really
did see that gray cat." He wanted to turn the conversation, and Laura's
mind, away from their new neighbor. Williams seemed almost to have been
summoned up by the apparitions of Billy Bentley and the tomcat: for an
instant, while his eye had dimmed and his hand searched his chin, his
authority had left him and he had looked as though he also might fade
away into invisibility. "I saw it disappear, too."

"So no more jokes about psychiatrists."

Richard knew, as he said no and shook his head, that Laura too was
remembering Patsy McCloud.

"Didn't the cat sort of make you feel welcomed?" Laura asked.

"I'm not sure," Richard answered. "Maybe he wasn't so interested in
welcoming me."

11

That night Richard Allbee dreamed that he was carrying a heavy sword
through the old Sayre house. It was night, and rain spattered the roof.
In the gloom the sword gathered into itself whatever light there was.
Richard left the kitchen and went through the empty dining room. He had
an impression of peeling walls, of something soft and rotten underfoot.
A big cat incuriously watched him carry the sword into the derelict
living room. Cracks zigzagged the plaster walls. He stepped over black
holes in the floor. Richard opened the front door and stepped out onto
the porch. The countryside greenly, wetly dripped. Richard stepped off
the porch into the sweating rain and walked to the middle of the lawn.
The sword seemed to weigh as much as he did. He got it up over his head.
Then he swung it down with all his force. The sword hacked into the
squashy ground. Blood foamed out from the wound, soaking his shoes and
the bottoms of his trousers. A rivulet of blood ran down the hill and
lapped against a tree at the end of the property. Richard pushed the
sword deeper into the earth, and bright red blood, arterial blood,
squirted so far up that it splashed the roof.

184

Peter Straub

12

Years before, Officer Royce Griff en had been given a job he hated, but
at least on the extra shift imposed by the flu he worked as he thought a
cop should, driving a patrol car. Those eight hours were his dessert.
The eight-to-four shift he endured as he would a bad dinner, knowing
that when it was over he could get into a black-and-white and do real
police work.

The trouble usually started in the locker room. If Turtle Turk was
either coming on or going off shift, he would invariably try to amuse
the other policemen. "Roycie Woycie," Turtle crooned when he saw him,
"will you ring my doorbell today? Hey, Roycie, what do you say when some
big old babe in a nightgown opens up? 'Officer Roycie Woycie Griffen,
ma'am, at your service'? Do you show 'em your big gun, Roycie?"

Turtle usually waddled back and forth before his locker at this point,
mincing and rolling his eyes. "Ooh, ma'am, I'm brave Roycie, and I'm
here to tell you how to make sure no bad man ever comes in when you
don't want him to. ... No, ma'am, you see entry is one of the biggest
problems a bad man has to overcome. ..."

Unfortunately, Royce Griffen was only as tall as the official minimum
for Hampstead officers, five-foot-six, and weighed only a hundred and
forty pounds, or he would have attacked Turtle right in the locker room.
But the other policemen knew by looking at Royce that he would jump on
any man that laughed at Turtle's antics. His face went nearly as red as
his hair.

"Oh madam, oh madam," Turtle crooned. "It's irregular, I know, but I
wonder if you could accompany me to the special police showing of The
Choirboys in a couple of weeks? I think I can promise you a thrilling
time-it starts at midnight, you see, and all the boys in blue will be
there, and, ma'am, I'm built like a jockey so's I can ride all night-"

"Can it," he said.

"Yes, Roycie," Turtle said, mincing away.

God, he hated that job. If he were still married, he could talk about it
at home and explain how it demeaned him to spend his days soft-soaping
housewives, how he had been picked because he was the smallest cop on
the force, how the

FLOATING DRAGON

185

job was only a P.R. stunt dreamed up by the first selectwoman. But his
wife had left him after three years of trying to live on a cop's pay.
Royce didn't blame her, he'd leave himself too, if he could.

The job had come about because of the steady rise in burglaries in the
past three years; the murders of Stony Friedgood and Hester Goodall
meant that Royce's frequent requests to be reassigned were doomed to go
ignored for a long time to come. For two years he had been knocking on
doors, introducing himself, and counseling householders about burglary
prevention. He inspected locks on doors, catches on windows, tested
alarm systems, made recommendations-and all this drove him crazy. If a
thief wanted to get into a house, he got in. That was all. You could
make it harder for him, but he'd get in if you had dead bolts, savage
mastiffs, and sonic beams that swept across the living-room floor at
timed intervals. Alarm systems went off randomly, dogs slept, people
forgot to lock their doors. His life was a waste. A girl scout could
break into any of the houses he had inspected.

Two years before, he had divided the city into quadrants, and then each
quadrant into quadrants. He was now in section three of the third
quadrant, and if he could not get himself reassigned he would be
knocking on doors like the Avon lady for another eighteen months.

Section three of quadrant three took in the lower end of Greenbank,
including Mount Avenue, all the way to the Hillhaven border. Ordinarily
Royce Griffen would have been pleased to get a peek at the interiors of
these houses; but doing his hated job while he peeked made him feel like
a servant; the big houses with their spotless interiors reminded him of
everything he had sacrificed to become a police officer. Since his
divorce, Royce shared the top floor of a house near the trailer park
with another divorced cop.

His second stop that morning was at a large white house overlooking
Gravesend Beach which he had noticed for years without ever knowing who
lived there. The mailbox was no help, bearing only the numeral five.
Royce turned in between the gates. He had never before really taken in
how much land surrounded the house. He could have been driving through a
Park. The drive angled off through trees, then returned toward the house
on its bluff above the sea wall.

The lawn, unusually for such a place, had been permitted to get shaggy.
Bobby Fritz must have been laid up with the

186

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

187

flu, Royce imagined. Here and there he could see dandelions lolling
against the green.

Royce pulled up before the front door, got out of the patrol car and
rang the bell. He adjusted his holster, tugged his hat into the proper
angle. He straightened his shoulders to make himself as tall as he could
get. Here we go again, he thought unhappily.

An elderly woman in a white uniform opened the door. She looked both
angry and distressed: as she glared at him, he saw that she had been crying.

"Good morning," he said. "I am Officer Griffen of the Hampstead Police.
Is the lady of the house in?"

"Pah," she said, "there's no lady here."

"Well, then. I have been assigned to special duty in burglary
prevention. May I take a little of your time and check out your locks,
alarms, and so forth, and make recommendations for their improvement?
Here in Hampstead, you know, we have an average of two burglaries every
hour." All this was memorized, and Royce spoke it automatically. He was
looking not at the cranky housekeeper or maid, whatever she was, but at
the lock on the front door. A simple Yale.

"Doctor," the woman said, turning away from him, "a police officer."

Far back in the hall, a trim-looking man in a white suit came silently
through a door. He was smiling; was almost hypnotically handsome. Royce
stood even straighter. "Oh yes, Muriel," he said, coming nearer. "We
must make the officer at home. Get him a cup of coffee, please."

"No, thank you, sir," Royce began, but the housekeeper interrupted him.
"Don't I always get coffee for your guests, Doctor?"

"Of course you do, Muriel," the doctor said. He smilingly extended a
hand to Royce. "Nice to meet you, Officer."

Muriel took herself away down the hall.

"Had to tell her I was letting her go," the doctor said confidentially
to Royce. "I'm retiring soon. Have to do a lot of cutting back. Even had
to let my yardman go." He touched Royce lightly on the elbow. "But
that's not your concern, my boy. You've come to tell me how to keep the
burglars away?"

"Yessir." Royce pointed to the Yale and gave his memorized speech about
mortise locks and dead bolts. "A good

lock is your best protection," he said. "Could we look at your windows
and the other doors, sir?"

"Be my guest," said the doctor. He escorted Royce into the dining room,
where there were two windows with flimsy catches, and on into the
kitchen. The door onto a flagstone patio had another simple lock. "I can
tell just by what I've seen already that you have a lot of tempting
stuff," Royce said. "Have you ever thought about changing the locks?"

"I've lived here all my life," the doctor said. "I know everybody in
town. Nobody would try to break into my house, would they?" He was
taking Royce back through the house to the living room.

"Oh, this is beautiful," Royce said. The room was windowed on the sea
side of the house from floor to ceiling. Sailboats bobbed out on the
water; Long Island floated hazily on the other side of all that
blueness. The room itself must have been forty feet long. The biggest
Oriental rug he had ever seen underlay islands of furniture, a
Bosendorfer piano, plants and sculptures. Most of the sculptures were of
women. Royce bent to peer at the name cut into the base of a little
statue of a dancer: Degas. It sounded French, therefore expensive. On
the opposite wall hung ranks of paintings and an ornate mirror. "I think
a lot of people would want to break in here^yes. Don't you even have an
alarm system?"

"Oh, I looked into it once," the doctor began, but Royce suddenly was
having trouble hearing him. Something was wrong-he thought he must have
caught the flu after all. The doctor's voice seemed to be reaching him
on a scratchy wavering radio band. The beautiful room looked to Royce as
though it had grown to the size of an aircraft hangar-it appeared to
stretch on forever, to soar up hundreds of feet. The light dimmed, then
turned a lurid pinkish color. Suddenly Royce had trouble standing up-the
room was so immense it threatened to squash him.

When Muriel appeared beside him with a cup of coffee he wordlessly
accepted it. The doctor was still talking, but Royce could hear only
beehive noises. The coffee stank like sewage. He was looking at the wall
hung with all those pictures of a sunny foreign countryside, and in
their midst the mirror seemed to be melting. / looked into it once, the
doctor repeated. Across the surface of the mirror appeared a jagged bolt
of lightning. He was in the mirror. He was a red-headed

188

Peter Straub

dwarf. His mouth sneered, his eyes drooped. He was inexpressibly ugly-a
sort of troll dressed up as a policeman.

"So you see, I never did anything about it in the end," the doctor said.
"I've just relied on the goodwill of others, but I do lock the doors and
turn on the yard lights at night."

"Yes," Royce said. He had to get out of this vast and terrible place.
His troll self grimaced at him and slopped coffee out of a cup. The
doctor took the cup from his hand and led him back toward the front door.

As soon as they were in the hall, Royce heard the murmur of a dozen
voices behind the closed door, the buzzing of a million flies.

The doctor said, "I'm sure I'll consider your suggestions."

"Yeah," Royce said. He was frantic to get out. The doctor smiled and
closed the front door.

Royce nearly drove into a tree on his way back down the drive.

From then on DRG-the thinking cloud-dipped him straight into insanity.
His perceptions were wildly skewed-he heard music but the radio gave
nothing but police calls, he smelled a gritty sour effluvium from his
own armpits-his mood savage. He kept seeing himself as a ridiculously
ugly troll.

His third stop went normally. Royce let his mouth say all the things it
could say by itself (Assigned to special duty, Missus, I advise such and
so and this and that) and got out of the house without experiencing
anything more unusual than the beehive sounds he had heard in the
doctor's house.

But in the fourth house he lost his composure. He was sitting at a metal
outside table on a brick terrace, saying something about the French
doors which led into another film-set living room. A slim pretty woman
named Mrs. Clark was seated across the table from him, sipping iced tea.
He knew it was iced tea, he had seen her pouring it from a pitcher in
her refrigerator.

But reality gave a hiccup, everything turned yellow before him, and he
was a troll again. The pretty woman's hair was filthy and matted. He
could smell raw whiskey in her turnbler. His feet were on something damp
and horrid-some dead animal? He saw that Mrs. Clark's arms were covered
with thick dark hair like a pelt. "I'm sorry," he said, realizing that
he had stopped talking in the middle of a sentence.

189

FLOATING DRAGON

Locks and bolts are my arms, Bolts and locks my legs,

Mrs. Clark sang in a cracked voice.

Royce cried out in panic and disgust: he had looked down and seen that
the patio was covered with huge dead spiders, their bodies the size of
puppies. Mrs. Clark stood up. Her back was humped, her lips curled over
broken teeth.

Kiss my bolts and stroke my locks And I shall marry you,

sang Mrs. Clark. She spilled whiskey on one of the spiders, and its fat
body trembled. Brown slime dripped down the walls and over the French
windows.

"I'm sorry," Royce repeated. "Not feeling well. Better go."

The huge black spider Mrs. Clark had anointed with whiskey twitched
toward his foot. The walls of the massive brick house were mud, sliding
downward. Mrs. Clark's face slipped toward her chin: she too was made of
mud.

Royce ran away-if he stayed there he would be encased in the thick gray
muck, he would never be able to leave. He sprinted around the side of
the building. An invisible crowd laughed at his fear, his stature, his
slow troll-shuffle ... at last he found the patrol car and managed to
get it started. He roared into Mount Avenue and turned left on Beach Trail.

In his panic he almost drove into a ditch as he turned toward the Post
Road on Charleston. The air was bright yellow, and a yellow spider the
size of a pickup truck lunged out of the ditch toward his car.

Royce screamed, twisted the wheel, and sped back toward the police station.

The cramped old station house was itself-nothing worse than Turtle's
insults could happen to him there. He sat in the tiny squad room and
typed fictitious reports about his morning calls. He filed the reports.
To fill out the time, he went downstairs to the firing range and shot
twenty dollars' worth of cartridges at a paper target.

, At the change of shift, he went up to the locker room. Hey, Royce!"
Bobo shouted, coming in. "Meet any gorgeous women today?"

190

Peter Straub

"All the time," Royce mumbled. He remembered Mrs. Clark's face oozing
toward her chin.

"You don't look so hot," Bobo said. "You getting the flu?"

"Nah. I'm okay."

"Roycie Woycie," Turtle bellowed, entering the locker room with beer on
his breath and tomato-sauce stains on his shirt. "Let me push your
doorbell, lady. Let me set my finger on your button."

Royce stared at Turtle. What he saw was a corpse dead roughly three
weeks. The body had been badly mutilated before or just after death, and
the white shrunken skin puckered and bagged around the wounds. The eyes
had turned dark brown. A flap of dead skin folded across Turtle's
forehead, exposing colorless bone.

"Oh, God," Royce said. He stood up. No one else thought Turtle looked
unusual in any way-his mind was going.

"Tell us about all the joy you had today, Roycie," uttered the horrible
Turtle-thing.

"I'm getting out of here," Royce said, and went out to sit in his patrol
car for fifteen minutes before he switched on the ignition. That night
he avoided Greenbank; in fact he avoided patrolling altogether. He drove
to an empty cul-de-sac in the woods off the Merritt Parkway and sat in
the car with his eyes closed. He kept seeing Mrs. Clark; he kept
remembering that oval mirror in the big white house on Mount Avenue.

13

The next morning Royce Griffen reported early to the station. He waited
in the locker room for the others to appear. Turtle Turk, coming in with
what was clearly a monstrous hangover, looked even worse than he had
yesterday and smelled of death and cheap whiskey. One of his eyes had
burst open. At morning call, when all of the officers reported to the
ready room before going on shift, Royce looked around with horror-the
captain and nearly all the policemen were dead too. Some had neat bullet
holes through their uniform shirts, others like Turtle were battered and
mutilated. After they were released, Royce drove to the wooded
cul-de-sac and spent eight hours sitting trembling in his car. At the
change of shift he ran into the toilet in the station

FLOATING DRAGON

191

and locked himself into a stall. Something wanted to burst out of him;
he barely got his trousers down in time. When he sat on the toilet, a
clawing pain almost immediately canceled his relief. The pain tightened
up, became more intense and tearing. His bowels had been ripped: he
whimpered. To see what had caused him such agony, he peeked into the
toilet as he wiped himself. Royce screamed. The bowl was filled with
tiny spiders as red as his hair. A huge mass of them swam in the water,
others already struggled up the sides. Royce hastily flushed the toilet,
flushed it again. Now twenty or thirty scrambled over the seat; more
small red bodies still spun in the bowl. He buckled his pants and left
the men's room. He forced himself to walk slowly across the lobby to the
door. Inside his patrol car Royce locked all his doors. Then he
unstrapped his Smith and Wesson. He had to hold the revolver with both
of his shaking hands. He cocked it. "Dear God," he whispered. He pushed
the barrel into his mouth and bit down on the front sight. Then he
pulled the trigger and the back of his head exploded over the rear
window and the top of the car.

14

On Friday morning the Normans appeared on either side of Tabby as he was
taking books out of his locker. They had been out of school Wednesday
and Thursday, and Tabby had been praying that Bruce had talked Dicky
into releasing him from his role in the planned robbery. After all,
Bruce had gotten him out of having to damage his own mailbox, hadn't he?

But the bear smell of violence was still on them, and Bruce's first
words showed Tabby that the twins had not given up their plans for him.
"You thinking about how you'll spend your hundred, Tabs?"

Tabby shook his head.

'Tabs ..." Dicky breathed.

'We'll pick you up tomorrow night," Bruce said. "Around ten. Don't tell
anybody where you're going or who you'll be with, okay?"

"I don't want to do it," Tabby said.

"Oh yes you do," Bruce said. "You know that grunts in Vietnam used to
wear gook ears as necklaces?"

192

Peter Straub

Dicky grinned. I

"Help us out, Tabs," Bruce said. "We're friends." I

"Yeah," Tabby said. "Ten o'clock." He would send the if

hundred dollars to Sherri. Then he would have nothing to do |J

with the Norman twins ever again. 1

15

Six hours later that Friday Richard Allbee was tying new sash cord to a
lead weight. He had opened the frame alongside one of the large windows
in the living room of the old Sayre house, and two long painted strips
of stop molding and a brownish, worn length of cord lay on the exposed
oak floor. The smells of Mrs. Sayre's cats now were scarcely noticeable
in the living room. One more good washing and repeated airings, now that
the carpets were out of the house, would rid them of the cat ghosts.

Laura's footsteps came down the stairs; a moment later she opened the
living-room door. "I'll work on one more floor," she said, "and then
I'll have to quit. How are you doing with the windows?" ;

"One more to go in there. About forty-five minutes' work.' When you're
done, come in and keep me company." )

"Well, I don't know. My last employer knocked me up."J

"He remembers the occasion with gratitude," Richard] said. |

A few minutes later Laura poked her head around the doorl again. "Say
Richard, I was thinking." I

"Yes?" He looked up, letting the heavy weight swing on| the white new
cord. 1

"If you really want to go over to that old man's housel tomorrow, I
won't mind. Honest. I'll just go to bed early."! She smiled at him.
"Only because you were nice enough toj pretend you saw that cat too." 1

"I wasn't pretending." J

Laura withdrew her head from the doorframe, and Richard J turned back to
his job. He looped the cord over the pulley and! tied the loose ends to
the upper weight. He moved the sash upl and down and saw that now it
worked smoothly. Then he| took up a handful of four-inch finish nails
and used one to fix I the stop molding in place. He moved the sash up
and down| again; it still worked smoothly. He carefully hammered in the

FLOATING DRAGON

193

other nails, checking the movement of the sash after each one.

Another window repaired, and only one more to go in this room. Three
more days' work would see all the windows in working order. On Monday he
and Laura would sign the papers in Ulick Byrne's office, and the lawyers
could stop having heart attacks.

He deliberately was not thinking about Billy Bentley: that had not happened.

Then for a moment, not knowing where the vision came from, Richard saw a
graveyard erupting on his front lawn: saw the graves splitting open,
earth and headstones exploding into the air, then the bodies, the
skeletons, the individual separate bones spewing up out of the ground:
now saw the earth vomiting corpses and bones. The very earth was tearing
at itself, destroying itself in a paroxysm of revulsion. Grass, clods of
earth, broken pieces of headstones and broken pieces of bone went
spiraling up. He shook his head. Oh, God. Billy Bentley, rest in peace.

He moved on to the next window. His hands were shaking.

196

Establishment

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever; Ae fond kiss, and then for ever.

-Robert Burns

.

197 The first Threshold

For most of that week, Patsy and Les McCloud avoided each other, wrapped
in their separate and very different conceptions of what had happened
between them. Patsy did not want to fight with Les, so she was
uncharacteristically happy that he had retreated; she wanted to sit
quietly and chew on the new perception of herself and her husband she
had come to before meeting Tabby at Deli-icious. Since that Tuesday, Les
had been acting aggrieved and wounded, barely meeting her eye; he was
pouting. He thought he could force her to apologize for the things she
had said by putting on these infantine looks, and such tactics had been
successful in the past. But Les looking stricken no longer infected
Patsy with guilt, in fact she resented that once it had; as long as he
was sick she would care for him, but she did not intend to bring in his
tray, as it were, on her knees. When she looked at the pouting whiskery
man on her marital bed she saw a patient, not a husband, and her mind
led her through a series of propositions: if your man is supposed to be
a tough masculine businessman, but if he is afraid that he can never be
as tough and manly as he thinks he must be, then you are supposed to
assure him that he already is; if his insecurities mean that he has to
beat you several times a year just to make sure that your assurances
were not lies, then you are supposed to take the beatings quietly; if he
comes home with shit in his pants like a baby, then you can be certain
that pretty soon reassurance time is going to roll around again.

By Saturday Les was out of bed, and Patsy retreated into the spare
bedroom with the library's copy of D. B. Bach's History of Patchin. At
eleven-thirty, Les looked in and said,

What about lunch?"

She said that she was not hungry.

198

Peter Straub

"What about my lunch?"

"I'm sure there's food in the refrigerator."

"Jesus Christ." Les slammed the door.

Two hours later he came in the room again. He was glaring at her and his
fists were balled. "You trying to get back at me u or something?" '

"I just want to be alone," Patsy said.

"Okay. I'm going to the golf course. Be alone, if you want to act like a
spoiled kid." |

Tabby and Clark Smithfield spent Saturday in a gloomy, but| not a
poisoned, silence. Clark tried to explain to his son that; the fault for
his charade had been Sherri's-that Sherri's un-1 willingness to adjust
to Hampstead and Connecticut had | driven him out of the house, and
Tabby saw that his father | believed this. "We'll get by, kid," Clark
said. It was noon, | and he was working on his second drink. "We're
better off I without her." m

They watched television all afternoon. At six Clark drovell to an
Italian restaurant on the Post Road and came back with I an enormous
pizza. Wordlessly they watched the local news, i the national news,
Solid Gold, Enos, and the beginning of thell Saturday Night Movie, From
Russia with Love. Tabby keptjj looking at his watch as the light from
the windows died and 1 the nearly bookless "library" at "Four Hearths"
darkened, m "Dad," he said, "are you going to need a real job prettym
soon?" H

"I have a job," Clark said. He sipped at his Irish whiskey,M looked
sideways at Tabby. "I can get work anytime I needfl

it-" m

"But you don't have a job," Tabby said. "You don't havfl a job now." 9

"I told you I did, didn't I?" Clark said, not looking ajH him. fl

Tabby stood up and left the room. Being with his fathefl was like
watching somebody drown. For a time he stood ouql side on the front
steps. The trees of Greenbank and HermitagjM Avenue inhaled on the short
front lawn of "Four Hearths,'; exhaled farther down the quiet street.
Above them the passiv|H stars marched in order. Tabby went down the
steps to sit oqH the grass and wait for the Norman twins. fl

FLOATING DRAGON

2

199

Shortly after nine-thirty that night, Richard Allbee pulled into Graham
Williams' driveway. When he got out of his car, he turned around to see
how the old Sayre house looked from across the street. Already it looked
improved, he thought-it looked inhabited. Like children and animals,
houses too were civilized by the touch of informed love. That he had
imagined seeing Billy Bentley there more than ever seemed a delusion; he
was glad that he had told Laura, now in the hated water bed reading a
Joyce Carol Oates novel and watching a James Bond movie, no more of it
than that he had seen the cat.

Light footsteps came tapping toward him from the Charleston Road corner.
Involuntarily Richard tensed his muscles. He braced himself to see a
large gray tomcat padding silently into the circle of light just up from
the corner.

Delusion, delusion.

A figure turned the corner. It was coming toward him. Then the figure
emerged into the light of the streetlamp, and Richard saw that it was
Patsy McCloud. She was carrying a thick book under one arm. Apart from
the relief at the disappearance of his ridiculous fear, Richard felt a
certain guilty pleasure in the sight of Patsy. He waved at her. She wore
a pale blue shirt and white bib overalls which fit snugly at her waist
and billowed around her legs. Patsy waved back when she recognized him.

"I should have known that you'd be here," he said.

"I thought you and Laura might both be here," Patsy said as she walked
toward him over the lawn.

"Laura's in bed with James Bond."

"And Les has the flu. On the whole, Laura has the better bargain."

Richard asked her about the book she was carrying as they went toward
the front door.

"Did Mr. Williams tell you anything about why he wanted to see us
together? Did he show you the plaque on Mount Avenue?"

Richard shook his head and pushed the bell.

"Then I'd better wait for him to explain it."

"All Will Be Explained." AH." She smiled at him.

Williams opened the door and peered out through the

200

Peter Straub

screen. "Both of you! I'm very gratified." He opened the screen door and
stepped out of the way, allowing them in. He was wearing his Yankee cap
and a gray PAL T-shirt too small for him.

Patsy and Richard came into a hallway lined with bookshelves. Books
leaned, books formed skyscrapers and towers on the top shelves, books
were lined spine-up on the floor in front of the shelves. "Where do we
go?" Patsy asked. The light bulb hanging from a cord in the middle of
the hallway had burned out.

"First door on the left."

Patsy, then Richard, went into the living room. Here too the walls were
covered with bookshelves, and books were stacked to waist height at
intervals before the shelves. Framed graphics and posters for ancient
films stood on the floor, propped either against the shelves or against
the stacks of books. A dim overhead light burned, as did a standard lamp
beside the shabby green couch, and a brass gooseneck lamp on the white
pine table which held a typewriter-an old black manual-and several neat
stacks of paper. The room smelled of must, age, books.

Williams hovered in the door. "Make yourselves comfortable on the couch.
Or on the chair." He nodded toward a brown leather library chair which
seemed to dissolve back into the shelves of unjacketed books. The chair
was so worn it looked as though it had been sanded-the dye had shredded
away from the leather. A tall floor lamp and a heavy marble ; ashtray
stood beside it. "Can I get you anything? A drink? ? Coffee?" ]

Both Patsy and Richard asked for coffee.

"Perking away. Be right back." ;

In seconds he was back with three cups; he set the tray on the coffee
table before the green couch. Then he picked up one cup and pulled a
metal chair from under the typing table and sat, facing the other two.
Simultaneously they sipped the hot strong coffee. Richard was not sure
why he had thought he ought to come. This would be a waste of time:
Williams i was a lonely old man. He had invited them for their cornpany,
that was all. Richard rubbed his hand over the arm of the couch. The
raised ornate pattern had been almost worn away. }

"I suppose I ought to apologize," Williams said. He re- |

FLOATING DRAGON

201

moved the Yankee cap and danced his fingers over his freckled bald
crown. "This place deserves to be fixed up, and I never had the money to
do it. Just got used to it instead. I put up all the bookshelves myself,
forty years ago. Nowadays I couldn't even afford the lumber." His
fingers still danced and drummed on the top of his head. The old man was
nervous. Richard wondered how long it had been since another person had
been in the house with Williams; how long it had been since a woman had
been in this room.

Then the old man startled him by saying, "Patsy's a psychic, you know.
Same as her grandmother, Josephine Tayler. There's a boy in the
neighborhood who's another one. Tabby Smithfield. James Tabb Smithfield,
that is. Up on Hermitage. Don't suppose you're one too, Allbee?"

"Me?" Richard said, swallowing too much coffee. "A psychic? No."

"I'm not either. Except for the one time I was, when I saw a man and
knew . . . well, never mind what I knew. I'll save that for a time when
young Tabby's with us. I gather you know about your family and all that?
About the Greens?"

For a moment Richard had thought Williams had meant his father, and he
was already shaking his head impatiently. "Oh. The Greens. I know a little."

"You ever see the plaque in front of the Academy?"

Richard glanced at Patsy and caught her staring at him. He shook his
head again.

"Smyth, Tayler, Green, Williams," the old man said, mystifying Richard.
"And Gideon Winter. Smyth, which became Smithfield; Tayler, who is our
beautiful little friend sitting next to you; Green, who is you; and
Williams, who is me. And Gideon Winter, who could be just about anybody.
I guess I better explain."

"You're a smart little fuck, Tabs," Dicky Norman said, rubbing his
knuckles painfully over the top of Tabby's head. They were jammed into
the front seat of the old black Oldsmobile beside Bruce. The Normans
were happier than Tabby had ever seen them. Both of them stank of
excitement and beer, of marijuana too.

202

Peter Straub

"Hey, I knew he'd come through," Bruce said, knocking Tabby's ribs with
a huge elbow. "Our little buddy's a great guy. And you never made a
sound about who you were going to be with, did you, little buddy?"

"Of course not," Tabby said. "But this is the last time I do anything
like this. No more, after tonight. I want you guys to know that."

"After tonight, man, you're cool with us," Bruce said. "Ain't that
right, Dicky? Tabs is cool with us."

Dicky responded by trying to play washboard on Tabby's head again. They
had turned into Beach Trail and were going downhill toward Mount Avenue.

"Because I hate doing this," Tabby said. "I just want to keep my ears,
that's all."

Both Normans responded with violent beery laughter. Bruce turned right
on Mount Avenue and went past the front gates of Greenbank Academy.

At the thruway overpass Mount Avenue joined Greenbank Road; Bruce was
driving south, toward town. Tabby asked, "Where are we going?"

"Parking lot," Bruce muttered. He went down Greenbank Road to the first
light, then turned right toward the Post Road

6n the Sayre Connector.

The man Tabby had seen across the street from school was standing beside
his van in an empty corner of the Lobster House lot. Bruce drove up
alongside the van, and the man watched them get out of the car. He
doesn't look like a burglar, Tabby thought. Gary Starbuck had a
pronounced nose- a perfume tester's nose-steady dark eyes, and a worried
forehead. He was dressed entirely in dark blue. He looks like an algebra
teacher.

The dark eyes rested on him for a moment. "Yeah, I see," Starbuck
remarked, though no one had said anything. Then he spoke directly to
Tabby. "You know what you're supposed to do?"

Tabby shook his head.

Starbuck reached into the window of his van and brought out a pair of
small two-way radios. He handed one to Tabby. "Switch it on," he said.
Tabby turned it over in his hands until he found a sliding button on the
top. Both radios squealed loudly, and Tabby hurriedly slid the button
back toward him. "They're too close now," Starbuck said softly,

FLOATING DRAGON

203

still looking straight into Tabby's eyes. "They have to be about fifty
feet apart to really work right. But that's how we'll talk. You sit in
the van. Front window, back window. You keep looking at the drive and
the road. Simple?"

Tabby nodded.

"And if you see anything, you tell me about it. We'll be in that house
maybe half an hour. That's a long time. Anybody stops and looks at the
van, you tell me and describe who it is. What kind of car. Anything you
see. If there's a cop, lie down on the floor of the van and call me
fast. We'll come out and take care of him, but we'll have to get to him
before he gets to his radio. You get your money afterward, as soon as we
get away. Understand, kid?"

"I understand."

"I was beginning to think you couldn't talk," Starbuck said. "Here's one
more thing for you to understand. If you ever talk about this with the
cops, or if I even think you'll talk about this with the cops, I'll come
back here and kill you." The sweetly, seriously worried expression on
his face never altered as he said this. "I'm a businessman, see? I gotta
stay in business."

The Normans were so impressed they looked as though they might levitate.

"And that goes for you two glandular cases too," Starbuck said.

"Hey, shit, man," Bruce said.

"Get in the van," Starbuck ordered, abruptly turning away. He got in the
driver's seat, Bruce in the passenger's seat. Dick climbed in the back
with Tabby, who was clutching his radio.

As Starbuck swung out of the lot across the Post Road to go back down
the Sayre Connector, they passed the statue of John Sayre posing as a
World War I soldier. Tabby noticed the statue for the first time: the
young soldier's face seemed demonic to him, the creases in the bronze
cheeks exaggerated by shadows.

Dicky leveled a forefinger at Tabby's chest and pretended to pump
bullets into him.

"I never lived in a place like this before," Gary Starbuck said. "Not
exactly like this, anyhow. What do they call this, anyhow? It's not
suburbia, is it? Do they call this exurbia?"

"I dunno," Bruce said. "Who cares?"

204

Peter Straub

Starbuck turned left on Greenbank Road. Tabby silently groaned. He
should have known-they were going back to his neighborhood.

"Well, I been reading the local rag," Starbuck said, swinging the van
around the curves on Greenbank Road. "You know what goes on in this
town? You know how many drunken-driving arrests you get on the weekends?
How many accidents? How many drug busts and stupid goddamned amateur
break-ins by kids without any professional knowledge? Without any
training? I say this isn't suburbia, and it isn't exurbia. It's cfcsturbia."

4

Richard surveyed the bookshelves as Graham Williams spoke, randomly
reading off names and titles to himself. Half of the longest wall seemed
to be fiction, the other half history and biography. There was a long
section of screenplays bound in black vinyl. The wall to his left held
art books. Paperback mystery novels had been jammed in above the
outsized art books-Williams was an addict of Raymond Chandler and John
D. MacDonald, of Amanda Cross and Dorothy Sayers.

"All right," he said when Williams paused, "the descendants of the four
original settler families are back in Hampstead-in fact, back in
Greenbank. And our ancestors had; some kind of trouble from a newcomer
named Winter. But I'm afraid that I have to ask, so what?"

"The only reasonable question," Williams said. "You're right. Why should
we care, really, unless we're historians?! The only reason we should
care is that whatever happened back then is still affecting us now.
Isn't that always true ofi history? If the Normans had prevailed in
England, we'd be \ speaking French today, or something like it. So let's
look at; our history here in Hampstead. I'm going to give you three I
names from three generations in Hampstead, from 1898 to;

1952. Robertson Green-he would have been your greatgreat-uncle, Mr.
Allbee-Bates Krell, and John Sayre. Robertson Green was executed by the
state in 1898, Bates j Krell disappeared from human ken in 1924, and
John Sayre | killed himself in 1952. I think Gideon Winter was reborn in
I each of these men, and that only John Sayre had the strength to fight
him."

FLOATING DRAGON

5

205

Les McCloud had snatched up his golf clubs as he steamed out of the
house, thrown them into the trunk of his Mazda, and driven straight to
the Sawtell Country Club after his fight with Patsy. Of course it had
not been anything as satisfying as a fight: it had been Patsy needling,
needling, needling him, provoking him as only someone who had lived with
him for a decade and a half would know how to do. I'm sure there's food
in the refrigerator. A rebellion against the proper order of things. Les
did not actually feel much like playing golf, but he could not stand to
be in the house a moment longer; golf was the best excuse for a long
absence. He would spend four or five hours away, and come back and see
if she had seen reason ... or if she was still using the old needle,
needle, needle. And if she was, then she was asking for what she knew
she was going to get.

Once at the club, parked out in front of the long white columned
building, Les had felt sweaty and dispirited. His forehead and hands
paradoxically felt damply cold. He had decided that he could manage nine
holes, if he could find some loser of a partner, so he got out of the
car, shouldered his heavy bag, and doggedly marched past the front of
the club toward the first tee and the pro shop.

"Hey, Les! You looking for a partner?" Ugly Archie Monaghan was smiling
brightly at him from beside a display of golf balls. Archie, a
second-rate mick lawyer, proved his point about losers. "Ulick Byrne was
going to meet me here, and guess what? I just called his house, and he's
down with the flu again. Poor bastard got it twice. I could use a
partner, if you want to go around with me."

"Oh, I'll go around with you anytime, Archie," Les said. He smiled at
Archie, taking in his red eager face, the yellow knit shirt bulging out
over the watermelon belly, and the redand-green-plaid pants, and said,
"Today I'm really only up for nine holes, though. Just got over the flu
myself. What do you say?"

''You'll go around with me anytime, hey," Archie said. "Nine is great
with me, sure." And Les took in that this garish fool actually preferred
to play only half the course with him.

Les opened the door, Archie shook his head and did a No,

206

Peter Straub

you first gesture with his hand, and they hovered like that inside the
door for a time until Archie grinned and surrendered and went outside
before Les. "How's your wife these days, Les?" Archie asked. "She's such
a pretty little lady."

"Patsy's fine." Les did not want to get into a discussion of his wife,
especially not with Archie Monaghan, who had spent hours ogling her at a
party last year. Archie, Les remembered, liked to talk about other men's
wives.

"Patsy McCloud, Patsy McCloud," Archie said as he would lovingly
pronounce the name of a movie star, and Les was so irritated that after
he won the toss and teed up, his wrists were tight and the ball sliced
deeply off the fairway.

"Bad luck, chief," Archie said. He rolled his belly up to his tee,
flexed his arms, and punched the ball in a straight line more than two
hundred yards toward the first green.

By the time they met again on the fifth green, Les had realized that
Archie had deliberately thrown him off by saying his wife's name in that
way, and he made himself stay loose and ] calm as he putted to stay
three over par. Already he was having a bad day, but there was no need
to make it worse; The only consolation was that Archie too was three
over par, and likely to stay that way, unless he could make a
thirty-foot putt. Archie seemed not to care. "I've been studying this a
long time, Les, and I have come to the decision that there are two kinds
of women. There's the kind that looks as though she enjoys it, and the
kind that looks like they don't even know what it is. You know what I
mean? In this town, at least eighty percent of the women are in the
second category.; They might have three kids, but to look at them they
never; broke sweat. Nice one." This was for Les, who had made hisj putt.
Archie set his ball in place and waggled his club speculatively. "I was
talking to Ulick about this once, and he? named eight or nine right off
the bat-you'd think the; Women's Art League and their tennis game was
the most; important thing on earth. Lime-green skirts or those real,
baggy khaki shorts, right? You know the kind I'm talking about? Ultimate
prep. Little bit of a drawl in their voice." Archie lined himself up,
cocked the club back, and made his' shot. The ball obeyed Les's silent
prayers and rolled to a stop*1 three feet short of the hole.

"Ho ho. I know, Les, you want to give me this one, but I insist on
making the shot." Archie perkily strode up to the

FLOATING DRAGON

207

ball, paused, and stroked it neatly into the hole. He winked at Les.
"You go out on the terrace of the club, you'll see about three hundred
of them. Eating their salads and talking about their hairdressers. Is
that what they talk about, do you suppose? Or do they talk about the
same boring shit that we do?"

"What's your point, Archie?" Les hefted his heavy golf bag: he was
sweating, but he felt chilly. His forehead had a block of ice strapped
to it.

"My point is this. If the waitresses out there on the terrace are the
only ones who look like they enjoy it, I'm glad I married a waitress. I
said this to Ulick, see. And he said, Archie, your real theory is that
all women are secret waitresses. Guess what? Around Ulick I gotta keep
on my toes."

Les turned away toward the next tee. He understood two things, both of
which were faintly surprising. Archie Monaghan liked him no more than he
did Archie-that crack about "ultimate prep" had not been accidental. And
Archie missed Ulick Byrne; Archie wished he were playing with the young
lawyer instead of Les. Archie was in his fifties, Les was forty. Surely
the two of them, whatever their feelings about each other, had more in
common with one another than Archie could ever have with Byrne, who was
still under thirty. "I guess Byrne is a sharp guy," he said.

"Sharp? Baby, if he was in a corporation, he'd already be vice-president
and they'd be measuring him for the throne. How about we put a little
money on the next hole, chief?"

"Hundred a stroke," Les said, but Archie did not wince. He grinned.

By the ninth hole, Les owed Archie three hundred dollars, and was about
to go down a hundred more. The yellow shirt and hideous plaid trousers
were a long way closer to the green. Down three hundred dollars to
Archie Monaghan! Les had assumed that the size of the bet would rattle
Archie, and now Archie was a chip shot from the green and he was
sweating about three hundred dollars.

Les lined up his shot, pictured it in his mind, waggled the head of his
wood beside the ball, and settled himself. He could not stop himself
from thinking that if this ball went where he wanted it to go, the size
of his debt would go down to two hundred dollars. The minute the head of
the club met the ball, he knew that he had checked it: he had muffed the
shot.

208

Peter Straub

Then it was only a matter of watching it go wrong. The ball sailed up,
looking like the best shot in the world, and kept on sailing; but where
it should have soared between the trees, it dropped. Les watched as the
treacherous ball fell like a stone into the pocket of trees.

"Wanna borrow my compass?" Archie called back to him.

Les fumed toward the trees, deliberately not looking at his partner. He
did not want to see Archie grinning at him. If he could get any
backswing, he could still match Archie on this hole: he'd been in those
trees before, and they didn't have to hold you back. This was a par
four, and if the lie gave him half a chance, he could still make it in
four; and there was always the chance that Archie would lean too hard on
his chip shot. Les stepped under a branch, and began to look around for
his ball. He was breathing a little hard. Sweat dripped into his collar.

Archie was just lining up for his shot, and Les paused to watch him.
Archie sighted down his line again, waggled his club and his rump. He
brought the club back, then around . . . and hit the ball too hard. Les
silently applauded. He knew what was going to happen. "Now make a joke
about your fucking compass," Les said to himself.

He saw his ball almost instantly. The little flash of white sat about
two feet from the mossy side of the largest oak. He was still in the
match. Les moved toward the tree and heard a rustling in the bush on the
other side of his ball. A squirrel. Les got around the oak and took a
good look toward the green. Archie was standing in the bunker looking a
lot less cheerful. Then from behind him Les heard the unmistakable sound
of a child weeping. He whirled around and saw nothing. As he turned to
face the ball, the sound came again. He turned and heard a scurrying in
the bush. "Hey, get on out of there, kid," he said.

The child sobbed quietly. ]

Les propped his club against the oak and put his hands on] his hips.
"Everything's okay. Come on out." I

The bush was still.

"Come on. I'm trying to play golf here. No one's going toj hurt you. Get
on out of the bush." I

When nothing happened, Les picked up his club again. Asj if the child in
the bush could see him and was afraid of being hit with the club, the
bush rustled again-the boy was going deeper into it. It must have been a
child of four or five, Les

FLOATING DRAGON

209

thought: a child any older would be too large to move around like that
in the bush.

He could not make his shot with the bush rattling and rustling in that
way. Then the quiet weeping started up again. Les put the club on the
ground. "Do you want help, sonny?" There was no answer, and Les walked
over toward the bush and bent down to peer through the dense leaves.
"Come on out and I'll help you."

He heard a tiny voice say, "I'm lost."

"All right, I'll help you," he said a little abruptly, and parted the
leaves of the bush with his hands. "How did you get here, anyhow? Did
your daddy. . . ?" He took his hands away from the bush. A vise had
gripped his head with astounding pressure. For a second his vision had
gone black. He straightened up and blinked.

The tiny voice said, "I'm lost. I'm afraid."

"Okay, okay," Les said, and bent forward again. His hands went toward
the bush. They stopped just short of touching the long pointed green
leaves. Somehow a feeling of wrongness emanated from the bush, of the
bush harboring a thing that could not come out into the light. Les
thought he caught a curling odor of wet mud, of sewage, of stinking weeds.

The child wept again, but Les was afraid to touch the bush. Wrongness.
There was something wrong in there. The ripe acrid odor curled toward
him again.

He knew that if he touched the bush, the vise would close again around
his head, his eyes would go black. The thing in the bush wept bitterly.
Les peered into the leaves and saw only more leaves, leaves rustling
against other leaves, leaves touched by sunlight and leaves shining
greenly in the dark.

"Your ball lost that bad?" Les whirled around and saw Archie Monaghan's
plaid pants and bulging yellow belly.

"I heard something," Les said, straightening up. "My ball's not lost, I
heard something. There was a kid in this bush. He was crying."

Archie's eyebrows went up.

"He just stopped," Les said. "I can't see him anywhere in there."

"Let old Archie have a look," Archie said, and bent forward and parted
the bush with his hands. Just for a second ^s caught that odor of wet
mud and sewage. He was aware of the perspiration standing on his
forehead: his whole body

210

Peter Straub

felt so odd, so light, that he was afraid he would fall down. Archie
Monaghan thrust his whole upper body into the bush, and Les was left
staring at his wide plaid bottom.

"Well, guess what?" Archie said, pulling himself out of the bush.
"Nobody's at home. You sure you heard a kid in there?"

"I heard him crying."

"Did you talk to him?"

"I talked to him. He said he was lost."

"Well, it's damn funny. There's nothing in there now. He must have run
away." Archie scratched under his arms and looked vaguely at the trees.
His face lightened. "Hey, there's your ball, and not too bad a lie. You
can come out of this smelling like a rose."

Les put out of his mind everything having to do with lost children and
bushes that could squeeze your head and blind you. He picked up his club
from its bed of pine needles, straightened up before the ball, and
smacked it home.

And that's how you get to be a vice-president in the corporate jungle,
buster.

A little more than two and a half hours later, he was saying, "You might
as well let me buy you a drink," to Archie Monaghan. He was feeling a
curious mixture of bitterness and relief: relief because he had ended
the match only one stroke j behind Archie, bitterness because he had not
smashed the fat I little bog-trotter. He supposed it was the lingering
effects of 1 the flu that had spoiled some of his shots; but he still
remem-1 bered the way that bush in the spot of rough had rustled, and!
how the child's voice had come from it. Before Archie had! jammed his
head and shoulders into the bush, Les had wanted 1 to pull him back,
yank him to the ground to keep him away from the bush ... but of course,
nothing had happened to Archie. There had been no lost child in the bush.

But he'd had an image . . . something with its jaws locked around
Archie's trunk. Yet nothing had happened to Archie; he had put his head
and chest in that wrong place and seen and felt nothing.

But there had been that smell. Rotting weeds, damp earth, and beneath
these not necessarily unpleasant odors, another odor, headier, more biting.

Archie was accepting his offer of a drink and looking at him oddly. "Oh,
I'm good for the debt," Les said. "Here,

FLOATING DRAGON

211

let me give it to you now." Archie started to smile and shake his head,
but Les took his money clip out of his pocket and counted out two
fifties. "There. Now you can take a trip to Dublin, Archie."

Archie pocketed the bills. "Actually, I just got back from Dublin last
week."

Archie Monaghan led the way into the club's lounge. Old bugles and
hunting horns shone from the walls, along with prints of red-coated men
on horses. Archie bounced along the rows of booths, nodding and saying
hello, going toward the bar. Les followed. Archie was now banging his
palm against the back of a man on a barstool and laughing at some remark
made by the man on his other side. When Les got closer, he recognized
the foursome before himself and Archie. They seemed to be part of a
group which included one or two executives like Les, a contractor he
knew only by sight, and Archie's partner, torn Flynn. Flynn was huge and
jowly, about Les's age, and wore a madras jacket the size of an
elephant's blanket. "You guys all know Les McCloud, don't you?" Archie
asked. f

"Nice to meet you, Les," the contractor said, and the others nodded and
mumbled some kind of assent.

"I just lost a hundred clams to Monaghan here, let me set up a round,"
Les said. "The truth is, he played a terrible game. I just played a
worse game." He took out his money clip and laid two twenties on the
bar. "Hey, barkeep! Give these guys more of the same. And I'll have a
martini. On the rocks, twist."

"Bottle of Bud for me," Archie said.

Les swallowed his drink and said, "Arch, what's your favorite pub in
Dublin?"

Archie was talking to torn Flynn and ignored him.

"There was a lost kid out by the ninth green," Les said. "He was hiding
in a bush. You ever hear of anything like that before?"

"Les hears voices," Archie said. "The Joan qf Arc of Sawtell C.C."

Les grinned hard through the laughter.

An hour and two martinis later, Les debated calling Patsy; the trouble
was, he didn't want to leave the group. He was sure they would talk
about him the second he left the room. To hell with Patsy, he decided.

212

Peter Straub

He thought of his wife sitting in her little spare room with her book
and her television. That was where she would be at this minute. She had
probably eaten nothing. She was engrossed in a book or in her diary, and
she had forgotten all about him.

Archie's name glinted at him from a plaque of former winners of the club
trophy; the air conditioning seemed to freeze his sinuses. He touched
his forehead, and it felt like wax. There was another brimming martini
before him, and he lifted it and drank. "That kid out there was from
another species," he said, and was gratified and surprised to hear
laughter. "No kidding. I felt something really strange out there."

Archie whispered something to Flynn, and Flynn's eyes flashed at him.

Then he saw something he could not believe. A man sitting in the comer
booth up at the top end of the bar was wearing raw steaks around his
neck. The raw meat was a kind of necklace, the way it was spread out
against the man's skin. "Hey," Les said (and "Hey," Flynn echoed).

Les stared in fascination at the necklace of raw meat until he saw that
it was not a necklace at all. The raw meat was the man's chest and
shoulders. His skin had been peeled back in big scallops. Les caught
again the odor of wet earth and ripe sewage. The man in the booth was
dead-he had been flayed, and now he was dead.

"Guess what?" Archie said. He muttered something, and the other men laughed.

Les stared at the dead man. That was what had happened out by the ninth
green. The lost boy had been dead: he was dead, and he had been looking
for Les McCloud. He felt the heavy martini glass slip out of his ringers.

When it hit the floor and shattered, all the laughter ceased. Archie and
the other men were looking at him; he saw dislike in their eyes, and it
was naked. Again he felt light-headed.

"I'm getting out of here," he said. Les kicked the broken glass aside
and went toward the door.

FLOATING DRAGON

213

"Reborn?" Richard asked. "You mean reincarnation? I can't believe in
that. You can talk all you want, but you'll never convince me that this
Winter person was born as three dif-

ferent men in three different decades, and all in the same town."

"Not born in that way," Williams said. "I'm not talking about
reincarnation in the strict sense-that's more a metaphor for what I
mean. When your great-great-granduncle was born, Gideon Winter was
nowhere in evidence. The Winterizing, to make a joke at your relative's
expense, came later."

"Well, if you're talking about possession, I'm not sure I believe in
that either," Richard said.

"And that's fine with me," the old man said. "I'm not sure I do either.
Not unless an entire stretch of seacoast can be possessed. Or can
possess. A man named Gideon Winter arrived here roughly three hundred
years ago, and various things happened. Bad things. Bad economically,
bad in every way. You could use the word 'evil,' but I suppose you'll
tell me that you don't believe in evil either."

"I believe in evil," Richard said, and Patsy surprised them both by
saying softly, "I do too."

"All right," Williams said. He put his baseball cap back on. "Maybe it
wasn't the man, but what happened to him here. Maybe it was something
the place did to him. This is a fancy theory I have been working on for
fifty years or so."

"You mean since that man. Since Bates Krell," Patsy said.

Williams glanced appreciatively at her.

"Oh, I know about him," Patsy said. "I just didn't know his name until I
heard you say it to Tabby. I saw him. I mean I saw him." She colored. "A
long time ago. I saw him kill a woman."

She colored even more deeply when Graham Williams picked up her hand and
carried it to his lips. "Of course you did, and you don't know how good
it makes me feel to hear you say so."

"Shouldn't we talk about what it says in here?" Patsy said, touching the
big blue library book. "About Winter?"

"Sure," Williams said. "If you like. You know what this is, though. Mrs.
Bach was not a professional historian. She just assembled records. She
didn't try to draw any conclusions from them. Her History is a
sourcebook, but no more than a sourcebook."

"Well, I thought it was kind of inconclusive," Patsy said.

Williams stood up and wandered off to a distant bookshelf; he returned
with his own copy of the book. "Sure it's in-

214

Peter Straub

conclusive." He dropped the book on the coffee table, then sat and
picked it up and opened it in his lap. "Dorothy Bach expected other
people to make the conclusions-all she wanted to do was gather as much
data as she could. She just put together raw data." He flipped through
the early pages of the fat blue book. "So you see what she was able to
find. Land records. Stock transfers. Births and deaths, from the parish
records on Clapboard Hill. Which got its name from the way of calling
worshipers to service-they clapped two small boards together. Let's take
a look at what she has for the year 1645."

"Gideon Winter's arrival," Patsy said. "Here it is. 'A landowner named
Gidyon or Gideon Winter of Sussex purchased 8.5 acres of seacoast land
from farmers Williams and Smyth.' And that's all it says about him on
that page-until she says that his name did not appear in the parish
records."

"Dorothy Bach was an old woman when I started to look into this,"
Williams said. "But I felt I had a compelling reason to bother her. I'd
been brooding about Krell for two or three years."

"Hold on a second," Richard asked. "What is all this stuff about
somebody named Krell? I keep hearing the name, but I don't know anything
about him. Patsy, you say he killed someone? And you saw him do it?"

"Not really saw," Patsy said. "I saw it with my mind once. I knew it was
something from a long time ago. It was on the river, and the new
buildings weren't there. There were more fishing boats. I saw him
strangle a woman to death-or until she was unconscious, anyhow-and then
wrap her in an oilcloth and drop her overboard." "And you know that this
was Krell." "She knows," Williams said. "And I know-in part, / know
because she knows so well. But what you don't know, Richard, is that I
killed Bates Krell. I had to kill him. And doing it soured my life. It
soured my life even though I always knew that he'd have killed me if I
hadn't got him first- I even tried to turn myself in to Joey Kletzka,
the chief of police here, but he wouldn't listen to me-it was like he
knew more about it than I did . . . aaah. I'm getting worked up about
this." He smiled at Richard. "You know, I can feel my heart pounding."

"I don't think I understand any of this," Richard said. "Join the crowd.
That's how I felt when I went to see old f

FLOATING DRAGON

215

Dorothy Bach. I say old, but she must have been six or seven years
younger than I am now. She had given up on history by then, and spent
all of her time in her garden. Oh, she gave talks to the ladies' groups
now and then, because that was how she got started doing her research,
but when she got too old to lift a parish record book she gave herself
to her azaleas. She lived up at the top of Mount Avenue, right on the
Hillhaven border. I'd looked into enough Hampstead history to know the
right questions to ask her, so after she showed me into her drawing
room-you see how long ago this was, people still had drawing rooms-I
thanked her for agreeing to see me, and then I got right to it. I asked
her if she had had more information about Gideon Winter than she had put
in her book."

He looked at Richard, then at Patsy. He had an eagle's face, Patsy
thought, an old, old eagle's face. She had never been so conscious of
Williams' age before, and she thought that she was so struck by it now
because at this minute his eyes looked young.

Williams' mouth twitched. "She thought I was accusing her of doctoring
the facts. I think she damn near threw me out of the house-Dorothy Bach
was proud of that history book, a lot prouder than she'd ever be of her
azaleas. 'Are you asking me if I suppressed information about one of the
founders of Greenbank?' she asked me. 1 assured her that I knew she
would never do anything of the sort, and that present and future
historians of the area would forever be in her debt- she wanted to hear
guff like that, but on the other hand it was true, and she deserved to
hear it. 'I guess,' I told her, 'I'd be grateful if you could be more
speculative than you could be in your book.' 'You want me to speculate
about Gideon Winter, Mr. Williams? You want to know what I thought of
the Dragon as I was doing my researches?'"

Yes, I would like to know just that," the young Graham Williams had said
to the ancient lady on the brocade sofa. Her dress was at least ten
years out-of-date, with its high black neck that came to just beneath
her chin and its ruffled sleeves. Her face, as she set down her teacup
without even glancing at it, was wrinkled, clever, considering. She had

216

Peter Straub

pushed her lips slightly forward, and the line at the top of the upper
lip looked as sharp as a knife blade.

"What makes you think that I speculated at all about him?"

"Because of his mystery," Williams replied. "He came out of nowhere, he
soon owned most of the land, catastrophe followed him, and he vanished.
You don't name him in your compilation of burial records, so he wasn't
buried. Not here, anyhow. I think you must have turned him over in your
mind once or twice."

"Everything you have just said is in error, young man." The upper lip
still jutted forward. "He came from the county of Sussex in England.
Because the other farmers agreed to sell him no more land after a
certain point-at least that was my conclusion, for they could certainly
have used the money-he never owned more than just about half the land in
Greenbank. And he was most certainly buried in Greenbank. But he was not
buried in the church cemetery. No. When they buried the Dragon, they
buried him on a beach."

"Gravesend Beach," Williams had said softly.

She shook her head. "Now you are the one who is speculating. No, not
there. The name derives, I am almost certain, from the practice of
burying anonymous shipwreck victims up the hill from the Sound at that
point. Gideon Winter, and again I must say that I am almost certain, was
laid to rest on the long spit of land that juts out into the Sound about
a mile and a half west of the public beach. It was briefly called Point
Winter. Since 1760 it has been known as Kendall Point. And it was where,
as you may know ..."

"Where General Tryon's troops landed to burn Patchin and Greenbank."

Her mouth relaxed. "So you know a little of local history, do you? Do
you know what else happened at Kendall Point?"

He shook his head.

"It was once the most famous disaster in the state of Connecticut. And
it still would be, if our memories were longer than they are. The entire
congregation of the Greenbank Congregational Church attended a church
social on Kendall Point in August of 1811. It was a beautiful spot, and
considerably breezier than the church grounds, so on a hot August day it
was much more comfortable. They could take their food and tables down to
the Point on wagons, and only have to carry the tables the last thirty
feet, at the end of the wagon track.

FLOATING DRAGON

217

And once they were on the Point, they could see the traffic on the Sound
from both directions. Sailboats, merchant boats I mean, steamers, even
pleasure craft from Long Island and down from New Haven-the Sound was
even busier in those days. Not to mention the fishboats."

She was staring at him with pale eyes in which a hidden joke lay
sparkling. She picked up her teacup again, and Williams saw that her
fingernails were black. He had blinked in disbelief: in 1929, ladies,
especially old ladies who were distinguished amateur historians living
on the Golden Mile, did not have dirty fingernails. Then the young
Graham Williams had remembered the azalea bushes crowding the side of
the house, and realized that Mrs. Bach did her own gardening. But even
so ... wouldn't she have cleaned her nails before greeting company? He
glanced again at her blackened nails- this time he saw brown earth
smudges on her hands, and he felt slightly sickened.

"Oh, they were going to have a beautiful time, a beautiful time," Mrs.
Bach had said. "Tables filled with roast pork and homemade sausages,
currant bread, potato salad, blood pudding, preserves . . . it's in all
the documents. They were going to feast. The minister, Reverend
Greenough, played the violin, and after they had said their prayers and
the children had run off some of their nervous energy, the reverend
intended to play some hymns for his flock. After the enormous meal,
there would be an hour or so of jollier music. Jigs. There would have
been many a man in that congregation who could call a jig out of a
fiddle or a banjo." Mrs. Bach knitted her smudged hands together. "But
there was no feast and there were no hymns and there were no jigs.
Instead, it happened."

"It?" He thought. "Some sickness?"

"If you like-a fever, if you like. But it was Kendall Point that was
fevered. As they sat on either side of their three long covered tables,
the land split open underneath them. Great fissures opened first on the
inland side of the Point, and then split seaward quick as you could
wink. The first table fell in, and the Reverend Greenough must have seen
it. He was standing up at the head of all three tables, saying a prayer.
The entire congregation was looking in his direction. Then the land
opened up and swallowed the most inland table before the people sitting
around it could scream. You can't tell me Reverend Greenough didn't see
that. And if his responses

218

Peter Straub

had been quicker, he could have saved himself and all the rest of them.

"But the Reverend Greenough did nothing, and the Reverend Greenough said
nothing. The opening hole took the second table. And now there was
plenty of screaming. The crew of a merchant vessel called the Pequot saw
the second table go down and heard the screams. They anchored and sent a
dory with eight sailors toward the Point. Well, of course, the people at
the third table had scattered, and they too were screaming. The reverend
had come out of his trance, and his voice was loudest among them. The
sailors heard him invoking the name of the Almighty as he ran toward the
water. On both sides of him, men and women were running in all
directions . . . but they did not get far. Off the central fissure,
smaller fissures opened up and took the people from the third table,
took them one by one. And the last split in the earth took Reverend
Greenough. They were all gone by the time the dory landed on the Point."
Mrs. Bach nodded almost happily at the young Williams.

He had said, "You mean it was like the land had chased them? Hunted them
down, one by one? Did they get out of the fissures?" But he had already
known the answer to that.

"The sailors came up on the Point," Mrs. Bach said. "The sounds of the
screaming hurt their ears. That's what the captain of the Pequot wrote
in his log. My men this day have had their ears punished by the screams
of the Kendall Point dying. They could see that wide crack in the earth,
beginning thirty or forty feet back where the carts stood, dividing all
of Kendall Point like the trunk of a tree from which the smaller
fissures at the top branched off-zigging and zagging through the earth.
And everywhere in this maze of fissures, people were trapped. The tables
were upended, the food steamed all around them, they struggled to get
free, but they could not." Mrs. Bach's eyes glinted. "And the sailors
could not pull them free. And do you know why, young man?"

"Because the earth. . . ?" I

"Yes. Because the earth was already closing on them again. Like a mouth
when it is full of food. One of the Pequot's sailors lost an arm and
bled to death when he did not get away quickly enough. The stones sawed
through his flesh and gristle, and took off his arm at the shoulder. The
rest of them wept and prayed-they could see the faces of the adults,
looking up in horror, and see the tops of the children's

FLOATING DRAGON

219

heads. It was as though the earth itself was screeching for help. For
the screeches continued after the earth had closed itself up again. One
of the reports I read held that the screams from beneath the surface of
the earth continued all the rest of that day, but I suspect some
old-fashioned fantastification there. I don't think the screams could
have lasted so long, do you?"

"No. I don't think they could have."

"Thirty-six adults and fourteen children," the old woman said. "That's
what else happened at Kendall Point."

"What year did you say that was in?"

For the first time, the old woman looked at him with real interest. ''
Eighteen-eleven.''

"Eighteen-eleven. Thirty, thirty-five years after the burning of Patchin."

She was nodding vigorously. "Thirty-two years. You've seen the pattern,
then, have you?"

"I hadn't gotten around to thinking of it as a pattern," Graham had
said. "But of course I remembered Prince Green, and then about five
years ago those four women disappeared . . ." He was deliberately
keeping his face and his voice still, remembering Bates Krell and what
had jumped out at him from clear across the Nowhatan River.

"Disappeared," the old woman snorted. "I don't suppose you ever heard of
Sarah Allen and Thomas Moorman? Two children?"

Williams had shaken his head.

"They were skinned and roasted-in a pit in the ground, sonny. A half-wit
Tayler did it, and they caught him in one of the Jenningses' fields and
strung him up as soon as Judge Barr could get there. The Taylers are
prone to go like that now and then; half-wit, I mean. And judging from
the records, some of them are inclined to go another way too. But that
poor half-witted Tayler killed those children in 1841. Exactly thirty
years after the tragedy on Kendall Point."

^None of this is in your book," Williams protested.

"The death records are," she said.

He smiled. "You refused to speculate."

"That is correct. But didn't you come here to ask me about Gideon
Winter? The man they secretly buried on the spit of land they named
after him? Didn't you want to know what I thought of him as I was doing
my research?" Her eyes shone vehemently out at him. "I'll tell you what
I thought about

220

Peter Straub

him, young man. I thought that he would have gone far in this country if
a handful of ignorant farmers hadn't stopped him. Oh, he took them, he
took them all right, and that's why they called him the Dragon, he was
smarter and stronger than they, and their women liked him-imagine this,
young Williams, you're a hardscrabble farmwife with homespun clothes and
the stink of pigs and tallow in your nostrils and up comes a fine
gentleman from Sussex, clothed by a tailor and rich as a king, with a
smile bright as the sun and a voice soft as velvet. Wouldn't this fine
young man dazzle you?"

She was waiting, so he answered. "I suppose. Yes."

"You suppose. Well, think about this. In 1650 nearly all of the children
were dead. But in 1651 there was a whole new crop of conceptions,
because the parish records show a new crop of baptisms in 1652. There
was a boy named 'Darkness' and a girl baptized 'Eventide.' Another girl
was baptized 'Sorrow.' I think they would have baptized each of those
children Shame if they could. I'm just speculating, mind you, but
wouldn't you imagine that those children looked a bit alike?"

"So you think they killed him."

"Don't you?" she asked. "And don't you think he killed the first
generation of children, or as many of them as he could?" She was cocking
her head, and he could see a broad gray line of dirt at the side of her
neck. "Remember, children were primarily economic power in those
times-they weren't as sentimental as we."

"I think I can see how you feel about him," Williams said.

"Oh, women all love a dragon, Mr. Williams. I'm sure those four women
who disappeared from town five years ago found a dragon to love."

He knew she was crazy then; he had only one more question to ask.
"Something must have happened in 1870-in the early 1870's."

"Something did; of course something happened, you fool. Didn't I say
there was a pattern? Look in my book! All the data are there." And then
for an instant Graham Williams was like Royce Griffen on the patio of a
splendid Mount Avenue home fifty-one years in the future: he thought he
caught an evil smell when Mrs. Bach leaned forward and spilled her tea
over her table and dampened the unfolded copy of the Hampstead Gazette
lying there, he thought he saw something crawling down the walls . . .
but it was only the convoluted

FLOATING DRAGON

221

pattern of the wallpaper. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and
helped her mop up the tea.

8

"Anyhow, I was right about a couple of things," Graham said to Richard
and Patsy. "Dorothy Bach was crazy, all right. She had fallen in love
with the figure she thought she saw way back there in the past, and so
she hid the facts about his behavior that most reveal it. She didn't
suppress anything, she just hid it-behind her objectivity."

Patsy flipped the pages of History ofPatchin. Suddenly she was tired.
She thought of the story Mr. Williams had just told, of the sailors
staring down in horror at the faces of those caught in the earth. . . .

History of Patchin shook in her hand. Graham Williams was saying, "One
thing she let through her net is that Winter never attended the church
services on Clapboard Hill-and imagine how that must have seemed to the
others, who would have gone if they'd had to swim halfway across the
Sound." Richard Allbee was drumming his fingers on his knee and looking
puzzled, and the book by that crazy old woman Graham had met in 1929
trembled in Patsy's hand like a trapped sparrow. A second later it
trembled even more violently.

Patsy dropped the book on the coffee table, gasping. The blue cover flew
open and banged itself against the wood.

Gary Starbuck said, "I mean, I thought Key West was bad, but I sort of
expected weirdness in Key West. Place is full of queers and transies,
guys who think about two things only, dope and sex, and around here I
thought I'd get your basic Norman Rockwell situation. But to tell you
the truth, I think people are even screwier here than they are in Key
West. And not just because they're richer. Their heads are fucked. They
act like the real rules of life don't apply to them."

The Normans were rigid with attention, taking all this in as " it were
Scripture, and Tabby was remembering Key West

222

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

223

L

and skinny Poche sitting on the toilet seat with a needle drooping from
the crook of his elbow. Poche had been wearing a ratty off-the-shoulder
orange dress and high heels at the time. Poche had looked at him
dreamily, his mascaraed lids just clearing his pupils, and said,
"Beautiful eyes. Beautiful eyes." That was Poche-code for Now I'm fine,
man, now I'm as mellow as a monkey up a tree. The real rules of life had
applied to Poche, all right. A couple of months after Sherri had kicked
him out of Clark's life, Poche had turned up dead in a cell in the
sheriff's jail. The doctor certified that Poche had died of natural
causes (overlooking various broken bones and bruises), and Tabby had
wondered if Poche had been wearing his orange dress when he died.

Bruce Norman yelled, "Hey, what the fuck?"

Tabby's heart pounded. He pictured a police car turning on its siren,
flashing its light bar, swinging in ahead of them. . . . Dicky too must
have been nervous, for he shouted, "What? What?" Starbuck savagely
cramped the wheel, and Tabby and Dicky pitched sideways in the rear of
the van. Tabby grabbed the back of Bruce's seat and pulled himself
forward so he could look out the windows. There was no police car
ordering them to the side of the road. Tabby could see nothing but the
black road, the headlights of the van streaming out, and a thick hedge
on the side of the road. "Goddammit," Starbuck said, and twisted the
wheel far to the left, swinging the van across the road.

Bruce was laughing.

"Shut the fuck up," Starbuck ordered; as he spoke, something thudded
against the van.

"I never saw anything like it," Bruce said as Starbuck braked, shifted
into the parking gear, and jumped out of the van. "I swear."

"What happened?" Dicky and Tabby asked together.

"A dog, a fucking dog," Bruce said. "It jumped right over the hedge and
ran right into us. He tried to miss it, but ..." Bruce stopped chuckling
as Starbuck screamed "Jesus Christ!" from down on the side of the van.

Starbuck's face popped up in the side window. A thick vein stood out on
his forehead; his deep eyes were now as flat and hard as a pair of black
stones. He wrenched open the door and hurled himself into the seat. Then
he clenched the wheel and straightened his arms. He looked as though the
top of his head were going to lift off in a plume of smoke. "Did

you see that?" he said to no one in particular. "Can you believe that?
That fucking mutt committed suicide! He ran into me deliberately!" He
rocked back and forth stiff-armed. "And the son of a bitch dented my
fender, God damn his mangy hide." Bruce was still restraining his desire
to laugh out loud, and Starbuck nailed him to his seat with a glare.
"You two animals stink, you know that? You been stinking up my van since
you got in. The way you fuckers reek is gonna wake the old fart up, I
swear." Still fuming, Starbuck threw the van into gear and sped down
Greenbank Avenue. Now and then he shook his head and muttered
unintelligibly.

Almost as soon as they had passed the access road to Gravesend Beach,
Starbuck twisted the wheel savagely and spun the van into an asphalt
driveway between two pillars. In the back, Tabby and Dicky went
sprawling. Starbuck cramped the wheel again and shot the van into a dark
place beside a high thick wall of vegetation. He cut the lights, and for
a moment they sat in darkness. Tabby was aware of the sour smell of
Dicky Norman's exhalations. Then Starbuck flicked on a pocket flashlight
and held it high up against his chest, making his face shadowy but visible.

"You. Kid. I hope you know how to drive this fucking van."

He was still in a savage mood, and Tabby had sense enough to stretch the
truth. "I guess I do."

"Okay. Remember, use the radio if you see anybody come in. Or if you see
any lights go on. If a cop comes in and sees the van, you lie down on
the floor and get us out right away. When I call you, you drive the van
up to the entrance so we can load the stuff in. Got it?"

Tabby nodded.

Starbuck shook his head. "I oughta have my head examined."

Tabby watched Starbuck lead the Norman twins up toward the huge white
house. A floodlight angling down from under the rain gutter dwarfed
their bodies by pushing long shadows °ut behind them. They were fifty
feet from the van, and still had a long way to go. The radio! Tabby
suddenly remembered. He fumbled for it on the dark floor of the back of
the Van, found it jammed between a wheel cover and a metal wall, and
switched it on. Gary Starbuck was just disappearing around a Japanese maple.

224

Peter Straub

mm

1

Tabby heard him breathing. Then beneath the breathing noises he heard
their feet moving across the grass.

He looked anxiously toward the steering column and the gearshift, hoping
that he would be able to figure out the van when Starbuck called for
him. Clark had let him drive the red Mercedes once, but it had an
automatic shift. Then there was a quick flashing illumination outside
the windows, and Tabby stopped breathing. But it had been the sky, not
the police.

"Didz whaz suppuf?" came Dicky Norman's voice over the radio.

"Shut the fuck up," Starbuck replied very clearly.

The sky flickered again: it was as if the veins and arteries in a body
were suddenly illuminated.

Starbuck was now kneeling before the front door, and Tabby saw him look
up. In the next instant the sky was black again, illuminated only around
a cruising moon. Starbuck had been carrying a small satchel like a
doctor's bag, and from it he took a tool which looked to Tabby like a
slightly fatter bicycle pump. A rod extended from the tubular object.
When Starbuck turned it on, a high-pitched electronic whine came to
Tabby over the radio. As Starbuck inserted the rod into the lock, the
whine changed pitch, became louder and more intense.

In less than a minute, Starbuck pulled the whole inner workings of the
lock away from the door. "That's it," his voice said over the radio. "I
don't want you assholes to make a single sound when we're inside. You
just listen to me." Starbuck rose to his feet and quietly put his
machine back in the pack. He pulled at the gutted doorknob, and the door
swung open. Then he led the twins inside and closed the door after them.

Tabby thought of the dog deliberately diving at the van: he felt dizzy
and light-headed.

"Kitchen," Starbuck's voice whispered over the two-way radio.

Then Tabby realized that he was all alone in the van. Starbuck and the
Normans were already deep inside the house* they had forgotten him. He
could open the door. He coiiUM climb out of the van and go home! They
would never knoWll until the job was done. «

He hesitantly touched the door handle. From the radio! came sounds of
drawers opening. "Oh boy," he heard Star-j|

FLOATING DRAGON

225

buck sigh. The thief sounded happier than he had been all night. If I
even think you'll talk about this with the cops, I'll come back here and
kill you. What would Starbuck, who had said those words to him, think if
he returned to an empty van? I'm a businessman, see? I gotta stay in
business. Tabby took his fingers from the door handle. His head hurt. He
craned his neck forward and stared toward the big white house.

10

Les McCloud sat in his car, staring at the front of the country club-it
looked very much like the structure Tabby would be anxiously studying
through a van window four hours later. Les wanted another drink: above
all, he wanted to forget what he thought he had seen sitting in the end
booth. His hands were trembling. From the outside, the Sawtell Country
Club gave no signs that right beyond those big lounge windows there
might be sitting a horror, a dead man with the skin peeled right back
off his shoulder blades like an anatomy lesson.

But that was crazy. The whole thing was crazy. He'd been spooked, that
was all, by the boy's voice coming out of that bush ... by that feeling
of pure and utter wrongness. Les swallowed. He turned his ignition key
and then punched on the Sony digital radio that had been one of his last
birthday presents to himself.

He wanted another drink. Where was he going to go?

The disc jockey said, "That was a request, friends. Johnnie Ray singing
'The Little White Cloud That Cried.' You've got to admit-"

Johnnie Ray. Johnnie Ray.

"-that he put a lot of emotion into that number. Now let's get back to
our more usual material and-"

That was the voice from the bush. Not the singer Johnnie Ray, but a
little boy who had showed up in the middle school on the first day of
school in 1951, an undersized kid with protruding front teeth and blond
hair so flat and lifeless it looked dead. His clothes were all wrong.
All the boys in the seventh grade that year were wearing chino pants,
plaid shirts, and brown tie oxfords that would have looked more at home
on a British lord in knickerbockers. When the boy

226

Peter Straub

named Johnnie Ray showed up in Miss Larson's class, he was wearing a
sweatshirt, boots, and blue jeans so new they hardly creased. Then they
heard his name.

"-give a listen to Miss Ella Fitzgerald and Tommy Flanagan and his trio.
'How High the Moon.'"

The poor kid hadn't known what hit him. Suddenly the whole class had
been laughing at him, laughing in that particularly jeering way that
meant the whole class, all thirty-one of them, had found their scapegoat.

Les shook his head and backed his car out of the space to turn it toward
the long drive and Sawtell Road. Johnnie Ray's voice. Even after the
poor little shit had finally persuaded his parents that he needed a
different wardrobe-they were from Texas, and Hampstead was the first
northern place they had ever lived in-even after he made his parents
take him to Sprigg & Son where the right chinos and shoes could be
found, he couldn't do anything about his voice.

Les turned unseeingly out into Sawtell Road. Ella Fitzgerald was
scatting crazily, pushing at an already relentless rhythm, but he barely
heard it. The oncoming car he nearly struck honked angrily at him, and
Les gave a distracted, halfhearted wave.

Johnnie Ray's Texas voice. A little husky, a lot slower than a Hampstead
voice, dragging at the syllables. Not I'm lost so much as Ahm loo-wust.
It had been the voice of that strange little Texas kid with the comic
name. But that pathetic little kid from Texas had drowned the summer
before they all went into the eighth grade. He had gone out with a boat
from the sailing school-pathetically, he was trying to learn how to
sail-and the sailboat had come back without him: tipped over, its mast
shining under the water and the sail dragging like a shroud. August
1952. Hampstead police and the Coast Guard had dragged for Johnnie Ray's
body and turned up only tree stumps and hubcaps and a splintered,
rotting dory that had been sitting on the bottom for a year and a half.
Two weeks later, the boy's body had rolled up on the beach at Sawtell
Country Club at high tide, bloated and hairless and missing all its
fingers and its nose and all but two toes. The fish had dined well on
Johnnie Ray. But his voice had spoken to Les from the bush. Les
screechingly stopped the Mazda as soon as he saw the red light at the
Greenbank Road corner, and wound up jutting

FLOATING DRAGON

227

six or seven feet out into the intersection. He did not even think to
back up.

August of 1952 had been a bad month for Sawtell Country Club. Four days
after the Mexican ambassador to the United Nations, a guest at the club
while he visited friends in Hampstead, found the body of the almost
unrecognizable Johnnie Ray on the beach at seven in the morning, the
respected lawyer John Sayre chose the same three square feet of beach as
the arena for his suicide.

The light changed, and Les turned into Greenbank Road, unconsciously
making the decision to go to Franco's.

He was driving fast on the final stretch of Greenbank Road before it
crosses the tall iron bridge over the Nowhatan and ends at Riverfront
Avenue. The dog which took off from under a porch, a black-and-white dog
with a feathery tail and an almost girlish smile on its muzzle, did not
penetrate Les meCloud's attention until it was nearly beside his window.
He was aware only of a flash of color, of something moving quickly at
his side, and he snapped his head over to see. The dog was smiling at
him as it threw itself forward. Les slammed his foot down on the brake.
His tires squealed and the Mazda's back end swung out, but not before
Les had felt his rear tires thunk into something that gave them only a
moment's resistance. "Holy shit!" Les yelled. He stopped the car on the
shoulder of the road. He felt as though two conflicting orders of
reality had just violently intersected: as though he had seen little
Johnnie Ray's face on the grinning dog. Shaking, he got out of the car.

The crushed dog lay in the middle of the street. Blood moved slowly
toward a drain. Les was grateful that the dog's back was facing him: he
did not want to see that eerie smile on a dead animal. He wondered what
in the world he was supposed to do now, and put his hands in his pockets
and looked aimlessly around.

A tall man in well-faded jeans and a blue button-down shirt was striding
toward him across a lawn. Behind him steamed a boy with the man's face
in miniature, and a woman in tennis whites.

"Your dog, I guess," Les said when the man hit the sidewalk. As the man
drew closer, Les had felt relieved; this was a ^ing like himself. His
face, though young, was smoothed out by the exercise of power; his shirt
and his hair were crisp.

228

Peter Straub

He all but had a sign pinned to his chest: harvard mba, six

FIGURES A YEAR, FUTURE CEO.

"You guess," the man said, and strode up until he was only a foot from
Les. "And I guess you're the maniac who killed him."

"Wait a second," Les said. This was not going the right way. "You don't
know what happened." The man's eyebrows knitted together. "Let me explain."

"Like hell I don't know what happened," the man said. "We were eating
dinner in the dining room, and from there we get an excellent view of
the road. You came along at twenty miles over the speed limit and killed
my dog. I'm just damn lucky that wasn't my kid out there."

The boy standing next to the man opened his mouth and yelled, "You
killed Tapioca!"

"I'm sure we can be reasonable about this," Les said. "If you asked your
son to go inside for a moment, we could discuss-''

"Discuss? You think there's something to discuss?" the man said in a
loud voice. "I saw it. You came barrel-assing down that road like there
was no tomorrow."

"That dog ran straight into me! And when I finally did see him, he was
jumping at my car."

"Jumping at your car," the man said. "Putting himself under your wheels."

"That's right. He jumped right at me."

"You're a liar. Or you're crazy. Either way, you ought to be talking to
the police."

"Now, listen," Les said. "Your dog ran into me."

"Because you were speeding."

"You killed Tapioca!" the boy suddenly screamed.

As Les and the man argued, the boy had stepped off to the side-obviously
hoping that his father would deck this character-and now he suddenly
dashed in toward Les and hit him soundly in the kidneys.

"You murdered my dog!" he yelled up at Les's face.

"God damn!" Les exploded. He stepped away from the kid before he belted
him. "Look, you," he shouted at the man in the blue button-down shirt
and exquisitely faded jeans. "I am a corporation vice-president! I don't
have to stand around and take this shit anymore!" He took his money clip
from his pocket. It was sadly depleted. He had one ten and two twenties
folded together.

FLOATING DRAGON

229

"What do you think you're doing?" the man asked.

Les took the folded twenties from the clip. He held out the forty
dollars; when the man only stared at the money, Les dropped the two
bills and he and the man watched them flutter down to the roadside grass.

"I don't believe you," the man said. "Forget that the dog cost about
four times that. I just don't believe you. Get away from him, Van." The
boy had been circling in for another assault on Les's kidneys.

"Sue me," Les said. His rage had evaporated from the front portion of
his brain: for the first time in his life, Les experienced his own brain
as a thing of layers and segments. The front upper part of his brain was
floating in a crystalline calm; his anger still boiled, but it boiled
down beneath this floating icy peace. He began to walk toward his car.

Les opened the door of his car and drove toward the bridge. When he
looked in his rearview mirror he saw the man and his son standing in the
middle of Greenbank Road, staring at him. The boy was waving his fist.

That cheered him up so much he was halfway across Riverfront Avenue and
going straight toward the parking lot of Piggy Bindle's All-Beef
Restaurant before he remembered that he had to turn left.

By the time he found a parking spot on Station Row and had swung in next
to the curb, the entire top of his head felt frozen by some kind of
tranquilizer. Up there, thoughts floated in an icy realm to which Les
could retreat at any time he wished.

Beneath this icy paradise, his rage still burned. If Patsy were a normal
wife, he would never have heard the pathetic voice coming from the bush,
never have killed that wretched dog. The noises and the smells of a
hundred and fifty people jammed into a small bar and grill jumped at him
the instant he pushed open the door. It was just before sundown on a
Saturday night in summer, and Franco's was the busiest place in Hampstead.

As soon as he got inside, some tall dude with blow-dried hair and a
rugby shirt stepped backward and almost crushed Les's foot with his
Dingos, but Les put his hands on the hips of the dude's designer jeans
and pivoted him sideways. The dude spun around to glare, his beer glass
slopping over onto

230

Peter Straub

the Dingos, but when he looked at Les's face he just nodded. Les pushed
his way up toward the bar.

He floated up into the cold indifferent realm at the top of his head and
grabbed the single empty stool at the bar before some clone of Bobo
Farnsworth got it. "Double Glenlivet," he shouted in the direction of
the bartender; when the curlyhaired, mustached bartender cocked his head
at him, Les shouted it again. "Double Glenlivet!"

"You got it," the barkeep said. "No need to shout."

"Hey librarian, listen to this," Les said when the bartender set down
his drink. "You an animal lover? Well, you'll get a kick out of this. On
my way over here, a dog ran into me. You get that? He ran into me. I
didn't even see the little bugger until he was diving straight at me. I
tried to turn away from him, but I didn't have time. Son-of-a-bitch mutt
cornmitted suicide."

"I heard of that," the bartender said, and turned away.

"You heard of that? What do you mean, you heard of that? I never heard
of that."

"Never heard of lemmings?" The question was from a funny-looking dork
one place away at the bar. The dork was definitely not one of the Bobo
clones. His glasses were thick and smudgy; his thin hair did not curl,
but frizzed. Deep lines crossed his thin forehead. "I've been sitting
here thinking about the lemmings. Because of something that happened to
me today-a lot like your story." The dork smiled ingratiatingly, and Les
shrugged. He was way up inside the icehouse now, and even a pushy dork
couldn't upset him.

"We got this cat," the dork said. "We call her Mclntosh. She's a
Persian, you know? Beautiful long silky hair. We've had her ten
years-from even before we moved up here from the city. I loved that
freaky cat. Well, today my wife was looking out one of the windows on
the third floor and she saw Mclntosh running across the lawn. She
thought the old rascal was going to nail a bird-she's old, but she can
still move when she wants. Mclntosh used to get a couple of birds a
week, and she'd leave the bloody corpses right on the doorstep where
we'd see them first thing when we went out to get the paper."

The dork swallowed. "But that son of ... that damned animal wasn't going
after any bird. She was running toward the kids' wading pool. My wife
saw Mclntosh run straight up

FLOATING DRAGON

231

to the pool and dive in-dive in! A cat! Mclntosh went right over the
side of the wading pool and splashed into the water. My wife just stood
there for a second, you know? She couldn't believe her eyes. She kept
waiting for Mclntosh to try to get out of the pool. But Mclntosh didn't
even try to get out. Her head never even came out of the water. She hit
that pool like she meant business, man." He blinked behind the smudgy
lenses. "That's why I was sitting here thinking about lemmings."

Les did his best to look clearly at the man who had told him this story.
He saw that the man wanted him to say something to him, to speak more
about the suicidal dog, to join him in the companionship of feeling
beings, to talk about lemmings and what would lead an animal to suicide.
He saw that at the most primitive level, the man with the thinning
frizzy hair and the smudgy glasses wanted consolation: the consolations
of alcohol and bar philosophy, perhaps, but more than that the
consolation of emotions exchanged and understood. Les leaned forward,
smiled, and said, "Get stuffed."

The dork recoiled. He spun rapidly forward on his stool and pointed his
reddening face into his drink.

Les felt infinitely improved: his face did not move, but up at the top
of his mind a smile cracked across his frozen paradise. Up there he felt
almost warm.

He looked at his watch, and was pleasantly surprised. Somehow it had
gotten to be nine-thirty at night. "Get me another Glenlivet," he called
out to the bartender. The short glass filled with ice cubes and dark
fragrant liquid was set down on the oiled wood before him. He lifted it
and took a S1P of the malt whiskey. As he was appreciating its velvety
smoothness, however, an uncomfortable thought penetrated his defenses.
If he was such a success, why did he get such Pleasure from telling a
dork to get stuffed?

Also, if he was such a great success, what was he doing in a bar at
nine-thirty while his wife sat alone at home?

He had the answer to that one. "Stuff Patsy too," he muttered to
himself, and put away half of the second Glenlivet.

out now some of that whiskey and the gin which had preceded it was
clamoring to get out, and Les slid off his stool and pushed his way
around the side of the bar and down the corridor past the telephone
where a blond was necking with a

232

Peter Straub

beefy guy at the same time as she talked on the telephone. "I know the
pot roast is in the oven," he heard her say. The pot roast in the oven
and the boyfriend's hand on her tits.

He climbed back up into the cold region of peace, because his mind had
just given him a picture of ridiculously named Johnnie Ray, his skin all
blue and puffed out like the casing on a sausage, weeds caught in his
hair, dark lines of damp sand trailing over the swollen chest, sitting
in the last booth of the country-club lounge.

The entrance to the men's room was a few feet down the corridor past the
telephone. One of the Bobo-clones was standing before the single urinal,
and Les squeezed past him and pushed at the door of the stall. It was
locked. Les shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor,
which was awash in piss. The small white tiles still bore muddy
mopstains from the morning, but they had been overprinted with the dirty
ridged patterns of boot soles. The man at the urinal sighed and arched
his back. Still spraying, he took a glass of beer from the top of the
urinal and gulped. Les watched him with fastidious gloom. He could
scarcely bear to breathe. The air seemed a mist of urine and antiseptic.

"You're in the barrel," the younger man at the urinal said, zipping up
and stepping toward the door.

Les grunted. He gratefully unzipped, took himself out, and let go.

Whoever was in the toilet stall clunked something against the metal
wall. Not metal: not the belt buckle Les had at first thought. Softer.
As if the person in there had struck his hand against the side of the
enclosure.

Then the hand slammed again at the side of the stall. Les glanced
uneasily sideways.

"Help me," whoever was in there said.

Both sides of the stall banged, as if the person in there hadg thrown
his fists out blindly. a

"I'm lost," the voice said. m

It was the voice of little Johnnie Ray. m

Les stopped breathing. M

"I'm afraid," the voice said. Ahm affray-ud. :%

Now Les heard fingernails scrabbling on the door of the stall.

He knew that if he looked sideways and down he would be able to see a
few inches under the side of the stall. His flow of urine had dried up
in the last few seconds, and his penis

FLOATING DRAGON

233

had shriveled back toward his trousers. If he looked under the side of
the stall, he would see worn small sneakers, the cuff of jeans . . . Les
pushed his shrunken penis back inside and zipped up.

"Help me," the small Texas voice whispered.

The fingernails slithered across the inside of the door.

Les dared to look down at the space between the wall of the toilet
enclosure and the grubby, piss-puddled floor.

A fingerless hand attached to a thin bony wrist was probing up on Les's
side of the gray enclosure. The stump of a hand and the bony wrist were
encased in wet black mud.

Deeper inside the enclosure Les saw two black stumpy things that must
have been feet.

Les's stomach moved upward, getting smaller as it went, so that by the
time it climbed into his throat it was the size of one of his golf
balls. Now he was conscious of the terrible smell in the toilet, the
stink so bad it was like a loud noise, the sound of an explosion.

The mud-blackened thing in the stall fell to its knees.

Les backed toward the door, afraid to turn his face away from the stall.
When he felt the aluminum handle strike the band of muscle beside his
spine, he whirled around and tore open the door. He jumped through the
opening and slammed the door.

His stomach was still tightly gathered in his throat. He thought he
could hear a slap-slap from the other side of the door, the noise of
something soft and damp striking a hard surface. Les's ears were
roaring. He plunged past the bar into the thickest part of the crowd and
stumbled toward the door. His second Glenlivet sat next to a ten-dollar
bill on the bar, but he never noticed them.

11

yraham Williams was leaning forward on his elbows and sayJ°g, "Of course
what I had to do was find out what had Happened in 1873. And believe me,
I had to dig for it. Doroty Bach, who was fixated on what she thought
she knew about the Dragon, wasn't going to say anything to me. And
nobody else ..."

. The pages of the heavy blue-bound book were riffling, leaf-

8 themselves over so rapidly they seemed transparent. She

234

Peter Straub

felt herself invaded by a sensation she knew to be alien, but for some
reason instantly familiar: as the smell of a specific cologne or perfume
could evoke the feelings of a memory without revealing the memory itself.

The pages flew past. "No," Patsy said, and this time the two men looked
at her.

Richard Allbee merely looked curious: he looked as if he were just
working out that she probably had a headache and was wondering if
Williams had any Bufferin in his medicine chest. But the old man looked
more than politely concerned. He had opened his mouth and was gazing at
her very intently. Neither one of them had noticed the book.

She looked back at the book and saw that the pages had stopped moving.
"It ..." she started to say to Graham Williams, who was boring into her
with his eyes. Williams nodded. "It moved," she said. The old man's
eyes, she noticed for the first time, were a fine blue. The right eye
had a single fleck of gold near the iris. "Moved. In my hand." Then the
eyes which were gently pressing her to go on, to say more, to let them
know what was happening, were not the old man's anymore-they were
Marilyn Foreman's eyes.

And the alien but familiar sensation was from all those years ago; it
was the Marilyn-sensation. This is why I saw her on the street, Patsy
thought. They were going to take my will away and make me see things
again. She did not know who they were; they were an alignment of vast
universal forces.

One more page flipped over in front of Patsy.

"I saw it happen," Richard said. "It happened." He sounded stunned.

Patsy felt just as she had before she'd had the vision of Bates Krell
murdering the woman in the silk dress: a terrible thing was coming, but
it was her terrible thing, and she could not stop it from unreeling
before her. . . .

Something was moving within the open book. The white pages swirled with
black. Black lines, lines where the pages were about to burst into
flame, flew randomly over the lines of print. Grayish smoke curled just
above them.

A green pointed thing broke through the surface of the page.

The green spike continued to rise. A malevolent black eye four inches
across came up after it and immediately fixed on Patsy's eyes.

"What's wrong?" Patsy heard Richard say. She realized

FLOATING DRAGON

235

that he could not see the dragon's head emerging from the pages of the book.

The dragon's eye seemed to be made of black stone shot with an
iridescent wavering pattern of green. As the snout pushed up out of the
book, the eye held her fast.

Then the long wrinkled snout was free, and the dragon swung its head
sharply and hungrily toward Patsy. The long mouth opened, the malevolent
pupilless eyes held hers.

"Patsy?" she heard Richard ask. "Are you all right?"

You're good, a good man, she thought at a level far too deep for
ordinary rational process.

There was the head of a dragon; incredibly, there it was. The hard green
spikes on its head were crusty with black and peeling skin. The black
eyes were encased in circles of bone. It was a reptilian head, old and
strong. Green-black scales lapped away from the eyes and marched down
the length of the snout. The crude mouth hung like a gate on a hinge.
Patsy's insides had turned to white powder, to something utterly
insubstantial and weightless.

With a start, Patsy realized that through the head of the dragon she
could still see Graham Williams. Behind the black eyes floated his
sunken blue ones-she could even read his concern in them. Patsy watched
as the ugly head retreated into invisibility. The air hissed at her
ears. Those few feet of air before her had grown as hot as a glowing
slab of iron.

12

"Kitchen," Gary Starbuck said.

He was playing his flash around the white entry Royce Griffen had stood
in the day before his suicide. Finally the beam of the flash settled on
the last door off the long corridor. Starbuck moved the light up and
down, and after a momentary hesitation, Dicky and Bruce began to move
toward the door.

Dicky pushed the door open, then stepped aside for Starbuck to enter.
Nearly invisible in his blue clothes, the thief rapidly swept the flash
over the counters. He glided through Jne dark kitchen and opened two
drawers, then another. He "ashed the light inside them, but took
nothing. Bruce Norman saw him shake his head and begin to look around
silently and certainly, shooting the light in different directions. Bruce

236

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

237

thought he resembled an animal in a forest, a badger or a mole, sniffing
out its way.

Starbuck began to move quickly toward a tall door on the far side of the
kitchen. This had no knob or handle, and swung freely on its hinges. The
three of them crowded into the tiny chamber on the other side of the
door. Immediately opposite them was another swinging door-to the dining
room, as Starbuck knew.

He played the light over the tall cabinet door in this narrow room. He
chose one randomly, it seemed to Bruce. The flash picked out shelves
stocked with bottles. On the shelf beneath were jars of nuts. Starbuck
moved on to a lower cabinet.

He shone the light inside, and Bruce saw his shoulders hitch. Quickly
Starbuck opened two more of the lower cabinet drawers. "Oh boy," he
sighed happily.

Bruce leaned forward to peer into the opened cabinets. Starbuck had
taken something from his bag and was pushing it into his hands. This was
a green plastic bag-the kind Bobby Fritz used tc stuff leaves into when
he was clearing a lawn. "Get all of it," Starbuck said. The thief stood
up and shone the light down on an array of silver utensils. The display
of silver seemed at least six feet long to Bruce. Every piece was
slotted into a kind of holster in a long soft cloth. Bruce and Dicky
began sliding the silverware out of the felt pockets and dumping it in
the bag. "Take out the whole thing," Starbuck hissed, and mimed pulling
out the entire length of material. His face wore a furious grimace.
Bruce tugged the whole heavy length of material out of the end drawer,
and Dicky began folding it up on the pantry floor.

Once the silver was in the plastic bag, Starbuck led them out into the
dining room. Here on a sideboard were several ornate silver trays, and
these too went into the bag.

From the dining room Starbuck led them into the highceilinged living
room. As soon as they noticed the wall of windows, the sky shattered:
shafts of light ran across the deep blue and zigzagged through the
clouds. The light flickered into the living room, and Bruce thought
weirdly that he had seen right through his brother's body-that he had
seen Dicky's heavy bones, and the individual cells of Dicky's blood
sifting in his veins.

The house seemed to shift itself without moving: like an animal's dream
of running.

"What?" Dicky said.

"The piano," Starbuck said, and flashed the light down to the far end of
the room. But they could all see it anyhow, with the weak moonlight
layering in through the window wall. The piano was fifteen feet long,
every inch of it handmade and shaped; the body was built up of nearly
twenty layers of wood bent and curved under precise degrees of tension;
the shine on the surface looked as deep as a pool. It was nearly fifty
years old. It was a special-order Bosendorfer grand, and Gary Starbuck
had a customer in New York City who had wanted one like it for at least
a decade. He would pay Gary twenty thousand dollars for it, which was
about a fifth of its real value.

"Can we get that monster in the van?" Bruce whispered.

"Just," Starbuck said. "For now, you two get it out on the patio." He
strode across the room and unlocked the windowed doors in the long wall.

Dicky put his hands under the keyboard and experimentally tried to lift
the front of the piano. His upper arms bulged; his jaws worked. He
managed to pick it up perhaps half an inch.

"For Christ's sake, not that way," Starbuck whispered. "You want to get
a hernia? You want to rack yourself up? Get under it. Get your backs
under it and lift it with your legs."

Again the house made its mysterious moveless tremor.

^'What?" Dicky said.

"Do I have to repeat myself?" Starbuck asked.

His flashlight found the mirror where it stood on the wall among the
Impressionist paintings.

Then for a second or less, another oddity occurred in that house,
something that really only Dicky Norman would notice, but which would
haunt Bruce Norman's mind in the weeks after his brother's awful death.
Dicky had said, "What?" again, and sounded so stupid Bruce wanted to
brain him, but Bruce had turned like Dicky in the direction of the
flash. And he had almost seen, or he had thought he had seen, that the
mirror did not reflect the light, but took it in and swallowed it. Ine
beam of light (this, he thought, was what had made Dicky speak) fell
into the ornate mirror like a stone into a well: as if the mirror were
sucking the light out of the flashlight, and would take it all, would
drain the batteries dry ... but then there was a bursting dazzle on the
mirror's surface, and a beam

238

Peter Straub

from within the depths of the mirror came up to meet their own.

13

As soon as Les McCloud had closed the door of the bar behind him,
cutting off the rumble and chatter of the patrons and the bing-bing of
the cash register (which had just rung up no sale on the last bill Les
would ever fold into his money clip), he inhaled hugely. His stomach had
gradually crept back down to its proper place in his body. The alcohol
he had taken during the day now was burning like a lump of charcoal
somewhere in his gut. Les gulped more air. He did not want to think
about what he had just escaped in the men's room at the back of
Franco's, he wanted only to get home ... but in his mind he saw that
stumpy hand come probing from under the partition, and his stomach
tightened and shrank again. \

He wanted to get home, yes. And if Patsy were in the spare] bedroom, he
would straighten her out. Come to think of it, no| matter where she was,
he was going to straighten her out. )

Everything came back to Patsy. When he got home he'd] back Patsy into a
corner of the bedroom and raise a few big: purple bruises on her
shoulders, then on her sides (and she'd be screeching by then, the big
tears would be rolling down her nose), and then he'd pop her one in the
gut. ... Les almost smiled.

He stepped down onto the sidewalk on Station Row and turned up toward
his car. A small black shape dipped out of the sky and twittered past
his head.

Les swung his hand at it, thinking that a bird was attacking him. The
shape darted crazily off into the streetlight's illumination, and he saw
that it was a bat at the same time he saw two more bats fluttering
toward him over the top of the streetlamp.

One of the bats swung right at his face. A fishhooklike claw on one of
its feet sliced his cheek, and Les screamed with pain and disgust as he
hit out at it. A blow like a stone struck his chest. Les opened his
eyes, for the first time aware that he had closed them, and saw the
second bat clinging to his jacket. Its wings were folded like creaky
robes, the little head turned up to his. He furiously swept at it with
his hands,

FLOATING DRAGON

239

but the bat tightened its grip and chattered up at him. He saw loathing
in its tiny black eyes. He plucked at the leathery body but its claws
were dug far into the fabric of his jacket.

When he looked up he saw the sky full of chattering particles. Bats
swooped over the streetlight and fluttered past the front of the
station. Another came diving in toward the side of his head, and Les
ducked just in time to see its clawlike toes, the tiny head like a ball
of dried snot staring at him. A shimmering flag of bats wheeled toward him.

Les bolted toward his car. The bat sticking to his jacket bounced as he
ran, thudding softly against Les's chest. One of the oncoming bats
thudded against his head; another flapped straight into his face before
it fell away. Les put his hands over his face. He felt a sudden sharp
pain bloom in his right ear, and a moment later he felt blood dripping
down his neck.

When he at last reached his car, he seemed to be in a cloud of bats, a
world of bats. He yanked at the Mazda's handle.

The door was locked. One of the bats tangled itself in Les's hair, and
he grunted in disgust as he slapped it away. Another bat fastened on his
sleeve, and he slammed its body against the outside of the window. The
bat dropped to the road.

Another of them whapped into the side of his head, and he staggered
sideways. They were boiling around his head, and Les clamped his eyes
shut after a set of needling claws brushed his forehead.

Les swirled his hands up in the air and connected with his left,
brushing one of the small bodies away. He had to get his car keys out of
his pocket, and he hunched his back and turned away from the majority of
the bats while he waved his left hand in front of his face and dug in
his pants pocket with his right.

A bat settled on the waving hand and extended its wings. He could feel
the needle claws settling into his skin. As long as they don't bite,
went through his mind. His fingers found nis car keys.

The bat on his head sank its teeth into his skin; the face, naif a
baby's, half a dog's, swiveled toward him.

Les bellowed and flapped his hand, dislodging the bat, which hovered two
feet before his face and looked at him Wl*h implacable hatred. Les
wanted to kill this bat-he wanted to toss it to the ground and jump on
it, cracking its

240

Peter Straub

ribs and shredding its filthy wings. The other bats momentarily
separated before him, and he saw the one that had bitten him skitter six
inches up into the light from the station lamp. Les jumped forward and
swung, but the bat skittered away again. The bat still clinging to his
jacket bumped against his chest when he landed. Les swung out again at
the bat that had bitten him, and saw that the back of his right hand was
bloody. He could feel the blood dripping down his forehead and soaking
into his eyebrow, and now his collar was wet with it. Les groaned and
trotted back to his car.

He twisted the key in the lock, cracked the door, and slid quickly in,
banging his head on the frame. He slammed the door shut after him.

A small clutching body stirred near his heart.

Les uttered an inarticulate roar of panic and disgust. He looked down at
the bat still clinging to his jacket, and the bat's eyes locked on his.

"Uh . . . uh . . . uh," Les grunted, tearing at his jacket. The bat
continued to fix him with its small eyes. At last Les got one arm out of
its sleeve and whipped the jacket around the back of his head, almost
weeping with disgust and fury. In a second the jacket was a ball of
material before him on his lap, the sleeves dangling from either side of
the ball like elephants' trunks. Les threw it on the dash and began
battering it with both fists. He felt the animal inside the jacket
struggle: and tremble, fighting to claw its way out, but he banged it
and banged it with his fists until it was still. Les was drooling. Blood
and sweat plastered his hair to his head. He raised both fists and
battered the limp thing in the jacket again. He lifted his fists and
dropped them weakly on the pulpy remains. "Got you," he breathed. \

Then he saw that his windshield was blanketed with small furry bodies.

Les gunned his car forward and almost instantly caromed off the steering
wheel as the Mazda slammed into the car in front. His mouth wide open
but no sounds coming from it, he backed hard into the car behind him,
then hauled at the wheel and shot out of his parking spot. A section of
bats near the edge of his side of the windshield tumbled away.

As he turned right at the end of the block, he remembered to turn on his
lights; one of them seemed to work.

Les turned left at the next corner, blasting through as the

FLOATING DRAGON

241

light changed from amber to red. From what he could see through the
corner of the windshield where he had visibility, his was the only car
on the road. He twisted the Mazda into the ramp for the east-bound side
of 1-95.

Here there were no toll stations until Stratford, twenty minutes up the
road. Les floored the accelerator, and saw the bats flatten out against
the windshield: two or three at the farthest edges flipped into the
airstream.

He rocked the car sharply to the left, then to the right, and back
again. He never heard them, but other drivers blasted their horns behind
him.

His maneuvers had cleared the windshield of all but half a dozen bats.
Their red eyes glared in at him, their tiny mouths worked, and he knew
they were screeching at him. Les could see their mouths working in an
almost human way. Whatever they were saying slipped backward in the breeze.

Les looked at his speedometer and saw that he was going just under
ninety miles an hour. Another one of the bats flapped upward and peeled
off the windshield like a black leaf.

Les emitted a trembling, high-pitched giggle and for the first time felt
his shoulders loosen. He lifted his foot from the accelerator. The
lights flowing by on the west-bound lane seemed reassuringly ordinary:
people going somewhere.

Then Les became aware of another presence in the car. Some small dark
shape was in the other bucket seat. Les unconsciously said, "Hey," and
looked toward it. What looked like a nine- or ten-year-old boy made
completely of mud slumped against the black fabric of the seat. Water
dripped from the mud-boy and pooled on the cushion.

A lung-searing blast of foulness struck Les, the odor he had caught on
the golf course magnified a hundred times. The odor formed a hot brick
in Les's chest. The boy opened his eyes.

"I'm lost," he croaked. "I'm afraid."

Les came down on his accelerator with all his weight. He was screaming,
but he did not know it. He was traveling at just over a hundred and
fifteen miles an hour when he rammed into the side of another car a
quarter-mile up 1-95, a Toyota Celica belonging to Mr. Harvey Pilbrow of
West Haven, Connecticut, and killed Mr. Pilbrow's eighteen-yearold son,
Daniel, and his girlfriend, Molly Witt, also eighteen

242

Peter Straub

and of West Haven. Les McCloud died only an instant after the two young
people; their cars sent up a plume of flame fifty feet high.

14

Patsy opened her eyes. "Something's happened," she said, then realized
that she was lying down on the couch in Graham Williams' living room.

"How do you feel?" the old man asked.

"Something happened," she repeated.

"You're right, something happened," Richard Allbee said, coming into her
field of vision. He took her hand, and warmth seemed to spread out from
his touch. "You passed out after the book stopped moving."

"Oh," Patsy said. "The book."

"Are you all right?" Williams asked.

"Help me sit up," she said, and Richard pulled her upright on the couch
while she swung her legs down. Her head was as light as if it held only
bubbles. She realized that she could not stand. "I'll be okay pretty soon."

"Remember the book?" Richard asked. He was still holding her hand, and
knelt on the floor before her, looking into her eyes with an expression
of total concern.

"I do, but that's not what I mean," she said. Richard let her hand go,
and went back a few feet to hear her out.

Patsy did not know how much she could say. Already she feared to sound
crazy, even to these people, who knew so much about her. She had had a
fit of some kind, she supposed; she remembered the Marilyn-sensation,
and the head of the dragon rising up from the book-that much she would
tell. But the fit made her feel guilty and ashamed for her lack of
control. It also made her feel dirty. That she'd passed out in the midst
of it somehow connected itself in her mind with her husband, with Les;
with her failed marriage.

And that was the part she could not discuss with these men, as much as
she already cared for them. Before she had awakened, she had seen a
column of fire and had understood that her marriage was being cleansed
in that fire. Real destruction, real cleansing. In this was a danger as
present as that intended by the dragon. What had gone through her mind
in the instant

FLOATING DRAGON

243

before she had awakened was that Tabby Smithfield was very near to death.

But did that mean that Tabby was in the column of fire? And if he was in
that pyre or going toward it, then . . .

"Just relax, Patsy," Graham Williams was saying.

. . . how did that connect to her marriage? She did not see how it was
possible, but what was happening to Tabby was going to echo through her
future with Les McCloud, whatever that was to be. She wished the boy
were there before her now, so that she could hug him with all her
strength. She looked straight into Richard Allbee and thought, I'd like
to hug you too.

"Oh, I don't know what I mean," she said, and saw a line of worry furrow
between Richard's eyebrows. "But I guess the two of you didn't see it,
did you? The dragon's head?"- it was such an extraordinary sentence to
utter.

The line between his eyebrows grew deeper.

"It came up out of the book. It was looking at me."

She remembered that black eye shot with the wandering pattern of bright
green-like a stone.

"We didn't see it," Graham said. He looked as shaken as she by what she
had said. ' 'But I believe that you saw it, Patsy. And you know what it
means, don't you? It means ..."

"He was warning us," Richard said.

"Gideon Winter was turning his attention to us," Williams said. "That's
what it means. In that sense, it's a warning." He snatched up the book,
and then looked at Patsy with wide eyes. "It's hot."

Richard reached over to touch the book; he glanced again at Patsy after
his fingers had rested on the page. He nodded.

"I don't want to touch it," Patsy said.

"No, but I want you to look at the page," Williams said, and held up the
book with the pages spread out before her. She saw the black lines
burned into the paper. There were more of them than she had remembered.
A few of the burn marks were just dark squiggles over the lines of
print. These reminded her suddenly of bats, and just as that occurred to
her, she thought she saw one of the bat-squiggles move, one of the wings
flap in a broken and unhealthy way. Les, she nought, and a second later:
Tabby.

"I saw the burn marks before," she said. "They came just tefore . . .
just before it did."

244

Peter Straub

"I don't mean the burn marks," Williams said. "Look at the dates on the
tops of the pages."

Patsy looked. At the tops of the pages were a pair of dates, the same
for both of the facing pages. 1873-1875. She shook her head. Williams
held the book toward Richard and let him see the dates.

"1873-1875," Richard said. "Don't tell me. More roasted children."

"Not quite," Williams said. "But you're on the right track. It's the
next date in the cycle. In 1811, the entire congregation of the
Greenbank Congregational Church was killed by a freak accident on
Kendall Point. By the way, and this is important, there were two
Williamses among those who fell into the fissures, and two Taylers, a
father and daughter, and four Greens. And an old man named Smyth. Mrs.
Bach didn't tell me that-she didn't want to tell me that-but I looked it
up in the newspapers. The Kendall Point accident nearly wiped out all
our families. After that, all our families weren't in Greenbank proper
for a long time. My relatives lived in Patchin, as did the surviving
Greens. They were members of the Patchin Congregational Church, and so
they survived the day. In 1841, Rustum Tayler went crazy, went crazy all
the way instead of the half-crazy he'd been all his life, and killed
those two children and ate most of them before Anthony Jennings led a
posse that found him sitting at the top of his roasting pit."

"Ate them," Patsy said. She closed her eyes and caught a dimming
afterimage of the column of flame. Tabby. Where was he?

"Ate them. Mrs. Bach didn't feel that the last days of a half-wit Tayler
were worthy of being in her book, but she read the same newspapers I
did, and she knew about it. And she had walked through that old
Greenbank Cemetery on the Greenbank Road, about two miles from here, and
she had seen the headstones for the children Rustum Tayler killed. The
headstones are still there. Sarah Allen, 1835-1841. Taken Cruelly from
Us. And Thomas Kir by McCauley Moorman, 1834-1841. 'Little torn.'"
Graham Williams put down the book. "It's cooling down now. Yes, she knew
about those children all right, but she didn't write about their deaths
any more than she wanted to write about what happened in

1873, and for the same reason. I'm not even sure she was

FLOATING DRAGON

245

conscious of it, but she wanted to hide Gideon Winter behind the most
day-to-day view of things."

Williams looked sharply at Patsy. "Do you want to rest, Patsy?"

"I'm going to be fine," Patsy said in a faraway voice.

"Well, what did happen in 1873?" Richard asked.

"One person from each of our families died in a fire at a mill,"
Williams said. "But so did forty-one other people. July and August of
1873 were called "The Black Summer' for two decades-it was more than a
year before strangers began coming through Hampstead again. Oh, they
came through on the coaches, but they came through fast and they didn't
stop, they just rolled on until they got to Hillhaven. The reason I know
that is that in 1874 a new coach inn called the Halfway House was put up
in Hillhaven. There had always been a Halfway House in Hampstead, right
on the Greenbank Road in fact, but after 1873 it just seems to have
fallen in on itself ... it went out of business and slipped right out of
the records. After the Black Summer people seemed to avoid Hampstead.
I've looked at the logs of ships that docked in Hampstead harbor-now
that's where the yacht club is-for years, right on up from the 1860's,
and seen that starting in

1873, they went the couple miles farther up the coast to the Hillhaven
harbor. After about 1875, they came back here again. But I'll tell you
something Dorothy Bach didn't keep out of her book. Before the Black
Summer, the town population of Hampstead was 1,045. Two years later, in
1875, the Town Council held its own census. The population of Hampstead
was 537."

"Half of them died?" Richard asked incredulously. "I thought you said
only forty-five people died that summer."

"Well, a lot of them probably moved out," Williams said. "They could
have gone just up the road into Hillhaven or Patchin, or as far as they
had to go in order to think they were safe, and I think a couple hundred
of them probably did just that. They were betting that later they could
come back and find their houses pretty much the way they'd left them.
You find a real flurry of livestock transfers during and just after the
Black Summer. People selling up and getting out."

^But that still leaves a couple hundred," Richard said.

"Yep," Williams said. "That it does. You know, before you people came
here, I wasn't too sure about all this stuff.

246

Peter Straub

And I would have read about Mrs. Friedgood and Mrs. Goodall and just
wondered about it. But when I saw Patsy and Tabby on that Sunday night,
I knew. He was on his way back. And he was getting stronger, too-maybe
as strong as he must have been in the Black Summer and the months after it."

"What makes you think that?" Richard asked.

"The Black Summer of 1873 started just the way this one did. A woman was
found cut to pieces in her farmhouse. A week later, another woman was
found behind the row of shops along Main Street. She was in the same
condition. There were two others, one of them a little Smyth girl. And
all of that was before the deaths at the old cotton mill."

Richard asked another question, and Patsy heard his voice as if it came
from a hole deep in the earth or from a telephone receiver left lying
unattended on a table. "What made the Black Summer so much worse than
the summer of 1841?"

"Oh, we were all back by then, you see," Williams said, and Patsy
sluggishly thought all back, isn't that nice, just like a reunion. . . .
"Williams, Smyth-Smithfield by then, of course-Tayler, Green. All back.
The Greenbank Congregational Church had been revived too-by 1873,
something that had happened all the way back in 1811 seemed like a
fairytale to them."

"Those children with the terrible first names," Richard said. "
'Darkness' and 'Eventide' and 'Sorrow.' They had our last names, didn't
they?"

"You're thinking well, Richard," the old man said. "Sorrow's full name
was Sorrow Tayler, and she married Joseph Williams. Darkness was
Darkness Smyth, and Eventide's last name was Green. And there was a
'Shame' too, as Dorothy Bach knew very well. A little girl named Shame
Williams was born in 1652, and died before she could be baptized."

"Sorrow Tayler," Patsy murmured. The name seemed very beautiful to her.

"Most of them were girls," Williams said. "And in time they all had
children themselves. Williamses married Taylers, and Smyths married
Greens, and then Williamses married Smyths."

To Patsy it seemed like a beautiful formal dance, all these marriages
and couplings going on so long ago in the past. . . . Her fingers
twitched, and her lips were numb. A Williams took

FLOATING DRAGON

247

a Tayler, and a Smyth took a Green, and then a Williams took a Smyth ...
it was all a circle, and for a second she saw the circle in her mind,
glowing gold like a wedding band. Something smoky, something not right,
flickered in the middle of the golden circle, and Patsy shook her head.

But then Marilyn Foreman's hand clamped down hard over hers, and Patsy
saw what was in the middle of the circle.

She did not hear it herself, but she emitted a low terrified moan, and
both Richard and Graham realized that Patsy had fallen back into the
couch. As she moaned, she slipped down, already unconscious, and her
head fell to the cushions. Before they could reach her, Patsy's hands
began to twitch, and then her whole body shook violently enough to
rattle the couch against the floor.

Richard grabbed her hand, not knowing how to stop her convulsions.
Finally he stepped next to her and put his arms around her and held her
tightly against him, taking the shock of her movements into his own body.

15

"Get that piano outside," Starbuck said, "and put it down easy. Then
come back in and get this mirror."

No, Bruce thought, and knew that Dicky was thinking the same thing,
let's just leave that mirror where it is, we don't want to mess with
that thing, no sir, no way. Just before he had seen the light from
Starbuck's flashlight burst on the surface of the mirror the way it must
have done right away, he thought he had seen something in there,
something touched by the swallowed light (which of course had never
been), something like a worm or a leech-flinching back from the light.

Like hell. That was a crazy thought. That was something to tell
freaked-out Skippy Peters, and then watch his Adam's aPple bob around in
his skinny neck. . "If you shake your fucking head at me once more, I'll
tear it off your fucking neck," Starbuck whispered at him. "Get moving
on that piano." The light burned in Bruce's eyes. "I swfar' I'll shoot
your balls off if you don't get moving."

'I was just thinking," Bruce whispered back, and he felt Uicky quiver
beside him.

248

Peter Straub

"Thinking, shit," Starbuck hissed at him.

"We could put the mirror in the piano, make only one trip," Bruce
improvised.

"Yeah?" The light swung toward the mirror again. "Yeah, okay. It'll go
under the top of the case. Just don't chip the frame."

Dicky and Bruce edged around the piano and began to thread their way
across the room. Starbuck played the flash idly on the sculptures, and
as idly picked up the one nearest him. It was a small statue of a
dancer, and he was surprised by its weight. He turned it over and saw
the name scratched into the base: Degas. "Hold it," he said, and the
boys froze. "No, not you, assholes," he said, and excitedly shot the
flash toward the next small sculpture. It looked just like the one he
cradled in his palm. When he shot the light down the length of the room,
he saw two more of the little sculptures of dancers.

Starbuck pulled the radio out of his pocket and spoke into it. "Hey,
kid? You there."

"What?" came Tabby's frightened voice. .

"Get the van up here right now. We're gonna split in a '\ couple of
minutes."

"You want us to . . . ?" Dicky and Bruce had frozen halfway to the wall
where the mirror hung.

"Fuck, you're dumb," Starbuck said. "Get the mirror. Get it inside the
piano. Push the piano outside. Then you can get yourselves back in here
and take all those pictures off the * wall. You understand all that?" \

As the shaken Norman twins continued toward the wall, \ Starbuck went
for the second Degas sculpture.

He was speculating, in the last few seconds of his life, that the things
in this room represented at least two years' worth of the good life,
even at ten cents on the dollar, which is what he knew he could get for
them. With the silver, the piano, the sculptures, and the paintings, he
would be able to fade out of the Beach Trail house months before any of
the dozy local cops began to look for him, and take his time getting to
a new place. He was thinking of going back to the Midwest, territory he
had not seen for a long time; to Grosse Pointe or Lake Forest, some town
so rich that when you inhaled, your bank account got fatter.

Then he dimly saw an old man with a gun in his hand coming through the
living-room door, thought, no, he's

FLOATING DRAGON

249

young, he's just a kid, and then he heard Dicky Norman screech in pain
and terror. After that the room seemed to explode, and the explosion cut
him off forever from the interesting spectacle of Dicky Norman spouting
blood all over a painting he would have sworn was a Manet. His own
pistol was in his hand by then, but first his fingers would not work and
then he was wondering if you could still sell a Manet that had Dicky
Norman's blood all over it, and then he was gone.

16

Tabby tossed the radio onto the passenger seat and then climbed into the
driver's seat. Static-laden conversation erupted from the radio, and he
jerked his hand out for it before he realized that he was picking up
Starbuck's orders to the twins. The thief sounded angry. Tabby twisted
the key in the ignition and then put his foot down on the accelerator.

The engine caught. Tabby had now exhausted everything he knew about
driving the van. He looked in dismay at the gearshift, which was four
feet long, and angled like the shift on a truck. Above the knob at the
end of the shift was a red button. Tabby grabbed the shift, pressed the
button, and yanked the shift down. He did not depress the clutch, since
he did not know it was there.

The van growled: it sounded as though it was eating itself, devouring
its own wheels and gears.

Tabby let go of the shift, then grabbed it again and wrenched it
sideways at the same time as he floored the accelerator.

The van trembled like a dog in a seizure. From the sounds it was making,
soon it would begin to defecate its own parts out the exhaust pipe. This
was hopeless.

Ta*>by threw open the door and began to run up the drive, fnen he
remembered the radio, and sprinted back for it. He was running past the
Japanese maple and about thirty-five feet from the house when he
realized that since he was going to be seeing Starbuck in seconds, he
would not need the radio. The security light angling down from beneath
the rain gutter dazzled and fixed him-he saw himself exposed before a
pitiless judgment.

He would have to confess to Starbuck that he could not make the van go,
that was all. The thief or one of the Nor-

250

Peter Straub

mans could go back down to the gates and bring the van up. All Tabby had
to do was go inside and tell Gary Starbuck that he could not get the van
to move.

Fearful Tabby closed his eyes and saw. A column of flame rose fifty feet
into the air; then it lifted from the ground and was in the shape of a
huge bat with its wings extended, a giant bat made of fire.

Tabby stopped running. His mouth had gone cottony, and his heart was
pounding.

He took a tentative step forward. Something was going to happen inside
that house; all the atmosphere seemed charged with that weird
electricity which had flickered earlier through the sky. Tabby saw
something glowing in one of the downstairs windows.

The radio, forgotten in his hand, emitted a long wavering screech of agony.

Tabby took another step forward. Whatever was glowing in the downstairs
window was urging him forward. Part of him knew that whatever was going
on in that house was too much for him, that it was like that still very
dim memory of a future event he had seen when his father and his
grandfather had tried to pull him into twin halves at gate 44 in JFK
airport- that dim, shocking memory of a man opening up a woman's skin
with a long red weapon-but the rest of Tabby Smithfield heard a silent
voice from within the big imposing house which softly and insistently
invited him inside.

It's nice in here, Tabby, just come up to the door, it doesn't matter
that you can't drive the van, nothing like that matters anymore, just
come in and join us. . . .

Dazed, and with the two images-the fire-bat and the man opening up the
dying woman's skin-rolling down through a receding corridor in his mind,
Tabby took another step toward the house.

Then he heard a shot coming from the same room where the inviting shape
had glowed through a large window.

17

Richard's arms ached: Patsy thrashed against his restraint like a bull
in a pen. "I don't know if I can hold her much longer," he said
desperately to Graham Williams.

"I'll get her legs," Williams said, and went as quickly as

FLOATING DRAGON

251

he could around the coffee table. He grasped one of her ankles with his
right hand, and she kicked out strongly enough to throw him off-balance.
He sat heavily on the flimsy table, and both men heard it crack.
Williams grimly leaned forward, pursing his mouth with effort, and
caught her flying leg under his arm. As he pinned it down with his
elbow, he reached out and grasped her other leg with his free hand.
Patsy's hips whipsawed. Williams felt a sudden pain in his chest.

Richard saw Graham's face go white: it was as if the sharp crack from
the table had come from within the old man. Patsy thrashed against his
arms again, and screamed a single word.

"Run!"

Richard shook his head at the old man, telling him to let go, that he
could handle Patsy's convulsions, but Williams strengthened his grip,
and Patsy's movements became tighter and more easily controlled.

"Run!" she screamed. Then she let out a long wail that made Richard
almost drop her.

Richard heard a loud cracking noise behind him.

He ducked his head, imagining that a window had exploded in, and then
saw the glass front of a framed film poster beside Williams' desk
shatter and crumble to the floor in a glittery jigsaw puzzle.

"Aaaah!" Patsy screamed.

The paperback detective novels jammed on top of the art: books were
snapping out of the bookcase, sailing into the air and then swirling
upward. Richard heard the frame of the poster behind him crack apart
like kindling. He watched the books on the top row of the bookshelves
across the room cannon off the shelf and sail across Williams' desk.

The typewriter rocked on its pad, then rolled right over and thunked
against the floor. Bing! rang the carriage return.

Books flew randomly off the shelves: Richard and Graham watched two of
them ascend straight up to the ceiling, where they clung for a moment
like flies before dropping to the floor.

Another of the framed posters (Glenda, Richard saw, a tinted drawing of
Mary Astor in Gary Cooper's arms) flopped straight over on its face and
jittered like a dying cat as the g'ass tinkled into a thousand bright
sections.

252

Peter Straub

18

Come on in, Tabs, we need you now, said the silent voice in his mind,
and he stepped forward again. For a moment he saw dozens of people lined
up at the big windows; then they broke apart, turned to one another or
turned away. Why, it's a party, Tabby thought, how can there be a party?
He lifted the radio to his mouth and said, "Hey, what ..."

"Come on in," the radio said to him. "Get in here, Tabby."

He could not see the people very clearly, but the Norman twins were not
among them.

"Get in here," the voice on the radio said again.

The people parted, and Tabby saw that what had been glowing was a mirror
far across the room. Now its center was a delicate rose-pink that pulsed
and glowed. Tabby began to move again.

But then Bruce Norman burst through the front door. He had his arm
around Dicky's chest, and seemed to be pulling at him. Dicky's face was
marble-white. He was moving very slowly. "Where's the van?" Bruce shouted.

Bruce was red with blood: blood plastered his shirt to his thick chest.
Dicky too had splashes of blood on his face, and his entire side was
stained so deeply that the colors of his clothes were not visible.

Tabby pointed down the long lawn. He had seen that all that blood was
Dicky Norman's.

Then he saw a knob of white appear in the midst of the soupy redness
where Bruce was holding up his brother. Dicky's arm was gone, and the
knob of white was his shoulder. He rushed to help Bruce support his
brother, and his mind cleared: he seemed to himself to have been moving
in slow motion since the column of flame had bloomed in his mind.

Tabby firmly clamped his arm around Dicky's back and felt Dicky's
heaviness, his slowness. Dicky was going to die, he knew. Together he
and Bruce half-carried, half-pushed Dicky all the way to the van. Tabby
moved to open the rear door, but Bruce screeched at Tabby, ' 'Not in the
back! In the front! On the seat!" Bruce's eyes seemed to take up most of
his face. Tabby helped get Dicky in the passenger seat, and then Bruce
ran around the front of the van to climb in the driver's seat.

FLOATING DRAGON

253

Tabby jumped in the back and slammed the door shut just as Bruce slammed
the van backward into a tree. Dicky slumped toward the floor. "Pull him
up, for Chrissake!" Bruce screeched, ground the gears, and shot out from
under the trees in a shower of scattered earth.

Tabby bent over the passenger seat and tried to haul Dicky back upright.
His left hand slipped on the sheet of blood covering Dicky's left side,
and Dicky waveringly rolled sideways. The white knob of bone slid along
the fabric of the seat.

"Get him uuup!" Bruce yelled. He spun out onto Mount Avenue and turned
in the direction of the Sayre Connector.

Tabby hauled at Dicky's right arm, and then Dicky got his legs under
himself and helped push himself back onto the seat. Leaning over, Tabby
looked into his eyes. They were looking straight ahead, focused on
something a long way off. Dicky's eyes were unearthly. Tabby thought
that Dicky Norman looked more intelligent than at any other time in his
life, but he was glad he couldn't see what Dicky was looking at so
intently. "Hold on, Dicky," he said, and patted his good shoulder. Dicky
did not even blink.

"Where's the guy?" Tabby asked. "Starbuck-where's Starbuck?"

"Fucker's dead," Bruce said.

"Dead? I just talked to him on the radio."

"Fucker's dead. The old guy shot him."

Bruce sped straight through a stop sign.

"How did ... I mean, what happened to Dicky?"

"/ don't know!" Bruce screamed. He wiped a hand over his jowls, and left
a bloody smear. "We were supposed to pick up this fancy mirror and put
it inside this big black asshole of a piano. We were just gonna get the
mirror when the old guy comes in with his gun. He doesn't even say,
'Stick 'em up,' or nothin', he just shoots. And he got Starbuck-he blew
that fuckhead away. Then Dicky gives out this gawdawful yell, and I look
over at Dicky, and he's shootin' blood all °ver the wall and his goddamn
arm is gone and he's just standin' there lookin' up, and I thought the
old guy was gonna blast us both." He shook his head. "I thought the old
guy shot him too, until I seen that his whole fuckin' arm is gone. So I
just got him out."

"I saw other people in there," Tabby said. Tabs, the old guy was the
only other one in that room.

254

Peter Straub

You gotta get out now. I'm taking Dicky down to Norrington General, and
you gotta get outta this van."

Bruce pulled up at the traffic light on the Sayre Connector. "Out, Tabs.
Fast."

Tabby jumped down onto the road and slammed the door. "Good luck," he
said, but the van had pulled ahead through the red light and was
speeding toward the on ramp to the thruway.

Fourteen minutes later, at eleven-fifty-six, Bruce Norman made it to the
emergency room of Norrington General Hospital, a feat he accomplished by
keeping the accelerator floored and the engine in the overdrive Gary
Starbuck had constructed. When he came to the toll station he did not
even think of slowing down. He hit the barrier at better than a hundred
and ten miles an hour and split it into half a dozen flying saw-toothed
sections. The nurses in the emergency room peeled his brother off him as
soon as they came through the door, strapped Dicky to a cot and slid an
IV in his arm. Dicky's eyes never lost the intelligent faraway stare
Tabby Smithfield had seen. An intern named Patel, who had been born in
Uttar Pradesh and had a medical degree from the University of Wisconsin,
began doing what he could to Dicky's shoulder. But Dicky died while Dr.
Patel was still putting little metal clamps on the severed arteries. It
was three minutes past twelve.

Dr. Patel stood up, looked at the clock, and then at Bruce Norman, who
was sitting in a chair at the side of the emergency room, watching him
with slitted and dangerous eyes.

Dr. Patel picked up Dicky's remaining hand and felt for a pulse; but his
hands had been in Dicky's wound at the moment of his death, and he knew
there would be no pulse. He gently lowered Dicky's hand to his chest.

Bruce stood up. He stank of blood, and blood had soaked and smeared over
his shoes, his jeans, and his shirt. The blood on his face was like war
paint.

"This is a dead boy," said Dr. Patel, whose accent and diction were
still those of India. "Can you tell me please how this wound was inflicted?"

Bruce walked up to the small brown-skinned doctor and hit him squarely
in the side of the head, knocking out two of the doctor's teeth and
sending him flying into Dicky's IV stand. The doctor fell to the floor
in a pool of dark liquid, and Bruce

FLOATING DRAGON

255

picked up his brother and carried him back outside to the van.

At that moment, the nurses were all either in the emergency patients'
cubicles or around the corner at the nursing station, and none of them
saw what had happened until Jake Rems, an alcoholic with a black eye and
a broken nose, began squalling that a monster boy had killed his doctor.

Dicky was back on his seat; Bruce was calmer. He drove down the highway
to Woodville and the next hospital, St. Hilda's, and there he accepted
the news that his brother was dead.

It was now twelve-thirty-one on Sunday morning, the eighth of June, and
Patchin County was beginning its twentyfifth day without rain.

19

Just after a quarter to one, Tabby had turned into Beach Trail and was
trudging slowly up toward Hermitage and "Four Hearths." He was too tired
to think about everything that had happened. He wanted only to get
inside his house, go up to his room, lock his door, and crawl into bed.
In his mind he saw the fire-bat widening its red wings ... the wings
were as red as Dicky Norman's left side, where Dicky had looked as
though a crazy painter had slapped him with brushful after brushful of
bright red paint.

The fire-bat's eyes were black holes, and clouds shone palely through.

Tabby looked ahead up the road and saw the houses march one by one on
either side of the black street, the streetlamps throwing circles of
light on the ground, and thought that all of Jt, right up the hill to
his house, looked like a setting in a dream, and that soon these houses
would begin to swell and Moat, blood and foul yellow liquid would pour
from the windows, the street would crack and turn over and bruised white
hands would thrust up through the exposed earth ... and the nre-bat
would soar overhead, setting the bursting houses alight and crooning,
Master Smyth. Do you wish a ball in the back?

He groaned, lifted his hands to wipe his face, and saw for the first
time since the Normans had come through the front door of the doctor's
house that he was still carrying Gary ^tarbuck's two-way radio.

256

Peter Straub

It crackled in his face. "Tabby! Tabby Smithfield! You get back here!
You get your tail back here right now or I'll kill you!" The voice
leaped out of the radio on a cascade of static, but it was strong and
clear. It was the same voice he had heard speaking to him while he stood
on the doctor's lawn-Gary Starbuck's voice. Starbuck was not dead, he
was back there in a fuming rage because Tabby and the Normans had run
out on him.

Tabby stared down at the radio, not knowing what to believe. Bruce
Norman had seen the doctor shoot Starbuck. But he himself had seen
people at those windows, people Bruce had told him were not there.
"Aaagh," the radio whimpered.

Radio signals, Tabby thought. It was picking up some kind of radio
signals, and pretty soon Dr. Demento would come on, announcing that the
next number would be "Surfin' Bird" by the immortal Trashmen.

But he knew that these were not radio signals. He was never going to
hear "Steve Miller's Midnight Tango" or "Song for a Sucker Like You" on
this radio, and Starbuck, he was certain, was dead. And Dicky Norman too
would be dead by now, his arm savagely ripped off by ...

... by a delicate rose-pink light that glowed at the center of an
antique mirror?

The lump of black metal and plastic in his hand grew suddenly warm. With
an almost exhausted curiosity Tabby lifted it nearer to his face: an
acrid electronic stink. Then the thing in his hand was unbearably hot.
Smoke poured from the grille. The top edge drooped and grinned. A strip
of metal sizzled against his palm, and he jerked his hand, sending the
radio flying onto a lawn.

It burst into flame while it was still in the air. Something within it
went pop! and when it struck the lawn, a small specific cloud of blue
gas emerged from its diminishing surface. Many of the pieces still
burned, it cracked down the center, and as the plastic melted, small
burning elements from inside the radio twisted and moved across the grass.

One fiery piece seemed to have tiny legs and a shiny back like a
beetle's. It staggered some inches from the melting body of the radio,
then turned crisp and transparent and died.

A few tiny flames began to feed on the dry stalks of grass.

Tabby realized that the entire lawn could catch fire, and he jumped onto
the lawn and began stamping on the tiny flames.

"Tabby? Is that you?" a woman called, and when he

FLOATING DRAGON

257

looked up he saw Patsy McCloud standing on the front step- then he
recognized Graham Williams' house. He had been too bone-weary to
identify it earlier.

"It's me," he said, and she jumped off the porch already running. Graham
Williams poked his head around the front door, and Tabby waved. Williams
grinned and waved back, rubbing his chest with his other hand. He
stepped outside and pushed his hands into his pockets.

Patsy ran into Tabby and almost knocked him down before she hugged him.
"Are you all right?"

He nodded.

"What were you doing?"

"I was holding a radio, and it sort of exploded," he said, feeling a
little light-headed now that he was circled by her arms. A metal catch
on her white overalls dug into his neck. Patsy smelled pleasantly of
perfume and fresh perspiration.

"I was so worried ... I passed out, actually I guess I had a kind of
fit, and I dreamed you were in terrible danger." She straightened up and
took her arms from around him. "You were in danger, weren't you?"

"Well, I burned my hand," he said, and showed her the fat strip of
burned flesh across the palm of his hand.

"We'll soak that in cold water, but that's not what I mean. Where were
you tonight? What were you doing?"

He could not answer that question. If he had to, he could explain, and
Patsy would believe him, but the explanations would take too long, and
he was too tired.

"Why, you've got blood on your shirt," Patsy said.

He looked down. It was blood, all right-Dicky Norman's. That was where
he had wiped his hand after trying to pull Dicky back up on the van's seat.

Patsy's face had gone even whiter. "I'm all right," he said. "I'm not
hurt. I was just out with some people." And two of them are dead now.

Patsy's head jerked back as though she had intercepted this bought. Her
wide dark eyes caught his.

Then the image of the fire-bat, its wings extended and clouds drifting
past its empty eyes, slammed into his mind, ^ong with / saw this oh no

I saw this I saw this I saw this and it was going to kill you we can't
do this nobody can do this

258

Peter Straub

tell it to the Marines, buster, because we're doing it.

The words had flown between them as the dreadful image of the fire-bat
had faded, and at the conclusion Patsy's mouth actually twitched in a
smile. "We are," Tabby said. He tried

/ saw that too, Patsy

or it slipped into his mind and he felt it instantly transfer to hers.

we can't

no can't

tell

can't can't tell

anyone

anyone else

even Richard

(Richard?)

yesss

A complicated series of emotions involving warmth, guilt, and deep
physicality blew into him along with the sibilant yes, and he backed
away mentally, knowing that this was too private for him.

"Richard Allbee," he said out loud.

Patsy nodded, and then Graham Williams was on them, saying, "Come on in
for a second, Tabby, you have to meet our fourth member, you look like
you could use a rest anyhow, I guess we all could." He realized that he
was looking directly into Patsy's face: she was exactly his height.

this scares me, he thought

and two of them are dead now? Patsy thought.

later

the fire-thing?

later

the fire-thing, damn you?

I don't know

it was going to kill you, Patsy thought in Tabby's brain, and he knew
that she was telling him no more than the truth. The joyousness of what
he and Patsy McCloud had discovered they could do went black and cold.

"Are you all right?" the old man was asking him. "What the hell happened
to you? What's all that blood?"

"I'm fine, really," Tabby said.

"Where were you, son?"

"I can't tell you," Tabby said. "I can't tell anybody-not now, anyhow.
But I'm not hurt."

FLOATING DRAGON

259

Williams glowered at the boy. "I get the feeling I'm missing something.
There's something going on here, and I'm missing it. Did he tell you
what he was up to, Patsy?"

Patsy shook her head.

"Well, I suppose you'd better come on up and meet Richard Allbee,"
Graham said. Then he shot another dark glance at Tabby. "You're not in
trouble with the police, are you? Were you out on another mailbox massacre?"

"Something like that," Tabby said, and could not look at Patsy. His face
reddened.

"Well, anybody your age has a license to be stupid," Williams said. "But
don't overdo it."

The three of them were walking across the overgrown weedy lawn back
toward the house, and a fourth figure, a slender well-knit man in his
mid-thirties, came out to stand on the porch. He was only two or three
inches taller than Patsy and Tabby, and his longish dark hair was combed
straight back. The man looked sleek and capable to Tabby. Then he was
close enough to see the man's face in detail, and something in his chest
jumped, whether in fear or in confirmation, he did not know.

Richard Allbee, the fourth descendant of the original Greenbank
settlers, was the man he had seen through the window of the Gryphon
Diner in the Post Mall shopping center.

The Normans had been bragging about a kid named Skip Peters, how he had
done everything they wanted him to do, even the craziest things. In the
midst of the Norman stories, Tabby had seen Spunky Jameson staring in at
him through the window.

Then he had seen that this was an adult; it could not possibly be Spunky
Jameson, Spunky was a ten-year-old kid ...

. and he had suddenly had the feeling that this person knew him, that
they had met, and that events both terrible and wonderful would flow
from that meeting ... he had felt himself slipping into a panicky dream,
and then Dicky Norman pushed the tines of his fork into Tabby's hand and
broke the feeling apart. . . .

"I should have known that you'd turn out to be Tabby Smithfield," the
man said.

"You met each other before?" Graham Williams asked with evident surprise.

''We looked at each other," Tabby said.

"Mysteriouser and mysteriouser."

260

Peter Straub

The four of them stood outside a moment longer, not speaking, aware that
it was the first time that all of them had been together.

Graham Williams knew that what was "mysteriouser and mysteriouser" was
their meat and drink now, and that knowledge filled him with dread-he
knew that what was to come would make Patsy's fit only a footnote to
their story. Tabby had none of these premonitions, at least not while
they all stood in the darkness outside Graham's house. During that
moment when currents of emotion jumped between them all, he first had
felt unreasonably secure, as if nothing could hurt him now. Then he
realized he was with an old man, and a younger man and woman: it was the
structure of the household on Mount Avenue just before that household
blew apart with the death of his mother.

"Well, let's get inside for a bit," Williams said. "Tabby, there's
something you have to hear about. Patsy saw the Dragon tonight."

Richard Allbee opened the door, looking down at Tabby with an expression
of kindly puzzlement, and Tabby remembered how Les McCloud's gun had
looked, how enormous it had been when its barrel was pointing right at
his chest. That moment now seemed to have taken place centuries ago. He
looked uneasily back to the place on the lawn where the melted, broken
pieces of the radio lay.

Graham Williams put his arm across his shoulder. Tabby went up the steps
to follow Patsy into the book-lined corridor.

20

At three-fifteen that night, two small boys could have been seen walking
down the newly paved access road to Gravesend Beach. The smaller of the
two, four-year-old Martin O'Hara, was limping slightly. He wore dark
blue shorts and a light blue T-shirt with a shiny portrait of Yoda on
the front. His nine-year-old brother, Thomas, was wearing a new pair of
Keds, straight-leg jeans and a dark green T-shirt with short yellow
sleeves. Thomas had scaled up the waist-high chainlink fence across the
public road at the entrance to the beach, swung his leg over, and then
swung the other leg over and jumped down. Then he had reached down and
lifted Martin

FLOATING DRAGON

261

over the fence. Now Martin was struggling to keep up with Thomas.

"Hurry up," Thomas called to his brother. He did not look back.

"My feet hurt, Tommy," Martin said.

"We're almost there."

"Oh, thank God," Martin said in an eerie echo of his mother's voice.

A second later Thomas said, "You're going too slow again."

"But I don't want to be slow."

"You're stupid."

"I'm not stupid, Tommy!" Martin wailed.

In minutes they had reached the wide part at the end of the access road.
Ahead and to one side of them was the gray empty beach, to their right
the long length of the breakwater from which Harry and Babe Zimmer had
liked to fish. The Sound was at low tide, a long black shelf of barely
moving water with silver glints of light on its small rolling waves.
"This is it," Thomas said.

"Yeah, this is it," Martin repeated.

Thomas jumped on top of the concrete retaining wall at the edge of this
parking area, and helped Martin to get up on top of the two-foot wall
beside him. Then Thomas jumped down onto the sand. "Come on, Martin," he
said. "Jump down."

"Carry me," Martin said. "I can't jump. It's too high for me."

Sighing, Thomas came back and lifted Martin down onto the sand.

"Now we have to take our clothes off," Thomas said.

"We have to?*'

"Sure we have to," Thomas said, and sat down calmly and began to untie
his shoes.

Martin sat down on the sand only inches from Thomas and yanked at his
own laces. A few seconds later he furiously yelled, "Tommy, I can't! I
can't get my shoes off!" His brother, naked except for his shirt, knelt
before him and jugged off the sneakers without bothering to untie the
snarled laces. As Thomas pulled his shirt off over his head, Martin
Pushed down his shorts and red cotton underpants and stepped Out of
them. Then he sat and grabbed the toe of his right sock

262

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

263

with his left hand, grunted, and pulled the sock off. He repeated the
technique with his left sock.

"Come on, come on," Thomas said. He was standing up in the darkness, and
to Martin he looked as tall and powerful as an adult. "Get your shirt off."

"I want to wear my Yoda shirt," Martin said.

"You have to take it off," Thomas said.

"/ want to wear my Yoda shirt!" Martin said, his face working.

"Jesus," Thomas said.

"You're not supposed to say that!" Martin exploded.

"All right, come on. You can wear your shirt." Thomas led the way across
the beach.

A fat, nearly continuous strip of seaweed marked the hightide waterline.
The boys stepped over it and cautiously; marched down the drying strand.
They didn't want to step on any of the sharp rocks or on the broken crab
shells that litter the beach. ,

"Horseshoe crab!" Martin screamed. "Look! Horseshoes crab!" ;

"It's dead, it's yucky," Thomas told him. "Come on,; Martin." I

Martin scampered ahead and reached the water first. |

"Brrr!" |

"The water's okay. It's just a little cold," Thomas saidf loftily. He
strode into the water after his brother and repeated/? "Just a little
cold," though in fact it seemed much colder than that to him. "It'll get
better."

They had to walk out nearly to the end of the breakwater before the
water was even waist-high for Thomas. Martin was bobbing grimly along,
holding his head up. "It's still cold," Martin said.

"Just go as far as you can," Thomas said. "It doesn't have to be far."

"Don't go away," Martin said, his shirt billowing out around him in the
black water.

"I have to," Thomas said. "You know I have to, Martin." Then he looked
down at his brother's intent small face. "Give me a kiss, Martin," he
said on impulse, and bent to touch his brother's cold lips with his own.
Then he threw himself forward into the water.

Martin struggled to stay on his feet, and bounced forward another step.
The water was up to his chin. He lifted his feet

from the stony floor and paddled his arms. That was all the swimming he
knew how to do. "Tommy!" he yelled when he realized that his feet could
no longer touch the bottom. His brother paid no attention, but continued
swimming toward the buoys. Martin paddled a few feet farther out. His
shirt felt heavy, heavy. His head went under, and he desperately inhaled
half a pint of burning seawater. Spluttering as his head surfaced again,
he windmilled his arms, taking himself farther out past the end of the
breakwater. Then his head went under again. A huge black shape opened
its mouth and darted toward him.

Thomas kept swimming until his arms were too heavy and slow to lift-he
had gotten more than fifty feet past the buoys. His body felt warm and
tired. He let his head slip under the water, jerked it up when water
splashed into his nose, did another overhand stroke, and then slid
backward into the water as if something on the bottom were sucking him down.

Half an hour after the first Bloody Mary was poured at brunch in the
Sawtell Country Club, a woman named Rae NesticoBell carried her beach
chair down to the far end of Gravesend Beach to get away from the noise
of a volleyball game eight teenage boys had set up near her original
place. Besides the shouts and the flying sand, what drove her away were
the leers and stares the boys directed her way whenever they thought she
might be looking at them. Mrs. Nestico-Bell had reached the first of the
boundaries that mark off the private beaches, and she was just putting
down her chair at the edge of the seawall below the Van Home house when
she saw two oddly shaped bundles of sand and weed rolling in the waves
directly before her. She dropped her chair and took a step forward. From
one of the bundles a white foot extended. She clenched her hands in
front of her mouth and began to call for JJelP, at first so quietly that
the boys playing volleyball did not near her.

These images, the screaming of a woman in a bikini and jne happy
pounding of eight teenage boys down a stony "^ch, marked the true ending
of the events of Saturday, the f^enth of June, in the year 1980. The
first threshold had ^n crossed.

265 Waked Swimmers

FLOATING DRAGON

265

By Monday, the ninth of June, word had spread through town that the
killer of Stony Friedgood and Hester Goodall had been shot to death
while committing a burglary on the Golden Mile; no one in the police
department had expressed this view publicly, but off-duty Hampstead
officers in bars on the Post Road and Riverfront Avenue talked about the
way a gutsy little doctor named Wren Van Home walked into his living
room with a pistol and shot down an armed housebreaker- who had his gun
out, ready to kill the owner! That was the deciding point. "You wait,"
these officers breathed into the receptive ears around them, "there
aren't going to be any more killings in Hampstead for a long time. We're
done with that guy." The bartenders and the other customers went home
and told their wives and husbands and parents that Hampstead was safe
again, and the wives and husbands and parents went out to their grocery
stores and bowling alleys and Nautilus exercise rooms and dance classes
and told their clerks and instructors and partners that Hampstead had
nothing to worry about anymore. The monster who had savaged Mrs.
Friedgood and Mrs. Goodall was dead. "Of course we'll never be able to
prove it," the policemen had said in the bars, and "Of course they'll
never be able to prove it," the wives said to their hairdressers and
vendors of baguettes, "but he had to be the man. Why, he wasn't even
from around here! I heard he was from Florida . . . from New York . . .
from Illinois." Sarah Spry answered the phone at her desk on Monday
morning and heard Martha Gable, one of her oldest friends, babble for
ten minutes about somebody getting shot and somebody having a bagful of
antique silver and somebody not being a problem anymore, and finally had
to say, "Martha, I think you'd better slow down and spoon-feed me. I can't

264

make head or tail out of this." When she finally got the story out of
Martha, she cursed herself for not checking in with the desk officers at
the police station as soon as she arrived- she usually did, but this
morning her editor had hit her with the news about the O'Hara boys and
suggested that before she met Richard Allbee for his interview, she
might swing over to the O'Hara house and talk to the boys' mother.

"And what would be the good of that?" she had snapped, still trying to
see around the deaths of those two kids-kids she had seen about once a
month since they had been born.

"You're a friend of the O'Haras, aren't you?" Stan Brockett asked her.

"So what?" she nearly yelled. "You want me to ask Mikki O'Hara how it
feels to have her children drown? Do you want me to ask her how the
death of her children will affect her workV

Mikki Zaber O'Hara was one of Hampstead's many semiprofessional
painters. She had shows and openings in local galleries; her husband, a
gem appraiser with an office on Gramercy Park and another in Palm
Springs, had had a studio built for her in their attic, but she sold
paintings almost entirely to her family and her friends.

"No," Stan Brockett had said. "Her work never was anything but deep-dyed
shit, and you know it. I want you to ask her what her kids were doing
out on the beach around three in the morning."

"What do you mean, three in the morning? Mikki O'Hara would never have
let her kids play outside at that hour."

"The coroner says that they must have entered the water around then. So
ask her about it."

"I'll do it," Sarah had agreed, "but only because I know you're wrong.
And her paintings are beautiful. I've got one hanging in my living room."

Then you'd better keep reviewing her openings," Stan

Brockett said. "Try to set it up for around two, two-thirty,

okay? I Want to see both pieces by six tonight."

. And that gave her about an hour and a half to write each

Piece, which would not be a problem for her; and she still had

jne whole morning to do the "What Sarah Saw" column and

ner review of the White Barn Players' production of Hot I

wtiniore. She was assembling the information for her col-

mn when the telephone rang; she picked it up to hear Martha

able incoherently trying to tell her that the killer of the two

266

Peter Straub

women had been shot by Dr. Wren Van Home in a burglary attempt.

"I heard it from Mr. Pascal at Everything Bread, and he said that he had
heard it from a customer who had heard it from a policeman," Martha
Gable said. "So I wanted to call you and see if it was really true. But,
Sarah-the policeman said it was true. He said we'd never have to worry
about that man again."

As soon as she could get Martha off the phone, Sarah called Dave Marks
at the police station. Dave Marks was the desk officer on duty when
Sarah came to work most mornings, and over the years they had worked out
a mutually satisfying relationship. Dave Marks gave Sarah any important
information from the previous night, and she got his picture into the
Hampstead Gazette whenever she could. When the Gazette ran its pictures
of the Memorial Day parade, there was Officer Dave Marks striding
prominently along with his fellow officers; when the Gazette ran a piece
on teenage drinking late at night on Sawtell Beach, there was a picture
of Officer Dave Marks leaning on the guardrail at the beach parking lot,
looking youthful and authoritative. Sarah got her information before any
of her competitors at the Norrington Highlife or the Patchin Advocate,
and Dave Marks got a lot of attention from female police buffs who
thought he was a celebrity.

"This guy was Gary Starbuck, and he was a biggie," Dave Marks told
Sarah. "He's been breaking into houses all his life, traveling all over
the country. I betcha this Starbuck guy had about six, seven hundred
thousand scattered here and there in various accounts. We're going to
open his house up so the folks can walk through and identify their
property-we think he's done at least twenty burglaries in Hampstead
since he arrived. You oughta see his place, Sarah. It's like some kind
of a cave, all that stuff he's got in there. I guess he just ran out of
luck. Dr. Van Home shot him once, and that was all it took."

"Will Wren Van Home have to answer any charges?' Sarah asked.

"Hell, no," Officer Marks said. "He shot Starbuck in the commission of
an armed robbery. The son of a bitch had his weapon right in his hand.
Van Home'11 be lucky if the chief doesn't bring him down to the station,
declare a press confer* ence, and give him a medal. Cops all over the
country have

FLOATING DRAGON

267

been looking for this guy for at least fifteen years. It's funny-he was
just like his father. This guy's old man lived just the same way. Work a
town, fence all the stuff, move out fast, rent a house somewhere else.
He was caught once, over a forty-year career, and did fourteen months in
jail. The old man dies two years ago, in a nursing home in Palm Beach,
he leaves his kid a pile of money, and the kid carries on where he left
off. Like it's the family business, you know?"

"Did Starbuck do the murders?" Sarah asked bluntly. "I hate to say it,
but he sure doesn't sound like the type."

Dave Marks was quiet for a long time. Then he sighed. "I had three calls
about that already this morning. People wanna believe what makes them
happy, you know? We never related Starbuck to the murders, and we never
will. There might be a couple of our guys who think he was the one, but
you know what that is, Sarah? It's hard for a cop to face that a guy
like that is actually running around free. Every day he isn't caught is
like another insult, see?"

"Yes, I see," Sarah said. "I was afraid of that. But a lot of people are
going to believe that they don't have to worry about a stranger showing
up at the door anymore."

"//"it's a stranger," Dave Marks said. "Well, let's get off that
subject. You want the rest of the stuff or do you want to wait for the
file?"

"Anything big?"

"A traffic fatality. A Leslie McCloud of Charleston Road. McCloud was
going about the speed of light up 1-95 and killed a couple of kids from
West Haven coming home from New York."

''Was he drunk?"

"There was enough booze in him to float a navy," Dave Marks said.

''I'll wait for the file."

"He was some kind of big shot."

"I'll still wait for the file."

a*sy had heard nothing of Gary Starbuck's sudden end, nor

at the murders were now supposed to be solved. She had

been to a hairdresser, to an exercise room or a dance class

r even a grocery store since Saturday night. She had returned

268

Peter Straub

home from Graham Williams' house not long after one-thirty, seen with no
surprise that Les was not home, and went to bedl in the spare room. She
had noticed that his clubs were gone:] Les would play golf all day, then
eat at the club and sit in the] lounge until closing time. He would be
getting angrier and drunker, drunker and angrier. Tomorrow he would boil
over,! and begin beating her again. \

This time she would fight back, Patsy vowed. This time, she would not go
into a defenseless crouch. She would kick him-this time she would kick
him in the balls, if he gave her half a chance. At Graham Williams'
house, she had gone through an extraordinary array of emotions, from
terror to humiliation to love, and what was most extraordinary to her
was that the other three were not threatened or disgusted by all that
had happened to her. They were simply calmly wonderfully there: they
accepted her. If she had shown so much of herself in front of Les, he
would have ordered her out of the room. Somehow, that she'd had a fit
(setting the cause aside, for the moment), that she had then passed out
and afterward experienced unhesitating love for the two men who had made
sure she wouldn't concuss herself or swallow her tongue, that then she
had apparently found that she had a telepathic link with a teenage
boy-somehow Les would have seen all this as primarily a threat to his job.

That was not at all how the wife of a corporate vice-president was
supposed to spend her Saturday night. Even through her deep exhaustion,
Patsy felt rage-Les had put her into a straitjacket, her marriage had
walled her up within iron conventions. She now remembered all the
discussions Les and she had had soon after their marriage. -You can't
act like that, Patsy, Les had said. -Like what? -Like you were acting
with Johnson (or Young, or Olson, or Gold). -I wasn't acting any special
way at all. -I know, but it looked like you were flirting with them. And
if enough people think you were flirting with Johnson (or Young, or
Olson, or Gold, or any of the twenty other young executives Les had
climbed so expertly past), then we'll never get the Chicago posting.

Les had got the Chicago posting, rising so far above Johnson and the
others that he could see the molt in their hairlines, they had moved to
an apartment twice the size of their New York apartment, Les could
afford to buy five new suits and a fistful of new striped neckties, he
had his name on the door and a Bigelow on the floor . . . and he had
started hitting her.

FLOATING DRAGON

269

He had four drinks instead of one when he came home from the office. He
stopped talking to her; he had stopped even listening to her. He worked
nine-hour days, ten-hour days, then twelve-hour days. On the weekends he
played golf with clients, with accounts, never with people; Les had
stopped knowing people.

Because of one client, he took up skeet shooting. Because of another, he
started going to the Bears games in the fall. Another got him into the
Athletic Club. Les McCloud was ambitious and successful and admired.
When he came home at night to the woman who had known him when he was
only ambitious, he had his four drinks, grumbled about her plans for
dinner, and started to short-circuit. Then she could see the Les driven
desperate and half-loony by the twelve-hour days, the constant pressure
of reports and decisions and responsibility. And then he started to hit her.

If he tries that again, Patsy swore to herself, I won't just kick him in
the balls, I'll go after him with a knife. He can't come in loaded after
playing golf all day and decide that it's time to show little Patsy
who's the boss. I'll stick a knife in his arm if he tries that again.

It was as if the entire history of her marriage since Les had objected
to the way she spoke to Teddy Johnson gave license to that image-herself
jabbing a long carving knife into her husband's arm. She fell asleep
with that picture in her mind, where it simmered in an angry glow of
moral satisfaction.

Just past four o'clock in the morning, Bobo Farnsworth, still working
double shifts, woke Patsy up to tell her that her husband had died in a
fatal accident in the east-bound lanes of highway 1-95.

Patsy knew that once Les had been good, as good anyhow as his world and
character permitted, and that his goodness had been starved to death on
what his career fed it. His onetime shyness had turned into social
bullying, as on the night of the horrible dinner party with the Allbees,
Ronnie, and Bobo; his sunniness had turned to calculated heartiness; his
humor had turned to acid; and his unaffected love for her had turned to
grumpy jealous possessiveness. She mourned what there was to mourn. She
had felt a moment of shocked guilt that around fhe time Les had
immolated himself in his Mazda she was niagining pushing a knife into
his arm, but that guilt lasted °nly long enough to be recognized. In
some sense Les had

270

Peter Straub

stopped being her husband the day she had refused to make lunch for
him-the day she had met Tabby Smithfield during Dr. Lauterbach's
hour-and that momentary guilt had not earned enough to pay its way. It
was for some other woman, not for her. If she felt guilt, it was for the
teenagers Les had killed. ,

On that Monday, Patsy had the morning to fill before going to the
funeral home to consult with Mr. Holland. She did not; look forward to
the meeting. Mr. Holland was a fussy little; man who had been so well
trained to his profession by his father and grandfather that he never
betrayed any human feeling whatsoever-he was a propriety machine, and if
he had ! ever had any idiosyncrasies they had been ground to dustj many
years before. Mr. Holland knew the McClouds, and he \ was not going to
be happy with the idea of cremation. Not only would he want to sell her
an expensive coffin, he would j want to avoid a scene with Les's parents. j

Patsy opened Les's closet, a cedar-lined walk-in a few? steps from the
bed. He had claimed it for his own imme-] diately after they had moved,
giving her the darker, less convenient closet next to the bathroom door.
Here hung his twenty suits, his ten jackets, here were his fifteen pairs
of shoes in a neat row, each stuffed with a wooden shoe tree. In wooden
cubicles his shirts and sweaters made neat stacks. From a hook beside
the ranks of suits dangled four pairs of suspenders, one with a pattern
of death's-heads. Drawers concealed stacks of starched pocket
handkerchiefs and ironed socks.

/ will cremate him, Patsy said to herself. / will.

She brushed her fingers against the sleeve of a dark blue cashmere
jacket, and then jerked her hand back. The soft material felt like a rebuke.

What could she do with all these clothes? Give them to his parents?
Goodwill? She had to select the suit to give the undertaker.

She did not want to touch his clothes, and she did not want to go to
Bornley & Holland to see Mr. Holland, she did not want to put up his
parents and listen to them going through the inevitable cycle of
criticism and mollification. (I don't like to say this, Patsy, but is
your house always so messy? Of course, I know you young women see things
differently now.)

FLOATING DRAGON

271

If I had any character, Patsy thought, I'd give the clothes to Goodwill
and put Bill and Dee in a motel. Laura Allbee would have been capable of
such a gesture.

Patsy wandered back down the hall to the spare bedroom. It was here that
she was most comfortable. She supposed that when Bill and Dee came,
she'd have to give them this room and move back into that other room, so
redolent of Les and her marriage. She ripped the sheets off the bed she
had been using, and put on her newest, prettiest ones.

Patsy was walking toward the living room when the phone began to ring.

When she lifted the receiver, she heard a man's voice saying, "Patsy?
Patsy McCloud? This is Archie Monaghan."

"Oh, yes. Hello." The name was barely familiar.

"I just heard about Les, Patsy. Jesus, what a damn shame."

Years of living with Les McCloud had trained her to hear the falsity in
men's voices, so she said only, "Yes."

"A terrible thing. I was with him nearly all day that Saturday, you
know. On the course."

And in the bar, Patsy thought. "I didn't know that."

"Oh, yeah. We played eighteen holes. He had a good time, Patsy. I
thought you ought to know that."

"Thank you, Archie."

"So how are you making out? How are you holding up?" She suddenly
remembered what he looked like. A short paunchy red-faced man in garish
clothes. Bright clever blue eyes.

"I'm just trying to get through the morning, Archie. When it's twelve,
I'll try to get through the afternoon. I couldn't tell you how I was
holding up."

"Well, I'd be happy to come over anytime and help out. I'm a lawyer,
I've seen a lot of things, Patsy. Any help you need-getting the estate
in order, just talking things through. I make a great shoulder to cry
on, Patsy."

Patsy said nothing at all.

"And if you want to get out of the house, I'd be real happy to take you
out for a bite anytime, Patsy. What about tonight? I bet there's a lot
of stuff you want to talk about, things you have to say, things you're
afraid you'll never be able to say. I can help you, and I'm betting that
you need a little old-fashioned help. Should I just come by for you
around seven?"

272

Peter Straub

"What did you have in mind, Archie?" she asked. "Candlelight and wine?
Does that strike you as appropriate for the v! young widow?" J

"I think the young widow should have anything she wants." I

"Oh, good. Then I'll tell you what I want, Archie. I want 1 you to go
into the bathroom." I

"Huh?" I

"Into the bathroom. Then I want you to switch on the I light. You have
to be able to see yourself very well. Then I 1 want you to take off your
pants. Then I want you to take off your underpants. I want you to stand
over the sink and think about me. I'm five-five, Archie. I weigh a
hundred and sixteen pounds. I'm actually pretty skinny, Archie. I want
you to put your hand on yourself."

"Hey, what the hell is this, Patsy?"

"Well, it's what you're going to do anyway, isn't it, Archie? So I might
as well want you to do it. Because you're not going to do anything else."

"Jesus, you're sick." Archie hung up hastily.

Patsy smiled-a little wearily, a little bitterly, but she smiled.

When Mikki O'Hara opened the door of her long white clapboard house on
Hampstead's hilly north side, Sarah Spry said, "Oh, Mikki," and held out
her arms and embraced her. Mikki O'Hara was eight inches taller than
Sarah, and had tog stoop down. Sarah kissed her temple, leaving a little
streak offl lipstick, and briskly patted her back. "Oh, Mikki," she re-l
peated. "I'm so sorry." She clung to the taller woman foi| several
seconds before releasing her.

When they parted, Sarah saw her original impression of the dead
children's mother confirmed. Mikki's face had sunken in-she looked
twenty years older. Her eyes burned from far back in her head, her
cheeks were shadowed. "Honest," Sarah said, "if you don't feel like
talking to me, I'll go right back to my car and go on my merry way. Stan
Brockett can take a running jump for all I care. I'd understand perfectly."

"Don't be dumb," Mikki O'Hara said. "I'm glad for the company. For some
reason, I seem to be all alone."

"Alone?" Sarah was shocked. "Where's Des?"

FLOATING DRAGON

273

"Des went to Australia with a client. They're doing something way out in
the outback, someplace called Coober Pedy, and I couldn't even get
through to him until last night. He's coming back, but he won't be here
until tomorrow."

A faint though biting odor of whiskey accompanied this speech. Sarah
thought that was understandable. Mikki O'Hara had identified her
children's swollen bodies, spoken to the police, and then spent a day
and a night alone. Probably tranquilizers had seen her through the
night, but Sarah didn't think that she had had more than an hour's sleep.

"Come on in, will you?" Mikki asked. "Don't just stand around on my
doorstep, you'll make me nervous."

"Do you want company for tonight?" Sarah asked. "You shouldn't be alone."

"Oh, my sister's coming in from Toledo, but thanks, Sarah. You want a
drink?"

They were going into the living room, which had been decorated with long
high-backed Italian furniture of pale brown leather, glass-topped
tables, and track lights pointing down toward Mikki's bright watery
abstractions. The drinks trolley had been rolled up to the edge of the
long couch.

Sarah's mouth was already forming no, but she looked at the eight or
nine bottles on the trolley, at the ice melting in the silver bucket,
and pity made her say, "Yes, just a small one of whatever you're having."

Mikki wobbled toward the couch in her long brocaded caftan, saying,
"Great, great, great." She sat down heavily, reached down to get a clean
glass from the trolley's bottom shelf, and then looked across at Sarah,
who had seated herself in the massive chair which faced the couch.
Mikki's face looked blowtorched-the decorative caftan and the pale
furniture in the bright room, even her own harmless and pretty
paintings, conspired against that painful face. There was no room here
for grief, no provisions had been made for it. "So Brockett thinks I'm
of public interest, does he?"

Sarah took her notebook and pen out of her bag. "I'll just sit here and
have a drink, if you'd like. I mean it."

"Oh, Sarah, you always mean everything you say. Have some Scotch." Mikki
poured half an inch of whiskey into Sarah's glass, dug a few swimming
cubes out of the ice bucket with her fingers, and then held the glass
out toward Sarah. "Come and get it."

Sarah stood up and took the glass from Mikki's fingers.

274

Peter Straub

"Really," Mikki said. "I don't mind talking about it. Really I don't."
She picked up her own glass from the trolley and sipped what looked like
straight Scotch. "It's all I think about, why shouldn't I talk about it?
The only thing is, you have to promise not to be embarrassed if I cry.
Just take a little snort and wait until it blows over."

"Fine, Mikki," Sarah said.

"You know what the funny thing is?" Mikki O'Hara asked. "Those kids
never went out at night, especially not by themselves. Never. They just
never did it. And they never went to the beach without permission. I
don't think Tommy especially liked the beach anyhow. He liked sailing,
remember? Tommy was crazy about sailing. We were going to get him a
little Sunfish for his tenth birthday-he would have loved that." Mikki
O'Hara's face worked, and her mouth trembled. She slugged back a huge
mouthful of the whiskey. "But I'll tell you what I really don't get. You
know what I don't get, Sarah? How those kids got all the way to
Gravesend Beach. That's four miles away. Four miles. You know- they
didn't walk all that way by themselves. Someone picked them up. Someone
took them there. Some total creep picked up my kids and ..." Mikki
ducked her head and sobbed while Sarah sat stiff with self-contempt.

"Ah, shit," Mikki said finally. "I can't even say it without crying, but
I think that's what happened. They wouldn't walk all that way by
themselves. Little Martin was still using a baby bottle. I used to think
he'd end up carrying the trusty old Evenflo off to college with him."

"But they left the house by themselves," Sarah said. "At least, I didn't
hear that anyone was considering the possibility of kidnapping."

"It was Tommy," Mikki said. "It had to have been Tommy. He must have
egged Martin into it. He must have gotten him out of his bed and put his
clothes on him and told him some crazy story . . . and then gone out
with him." Mikki flashed her sunken eyes, and for a second looked to
Sarah like some crazy old woman you'd see on the streets in New York, an
old woman with no teeth and a bulging sack filled with torn-up papers
and all her clothes. "Honestly, if Tommy walked in the door right this
minute, I'd hit the little bastard so hard I'd probably kill him."

The terrible eyes clamped shut again, and the shoulders shook under the
brocaded caftan. Mikki was making a kit-

FLOATING DRAGON

275

tenish mewing sound. Sarah was trying not to feel like a grave robber:
she could not imagine why Stan Brockett had sent her here.

Sarah stood up, walked around the coffee table, and sat down beside
Mikki. She put her thin arm across Mikki's broad back. Then she pulled
the other woman toward her.

Mikki's sobs eventually ticked down to a ragged trembling. "Oh, my poor
babies," she got out, and a fresh line of tears jetted out from the
corners of her eyes and spilled down her cheeks to her jawline. "Martin
was so impatient with himself. He wanted to be a great big boy just like
his brother. And Tommy called him stupid and all the normal abusive
things boys say to their brothers, but secretly he was bursting with
pride that Martin idolized him so much." Mikki slowly straightened up,
and drained what was left in her glass. "I want them to get the guy who
took my children to the beach and killed them. I want them to stake the
son of a bitch to an anthill. I want them to peel his skin off while
he's still living." Her eyes were those of the crazy toothless bag lady
again. "I want to see him suffer as much as anybody can suffer and still
live. And then I want to kill him myself."

Then Mikki surprised Sarah by hitting her hand on the reporter's knee
and leaning close to her as if she were going to confide a secret. "You
know, I did something. I had this dream." She leaned back again and
smiled at Sarah from the burned-out eyes. "Remember when I told you that
if Tommy came in I'd knock his block off?"

Sarah nodded.

"Well, I dreamed that Tommy did come in. Into my bedroom. He was so cold
his teeth were chattering. I held out my hand, and he took it. He was
all wet. I could smell the water on him, you know how you can do that?
He was freezing. Freezing. So I pulled him toward me, and I lifted up
the sheet, and I just pulled him into bed with me. Then I tried to warm
him up by hugging him and hugging him."

Sarah put her arms around her friend again. Now, how, she wondered,
would Stan Brockett want me to put that into my story?

276

Peter Straub

4

On Monday morning Richard had a phone call from a man who said, "Hey,
this is Baumeister Trucking and I'm on the Post Road, how do I get to
this Beach Trail anyhow?"

"Who was that?" Laura asked, coming into the kitchen carrying a
container of Ajax and a wet rag.

"Our stuff will be here soon. That was the truck driver."

"We get our furniture back at last?"

"Yeah," he agreed.

"I have a surprise for you," Laura said. "I've been saving it for today."

"I have a surprise for you too. When I was at the supermarket this
morning, I heard the two women in front of me discussing the death of
that man who killed the two women here in town."

"Did you really? Oh, thank God." Laura's hands had flown to her mouth,
where they knitted together in an unconscious reference to prayer.
"Thank God. Oh, I'm so glad. I mean, I'm not happy that he's dead, but
I'm happy that he's not still walking around. It's such a relief, with
you going off to Providence tomorrow."

"I thought you'd like to know," Richard said. "But I didn't know you
were worried about me going away. Sweetie, I'll only be gone a couple of
days."

"I know, but I was nervous anyhow. I didn't want to talk about it
because I didn't want to make you feel defensive about going."

"I'm already defensive about going," Richard said. "This i house is
going to be such a mess." 1

"Just you wait. We'll have everything unpacked by tonight and the
furniture all set out and the dishes all put away. TheJ mess won't be so
bad. Lump and I will survive if you're gone! for a couple of days. At
least we'll have our own bed bacffl again." I

"Farewell to Surf City," Richard said, and embraced her*

"You really heard those women say that, didn't you?" Laura asked.

"Sure I did. You think I made it up?"

"How did that man die?" She had her arms around him, and her head lay
against his chest.

FLOATING DRAGON

277

"I guess it happened just down on Mount Avenue. The man broke into a
house, and the owner was there with a gun. The man got shot."

"I'm glad that's over," Laura said.

Richard saw a brown truck pull into the driveway. "Here's the rest of
our life," he said to Laura.

A bulletlike man with a cigar stuck in his jaws eased down out of the
cab and began to move slowly toward the back door. The rear doors of the
truck swung open, and two muscular black teenagers jumped out.

"Do they have the right address?" Laura asked.

"It's their famous continuity of service," Richard said. "They try to
bring most of the same furniture they took away from you in the first
place."

Sarah Spry pulled into the driveway as the two teenagers were teetering
down the planks between the ground and the back of the truck. Between
them was a massive Victorian sofa. The driver sat enthroned in his cab,
too grand to help the boys. Boxes that were full, half-full, and
empty-the same gray and yellow boxes they had first seen in
London-covered the kitchen and living-room floors. Two of the chairs
that matched the sofa sat in puddles of crinkly brown paper on either
side of the fireplace.

Richard held the door open for her, and she came in and put her hands on
her hips and tilted her head back and looked around appreciatively.
"You're a whiz," she said. "That awful smell is completely gone. And
you've started to fix up the old place already."

"Well, we wanted to get as much done as we could before the furniture
arrived," Richard explained. Sarah Spry's manner was just what he had
remembered, but her face looked odd . . . her eyes were puffy and rimmed
with red, as if she had some kind of eye infection.

"I know I look funny," the reporter said. "I've been crying. I had to do
something pretty miserable before I could come here. Have you heard
about the two children who drowned themselves at the beach just down the
road? Happened Saturday night. I had to see their mother, and she's an
old friend of mine. Hello, you must be Laura," she said to Laura, who
was standing rather gloomily just inside the door to the kitchen. "Isn't
your hair a beautiful color? Mine's as

278

Peter Straub

red as an old fireplug, but yours, my dear, you look like a fairytale
princess. So anyhow, we cried us a river, as Julie London used to say."

The two teenage boys were now coming awkwardly through the door, their
biceps bulging like weightlifters'. Richard knew that the sofa must have
weighed three hundred pounds. "Facing the fireplace," Laura said, and
they staggered toward the living room.

"What a terrible thing," Richard said, and Laura nodded and said, "Is
she all right?"

"She's getting drunk," Sarah said. "Her husband is in some backwater in
Australia, and that's the kind of thing you get in Patchin County.
Husbands hop all over the world like bugs."

"Would you like some coffee?" Laura asked. "I just discovered a kettle
and our old cups. We brought some instant from our other house."

"You not only look like an angel, you have the temperament of one. What
a splendid idea, coffee. Instant is dandy with me, by the by. It's
practically all I ever drink. Who has time these days for all that other
stuff?"

Laura disappeared back into the kitchen.

"Two children drowned themselves?" Richard asked, remembering how she
had phrased it. "You mean they killed themselves? Two brothers?"

"I didn't mean to make it sound worse than it was. They must have gone
in swimming very late that night-around three in the morning. It looks
like they just swam out until they couldn't swim any farther. Or maybe
one got into trouble and the other died trying to save him. That's
probably what happened."

"They were teenagers?"

"Nine and four."

"Oh, my God," Richard said.

Sarah Spry nodded grimly. "It's one of those terrible things. Hampstead
has had its share of them, over the years. Why, do you know that one of
my first jobs as a reporter was to go out to the country club and see
the body of the man who owned this house? John Sayre? Well, it was. And
he was a suicide, let me tell you."

"Yes, I know," Richard said.

"You talk to your neighbor across the street, he'll fill you

FLOATING DRAGON

279

in. Old Graham Williams. He was there that night. He was one of the last
people to see John Sayre alive."

"Graham is a friend of mine," he said.

"Then you've got better taste than most of the people in this town."
They had gone into the big living room and Sarah put herself down on the
huge sofa. She opened her bag and took her notebook and pen from it.

"Talk about yourself," she said, opening her notebook. "What was it
like, being on Daddy's Here? What do you think about it now? Do you ever
plan to go back to acting?"

So he talked about Daddy's Here. He described his respect for Carter
Oldfield, his love for Ruth Branden. He did not mention Billy Bentley's
name-he wanted not to think about Billy Bentley.

"Well, that sounds good, anyhow," Sarah Spry told him. Laura had come in
with three cups of coffee, and she sat on the sofa with the reporter.

Richard could tell that she was furious with Mrs. Spry for staying,
furious for implying that he had just lied to her. He knew she was
furious because she sat very still and did not blink for long periods.
Laura wanted everybody out of the house.

"As for what I'm doing now," he said, "I guess I'm trying to bring the
past to life." And that was an unfortunate choice of words, he thought,
considering what he and Williams and Patsy had been talking about; but
he went on to describe their house in London and the business that had
grown from it.

"I'm sorry," Sarah Spry said. "I'm losing track somehow. Could you
repeat what you just said?"

Laura swung her foot up and down, up and down, burning with impatience
only Richard could see.

"Sure," Richard said, "and then I guess we'll have to break it off.
Laura and I have tons of things to do ..." He paused, seeing that the
reporter was staring at her pad, flushing.

"I'm sorry," Sarah Spry repeated. "I seem to be ... I seem to be having ..."

The telephone rang in the kitchen.

280

Peter Straub

5

There, in the middle of her notebook, was what had caused her to lose
the thread of the interview. Sarah knew she was blushing, but she could
not help it any more now than she had been able to back in her blushing
days, when any boy with a crack about fire-engine hair could bring the
blood burning into her cheeks. She stared at the sentences, but they
would not unwrite themselves. / guess I'm trying to bring the past back
to life. Naked swimmers. I believe in the structures of these older
houses, I believe in the values they express, and I. . .

Then, farther down the page, in her neat small writing, was the second
wrong thing. / was trained as an architect, but I didn't really begin
doing the kind of work I truly loved until we bought our first house in
London. I'm lost. That first house was my real university. I'm afraid.
My business took off when a few people . . .

Sarah dropped her pen on the floor.

Naked swimmers.

I'm lost.

I'm afraid.

It was as if those two poor lost children, Martin and Tommy O'Hara, had
spoken to her straight through her pen. She had not heard Richard Allbee
say those words, she had not consciously written them: there had been a
moment when it was as if a gear had slipped, or the picture had gone
fuzzy on the television tube, and in that moment of mental fuzz the
unspoken words had expressed themselves through the pen and onto the
paper. Lost. Afraid. She bent to retrieve the pen, her head seeming to
detach itself from her body and view her awkward groping for the pen
with cold indifference.

"I'm sorry," she said. She heard herself say it and saw her fingers
close around the pen. "I seem to be (having some trouble) ... I seem to
be having (a little difficulty keeping myself in order) ..."

When the telephone rang she could have fallen on the floor with gratitude.

FLOATING DRAGON

6

281

"Patsy's in trouble," Richard heard Graham say. "I don't know what kind
of trouble, but she needs us, Richard. Believe me, I wouldn't call you
on a day like this if I didn't think it was serious."

"Trouble like Saturday night?" Richard asked, imagining Patsy trembling
and convulsing somewhere on a strange floor.

"I don't know. I don't think so, no. It didn't sound like that. But she
needs our help, Richard."

"Where is she?"

"At the funeral home just off the Post Road on Rex Road-around the
corner from the Tack Room. Bornley and Holland."

"I'll try to get away," Richard said.

When he came back into the living room, Laura had left the couch and was
standing in the back door with the two teenage boys. "Everything's out
of the truck, Richard," she said. "One of the dining-room chairs has a
broken leg, but that's the only damage I can see."

He looked toward Sarah Spry, who was clutching her pen and leaning
forward over her knees like a third-grader who has to go to the
bathroom. The flush was gone from her cheeks, and her entire wizened
face looked inward and withdrawn.

"Okay," he said. "If we see anything else, we'll write to the company.
You guys did a good job." He gave each of them ten dollars.

"Mister, is that lady all right?" one of the boys asked.

"I think so. Here's five for the driver, but it's five more than he
deserves."

The boys left, and he turned to the reporter. "I'm afraid that the
interview must be over," he said. "I have to go down into town. Do you
have everything you need?"

She nodded, put her hands on her knees, and dipped a little when she
pushed herself up. "Yes. I have plenty."

"Would you like to rest here for a bit before you go? Can I get you
anything?"

She smiled. "No, thank you."

"I just thought you seemed . . ." He paused, for he did not want to say
"disturbed"; then he realized that a more accurate word was "frightened."

282

Peter Straub

"Oh, I seemed, did I?" she said. Sarah was still smiling. "I think that
conversation this morning caught up with me. That was not nearly as
pleasant as this one was. No, I'll be fine, Mr. Allbee. I'll just be on
my way. The story should be in Friday's Gazette."

He walked her to the back door. The moving truck was gone, and a
mountain of brown paper and devastated packing cartons reared up beside
the driveway. Beside the yellow-andbrown mountain smoldered two cigar
butts the size of dog turds.

He waved as she got into her car, and then turned back to Laura. She was
standing a few feet away and had her arms crossed over her chest. A
black smear of dust bisected her forehead. "I can't believe that woman
came here to interview you on our moving day. She'd better be good to
you in her article or I'll go over to her office and burn her desk."

"Well, it's over with," Richard said. He patted his pockets to locate
his car keys. "The timing for this is terrible, but Patsy McCloud
apparently is in some kind of difficulty. That was Graham Williams on
the phone. Patsy's down at a funeral home on Rex Road. I really ought to
go, and I'd like you to come with me."

"Graham Williams can't handle it himself?" Laura inspected the palms of
her hands, then wiped them free of dust on her jeans. "You and Graham
are the Patsy McCloud Appreciation Society, it looks like. You spend all
Saturday night with her, and now you have to rush off to help her bury
her husband."

"I know it looks funny, I know it sounds funny and probably smells funny
too, but she needs help. That's all I know. I wish you'd come along."

"I wouldn't dream of missing it," Laura said. "But the real reason I'm
annoyed with you is that you forgot all about your present, and I spent
about a week picking it out."

"My present?" he said stupidly. "Oh, my God. You got me a present. I did
forget. The movers came, and then Sarah What's-her-name, and then Graham
called ... Oh, Laura, I'm sorry. I really am sorry."

"You ought to be, buster," she said. "I hid it in a kitchen cabinet. Do
you have time to see it now, or do we have to rush off to your precious
Patsy right away?"

"Let's go see it," he said, and put his arm around her as they went back
into the kitchen.

FLOATING DRAGON

283

Laura bent over and opened one of the bottom cabinet doors. She took out
a silver-gray box about a foot high. "I sure hope you like this," she
said, standing up and offering it to him. "It's a house present. I never
spent so much on anything before in my life."

He took the box and set it on a counter. The box weighed less than he
had for some reason expected. He lifted the top, and then looked
sideways at Laura. She was still miffed, but far more than that, she was
eager for his response.

"Whatever you do, don't drop it," she said.

He lifted the paper covering the top of whatever was in the box, and
then put his hands in. It was cool porcelain with a smoky yellow glaze.
His finger found a square bottom. This was hollow, which accounted for
the lightness of the object. He hooked his fingers into the base and
picked it up out of the box.

His expectant smile froze on his face. He was holding the grinning
yellow head of a dragon. Two horns pricked up from its flat forehead; a
thick wing like a frozen wave rose up just behind the head.

"It's Chinese," Laura said. "A roof dragon-an ornamental tile. The color
means that it was on an imperial palace. I thought it would be good luck
for us."

"Yes," he said, scarcely able to breathe.

"I see your enthusiasm is unbounded. Put it back in the box and I'll
take it back as soon as we get our stuff unpacked."

"No," he said. "I want to keep it. I think it's beautiful."

"Do you really?"

"I do. I love it. I was just surprised. Honest. I love it."

"You look funny."

"I remembered something Graham Williams told me- there used to be a man
here who was called the Dragon." And that was all he could tell Laura
about Saturday night.

"Did your father know him?"

That made him smile. "No, it was a long time ago-back at the start of
Greenbank."

"Well, now there's another one," Laura said. "Let's find a place for it."

Richard carried the dragon's head into the living room and set it on top
of the mantel. Then he hugged Laura. Part of him felt that now the chaos
had been admitted, had been allowed inside, that the door in his dream
had opened and Billy

284

Peter Straub

Bentley had come storming in with his hair plastered to his forehead and
his clothes dripping from the storm.

"You do like it, don't you?" Laura asked. "You're not just saying it?"

He felt between them the cushion that was Lump Allbee, the modest
darling of his dream. "I love it," he said. "Of course I do."

When Patsy opened the massive front door to the funeral parlor, she
tried to dismiss the memories of the previous night. Mr. Holland had
been waiting for her, and his narrow face as he came oozing across the
carpet was a rebuke to fancy of any sort. He was actually a kind and
nervous man, Patsy knew, but nature or heredity had given Franz Holland
the face and structure of a Dickensian villain. His eyebrows twisted and
twirled, his nose pointed, his shoulders hunched. He always wore
expensive suits on his lanky frame. His lips were slightly too red for
his pallid face. He wanted to be thought "civilized" and "superior" and
so he aped those mannerisms he thought represented distinction. He was
fond of laying one finger slantwise across his upper lip, of standing
with his hips cocked and one foot slightly forward; of walking with his
hands behind his back. When he walked toward Patsy across his thick
carpet, he actually combined two of these gestures, and held his left
index finger slantwise across his upper lip and his right hand behind
his back. Patsy thought he lookedd like some pompous bird begging for
silence. 1

As he neared her, the left hand languidly dropped, the righfl languidly
met it, and Mr. Holland very slightly bowedJ "Mrs. McCloud, thank you
for coming to us," he said in a^ pleasant baritone voice. "Just remember
that we are here to make this process as easy and painless for you as it
can possibly be. As I said to you on the telephone yesterday, Mrs.
McCloud, the last ceremony we give our loved ones can be as much a thing
of beauty as the others-as beautiful as a christening or a wedding. Now,
you have a suit for me?"

Patsy had been assured yesterday by Mr. Holland that although Les had
been too burned in the fire that followed the accident for an open
coffin, there was certainly enough of Les

FLOATING DRAGON

285

left to be dressed in his favorite suit. "Which we really do prefer,
Mrs. McCloud, don't we? We want to think of our loved ones as attired in
the raiment of glory, my father used to say, which often as not is
provided by Brooks Brothers. So if you'll bring along some suit, shirt,
and tie Mr. McCloud particularly liked . . . ?"

Mr. McCloud's favorite shoes were not required.

Patsy passed over the small brown paper bag she had been carrying. Franz
Holland hitched it up under his arm as easily as if it contained his lunch.

"Mr. McCloud's parents will be arriving today, will they?"

"Yes," Patsy said. "They're taking the Connecticut limousine from Kennedy."

"Ah," Mr. Holland said, bowing forward and clasping his hands behind his
back. "Of course I remember the senior McClouds very well. They came to
us when your husband's grandfather passed away, and I think they were
very pleased with what we did for them. Which brings me to an important
question. Have you thought about the casket you would like to provide
for your husband's remains?" He guided her, without actually touching
her elbow, around a corner into a large room filled with reclining coffins.

"I think you can see that we offer a wide range of choice, Mrs.
McCloud," he said, very nearly gesturing at the rows of yawning coffins.
"And I'm sure you would agree with us that in this most personal of
matters, choice is essential. And if I may . . . Madame is a Tayler, is
she not?"

It took Patsy a second to realize that Mr. Holland meant her.

"Yes."

"My father and myself conducted the funeral for Madame's grandfather.
Bornley and Holland have worked with many generations of Taylers, Mrs.
McCloud."

"But not Josephine Tayler," Patsy said.

"Pardon?"

"You didn't work with Josephine Tayler, did you? My grandmother. Tayler
was her maiden name too; she and my grandfather were distant cousins.
You worked on her husband, but not on her. You put him in one of your
boxes, but not her."

"Madame's grandmother fell ill, did she not?" Mr. Hoi-

286

Peter Straub

land inquired, stepping one pace back. "It was a very sad story.
Madame's grandmother was a lovely person. I believe other arrangements
were made."

Patsy could not have said why she felt so hostile. "Yes, they certainly
were. Madame's grandmother was the town crazy lady, and so her fine
husband let her be put away in an asylum for most of her life."

Now the finger was back at its post across the upper lip. "It is a
tragic history, Mrs. McCloud. And no doubt the circumstances bring it
back to you. But if there is something to be learned from that history,
madame, it is that we ought provide as well as we can for our loved ones
when they are no longer able to provide for themselves."

"I want my husband cremated," Patsy said. "He was almost cremated
anyhow, wasn't he? I want to finish the job. Just sell me the simplest
damn coffin you have, and cremate him inside it."

Franz Holland visibly drew back. "Of course there are other family
members to consider ..."

She flashed out: "I don't want to cremate any other family members, at
least not yet, I only want to cremate my husband! And if you won't do
it, I'll take him somewhere where they will!"

"Mrs. McCloud," Holland said wretchedly, and in that instant-the instant
before control left her altogether-she pitied him, who was after all a
sensitive man and talked that way because his father had taught him to
do it. "Mrs. meCloud, as the wife of the loved one your wishes are
supreme, and we will do whatever will make you most comfortable. But we
do have your comfort in mind, and I want to ask you to consider ..."

Patsy nearly fainted. Mr. Franz Holland was dead. That pleasant,
modulated baritone voice was coming out of a cracked, discolored mouth.
The upper lip had split all the way into the nose, and she saw sunken
gums and the roots of teeth standing out like distended veins. His
tongue had blackened. Mr. Holland's skin was dry and parchmentlike, very
slightly brownish in color. In places it seemed to have exploded open,
leaving ragged holes into a sagging horror of ropy purple organs. Patsy
finally saw that the creature before her wore only a dickey and a
necktie. The skin on its hips had sunk in around the bones, and the
penis had shrunk almost completely away.

FLOATING DRAGON

287

Patsy screamed, having found her throat.

The creature jumped, and then held out a hand toward her. The nails were
purplish-black and several inches long.

"Don't touch me!" Patsy screamed.

The creature backed away, hushing its dead bare feet across the thick
carpet.

This was what her grandmother had seen. Josephine Tayler had gone on as
long as she could, seeing her friends and strangers suddenly presented
in rotting bodies when they were going to die soon, and then she could
take it no more and she had had herself subtracted from the world. Mr.
Holland was going to die within a month, and eventually this is what he
would look like.

Only no one was supposed to see him when he looked like this.

"Mr. Holland," Patsy said in a shaking voice. She was looking down at
the carpet. "I am sorry for screaming. I am having a difficult time.
Please do not come near me. I apologize for making a scene. I am afraid
that I am not quite myself."

"Of course, Mrs. McCloud," came the low voice, and Patsy shuddered.

"I wonder if I might use your telephone. I must call a friend to help
me. No, please, do not come near me, Mr. Holland. Just show me where
your telephone is."

The skeletal, shriveled feet hushed backward, and Patsy saw one of the
claws pointing back out into the hall. "That's fine," she said. "I'll
find it."

"At the desk in the alcove beside the Chapel of Rest," the thing said,
and Patsy bolted past him, looking the other way.

"Have I done anything?" she heard him ask. "Have I offended you so
terribly?" He sounded almost tearful. "If you do wish to cremate your
husband, then of course ..."

"Yes," she called backward. "Stay in that room, please, Mr. Holland."
She saw the alcove half-hidden behind a red velvet drape. There was the
desk and the telephone. The book was in the top-right-hand drawer, and
she quickly looked up Graham Williams' number and begged him to come as
quickly as he could.

"Yes, Richard too," she said. "Both of you. Come get me out of here."

288

Peter Straub

8

What happened after the other three arrived at the funeral parlor was
anticlimactic and can be reported in only a few sentences. Laura Allbee,
who knew so much less than the other two about Patsy, seemed to
comprehend the situation inside Bornley & Holland much better than her
husband and Graham Williams-Laura immediately went to Patsy and put her
arms around her. Richard and Graham huddled foolishly behind Patsy's
back, patting her shoulder and glancing uncertainly toward Franz
Holland, who seemed uncertain whether he could now emerge from the
casket showroom. Eventually Richard went over to speak to him, but Laura
called out to the funeral director, "There's no problem about a
cremation, is there?"

"Not if Mrs. McCloud wishes one," Holland said. "I will make all the
arrangements."

"That's settled, then," Laura said. She stood, and Patsy stood with her,
still holding on to her. ' 'We can all go home again."

Graham took Patsy back to Charleston Road, agreeing to drive her back
for her car later that afternoon. "I had a touch of the Josephines,"
Patsy told him. "Still, at least I know that all of you are going to
have a long life."

"Josephine Tayler could never tell when her family or her friends were
going to die," Graham told her. "Only strangers and people she did not
know well. But thanks anyhow."

Richard drove up to Rhode Island for his first appointment with Morris
Stryker the following morning. He and Laura had parted with a long
embrace after their first night in their new house; and with a promise
to see Patsy McCloud after he returned.

Two nights later, while Richard Allbee was beginning to admit that he
could not stand his client and that Morris Stryker very likely had
little affection for his restorationist, Bobby Fritz was still agonizing
to Bobo Famsworth and Ronnie Riggley about the loss of his best
customer. The three of them sat

FLOATING DRAGON

289

in the side booth just past the bar in the Penny whistle Cafe, and two
empty pitchers joined handles in the middle of the wet table. Ronnie
kept drawing circles in the spilled beer, and Bobby knew-as he had known
or suspected many times in the past-that Ronnie was bored by him: she
thought he was immature or stupid, she thought he was a hick, not good
enough to be a friend of Bobo's. Bobo had not come into the Penny
whistle, Bobby's favorite bar in Hampstead and at one time Bobo's, more
than three or four times since he had gotten serious about Ronnie. And
two of those times had been while Bobo was on duty.

"He fired me, man," he said, even though he knew he had said it not five
minutes before.

"Do you think you could ask him to give you the job back?" Ronnie asked,
still drawing circles in the puddled beer.

Ronnie Riggley, he considered, was one of the best-looking women he had
ever seen. If not an outright 10, she was at least a good solid 8'/2. It
didn't matter a damn that she was about a decade older than Bobo and
himself. It didn't even matter that Ronnie did not particularly try to
look young. She did not have to. Even when she looked kind of tired and
draggy, the way she did tonight, Bobby wanted to get his hands on her;
the more beer he drank, the more he wanted it. He was afraid that she
would laugh right in his face if he ever tried anything.

"I can't beg, Ronnie, the man fired me," he explained. "But I just hate
to go by there in my truck and see what's happening to his lawn. All the
weeds are getting in there, he's got timothy and wild grass all over the
place, and pretty soon he's gonna get that broom grass from outta the
marsh. ... I don't even want to think about what's happening to his garden."

"I think Ronnie's right," Bobo said, putting his arm around her and
causing Bobby exquisite pain. "Just go up and ring his bell. Tell him
how much you care about it. Maybe you can work out some kind of deal."

"Deal, huh," Bobby said. "If I walked up to his house he'd probably
shoot me stone dead. Jesus. He must be pretty good with that gun, huh?
He shot that Starbuck guy with the gun right in his hand, didn't he?"

"That's how we found him," Bobo said. "The gun right in his hand." In
fact, though Bobo did not want to say this,

290

Peter Straub

Dr. Van Home had become a minor celebrity around the Hampstead police
headquarters; Turtle Turk ragged younger men by telling them they should
take shooting lessons from Van Home.

"But those murders are over now, aren't they?" Bobby said.

Ronnie was nodding her head; but Bobo said, "Starbuck was a
housebreaker, he wasn't a maniac. Too many people think we're out of the
woods. There'll be another murder one of these days. Wait and see."

"You say," Bobby said. "/ say they're done. That's part of the reason
the other cops are so fucking happy, right?" He slapped his hand against
his forehead. "I'm sorry, Ronnie, I should watch my mouth. I just don't
feel right tonight."

"You did have a lot of beer," Ronnie said. "I'm not blaming you, but you
drank most of those pitchers by yourself, and now you're working on a
third one."

"Hell, I'm not drunk." He sounded belligerent to himself; he saw himself
through what he thought were Ronnie Riggley's eyes. Immature, none too
bright, drunk on beer.

"Well, I'll tell you what," Bobby said. "If I ever see him, I mean Dr.
Van Home, I'll talk to him real nice" (Ronnie was smiling at him, and
Bobby suddenly felt this was possible, that he could put things back
together again) "and I'll bullshit a little bit and all that, and then
I'll tell him that I'll do his lawn free. Twice a month. Free lawn
service. Because I can't stand to see it go to hell that way. And then
what do you bet he takes me back? That's what he'll do. He'll take me back."

"You're blasted, you dope," Bobo said, reaching across the table to pat
Bobby's head. "Ronnie and I will drive you home."

"I'll do it for free. Don't you see how totally brilliant that is? Then
he'll have to hire me back!"

"Come on," Bobo said.

"Only if I get to sit in front next to Ronnie," Bobby said. "How'd you
ever get a woman like this, anyhow?"

The look on Bobo's face told him that maybe he was drunk, after all.

The little house where Bobby lived with his parents was on Poor Fox
Road, which one long-ago selectman had called "Hampstead's Appalachia."
The road ambled along th^ bank

FLOATING DRAGON

291

of a tidal estuary and gave up just before it would have butted into the
Greenbank railroad station. Who the Poor Fox was and what had happened
to him, human or canine, had been forgotten long ago, but the name still
had its former appropriateness. Poor Fox Road was the only street in
Greenbank to be hidden, since to get to it you had to take an unlikely
narrow road off Mount Avenue across the street from the entrance to
Gravesend Beach, and then follow along the estuary until you came to a
series of crumbling frame houses. Once these had been faculty houses for
Greenbank Academy, but the school had sold them after World War II. Now
a cranky and reclusive painter lived in one, a young man who worked at a
body shop on Riverfront Avenue rented another, one particularly sinister
house had been empty for at least fifty years, and the last belonged to
the Fritz family.

As they turned onto Greenbank Road, Bobby found himself thinking more
and more obsessively about putting his hand on Ronnie's thigh. He could
not stop himself from imagining what it would be like to fondle Ronnie
Riggley, what she would feel like. And if he gave in to this powerful
yearning, he knew, two things would happen: Ronnie would have her most
demeaning vision of him confirmed; and Bobo would throw him out of the
car and never speak to him again.

So he said, "Hey, Bobo, just let me out where you'd turn, okay?"

"You want the exercise, Bobby?" Bobo asked him.

"Yeah, I want to clear my head before I get home."

"Good idea," Bobo said, and pulled Ronnie's car over to the side of the
road as soon as he entered Mount Avenue. "That's where it happened," he
said, nodding toward the lights of the Van Home house, which were
visible through the trees.

"Good for him," Bobby said. "I mean it. Good for him." He got out of the
car and waved as Bobo drove off up Mount Avenue.

Bobby realized how drunk he was as soon as he started walking. The edges
of Poor Fox Road seemed to tangle and twine, and within a few feet of
the entrance he was up to his knees in weeds. "Oh, lonesome me," he
said, and backed out onto the road's surface again. His feet took him
all the way to the other side of the road, and then he straightened up
and made himself go in a more or less straight line toward his house.
For a moment he saw two moons overhead, two roads

292

Peter Straub

before him, but he squinted and brought the images together. Two and a
half pitchers of beer hummed in his blood, two and a half pitchers of
beer muffled his head.

With terrific suddenness he had to urinate. "Lordy, lordy, lordy," he
sang, and turned into the weeds along the side of the road, unzipped
himself, and barely got himself out in time. His piss splattered in a
wide arc across weeds and tree trunks. On his right leg he felt a
spreading damp spot. "Shitzky." Finished, he zipped up again and faced
Poor Fox Road.

The moon seemed twice as large as it should have been. It was a bloated,
rotting sphere leaning down toward him. Chill light streamed toward him
from this enormous moon: he felt the stain on his right leg turn
freezing cold.

The moonlight seemed to crackle against his skin. Poor Fox Road was
supernaturally bright. Bobby saw the perpendicular shadows thrown by
pebbles on the road. Then he saw that there was a face in the moon. The
face was sneering and coarse, inhumanly cruel. Bobby threw out his
hands, as if they could protect him from the terror this awful face
promised, and saw that in the light they looked covered with silver fur.

The moon leaned right up to his own face and whispered, Look down.

Bobby looked down; screamed. Blood was flowing down the road in a
sluggish tide, lapping over his shoes. Its smell enveloped him-the road
stank like a butcher's shop. Because the cynical moon was so close now,
the slow-moving tide of blood was black.

Look up, the moon whispered in the black-and-white world, and Bobby
jerked his head up. He saw silvery trees, black leaves, a
silver-and-black bend in the road.

He's coming, the moon blew toward him on a foul wind, and opened its
bloated mouth and grinned.

Bobby heard footsteps splashing through the tide of blood. He tried to
step backward, and a blood-soaked creeper whipped out of the side of the
road and grasped his ankle and dumped him into the cold, slow-moving tide.

Coming, the moon whispered into the back of his neck, and Bobby
struggled back up on his feet. His hands were black with blood; his
jeans adhered to his legs.

He could not move in this black-and-white, this silvery

FLOATING DRAGON

293

world. The crazy idea that all this blood on the road was really his own
jumped into his mind-he was dead, it just hadn't happened yet.

He knew that something awful was coming toward him, and he stepped
toward it, raising his fists.

He was almost disappointed when nothing more frightening than a man came
around the silvery corner. The moon rode hugely behind him, and Bobby
could not see his face.

"Stay away," Bobby said. His voice sounded small and high.

A familiar voice said, "You're all right, boy. Why, you've just had too
much fun."

The black figure stepped forward again, and Bobby saw that there was no
river of blood washing down the road. His own urine stuck his jeans to
his leg. In the moonlight, his hands were once again painted with
silver, not black. The man advancing toward him was someone he trusted.

"Had a lot of beer tonight, didn't you, Bobby?" the man asked, and then
he lifted his head and Bobby saw the white hair and civilized face of
Dr. Wren Van Home.

"Oh, I was just talking about you, Doctor," Bobby sang out, his relief
making his voice louder than it needed to be. "No kidding-I was! You
know what I said about you? Good for him, that's what I said, good for
him, and I meant it too."

"Thank you." The doctor came slowly toward Bobby in the streaming moonlight.

"No birds," Bobby said. "You notice? No bird sounds. Usually if you come
down here at night, you hear an owl or two."

"Oh, the owls are dead now," Dr. Van Home said as he came toward Bobby
weaving in the middle of the narrow moonlit road.

"No shit. I see a lot of dead birds on my lawns, you know? A couple more
every day-I hate to run the big mower over 'em, you know? It makes a
terrible noise." Then a connection formed itself in Bobby's mind, and he
said, "Now, that reminds me of what I was gonna say to you. Dr. Van
Home, I just can't stand seeing your lawn go to rack and ruin the way it
is. What I want to do is, you let me come work on it for free for a
little while."

Now Dr. Van Home was standing only a foot or two in

294

Peter Straub

front of Bobby on the narrow road. Bobby could see an aureole of silvery
hair standing out against the still-enormous sphere of the moon, but the
doctor's face was again a sheet of black in which floated denser patches
of black.

"What do you say?" he asked, and then recoiled, for the foul stink of
sewage and rot had opened around him, and it was worse than that, it was
the smell of something that has died in a cover of weeds and weeks later
is struck by the shovel, and spills out this almost liquid smell.

"You want to work for me?" Dr. Van Home asked him.

Bobby stepped backward, and felt the tide of blood lapping at his
ankles. Dr. Van Home held out his hand, and in it was a small curved
blade. Before Bobby could react, the blade slipped through the air and
punched into his neck just below his left ear. The doctor drew the blade
quickly down and across, and a huge bubble of blood burst from Bobby's neck.

Bobby fell to his knees. He felt no pain at all-all he could feel was
the warmth and wetness of the blood rushing down his neck and chest. All
that life, rushing to get out of him! Dr. Van Home swung down at him
again, and this time there was a great flare of pain, for the doctor had
sliced off most of his left ear. Bobby held up his hand, almost not
believing that all of this was happening to him, and the little curved
scalpel came down between his second and third fingers and split open
his hand. The little scalpel went away again, and Bobby's heart
obediently pumped out another gout of blood, and he lost consciousness
just before Dr. Van Home sliced off his left cheek.

Bobby Fritz, Greenbank's excellent gardener, toppled forward into a vast
blackness; Dr. Van Home rolled his body over, sliced off his shirt, and
then began to rearrange what was beneath it. He cut through Bobby's
chest, exposed the ribs and snapped them back, sliced away the matter
surrounding the heart, and lifted it out. He set the heart in the hand
he had split open. Then he opened Bobby's belt, unsnapped his jeans, and
pulled them down. After that he sliced off the penis and testicles and
put them in Bobby's right hand.

All of this was similar to what he had done twice before, and would do
three times more. They would not go forward, his victims.

He dragged Bobby's scarcely recognizable body into the weedy ditch
beside Poor Fox Road. When it was out of sight he took a sheet of paper
from his hip pocket and put it inside

FLOATING DRAGON

295

Bobby's chest. The sheet of paper, and the poem lettered on it in
writing so anonymous it might have come from a cornputer's printing
station, were not discovered until several hours after the body was
found. This was two days later, on the thirteenth of June.

10

It was a mailman who found Bobby Fritz. Roger Slyke drove a
blue-and-white mail van over most of Greenbank every morning, and then
spent most of the afternoons back in the central Hampstead postal
station sorting mail. For two or three days Roger had been feeling oddly
disoriented-his teeth hurt, and there was a more or less constant noise
in his ears, and sometimes he caught himself at the point of putting
someone's mail in the wrong box. He wondered how many times he had done
it, in these past two days, without noticing. On Wednesday morning, when
he should have been turning into Charleston Road, he had found himself
way off his route, all the way over to the Old Sarum Road, without any
idea of how he had got there.

At noon on Friday, the thirteenth of June, Roger Slyke had driven all
the way up to the end of Poor Fox Road just to deliver a letter from the
Bush-for-President campaign to Harold Fritz, who was a lifelong Democrat
and would never get out of bed to vote again anyhow. On the way back,
his head had started to swim, and he had gotten a bad feeling, a really
bad feeling in his heart, of being sick scared wrong, as he sometimes
did when he looked at that empty house between the Fritz house and that
place where the boy had all those wrecked cars. Roger had let the mail
van coast to a halt. He had caught an awful smell. For a second Roger
Slyke was certain he had seen the daytime moon leaning up toward him and
grinning at him; then he stopped the van and jumped out and held his
head, which felt as though it wanted to explode.

Roger had not set the brake on the mail van, and while he was holding
his thundering head, the van slid forward a few inches and then rolled
on into the ditch. It promptly pitched onto its side and dumped hundreds
of letters into the weeds.

Roger looked up with bloodshot eyes and said, "Nah." He walked over to
the ditch and looked down, shaking his head. He stepped into the ditch
after making sure it was not filled

296

Peter Straub

with poison ivy-Roger was wearing short pants. He made it to the van and
pushed at it. With the help of one more man, he could get it upright.
Roger knelt down to begin picking up the letters and magazines scattered
through the weeds. Suddenly that smell of a smashed possum was stronger
than ever, and then Roger found himself looking through a green tangle
of vines and straight at Bobby Fritz's grinning face. Roger Slyke let
out a whoop and backpedaled up the side of the ditch and ran all the way
to the entrance to Gravesend Beach. There was a phone in the guardhouse.
When the police found the block-lettered poem in Bobby Fritz's chest,
they found that several of Roger's letters had slipped down in beside
it. The letters stank too, but Roger Slyke delivered them the next day.

The state police did not recognize the poem, nor did anyone on the
Hampstead force.

Rich men, trust not in wealth, Gold cannot buy you health; Physic
himself must fade; All things to end are made; The plague full swift
goes by; I am sick, I must die-

Lord have mercy on us!

Beauty is but a flower Which wrinkles will devour; Brightness falls from
the air; Queens have died young and fair; Dust hath closed Helen's eye;
I am sick, I must die-

Lord have mercy on us!

Strength stoops unto the grave, Worms feed on Hector brave; Swords may
not fight with fate; Earth still holds ope her gate; Come, come! the
bells do cry; I am sick, I must die-

Lord, have mercy on us!

Nobody could identify this poem until Bobo Farnsworth thought to call
his former English teacher, Miss Threadgill,

FLOATING DRAGON

297

who was now the head of the English department at J. S. Mill. "Are you
developing an interest in English poetry, Bobo?" she asked him.

"Only in this poem, Miss Threadgill," he said.

"What you read to me were the second, third, and fourth verses of a
famous poem by Thomas Nashe called 'In Time of Pestilence.' Nashe was
generally a rather feverish, violent writer, the greatest of the
Elizabethan pamphleteers. He was given to the grotesque."

"'In Time of Pestilence,' by Thomas Nashe," Bobo said. "Thank you, Miss
Threadgill."

"What in the world are you people doing over there in the police
station?" Miss Threadgill asked, and Bobo told her that she would be
reading about it in the papers.

11

The stanzas from the Thomas Nashe poem were printed on the front page of
the Hampstead Gazette the following Monday; but even before that, they
appeared in a New York Times Metropolitan Section article headlined '
'The Connecticut Ripper?" In a box beside the article were photographs
of Stony Friedgood, Hester Goodall, and Bobby Fritz.

In a long conversation he had with Patsy McCloud on Tuesday night,
Graham said, "It's poetry, do you see? That's the link. He's
deliberately referring to Robertson 'Prince' Green. Young Green's father
claimed he had been corrupted by poetry. And there was a newspaper
article about the 'Ripper-Poet.' He wants us to know, Patsy. He wants us
to know who he is." All through this conversation, Graham Williams heard
the whicker of the dragon's wings: he heard them while Patsy told him
about her marriage; he heard them in the title of the Nashe poem, which
lay printed out before them on the front page of the Gazette; he heard
it especially in a list of children's names which were given in another
Gazette article.

On the night of the thirteenth-Friday the thirteenth, the day Roger
Slyke accidentally found Bobby Fritz's body- Richard Allbee called Laura
from Providence; he said that he was having more problems than he had
expected with the job, and would have to stay in Rhode Island four or
five more days, maybe as long as another week. Laura told him not to
worry about her: she said she would be fine, that she was

298

Peter Straub

sorry he was having difficulties but knew he could sort them out. She
told Richard that things were quiet in Hampstead.

Laura could not have told him about Bobby Fritz, for she did not hear
about the discovery of the killer's third victim until the next morning,
when Ronnie Riggley called her up with the news. Yet she could have
said, and did not say, to Richard that five more children had followed
the example of Thomas and Martin O'Hara and drowned themselves. This had
happened on the night of the eleventh, the same night Bobby Fritz was
hacked to death, mutilated, and concealed in a ditch on Poor Fox Road;
and Laura did not tell Richard about the five children because she knew
he would worry about it, would worry about her, and she did not want to
add to his troubles. Laura had seen the first article about the five
children in Friday's Gazette; their names were given again in the
following Monday's paper, which Graham Williams and Patsy McCloud had
open on the table before them.

Within what is known there is a deep layer of the unknown. No one on the
staff of the Gazette ever said it in print, but the town had gone into
shock: the nightmare of the random killings was not over after all, and
an even worse cycle seemed to have been visited upon them. No one on the
Gazette wanted to do more than report the facts, to print what was
known: that was all there was, they imagined.

And here is what was known. On the night of the eleventh of June or
early on Thursday morning, the twelfth, these events took place: a
twelve-year-old boy named Dylan Steinberg walked into the water at
Sawtell Beach after leaving his clothes neatly stacked beneath his shoes
on the sand and swam out until he became too tired to swim any farther,
went under the water, and drowned; in separate incidents, three children
named Carl Blockett, Monty Sherbourne (the son of the principal of J. S.
Mill's middle school) and Annette Crowley (the child of a travel writer
on the staff of the Times), who were six, seven and thirteen
respectively, drowned themselves with the same crazy deliberation off
Gravesend Beach; and a five-yearold boy in Redhill named Hank Hawthorne
(the son of an insurance executive and grandnephew of a noble old lawyer
in Milburn, New York) left his bed in the middle of the night, stripped
off his pajamas and threw them on his bed, then went downstairs,
unlocked the door, and drowned himself in the wading pool on his front
lawn. This is what the police and Gazette reporters knew; they would
truthfully have said that

FLOATING DRAGON

299

there was no need to report the effect of this information on the town
of Hampstead. That seemed obvious enough-it was not printed in the
newspaper, but on the faces of those who were shopping for spaghetti
sauce and romaine lettuce at Greenblatt's, the faces of those buying
typing paper or just looking at the big-screen-projection television at
Anhalt's on Main Street. But even here there was a profound layer of the
unknown. Those people buying groceries at Greenblatt's or stationery at
Anhalt's would have known that the mothers and fathers of the dead
children were distraught, in emotional shock, traumatized; Hampstead was
a sophisticated town, and the shoppers would have predicted that some of
the parents would find their way into psychotherapy and others into the
divorce courts. Because they were verbal and sophisticated people, they
could have described the guilt the parents of the dead children must be
suffering; they would have speculated about cults and phases of the moon
and sunspots (much as Sarah Spry was soon to do); might have gone on to
mention other cases of childish mass hysteria, which this did seem to
be, after all, and if you had kids you ought to be locking them in their
rooms at night or taking them back to the city, where they'd be safe.
But probably no one except Mikki Zaber O'Hara-and possibly Sarah
Spry-would have guessed that Mrs. Sherbourne and Mrs. Crowley and Wendy
Hawthorne in Redhill dreamed on the night their children were killing
themselves that they were comforting cold wet sons and daughters-taking
their frozen bodies into their beds and holding them tightly against
their breasts while they chafed their backs and brushed sand from their
chests.

12

When Richard spoke to Laura on Friday night, he did not have to say that
the source of the problems that would keep him in Providence was his
client, for when there were problems it was usually the client who
caused them. Laura would have known that, and Laura had seen her husband
cope successfully with clients who could not make up their minds, who
changed their minds in the middle of the job, who thought that they
could do the job better themselves. Richard had not made friends with
all of his clients, but he had at least been friendly with all of them.
Laura knew these things, but

300

Peter Straub

Laura had not met Morris Stryker. Morris Stryker defeated most of
Richard's expectations, and Richard had begun to fear by Friday night
that Stryker would defeat him too.

They had begun badly, and maybe the beginning underlay all the
subsequent troubles. Richard's first impression of Morris Stryker was
that he was a great deal like the truck driver who had left a mountain
of rubble in the middle of his driveway. Stryker was large and flabby
and nursed a cigar with his lips; Stryker was a bully who had terrorized
his secretary and cowed the contractor on the job, Mike Hagen, into
agreeing with everything he said. And for his part, Stryker thought he
was a fraud-Stryker had expected him to be English.

Richard had discovered that three days before, when he had driven up to
the job for the first time. He had come into Providence on 1-95, checked
into his hotel, washed and changed his clothes, and driven to College
Street. Stryker and Mike Hagen were already there, sitting in the
backseat of Stryker's Cadillac. When Richard left his car and walked
across the street, his eyes on the lovely but dilapidated
eighteenth-century mansion he was supposed to restore, Stryker and Hagen
emerged from the Cadillac to meet him. He had immediately known which of
them was the contractor and which the client, for Stryker wore a
powder-blue suit, a navyblue shirt, white shoes, and a gold chain around
his neck. Contractors, in Richard's experience, usually dressed in a way
that made them look at home in their pickup trucks. "Allbee?" the
massive Stryker said. "Mr. Allbee?"

"Yes, nice to meet you, Mr. Stryker," Richard said. "This is a lovely
Georgian house we have to work on."

"I want it to look like the most expensive house on the block," Stryker
said, and looked at him a little oddly. "This is Mike Hagen, he's doing
the work. Mike and I went to school together, right here in Providence."

"Hiya," Hagen said. He stood in back of Stryker, hands in his pockets.

"Well, Mr. Stryker," Richard had said, "this is going to be an
interesting project. I can see plenty of opportunities to use
contemporary techniques, for example in the paints." Richard was revving
up, thinking about the pigments he could use to get the brightness and
clarity of an eighteenth-century interior.

"Hey, you're not English," Stryker unexpectedly said. "You're supposed
to be English, aren't you?"

FLOATING DRAGON

301

"I was born in Connecticut," Richard said. "My wife and I lived in
London for about twelve years, and that was where I started doing
restoration work. That's probably where you got the impression I was
English."

"Toby," Stryker shouted, turning back to the Cadillac. "Toby, get out
here right now."

A colorless blond man opened the front passenger door and stood up
nervously beside the car.

"He's not an Englishman, Toby," Stryker said in a lowering voice.

"He's not?" Toby squeaked. "I thought he was. I mean . . . he's from
London, isn't he?"

"Mr. Allbee just worked there, Toby. He is from Connecticut, which you
should have found out about, don't you think, Toby?"

"Yessir," Toby said.

Mike Hagen just stood with his hands in his pockets, not looking at
anybody or anything. He'd had a long experience of Morris Stryker.

Stryker shook his head, then leaned over and spat out his cigar. "You
worked in England though, huh?" he asked Richard.

"Until now all of my work was in England."

Stryker shook his head again. "Well, we might as well go inside." He
glared at Richard. "I thought, you know, you were English, and you just
came over to Connecticut so you could work in this country. I wanted
somebody English."

"We can make the house look as English as you like," Richard had said,
and that had been a mistake.

13

This was Saturday, the fourteenth of June, a week after the attempted
burglary at the Van Home house, and Tabby Smithfield awoke in the middle
of the night confused and feeling somehow that time was escaping him. He
had to hurry, he had to rush, he did not know where. Gasping, he got out
of bed and felt for his clothes. He was late for school

he was late for an appointment with his grandfather. He slid into his
jeans and pulled the day's shirt over his head. In the dark he laced his
running shoes. He knew that he could not make any noise-his father was
in the room downstairs

302

Peter Straub

with Berkeley Woodhouse, and he would be furious if Tabby disturbed him.

Berkeley Woodhouse was the woman Tabby had seen with his father just
before he'd had the series of visions in the library. Clark had invited
her to "Four Hearths" for dinner, and she had given Tabby a kiss that
left lipstick on his cheek. Clark and Berkeley were drunk when they had
arrived back at the house, and got drunker during dinner. She talked
about her divorced husband, he talked about Sherri. Berkeley had kept
reaching across the table to grasp Tabby's hand. Immediately after
dinner Clark had switched on the television set and taken Berkeley
upstairs. The orders were clear.

But now Tabby had to get out of the house, he had to get on his way. His
grandfather was waiting, and Dicky Norman was waiting, and Gary Starbuck
too.

Tabby eased out his bedroom door, aware that something was wrong with
these thoughts, but in too much of a hurry and still too fogged with
sleep to know what it was. He went quickly down the stairs. The house
was completely dark. He opened the front door and walked out into the
brightest moonlight he had ever seen in his life.

His grandfather was waiting. No, someone else was waiting.

He looked back up at the place where the moon should have been and saw
the face of Gary Starbuck looming down toward him. Run! Starbuck ordered
him, pushing his great white face through millions of miles of empty
air. Run! Starbuck's face was dead-dead as moon rocks, the color of
white cheese.

Tabby ran from the moon with Starbuck's face in it.

He pounded out of Hermitage Road and turned the corner into the long
descending slope of Beach Trail. Momentum carried him forward, and for a
heart-stopping few seconds he seemed to be traveling above the ground as
if he had shot off a ski jump. Then his feet found the surface of the
road again and held to it, and he was racing down Beach Trail. It seemed
to go straight down, and be made not of asphalt but of slick mud. When
one of his feet struck the road, it slid crazily along and he had to
fight for his balance until he could get the other foot out in front of
him, and the whole process began all over again.

As he sped toward Graham Williams' house, he saw it enveloped by a red
glow. He raced forward and down, the hill much steeper than he knew it
was. There was an enormous

^

FLOATING DRAGON

303

scorched circle on the lawn where he had thrown Starbuck's two-way radio
seven days before, and from the black circle a line of singed and
burning grass led straight to the front door. Tabby drew closer and
closer to the old man's house, unable to stop or get off Beach Trail,
and saw the glow surrounding the house flicker redly.

Behind him the Starbuck-moon blew toward him and almost knocked him over
with its breath.

Now he could see right into the glowing house, he could see every room.
Books were circling lazily as sparrow hawks in the living room, and a
comic-book devil was strangling Graham Williams in the upstairs bedroom.
As Tabby sped by, truly unable to stop, the devil, who was red and
horned and had a thick saurian tail, tightened his grip on Graham's neck
and turned sideways to face Tabby. He was grinning. His face was
enormous, and a flickering tongue the size of a baseball bat curled and
danced out of his mouth. His massive penis was split into two erect
twitching forks. The devil twisted Graham's head and then lifted the
body to show Tabby how limp it was.

Tabby screamed, but the scream slipped out behind him and he was
careening into Mount Avenue, struggling to stay on his feet. The dead
breath of the moon slammed into his back and lifted him along down Mount
Avenue.

When he sped past the historical marker before the walls of Greenbank
Academy, it swung up from the ground like a gravestone on hinges and the
fire-bat flapped up out of the ground. The fire-bat circled over
speeding Tabby Smithfield, looked down at him with its empty eyes, and
then lifted up. Tabby saw it move quickly away, even its fire whitened
by the frozen silver light streaming from the moon. The fire-bat dipped
its wings at the Van Home house and then sailed over the water. Tabby
watched it flying toward the Millpond.

Of course he could not see the Millpond: that was a mile away, and trees
and houses intervened: but as Tabby jumped or was blown over the fence
across the short road to Gravesend Beach, he was aware of two areas
which glowed as if they burned. These areas were roughly equidistant
from him, and neither one was normally visible. Far off to his right,
the fire-bat was settling down on the spit of land known as "Shrinks'
Row," and far off to his right, jutting out into the Sound like Shrinks'
Row, Kendall Point shone red too. Tabby looked right and saw the bat's
wings brush the tops of the

304

Peter Straub

pretty frame houses, saw flames spring up under the eaves; looked left
and saw all of Kendall Point glowing a poker's angry red.

Then he was walking down the road to the beach in ordinary moonlight.
The sky showed a trace of red over the tops of the trees to his right,
but he could see no flames.

It seemed to him that he had been moving for the past ten minutes in a
crazy dream. He looked uneasily up at the moon, which looked nothing
like Gary Starbuck. He stopped still on the narrow road to the beach.
The air around him stopped too. The ground was solid. The redness over
the tops of the trees between him and Shrinks' Row could have been from
a police car, he thought.

He did not believe that those houses were burning any more than he
believed that an enormous bat made of fire had climbed up out of the
ground beneath that slab of a monument.

Tabby looked once more at the redness, daring it to show him an actual
flame, and then continued up the road to the beach. Wait a second, he
thought. Why am I going this way? Why not just go home?

"Do you really think you could sleep?" he asked himself out loud. Not
for about a week, no. Besides I have to . . .

Have to what?

. . . go up to the water.

What for?

To see it.

He had to walk up to the Sound and look into the water. Simple, really,
wasn't it? And all the rest of what had happened, Gary Starbuck and the
devil and Graham Williams and the fire-bat, had been the little
sideshows and inducements to bring him this far, so that he had only
another twenty yards to \ go before he could walk out on the sand and
take a good look 1 at the sea.

From where he stood he could see a long black line of ; water. He did
not want to get any closer to it.

Please.

The wind pushed him forward, scurrying at his back.

Please.

Please yourself.

A part of him did want to see what was going to happen up there; part of
him wanted to find out what would be the last act of the night's
performance.

FLOATING DRAGON

305

He stepped forward, and the wind teased his hair, fluttered his shirt.
His stomach ground in upon itself, and he was afraid for a second that
he would throw up. He stepped forward again, then determinedly strode
all the way up to the retaining wall at the end of the parking lot,
jumped over the wall, and landed on the sand with both feet. Now he was
on the Dragon's territory.

Tabby looked up. The moon had retreated and the world was safe. Away to
his right, the sky above the trees showed a persistent tinge of red. To
his left was the curve of the beach, then the series of little private
beaches, each marked off by a row of upended slabs like headstones. The
last of these, sweeping out into the water beneath a wooded hill, was
the beach which had once been his grandfather's. Small dark waves
spattered into froth at the edge of the sand.

The only noise he heard was the hissing of the waves. The breeze gently
pushed at his back; the hissing of the waves called him forward. Tabby
walked across the sand toward the shingle, the stripe of
seaweed-encrusted pebbles at the hightide mark.

"Show me," he said.

The froth of the waves turned red as it bubbled toward his feet. When he
looked out at the seething water, he saw it too was now red-a deep
sluggish red that went black in the troughs between the rising waves.
The air reeked of blood, and then the first flies appeared.

They had been awakened by the smell of so much blood, and in seconds it
seemed to Tabby that every fly in Hampstead had come to feed at
Gravesend Beach. The silence had become a single great buzzing. Tabby
frantically waved his hands before his face, trying to keep the flies
from his eyes and mouth. Now the shingle and the entire stretch of the
beach were a black glistening carpet of flies. He felt them shifting
over his feet, weighing on his shoes. Their buzzing grew louder and
louder, more rhythmic as hundreds and thousands more of them clustered
on the blood-soaked sand.

"Show me!" Tabby yelled.

He disgustedly spat out the flies which had entered his mouth and
watched a giant red wave swell up in the moonlight. The wave bulged out,
layering and layering as it moved toward the shoreline, and
growing-Tabby thought-ten feet high. He stepped backward, and felt the
flies crushing beneath his feet. They buzzed furiously about his head.
Half a

311

Peter Straub

dozen or more crawled down his collar inside his shirt. The towering
wave arched above Tabby, and he saw his father and Berkeley Woodhouse
tossed within it. They were naked and dead, tumbled together inside the
wave, and when the red wave shattered on the beach it sent them rolling.
Immediately a thousand flies descended. When the next wave rolled them
back, the flies' monotone buzzing scream grew louder and more hypnotic.

"Show me!" Tabby yelled, and saw another wave far out in the Sound begin
to speed toward him, growing more massive with every foot it traveled.
The wave rose up fifteen feet into the air and was still growing when it
crested at the shoreline. Tabby ran backward over the surging flies,
looking up into the arching wave.

First he saw Graham Williams, his thin arms and legs splayed as he was
borne up by the water; then Richard Allbee's body, not only naked but
hacked and mutilated, spun into sight; and then Patsy's dead nude body
revolved as the powerful weight of the wave buffeted her past Richard's
corpse.

The wave of blood towered up over Tabby, almost seeming to walk up on
the sand, and the flies attacked it.

When it fell, tumbling the bodies of his friends into the sand, it
knocked Tabby over. Every inch of him was instantly drenched with the
thick heavy fluid. Tabby was carried down the sand as the blood
withdrew. For a horrible moment he was looking into the dead eyes of
Richard Allbee, whose body swept past his. Tabby dug his fingers into
the soaked sand, and scrambled with his legs. He felt dampness cover his
hands again, and then saw that where his fingers had clawed into the
beach, blood welled out. Richard Allbee's body slid back into the Sound.
He could not see the other bodies. Tabby pulled his hands from the
bleeding sand and got to his feet. The wet flies struggled in the pools
of blood dotting the sand; thousands of others found Tabby.

They landed on his eyelids, in his hair, burrowed into his ears. Flies
blanketed his hands.

Tabby slapped his hands against his wet shirt, scattering hundreds of
them and killing as many. He wiped at his eyes.

"Show me!" he screamed. "It's just water and the flies aren't even here!
Show me what you can really do!"

For an instant, for a moment so brief it was almost gone before he
realized what it meant, Tabby was standing in dry

I

FLOATING DRAGON

307

clothes on an ordinary Gravesend Beach; there were no flies.

Then the world gave a hitch and he was slimed with blood once again, the
air stank, and battalions of flies lifted and fell around his head.

He groaned and staggered back. Then he realized what had happened, and
he laughed. He had stopped it for a second; he had startled the Dragon
and made the merry-go-round come to a halt, however temporarily. He
laughed, and the flies crawled in his mouth, and he kept laughing. Then
he shouted again.

"/ won! I won!"

The flies lifted off him in a buzzing mass and circled out over the
shingle, making for some new target. Tabby stood in his blood-soaked
shoes, breathing hard. Wherever he looked on the red sand, flies
clustered in greedy buzzing knots. "They're not dead," he said softly.
"My friends aren't dead."

Not yet, hissed the red froth on the shingle.

The flies which had left him lighted on another body cast up on the red
shingle. Their sound intensified and reached that rhythmic food-frenzy
he had heard before. At first Tabby thought it was Patsy's body they
were swarming upon, and he squashed across the sand to drive them away.

But the body seemed too large to be Patsy's as he got closer to it, and
then he noticed that it had been hacked and cut as Richard's had been
... yet it was a woman's body. Tabby froze a few feet from the body. He
had seen that the belly was savagely cut open, and a small lump of flesh
that must have been an unborn child rested beside the woman's body. On
the fetus too the flies lifted and crawled. Tabby s.aw its unbelievably
tiny fingers clenched in a fist. Then he knew who the dead woman was.
She was Laura Allbee, Richard's wife. He began to shake-after all he had
been through, it was the sight of the unborn child's clenched fingers
that affected him most.

The red water began to hiss louder and louder, and a viscous wave
slapped down on Laura and the fetus. Tabby began to walk backward,
unable to take his eyes off the linked bodies. He heard the water
beginning to slap and roar, as it did during a storm.

Clouds scudded together, blotting the moon. Off to the right, the
redness in the night air was unmistakable-houses were burning. Tabby
could smell smoke now, as well as an-

312

Peter Straub

other, graver odor underlying the pervasive stench of blood. The waves
were pounding toward the shore, whipped by the wind across the water.
Red foam boiled on each successive series of waves and was tossed into
the air like bloody rags.

Another body washed up on the shingle. Laura Allbee and the tiny fetus
were gone, sucked back into the bloody Sound, and a more massive body
now lay half-submerged in the rolling, violent waves. The flies streamed
between it and Tabby in a buzzing knotty veil. The bulky body surged
forward on a large incoming wave, and then it reached forward and
elbowed itself out of the water.

A bolt of lightning cracked down out of the sky and screwed itself
visibly into the sand to Tabby's left.

The body at the edge of the water was getting to its knees. One shoulder
looked like an auto wreck-a red-stained bone protruded from ragged flesh.

Tabby backed away toward the retaining wall and the parking lot at the
end of the drive. The body was trying to stand, but it had difficulty
rising from its crouch. Tabby saw Dicky Norman's face above the body.
Another brilliant stroke of lightning sizzled above the Sound. Dicky
finally got to his feet. Long neat autopsy scars divided his forehead
and his chest. His mouth sagged open, and blood from the Sound leaked
down over his chin. Dicky started moving toward Tabby.

Now the wind, which had pushed Tabby here, pushed him back toward the
beach. From the direction of the fire, sparks rose and floated in the
twisting currents of air.

"No, Dicky," Tabby said.

Dicky Norman gnashed his teeth at the sound of Tabby's voice.

"You're not real," Tabby said, hitting the concrete retaining wall with
the back of his thighs.

The wind tore the words away and broke them into nonsense syllables.
Dicky was now halfway across the beach, clawing forward with his one
arm, leaning into the wind. Blood-soaked sand flew and scattered. A
white McDonald's bag spun out of the parking lot, struck the sand in a
series of skittering hops that stained it irregularly red, and went
sailing into the seething water.

"Dicky, go back," Tabby said noiselessly.

Dicky's jaw worked; more red fluid drooled from the cor-

FLOATING DRAGON

309

ner of his mouth. To Tabby it looked almost as if Dicky Norman's torn
corpse had muttered I'm tired.

For no reason other than it was an instinctive grasping for safety,
Tabby let his mind say Patsy? Patsy?

Dicky Norman took another step into the bruising wind. Tabby felt his
mind groping for Patsy's and in a growing panic failing to find her. For
a moment Tabby felt his mind falling toward a great vacuum, some psychic
black hole, and Dicky canted his head over toward his shredded shoulder
and beamed at him as if he had just told a joke.

Patsy!

He felt a circling fuzzy response, as faint as the signal of a Tennessee
Bible station on a car radio.

Patsy! Trouble!

Patsy was asleep. Dicky took another step toward him, still gleaming at
him. The warm response he'd had was dwindling to a pinpoint. Patsy! Help me!

(oh, dear Tabby, what. . . ? Tabby . . . ?)

It was not much, no more than a moment of dim contact, but Dicky Norman
fell to his knees six feet from Tabby. Tabby groped again for Patsy with
his mind, but found only a dwindling spot of warmth. Dicky was
struggling to turn around, flat on his stomach on the bloody sand. The
wind had died, and the flies returned, first to Dicky's shoulder, then
to the puddles in the sand, then to Tabby. He waved them away from his
face. Now Dicky's torn shoulder was black with them. Dicky's feet dug
into the sand and pushed, his hips shifted from side to side. Freshets
of oozing blood opened where Dicky's feet scratched beneath the surface.
Like a damaged tractor Dicky toiled back toward the Sound.

Tabby had not won, he knew, but at least it had been a draw. Because of
Patsy McCloud's almost unconscious help, he had done that much. Now
Tabby could clearly smell the fires burning along the side of the Millpond.

Dicky Norman reached the shingle and crawled into the shallow water. As
Tabby watched, the Sound lost several degrees of redness, declining to a
dusky pink, then altered to violet, and then became inky blue once more.

He was dry. There were no flies, no bloodstains on his clothes or the
sand. On the shingle the meek waves deposited a white froth. Tabby ran
up the steps to the changing rooms and the public telephone.

313

Peter Straub

14

Very late that Saturday night, three events of varying importance took
place which were related to the fears of Richard Allbee and Tabby
Smithfield, and which pointed the direction things would go now the
threshold had been breached. On that Saturday night, Hampstead was
irrevocably into the second stage of its destruction.

The first of these events was that Richard Allbee telephoned Laura at
eleven-thirty, just about the time that Tabby Smithfield awoke in the
grip of an inexplicable urgency. He was out of sorts after a long
evening of listening to Morris Stryker destroy his initial plans for the
College Street house- Stryker, incredibly, wanted a Bauhaus interior-and
he was drunk enough to be slurring his words. Stryker had insisted on
putting a bottle of fifty-year-old cognac on the table and having Toby
Chambers pour out for all of them. Chambers himself was excused from
drinking, but Stryker made it clear that Hagen and Richard had to have
as much of the cognac as he did.

Laura answered the phone on the eighth ring, and he suddenly felt much
better. "Oh, thank God," he said. "I know it's late to be calling, but I
was worried." "Worried about what?" Laura said. "About ... you know
what. The client just told me that there'd been another murder in
Hampstead. He read about it in the paper. I think the client's a
mobster. He thought it was a barrel of laughs." "Are you drunk?" Laura
asked.

"Of course I'm drunk. I've been out with Morris Stryker, and the penalty
of not getting drunk is being roasted over a slow fire. I couldn't risk
it. Really, Stryker's a mobster. Every night, men rush up to him in
restaurants and give him padded envelopes."

"Oh, dear," Laura said. "You're not having a very good time, are you?"

"I'm having a terrible time. Being roasted might be a ball, compared to
this. But tell me what happened. Who was killed?"

"Nobody we know. The gardener who works around here. I think I've seen
him a couple of times."

FLOATING DRAGON

311

"Sure you've seen him. He's always working. That's who was killed?
Where? When?"

"I'm not sure. The body was only found yesterday. He'd been dead a
couple of days, I gather. Richard, I'm very tired. You woke me up, and I
don't want to talk about this now. I just want you to come home."

"I wish I could," he said. "I'm going to have to redo a lot of my work,
so I'll probably have to be here another couple of days. Please be safe."

"I'll be safe," she said. "Next time, call at a regular hour. I'm going
back to bed."

Richard said, "I'll call tomorrow, whenever I can get away from Ivan the
Terrible."

"Love you."

"And I love you. Why aren't you here with me?"

"You went away," she said.

Some short time after that, Patsy McCloud stirred in her sleep. Her
in-laws had just left that evening to return to Phoenix, and Patsy had
not been able to keep her eyes open past ten o'clock.

A second later, something penetrated her dream with the force of a blow,
and she shook her head, still not really awake. She saw Tabby Smithfield
before her, a Tabby who needed her in some pressing but unspecified
way-it was as though Tabby were her child, and the fact of maternity had
told her that he needed her. She saw him not wounded but in some awful
and potential danger, as if she were to see him drink half a fifth of
gin and then get behind the wheel of a fast car-and she sent out to this
troubled Tabby as much fragmented concern as she could call up. For a
second her eyes fluttered. Through her open window she smelled smoke.
Then Patsy's body relaxed, and the odor melted into a dream-picture of
herself as a witch on the edge of a forest boiling something in a huge
black pot, and then this image too melted into a ceaseless flow.

The Hampstead fire department had already received two calls about the
fire on Mill Lane (the official name of Shrinks' Row) by the time Tabby
Smithfield telephoned them from the Pay phone above Gravesend Beach. Two
trucks had gone out from the Riverfront Avenue fire station, then two
more had followed from the central station in back of Main Street. When
the extent of the damage was reported by the first men

314

Peter Straub

of water instantly flashed into steam. The crew next to them dropped
their hoses and ran to the other side of the path, getting away from the
scalding steam. Their own hoses must then have turned hot in their
hands, because they dropped them an instant before they too blew apart.
Now men were screaming, and eight men were outlined in flame, some of
them rolling in the baking weeds and setting them alight, some of them
crazily running straight into the larger fires. Liquid drops of fire
streamed from all the houses and pooled between them.

"Get those hoses on the men!" Archer screeched at Yochen, and saw the
thousands of little dragons spinning out of the smoke over Yochen's
head. As the deputy chief turned to obey him, his arms suddenly flew out
to his sides. For an instant Chief Archer saw smoke leaking from
Yochen's sleeves. Then Deputy Chief Yochen's uniform shirt burst into
flame; a fraction of a second later his gray hair frizzed and crisped
off his head. His trousers smoked and burned. Archer struggled out of
his jacket, in order to wrap Yochen in it and stifle the flames, but the
jacket was still hanging from one of his wrists when Harry Yochen
uttered a muted, bubbling scream and fell to the ground, completely
encased in flame. His skin blackened and shriveled as Archer continued
meaninglessly to struggle with his jacket.

Tony Archer stood there in the midst of the pandemonium with his golf
jacket hanging from one wrist, hearing the rushing sound of fire and
wondering how things had gone so wrong so fast when white dripping fire
flowed out from between the houses and blistered his face, then seared
his lungs, and took his life even before his clothes began to burn.

The fire on Mill Lane burned itself out before it spread into the park,
but by dawn the houses of Shrinks' Row were only eight smoking
foundations. The inhabitants were identified by the location of their
bones, as were the firemen, all of whom perished in the furnace Mill
Lane had become for a few minutes that night.

One of the fire trucks, the one closest to the bridge, had exploded
because of the heat, but the real measure of the temperatures on Mill
Lane that Saturday night, said the Wednesday Gazette, was that on
Kendall Point, which faced the farthest extremity of the lane across
Gravesend Beach and nearly half a mile of water, the ground was still
warm the next day and the bark on many of the trees still smoked.

FLOATING DRAGON

15

315

Richard Allbee had promised himself that he would call Laura that
Sunday. He was going to wait until just after breakfast, when she would
be sure to be at home; but at eight o'clock he sat down with his
drafting paper at the desk in his hotel room and forgot all about food.
At noon he ordered a sandwich and a beer from room service, and kept
working-he had thought of a way to compromise with Stryker and
incorporate a contemporary feeling into the Georgian shapes and
dimensions of the rooms. Stryker could have his white walls and even his
track lighting, if he insisted, and Richard would smuggle in his period
detail. Once he saw how the details would augment the total design, the
project came back to life for him again.

At six o'clock he realized that he was starving, and went down to the
hotel's restaurant for grilled scallops, asparagus, a half-bottle of
chilled Puligny-Montrachet, and two cups of coffee; during dinner he
made notes, and when he was finished with his coffee he tipped hugely
and returned immediately to his room.

It was eleven-thirty before he thought again of calling home. It was too
late-he could not wake her two nights running. Richard gloated
momentarily over the amount of work he had accomplished, then took off
his clothes and went to bed.

On Monday he called home at ten in the morning, and got no answer. Laura
was probably at Greenblatt's, he thought. He promised himself to call
her before dinner, even if he had to make a collect call from one of
Stryker's terrible restaurants. Richard spent all Monday afternoon at
the College Street house, ironing out his plans and making sure of his
measurements, and then went back to the hotel before the ritual dinner
with Stryker. He called Laura from his room at five-thirty, but again
there was no answer. He rang down to the desk, but there was no message
for him.

Stryker called him at six and gave him directions to a restaurant named
Pickman's. The restaurant turned out to be twenty minutes away, on the
city's north side; almost in the country. It was a converted Victorian
house, easily the handsomest of all the restaurants Stryker had chosen.
The valet took Richard's car, he went inside to a series of rooms as

316

Peter Straub

handsome as the exterior. Red leather chairs, vibrant flowers, sparkling
glasses and shining silver: Richard put his plans under his elbow and
felt better than he had since his first meeting with his client.

Stryker, Mike Hagen and Toby Chambers appeared fifteen minutes late.
Stryker barely nodded at Richard before he called the headwaiter over
and began complaining about the table. It was too central, there was too
much traffic around it, didn't anybody here remember what Morris Stryker
liked in a table? In the middle of his tirade, Stryker lit a huge cigar
and exhaled smoke over the rejected table. The headwaiter made
suggestions; Stryker settled on a table in the end room, in a far
corner. "Don't give us lousy service there, just because we're outta the
way," he said.

Amid much fussing, they were seated at the back table. Stryker himself
sat facing out, his back to the wall. "Ah, this place is so full of
crap, it gives me a headache to come here," he complained to Richard.

"Then why do you come here?"

"A change, it's a change. Toby likes this kind of shit." Stryker puffed
at his cigar, then leaned over and said to Toby, "Why don't you get that
little weasel out here so I can talk to him, that banjo player? Hey?
Call him up and get him out here." Toby scurried off to find the
telephone. Mike Hagen smiled at the ceiling.

"Do you ever go out with your wife, Morris?" Richard asked, and Mike
Hagen's eyes drifted away from the ceiling toward Richard.

"What the hell is it to you?" Stryker asked loudly. "Dinner is part of
work with me-part work, part relaxation. Get it?"

The waiter brought their drinks. Stryker, a water buffalo, leaned
massively forward. "So what you been doing?" he asked Richard. "You were
at the house today? Yeah? Great. What you do Sunday? I was gonna call
you, take you out to the golf course, but something came up. This banjo
player, that's what came up. We're gonna straighten his head out for him."

"I worked all Sunday," Richard said, taking up the sheaf of papers from
beside him. "I really think I came up with something we can use. I want
to show you how we can handle the downstairs rooms."

FLOATING DRAGON

317

"Save it," Stryker said. "I don't want that kind of stuff now. I just
don't want it."

"Well, I really would like your opinion on it," Richard said. "I've put
in a lot of time, and I have to get back to Connecticut soon."

"I told you to can it, didn't I?" Stryker bellowed. "Don't you have
ears? I don't give a damn about how hard you worked, I don't give a
rat's ass about how soon you have to get home, I don't want that kind of
crap tonight. Just sit here and lap up the goodies. That's all you have
to do tonight."

At that moment Richard came as close to quitting as he could without
actually doing it. If he had been five years younger, if Laura had not
been pregnant, he would have done so immediately; but he was still
thinking about it when Toby Chambers' skinny form slid back into his
chair. "Ninethirty," Chambers said.

Stryker grunted. He rolled his eyes and puffed out a cloud of reeking
gray smoke. "Call him back. That's too soon, I don't want to see his
greasy face when I'm supposed to be having fun. Tell him eleven. We'll
still be here."

Chambers uncoiled from his chair and streaked off again.

/ need this job, Richard told himself. Morris Stryker isn't just a crude
bully, he's ten thousand dollars closer to being about to put Lump
through college. He swallowed half of his drink, and then unclenched his
left hand.

"Have another one," Stryker said. "That's what you're here for, right?
The goodies."

That night Richard did not get back to his hotel until ten minutes past
twelve. He called home, and heard a busy signal. Richard dialed his
number five more times between midnight and one o'clock, and heard the
busy signal each time. He spoke to the operator, who suggested that the
party had left her telephone off the hook.

On Tuesday morning Richard tried to call home as soon as he had
showered: with the towel around his waist and his hair dripping, he sat
on the bed and dialed his number. He endured a long delay during which
he first knew that there would be another busy signal, then that the
phone would ring. Neither of these happened. The delay stretched on
until Richard was ready to hang up and dial again, then the line clicked
twice and the dial tone buzzed in his ear. Richard

318

Peter Straub

tried again, with the same result. A long pause, two clicks, the dial
tone. He dialed the operator and asked her to try his number. When the
operator could not get the number, she conferred with a Connecticut
operator and came back to say, "I'm sorry, Mr. Allbee, but that number
has a fault on the line and is temporarily out of service." "But that's
my number!" Richard said.

"It is temporarily out of service, but the fault has been reported," the
operator said. "Try again later."

Richard hung up, dried his hair with a towel, dressed. He ordered
breakfast from room service, then canceled it five minutes later. He
could not stay in his room, he was too restless for that. A fault on the
line? What did that mean?

In minutes he was outside on the sidewalk, aimlessly moving. He was due
to meet Stryker and Hagen at the College Street house at eleven-thirty;
that gave him three hours to kill. The air was warm and clear, huge with
the sounds of construction. Near Richard's hotel an old building had
been demolished, clearing an entire block of the city; now a scaffolding
rose like a gallows over a pitted wasteland. Through smoke and dust
Richard could see men stripped to the waist, goggles shielding their
eyes. Sparks jumped in the boiling dust, hammers rang against metal.
Dimly Richard heard a foreman swearing rhythmically and passionlessly.

For minutes Richard stared into the construction site as if he had been
hypnotized. A man lifted and dropped a sledgehammer, lifted it and swung
it down, lifted it again; another worked a heavy drill, the muscles
jumping in his arms. Periodically a cloud of dust enveloped them. Behind
them a yellow crane swung lazily about, performing some invisible function.

Richard felt his mouth go dry, and did not know why. He was shaking, and
he did not know why. The little fires flared in the boiling smoke and
dust. It was a look into a small hell. r,

He looked up at the crane and saw Billy Bentley running i| along the
machine's long arm, running up slick yellow metal * at a forty-degree
angle, loraine, read the black lettering \ Billy scampered over. Billy
ran up to the end of the crane, ^ ignorant of gravity, and waved at
Richard far below him. t*

Richard astounded himself-he threw up. His stomach had ^ flipped inside
out almost before he had known it was going to happen, and now he was
left with a sharp but diminishing pain in his gut and a pink spatter on
the dirty sidewalk. He

FLOATING DRAGON

319

stepped away from it, looked up, and saw Billy Bentley climbing hand
over hand down the cable attached to the crane.

He turned and ran. Hell stank and snarled behind, and from it Billy
Bentley pursued him. Richard turned into the next corner and pounded
down the street.

Gritty Providence spread out around him. At his back he still could hear
the banging and pounding from the construction site. Billy Bentley waved
to him from a doorway across the street, and pretended to be counting
out money. The smell of death and rot drifted in the sunny air.

Richard turned around and crossed the street in the opposite direction.
Horns blared, a man yelled. The traffic light had not changed, and cars
sped by him. Richard feared that he would fall over from dizziness in
the middle of the street and be killed beneath the wheels of a truck.

He made it to the other side of the street. Brown University hugged the
hill above him. The city seemed full of sunlight, dust, and smoke.
Old-fashioned streetlamps marched up the hill toward the university.
Behind them eighteenth-century houses kept their own counsel in the high
clear air.

Billy had climbed out of hell on loraine the crane and now hell was
everywhere-Richard had to return to Hampstead, to Greenbank and Beach Trail.

He turned back to his hotel. He saw Beach Trail, saw the old Sayre house
with its lights blazing, saw Laura opening the door . . . "I'm going to
be checking out in about fifteen minutes," Richard told the desk clerk.
"Please have my bill ready."

Richard dumped his things in his suitcase, closed it, walked out of his
room and pushed the button for the elevator. He waited in the dark
plum-colored hallway and listened to the humming of the wires behind the
big metal doors. Then the light over the doors flashed, a bell dinged,
and the doors opened onto a roomy coffin. A smell with the weight of a
truck rolled out and nearly knocked Richard over. Billy Bentley sat in a
corner of the elevator cross-legged, a guitar °n his lap. He gave
Richard a bright consoling smile. Now the flesh seemed to be sliding off
his bones, but Billy's expression was so animated that his corpse looked
particularly gallant, sitting cross-legged on the elevator's carpeted floor.

Richard could not get in that traveling coffin. Once the doors closed,
the smell alone would be fatal. He lifted his bag

320

Peter Straub

and waited for the doors to close again, which they obediently did. Then
he went to the staircase and opened the door. He carried his suitcase
down ten floors to the lobby.

At eleven-thirty he was sitting in his car on College Street, as he had
been for twenty minutes. The doors were locked and the windows were up.
The radio pumped out Rickie Lee Jones. Stryker was not in the house and
the Cadillac was nowhere in sight. From one of the upstairs windows
Billy Bentley looked down, leaning on his elbows. At twelve o'clock
Richard and Billy were still in their places, but the college radio
station was playing Phoebe Snow's "Poetry Man."

By one o'clock Richard was starving and half-crazy with frustration; he
had to drive back to Connecticut, but he could not-he could not allow
himself to do it-leave without speaking to Morris Stryker. He glanced up
at the window, and Billy shook his head at him.

At one-thirty the Cadillac rolled up across the street and Toby Chambers
jumped out of the passenger seat to run around the back and open the
door for Stryker. Stryker was wearing black sunglasses, shiny black
boots, a gray suit of some exquisitely soft material, and a dark gray
shirt with a rolled collar. For once he did not have a cigar in his
mouth. Looking relaxed and expansive-Richard realized that he'd just had
lunch-Stryker pushed his belly across the street toward him. "Got hung
up," Stryker said. "I got time for your plans now. Let's get inside and
take a look at what you got, okay?"

"I've been here better than two hours," Richard said. "Is 'Got hung up'
all you're going to say to me about it?"

Stryker cocked his head and looked at him coldly. "I got hung up. I was
gonna have one appointment in the restaurant, instead I had five or six.
It goes like that sometimes. You want me to kiss your hand?"

"I want you to kiss my ass, Morris," Richard said. "I can't spend any
more time in Providence. I'm quitting this job as of right now. I'm
giving up and going home. You wouldn't understand why, so I won't bore
you with explanations." Richard opened the door of his car, and Stryker
said, "You're outta your mind or something. Toby! Toby!"

Toby Chambers sprinted across the street from where he had been talking
with Mike Hagen. Stryker ambled away into

FLOATING DRAGON

321

the middle of the street and stood looking up with a bored expression on
his face.

"I'm quitting, Toby," Richard said. "I'm worried about my wife, and I
have to get back to Connecticut. Besides that, I can't take my client
anymore. He's one of the worst human beings I've ever met, and as much
as I wish I could, I just can't work for him. I couldn't take another
week of sitting in those restaurants and inhaling his cigar smoke.
Good-bye."

"Mr. Stryker can see that you never get another job," Toby said,
speaking very slowly. "Mr. Stryker might even decide that you need to be
disciplined. Look. I'm trying to help you, Mr. Allbee."

"I'm a lot more disciplined than Mr. Stryker," Richard said. "Now, get
out of my way, Toby."

Richard got into his car and closed the door. Stryker spat on the ground
and ambled toward the sidewalk-finally. Richard saw that the client was
giving him the finger.

It was Tuesday, the seventeenth of June, and Richard Allbee found his
way back to the interstate highway shortly after two o'clock.

16

Late that evening, Patsy McCloud was seated on the worn leather chair in
Graham Williams' living room. She held a tall glass half-filled with a
watery drink on the top of which floated three slivers of melting ice.
Graham Williams, in his PAL T-shirt and Yankee cap, sat on the couch.
Like Patsy, he too was sweating lightly. On the table between them a
bottle of Bombay gin stood next to a half-full six-pack of eightounce
bottles of tonic and a plastic ice bucket one-quarter filled with cold
water. Patsy did not know it, but she was fnourning Les, and mourning
him more satisfactorily than she had ever done alone or with his parents.

4 "I never told his parents that he used to hit me," she said. There I
was, with my one big fat last chance, and I couldn't do it-no matter how
nasty Dee got with me about the crema"on, I couldn't tell her. Why do
you think that was?"

"Because you're a decent person," Williams said. He SlPped at his own
drink. "Maybe because it wouldn't have jnade any difference anyhow. His
mother would have thought Wat you were lying, or if he did beat you,
that you deserved

322

Peter Straub

it. Anyhow, at a certain point it isn't appropriate anymore for parents
to know such things about their children. They prefer the myth they know."

"It wouldn't have made any difference, you're right," Patsy said. "She
never understood what Les was-I mean she never understood what happened
to him after he left home. She didn't grasp his success, and she
couldn't ever see what his success did to his personality. Did you ever
have any children, Graham?"

"Never," he said. He smiled.

"Why are you smiling like that? Oh, I know. It's because I forgot. You
told me before. You told all of us. We're the last of our families. At
least until Richard's baby is born."

Patsy looked around the room. "Don't you have a record player or
anything, Graham? I'd sure like to hear some music. Don't you like
listening to music?"

"I have a radio," he said, and stood up to go across the room and turn
it on. He found a station playing dance music, big bands breathing out
standard songs like "Rose Room" and "There's a Small Hotel," and let it
play softly.

"Oh, that's nice," Patsy said. She tapped her stockinged foot. "Pretty
soon I'll ask you to dance, Graham. You'd better be ready."

"I'll be honored."

"You know when I decided that you were one of the good guys? It was on
that terrible night when Les was waving his gun around. I saw you step
in front of Tabby. God, I thought that was wonderful. You could have
been killed."

"Most people would do it." Graham leaned forward and tipped more gin,
then more tonic, into her glass. He dipped his hand into the ice bucket
and retrieved three half-melted cubes and dropped them into Patsy's glass.

"That's what you think, buster," Patsy said. "You're dead wrong there,
and you think that way because you're one of the good guys. You know
what I thought later? I thought, there were three men there, and mine
was the worst. Honest to God."

"He was certainly the drunkest," Graham said.

"Let's face facts, Graham old buddy, he was the worst. But I was
remembering some little things about him when his parents were around,
and you know, sometimes I wish we could have another chance at things,
you know?"

Patsy went on to speak about Les in an emotional and thor-

FLOATING DRAGON

323

oughly confused and contradictory way, sometimes with resentment and
sometimes affectionately. She continued to drink, waggling her glass at
the Bombay bottle when she wanted Graham to pour her a refill, and once
or twice she seemed to be close to tears. Graham Williams minded none of
this, in fact he cherished it. He wanted her to say anything that came
into her head. He would listen to everything with the same seriousness
and good humor. He understood that it was often difficult for any woman,
but a woman like Patsy especially, to be taken seriously, and that maybe
this was the greatest flaw in her marriage: Les McCloud had taken
himself so seriously that there was no seriousness left over for his wife.

325 Civilization and Its Discontents

FLOATING DRAGON

325

Six weeks after DRG-16 had been vented from the secret Telpro plant in
Woodville, the town of Hampstead, Connecticut, had altered from what it
had been before May 17-the changes were not as great as they would yet
become, but nothing now was quite the same. In the imagery of Richard
Allbee's dream, Billy Bentley was inside the house: he had broken a
couple of windows and was going to smash up some of the furniture before
he moved on to bigger things. Things were different in Hampstead. The
tides still came in on Gravesend and Sawtell beaches, the tennis matches
still grunted and sweated along on the private courts and at the Racket
Club, men still squeezed into the parking spots at Riverfront Station
and took the 7:54 and the 8:24 to New York; at eleven o'clock on Sunday
morning, Hampstead people still sat on the deck of the Sawtell Country
Club and drank their complimentary Bloody Marys and watched the
sailboats far out, the windsurfers rolling and tipping in the nearby
surf, before the Sunday brunch. But many parents now locked their
children in their rooms at night-in the five days since Richard Allbee
had returned from Providence, a fourteen-year-old boy from Hampstead, a
seven-year-old boy from Hillhaven, and a twelve-year-old girl from Old
Sarum had drowned themselves in Long Island Sound.

And by now there had been four murders: one more since Bobby Fritz.
Women alone at home had become careful about answering their doors, and
the UPS drivers and Bloomingdale's deliverymen often did not bother
ringing doorbells in Hampstead anymore; they slipped the packages inside
the screen door, knocked hard, and left. No one ever jogged alone now,
but only in pairs or groups of three. Sometimes in

324

the middle of Main Street you might see a slender, prosperous-looking
woman suddenly choke up and burst into tears; and you would not know if
she were in the midst of a divorce or if one of her children had gone
out for a one-way swim-or if Hampstead's troubles had just become too
much for her.

Yes, there were tennis matches and parties of six at the country-club
Sunday brunch; and people went into Greenblatt's and Grand Union and
bought beer and spareribs and charcoal briquets, just as if it were an
ordinary summer. But now the conversations on the tennis courts and the
sparkling deck of the country club were as much about death and suicide
as about Wimbledon and the bond market and the colleges their kids were
applying to, come autumn. Now the conversations were apt to be about how
quickly you could get out of Hampstead and if you could still sell your
sixty-fiveyear-old Federal colonial with three wooded acres and twenty
more years to go on the mortgage. And sometimes the conversations would
slip into muddy waters, into areas no one understood or even wanted to
understand-Archie Monaghan tried to hint to torn Flynn, his law and
golfing partner, that not long after Les McCloud's messy crack-up on
1-95 he had imagined hearing and smelling something odd coming from that
same bush Les had been so excited about.

Ronnie Riggley could have answered the questions about selling those
desirable colonials on three wooded acres-if she had felt like being
utterly honest, she would have said that if it was in Hampstead, you
couldn't give it away for free with the purchase of a box of Cracker
Jack; and that if it were in Hillhaven or Old Sarum, you had about a
fifty-fifty chance of being able to give it away for free. What you
couldn't do was sell it. You couldn't even lease it, not since the
discovery of the fourth body and the suicides of all those children.

Graham Williams saw a For Sale sign on Evelyn Hughardt's lawn, but never
saw Ronnie or any other salesperson showing prospects around the
Hughardt house; instead he one day saw a moving van parked down at the
bottom of Beach Trail, and Evelyn Hughardt supervising the men carrying
her furniture out of her house. "You find a buyer, Evvy?" he asked.

She shook her head. "But I'm going back to Virginia anyhow. Hampstead
doesn't feel right to me anymore." She looked back at her house, where
she and Graham saw a man

326

Peter Straub

inside the front door packing up the framed cartoons. "Does that make
sense to you, Mr. Williams?" "Perfect sense," Graham agreed.

She was not alone, he knew. As in the Black Summer of

1873, many people were simply moving out. They decided to take their
vacations early, or they suddenly remembered that they had always wanted
their kids to see the Smoky Mountains or that these same kids hadn't
seen their grandparents in a year and a half. Now there was a vacant
house every couple of blocks, most of the time with a realtor's sign
before it, but sometimes not; Graham bet himself that by August there'd
be two or three vacant houses on every block. And that by then people
wouldn't care if they sold their houses or not-they'd just want to get away.

Evelyn Hughardt looked at him sharply, and he saw a pallor beneath her
honey-colored tan, and some indefinable expression at the back of her
eyes: an expression that should have been no part of a handsome woman
like Evelyn Hughardt. "I wonder what you know," she said.

He shook his head. "I think there's only one killer," he said,
pretending that this was what she had been alluding to. There were
people in Hampstead who claimed that Gary Starbuck had killed the first
two victims and a "copycat killer" the second two.

"That's not what I mean, Mr. Williams. Have you noticed that you never
see birds anymore in Hampstead, not live ones anyhow? They're all like
that." She pointed her foot at a bundle of feathers rolled into the
gutter across the street; ten feet from it was another dead bird. "And
you know what else you never see in this town anymore? Pets. There are
no more pets. The dogs all ran away or got run over, the cats just
vanished . . . maybe they all got run over too. What do you think?"

"It's a mystery, Evvy. I'd guess they just took off, being cats."

"And it makes perfect sense to you that I'm leaving the only house I
have. I'll say it again. I wonder what you know."

"One thing I know is that this happened once before- about a hundred
years ago, the town's population dropped by half."

"A hundred years ago," she said, sounding disgusted with

FLOATING DRAGON

327

him. "A hundred years ago, did people hear things they shouldn't?" He
beetled his eyebrows, wondering what she was getting to, and she said,
"Or see things they shouldn't? Let me fill you in, Mr. Williams. There
are people in this town who have sophisticated electronic equipment.
This equipment can be used to record voices, and then play them back by
remote control. The equipment can project voices and make them sound
like they are right in the next room, Mr. Williams. And I think they can
do this with pictures too, Mr. Williams-not just voices, but pictures!
Moving pictures. Projected right into your own bedroom! Doesn't that
sound like something our friends in Moscow would use on us, Mr. Williams?"

So Evvy Hughardt had absorbed her husband's politics and his view of the
Scribe of Beach Trail.

"I heard Dr. Hughardt talking to me," she said. "They're testing that
machinery on me, aren't they? I'm the guinea pig for their fancy
equipment. It sends out rays. Or beams, whatever you call them. Are you
one of their colonels? That's what they usually are, aren't they, the
high-ranking ones?"

Evelyn Hughardt had heard something, had thought that she had seen
something, and since then her mind had been chasing itself in obsessive
circles.

"You should have left the pets alone," she said, and turned and ran
toward her front door.

mass murder in Connecticut, ran the headline in the New York Post after
the fourth murder, and the New York Times asked, hampstead: the curse of
affluence?

It was this second article which Ted Wise and Bill Pierce, now far out
in the deep country at a Telpro installation in Montana, read on their
computer screens-Telpro paid for their access to the Times and to the
wire services, in order to sweeten their isolation. "We have to tell,"
Pierce said; and Wise agreed, but asked for more time-he didn't
understand the Times paragraph about the children who had drowned
themselves, for that seemed totally unrelated to the action of DRG-16.

Hampstead did feel cursed, and not just because its expensive real
estate had lost its value; what was happening to the J°wn seemed to some
like an almost biblical set of afflictions. The unease in Hampstead went
beyond the fear for safety or

328

Peter Straub

the paranoid suspiciousness of strangers people began to exhibit; it
became an unease of soul. The town seemed to be punishing itself, as if
the madman who had killed and butchered four people had been somehow
created by Hampstead's deepest, most secret impulses-as a judgment on
its values. Values, yes. The punishment was for wrong and distorted
values: and if the comfortably potbellied middle-aged men in the town's
pulpits played this wrinkled old card in the sermons on that Sunday,
they could look for justification no farther than the excellent,
sometimes great New York Times.

Residents of Hampstead not in the churches on Sunday, the twenty-second
of June, might have seen a camera crew rolling slowly up the middle of
Sawtell Road, relaying the memorized words of a CBS correspondent to a
studio in New York. Hampstead and its bizarre set of problems was the
cover story on Charles Kuralt's Sunday Morning. The correspondent, who
wore thick eyeglasses and an expression cornbining soulfulness and fret,
came out onto Sawtell Beach and looked soulfully, fretfully (and in fact
mistakenly) over his shoulder at the bright water. "This," he said, "is
where it ended for Thomas and Martin O'Hara and nine other children-here
on this gentle beach in this exclusive community. And up Bluefish Hill,
in a three-hundred-thousand-dollar house only a hundred yards from where
I stand, is where it ended for Hester Goodall, the second victim of this
community's mass murderer. Death is no respecter of persons, nor of the
place they hold in the world. And here in Hampstead, Connecticut, they
are wondering where it all went wrong: where the dream went sour."
Another glance out at the gently lapping water. "Back to you, Charles."

The day after the CBS reporter implied that Hampstead somehow deserved
its problems because it was rich, Sarah Spry was still in her office at
six o'clock, trying to write a Gazette article. Sarah would have called
this article a "think piece," and she intended it to show that she had
indeed been thinking hard. She had seen Sunday Morning-a program she
normally respected. Unfortunately, Sarah was having troubles in
bettering its hackneyed efforts-she had ideas of her own she

FLOATING DRAGON

329

wanted to get down on paper, but the usual effortless connection between
Sarah's mind and her typewriter was failing her now.

When she thought of a phrase-and it took more concentration than
phrase-making usually did-she rattled the keys of her typewriter and a
few minutes later saw that most of the words had sailed in from some
lunatic's mind: they were not at all what she had imagined she had been
typing. Her first paragraph read:

Have we nayamgam this Oregon ourselves? Such is thamm wisney of thup
medstar and checkout girls. Many will hack and hout about a plague,
quotinga the pometry flacked in the booty of gardenmaker Robert Fritz.
Hazzenwits redoubt and doubt again.

Sarah stared at these lines, at one moment seeing in them the sentences
she thought she had written, in the next seeing only the dreadful
macaroni she actually had typed. Sarah shook her head-it was as if her
eyes were cloudy. She tried again, and her fingers pounded out Now we
must swim against the currents of guilt which . . . Sarah peered at the
page.

Naked swimmers nakt swim gainst, say which

She jerked her fingers off the keys.

Sarah Henderson Spry had never thought of becoming a gossip columnist,
and although that was how most people would identify her, "What Sarah
Saw" was only a small portion of her duties at the Gazette. She edited
and did most of the layout for the paper's second section, she reviewed
art openings and all the plays at the Hampstead Playhouse and the
Theater in the Glen; and she still did some of the basic reporting which
had been her first job at the paper, back when Sarah Henderson had been
completing her second and last year at Patchin University. Reporting
then was all she had wanted to do, it had stirred her blood-finding out
how things worked. The Gazette had become her home, and she had never
wanted any more than it gave her.

Of course one of the things it gave her was her introduction to tragedy.
She had been twenty-five and still the youngest

330

Peter Straub

person on the staff in 1952 when she had been ordered out to Sawtell
Country Club to cover John Sayre's suicide. She took a camera and a
notepad, and when she got out onto the beach behind the club building,
Mr. Sayre's body was still there. Sarah had photographed the policemen,
the waiter who found the body, Bonnie Sayre and Graham Williams, and
then finally she had the stomach to photograph the dead lawyer. Joey
Kletzka, once known as "Nails" because for twenty years he'd worked as
much as a carpenter as a policeman, stood a short way down the beach
with his hands on his big . front porch of a belly and talked about some
boy named John Ray, a boy who had been washed up dead on this same spot
four days earlier. . . . Chief Kletzka was sixty-three then, in ; two
years he would be retired; in three, himself a suicide. John Sayre's
brains had been blown out the back of his head, and his face was black
with powder burns. Sarah took the picture because her editor demanded
it, but she didn't ever want to look at it. She went around the body to
talk to Bonnie ; Sayre, who instead folded into the arms of Graham
Williams. It had been a hot moist night. Under Williams' sleeves had
been large scoops of perspiration. "Not now, Sarah," he had < said
gently, winning her respect. Then he had won her affec- \ tion by
saying, "Tomorrow we'll probably be going to John's office. Maybe you
could meet us there. Bonnie is in no con- :- dition to say anything
now." And so she had gone to the office, and she too had seen those
names scratched into the telephone pad. Prince Green, Bates Krell. \

As her job on the newspaper had grown, so had her role in 1 Patchin
County-Sarah was single-minded, but serially singleminded about many
tasks. When her job at the Gazette was done, she had no qualms about
chairing meetings of professional women, about organizing groups and
seminars for women in newspaper and magazine work, about buzzing off to
fund-raising parties and charity balls ... in fact, nearly thirty years
after she had tried to photograph John Sayre's body without really
looking at it, Sarah was a nearly indispensable part of social and
professional life in Patchin County.

Sarah pushed herself away from the typewriter, squinted i| again at the
gibberish she had written, and shuddered. Naked jfl swimmers-those words
again, typed out as if by themselves. 9 She saw the little O'Hara boys
as she had known them, |j|

FLOATING DRAGON

331

Thomas smiling and baby Martin scowling, being serious about some Star
Wars invention, and quickly went to another desk in the Gazette office.
She pulled out a legal pad and a pencil from the top drawer.

"Good night now, Mrs. Spry," said Larry, the pressman, as he walked by.
Larry rattled his bundle of keys at her. "You're the last one, now-be
sure you lock up."

"I won't forget, Larry," she said. "Good night."

Larry went out the front door onto Main Street and Sarah faced the empty
office and tapped the pencil against the strange desk. Something had
happened to her-something had happened to the whole town, but the
disability which had visited her could be the instrument that led her to
define what had actually hit Hampstead. Muddled writing, she wrote on
the pad, or hoped she did. Like dyslexia. What could cause it? Other
symptoms: stuffy sensations in head, ringing in ears-one spell of double
vision. Tiredness. A disease cornmon to entire town, causing brain
disorders?

Sunspots?

Nuclear waste-radiation sickness?

Chemical dumping?

A chemical spill, perhaps result of road accident?

She looked over the list she had made on the legal pad, nodded her head,
drew two thick lines beneath it, and started another column.

What about earlier history-history of town.

Previous mass murders. Any?

Previous child suicides-any?

Need conjunctions. Items that provide context for m.m. or cs.

Sarah held the legal pad up close to her face and scrutinized every word
she had written. For "mass murders" she had put down "mace murders." She
corrected the phrase. All the rest was what she thought she had written:
which seemed to prove that writing by hand and writing more slowly for
the most part bypassed the problem.

She decided to spend some time investigating her second set of ideas,
and this was characteristic of her: if something upsetting had happened
to her writing, she would concentrate on something else until the
writing settled down again. She would take a closer look at things: that
was the motto of her We. And tonight she was lucky, for the newspaper
that em-

332

Peter Straub

ployed her had been publishing in Hampstead since 1875- before that
there had been a two-page folder, and before that a one-page broadside.
(For two years, 1873 and 1874, there had been no newspaper of any kind
in Hampstead, though Sarah did not know this.) The earliest issues up
through the issue for January 3, 1965, had been put on microfilm, and in

1968 an old compositor named Bill Bixbee had made it his private project
to create a giant handwritten index for every issue of the Gazette.
Bixbee had worked nights, weekends, and holidays, and probably the
project had lengthened his life-after he had retired as compositor, he
had still come into the office every day to work on his index. He had
taken enormous pride in what he was creating: Sarah could remember him
saying that there was more of Hampstead in his index than she or Stan
Brockett would ever know, in fact there was more of Hampstead in the
index than there had been in the Gazette itself.

Now there were two copies of Bixbee's index, one up in Hillhaven at the
Patchin Historical Society, and the other back in the newspaper's
records room, on a shelf above the microfilm viewer.

The index was known as "Bixbee" in the office. If a reporter doing
research for an article on marshland preservation wanted to know how the
town's attitude toward its wetlands had evolved, Brockett would tell him
to "look it up in 'Bixbee.'" The old compositor had earned his
justification.

Sarah went into the records office at the back of the building, switched
on the light, and took heavy "Bixbee" off its shelf. She lowered it to
the counter beside the viewer and flipped it open, and then paged
through until she got to M. Then she turned several more pages, looking
down the headings column for "Murder."

When she found the heading column, she looked under it at the entry
column. This at first seemed longer than she had expected, but then
Sarah noticed that most of the articles were grouped around a series of
three dates. The first of these was in 1898, the second burst of
articles was from the autumn of

1924, and the third set of articles was grouped in September of 1952.

Well, that must have been one of Bill Bixbee's famous "contributions" to
the town, for there had been no murders in Hampstead in 1952. Sometimes
the old compositor had used his index to draw conclusions that the
newspaper never

FLOATING DRAGON

333

had. If you looked under "Funds, misappropriation of," for example, one
of the entries directed you to an otherwise straightforward article
about the widening of Highway 7 and the huge sum of money this
construction was costing the town. Another entry took you to a factual
piece of reportage about the construction of the bleachers on the
softball field on Rex Road. The same contractor's name appears in both
articles, along with a mention of his being the cousin of a prominent
selectman. Another entry points you toward a story about the selectman's
recent purchase of a three-hundredthousand-dollar house. It was in this
indirect sort of comment that "Bixbee" contained more of Hampstead than
the newspaper itself.

Sarah took out the first spool of microfilm and threaded it into the
viewer. She wound it up until she saw the first page of the first issue
of the Hampstead Gazette, tightened down the focus so she could read the
dates without squinting, and turned the pages past the viewer until she
came to 1898.

HAMPSTEAD MAN CHARGED WITH WOODVILLE DEATH, She

read in the issue specified in "Bixbee." Three issues later,

SECRET LIFE OF GREEN: DISSIPATION AFTER SEMINARY. SlX

months later, green convicted. The implication running through these
articles was that Robertson Green had cornmitted all the murders of
prostitutes in Norrington and Woodville.

The next article concerned a farmer on the Old Sarum border who had
killed his wife with an ax. Sarah did not make notes about this case,
but switched spools of microfilm and ran the new spool past the viewer.
Now she was in the summer of 1924, and the Gazette had become larger and
easier to read. There were still advertisements on the front page, but
there were graphics too.

In the issues Bixbee had indexed, the first pages of the Gazette showed
photographs and drawings of women-three women, each of them found dead
in the marshland on the west side of the Nowhatan River in the first
weeks of that summer, wave of death continues, read the tall black
headline for the issue of June 21, 1924. another victim? inquired the
headline for July 10-beneath was a photograph °f a woman named as Mrs.
Dell Claybrook. Mrs. Claybrook had vanished from her home sometime
during the evening of July 8. and yet another? asked the Gazette on July
21, °ver a drawing of the pert, snub-nosed face of Mrs. Arthur

334

Peter Straub

Fletcher, who had disappeared from her home while her hus- |

band tended to his bond business in New York, the sixth |

victim? the Gazette asked its readers on August 9. Mrs. J

Claybrook and Mrs. Fletcher were still missing, and a Mr. |

Horace West had returned home from a business trip to the I

mills in Fall River to find his wife, Daisy, inexplicably miss- 1

ing. Two days later, Daisy West still absent, Mr. West had I

gone himself to the police station and confronted Chief I

Kletzka. Chief Kletzka had found it necessary to use physical I

restraints on the agitated Mr. West. Neither man had sworn I

out a complaint against the other. 1

Another entry was utterly puzzling, for it had nothing at all §

to do with murder. It was a small item on page sixteen about 1

the impounding of a fishing boat belonging to a Mr. Bates |

Krell. Mr. Krell had apparently left Hampstead abruptly: be- 1

fore his creditors could have him jailed, the article seemed to §

imply. I

Bates Krell? Sarah thought. Now, where . . . ? 1

Was Bixbee implying that Krell had been the last victim of 1

the unidentified 1924 murderer? Sarah thought he was, but 1

she still could not have said why the fisherman's name M

seemed familiar to her. m

When Sarah turned the next spool of microfilm to the is- li

sues Bixbee specified for 1952, she found herself looking at j

the first important story she had ever written for the Gazette. 1

john sayre takes own life. Here were two of the photo- M

graphs she had taken on that wretched day: Bonnie Sayre cry-

ing into the gloved palm of her hand, the rear of the country m

club and its little stretch of well-mannered beach. m

Yes, but murder? No doubt under "Suicide" Bixbee had a |l

long set of entries-why did he list this obvious case under fl

"Murder"? No one had ever suggested that anyone but John 9

Sayre had taken his life. On impulse, she leafed through Bix- m

bee to "Suicide" and checked the date-yes, there it prop- fl

erly was. m

Sarah looked at her notes. On the far left side of the yellow

page, separate from her more detailed observations, she had M

written: M

1898, R. Green 1

1924, second mass killings m

(B. Krell vanishes) 1

Now she added:

FLOATING DRAGON

1952, J. Sayre (?)

335

And beneath it put:

1980, Friedgood, Goodall, et al.

And looking at these jottings, she remembered: she remembered standing
in John Sayre's office while his wife and his secretary wept with their
arms around each other; remembered going to the lawyer's desk with
Graham Williams and seeing with him the two names scratched in the
notepad. Prince Green, Bates Krell. Had she told old Bixbee, and asked
him about the names? Sarah could not remember-but Bixbee had put them
all together in his index. A killer of prostitutes, a fisherman who had
run out of town (or been killed), a respected lawyer. What could
possibly be the link between them? And between them and what was going
on in Hampstead in 1980?

Sarah drew circles around the names and dates, then sat up straight in
her chair before the microfilm viewer. She had seen that there was
roughly thirty years between each of these incidents. With the exception
of the period 1950-52, there had been a series of murders in Hampstead
every thirty years. No, she caught herself-Robertson Green's killings
had been done in Norrington. Killings, then, in or around Hampstead,
once in every generation. . . .

The Gazette office suddenly seemed dark and cold to Sarah. She switched
off the viewer. Already she knew that if she looked back into the
records she would find the pattern repeating and repeating itself, going
back as far as the records themselves went . . . and before that, in a
time when man did not inhabit the Connecticut coast, did the animals
insanely attack and kill one another, bear against bear and wolf against
wolf, every thirty years?

Sarah wanted to hide: that was her first, instinctive response to what
she thought she had discovered. She felt like turning off all the lights
and crouching in a corner until it was safe to come out again. Being
Sarah, instead of that she reached for the telephone.

336

Peter Straub

3

At the same time that Sarah Spry was reaching for her telephone-just
after seven o'clock-a man unseasonably dressed in an overcoat and tweed
hat ducked out of a porno theater on West Forty-second Street in New
York. The man looked both ways and then continued east on the street,
going toward the Avenue of the Americas. His hands were thrust deep in
the pockets of the overcoat, but a flash of white from beneath a
rucked-up sleeve showed that his hands and arms were bandaged, as was
his face. When he thought that one of the street's regulars-one of the
threatening men who spend all day on Forty-second Street-seemed to be
paying too much attention to him, he slipped past a teenage girl with
peroxided hair and tight satin shorts who whispered, "Wanna go out?
Wanna go out?" and entered another building that had once been a movie
theater.

In most towns or cities, a gentleman bandaged up like Claude Rains in
The Invisible Man and wearing an overcoat and hat in the middle of June
might reasonably attract a sort of following; in most towns and cities,
there would be stares and questions, there would be gasps and pointing
fingers. This, however, was Forty-second Street, and most of those who
saw Leo Friedgood in pursuit of sexual satisfaction assumed that he was
just another lunatic. A man named Grover Spelvin leaning against a
marquee saw Leo dart into the converted theater and nudged the nodding
man next to him, saying, "Hey, Junior, you just missed the Mummy, man."

"Fuh," Junior commented.

Leo, who was now what people in Patchin County would learn to call a
"leaker," knew that his foray into the sleaziest neighborhood in New
York was dangerous, but had correctly assumed that if he looked weird
and confident, he would be reasonably safe; to look weird and weak would
be to invite attack. Of course he was still in danger-anything that
split his web of bandages would kill him-and that made him more furtive
than he would have been otherwise, but Leo's arrogance was still his
best armor. He assumed here especially that if you could pay for what
you wanted, it was yours.

But besides all that, he simply could not stay away. Leo

FLOATING DRAGON

337

Friedgood had always been a voyeur. For the most intense sexual
pleasure, Leo had to see or imagine other people making love: when he
made love to Stony, he had fantasized about the other men he had
encouraged her to meet. The encouragement had been subtle-Leo had never
directly spoken to Stony about the other men-but it had been pervasive.
After Stony's death, Leo had imagined that his sexual life was dead too.
He could still feel the humiliation that Turtle Turk had caused him, and
that humiliation seemed the tombstone set upon his sex life. The
discovery of the white spots on his body and their slow but inexorable
growth should also have contributed to the end of Leo's desire-but
oddly, perversely, the more the white spots covered of his body, the
more obsessively he thought about sex. He could not perform anymore, but
performance had always been of secondary importance to Leo. Leo had cut
himself off from Telpro and General Haugejas-no one at Telpro knew what
had happened to him-but in the end it had become impossible for him to
cut himself away from his deepest fantasies. And these had led him back
to Forty-second Street.

Leo went unnoticed past a row of booths showing reels of pornographic
films for a quarter every two-minute segment, shoved a five-dollar bill
at a bald man in a cage who did a double-take at Leo's bandages but
pushed across five dollars in quarters. Then Leo ducked into a cubicle
and spent a dollar watching four high-school girls rape a skinny
dark-haired man with a pronounced curve in his penis. Then he left the
booth and went to the back of the old theater and beneath an arch
reading naked live girls 250. A row of doors like lockers stood closed
in a hemisphere. Leo opened a door above which there was no red light,
stepped into blackness, and inserted a quarter into a slot before him. A
window in the front of his cubicle was gradually revealed as a black
metal plate ascended.

Leo was looking into a round well-lighted space with a fake tiger rug on
the floor and a ripped plastic-covered sofa at the far right end. Across
from him was a series of windows like his, about half of them exposed by
the raising of their own metal plates. Visible in these exposed windows
were men's faces as vivid as portraits from hell-tinted sizzling red-all
turned to the body of the woman dancing to a Bruce Springsteen tape in
the middle of the round space. She was a

338

Peter Straub

beautiful little Puerto Rican girl, Leo saw when she gyrated around and
lifted her bush toward his window, no more than seventeen. A black man
in a window across from Leo's grinned crazily and waggled his tongue at
the naked girl. The girl looked in Leo's window and did not miss a hitch
of her hips after noticing his bandages; her reflective, almost pouting
face did not alter in the least. Not a furrow appeared in her sweet
forehead, not a trace of interest in her huge quiet eyes. Her right
shoulder rolled back, the right hand rose, a small | brown breast rolled
back too, and a molded hip revolved and ( spun the perfect little body
around. Leo feasted on her lithe I back, earthy bottom, and the graceful
backs of her thighs. | When the metal plate began to descend over his
window, he ^ quickly put another quarter in the slot.

The girl was moving lazily around the circle of windows, bending
backward as if she were trying to limbo beneath a bar. Leo was breathing
slowly, half in a trance: he was imagining this girl, obviously a hooker
and probably a junkie, be- & neath a succession of men, twining and
untwining, pumping I that round little bottom, locking those molded legs
around 1 one man after another. Leo could take this only for the dura- ^
tion of another quarter, and by then the little Puerto Rican teenager
was putting on a robe and a tall Dust Bowl redhead with stretch marks
had begun to snap her fingers and move before the windows. Leo pulled
his hat farther down on his bandages, turned up the collar of his
overcoat, and went back out past the rows of booths.

"Sex show, sex show," a black man whispered to him as he left the
building and turned west.

Well, that was just what he had in mind, but the real thing, not a hasty
facsimile. Leo hurried down the street, now and then hearing a black
voice behind him calling out Mummy, hey Mummy babes. He was going to a
club he knew just up from Seventh Avenue. This "club" was a place he had
discovered in 1975, the year the Friedgoods had moved east-it consisted
chiefly of two rooms with a pane of one-way glass between them, and it
catered to people who shared Leo's tastes. I

"Shit, he ain't no Mummy," Junior Bangs said to Grover Spelvin as they
watched Leo's form disappear up a stairway ; just inside a door next to
a theater showing horror pictures twenty-four hours a day. "That
mother's goin' up to the LookShow. Fuh. He ain't no Mummy-ain't no real
Mummy."

FLOATING DRAGON

339

"We'll see him when he drags his dick downstairs, Junior," said Grover,
putting his hands in the pockets of his frayed jeans and preparing to wait.

Leo was at the top of the stairs. He opened a door marked ez studios,
and a black girl with a blond wig smiled at him and said, "Have you been
to our club before?"

Leo nodded.

"You get burned?" the girl asked. "I mean, I had a friend, and she got
all messed up. Wore them bandages for two months straight. Uh, that's
thirty-five dollars."

Leo extracted bills from his coat pocket and counted the money onto the
desk.

"Fine," the girl said. She showed him an acre of gleaming pink gum,
stood up and led him through a door where half a dozen middle-aged men,
some in jeans and sweatshirts and others in suits, sat on metal chairs
in front of a six-foot-square window. Rock music was piped in, but all
the men seemed to be consciously ignoring it. On the other side of the
window was a smaller room where a rumpled bed stood on a bare floor. The
girl pressed a button in the wall and said, "The performance is
beginning, gentlemen. Each performance lasts fifteen minutes. If you
stay through to the next performance, a second payment will be
collected. If you stay, you must pay."

A young white woman and a large black man padded into the room. They
immediately climbed on the bed, and Leo felt disappointed: when he had
come here five years before, the couple-both white-had fondled and
kissed each other for a long time before getting into bed. The man in
the bedroom now seemed bored and angry. He squeezed the girl's ass,
rolled her on top of him. She moved up and down on his massive body,
pretending to get excited. The man never even obtained an erection-he
was too bored and hostile even to take the minimal steps required to
conceal his flopping penis.

A few minutes later, the girl pretended an orgasm. She immediately left
the bed and went out of the frame of the window, to wait, Leo thought,
for the next ringing of the buzzer. After a few seconds the man also
left the bed.

Leo was seething-five years before, the act had been real, not feigned.
He felt as though his money had been stolen.

A little ratlike man next to him in a pinched felt hat was looking at
him oddly-fearfully, because of the bandages, out almost sympathetically
too. "I know," this little man said

340

Peter Straub

to Leo. "It ain't real no more-they got busted a couple times and now
this stuff is all they do. But if you wanna see the real thing, I can
set it up for you. A hundred." He was bending close to Leo, and when the
black girl with the enormous gums and the blond wig came in again, he
whispered, "Follow me. You got the hundred?"

Leo nodded, and the man darted ahead of him down the stairs. When Leo
reached the street, the man was jittering on the sidewalk, a flattened
cigarette stuck to his lip. He was in his sixties, a decayed little
entrepreneur in his thin plaid shirt and felt hat. "Eighth Avenue," the
man said around his cigarette, and began jerkily to move down the street.

"The Mummy is movin'," Grover Spelvin said to Junior Bangs, and they
began to amble westward after Leo and the entrepreneur.

. "Yeah, but he's movin' with Cockroach Al," Junior said. "He ain't no
Mummy. Cockroach Al gonna take him to that shrimpy little Mona Minnesota
and that crazy fucker Dog. I ain't gonna mess with that fucker."

"Mummy goin' come out again too," Grover pointed out.

"Come out a poor man," Junior said.

Ahead of them, Cockroach Al led Leo Friedgood across Eighth Avenue and
then into the lobby of a great gray pile of bricks called the Hotel
Spellman. A clerk deliberately looked away, and Al took Leo up the dark
stairs to the third floor. "The money," he said, jittering outside a door.

Leo counted out a hundred dollars from the overcoat pocket and placed
the money in the man's shaking hands. "Okay, i okay. I'll knock, we'll
both go in, I'll leave, right? This is the I real thing. You'll get what
you want, mister. Straight up." ! The man darted a quick, nervous look
at Leo's bandaged j face, then knocked twice on the door. |

. A man with bulging bicep muscles covered with vivid tat- f toos opened
the door. He wore only white cotton underpants, I and as he stepped back
to let them into the tiny, foul-smelling I room, prominent muscles
jumped and subsided in his calves I and thighs. He was nodding, as if to
music only he could I hear. The man's blond hair was almost shaved off
in places, 1 in others was about an inch long; he had cut it himself
with-1 out a mirror. "You get paid, Al?" he said in a slow Mid- 1
western voice. I

"Sure, Dog," Al said, his head bobbing.

FLOATING DRAGON

341

Dog looked Leo over and grinned. "Jeesus H. Christ. Lookit this guy.
He's real different."

Leo edged away from Dog and saw a thin drowsy-looking girl staring
listlessly up at him from a rumpled bed. She too was blond, and her
frizzy hair folded away from her face, as rumpled as the sheet over her
body.

"I'll see ya later," Al said, and backed out of the room.

Dog was still staring at Leo, shaking his head in disbelief, moving
around him in wide circles. Leo had begun to get nervous when Dog said,
"Can you talk? Can you talk through that stuff?"

"Yes," Leo said. "Please. I paid."

"Okey-doke," Dog said, throwing his hands up-lines of muscle leaped out
of his arms. "What you wanna see, especially? Anything special? We'll do
anything you like."

"Just get on the bed with the girl," Leo said.

"Sure, man, I'll get on the bed with the girl. Anything you say,
tourist." Dog pushed the underpants down over his buttocks, and Leo saw
that the tattoos ended at the man's waistline. "You siddown over there,
you get the best view," Dog said, pointing at a chair about four feet
from the bed.

Leo finally realized what the apartment's smell reminded him of-chicken
soup. He sat on the wooden chair and watched Dog lift the sheet off the
passive girl. Dog was already tumescent. The girl's body was childlike
except for her large breasts, which spilled sideways off her chest. Dog
knelt between the girl's open legs.

Directly before Leo on the bottom sheet was a brown stain the shape of
the state of California.

Leo began to groan as Dog pounded toward his climax: this was real, this
was what he had been denied in the club, and as Dog shuddered over the
girl's limp body, Leo gasped and trembled.

"Okay, man," Dog said, pulling himself out and sitting up on the bed.
"That's what you paid for. Right? You got what you paid for, right?"

Leo nodded, standing up.

"Well, they give us tips, man," Dog said, moving off the bed. The girl
was still staring at Leo, and her mouth was open. Dog put himself
between the door and Leo. "We sort of appreciate tips, see."

"Of course," Leo said through the hole in his bandages.

342

Peter Straub

He pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket and passed it to Dog.

"You're real different," Dog said. "Hey, you want Mona now? Lotsa these
guys do. Another fifty, you can do anything you want with her. Mona'll
suck your bandages, man, suck 'em right off." He reached out and gave
Leo's chest a hard tap.

Leo groaned, and Dog took a step backward, holding his hand up as if it
had been burned. Heavy brutal lines had appeared in his face. "What the
fuck are you made of, man?" Dog's entire face had changed, become leaden
and suspicious. "Jesus, man." He looked over his shoulder at the girl.
"Jesus, Mona, look at this guy's coat. Look at your coat, man."

Leo was breathing hard, experiencing a dreadful loose sensation in his
chest. The front of his coat had a large dark spreading stain. "Leave me
alone," Leo said frantically. "Don't touch me. Just let me get out of here."

Dog stepped toward him with his face bunched up and his eyes contracted
so tightly they seemed to have no pupils at all-Leo threw his hands up.
Dog dented his jaw with a short left jab, and then hit Leo hard in the
temple with his right fist. :

The bandages around Leo's head flew apart. White froth i scattered
across the room like blown suds. Leo toppled to the floor and the frothy
white substance poured out of the wrecked bandages. In ten minutes Leo
Friedgood was an arrangement of wet clothes, shiny bone, and a damp
spaghetti of bandages in a pool of slime. He had been carrying only
cash, which Dog removed from his coat pocket.

Leo Friedgood had just disappeared completely from the world.

Thirty minutes later, Grover Spelvin and Junior Bangs saw Dog and Mona
Minnesota coming down the front steps of the Hotel Spellman. The two men
had been leaning on a lamppost across the wide street, and as Dog's
thick body sidled around the door, Grover straightened up smartly and
punched Junior Bangs in the side. "It's them," he said. "Come on,
Mummy." Mona Minnesota slouched out into the hot sun after Dog and
trotted after him down the steps. Both Dog and Mona were carrying brown
paper bags bearing large irregular stains.

Grover and Junior crossed the street against the light and began
following Dog and Mona south on Eighth Avenue.

FLOATING DRAGON

343

"Where's the damn Mummy?" Junior asked. "We been waitin' all day, now
where the hell is he?"

Dog stuffed his paper bag into a trash container and waited while Mona
put her bag in on top of his. Then they continued at a slower pace down
the avenue, looking, as both Grover and Junior instantly recognized,
like a young couple out to buy a serious quantity of drugs.

"Shit," said Grover.

"God damn," said Junior.

"Ain't no more Mummy," Grover said. "Dog done took him out."

The two men approached the waste bin where the two bags sat like
ornaments on a hat. Junior Bangs delicately plucked at the lip of Mona's
bag and peered in. Then he giggled; when he saw how Grover was looking
at him, he let out a great roaring laugh. "Grover," he said, bending
over with his laughter, "Dog drownded the Mummy. He drownded him in
shaving soap. Haw haw!"

Grover Spelvin gloomily hooked a finger into the bag. He peered in. Then
he shook his head. "That ain't shaving soap," he said. "That is the
Mummy. God damn. You know what?" He turned to Junior with something like
a sense of wonder on his broad face. "Dog took him out all right, but
that dude was the real Mummy. Like in the old movies."

"Fuckin' Dog," Junior said, shaking his head.

"Inside those bandages he was all juice and bones," Grover said. "The
real Mummy. God damn."

"The Mummy," Junior said.

"I wonder how much money he had," Grover mused.

"I'm so glad you're willing to help," Sarah Spry told Ulick Byrne that
night. "You know, I've never needed help of this sort before-used to
doing things by myself."

"I know, I know," the lawyer said. "I'm the same way. But we're friends,
Sarah. And I guess this is something you don't want Brockett and the
other people at the Gazette to latch on to before you're ready for them."

"Exactly. I'm just working on a hunch, Ulick. Brockett would think I was
crazy. So if you can, you know, just look mto the records for me and see
if there were any industrial

344

Peter Straub

accidents, anything like that, in our vicinity in the past six weeks to
two months. If there hasn't been anything, maybe you could check on
sunspot activity for me. I'll be working on another line, and of course
I'll share anything I find with you. Things are going too crazy around
here."

But that was scarcely news to Ulick Byrne. During the past week or two,
half of his clients seemed to have bloomed into full-fledged psychosis.
In fact, so many things had gone wrong that Ulick Byrne himself thought
he was probably going crazy. The O'Haras of course had a reason for
their present instability; and perhaps the Johnsons did too-their four
purebred Lhasa Apsos had all run out together and been pureed by the
wheels of a Druze Cement Company truck. But another of his clients had
actually jogged herself to death. Forty pounds overweight, she had never
done anything more strenuous than pick up the remote-control device for
her television set. Then one morning she was up running down Sawtell
Road before breakfast, and she would not stop even when her husband
cruised along beside her in his BMW, pleading with her to come inside.
Half an hour later, after three solid hours of jogging, her leg muscles
had given out and so had her heart.

In fact, Ulick Byrne thought, if you took a look at what his clients had
been up to lately, you had a better picture of wha was happening to
Hampstead than you wanted-because n< one would want to get so close
to'all that madness. Beside: Jane Anderson jogging herself into a heart
attack on Sawtel Road, there was George Klopnik, an accountant with a
firm ii Woodville-George, Ulick knew, was about as successful as i
Woodville accountant could be without actually being a part ner. Yet
George had entered Ulick Byrne's office with a glinting, warped look in
his eye and a conviction that he should sue the government of the United
States: for giving him false expectations. George was convinced that in
the case of Klopnik vs. the U.S. a jury of his peers would award him
twenty million dollars in punitive damages. Ulick had gotten him out of
the office only by promising to look up the precedents on cases on false
expectations. Even worse than George was Rogers Thornton, the patrician
head of a large furniture-importing business. Thornton had the silver
hair, the pinstriped suits, and the wonderful manners appropriate to a
house on Mount Avenue and the presidency of a successful company; he had
also, in the afternoon of Tuesday, the seventeenth of June,

FLOATING DRAGON

345

come up to a pretty high-school girl standing outside of Anhalt's on
Main Street and said, "I am the possessor of a particularly beautiful
whanger. Would you care to see it?" Now Thornton was out on bail, but
the girl's parents wanted him put away for life if they couldn't get him
castrated, and Thornton was serenely unaffected by all the fuss. "You
don't understand, Mr. Byrne," he had told Ulick. "I really am the
possessor of a particularly beautiful whanger. Surely that will count in
my favor?"

And we cannot leave Ulick Byrne's tribulations without mentioning Maggie
Nelligan of Revolutionary Circle, who with her friend Kathryn Hoskins of
Gravesend Avenue had gone into Bloomingdale's in Manhattan one morning
and ordered a hundred and seventy thousand dollars' worth of goods in
the fur department. Mrs. Nelligan and Mrs. Hoskins had been requested to
have a chat with the fur-department manager in his office, which they
happily agreed to do. When the manager asked how the ladies intended to
pay for the furs the ladies grew indignant. Surely the manager knew her,
Mrs. Nelligan protested. Surely he knew her name? The manager regretted
that he did not, but if she would be so kind as to refresh his memory .
. .? "Why, I own this store," said Maggie Nelligan. "I would have
thought that you'd know that." "And I own it too," said Kathryn Hoskins.
"We both own it." Maggie Nelligan nodded vociferously. "Now we'll have
our furs, please," she said. In the end there had been shouting,
blows-the poor fur-department manager required stitches-and the police
had been summoned. A very grumpy Maggie Nelligan and Kathryn Hoskins had
been charged with assault and attempted larceny and locked up in a cell.
Mr. Paul Nelligan had called Ulick Byrne the next day.

Also, there were the signs of disorder that Byrne had seen around the
town ... the garbagemen hadn't come to his house for a week straight,
and then they showed up twice on the same day, grinning like lunatics;
the taxi driver who had taken him from the station to his house on
Redcoat Grove late Friday night had managed to get lost, though he'd
taken Byrne home at least twice before; a girl working the register at
Greenblatt's had tried to charge him six times for the same veal roast
and had broken down in great whooping sobs when he protested; and he was
sure he had seen through his office windows an old woman furtively
eating dirt and grass from °ne of the big planters in the building's
parking lot. And

346

Peter Straub

didn't there seem to be more fights than ever before, shorter tempers?
In that same parking lot two days before, he had watched a pair of
high-school boys slug each other halfsenseless. . . .

Helping Sarah, he thought, might also help take his mind off these things.

He called her back two days later: his research had turned up only one
item. "And I'm not sure it fits into the pattern you're trying to build,
Sarah. But here it is anyway, just to show you I believe in the cause-on
the seventeenth of May a couple of guys died in an accident at a
chemical plant in Woodville. Woodville Solvent, to be precise. The
reports all indicated that the men died of carbon-monoxide poisoning."

"Humpf," Sarah said. "Not much help there. I was hoping there'd have
been some big spill, maybe on the highway ... but wait a second. That
was on the seventeenth? That's our day. That is our day. Mrs. Friedgood
was killed on the seventeenth of May. And I'll tell you something else
that happened then, there was a terrible smashup on the highway that
killed eight people. Doesn't it look like we might just be stretching
the bounds of coincidence here, Ulick?"

"Jesus, I have a terrible headache," Byrne said. "But yeah, I agree with
you. Because-"

"And just look at the eighteenth," Sarah said, her voice rising. "Do you
remember what happened on the eighteenth?, Ulick? Five people dropped
dead. It's all in the Gazette. We were all so wrapped up with that
terrible murder that we never stopped to think there might have been
any| connection. But you know, it's really too early for me tol bother
anyone else with my nutty ideas about all this, but O think there might
be some kind of pattern." I

"Well, that's in line with what I was going to say," Byrne told her.
"I'm damned if I can tell you what it is. But, Sarah, what I was going
to say is, I think there might be some kind of pattern because of Leo
Friedgood."

"The husband," Sarah said.

"Right. Leo Friedgood is some kind of officer of the Telpro Corporation.
They're heavily into defense work, along with lots of other stuff. Well,
Telpro owned Woodville Solvent-I did part of the paperwork on the
transfer. They didn't want a Woodville attorney involved."

FLOATING DRAGON

347

"Well, we're onto something, but I don't know what," Sarah said.

"Let's find this Friedgood and talk to him." "And then I'll try out some
of my funny ideas on you." "I could use a good laugh," Byrne said. "All
my respectable clients seem to want to end up behind bars."

When Richard Allbee arrived home on that Tuesday, Laura opened the front
door for him: he dropped his suitcases on the floor and hugged her until
she said she couldn't breathe. Then he stepped backward and, still
holding her shoulders, looked at her. Her face was glowing, her hair
clean and soft, her belly somehow visibly larger: a dozen comball
remarks about Grecian vases formed in his mind, but all he said was,
"God, did I miss you. You look so good."

That night he told her all about Morris Stryker and the house on College
Street-about the endless meals in secondrate restaurants, the shifty men
consulting with Stryker, Stryker's rejection of his plans, how he had
almost run down the client in order to escape him. "That means our
income is effectively cut in half," Richard told her. "But I don't want
you to worry about that. Something will happen. I know it will."

"I'm even surer of that than you," Laura said. "I bet you that in two
years, at the most three years, you'll have so much work that you'll be
turning down some clients. Trust me. I have a crystal ball."

And it was true that though the Allbees had less cash in their pockets,
they survived each month's deluge of bills all during that summer and
fall. During this time, with Richard working just up the road in
Hillhaven, they became closer than they had ever been. One day a week,
even as Laura's pregnancy developed, they went to New York and wandered
through galleries and museums-and this exposure to Manhattan, as well as
the healthy growth of her baby, melted away Laura's depression at
leaving London. They agreed that when Richard's business would allow
them to spend more money, they would rent a small apartment somewhere on
the West Side to use on the weekends.

348

Peter Straub

On the September night that the baby was delivered, Richard stood beside
the bed and said the helpless but encouraging things fathers say:
"You're doing a great job, darling. Now it's going to be time to push
again. That's it: push, keep pushing, keep pushing, really push now.
That was wonderful, Laura." He was babbling, too excited and too proud
of Laura to really remember the lessons they had taken. What most
impressed Richard about the process of birth was the courage, even the
heroism of women-he thought that if men had babies, there would be a lot
fewer people.

After ten hours of labor, Lump was born in Norrington Hospital on
September thirtieth, weighing seven pounds one ounce, twenty-three
inches long, normal and healthy in every aspect, and female-as Richard
had known she would be. The following day, Richard and Laura decided to
name her Philippa, for no reason other than that they both liked it.
"Philippa?" asked the nursery nurse, a big good-natured black woman with
a thick wiry corolla of hair. "Whatever happened to good old normal
names like Mary and Susan? Seems like nobody uses those anymore." Four
days later the Allbees took their daughter home to the lovely new house
on Beach Trail. Richard had managed to decorate the room they had chosen
as the nursery, but in much of the rest of the house the walls were
unfinished and exposed pipes rattled against plaster surrounds and
junction boxes sat like spiders in the centers of immense metal webs. It
was as Richard had explained to Laura years before: the restorer's house
was always the last to get restored. "I'm glad you're not an
obstetrician," Laura said. j

As Philippa grew, she resembled Laura-her hair was that j same delicate
watercolor shade of red-much more than ] Richard, and from the start,
this sweet, sober, questioning \ child owned her father's heart. Richard
and Laura never tried i to have another child; Philippa seemed to take
so much love from them, and to create as much as she took, and the
Allbees never seriously considered filling a void they could not see or
feel. When Philippa was five, they enrolled her in the Greenbank Academy.

By then their house was restored, and Laura's prediction had come true,
though a year or two later than scheduled: \ Richard had offers of so
much work that he could only take .J half of it. By now they were
thinking seriously about that

FLOATING DRAGON

349

apartment in New York, the more so since Laura knew that she wanted to
look for a job when Philippa was a few years older.

When Philippa was in the fifth grade, Laura began interviewing for jobs
on magazines, with publishers of all descriptions . . . and in six
months she had found a job as an assistant editor with a paperback company.

Laura flourished in this job, but the Allbees' marriage became shakier
than at any time since their move back to America. As Laura became more
experienced with publishing, Richard could not help his resentment over
how much time she spent away from the house, away from him: he had to
accept that Laura's job had become almost as important in her life as
her marriage. The Allbees fought and strained with and against each
other for eighteen wretched months.

By the time that Philippa went off to Brown University (Richard drove
her up to Providence, and looked up Morris Stryker in the telephone book
while he was in Providence, expecting not to find him, and did
not-either dead or unlisted), Laura had been named editorial director at
Pocket Books; and Richard had become more successful than he considered
he had any right to be. He spoke at convocations and symposia around the
world, he and Laura had made many trips back to London, and he had an
office in New York as well as one in Hampstead. He employed two young
architects passionately interested in restoration work (and one of them,
he thought, seemed as passionately interested in Philippa). In
Philippa's junior year at Brown, one of Laura's young discoveries wrote
a book that instantly began to sell more than twenty thousand copies a
week, and went on to sell steadily until they had printed more than two
million copies; and Richard got the most important commission of his
life, to restore a famous Victorian country house designed by Sir
Charles Barry.

That Thanksgiving, Laura and Richard and Philippa had a long,
consciously celebratory dinner in their Hampstead home. The Allbees
drank a bottle of Dom Perignon before dinner, and then went into the
dining room to feast on the goose their cook had roasted, and all the
other, more traditional foods she had made-the stuffing, the acorn
squash, cranberries, potatoes, mince pie.

The doorbell rang just as they sat down. Richard groaned,

350

Peter Straub

saying that it might be a delivery of plans from the New York office.
No, Laura said, it could be the messenger service delivering her new
star's next manuscript a day early; she stood up and left the table as
Richard started to carve the goose.

When Laura opened the door, Richard glanced sideways- a chilling blast
of wind, wind so cold it felt black, had whipped into the dining room.
"What?" Richard said, putting down the long carving knife. He turned
toward the door, and in that second saw Billy Bentley walk forward
toward Laura through the door: Billy walked in on that rising, whipping
black wind and his eyes were glowing. In the next second he slammed a
knife into Laura's stomach and hauled it upward toward her heart with
gleeful and inhuman savagery.

All of this could have happened, and some of it did, but not in that way.

Richard rolled over in bed and blinked up at the ceiling: he did not
feel sane, but whatever sanity he'd had was the inventor of this
elaborate and cruel fantasy. At times he had almost believed it; no, at
times, prostrate here in this bedroom, he had believed it. He had seen
Philippa being born, and he had seen her face when she was able to ride
her first two-wheeled bicycle, when she had been first in her class in a
test. He had seen that page of the Providence telephone directory, the
row of names that did not include Morris Stryker's, and heard Philippa's
voice asking him, "Who are you looking for, Daddy?" These invented
things he had seen had probably kept him at least as sane as he was; and
had probably kept him alive too-for the past five days he had been in
shock so deep he had almost needed to remind himself to breathe. As Leo
Friedgood had dosed himself with alcohol after the death of his wife,
Richard Allbee had fed himself on imagination.

About nine o'clock on Tuesday night, the seventeenth of \ June, Richard
had taken Exit 18 off the Connecticut Turn- ] pike, swung down the Sayre
Connector to Greenbank Road, crossed over the bridge from which Turtle
Turk had threat- 3 ened to drop Bruce Norman, went past Wren Van Home's
i house and the entrance to the beach, and from Mount Avenue turned into
Beach Trail. He had rehearsed so many alternatives in his mind-there had
been a power failure, there had been a burglary, Laura had been trying
to dial him and was

FLOATING DRAGON

351

now on the highway to Providence-that all he wanted to do was see his
wife and make sure that everything was still all right. Among the
alternatives he had considered was a fire, and so he felt easier as soon
as he got far enough along on Beach Trail to see the back of his house.

The light inside the back door was on, Richard noticed as he drove into
the garage. He got his suitcase out of the trunk and carried it across
the drive to the back steps. Then he opened the back door and called his
wife's name. He entered; dropped his case just inside the door.

Richard went down the hall toward the front of the house. "Laura?" he
called. One of the lights in the living room was on, and he saw that
Laura had hung up several of their paintings on the long wall at the back.

He wandered through the living room and out into the hall again. This
time he noticed that the front door was open; and when he noticed that,
he caught a heavy, unfamiliar odor on a drift of air: it had come from
deep within his house.

Standing there in the empty hall beside the open front door, Richard had
wanted to go back out the rear door, take his car out of the garage and
drive all the way back to Rhode Island-all the way to Maine, all the way
to the Arctic Circle and the end of the world, if need be. His heart had
lurched in its rhythm, and for the last time he whispered her name. He
touched the open door, swallowing hard, and pushed it shut. Then he
turned to face the house.

Richard went into the dining room, saw that their round antique table
had been polished and the chairs taken from their protective packing. He
turned on the light in the kitchen and stepped in.

The kitchen was empty. On the counters were swirls left by a damp rag.
Beside the sink-like a severed hand-lay the red receiver for the
telephone. On the little table were boxes of unpacked glasses. One of
these boxes had fallen to the floor, and a bright scattering of broken
glass lay on the tiles. Such small signs of disorder.

At the far end of the kitchen was a pantry Richard was planning to
remove. It was a small enclosed space with aluminum tubs, a washer and
dryer, and handmade shelves all the way up to the ceiling. Richard
forced himself to open the door to this pantry; then forced himself to
pull the cord that turned on the light.

At first he saw nothing but the washer and dryer. He held

352

Peter Straub

his breath and walked into the small square room. He looked at the
shelves and saw a thick layer of dust, an old pair of striped work
gloves. Dusty fruit jars with red caps had been tented within a furry
spiderweb.

When he looked at the side of the washing machine he saw a splash of blood.

She had answered the door, come into the kitchen with her guest . . .
then she had known she was in danger, and she had picked up the
telephone. The man had cut the phone line. Laura had run into the pantry
and squeezed herself down beside the washer. She had already been hurt.
What then?

He did not know if he was strong enough to know what had happened then.

Holding his hands to the sides of his face, he came out of the kitchen
by its back door and went down the narrow back hall. At the bottom of
the steep narrow back staircase, in the old days the servants'
staircase, he found another splash of blood.

So she had burst out of the pantry and climbed the back stairs. He
groaned, set his foot on the bottom step. His body seemed paradoxically
heavy enough to flatten the step, so light it could float upward at the
slightest push. He walked up half a dozen steps, breathing in short
agitated gasps.

Halfway up the back staircase he saw a bloody palm print on the wall
above the handrail. On the top step lay another splash of blood, already
dried and brown.

He went straight ahead to the room they had chosen as Lump's nursery. It
was the nearest room; it was where she would have run. Richard stopped
before the nursery door, kneading his hands together, and all at once
caught that unfamiliar odor again; now he recognized it as the smell of
blood. He gently pushed open the door of the nursery.

Just inside the door a silver-and-brown thing lay on the old carpet. It
took Richard a moment to recognize it as human flesh, another moment to
identify it. Laura was frozen back against the nursery wall, her blood
splashed like a bucket of paint over the window above her body. Richard
moaned like an underground animal: like a wounded badger. He stabbed on
the light, starting to give in to the frightened weeping that had been
building within him. Lump too had been riding on the Dragon's back, the
shapeless little thing that would have

FLOATING DRAGON

353

become his Philippa. She was beside Laura, what there was of her.

Laura's mouth was open, her eyes stared at him; Lump's mouth, too, was
open. Richard stood before them, so incapable of movement that he could
not even tremble. Finally he saw that the opening torn in his wife's
belly was filled with flies, and he screeched so loudly that the effort
let him move backward out of the nursery and into the hall.

The being who had once been Dr. Wren Van Home sat in his darkened living
room and faced the old mirror the doctor had bought. What it saw in the
mirror were scenes of devastation and ruin-smoking rubble and heaps of
shattered bricks-the timeless scenes of its landscape. Streets heaved
upward into impassable mounds of broken concrete, buildings burned down
to their foundations, bridges sunken into the water they were supposed
to cross, huge piles of ash flaring up, tongues of fire flickering
around their circumferences as a bitter wind rustles through, then
subsiding again, breathing out a sullen smoke. . . .

Then a shuffled deck of pictures rolled across the surface of the
mirror. The faces of screaming children, troops moving across a wide
street, the trenches and mud and barbed wire of the First World War, the
emaciated bodies of concentrationcamp victims-bodies starved down to
catgut and gristle . . . these images too were timeless, and represented
both past and future. Children with swollen stomachs and the faces of
old men, hunched men and women picking their food off a barren hillside.

Now the being saw suspended in a towering wave of blood the faces of all
those who had died since the seventeenth of May. Joe Ricci, Thomas Gay
and Harvey Washington, Stony Friedgood and Hester Goodall, Harry and
Babe Zimmer and fifteen firemen, Bobby Fritz, all the others-their faces
and bodies floating in the red wave.

Then the towering wave subsided, and the being in Wren Van Home's living
room saw platoons of children swimming °ff Gravesend Beach, forcing
themselves to go beyond the markers, making themselves swim when they
were so ex-

354

Peter Straub

hausted they could scarcely make their arms lift out of the heavy pink
water . . . then he saw them swimming back toward shore, their bodies
dark with bottom-mud and hung with ropes of weeds.

He turned in his chair to look hungrily out of the wall of windows
facing the Sound.

Yes.

Standing on the seawall at the edge of his lawn was a silent crowd. He
moved to the windows to let them in.

The first one to step in through the opened windows was a small boy
wearing the torn and faded remains of a blue Tshirt. On the shirt there
still lingered a barely visible photograph of Yoda.

With burning bowels and a pounding head, Turtle Turk worked the traffic
light on the corner of Riverfront Avenue and the Post Road the following
morning. He was recovering from the worst bout of flu of his life, and
by now he knew that he should have stayed home another day. He saw
double for a few seconds, and shook his head. His guts squirmed; soon it
would be time for another of his half-hourly visits to the crummy little
toilet in the back of Abrazzi Liquor-the liquor store stood right behind
him on the south-east corner. It was just his luck, Turtle thought, that
he got the flu so late in the cycle: by the time he fell sick, everybody
else had been over their flu so long they didn't even remember how
rotten it had made them feel. All they cared about was covering his
place on the duty roster and subtracting sick days off his
schedule-Turtle could still work himself up into a fine hot resentment
by thinking that none of his fellow officers had even visited him at
home. (The warmth of his resentment probably kept him from seeing that
his frequent loud diatribes about the assholes who called or came by his
camper at night had decided everybody else that Turtle hated to be
bothered at home.) But this morning Turtle had enough to make him
percolate with resentment without rehearsing the callousness of the
younger policemen.

First there was the damned button, and second there was the urge to grow
hair on his palms that affected every civilian once he got behind the
wheel of his car. Any cop who did this

FLOATING DRAGON

355

duty had seen mild little people who would cry if shouted at suddenly
act like savages in traffic-screaming out the window, blasting the horn,
squealing their tires-but today it seemed worse than ever. Turtle knew
that a couple of kids had deliberately swept so close to him they had
almost run over his shoes. There was more than the usual amount of
horn-leaning from the cars stuck behind the red light on the Post Road.
Some of that was the fault of the button, but mainly it was just
impatience-as if the places these civilians had to get to were any
better than the insides of their cars. Worst of all, there had been two
fender-benders this morning, and that was unusual for this corner; and
in the second little accident, a big guy in a glen plaid suit had come
boiling out of his Audi and run back to the little fatso in a Ford who
had banged him-the big guy had torn open the door of the Ford and was
battering on the fatso's face before Turtle could get to him. And then
he had only stopped the big guy by clubbing him with his nightstick. All
that wasn't easy on a man with a headache and a sick stomach. On top of
everything else, he had a complicated report to write up when he got
back to headquarters.

And if that wasn't bad enough, some lady with frizzy Chiquita Banana
hair and a cigarette plastered to her oversized lower lip had leaned out
her window and screamed at him that there had been four murders, damn
it! What are you morons doing about it? Picking your noses? Of course
civilians were dumb as dogs, they didn't know that the state was now
running the murder investigations. And if they did, they probably
thought that someone like Turtle would resent it-but Turtle thought the
situation was just fine. Let the state do all the dogwork. A young jerk
like Bobo Farnsworth probably thought that investigation was good for
his soul, but Turtle knew that it was mainly just hard on the feet. If
the state guys identified the killer, it would be the Hampstead cops who
would take him in. That part was all right with Turtle.

"Well, me, lady, what I'm doing about it is, I'm giving the killer your
name as soon as I run your license number through state records," Turtle
muttered to himself.

Then the button got stuck again. Turtle shook his head, getting purple
in the face with rage. When he pushed the button on the little hand-held
metal box, the signal was supPosed to change on the traffic lights. And
when it got stuck, as it did every other time this morning, he had to
get across

356

Peter Straub

the street through the traffic and open the console on the sidewalk and
jiggle a switch in the junction box; then he had to run back across the
street and see if it worked. Sometimes the light just bit down on red or
green and Turtle had to get out in the middle of the white circle and
direct traffic with his arms and his whistle until the machine decided
to work again.

He held up his hand and stepped off the curb. Horns blasted, the cars
began to stack up on either side of the road. Turtle stepped between two
cars and glared at a weedy baldheaded idiot leaning on his horn. On the
other side of the yellow line, right-turning cars from the Post Road
cruised by unstoppably. Turtle stuck his arm out again and blew a
piercing command on his whistle: two more cars went by, and finally the
third, a Jaguar driven by a blonde with short upturned hair, stopped.
Turtle stepped in front of it, and the car crept forward another five
inches and touched Turtle's knee. He blasted the whistle loud enough to
shatter the windsheld, and then took the whistle from his mouth and with
a beet-red i face yelled, "What's the big idea, lady? You tryna-"

Another car making a right turn from the Post Road crumped into the
woman's car. Turtle felt a sharp pain in his knee as the Jaguar's bumper
struck it, and he bellowed, "Out! Out of the cars! Both of you!"

Savagely he hit the switch inside the junction box, and through the
furor of the horns heard the loud click as the light changed.

"Now get those cars moving and settle your problems!" Turtle bellowed,
not sure why he'd tied up traffic by making the blonde and the man
behind her leave their cars . . . through his headache floated an image
of his whipping both of them with his stick, flattening the man's nose
and breaking the woman's jaw, scattering teeth and blood ... He glared
at them with such peculiar intensity that they each hurriedly got into
their cars and drove on until they could pull into a parking lot to swap
insurance cards.

Turtle ground his teeth and stepped down off the curb again to limp
across to his station. His bowels stirred, and in a very few minutes he
would have to be back in Abrazzi's stinking three-foot square toilet. He
wondered what would happen to him if he used his nightstick to crack
open the windshield of the next expensive piece of foreign tin that went
past-he guessed that the pleasure of it would far outweigh whatever
punishment the department gave him.

FLOATING DRAGON

357

Now he had to contend with the left-turners from the other side of the
Post Road. He stuck out his hand and put his foot across the yellow
line. A car ignored his signals and rushed right past him, the rear
window passing no more than two feet from his face. Turtle never noticed
who was driving-except that he had a dim, uneasy sense that no one was
driving-but when he looked furiously through the rear window he saw the
torn and scarred face of Dicky Norman staring back at him.

It seemed to hang in front of his eyes for an impossibly long time.
Dicky's face was that fishy white of all dead skin, except for the black
lines where a surgeon's knife had cut through his forehead and scalp.
His eyes were faintly yellow around the pupils and as lifeless as the
face. Dicky's tongue moved thickly as Turtle peered into the rear
window-Dicky was struggling to speak. Then the apparition flew past him:
the car was gone, already moving through the intersection.

Turtle stumbled blindly into the traffic, holding his hand out without
looking to see if he was stopping any cars. The whistle hung slackly
from his lips.

He made it safely to the curb and went up the steps into Abrazzi's
without even looking back at the traffic. Mike Abrazzi, the old man
behind the sloping counter, said, "You sure got the runs, huh, Turtle?*'

"Shut the fuck up," Turtle growled, and rushed into the little toilet
and got his pants down just in time. He kept trying to blot out the
picture of Dicky Norman's face.

When he came out, trailing some of the odors from the little room at the
back of the liquor store, he saw that the traffic was for once streaming
past normally, and he looked up the Post Road-up past the bridge, going
toward the near end of Main Street, he saw a little group of people that
took his attention by its incongruity. He first recognized Graham
Williams, a man for whom he had only scorn-Williams had nin out on his
country instead of trying to help it. Then he recognized Richard Allbee,
the husband of the last victim; and beside Allbee was Patsy McCloud.
Turtle had seen her grow up in Hampstead, and he knew she'd married that
football player from J. S. Mill, Les McCloud, who had creamed himself on
the highway a week or so ago. Patsy was a pretty girl, with those big
eyes and that long hair. With these three went a teenager, some boy
Turtle did not recognize. For an instant before turning his attention
back to the traffic, Turtle watched these four make their way in the
sunlight toward

358

Peter Straub

Main Street-and the second oddest thing of the day happened to Turtle Turk.

He envied those four people. It went through him with a peculiar,
poignant sharpness that they were a kind of family, so great was their
affection for each other. For a moment in which he was surprised by the
clarity with which he saw these four-as if they were outlined in bright
sunlight. He wanted to be with them, to be a part of that closeness. And
in that second he permitted himself to feel envy.

But then they turned the corner, he could see the hump in old man
Williams' back, and they were just ordinary civilians again. Turtle
stabbed at the button again, and again it stuck. He started to swear,
and then again was assailed by the sight of Dicky Norman's face looking
blankly at him through the car window. He closed his eyes, exhaled, and
pushed the button gently with his index finger. The lights changed with
a loud decisive click. Turtle opened his eyes again, tingling with
relief. Christ, for a second there he'd almost believed ... He scowled
at the cars gunning through the intersection. For something Ike that,
they could take his pension|! away. if

Richard Allbee would hvz aiked about what he thought he had seen:
indeed, as Tin tie watched him turn into Main Street with his friends,
Richard was ignoring the tears that slid down his cheeks and telling the
other three about his days' long fantasy about Laura and his child, and
before the end of the day he would be telling them about Billy Bentley
and the dream of making the earth spout blood. Even Les McCloud would
have found someone at a bar-not Patsy-to amuse with his crazy story of
seeing a dead face through a car window. But when Turtle's eight hours
were up, he reported back to the station and laboriously typed up his
report on the fender-bender, changed out of his uniform, and went home
to his Winnebago. There he drank five beers and fell asleep while
watching a ballgame on television.

At eight o'clock Turtle awoke, muttering "catch up" to himself. He went
into the camper's little toilet-smaller than Abrazzi's but not much
cleaner-relieved his bladder, shaved, splashed water under his armpits.
He left the camper to drive up the Post Road to Billy O's.

Billy O's was a bar in a section of Bridgeport mostly inhabited by black
people, but no black person ever went into

fa

FLOATING DRAGON

359

Billy O's. It was a cop bar. The owner, Billy O'Meara, had been on the
Old Sarum force for twenty years before a kid in a stolen car had run
into him and broken his pelvis into toothpicks. Now he limped from one
end of his bar to the other, endlessly explaining that most human beings
were good for shit, but especially kids, Jews, Protestants, Dagos,
Puerto Ricans, women, and most especially jungle bunnies. If a black man
had dared poke his head into Billy O's, Billy O'Meara would probably
have dropped dead on the spot of racist's apoplexy.

When Turtle walked in, the six or seven guys at the bar glanced at him
and immediately stopped talking. That meant, Turtle knew, that they had
been talking about Royce Griffen. The only policeman in this part of the
state to have shot himself in the past ten years, Griffen was the
subject of a lot of conversation in cop bars and department locker
rooms. Turtle was sick of it: it seemed to him that a bunch of loaded
cops talking about Royce Griffen was even more boring than Billy O'Meara
talking about how many black guys had tried to break into his storeroom.

"Aw, Jesus," he said. "Are you fuckin' guys exhuming Roycie again? Let
the little bastard get a little sleep, will ya? He ate his gun, he ate
his gun, nattata nattata nattata. Give it a rest."

A Bridgeport police sergeant named Danny Salgo said, "Word is you rode
him pretty hard, Turtle."

"Sure I rode him hard," Turtle said. "Everybody rode him hard. What the
hell you trying to say?"

"Nothing, Turtle," Salgo quickly said.

"It better be nothing. A department gets one foul ball who freaks out,
and everybody for a hundred miles around starts doin' a ten-year
post-mortem." Billy O'Meara put a glass of beer and a short glass of
Jack Daniels over ice down in front of Turtle; Turtle sipped the
bourbon, then took a long draught of the beer.

"Gimme some good news, Turtle," Billy O'Meara said. "With these other
guys, all I get is the bad. So-and-so flunked the captain's test, some
other dumbbell totaled his car, blah blah blah. Johanssen down the end
there, he's so full a gripes he's goin' to Los Angeles next month, take
the tests to get onto the force there."

"Los Angeles?" Salgo said incredulously. Johanssen was a
twenty-four-year-old policeman in Hampstead. "They takin'

360

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

361

babies out there now? Why the hell you wanna go all the way I out there
just to meet a lot more spies? You're a little puppy, ty
Johanssen-they'll take you apart out there."

Johanssen shook his blond head, wisely keeping his temper. "I just got
sour on this place," he said. "Even Bobo's thinking of going out there,
I hear. You make about three times as much money, for one thing."

"Bobo Farnsworth, the world's only tee-total cop," Salgo said. "A
coke-sucker."

Turtle suddenly felt weary. "Bobo's a good cop," he said. "So's
Johanssen down there. He's a kid, but he's a good cop." Then Turtle
laughed. "You want to hear the good news, O'Meara? Hey, Johanssen. You
comin' to The Choirboys next week?"

Johanssen nodded into his beer glass.

"There's your good news, Billy. Another midnight special for the
Hampstead and Old Sarum boys. This one is gonna really be wild. You'll
be lucky to have a bar left."

O'Meara was already laughing-he was remembering, as "^ all the men in
the bar knew, what had happened after the First k Annual Midnight
All-Police Movie at the Nutmeg Theater behind Main Street. The movie had
been Klute, and about a hundred and fifty Hampstead and Old Sarum police
officers had attended. For three dollars apiece, they had had all the
beer they could drink and about six pounds of popcorn each. By the time
the movie was over, the theater was full of crushed popcorn and
flattened beercans, and the more boyish of the boys-who had screamed and
shouted for an hour and a half-were ready to have a little serious fun.
A bunch of cops had taken a short detour on the way to Billy O's, and at
two o'clock, the little bar locked its doors on nineteen drunken cops
and three local working girls. By four o'clock the place smelled like a
high-school locker-room; by five, the girls stopped charging, having
made about two months' worth of money; by six, everyone but Billy was on
the floor, all the girls naked and most of the men, too. Heaps of wet
five- and ten-dollar bills lay here and there, stuck together with
spilled beer. At six-thirty Billy gave everyone a free drink and kicked
them out. Two or three of the men, among them Johanssen, had driven
straight to the police station to work out on the firing range before
their shift began.

"Hey, I'd like to make it to that," Salgo said.

"I don't think they're inviting firemen this year, Danny," Turtle
said-an old police joke.

Turtle and the others settled into the familiar rituals of a night's
drinking; and no one said anything he had not said many times before;
but in the middle of the night in the bar, Turtle felt as though maybe
he did have whatever he had envied in the little group of Patsy McCloud
and Graham Williams and the other two that morning-had as much of it as
he wanted anyhow, as much closeness as he could stand, and the little
cop's bar in a Bridgeport ghetto gave it to him.

"I had enough," he said at ten minutes past one. "I'm seeing things.
Gotta get home. Pretty soon I'll be like that old Josephine Tayler. Saw
her grand-daughter today. Argument for rape. Goodbye."

At one-thirty Turtle got out of his car and began to push himself up the
weedy bank that separated his camper's site from the road. The Winnebago
sat on a half acre of cleared ground Turtle had bought from the town in
1941. Next to Turtle's land was a run-down grocery store that doubled as
a gas station, behind it was another half acre of trees. When Turtle was
half way up the bank, he heard somebody moving around in back of his
camper-loud footsteps from somewhere in front of him. "Pardner," he
whispered to himself, and fumbled getting his gun out of its holster.
Someone was trying to break into the Winnebago: that was his first thought.

"Come on out where I can see you," he shouted, thinking that it was
probably a couple of kids who would cut and run for the trees. "Get out
here, you scum."

Panting, he reached the top of the bank. He crouched over and waddled as
quickly as he could to the white fence on the other side of his property
from the store. From there he could see the front of the Winnebago. No
one was hiding there, flattened up against the camper's stamped metal.
"Come on out," he shouted. No one responded. Turtle ran across the back
of the camper and circled up around the far side. Now he was sweating
and breathing hard enough to strain his belly against his belt. Despite
what he had heard, there were no kids larking around his camper.

Then he heard the sound again-a heavy body moving. It came from the
trees behind his land.

Turtle wiped his forehead with his sleeve. The sounds still

362

Peter Straub

came toward him from the trees. "What the hell are you doin' in there?"
he screamed. "Is this supposed to be a gamel"

Turtle thought of what he had seen that morning. Dicky Norman's awful face-

but of course he had not seen it.

"I'm a cop and I'm armed!" Turtle yelled.

Then he could see the body coming out through the last of the trees.

Too much Jack Daniels and too much beer. The body, now emerging onto the
cleared land, was Dicky Norman's, and it was naked and so white it
seemed to reflect back the moonlight.

"I don't know what you are, but you better leave me alone," Turtle said,
aiming his pistol at Dicky's chest.

As soon as Dicky took another step, Turtle could smell him. It was the
smell, unforgettable, that Turtle had been subjected to as a young cop
when they had discovered the body of a hunter locked in his car out
behind the Rinker Brothers' icehouse in the late forties. The hunter had
got lost in a snowstorm, and the cold froze him to death in mid-January:
it was April when they found him. Turtle had opened the door of the
hunter's car, and he'd thought that he would puke for an hour.

Dicky said something that was lost in the buzzing of a thousand flies.
He took another step toward Turtle.

8

Two hours after the death of Turtle Turk, Mikki Zaber O'Hara dreamed
again that she was sleeping with her son Tommy. She cradled his thin
cold nine-year-old body, peeled the wet strands of weed from his
forehead, kissed his cold wet cheeks. She rubbed her hands over his
back, sleepily trying to warm him. Oh, she loved Tommy! Her hands
pressed his shoulders into her, and beneath her hip she felt grit: she
unthinkingly knew it was sand. Her husband snored on behind her, and
Mikki ran her hand lovingly down her son's cold flank. Mud slowed her
fingers, slimed against her palm. Gradually, still sleepily, Mikki
understood that she was not dreaming. She was awake, and Tommy was
miraculously beside her. She cradled his face; Tommy's eyes fluttered.

FLOATING DRAGON

363

The boy had given her a chance to join him: all she wanted was to join him.

In the morning both their bodies were gone. Hampstead had crossed
another threshold, and now stood-as Mikki Zaber O'Hara had for a
phantasmal, lyric moment-on the border beween life and death.

366

Dominion

Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men Too soon, and with weak
hands though mighty

heart Dare the unpastured dragon in his den?

-Shelley

367 The Belly of the Whale

Lyric; phantasmal; such words mean only that there was a disorder in the
very stuff of reality, and that this disorder affected people in various
ways, some of them surprisingly pleasant. Reality was on a bender, and
if what the bender led to was a theater of horrors in the basement of an
abandoned house on Poor Fox Road, only three people were present to see
them: metaphorically, most other people in Hampstead had their eyes sewn
shut, and the peculiar visions that danced across the inside of their
eyelids sometimes delighted or lulled them, as absurdities can delight
or calm a drunken man. Otto Bruckner had foreseen that about eight weeks
after the accident at Woodville Solvent, Hampstead and Patchin would be
held squirming in the grip of his invention-that horrors like those that
lived in Bates Krell's basement would pour out through the streets-but
of course he had no idea that his invention would shake hands with an
enigmatic colonist named Gideon or Gidyon Winter. He just knew his
thinking cloud, and that was enough; he did not have to know any more to
find the next world preferable to this one. But people in Hampstead did
not have his foresight, they had no idea that they were crossing a
border: what they, including our four friends, mostly knew was that it
became more and more difficult to separate what was actually happening
in the world from what was going on in the mind. The thinking cloud had
settled over them too. So what Patsy and Tabby saw together, what Graham
and Richard and Patsy saw as they struggled to save Tabby's life at the
bottom of a mirror, in the world's bowel, had to be taken as it came: to
be met on its own terms, however bizarre those terms appeared.

Desmond O'Hara, who had flown back from Australia to bury his sons, met
those terms when he awakened to find his

368

Peter Straub

wife gone from their bed. He searched all through his house, chill with
the thought that she too had gone down to Gravesend Beach in the middle
of the night. He still had jet lag, and found himself falling asleep in
the middle of that day, as scared as he was, and imagining that Mikki
was talking to him, asking him about the price of opals in Coober Pedy,
laughing at him! When he woke up at midnight, totally disoriented, he
imagined that he could still hear his wife's voice. Crazy, he thought,
and when he checked through the house to see if she had come home,
thought he was crazier yet when he saw or imagined he saw her looking at
him out of a long mirror in their dining room.

Now, was that lyric! Was that phantasmal! For Des O'Hara, still groggy
from the long flight from Australia and the experience, eight hours
later, of burying his two children, seeing his wife in the mirror had
something of each of those qualities in it: without knowing how, he
understood that he would never see her again. She was very clearly on
the wrong side of the mirror-on the inside, looking toward him from
around the back of the frame. The flowers she had put on their table
gleamed whitely, the wallpaper behind them made a dark plane intersected
by white stripes, and these familiar things occupied the same world as
himself: Mikki's broad stricken face loomed toward him like a face
trapped beneath the ice of a frozen river. Her terror made her seem to
be smiling. When he turned on the light she was gone.

It is likely that many people had such experiences. Without knowing it,
they were in the belly of the whale.

Superficially the town looked the same. If you let your eye glide over
the anomalies you saw the old pretty Hampstead, the big houses and the
acres of lawn. But what you'd be overlooking would be that many of those
big houses were vacant, their windows blank empty staring eyes, and that
the long lawns were rapidly turning back into meadow. People tended to
stay at home after nightfall, so they did not see the fires that sprang
up here and there around town-they might hear the loud voices of the
wandering kids who set fire to the abandoned houses, but they closed
their ears to anything else. Screams? Shouts? When, last night? Why, we
didn't hear a thing-of course we've been awfully busy packing these past
few days, it seems like we fall asleep all over the house, scarcely have
the energy to get to bed, and then we have these funny dreams . . .

FLOATING DRAGON

369

If they were sane, they closed their ears and kept on packing. If they
saw men brawling on Main Street-well-dressed men, men who had to put
down their briefcases to get really into the bloody work of eye-gouging
and nose-biting-they shrugged and hurried home. They were putting their
stuff in storage for a little while, that's what they were doing, and
wasn't it too bad about the climate of violence you saw everywhere in
America these days? Why, just yesterday on the Phil Donahue Show . . .
Why, the world's a crazy place, everybody knows that now. ... If they
were sane, they mumbled such things to themselves, kept on packing, and
hoped the crazy outcries on the street-cries like those of pigs and dogs
and wolves-would keep on moving down toward the end of the block.

Sometimes at night, Patsy and Tabby could hear these voices of the
so-called sane mumbling in their heads.

Yeah, we sure managed to get a lot of stuff in the old wagon, we're
thinking of taking the kids out to see John's boys, after all they have
the same father, it's all one family. . . .

No, I haven't seen old Mrs. Ellis around lately, funny, I haven't even
thought about her in a couple of days and we used to say hello every
morning. . . .

A man all in bandages, you say? Must have been the world's worst case of
poison ivy, don't you reckon? . . .

Burned? The Ellis house? Why, I can't believe I didn't notice that, I go
past that house twice a day, I guess my mind's just been on getting our
things together so we can get off to Kiowah Island tomorrow morning. . . .

And underneath the false calm of these mumbled sentences is a frantic,
driven urgency, not at all sane, which is saying let's go let's go let's
get outta here, don't listen to them, just go GO GO GO GET GOING BEFORE
IT HAPPENS. . . .

Patsy and Tabby could hear that too; by the second week of July they had
seen a couple of people with shining, ruined skin, and one day Patsy
heard a gang of children snouting, "Leaker! Leaker!" and saw them
throwing stones at a bandaged man trying to scurry around in back of
Greenblatt's; and they were none too sure of their own sanity, but they
could not get out of there, they could not GET GOING, and they had to
listen to whatever came their way.

Tabby could see his father's life and his own sliding toward the
condition of the earliest, worst days in Florida. Clark was drinking
steadily from noon onward, and Tabby often had to

370

Peter Straub

try to bully him into eating. He hated doing this-shouting at his
father, banging a pan against the stove in an only halfsimulated
rage-and hated even more that it worked. Sometimes Clark shouted back at
him, and sometimes he stalked away from the table, but usually he bowed
his head like a child and ate the food Tabby cooked for him. If Berkeley
Woodhouse were there, she'd finger a little food into her mouth, laugh
at both of them, and roll back to the television. Television and bed
seemed to be all his father's mistress cared about. As the day went on,
her bright lipstick began to drop off her mouth and go staggering down
the side of her face.

Tabby kept Patsy away from his house-he wouldn't have minded if Graham
had seen Berkeley and his father at the end of a day, but Patsy's seeing
them would have humiliated him.

It was as though he had looked away for the blink of an eye, and in that
blink his father had somehow contrived to ruin himself. At least in
Florida Clark had had to find work, he had kept moving, he had changed
his shirts and his underwear; but now with his own father's money to
cushion him, he had become as torpid as a lizard on a rock. Tabby
imagined that if he sniffed his father's palm, if he smelled his old
T-shirts, he would be smelling booze-so soaked in it were Clark's pores.
And one night, looking at his father glumly poke a forkful of instant
mashed potato into his mouth, Tabby thought he saw a dim light hovering
behind Clark's head, a little spectral light that moved when he moved.
Berkeley was noisily fiddling with the ice cubes, so he could not ask
her, but it seemed to him as though all the alcohol in his father had
taken visible form. A fly circled in from nowhere and landed on Clark's
hand. Clark stared at it as if it were an exotic bird, clumsily raised
his hand: and then smashed the hand down on the table. The fly zipped
off to investigate Clark's hair, and on the surface of the table-or just
beneath the surface of the table-a pool of blood seemed to rise up out
of the wood. Tabby stared at it: the blood flattened out like oil
beneath the pressure of his father's fist. Just for a moment-and this
was phantasmal, it made poor Tabby shake-he saw Berkeley's lovely blurry
face beneath that fist, staring in terror upward through the film on the
top of the table. He turned around, and she was still knocking the ice
tray against the side of the sink, her Tareyton lolling against her
lower lip; one hip was elevated to get more power into the

FLOATING DRAGON

371

chop chop chop of the ice tray against the aluminum. That was reality,
and the face pressing up in terror against the surface of the table in a
flat puddle of blood was only vision. When he looked back at his father,
he saw that smudge of whitish gray behind his head dimming out,
disappearing like the gray cat Richard had described. Tabby went back to
his desultory conversation with his father, and heard again the racket
Berkeley was making at the sink; he had not been conscious that a noise
in his ears had deafened him. The gold at Berkeley's wrist looked red.

Des O'Hara, who had lost everything and did not comprehend how, and who
understood much less than Tabby of why, carried a full bottle of
Delamain cognac out to his garage at six-thirty on the morning of
Wednesday, the ninth of July. He got into his car, started the engine,
turned on the radio, and drank cognac and listened to a tenor saxophone
player named Scott Hamilton tenderly make his way through "I Would Do
Anything for You" on WYRS as the carbon monoxide stole his life from
him. He was in the whale's belly and he knew it, and he wanted it no more.

Richard Allbee, who was walking up Mount Avenue to his job every
morning, also thought that either the world or he was slipping a gear-he
saw such oddness on these walks! Both John Roehm, the contractor he had
hired for the Hillhaven job, and the client knew what had happened to
Richard; the client had asked him if he wanted to put the job off for a
couple of months, but Richard, who knew that John Roehm had his own
bills to pay, had insisted on starting the work on the agreed day. This
had been a good idea. After his first period of mourning-that period of
deep shock, during which he had almost had to remind himself to breathe,
when he had burrowed deep inside his fantasy-and after he had talked and
cried with Graham and Patsy and Tabby, working helped to carry him out
of himself. In fact, he could leave his misery for minutes at a time
just watching John Roehm work. If carpentry were an art, John Roehm
would have been a Rembrandt: he'd lay his big hands on a piece of heavy
unwieldy oak and make it dance and sing, he was so good he could
practically whittle the porch pickets they had to make as part of the
Hillhaven job. And an old-timer like Roehm appreciated the techniques
Richard wanted to use in the interior of the house-making molds to
replace the broken plaster

372

Peter Straub

ceilingwork, cutting the beads in at the corner of the window trim and
doorjambs where someone twenty years ago had "modernized" them away.
Roehm was also interested in testing the library paneling with mineral
spirits and lacquer thinner to determine its original shade. All this
spoke right to Richard's heart, and sometimes he felt tears jumping to
his eyes as he watched white-bearded old Roehm execute some dazzling and
offhand bit of craftsman's artistry with a saw and a section of oak. It
is possible that John Roehm and the Hillhaven restoration saved Richard
from Desmond O'Hara's fate-he had to do a lot of the lifting and
carrying, since his and Roehm's assistants kept quitting, and even
though he looked five years older than he had in May, he was gaining new
muscle. At night he fell down straight into exhausted sleep. He broiled
something in his kitchen, not looking at the place on the counter where
the severed telephone receiver had lain, ate his pork chop or steak with
a cold bottle of beer, and started yawning before eight-thirty. So his
days were okay: apart from his feeling, at any unguarded moment, that
his stomach and heart and probably his lungs too had been blown away on
the seventeenth of June, Richard was okay at work. If he watched the
direction in which his thoughts were taking him, and took the
hammerblows when they came because he was half-prepared for them, he was
fine at work. It was during his walks up to Hillhaven on Mount Avenue
that he most doubted his capacity to get through the day.

It was a good and useful walk, and it got him to work with his muscles
stretched and ready. Between the big houses on Mount Avenue he could see
flashes of the Sound, and when he turned the last corner, pausing to
look at the massive ivycovered house where Graham had met Dorothy Bach
at the end of the twenties, he had arrived at low flat Hillhaven beach.
By the middle of summer, this beach was filled with people all day long,
and from them rose a dense compacted odor of sun and salt, of tanning
lotions and sweat. In the mornings the tide was in, and the blue-black
water muscled right up to the first row of sunbathers, stretched out on
their towels across a rack of drying seaweed; in the evenings as Richard
walked home the beach trailed off into a bumpy landscape of glittering
salt pools and shells through which brawny seagulls hunted and pecked.
These visions of ordinariness, of the world going through its customary
cycles, helped Richard

FLOATING DRAGON

373

wean himself from the considerably less ordinary visions he had passed
on his way to Hillhaven beach.

The first odd thing Richard saw, back at the start of the Hillhaven
job-the first day, in fact, that he had decided to start walking the two
miles between his house and the new job-was that Charlie Antolini had at
last got himself out of the hammock and was now painting his house. All
that was odd about Charlie's paint job was the exuberant cheer of the
painter and the color he was slopping on his house. Charlie Antolini
grinned down from his scaffold when he saw Richard going past, he
shouted out, "Hej, buddy! Great day, huh? Un-fucking-believable!" From
the big paintbrush in Charlie Antolini's extended hand dripped strings
of bright pink-pink so bright it seemed to sizzle when it fell on the
grass and bushes beneath the scaffold. On the house, this paint had a
Day-Glo aggressiveness. Charlie, that first morning, had covered half a
side wall of his barnlike colonial. It took Richard a moment to see that
he had also covered the shutters, the sills, and the windows with this
glaring glossy pink.

As the days went on, Richard saw Charlie Antolini not only cover all his
windows with the paint and slop it on the front door in the spirit of a
man christening a ship, but ("Let's make this ol' momma really shine,
hey? Whaddaya say?") climb up on the roof and start slapping it on the
shingling there. Richard stopped walking, called something back to
Charlie, and held his breath as he saw his neighbor approach his
enormous television antenna. Would he upend a bucket over the skeletal
contraption, or would he try to trace all those angles and lines with
his brush? He saw Charlie briefly consider the problem, and solve it
pointillistically. He dabbed pink swabs on the main post of the antenna,
and waved his brush over the rest to speckle it; then Charlie winked at
Richard, happy that someone had witnessed his ingenuity.

Along about this time Richard also witnessed Flo Antolini speeding off
down Beach Trail in a car so full of suitcases that the rear window was
blocked.

Yes, those things Richard certainly saw, there was no doubt about them.
But other things were not so easy.

Did he, for example, really see a tall spindly man dressed in a shabby
frock coat and droopy gray leggings jogging past

374

Peter Straub

him as he took his walk to work? The man resembled some foolish
frog-hunting bird, or a scarecrow so hapless that his fields were picked
clean of seeds in minutes, but he resembled something or someone else
even more, and Richard turned to watch him clumsily thump past, trying
to find the resemblance in his memory. He saw jug ears redly irradiated
in the early light, and then he had it: He was tall, but exceedingly
lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a
mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and
his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat
at the top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe
nose. ... It was Ichabod Crane, the Connecticut schoolteacher of "The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Richard watched him thud along Mount Avenue,
his flat head bobbing in time with his steps, Ichabod Crane with
flapping hands and feet, and when he turned into a curve, Richard went
out into the middle of the road to be able to see him a moment longer.

Ichabod Crane. On Mount Avenue. In a world where his wife had been so
brutally killed, that was as possible as anything else.

The oddness increased. The day after seeing Ichabod Crane jog past him,
Richard looked into a car driving down Mount Avenue and saw an
apparition from the twenties in Berlin- from the Berlin of Christopher
Isherwood. Behind the wheel was a blond woman dressed in male formal
wear, black evening clothes, jetty studs winking from the starched white
shirtfront, neat black tie strapping a wing collar. She wore a monocle
and smoked a yellow cigarette in a long ivory holder. Her hair was cut
like a boy's, and in the instant Richard had of her, he saw that her
skin was cratered with tiny scars. Her eyes slid toward him, and he
froze in midstride: she was not from his world, she was malignant as a
tumor, and her glance on his skin felt like the cut of a knife. Then the
woman sped down Mount Avenue, and Richard was sure that the earth opened
to take her car the instant that she rounded the curve in front of
Tabby's old house.

The next day Richard saw a man whose entire body seemed to be wrapped in
bandages duck behind a gatepost on the inland side of Mount Avenue as he
approached, but this he knew was no hallucination. The man was a
"leaker"- Richard was not even sure where he had first heard the awful

FLOATING DRAGON

375

term, but he knew it. There were children in Hampstead who chased these
poor dying creatures through the streets, trying to pierce the
protective shell of bandages and let the life out of them. It was no
wonder the poor leaker fled when he saw someone coming. Richard could
hear the man breathing huskily from behind the thick concrete gatepost
as he walked by, and he started to say, "It's all right, I'm just
walking to work," but he got no further than the first word when the
panicked leaker jumped up from his shelter and flung himself down the
road away from Richard. Richard's heart moved, watching the poor doomed
creature flap off down Mount Avenue-this was worse than seeing the woman
from hell, for the suffering leaker, a fellow being in distress, spoke
more directly to him, gave him back an image of himself. Desperation,
extremity, panic.

And several days later, as if the torment of these moments were ordained
to grow in a geometrical progression, what he saw was much worse. After
that, he drove up Mount Avenue to Hillhaven and kept his eyes straight
ahead.

It began simply. A nondescript black car came up from behind Richard
only a few minutes after he had started to stride up the Golden Mile,
flashed its brake lights and pulled over. The driver would have the
Hagstrom Atlas for Patchin County open on his lap, and as soon as
Richard came near enough to be seen through the side window, he would
ask, "Is this Mount Avenue?" Or "Am I going the right way to get to
Hillhaven?" Any pedestrian on Mount Avenue was likely to be buttonholed
by a driver made insecure by the absence of road signs. The black
car-some kind of Chevrolet, Richard saw-sat quietly by the side of the
road, waiting for Richard to draw up beside it. It trembled once, like a
sleepy dog.

The car had stopped directly in front of the old Smithfield house.

Richard stepped forward, eager to be helpful, and the driver's door
opened. Then the passenger door swung open too. Richard hesitated for a
moment, and the hesitation may have saved his life. One of the rear
doors, the one on his side, also opened. Richard took a step
backward-suddenly the innocuous little car seemed surrounded by a
sinister light. Three °f its doors open as it sat beside the road on the
sunny July morning, the black Chevrolet resembled a squatting insect, a

376

Peter Straub

beetle. A fly. For a second nothing happened except that Richard's mouth
dried: he did not know why, but he was afraid of whatever was in that car.

Then Laura stepped out of the passenger side of the black Chevrolet.

Richard groaned: all the other things he had seen had led him to this
one unbearable sight, his wife getting out of a nondescript black car on
her long legs and turning to look at him with a face in which expression
seemed too tightly packed to be readable. Her hair moved in the slight
breeze from the Sound.

A man got out on the driver's side and like Laura turned to stare at
Richard. He wore a torn madras jacket; a bright yellow Lacoste polo
shirt smeared with mud covered his oaken belly. Another man, older than
the driver and with a dull, clay-colored bald head, stepped out from the
backseat. The three of them stood mutely beside the black Chevrolet and
gazed at Richard. Their faces were alike, he saw: not crowded with
conflicting expressions but empty of all expression. Their faces were dead.

Laura opened her mouth, and Richard instantly reacted out of horrified
instinct-he clapped his hands over his ears. Whatever this dead Laura
had to say was what he did not want to hear. He took several slow steps
backward, and saw the two men begin to move slowly down the sides of the
car toward him.

Richard stepped backward once, twice more, said, "No, go away, get out
of here," and when they kept up their slow progress toward him, turned
and ran-flung himself down the road, like the previous day's leaker.
Desperation, extremity, panic.

Fifteen feet before him was a drive of crushed red rock between brick
pillars. Richard wheeled into it and pelted up the drive between a line
of maple trees and a tennis court behind a tall chain-link fence.
Finally he saw the gray stone mansion at the end of the drive. Behind
it, the sea flashed light at him. The downstairs curtains were drawn,
and the house had a heavy, brooding, unoccupied look. Richard had no
idea what he would say if someone opened the door to his knocking.

He jumped up the steps and leaned on the bell. In his mind he saw Laura
moving inexorably down the road, turning into the dusty red drive . . .
Richard kept his finger on the bell.

FLOATING DRAGON

377

Footsteps came toward the other side of the door, paused; a bolt slid
into a latch. The door opened an inch or two and a white suspicious face
looked at him over a taut length of chain.

"I live across the street," Richard said, playing the card that would
mean the most on Mount Avenue. "Some people out on the street are ...
uh, I think they'll kill me."

"So you say," replied the old man behind the door.

"I'm scared to death," Richard said.

"Right now, that's not too dumb," the old man said, and unhooked the
chain. He raised his right hand and Richard saw that in it was a flat
sleek black automatic pistol. "That's not too dumb at all. So you came
up here for help?"

Richard nodded. "They stopped their car in front of me- in front of the
old Smithfield house."

"The old Smithfield house." The man nodded; lowered the pistol. "Yeah,
Monty used to live next door there-had the whole family in with him. You
suppose they're still there?"

Richard nodded.

"Well, I don't mind giving you a hand. I'll just run 'em off with this
thing. She has a full clip in her too, in case we need a little firepower."

Richard was so rattled that he never stopped to think: why would a
pistol frighten people who were already dead?

He and the small white-haired man set off down the drive. Richard had to
walk fast to keep up with his savior, and as they skirted the tennis
court, he learned that the man's name was Charles Daisy, that he was a
widower with six grandchildren, a retired lawyer. "Got a little target
range down in the basement, that's why I'm pretty handy with this old
girl here, 'course we all shoot skeet out at the Wampetaug Country Club
from November to February, that sharpens up the eyes like you wouldn't
believe ..." They had reached the end of Daisy's drive. "Where were
they?" the old man asked, looking perkily up and down the avenue. "Where
do you suppose they went?"

Richard was looking right at them-they had not moved since he had turned
and run. Laura's impassive face stared toward him; a thousand familiar
but drowned feelings were latent in her flesh. He saw a few delicate
bloodstains-feathers of rust-rising up her neck from the top of her blouse.

"They cut and run, didn't they?" crowed Charles Daisy. "They were just
scum, son, that's all, scum looking for a soft

378

Peter Straub

place to settle. They won't bother you now." Daisy looked at him and
amazed Richard by winking one of his webbed blue eyes. "I recognize you,
you know. Took me a second, but then I had you. You were the boy in that
series. Spunky. You were Spunky."

Richard knew that he was making a serious mistake, but he could not help
himself. He asked, "Can't you see them?"

Daisy cocked his head.

"They're right there. Right where they were before. Two men and a woman.
I could even tell you the license number of the Chevy. It's TBC 67-"

"You get the hell out of here," Daisy said to him. His white little face
had turned pink. "You just take off down the road, actor boy, or I'll
put a bullet in your throat. I mean it. Get moving."

"I'm not crazy," Richard said.

"Thought you'd get old Charley Daisy out here on the road and jump him?
Thought you'd get yourself a nice place on Mount Avenue? Is that what
you thought? You didn't know old Charley Daisy very well, did you?" He
flourished the gun in Richard's general direction. Richard saw that if
he wanted to, he could just snatch the gun from Daisy's hand.

"I just wanted your help, Mr. Daisy," he said.

This made the old man even more furious. ''Move! Get away from me!"
Daisy backed away from Richard and leveled the gun at his chest.

Richard moved. He dared say no more. He turned his back on the man and
walked toward the little group around the car. In agony, he glanced once
at Laura's face. Eyes open, she looked asleep. She was not there, except
for him. And she and the others could not take him while furious Charles
Daisy watched him go. Either that, or the Dragon had worked out some new
trick for him. He got so far off to the right side of the road that his
shoulder scraped and rustled in the thick bushes. Old Charley Daisy was
still behind him with his fat pistol pointed at his back, but that was
not why Richard's stomach felt knotted tightly as a boot lace. He
glanced sideways and down as he went past the car, and saw that the
driver, the one with the madras jacket and the polo shirt, wore nothing
on his feet, which were plump, white, and crusted with filth. But for
the dirt, they were very preppy feet. The skin had peeled itself back
over a couple of serious

FLOATING DRAGON

379

abrasions, but those feet had not bled. The skin had parted, but there
had been no pain and no blood.

He was terrified that Laura would speak to him until he had gone at
least thirty yards down the road.

When he got to the job, John Roehm was sitting on the tailgate of his
pickup in the client's driveway. To his right, extending over the edge
of the tailgate, was a stack of white, freshly sawn oak boards. Roehm
looked like Santa Claus in a flannel shirt and red suspenders, sitting
beside his treasure. "Thought we could begin on those shelves today,
after we test the paneling. Happened to find some pretty decent oak
yesterday evening. Best I ever seen, to tell you the truth."

"If you like, John," Richard said.

Roehm tilted his massive head. "Another beautiful day, boss."

"I guess it is, John."

Looking at him, Roehm saw everything; saw enough, anyhow. "We'll just
take it little by slow, boss. Little by slow." And meant everything that
he said. Richard helped him carry the oak boards into the house.

As Richard Allbee discovered later, he was right to have run from the
three apparitions that climbed out from the nondescript black Chevy;
they represented danger, they had meant to kill him; there was no mercy
in what was left of his wife. The last two direct victims of Hampstead's
dragon, the fifth and sixth persons to die at the hands of Wren Van
Home, did not have Richard's luck. They too met apparitions, but they
met them unaided; and with the apparitions they met Dr. Van Home not
long before Graham Williams' old friend endured the second great
alteration of his life. Dr. Van Home treated them as he had treated his
four earlier victims: and so they too, or at least one of them,
experienced what we have called the "phantasmal." But by this time, as
General Haugejas would soon see, you could get the whiff of jhe
"phantasmal" simply by moving through the streets of Hampstead. The last
two people to die directly at the hands of Hamp-

380

Peter Straub

stead's most respected gynecologist were Franz Holland and his wife,
Queenie.

Queenie Holland owed her first name to her father, a cockney named
Albert Martin who had come to America as a young man of not quite twenty
and discovered that his accent in an American ear resounded as grandly
as a duke's. Albert found himself a well-paying job at Macy's in New
York, married a woman in the dress department, found time to chase
nearly every attractive woman he saw, charmed all with his amoral but
practical Londoner's wit, and eventually saved enough money to buy a
woman's clothing store in Hampstead, Connecticut.

Queenie was intense and practical, but grew up loving the ideal of the
gentleman, of which class she mistakenly took her father to be a
representative. With Franz Holland, the son of the funeral director, she
was closer to the mark. Even as a teenager, Franz was stuffy, but inside
the affected social manner he was gentle and kind; and Queenie, who had
part of her father's calculation, knew that he was growing up in a
business where the customers would never stop coming. It was like making
toilet tissue, Franz once told her in all seriousness, people would
always need his product. If Queenie said shit and death, you bet, to
herself, she gave no sign of it to Franz. They were married two years
out of high school. Very quickly Queenie made herself indispensable to
the firm of Bornley and Holland, doing the correspondence and working on
the books. Her practicality, her best inheritance from Albert Martin,
had found a worthwhile outlet.

So by 1980, when they had been married better than thirty years, Franz
Holland could not separate the running of the funeral home from what his
wife did in her office all day. And that was what made Queenie's recent
behavior even more troubling than it would have been otherwise. He could
have done the books by himself, though it would have taken him twice the
time it did his wife; but he had no idea anymore how she did the
ordering-he barely remembered where they kept the catalogs.

For thirteen days Queenie had done nothing but watch television. She did
not even bother to dress. She got out of bed, brushed her teeth, and
switched on the old Sylvania in the bedroom. Then she sat on the edge of
the bed and went crazy-that was how it looked to Franz, anyhow. She had
started, thirteen days ago, by talking to torn Brokaw, she

FLOATING DRAGON

381

sulked when Jane Pauley took over the screen, and then brightened up
again when Gene Shalit came on. She had conversations with the people
she saw on television-Queenie did not just talk at torn Brokaw and
Walter Cronkite and Ted Koppel and all the other men whose faces filled
the Sylvania's screen all day, she talked with them. When the host of
the Today show said, "Many people today are caught in a financial bind
in part because of tuition rates at our nation's colleges and
universities," Queenie chimed in with, "Oh, don't I know it, torn! Why,
I'm beginning to wonder if college is only for the wealthy these days!"
She went on like that all day. At first Franz had assumed that Queenie
was making fun of him for some reason-Franz was in the habit of telling
commercials that they were rubbish-but as she had kept on he had
realized that his wife had lost her mind. What else could you call it
when someone thought those moving faces in there were real people?

Queenie would not even eat. He had to bring her sandwiches, carry them
into the bedroom from the little kitchen on the second floor of the
funeral home, watch her distractedly swing her eyes toward him and say,
"Thank you, dear," and then turn back to her conversation with Robert
Reed on The Brady Bunch or Carter Oldfield in Daddy's Here. The sandwich
gradually dried and curled during the day, and when he brought in her
soup at six o'clock he took it out with him and threw it away. She did
drink-Tab or Mello Yello or whatever was being advertised. These sickly
soft drinks were what was keeping her alive, he supposed.

So Queenie sat upstairs hypnotized and perky before the television, and
Franz worriedly dealt with the bereaved- more of those than ever,
now-and the salesman from the supply houses and the mail and the
bookkeeping. Often as he moved through the public rooms downstairs,
which were much grander than their shabby rooms on the second floor, he
could hear the theme songs of the programs Queenie would soon be
joining. A forties-style swing band pumping out a rhythmic version of
"When the Red, Red Robin Goes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along" meant that in
sixty seconds Queenie would be deep in serious discussion with Carter
Oldfield; an equally familiar da da da, da da DUM de dum indicated that

11 was time for / Love Lucy and Queenie's reflections on the Present
state of Cuba with Desi Arnaz. He had never before realized that the
sounds from their living quarters were audi-

382

Peter Straub

ble downstairs. This had come to his attention shortly after the morgue
drivers had delivered the body of Desmond O'Hara to his back
entrance-they had loaded the cyanotic body on the table in the
preparation room, Franz had signed the forms and was walking the men
back toward the rear door, and the unmistakable sounds of "When the Red,
Red Robin" had drifted down the stairs. One of the drivers had burst out
laughing; the other one looked startled but pleased, and said, "Hey,
that's Daddy's Here. You watch that too?"

Queenie directed only two personal remarks to him during this period.
The first came at the end of her first day of madness. She left the bed,
set her untouched bowl of soup on the floor, said to Johnny Carson, "Oh,
I know that's right, Johnny, those Hollywood people are just a big bunch
of dingbats," and switched off the set. Then she went back to the bed
and climbed in beside her trembling husband. "Oh, Franz," she said,
"I've had so much/im today." The second remark came in the fourth day of
her madness, and after Franz had pondered it for a day or so he thought
it might be the explanation for Queenie's breakdown. He had come in with
her sandwich-tuna salad on white bread-and a can of Tab. She was raptly
talking about feminism with some glossy-mustached soap-opera actor Franz
did not recognize. Queenie sipped from the Tab. She said, "I know you
don't care what a mere woman has to say, Amory," to the television, and
then disturbed Franz by locking his eyes with her own. Her face trembled
for a moment-it looked like a face seen through a veil of water. "I'm
glad now that we never had children," she said in her real voice. "All
those poor dear children drowning ... all those little corpses. I'm glad
we're childless."

Franz Holland thought that he might be following his wife into madness.
It seemed to him that ever since Patsy meCloud had suffered her peculiar
fit in his casket showroom everything had been getting dark, dark, dark
... all those firemen had died and then everything went somehow wrong,
every day there were more new funerals to plan and schedule-it was like
Jonestown! Exactly. Every funeral director he knew, including himself,
was fascinated with Jonestown and the technical problem it presented,
and here he was, Franz Holland, trying to solve these problems all by
himself in Hampstead.

He could still remember that pretty Tayler girl, Patsy me-

FLOATING DRAGON

383

Cloud as she was now, dropping her mouth open and getting that scared
crazy look in her eyes and yelling "Don't touch me!" at him as if he had
just turned into something loathsome. His feelings had curdled. Franz
Holland was a man extremely self-conscious of the way he looked, and
Patsy's shouting like that at him-the very expression of her eyes- had
been like a knife in his gut. And ever since that day, ever since he'd
been made to hide out of sight around the corner in the casket showroom
while she called her friends, he had begun to fret even more than
usually about vandalism and break-ins downstairs.

Queenie might have been the bookkeeper, but Franz knew that most of his
investment, which is to say most of his money, was in the public rooms.
In the vestibule were antique tables his father had bought just before
the First World War, massive Chinese vases now worth so much Franz's
heart stopped whenever he dusted them, and a little Oriental rug, also
bought by Franz's father, which was above insurability the way some
characters in a detective novel are above suspicion. In the room beyond
the vestibule was an enormous Kirman rug. All of these costly worldly
things haunted Franz as he lay in bed at night. He heard scratches at
the door, soft thumps against the big downstairs windows. Since Patsy
Tayler McCloud had twisted the knife of his ugliness in his gut, Franz
had known that some wild kid was going to break in and piss all over the
Kirman; snub out a cigarette on the antique table. Lying in bed, he
could actually hear this going on. The door thumped, glass discreetly
broke, footsteps entered. Splash, splash on the big rug, those lustrous
fibers eagerly drinking up the fluid. Some nights he could almost hear
the zipper raspily sliding down just before the kid ruined the rug.

And voices-there were voices too, from down there. He did not want to
hear them, but they drifted up the stairs, whisPery and hot. The first
few nights, he had gone down to investigate, but of course had seen
nothing. There had been no scratching at the door, no subtle chiming of
broken glass, no unsteady footsteps across the irreplaceable rug. The
grand empty rooms had greeted him like a reproach. All those invasive
noises had happened only in his head. Two or three nights running, Franz
had wearily trailed through the waiting rooms, the chapel, and the
showrooms and seen only his inventory. And when he got back upstairs and
stretched out

384

Peter Straub

beside gently whiffling Queenie, he heard the voices all over again-the
hot, teasing voices. Franz? Franz? Didn't see us, did you? Try again-try
again, ugly Franz . . .

Ugly little Franz . . .

Shortly before midnight on the day that Richard Allbee was allowed to
walk past his wife's specter unharmed, Franz heard the entire sequence
of noises yet again: the soft sounds against the door, the quiet
breaking of glass, the footsteps across the vestibule. Can you find us,
ugly boy . . . ?

Someone chuckled. Splash, splash-the urine pounded into the carpet.

Franz groaned. He would have to try again. Find us, ugly little Franz?
Find us? Still he could hear the awful sound of the huge Kirman being
defiled. He threw back the sheet and left his bed.

"Oh, you're nothing but a real old rogue, that's what you are," Queenie
said to a white-haired man in a Peugeot commercial.

Franz wandered out of his room and felt for the switch that would
illuminate the great front staircase. If someone really was down there,
maybe the light would scare them off: Franz had no interest in heroics.
He paused at the top of the curved staircase and listened intently.

Ignoring the hot whispers from the depths of his public rooms, he
decided to do no more than to peek into the rooms. He would not even
bother to turn on the lights.

Just a quick turn around the downstairs, then back up. Franz set off
into the Tranquillity Chamber, which he had to pass through to get to
the other rooms. As he had decided, he did not switch on the lights, but
he saw perfectly well that the big Kirman, all its complexities resolved
into a single field of black, was safe and the velvet curtains unmarked.
He passed through a door and was in a wide circular hallway interrupted
by arched doorways to other chambers. It was in this hallway that Patsy
McCloud had seared his self-esteem. All the heart left him suddenly: if
he had not heard the Tonight Show audience roar like a zooful of beasts,
he would have gone back upstairs on the momentum of his next breath. But
the audience screamed and roared, and Franz saw Queenie tilting her head
and making some chirpy comment-and he walked across the dim hallway to
look into the first arch.

Here was his casket showroom: perhaps two hundred square feet with ranks
of caskets displayed on pedestals. He

FLOATING DRAGON

385

knew this room would be empty. Since the Tranquillity Chamber was empty,
all the other rooms would have to be empty too. Now his check of the
rooms was merely a formal gesture. He just glanced in, and then turned away.

And then he turned back again, uncomfortable. That smell-he had smelled
something. He was suddenly jarred by the recognition that his showroom
stank of urine. It smelled like an Army latrine, in fact, the stench
blossoming out around him as he stood transfixed in the door of the
shadowy room. "Now, then," he said. "What in heaven's name . . . ?"

Franzie, you found us!

Franz felt all the air leave his body. In the midst of the incredible
urine stench, now so strong that he could almost see the fumes coiling
in the air, two bulky figures were visible back behind the second rank
of caskets.

Found us! Found us! You win the prize, Franzie!

"Prize, what prize? What in the name of heaven . . . ?" He was so
shocked by this realization of his worst fantasies that he could not
really take it in properly. Two men, these men, had broken into his
building and . . . peed on his inventory of caskets! "Get out of here,"
he said, outrage beginning to take root in his fear and shock.

His hand tremblingly found the light switch. He punched it in and the
showroom jumped into being, awash with light and rich with the burnished
surfaces of the forty caskets on their mahogany pedestals. And then he
knew that he was crazier than six Queenies. The men were Chief Tony
Archer and his deputy, both of whom were dead.

Filling the air in the right half of his showroom he saw what must have
been a million flies; as the concentrated noise of their buzzing blew
him back in revulsion-into the left side of the room, so he knocked
aside two of the red leather chairs against the wall-the smell of dead
urine towered up around him.

Then the solid, writhing mass of flies whirled apart and scattered
through the showroom. Just now rising from one of the red chairs to the
right of the entrance was a gray-haired tften in a soiled white suit.
His face was slick and shiny. As Franz focused on the man he took in two
things simultaneously: this man in the dusty white suit ridged with dirt
was Pf- Van Home, and the doctor had become a leaker. Like Kichard
Allbee, he was not sure where he had first heard the erm, but he
recognized the symptoms. Wren Van Home was

386

Peter Straub

only a week or two from having to bandage himself together-his skin
seemed to be in constant motion, sliding minutely, checking, moving again.

"Oh, I'm sure, yes," Dr. Van Home said. "You want the prize, don't you?"

"Prize?" Franz numbly repeated.

"Why, you finally found us," Dr. Van Home said, and held out his right
hand. In it was a delicately curved scalpel. The doctor stepped toward
Franz, his face jigging, and laid open the undertaker's neck with one
rapid sweep of the blade.

When he was done with Franz Holland, the doctor went slowly upstairs,
where Queenie was telling Jack Nicholson that if he washed more, just
like she did, he wouldn't feel so downright rotten all the time.

FLOATING DRAGON

387

"You wouldn't believe what happens in my office. / can't believe what
happens in my office."

Ulick Byrne and Sarah Spry were taking their time over lunch at a pretty
little restaurant on the Post Road called Sweethaven-this had been
Sarah's choice. Sarah liked the ferns, the pale polished wooden floor,
and the crepes and salads and quiches on the menu were what she
considered a substantial lunch. That they had only a wine license was a
matter of indifference to her. Ulick Byrne had resigned himself to the
absence of gin and in fact felt too ill to lament the absence of
anything he considered actual food. At all the other tables in the room
women sat and talked, sat and smoked, deliberated over whether to order
the crepe with shrimp, scallions, and white wine sauce or the crepe with
asparagus and what the menu called "a delicate, creamy cheese of cheeses
from the French." He was the only man in the restaurant, and felt, on
top of his illness, like an odorous old bear invited into a dollhouse.

Sarah said, "I'd believe it. Have you taken a look at the newspaper lately?"

Ulick unhappily prodded what was left of his Crepe Surprise. He had
eaten everything in it that resembled meat, and he wondered if he'd
cause a scandal if he asked for catsup to cover up the taste of the
yogurt or whatever it was that had been in there. "To tell you the
truth, I hardly ever did read

the Gazette. Sometimes I used to look at your column, like everybody
else. But I have too much to read at work. I barely have fifteen minutes
for the Times in the mornings."

"Well, the old Gazette isn't half-bad, for a little tabloid that comes
out twice a week. We do a good job of covering this town. If I do say so
myself. But-and this really gripes me-even if we came up with a great
story about the cause of everything that's going on here, and I mean a
great story, Pulitzer-prize-great, nobody'd be able to read it. Because
it'd be so full of misprints it'd look like an eye chart."

Ulick was staring at a woman across the room and deciding that he could
do without catsup after all. The woman, slim and unsettlingly like Stony
Friedgood in appearance, with sharp neat features softened by a wealth
of dark hair, had smeared her lipstick from the base of her nose nearly
to the point of her chin. When she opened her mouth, Ulick noticed that
she had not neglected her teeth. Neither of the woman's two companions
seemed to mind that their friend's face looked like a road accident.

"I thought the paper looked a little funny the last time I saw it." The
headline, he thought, had read reassessment

MEANS EXTRU EASTWOOD AND TIME FAIL.

The plump blond woman seated next to the lipstick lady nonchalantly
unbuttoned her blouse and folded it back over a large sun-tanned breast.
She hefted the breast in her hand for a moment, making some
conversational point, and then popped it back inside the cheesecloth blouse.

"It always looks funny," Sarah said. "My editor reads the proof every
morning, he slaves over it to check all the errors, and about half the
paragraphs come out one hundred percent dogfood. You're not eating.
Don't you feel well?"

"I/<?e/ like dogfood," he said, not adding that he also felt as though
he had just eaten it. "My stomach's no good. Maybe I have a temperature,
I don't know. To tell you the tnith, I don't even care much. I've been
losing my temper a Jot too. My secretary's about to quit because of the
way I've been shouting at her."

Sarah reached under the table and patted his knee.

''What's that for?"

"Just to tell you to take it easy, assistant. Too many men ^e losing
their tempers around Hampstead these days. I don't want you to get in
any fights. Especially not with your secretary."

388

Peter Straub

"The way I feel, she'd walk all over me. Have you any idea of what's
going on in my office? I don't know what I am anymore-some kind of
shrink, maybe. People come in, clients I've had for years, they say
hello, they sit down, their faces go all funny, and they burst into
tears. I just can't sit there and watch people cry. It drives me up the
wall. I'll tell you something else. Two of my clients killed themselves
in the past three days. These are guys. One guy shot himself in the
head, the other one drank a bottle of weedkiller. They had good jobs . .
. hell, they had great jobs. I can't figure this shit out anymore."

"Yeah. If I didn't have something interesting to show you, I'd get
depressed, and then I'd start to cry, and you'd have to find something
to break."

"Something to show me?" He unthinkingly glanced over at the plump blond
woman in the cheesecloth blouse.

"Don't worry, Ulick. I'm not going to disrobe. I wanted you to see this
picture from the Woodville Herald. They're owned by the same chain that
owns us, and some of the features are shared, but of course most of it
is entirely different. I sent over a request to see their issues for the
third and fourth weeks of May. On the front page of the May nineteenth
issue I saw a photograph that interested me. I got their photo editor to
send me an enlarged glossy. I think you'll be interested too." She bent
down, picked up her bag, and took out a manila envelope. From the
envelope Sarah extracted an eightby-ten shiny photograph.

Ulick took it from her. He could not imagine why she thought he would be
interested in the photograph. It depicted, in harsh clear black and
white, a group of men standing in what looked like a parking lot. The
two men in the center were apparently being questioned by the others,
who stood about them in a rough circle. Byrne could identify none of
their faces "So?" he asked her.

"The two men in the center are the scientists who were in charge of the
Telpro installation in Woodville, Theodore Wise and William Pierce. This
photograph was taken at a sort of impromptu press conference on t. e day
those people died in the plant."

"Okay," Byrne said. "What's the point?"

"Him." Sarah tapped a fingernail on the bulky figure of a fuzzy-haired
man in a sweatshirt. The words keep on

FLOATING DRAGON

389

truckin' were dimly legible across the front of the shirt. "Do you know
who that is?"

"Some greaseball."

Sarah permitted herself the indulgence of a taut little smile. "That
greaseball is Leo Friedgood. A friend of mine in the police department
identified him for me."

Ulick's eyebrows contracted; he raised the photograph closer to his
face. "Friedgood was there? On May seventeenth? He was at Woodville
Solvent?"

"Obviously."

He put the photograph down on the edge of the table. "I'm damned if I
can figure this out. But if Friedgood was there, then Telpro sent him
there. And if they sent him there, they wanted him to do something. They
must have felt that ..." He paused, thinking. "They must have felt that
more had gone wrong than the staff on hand could manage. The question
is, what's happened to Friedgood? He hasn't been in his house for weeks."

"Telpro," Sarah said.

"You have it all figured out, don't you? Telpro. Iron Hank Haugejas.
They put Leo away somewhere-they're keeping him out of sight, because
he's the only person not directly related to Woodville Solvent who knows
what really happened there."

"Who knows Telpro's level of responsibility for what's going on in
Hampstead." Sarah neatly inserted the photograph back in the envelope,
the envelope back in her bag. "Do you know what I want to do? I'd like
to rattle General Haugejas' cage a little bit. I think it's time to do
something drastic. I want to go to his office and see what he says about
Leo Friedgood and Woodville Solvent."

"In that case, you'd better take your lawyer with you."

"Did you have any plans for the afternoon?"

Ulick Byrne did not want to admit it to himself, but he was
professionally as well as personally excited about what might ^se from a
meeting with General Henry Haugejas. He was convinced-even on the tiny
evidence he and Sarah had- that Haugejas and Telpro had conspired to
hide whatever had really happened in Woodville on the seventeenth of
May. Haugejas was a rough customer, and Telpro had a million lawyers,
but suppose that he and Sarah could catch them with

390

Peter Straub

their pants down? Ulick could sniff out the beginnings of a series of
lawsuits that would add up to billions of dollars. It would be a scandal
many times larger than Watergate, and every bit as clear-cut, as black
and white: the principal lawyer for the citizens of Hampstead would
become famous overnight, especially if he had personally helped to
uncover the scandal.

Sarah noticed that as Ulick Byrne drove toward Manhattan on 1-95, as he
crossed over the Triboro Bridge, as he putted along in the traffic down
FDR Drive, he now and then looked as though he were trying not to grin.

When they reached the Telpro building on East Fifty-ninth Street, Sarah
bustled him past the guard's desk in the lobby and led him into a
waiting elevator. "How do you know where you're going?" Ulick asked her.

The elevator doors silently closed, leaving them alone in a humming
wood-paneled box. "I'm a reporter," she said. "I'm also a reporter who
is a lot older than you. When Iron Hank retired, so to speak, from the
military, he made a pompous speech about how all his future battles
would be fought from behind a desk on the twentieth floor of a building
on East Fifty-ninth Street." She pushed a glowing disk on the elevator
panel. "So we're going to give him one of those battles."

Byrne shrugged. "Of course he might have moved offices a dozen times
since then."

"Then we get directed to the right floor. But the main thing is, we got
past the desk."

"Now we have to get past his secretary."

On the twentieth floor they stepped into a wide corridor leading to a
glass door with special projects painted on it in stark black letters.
Behind the desk a red-haired secretary or receptionist sat at an
elaborate desk. She lifted her head and smiled as the two of them came
through the door and across the thick tan carpet. Ulick was forced to
admit that Sarah Spry managed rather better than he did the business of
getting over the width of carpet with the air of having a perfect right
to be there. "May I help you?" the girl asked.

"We'd like to see General Haugejas, please," Sarah said firmly. "But
we'd like to have a word with his secretary first."

FLOATING DRAGON

391

The girl behind the desk looked puzzled. "Do you have an appointment
with the General?"

"Please let us speak to his secretary," Sarah said. She silenced Ulick
with her eyes. "You can tell her that a journalist from the Hampstead
Gazette and an attorney have come in connection with the events that
took place at Woodville Solvent.''

"Woodville Solvent? The Hampstead Gazette?" The girl lifted a telephone
receiver the same color as the carpet, punched a single digit, and spoke
softly into it for a moment. She looked up wide-eyed at them. "May I
have your names?"

"Mr. Byrne and Mrs. Spry," Ulick said.

The receptionist spoke quietly into the receiver again. Then she smiled
brightly at them. Mrs. Winthrop would be coming out any minute to meet them.

Any minute turned out to be thirty-one minutes later. Mrs. Winthrop
turned out to be a Chinese woman in her late twenties. In a crisp dress
the same flat black as her hair and large round glasses tinted amber
past the level of her eyes, Mrs. Winthrop possessed a beautiful smile
and a force of personality that immediately vaporized the red-haired
receptionist. She took Ulick Byrne's hand while she pronounced his name
and fried him with her smile, and shook it like a man. He felt as though
he had just been weighed, measured, and sent out to be washed. She had
moved on to Sarah. Byrne found himself wondering what Mr. Winthrop was like.

"Won't you please come back to my office?" she said, and turned smartly
around to lead them down another softly lighted corridor. After several
twists and turns, she opened a large blond oaken door and showed them
into an office with a wide black desk and a long black leather couch.
Bright abstract paintings decorated the walls. Mrs. Winthrop moved
luxuriantly around the back of the desk and sat down. "I must explain
that General Haugejas never sees anyone who does not have an
appointment, so even if he were here this afternoon it would be
impossible for you to meet him."

''He isn't here?" Sarah said.

"He isn't even expected back until tomorrow, Mrs. Spry. °ut I'm sure
that he would want me to find out what concerns y°u so that he can get
back to you about it. I wonder if you could explain to me why a gossip
columnist on the Hampstead newspaper and a lawyer who chiefly
specializes in real-

392

Peter Straub

estate transactions are interested in General Haugejas?"

And from that point on-we must assume, judging by the quickness of the
General's response-Mrs. Winthrop recorded every word pronounced in her
office. The tape recorder would have caught Ulick's growing annoyance,
Sarah's increasing distemper, their obvious belief that Henry Haugejas
was on the other side of the door behind Mrs. Winthrop's desk. (In this
they were wrong-the General was attending the board meeting of a bank
down on Wall Street that afternoon.) The recorder would certainly have
stored Ulick's remark that Telpro had killed children in Hampstead,
Connecticut, and his frequent questions about the presence of Leo
Friedgood at the plant in Woodville. Feng-chi Winthrop, who had sent him
there, merely looked vaguely puzzled at the barrage of accusations which
came from the two doomed and frustrated people en her leather couch.

FLOATING DRAGON

393

On the next day, Friday, the twenty-fifth of July, General Henry
Haugejas, accompanied by two aides, ceremoniously arrived in the streets
of Hampstead-not in the front seat of a flag-bedecked jeep, as he had
arrived in certain carefully chosen Korean villages, but in the backseat
of a limousine.

The Friedgood house was empty and clearly had been that way for some
time. The neighbors were unhelpful. They did not know what had become of
him and they did not know why they should open their houses to be
searched by three strangers. When the General identified himself and
explained-with a total lack of graciousness-that the location of Mr.
Frieda good was important to national security, the residents of Cannon
Road, Charleston Road, and Beach Trail usually opened their doors to the
General and his two large mascots. But all of these delays, all of these
explanations and hesitations and halfhidden hostilities, had chipped
away at the three ex-soldiers.

It was their failure as much as the repeated explanations and the sour
breath of class privilege that bit at them. By the time they had looked
through twenty houses, the General and his aides were keyed taut as
piano wire. They had begun seeing themselves as essentially military
once again, and they were sick of the problems given them by civilians.
The aides,

whose war had come after the General's, thought with longing back to the
days when they could charge, dripping with weapons, into any hootch they
wanted to turn over; and how all the people in the hootch would bow and
smile so vigorously they looked like they were simultaneously going to
break their backs and their jaws. It is likely that they expected the
Hampstead police to act that way-like Vietnamese peasants.

And that was what caused their trouble-in a way calculated to raise the
hackles of any police officer anywhere, General Haugejas and his aides
assumed that the officers existed to follow their orders: that they were
all in the same army, but the policemen far down the chain of command.

Sarah Spry's friend, the desk sergeant Dave Marks, was the first to meet
the three of them, and their manner immediately annoyed him. The big old
guy with the iron-colored hair tried to stare him down, and the two
bozos with him flanked Dave across the desk the way the terrorists did
in the police training films. One at each side, about eight or nine feet
apart, so that if he looked at one, he wouldn't be able to see the
other. These three looked like trouble and delay, and Dave Marks wanted
neither; what he wanted was to end the shift, take a shower, grab some
food, and get to the midnight showing of The Choirboys at the Nutmeg
Theater, on the other end of the municipal parking area from the
station. That was what all the cops on duty that night wanted; all of
them felt an extra tension and anticipation, and so they all felt an
increased impatience with pushy outsiders.

The General smoldered at Dave Marks from a point equidistant from the
door and the desk, and ordered Dave to get the chief.

"Chief's out," Marks said. The chief was home in bed, but he saw no
reason to tell that to his visitor.

The General approached the desk.

He placed a card in front of Dave Marks. "I don't think the chief here
would mind if you let us see whatever you might have on the whereabouts
of Leo Friedgood."

Marks pursed his lips and read the card. "Telpro Corporauon," he said.
"Didn't you used to be his boss?"

"Mr. Friedgood is an employee of the Telpro Corporation, tnat is
correct. As your chief is out, I am requesting you to

8et your file on Mr. Friedgood."

394

Peter Straub

Marks raised his eyebrows. "The file."

"It is not an ordinary matter, Officer. This is a question of security."

"Now, wait a second." Marks bent over the card again. "This doesn't say
anywhere on it that you're still with the government, General. Even if
you were, I'd need a special request form before I could let you look at
our files. But you're not. So you're not even going to get a special
request form. So that's that."

"I want to speak to your chief."

"Come back tomorrow, General."

"And while I am speaking to your chief, I want you or one of your fellow
officers to locate Mr. Friedgood's current address." g

"You'll have to talk to the chief about that. But, sir, hm isn't going
to give you anything." 1

"I am going to give your chief an unfavorable report ofli your behavior
this afternoon, Officer Marks."

Three or four other officers had drifted up toward the desk: the General
should have noticed that they moved very quietly, with an almost
protective solidarity.

"I don't care what you do, General. All I know is that you are a private
citizen who thinks he has the right to give cornmands to police officers
and roam through police documents. I think you got a problem there,
General."

The General's face had grown even redder than it was normally. Now at
last his battle had begun. "I am going to give you a telephone number in
the Defense Department. I am going to ask you to call that number and
listen to what they tell you. I am going to order you to do those two
things. And then I want to see your file on Leo Friedgood."

"I am going to ask you to remember where you are, General," Dave Marks
said. "You can't order me to do anything. I want you and your goons to
get out of the station right now."

"Hey," one said. "Hey, all we want is-"

"Out," Marks said. "I mean it."

"You are being foolish and self-destructive," General Haugejas said. "I
have a right to be here, and I have a right to the information I
requested. If you will simply call the Defense Department-"

"Who the fuck are you, anyhow?" a blond young policeman asked-his face
too was red. "You think we're in your

FLOATING DRAGON

395

army? You've been ordered out of this station, buddy. Don't you think
you ought to get going?"

Greeley, the aide who resembled a blond ape, stepped toward Johanssen
and grabbed his arm.

"Stop that," Johanssen said.

"Hey, nobody wants any trouble," Greeley said. "We been looking for this
AWOL all day, man. We're gonna find him eventually, and you guys are
gonna help us find him."

Johanssen turned to the little group of policemen with a do you believe
this guy? expression on his face. As he turned, his hand brushed against
Greeley's pistol in its harness. Without thinking, acting out of pure
fury and pure reflex, Johanssen kicked Greeley's legs out from under
him, dropped to one knee on astonished Greeley's chest, and reached
inside his jacket for the pistol.

"Leave my men alone!" General Haugejas shouted.

A burly young cop named Wiak gripped the General's arms from behind, and
his partner stepped forward to remove the General's guns, now visible,
from his waist. Another pair of policemen had taken the other aide's
pistol in the same fashion.

"I am ordering you to release me," the General said. "My name is Henry
Haugejas, General Henry Haugejas, and I demand my release and a telephone."

"What kind of arsenal do you guys walk around with, General?" asked Dave
Marks. "You're loaded for bear. If I was Leo Friedgood, I'd want to stay
upwind of you."

"/ want a telephone!" Haugejas snouted. "You will permit me to the use
of a telephone."

Greeley unwisely tried to wriggle out from under Johanssen's knee, and
the young policeman rolled him over with one deft twist of his arm. Mark
Johanssen planted a foot in the small of Greeley's back, then reached
down and cuffed Greeley's hands together behind his back.

|^You idiot!" the General shouted. "Release that man!"

"I told you, I'm not in your army," Johanssen said, and stepped over
Greeley toward the General.

Get them in the cells," Marks said quickly. "Just get them in the cells,
we'll sort it out tomorrow."

"Well, this son of a bitch assaulted me," Johanssen said, Pulling
Greeley painfully to his feet. Greeley turned his head and spat on the
lapel of Johanssen's uniform. "Holy shit!" Johanssen said. He slammed
his fist into Greeley's belly, and

396

Peter Straub

when the aide doubled over he hit him in the side of the head, knocking
him into the first of the row of little cells off the reception area of
the station. "Shit!" he repeated at the yellow blob reposing on his
lapel. He tore off the uniform jacket, jumped into the cell where
Greeley lay panting against the concrete wall beneath the sink, and
wiped the stuff on Greeley's chin. "I oughta make you eat it,
cocksucker," he said, and left the cell, locking the door behind him.

Larry Wiak was propelling the General toward the second cell. The
General's face now was utterly distorted by rage and disbelief-it had
never occurred to him that when he began the battle he might end it in
defeat. "Get your hands off me!" he was screaming. "I'll cut your nuts off!"

"I never did like generals much," Johanssen said, gloating as Wiak
pushed the General into the cell.

"You guys really ought to do yourselves a favor and call one of those
numbers," said the second aide as he was being led toward the third
cell. "Tomorrow the shit really hits the fan."

"Generals are always willing to take off someone else's nuts," Johanssen
said.

Iron Hank continued to rant loudly and furiously-but he had finally
recognized that in a town where everyone had been exposed to DRG-16,
nothing kept the police from going batty along with everyone else.

"At least these three turkeys aren't going to keep us busy tonight,"
Larry Wiak said to Johanssen.

Johanssen listened to the General bellow and threaten. "Not unless the
old fart gets to a phone and has the station nuked," he said.

"Nuked!" the General yelled. "You'll think that's a pat on the behind!"

"You want to go. I know you do."

"I did want to go, sure. That was before you got sick. Jesus, Ronnie."

"All your friends are going to be there."

"I see all my friends at the station anyhow. Seeing them get tanked up
in a movie isn't any big treat."

"And you had such a good time last year."

FLOATING DRAGON

397

"Last year you were healthy. For God's sake, Ronnie. You didn't even
touch the food."

"Well, part of the reason I'm not hungry is that I'm worried about you.
I don't want you to be any big martyr, you know. I'm still going to feel
crappy if you go to the movie or not. So I think you ought to go."

"Jesus, Ronnie. I'd feel terrible if I went tonight. It's just a movie.
I want to stay home and take care of you."

"Take care of a sick old lady," Ronnie said, and turned her face
sideways into the pillow. A sick old lady was just what she looked like,
Bobo thought-he could see how her skin had dried out in the weeks of her
illness, how her cheeks were sinking in past the line of her jaw like
those of a toothless mountain woman. At nine o'clock that night, Bobo
sat beside Ronnie's bed in a darkened room, randomly moving her
untouched plate back and forth, an inch at a time, on the aluminum tray.
Ronnie had closed her eyes, and her lids lay against her face like
veined gray stones. She sighed; shifted her face deeper into the pillow.
Lines cut deeply into her forehead, sank into the flesh at the corners
of her mouth. For a fugitive and disloyal second Bobo regarded Ronnie
Riggley with utter dismay-for himself, not his lover. Could he really
tie himself for the rest of his life to a woman so much older? Live with
this woman and watch this ghastly worn face slowly overtake the face he
knew? A web of lines and faint wrinkles seemed to lurk just beneath her
skin, sucking her face into it. For a moment Bobo wanted to flee: he
felt like an orderly at a nursing home. In the next instant these
thoughts rebounded. He pressed her hand, feeling a shameful guilt; yet
the thoughts which had given rise to the guilt lingered.

"Go," Ronnie said. "Don't let me hold you back."

"We'll see," Bobo said, and the words reverberated with a double meaning
for him. He picked up the tray and carried it out into the kitchen.
Behind him Ronnie sighed again, in pain he thought.

The problem was-and now Bobo had to restrain himself from slamming his
fist into one of Ronnie's cupboard doors-

-the problem was that his murder case, all these murder cases, had
somehow mushroomed out, spilled out of themselves in some way he could
not define, and poisoned the town. That was how it seemed to Bobo: as
though the sickness in the killings had in some way gotten out of the
killings themselves and begun to blossom on the walls and sidewalks.

398

Peter Straub

Now Bobo never enjoyed his nightly rides through Hampstead. He saw too
many crazy things, and the fun had forever gone out of madness for him.
A couple of times a night he had to break up mysterious brawls; when he
talked to the bleeding fighters after pulling them apart, they could
not, exactly, remember why they had been fighting. Another cornmonplace
now was a perfectly ordinary person-who might have shown some signs of
depression in the past few days, but this was not always so-suddenly
frozen in an inexplicable mania. So many people had decided that window
breaking \ was socially acceptable that Main Street looked permanently
boarded up. Bobo himself had answered the call when Teddy , Olson, a
druggist on Main Street, had driven his Camaro right into a group of
high-school boys and killed four of them- Bobo wasn't sure how he knew
this, but he was positive thai if the killer hadn't come to Hampstead
Teddy would still be measuring out Valium behind his counter instead of
waiting out his trial date in the Bridgeport jail.

In fact, right now in Hampstead, Bobo reckoned, there were about a
hundred people of all ages and both sexes whc looked crazy enough to be
the killer. Some of them were cops: and that was another part of the
problem that made Bobo want to start punching Ronnie's kitchen cabinets.
The whole department was going bughouse because they had not been able
to nail the man; the state police were also looking angry and desperate
as they chased around the same diminishing circle of unhelpful leads.
Worse for Bobo was the look he saw in the eyes of cops like young Mark
Johanssen and his friend Larry Wiak-a look that said they wouldn't mind
really pounding the crap out of the next guy who crossed them. This was
more than just a look in the eyes. Wiak had savagely flattened two
people he had separated in a brawl in the parking lot behind Main Street
that morning. One man was lucky to have escaped concussion, and the
other had lost three teeth. But even worse than Wiak's delight in having
pounded these citizens and the approval the other officers gave Wiak for
it was the sense Bobo had that Larry Wiak really wished he had been able
to shoot those two men instead of merely hitting them.

He tipped the uneaten food into Ronnie's garbage disposal, rinsed the
dish, and placed it in the machine. He leaned on the sink with both arms
outstretched and looked at the blurry reflection of his face in the
window. And for the first time,

FLOATING DRAGON

399

perhaps since the murders began, the midnight showing at the Nutmeg
Theater caused him a little thrill of apprehension: while everybody else
was shouting and chugging beer, it might be better if Johanssen and Wiak
and a few others just went out to a quiet bar by themselves.

The policemen who survived the Second Annual All-Police Midnight
Screening were never able properly to explain how things went wrong so
quickly. They, like Bobo, had an excellent grasp of the reasons why the
screening had turned into a disaster; they were as aware of their
frustrations as he; but what they could never quite get straight was the
actual sequence of events which turned a hundred exuberant cops in
something under half an hour to a hundred hysterics waving pistols.
There were a few things all the survivors agreed upon-shortly before the
carnage began, Larry Wiak had taken off all his clothes and jumped on
the stage in front of the screen; and an old patrolman named Rod Fratney
had begun yelling in a high-pitched squealing voice that he had seen
Dicky Norman. And the thirty-two survivors of the Nutmeg Theater also
agreed that a man seated on the far right of the theater had screeched
as soon as Fratney uttered Dicky's name. They agreed that Larry Wiak was
the first to die: but eleven of them swore that Fratney had killed Wiak,
sixteen said the unidentified cop who had screeched shot naked Larry
Wiak, four said that both of the men simultaneously put bullets into
Wiak's chest; and one man swore to Graham Williams that while both Rod
Fratney and the unidentified man had their guns out and were firing,
their bullets hit the screen-what killed Wiak, the man swore, was a
lightning bolt that began just beneath the ceiling of the theater and
angled lazily and surely toward the big naked man standing in front of
the screen. "When it hit him," the policeman told Graham, "it was like
nothing else you ever saw in your life. A BAR wouldn't do so much to a
guy. It just tore that big fucker apart. He went off like Old Faithful,
and that's when all the guys went stone crazy."

That sounded right to Graham, it sounded in the Dragon's key; and so he
went back and asked some of the others if they were sure about either of
the two policemen shooting Wiak.

400

Peter Straub

In a Bridgeport police bar named Billy O's, a forty-threeyear-old
sergeant named Jerry Jerome gave him a weary look and said, "You mean
the lights? Somebody told you about the lights?"

"You tell me about the lights," Graham said.

"Right as soon as we all got in there. As soon as we all had a couple of
beers apiece-those guys, it was like they were chugging right out of the
can, I never saw 'em drink so fast before-and right when we were ready
for the movie. Everybody stopped yelling the way they were doing, and
the lights went down. Johanssen and a couple of other guys, Maloney and
Will and I don't know who else, were still farting around in the aisles,
but everybody else was sitting down. You could sort of hear everybody
sigh-because this was it now, this was what everybody'd been waiting for
all week. When that curtain started moving away, folding up, a few guys
clapped, but most of us-hell, I could feel it!-sort of mentally came to
attention, you know what I mean?"

Jerry Jerome took a big swallow of his Jack Daniel's, blinked at Graham
Williams, and asked, "Do you know about 'Spigger'? Did anyone tell you
about 'Spigger'?" When Graham shook his head, Jerry Jerome smiled a pale
little ghost-smile and said, "That came a little later, and that was how
come I thought maybe the lights were just my eyes. Because if the guy
who shouted it saw what I saw, I didn't think he'd be able to make a
joke right away. I was still trying to figure out if my head was screwed
on right."

He tilted his head and looked at Graham. "Buster, if you laugh at me, at
what I'm going to say to you right now, I'll smash this drink right in
your face. Okay? Okay. I thought I saw the northern lights. You know?
Streams of light, pouring down from the ceiling toward the screen-almost
like fireballs, some of 'em were. Blue and yellow and red ... all
sparkly and electric-looking. I saw it, man. I was so scared all of a
sudden I thought I'd shit. I was sure the whole damn theater was on
fire. Reminded me of night artillery practice when I was at Fort Sill.
Zoom, zoom, zoom, you know? Fuckin' air was full of that stuff-and then
it all ran right into the screen. So ..." He sipped at his drink and
looked hard at Graham, a real cop's stare, to check out how he was
reacting to all this. "So when I saw Wiak-when I saw something crazy
come at Wiak and blow him into cottage cheese, I thought it was the same
thing."

FLOATING DRAGON

401

"Spigger" turned out to be easy. Nearly all the survivors remembered it,
and most of them remembered that the man who had made the joke was one
of those larking about in the middle aisle when the lights went down.
They agreed that it was not Johanssen-his humor was not so crude.
Maloney seemed the best bet, Artie Maloney, who came back from 'Nam with
a boxful of medals he would take out of his desk at home sometimes and
show if you were both drunk enough. It seemed likely that it was Maloney
who had shouted out "Spigger!" when the first black man who was not a
policeman appeared on the screen. "Spigger! Half-spick and halfnigger!"
The boys went crazy. If there was beer in their mouths, it went all over
the head of the guys in front of them. "Half-spick and. . ." You could
hear Maloney's phrase echoing through the Nutmeg Theater-but the truth
is that Maloney's joke was not really so good. It is quintessentially
the sort of thing a half-drunk twenty-eight-year-old Irish cop would say
when he had his feet up on the seat in front of him and felt he could
get away with saying anything that popped into his mind. Older police
officers like Jerry Jerome and Rod Fratney ordinarily would not even
dignify such a crack with as much as a smile.

Why, then, was Maloney's dull remark so successful? It occurred to
Graham that it might have represented at least a release from
extraordinary tension. What if more than Jerry Jerome had seen the
streams of light like tracer fire blazingly enter the screen? What if
every man there-every man but Artie Maloney-had seen the lights, and
wondered if he was losing his mind? "Spigger" might have brought them
back to themselves, jerked them out of their bewilderment.

But perhaps not all the way out, and maybe "bewilderment" is the wrong
word for their condition. For there is one more thing that most of the
survivors of the Nutmeg Theater gradually confessed to Graham Williams;
in all the confusion, one more area of agreement.

It was a twenty-year-old kid who first hinted it to Graham, and he
looked as embarrassed as Jerry Jerome had in the Bridgeport bar. The
boy, Mike Minor, once might have looked authoritative in his uniform,
but in a kiss T-shirt and jeans, sitting on a wooden rocker in the
kitchen of his parents' house, he still seemed undone by the events in
the Nutmeg Theater. His eyes were too large for his head, and a vein in
one lid kept insistently bumping and bumping, as if it

402

Peter Straub

wanted to go somewhere else. He had quit the force in September, and was
thinking about trying to get into computer training somewhere: to Graham
it looked as though he would be better off waiting another six months.
His attention span was roughly equal to that of a four-year-old. "I
thought I saw maybe something like spiderwebs way up there when the
lights went down, yeah," he told Graham. "Not lights exactly, but
something that was sort of floating, sort of floating lines . . .
spiderwebs. You want a Coke or something?" He twitched over to the
refrigerator and took out a can of Diet Pepsi, brought it back to the
butcher-block table, snapped off the tab and poured about half of it
down his throat.

"Man, I just couldn't figure it out when Larry took off his clothes like
that. And I couldn't tell you why he did it. He was nothin' but a
goddamned animal, if you want to know the real truth about Larry Wiak."

Mike Minor nervously drank the rest of his Diet Pepsi in \ two huge
swallows. "When he came walking out of those ;] shadows all big and
white like that, he terrified me, man." | The boy nodded, ducked his
head like a puppy who fears a 1 blow. "And when Rod Fratney yelled what
he did, and that other guy over on my side screamed just like a girl in
a horror movie, I could have pissed my pants. Because I knew he was
there, man, he was right where I was." He glanced at Graham, who was
already nodding with the boy. "Man, he'd seen it too. Just like old Rod.
And me."

"He had seen Dicky Norman, you mean." Graham had expected this.

"Well, two nights before we went to that Choirboys show, supposed to be
the biggest party of the year and all that, two nights before that I was
out on patrol. And I got lost. I was somewhere near the Academy, but I
couldn't get my bearings. Some road-some narrow road with no street
signs. I couldn't even remember how I got there. It was like being in a
bad dream, man. For a second I was real panicked, like 'Where am I, man?
I'm a cop and I don't even know where I amV There was nothin' but these
big trees all over. I couldn't even remember what part of town I was in
for a couple of seconds. I decided to turn around and go back the way I
came until I saw something familiar. So I get the car pointed into the
trees, and I put the car in reverse, and I look in the rearview mirror .
. . and I saw Dicky Norman. Man, it's crazy, but that's who it was. His
skin looked red because of my

FLOATING DRAGON

403

taillights. He was just coming out of the trees on that side of the
road, like that's where he slept or something, and one of his arms was
all torn off and that big round face looked gray and tired and . . .
waxy. He was moving right toward me. Boy, I pushed that car into Drive
and spun right out of there-gave the right-front fender a huge big dent."

"So when Larry Wiak started coming out of the shadows toward the screen
..." Graham did not have to say any more.

"Yeah. I mean, nobody can ever ask Rod Fratney anything ever again, but
I know-I know. He saw him too." He looked defiantly at the old man
across the butcher-block table and concentrated on flattening out the
aluminum can with the palm of his hand.

"I'm sure he did," Graham said, and the boy glanced suspiciously toward
him. "I saw a lot of funny stuff myself, last July and August."

"Yeah." The boy ducked his head again and tamped down a wrinkle in the
seam of the can. "Yeah. A lot of funny stuff." When he next looked at
Graham, his eyes seemed inflamed. And then he dropped his bomb: not all
at once, for he was still not sure of Graham's trustworthiness, and not
at first directly, for among those he distrusted was himself: but
Michael Minor took Graham a long way toward understanding what actually
happened in the Nutmeg Theater. "Did anyone tell you about the movie?"
he asked.

And that was one thing that none of the survivors had mentioned. Graham
looked at the boy's painfully strained eyes and said, "Tell me about the
movie, Mike." His stomach tightened, and he knotted his fingers together
so they would not tremble.

"I don't know what I can tell you," the boy said. He was silent for a
long time, scratching the back of his left hand. "Like it was about us?"
He cocked his head, looked sharply at Graham, and went back to scraping
his nails across the back of his hand. "But then it sort of changed. It
got different." Graham waited impatiently while Mike Minor struggled
with his inadequate vocabulary.

"It got different, you said."

"Oh. Yeah, it got different." The boy straightened up in the rocking
chair, and his face drew into itself. A cold light hke hoarfrost from
the window beside him lay across the Plane of his cheek, made it as
blunt as the side of an ax.

404

Peter Straub

Suddenly the boy looked ten years older to Graham. "It got like it was a
3-D show. I could see into it just like into a room."

The boy stirred in his chair. "Then I saw what that room was. It wasn't
the police station in the movie anymore-I mean, it was a police station,
but it wasn't the same one. You know, it sounds dumb, but it took me a
long time to recognize it. It was the Hampstead police station. The one
we'd all just left. Mo Chester, the night deskman, was up there, and
McCone, his partner ... ah, this is where some of the guys started
making noise. I can't tell you why, but it didn't seem funny that our
own station and two of our guys should show up in the middle of The
Choirboys. It seemed great. Then they showed the muster room, and every
cop we had was in that room, even the ones who didn't come to the show.
Royce Griffen. That was what I noticed first: Royce Griffen's hair, that
real bright red hair he had. And then I noticed the back of his head."

Minor crossed his legs and put one hand up to the frozenlooking cheek.
"It was like hamburger. Just gross. And I saw that every guy in there
was dead. They had these big wounds, these big mushy wounds. And their
skin was all sort of green- ; ish . . ." He was trembling now, and
Graham understood 5 that his peculiar posture was supposed to keep him
so rigid he | could not shake. "That's what I saw, anyhow." I

"That was all that you saw?" j

"One other thing-but it was just short. We had these littlgfl cells,
holding cells, where we kept drunks overnight. OH where we put kids
until their parents could come and picfl them up. Six of them, all in
one row. I didn't know we Hall anyone in there that night, because I was
on day shift. Then camera went right through the door to the cells, and
it showed! the first three cells. It looked like a butcher shop in
there,- man. Cut-up bodies, bodies all ripped open with all this stuff I
hanging out of 'em, blood all over everything . . . their* clothes all
mixed up with their insides." Mike Minor locked j his hands around his
upraised knee. "Right after that I" thought I saw Dicky Norman stumble
toward the screen. And j that's when it happened." 1

The boy was shaking so uncontrollably now that even his voice trembled.
"Guys were crying and yelling ... I saw the guy right next to me, Harry
Chester, Mo's brother, catch a ||

FLOATING DRAGON

405

round right in his throat and jump up and have his head opened up by
what must have been a .357, and I hit the floor and got my own gun out.
I was sure Dicky Norman was corning for me again, and I just started
shooting up toward the front of the theater ... I probably hit a couple
of guys, I don't know. ..."

Graham stood up and went toward the shaking boy. After a second of
hesitation he patted him on the back and went hunting for brandy. He
found a bottle, poured an inch into a wineglass, and gave it to Mike
Minor, saying, "It's okay, son. It's okay. It's all over now. Anyone you
hit was probably hit by a dozen other men, too." Because first he had
been hit by the movie.

When he knew enough to ask some of the other survivors about the film,
he heard a dozen variations on Michael Minor's story. No two had seen
the same thing, but after the first few minutes, none had seen The
Choirboys. Some had seen their wives and daughters making love with
other cops, a few had seen their children's bodies pulled from the
gentle surf on Gravesend Beach. A cop named Ron Rice had seen something
like a sea monster-a huge underwater reptile with a wide savage
mouth-swimming along and biting children in half, tearing their bodies
apart and turning the water red. Most saw dead people moving as though
they were alive. Two or three more of the men Graham talked to saw
redheaded Royce Griffen. Many of them saw the drowned children and were
chilled by their white cold faces. A cop named Lew Holz told Graham,
"The way they looked! You know, I maybe saw them for only about a minute
or two, if that long, but ... they looked damned funny. They weren't
kids anymore, they were something else, something you never want to see
in this life, mister, and I don't either. They looked as though they had
been fathered by rattlesnakes, that's how they looked." Holz had not
seen Jerry Jerome's lightning bolt; like most of the others, he thought
that Larry Wiak had been killed by Rod Fratney-even though Fratney was
generally regarded as one of the worst shots on the Hampstead force. But
by the time Graham spoke to Lew Holz, he no longer thought the question
of who or what had killed Larry Wiak was the most important one he had
to ask. Therefore, the second time he talked to Bobo Farnsworth

406

Peter Straub

1

about what he had discovered that night, he asked him, ' 'When you got
into the Nutmeg after running down from the station, did you happen to
see what was on the screen?"

For the movie was still running when Bobo ran into the theater; the
projectionist, hit by a stray bullet, was alive but incapacitated on the
floor of his booth; the screen was in tatters but The Choirboys or
whatever the Dragon had put in its place was being screened on the
shreds of fabric and the blank wall behind them.

And Bobo, standing in the topmost part of a darkened room filled with
dead men and dying men, had seen it.

FLOATING DRAGON

407

If Ronnie had fallen into an uneasy, twitchy sleep shortly after ^

ten o'clock. Bobo hovered by the side of the bed, unwilling C

to leave her-drained by her lengthy illness, Ronnie looked fl

translucent in her sleep, and Bobo feared that she might trip »

over from flutters and twitches into outright convulsions. He if

stroked her hand, then picked it up: it felt hot and dry and no m

heavier than a hummingbird. Holding her hand while she m

slept made him feel somehow false to himself, and he gently m

set her hand back down on the sheet. Then he went into the v

bathroom, soaked a washcloth in cold water, wrung it out, m

and returned to Ronnie's side. He delicately patted the cold w

cloth over her forehead. Ronnie muttered something that m

sounded like Voon, but did not awaken. Bobo rested his fin- M

gers on her forehead and thought it felt a little less feverish. Jk

Nursing, Bobo had discovered, was more exhausting than ^J

police work. He had reported for the day shift, come home toi^fl

take care of Ronnie, and now he felt as though he had gones^H

thirty-six hours without sleep. Most of the exhaustion, Bobo^^H

thought, was a product of the anxiety he felt about Ronnie's :^B

condition, but being in attendance on her for six or seven ^m

hours without letup had given him sore feet and a backache. ^H

He would have climbed on the bed beside her, but he did not i^H

want to risk waking her. He sat down by her side, took her ^H

hand again, and closed his eyes; then he went across the bed- j^H

room to an old overstuffed chair, removed the clothes from it, :fl|

and dropped them on the floor, and then dropped himself onto ]H|

the spongy seat cushion. 91

Several hours later he awakened, disoriented-sleep had come so swiftly
upon him that it took him a moment to recognize that he had slept. Bobo
leaned forward, and his back complained; trapped in his tightly laced
shoes, his feet felt swollen and tender. Across the room, Ronnie was
moving her hand exploringly across her face. Then she opened her eyes
and saw him.

"Oh, you sweetheart, you stayed with me," she said. "Um. I'm so dry."

"Just a sec." Bobo bounced out of the chair and brought her a glass of
water from the bathroom. "How do you feel? I think you must have slept a
couple of hours."

Ronnie tilted her head, considering; she sipped at the water. "I do feel
better. You know, I think I could even eat something now. A little soup,
maybe? Would you be a real sweetie and make some for me?"

"That's what I'm here for," he said.

When he returned with a bowl of mushroom soup he sat on the edge of the
bed and watched her eat nearly all of it. As she handed him back the
bowl, she yawned hugely. "Oh! I'm sorry," she said. "Bobo, I feel limp
as a rag. I think I'm going to sleep for the next three weeks."

Bobo smiled at her.

"What time is it? About twelve-thirty? Bobo, why don't you go down to
the movie? It probably started late, so it won't be like walking in in
the middle-you'll only miss a couple of minutes, I swear. All I'm going
to do is turn off the light and go back to sleep. I'll be all right. I
promise."

"Well, maybe I will," Bobo said.

He did not go straight to the Nutmeg, but walked up to the old brick
station house after he had parked his car. The theater was only a few
minutes' walk across the sloping municipal parking lot, and Bobo was
interested in what had happened during the second shift. A few more
cases of arson, an anonymous body rotting in a shed, a high-school boy
who had tried to fly off the roof of his house? The night deskman, Mo
Chester, would have something funny to say about the afternoon's supply
of weirdness. Mo Chester could always make Bobo laugh. Also, Mo would be
chafing about having to miss the movie and the inevitable party
afterward, especially since his brother could go to them.

408

Peter Straub

Bobo went up the steps and pushed open the massive wooden door, already
smiling about Mo's probable response to the surprise of his appearance.

"Well, guess who's here?" he said, clapping his hands together. "Can I
get you any beer from the . . ." Theater, he was going to say, but the
absence of an audience stole the joke from his throat. Mo Chester was
not seated behind the desk, a telephone glued to his ear and a wry smile
on his face. The desk was vacant. Gance McCone, Mo's partner, was gone
too, and that was doubly odd. Bobo could not remember ever seeing the
desk completely abandoned.

"Hey," Bobo called out. "What's the big idea, Chester? You and Gance on
strike today?"

His words went out into the depths of the station-it was as if he could
see them go. Bobo was suddenly convinced that he was the only person in
the station. At this point he had not become aware of the smell. He
stood absolutely still in the wide entry of his station; then by reflex
he reached for the place on his hip where his gun should have been.
Danger bells were ringing very loudly in Bobo's mind, and it was only
when he touched his belt that he realized he was out of uniform.

"Anybody?" he shouted.

The phone rang just before Bobo went across the floor to look over the
top of the desk, and the sound of the ringing is half of what triggered
Bobo's dejd vu. He suddenly felt as though he had been in this moment
before: the shock of the empty station, the shrill insistence of a
telephone: himself standing in precisely this way, flat-footed and off
balance.

Then Bobo became aware of the smell that pervaded the police station,
and for the first and only time in his life he could identify the causes
of the dejd vu experience and locate the real moment which lay behind
the illusion of having been in precisely this same moment at an earlier
time. Because he smelled blood-had just become aware that the odor of
blood was so strong that the walls might have been smeared with it-and
because the telephone was jangling and jangling, he had been put back
into one of the unhappiest hours of his life: the time when he had
responded to the call from Hester Goodall's brother and after seeing the
mess in the kitchen had telephoned the station and waited for the other
men to come. Mrs. Goodall's telephone had shrieked at them, but the
priest apparently did not hear it and Bobo did not want to get in-

X

FLOATING DRAGON

409

volved with answering calls. The captains and the state cops could deal
with Mrs. Goodall's friends and family.

The station stank of spilled blood like the Goodall house on that May
afternoon, and Bobo went apprehensively toward the desk. When he reached
it, he rose up onto his tiptoes and peered over the top. He saw the
padded chairs the desk officers used, their telephones and notebooks and
cigarettes; and he did not see what he had feared. No bodies lay twisted
together on the raised floor behind the desk.

"Chester! McCone!" he shouted. "Anybody!"

He ducked into the hallway that led to the offices and the muster room
and the interrogation rooms, but he saw no one. Behind him, the
shrilling of the telephone continued. Before he went prowling through
the rest of the station, Bobo turned around for another look at the
entrance. And then Bobo saw, as he had not earlier, that the door
between the main part of the station and the six little holding cells
was open an inch or two.

This door was always kept locked, even when no prisoners were being
held; it was a rule as conventional and as rigidly kept as the unwritten
command that always kept at least one officer at the desk.

Bobo went slowly back across the white floor. He touched the barred
metal door; swung it open. The stench of blood, now combined with the
dark unmistakable odor of feces, rushed out toward him. Bobo looked down
and saw a red stippling on the floor.

He was sure that the bodies back in there would be those of Mo Chester,
Gance McCone, and any other officer who had been caught in the station.

Bobo stepped into the corridor and quickly ran down the length of the
cells, seeing that there were three bodies. None of them were the bodies
of policemen. The cells' doors were still locked. Behind the bars, the
bodies lay disarranged and savaged in their separate cells. Bobo was not
breathing now; he was barely thinking. On the floors of the three cells,
blood lay in a thick glaze. Behind him the telephone finally stopped
ringing. One of the three men-this was Greeley-had been so clawed that
his face was only an assemblage of wet ragged strings; Bobo looked hard
at the second bloody face and bought it looked almost familiar-as though
this man had °nce been in the newspapers or on the covers of magazines.

It took him less than thirty seconds to pound downhill

410

Peter Straub

across the length of the municipal lot. For one night, the manager of
the theater had arranged that the marquee read: welcome POLICE OFFICERS
OF HAMPSTEAD PRIVATE SHOWING. He

raced toward these tall black letters.

The lobby of the Nutmeg was brilliantly lighted and as empty as the
station house. Loud noises echoed through it- from the soundtrack of The
Choirboys, Bobo assumed, piped in from the main section of the theater.
He identified a biting odor as familiar to him as the fragrance of beer.

It was cordite-the odor of the firing range in the basement of the
police station.

He trotted past the ticket post and burst through the twin swinging
doors into the theater. Cacophony erupted from the speakers: shouts,
grunts, bursts of loud and irrelevant music. The beam from the
projection booth illuminated the last swirling traces of smoke.

All the seats seemed empty. Bobo took a few uncertain steps down the
sloping aisle, uncertain because his eyes had not yet adjusted. "Hey,"
he said, "guys?"

Then he saw a leg extended into the aisle, draped over an armrest. "Hey,
you all drunk?" He heard a groan rising softly from beneath the mad
roars and giggles on the soundtrack. Bobo touched the upraised knee;
shook it. "Where are the lights in this place?" he yelled. And then
either the screen turned brighter or his eyes adjusted, for he saw
wounded and dead men sprawled across their seats in every part of the
theater. It looked like some sort of ghastly joke: wherever Bobo looked,
ahead or behind, to either side, he saw lolling heads, outstretched
arms, bodies pitched over the tops of seats and bodies jammed into the
filthy popcorn-strewn aisles between the seats.

For a couple of seconds Bobo Farnsworth probably lost his mind. He
uttered a long wavering scream. He ran down to the first row and saw
Mark Johanssen's body lying faceup in the wide aisle at the front of the
theater. Johanssen's blond hair was laced with a dark substance that
resembled chocolate, and his mouth was open. On the stage four feet from
Johanssen's corpse was a thick slime of blood and wet organs, in the
midst of which sat a fat human hand like a fleshy spider.

Bobo thought he was the last policeman left alive in Hampstead.

Just before his professionalism released him from his shock, Bobo heard
a mingled subtonal whisper coming up, it

FLOATING DRAGON

411

seemed, from the ground, from beneath the floor. The noises on the
soundtrack ceased as if cut off by a knife. The whispering sounds
resolved into groans.

Not all of the men were dead.

Bobo ran, slipping on blood, back up the aisle. When he reached the rear
of the auditorium again, just before he went to the telephone and called
the state police, and then the ambulance services in Hampstead, Old
Sarum, and King George, he took one look back into the theater.

And the screen claimed him, took him in.

"I saw something crazy," Bobo told Graham Williams months later. "It was
hard to see, because the screen was all torn up and most of the picture
was being projected on this wall behind it and that kind of threw the
focus off a little bit."

They were in Graham's house, and Bobo nervously stood up and jammed his
hands in his trouser pockets. "You had that girl living here with you
for a while, didn't you? That Patsy McCloud?"

"Yes, she was here," Graham said.

"Not anymore?"

Graham shook his head.

"Well, the reason I bring it up is-this won't make sense to you, Graham,
but I'll tell you anyhow. The reason I bring that up is that when I was
standing there looking at the screen I suddenly thought of her. I saw
her face, thought of her face I mean. And I wanted to see her. Like she
could help me. I really did want to see her."

"That makes sense to me," Graham said. "You don't know how much sense
that makes."

Bobo gave him a gloomy, almost sour look. "Maybe it does. Yeah, I
remember that day-that day down on Kendall Point. I'll never forget
that, I promise you. The way I thought Ronnie was dead, and what I
thought was down there in that gulley . . . and that girl Patsy there
with you and the other guys. You know what? You all looked beautiful.
Beautiful. Even now, you humpbacked old monkey."

"Since Patsy is about ten or fifteen years older than you, maybe you
should stop calling her a girl," Graham said.

And I don't have a hump on my back."

412

Peter Straub

A

"Neither did that bell-ringer at Notre Dame," Bobo said, pronouncing it
like the university in Indiana.

"Do you know we have a complete force again? It didn't even take a month
and a half-we had kids applying from all over to get on our force. I
thought it would take a year. More." Bobo wrapped his arms over his
chest and took a couple of steps toward the typewriter table. "Anyhow, I
sort of fell in love with Patsy then, just looking at her. And you know
how worried about Ronnie I was. But that girl-pardon me, that woman-she
just knocked me flat. I would have \ died for her."

"Let's get back to the Nutmeg Theater," Graham said.

Bobo stopped perambulating aimlessly between the couch and the typing
table and went back to sit across from Graham. "Yeah. That's what you
want to know about, isn't it? And the funny thing is, I promised myself
I'd never tell anyone about the stuff I thought I saw on that ripped-up
screen. I didn't want to sound like a candidate for the booby hatch."

"Most of the men there made the same promise to them-j selves." 1

"And broke it to you." 1

"Some of them." '>.

Bobo laughed. "Well, to hell with you. I never would, 1 except for that
day I found you on Kendall Point. That's the I only reason-and I still
don't know what really happened^ there."

Graham merely kept his gaze fixed on Bobo.

"Okay. Fine. I'll tell you. Remember, I've only been standing by the
door for a few seconds now-and the whole thing only took a couple of
seconds. It just went bang, bang, bang, like I said." He inhaled loudly
and opened his eyes again. "Anyhow, what I saw was Ronnie." He stuffed
his hands in his pockets again, and Graham saw sudden deep strain on his
face. The hands in those pockets would have been clenched, and part of
the strain would have been the effort of not giving in to whatever
powerful impulse ran through him at that moment-to weep, to scream, to
begin shaking uncontrollably. "Just for a couple of seconds, if that
long, but it was enough."

"You don't have to-" Graham began, but Bobo cut him off brusquely.

"Oh, I want to. Yes, Graham, I do. Isn't that what I'm

FLOATING DRAGON

413

here for? I saw her buried, I saw Ronnie in her coffin, and I saw things
eating on her. Rats. Big white worms as long as snakes. Taking chunks
out of her. But she wasn't dead yet, and she was screaming, Graham, she
was screaming her lungs out. And she was going to go on until she died."
Bobo bent over, grimacing, as if his stomach hurt him. "And I'll tell
you what I realized as I went away from that horrible sight toward the
phone in the lobby. That I was just looking into my own mind. Okay? You
follow that? Part of me wanted Ronnie to die that night, Graham. Part of
me was sick and tired of taking care of her. So I put her in her coffin,
Graham, and I buried her deep. And because she was still alive, she was
down there screaming to get out."

Graham opened his mouth to say something fatuous, but Bobo cut him off
with a wave of his hand. "Don't. Just don't. You don't know the rest.
Ronnie fell asleep that night all right, but do you know what she
dreamed about? Can't you guess what she dreamed about that night? It
went from my mind right onto the screen, or what was left of the screen,
and straight into her mind. And that was nearly it for her- because she
knew, all right, she knew where that horrible torture came from. She
never admitted it, but she knew. And that almost killed her, Graham.
When I got back to her house, she had fallen on the floor and puked all
over herself and her skin was so dry she felt like a goddamned desert. I
bet she had a fever of a hundred and two or three. I know she did. She
almost died that night. And if she had died, it would have been because
I killed her."

"No," Graham said, but he knew that what Bobo said was at least half of
the truth. And that Ronnie had at least halfknown of this truth, for
Bobo was no longer living with her. Between them had come Gideon Winter,
with his dragonish insights into the ambiguities of human affection.

8

"You know," Sarah said to her new partner, "I'm getting a funny feeling."

''I've had a funny feeling for a week and a half now," Ulick Byrne said.
"I can hardly eat."

"Oh, poor baby." She dryly patted his hand. "An Irishman who can't eat.
It must be agony for you."

414

Peter Straub

"My gut's gone all sour. So what's this idea of yours, to use the proper
word?"

Ulick had walked over to the newspaper office after sending his
secretary home an hour early; now he and Sarah were back in the records
room, and everyone else had gone home. "Bixbee" lay open en the long
table between them, open to the entries on Murder.

"Well, you noticed the dates for these stories. About every thirty
years, something awful happens in Hampstead-and we're assuming that
Telpro is behind the latest events in the cycle."

"We know Telpro is behind them," Ulick said irritably. "I must have
called Haugejas' office five times today, and all I've heard is the
silky sound of that Chinese powerhouse telling me that the General is
still in conference. They're planning something. Besides, we've got that
picture of Leo Friedgood."

"Was Telpro behind the murder of Stony Friedgood? IsJ that what we're
saying, Ulick?" I

He pursed his lips. "No. I don't think we are saying that."|

"But it is behind the other deaths."

"All the deaths on the eighteenth of May, yes. All the deaths of
children, yes. I'm not sure we can blame those homicides at the start of
the summer on good old Telpro."

"Well, I think we can. Anyhow, I'm sure that all the troubles are
connected-in fact, I think that everything is connected. Everything
that's happening is part of the same cycle. I think Leo Friedgood is
connected to this stuff about Bates Krell and Prince Green. John Sayre
thought he was connected to those two. I'm sure I told old Bixbee about
seeing those names on Sayre's telephone pad, and that's how his name
wound up in this column."

"I don't see quite where this line of thought takes you."

"Well, maybe I don't either, Ulick. Maybe we have to work on it a little
more."

"Oh, don't take my head off, Sarah. I grant you, in the twenties there
was a series of murders much like the ones we've just had. Bates Krell
disappears. The murders stop. In

1980, Leo Friedgood disappears. But the killings don't stop, do they? We
don't really know when Leo vanished. Do you think Leo killed his own wife?"

"We know he didn't. He was at Woodville Solvent all day."

FLOATING DRAGON

415

"Oh, crap. My mind's going, along with my stomach." "Well, all I'm
really saying is that we might start looking for ideas about what's
happening now in what happened way back then. If there really is a
thirty-year cycle, maybe we ought to be paying more attention to what
happened on the earlier turns of the wheel. We can't really do much with the

1952 occurrence-I was there, and not much really happened. A man blew
his brains out. But he pointed backward for us, and I think it's about
time I took the hint." "I still don't see how that helps us nail
Telpro." "I think it probably won't. But it might help us see how Telpro
fits into the picture in the first place. The cycle-the pattern-was
there before Telpro was ever thought of."

Ulick shrugged. "We can't exactly call up this Bates Krell and ask him
what went on. Or drop in unexpectedly on Robertson Green and hope to
surprise him into telling us something."

"No," Sarah said. She was smiling, and Ulick knew that he had fallen
right into whatever scheme she had concocted. "It's true, we can't call
them up or drop in on them. But we could see where they lived. We could
take a look at their houses. Who knows, Ulick? We might learn
something." "You have their addresses, don't you?" "Of course I do. The
Gazette printed them." "So you want to drive around and have a look?
That's fine with me."

"Well . . ." She tilted her head. "So that we don't waste our time, I
was wondering if a certain young attorney would mind taking the
addresses over to Town Hall and seeing if there's anybody in these
houses now, or if the houses even still exist."

"Oh hell, give them to me," Ulick said. "But how did I ever get to be
your flunky?" "You had such pretty eyes," Sarah said.

She stayed with the outsized, now almost mysterious pages of "Bixbee"
while Byrne walked the few blocks to Town Hall. Had she told the old man
about seeing those names in John Sayre's office? There would have been
no reason for her to have done so. Sarah could remember asking the
editor of those days, a fat happy loafer named Phil Hackley, about the
names; the editor had assured her that they could not be imP°rtant. Had
Bixbee overheard? The compositor had been a

416

Peter Straub

wraithlike, unsatisfied-looking man, thin and gray-he'd had the
personality of a tired old hound. Few had taken notice of him, even when
he came in to work in the records room after his retirement. Sarah had
perhaps had four or five conversations with Bixbee during the fifteen or
so years they worked in the same offices. Only one of these had been
even faintly memorable-and that was because of an odd thing the old
compositor had said. He had wandered in out of the print room on a
cigarette break, and Sarah had been talking with Hackley about the town
council's seeming indifference to development on the Post Road and
Riverfront Avenue: at the time, twenty-five years ago or more, these
major streets were just beginning their slide into ugliness-fast-food
franchises next to dry cleaner's next to supermarkets, bars and body
shops jumbled up in a litter of neon signs. "Well, what do you think
about it, Bixbee?" Hackley had asked, leaning back in his chair with his
arms folded behind his head and a superior smile on his face. Bixbee's
thin gray face had contorted; for a second Sarah had feared that he was
going to spit on the editor's carpet. "I don't think it makes a blind
bit of difference," Bixbee had said, and Hackley's eyes had narrowed in
enjoyment-get this old Yankee swamp rat, he seemed to be beaming toward
Sarah. "No difference at all. Nothing can save this town."

"Save?" Hackley had asked.

"Nothing," Bixbee insisted. "Hampstead's always been rotten as a bucket
of month-old oysters. Those roads'11 get so they look like a dog's
breakfast. And nobody is really going to notice. You look into your
history, Mr. Hackley. You'll see."

"Why, I didn't know you cared so much, Bixbee," the editor had said,
barely able to keep from laughing.

"I suppose there's a lot you don't know," Bixbee shot back at him. "You
don't know your history, Mr. Hackley."

The editor raised his eyebrows, no longer quite so amused.

Then Bixbee had saved his job-saved it by showing in effect that he was
crazy. And he had mentioned Bates Krell! Sarah sat up straight at the
table in the records room, remembering this conversation more than
twenty-five years after the fact. "I bet you never heard of a man named
Krell, Mr. Hackley, a man named Bates Krell. He took bites out of this
townbig ones. He had black wings, Mr. Hackley." Bixbee's mouth had
twisted into something like a smile. "You tell

FLOATING DRAGON

417

me, Mr. Hackley, if we're ever going to have another black summer in
Hampstead."

"Black summer?" Hackley exploded. "Black wings? Jesus, Bixbee, I'm sorry
I asked."

Bixbee had shrugged, retreating into his usual personality; cupped his
cigarette in his hand; faded back into the print room.

Black summer. Black wings.

And there had been more-Bixbee had said something else that the
intervening twenty-five or more years had stolen from Sarah. Something
about Bates Krell, she was sure. . . .

. . . something about his house?

That felt right; in fact, Sarah thought, it was why she had suddenly
remembered this conversation; it was the link between that day in the
office and what Ulick Byrne was doing right now over at Town Hall.

When Ulick reappeared half an hour later, Sarah already knew what she
wanted to do. She had the address written down on a sheet of Hampstead
Gazette letterhead.

"Well, I got the information, but it took twice as long as it should
have," he said, sliding into his seat across the table. "The Green house
was easy. It's been in continuous occupancy for a hundred years or more.
A man named John Scully lives in it now, and has for twenty-two years.
He's a publisher in New York. I don't know, Sarah, but I don't get the
feeling that we'll learn much about Prince Green if we go to this Scully
guy's house."

"I agree," Sarah said. "But what about the other one?"

"Well, that's what took all the time. That place is on Poor Fox Road-you
know, that little street that borders the Academy's land-and all the
property there was once owned by the school. They used to keep those
houses as residences for the teachers and for the boarders they used to
have, back twenty, thirty years ago. Now the fact is, as I eventually
worked out, that absolutely no one has lived in the Krell house since
the owner died or left town. The town eventually seized it to pay off
the back taxes, but it looks like they could never get anyone to take it
off their hands. It's just been sitting there as town property for the
past fifty years. For some reason, it was the only building on that
street that the school never owned."

"I want to go there," Sarah said.

"A building empty for fifty years? Probably none too

418

Peter Straub

steady to begin with? Have you ever seen those places on Poor Fox Road?"

"Bates Krell's house, the way he left it. Could you really pass that
up?" Sarah asked, flaming out at him.

"Not if you really want to go there, Sarah," Byrne said. "If I'll take
you to New York, I'll certainly take you to Poor Fox Road."

"On the way," she said, mollified, "I'll tell you about a conversation I
was just remembering."

"This is about where the mailman found the body of that gardener, Bobby
Fritz," Ulick said as they went slowly up Poor Fox Road. "He was lying
down in those weeds."

"Ugh," Sarah said. "With that crazy poem inside his chest. You know,
I've lived in Hampstead most of my life, but I don't think I've ever set
foot on this street before." She peered through the window of Byrne's
car at the tangled greenery bunched so thickly beside the road. Behind
the wall of vine-choked bushes and trees she could see a tall sagging
fence of wire mesh. The grounds of Greenbank Academy lay on the other
side of this fence.

"Hardly anyone ever has. It's just stuck back here by itself. Sure
doesn't look much like the rest of Greenbank."

Sarah was about to agree, for scarcely anything could have been less
representative of Greenbank than Poor Fox Road, but then they went
around a bend in the road and saw the houses; and Sarah no longer felt
like talking. She knew which house was Bates Krell's, all right.

"I don't think anyone is living down here anymore," Byrne said, but
Sarah thought she would have known that anyhow. "The Fritz boy's parents
left their house after his death-I guess the boy more or less kept the
family together. There was another neighbor or two, but they're gone
now. I guess this place got a little spooky for them."

"Spooky?"

"A lady at Town Hall saw what I was looking up, and we had a little talk
about it. She knew a painter who lived in that one"-Byrne pointed at a
two-story frame house beside a lot filled with wrecked cars-"and he
apparently moved in closer to town because he kept hearing funny noises
at night. Appar-

FLOATING DRAGON

419

ently he never quite got over the Fritz boy's being killed so close by."

"Funny noises. Everybody in Hampstead hears funny noises at night."

He was pulling off to the side of the road in front of a house which had
no number. It needed none.

"I know," Byrne said. "This damn town is turning into a funhouse. Well,
this, obviously, is it. The house that Krell built."

Small, one story high, with its once-brown clapboards split and jagged
like broken teeth, the house could have seemed either bereft or
sinister. The two little windows on either side of the door had long ago
been broken in, and the roofline sagged. Whatever grass had once grown
outside that door had years ago given up, yellowed, and died under the
thick pelt of weeds crowding what should have been the short front lawn.
Just an abandoned cottage by now almost too far gone to be repaired, the
house should have seemed pathetic-a place too shabby even for memories.
But to Sarah it did not seem so. The little house was decidedly
sinister, and precisely because its memories had never left it.

Ulick Byrne must have felt something similar, for he said, "Are you sure
the old guy isn't still hiding out in there? About ninety years old, and
still, shall we say, aggressive?"

Sarah did not want to leave the safe asphalt of the roadbed to step onto
the overgrown path; she did not want to get any nearer that house than
she already was.

"There isn't going to be much in there, you know," Ulick said off to her
side. "Not much besides that wonderful atmosphere."

"Let's have a look," Sarah said, wondering why she always had to be
braver than whatever man she was with. "It's just an old house. We'll
scare all the mice."

"I think I understand those mice," Ulick said, but he followed her small
vehement body up the path.

She waited for him beside the flimsy-looking door. "What tf it's
locked?" he said. He sounded almost hopeful.

"I think you could break it down, Ulick."

She wanted him to open the door, and she could feel his resistance; then
she felt him give in. He reached for the doorknob, which was pocked and
darkened, but of solid bronze. *y. Krell wanted to be able to lock his
door, she thought; dosing this door and keeping it closed was important
to him.

420

Peter Straub

This impression lifted off the serious and anomalous brass knob and
spoke directly to her-an impression like music trapped in the grooves of
a record. And when it came to her, another thing came to her with it.

It was not about the house, though. She had remembered that Bixbee had
won so many of the office pools-at least three-fourths of them-that
people had stopped betting on them.

Byrne's hand touched the knob. He glanced questioningly at Sarah,
twisted it, and pushed: the door creaked open.

"Come on, Galahad," Sarah said, and stepped over the threshold.

She was standing in a small dusty room only dimly illuminated by the two
broken windows. A window at the rear of the room had been covered over
with yellowed newspaper taped to the wall. The cheap pine flooring,
buckled up here and there like overlapping teeth, had never been truly
straight, and now ran noticeably downhill to the far wall, thus adding
to the slightly false perspective given by any empty room: it was like
one of those curved backdrops into which people can seem to run for
miles, an optical illusion. The walls and ceiling had been darkened by
the relief maps drawn by generations of water stains.

"Oh, yes," Sarah said. The house was, very simply, bad, and she could
feel its badness: it rejected her as it had rejected all for the past
fifty years, it was like a wound that wanted only to close around
itself: but Sarah felt a paradoxical relief. She was here, inside this
place, and she could handle it. "Completely empty," Byrne needlessly
pointed out. "In a way," she said.

Byrne shot her a dour look and began to knead his stomach with his right
hand. "Place makes me feel worse," he said. "How seriously do you want
to inspect it? There isn't anything to see, really." He advanced a few
steps farther than she into the room, as if to demonstrate his courage.
"I want to see the whole thing."

Sarah wordlessly set out toward the gaping doorway to the left, taking
care to skirt the most jagged places in the floor. What she entered was
another, smaller room, also completely bare. A light cord dangled from
the ceiling. The window here had been papered over like the window in
the living room, and in the darkness the roils of dust on the floor
seemed solid, almost bulky.

FLOATING DRAGON

421

"Where Bates lay his sleepy head to rest, I suppose," Byrne said from
immediately behind her.

"The kitchen must be on the other side." Sarah turned around, ducked
under Byrne's outstretched arm, and marched back across the living room.

She had almost made it to the arch on the other side of the room when a
peculiar sensation overtook her. The pitched floor seemed very slightly
to sway, to roll against its slope as if to straighten itself, and Sarah
stopped moving. The floor gently swung back to its original position.
"Ulick," she began, "did you just . . ." She lost the sentence. The
little room appeared to be extending itself around her, multiplying its
length: for a second it was as if she stood in a vast vaulted cavern.

"Did I just what?" Ulick said from behind her.

Bates Krell's house had its tricks, she saw, its own oncepowerful
concentrations and plans; these were the distillations of the memories
she had sensed when she had first seen the house. It was good that Byrne
was here with her: the tricks may have lost much of their potency, but
Sarah knew that if she were in the Krell house by herself, these three
rooms and a basement could grow into a maze.

"Did I just what, Sarah?"

The room was folding back into itself-she lost the feeling of being a
speck in a vast and terrible space.

Sarah knew that, whatever Telpro's role had been, this house was crucial
to everything that was happening in Hampstead: she did not yet
understand how the parts fit together, but Bates Krell's sinister little
house was one of the largest; eventually she would understand. Old
Bixbee, who had a gift for picking winning numbers, had understood
before her, and she would go through his index the way Billy Graham went
through the Bible.

']Sarah?"

"Excuse me, Ulick. I had an odd sensation just now. I wondered if you
felt anything."

''An intense desire to get out of this place."

"One more room and then the basement. I think we really have to see it
all." She continued on her way toward Bates Cell's kitchen.

Here the window had not been covered, and harsh light revealed the
jagged tears in the crusty linoleum, the webby constructions of dust and
hair which floated up a bit in the air

422

Peter Straub

they disturbed as they entered. A gray metal sink the size of a washtub
bolted to the exterior wall; rusty pipes ran along the floor beneath it.

"Where Krell made his renowned Krellburgers," Byrns said. "We dare not
ask of what."

He went forward, bent at the waist, and peered out the window. Two
rusting cars with shattered windshields grazed in tall yellow weeds. "I
bet we could get this place cheap," he said. "Do you suppose the pipes
still work?"

Sarah shook her head, but Byrne was already twisting one of the spigots
over the metal sink. A pipe banged against the wall, and a wad of dust
shot out of the spigot and puffed into nothingness against the sink. The
pipe thumped the wall again. "I think there's still water coming here,"
Byrne marveled.

The spigot shook atop the sink, vibrating with a drumming, gathering
intensity.

"Turn it off," Sarah said, but Byrne merely glanced at her.

In the next instant the handle exploded off the spigot and a thick
yellowish substance sprayed into the room, spattering both of them.
"Hey!" 8)vnc shouted, jumping back. A fat stream of the yellow fiuid v
as still jetting across the room, but in seconds it subsided to a
sluggish steady flow from the spigot into the sink. The fluid stank-it
smelled like illness to Sarah, like something drained from a dying man.
Already it was halfway up the side of the gray sink. Where the fluid had
hit the floor it lay in congealing puddles, like cloudy Jell-O. The
smell of it filled the kitchen.

"There's no way to turn that thing off," Ulick said, half in a panic.
"My God, what is that stuff? It's going to run out on the floor any minute."

"I think it's the secret ingredient in Krellburgers," she said, paying
him back a little. She inspected a fat wad of the stuff which had landed
on her skirt and now clung there. Sarah took a tissue from her bag and
dislodged it.

The pipes still roared: Sarah could see them moving beneath the sink,
jittering into each other, knocking between the floor and the wall. The
whole house seemed affected by this agitation, to tremble in rhythm with
the loud pipes.

"Let's get out of here, Sarah," Byrne said. "I'm covered with this
stinking goo, and I really think we can do without the basement."

FLOATING DRAGON

423

There was only one more door in the little kitchen, and Sarah pulled it
open. The hinges squealed; behind the door was musty blackness. "Bingo,"
Sarah said.

"I think we should go."

"You go, then. I'm taking a look at the basement."

She turned toward the rotting steps which led down into the blackness,
and as she knew he would, Ulick said, "Then you'd better let me go
first." He was brushing at his jacket with a noticeably unsanitary
handkerchief. He balled this object into his pocket and went around her
to feel his way down the stairs.

"There's some light at the bottom," he called up to her, and as she
stepped onto the packed earth of the basement floor she saw why. The
stairs ended just before a stone foundation wall, and when Sarah walked
around to the side of the staircase she noticed the glass bricks set at
the topmost level around the perimeter of the basement, two on each
side. Less transparent than the usual basement windows, they at least
admitted a cloudy light.

Sarah's skin shriveled on her back, her scalp, her hands. As soon as she
had stepped into the main area of the basement, she felt intensely
uncomfortable-it looked much more like an ordinary basement than the
house like an ordinary house, but it was not ordinary. Here was where
the memories were strongest, most concentrated. When evil had taken root
in this house, it had grown here first.

Ulick Byrne must have felt it too, for he said, "My God Sarah, this is a
terrible place."

She looked at him curiously. Then she looked straight and strong at the
basement: it was merely a wide-open area bounded by irregular stone
walls, floored with dirt. Unclean light showed them a long flat wooden
table at the far end- once it might have been a workbench. Even where
they stood, they could see the dents and scars on its edges. Every cell
of this place, every atom, shrieked against her nerves.

Byrne said, "You know, before I started concentrating on real estate, I
spent a lot of time in courtrooms and I saw my share of jails too. I
know when I'm somewhere where people have been scared and miserable. You
can feel how trapped the people were. But Jesus, Sarah, this is the
worst one I've ever known. I don't even want to know what used to happen
down here."

"Me too," she said. "I've seen enough. Let's go."

424

Peter Straub

Byrne sighed with relief, and the two of them turned back toward the
staircase.

Upstairs, a door slammed shut.

Sarah and Byrne froze. Footsteps traversed the living room, entered the
kitchen. They looked at each other with wild fear: the footsteps were
going directly toward the stairs. Perhaps both of them imagined that
Bates Krell had returned and was bent on slaughtering them-it would have
been almost an inevitable thought, in their circumstance: but Sarah
recovered a fraction of a second before Ulick and whispered, "It's some
kid. It must be."

Ulick nodded, but with little conviction. When the door at the top of
the stairs creaked open, he took Sarah's arm and pulled her toward a
corner from where they could see whoever was coming down the stairs
before they themselves were seen.

He pulled her in next to him, backed against the wall, and then
recoiled. The wall had been furry and it had been in motion. Ulick
gasped and turned his head to look at the treacherous wall. He nearly
screeched. Blanketing the wall were thousands of small red spiders. He
felt a sharp stabbing pain in his hand and saw that one of the spiders
had just bitten him. He bit down on the pain and flicked the spider away.

The person coming down the stairs was no child. The steps were slow and
cautious, the weight behind them that of an adult.

The head came into view. Silvery hair. Both Sarah and Byrne relaxed by
an unconscious fraction. Then the face turned unknowingly in their
direction, and their relaxation froze again. The man's face was a
grotesque parody of humanity. Nearly dead white, it was puffy and ridged
with excess flesh. The forehead seemed swollen and bulbous, the chin
dewlapped.

Again Sarah was there first: she suddenly realized that the man was what
the children called a "leaker" and that he must be using this abandoned
house as a hideout. He was only a week or two away from the stage of the
disease which would require him to bandage himself-at that point he
would need a safe place to hide, where he could tend himself away from
the threat of destruction.

A wad of flesh on the man's cheek slid toward his dewlapped chin, and
Sarah's heart moved for the man.

FLOATING DRAGON

425

"Leaker," Ulick whispered in her ear; she glanced at him in annoyance,
and just as she saw that a small colony of spiders was burrowing into
his thick woolly hair, she realized that she had recognized the leaker.

The man who had just crept down into Bates Krell's terrible basement was
her gynecologist.

"Your hair," she hissed to Byrne. "Your hair-spiders," and then she
stepped away from the corner and said in an almost normal tone of voice,
"Dr. Van Home? Please don't be alarmed. It's me, Sarah Spry."

The doctor turned toward her voice with awful slowness.

Now she could see the extent to which he had been mutilated-that is what
she would have called it-by the disease. His face was only barely
recognizable, and shone with a slick white moisture. Flaps of skin
folded over his eyes, retracted, fell again. She thought he seemed
alarmed. Behind her she could hear Ulick hissing, frantically scratching
at his scalp as the spiders began to chew on him.

"We intend no harm, Doctor," she said. "Remember me? I'm a patient of
yours. Sarah Spry?"

It was terrible, she thought, that a wonderful old man like Wren Van
Home should have contracted that loathsome disease.

Van Home seemed to be smiling at her, and she stepped toward him,
meaning to give him any comfort she could. Her shoe sank into a cool wet
pool, and when she looked down in surprise, Sarah saw that she had
stepped into a small lake of blood.

"Sarah Spy is a better name for you," said the grinning man at the
bottom of the stairs.

She almost thought that the palm of a childish hand was pushing up on
the bloody sole of her shoe: for a second she felt that pressure, and
the disturbed, unhappy image leaped into her mind. She moved back,
afraid to look down, and said "What?" to the doctor. His face seemed to
be altering, lengthening, the eyes swimming out from under the flaps of
moving skin-

(Spy, whispered the doctor)

-and when she heard another sound from the stairs and knew that she and
Byrne were saved she ran toward the sound and then stopped and backed
toward the comer where the lawyer had taken her-it was the last place
she had felt safe,

426

Peter Straub

and she returned there by instinct. For on the top step of the staircase
to Bates Krell's kitchen she had seen dead little Martin O'Hara staring
down at her. His brother, Thomas, stood behind him and looked over
Martin's shoulder with the same indifferent gaze.

The Fire-Bat

All the next day, Clark and his mistress drank with a dedicated
abandon-as if they were in a contest and expected a prize. They began
with beer, cold bottles of Molson's ale from the refrigerator as
Berkeley woozily cut open a package of bacon and slapped the entire slab
into a blackened pan, switched to hard liquor around eleven (Jameson's
for Clark, for Berkeley Stolichnaya vodka kept so cold it was treacly);
opened a bottle of wine to have with lunch. This was liver sausage on
rye bread-even sober, Berkeley Woodhouse thought of cooking as a menial
task best done by other people-but the wine was a Napa Valley
Chardonnay. Up until a couple of hours after lunch, Tabby thought that
his father and Berkeley were handling their drinks a little better than
usual, and would probably just pass out watching television. They did
that every few days, and Tabby turned off the lights and stepped over
their legs to go to bed. He thought, in fact, that they seemed less
driven than usual: Berkeley ruffled his hair once or twice, and his
father made a joke for the first time since the departure of Sherri
Stillwell.

"Jesus, Clark," Berkeley said, "I just realized that you were married
twice, and I bet you weren't happy with either one longer than six months."

"Happiness can't buy you money," Clark said.

Berkeley barked out a laugh, and Tabby looked up in amazement: the joke
disguised a lie, but it was a joke nonetheless, despite its bitterness.

After lunch even this fragile lightness disappeared.

Clark and Berkeley went into the bedroom, "for a little nappy-poo,"
Berkeley said. The arch euphemism made Clark knot his brows together.
"That means for a bump, kid, you

428

Peter Straub

get me? 'Nappy-poo,' for shit's sake." He pushed her toward the door.

Tabby was familiar with most of the noises that accompanied his father's
lovemaking, and rather than hear this array of snorts and grunts one
more time, he went into his own room. Twenty minutes later he was
surprised to hear sounds coming from Clark's bedroom-usually they did
not penetrate so far. And the sounds themselves were not the usual
barnyard impressions. Tabby thought he could hear his father crying.

Around two o'clock Clark and Berkeley found their way back into the
kitchen, where Tabby sat at the table reading an H. P. Lovecraft novel
he had found in the library. Berkeley had large black smudges beneath
her eyes, and his father's hair was mussed. Clark's mouth was set in an
unhappy curl.

Berkeley went straight to the freezer compartment of the refrigerator,
took out the Stolichnaya bottle, slopped several inches into the glass
she had used that morning, and then dropped in a handful of ice cubes.
"Clark?" she asked in a tentative voice. "You want some Irish?"

"What else would I want?" he growled.

Silently she poured his drink.

Clark gloomily swallowed; grimaced.

"Don't have to take my head off," Berkeley said.

"Give me two good reasons not to," Clark muttered.

Tabby cleared out-he thought that these two miserable people barely
noticed his going. When he got back upstairs to his room, he first
thought that he could hear his father sobbing again; then that he could
hear him shouting. He closed his door; eventually he put his hands over
his ears. When the loud shouts ceased, Tabby put a record on his
turntable-The Doctor Is In, Ben Sidran-and blotted everything out by
cranking the volume up as high as he dared.

At four he went back down to the kitchen for a Coke. Clark and Berkeley
had left the refrigerator and freezer doors open, and Tabby closed them
when he had taken his bottle out. Greasy dishes several days old were
piled in the sink, and after sipping from his Coke, Tabby squirted soap
over them and turned on the hot water. Berkeley thought no more highly
of cleaning than she did of cooking. When his father washed dishes, he
broke them on purpose. Tabby quickly washed all the dishes in the sink,
dried his hands, and wandered into the

FLOATING DRAGON

429

library. This was one of the four rooms with a fireplace, and a small
smoky blaze stuttered in the grate. Tabby saw that whoever had built the
fire had merely used newspaper for kindling and had then tossed more
folded newspaper onto the feeble flames. The television set blared out a
denture-cream commercial to an empty room. Tabby smelled burning paper,
whiskey, some fuming and bitter emotion-while he still thought the room
was empty, the bitterness of feeling that had been spilled there was as
strong as the odor of his father's Irish whiskey.

And then for a moment he saw the walls sway and ripple. He had the
faintest impression that they were sliding toward him, and he flinched
to one side, remembering what had happened to him in the library ... a
man with tea-colored eyes raising a gun as a storm boiled overhead . . .

You should have gone to Fairlie Hill, boy, with the others.

His mouth dried; his heart banged.

If he had not heard his father wetly belch at that second, he might have
fainted.

Tabby spun toward the sound, and saw Clark leaning against the brown
curtains covering the window-glaring at him. He precariously held a
tumbler filled with brown liquid. His father's hair had fallen over his
forehead. Clark seemed almost to blend backward into the curtains, to be
on the verge of invisibility. A pair of flies swooped past his face.
Then Tabby saw that Berkeley Woodhouse lay on the couch against the far
wall, her skirt rucked up carelessly and her hair fanned half across her
face. She too looked almost ghostly-as if the Russian vodka had stolen
half her substance.

"Go," his father said. His voice was husky, ragged; fractured by emotion.

Tabby backed out of the room.

He sat on the stairs for a time, too confused about what was happening
to him and his father to know what he ought to do. Twice while he sat
there, his arms around his knees, Clark stumbled past the bottom of the
staircase, going to the kitchen for fresh drinks and unsteadily bringing
them back. The messy little fire backpuffed smoke: Tabby could smell its
acrid breath. From the library, the voices on the television set
contended with Clark's drunken ranting.

"Gutter," he heard his father say. "Gutter."

And "Not my fault," he heard him say.

430

Peter Straub

He smelled the sour breath of the hearth and for the first time thought
to wonder why his father had troubled to light a fire on a warm day in
August.

Clark tossed another heap of newspapers on the smoky blaze, and Tabby
heard Berkeley moan. "Four Hearths" seemed filled with night; with
shadowy intentions that required the blankness of night and drunkenness.
Tabby was chiefly sure of one thing: his father was in torment, and
would damage anyone who tried to aid or deflect him. Tormented too,
Tabby returned to his room. He clamped headphones over his ears, closed
his eyes, and swam as far into his music as he could.

An hour later he emerged into a hallway that was too hot- the air was
dry, so gritty it felt sandblasted. The smell of fire and ash rose
toward him from the ground floor. Tabby went toward the top of the
stairs. "Dad?"

That drunken, agonized voice went on down there-slowed by the liquor,
but inexhaustible. Tabby heard the firescreen in the living room scrape
shut. "Dad? What's going on?"

"Huh," he heard Clark say. Loud footsteps came toward the bottom of the
stairs; then his father appeared, clutching the green neck of his
whiskey bottle with one blackened hand, streaks of ash dividing his
face. "Making fires, that's what. Fires in the fireplaces of 'Four
Hearths,' that's what. To get this place warm again. You going to help?"
"How can I help?" Tabby asked.

"Get more wood from the pile outside-lots of it. Berkeley just threw
papers on the goddamn fires, that's not how you do it. Go on out and
bring some more wood back in." "Are you cold?"

"Not anymore," Clark said. "I think I just about got it right."

His eyes were glassy-they looked like painted shells. The streaks of ash
seemed to be hardening on his face; whatever emotion surged through
Clark hardened there too. "Do you feel all right, Dad?" Tabby asked.

"Are you going to get that wood inside or do I have to make you do it?"
The armored face with its stony, painted eyes stared up at him.

Tabby moved swiftly down the stairs and past his father; he dared not
look at him.

FLOATING DRAGON

431

Prudent Monty Smithfield had bought three cords of wood every winter,
and every winter burned just less than two in the fireplaces of "Four
Hearths." Now split and sawn lengths of wood were stacked against the
long back fence-enough for at least three extravagant winters. Some of
it was so dry that the bark had lifted away from the gray wood, peeled
back like a rolled-up shirt. Tabby remembered to take the carrying sling
from the hook beside the back door, and went out onto the shaggy grass.
He smelled woodsmoke from the chimneys, and looked up to see it coiling
over the house. Black rags that must have been newspaper ash sifted down.

Tabby laid the sling on the ground and stacked as many pieces of the
oldest and driest wood as he could lift within its webbing. Breathing
hard, he lugged the heavy sling back through the door, banging it
against the frame.

"Okay," his father said, glowering at him out of his ashstriped face.
"Get that stuff into the fire in the library."

"All of it?"

"Then go out and get more. About as much as you have there. And put it
in the living-room fireplace."

"Dad-"

"We need it, Tabby," Clark said. He took a pull from his bottle.

Tabby effortfully lifted the sling and, using both arms, carried it
before him into the library.

The room was hot as a sauna. He set down the sling, pushed back the
firescreen, and began lifting pieces of the wood off the little heap and
setting them atop the sputtering fire.

A cat's tongue of flame curled through a chink in the piledup wood; an
arm of flame, red and muscular, followed it. The dry wood ignited like a
bonfire of dead leaves. Tabby recoiled from the sudden intensification
of the heat and painfully struck his back against the brass edging on a
coffee table. He stood up, rubbing his back.

Behind him, Berkeley Woodhouse groaned on the couch. Tabby whirled to
look at her, having almost forgotten she was in the room. She was
holding out a lipstick-blotched glass, and Tabby moved quickly to her
side and took it from her.

"Fix me one more, will you, sweetie?" she asked: Tabby was certain for a
moment that she took him for his father.

But then Clark was looming up behind him, and Berkeley blinked, and her
face shuttered: she had known who he was.

432

Peter Straub

"The boy has work to do, and he's going to do it," Clark said, and
roughly took the glass from Tabby's hand. "I'll get you another drink,
if that's what you think you need."

"Why are you . . . ? Why are . . . ?" Berkeley struggled with the
sentence for a moment, but flopped back against the couch, letting it go
unfinished.

"Move," Clark ordered Tabby. "Wood, remember? You're not the bartender
around here." Misery still seemed to flow from Clark, but now it was an
aggressive misery.

"You want more wood," Tabby said flatly. "For the living-room fireplace.
Then for the kitchen fireplace. Then the one in your bedroom."

Clark simply continued to stare at him.

"Well, sure," Tabby said. "If that's what you want."

"What / want," Clark said. "That's it. You and this dumb bitch remember
that." He grinned fiercely at Tabby, and then swung the hand gripping
the green Jameson's bottle at a pair of flies that had circled in toward
his mouth.

As the sunlight faded, the rooms in "Four Hearths" reddened with the
fires; Tabby kept moving from the rear door to the woodpile and back
again, and as it grew darker he saw the downstairs rooms and his
father's bedroom become almost unrecognizable-the jumping flames altered
the dimensions of the rooms they colored, pulling in one red wall and
pushing out another, more shadowy wall. Throughout the house Tabby could
hear the insistent sucking sound of air rushing up the chimney stacks;
he was slick with sweat, and his face, like Clark's, was smudged with
ash and soot. As the hours went past, Tabby ceased to wonder why his
father insisted on turning the house into an oven-it was another drunken
notion, necessarily bad, and by the next day it would be forgotten-and
concentrated instead on making Clark happy in his obsession. His arms
ached, his head throbbed; after stoking his father's fires for several
hours, Tabby could scarcely remember his name. He was half-conscious of
Berkeley Woodhouse weaving through the house, ignored by his father. And
he thought on one of his returns into the house with the sling filled
with eighty pounds of firewood that he had heard his father weeping
again, saying, "Jean? Jean?"-as if he were seeing his late wife's ghost.
But that was impossible, and anyhow Tabby was by then so exhausted that
he scarcely recognized his mother's name.

FLOATING DRAGON

433

Berkeley eventually banged open the refrigerator door and took out an
ancient summer sausage from Greenblatt's, on which she began to gnaw;
the heat and the ache in his muscles killed Tabby's hunger. He went
upstairs finally to wash his face and hands-too tired for more elaborate
cleaning- and left his father downstairs grinning into the blasting red
flames.

On the wall of a room that he assumed was his he saw an unfamiliar
pennant-a college or high-school pennant. He stared at it as he
staggered toward his bed. arhoolie. Arhoolie? This too he could not
identify. As he fell into bed the room seemed to distend, to warp about
him. His skin felt as though he'd been broiled under a grill.

"A whole plate of fire!" he heard Clark screech just before he fell into
numbed sleep.

He dreamed, vividly, of traveling toward a great forest. Huge trees
fanned across a plain, their shadows darkening the land before them.
Their leafy heads fanned too; bent toward walking Tabby, shook at him.
He should run, he knew, he should turn tail and run like hell-even the
trees were telling him so. From the great forest came a wave of
bitterness, of evil-of what felt like evil to the boy because of the
strength of the bitterness. He should have run away, but he had to get
nearer, had to see what lay hidden between, beneath those reaching
trees. As he drew nearer, he gradually began to hear the noises of
animals-of animals in pain, screaming or whimpering in terror and agony.
Accompanying these terrible sounds of pain and death were the violent
noises of the battles still going on: bodies cracking against trees, the
earth shredded by claws and hooves. Some animal screamed out in a
woman's voice, high-pitched and fearful. In the forest the animals had
turned against themselves; and if Tabby took one step between the thick
leaning trees, they would leap upon him and rip his heart from his body.
That scream like a woman's unfurled over his head.

When he opened his eyes, his hands gripping the warm top edge of a
sheet, he saw a glimmering, twisting pool of white light in the middle
of his dark room. He had seen this earlier, he could not remember where.
And then he remembered his father seated drunkenly at the kitchen table
a few days before, this same light playing behind his head.

Tabby's bedroom had become stiflingly hot. The smell of

434

Peter Straub

woodsmoke, prickly but comfortable, filled the room.

The twisting pane of light just past the end of his bed was drawing into
itself, concentrating. All those mad animals in the forest . . . Tabby
shrank down into his bed, aware for the first time of how his
perspiration had dampened the sheets. The shifting pane of white drew
into itself, twisted down into a characterless face. Tabby's body
tightened on the damp bed, and he inhaled a great gulp of smoke-perfumed
air. The white face before him, still changing, was blank and babyish:
but the forehead tilted back and erupted into bulges over the eyes, the
chin grew out like a spade, the ears lapped over. The face before Tabby
hardened into itself and grinned.

It was the face of Gideon Winter, the true face beneath the one he had
shown the world.

Gideon Winter's white face leaned toward him as had the brutal trees in
his dream. Tabby was faintly conscious of black clothing imbued with the
pervasive smell of woodsmoke. The huge mouth opened: pointed teeth. A
tongue like a long snake coiled obscenely out toward Tabby.

From beyond his window the wounded animal screamed again. But it was not
an animal, he recognized; that was the cry of a woman.

The face before him evaporated down into itself and wavered in the air
like a wisp of smoke. Then it twisted into nothingness, leaving only a
bitter smell in the air.

Shaking, Tabby left his bed-now he registered that his room was filled
not only with darkness but also with smoke. He reached the window just
as another pitiful scream carried toward him through the night. When he
looked down toward the front lawn of "Four Hearths," he saw two people
struggling in smoke and night. He had seen many such scenes over the
past weeks; everyone in Hampstead had seen these obscure but passionate
battles; and that may be why it took Tabby a moment or two to identify
the two people fighting on his front lawn.

But even when he had seen an unmistakable arrangement of features, even
when he saw a familiar blur of lipstick, he did not want to identify
these brawling people: his mind fought to reject their identities. His
father; Berkeley Woodhouse.

Clark seemed infused with glee, strong enough to fell an oak with the
flat of his hand; so even after Tabby had admitted that the man down
there was his father, he found himself

t

FLOATING DRAGON

435

doubting it. Clark had not demonstrated such energy, such physical
confidence, since the barely remembered days of his tennis victories.
One of the first things Tabby saw was that his father had not had such a
good time in years.

And then he saw that Berkeley's symmetrical face was blurred with blood,
not lipstick.

Clark's back muscles laughed again, and his fist smashed her nose to a
squashy pulp. As Berkeley's hands came up to her face, Clark kicked her
legs out from under her. As soon as his mistress struck the ground,
Clark kicked her with joyous accuracy in the ribs. Another of her
terrible wails rose toward Tabby. Clark did an impatient, jittering
jig-adjusting his stance-and then kicked her squarely in the head.
Berkeley moaned, and Clark jigged down the grass toward her midriff. Her
long legs were trembling, flailing against the grass. Clark aimed a
particularly forceful kick at her belly; her body was thrown back a foot.

Berkeley convulsed again-a coil of white smoke momentarily erasing her
face-and Clark was able to smash at her face without the inconvenience
of moving. Tabby saw Clark's leg move twice, pistonlike, and immediately
after saw the grass at his father's feet take on an added sheen, an
extra darkness. Red dots spattered Clark's trousers. The white drift of
smoke lazed off, and Tabby saw what had become of Berkeley Woodhouse's
face. Then he could move.

Tabby threw up the window, leaned out into gritty warmth. "Dad! Dad! Stop!"

Clark turned around and looked up at his son. His face was as joyous as
Tabby had feared it would be, unconsciously radiant.

"Turn around, Tabby," Clark said. "It's your turn now."

"Dad," Tabby breathed out. "I'm going to call for the ambulance."

"Look around you, Tabby," Clark said in a lightly teasing voice. His
father smiled at him-a smile that seemed somehow not Clark's at all, but
sweeter and more formal-and walked back toward the house, leaving
Berkeley's body carelessly behind him on the shiny black grass.

Clark disappeared beneath the roof of the porch. Tabby heard the door
slam shut. He glanced in agony at the still form of Berkeley Woodhouse,
hoping that she would groan or m°ve ... he knew that she was dead.

An inner door slammed-the library door.

436

Peter Straub

Tabby turned around, and it was as if all of "Four Hearths" laughed.

The room was not his. It was smaller, more crowded with things: he saw
skis leaning against a closet door, a trombone case beside the bed, a
music stand before the window opposite. Tabby did not ski or play the
trombone; he could not read music; and there was no window in that wall.
The arhoolie pennant he had seen before, the harbinger of all this
change, glowed down at him from its place over the bed.

Still he could smell the pervasive woodsmoke, though he could no longer
see it.

Tabby went cautiously across the unfamiliar room to the window. What he
saw when he looked out was not Greenbank. He was looking down on a
longer lawn, ending not in a slope to the road but at a white fence.
Across the street were modest frame and ranch houses, much closer
together than the houses in Hampstead. The trees were different-they
reminded Tabby of the trees he had known in northern Florida. Black
lines of tar wetly streaked the road. Down at a corner-a corner that did
not exist-a street sign was visible on its tall pole. Tabby squinted to
read it. maple lane.

Like the contents of the room, this too was unfamiliar, yet somehow
known; as if met in a dream.

Downstairs his father roared like a beast-Tabby's chest tightened when
he recognized the sound as laughter.

Maple Lane. A room with ivied wallpaper and skis leaning against a
closet door. Arhoolie. He thought he almost knew what he would find
beyond the door. He wondered: if he went to the telephone, would he get
the Hampstead police station? Or the police of whatever invented world
this was?

Outside the room was a hallway thick with invisible smoke. It rubbed
sandpaper against Tabby's eyes, threw salt in his lungs. "Help!" he
called. "Dad!"

"You want something?" his father's voice asked calmly from behind him.
Tabby whirled around, so frightened he wanted to pee.

His father's voice, but not his father. A slim, much younger man
separated himself from the wall. His face was pitted with small acne
scars; he looked to Tabby like someone who would have sought out the
Norman twins-he looked criminal. He wore a cap on his head and what
Tabby only now recognized as a gray tweed suit that belonged to his
father. Tabby stepped backward.

FLOATING DRAGON

437

"Get back in your room, Spunks," this creature said. "I got a whole
plate of cookies for you." He smiled at Tabby, and the smile froze the
boy. "Whole plate, my little buddy."

"Dad," Tabby said.

"Daddy's here," the creature said in his father's voice, and began to
glide toward Tabby.

Tabby turned around and ran for the staircase he mysteriously knew was
at the end of this corridor. Behind him, the creature with his father's
voice started to laugh.

The heat intensified as he rushed down the stairs. He could hear, but
not see, the fires in the living room and library . . . noise of
kindling, snapping flames taking all the food they could. He hit the
bottom stair and ran into a living room decorated with a chintz couch
and frilly curtains on the windows. A grandfather clock stood on a
hooked rug beside a stone fireplace. The room seemed hot enough to burst
by itself into flame. Wooden Dutch doors separated this room from the
big kitchen, and Tabby ran through them, wanting only to get outside-to
the real outside, to Greenbank.

A woman who had been standing at the sink turned to smile at him. And
that was when he realized for the first time where he was. In a modest
brown dress with a white Peter Pan collar, Grace Jameson-Grace Jameson
with his real mother's face-was greeting him in the kitchen of Daddy's
Here, where so many confrontations and accommodations had been met.
Along with the simple, primitive smell of fire he caught the odor of pot
roast. He stopped moving; stopped breathing.

"Oh, darling," his mother said. "Here you are. We've been waiting such a
long time. Dinner's almost ready. Shouldn't you go back up to your room
and wash up? Your daddy's waiting for you, you know."

"Billy Bentley," he breathed out, his eyes avidly on the face of Jean
Smithfield-she looked just as she had on the day of her death ten years
before. She was different from the way he remembered her: his memories
had been indelibly shaped by photographs Clark had saved, and now he saw
that for photographs she had pursed her mouth, had generally tightened
up. Aged twenty-nine, his mother was shorter than he had realized,
sweeter, more fragile.

"Now you're just being silly," she said. "Back upstairs with you, young
man."

"Mom," he said.

438

Peter Straub

Jean Smithfield stepped toward Tabby, an expression of profound love
mixed with reproach for a difficult child printed on her face. Then she
smiled, and playfully reached out for his shoulder.

Tabby looked at her and wanted to run into her arms. But a wave of hot
air as from a blast furnace-air that seemed hot enough to melt
iron-flowed toward him, and he stepped back, startled.

His mother was still smiling at him, but her hands were the centers of
twin balls of flame; in an instant, the flames had coursed up her arms
and leaped into her hair. Beneath the smiling face, Tabby saw white
glowing bone. He jerked backward again, and his mother tottered toward
him, the flames spreading across her face and down her chest.

Not looking, Tabby held out a hand to one side and felt it encounter the
intense heat of an invisible fire: he screamed atgjj the pain, and his
mind nearly balked like an overloaded ma-JI chine. The house was burning
around him, and he could nodi see the flames. ||

His mother sank to her knees, still reaching out for him.|| Tabby dodged
away from the side where he had met thejH flames, but could not take his
eyes off his mother. She was ajfl shapeless mound of fire from which
protruded two upraisedli arms.

His burned hand pulsed and fluttered with pain. Even before he looked at
it he knew that it was blistering, turning red.

His father started to laugh behind him, and Tabby whirled around,
bracing himself to see Billy Bentley. But it was his father, dressed in
the gray suit, holding a tumbler full of Irish whiskey. When Clark
splashed some of the glass's contents on the floor, little fingers of
fire snatched the whiskey away as soon as it struck.

"Ain't this lovely?" Clark said. "All of us together again for the very
last time-and on television, too!" Clark staggered to one side, wiped
the sweat from his face. He was grinning like a dog, mindlessly.
"Upstairs, your mother said-you heard her, kiddo. You get on up there
and get ready for dinner."

Fibers on the left sleeve of his jacket had begun to smoke and darken.

Within the twitching mound of fire that had consumed Jean Smithfield, a
form Tabby had seen twice before was strug-

FLOATING DRAGON

439

gling to be born-stretching itself, finding its wings. Heat roared
around Tabby's head.

"A whole plate of fire," Clark said reflectively. "That was it, wasn't
it? 'A whole plate of fire.' I can remember you saying that so many
times. Right here in this kitchen."

Richard: this was about Richard Allbee, not him. The Dragon was telling
him that Richard too was going to die tonight; the Dragon wanted him to
know that.

"I'll help you get upstairs, Spunky," his father said, faltering toward
him. Tabby moved another step away from the hottest part of the room and
glanced again at the yawning blaze in the middle of the kitchen floor.
Almost, he coulci see the head with its wide empty eyes-eyes filled with
night- rising up. Then another movement took his attention, and ht
looked across the stretching flames and saw Billy Bentley leaning
against a blazing wall, gently smiling at him from the depths of his
pitted face. Billy uncrossed his arms, brought down a hand, and produced
an extended middle finger like a rabbit from a hat.

"We gotta get going," Clark said uneasily. "Time . . . there isn't much
time ..."

Tabby was retreating, not knowing where he was going but wanting only to
get away from the almost solid-looking moving pyre in the middle of the
kitchen. He felt his eyebrows crisping, the small hairs in his nose
threatening to burn. Billy Bentley was still giving him the finger while
leaning on a burning wall.

"Is this the end of the series?" Clark asked, blinking. Billy's mouth
opened in a noiseless shout of laughter.

He was going to die. The house was burning, and he and his father were
so trapped in this hallucination about Daddy's Here that they could not
even find the way out. Tabby backed farther away, now seeing the head of
the fire-bat lift out of the pyre, scanning toward him with its empty
eye-holes. Once the fire-bat saw him, he would die-the whole kitchen,
the whole house, would explode like the Death Star in Star Wars.

"Hey, kid," Clark asked. "What the shit happened to Berkeley? Jesus,
why's this damn drink so hot?"

"Dad," Tabby said. "Get out! Out of the house!"

The head of the fire-bat turned hungrily toward Clark; one great wing
crackled out of the flames and unfurled across the width of the kitchen,
slamming his father into the sink and

440

Peter Straub

instantly covering him in flame. Tabby saw Clark's drink ignite; then
sawJiis clothes fly off his body. His father screeched in agony as his
skin began to fry.

"Noooo!" Tabby shouted, helplessly seeing his father die.

Another huge wing crackled out of the flames.

With a hopeless desperation, Tabby whirled around, sobbing, and ran away
from the heat-he did not know where he was going in the real house that
lay concealed beneath this vision of the house from Daddy's Here, but
the temperature of the air told him where the fires were weakest.

His fingers touched a hot wall. He heard the crackling of enormous wings
behind him. He slid his fingers along the wall, hoping that he was wrong
and knowing that he was not.

A wooden molding slipped beneath his moving fingers. He found the edge
of a door and tore at it, scarcely believing that it was there-cool air
rushed up at him, and he threw himself through the opening.

A searing line stroked across his back, as if he had been grazed by a
flaming sword, and he was falling into darkness, out of control, his
head and arms and back thumping, cracking against hard wood ... he
rolled over and struck the bottorn. His face was wet, cold. He thought
he was bleeding: his head throbbed in a dozen places where he had struck
it, and his lip was swelling. The air seemed frigid. He opened his eyes
cautiously and saw only darkness.

Gradually he realized that he was in the cellar. The wetness on his face
was perspiration, not blood-the cellar felt like an icebox after the
intense heat of the house. He pushed himself back from the foot of the
stairs, afraid that the thing upstairs would send flames shooting down
after him. His legs and arms complained, but moved: he had not broken
anything in his tumble down the stairs. Tabby made himself stand; for a
moment he simply stood, waving his burned hand gently in the air,
breathing slowly. He walked backward into a wall and propped himself
against it. He felt more than knew that he was crying.

Tabby walked himself along the wall, keeping his shoulders against the
concrete block, moving into the area of greatest darkness. From the
floor above him came noises of war and tumult-he could hear the fire
gaining strength, claiming more and more of the house. And in the midst
of that noise, he heard an undercurrent of voices calling out an
indistinguishable sound that must have been his name.

FLOATING DRAGON

441

He inhaled and held the breath, trying to stop his pointless crying. He
wiped his face with his undamaged hand.

Tabby moved as far from the staircase as he could get.

A single voice called out, "Come up here, son." It was his father's
voice. Tabby saw Clark jigging down on the lawn, kicking the life out of
Berkeley.

"Get up here. Now."

Tabby turned around and pressed his bruised face into the hard cool
concrete block. It was gritty, and sent needles into his skin. Tabby
hugged this uncomfortable wall, shaking.

A roaring entered the cellar, and a cloud of heat-Tabby turned his head
away, but not before he had seen a wall of fire come blasting down the
stairs. He flattened himself against the wall.

He heard the fire take the staircase and begin sucking at the ground.

Tabby looked up and saw the burning earth reflected in one of the little
cellar windows.

Nine hours earlier, Graham Williams had been glaring in exasperation at
a young man in a red-striped shirt, bow tie, and blue blazer who was
seated at an antique desk in an elegant bow-fronted Georgian building on
the Old Post Road in Hillhaven. The building housed the
Hampstead-Patchin Historical Society, and the young man-the only person
in the building apart from Graham-was one of the graduate students on
its staff. Though momentarily flustered, the young man seemed utterly at
home in the Historical Society, and this was a part of Graham's
annoyance-this squirt acted like he'd been born back in the reference
stacks.

"You have more problems than you know, kid," Graham said, shoving his
hands deep into the pockets of his baggy trousers and hunching over even
farther than usually to nail the boy to his leather chair with a scowl.
"Forget about this new so-called rule you just invented. Forget-"

"I told you. The director insisted on it. We can't allow the public back
into the stacks anymore. We had too many problems this summer-you
wouldn't begin to believe some of the-"

"And don't interrupt me, buster. You have a real problem,

442

Peter Straub

if you call yourself a historian. You're ignorant. You never even heard
of the Black Summer. One of the most crucial periods in the history of
this region, and to you it's only a blank page."

The boy sighed, leaned sideways in his opulent chair, as if he wanted to
get out from under Graham's gaze. "I'm in European History. You're
talking about regional interest here-I don't feel you're qualified to
attack me as a historian anyhow-''

"I've seen more history than you've read about!" "Mr. Williams. We're
not getting anywhere. I have in fact heard of the so-called Black
Summer, though it is true that I'm not really up on what happened then,
and if you would be seated at one of the tables, I'll go back into the
stacks and dig up everything that seems even faintly relevant to it. Is
that good enough for you?"

"I'll settle for it, but the answer is no." Williams took a step
backward and ceased trying to murder the boy with black looks.

"Now we're getting somewhere." The boy stood up, buttoning his blazer.
He looked smug, a little prissy to Graham; he made his way around the
desk with an almost invisible smile of self-congratulation on his lips.
"If you'll seat yourself in the reading room, Mr. Williams . . . ?"

Graham scowled at him again. "You've heard of it, you say. What have you
heard?"

The boy tossed his head. "I'll try to remember when I'm getting your
books from the stacks."

Graham turned his back on him, disgusted, and stalked out of the
mahogany-paneled anteroom into the much larger area the Historical
Society had filled with long library tables. Framed maps and portraits
of both men and houses lined the walls; cases against the walls held
bound manuscripts and books of drawings and sketches. Graham dropped his
pens and pads of paper on one of the front tables as noisily as
possible. Then he shoved his hands back in his pockets and made a rapid
tour of the paintings, all of which he had seen many times before. He
ended before a hand-painted map of the Hampstead-Patchin seacoast;
marshes and wetlands had been sketched in, an Indian raised a bow at the
site of a massacre in 1645, a redcoat soldier stood at attention on
Kendall Point. The mapmaker, who had made wildly inaccurate guesses
about the shape of the coastline and the distances

FLOATING DRAGON

443

between his various landmarks, had inked in the date on the
bottom-right-hand corner: 1803. Graham had often wished that he could
meet the anonymous mapmaker: could suggest that he wait another eight
years before finishing his work. If he'd drawn the map in 1811, Graham
was sure that he'd have had a more interesting image to place on Kendall
Point.

"Mr. Williams? Mr. Williams?"

Graham turned sharply, almost jerkily away from both the hand-painted
map and his preoccupations. The young man was standing before a mound of
books and papers; he looked even more pleased with himself than he had
before.

"I found quite a lot of material," he said. "You've got copies of the
New Haven papers and broadsides for the summer months of 1873, copies of
the Patchin newspaper, all the books I thought might even be a tiny bit
helpful-and I remembered that other thing I mentioned." With his index
finger he pushed forward on the table a slim book in a gray library
binding. "Ever heard of Stephen Pollock?"

Graham impatiently shook his head.

"Pollock is supposed to have influenced Washington Irving. Anyhow,
Pollock wrote a book called Curious Voyages -a travel book. And that's
what I thought of earlier. He was in Connecticut in 1873, and he took a
coach from New York to New Haven." He smiled brilliantly; pointed to the
front door with a gold ball-point. "Which means that he passed this
house. He was on the Old Post Road."

Graham put the Pollock book aside, intending to look at it later, and
spent several hours looking through the mimeographed newspapers from the
summer of 1873. What was most startling, he thought, was the deadly
indifference-the calm-into which the Black Summer had fallen. Now and
then there was a reference to the change in the coach schedules, or the
shipping patterns; and in the Patchin newspaper he caught a jocular
reference to the sudden prosperity of the area's undertakers, the
profusion of coins in the gravediggers' Pockets. What was most startling
was that no one had seemed startled-half a town had died, and in the
neighboring towns People shut their eyes and made jokes about rich
gravediggers. They had spent years pretending that Hampstead no longer
existed.

Still not picking up the Pollock book, Graham sent the graduate student
back into the stacks for information about

444

Peter Straub

the burning of Patchin in 1779-he wanted to iet his mind play over
various events of the thirty-year cycle. Tryon landing at Kendall Point:
the English and the Jaeger mercenaries swarming up over that wooded,
stony land: in a violent storm, putting houses and farms to the torch.

The soldiers had trampled across Gideon Winter's grave to sack the town.

Kendall Point. Sometimes Kendall Point seemed to reach out toward
Hampstead, to grasp at it ... as though it fed on the town.

A chill went over Graham's body, and he saw himself as he was, a bent
old man, no longer very strong-the strongest part of him now was his
voice. And this was what he proposed to set against Kendall Point and
Gideon Winter; because of ideas he had been chasing for fifty years;
because once he had fought a madman on a boat and imagined that he had
been fighting even more.

How long had it been since he had seen Kendall Point? Graham realized
that he had not been out there since he had begun looking into
Hampstead's history-in those days, still really a boy, he had gone out
for a look at the place. He had seen . . . nothing. He had looked at
trees, rocks, the water. He had walked down into the ravine left behind
by the events of 1811; and there too he had looked at boulders, exposed
earth, caverns washed out by erosion, tough ropy weeds crawling over
all; nothing. He had looked but not seen. He had been thinking about
Tryon's soldiers and how they had landed; he had not paid enough
attention to the Point itself, to the heart of what was all about him.

Almost without realizing he was doing it, Graham pushed himself back
from the long table and stood up. Still he could feel traces of his
goosebumps scattered across his back and down his arms.

He turned to the painted map. In its light wooden frame, it had a
decorative, pastel look, like something found in the room of a small
child. Graham walked toward this innocent, inaccurate map.

Where Greenbank was, the mapmaker had drawn two little farms and
sketched in extensive marshland. Graham stared moodily at these for a
moment, then looked once again at Kendall Point.

It was larger, more bloated than in reality. The redcoat stood at
attention in the middle of this distorted Point, his

FLOATING DRAGON

445

musket propped on his shoulder. Graham squinted and leaned closer to the
framed map: he had never really looked carefully at the face of the
little redcoat.

Then he was frozen there, bending over with his own face only inches
from the glass covering the map, because he had seen the little figure
move. The redcoat was lowering his musket, spreading his legs.

The little figure's mouth split open in a wide grin: He was not a
drawing anymore, he was antic and alive, and he was unshouldering his
gun. Graham was dimly aware, in the midst of his astonishment, that the
lines on the map were flying about, making jagged patterns around the
little figure. The redcoat winked at Graham, raised the gun and sighted
down the barrel. When he pulled the trigger Graham heard a pop! like the
explosion of a small balloon.

In the next second a tiny starburst appeared in the glass covering the map.

Graham jumped back, fearing for a second that he'd been struck by the
ball. Then he saw it, embedded in the broken glass-a black metal dot,
gnat-sized. A tiny flame sprang up in the middle of the redcoat's chest.

Just before the young man in the bow tie rushed into the reading room,
Graham finally noticed what had happened to the lines on the map. The
seacoast from New Haven to the Norrington border was the snouted, horned
profile of a dragon. He groaned-feeling as if he had caught a real
bullet in his intestines, a sharp twist of sudden agony.

"Mr. Williams? Anything happen?" the young man said. He'd come in such a
hurry that he had left his jacket unbuttoned. Then he saw the map.

"What did you do?" He gaped at Graham, then back at the wall. Flames
were sprouting beneath the glass, curling over the distorted depiction
of Kendall Point. The figure of the redcoat had blackened and shriveled.
"My God," the boy said. He ran to the map, and touched the frame to take
it off the wall. Immediately he snatched his hands back, wincing. "It's
burning!" he said, still stunned. He threw off his blazer and used it to
grasp one side of the frame. The boy awkwardly wrestled *e map off the
wall, and the glass struck the boards. "What . . . ?" the boy said,
looking wildly at Graham.

"Fire extinguisher," Graham said. "You need a fire extinguisher."

446

Peter Straub

"You wait here, Mr. Williams," the boy said. "I mean it. You just wait
right here."

"I think you'd better hurry," Graham said.

The boy looked in anguish at the little flames lifting up from the map,
turned around, and ran out of the reading room.

Graham went nearer the map. He stepped on the flames and ground them
out. In the depths of the building, the boy slammed a door. Graham went
slowly to the long table and picked up his pens and notepads. He slipped
Stephen Pollock's Curious Voyages into the stack of his papers. He was
out the front door and halfway down the cobbled walk to his old car
before the door deep in the building slammed again.

Breathing hard, he turned on the ignition. Just before he drove away he
looked sideways at the bow windows of the Historical Society and saw the
face of the young man inside shouting something at him. Graham threw the
car in gear, stepped on the accelerator, and made one of the most
impetuous departures of his life.

He was pointed in the direction of Patchin, away from Hampstead, and
flicked on his turn signal before going around the block; but after he
had turned seaward, he continued straight on Harbor Road and did not
circle back toward Mount Avenue and Greenbank. He was going to Kendall
Point.

Where the road ended in a sweep of gravel before a crumbled wall, Graham
parked his car and went slowly across the broken surface of the asphalt
to the gravel. He put a shoe on the low wall, feeling a barely
suppressed excitement. It was the tone he had not understood before,
that hectic, gleeful tone of the Dragon's.

Looking out at Kendall Point, Graham felt twenty years drop away from
him-thirty years. He had his little pain in his chest, his right knee
throbbed, and his back was giving him regular twinges, but he was on the
verge of discovery: of breakthrough. He knew it. And the Dragon knew it
too. Like Tabby Smithfield alone on Gravesend Beach, Graham could have
shouted, "Show me!" and meant all of Tabby's defiance.

Before Graham was a leafy gorge perhaps twenty feet deep, with gentle
sides and huge boulders on the bottom to make it an easy matter to cross
over to the other side. Beyond

FLOATING DRAGON

447

the gorge was a flat grassy plain with a stand of ancient oaks and white
spruce in its center; at its edges, this plain degenerated into marsh,
which itself degenerated into stony beach just before the waterline.
From where Graham stood, at the end of the roadway, to the farthest tip
of the Point was a distance of perhaps two hundred yards.

The inhabited land reached by the end of Harbor Road- the territory
behind Graham now-still looked surprisingly as it had the last time
Graham Williams had come out to Kendall Point. The Depression had
somehow hit this obscure corner of Hillhaven ten years early and had
never left.

As Graham saw it now, the Dragon had spoiled this place. Directly beside
the curved end of the road stood a white building with a concrete
terrace partially visible behind a tall fence. The building had a long
ground-floor window facing the Sound, and ranks of smaller windows in
the upper floors-in one of these a pair of tights dried on a line, in
another a Budweiser lamp flickered. Graham had always felt certain that
this building was a bar, but it had no name, no sign; for that reason
and because of the line of little windows, he assumed also that it was a
whorehouse. It looked like a whorehouse; like a bad one, a place where
you just might get robbed. Down the rough street going past the white
building stood a half-dozen little houses-they were what Hillhaven had
instead of Poor Fox Road. Just as they had a generation and a half ago,
these houses seemed abandoned, leeringly empty, invitations to tragedy.
Graham felt now, looking at the row of dilapidated and leering houses,
that they were waiting there for their victims.

Graham stepped up onto the low wall, looked back at his car and the
cluster of buildings, and then jumped the eighteen inches down into
Dragon's land.

First he had to get down into the gorge, make his way across the tops of
the boulders, and then go up the opposite slope °nto the Point itself.
The slope down to the boulders looked easy enough-if he had been a
child, he would have tried to s'ide down on the soles of his shoes. The
wild rhododendron bushes growing down the sides of the gorge now seemed
almost to invite Graham to use them for handholds, or for "rakes if he
found himself moving too quickly. Moving very carefully and heeling over
to his right,

448

Peter Straub

Graham began to inch his way sideways down the slope. The earth held
solidly beneath his basketball shoes. He stuck his left arm stiffly out
for balance, and went down a few more steps. Soon he would reach the
rhododendrons and be able to cling to them nearly all the way to the
boulders. Down a few more steps, his ankles already beginning to grumble
at the way they were bent. Graham bent to the side a little more and put
the ringers of his right hand against the ground, steadying himself.

His left foot found a grip six inches down the slope; his right
awkwardly crossed over it and found its own place. Graham exhaled,
nearly grunting: this was more work than he had expected. He dropped the
left foot again, and felt moss slither under the sole of his shoe. For a
moment he wobbled, almost going over, and dug his fingers into the
grass: his leg slipped out from under him until the basketball shoe
found a patch of bare earth and clung.

Jesus, why am I doing this? he thought, straddling three feet of sloping
ground as he drove the fingers of his right hand deep into the earth,
gripping roots and a pelt of grass. Why did I come down here? He looked
back up toward the top of the gorge and saw the sky wheeling blackly
over the rim, the land rearing up as dizzily as a roller-coaster track.

Graham groaned out loud. The slope he clung to was canting up like a
ladder jerked suddenly perpendicular. The light had winked out. Graham
was crazily conscious of the glowing dial of his radium watch-and of a
wheezing, asthmatic sound he thought was the laughter of the rotting
houses until he realized that it came from his chest.

His head was swinging backward, his feet forward, in sudden night. Where
he had dug his fingers into the ground, the earth scalded his hand. A
tubular root against his palm suddenly burned like a hot water pipe.

Graham flailed out with both hands, reaching for any support he could
find, and immediately slipped five or six feet down the slope, scraping
his belly and his face against rough stones. Then it was as if a
rhododendron had twined its stalks around his hands, voluntarily
stopping him from sliding onto the boulders. Graham gripped at the bush,
felt it accept his hands and then find his legs. For a moment he was secure.

"Help me!" he called out, thinking that one of the girls from the bar
might hear him. "Help me!"

He knew, and wished he did not, that the girls in that place

FLOATING DRAGON

449

would have heard and ignored many strange cries from Kendall Point.
"Helllp! Helll ..."

The bush or the steep hill, or both, flexed and threw him off. He felt
the muscles of the earth contract, the twigs and leaves of the bush he
clung to coil into themselves and bulge monstrously, and after that he
felt only air rushing away from him and his stomach falling faster than
he was.

After he struck the boulders he felt nothing.

A long time after, Graham opened his eyes onto a red immensity of pain.
He moaned, licked his lips, moved his legs. All of him hurt so
thoroughly, so comprehensively, that he was not aware of any special
injuries: he himself was the injury. Yet after a few minutes, individual
reports began to come in: his head was muffled in an enormous ache, and
his right cheek had grown out to twice its size; his right arm sang out
with pain when he tried to raise it. His hips sent up messages of
drowsiness and confusion.

He blinked twice rapidly, then twice more. He raised his left hand
carefully and explored his face; wiped at his eyes. Above him the world
was again taking shape, reforming itself out of the redness.

The rim of the gorge lay like a black line beneath the sky's starry and
dark blue. Graham did not at first remember why he was outdoors, and he
puzzled over the odd vertical landscape before him. He could remember
staring at the map in the Historical Society . . . after that, all
descended into a rushing blackness.

He remembered a starburst exploding across the surface of a pane of
glass. What had caused that?

Graham used his left arm to prop himself upright. The world went red
again and swung around him in big dizzying orbits. He moved his right
arm, and the elbow reacted as though he had been kicked there. Hissing
with pain, Graham opened his eyes again and saw how close he was to the
top of the gorge.

The agony in his elbow ceased as he cupped it in his left hand. Graham
thought he was ready to move. He carefully lowered his right arm and put
his left hand flat against the smooth surface of the boulder so that he
could help himself ftand. His hips agonized, but he thought he had just
bruised a ^e or jarred the ligaments-in fact, at this moment Graham was
congratulating himself on having survived his fall with so

450

Peter Straub

little real injury. Looking at the slope now, he could see dark scars
which were the marks torn by his shoes as he stepped down-they ended
about twelve feet from the boulders, and halfway between the last mark
and the rock was a patch from which the moss and grass had been erased,
rubbed away. Graham's hip, its track. He was very lucky to be alive,
luckier still to be whole. He tried to persuade his legs to get under him.

His hand came down into a puddle of something sticky and wet, and Graham
glanced at it more in curiosity than surprise. It was black-in the
starlight it looked black. Graham did not identify this fluid as blood
until he smelled it, and then he gently shook his head, wondering if the
wound on the side of his face were worse than he had thought.

He swept his hand to one side, confused, and touched another body that
had been lying beside his. It was smaller than an adult body. Graham
groaned again and this time forced himself to his feet-Then he tottered
around the perimeter of the boulder so that he could see the face. He
bent forward on his painful hips. His heart and gut contorted; the face
was Tabby's.

Tabby's neck had been sliced open, so savagely the boy had nearly been
decapitated. He had been killed up on the rim of the gorge and then his
body thrown down beside Graham: the body had the boneless ease of a
discarded toy.

"Oh, God," Graham said. "Oh, dear God." He had begun to cry, and
unthinkingly he lifted his right hand toward his nose-the elbow
screamed. Graham inhaled sharply, gripped his right wrist with his left
hand, and supported the right arm atop the left while he scrubbed his
nose with his sleeve. "Oh, dear God," he repeated, and fresh tears
jumped to his eyes. "Tabby."

Tabby opened his eyes and froze Graham to his foot of rock. "I'm dead.
I'm dead, and it's your fault."

Graham almost fell off the boulder. Tabby's face was merciless.

"You should be dead, not me," Tabby said. "He wants you to know that."

In Tabby's eyes the old man could see the pinhead dots of light which
were the stars.

"He killed me-he killed me because of your meddling- he killed me
because you took us to that marker and read us his name-God damn you!
Damn you!" The boy's head

FLOATING DRAGON

451

lolled back against the rock, blood drooled from the ragged second
mouth. "You asked for this, and I damn your soul to hell!"

"Tabby," Graham began, "if you are Tabby, you know I would never-"

The boy's head rolled back again. "You know what happened in the Black
Summer, don't you? Don't you? Don't you?"

Graham shook his head. "Not everything. Tabby-"

"You don't-you don't know anything. Because this is what happened.
This." The head rolled to the side, fixing Graham with a look of idiot
glee. "Me. I'm what happened. Me. This isn't even what I look like
now-you don't know that either. You wanna see? You wanna see what I'm
like now? You might as well know what you're looking for."

"Looking for?"

"'Four Hearths' is just one hearth now, Graham." The drooling mouth
split with laughter and then the whole body instantly shrank,
blackening, to a dwarfish mummy. The dry little husk whispered on the
flat surface of the rock. Ashy sections crumbled off.

Graham looked in horror at the blackened remains of Tabby's body.
Shaking, he bent forward, no longer noticing the agonies in his elbow
and hips, and laid his fingertips on the black crust. As soon as he
touched it, the little husk cracked into uncountable pieces-gray dust
rose up, lighter than air, from the fractures. The thousands of shreds
of ash on the surface of the boulder stirred, broke into particles the
size of houseflies, spun crazily apart.

Still trembling, Graham painfully straightened himself. For a second the
world turned red again and canted up like the deck of a boat at sea-he
was gripping his right elbow, his face locked in an old man's Mayan
grimace. Tabby was dead. "Four Hearths" had burned down and Tabby had
been killed there. The Dragon had turned lovely Tabby into a thing like
a blackened cocoon. Holding his flaring elbow close in to his ribs,
Graham wept for Tabby-for his own weakness too.

Finally he wandered off the boulder's flat top back onto the slope of
the gorge. Damn you, Tabby had said to him through his blood-spattered
mouth. I damn your soul to hell. Graham's hred feet found themselves
moving sideways up the mossy slope: through wet eyes, he saw where he
had torn the side out °f a bush. I damn your soul to hell. Damn you.
When he pulled

452

Peter Straub

himself over the top of the little gorge, the lights of the bar's
windows struck his eyes like needles. Behind the glass, men and women,
damned too, filtered back and forth through an underwater light. Fish in
a bowl, Graham thought, fish in a barrel. He fell once on the way to his
car.

Three days earlier, Richard Allbee had begun walking to the job up in
Hillhaven again. John Roehm, who knew nothing of what had happened on
Richard's last walk, had been unsubtly encouraging him to leave his car
at home-Roehm evidently believed that when you were thrown off a horse,
you got right back on again. "Best exercise in the world," Roehm said as
sawdust flew from the ripsaw into his beard and fell like golden
dandruff to his red shirt. "You'll stay healthy all your life, long as
you walk a couple miles a day." Richard had given in-and maybe surrender
was best, for despite his fears the walks had gone uneventfully.

John Roehm's benign bearded smile of total approval greeted him on the
first two mornings like a reward. On the third day-the day of the fire
at "Four Hearths"-the smile was there, but Richard was less sure of the
wisdom of applying horse-training metaphors to Patchin County.

He had been approaching the point on his walk where trouble always
seemed most imminent, where that emotional disaster he feared blew
trumpets and bugles at him as soon as he drew near-it was the section of
Mount Avenue that traveled from one stone gate to the other, thirty
yards down, of Tabby's childhood house. Walking past that gray mansion,
Richard pulled back his shoulders and increased his pace, he sweated out
the distance, wanting only to make it well past the other end of the drive.

On the day that "Four Hearths" would burn to the ground and kill
everybody inside, Richard Allbee had gone no more than half the distance
between the two stone gates when he saw that he would again have
welcomed the sight of feverish little Charles Daisy. A woman in a long
dress he remembered stepped out from behind a tree and waited for him.
Her feet were bare and pale in the dark myrtle which grew between the
iron fenceposts and the road. The woman was Laura. As soon as he had
seen her, she began coming toward him.

FLOATING DRAGON

453

Sweat burst from him and instantly soaked his shirt. He clutched the
handle of his briefcase, clamped the rolled plans more firmly under his
arm, and as firmly kept his eyes on the surface of the road before him.
Pebbles, cracks in the asphalt, a pigeon feather ragged as an old
toothbrush, loomed up as if magnified, and disappeared when he stepped
over them.

She wanted him to look at her, but he would not, could not. His body
would not let him see how badly hers had been treated.

He felt her pleading, and shook his head. If he saw her mangled and
destroyed-saw her once again-that was the end of him. She would have
him, then. He heard her feet whispering through the rubbery myrtle. Her
silence was worse than speech would have been-he heard also how the
dress slid across her hips, brushed against the little plants. He
squinted, ground his teeth, plunged ahead.

He passed the second gate-the other end of the long drive up to Monty
Smithfield's former house-and groaned out loud when Laura's specter did
not disappear. Still he would not look at her. The myrtle had ended, and
Laura's feet were moving over gravel, causing a sound like rolled dice.

She did not leave him until he reached the bend in the road just before
the long white stretch of Hillhaven's beach. No children there
now-parents were terrified of letting their children get near the
water-but a few intrepid women in bikinis lay on the sand, reading the
summer's novels and deepening their tans. Richard's eyes were nearly
closed: he was squinting so that he could see as little as possible
without walking in front of an oncoming car. He sensed, then saw the
approach of the beach through his filmy eyes; then he knew that she was
gone. All he heard was the water slapping itself into the mild froth
that hissed into the shingle; he registered her subtraction from his
side as a sudden push of warm air against his ribs.

At the job, John Roehm took one look at him and left him alone all
morning-a sacrifice of self, for the old man loved to talk. Richard knew
that he was getting ready to put boiled linseed oil on some of the new
flooring they had cut into the fining room, and that he wanted to hem
and haw about the amount of coloring to use in the oil. John Roehm could
cook UP a good thirty minutes of ideas about such a topic. But Richard
conferred with the client, who appeared to notice nothing wrong or
unusual about him, marked up his plans

454

Peter Straub

some more, and did two hours' lonely work on the roof trying to shape up
a cornice. Still he bit down hard on nothing; in his inner ear he kept
hearing bare feet whisper through tough green myrtle.

Laura returned for Richard while unconscious Graham Williams stirred on
a flat boulder; while Tabby Smithfield flattened himself against the
cellar wall and tried to shut out the voice, his father's, which came
from a being not his father. She came at night, and Richard was almost
prepared for her.

He had gone to bed early, promising himself that he would walk up Mount
Avenue the next day, and the day after that, and every day until Laura
stopped appearing. He would not even cross the street: he would do just
as he had done, walk blindly on, refusing to look at or speak to her.
Richard opened the book he had been reading, The Woman in White, and
tried to lose himself in the plight of Marian Halcombe. The print kept
receding away from him, and more than once he read the same paragraph
without noticing: Richard had assumed that he would have difficulty
falling asleep, as he usually did these days, and the assumption kept
him from realizing that he was in fact already drowsing. For a time he
struggled with Wilkie Collins' prose so stubbornly that he twice picked
up the book after it had fallen from his hands. The third time the book
dropped onto his chest he put the marker between the pages and placed
the novel on the bedside table. Just as he did so, he realized that he
had not only assumed that he would be awake most of the night, he had
wanted to be awake; wakefulness felt like protection. Once the thought
became conscious, it was foolish. Richard turned off his light and slid
down between his sheets. The house was dark.

A moment later the lights in the hallway went on and spilled brightness
into the room. Richard's heart gave a great startled thud. He sat up and
saw the open doorway, the hall filled with light, and the door to the
nursery, also wide open. That door had been closed since the last
policeman walked out of the house. Richard had not wanted to enter the
nursery ever again. If he'd found the key, he would have locked the
nursery and kept it locked. "Who's there?" he called out, hoping that
the old wiring had blundered into itself and caused the light to switch
on. "Who's out there?"

Laura stepped through the nursery doorway and into the

FLOATING DRAGON

455

bright hall. For a moment she stood outside Richard's room, perfectly
still. Her face and chest were streaked with blood, blood had clotted
her hair; below the thorax she was an open wound. This time he had to
look. He did not dare to take his eyes off her. She wanted him to know,
or the Dragon wanted him to know, what had happened to her.

He looked at the mutilated body of his wife and eased himself out of the
bed. The Dragon had sent her; or she herself was the Dragon. He
remembered that night after the meClouds' awful dinner party, when he
and Laura had undressed together and made love in their rented house.
Waterbed love, potbellied-stove love. She had looked totemic, wholly
beautiful to him. / don't want to lose you, Richard. He was shaking,
whether with fear, disgust, or rage, he could not tell. Instead, he had
lost her.

Laura stepped nearer, and Richard backed away toward the bathroom,
keeping the bed between himself and Laura. She slowly stepped out of the
light into the darkness of the bedroom-for a long moment she was only a
shadow, a Laurashaped outline against the light, and Richard almost
melted onto the floor: his wife had come back. Then he was assailed by
those odors another specter, Billy Bentley, had pushed toward him from
an elevator in a Providence hotel: rot, sewage, evil swamp gases, feces,
death.

"Get out of here," he said.

She moved toward him, circling down toward the foot of the bed. Her eyes
gleamed whitely. The wound in her belly flapped like a shirttail.

"You're not Laura," he said.

The end of her mouth lifted in a taunting half-smile.

"Are you going to try to kill me?" he said. "Fine, kill me. I can't take
this anymore. I went crazy when you died. Do you think I want to live
here all by myself?"

She passed through a stark vertical shadow, and when she emerged again
into the light from the hallway her skin was whole. The blood and wounds
had gone-as if Richard's memories had created her fresh. Now she was his
wife again, stepping nearer and nearer through the dim light.

His breath caught in his throat; his skin tingled, suddenly cold.

Laura stepped right up before him, still with the half-smile playing on
her mouth. She reached out to him, and he stepped backward-her fingers
just grazed his bare chest.

456

Peter Straub

His skin raised and blistered where she had touched him. The pain sank
into him like knives-Laura or not, she was real enough to kill him.
Smiling, she came forward again, reaching out.

"No," he said, moving backward toward the bathroom door. "Go away. I
can't fight you."

She forced him into the bathroom, and he continued backing away. The
whites of her eyes shone in the darkness of the bathroom, and Richard's
skin moved in revulsion.

He could back out of the hall entrance to the bathroom, he was not
cornered; all of the house was available to him. Laura crept nearer, and
he jumped back, feeling behind him for the knob of the hallway door.

"Go," he said. "Get out of here."

She crept nearer, and his hand found the knob. He jerked the door open
behind him and walked backward out into the hall.

Here the light above the staircase, the light which had announced
Laura's presence, cast everything into banality- they were not in the
chiaroscuro of the bedroom, but at the top of the main staircase. In
real light. And his naked wife was coming playfully for him out of the
bathroom door, real light falling on her real flesh and catching in her
hair. She was smiling a typical Laura-smile. Richard backed slowly away
from her, touching the top of the banister. Here in the light, Laura's
presence seemed almost ordinary. She tilted her head, then made a
playful little darting movement toward him, and he jerked back.

They stood unmoving at the top of the staircase for a moment. Richard
knew that she meant to kill him, and here in this banal everyday light
it seemed impossible that he should ever have been willing to die. She
was a creature of the Dragon, not Laura. Laura had belonged to the world
of affections and friendships and work. This thing before him, so
perfect, was a betrayal of her.

Richard, who knew every inch of his new house, knew that one of the
pickets supporting the banister was like a loose tooth-twenty times he
had jiggled the picket, promising himself he would get around to fixing
it. Watching Laura very carefully, Richard took another step backward
and reached sideways and down: his hand fell on sculptured wood that
rattled in its socket at his touch. He pulled as hard as he could, and
the picket splintered away from the single nail

FLOATING DRAGON

457

holding it. Even before the two-foot-long piece of wood was securely in
his hand, Laura was rushing at him.

He had time only to try to jump out of the way and club at her. She
groped for him, but he moved sideways, bringing down the picket. It
struck her smooth shoulder and knocked her into the banister: where it
had touched her skin, it darkened and released a wisp of smoke.

Laura straightened herself, then deliberately touched the top of the
banister with her forefinger. An orange flame the size of a match
sprouted on the molded banister, blistering the layers of paint. Richard
remembered how that touch had felt, carving into him. The little flame
guttered out. Laura dashed at him, and again he swung hard at her,
connecting with one of her arms. A tiny flame shot up on the picket,
disappeared when Richard swung his weapon around in the air.

That terrible odor of rot and death boomed toward him again. He saw that
where Laura's feet had trod, the carpet had blackened and scorched. She
charged at him again, driving him backward through the open nursery door.

As she entered, he swung at her head and she raised her arms too late to
deflect the blow. The impact knocked her sideways; she sprawled onto the
hardwood of the nursery floor, blackening the varnish. Richard jumped
forward and brought his club down again, smashing her forehead. What he
was doing seemed almost geometric to him, a series of steps he had to go
through cleanly, in perfect order and without emotion. Long bruises were
already appearing on Laura's skin; her right arm dangled. He chopped
down at the head again, and she reached out and grasped his ankle with
her left hand.

Searing pain knocked him down. She was grinning at him, and an alligator
had closed its teeth on his ankle. In a rage now, Richard drove the
ragged end of the picket into her face. The picket jumped into flame,
and she released his ankle.

Richard got on his knees and battered at her as she tried to crawl
toward him.

Then something happened that he did not understand, was not even sure
had actually happened, until Graham Williams talked to them all late
that night. The picket, now burning like a torch, seemed to tremble in
his hands-it seemed livlng- He smashed it down on the Laura-thing's
head, and for a moment it seemed lit from within, golden. He raised it and

458

Peter Straub

battered down again, and it quivered in his hands like a bird. "You're
not Laura," he breathed, and smashed once again at her head. She had
ceased to move. He pushed himself across the floor away from her.

A film of blue flame ran lightly across the naked body on the hardwood
floor, flickering lightly across the splayed legs. Richard sat up and
watched the flames feed upon each other, redden and grow. He had not
been geometric, he had beaten this thing into defeat in the same room
where his wife had been murdered, and now he was drained by his feelings
of rage and triumph.

A shape stirred and expanded within the fire over Laura's body: before
it became definite, Laura rolled up into the flames and was consumed.
Then the flames concentrated, and Richard saw big wings flicker out of
the center of the fire-he drew back from the suddenly intensified heat,
and a bat made of flame lifted from the charred floor.

Heat rolled over Richard, rolled into him, and the force of it pushed
him back into the wall-as if a giant hand had given him a shove. For a
moment the entire room shimmered-blue lines of fire chasing wildly over
the floor and walls-and then the window exploded outward, and the
flexing fire-bat exploded out with it.

Richard peeled himself away from the wall. His face felt sore and
dry-sunburned. The nursery was full of drifting ash and the smell of
frying wood. On the floor was a large charred circle on the perimeter of
which lay his picket, or what was left of it. The stub of the picket was
black too, and glints of red rose and died along its length. Richard
managed to stand. He went slowly across the blackened floor to the hole
where the window had been. A furious, raging fire rode on its own wings
into the black sky. When he looked down, he saw Tabby Smithfield
standing down there on his front lawn, staring up at him with a face
like a white smudge.

"And I looked down," Tabby told him in a shaking voice, "and I saw a
lead pipe-just lying on the floor of the cellar. So ... so I picked it
up and smashed the window, just smashed it ... and then there was some
old stuff in there, trunks and stuff from my grandfather, and I piled it
together and climbed up on it. And then I climbed out of the window. I
cut myself, but not too bad. Anyhow, I got outside ... I saw my house
burn right up-it was like one big sheet of

FLOATING DRAGON

459

flames, the whole house . . . and I knew my father was dead. So I ran
over here."

"And you saw the fire-bat. That's what you call it?"

Tabby nodded.

"Where have you seen it before?"

"One night when I was on the beach-that night all those houses on Mill
Lane burned down. And all those firemen were killed."

"Jesus," Richard said.

"And in my house-tonight. But it was like I was in the Daddy's Here house."

"Oh, my God," Richard said, remembering the nightmare from his earliest
days in Hampstead. "Billy Bentley."

"He was there. Shouldn't we call Mr. Williams and Patsy? Don't you think
we ought to see if they're all right?"

Richard did not want to tell the boy that he had already tried to call
Graham and Patsy; while Tabby had been washing his face in the
downstairs bathroom, Richard had dialed both their numbers. Neither
Graham nor Patsy had been \n. He said, "Look, it's almost eleven at
night. Graham'll be in bed, sound asleep. Patsy too, probably. We'll try
to call them in the morning. In the meantime, I guess this is your home
now, if that's all right with you. I wouldn't mind the cornpany."

Tabby had pushed himself deeply into Richard's guest bed, and now he
rolled over and locked his face into the pillow. His shoulders were
trembling; Richard, too tired to be perceptive, finally understood that
the boy was crying. He patted Tabby's back and sat with him for some
minutes. Finally he said, "Your father and my wife. I suppose we could
be sorry for each other, instead of being sorry for ourselves. You want
to try that?" Tabby nodded into the pillow. Richard stroked his back and
said, "Besides that, you need someone like me and I need someone like
you. Tomorrow we'll go get you some clothes and anything else you need.
Okay?" Still crying, Tabby nodded into the pillow again-he did not want
Richard to see his face. "I'm going to bed," Richard said. "My room is
right down the hall, in case you need anything."

Richard did not think he could sleep-he was exhausted, but his inner
pulse raced. He lay in his own bed with all the lights off, trying to
calm that inner engine that chugged and chugged, wanting him to get
dressed and go out to search for Graham

460

Peter Straub

I

and Patsy-he would have, if he'd had a single clue as to where they
were. He and Tabby had escaped the Dragon; could Patsy and Graham do the
same? Interspersed with his anxious thoughts about the other two were
worries about the boy now sleeping down the hall-part of Richard knew
already that he wanted Tabby Smithfield permanently in his life, but
would the boy accept him as substitute father? And could he really be a
substitute father? Wouldn't Tabby resent any attempts to replace his
true father? And wouldn't he have relatives-family-whose proper role it
would be to raise him? But when Richard Allbee thought of Tabby
Smithfield's family, he saw himself and Patsy McCloud and Graham
Williams. And where were they now? Did the fire-bat visit them too? Were
they alive? In the midst of these spinning circles, Richard fell asleep.
And was instantly dreaming. . . .

He was carrying a huge heavy sword in his hands-so large that he had to
support it across his forearms, so heavy that all the muscles in his
arms were shrieking. But he could not stop, he could not rest. Around
him was the pure, the primal Bad Place: a dank countryside of craters
and leafless trees, of burned farmhouses and stinking pools. Richard
trudged forward, his arms shaking with pain, toward a flat yellow
horizon. When it was time, and when he had reached the right place, he
stopped. Now the burned farmhouses were far behind him; on the surface
of the gray tarn some twenty feet before him smoke or fog corkscrewed
up. He planted his feet on the damp ground. In his arms the sword was
becoming lighter; had begun to glow. He grasped the handle with both
hands and lifted the sword as high as he could in the air. Then-already
bringing it down-he saw that Laura lay on the ground directly before
him. Richard screamed, but he could not stop the descent of the sword:
it cleaved through Laura's body and bit into the earth. From both
wounds, a fountain of blood erupted, drenching all the landscape and
instantly soaking him. Richard moaned, opened his eyes and expected to
see a red world-instead he saw Tabby's face, so worried it was pinched
far down into itself.

"It's Patsy," Tabby said. "She's going to die."

FLOATING DRAGON

4

461

Patsy, lonely, had tried to call Graham Williams; when Graham had not
answered, she dialed the first four digits of Richard's telephone
number, and then hesitated-she was not sure she could trust herself
around Richard Allbee. Especially this late in the evening, and
especially in this mood. Patsy had been feeling restless, indeed almost
reckless, most of the day; and she'd had very little to do except read
and watch television. She had found a copy of one of Graham's books,
Twisted Hearts, at Books 'n Bobs, and was halfway through it, but she
did not want to gulp it down-it was too good for that, Patsy thought.
She was a little surprised at how much she liked Graham's novel. But she
did not feel like reading now; and television offered only the usual
popcorn. She would have liked to spend several hours with Richard, just
seeing what would happen if they were alone in the same room. But
Richard, she knew, would never begin anything with her-he was out of
practice, he had been married too long. He was unsure of himself. And
Patsy was unsure that she could initiate anything with Richard, or
indeed that it would be right to do so. Richard was still deeply in
mourning, his emotions were scrambled. If she began anything with him,
he would make too much of it-it would touch him too deeply. And wouldn't
it seem too pat, almost comball in fact-the widow and the widower? That
was unaesthetic. Patsy gently put down the receiver. She could always
take a bath. If she still felt this way tomorrow, she would go out and
spend too much money on clothes. When she pulled out her credit card,
only she would know how virtuous she was being.

She got about six paces away from the phone when she decided that she
would call Richard anyhow-she didn't need a bath, and she didn't like
shopping. Patsy turned around, and that was when her telephone rang. She
would have bet a hundred dollars that the person on the other end of the
line was Richard Allbee.

But she would have lost her bet: the caller said, "Patsy,

1 m really glad you're home. This is Graham."

|^I just called you!" she cried. "You're not there!"

"I just got back. Patsy, I've discovered something, and it

462

Peter Straub

could be the clue to everything-I think I know where he is, Patsy. And
who he is."

"Tell me," she said. "Can you tell me over the phone?"

"Not now," Graham's voice said. "Trust me, Patsy, there's a reason. I
want you to meet me someplace."

"Well sure, okay," she said, pleased and a little flattered. "You name it."

"Do you know Poor Fox Road? In Greenbank?"

"I never heard of it," Patsy said.

"It's a little obscure, but it's ..."

"Oh. I know. It's where that Fritz man was killed. I remember. The
gardener."

"Can you find it? It's just across Mount Avenue from the entrance to
Gravesend Beach. You have to look hard to see it-it's not marked. It
looks more like a driveway than a town road."

"I think I've seen it," Patsy said.

"Well, there are three or four houses down the end of that road. They're
all vacant now. I want you to meet me at the little brown clapboard
place next to the house with all the junked cars on the lot."

"Doesn't it have a number?"

"No number, but you can't miss it. Brown clapboard. Sagging roof. Just
look for the place you'd choose if you wanted to store your
shrunken-head collection. Just go inside. If I'm not there, I'll be
along in a second. I have to get some things together-some things I want
you to see."

"Brown clapboard, sagging roof, shrunken-head collection. You seem very
excited, Graham."

"You'll see why. I'll see you on Poor Fox Road as soon as I can get over
there." He hung up.

Patsy went straight to her bag, which was sitting openmouthed on the
kitchen counter, and began to search inside it for her car keys.

Only five or six minutes later she was pushing down her brake pedal,
looking out the windshield of her car at what almost had to be Poor Fox
Road.

Her headlights illuminated a narrow track over which the overgrown trees
and tall bamboolike marsh grass seemed to lean. Patsy caught a
disturbing glimpse of the moon sailing up into the sky-just an image of
it between two black looming maples-and did not recognize until a moment had

FLOATING DRAGON

463

passed that she had been disturbed because the moon had seemed too
large, almost twice its normal size.

She was traveling very slowly, still not absolutely certain that she was
on the right road, and when she went around the bend where Bobby Fritz
had so happily met Dr. Wren Van Home, she began to hear what sounded
like the noise of working machinery-a pounding, a drumming. Patsy
assumed without even really registering the thought that the Academy was
the source of this sound. Then her headlights found the first of the
houses; then the second, which sat in a sea of junked cars; then the
third. And her heart sank.

It was brown, or something like brown, and clapboard; and the roofline
noticeably sagged. Black windows gleamed at her as she drew her car up
before it: but she immediately saw that she had been mistaken, the glass
was broken in, long gone. The mistake seemed of a piece with the house.
What had caused her despair had not been the shabbiness of the house,
she had expected that; it was the atmosphere which surrounded it, of
being permanently apart-selfish. She did not want to go in there. The
headlights of her car brought the little building forward, emphasized
its isolation and starkness. Patsy cut off her ignition and turned off
her lights.

She contemplated the house. She examined the sharply defined masses
which were trees, and the hulks of abandoned cars-somehow made almost
beautiful by the streaming moonlight. She gazed without interest at the
other houses she could see, and saw that none of these were inhabited.
Poor Fox Road was a little ghost town. She looked back at the house and
found that it had lost whatever particularity it had previously had. It
was just another empty building. Really, there was no reason not to take
a look at it-and Graham had been so excited.

Patsy opened the door of her car and stepped out. The machinery sound,
that pounding as if jackhammers were at work in the center of the earth,
abruptly ceased. She looked over her shoulder at the school property,
startled, but saw only the mesh of the fence crowded with moonlit leaves.

In front of the house she hesitated for a moment, hoping to hear
Graham's old car grinding toward her. There was no real Path up to the
front door anymore, only a mat of weeds. Patsy looked down the narrow
track of the road again, really exPecting to see Graham's headlights
sweeping through the

464

Peter Straub

moonlight. Patsy thought for a second: he's never going to come: and
then shook her head at her foolishness.

She went up through the thick weeds and felt the remains of the path
through the soles of her shoes. "Come on, Graham," she said aloud. The
house, she thought, must have been connected to whatever happened to
Graham in the twenties; as she put her hand on the brass doorknob, Patsy
realized that this mean crumbling house must be an important part of the
story that involved all of them. Patsy decided to follow orders.

She turned the knob and pushed open the door, and a squeaking bat
swooped out of the house and clamped itself over the side of her face.
Too startled to scream, Patsy tried to tear the creature off her face
and felt its tiny claws digging into her hair, into her cheek. Her
fingers found the small furry body. The bat's high-pitched squeaks
drilled into her ear. She felt its head moving, burrowing in her hair.
Her eyes closed, dancing frantically back and forth, Patsy half-stumbled
over a sill as she entered the house.

The door slammed shut, but in her terror Patsy hardly heard it. The
bat's furry body revolted her, but not only did she have to touch it,
she had to wrap her fingers about it. Slapping it with her hand had only
increased the frequency of the shrill hate-filled noises echoing through
her head. She could feel its tiny teeth working on her scalp. Patsy's
breath came in short, rapid surges, and she heard herself begin to
release an eerie un-Patsy-like wail as she worked her fingers under the
body of the clutching animal. At last she thought her grip was secure
enough to dislodge it-the bat's heartbeat throbbed like a bird's in her
hand-and she tore it off her head.

The bat had gone sailing away as soon as it was free, and as Patsy
opened her eyes, she threw out her arms and moved in an agitated circle.
Her eyes told her nothing-she was in a black, flat environment. Holding
her arms and hands over her head, still panting, Patsy started to move
quickly across the room. That jackhammer-drumming sound seemed to
envelop her, to rise up all about her. Patsy could not really see the
floor at all: she was vaguely conscious that it was a pattern of darker
and lighter patches, but had no time to imagine what that meant. She was
now as terrorized by that overwhelming sound as by the possibility of
the bat making another pass at her, and she moved straight toward the
door. That sound

FLOATING DRAGON

465

seemed to boil out of the walls. Patsy had taken only a couple of
awkward and hasty steps when it seemed that the floor rose up and
slapped her down.

She landed on her side, grunting. Now she could see what had felled
her-before the moonlit square of window a broken floorboard slanted up
like a broken spar. Her head was only inches from the ground. Above her
she was suddenly conscious of black wings, of more than one body
zigzagging through space. Patsy crawled forward around the hole in the
floor. The boards pitched beneath her. That pounding noise rose straight
up through the floor. She scrabbled across the treacherous floor,
scraping her palms on broken boards, for what should have been twice the
distance to the front door. The bats whickered overhead, how many she
could not tell. When her hand touched a sticky metal pipe, she cried
out- she had gone deeper into the house. All her crawling had taken her
farther away from the door.

Patsy used the pipe, then the metal tub above it, to lever herself to
her feet. Something slimy and foul covered her hands; she felt it on her
legs too. Then she saw two bats whirl past the square of window-hadn't
there been two! two windows?-and shrank away just as she took in that
their faces were white. The two bats swooped past her, squeaking in
fury, and Patsy saw that one of the bats had flowing red hair and a
woman's face.

The door just opposite her flew open, revealing a solid wall of flies
that instantly dissolved into a million buzzing particles. They
instantly covered her, fell on the sink, blackened the air. Patsy lifted
her hands to wave them away, and was given a sudden vision, as if it had
been beamed into her head, of Les McCloud yelling and stamping down on
the accelerator in the last seconds of his life.

Through the screen of flies a reddish light had begun to filter, pulsing
with their comprehensive buzzing. The cellar door, the source of this
reddish light, threw itself fully back against its hinges.

Patsy stood transfixed as the red light washed over her: the flies
exploded up into the air again. At the bottom of the cellar steps, a red
liquid washed and lapped over the wooden treads. This liquid blanketed
the floor-it appeared to be at east several feet deep. In pulsating red
light, it surged up to take another of the treads. Then Patsy saw a red
hand break lhe surface of the turbulent lake. Another hand broke free. A

466

Peter Straub

head followed-small, well-shaped, the head of a young person.

The streaming body tried to find its footing on the bottom step. Another
hand broke free of the surface behind it; then another. The first body
was that of a boy or young man, Patsy saw: it grasped the rail with one
hand and yanked itself forward and up. She could see the filmed eyes
moving sightlessly, painfully. Another swimmer's head broke through back
in the vault of redness, the mouth wide open in a soundless shout of
triumph.

Tabby? Patsy sent out unthinkingly. Tabby? Where are you, Tabby? Tabby?
Tabby?

Patsy, Tabby thought, coming abruptly out of a miserable half-sleep
tormented by images of Gravesend Beach lathered with a bloody surf.
Patsy? He felt as though he'd been tickled by a cattle prod-as though a
powerful wave of electric current had just gone straight through him.

Patsy was in trouble: mortal trouble. Tabby threw back the sheet and sat
straight up in bed, more alarmed even than he had been in his own house.

Patsy are you all right are you are you

He felt nothing before him but the conviction of mortal danger.

Tabby jumped out of bed. He felt small and frantic. Where wafs Richard's
room? Patsy, he thought despairingly, and suddenly saw a barren room
with an oozing sink and a ruptured floor. Tabby turned blindly into the
hallway, going toward the main staircase through the darkness. He heard
deep, even rhythmic breathing, interrupted sporadically by snorts, and
turned toward the sound. Tabby held out his hands, whimpering because of
his urgency, and groped until he felt the edge of a doorframe. He eased
through the empty frame, and then wiped his hands up and down the wall
until he found the light switch. Tabby flicked on the lights.

Richard Allbee lay back on his bed, openmouthed and snuffling. The
sudden light did not awaken him.

Tabby ran to the side of the bed. Richard snorted loudly but did not
awaken. Tabby shook Richard's shoulders, hard. "Wake up!" he said. "You
have to wake up! Richard!"

Richard's eyelids fluttered, his mouth smacked. He uttered a
half-audible moan. "Hey," he said.

FLOATING DRAGON

467

"It's Patsy," Tabby said. "She's going to die."

"What?"

"She's going to die," Tabby said, and his voice broke. "She's in some
terrible old house, and something's going to kill her, Richard. We have
to help her."

"Help her how? How do you know this, anyhow? What can we do?" Richard
was now wholly awake, but not yet fully in command of himself.

"Call Graham," the boy said. "He'll know where the house is-he has to know."

"You're sure?" Richard said, then wiped his face and looked at the boy.
"Of course you're sure. I'll call him right now. I just hope he got back
home."

Richard lifted the bedside phone and put it in his lap and began to dial.

For Tabby, everything was moving with agonizing slowness. He turned his
back on Richard, hearing the maddeningly slow clicks of the dial, and
closed his eyes.

oh Patsy Patsy hang on please

we'll find you Patsy-God we will

don't don't don't die I love you

Behind him a surprised-sounding Richard was talking with Graham: when
Tabby heard him say, "You think you know the house?" he could
concentrate no longer. "You think your arm's broken?" he heard Richard
say, and that snapped his concentration for good.

"Get your shoes on," Richard told him. "Graham's corning over right
now-I'll just throw on a bathrobe and we'll get going in my car. He
thinks he knows where she is."

As much as she heard Tabby speaking in her mind-and that was only
dimly-the air about Patsy seemed charged with a particular Tabby-ness, a
fresh sprinkling of his personality that was curiously detached from
Tabby as a person; the essence without the form that gave the essence
its meaning. Instantly the crowd of flies filling the air seemed to
lessen. Down there, the redness and the pulsing light were diminishing
second by second. The blood-soaked creature on the cellar stairs
retreated, still holding out one arm toward Patsy as if he expected her
to help him escape. Even after his head had disappeared beneath the red
tide, the arm still reached °ut, imploring. Watching that arm sinking
slowly into the red tide, going to the elbow, then to the wrist as the
fingers

468

Peter Straub

stretched hopelessly out, Patsy began to weep. The tide of

blood in the basement fell back slowly from the stairs, going

down some invisible cosmic drain. She looked toward the spotted ceiling.
Hundreds of flies

buzzed in circles up there, throwing themselves against the

crumbling fabric, trying to get out. Patsy stumbled, then went blindly
out of the kitchen. She

stepped over the holes in the floor, skirted the board that had brought
her down earlier. Now she could see the door clearly in the moon-washed
interior-it was even open a crack, and an oblong of light had fallen
into the room. Across Poor Fox Road black and white leaves stirred and
whispered.

She waited in the middle of the road. She busied herself in plucking
drying flakes of yellowish gunk off her clothes. When she chafed her
palms up and down her calves, most of the pasty yellow stuff shredded
away. Patsy crossed the street to her car. A few seconds later,
headlights poked around the bend of the little overgrown road.

She could see their faces through the open side window of Richard's
car-three white ovals pressing toward her. Patsy saw that Graham's right
arm was in an impromptu sling made from a red paisley bandanna. An
enormous bruise purpled his right cheek.

From Tabby, she felt a warming uncomplicated blast of concern and love.

"Can you drive your car, Patsy?" Graham boomed at her. "We shouldn't
leave it here all night."

Patsy nodded.

"Sure?" Richard asked, leaning over Tabby to get a closer look at her.
"Why don't you let me come with you?"

"Yes. Okay. I'd like that."

"Then drive back to my house," Graham said. "None of us is going to get
any sleep tonight."

Patsy and Richard sat on Graham's old couch, Graham straddled his typing
chair and sat facing them across his coffee table, scowling. Tabby sat
cross-legged on the floor before Richard and knew that the scowl was
chiefly meant for him: he could tell, too, that Graham was as angry at
himself as at him. Now they all knew what had happened to one another

FLOATING DRAGON

469

\

that day, and each of them, Tabby thought, was thinking that his luck
must be running out.

"I asked you a question, Tabby," Graham said. "How did you know that
Patsy was in trouble? And how could you describe the setting so well
that I could identify it? What's going on here, Tabby?" "I just knew,"
Tabby said.

"Just knew. Pah! Don't you realize, son, that everything that happens to
us is important-part of the pattern? And that if we can't read the
pattern we can't do our job? You can't hide anything from me, Tabby, not
if you're serious about helping us."

"I'm serious, all right," Tabby said. He didn't mind telling Graham and
Richard about the connection between Patsy and himself, not if Patsy
didn't mind, but he could not tell Graham Williams and Richard Allbee
what he had been doing the night he and Patsy had discovered the
connection, even though he felt closer to them than to anyone except
Patsy. They would not understand-Tabby himself barely understood anymore
how he had let himself get talked into going with the Norman twins.
Tabby was serious; how serious, Graham and Richard would learn when they
found out that he had destroyed the Dragon.

"Prove it to me," Graham said.

You bet I will, Tabby thought, and said, "Okay. You want to, Patsy?" He
looked up at her, and she was nodding at him. "Okay. I don't know what
you call it, exactly, but Patsy and I, we, uh, we can ..."

"Telepathy," Patsy said. "We can send messages to each other."

Behind Tabby, Richard Allbee inhaled sharply.

"Ah," Graham said. He was smiling. "Of course, it had to be that. I knew
the first time I saw the two of you together that you were two of a
kind. Good. Thank you for telling me. When did you first notice that you
had this ability?"

This question led to paths Tabby did not wish to take. He said, "It just
happened."

"Nothing 'just happens.' Patsy?"

"It was the first night all four of us were together," Patsy said. "The
night I had the fit and saw the dragon-head corning out of that book."

Graham straightened up, and adjusted the sling on his arm. "As long ago
as that," he said. "But it does/if, do you see,

470

Peter Straub

it fits beautifully. Because we came together and we fit. And we fit
because we had to: and the reason we had to is that our enemy was just
finding his real strength then. He and the four of us turned a corner
together. Tabby! Do you have anything to tell us? Anything to add?"
Tabby shook his head.

"Well, let me tell you what is in store for us-let me tell you about the
Black Summer, and then you might want to change your mind. Of course, by
now you can probably guess what went on then. At least some of it.
Because it's going on around us now-I think Gideon Winter is trying to
reenact the summer of 1873, and I think he's doing a pretty fair job. We
have people moving out of town, we have the fires and all the deaths
..." His face pinched with pain, and he carefully adjusted his
improvised sling again. "Pretty soon the trains'll just go past the
stations here-Greenbank and Hampstead. The drivers will just 'forget' to
stop one day, and then pretty soon they'll 'forget' again, and before
long they'll hardly even see those stations when they run past them.
Once in a blue moon they'll look and see the big red hampstead sign and
they'll scratch their heads and wonder why it gives them a twinge. And
you know, it won't make any difference at all-no one's going to be
waiting for the train anyhow, those platforms'll be deserted. We're
going to be sealed off, friends, and the town is going to accept it-it's
already halfway there. And Hampstead could be nothing but a big
graveyard for the next two years, the next five years, the next ten ..."

Graham fixed them all with his glare, then rubbed his throat with his
left hand. "Dry. I'm gonna need some lubrication. Tabby, you step over
to the refrigerator there and get me a bottle of beer, will you? Patsy,
you want anything? Some of that gin? Richard? Might as well settle down,
it'll be a long speech. I'm going to tell you about that summer of 1873,
but I'm also going to let you in on what happened between me and Mr.
Bates Krell, whose house we saw tonight. It's about time you kids let me
get all that off my chest."

Tabby got a beer for himself, too.

The Burning River

"I was twenty," Graham began. "Closer to Tabby's age than either of
yours, which is something you ought to remember as we go along. I was
working on my first novel-one I published eight years later. I thought I
had a pretty good subject for a novel, and in fact the subject was going
on right around me, because I wanted to deal with the disappearances of
women from Hampstead. My parents had known one of these women, Daisy
West. And I knew that Daisy's husband, Horace, who was actually a very
mild man, had fallen apart when Daisy vanished-he went down to the
police station and threw a punch at Nails Kletzka, the chief. And Nails
put him in a cell for the night. That was the sort of thing I wanted to
work on. The effect on other people when somebody disappears, how lives
are changed by that.

"Anyhow, I had me a little notebook in which I'd scribble my ideas, and
I'd take long walks, getting away from people-my family, I guess I
mean-and write down the little things I thought of. And most days, where
I walked was alongside Rex Road-that road that runs along the river from
Greenbank Road all the way into town. In those days almost all the left
side of Rex Road was open field, right down to the river. You could walk
for two, three miles and never lose sight of the water. I'd watch the
traffic on the Nowhatan, write down some notion, and amble along. When I
got hungry I'd sit down and take a sandwich out of my canvas backpack-I
always had a couple of books in there too, maybe a little volume of John
Donne or Rupert Brooke. I was a hightoned young fellow, if I wasn't
always as discriminating as I imagined. High-toned. Naive-and about as
capable of writing the book I wanted to as a hamster. Me and my Donne and

472

Peter Straub

Rupert Brooke-they weren't the weapons that let me survive that summer.

"Well, one day I was sitting there in the field beside Rex Road,
watching the boats on the Nowhatan and eating my sandwich. I looked up,
and my eye was caught by a man puttering around on the deck of a chunky
little lobsterboat making its way toward the Sound. He was bearded, a
big guy, with a heavy blue coat on his back and a cap jammed slantwise
on his head. For some reason I felt a sudden disturbance-I mean, I felt
disturbed, but I mean more than that. I felt a disturbance, a hitch, an
error in the pattern of things somehow: as if I'd glimpsed two moons in
the sky. I felt a sudden wrongness; maybe that's the best way to put it.
I put down my book, and the sandwich went dry in my mouth. The boat
swung out, shifting itself in the current, and the man in the cap held
on to the railing beside his cabin and raised his head. He was looking
straight at me, as if all along he'd known I was there on the bank."

Graham stopped-Patsy's face had gone white and alarmed. Her eyes looked
widely dilated, and he knew that whatever she was seeing, it was not the
four of them in his shabby living room.

Then Tabby said, "You knew," and he looked at the boy, who had the look
of kinship to Patsy that Graham had seen the first time he met
them-Tabby's face too was frozen and white.

"You knew," Patsy echoed.

They were seeing it with him-seeing it better than he, because he was
looking back through his memory and they were seeing it freshly, directly.

"Yes, I knew," he said. "I knew that I had seen a devil. The way you're
seeing him now."

"My God," said Richard. "Are you, Patsy? Tabby?"

They nodded, almost in unison.

"My God," Richard repeated. "I suppose we ought to be getting used to
things like this by now, but . . ."

"You saw the world go crazy," Tabby said.

"Once in my life I was like you two. I had some kind of a vision, and it
rocked me. I saw the world turn black, or maybe my sight went black for
a second, and then I saw smoke lifting up off the ground, and I saw
flames covering the surface of the Nowhatan. The river was nothing but
flame. It stank like a dump. Then the vision went away. I was

FLOATING DRAGON

473

just looking at the good old gray Nowhatan again, and a tubby little
lobsterboat was putting out to the Sound. That man on deck had paid no
more attention to me than he would to a dog."

"So you felt you had to follow him," Patsy said, and Tabby chimed in
with, "To find out about him."

"I was back there the next day, and I had my notebook and my lunch but I
wasn't hungry and I hadn't written anything. I was tense as a whippet.
You know, I think I was waiting for that terrible vision to repeat
itself-and I was sure it would. It was the confirmation that I
wanted-confirmation that there were realms of existence, realms of
being, beyond anything I had known before. I couldn't take my eyes off
that little boat docked only a little way downstream. Well, the man
appeared; he started up his engines; he went right past me, just as he
had the day before. And just as he had the previous day, he lifted his
head and saw me standing on the bank-his glance just glided over me. He
was a stocky, powerful-looking man and I could still feel the touch of
his eyes. The boat chugged past me. Nothing at all happened. I stood
there, like a rejected suitor, and watched it go. I felt empty and flat.
The boat went on, an ordinary lobsterboat, around a bend in the river .
. . and me standing there with my mouth open.

"So you're right," Graham went on. "I had to find out about him. Late
that afternoon I was across the river. I pretended that I had a message
for one of the lobstermen but that I had forgotten his name. 'A big
man,' I said, 'with a beard. He wears a cap. This is where he docks his
boat.' A scrawny little mate grinned at the others and said, 'It's
Krell. He means Bates Krell.' He turned back to me, and I saw sheer
malice glinting in his eyes. 'Have a message for Bates Krell, do you?
He'll have one for you and all, boy.' They all laughed, and another
fisherman said, 'He'll have more than a message, sonny.' Of course I
didn't understand then what they meant, but I understood something-they
were afraid of the man.

"Well, I waited for him to come in with his catch. I didn't have a clue
about the meaning of what had happened, but I thought I understood that
this man Krell was in some way responsible for the very thing that had
led me to my first sight °f him-the disappearance of Daisy West and
those other women. Krell brought his boat in just before sundown. He "ad
a small catch and I hung back on the edge of the docks

474

Peter Straub

K

and watched him as he negotiated a price for his lobsters with the fish
merchants who came there for that purpose. He seemed surly, aggressive,
not at all stupid-he seemed ordinary, but I knew he was not. I wanted to
know where he lived: I wanted to know all about his life. The aura of
that extraordinary vision I'd had clung to him, and I felt a kind of
obsession with the man.

"When he went home I followed him. I didn't think he saw me. He walked
those two or three miles up Greenbank Road just looking straight ahead,
just marching along in his rubber boots and little cap, as if the whole
world belonged to him. It had grown dark, and there was nothing on
either side of Greenbank Road in those days but fields and marshes. No
lights. I went through the fields, covering myself in burrs and thistle,
ruining my shoes and pants.

"So that was how I learned where his house was-and as soon as I saw it,
I knew that it was no more ordinary than its owner. It was absolutely
his. Or he was its. I hid in the trees on Poor Fox Road and watched him
slouch up his path, open his door, and go inside. That terrible little
house closed around him like a fist. I backed away, almost with the
sense that the house itself was seeing me with Krell's eyes-I was
suddenly spooked, everything around me seemed threatening, and I took
off for home. And when I got there and survived the treatment I got from
my parents for showing up so late and in such a shabby condition, I had
to think of what I could do next-for, knowing what I was pretty sure I
knew, I had to do something. I couldn't just write a book about a
fisherman who killed people: I had to step over the line and act. I
think I had the worst nightmares of my life that night.

"But in the morning, I knew what I was going to do. I was going to get
the evidence that would send Bates Krell to jail. And I was going to get
it by secretly boarding his boat in the middle of the night and finding
something that one of the women had dropped there-as a fisherman, I'd
realized, Krell had the biggest pocket in the world to hide things in.
The Nowhatan; Long Island Sound; the Atlantic Ocean. He could have
thrown half the women in Hampstead overboard, and as long as he'd taken
the precaution of weighting them down, no one would ever find them."

Graham, intent now on his story, did not see the odd expression, half of
apprehension and half of stubborn determination, that went across Tabby
Smithfield's face.

FLOATING DRAGON

2

475

"Two nights later," Graham continued, "I did it. I got on board Krell's
boat. I found something, but it wasn't what I thought I was going to find.

"I had to wait until my parents were asleep, and then make damn sure I
didn't wake them up. You know what parents are-everything wakes them up.
So I didn't get moving until after midnight, and I just crept into my
clothes and went down the stairs like a ghost, terrified that my old man
would start shouting. When I got outside, I closed that door so quietly
even / didn't hear it click. Then I tiptoed into the road and got about
fifty paces away-and then I ran like hell.

"And I didn't stop running until I got to the bridge. I hadn't seen a
living soul the whole way-not even a car. Hampstead was really just a
small town in those days, and small towns go to bed ea-ly. I flew: I
couldn't have walked even if I had wanted to, my body wouldn't have let
me. I suppose my footsteps might have disturbed the sleep of a citizen
or two, but I thought what I was going to find would be much more
disturbing-proof that Daisy West and the others had been murdered, just
like the women before them, back at the start of 1924. By the time I got
to the bridge I had run about two and a half miles, and my legs were
pretty sore, but I don't think I was even breathing hard. That's how
keyed up I was! I leaned on the iron railing of the bridge and looked up
the river. I could see it. Krell's boat, the Fancy, was docked just
where it had been the day before. There wasn't a single human being in
sight.

"I walked the rest of the way. There were a couple of taverns down that
way even then, speakeasies they were, and a few late-night drinkers went
past me on Riverfront Avenue. I turned my head away, and I suppose they
did the same. As soon as I could, I ducked between the buildings and got
closer to the river.

"It was slapping against the pilings. The smell of the water seemed to
be much stronger than during the day, but maybe that was because my
senses were so ... so refined. Every «ttle detail went through me like a
knife-I remember that in foe moonlight the pattern of the grain on the
boards of the dock seemed to ripple, to flow down the dock. . . .

"Bates Krell's boat was lifting and subsiding with the

476

Peter Straub

movements of the water, rubbing itself up against the dock like a big
old dog. All I had to do was jump on board. There wasn't another person
in sight. The boat almost seemed to be welcoming me, inviting me on
board, with those little sighing lifts and bumps. But I hesitated-was I
really going to bite the apple? Commit a crime? I rested my hand on the
rough wood of the boat-up and down, up and down . . . and then I
mentally said to hell with it, and vaulted onto the deck of the Fancy.

"My shoes raised a cloud of dust. I could smell fish and mold. When I
took my hand off the railing, it came away black-Krell's boat was one of
the filthiest things I've ever seen. I crouched down below the level of
the railing, just in case anybody might happen to be looking my way, and
sort of duck-walked across the deck. I didn't know what I was looking
for, exactly, but I guess I had the idea that maybe Krell had kept
souvenirs of his deeds. My fantasy was that I'd open a little locker
somewhere on the Fancy and find a cache of" women's handbags or shoes.

"The trouble was, I couldn't seem to find this locker anywhere on the
deck. I made a complete circuit, crouched over like that, and all I got
was a backache and smudgy marks on my clothes wherever I'd brushed up
against anything. I'd found nothing at all in the wheelhouse. The only
place left to look was the hold, and there were two reasons why I was
reluctant to go down there-I'd smell of fish and lobsters for days, and
once I was down there, I wouldn't be able to tell if someone was coming.
The last thing I wanted was to be caught on board the Fancy] Then,
almost by accident, I saw something I'd missed before.

"The moonlight was touching a small brass handle just a little bit
farther down the deck from me-it was about six inches beneath the
railing. I thought I could see a kind of a shadow-line beside the
handle. It looked just like a secret cabinet Krell had built into the
side of his boat. This was it! I knew what was going to happen: I'd
slide that door open, and all sorts of necklaces and rings would spill
out onto the deck. I was going to find treasure, real treasure, and to
get rid of Bates Krell all I'd have to do was take a few baubles to
Kletzka-the murderer would be salted away before the sun came up.

"I scuttled over to that gleaming handle and shoved it to one side-that
sliding door moved like it was greased. My

FLOATING DRAGON

477

eyes must have been like dinner plates. By now I was convinced that I
was going to see not just a heap of women's shoes, but a fortune in jewelry.

"But that little cabinet Krell had built into the side of the Fancy was
almost empty. There was a stained old coffee cup in there. And beside it
was a wineglass. That was all. A cup and a wineglass. I didn't
understand-not at all. I took out the wineglass and looked at it. The
crystal was etched with leaves and blossoms and was about as heavy as a
square inch of air. It caught the moonlight; it sparkled. This fancy
damn glass spooked me a little bit, surrounded (by the filth of that
boat. It was like holding a flashlight. I put it back in the secret
cabinet and slid the door back. Now there was only one more place to
check. The hold. I decided I'd just look down there; not actually climb in.

"You opened the hold on the Fancy by using a polished length of wood
maybe eight inches long: you slid it into a catch, and then used the
piece of wood to lever up one of the big doors. I worked this out when I
saw the wood hanging by a thong on an upright next to the hold doors. I
lifted the wooden lever off its peg, pushed it into the catch, and swung
hard on the door. It opened; and I almost fainted and fell in.

"What I saw down there was a lake of blood-that's right, just what the
rest of you have been seeing. It looked like itwas rising, coming right
up to the top of the hold and the doors. It was seething, and for a
crazy second it looked somehow conscious. I wobbled on my feet, and only
just managed to drop the door before I blacked out and fell in.

"Then of course I had to be sure that I'd seen it. As soon as I was
steady enough, I pulled the door open a bit-but this time I smelled only
the old odors of fish. There was no smell of blood at all. I opened it
farther, and saw that I was looking down into an empty hold. That was it
for me. I got off that boat as fast as I could, and I wasn't breathing
normally again until I was back on the bridge, going home.

"The next day I worked out another strategy. Two damn peculiar things
had happened to me, and I wasn't about to quit-if anything, I was even
more positive now that Mr. ^11 had killed all those women. And that for
some reason, I was meant to bring him down. It was my job, mine. So I
w°rked out another plan. "I was sure that he'd had assistants-all those
lobstermen

478

Peter Straub

did. No man, no matter how strong, could do the job by himself. Usually
their sons helped them, or they hired the boys who hung around the
docks. In later years, you always saw teenage boys fooling around in gas
stations: hoping for jobs, most of them. In those days, in this part of
the world, the same kind of boy haunted the docks. I was sure that I
could learn something if I could find one or two of Bates Krell's old
deckhands. Well, it turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought
it would be.

"I asked questions around the docks, and I asked questions in the little
speaks down along the river. The Blue Tern-that was one of them, and
it's still there. I made up some elaborate story; maybe it didn't fool
anyone. Maybe they just didn't want to talk about Bates Krell. One old
river rat I cornered in the Blue Tern finally told me, after I poured
about a gallon of rye down his scrawny throat, that Krell abused his
deckhands. 'They runs away on 'im,' he said. 'They clears out in the
middle of the night, and so would I. You can be hard and a boy will
respect you, but no boy today will stick out bein' half-kilt. When I was
that age you took what you got and was grateful for it.'

"I asked him if he knew where any of those boys were now, and he said he
imagined that they'd gone upstate, getting as far away from Krell as
they could.

" 'All of them?' I asked. 'Isn't one of his old hands still in town?'

"He chewed on it for a bit, and I poured more rye into his glass. Rye is
what they called it anyhow-I think it had been in a barrel just long
enough to lose the chemical smell. 'Might be one,' he finally said. 'Boy
named Burgess. Pitt Burgess, he called himself. A funny one. He quit on
Krell- brave like a crazy dog can be. Never came around the docks after
that, and nobody missed him. Never took to him, d'ya see. None of us
here ever took to him.'

'"Where does this Burgess boy live?' I asked.

" 'In the marshes,' he told me. There was an evil old glint in his eye, too.

"Now there are no more shacks down on the marshes, but in the
twenties-right through the Depression, in fact-there were people who
lived in tarpaper houses on that swampy ground just inland from
Gravesend Beach. Lone men, mainly, who lived on the shellfish they
caught at low tide. So I knew where to look, though I wasn't very happy
about it. I was

FLOATING DRAGON

479

going to ruin another pair of boots. And those shacks on the marshes . .
. well, nobody in his right mind would relish the thought of going down
there. Those few crazy loners were a law unto themselves. But I thought
this Burgess boy was probably my last chance to find out about Krell. So
the next afternoon I hiked down Greenbank Road to the entrance to the
beach and jumped over the little tidal estuary there. Then I squished
off through the marsh and went toward the shacks- there were six or
seven of them, strung out from the waterline back toward the direction
of the Millpond.

"I wouldn't have known which one to approach first except that I saw a
tall skinny kid with dirty-blond hair messing around outside one of the
most distant shacks. The kid saw me, and didn't think twice-he just
ducked inside his door. My boy, I thought. I plodded over the wet ground
to that hovel and knocked on the door ..."

. . . and a frightened-looking boy pulled the door open and blinked at
Graham. He was no more than seventeen. His eyes seemed froggy: Graham
finally noticed that he had absolutely no eyelashes. "Get away," he
said.. "You got no business with me."

"I need your help," Graham said quickly. "I'll pay for it. Look-I
brought you some food." He thrust forward the wrapped package in his
hands: in it were cans of beans, some sliced meat, and three bottles of
beer. The boy reluctantly accepted the package, and began prodding and
fondling it with his hands. They, like his pinched face, were gray with
dirt. "You're Pitt Burgess, aren't you?"

The boy glanced up at his face as a convict does at a guard's, then
nodded. "This is food?"

"I tried to figure out what you might need."

The boy nodded again, and looked almost stupefied. Graham realized
sinkingly that he was semiretarded, on the bottom edge of a normal
intelligence or beneath it.

"Some beer, too," Graham said.

Burgess licked his lips and smiled at Graham. "What kind °f help you say
you need?"

'IJust some questions."

"You ain't gettin' any of the beer."

480

Peter Straub

"It's for you."

Burgess nervously backed away from the door, and Graham went into the
dingy single room. It was stiflingly hot, and as dirty as the boy
himself. While Burgess clawed at the package and opened one of the
bottles of beer, Graham noticed how beads of water adhered to the inside
walls and the rungs of the two cane chairs. Moisture had instantly
appeared on the side of the boy's beer bottle. The plywood floor was
furry with mold. A picture of a Marmon coupe torn from a magazine was
tacked to one of the walls. "Beer's good," Burgess told him. "Guess you
can sit, if you like."

"Thanks," Graham said. He did not want to alarm Pitt Burgess. The boy
still seemed as nervous and liable to bolt as a doe in the woods. "Do
you mind answering some questions?"

"You ask and I'll see."

He watched the boy take another swallow of beer.

"When was the last time you worked?"

Burgess squinted at him and washed beer around the inside of his mouth.
"Who sent you, anyhow?"

"Nobody sent me, Pitt. I told you: I need some help you can give me."

Suspiciously the boy cocked his head. "Okay. I was working about four,
five months ago. That was the last time."

"What was the job?"

"Deckhand on a fishing boat."

"Why were you fired?"

"Hey, mister-I quit. Nobody ever fired me. I quit. You hear I got fired?
Is that what you heard?"

"Why did you quit, then?"

Now the boy seemed even more nervous than usual. His unprotected eyes
could not remain still. "Wasn't treated right," he muttered.

"Did he beat you? Did Krell beat you?"

Then nothing changed in the room, but everything was different. Beneath
his layer of grayish dirt, the boy had gone the color of curdled milk:
even the slow drops of water sliding down the wall seemed to stop and
tremble where they were.

"I have nothing to do with him," Graham said. "I've really only seen him
once or twice."

"He hit me," Pitt Burgess said softly. He was relaxing from the outside
in, in concentric circles. "Yeah. That's why I quit."

FLOATING DRAGON

481

He still would not look at Graham, so Graham stayed
qUiet-cannily-winning the boy's confidence the way he would a dog's. He
looked at the picture of the Marmon and did not move.

"He hit me a lot," the boy finally said.

Another long pause. Graham was afraid he would fly apart from sheer
muscular tension.

Then Pitt Burgess said softly, "And he began to look younger, didn't he?
Younger. Sure he did. Handsome."

"Did you think he was handsome, Pitt?" Graham whispered.

The boy nodded, and his Adam's apple jerked in his throat. Then the
boy's naked eyes for the first time in thirty minutes found Graham's
face. "He was. He was awful handsome. Sometimes you don't mind things
s'much, y'know, if . . ."

A vein in Graham's head began to pound. He was getting a headache. "I
see," he said.

"You're nice, bringing me food," the boy said. He paused, as if giving
Graham room to express something he did not trust himself or the
situation enough to say.

"That's all right," Graham said, horribly embarrassed now.

"I was ascairt of him when he got s'handsome," Burgess said after
another of his pauses. "I was thinking about what he done."

"To look younger?" Graham asked.

"What he done before he started to look younger. He had boys before me,
mister." Pitt Burgess stared at Graham with a new expression in his
eyes-there was calculation in it, and shame, and bravado, and some
mysterious thing that made Graham want to run from the shack.

"And he beat those boys, too. How many were there? Three or four?"

The boy cleared his throat. "About so many. Three. Four. He took them
home with him. I wouldn't let him take me home. He made me ascairt."

"Pitt," Graham asked, "I'm not even sure what I'm asking, but did you
ever see anything funny on board the Fancy?"

The boy had coiled up inside himself again, and his eyes tooked reptilian.

"Look," Graham said, "it sounds strange as hell, but did you ever see
anything like a lot of blood?"

Pitt shook his head.

482

Peter Straub

"Did you ever see anything that wasn't normal?"

From the oddly intelligent (because ironic) look on the boy's face,
Graham knew that nothing aboard the Fancy had been entirely normal.
"Maybe I'm not asking the question the right way," he added miserably.

"I know," the boy said. "I know what you want. Something he wouldn't
like me to say. But I'll say it-to you. One time I heard this terrible
noise. I looked at the wheelhouse. I couldn't believe it. The whole
wheelhouse was filled up with flies. Maybe a million of 'em in there.
But I knew something-I knew they weren't really there. He hit me because
he knew I saw 'em, though. He liked to hit me." This last sentence was
almost flirtatious.

"Oh," Graham said.

"He took the other boys home with him," Burgess said. "I don't know what
else he done, but he took them boys home with him. And nobody ever noticed."

"Noticed?"

"Those boys went off upstate, I guess. Looked for jobs on the New Haven
docks, I guess. I guess nobody ever saw them again."

"Oh, my God," Graham said, finally understanding.

"Nobody," Pitt Burgess said, half-smiling at Graham. "And nobody cared.
They was just nobodies from nowhere. So I quits him and slides off up
here to the marshes, and I never have seen my handsome Mr. Krell since
that day."

Flirtation-this was a flirtation.

Graham stood up, having learned both less and more than he had come for;
uttered a conventional and inappropriate and panicked leave-taking; got
out as quickly as he could. As he squelched back across the marshes, he
could feel Pitt Burgess standing in the door of his squalid shack,
watching him go. With what emotion, he could not have said. ,11

4

FLOATING DRAGON

483

\mm

At home Graham took a long bath-he felt as though the greasy, damp
atmosphere of Pitt Burgess' shack had sunk into his skin, and he
scrubbed himself with the loofah until he thought he'd blister. He had
never before felt real moral revulsion, and never before had he met
anyone he had considered degraded: but Pitt Burgess was degraded, and Bates

Krell was responsible. Graham felt as though he had seen down deep into
a pit, and had escaped with his life-one more step, one more second,
would have seen him fall into it.

Very likely that was the reason for his nightmares. Three nights
running, Graham's nights were troubled, feverish. He dreamed he was
sleeping in a coffin in a room curtained with black velvet. His hands,
his mouth, were stained red. He wanted to fly, to rise out of the coffin
and sail through the night sky. The following two nights, the dream
altered: he slept beside a pit in a deep wood. He thrashed, moaned in
his sleep. At the bottom of the pit was something awesome and powerful,
an object or group of objects that called and called to him. He could
not look; he would not be able to endure it if he were to crawl to the
edge of the pit and stare downward.

These second two mornings Graham awoke with the distinct, particular
feeling of having looked backward in time. He found himself unable to
speak to his parents. When he looked into their kind, successful and
blinkered faces he felt himself an outcast: he wanted to cry, or to run
away. He ran. He locked himself in his room. He was polite when they
came to his door, but he would not leave his room. If they left food
outside his door, he would eat. If not, not. After a very short time, he
could feel his parents' misery lapping at him-could feel their questions
scratching at his locked door. This period of madness-in-effect,
Graham's mini-breakdown, lasted four days. On the fifth day he awoke
feeling shaky but himself again: there had been no nightmares for two
nights. He had lost the sense of some monstrous self heaving beneath his
own skin.

He came down for breakfast and apologized to his parents for his
behavior. He implied that he had been working too hard on his book. And
as soon as he was done with his breakfast he gave in to obsession and
walked all the way down Greenbank Road, crossed over the bridge, turned
up Riverfront Avenue and went back to the docks.

*ne Fancy was in its slip-Graham hadn't quite expected jhs. In coveralls
and a blue knit cap tugged down over his ft?ad, Bates Krell staggered
back and forth from a disorderly P^ of lobster traps, throwing them on
the deck of his ship, hen Graham saw him this time, instinctive and
unreasoning ®*x leaped out at him from his own heart: he thought of
those ^"ee or four boys Krell had taken home with him, and who

484

Peter Straub

had never been seen again. Graham was unable to take his eyes off Krell,
but he did not want the man to see him. He went slowly backward until he
was in the narrow alleyway between the fish market and the Blue Tern.
And there he hovered, mutely watching Krell load the traps onto his boat.

The world did not tremble; the river did not burst into flame. There
were none of these gaudy supernatural signs. A bull-like man in a blue
knit cap threw boxy traps onto the deck of a boat. Graham watched him as
if he had been put under hypnosis. Krell's face was unreflective and
flat, his eyebrows thick and black, like his beard. A man given to
sudden storms, you would have said, to meteorological outbursts; but
nothing more.

Graham found that he was panting, taking in air in short quick gasps.

A small man darted out the door of the Blue Tern, gave Graham a look of
startled recognition, then sloped away toward the docks. It was the
scrawny ex-fisherman who had given him Pitt Burgess' name. Graham's
stomach tightened as he saw the man weave toward the diminished pile of
traps. Then the little man's head jerked sideways and Krell stopped
moving; the little man had told him something.

Now the thin old man was wandering away down the docks. Krell had
stopped his work and was standing, head bent so his chin was on his
chest, hands in the hip pockets of the coveralls.

Get out, get out, Graham thought: he knows!

Krell turned sideways, tilted his head, and fixed Graham to the side of
the Blue Tern with his eyes.

Graham straightened up: above his panic floated the realization that
ordinarily these theatrical bully's mannerisms would have amused him.

Krell half-smiled, then took a step toward Graham, who moved out of the
narrow alley to meet him on the dock, in plain view.

The man stood directly in front of him, only inches awayThe odor of fish
and dried sweat, chiefly the former, clung to him. He was about Graham's
height, and his muddy eyes went straight to Graham's. A surprising
quantity of suppressed gaiety lived in those eyes. A second after
looking int0 them, Graham wondered how he had ever thought them muddy.

FLOATING DRAGON

485

Graham first felt the threat of the man; a second later he felt what he
could only have called charm.

"You know," Krell said in a husky, high-pitched voice, "I can't help
myself. I'm interested."

"Yes?" Graham said.

"Interested." Krell nodded. "I just can't figure out why you should come
down here asking questions about me. I've seen you before, though,
haven't I? You were on the side of the river."

"Yes," Graham said. "Yes, I was."

"Well, let me in on the secret. I don't suppose you want to invest in a
lobsterboat."

Millions of contradictory impressions were streaming toward Graham-he
sensed violence flickering about Krell, but along with the violence came
the sense of a powerful, and powerfully unified, personality. Krell was
an unregenerate being with the native appeal of those who are wholly
themselves: everybody Graham knew would have thought Bates Krell awful,
but the man had accepted his awfulness so thoroughly that he had nearly
succeeded in making it a positive quality.

Then Graham understood something else: that this man would have been
very attractive to women.

He told as much of the truth as he dared. "No, no, of course not. I'm a
writer-I'm just beginning, actually. My name is Graham Williams, Mr. Krell."

"A book writer?"

"I'm trying to write a book. When I saw you that day I thought, ah, I
thought you'd make an interesting character."

"Was that the first day you saw me, or the second?" Now the eyes were
positively sparkling.

"Both."

Krell took a step backward, still half-smiling; he glanced toward the
Fancy, then back at Graham. "A character in a o°ok, eh? That's something
new. A book by Graham Williams. Now I have an idea for you. I'm going
out for a couple of hours right now, as soon as I get the last of these
new traps °n board. Why don't you come along? You can see if you really
want to put a lobsterman in your book, Graham Wil"ams." He suddenly left
Graham and returned to the little he*p of traps. He tossed another on
the deck while Graham stared at him, and then turned around with an
appraising

486

Peter Straub

look. He wiped his hand down his handsome beard. "I'll even give you a
glass of wine while you see the work. I understand you writer fellows
have nothing against a sip now and then."

Graham remembered the sparkling wineglass in that dusty cupboard. The
memory was darkened with threat: and he said to himself, this man kills
people. But if the story he had told Krell were the truth, wouldn't he
accept the invitation? And if Krell were suspicious of his motives,
wouldn't that somehow be more apparent? The man was anything but an
actor. If he went out on the boat, Graham thought, and kept his eyes
open, he might learn something that would help to convict Krell.

Graham went forward and picked up the last two traps. "Let's get going,"
he said.

Krell lifted his thick eyebrows, nodded; smiled. He waved Graham onto
his boat with a mockingly courtly gesture.

A moment later they were chugging up the Nowhatan against the tide. "How
do you remember where you put your pots?" Graham asked. He was looking
at the spot on the bank where he had been stanaing the first time he had
seen Bates Krell.

"Markers," the lobsterniFu said. "You'll see them when we get out there."

"The town looks so different from the river," Graham said. "I've never
seen it this way before. It looks ..."

"Wild and woolly," Krell shouted from the wheelhouse. That was not the
term Graham would have chosen, but it fit. From the middle of the
Nowhatan, Hampstead looked raw, unfinished; a frontier town. The backs
of the buildings seemed to droop toward the river. When they had passed
the last of the buildings and the final series of docks had washed
behind them, the riverbanks looked as though they led off to an infinity
of marshland and tall waving broom grass.

The illusion broke when the Fancy rounded the headland at the mouth of
the river and swung out into Long Island Sound. On the bluffs above
their private beaches the houses of Mount Avenue, far up the coastline,
hung like colored lanterns between their wealth of trees; nearer, the
town's beaches luxuriated against the edge of the water.

"How far out do you go?" Graham called to Krell, who merely waved toward
the upper end of the Sound. A light, bluish haze in the air subtracted
Long Island.

FLOATING DRAGON

487

The Fancy pushed itself through the water, going always farther from the
land-soon the Mount Avenue houses were the size of matchbooks. Dwarf
trees curled over them. The Hillhaven beach, just to the right of the
tiny houses, hovered above the water like a puff of smoke.

Graham saw a flash of yellow bobbing on the water, then two more a long
way ahead, appearing and disappearing with the folding, unfolding of the
waves. Krell's markers. He was about to turn toward the wheelhouse and
ask about them; and then decided not to, for the first of them, now
identifiable as two painted sticks nailed together to form a cross, was
already slipping past the bow. Krell had not cut his engines. Someone
else's markers, then. Graham leaned against the rail.

And then his intuition-or the gift he had momentarily shared with Patsy
and Tabby long before either of them was born-saved his life. He
suddenly caught the smell of blood, as if an ox had been freshly
slaughtered on the deck behind him.

And some animal was behind him-a grotesque thing, a monster. He knew
this. It was a thing so terrible that the sight of it would turn his
muscles to rubber. Yet it would kill him where he stood if he did not
turn around. In his mind was a picture of a spider the size of the
wheelhouse, and he turned to face it.

Bates Krell was halfway across the deck toward him. The door to the
wheelhouse sagged open. Krell was holding a long wooden rod fitted with
a sharp metal point like a bayonet. Coming toward Graham in order to
gaff him, the lobsterman smiled. His eyes blazed beneath the thick
demarcations of the eyebrows. Krell's entire face was a mask of joy,
power, purpose. . . . / was ascairt of him when he got s handsome,
Graham remembered.

Krell laughed out loud and stepped closer.

'So there I was," Graham said, "without a weapon-and that madman
circling in toward me with a gaff. He was going to open me up, I could
see that all right. He was going to shce me from gullet to bellybutton
and then feed me to the "sh. Bates Krell. He couldn't have looked
happier if someone

488

Peter Straub

had given him a steak dinner." Graham closed his eyes. For a moment,
sitting backward on his typing chair, he lowered his head. A few lone
white hairs protruded through his scalp. When he raised his head again,
his eyes seemed very large. "And it should have ended that way. I could
never have defeated Bates Krell in a fight." He blinked, and-just for a
moment-he looked very young to Tabby, as young and as frightened as he
had been when he had faced a murderous Bates Krell on the deck of the
Fancy. "But I did defeat him. Tabby knows. Tabby saw it happen, the
first time we met. But I don't suppose you understood it, Tabby."

"I don't know," Tabby said, looking up at him. "What did I see? I saw
you pick something up-didn't you do that? Wasn't there something . . . ?"

"Well, what is it?" Patsy asked. "A club? I have an idea . . . it's like
a club, isn't it?"

"No, not a club," Graham said. "But it was the only weapon I could think
of then-that eight-inch polished piece of wood that I'd used to open up
the hold. I looked sideways, and there it was, still hanging from its
thong. I sort of darted to the side, and Krell jabbed at me and missed.
He didn't care. He knew he was going to get me eventually. A little
thing like that wooden pin wouldn't stop him. He jabbed at me again, and
I ran for it-I lifted that little wooden pin off the upright and held it
in my hand and faced him just like I knew what I was doing. Just like I
had a chance."

Graham looked at them all, having come to the hardest part of his story.
"And Krell came in for me, sort of twitching that deadly gaff at my gut.
He said, 'You know nothing, Williams. You know nothing.1 I damn near
fell apart-I was panicking. Right then, I thought I heard the buzzing of
a million flies-my back was to the wheelhouse, and I remembered what
Pitt Burgess had told me and thought they were in there, a million flies
blacking out the windows. And then . . "He scanned their faces, and saw
that he had carried them with him so far.

"This is just the hardest thing to say," he said. "Somehow ..." The
expression on Patsy's face stopped him.

Patsy was glowing like a candle; she had seen. She was looking straight
down into the triumph he had made of that day, and feeling that triumph
as if it had been her own- seeing all that in her face, he could have
melted with love for her. He reached out and took her willing hand.

FLOATING DRAGON

489

"Oh, you had a sword," she said, her eyes glowing and looking back more
than fifty years. "Oh, Graham, you had a sword. You had a sword and you
were beautiful."

She had carried him right through the difficulty; it was she who was
beautiful.

"It's what happened," he said. "I felt about eight feet tall. I felt as
strong as God. And that damned little eight-inch piece of shiny wood in
my hand ... it was a sword, just as Patsy said." Graham put his free
hand over his eyes and was silent for a moment. "A sword." His voice
trembled, and he shook his head. "I'm not going to cry, I'm not. But you
know, I'm living through all this again . . ." He shook his head
decisively, and took his hand away from his wet eyes. He put that hand
too over Patsy's.

"The whole day changed-I felt a sort of crazy radiance all around me.
Krell was screeching at me. His eyes were different. They were big: big
as golf balls. And they had no whites and no pupils in them anymore. His
eyes were black, jet-black, with a kind of a golden pattern across
them-they looked like stones. Precious stones. He rushed at me,
screeching like that, and I knew what he was feeling-the same wild
triumph that was charging through me. But I knew I was going to win.
Everything had turned inside out, and I was going to destroy Bates
Krell. I swung that sword through the air, and it bit Krell's gaff in
two. Krell screeched again, and then he threw himself at me."

Graham straightened up on his chair: he still gripped Patsy's hand with
both of his own. "And I swung that sword again, knowing just what was
going to happen. Or it swung itself. Krell's face was only a foot from
mine when the sword went into him, and I thought I saw two faces
there-both of them crazy with evil and that wild joy. I felt the sword
slide into his middle, and I put my muscles into it. Krell's face looked
like it was magnifying, bloating up like a balloon: and then I felt the
sword sever his backbone, and I really hauled at it, and it came out on
the other side of him. Blood shot out like out of a hose. The momentum
of the sword, and the weight of it, nearly took me overboard. Krell's
face changed again-went blank-and his top half fell over and splashed
onto the deck. His legs stayed upright for a moment longer, and then
they went down too. I felt like singing-I had a moment of pure elemental
fulfillment. The strongest moment in my life. Jesus!

"And then it faded-everything faded. The day went back

490

Peter Straub

to being just a day: that gold sparkle went out of the air, the boat was
chugging around in circles; and my sword was just a wooden pin again.
Blood was still spilling out of Krell's corpse, and I watched it foaming
into the cracks between the deck boards."

Graham gently released Patsy McCloud's hand. "Kids, when I got into
trouble in the fifties, the power of this memory is what saw me through.
I'd fought a devil, I thought, and some power had saved me. Then all my
strength flooded out of me, and I almost had to sit down, I was so weak.
Already that strange, wonderful moment was getting mythical; vague. Two
halves of a man were oozing blood onto the filthy deck in front of me.
It almost made me sick, but I had to get rid of them. That was what was
uppermost in my mind: I never considered the consequences. It never
occurred to me that no one would believe me!

"I closed my eyes tightly and grabbed his trunk by gripping it beneath
the arms. I hauled that part of him up and dropped it over the railing.
Then I heard it splash into the Sound. Like a good old dog, the Fancy
toiled around the place where his head and chest went down; like it was
waiting for him to come back. I grabbed one of his ankles with each hand
and flipped the rest of him over the side. I leaned over the railing and
watched his boots disappear under the water- they sank like stones, they
went straight down. Then I turned away. The wooden pin I had been
holding was rolling across the deck, and I snatched it up a second
before it rolled into all that blood. Then I threw that overboard too.

"I went into the wheelhouse and straightened the boat out-for a second I
thought about just sailing straight up the Sound, pushing straight out
into the Atlantic and never corning back. But I turned the boat around
and went back toward the mouth of the Nowhatan.

"Of course I didn't have a clue about how to dock a boat like the Fancy.
Sailboats were more my league, and luffing in toward a slip was tricky
enough for me. Once I spotted the rear windows of the Blue Tern, I
turned the wheel in toward the pier and cut off the engines and hoped
for the best. Well, the Fancy hit that dock like a truck running
downhill out of control, and chewed a big hunk out of civic property. I
probably knocked a few glasses off shelves inside the Blue Tern, too;
and I put a sizable dent in the side of the boat. I jumped

1'

41

FLOATING DRAGON

491

off, tied the lines to the nearest posts, and took off at a dead run for
the police station.

"That magical lightness had left me, all right. I sat in Nails Kletzka's
office and told him everything-from my first sight of Krell all the way
to bruising the hell out of the dock in back of the Blue Tern. And he
just thought he was listening to a boy who'd gone out of his head from
reading too many books. Nails Kletzka was a good chief, and he was a
tough boyo. He was even good enough at politics to hang on to his job
for more than thirty years. But what I was saying was too much for
him-and of course I should have known it would be. I should have known
enough to soften that story up, to make it more acceptable to a Polish
roughneck in his first year as chief. I should have bowed to the
realistic tradition. I sat there pouring out my crazy story, and I saw
Nails getting at first more and more uncomfortable and then downright
fidgety and finally just plain angry. When it came to Krell's death, I
said that I grabbed the gaff away from him and stuck him with it-pushed
hard enough on that gaff to force Krell over the railing. I had that
much sense anyhow.

"'So you decided that this Krell fellow murdered those women. All those
women. And that fruitcake boy out on the marshes persuaded you that he'd
killed his deckhands, too. Three or four of them.' Nails looked at me,
and I saw that he'd just as soon lock me up for wasting his time with a
story like that.

"I told him that was right.

" 'So how many citizens did you decide this Krell did away with
altogether? Seven, eight? Ten?'

'"Something like ten,' I said.

"'So where are the bodies?' Kletzka shouted at me. 'I mean, where are
all these dead boys? Where are their mothers-why hasn't anybody listed
them as missing? And what sort of proof do you have that Krell had
anything at all to do with the women who've disappeared? Or even the
poor women we found dead? Is there any goddamned proof at all?'

"I had to shake my head.

" 'We don't even know for sure that you killed this man in self-defense
and threw his body overboard.'

"I did, though,' I said. 'You can see the blood on the deck of his boat.
That's some kind of proof.'

" 'Proof of nothing,' he said.

492

Peter Straub

"I want to tell you that I spent the whole day in that office. Kletzka
sent a man down to the docks, and the officer came back with the message
that, yes, the Fancy did seem to have been amateurishly berthed, but
that no one had seen it come in. No one had seen me leave the dock with
Krell. There was some blood on the deck of the Fancy, but that proved
nothing. Anyhow, in 1924, we didn't have the sophisticated blood tests
we do now.

"Finally, though Kletzka never said it directly, I began to get an
idea-and it helped explain some of his anger. I began to see that some
men in town had been complaining about this. Bates Krell: they thought
he had been bothering some of thef local women. Their daughters-or their
wives. Somebody! had thought they'd seen Krell entertaining a woman on
board! his boat one night. And I started to see that I had botched up!
Nails's investigation, to describe it charitably. He hadn't been! able
to begin any real investigation because all they had! against Krell was
the suspicion of a guy who thought he! might be a wronged husband. I

"At the end of the night I understood one thing more.l Kletzka was
half-inclined to believe that I had killed Bates! Krell: but he was
never going to arrest me for it. In fact he! was going to pretend I
never came in. He'd tell his depart-! ment that I was 'that young
would-be writer'; that I had tool much imagination. And he was going to
wait and see if the! disappearances and murders would stop. It was rough
justice,! but he knew that was better than none. I went home that night!
with no charge against me, and I burned every note I'd taken.! The
deaths did stop; and what had happened to me out in the! middle of Long
Island Sound began to seem more and more al fever-dream, something I'd
imagined. I

"I didn't see Chief Kletzka again until 1952, twenty-eight! years later,
when I was pretty much a disgraced character, il was riding the bottle
pretty hard in those days, and I wasn't! sure of my legal status. Most
people here had decided I was al threat to the American Way of Life, if
only because Senator! Joe McCarthy seemed to think so. Not to mention
Martini Dies. I was about to go back to England; I wanted to go while! I
still had a passport. One man in town stuck up for me. I Johnny Sayre.
He knew I wasn't a Communist-Johnny! Sayre knew that for me people on
the left were better com-l pany, better talkers, and hell! just more
interesting than your! usual fifties Patchin County Republican with his
three-piece 1

FLOATING DRAGON

493

suits and his recipe for the perfect brandy alexander. So he made sure
that he invited me out to dinner with him. At the country club, where
everybody would see him with me, and me with him. We were going to get
together in London on his actual birthday-he and his wife were going
over in a day or two, and I was to follow shortly after-but Johnny
wanted Hampstead to see what he thought of me. And at the end of that
evening I was having my first conversation with Nails Kletzka in
twenty-eight years.

"So much time had passed that nobody but an old-timer like me called him
Nails anymore. He hadn't done his carpentering since before World War
Two. He was just the Chief. By now he had a great big belly and a lot of
lines on his face. But he remembered me-I saw in his eyes that he
remembered that day in his office, and all those women that had died.
And there we were, standing over the body of one of the best men ever to
live in this town. What is it with you, anyhow? I could almost hear him
ask me. By then I thought I knew, though I couldn't have told him any
more than I could have in 1924.

"The next day we went in a little party to Johnny's office-me, John's
widow, Chief Kletzka, and that little redhaired reporter from the
Gazette, Sarah Spry. The one who writes that social column. I was just
along to hold up Bonnie Sayre, and Nails didn't much want me there, but
he couldn't refuse the widow's request, could he? It was Sarah Spry, the
woman from the paper, who first saw John's telephone pad. 'Anybody know
who these men are?' she asked. Nails and I leaned over to look at the
pad and we both saw that name at the same time. Bates Krell. I thought
someone had just clubbed me. Nails didn't say a word. He just walked
out. I didn't even have time to ask him if he knew the other name on the
pad. Sarah Spry kept asking 'Does this mean anything? Does this mean
anything?' and her voice grated like a fingernail on a blackboard. But I
didn't blame her: it was a reporter's question, and she had been one of
the first people to see John's body. / couldn't tell her. I went
downstairs to talk to Nails, but he was already gone."

494

Peter Straub

6

FLOATING DRAGON

495

!

"After that episode between myself and Mr. Krell I started to look back
into this town's history," Graham told them. "I didn't have any idea of
what had happened to me-after a couple of weeks I could hardly be sure
anymore that anything had really happened. It seemed more and more like
a dream. I'd go down to the docks and stare at the Fancy and try to
convince myself that I wasn't as crazy as Nails Kletzka thought I was-if
I had any proof of my sanity, it was that Bates Krell had disappeared
for good. His boat sat there getting dustier and increasingly battered,
and six months later the town of Hampstead sold it to pay off the taxes.

"There was another factor that gave me the impetus to start
investigating local history. When Daisy West had disappeared, I'd
overheard my father say something to my mother about a black summer-he
clammed up pretty soon when he saw that I was paying attention, but the
phrase stuck in my head. Black summer. I'd sort of had my own black
summer by then, you know. And then I had a feeling-one of those feelings
you can't ever prove to be true, but which you think is true anyhow.
That feeling was that things had always beeng funny in Hampstead: that
Hampstead was a natural place foil black summers. So I began to dig
around in the old newspa-i pers and in History of Patchin, and from
there eventually tol Dorothy Bach herself-and to all my researches into
whaJ happened during the Black Summer. And I'm still learninJ about it.
An offensive young snob at the Historical Society! gave me another clue
just this noon." I

Richard could not hold the question in: "Well, what did] happen, Graham?
From what you said before, I guess the! town was somehow cut off ..." I

"Gradually but surely," Graham said. "And because of that, Hampstead
almost died altogether-no mail, no coaches! stopping, no ships arriving.
None of the trade and contact thapj keeps a town alive. Of course it
didn't start that way. Like : this summer, it started with a series of
brutal murders. Then the Dragon became more powerful-as he clearly has
this , summer. There was a terrible fire on Mill Lane. Where that | fire
this summer killed most of the firemen in three towns. 1 Well, think of
that! Just about a hundred years before the! Black Summer, General
Tryon's men, aided by one of our

local gents, burned down most of Greenbank and Hillhaven. That's three
major fires, roughly a hundred years apart ... a Williams and a Smyth
died in 1779, at least one person from each of our families died in the
Black Summer, and serious attempts have been made on our lives this
summer. I'm just suggesting to you that the Dragon seems to be strongest
and hungriest just about once every hundred years."

They were looking at him, but for a moment their eyes were vague: they
were remembering what the Dragon had done to them that day. Curiously,
Tabby Smithfield, who had been left an orphan by the events of that day,
was the most intent. He had finished only half of his bottle of beer and
was leaning forward cross-legged, his jaw muscles working.

"What was on Mill Lane in 1873?" Richard asked. "Houses?"

"A cotton mill," Graham said softly. "The Royal Cotton Mill took up that
whole peninsula. Royal Cotton wasn't one of the biggest in the country,
and the cotton business was always a little slow in Hampstead, but Royal
Cotton was an important part of this town. It employed hundreds of
people. And if it had prospered, the entire nature of Hampstead would
have changed-its character would be entirely different by now. What are
we, really, but an affluent bedroom for New York? We could have been a
town that supported itself, that depended upon itself for its destiny
... do you see what I'm saying? When Royal Cotton burned to the ground
in June of

1873, Hampstead lost its significance."

He stood up; put his left hand in the small of his back and stretched
backward. Graham took a few aimless steps toward his desk, then turned
and faced them again. "Nobody ever found out how the fire started. Or
how, once it had started, it spread so quickly. This was a genuine
mystery, my friends, and it still is. Royal Cotton had no furnaces. It
had fireplaces in the managers' offices, but in June they would have
been stone cold. Was it arson? No one knows."

He touched the bruised side of his face. Graham looked unnaturally white
now, as if the effort of talking had drained him of most of his strength
and energy. Even his resonant voice was frayed and tired. "Royal Cotton
had been supposed to bring prosperity to Hampstead, but instead it
brought ruin. The fire spread across the marshes from the mill, jumped
right across that little estuary beside Poor Fox Road, and gobbled up
houses all through Greenbank and Hillhaven. The

497 I

496

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

497

I

area must have looked much as it did when Tryon's men fled back toward
their ship. And it spread the other way, too, burning the crops and the
houses nearly all the way to where the country club is now. The town was
ruined. Its throat had been cut. Hundreds were dead." Graham turned
toward the window as if he wanted to face down the mocking ghost there.
"But that wasn't the worst thing that was going to happen to Hampstead."

He went to the coffee table in front of the other three and picked up a
small gray book. "Half of the people in town picked up and left. A lot
of them just walked out on everything they owned. I think they felt
something-they had the shivers, and they wanted to get out." Then Graham
gave a long, despairing sigh. "They knew worse things were coming.

"And we know what those worse things are, we've seen them now. Richard
has seen it-I saw it on the bottom of a ravine. Tabby heard it calling
for him. Patsy ..." His face showed his torment. "Patsy saw it coming
for her, and only Tabby could save her." He shook his head. "Those who
left the town-they did the right thing. It was the ones who stayed
behind who made the mistake. Let me tell you about this book."

He held it up. "Curious Voyages, by Stephen Pollock. If he's remembered
today, as I have just learned, it's for only one story. 'Dread.' It pops
up in anthologies every now and then. But Washington Irving met Pollock
and wrote 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' after Pollock had talked to him.
The real setting for 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' isn't Tarrytown, New
York, or the other villages that are sometimes mentioned-the real
setting is Connecticut. Where Ichabod Crane, according to Irving, was
born and raised."

Richard Allbee raised his eyebrows. For a moment he almost seemed to smile.

"Yes, Richard. Ichabod Crane. One of the visions from Mount Avenue.
Shown to you because you were the only one of us who would recognize
him. The Dragon was having fun."

Graham turned his chair around and sat. "In one of the chapters in this
book, Pollock describes a journey he took by coach from New York to New
Haven during the summer of

1873. I want to read you a couple of paragraphs. It won't take long."

He opened the book and began to read. "My companions

in the coach began to manifest all the signs of nervous discomfort as we
drew nearer to Hampstead. This was latterly a village of some charm
situated most pleasingly on the coastline of Connecticut, but some
months previous laid waste by fires.

' 'These poor beleaguered citizens of America, each the girth of a
hogshead of ale and blessed with excellent health, functional teeth, and
the Republican absence of excessive humility, found that they could not
bear the mention of Hampstead-far less the spectacle! Nothing would do
but that the coach's curtains be drawn, and as tightly as possible.

' 'Soon we had reached the place itself, unfortunate Hampstead. The
others in the coach ceased their conversations; the two women closed
their eyes with what looked to be painful severity, and their husbands
fixed their eyes firmly upon nonexistent horizons. They had paled, all
four. Gradually it came home to me that my companions were one and all
fairly paralyzed with fear.

"As their terror grew, my curiosity imitated it. What on earth could
have inspired this superstitious dread of an obscure coastal village? I
was determined to peek through the curtains and see the place for
myself. The coach was rattling along at twice its normal speed, and the
five of us were consequently thrown about within the interior. As soon
as I was pressed against the window beside me, I snatched at the curtain
and looked without. One of the women screamed, and her husband made to
sever the offending hand from its wrist. I dropped the curtain and
pacified him. I hoped the speed of our carriage would double, then
double again. None of us breathed properly again until we had crossed
over the border into Patchin.

' 'Two nights later, at my temporary lodgings in the university town of
New Haven, I wrote to postpone the appointments I had made and devoted
myself to the telling of a tale. Within the passage of a few fevered
hours I set down my story 'Dread.'''

Graham closed the book. "He took a look at Hampstead, and two nights
later he wrote 'Dread.' Do you know the story?"

"I do," Richard said. "I read it in high school. It's about a man who
fears that he is living in a city populated only by the dead. In college
one of my teachers said that it was supposed to have had some influence
on James Joyce."

498

Peter Straub

"What did Pollock see in those few seconds? I think I know-and I think
you do too." Graham looked at them each directly, unsparingly. "I think
he saw, or thought he saw, corpses moving through the street. Because I
think that's what happened to Hampstead. And I think that's what is
happening now. Do you doubt me, Richard?"

Richard shook his head. "I can't, after tonight."

"And you, Patsy? You, Tabby?"

Patsy said, "I don't ... I don't think I doubt you." And Tabby merely
nodded his agreement with Patsy and Richard.

"That's the Dragon at his most powerful," Graham said, standing again.
"What the devil time is it, anyhow? Fourthirty. Too late for an old man
like me to still be making sense. You people are going to have to let me
go to bed pretty soon. Though as soon as we can, I think we ought to
talk about changing our living arrangements. We can't afford to be so
scattered anymore. We'll have to work something out."

"I want to ask you a question," Tabby said.

Graham nodded at him.

"What makes the Dragon be more powerful in some years'/ Like he is now."

"I think I know the answer to that," Graham said. He went to his desk
and switched off the lamp that had been burning there. Instantly his
living room filled with shadows and looming spaces. "Our families each
had at least one person employed at Royal Cotton. And I think people
from oui families, at least one person from each of the four families,
stayed in Hampstead during the Black Summer. Stayed to fight the Dragon.
And I think they eventually located him and killed him." He crossed his
arms over his chest. "But he has never been as strong as he is now. I
hate to say it but I think we make him stronger."

Patsy asked, "Is the Dragon always a man?"

"In Dorothy Bach's book, there is a reference to a woman named Hester
Poole, who was interred on Kendall Point in

1812. 'For having grievously transgressed,' was the explanation. No, I
don't think the Dragon is always a man. I just think it feeds on us for
as long as we let it." He threw up his hands in a gesture almost despairing.

The others stood up and began to move awkwardly apart. Tabby went to
Richard's side; Patsy hovered alone by Graham's typing table. Graham
opened the door and let Richard and Tabby out;

FLOATING DRAGON

499

for a moment he stood in his door and watched them go across the street
in the dark. Then he turned to Patsy.

"I don't want you to think I'm forward," she said. "But I'd like to stay
here tonight." She smiled at him, and exhaustion showed starkly on her
face. "Do you have a spare bed somewhere in this library?"

Graham smiled back. "There's one buried under a mound of books-across
the hall from me. You even have your own bathroom. I'll get you some
sheets and a pillowcase. You beat me to it, you know. I was going to ask
you."

"I don't think I could stand being alone in my house," Patsy said. "Not
after today."

"You shouldn't be alone anywhere," Graham said. "None of us should,
really. It's too dangerous. I should have known all this was coming,
that first night-when we went to the marker stone. In fact, I did know.
I just didn't believe it."

Patsy suddenly yawned.

"Oh my, let's get you upstairs," Graham said. "I just want to give you
one more bit of advice. Okay?"

She tilted her head. "Shoot."

"If you hear somebody rapping on your door tonight, don't let him in."

Patsy laughed out loud and put her arms around Graham's neck.

501

In the second week of August, while Tabby Smithfield readied himself to
imitate Graham Williams and attack the Dragon single-handedly, two
seemingly unrelated events occurred which might have been supposed to
affect the life of every human being in Hampstead, Hillhaven, and
Patchin. But of course nothing was what it seemed and the two events-Dr.
Chaney's first announcement of "Dobbin's Syndrome" and the press
conference conducted by Dr. Theodore Wise and Dr. William Pierce in a
Butte City motel-were intimately connected; and Hampstead and the other
towns rolled on as though nothing had happened. That was confirmation of
their madness, if any was needed; after the press conference, none was.

The dozen or so surviving "leakers," in fear of their lives and tired of
hiding in abandoned houses, had found their way ' to the safety of the
Yale Medical Center. There Dr. Chaney I supervised their cases and
worked out an increasingly brilliant j series of life-support systems
for them. Chaney finally de-J signed a foam-and-fiberglass structure
that could be molded toi the patient's changing requirements-when the
patients were! in the final stages of the disease, they were surrounded
by al kind of exoskeleton, a dish of a firm but pliable rubbery sub-l
stance with a strong resemblance to an egg coddler. Dr.l Chaney thought
he was ready to announce the appearance inl Patchin County of "Dobbin's
Syndrome" in a splashier! forum than The Lancet, which had been sitting
on his articlel for more than a month-"Dobbin's Syndrome," if not Dob-I
bin himself, had become his cause. He invited a medical re-1 porter from
the New York Times to New Haven and drove tol the train station himself
to pick the man up. In the blackl leather folder clamped under his arm
as he waited at the topi

500

FLOATING DRAGON

501

of the ramp were twelve eight-by-ten color photographs that would help
prepare the young reporter for what he would see at the medical center.
The reporter, it is safe to say, had never seen anything like Chaney's
photographs; nor had he ever seen anything in the line of his work that
affected him like the sight of what remained of Pat Dobbin-at that point
the illustrator was suspended in a container like a small pink bathtub.
Ted Wise and Bill Pierce read the reporter's article on their computer
screens in Montana-since the disappearance and presumed death of General
Haugejas, their division had been stripped down to just the two of them
and a secretary. Their laboratory had been dismantled sixteen days
before, all the other scientists scattered to Telpro plants and
installations, some of them in universities, across the country. Wise
and Pierce had supervised the virtual destruction of the project they
had headed for nearly two years, sent off the rest of their staff and
carefully isolated and bottled their entire stock of DRG-16. They knew
they would never create a DRG-17. In the afternoon of the eighth day of
their existence in an essentially jobless limbo, a Telpro truck driven
by an Army Spec 4 in civilian clothes carried away the padded crate
which held the big metal bottles. Wise and Pierce had loaded the crate
onto the back of the truck themselves. The Spec 4 jumped up into the
truck's bay and slapped a gummed label to the crate.

MACHINE TOOL PARTS.

"What do you suppose they'll do with the stuff now?" Bill Pierce asked
his boss as they stood by the gate and watched the truck turn east on
the dusty road toward the highway. The truck already looked very small,
dwarfed by the immense desolation of the landscape.

Wise knew. "It'll go in the drink," he said. "They'll put it in another
container and drop it off a boat and hope the stuff'll sit on the bottom
forever. There won't be any records on it."

"Do you think we'll get another project?" Pierce asked. The truck was
still in sight, the size of a Matchbox toy.

"What do you think?" Wise said. His lips were dry and chapped, and the
prominent front teeth looked dirty.

"I say we got a chance."

"Sure. If Haugejas turns out to be immortal." He ran his tongue over his
front teeth. "Remember Leo Friedgood?" he suddenly asked. "I hope that
son of a bitch got what was coming to him."

502

Peter Straub

I

After another eight days of their limbo, Pierce gave a peculiar shout
while reading excerpts from the New York Times on the computer service.
Wise looked up blearily from his cot in the office. "They find
Haugejas?" he asked.

"Oh, God," Pierce said. "Come here and take a look at this."

Wise staggered over to the terminal. After he had read the first two
paragraphs of the article the young reporter had written about Pat
Dobbin and the others, he no longer felt tired. "That's it," he said.
The memory of torn Gay screaming behind a glass wall, never far from his
mind, momentarily blotted out the green-on-charcoal words on the
terminal. "That's really it. A wild card-that's what I told Friedgood,
isn't it?" He rubbed his eyes, then leaned closer to the terminal, as if
that might change the words.

"What do we do now?" Pierce asked him. "I think I know what I want to
do. I think I'll do it even if you don't agree."

Wise gave him a look that for a moment was purely fearful. "You know
what the consequences will be, don't you?"

"No. Neither do you. But I think we've been sitting on this

too long already. I say we call up this reporter, and his editor,

and anyone else we can think of, and start telling the truth."

Wise passed his tongue over his front teeth. He looked at

the glowing terminal again. "That's what I say too."

Two of the consequences Dr. Theodore Wise had foreseen took place
immediately after the impromptu press conference at the Best Western
just outside of Butte: he and Dr. William Pierce were fired, and half an
hour later were held for questioning by the Montana state police on the
telexed request of the state police of Connecticut. The press conference
had been a wilder affair than he had imagined: television cameras had
materialized around him, reporters had shouted questions at the tops of
their voices, someone always seemed to be running into the suite with a
headset over his ears and another loud question.

"How does it feel to know that you killed all those children?" a woman
in sunglasses and a fringed buckskin jacket asked him.

Wise swallowed: he tasted cigarettes, though he did not smoke. "Well,
that result . . ." he began, trying to answer the question honestly.
"That result was one of the reasons Dr. Pierce and I assumed that our
work was unrelated to the

FLOATING DRAGON

503

tragedies in Connecticut. Our results fell within certain parameters,
and that was really pretty far off the map. Children drowning
themselves, I mean." His face reddened. "I still cannot think that our
product was responsible for such a thing. Agreed, it is morally
shocking. But in our subjects we never saw any inclinations toward
suicide, whether individual or mass."

"Your subjects were apes!" a man in a plaid shirt yelled from the back
of the room.

"No, they were monkeys," Wise said. "We did see frequent cases of
instantaneous death, to a total percentage of five to eight ranging
through all categories of DRG.

More pandemonium, and such a flurry of questions that Wise answered the
only one he was certain he had heard cor rectly. "Yes, I would assume
that the DRG was responsible for a portion of deaths in the area on the
day of the accident."

Bill Pierce stood up; he had seen two policemen enter the suite.

"What should they do in Hampstead?" a man's voice called through the
shouting evoked by Wise's answer.

"Put a fence around it," Pierce said.

That was only the first of dozens of news conferences dealing with
Hampstead and DRG. The Telpro press officer held one, then another, and
then another: at each of these appearances he denied what he called "the
allegations"; he defended the record of General Henry Haugejas; he
promised a full review of the situation. He said nothing. The Pentagon
press attache said no more, but said it only twice. The parents of
Harvey Washington, one of the three young men who had died, held a press
conference in their living room to accuse the Telpro scientists of
racism. The Secretary of Defense, questioned about the Hampstead
furor-for it was that by now-said, "Happily, we're in a condition of
complete deniability on that." So many demonstrators were appearing in
front of the Telpro building every day that the New York police cordoned
off the sidewalk on East Fifty-ninth Street to keep the pedestrian
traffic moving. A Senate subcommittee was formed; the subcommittee
subpoenaed a truckload of files and documents from Telpro, and then it
promptly got lost in them. Two film deals had been nailed down before
Dr. Wise and Dr. Pierce had spent as many weeks repeating their story.
Time magazine ran a feature titled "The Strange Story of Patchin

504

Peter Straub

County." Newsweek asked: "What's Happening in Hampstead?" Newsday
wondered: "Did DRG Create a Killer?"

As Graham Williams had predicted, the commuter trains no longer stopped
at the Hampstead, Greenbank, and Hillhaven stations-once Pat Dobbin had
pitied the men so driven that they lined up on those platforms even on a
Saturday, but even if Dobbin had pity enough now to give some of it
away, there was no one left to take it from him. The trains swept by
empty platforms. Now and then a man, not always the same man, showed up
where he had been used to catching his train to Grand Central. His suit
was very likely misbuttoned and his hair uncombed; his briefcase was
empty; he could not have explained what, precisely, he was doing. In any
case, he had arrived at the wrong time. This composite man rubbed a
bruise on the side of his face or nudged a loose tooth with his
tongue-he had a murky but satisfying memory of a fight in the parking
lot at Kiddietown (or at the bar in the Chez Normand, or in front of the
checkout counter at Grand Union) but could not quite remember why he had
been fighting nor why it had felt so good. Eventually the man wandered
off or jumped down to poke around on the tracks or took off his clothes
or smiled and tossed his briefcase through a station window or ...
whatever it was he did, if he was still there when the next train rushed
past, the noise and furor and color of Conrail's hasty visit probably
frightened him.

Graham Williams had not foreseen that the state police would install
roadblocks on the thruway exits and entrances for Hampstead and Patchin,
but he would have known that the effect of the state closing off these
towns was almost negligible, at least in the towns themselves. Hampstead
people could not drive to New York anymore, not unless they took Route 1
up to the far end of Patchin and could talk their way through a police
inspection post-but Hampstead people did not often feel like coming out
anymore. By the time of Wise's press conference, all those who wanted to
go had left. Those who remained had enough to think about without
bothering themselves with trips to Bloomingdale's.

For even the most deranged and the most violent, for even the
fifteen-year-old who had discovered a mad blooming joy in splashing
gasoline on a wooden house and throwing a blazing book of matches at it,
Hampstead had come to be filled with odd dreads and terrors: as if they
too secretly were "leakers" and could be tracked down and destroyed. Hamp-

FLOATING DRAGON

505

- r

stead people heard voices at night, drifting down the attic stairs or
whining outside the bedroom window. The voices were almost but not quite
recognizable ... it may be the mind fought those recognitions. Even the
craziest, even the most violent, made sure now to lock their doors at
night, and to lock the bedroom doors too. Walking the tree-lined
streets, people kept their eyes straight ahead; golfing, they silently
agreed to skirt certain fairways-there were places that made you feel
funny, that was all, and you stayed away from them.

More and more, sudden holes appeared in the fabric of daily life, holes
that once had been filled with people. Both Archie Monaghan and his
partner, beefy torn Flynn, just stopped coming to their office in the
last week of July. Their secretaries continued to come to work until
they had typed up the last land contract, duplicated the last will,
filed the last deposition. Then they found their way down the hall to
the offices of another law firm, Shobin Schuyler Mink Fine & McFeeley,
where the secretaries had brought in a television set and spent the days
engrossed in soap operas and game shows-they sent out to the deli for
lunches. Shobin and Fine had left town in early June, Schuyler a week
later. Mink had been killed in a hit-and-run accident outside the
Framboise restaurant, and McFeeley's body was later found in the same
spot of rough on the golf course that yielded up the bodies of Archie
Monaghan and torn Flynn. The women felt better being together; they
wanted one another's company.

Around the Krell house on Poor Fox Road, the weeds had started to die:
no one saw, so no one asked why, but the crabgrass and dandelions, the
wild timothy and ragweed, were beginning to shrivel and turn black
around the edges. On Kendall Point the plants were dying too, and
sometimes the ground seemed to breathe out a gray dingy smoke-but that
must have been mist.

A troubled Tabby Smithfield was walking down Beach Trail in
late-afternoon sunlight three days after the long night in Graham's
living room. For these three days Tabby had spun back and forth across a
difficult internal point-knowing that he had to make a decision, he had
succeeded only in confusing himself. Tabby had withdrawn a little bit
from the

506

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

507

other three, afraid that his uncertainty might force him into saying too
much. He did not want to discuss what was on his mind with anyone until
he was sure of his feelings; and even then, he wanted to talk about his
decision with Patsy alone before the two men got involved. With any
luck, they would not get involved until everything was over: Tabby knew
that Richard and Graham would never approve of his going alone against
the Dragon.

When Tabby reached the end of Beach Trail he turned left. He looked over
his shoulder and ran across Mount Avenue, the simple physical release of
pushing himself off the crumbling blacktop momentarily blotting out his
problems. After a few seconds of comparative bliss, he slowed to a walk
again. A moment later he again looked back over his shoulder. Ah he saw
was the gently curving length of Mount Avenue unreeling itself beneath
the oaks to Gravesend Beach. Tabby paused, put his hands in the pockets
of his tan corduroy jeans, and made sure no one was hiding behind one of
the big old trees. Finally he shrugged and turned around; began walking
again toward the house where he had been born.

He still had the nagging, persistent feeling that someone was following him.

When he looked around again he saw only the crumbling and pitted road,
the massive old trees, the glossy banks of myrtle before brick walls.
Sunlight trembled on the road, cut into patterns by the leaves. Tabby
lifted himself onto the balls of his feet and started walking forward again.

Still that prickly feeling persisted.

The four of them had eaten their meals together since that long night of
talk; Graham and Richard spent most of their time trying to figure out
if there had been any pattern in the kind of person chosen by the
Dragon, or if the killings had revealed anything they might have
overlooked. Patsy sat in on these discussions, she pretended to be
thinking as concentratedly as the two men, but Tabby had always felt her
sliding away-sending him little questioning darts. He had resisted
these, but the notion of rejecting anything Patsy McCloud offered him
contradicted everything he felt about her and helped send him back into
himself. At meals he ate little, said almost nothing.

He could do it: he held to that. Graham's long story about Bates Krell
had been narrated in a kind of code he alone had

understood; deciphered, the code meant that only Tabby Smithfield, of
the four of them, could destroy the Dragon. But did it mean that he had
to act single-handedly, as Graham had? Much of Tabby wanted to do it
alone, to prove himself to the others at the same time as he kept the
secret of the attempted burglary-all of that now swarmed with shame and
blackness for Tabby, he could not imagine or remember how he had wound
up crouched in the back of Gary Starbuck's van, everything leading to
that moment had been like a whirlpool hauling him down into itself
against his will.

Graham had made a point of stressing that when he met Bates Krell he had
been closer to Tabby's age than to Richard and Patsy's. And at least to
Tabby, most of the emphasis of Graham's story had been on his isolation.
Graham had trusted himself to act alone, and when he had needed help he
had found it. You could not go bob, bob, bobbing through as many
schoolyards as Tabby had without learning that the great gifts in life
went to those who acted all along as though they expected them.

When he thought about that long wing of fire lashing out to murder his
father, Tabby knew that he had to kill the Dragon' it was only when he
actually thought about doing it that he had to confront his fear.

When he thought about going back into Dr. Van Home's house, his stomach
froze.

Now Tabby stood before the iron pickets of the fence, looking across the
yellowing lawn to the house his grandfather had owned-the house Monty
Smithfield had probably assumed would pass in time to Tabby. On this
land three hundred years ago Gideon Winter had set in motion the series
of events that would irrevocably alter Tabby's life. For Tabby that was
the strongest proof that he was meant to destroy the old man in the
house above Gravesend Beach. The very fact of his birth in this house
was part of his having been chosen.

Yes, Tabby said to himself. The killing of Wren Van Home was his job.

A shadow fell across the baking grass just before him, and Tabby
jumped-he had been deep in his private world. He whirled to face the
shadow's owner, frantic, convinced that Wren Van Home had followed him
up Mount Avenue and was now going to try to kill him: and instead of the
doctor he

508

Peter Straub

saw before him the one person he would truly have been willing to see.

"I'm sorry," Patsy said. "I guess I sort of sneaked up on you-I didn't
mean to startle you, Tabby."

"Oh, Jesus," Tabby said. "I mean, okay. I guess you really did startle
me. Wow. I must have jumped about a foot."

They smiled at each other, and Tabby felt her mind brush his. He
deliberately shuttered his thoughts, and felt the brusqueness of it: if
Patsy had excluded him in that way, it would have felt as though his
fingers had been caught in a door.

"Sorry," Patsy said. "I shouldn't have done that." Tabby shook his head.
"No, it's me. I guess I'm nervous or something. What are Richard and
Graham up to?"

"The same thing they were up to when you left. Talk, talk, talk. I think
they're actually having a wonderful time, in spite of their frustrations."

"And so you decided to follow me. Or did Graham tell you to follow me? I
guess everybody thinks I'm holding out on them."

Patsy shook her head vehemently. "Of course Graham didn't send me after
you, Tabby, and if he had, I would have told him to go to hell. I came
here because / wanted to talk to you and I thought that I'd find you
here-nobody sent me. I'm not spying on you."

"Yeah, I guess I believe you." He smiled back at her. j you do believe
me, don't you? it's important. 1

/ do you know I do

but you're still holding out on us i

Patsyyyy ... )

I think you want to tell me-/ think you want help yes yes yes okay

"Okay," Tabby repeated. "You're right, I do. I do want* help. But only
yours."

mine is the only help I can offer i

"You know what I mean." i

She nodded. "The only thing I don't know is why." I "Didn't you ever do
anything that embarrassed you? Can't you understand that?"

A faint trace of color appeared in Patsy's face. you'd risk all our
lives because of embarrassment? Is that all that kept-

FLOATING DRAGON

509

"No, that's not all," Tabby said quickly. "Maybe 'embarrassment' is the
wrong word."

"I bet it's not so bad," she said, coming nearer and daring now to put
her hand on his shoulder. "Whatever you were doing, Tabby, it wouldn't
seem so terrible to us."

He shook his head.

"But you know also that you can't keep silent any longer. If you know
something ..."

Their eyes met. "Oh, I know," Tabby said. "I was just thinking about that."

"I watched you when Graham was telling us about Bates Krell. I could
tell what you wanted to do-you want to kill the Dragon by yourself,
don't you? Just like he did. It was written all over your face."

He nodded: if she had seen that much, then she knew the most important
thing.

"I could kill him," he said. "If Graham could do it when he was only
twenty, I could do it now."

"You know who he is," Patsy said, finally stating the real subject of
all their conversation. "I thought you did."

"I'd like to bring you his head on a plate," Tabby said, smiling grimly.
"That's what I'd really like."

There was an electric silence between them for a moment, and then before
Tabby could speak again, Patsy said, "I'd rather come with you. Let's
both put his head on a plate."

It was just what he had been thinking, advanced another step in
reasoning. He inhaled: now she would never leave him alone long enough
to do anything anyhow. Patsy had forced his hand beautifully, and made
it impossible for him to make any choice but the one he most desired but
had not yet come to. He and Patsy would kill the Dragon together.

"He killed my father," Tabby said. "He made everything be this way. I
saw his face when I was five years old-I was a little boy, and I saw him
murder someone." Tabby's sense of outrage seethed, then calmed. "I want
to do it tonight," he said. "Let's do it tonight."

"Two of us should have a better chance than you alone," Patsy said. "And
we've been each other's good luck, haven't we?"

He could see the fear in her face, and knew it matched his own; but she
was strong enough to carry both of them through. Tabby's hesitation died.

"Tell me his name," she said.

510

Peter Straub

"It's that doctor who lives in the big house just above the beach. Dr.
Van Home."

"And you're sure about that-I won't ask you how you know, I just want to
be sure that you really do know."

Tabby nodded, seeing amazement and surprise and, even more than these,
confidence in him replace the fear in Patsy's face. "I really do know,"
he said. "It has to be him. But you have to promise me-you won't tell
Richard and Graham."

"I should." She looked into his implacable face. "But I won't. I promise."

"Tonight," Tabby finally said.

"About six or six-thirty? I usually go out for a walk around then. I
don't want to make Graham suspicious. And there's something I want to
pick up from home."

"I'll meet you out on the street. Richard and Graham are so tied up in
each other, they'll never notice we're gone."

Patsy gave him a nervous smile, acknowledging the rightness of this.

"And you really won't tell the others?"

"I promised you."

"You're pretty special," Tabby told her. He was seeing her suddenly and
for the first time not as someone separated from him by the disparity of
age and sex, but as an equal. A robin began its song. Standing a foot
away from Patsy meCloud in the hazy sunlight before his grandfather's
old house, Tabby took in this small woman with prominent cheekbones and
delicate lines around her large brown eyes-

you too, buster

-and was the adult man he would be someday, looking at a woman he had
known so long and with so much affection-

??? what??? Tabby?

-that his imagination could follow hers by instinct. Around Tabby the
world wildly swayed, and he was twenty years older, the true partner of
Patsy McCloud, and so much information about himself and Patsy streamed
out from her that he could not sway with the world: fields of flowers,
glistening with rain, lay about them: he took an awkward, lurching step
backward, and that broke it. The world was still and Patsy's history,
which had somehow miraculously been the history of himself and Patsy,
was no longer flowing into him. That odd singing vision had left him;
the robin's song had ceased.

what the hell???

FLOATING DRAGON

511

Patsy I, Patsy I . . . how?

"What was that?" she said to him-her face was wild. She stepped right
into him and put her arms around his chest. "My God," she said.

"I can't, uh . . ." he began. "I can't, uh . . ." He blinked rapidly,
then stepped back from her, still holding her arms. "Holy mackerel."

They dropped their arms and moved apart from each other.

"Okay," Tabby said. "Okay. Six o'clock."

He watched her go away from him-she turned and waved just before
she-went back up Beach Trail.

Tabby decided to walk up to the hole in the ground filled with blackened
rubble that until three days ago had been "Four Hearths." This was his
father's only grave.

As he walked up the hill Tabby again had the crawly sensation that he
was being followed, but he did not even bother to look over his
shoulder. The feeling was a part of that weakness for which Patsy
McCloud and "Four Hearths" were the cure.

"What time is it, Richard? Should we be getting back inside?''

Richard Allbee, sprawled on a lawn chair, raised his arm and squinted at
his wrist. "About five to six. Why go back inside? It's so nice out
here. But I suppose I ought to start dinner soon."

Graham took a long draw on his cigar and then released a thick plume of
smoke. "I guess I don't associate thought with my backyard. Thinking is
indoor work. But if you want to stay out a little longer, that's fine
with me. Where did Patsy wander off to?"

"You got me," Richard said. "Maybe she wanted to talk to Tabby."

"Yes," Graham said. The sling was gone; he had not after all broken his
elbow but only bruised it. He too lay back on an untrustworthy lawn
chair, the straps of which were frayed and rusty. The tallest of the
weeds pushed up against these plastic straps, and indeed felt much
tougher than them to Richard-if the straps finally let go, the weeds
would probably hold him up by themselves. Graham said, "They're very

512

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

513

k

close. Well, they would be, given what they have in cornmon. I'm sorry
you weren't there the first time they met."

Richard rolled over on his side to look directly at Graham. Beyond the
old man, who was particularly garish this evening in a red sweatshirt
and the yellowish-tan tweed trousers of what must have been a
forty-year-old suit, the unkempt backyard straggled in a wilderness of
weeds and knee-high grass forty yards to an impenetrable wall of foliage.

"After Tabby and Patsy had seen each other, I think Patsy got ten years
younger on the spot," Graham said. "They share something we'll never
really understand-no more than a person blind from birth must understand
the concept of color. But even so, I think it'll work for us. It's part
of our arsenal."

"Graham," Richard asked, "what do you think is really going to happen to
us? Believe me, I wouldn't ask this if Tabby and Patsy were here, but
have we got any kind of a chance at all?"

"Yep," Graham said. "'Course we do. Even after the Black Summer, our
people destroyed him. It's harder for us now, of course-everything else
has changed, too. A hundred years ago, it didn't matter quite so much if
Hampstead was cut off. We grew most of our own food, d'ya see? Most of
this was farmland-we lived off the land. But pretty soon, the grocery
stores are going to be damn near empty, and things are going to get
serious. We're going to have riots over food. People are going to get
killed for meat and flour and sugar." He drew on his cigar again, and
held it up as he exhaled. "There won't be any more of these, either. Oh,
I don't know if the government will really let it get so far, as far as
food riots anyhow. I suppose they'll allow in just enough food to keep
us from starving."

"You're thinking of that Telpro story on the news," Richard said. "The
world thinks that is the reason for all our troubles here-they think
that stuff is driving us all crazy. And I think it is too. DRG."

"One of history's jokes," Graham said. "The name, I mean. Or it could be
a sign that our enemy has a million weapons lined up against us ...
or-get this, Richard. Maybe it's all this DRG. Maybe we're completely
out of ourg heads." I

"Do you really think that?" |

"Nope," Graham said, and was going to say more when a great commotion on
the other side of the tangled screen of trees made both men sit up on
their stretched-out chairs.

"What the hell ..." Graham began, and looked over at Richard, who was
already on his feet. The sound coming from behind the dense gathering of
trees had already doubled in volume-it was as loud as a rock band and
twice as cacophonous, filling every particle of the air.

"Get upV Richard shouted, but knew that his words too were lost-Graham
seemed helpless, his face working foolishly and his big hands flying up
and down. Finally Richard saw that Graham could not get out of his
chair, and he grabbed his forearms and pulled him out. A hot breeze,
springing up from nowhere, flattened the old man's sweatshirt against
his back and pulled at Richard's hair.

The sounds of white-hot metal being plunged into cold water-that was the
image in Richard's mind-now were joined by the more obvious noises of
fire. Graham got to his feet just as the nearest trees burst into flame.

And then Richard was standing still with his hands clamped around
Graham's wrists because what he was seeing had stolen his power to move.
The hot wind fried his skin; the furry tips of the weeds nearest the
property line were popping into flame like little candles. A fiery ball
of light had burst sizzling out of the trees, leaving a smoking black
hole behind it. Richard stood openmouthed until the huge ball of light
slammed into the ground.

In the middle of a burning circle stood a giant black dog. It swung its
head and snapped its jaws at nothing.

Richard and Graham were already moving backward toward the house, and in
the sudden clarity of the silence they heard the dog's teeth click
together. Its growl seemed to grow right out of the earth-the low
powerful sound vibrated in Richard's belly. He was dimly aware of Graham
picking up his lawn chair and dragging it along as they moved backward.
The dog radared its massive head toward them. Richard estimated that he
and Graham were perhaps twelve feet away from the back door-three or
four seconds. Graham was moving as quickly as he could, and still
fumbling with that chair. Neither of them wanted to turn his back on the
dog, which had begun to bristle and crouch. A stiff ruff of hair stood
up between its taut shoulders.

514

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

515

k

The dog's mouth quivered uncontrollably over the long white teeth.
Strings of saliva looped out and collapsed into the weeds.

If it jumped at them, it could tear them to pieces before they got a
foot nearer the back door.

The huge black head tracked from Richard to Graham; back to Richard; to
Graham.

The dog moved slowly toward them, still crouching, tracking the men.
Richard felt a blanket of perspiration rise up out of his skin and
instantly soak him. A drop trembled from one of his eyebrows and
splashed down into his eye, and his vision blurred. He was afraid even
to blink. The giant dog crept nearer, slavering and trembling.

At last Richard could no longer bear not knowing the distance to the
back door, and he twisted his head and glanced over his shoulder. He was
immediately aware of a massive displacement of space-as though a
building had taken flight. That rumbling low growl now hung in the air
behind him, and Graham's door, propped open for the ventilation, was
only a few feet away. He reached for Graham just an instant after he saw
the blur of preposterous colors that was the old man convulse.

Richard caught a flailing arm and pinned it to Graham's chest, pulling
both of them backward, and realized that Graham had thrown his chair at
the giant dog. They fell back into the house and landed heavily, Graham
on top of Richard, on the kitchen floor. The dog's muzzle jumped toward
them through the door and then stopped suddenly as the animal's
shoulders caught in the frame. "Screen door!" Graham yelled, and rolled
away. Richard squirmed out of the way of the gnashing teeth and
flattened himself against the wall. As the dog snarled and stared at him
with black eyes the size of footballs, Richard worked his way around the
back of the screen door. He slammed it on the dog's head, feeling the
frame bend when it met bone. The dog retreated for a moment, then
slammed itself into the doorway a second time, shaking all of Graham's
house. Richard heard a thud thud slap from the other end of the
house-books were tumbling off the shelves. He used all his strength to
smash the frame into the dog's head. Now the animal was uttering a
crazed set of squeals and roars. Richard's heart was trying to jump out
of his chest: he gave the head another battering, running the frame into
the muzzle, and the dog violently waggled his

head and shook Richard off-balance and onto the floor. One more charge
and he'll knock the wall in, Richard thought, and got back on his feet.

The black football of the eye swiveled furiously toward Richard. He put
his shoulder to the screen door and drove it again into the muzzle.

The dog yelped and drew itself backward, leaving a fourinch-thick trail
of drool on the floor. Richard saw a ribbon of blood spurt from the
dog's nose and soak into the hairs and whiskers beneath. A red stripe
formed down the side of the muzzle, and the dog backed all the way out
of the door, making a high-pitched keening sound.

"Got him!" Graham yelled. "Got the bastard!"

The giant dog lowered its head to the ground and clamped its paw over
its muzzle. Richard opened the screen door and quickly grabbed the
doorknob of the yawning door and slammed it shut. Then he locked it. He
could still hear the dog crying outside, as loudly as if the animal had
a microphone in its throat. Then he turned around and looked at Graham.

The old man was dancing on the balls of his feet, his long white hair
floating around the sides of his head. "Did you see it? Did you see it?
I nailed the son of a bitch." He danced back a few steps, then forward
again, jabbing with a long stainless-steel carving knife. "I shoved this
damn thing right into his goddamned nose. Hah!"

"Good work," Richard said. "I think he was just about to break down your
kitchen wall."

"What's he doing now? Is he still nursing himself out there?" Graham
dashed to the window and Richard followed. The dog was supine on the
carpet of weeds. When it saw the men looking at it, the dog picked
itself up and barked twice. Then it swung its head around, sending
splashes of blood flying onto the lawn, and looked for something to
attack. Finally the dog saw the upended lawn chair Graham had thrown at
it, picked it up with its long teeth and flipped it up and down until
the chair was only a collection of long sticks held together with
plastic rags.

"Should we try to get out the front door?" Richard asked.

"And go where?" Graham asked. The question seemed to sober him. He put
the knife in the sink and passed his trembling hands over his face. "How
far do you think we'd get? We wouldn't make it across the street."

516

Peter Straub

Though it still bled, the giant dog now paced back and forth over
Graham's weedy lawn, watching both the door and the window. "Let's try
something," Graham said. "You go to the front door. Just look out. Let's
see what happens."

As soon as Richard left the kitchen, the dog ceased its pacing and loped
around the side of the house. Graham followed Richard through the house
and found him peering through the window set in the front door. He did
not even have to look outside. The dog was uttering its repertoire of
squeals and yelps and interrogatory whines so loudly that Graham would
have had to shout to speak to Richard. He tapped him on the shoulder
instead, nodded, and jerked his thumb back toward the kitchen.

The dog beat them to the other side of the house and was already pacing
the backyard when they looked out the kitchen window.

"We're trapped," Richard said.

"I think that's the point," Graham said. For a moment all his force of
character deserted him, and he resembled a weary and badly made-up old
clown. "Do you have any idea where Patsy and Tabby are?"

Richard shook his head. He still did not understand.

"That thing out there is keeping us from them. If it had been able to
kill us, that would have been fine and dandy, but the main thing is that
we can't help Patsy and the boy. Gideon Winter is after them." Graham's
eyes looked stricken. "He knows where they are, Richard. And he's going
to try to get them. I bet you Tabby got all worked up over my story
about Bates Krell and thinks he can do in the Dragon all by himself.''

"And Patsy insisted on going with him. Because she would know."

"Damn that boy," Graham said. "I knew it, knew it, knew it. Tabby was
holding out on us."

"I'm not sure about that," Richard said. He glanced outside to where the
giant dog was trotting relentlessly back and forth through the weeds.

"Well, there's one thing I am sure of," Graham said. "We have to get out
of this house."

"I don't suppose you have a gun."

Graham tilted his head, rubbed his hands on the red sweatshirt, drying
his palms. "A gun? Christ, I have something

FLOATING DRAGON

517

around here somewhere. A shotgun. Shells, too. I haven't looked at it in
twenty years. Got it in London. Hang on, I'll see if I can find it."
Graham walked past Richard and went out of the kitchen, almost literally
scratching his head.

Richard watched the dog loping back and forth across the backyard and
listened to Graham's progress through the house. After a minute or two
Graham called, "Found it!" from the top of the house. He came into the
kitchen with gray ovals of dust on his knees and a long double-barreled
shotgun in one hand. "Up in the attic, still in its case. Never even got
dusty."

He handed Richard the shotgun and thumped a box of shells on the table.
"Here, you try her. I never was much of a shot."

Richard turned the shotgun over in his hands. The stock gleamed; an
ornate pattern decorated the barrels. "A Purdy," he said. "When you said
you had a shotgun, you weren't kidding." He looked curiously at Graham,
then cracked the gun open and peered down the barrels. Satisfied, he
slotted in two shells and then scooped out a handful more and jammed
them in his pocket.

"Still couldn't hit anything. That's how I know I'm not much of a shot."
Graham said. "But in those days I was young enough to think that if I
bought something, it ought to be the best."

Richard was already pushing the kitchen window up just far enough to
slide the Purdy's barrels through. Then he cocked one of them, knelt
down, and waited for the dog to trot into his sights.

At six-thirty that evening, just about the time Richard Allbee was
taking his second futile shot at a giant dog, Tabby Smithfield and Patsy
McCloud were standing immediately inside the gates of Wren Van Home's
property. Here were no fields of flowers. The trees beneath which Gary
Starbuck had parked his van shielded them from the house-for a moment
Tabby saw all the windows in the long white facade as eyes, and was
afraid that he would disgrace himself by being too terrified to move.
Tabby made himself remember his father

518

Peter Straub

standing confused in the kitchen while a long wing of flame whickered
toward him; then he made himself remember his father's screams. Tabby
bent down and picked up a gnarled stick about a foot and a half long
from the packed, needlelittered earth beneath a spruce. Then he turned
to Patsy and smiled whatever reassurance he could at her.

"How are we going to do this, exactly?" Patsy asked.

"Just remember Graham's story," he said. "Somehow, when we need it . . ."

"Yes," Patsy said. "So it's simple as that. We knock on his door, and
when Dr. Van Home opens it, you'll cut him in half with this sword
you'll suddenly be holding."

"Something like that," Tabby said. "I don't think we knock on his door,
though. There must be a way to sneak into his house." He saw the faint
lines about her mouth slightly deepen. "Are you making fun of me? You're
really a strange woman, you know."

"You don't know the half of it, dear one."

"I can't believe we're standing here joking around when we could be dead
in twenty minutes."

Now Patsy gave a real smile. "I can believe it. I'm scared to death. Do
you think we'll have as long as twenty minutes?"

"Maybe nineteen," Tabby said.

"You and that silly stick," she said. "I know. I'll ring the bell. Then
you jump out of the bushes and saw him in half with your stick."

"Weird," Tabby said.

"Or maybe I just shoot him in the heart."

"Shoot him?"

Patsy nodded, putting her right hand into the waistband of her trousers.
When she brought the hand back out from under her loose shirt-one of her
husband's, Tabby irrelevantly thought-it held a small pistol.

"Maybe you're not so weird after all," he said. "Should we go?"

"We couldn't maybe give ourselves another thirty seconds?"

"We're going to put his head on a plate, remember?"

For a second they just looked at each other, tasting their own fear and
seeing it in the other's face.

okay, champ, take it away

no more sobbiri

They left the shelter of the spruces together. As if by agree-

FLOATING DRAGON

519

ment they went slowly up the far left side of the property, out of the
direct line of sight of the front windows. Tabby made no effort to
conceal himself behind the various trees he walked past, nor did he
crouch; Patsy, not sobbin', followed a step behind. He was aware of her
as a fluttering presence in his own mind, a warm companionate buzz of
emotions.

When Tabby went up the last little rise, he did crouch, and then ran
toward the side of the house. Squatting down with his back against the
long white boards, he saw Patsy just slipping up beside him. She took
several short sharp breaths. The pistol was still in her hands.

now where"}

around back

Patsy half-stood, bending over so that she could go beneath the two
ground-floor windows on this side, and crept to the corner of the
building. Then she looked back at Tabby and nodded. He crept toward her,
seeing the Sound behind her grow longer and more massive as he
approached the edge of the bluff. Patsy was looking at him
questioningly, and when he was beside her at last she pointed to a green
bulkhead door set in the ground. He nodded. Anyone in the house would
have to be looking right at the door to see them breaking in.

beautiful

locked?

let's see

Tabby slipped around Patsy and ducked into the little screen of bushes
around the bulkhead. These continued down the rear of the house to the
long wall of windows. He went down on his knees before the door. From
the dense, spiky bushes came an odor of sap and green nuts. Tabby put
his hands on the bulkhead and leaned forward to try the handle. It
turned in his grasp, and he experimentally pulled upward on it. The
green door creaked and lifted. He put his feet under him and leaned
forward again and swung the door fully open. Just as Tabby was about to
turn triumphantly to Patsy, something huge raised itself from behind the
bushes and clamped down on his wrist. Tabby went pale with shock. His
wrist was in the grip of an enormous and filthy hand. He looked up °ver
his shoulder and saw the dead face of Dicky Norman scowling down at him.

520

Peter Straub

5

FLOATING DRAGON

6

521

Richard braced himself between the floor and the windowsill when he saw
the giant dog come to the far end of its circuit and turn back toward
him. "Try to get a head shot," Graham said. "Hit him where it'll do the
most damage."

"Have you thought about the possibility that that thing isn't even
there?" Richard gently put his finger against the trigger. In his sights
was the narrow stippled trunk of a sapling.

"It's real enough for me," Graham said. "It did a fair bit of damage to
that door.''

"It's real enough to do that, all right," Richard said, "but I wonder if
anyone but ourselves could see it."

"Here he comes now," Graham said, pulling on his sweatshirt out of
excitement. "Cock both those barrels, sonny. We mean business."

Richard cocked the other barrel and put his finger over both triggers.
The black head pushed into his sights, and Richard saw the dog instantly
register the fact of the gun. It ceased pacing and lowered its head and
trotted toward him.

"He's after the gun! Richard, he's after the gun! Shoot!"

Richard was already pulling back the triggers. j

The explosion, loud as a bomb in the kitchen, pushed him] back into a
chair. Richard felt as if he had been kicked in the shoulder. He looked
up as he pulled the shotgun safely inside,] hoping to see the animal fall. J

The enraged dog threw itself against the window. Richard! heard wood
splintering-the animal had cracked the framej The dog retreated, and
Richard saw where his shots had gone.1 At the base of the dog's neck, a
spiral of gray smoke curled! from a sizzling wound. J

"It isn't even bleeding," Richard said, looking up m Graham. "I don't
think the Purdy is going to get us out OH this one." 1

"Try for his eyes," Graham said. |

The dog threw itself against the window again, cracking] the bottom
pane. Both Richard and Graham saw the wall bulge in as the heavy body
smashed into it. |

"For God's sake, reload," Graham said. "Try to get botlfj barrels in his
eyes." '

The vast face swam toward Tabby, dead rubbery skin and eyes that looked
as if their color came from swamp water. Another hand locked onto his
shoulder. For a terrible second Tabby thought that Dicky Norman was
going to take a bite out of his face. He sensed Patsy's almost equal
shock and terror booming at him from the side of the house, but could
not even tell her to run-his mind was frozen.

"You're a good little fucker, Tabs," Dicky said. "I knew you'd come
here. I knew you'd help."

"Help," Tabby managed to get out, and then realized that this monster
was holding him with two hands. Dicky had lost an arm on the night of
his death. The bloated dirty face before him was inhaling, then blowing
out foul air. The dead would have no need to breathe. "Bruce?" he said.

"Yeah, sure," the vast face said, and

Patsy don't shoot don't shoot Tabby sent out as loud as he could.

"Who's thatV Patsy asked, lowering the pistol as she came into his
vision behind Bruce's enormous arm. He had stopped her a second before
she would have put a bullet into the back of Bruce's head, and she still
looked as though she thought that was a good idea.

"It's Bruce Norman," Tabby said. "The Dragon killed his brother."

Bruce's eyes moved incuriously to Patsy and took in the pistol she was
still pointing at him He released Tabby's wrist and gently closed his
hand around the gun. Patsy backed away from his touch. Bruce had hardly
seemed to see her at all. He returned his gaze to Tabby. "Good little
fucker," he said.

Tabby gestured with his head. "Let's get around the side, Bruce. Where
he won't see us."

Still clamping down on Tabby's shoulder, Bruce Norman allowed himself to
be led to the side of the house. The three of them knelt down on the dry
grass. "You came to kill Van Home?" Tabby asked.

"I been following you," Bruce said. "You never saw me, did you? Not
once. I knew you'd come back here, Tabs. We gotta kill him."

522

Peter Straub

"Dr. Van Home killed your brother?" Patsy asked. Bruce made no response:
the question just sank into his skin.

The huge moon face lolled before Tabby, gray with fatigue and layered
with streaks and splashes of dirt. In Bruce's open mouth yellowing teeth
stuck up like fenceposts. Particles of earth, fragments of dead leaves,
matted his long Indian hair. "I keep hearing him, Tabs," Bruce said.
"You know? It's like Dicky sometimes was right in the trailer with me. I
could hear him moving around in the living room. Finally it spooked me
so bad I had to sleep outside-I been doin' that for weeks now. And I
seen some funny stuff, Tabs, I sure have seen some funny ..." Bruce's
eyes slipped out of focus. "I saw a snake the size of a house come along
and swallow a little boy, Tabs, he just opened up this huge fuckin'
mouth and picked the kid right up and swallowed him down . . . When I
slept on the beach I saw dead kids come out of the water . . . and,
Tabs, all this shit is comin' from him. He's makin' it all happen."
Bruce's eyes darkened. "Finally I wound up sleeping on Dicky's grave,
right in the cemetery. That's where I go at night now. Just go to sleep
right on Dicky's grave there."

"Does Dicky . . . ?" Tabby began, and then stopped. He did not want to
know if Bruce conversed with his brother during the nights in Gravesend
Cemetery. Bruce Norman, Tabby now almost unwillingly saw, was what
Graham Williams must have been like when he had killed Bates Krell.
Everything he had undergone had given him an authority that was
undeniable but not sane. This degree of reality had left sanity far
behind it.

"So let's go do it," he said to Bruce. The massive dreamy face before
him acknowledged Tabby's readiness with a smile.

Bruce led them down the bulkhead stairs into the cellar, and Tabby
quietly closed the metal door behind them. In semidarkness he went the
rest of the way down to find the others. The Van Home cellar was a
warren of small rooms and chambers, some of them seemingly filled with
stacked wood and , others still containing the hooked rugs and
headboards of thejj servants who had once slept in them. Tabby found
Brucel Norman confusedly moving through the narrow corridors, and! gave
him a push around a comer. "Tabs, we got to find thel stairs," Bruce
uttered in a stage whisper. I

FLOATING DRAGON

523

"They're right here," Patsy called softly, and Bruce and Tabby turned
toward her voice.

In the middle of the vast cellar space stood an incongruously small oil
furnace on a circle of bricks that had once supported a multiarmed
giant. Overhead, copper pipes and shiny boxy vents cut through a
spaghetti of electrical wiring stapled to the joists. Patsy was standing
just to the side of a wide straight staircase which came to an end five
feet before the little furnace.

Bruce grunted, and they went past the furnace toward the stairs.

Then suddenly Bruce stopped moving. Tabby bumped right into him and felt
as though he had collided with a structure made of concrete and angle
irons instead of flesh. "What?" he said.

"Tabby," Patsy said from the other side of Bruce. "Look at the gun. It's
like what happened to Graham-I think it really is like what Graham said."

Tabby moved around Bruce's side and immediately saw the twisting knot of
light coiling and darting on his open palm. A silvery radiance played
over Patsy's little pistol, flickering out, then surging into a wide
dazzling beam that swept across the busy ceiling of the cellar like a
searchlight. "My God," Patsy said.

Tabby could not speak-he was caught between awe and joy, between
jealousy and impatience too. He took in the expression of single-minded
pleasure on the face of Bruce Norman. "It's going to work," he said,
almost as if he had not believed in Graham's account until that moment.
The dazzling bar of light flashed out again and for a moment, for
something less than a second, seemed to be irradiated with a rainbow of
colors: and in that same fraction of a second, something glittering and
golden flickered around Bruce Norman.

Then it was gone. The little pistol seemed to suck all the Hght into
itself and shrink it down to a last failing gleam against the barrel.

"I'm gonna kill him," Bruce said, and Patsy got out of his way as he
tottered toward the staircase.

They came up into an empty hall. The three of them stood indecisively
before the open door, each looking a different direction. Tabby realized
that he was still holding the gnarled stick from beneath the spruce
tree, and gripped it in a more

524

Peter Straub

businesslike manner. Bruce Norman was staring heavily down the length of
hall toward the big room at the back; Patsy seemed suddenly unsure of
herself-Tabby watched her nervously scanning their surroundings.

He took his eyes off Patsy's face and noticed the odd, slimy-looking
streaks and stripes along the walls-they looked almost like the tracks
of giant snails, but also as though some decaying matter had been
repeatedly brushed against the walls. Tabby had time enough to register
the strong sharp yeasty odor that filled the house, and then Bruce's
hand swallowed his. "He's here," Bruce said, and smiled loonily and
turned and dragged Tabby behind. him to the living room. In his other
hand he held the little pistol.

They entered the long windowed room in a clattering rush, Patsy flying
along behind the other two. Tabby pulled away from Bruce's grip,
confusedly thinking there's something wrong, they had a break-in here-a
chair was overturned, a lamp lay shattered on the floor. Then he saw an
amoebashaped bloodstain six feet wide, gone rusty with age, covering the
wooden floor and part of a rug. "DickyV Bruce bellowed, and Tabby
whirled around.

The mirror in the ornate oval frame was doing something impossible. It
was at this that Bruce Norman had yelled, but Tabby could certainly not
see Dicky in the mirror; nor did he see a reflection of the room and the
now rather streaky wall of windows. The mirror's surface had filled with
billowing smoke and lightninglike flashes of sudden brightness: and
Tabby had the illusion of depth, as if he could put his hand tnrough
into this curious storm.

"Diiicky!" Bruce screeched, and everything changed.

Suddenly Tabby heard that monstrous rhythmic buzzing of a million flies
he had first heard on Gravesend Beach; overlying it now were the sounds
of many voices, as if a humming crowd were just outside the door. The
air darkened, or Tabby's vision went dark, and he understood that things
had just slipped totally out of control, that he and Bruce Norman and
Patsy McCloud had no chance against Dr. Van Home ... he reached out his
mind for Patsy, but felt his panicky fluttery effort crash against
something hard and cold.

The air was filled with flies and grasping hands and open mouths, and he
had lost Patsy. Crazed, inhuman noises

FLOATING DRAGON

525

roared in his ears. Tabby shouted her name and could not hear his own voice.

Someone stepped into the room through the door they had just used, and
Tabby jumped backward, knocking over a small glass table and dumping a
statuette of a dancer to the floor. He had a glimpse, in the confusion
tearing through the air, of Patsy backed up against the windows, and
staggered toward her.

So you're here at last, Mr. Smithfield, someone said or thought straight
into his mind. Do you like it?

A few feet away from Patsy he turned around to face the man who had
addressed him. Once again he heard Bruce Norman bawl out his brother's
name: the air was clear again, and the sounds and the grasping hands
were gone.

"You killed Dicky!" Bruce screamed, and lifted the gun.

Then Tabby saw for the first time that Wren Van Home had become a
"leaker." The doctor was far advanced in the disease: his ruined skin
shimmered and moved, and he was already wearing gloves on his hands.

"In a way I did," the doctor said. "This is your little raiding party,
is it?" He made a ghastly parody of a smile. "You arrive on my last
night here. Excellent timing, Mr. Smithfield."

"You're dying," Tabby said, still not quite believing it- that he was
doomed no matter how many tricks he could play on their minds.

"Fuck that, you're dead," Bruce said, and aimed the pistol at the
doctor's chest. He pulled the trigger.

The explosion was quieter than Tabby had expected, the sound of a branch
cracking in half; there was a little gray meander of smoke from the gun.
Dr. Van Home put his hands to his chest and took a neat, almost dancing
step backward. When Bruce shot him again the doctor collapsed
gracelessly to the floor.

Bruce let the gun fall and stood motionless, as if his will had taken
him to the end of its designs. He was panting slightly; he opened his
hand and stared without recognition or curiosity at the pistol, then let
it drop to the bloodstained rug.

Tabby watched Patsy move forward to pick it up. Then, still stunned by
the ease and rapidity of Van Home's destruction, he looked back at the
doctor's body. The right hand was scrabbling in the carpet, the fingers
digging into the fibers. He

526

Peter Straub

realized that he felt almost cheated: monsters should not die so easily.
Tabby took a step nearer the doctor, and saw the grimace on his molten
face. The doctor was not dead yet, but he was surely dying.

Well, at last it's over, he thought, moving cautiously nearer to the
doctor's body. Maybe this time the Dragon was dead for good . . . maybe
the cycle had been ended. He came nearer, barely attending to Patsy's
whisper of warning, and looked down at the dying man digging his fingers
into the pile of his carpet. Dr. Van Home turned his face so that he
could look into Tabby's face, and the boy was startled by the expression
of malicious amusement on the ruined face-it just leaped across the
distance between them.

And then, as if all of this were carried on the doctor's glance,
cacophony burst into the room and Tabby again heard the millions of
flies hovering about him and the keening, exultant voices and saw the
arms reaching out for him. "No!" Tabby shouted, and went through the
crowded air until he stood directly above Dr. Van Home. He saw white
hair fanned across the carpet; the shifting and oddly Neanderthal face
of a "leaker"; gleaming, powerful eyes.

In fury and disgust Tabby shouted something-lost in the turmoil of
voices around him-and in a deliberate act of revenge for his father's
death kicked Van Home's chest as hard as he could. His foot sank deep
into the doctor's body: it had been like kicking a sandpile. Tabby felt
loose soft substances, like pillows, crumbling beneath the pressure of
his foot. Before he could pull his foot out of the doctor's body, white
liquid poured across his ankle.

For perhaps a second the long disordered room fell perfectly silent.
Those hallucinatory noises in Tabby's ears abruptly ceased: he was
standing over the now undoubtedly dead body of Dr. Van Home, and warm
white fluid was soaking into his shoe: Patsy's questioning eyes found his.

Sunlight glittered on the tall streaky windows.

Then an explosion much louder and more resonant than the firing of
Patsy's gun shook the room. Tabby put his hands to his ears as he
staggered back from the doctor's corpse-his whole head was still
reverberating from the force of the explosion. Someone was screaming,
and the room had filled with smoke. Across from him, Patsy was pointing
toward the mirror.

Tabby turned his head, his eyes burning from the smoke,

FLOATING DRAGON

527

and uncomprehendingly saw that its source was the mirror- greasy
blackness boiled through the jagged slivers of glass still adhering to
the frame: and within the tumbling clouds, a figure took shape. The
screaming behind Tabby raised into a new key and then choked itself off,
and still half in a daze from the suddenness with which his triumph had
curdled, Tabby turned again and saw what had happened to Bruce Norman.

As the mirror had exploded, its flying glass had shredded Bruce's face.
Long splinters protruded like quills from his chest and stomach, but the
mooning face was no longer recognizable at all-blood spurted and flowed
from every bit of sliced, mangled tissue. Bruce's features had been cut
off his face: just as Tabby finally recognized this, Bruce toppled over
and hit the floor with a spongy thud.

A tall thin man with an elongated and pale face stepped forward in the
room; drifts and curls of smoke hung about his black clothing.

"He . . .he stepped out of the mirror," Tabby heard Patsy say in tones
of the utmost disbelief.

Gideon Winter glided toward Tabby between the bodies of Wren Van Home
and Bruce Norman. Tabby, unable to move, saw the black arms raise above
him: then his heart burst and his head burst and his life went
elsewhere. Gideon Winter wrapped him in his arms.

Richard fired both barrels straight toward the dog's head, and this time
he could almost see the wads of pellets fly-a squad of hornets-across
the narrowing space between and sizzle into the wide black forehead. A
dozen more smoking holes appeared, all of them concentrated around the
eyes, and then the animal crashed again into the back of Graham's house.
The window frame slid an inch or two away from the wall, and plaster
dust showered onto the floor. Long ragged cracks jumped across the wall.
The dog had circled away and was moving toward the back of the yard
before it made another run at the house. As Richard ejected the spent
shells and dug new ones from his pocket, he could see sparks and flames
jumping all across the dog's crown and muzzle.

"One more time and he'll be in here with us," Graham

528

Peter Straub

said, sounding admirably calm. "See if you can shoot his goddamn nose
off. I don't know what else would stop him."

"I don't think anything is going to stop him," Richard said. "Do you
want to try to run for it?"

He looked up over his shoulder, but Graham was already shaking his head.
"Get his nose. Remember how he yelped when I got him with the knife?"

"Whatever you say, boss." Richard braced himself again. He watched the
dog turn around and lower his head, preparing to charge the window once
more.

Then the dog was flying toward him, and Richard tried to find the dot of
blackness which was the nose in the midst of all that other speeding
black. He moved the sights in a tight circle, almost getting it, and
then he was sure he had it. He began to pull his finger slowly back on
the triggers and then blinked. The wall of blackness almost at the wall
now was losing shades of intensity: almost instantly it was not black at
all but gray, then again almost instantly light gray . . . before he had
finished pulling back the triggers he could see that hole in the
greenery, still smoldering, through the head of the dog.

Richard lifted his head and relaxed his finger. "Hey," Graham was saying
above and behind him. Like Billy Bentley's cat, the giant dog was fading
into invisibility, washing away into nothingness, even as it launched
itself into the air for its final assault on the window. For a second it
was only an outline, a huge shape suspended above the weedy lawn; then
it was gone. An almost impalpable gust of warm air gently spent itself
against the window.

Richard sat back on his haunches, breathing not at all.

"That means it's over with Tabby and Patsy," Graham said hoarsely above
his head. "Whatever the hell was going on is over. I suppose we'd better
get out there and see."

"See what? Get out where?" Richard still did not quite trust himself to
move.

"Ah, ask me an easy one," Graham said, and patted his shoulder with a
trembling hand.

Richard pushed himself up on his feet and looked at Graham. The old man
looked slap-happy with relief. "Do you really suppose I could have shot
off his nose?" he asked, and was surprised to find himself smiling too.

"That's an easy one, but I don't want to answer it," Graham said. "Let's
go outside and check the damage."

FLOATING DRAGON

529

As soon as they went out into the back garden they smelled smoke.
Richard assumed it was from the sizzling patches of hair on the dog's
hide, and took a look at Graham's exterior kitchen wall. The frame was
badly cracked, the whole wall bowed in-to Richard's eye, it looked like
about fifteen thousand dollars' worth of damage.

"Don't bother with that," Graham ordered him. "Come around the side and
look in the direction of the beach."

Richard followed Graham around the side of the house, and did not have
to be given any more directions about where to look. A giant column of
flame and smoke was erupting out over the Sound, twisting perhaps fifty
feet in the air before shredding into falling bits of fire and windblown
smoke.

"What in the name of heaven is thatV Richard asked.

Graham gave him a look of unhappy compassion. "1 think it's the place of
my old friend Wren Van Home. There isn't another house right down there.
Unless it's a fire right on the beach."

"That doctor's house? The one right ..." Richard was remembering the
first time he had seen that house, with Laura in Ronnie Riggley's car-he
had asked about its cost. On the heels of this memory came another. Wren
Van Home had been Laura's doctor.

"I think our friends went on a dragon hunt," Graham said. He was already
moving toward his car, and Richard hurried after him.

Richard slid into the passenger seat just as Graham released his clutch
and shot backward into Beach Trail. He twisted the wheel, changed gears,
and jerked forward. Graham did not stop at the Mount Avenue comer, did
not even look; he stepped on his accelerator and spun around the comer
to the right. "I suppose Wren was your Laura's doc," he said.

"Yeah," Richard said.

"I'm just thinking out loud," the old man said, not knowing that he was
about to express something that had occurred to, then eluded, Bobo
Farnsworth one night outside the Penny whistle Cafe, "but you know, the
only people who recognized our killer were the women who opened their
doors to him. How many men know what their wives' gynecologists look
like? If they saw him in Franco's, would they know who he was?"

"Jesus," Richard said, but even he would not have known if he was
responding to Graham's suggestion or to the spec-

530

Peter Straub

tacular pyre that they saw commanding the top of the bluff as soon as
they had swerved in through Dr. Van Home's gates. Nearly all of the long
white house was invisible behind leaping yellow flames and billowing
smoke. From the bottom of the long hill leading up to the bluff the
column of mingling smoke and fire was even more impressive than it had
been from Graham's back garden.

"Poor Wren," Graham said. "He wasn't as strong as Johnny Say re."

"Jesus," Richard said again.

As they came nearer to the huge body of fire up the drive, Richard
finally saw Patsy McCloud on the front lawn-Patsy was trembling from her
shoulders to her feet, shaking uncontrollably like a fever victim, and
when he jumped out of the car and ran toward her he saw that she was
weeping.

Graham Through the Looking Glass

Now I want to talk to you in my own voice again, because what happened
right after Richard Allbee and I piled out of my old heap and ran toward
Patsy has to be told that way: my faith in the exact old relationship
between myself and the rest of the world was tipped over on its head. We
went-the three of us, Patsy and Richard and I-into mirror-land, and
nothing was real but everything could have killed us anyhow. So these
events are like the giant dog, it seems to me, and when Richard Allbee
asked me if I really thought that all of us were just out of our minds
on DRG I said "Nope," but it was never as simple as that.

All I can do is tell you what I saw with my own eyes- what I thought I
saw, was sure I saw. That way I stay honest, and if you want to brood
about "reality" you do it on your own time.

While Richard was comforting Patsy and trying to get her to tell him if
Tabby managed to get out of the house in time, I was looking at that
house, trying to accept that my old friend and fellow widower had been
our enemy. Wren Van Home- that was a blow, one I could hardly begin to
come to terms with. He'd been even more a part of Hampstead than myself,
one of those men who carry out their duties with the lighthearted grace
that illuminates what it touches. He had always been jaunty, and old age
has taught me that that's a spiritual quality-hanging onto it beyond the
age of twenty certainly takes spirit. His patients had respected and
loved him, he had been one of those people who instinctively know how to
live well, but most important, Wren Van Home had been one of my people,
my people. And the Dragon had turned him into

532

Peter Straub

garbage. I thought of my admired old friend knocking on women's doors in
town, of him picking up Stony Friedgood at Franco's, of all the things
the Dragon had made him do, and felt a terrible mixture of emotions.

Richard was still trying to get Patsy to unlock herself from the
paralysis of whatever had happened to her, and I walked up to them and
put a hand on one of her shoulders. The house before me was rushing into
nothingness, consuming itself with an awesome single-mindedness. The
rented houses on Mill Lane must have burned down that way-and the Royal
Cotton Mill, I realized with a start. The flames had marched straight
down the facade of Wren's house and completely hidden it. From somewhere
now not far above the top of the first-floor windows the building was
solid flame, shooting and twisting far up into the air, and through the
windows I saw that the downstairs rooms were a swirl of fire. I heard or
imagined that I heard the screams of a score of lost voices from inside
the house. Then I looked up to where the smoke and flames were boiling
and twisting together so far overhead, and just as Patsy finally found
words I saw what I never had seen before this moment, though I have
described it to you a couple of times. It was a great bat made of fire,
and it spread its enormous wings up in the smoky confusion. Patsy
McCloud's dear shoulder jumped beneath my touch, blood surged and
pounded in her skin or mine, and I realized that my hand was trembling
too. "I think Tabby's dead," Patsy sobbed. "Gideon Winter took him away.
And now I can't reach him at all. . . ." Her face strained toward mine,
twisting to see me over Richard's shoulder. "I always could," she said.
"Always. But now . . . now there's just this terrible coldness where
Tabby ought to be."

When I looked up again the fire-bat was gone.

"It's all cold," Patsy said, and both Richard and I heard the despair in
her voice. Her shoulder was calming down, but my hand wasn't-I lifted it
off so I wouldn't actually start shaking her. "There's nothing else . .
. there's no Tabby there. ..."

Richard and I looked at each other, and then walked Patsy a few yards
down the long lawn away from the fire. I saw in his face that he was no
more in control of himself, faced with the likelihood of Tabby
Smithfield's death, than I.

"You said that Gideon Winter took Tabby away," I said to

FLOATING DRAGON

533

Patsy. She wore a dizzied, glazed expression that made me want to scream
out loud or smash something. "Does that mean that Tabby got out of the
house?"

She nodded, blinking, and I felt at least a fraction more optimism-I'd
been thinking of the husk I had seen on a flat rock at the start of
Kendall Point. "Tell us exactly what happened, Patsy," I said. "We'll
never see Tabby again unless you help us now."

"Tabby is dead," she said flatly.

"Then I want to give him a burial. But I want to know for sure. And I
want to kill the Dragon, Patsy. I want to break him into a million pieces."

That startled her into taking another internal stride forward. Her eyes
widened and she lifted her head and began to tell us about meeting Tabby
in front of his grandfather's old house; about everything that followed.
She finished by saying, "Tabby just crumpled when that . . . that thing
touched him. He turned white. Then they were gone . . . and I tried to
find Tabby but I couldn't ... I couldn't find anything but cold cold
cold ..."

"They were gone?" Richard asked her.

"They just weren't there anymore. Then the fire started up all around
me. I ran. I got outside, and you were coming."

"They just weren't there anymore?" Richard asked, looking first at Patsy
and then at me. "What's that mean? Graham, did they kill him or not? And
I thought that if someone destroyed our Dragon the way you destroyed
Krell, that it was over. What the hell is going on here?"

"I think it always was like that," I said and tried to work out what we
were going to have to do next. "It looks like Gideon Winter isn't ready
to give up yet."

"You think it was Gideon Winter?"

"I hate to say it, but I'm sure of it," I said. "He really is stronger
now than he ever has been, strong enough to survive the death of the
body he selected." I inhaled a long trembling breath. "The ante's been
raised. That's what it is. He took Tabby with him because he wants us to
come after him. This time he wants us together and he wants to get us
all at once." Those two people who were half of the only real family I
had left moved even closer together. "He would have killed Patsy,
otherwise," I said. "He wanted us to hear her story, and he wanted, he
wants, us to come after him."

534

Peter Straub

"If we knew where to go," Richard said.

"Well, I think I do know where to go," I told them. "Patsy isn't going
to like it much."

She stiffened, her eyes darting over my face-she understood, and I was
right, she was instinctively resisting.

"Oh," Richard said, and tightened his arm around her. "I see." He was
nodding.

"Where several boys were murdered. And both he and I know it. Bates
Krell's house."

I turned away from Patsy's desperate face and looked out at the Sound.
The water, which should have been calm, churned and boiled, throwing
itself forward in a way that had nothing to do with tides.

I jerked my gaze back to Richard and Patsy. She was still trembling, but
I saw her strength returning to her and said, "It won't be like goir^
there alone," though I was suddenly as uncertain of that as of
everything else. "Well, I'm going anyhow," I said, "I have to. I think
Tabby's still alive. He's the bait."

I started walking down the long sloping lawn, at first forgetting
completely about my car and then thinking to hell with it. I didn't want
to drive to that house; I wanted to go on foot, the way I had in 1924.
They could come with me or not. I took a couple of misleadingly
determined-looking steps, knowing that nothing on earth could save me if
I went into that house alone. This was not 1924, and the game had
changed. I took another lonely step, mentally seeing Long Island Sound
writhe against the shingle. Then I heard soft footsteps behind me, and
an arm took each of mine.

"Cranky old bastard," Richard said. "After all this, did you think you
were going anywhere by yourself?"

I looked from Richard on one side of me to Patsy on the other, and
thought we were like the three incomplete companions in The Wizard of
Oz. "I think it's going to be quite a ride," I said.

It wasn't until we were going through the gates and back out onto Mount
Avenue that I saw Richard checking the shells in his jacket pockets and
realized that he was still carrying my shotgun. As usual, at least when
he was not tearing bricks out

FLOATING DRAGON

535

of a cornice or stripping paint off masonry, he was dressed up, which is
to say in the way everybody used to dress way back when, even me, in a
jacket and real pants-not jeans. Also real shoes instead of those
pedigree running shoes guys in Hampstead wear even when they never run
as far as the length of their driveway. Anyhow, the point of this is
that when I noticed him still carrying my shotgun it somehow seemed a
part of him-Richard and the old Purdy and those businessman clothes were
strangely cohesive, like Magritte and his bowler hat. The sight of him
there at my side as we walked into Mount Avenue gave me a quick boost of
confidence. Or at least of willingness to really play out the thread
now, to accept everything that was going to happen, as if Richard and
his good clothes and the Purdy could give all three of us an irrational
amount of protection. Richard Allbee with the gun in his hand had that
much authority, and in that second I felt younger than he.

Maybe what I'm saying is that I felt leadership pass from me to Richard,
or understood that it had been his all along.

People attracted by the tower of smoke and flame from the Van Home house
had begun to appear on Mount Avenue, walking slowly toward us, their
faces tilted up so that they seemed to be watching a high-wire act.

I wondered if my heart was up to what was to come. I wondered if Tabby
could really be alive. The three of us stepped onto Poor Fox Road more
or less in unison.

The sky changed-without any transition it went from the hazy blue it had
been to a gaseous, bubbling red. Patsy stopped moving, and I stopped
too. What was above us looked like the expression of an ultimate rage,
anger taken to a total limit. A thousand soundless but vivid explosions
tore the sky's fabric, sending waves out to thrash and pound against
each other. A moment later the sky was bright yellow; then a hard
monochrome blue no sky ever was before; then a deep violet-purple; and
then it was black. Two moons hung over us, one that ferocious bubbling
red and the other white and dead.

All of Poor Fox Road was illuminated by cold moonlight. Patsy gripped my
arm so tight it hurt. "Okay," Richard said, and we began to go forward
again toward Bates Krell's house.

When we came to the place where the road bends, I saw a

536

Peter Straub

dark shape hanging from one of the big trees alongside the Academy
fence. It slowly spun and twisted as we came nearer, a shadowy elongated
cocoon. Both Richard and Patsy had seen it, too, and I felt Patsy
tighten her grip on my arm again. A second later I saw that it was a
body hanging upside down from the tangle of branches.

The body twisted around to face us, and the silver light fell directly
across it. The chest had been sliced open and the ribs broken, and the
whole middle section of the body was a black hole. Beneath the slashes
and wounds, I recognized the face of Bobby Fritz. The terrible face was
laughing at us, the mouth split into a Halloween grin. Bobby Fritz's
corpse screamed "You're dead! You're dead!"

Patsy gasped and pulled at me. Bobby's dangling arms burst into flame.
His hair shrivelled and twisted in the heat, and a moment later it too
began to burn, making a little puff as it went alight.

Richard reached back and gave me a yank, and I pulled Patsy along in my
wake.

We moved awkwardly forward for a few paces, and then Patsy seemed to
find her rhythm again. "I'll be okay, Graham," she said. "You don't have
to frogmarch me." She pulled her arm away from mine, and then looked
back over her shoulder. By reflex I too looked back.

The blazing corpse of Bobby Fritz spun around like a mechanical toy, and
beneath the flames we could see his mutilated features.

Patsy McCloud snapped her head forward, and her eyes found mine. She
said, "I told you, I'm okay," and marched right past me.

Just a few minutes later we saw the Krell house come into view past a
wasteland of wrecked cars, and all three of us slowed our pace, as if we
thought we could sneak up on it. The windows, or the black holes where
the windows should have been, shone redly; but we knew Krell's house was
not burning. And we knew we could not sneak up on it; we were walking
more slowly because suddenly we were in no hurry to do what we knew we
had to do.

Even when I was twenty and straight and pretty well muscled, that house
had spooked me. I knew a lot more about it now.

Richard quickly moved on ahead of us, and went right over the
moon-washed scurf of weeds to the door. He held the

FLOATING DRAGON

537

shotgun straight out at his hips and looked back at us. I saw his jaw
muscles jumping. Patsy went straight toward him. I came up beside the
other two, and Richard said, "Here goes nothing," and turned the knob
and pushed open the door with the barrel of the shotgun. Patsy flattened
her hands over the top of her head. Red light spilled out over our legs.

You will have worked out already that Patsy covered her hair because of
the bats, but I didn't get it until I had looked in. Richard was
pointing the shotgun into the room as if there was going to be something
he could shoot. Maybe half a dozen bats came wheeling and skittering out
of the corners of the room; Richard tried to wave them away with the
barrels of the gun, but two of the bats merely circled off and flew back
toward us.

Then I saw long red hair streaming from the head of one of the two bats
taking another dive past Richard; and I took in that both had white
faces. I did not want to see their faces-I knew I would recognize them,
and that would have been worse than the sight of Bobby Fritz hanging
upside down from the tree.

Richard gasped, and let the barrels sag down: he had recognized one of
those tiny faces.

My temper jumped up inside me like a wild beast. Tabby's own face shone
in my mind, and I gripped Richard's free arm as he had done mine four
minutes earlier, and I pulled him into the house with me. "It's
daytime!" I shouted, "daytime!' '

For a second or two, maybe more, it was-we saw the real sunlight
splashing against a wall, the real barrenness of the place. Ruptured
floorboards, cracked walls, thick dust: we saw it. There were no bats.
Patsy rushed inside and got right up next to me, and I felt strong
enough to take on three Bates Krells. My temper still sizzled. Giant
dogs and bats with human faces! Two moons! This stuff turned my stomach.

A movement at my side registered in the corner of my eye, and I turned
my head and moved forward at the same time. What I saw was Les McCloud
standing in the doorway to another room, wearing striped pajamas and a
gaping robe and already pulling the trigger of a small pistol. A long
line of flame erupted from the pistol's little barrel, squirted just
past Patsy and me, and shot harmlessly into the room to our right.

Black night immediately returned, and the blast from the shotgun flared
out just as I saw Les begin to fade into noth-

538

Peter Straub

ingness. The wad of shot smacked into a wall. "He's gone," I said, but
no longer felt like challenging the darkness.

I could hear Richard breathing hard as he ejected the spent cartridge
and sent it rattling to the floor.

We all could see that the source of the red light filtering through the
dark was the room that lay beyond the door where Les's spectre had
appeared. It spread outward from that room, filling the doorway with a
red haze.

"I know where we have to go," Patsy said, flicking a sideways look at
me. Her face seemed bony and drawn in the dim light, neither male nor
female.

"Patsy," I said, "no one is going to make you go down there."

"He's right," Richard said. "Not after the last time. You could wait
outside-you came this far, and that's enough. If Tabby's down there,
we'll find him."

"Tabby's dead," she said with that same flat certainty. "But I'm still
going with you. We have to be together, don't we? That's what you think,
isn't it, Graham?" Her eyes slid toward me, more bravely man before.

"I don't know what I think anymore," I said truthfully.

"Well, I think I want to end it," she said. Then she surprised us both
by pulling her pistol from her waistband-I guess both Richard and I had
assumed that she had left it in Wren Van Home's house. "I'll use this,
too, if I have to. There's one bullet left in it, I think. You two guys
can wait out on the sidewalk if you like." She tucked the gun away back
under her shirt and looked at us, just waiting to see what we would do.
She was small and brave and willful, grown far past the woman who had
come running around the corner toward three men and a boy on that night
when the first birds had fallen from the sky. Patsy had come a farther
distance than any of us.

"Well, let's go then," Richard said, tucking the shotgun up under his
arm. "We all want to end it." He looked at me and I saw that despite the
calm in his voice he too had been moved by Patsy.

She abruptly turned around and walked through the hazy doorway into
Bates Krell's kitchen. Richard and I followed closely behind. The door
to the basement still hung wide open on its hinges, and we saw that
Patsy had been correct-the light came streaming up the basement stairs.
When the three

FLOATING DRAGON

539

of us looked down we saw how strong, how dark it was, how it pulsed.
Going down there would be like walking into an enormous heart.

I stepped forward first. If anything were going to happen- if there were
booby traps on these stairs-I wanted it to happen to me, not those two.
Being seventy-six has a few advantages, one of them being that a
premature demise is no longer possible. Still, I took those stairs slow
and easy, and kept my eyes open. Like a heart-the image grew more
accurate the farther down I went. I was bathed in that redness; the
pulsations of the light vibrated through the treads of the stairs and
the flimsy handrail.

Richard came up beside me-he too wanted to be between Patsy McCloud and
whatever might be in the basement. We moved around the side of the
staircase.

I don't know what we expected to find. Nightmares from Hieronymus Bosch,
fiends devouring Tabby's body, Gideon Winter flying at us: anything but
the wide empty space we were looking at. Glass bricks spaced here and
there along the top of the walls glowed with the same redness that
filled the cellar. At the far end of the room a battered workbench stood
against the wall. That was it.

"Tabby isn't here," Richard said, momentarily perplexed. The anticlimax
of coming into a room bare of anything but a beat-up workbench and a lot
of inexplicable red light stopped him in the dead center of the cellar.
Patsy drifted off to one side, and I went up to the workbench. We had
come to the right place, I was sure of it, and thought that maybe I
could find something to lead us to Tabby.

In the air around me I became aware of a kind of thickening-as though
that pulsing redness had curdled the air. What was happening was the
gradual heightening of a condition present since we had come down the
stairs. We were getting over the shock of not being shocked, to put it
like that, and the real character of the place was finally reaching us.

Krell's basement, not empty, was crowded with the emotions which had
been set free there. Terror, despair, a soup of human misery roiled in
the air around us. Until the summer of

1980 I would have rejected the notion that such an experience was
anything but the projection of a suggestible observer. But m Krell's
basement I knew I was not projecting all that misery. My stomach cramped
into a bitter knot. The wrongness

540

Peter Straub

of the place, the monstrosity of the pleasure given by torture, had
assailed me. I wanted to get back outside as fast as I could. The big
heart of the basement beat almost audibly around Patsy and Richard and
me, and for a second I saw the walls thronging with spiders, hideous
black shapes circling toward me, a body stretched in agony on the
workbench. Those pictures were all from books I had read in childhood. \
The three of us had to get back outside.

I started to move toward Patsy, seeing on her face that she ; too had
been poisoned by this place, and the packed earth beneath my feet
trembled and nearly threw me to the floor. A hand thrust up through the
surface of the floor. Then another "{ shot up out of the earth. Another
pair of hands almost imme- I diately pushed up only a couple of feet away. \

"Let's get out of here, for God's sake," Richard was say-1 ing, clubbing
away the first pair of hands with the stock of the j shotgun.

Patsy said, "I don't know if we can make it to the staircase," and I saw
what she meant. The earth between us and the stairs seemed to be
shredding into brown sugar, granulating.

"You won't believe this, but there's a door over there," Richard said,
and as we turned he pointed to the nearest wall. Set into the concrete
blocks was a wooden door with big iron hinges and wide black iron
crossbraces. It certainly had not been there earlier, and for a moment
it looked as sinister and forbidding as everything else in Bates Krell's
little playpen.

Both Richard and I went forward, trying to figure out if running for the
stairs was worth the gamble. Richard pulled Patsy into a clear area, and
as he did so the head and torso of a boy in his early teens broke
through the crumbled earth.

A vision or hallucination Richard had described during our long talks
came back to me-the cemetery ripping itself apart, vomiting out its
dead. Richard's vision was our truth, I saw, and then thought: of
course, that's how the Dragon works.

"Graham?" Richard said. "The door?"

He was thinking that maybe we still had a second or two to reach the
stairs, if we ran like hell-and thinking that, then he would be the only
one to make it. I couldn't move that fast, and Patsy looked ready to
keel over.

I backed toward him, and he put an arm around Patsy's waist and got her
moving. I checked on them over my shoul-

FLOATING DRAGON

541

der, and saw Patsy recover herself and almost visibly accept the idea of
using that door, even if it did look like it could lead only to another
torture chamber.

Richard pulled the door open and we hurried through. I had to bend my
neck to avoid clubbing my forehead on the lintel.

You see why I wanted to describe this series of events in the first
person: why the pose of an objective narrator would be no good, a lie to
you and me both. That heavy crossbraced door wasn't there. I went
through it, and if I hadn't ducked I would have banged my head on it,
but even then I knew that no such door had ever stood in Krell's
basement. And Richard Allbee and Patsy McCloud knew that as well as I
did. The door was the dream of a door; our dream; but also the Dragon's
way of taking us where he wanted us to go.

The other thing we all knew was that there was no less danger on the
other side of the door than in Bates Krell's funhouse. Our door was not
an escape-but we could not go back, once we had chosen it.

We found ourselves in a foul-smelling tunnel so narrow that we had to go
in single file. Richard first, then Patsy, then me. I brushed my hand
against the curving wall of the tunnel and then quickly jerked it
back-damp, spongy, resilient as rubber, it had felt like living tissue.
Far ahead of Richard dim hazy light came leaking around a bend in the
tunnel, seeming to promise that we would come out aboveground somewhere
on Poor Fox Road or the marshy land just beside it. As we moved toward
the light the walls gradually widened out, and eventually we could
almost walk three abreast.

"I hope we're going to get out of here soon," Patsy said. "Are we going
to wind up outside?"

I shrugged.

"It stinks in here," Patsy said. "Like a sewer."

"As long as we get away from that house, I don't care what it smells
like," Richard said. "You saw the women, didn't you? Krell didn't drop
them all overboard. And he killed a lot more people than anyone suspected."

That had occurred to me too. By the time we had fled through the door,
at least thirteen or fourteen boys and

542

Peter Straub

women had broken out of their shallow graves. Krell's basement had
earned its powerful echoes and resonances.

We came to the bend in the tunnel and were suddenly \\ walking into a
light so strong that it obliterated detail. For a \i second I was
blinded, and my eyes stung, and I covered them f} with a hand. We had
stopped moving. When I put down my V hand I squinted into the dazzling
light and saw that a person V was standing against the tunnel wall up
ahead. It was just a | black shape, unsexed. "Okay?" Patsy asked, and I
nodded. * We started to go forward again.

"Who are you?" Richard called out. He raised the gun at his waist.

Just then I had an idea about where we were-about what this tunnel was
supposed to be.

We came forward far enough to see that the person up ahead was a woman;
and even before we were able to see anything of her face and clothing it
was clear that she was crying.

"Patsy?" the woman said.

Patsy did not say anything. She took my arm with her left hand and
Richard's with her right.

Her plain, dogmatic face swam out of the light. Severe black glasses,
limp hair. The woman wore a rusty tweed suit that turned her body into a
fuzzy tube. She did not look like someone who cried much.

"Oh, my God," Patsy said. "Marilyn Foreman."

"Get out of here. Get out of here. You're dead already, just like the
boy. The farther it goes, the worse it gets."

Patsy moaned, and lowered her head and practically pulled Richard and me
after her. "Leave me alone."

We were going past the woman now, and she curled her hands into her
waist and hissed against the tunnel walls to let us by. I brushed my arm
against her clenched hands and felt their pure and burning cold.

But we were already past her, and Patsy McCloud was still hauling at us
like a mother marching two boys toward the woodshed. Her face was
entirely grim. The woman behind us hissed again.

Patsy paused, and her grip on my arm relaxed.

I looked around. Richard Allbee did the same. The tunnel was empty.

"Did we just see a homely little woman who looked like a

FLOATING DRAGON

543

grade-school teacher?" Patsy asked. "Did she tell us to go back?"

"We saw a homely little woman and she told us to go back," Richard said.

We began to move forward again.

"Thank God," Patsy said. "If we're going crazy, at least we're doing it
together."

We took another step, and the light intensified with brutal suddenness.
Patsy twisted away. My eyes painfully curdled, as if they had been
poached. I stumbled forward, suddenly alone, and when I could open my
stinging eyes again I too was grateful to have company in my delusions.

We seemed to have left the tunnel and come into a long book-lined room;
yet the room had the same stink of sewer gas as the tunnel. Patsy and
Richard, some yards away from me, moved closer. I think they must have
recognized the room before I did. I looked sideways at a brown row of
unjacketed books and saw that it was familiar stuff. Like Krell's
basement, this place echoed with unheard miseries, with a sordid
emotional life. It too was one of the Bad Places. A wad of tarry goop
dripped down the spines of a couple of adjoining books. More of the goop
oozed down over other shelves and onto the floor.

The room was very hot: everything in it exuded a faint burning smell, as
if it were smoldering somewhere deep within. Where are we, I wondered,
what is this terrible place?

Then I saw a familiar typing table down at the far end of the room, set
before a familiar window. They seemed an acre away. The window was
black. I jerked my head sideways toward Richard, almost expecting him to
deny what I already knew, and behind his worried face I saw the Glenda
poster leaning against the bookshelves. We were in my living room. It
had been stretched out about three times its length, but the Bad Place
was my living room.

"Hey, Graham," Richard said, "don't-"

"Don't whatV another voice screeched from far down at the other end of
the room. Oh, I thought I knew that voice too. i turned to see that a
squat man in a double-breasted suit, his meaty face bristling with
five-o'clock shadow so dark it was like a tattoo of a beard, was
standing up behind my desk. Him. "Don't you want your pinko friend to
understand

544

Peter Straub

what's happening to him? Williams!" The Senator poked a thick forefinger
at me. "You're a lousy Commie, do your friends know that?"

"I was never even a halfway decent Communist, much less a lousy one," I
said.

"You were weak!" he bellowed at me. "You're a drunk! A lousy alkie!
Lush! Boozehound! You abandoned two wives- are your friends aware of
your despicable record, of your cheating and lying, are they aware of
how you weaseled yourself into marriage twice and then betrayed your
wives? I have here, Mr. Williams, I have a list in my hand which
contains not only all of your extensive Communist affiliations from

1938 to 1952, but also your sex partners during that period." He was
brandishing something that looked like a grocery receipt. "This is a
disgusting record, Williams, this is evidence of moral degradation.
You're disgusting because you're weak. Weak! You're a weak, treacherous
Commie drunk."

"A drunk I was," I said. "I cheated on my wives too, just about as much
as they cheated on me. But I never abandoned anyone." I was starting to
get the shakes.

That shifty tattooed-looking face suddenly was only a foot or two from
my own. "Weak and treacherous." I could smell the booze on his breath,
also onions. "Tell me this, Williams. Don't you know that Tabby
Smithfield would still be alive if you hadn't infected him with your
sick fantasies?"

I started to throw a punch at his gloating face, but the face had
changed before my fist had even picked up any momenturn. He had turned
into a capering red devil. Now he was at least two feet taller than I
and he bent over me, grinning, and a forked tongue slid out of his
mouth. Searing heat came off him. I felt Richard pulling me backward,
and I forgot about hitting anybody and concentrated on backpedaling. If
I hadn't started moving my feet, Richard would have yanked me right back
on my keester.

That burning devil reached out for me: his hand came so close to my face
that I saw how it was composed of a million interlacing flames, little
jets of fire so tightly bound together that they formed a solid body,
solid flesh. He would have taken off my face if he had closed that hand
on me. Richard was moving me backward with the reckless power of a flood
or a tornado, and I stayed on my feet, and the red hand just flicked
past me.

Past most of me, anyhow. His hand grazed mine-the one

FLOATING DRAGON

545

with which I had intended to hit him. A hundred daggers pierced my skin,
acid splashed over the wounds, I yelled incoherently; and everything
went absolutely biack, but not before I had heard a deep chuckle.

We were back in the tunnel and the smell was worse. Another dim light
lay far ahead of us, sending feejle illumination through the fleshy tube
of the tunnel. "You okay, Graham?" Richard asked.

I couldn't meet his eyes; that would have told him the truth. "Yeah,
sure," I said. I was shaken up, as much by what that imitation polecat
had said as by what had happened right after. Well, that's almost true;
it's what should be true. Yet I knew I had just come much closer to
death than I had on Kendall Point. I could still see that huge grinning
red face floating up above mine, and I knew how scared I'd been-too
scared to move, if Richard had not intervened. The hand that creature
had lightly touched still felt as though a tank had run over it.

"Are you?" Patsy asked.

"I never abandoned anyone," I said. "Jesus, I never did that. Someday
I'll tell you the story of my marriages." But even as I said this I was
seeing the grotesque red face hovering so close to mine, and feeling
again that primitive terror. A devil! Devils did not exist, except as
metaphors.

Then I remembered things I had said in London. That devil is
contaminating wells all over America.

Oh, yes: I saw. I felt as though I could almost sort of move again.

"What the hell do you suppose is up ahead there?" I asked them.

"I wish I didn't have to find out," Richard said. We started forward
again. I painfully revolved my right hand in the murk of the tunnel, and
saw that it was completely unmarked.

This time we did not come around a loop in the tunnel to be blinded by a
sudden barrage of light; that was what we exPected. Instead the tunnel
gradually became wider still and the light more pervasive. We seemed to
be going down a s"ght incline. This too gradually became more
pronounced, and as the light ahead grew brighter by degrees, the floor
of the tunnel began to dip so markedly that the three of us had to

546

Peter Straub

move more slowly, using our knees to check the pull of gravity. When the
tunnel began to level off again the walls and ceiling pulled away. Just
when I was thinking that our tunnel was getting to look like a vaulted
chamber we saw the first dead people.

They were fat and naked, standing at the side of the by now enormous
tunnel; an old man and an old woman, motionless as department-store
mannequins. Their eyes were closed, their skin chalk-white. They were
just bulky old bags of flesh. Then I saw that they were my old friends
from the beach, Harry and Babe Zimmer. I looked down in a hurry. As we
went past, I felt as much as saw them turning toward us with an awful
slowness.

"Oh, no," I said, seeing what was ahead. The tunnel walls swung out
another step, creating a huge space that seemed hundreds of feet wide
and as high as a cathedral. Dr. Norm Hughardt, as white and dead as the
Zimmers, was turning to face us at the entrance to this enormous
chamber. His little Lenin beard had overgrown its boundaries and now
looked woolly and derelict. Like the Zimmers, he moved as if through a
vat of glue. A thick white worm was working its way across Norm's
substantial potbelly. Norm raised one of his hands in a gesture of
almost witless entreaty.

Behind him hundreds of others trudged with that painful slowness through
the vast chamber.

We walked past Norm Hughardt into this hopeless way station for the
dead. My nerves were shot-I didn't want to see anybody, I didn't want to
look at their faces, I just wanted to get through this horrible place. I
felt pushing toward us the numb misery of all those dead, that stricken
imploring wretchedness they could not help sending out.

At least we did not seem to be in any real danger-the dead moved so
slowly and questioningly that even I could outmaneuver them. I thought
this was an exercise in disheartening us, in softening us up. The
hundreds of dead were beseeching us to rescue them: to bring them back
with us to the surface of the earth: and we could not help but feel the
drag and pull of that plea. Gideon Winter would weaken us with
pity-weaken Patsy and Richard with it, anyhow, for already he had pretty
well cut my strings-and then come in for the kill. Certainly we had to
pity these poor creatures. I saw the people reaching out in such numbers
that their arms interlaced.

FLOATING DRAGON

547

And then I thought I saw the proof of this theory. In the center of the
vast chamber lay a bubbling pool of gray lathery liquid; it belched out
acrid fumes. Richard began to lead us around the edges of this sulfurous
pond, at the same time trying to make sure that none of those reaching
out toward us could actually get near enough to touch us. I was just
trying to keep my feet moving. Part of me was tired enough to lie down
and give up. Then Patsy went electrically taut at my side; and a few
feet ahead, Richard Allbee stopped walking.

"No, no, no," Richard said. "That's not true": as if he were rebutting
an argument.

I looked reluctantly toward the bubbling pool. A body labored at its far
edge, struggling with that slow patient hopelessness to get itself out
onto the floor. The body was slight, young, boyish. Beneath the streaks
of gray scum from the pool, it was chalky white, like the others. After
the boy's body had managed to get itself out of the pool, another head
broke the surface. A man's corpse began trying to lift itself onto the
ground, and as soon as it was halfway out of the pool I recognized it. I
had just seen Les McCloud in the doorway of Bates Krell's kitchen, so
the identification of his body was an easy task. Then I had to look back
at the body of the boy and face what I had seen in the first
microseconds of its appearance-seen with my heart as well as my eyes.
The dead boy was Tabby Smithfield. The big worms had found him already
and were sliding across his legs.

He could take us one by one, I couldn't see how we would have the heart
to fight him, we might as well lie down in the chamber of the dead and
get used to being there.

A little knot of flies had fastened on Tabby's neck.

At last I accepted the possibility-no, the likelihood-that Tabby was
dead. That pitiful slight body on the far side of the pool rolled on its
side with a horrible slowness.

I groaned, and the dim light filling the enormous chamber shifted to
red. On the bodies still painfully limping toward us the white worms
began to swell and bloat, now as red as the light. All around us the
dead began to wail.

Two of them thrust their way through to the front of the pleading mob
before us. I saw stringy red hair, and then recognized the face of the
woman reporter who had stood over Johnny Sayre's body with me. Sarah
Spry. She had managed to force one of her eyes open, giving her face a
squinting and Piratical appearance. "Go, give up," she said. Her voice was

548

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

549

a rusty whisper. "You're gone now, you have to give up. Graham, you're
dead."

The man woozily standing beside Sarah Spry popped open both of his eyes
and screeched, ''Dead! Dead!"

Something fat and white fell on Patsy from above, knocking her down flat
to the floor. Richard and I were so startled by this sudden assault that
we were frozen in our postures for what seemed like whole minutes.

I was just working out that what had fallen on Patsy was the body of a
man, not one of the bloated worms, when she started to scream. Patsy was
trying to get to her feet, and the dead man lying over her raised his
fists and clubbed her back down. His body had been gnawed and chewed
about the middle, and his buttocks were only shreds of white tissue.
Patsy screamed again. I tried to pull him off by yanking back on his
shoulders, but it was like trying to move a concrete statue. He turned
his head and grinned, and I recognized him as Archie Monaghan, a lawyer
who had been hot stuff on the golf course. He was trying to kill Patsy,
and I could not stop him. I grabbed his ears and tried again to force
him off. I started to hit him in the side of the head. Patsy bucked
frantically on the floor.

"Move it, Graham," Richard shouted. "How many times do I have to tell you?"

"Huh?" I finally saw that Richard was pointing the shotgun at the same
point on Archie Monaghan's head that I had been trying to turn into pulp.

"Get awayV he screamed, and I threw myself backward.

Richard put the Purdy right up to Archie's temple and pulled both triggers.

Archie's head blew apart. Gray tissues and flecks of white bone sprayed
out over the bubbling surface of the pool. The rest of Archie Monaghan
remained upright for less time than it took for the echoing blast to die
away. Then it dropped sideways off Patsy like a dead crab. The shotgun
in Richard's hand flickered feebly.

Both of us reached forward to help Patsy and she took our two
outstretched hands. Around us the light was dimming, becoming only a red
darkness.

Patsy came up on her feet and put her arms around both of us for a second.

"We have to run," Richard said.

In minutes we were back in a narrower space, then the

walls closed in even closer about us, and Patsy and Richard walked on
ahead of me. Patsy's step was quick and firm, but I could see her hands
trembling. The smells of the tunnel were even worse now, and here and
there a small fire flared out, feeding on the gases. This was the
world's bowel we had entered from the door in Krell's basement-the
mirror's bowel, too. I knew it would bring us to Gideon Winter
eventually; and all three of us must have known that Richard's turn was
next.

551 Kendall Point

i

Richard Allbee's sense of direction, always dependable, had surprised
its owner by functioning underground. When they had left Bates Krell's
basement they had gone through the north wall and started angling east,
and northeast was still the direction in which they were going. They
were being led, he thought, to Kendall Point: Gideon Winter's burial
ground seemed the inevitable place for their final confrontation.
Richard did not want to show it in any way, but ht vvas worried about
his friends' readiness for this encounter.

Both Graham Willum; and Patsy McCloud seemed halfstunned by what had
happcne i to them-a large part of their stupor would have beer caused by
the sight of Tabby, so obviously dead, emerg ng /rom that stinking pool.
Neither Graham nor Patsy would have survived the tunnel without action
Richard had taken: after that pallid corpse had fallen on Patsy, Graham
had seemed too stunned to do anything but strike it on the head.
Obviously Winter was reserving some special torture for him, Richard
thought, some sideshow worse than the Grand Central of the Dead they had
just escaped; and he wondered if Patsy in particular were capable of
acting quickly and rationally. Walking along beside him, keeping pace,
she looked to Richard as if she needed most of her energy just to keep
herself from fainting.

Whatever was going to happen, Richard thought, he would have to save
himself. At the same time, he'd have to protect Patsy and Graham, to see
that they also were not caught.

Ahead of them a dim light had appeared, and Richard felt all his muscles
involuntarily tense themselves. His test, whatever it would be, was up
there, and Richard was torn between bolting back the way they had come
and breaking into a

550

FLOATING DRAGON

551

run-just to get it over with as quickly as he could. He kept walking,
and the light playfully receded.

His testicles seemed to have frozen down to the size of a baby's. Patsy
slipped her hand over his arm.

With every step he took, the light backed away, never altering its
intensity, which was no stronger than that of a child's night-light.
Richard gripped Patsy's arm close to his body with his own; his heart
felt as though it were tripping on itself.

He took another step, and the dim light backed away from him again. He
wondered what would happen if he shot at it. He and Patsy took another
step together, and the fuzzy light once again retreated.

Then all at once the light was no closer, but it was familiar. He knew
it. He had seen it somewhere, but without taking any notice of it: it
was just a domestic workhorse, a bit of stage-setting. Exactly.

He knew what it was, and as he and Patsy moved forward again the light
did not retreat. They took another step forward, and Graham followed
them into the unobtrusively altered space. Stage-setting, Richard
thought. What else? The walls of the tunnel had widened, become more
detailed. Shadowy objects loomed all about them. A few feet from the dim
light, which in fact was a child's night-light, a triangular pennant
cheered arhoolie.

He saw his tall skis propped against the wall next to the closet.

Light came seeping into the bedroom, bringing its boyish clutter up into
unchallengeable reality. If he kicked that chair, he would bruise his
foot. If he threw the skis at the window, they would clatter down onto
an actual front lawn. Richard heard noises from downstairs, the propmen
and stagehands and cameramen moving about, all those who had been his
true family during those years. From somewhere closer came the idle
summery buzzing of a couple of flies.

A moment or two before the others, Richard saw the bodies °n Spunky
Jameson's bed. The flies he had heard were wandering up and down on
them, lifting off and landing again. Tabby and Laura were only just
recognizable. Naked, sprawled on their sides like lovers turned to each
other, his wife and the boy were crosshatched with cuts and wounds,

552

Peter Straub

strip-mined, trampled, pulped. Could Graham and Patsy take it, seeing
Tabby this bad? Richard turned from the bed, thinking almost that he
should put a hand over each of their pairs of eyes-but they had seen it,
and were wondering the same about him.

"Oh, Richard," Patsy said: he saw that she was more concerned for him
than for herself.

Then a gray cat came padding toward them across the carpet, and Richard
felt all his muscles tense themselves again. The cat came to within two
or three feet of Richard and Patsy and sat on its haunches, looking at
them with wide unblinking eyes. A second later Billy Bentley strolled in
from the same nowhere. ;

Richard stepped away from Patsy and challenged Billy's pitted, mocking
face. "You're Gideon Winter," he said.

Billy's shadowy face admitted another sharp slice of amusement. "Not yet
I'm not. You'll see, bro."

"We want Tabby Smithfield," Richard said. "I don't care who or what you
are, but I do want you to get Tabby out of whatever foul hole he's in
and bring him to us."

Billy lifted his eyebrows.

"Alive or dead," Richard said. "Just give him back to us."

"The way I gave your sexy wife back to you?" Billy asked. "I guess you
liked that." His cat opened its mouth and laughed with a woman's voice.

Something struck the floor in front of Billy, the cat bunched itself up
and shot away, and a model airplane rolled over once more before coming
to rest. Graham thrust himself up beside Richard, his eyes snapping. In
Richard's hand, the old Purdy shotgun flickered once.

Billy Bentley threw up his hands in comic horror. "Mercy! Violence!"

"We want Tabby's body," Richard said.

"Well, take it. You get two for the price of one, Spunks, best deal all
day." He cocked his head and waved generously at the corpses on the bed.
"Before you go, though, there's someone we want you to meet. Someone you
want to meet, Spunks-no lie, man. Really."

FLOATING DRAGON

553

"I don't-" Richard began, but the space around him was changing in a
manner by now familiar, opening up and elongating, and he understood
that what he did or did not want was an irrelevance.

Far off to his side in a theatrical pool of light a man and a woman were
seated at the Jameson dinner table. Both were looking at him warmly: and
though he resisted it, Richard felt the honesty of that warmth touch
him. The emotion was real, although nothing else may have been. Ruth
Branden, the woman at the table, had genuinely loved him. For a time
Richard let himself take her in-this was the first time he had seen a
living Ruth Branden since he'd been fourteen or fifteen. Her early death
had deprived him of knowing his "mother" as an adult. At fourteen
Richard had been infatuated with Ruth Branden, and now he fully saw why;
she was a beautiful woman, and half of her beauty was the intelligence
and generosity that shone in her face. It was a beauty of soul,
incapable of being cheapened. The Dragon had done his homework.

The man across from Ruth Branden was a stranger to Richard, but he
proved the same point: proved it more conclusively, for this stocky
short man with thick gray hair was a stranger only in the most technical
sense. Richard knew instinctively-in his spine, in the pit of his
stomach, in his cells-that this was Michael Allbee, who had fathered
him. Michael Allbee had kindly though rather blurry features, and looked
like a merchant seaman or a bohemian poet with a lot of bottles behind him.

His father was looking at him with precisely the right mixture of
curiosity, sympathy, amusement, and wariness. Oh yes, the Dragon had
done his homework perfectly: so perfectly that this twinkling figure
before Richard had an immediate and unreasonable power over his
emotions. Richard fought it, he understood exactly what was happening to
him, but the sight of that raffish gray-haired man across from Ruth
Branden hit him like a blow.

He even understood what the man's first words would be- these were
preordained-but they too rocked him.

His father stood up and moved around the table. Richard saw that the man
was precisely his own height. "Daddy's here, Richard," he said. "Daddy's
here now and everything's all right. I'd like you to put down that silly
gun. Empty anyhow, isn't it?"

554

Peter Straub

Feeling boiled through Richard, with such immediate force that until he
heard himself shouting he had not realized that he was angry or that he
was going to say anything. "You left me!" he shouted. "You walked out!
Damn you!" And once the words were out, he could not regret them-that
rage was still pounding through his system.

His father smiled and said, "You have my genes, kid, you're carrying
most of me around inside you. That's what counts." His eyes sparkled.
"And anyhow, we're together again now."

Richard looked away from the twinkling wary face and saw that Ruth
Branden was still sitting up and smiling at him in her chair; that she
was only a skeleton in a frilly apron and housedress. Her lustrous dark
hair had spilled down onto her shoulders and into her lap. Clumps of it
lay like punctuation on the floor-commas and apostrophes of dark brown hair.

Both his father and Billy Bentley were coming slowly toward him. He was
only ten years old, Richard realized. His arms and legs were stick-thin
and he had to look up to see his father's face.

"Put that heavy thing down, Spunks," Billy was saying. "Hey, kid, don't
you get it? We're back now-Jesus, we're back. We can go on forever now."

Richard could feel Patsy and Graham plucking at him, trying to pull him
away ... to get him to wake up. "I want Tabby," he said, but the
sentence came out in his highpitched ten-year-old's voice and was
weightless.

He tried to raise and aim the gun, but it was too heavy for him-the
barrels wavered and dipped. Was it really empty? He looked up and saw
his father advancing toward him, beaming as if he were suddenly proud of
his little boy.

"Oh hell, Spunks," Billy was whispering, "you know what happened to that
kid, you saw him on the bed."

Tabby really was gone, Richard knew; Tabby was gone and everything was
lost. His arms were too short to hold the shotgun the right way, and the
recoil would break his shoulder.

"And you know something else, oF Spunks?" Billy was saying to him. "Just
what you saw there-that's what should have happened to you, up in
Providence. But you got away, and I had to work on your wife instead.
Damn old shame, Spunks."

The room lurched and spun, and the small boy who was Richard Allbee
tottered with the shift in balance: the weight

FLOATING DRAGON

555

in his arms had doubled. The axis it made with his body, the resistance
it gave his muscles, its density, all these had swum imperceptibly into
a new dimension, and as the room swung upward and around him he nearly
fell over.

"Didn't you think?" Billy Bentley whispered, leaning close over Richard
with his wised-up face.

Richard tried to push his sword right through Billy's pitted cheek, but
Billy ducked back.

It was a sword: he was holding a gleaming double-edged sword twice the
weight of the Purdy, and he had somehow understood that before he had
known it.

"Oh, you don't need that," his father said in a level kindly voice, "not
that heavy old thing," bending over him. Michael Allbee's face seemed to
be lengthening, and his chest too grew longer and thinner. "Too heavy
for a boy, I'm thinking, that old thing."

The heavy metal was like ice in Richard's hand, so cold that it burned
into his fingers, seared the skin that touched it. Richard groaned as
the sword fell from his hands and thunked onto the floor. Michael
Allbee, in the midst of a joyful transformation, reached toward him.

Richard cried out inarticulately, and Patsy McCloud's little .22 pistol,
in Patsy McCloud's hand, appeared next to his head. Richard took in, as
though he were seeing it in slow motion, that Patsy was going to shoot
at his father. Could that really work? He saw Patsy's index finger
slowly depress the trigger.

The explosion felt as though it took place inside his head.

A sudden hole had opened out in the middle of Michael Allbee's chest.
Richard knew that Patsy had saved him, and as he saw a curl of smoke and
a lick of flame push out of the hole he knew also that he had become an
adult again. He was his proper size. A knot of angry flies belched from
his father's chest. Another black curl of smoke pursued them.

His father screeched in pain and fury. Richard bent down to pick up the
sword. As he got his hand around the grip he saw that Michael Allbee had
become a towering column of blood, for a moment intact in the air above
them. Then the tower of blood shattered down over them, instantly
plastering their clothes to their skin, sliding down their necks,
burning sourly in their eyes and mouths . . .

556

Peter Straub

3

. . . sensations which ceased almost as soon as they began. When Richard
opened his eyes he saw Patsy McCloud staring wildly back at him, just
lowering her hand from her eyes. Behind Patsy a dozen white spruces
dipped long feathery branches down through gray air. The sea hissed
against a stony beach almost visible behind the trees; an incoming tide.
Richard stood half on an immense gray rock, half on a scurf of yellow
weeds. He stepped down off the rock. Patsy now was numbly staring at the
pistol in her hand; then she flipped it onto a stony bulge of land, and
the little .22 bounced under a thick gathering of nettles and burdock.
Richard turned around- against his skin the fresh air was blessedly
alive, in motion, perfumed with salt water and green growing things.
Burs and damp weeds adhered to his trousers; headless stems drooped from
his shoelaces.

As he turned he saw that behind him lay a deep cut in the earth, too
deep for him to see what lay at the bottom of the overgrown slopes. So
far back it must have been on the land that led to this promontory, a
long white building with an oversize bar window blankly faced them. A
beer sign twinkled in an upstairs window.

Graham Williams was sitting down with his back against a taxicab-sized
root which had rucked its way up out of the ground and then dived back
under again. Graham's gaudy clothes had been smeared with dirt, and
water had darkened the cuffs of his trousers.

Richard looked back past Patsy at the white spruces letting their arms
gently fall as if in defeat toward the earth. Through them the Sound
glinted as it beat toward the stony beach.

"We're on Kendall Point," he said.

"A plus," Graham said, wheezing. "Right on the money. And he's here.
Can't you feel that? Gideon Winter has Tabby, and he's here. Waiting for
us."

Patsy tonelessly said, "Tabby's dead."

"I can't believe that," Graham said. "Winter wants all four of us to die
together-I think he'd really have everything if he did that. That's why
we're here, right?"

"Yes," Richard said. "I suppose."

Graham settled his shoulders against the monstrous root behind him.
"Well, I wish he'd come out and do his stuff." He

FLOATING DRAGON

557

looked from side to side as if he expected Gideon Winter to come walking
toward him out of the Sound. "I have a little less respect for him than
I did once. He only uses what we give him, have you noticed that? He
doesn't know anything except what we tell him. HUAC. Patsy sees dead
people, so he shows her a sort of Waldorf-Astoria of dead people. You
and Daddy's Here. For all his power, he still seems limited, doesn't he?"

"Limited? Is that what you think?" The voice came from behind Patsy,
from under the tall spruces. It was not a human voice, Richard thought,
not at all. Too thick, too oily; and so resonant it might have been fed
by a microphone to a loudspeaker. "My dear children."

Graham had struggled to his feet as soon as he heard the first words,
and he and Patsy and Richard were all looking now at a big dark form
lazing quietly in the shade of the tallest spruce. Then the form shifted
itself, and they saw what sort of being had spoken to them.

Did this happen? Could this have happened? It was as impossible as
everything else that had happened to them: but the three of them were
now in a real landscape, in the middle of a real day. First they saw its
face, at least twice the size of a human face and grotesquely
exaggerated in its features-on the human scale, the features would
almost have suggested handsomeness. So large, they looked like a roadmap
to vice. The ears were long and drooping, the eyes brilliantly black;
the creature's nose was strong and hooked, its chin thick and pointed. A
long meaty tongue licked out of the curling lips.

The creature shifted itself forward, and an odor of shit and sweat and
filthy skin drifted off it. At its waist began muscular goat legs and
hindquarters. Tabby Smithfield was slung over this monster's shoulder.
It laughed at the expressions on their faces, stood up, and cocked one
of its legs. A ropy jet of steaming liquid shot onto the ground, where
it began running in rivulets down the dry grass. A lot of little active
things were swimming in the creature's urine, but Richard did not want
to look at them-he could not take his eyes off Tabby's body, in any case.

At Richard's side Patsy McCloud despairingly sent out (Tabby? Tabby?)
and met only the dead cold emptiness she had both expected and feared.

"Give him to us!" Graham suddenly roared out.

The devil-creature leered at Graham, hitched Tabby's body

558

Peter Straub

off his shoulder, and needed only one hand to toss the limp boy onto a
brown little hill at their side. "Whatever you say." The devil smirked,
and started to walk toward them.

Instantly it was dark again, just as when they had set their feet on
Poor Fox Road. The creature moving toward them chuckled, and Graham and
Patsy and Richard scrambled away toward inert Tabby. Off to their side,
the water rose up in tall waves and breakers and hurled itself at
Kendall Point's rocky beach. The devil's huge misshapen form slouched
past them, outlined in the moonlight descending everywhere. Richard
checked in his jacket pockets for shotgun shells, but found he had none
left: the shells must have fallen out somewhere in the tunnel. Hoping
for magic, for whatever had happened to him in front of Billy Bentley,
he held up the Purdy. The Purdy stubbornly refused to turn into a Boy
Scout knife, much less a sword.

Patsy and Graham knelt on either side of Tabby. Delicately Graham rolled
the boy onto his back.

When Patsy probed again she met a faint

( )

"Oh my God, he's alive," Patsy uttered so rapidly it sounded like one
long word, and then sobbed wetly, gracelessly-a sound made up wholly of
emotion.

"'Course he is," Graham said, but his eyes looked wet too.

"Look," Richard said urgently. "Look at what's happening."

The clumsy silhouette of the creature was changing in the moonlight. The
goatish body was growing, stretching out; the suggestion of a massive
tail lashed through the dark weeds. Even Patsy looked up, having had
another small flare of life from Tabby, and momentarily saw the creature
in clear moonlight as it began to descend into the deep slash in the
land at the inland edge of the Point. A head with a long lethal jaw,
pointed spikes down the length of the reptilian snout, malevolent eyes
encased in bone ... she had seen that head lift up out of Dorothy Bach's
History of Patchin in Graham's living room.

dragon? what . . . dragon? Patsy?

Tabby's chest expanded as the boy took in air, and his eyes opened a
crack so tiny that only Patsy noticed.

whatwhat?

FLOATING DRAGON

559

"A dragon," Richard said, as if he had heard the messages flying toward
Patsy McCloud. "What the hell ..."

One of the great spruces behind them fell over-the trunk splintered as
if the hand of an invisible giant had broken it. When the tree struck
the ground, the earth seemed to bounce.

"Let's move," Richard said. The earth trembled as another of the spruces
crashed down. He knelt and got his arms beneath Tabby; braced himself;
picked the boy up.

Tabby said, "Uh."

A wide slash came ripping through the land, announcing itself first in
the whispery sound of loose earth falling into its crevice, then in the
bone-snapping roots. Richard Allbee saw a big round-headed wild
rhododendron bush fifteen feet from him heel over sideways and go
rattling down a precipitous slope . . . "Jump!" Graham bellowed at him,
and he finally understood what was happening just before the ground
opened up beneath him. Holding Tabby in his arms, Richard crouched down
and took the longest standing broad jump of his life.

His feet connected with solid ground, but his balance was still back
where he had taken off. Richard staggered, then sprawled forward,
dumping both himself and Tabby onto a rocky tuft of land. He turned his
head and saw the jagged scar in the earth take both of the fallen
spruces. A huge root-ball thumped down after the severed trunks.

Tabby whispered, "You trying to kill me, Richard?"

Richard hugged him close.

From the deep slash in the earth ahead of them a long arrow of flame
ripped through the tall grasses, incinerating whatever it touched.
Tabby's eyes were closed again, but he drew up his body like a child in
a crib, resting his head on Richard's chest.

He heard noises rustling toward him, then saw Patsy and Graham slipping
through the dark, skirting the multiple little fires which had sprung up
after the withdrawal of the dragon's breath. Graham sat down next to
him, and Patsy eased Tabby out of his arms and into her own. Something
cold and hard fitted into the palm of Richard's hand, and he took his
eyes off Tabby's slack face and saw that Graham had given him the Purdy
shotgun again.

"I don't know what to tell you," the old man said. "But you know what we
have to do if we ever want to get out of here."

560

Peter Straub

"Yeah, I know," Richard said, feeling not at all adequate. "We have to
kill that thing. We have to go down into that valley and destroy it. But
how the hell do we do that?"

"I thought I asked you for an easy one," Graham said.

Richard thought of standing up and walking toward the dragon's little
valley; of brandishing the shotgun. He would not live more than five
seconds. The dragon would breathe on him, and first his skin would turn
red and then it would turn black and all his hair would be gone and his
eyes would burst. And then the dragon would emerge and do the same thing
to Patsy and Graham and Tabby. It would provide interesting obituaries
in the New York Times, Richard thought, except that if we're killed
nobody on the Times will ever know it.

"I don't mind doing it, I just want to know how," Richard said.

Graham nodded.

"Damn," Richard said. At last he said, "How is Tabby?"

Patsy had been rocking him back and forth against her. "He's getting
better." Richard saw a smile illuminate her face, and for a second was
jealous of Tabby Smithfield-he would not have minded being in those arms
himself, nor having caused that smile. Patsy's eyes flicked at him, and
he sensed a complicated mixture of amusement and annoyance and pleasure
and wondered if she had heard his thoughts in the way she could hear the
boy's. Patsy had returned her glance back to Tabby with an almost
deliberate lack of haste.

"Well, what do we do?" Richard asked.

The fire-bat sailed overhead again, igniting another of the spruces.

"I think it's no good if Tabby is asleep," Richard said.

"I'm going to try something," Patsy said. "I think I'll ask him to sing."

"Sing? Sing what?" Graham asked.

"Anything he thinks of."

The burning spruce popped and sizzled behind them. Richard could almost
catch an unheard familiar song.

"Why not?" he said: and for a moment inexplicably felt the heaviness of
that double-edged sword pulling against his muscles. "Yes, try it," he
said. "Try it, Patsy."

Patsy bent her mouth to Tabby's ear and whispered, "Sing to us, Tabby.
Sing us the first song you think of-and we'll help you sing it."

FLOATING DRAGON

561

"God help us if it's some rock-'n'-roll thing," Graham said.

"Won't matter," Richard said. The image of Tabby Smithfield singing, and
then of the rest of them joining his song, was still echoing in his mind
with the mysterious rightness he had felt a moment before. Graham looked
at him oddly, but said nothing more.

"Sing us a song, Tabby," Patsy whispered again.

Then, as Tabby told them later, the boy reached back into his memory and
found something-an old childish song from the house on Mount Avenue. It
was a song his mother had used to sing to him, back before anything bad
happened and Tabby Smithfield was a small boy with a pretty mommy and a
daddy who played tennis and a grandfather who loved him. That the song
would have its own associations for Richard Allbee never occurred to
him. He was back in his grandfather's house.

Weakly at first, and then with a little more strength, Tabby sang: "When
the red, red robin goes bob, bob, bobbin' along, along. . ."

Richard gaped at the boy; this was the unheard song.

"There'll be no more sobbin' when he starts throbbin' his old sweet
song," Graham Williams surprisingly bawled out in an off-key bass.

The shotgun resting in Richard's arms suddenly trembled with the urgency
of a pheasant taking off out of a cover, and he closed his fingers
around it to keep it still. Patsy sang out, joining the other two, "Wake
up, wake up, you sleepyhead."

Richard had never heard the lyrics of the song during all his years in
Daddy's Here. So when he chimed in, it was with "Cheer up, cheer up,
cheer up, the sun is red," making an unconscious allusion to Poor Fox Road.

The shotgun suddenly flared with white light.

"You're a genius," Richard said to Patsy. "What made you think-"

"It could have been anything, anything," Graham said. "It's that we're
doing it together, all four of us."

"Well, don't stop now," Patsy said. "Tabby! Louder this time."

And the four of them huddling together sang that verse all over again,
this time remembering to add the forgotten line:

When the red, red robin goes bob, bob,

562

Peter Straub

bobbin' along, along; There'll be no more sobbin' when he starts

throbbin' his old, sweet song. Wake up, wake up, you sleepyhead Get up,
get up, get out of bed Cheer up, cheer up, cheer up, the sun is

red . . .

Richard stood up, still hearing the words sing in his mind. He was
holding a long double-edged sword, though he had not been conscious of
any transformation, nor of any specific moment when the object in his
hands had ceased to be a shotgun. His mouth was very dry. "Sleepyhead,"
he said aloud but to himself, not knowing why. The voices of the others
stuttered into the song again, then failed. An immense heavy body pushed
itself back and forth down there, restlessly pacing like the giant black
dog in Graham's backyard . . . Richard stepped toward it, imitating a
much braver man.

Behind him Patsy alone sang: "Dum da dum de dum, Now I'm walking
through, Field of flowers: Rain may glisten, But still I listen, For
hours and hours ..."

The little valley itself had altered, and where the dragon was so deeply
hidden now resembled an arch into the earth, a leafy cave. Some of them,
Richard hoped, would get off Kendall Point alive.

"I'm just a kid again," Patsy and Tabby sang, "Doin' what I did again,
Singin' a song."

Singing, Patsy stood up and watched Richard approach the cist in the
earth which had become the dragon's cave. He was walking with a kind of
matter-of-fact assurance that Patsy found very moving-he could have been
going out to check the bird feeder. If Richard Allbee had to walk to the
gallows, it would be with that same apparent and unconscious confidence.
She knew that he would not look back when he passed between the two
large boulders that stood at the rim of the gorge and seemed to mark the
entrance to the cave, and he did not. Richard walked between the
man-sized boulders as if he did not see them and began to edge down the
slope. Unexpectedly,

FLOATING DRAGON

563

Patsy heard Richard's mind speaking in hers-as she thought she had heard
it earlier, when she had been rocking Tabby in her arms. He wanted to
turn and look at them again: that was what she heard, and only Tabby's
presence beside her kept her from crying.

She concentrated on the song: Patsy was so afraid for Richard, so afraid
for all of them, that singing now was a necessary therapy. She had kept
herself from breaking down in tears, but she could not stop herself from
shaking. Her mind too seemed no longer in control. Since she had brushed
against Richard's thoughts, Patsy had felt her mind alarmingly flex
itself-it was as though a new color ran through it, and Patsy did not
trust this sensation.

She put her arm around Tabby's shoulder. The sword in Richard's hand
gleamed as he took it down into that deep leafy darkness. She could hear
Graham Williams rasping out "Get up, get up, get out of bed" in a
toneless voice that was half whisper and half mere thought. Patsy
trembled violently, feeling goosebumps raise all down her arms.

. . . the sun is red . . .

(the sun is red)

"I can't stand this," Tabby said.

She looked up and realized that what she had taken for two moons were
really the sun and moon-one red, one white. That big red open mouth
wanted to swallow them down

(Live, love, laugh and be happy!) and take them out of the world forever.

"I'm going with him," Tabby said. "I can't just stand here."

"Kid, you're still pretty weak," Graham said.

"I'm okay," Tabby said, and stepped out from under Patsy's arm. "I'm
going down there with Richard." He went a few paces forward, then looked
back at her.

have to

o Tabby

Tabby turned away and started toward the boulders. Growling, roaring
noises came from within the cave. Hadn't the Dragon warned them, that
first night in Graham's house, not to push it this far? Patsy gave
Graham an agonized look. "I have to go with him," she said. She opened
her mouth, then closed it again almost immediately-anything else would
be just repetition. Patsy made herself move away from Graham's

564

Peter Straub

protective largeness. After the first step she was able to run.

"God damn, guess I'll join the party too," Graham said. "Just don't
expect me to jog."

Tabby stopped walking, put his hands in his pockets, and waited for
them. Patsy stopped running, and when Graham was beside her, the two of
them walked up to Tabby's slight form in the darkness. "Good," Tabby said.

Heat blasted toward them as soon as they reached the boulders. Patsy put
her hand on one of the standing rocks as they looked down the slope and
felt warmth beating out of the stone. Half of the bank down to the black
entrance of the cave was on fire. All the clumpy little bushes were
burning, and the earth too blazed in random patches. Richard Allbee was
dimly visible far down the slope, picking his way around the fires
toward the bottom.

Pale smoke belched out of the cave. Patsy saw Richard hesitate for a
second, then continue making his way to the flat boulders.

Tabby jumped down over the edge and slid five or six feet, sending a
cascade of pebbles and loose dirt rolling into a wide belt of flames.
Graham followed the boy immediately, moving much more slowly and making
sure both feet were solidly set before taking another sideways step down.

Patsy turned sideways and took a careful step over the edge. Holding her
arms out for balance, she dug her left foot into the bank and lowered
her right another eight or nine inches. Loose stones rolled away under
her shoe, and she tottered. Then she noticed that the cloud of smoke
which had emerged from the cave was neither drifting away nor
dissipating-it moved upward almost purposefully, as if it had a mind.
When it reached the top of the cave, Patsy took another half-step down,
trembling as though she stood in a freezing wind.

(damn!) she heard from Graham as he lost control of his footing for a
second and slipped downward in a shower of dirt.

Within the stationary cloud something huge and manyarmed stirred,
pushing out bumps and angles of the pale smoke. The thing in the cloud
whirred and rattled, impatient with its prison. As Patsy opened her
mouth to call to the others, the cloud broke apart and another, darker
cloud hung in its place: then it instantly exploded into movement.
Particles the size of robins spun away, reformed, spun away

FLOATING DRAGON

565

again. Not one creature but many had been trapped in the cloud. Patsy
saw leathery wings and flinched, thinking the creatures were bats. A
rattling knot of them swirled over a flat boulder the size of a
sheepdog, and rivery fire instantly flowed across the top of the
boulder, forming a liquid yellow stream that sheeted down the side and
began to trickle toward the bottom through the stones. As they swirled
up the bank Patsy saw their tiny snouts, their long reptilian necks.
Baby dragons-they were baby dragons, not bats.

we'll be all right Tabby sent her.

you'd better not die twice on me, buster

Part of her shaking, she realized, was not fear-it was the effect of her
relief that Tabby had survived his kidnapping by Gideon Winter. Without
quite being aware of it, she had been party to Tabby's thoughts ever
since he had opened his eyes: not just the messages he had sent her, but
all of his thoughts, every spark that flew across his mind. All of these
birds of thought had fed her relief-though they had been quiet, almost
in fact inaudible, their singing had pulled her closer to Tabby.

Instead of calling out a warning, she started to sing. All those birds
of thought flexed again in her mind, adding another band of color (or so
it felt) to the first. She started to sing softly, uncertain of herself:
a part of Patsy was still capable of feeling foolish about singing out
loud on a burning hillside leading down to a dragon's cave-a nonexistent
cave, a nonexistent dragon.

And anyhow, didn't women in this situation just keep their mouths shut
and wait to be rescued?

Wasn't that exactly what she had done during most of her marriage, month
by month after Les had turned sour and insecure, poisoned by his own
success? Kept her mouth shut and waited to be rescued?

A grumpy, frightened, but still tenacious sliver of thought flew toward
her, and she recognized in it the texture, the color, the taste of
Graham Williams; either it was wordless or she could not hear the words,
but she did not need words to identify him.

"When the red, red robin goes bob, bob, bobbin' along, along ..."

Her high, pure voice sailed up out of her, becoming stronger with every
word. Five feet down the slope and trying to avoid being forced into
doing the splits, Graham Williams

571

Peter Straub

looked back up at her in astonishment; initially, fury too. He had been
taking pains to be as silent as he could, thinking that apart from the
sword, surprise was their only weapon. Patsy's singing was like an
announcement to Gideon Winter that all four of them waited outside the
cave. "There'll be no more sobbin' when he starts throbbin' his old
sweet song." Then, as Patsy's voice grew and strengthened, he felt it
take hold of him: almost as if Patsy's voice had physically wrapped
around him. He easily went down another four feet, his legs I working
like a twenty-year-old's. Graham started to mouth \ the words along with
Patsy, suddenly sure that she could \ hear him even if he did not
actually sing anywhere but in his I mind. j

Because in that instant he felt her right beside him: he felt j all the
barriers of age and sex, of homeliness and beauty, of] all the differing
lessons taught by experience, fall where they > had stood.

Graham understood even before Patsy herself that no matter what Richard
did with that sword, it was Patsy who could save their lives. He felt
enlarged-in the midst of his real terror, whatever Patsy was sending
toward him, whatever she was doing to him, increased him. Though he
still only mouthed the words, he could hear his rusty rumbling voice
singing in his mind.

And Patsy, up above him, knew all that Graham had just experienced.

sing, Tabby, sing! she poured out toward the boy:

and instantly heard his two voices, his inner voice and his physical
voice, pick up her song.

Now she could hear all of them in her mind, Graham's unmusical chanting,
Richard's rush of anxious thought which had picked up the rhythm of her
singing, and Tabby. Tabby's mind was moving in perfect sympathy with her
own. Just as she herself felt that sense of enlargement she had met in
Graham, Tabby had it too.

A kite-shaped arrangement of the baby dragons skirled toward her,
igniting a four-foot-long strip of hillside, then circled away.

The song didn't matter, she thought, the song was ridiculous, it was the
fact of singing that was powerful, and she sent the absolutely
inappropriate words ' 'Live, love, laugh and be happy" sailing out into
the air. Patsy took herself halfway down the hillside, watching Richard
getting nearer the mouth

FLOATING DRAGON

567

of the cave and for a second felt herself begin to find the conclusion
toward which her energies and gifts had been moving her. Her personality
almost physically stretched and widened within her. Patsy felt blood
rushing up into her face: her heart surged: whatever Graham Williams had
thought he had seen in her-whatever had given him that feeling of
increase-almost surfaced in her.

For an instant Patsy saw herself as a net suspended beneath her friends:
a Patsy who was a giantess, hovering beneath their exploits to catch
them if they fell. Their different voices rang through her. She felt
herself blushing even more feverishly-then instead of the odors of fried
weeds, burning dirt (which smelled the way ginseng tasted), and smoke,
she smelled fish. That relentless inner movement ceased, as shockingly
as if contractions were suddenly to cease during childbirth.

A burly naked man with a black beard was standing beside her. He smiled,
not pleasantly. Patsy saw the long scar which ran from hip to hip across
his belly. The concentrated odor of fish leaked from his skin, from his
pores. Bates Krell stepped nearer Patsy. She felt a sick wave of
passion, stronger than the fishy smell, emanating from him: passion gone
black and twisted, more powerful because of its sickness.

Behind Bates Krell's threatening body Patsy saw the horned head of the
dragon emerge from its cave.

Krell's smile became more genuine and even less pleasant. His eyes
glittered blackly; they were the same eyes, shot with iridescent green
threads and veins, she had seen following the peeling spike up from the
pages of a book.

Then an unseen movement caused a huge displacement of air, a stream of
fire three feet wide ripped across the ground before her, and the head
of the dragon in the cave had swung toward her. Bates Krell had vanished
into smoke, and the dragon coming out of the cave looked straight at
Patsy with the fisherman's eyes.

"When the . . ." The words died in her mouth. Patsy was too terrified to
sing, and the other voices in her mind, which seemed like aspects of a
single voice, diminished. The dragon crawled another step nearer Patsy,
suddenly seeming much larger.

"Red!" Tabby shouted. "Red red robin!"

Graham's booming monotone half-shouted, half-sang, "goes bob, bob,
bobbin' along-ALONG!"

572

Peter Straub

And she heard Richard singing it too-singing it desperately in her mind.

"ROBIN!" Tabby shouted. "ROBIN!"

The dragon's head swung away from her, and a small winged body fell out
of the sky and landed at her feet. The dazed baby dragon hitched its
wings under itself and scrabbled a few inches down the slope. It was no
larger than a mouse. Revolted, Patsy stepped on it. Its wings squirmed.
She raised her foot and stamped down on the little dragon, and felt it
crack open like a beetle.

"There'll be no more sobbin'V Tabby screamed. "When he starts throbbin'V

All of their voices flooded back into her, and she saw that image of
herself and Tabby on the road before the old Smithfield house-the image
was not enigmatic. Patsy feltj the stirring of a power within herself,
and knew that it wan this she had almost come to unreflectively before
Bates Krelfl had appeared to frighten her out of her wits. Now one of
th«others would be in the danger from which they had rescued! her, and
when she twisted her hands together and looked for] Richard Allbee she
saw that he was only twenty feet from the dragon. "Sweet song!" he yelled-

-and that pushed her shamelessly over the edge. Patsy opened her mind to
all of them: she spread her wings, and they went farther than the
fire-bat's. It was like opening her body, her essence spilled out to
each of them, and for a moment she was so physically responsive that she
thought she could see the map of her arteries and veins printed on her
skin. Once half in despair she had written a list of the men with whom
she imagined she might want to make love; but as Patsy's mind accepted
Tabby Smithfield and Graham Williams and Richard Allbee into itself, as
her wings spread over them, they were the only men on the planet. They
melted into her; this was unbearably strong and sensual, and the
strength was hers.

All around Patsy, the baby dragons came tumbling out of the sky. She
squashed as many as she could, and saw more of them falling to the
ground, as the birds had at the end of May.

When she touched her foot to them now, they burst apart, leaking smoke
and sparks.

She brushed her foot against another crawling mouse-sized

FLOATING DRAGON

569

dragon, and it split down the ridge of the spine. A little puddle of
fire poured out of the crack, and the creature's wings sizzled into
gossamer, then into black lumps.

Richard stood twenty feet from the mouth of the cave and heard Patsy
singing in his mind even more strongly than before. Her voice had gone
beyond being only a voice, it was the very sound of his own body, the
traveling of the blood through his veins, the hammering of his heart.
The huge greenish-black head of the dragon dipped toward him almost in
confusion; he felt as much as heard its children plopping down onto the
rocks. Richard raised his sword, calculating that he might have about a
fifty-fifty chance of getting close enough tc its neck to use the sword
before the monster recovered.

Richardrichard

Then he felt Patsy McCloud slam into him-into his head and into his
body, his heart and his ribs and lungs and eyes and hands-with such
force that he was almost pushed over. He could taste her: for a vivid
moment, her voice swelling in his mind, the tastes in his mind were
hers. Richard felt almost as if he were levitating-as if Patsy's
presence inside him freed him from gravity.

Richard looked up and saw two of the little dragons turnbling out of the
sky like dying bats.

He did not know if he saw with Patsy's eyes or his own.

His mind poured helplessly toward hers-that was how it felt, as though
their different minds were two liquids mingling in the same jug.
Instantly they had gone far past intimacy into a realm of utter
knowledge and acceptance, some beating pink chamber where they were
totally revealed: as if he and Patsy McCloud had been married for forty
years, and each knew what toothpaste the other preferred, how they liked
their eggs, their favorite jokes and favorite novels, which movies they
cherished and which they loathed, which people they loved and hated. All
of this knowledge was somehow sexual, dyed in sexual colors-Patsy's
sexuality informed it all. It was as though she had turned herself
inside out and impressed her nerves and bloodstream into his system.

573

Peter Straub

A squirrel-sized baby dragon fell beside his feet with the noise of a
crumpling paper bag; seconds after it struck, smoke poured out of its
leathery skin.

Graham Williams and Tabby Smithfield stood at the bottom of the slope
down to the cave, exposed to the dragon; Patsy was halfway down the
hill, isolated, it seemed, by the act of spirit Richard had not yet even
begun to understand. He could hear Graham and Tabby singing that crazy
song. A thick cocoon of smoke now completely enveloped the little dragon
at Richard's feet. Sounds of sizzling and frying came from the
solid-looking package of smoke. Patsy was singing too, but her mouth was
closed.

The sword in Richard's hand deepened in color; surged forward of itself,
like a dowsing rod. Now it glowed a deep reddish gold, and the handle
warmed him halfway up his arm. Patsy's breathing expanded Richard's
lungs. Off to his side, Tabby and Graham were surrounded by flickering
reddishgold light, the same color as the sword.

Another tiny dragon dropped to the boulders and split into two burning
sections.

Richard had time to think: This can't be happening.

And the massive old dragon lingering in the entrance of its cave moved
its head and fixed him with its pupilless gaze. The long hinged mouth
opened. Richard stepped sideways, his foot brushing something slippery
and hot, and the dragon followed him with those stony eyes. Total frozen
terror immobilized him for a moment. Patsy's breath stirred in his lungs
again, and he yelled, "red red robin! just keep sobbin'!" He was no
longer sure of the words or of their order, but he saw Patsy in his
mind, saw her standing naked in that pink chamber where they were still
absolutely joined; and then he saw Laura standing naked behind her,
Laura with her full beautiful belly.

Women's laughter fell toward him-from all around him it seemed, from
everywhere, from the world itself.

Richard bellowed "sleepyhead!" and lifted his glowing sword.

Then his dream, their dream, was happening all around him, and he did
not know if he was awake or asleep, and he shouted out "sleepyhead!"
again and stepped forward.

The earth convulsed; black fluid leaked and spurted from between the
boulders, and a fine spattering of pebbles and dirt rattled down the
hillsides. Richard walked straight toward the

FLOATING DRAGON

571

waiting dragon and heard someone yelling "sleepyhead! sleepyhead!" Foul
black liquid gouted onto the flat rocks, but Richard heard the laughter
of women and knew that it had no power to harm him-nor even to touch
him. He knew what it was, he thought: the black stuff that dripped from
Emma Bovary's coffin. He and Laura had left that book unfinished, amid a
million unfinished things. A thick wall of flames shot out toward him
and enveloped him, but he knew he could walk right through the flames;
they too had no power to hurt him.

What the other three saw was Richard Allbee striding toward the dragon
and passing through the blowtorch flames as though they did not exist:
Richard seemed encased in a silken steely armor. They saw him raise his
sword in the midst of the flames; heard him yell "wake up!" when he
brought it down.

Richard could not hear what he was shouting and in fact was not
conscious that he was shouting anything. The dragon's breath roared
furiously, deafeningly about him. Its pointed teeth were the size of
fenceposts. The smells of death and rot, the stench of the tunnel,
blasted toward Richard with the harmless flames.

He darted in toward the dragon and brought the sword glancingly down on
the long snout. The edge sliced into the dragon's flesh, then skittered
off, removing a greenish-black divot. Liquid fire rolled from the little
wound, and the dragon inched backward, roaring. When Richard approached
again, the dragon lunged and nearly caught him in its jaws. Richard
flicked out the sword and nicked its mouth. He threw himself back and
twisted sideways as the dragon thrust its head forward again, lunging at
him. This time he was able to thrust the sword straight into the bottom
of the jaw.

A spattering jet of fire jumped from the wound, and the dragon screamed
with pain and threw itself forward. The long head darted at Richard
again, and instead of trying to dodge out of the way he raised the sword
just as in his dream and brought it down with all his strength. The
sword sank into the end of the snout. A river of fire streamed out into
the dragon's mouth.

Infuriated, in pain, the dragon screeched and hoisted itself upward. The
sword pulsed in Richard's hand, and he moved

574

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

575

Patsy looked up in alarm; Richard took her arm and immediately set off
up the hillside which led to the base of the Point. He trusted that the
other two would follow. Richard got Patsy up on the flat land and walked
her nearly to the road. "Stay here," he said, and turned around to go
back and help Graham. When he looked out across the Point, he saw that a
big section of the tip had simply sheared off and turnbled into the
water. A huge fissure shot across the land five feet from the ragged
edge, and more of the Point slid down into Long Island Sound. Richard
skidded down the slope until he nearly collided with Tabby Smithfield,
who was pulling Graham uphill. He took the old man's other arm, and
together he and Tabby unceremoniously hauled Graham up over the edge.
"Thanks, I guess," Graham said.

They joined Patsy against the low wall and watched as Kendall Point tore
at itself. The ground rumbled; cracks jumped across the earth, webbed
out and widened, joining other fissures and cracks. The boulders on
which they had faced the Dragon were forced up in an upheaval that
pushed another five feet of the Point into the water. The spruces left
standing toppled crazily and sprawled across each other-seconds later
they had disappeared, taken by another shuddering displacement. The
skeleton of Gideon Winter heaved into their view momentarily, its arms
and legs sawing as if it were alive, and rolled off the edge into the
water. A falling cliff face immediately buried it.

Then a widening crack in the land angled toward them, and they hurried
back over the wall and onto the blunt end of the road. "Oh my God,"
Tabby said, pointing to the long white bar that stood near to the
beginning of the Point. The destruction was widening out, claiming more
land. An enormous fissure sped toward the building as if it consciously
wanted to devour it. The enclosed court outside the long window at the
rear of the building noisily sank out of sight, the thick concrete walls
and floor snapping like dry bread. The entire building skated several
feet forward-more noises of snapping and shattering, of pipes breaking
and plaster walls collapsing. They heard screams, and a door flew open,
releasing three young women and four or five middle-aged men. Two of the
men carried beer bottles. The frightened little crowd ran into the
middle of the road and watched the bar waltz forward again, shake its
hips, and tip into the crack. The side of the building unhinged itself
and dropped away in one tall

flat section, exposing a tile floor, a curving wooden bar; in an
upstairs room a yellow paper globe around a hanging light swung wildly
to and fro, as if a child had hit it with a bat. Then the building
seemed to groan, a thousand wooden boards pulled free from their nails,
and the whole structure fell in on itself and rattled down into the fissure.

The people who had escaped it dazedly turned toward the four friends.
One of the women and two of the men tentatively stepped forward. This
was the first time that Patsy, Richard, Tabby, and Graham saw that
expression of doggy wonder with which they later became familiar. It
made them uncomfortable. "Jesus shit," one of the other men said, and
they all turned away. Graham had been sure that the three people now
turning to watch a row of houses skid into the Sound had been going to
stroke them.

The rotting houses in the precinct of the devastated bar were shuddering
forward like mechanical toys. Bits of them snapped away as they
traveled, sections of walls damply crumbled. The widening gap that had
swallowed the bar pushed them inexorably across a section of sand too
despairing to have ever been a beach and rolled them into the water.
Then the strip of sand fell leadenly into the hole.

From the other side of the Point, the direction of Greenbank and Mount
Avenue, came another series of the agonized sounds of a large building
meeting an untidy death. Stone and wood and glass screamed out as they
separated and fell. Joints and ligaments intended to last another
hundred years pulled apart, tissues meant to be whole ripped in half.
Falling lumber, falling bricks, falling iron and lead and porcelain.

After that the destruction ended. Perfect stunned silence echoed all
about them and floated upward, displaced by the scrabble of a lizard
through the sand, the thumping descent into a deep gorge of a last
unsteady rock.

The group from the tavern was frankly staring at Richard and the others.
The little band of men was taking in Patsy with what looked like
undisguised awe-they too sensed that aura about her.

"Let's go home," Graham said.

Tabby asked if he thought Greenbank too had been destroyed.

"We'll find out soon enough. But let's stick together when we pass these
people."

The three of them gathered around Patsy and went slowly

576

Peter Straub

up the road. They did not look at the people from the bar, who backed up
to let them pass. Nobody moved or spoke, but Richard and the others felt
the people from the bar pushing confused emotion at them.

When Bobo Farnsworth came panting out of the rocky woods to their left,
having evidently taken a shortcut from Mount Avenue, our friends stopped
moving. The people behind them had already begun to drift away.

Bobo stopped about six feet short of the road. The blue uniform was
streaked with mud, and one of his trouser legs clung wetly to his skin.
He seemed afflicted with a sudden and uncharacteristic shyness-as if he
were no longer sure he could approach these four people. Bobo looked at
Patsy, then at Richard Allbee, then back to Patsy. "Ah," he said. "I
wanted to see you."

His face tightened around some private misery, and he moved uncertainly
to the side; took an equally uncertain step forward. Then he permitted
himself to look at Patsy McCloud again, and almost apologetically walked
the rest of the way to the road.

"What happened, Bobo?" Richard asked.

Now, it is a fact, though perhaps not an admirable one, that all four of
the people in front of tongue-tied Bobo wished that he would explain
himself and then take off. Each of them genuinely liked the tall
policeman, and at most other times would have welcomed his company. Of
course they were exhausted, how profoundly they still could not
appreciate; and they could no more detach themselves from everything
they had just undergone than they could have picked up Bobo Farnsworth
and thrown him over the cliff that had been Kendall Point. But the real
reason Bobo was such an intrusion is that they were as clannish as
lovers. They needed one another unreservedly, and also needed the time
to work out what that meant, what its dimensions were. All they really
wanted was to get in a room together and close the door. So sweet Bobo
was a distraction, and Richard's question an act of unalloyed charity.

"My car ran out of gas," he said, not very helpfully"You can't get gas
anywhere in town-my needle was so far

FLOATING DRAGON

577

down it was almost out of sight, but I thought I could get up this far,
anyway. I had to run half of Mount Avenue and then all the way through
Hillhaven to get here." He peeked at Patsy again, still breathing hard.
That private trouble tugged at his mouth and eyes. "Don't ask me how,
but I knew you'd all be up here-I just sort of had to be with you.
Things aren't. . . aren't . . ."He put his hands over his face, hiding
himself like a child. "I think Ronnie's dying. She might even be dead.
Last night I know she almost died." The words were muffled, and he
lowered his hands. "She ordered me out this morning. She didn't want me
there." Bobo inspected the gravel on the side of the road, struggling
with both his misery and the sensations of expressing it. "I'm afraid to
go back to her house. I couldn't stand it if I went in there and she was
dead."

"I think you'll find that she's getting better," Graham told him. "In
fact I'm sure of it. And I bet she'll be delighted to see you." This
turned out to be only fifty percent true.

"You're sure of it?" Bobo said.

"I just said so."

The policeman nodded. Very seriously he said, "Thank you. Thank you for
everything, I guess I mean."

None of them replied to that, and Bobo shuffled back and forth for a
moment. "Well, I guess we're all walking back together."

"If you like," Richard said, charitable again, though a fraction less so.

They moved in silence up toward the Hillhaven end of Mount Avenue. Bobo
wanted to walk faster than the others, and kept twitching ahead, then
turning around to watch them catch up. "You can run on ahead of us,
Bobo," Graham said. "We understand that you're anxious to get back to
Ronnie."

"I'd rather go with you," Bobo said flatly.

By the time they had passed the Hillhaven beach, Richard was almost
holding Tabby up. Graham and Patsy had their arms around each other and
plodded toward Beach Trail with mechanical determination. None of them
had responded to Bobo's distracted attempts at conversation, and they
were doing their best to ignore his frequent and darting stares. "We're
getting there, Patsy," Graham said. Bobo chimed in with "Sure are."
Eventually they came to his patrol car, tucked under the trees by the
side of the road. "This son of a

578

Peter Straub

FLOATING DRAGON

579

bitch," Bobo said, hitting the roof with the side of his hand. They went
another silent, painful twenty yards and Bobo said, "Oh my God. Will you
look at that?"

Monty Smithfield's old house had thrown itself down the hill behind it
and left an odd, busy gap in the landscape. Water jetted from broken
pipes; stone pillars stuck up out of the foundation. Dust thick as smoke
still hung in the air.

"Oh my God," Bobo repeated. "That terrific house. It must be down in the
water, right? Those quakes or whatever they were shook it right off the
hill. I didn't think a place that solid would ever ..." He stepped over
the myrtle to get to the fence. "I hope no more of these places went
over like that."

"This would be the only one," Graham said.

"I really have to see what happened down there," Bobo said. "Maybe
someone needs help." He twisted indecisively against the fence, not
wanting to leave them. "You'll all get home all right, won't you?"

"More than likely," Graham said, and the four of them backed away to
walk the last short distance to Beach Trail.

"Why would only this house go down like that?" Bobo asked.

"Good-bye, Bobo," Graham said. "You're a good fellow. Everything'll turn
out all right."

"I saw you-I saw you on Kendall Point," Bobo blurted out, and it was
obvious that he had been worrying at this revelation since he had first
come upon them.

Even Patsy and Tabby looked at him now.

"I was up high enough to see almost all the way down into that, uh,
gully." Bobo appeared almost ashamed, as if they might accuse him of
spying. "What was that thing down there, anyhow? You were fighting it,
right? What was it?"

"What did you see?" Richard asked. Tabby and Graham and Patsy had
instinctively stepped closer to him.

"Some kind of animal, I guess," Bobo said. "Pretty big. Ah ... I hate to
even say this . . . but, like it had a kind of human face?"

"I wish I could tell you," Richard said. "Honest, Bobo-I wish I could."

"Yeah," Bobo said, "I wish you could too." He paused. "I guess I better
take a look at what's left of this house." Still he hovered before the
iron fence. "You take good care of that lady, now."

"See you later," Graham said, and pulled himself and Patsy around. The
four of them did not hear Bobo move away from the fence until they had
turned the corner into Beach Trail.

Graham pushed his door open and let the others in. Patsy got just past
the door, then leaned against the wall. Her head drooped. "Sorry," she
said. "I don't have any energy left. None at all."

Richard and Tabby jostled together in the narrow bookfilled hallway,
wanting to help. But it was Graham who put his shoulder under her arm
and helped her into the living room. "I just have to lie down for a
little bit," Patsy said.

Graham took her to the couch and eased her down on her side. Patsy's
eyes were already closing. He moved her legs up on the couch and fetched
a plaid blanket from beside his desk. This he shook out and placed over
her. Even in sleep, Patsy's face was drawn and taut-almost angular,
pulled so tightly over the bones. "You can sit down, Tabby," Graham
said. "She isn't going anywhere for a couple of hours."

"Me too," Tabby said, walking away from the couch in the direction of
Graham's desk chair. He paused before he reached it, looked back at
Patsy and returned to the head of the couch. Richard too had been unable
to go very far from Patsy, and stood facing her from the other side of
the coffee table.

"You guys are like the lions at the library," Graham said. "Do me a
favor and sit down. Nobody's going anywhere for quite a while-I agree
with Tabby."

"Good," Richard said, and moved only as far as the worn leather chair.

Tabby sat down beside the couch. He was close enough to reach up and
stroke her hair.

"I suppose that'll do," Graham said. "I'm going to have a drink. At some
point I'm going to bed. I feel like I've been up for three days. But I
trust you will both stay here until we work out other plans."

Richard said, "I don't want any other plans."

"Okay," Graham said, actually smiling. "There's a lot of room here-there
are rooms upstairs I haven't seen in fifteen years. Okay. I'm glad."

"Am I staying here too?" Tabby asked, suddenly looking stricken.

580

Peter Straub

"If you try to go anywhere else I'll chain you to my desk," Graham said.
"Good. That's settled. Anybody else want a drink? I still have some of
that gin Patsy liked so much."

All three of them looked at her softly breathing beneath the plaid blanket.

"Sure," Richard said.

"I want some too, please," Tabby said. "If, you know ..."

"Today you get anything you want," Graham said. He moved slowly into the
kitchen and began cracking ice into glasses.

Tabby remembered Berkeley Woodhouse chopping the ice tray against the
sink at "Four Hearths," and pulled up his knees and wrapped his arms
around them. "Richard?"

"Yes."

"It's all right to stay here for a while?"

"Yes."

"All together?"

"All together."

"I don't really want to be anywhere else."

"I know. We all feel that way, Tabby."'

"Do you think that cop Bobo really saw an animal with a human face?"

Richard slumped back into the chair. "We're probably going to be talking
about Kendall Point for the rest of our lives. Right now is too soon,
Tabby. I don't even know what I think."

Graham came toward them with three glasses half-filled with ice and
clear liquid. "That's right, Tabby. It's too early. I put some water in
yours, by the way." He gave each of them a glass, then removed the one
clamped against his chest and put it on the coffee table. "I'll be right
back. There's something I have to do while I still have the courage."

Tabby sipped at his drink and made a face. "You guys think this is good?"

"We think it's among the better poisons."

Graham's slow heavy steps went up the stairs.

"What's he going to do?"

"Let's ask him when he gets back."

"I don't think I can ever leave Patsy," the boy said.

"Yeah," Richard said. "I don't even think I can ever leave this chair."

FLOATING DRAGON

581

Graham thumped back down the stairs and reappeared carrying a stack of
paper eight inches high. He wordlessly went past them and made his way
into the kitchen. A few seconds later Richard and Tabby heard something
weighty hit the bottorn of a plastic garbage can.

Graham came back into the living room, a peculiarly lighthearted
expression on his face. He limped to the coffee table, picked up his
drink and swallowed a third of it, then limped over to his desk chair.
"Blisters," he said. He smiled at his glass, then at sleeping Patsy. "I
just set myself free. I spent so much time on that book I couldn't admit
that it died about a year ago. All I was doing was spinning my wheels. I
don't even want to look at it anymore."

"You threw your book out?" Tabby asked in amazement. "I wrote thirteen
novels," Graham said calmly. "I'll get to number fourteen before I check
out." He took another big mouthful of the gin, and swished it around
before he swallowed. "I think I won't do anything but help you two take
care of Patsy for a while."

Then they said nothing for a long time-the silence stretched and
stretched, filling up with their thoughts. They all three watched her
inhale, exhale beneath the blanket.

Tabby dipped his head into his knees; his mouth had begun to tremble,
and his eyes suddenly stung. "That's okay," Graham said. "Go ahead."
Tabby lifted his face and had to look at her again. "She . . ." he
began, and then could not continue. "She, ah ..." He could not say it.

"I know," Richard said. "She married us." Impulsively Tabby got to his
knees and kissed Patsy meCloud's cheek. "Yes," Richard said, and set his
glass on the floor and went around the low table and put his lips
against her forehead. Then Graham limped across the room and kissed
Patsy somewhere in the vicinity of her left eyebrow. It felt like a
ritual; it felt like the sealing of a contract or the acknowledgment of
a sacrament, and should have signified some important and immediate
transformation. But they stood motionless above her, and Patsy slept on.

Graham grunted, and returned to his typing chair. Tabby sat back down on
the floor. Richard leaned into the ancient leather chair. They did not
speak. Graham finished his drink, revolved the cracked old glass in his
hand, and was visited by a flawless joy. His chest hurt, his feet
burned, five minutes

582

Peter Straub

ago he had junked as many years of work (and even now was thinking if
some of those pages might not be rescued from the garbage), he was at
the near edge of a hallucinatory fatigue, but for an unmeasurable time
he was thoughtlessly, blessedly happy. Each one of the three people in
his living room glowed with a unique and necessary essence-glowed like
the sword in Richard's hand out on Kendall Point. Had that scene
actually played itself out, in that place and in that way? It did not
matter, not for these few seconds. He was happier than at any other time
in his life; he had gone beyond happiness, he thought, and imagined that
he sensed realms beyond realms-the sun-drenched worlds where gods
played. His eyes started open and he rescued himself from dropping his
glass. Richard and Tabby both slept, as innocently as Patsy McCloud.
Graham pushed himself out of his chair, took his glass into the kitchen,
and retrieved the most plausible chapters from the tall plastic garbage
can. Then he went upstairs, leaving his living room filled with the
breathing, the soft intakings and subtle relaxations, of his sleeping
friends.

After the Moon

585 After the moon had risen and set a score of times, Hampstead had
gone a long way toward emerging from its fevers and comas; the visions
which had peeped out of closets, tapped at doors and finally run freely
through the streets faded back into the mind's most tightly buttoned
pockets; Hampstead began to add up its losses and mourn its dead-it was
ready to rejoin the world. And the world, for better or worse, was not
only willing to accept Hampstead back, it rushed to embrace the town
with its dazzling, intrusive attentions. Hampstead, like all the
affected towns, was pale and thin, but now it could walk: and its voice
was sane again. It was not a threat, but a gallant victim. The
roadblocks came down, and the reporters and feature writers and
television cameras flocked in.

Eventually most people in Hampstead had either spoken to a reporter
themselves or been standing next to someone who did, and the four people
in Graham Williams' house were no exceptions. During this period when
life seemed more to be imitating normality than actually to have
attained it, Patsy and Richard and the old man and the boy often
considered that what was happening to them was as strange as anything
that had occurred earlier.

At first there was the matter of what Richard called their "stardom."
For a period slightly longer than a week they could not leave Graham's
house without picking up a little following. Most often the following
was quiet and passive: if Richard stood on the corner of Main Street and
waited for the light to change, the two t»r three other people waiting
with him would begin to turn toward him. Depending on their
temperaments, they would stare forthrightly or discreetly; they wanted
to talk, but did not. They were not quite sure that they

586

Peter Straub

knew what to say. At least some of them would shyly dog him down Main
Street, pretending to window-shop.

Once while Patsy shopped in the still-depleted Greenblatt's, an elderly
woman with heavy gold bracelets tremblingly stroked her arm on the
pretext of admiring her blouse. Another, younger woman hugged Tabby
Smithfield in the municipal parking lot behind Anhalt's. Richard said,
"I think I'm beginning to understand Frank Sinatra," but what he thought
was that these people had a chip of the same talent Patsy and Tabby had:
enough of it to put a kind of spotlight on the four of them. Even the
press seemed to circle in toward these four whenever they could.

They did not like going out. All they really wanted was each other's
company. But when they were forced to leave the house, someone with a
notepad and a pen or someone with a microphone was likely to appear,
asking questions. The difficulty was in giving answers that would not
brand them as hopelessly insane. They could not allude to themselves and
Gideon Winter, the only subject that occupied them in these days, and so
tried to give responses as flat and banal as possible-everybody else was
excited about the lawsuits and the court cases against the Telpro
Corporation and the investigations into the Defense Department, but as
yet Richard Allbee and the others had not moved so far out of themselves.

"Oh, I think this town is getting back on its feet," Richard told CBS.
"It's funny, but most of us have trouble even remembering what went on
here this summer."

"I'm afraid that I've just been concentrating on my own affairs, which I
kind of neglected over the summer," Patsy told Newsweek. "I have no
plans to sue anybody."

"We're a pretty spunky bunch," Graham said to NBC. "No [bleep] gas can
slow us down for long."

"Did we have a summer this year?" Tabby asked Eyewitness News.

After a week, they noticed that the stares and questions had become
fewer; after two weeks they were again anonymous citizens, and for that
they were grateful.

The Conrail trains again stopped at the stations in Hillhaven and
Greenbank and Hampstead. Greenblatt's and the other grocery stores
gradually filled up with fresh produce and cuts of meat as the
warehousers and dispatchers were informed that Hampstead no longer meant
danger to their

FLOATING DRAGON

587

trucks. By the third week in September all of the windows along Main
Street had been replaced. A week after that, while Graham and Richard
worked outside repairing the broken window frame and fractured boards
beneath it, Graham saw a sparrow dart out of the trees at the end of his
lot. A few days after that, birds of every kind seemed to have returned
to Hampstead-gulls, cardinals, robins, finches, thrushes, and big
thuggish crows.

All sorts of wandering birds came back. One morning Graham and Patsy met
Evelyn Hughardt as they were taking a walk down to the beach. She was
getting out of her car, and when Graham said, "Hello, Evvy, it's nice to
see you again," she looked at her watch, glanced at him and said, "Is
it?" and walked up the path to her door. "Now I know things are getting
back to normal," Graham said.

Charlie Antolini hired a painter and took out of his house all the
furniture he had daubed pink and piled it next to the curb. The
television set, two couches, a rack of chairs, a big dining-room table:
all sizzled with Charlie's happy pink paint. Seeing that pathetic but
somehow hopeful-looking furniture brought back to Graham the precise
sensations of the summer. He remembered the smell of Norm Hughardt's
mouthwash when he rolled his body over; he tasted the saltiness of
sleeping Patsy's temple when he had kissed her. Twenty minutes later, a
Goodwill truck drove the furniture away.

Sometimes-for long after-the sight of a misprint in the Hampstead
Gazette could give Graham that sense of total recall of what it felt
like to live through a time when all the rules and conventions were
suspended; but in fact there were no more misprints now than ever
before. The only difference between the Gazette in September and the
same paper the preceding April or May was that it had no social and
gossip column. Sarah Spry had not been a great writer, but she had
proved to be an irreplaceable one.

Those who had been among the saddest victims of the summer, Dr. Chaney's
patients, had all died by mid-October-by then they bore no resemblance
any longer to human beings, and when one by one they ceased to register
life signs, even Chaney was relieved. He had a book to write.

Five weeks after the night Graham Williams went up to bed and left his
friends asleep in his living room, Richard and Tabby moved across the
street to Richard's house. Part of the

588

Peter Straub

reason for this split-which they regretted only slightly less than they
understood its necessity-was that Graham's house was not suitable for
three or four adult inhabitants. The unused rooms upstairs baked in warm
weather, froze in cold: Patsy spent every night on the couch, and Tabby
eventually made a bed in a cramped little room next to the kitchen. If
Graham had been willing to move out of his house, they would very likely
have all gone across the street-and stayed together for another few
weeks of increasing discomfort. Graham missed his solitude, Richard
Allbee wanted either to attend to his house or to sell it; that
obsessive need to be together always had diminished. Reality, the world
of other people, called them to itself, and they had started to respond
to the call. Tabby was back in school, and Richard wanted to make sure
he had a quiet place to study; he also wanted to get back to work
regularly and stop leaning on John Roehm. Maybe Graham was sometimes
dictatorial, maybe Richard sometimes felt impatient. Fathers; sons.

The old man had never expected Richard to sell his house, and felt no
disappointment when Richard told him he had decided after all to keep
it. "Are you going to adopt Tabby?" Graham asked. "I'd like to do that,"
Richard said, for the first time acknowledging it consciously. "That's
right," Graham said-he had no reason to ask the younger man about Patsy.
They all loved her, but in a way that mysteriously but firmly forbade
the physical expression of love. Graham did not understand why, but what
Patsy had done for them on Kendall Point had sealed that door forever.

Like an eccentric parody of a suburban social life, the two households
often ate dinner together, went on walks, laughed together over drinks,
even went to movies. Richard found that there were no impediments to his
adopting Tabby, and began the legal procedures in late October. Graham
and Patsy messed along together comfortably for a time, as if they were
father and daughter.

But eventually Graham recognized that their roles had reversed. Instead
of his caring for her, Patsy now seemed to be protecting him, coddling
him, almost nursing him! For Graham this was deeply disconcerting. He
did not want to feel as old as that. Like Richard, he wanted to get back
to his work. And eventually Patsy came to decisions of her own.

FLOATING DRAGON

589

Richard Allbee helped Graham get started. They were having a drink
together in Graham's living room just before Christmas. A foot-high
plastic tree on a bookshelf was the room's only acknowledgment of the
season. Graham lived alone now, and felt a small secret relief that the
woman he loved most in all the world no longer tried to make him eat
breakfast every morning. Richard also was alone: Tabby had persuaded him
to let him go to Aspen with the family of a school friend. The two men
were having their own defiant little Christmas. Richard was roasting a
duck, and had brought over two bottles of a good Margaux to drink with
it. "Hey, I'm an ex-alcoholic," iGraham protested. "I can't have a whole
bottle of this stuff.'' He had dolled himself up for this dinner-in his
attic he had unearthed a green velvet smoking jacket with black satin
lapels, and this wonderful garment covered a neatly pressed blue woolen
shirt and framed a knit tie with wide irregular horizontal stripes. On
his feet were heavy black shoes from which he had not bothered to wipe
the dust.

"Then stop drinking that gin," Richard said.

"Oh, I lay off this stuff most of the time-save it for special
occasions. You know."

For a moment Patsy McCloud was almost in the room with them, so clearly
had the allusion evoked her.

Graham broke the silence. "Hear anything from Tabby lately?"

"He calls every other day-I talked to him just before I came over here.
He's having a great time. I miss him, but I'm glad I let him go out there."

They each knew that the other was still thinking about Patsy.

"Graham," Richard said, "I still don't know what really happened."

"No," the old man said.

"I thought I would somehow understand it better as time went on. I
thought I'd come around to thinking that the Telpro business was more
important than we thought at the time."

"That Telpro installation was just out there in the world," Graham said.
"I think Gideon Winter could grab it and use it because of the name-DRG.
Or the other position is that the name was a coincidence, and the
accident was a real accident,

590

Peter Straub

and Winter simply capitalized on it. There's one other possibility, but
I don't like that one."

"That we are partly responsible for the so-called accident too," Richard
said.

"That we helped send that poison bob, bob, bobbing through Patchin
County." Graham made an expression of distaste. "I think it was what
that research guy, Wise, said it was-a wild card. I think once he
realized what had happened the Dragon couldn't believe his luck.
Everything was helping him get stronger. He really could have caused
another Black Summer. Hell, I guess he did." He cocked his head and
regarded Richard almost cheerfully. "At least we know what caused the
fire at Royal Cotton."

"You think it was a dragon? You really do?"

"You killed it, didn't you?"

"I think Patsy killed it," Richard said. "Whatever the hell it was." He
was silent for a moment. "You ought to write the whole thing down,
Graham-put it all down just the way it looked to us. Then at least we'd
all have that much straight.''

"I'd be too tempted to invent things," Graham said. "I'd make up
dialogue. I'd speculate about what happened to certain people. Pretty
soon I'd be writing a novel."

"That's okay too," Richard said. "That sort of fits."

Graham nodded. "But it's still impossible. As much as we've talked, I
still don't know enough about what you and Patsy were doing in May and
June. I'd have to make it up, and you'd be likely to get ticked off at
what I wrote about you."

"I'll let you use my diaries," Richard said.

"I'll think about it."

"Patsy keeps a diary too." He was grinning.

"I know. I'll think about it."

The next morning Graham called Richard and asked him if he would mind
bringing his diaries across the street.

Two years later, just before Graham Williams finished writing the
excellent book called Floating Dragon, Richard Allbee took a new wife, a
new baby, and Tabby Smithfield to France for a short vacation. He had
completed two large restoration jobs in New England, and would soon
begin another in Virginia. He had been invited by a French architectural
association to speak at their general meeting, and Richard delightedly

FLOATING DRAGON

591

took the opportunity of bringing his new family to Paris. His wife, who
was ten years younger than he and worked for the Museum of Modern Art,
spoke nearly perfect French. They would return two days before Tabby had
to register for his freshman year at the University of Connecticut; and
the baby was three months old, untroubled by schedules, and eminently
portable.

Richard took them all to museums and parks and restaurants; he gave his
lecture in a French which his wife had drilled into him; Tabby and his
wife beside him, he pushed the gurgling baby down random streets and was
implausibly content. If some malevolent power had given him the summer
of 1980, other forces had given him this.

Then two days before they were to return, an unaccompanied Richard
pushed the baby's stroller through the ornate entrance of the
Intercontinental Hotel and turned for no particular reason toward the
Place Vendome. His wife had taken Tabby off shopping for an hour, and
Richard wanted to give his infant son some fresh air-also he could feel
his time in Paris coming to a close, and did not want to waste the small
amount left. He idled through the Vendome, inspecting shop windows, and
then just as aimlessly began working his way in the general direction of
the Opera. After five or six blocks he began to think about how pleasant
it would be to have a beer, and looked around for an outdoor cafe.

Richard turned down a street he did not know and saw a small group of
tables on the next corner. He pushed the baby to the cafe, seated
himself at an outside table, and sat down. The baby made motorboat
noises with his mouth and pumped his hands happily up and down. The
waiter came and Richard placed his order with an accent his wife would
have described as "Serbo-French." Richard looked over the nine or ten
other patrons of the cafe, hoping that no baby-adoring woman would come
up to coo at his son and trap him into exposing more Serbo-French. Oui,
madame, il est tr£s beau. He could not go much beyond that. Then he saw
the thick gray-haired man seated facing him on the opposite side of the
cafe, and he thought his mind had gone. The summer of 1980 sped back
toward him with its full freight of madness. He knew that face, and for
a moment it held him paralyzed. The Dragon had shown that face to him in
an endless tunnel, and had tried to murder him with it.

Cold seconds later, he realized that the man who owned the

592

Peter Straub

face was not likely to do any such thing. The man was what he looked
like, not a lethal toy of Gideon Winter's. Richard saw the qualities he
had seen in the tunnel, the air this elderly man had of being a merchant
seaman or a bohemian poet, but saw also his utter ordinariness-he was a
man who enjoyed looking like the middle-class conception of a poet. His
father would be a good talker, a good drinker, at most times a good
worker; his essential irresponsibility would only emerge under stress.
He would always have many friends. Richard even saw his own resemblance
to the man. In another twenty-five years he would not look so very
different.

Richard plucked his son out of the stroller and walked through the maze
to the other side of the cafe. He held the tiny boy in his arms and
said, his heart beating, "Michael Allbee, meet Michael Allbee."

A stranger lifted a puzzled face to Richard. This was not his father; he
no longer even resembled the figure of the tunnel. The man was a
bourgeois Parisian-he looked startled and offended in equal measure.
Richard and the baby retreated. The baby began to squall.

Mystery upon mystery. Richard hastily pushed little Michael in what he
thought was the direction of the Intercontinental and almost immediately
was lost. For almost the only time in his life, his sense of direction
had failed. He gave up and hailed a cab when the baby, who was still
nursing, started screeching for milk in an unearthly and domineering
tone. He did not tell his capable, attractive, and aggressive second
wife about his ludicrous encounter with his "father"-she had long ago
assumed that both his parents were dead. Richard did not feel truly
comfortable again until he and his family were on the big Air France jet
to JFK airport.

Mystery upon mystery.

Patsy McCloud had vanished from their lives, though none of them had
quite accepted the reality of this. During her weeks with Graham, Patsy
had taken to going out alone at night. Graham Williams customarily went
to sleep before ten o'clock, and he could not object to her unexplained
departures if he was aware of them only because the sound of the garage
door banging down woke him up at three in the morning. Whenever this
happened, Patsy greeted him six hours later with fresh coffee and orders
about breakfast: she was firm and chipper, she appeared rested, she
wanted him really to think about eggs. Quantities of eggs.

FLOATING DRAGON

593

At last she confided to Graham that she had met a man she liked. The man
was a lawyer in Chappaqua, New York, a widower; he had first met Patsy
years ago at the Club Med in Martinique, where she had spent ten days
with Les and four other couples from the company. The man had seen her
picture in Newsweek, learned her telephone number through Information;
he had reached her during one of the rare hours she spent at the
Charleston Road house. His name was Arthur Powers. He had remembered
her, and what Patsy especially liked was that Arthur Powers did not quiz
her about the events of the previous summer.

Patsy sold her house through Ronnie Riggley-Hampstead was still a big
convenient bedroom for New York, and some chemical ugliness four months
before could not keep people away for long; especially when real-estate
values had dipped so far. Les had carried mortgage insurance and a big
life policy. If she lost money on the sale of her house, she still was
left with almost as much money as Clark Smithfield had ruinously inherited.

Patsy spent the Christmas of 1980 in Chappaqua with Arthur Powers.

By that time she was gone altogether. After five weeks with Graham, she
had driven to Manhattan-to stay with a girlfriend, she had told him
without being any more specific. "I love you so much," she said on the
telephone, "I love you because I have to love you," and the words made
him ache to have her back, pressuring him about breakfast.

Twelve days later, he got a postcard from some island. The postmark
obliterated the legend on the card, and no matter how long he peered at
those wavy black lines, they hid whatever was beneath them. The message
read: AP quite a find after all. I miss you all so much. Sand white, sun
hot. Delicious. Have a Bombay martini and think of me. Much love, P. The
picture on the card showed a setting sun, palm trees, languid blue
water. The brutal cancellation barely permitted him to identify a
British stamp. British? Bermuda? Or did what he could see of the stamp
merely look British?

Patsy telephoned him from New York, from Chappaqua. She was always
rushed, always tender. She and Arthur Powers were thinking of buying a
house together. "His place is too much like yours, Graham! I'm spoiled,
I want insulation."

She sent a printed card with an address: The Birches, 28

594

Peter Straub

Woodland Glen, Chappaqua, New York. Married again but still Patsy
McCloud, love you all always and forever, read the handwritten note
folded around the card.

She was gone; utterly gone. Richard met the woman he would marry at a
party in New York and asked her if she had ever seen Hampstead. "London?
Sure." "Connecticut." "Do people still live in Connecticut?" They
survived this exchange. Tabby fell in love with a girl in his class, had
no luck, then fell in love again. Graham labored over his puzzling book.
Richard spent more and more time with the woman he had met, and finally
brought her home to meet Tabby. Patsy was gone.

She was married to a lawyer named Arthur Powers and she lived in
Chappaqua. Or she was not and did not. One night Graham tried to get her
telephone number from Westchester County information and was told that
neither an Arthur Powers nor a Patricia McCloud was listed in Chappaqua.
Richard sent a letter to 28 Woodland Glen telling her that he planned to
marry again, but the letter came back stamped

ADDRESS UNKNOWN.

Each of them dreamed of her: Richard dreamed of Patsy McCloud standing
on a sloping hill the night before he married again. She was smiling at
him, and he understood at last that she wished him well.

His telephone rang at four in the morning the night his son was born; he
had just arrived home from the hospital. "Did something nice happen to
you tonight?" Patsy's dear voice asked him.

"Oh, Patsy," he said. "Something wonderful happened- I just had a baby.
How on earth did you know?"

"We Tayler women have our secrets," she said. "I'm happy now. Are you?"

"Now? I'm about to bust, I'm so happy."

"Good," she said. "If you feel that way, I do too."

"I sent you a letter," he managed to say, but Patsy was talking again,
and his words obscured hers.

/ got it? I moved again? It could have been either.

"Sorry," they both said.

"I have to go now," Patsy's clear voice told Richard. "I'm glad you're a
father at last."

"Patsy, what's your telephone number? We've tried to reach you ..."

FLOATING DRAGON

595

"We're changing it. I'll send you the new number as soon as I get it."

"Please do. I want to see you again, and Graham is pining for you, and
Tabby wants to tell you all about his girlfriend."

She laughed. "Well, you've done a great thing!"

"We did a great thing once," he said, but the telephone was already dead.

And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil,
and bound him a thousand years.

( -Revelation 20:2

595 %

New York Times Bestselling Author

PETER STRAUB

THE BLUE ROSE BOOKS

f Houses Without Doors 0-451-17082-2

This spectacular collection of thirteen dark,

haunting tales exposes the terrors that hide beneath

the surface of the ordinary world, behind the

walls of houses without doors.

"Straub at his spellbinding best." -Publishers Weekly

Koko 0-451-16214-5 The haunting, dark tale of a returned Vietnam

veteran and a series of mysterious deaths.

A New York Times bestseller, this is considered by

many to be Straub's scariest novel.

"Brilliantly written...an inspired thriller." -Washington Post

The Blue Rose series continues with Mystery and The Throat

Available wherever books are sold or to order call:

1-800-788-6262

S411/Straub

596 New York Times Bestselling Author

PETER STRAUB

THE BLUE ROSE BOOKS

Mystery 0-451-16869-0

Characters in a world of wealth, power,

and pleasure fall prey to an evil that reaches

out from the abyss of the past to haunt the present

and claim the living.

"Mesmerizing." -Chicago Sun-Times

The Throat 0-451-17918-8

A tormented writer unable to exorcise the demons of

his past...an all-American town plagued by horrific

secrets...a beautiful woman brutally murdered by a

twisted killer thought long dead-or by an even

more terrifying copycat.

"Impressive." -New York Times Book Review

The Blue Rose series begins with Houses Without Doors and Koko

Available wherever books are sold or to order call:

1-800-788-6262

S411/Straub

iL

597 From cozy mysteries to procedurals, weVe got it all. Satisfy your
monthly cravings with

our monthly newsletters designed and edited specifically for fans of
whodunits. With two newsletters to choose from, you'll be sure to get it
all. Be sure to check back each month or sign up for free monthly in-box
delivery at

www.penguin.com

Berkley Prime Crime

Berkley publishes the premier writers of mysteries.

Get the latest on your favorties:

Susan Wittig Albert, Margaret Coel, Earlene

Fowler, Randy Wayne White, Simon Brett,

and many more fresh faces.

Signet

From the Grand Dame of mystery,

Agatha Christie, to debut authors,

Signet mysteries offer something for every reader.

Sign up and sleep with one eye open!

598 The #/ New York Times bestselling author's all-time horror classic.

SHADOWLAND

PETER SJRAUB

NOW WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR

"Creepy from page one. I loved it!'

-Stephen King

Available where books are sold or to order call 1-800-788-6262

B053

^

599 Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Online

Your Internet gateway to a virtual environment with

hundreds of entertaining and enlightening books

from Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

While you're there, get the latest buzz on the best authors and books
around-

torn Clancy, Patricia Cornwell, W.E.B. Griffin,

Nora Roberts, William Gibson, Robin Cook,

Brian Jacques, Catherine Coulter, Stephen King,

Ken Follett, Terry McMillan, and many more!

Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Online is located at http ://www.penguin.com

PENGUIN GROUP (USA) Inc. NEWS

Every month you'll get an inside look at our upcoming books and new
features on our site. This is an ongoing effort to provide you with the
most up-to-date information about our books and authors.

Subscribe to Penguin Group (USA) Inc. News at

http://www.penguin.com/newsletters

600 Peter Straub is one of America's foremost authors of supernatural
and suspense fiction. He is the New York Times bestseliing author of a
dozen novels, including the horror classic Ghost Story and The Talisman,
which he cowrote with Stephen King. His latest novel, Black House-also
written with King-is a #1 New York Times bestseller. A past president of
the Horror Writers of America and multiple award winner, he lives in New
York City.

601 Two monstrous evils.

The quiet suburban town of Hampstead is threatened by two horrors.

One is natural. The hideous, unstoppable ovation of man's power gone mad.

The other is not natural at all. And it makes the first look like
child's play.

[Unspeakable horror.'

-Los Angeles Times

"Straub's effects are quite spectacular...

I was fairly awed by some of the more nightmarish scenes in Floating
Dragon.'

-The New York Times

Deliciously imaginative."

-San Francisco Chronicle

ISBN 0-425-18964-3

www.penguinputnam.com

I $7.99 U.S. I

$10.99 CAN

0^7 183 11100799