Rain Gods (Hackberry Holland 2)

?Why do you say that??

?Looking at me like that.?

?Like what??

Her eyes went away from him and came back. ?You think I?m your daughter??

?No.?

?Well??

?Well, what?? he said.

?God!? she replied.

A calendar hung on a post not far from their booth. No one had folded back a page on it since June. The days in June had been marked off with a black felt-tip pen, up to the twenty-first. He wondered what event in June had been so important that someone had in effect indicated all the previous days were to be gotten past and rid of. Then he wondered why the events after June 21 were so lacking in significance that no one had even bothered to turn the calendar page to the following month.

?Know why people in jail use the term ?stacking time??? he said.

?It makes a collection of dimwits sound clever??

?No, it makes them sound normal. The goal for most people is to get time out of the way. I learned that in No Name Valley, under the sewer grate. I counted the threads in my sweater so I wouldn?t have to think about the time being stolen from my life.?

She turned a University of Houston class ring on her finger. The waitress brought coffee and went away. Pam watched a church bus pass on the street, its headlights on in the mixture of blowing dust and rain. ?You?re the most unusual man I?ve ever known, but not for the reasons you might think,? she said.

He tried to smile but was disturbed by the tenor in her voice.

?You?re blessed with an innate goodness the Communists couldn?t take away from you. But I think in your mind, Jack Collins has become the prison guard who tormented you in North Korea. Collins wants to make you over in his image. If you let him do that, he wins, and so does that prison guard in the POW camp.?

?You?re wrong. Collins is a defective amoeba. He?s not worth thinking about.?

?Lie to God, lie to your friends, but don?t lie to yourself.?

?If you?re going to talk church-basement psychology to me, would you lower your voice??

?There?s no one sitting around us.?

He looked sideways and didn?t reply.

?Don?t blow me off, Hack.? She pushed her right hand across the table and bumped the tips of her stiffened fingers hard against his.

?Do you think I?d do that? Do you think any intelligent man would ever treat a woman like you with disrespect??

She bit a hangnail on her thumb and looked at him in a peculiar fashion.

IN FRONT OF the office, Hackberry took one glance at the sky and unhooked the chain on the flagpole and lowered the flag in advance of the impending storm. He folded the flag in a tuck and placed it in his desk drawer. Then he went back to work on the list of registrants given to him by the DMV. He went through the entire list twice, his eyes starting to swim. What was the point? If the FBI couldn?t locate Collins, how could he? Did Collins actually possess magic? Was he a griffin loosed from the pit, a reminder of the bad seed that obviously existed in the gene pool? It was always easier to think of evil as the work of individuals rather than the successful and well-planned efforts of societies and organizations operating with a mandate. Men like Collins were not created simply by their environments. Auschwitz and the Nanking massacre hadn?t happened in a vacuum.

His phone rang again. The caller ID was blocked. ?See if that?s Ethan Riser,? Hackberry called through the doorway. He heard Maydeen take the call in the other room. A moment later, she was standing in the doorway. ?Better pick up,? she said.

?Who is it??

?Same asswipe?pardon me?same dude who called yesterday and said you two were the opposite sides of the same coin.?

Hackberry lifted the receiver and put it to his ear. ?Collins?? he said.

?Good morning,? the voice said.

?I?m getting pretty tired of you.?