Chapter 1

As the battered old taxi in which I rode turned onto Lakeside Drive, I snapped awake. The late summer air was so heavy and the drive from the tiny municipal airfield so uneventful that I'd drifted off to sleep. Nothing obvious had disturbed me yet I awoke with a start and a gasp. I looked around dazedly, blinking in the afternoon sun.

“Almost there,” the cabby said without taking his eyes from the road.

That explained it. There always was a buzz to this place, a hum more felt than heard. Experiencing it once more, I realized I had missed it. I smiled. It had been a while since I'd had a reason to.

The driver caught the smile out of the corner of his eye.

“Glad to be home?” he asked.

“I am,” I replied. “I really am.”

It was true. I resented the circumstances that drove me here but I was happy to be back.

Watching the dairy farms and cornfields roll by, so familiar yet so alien, I asked myself a question I'd been asking a lot in the last few days. Had the big decisions in my life been a matter of choice or were they dictated by my deformities?

I was taught to see my handicap as more nuisance than obstacle: inconvenient, yes, but compensated for by other gifts. Among them was a knack for expressing myself with the written word. It was honing this knack into a talent that first lured me away from this quiet corner of the heartland. It was an insatiable personal drive that kept me away. I loved my mother and all her extended household but I hungered to prove myself in a world that did not lie beneath her sheltering wing, a world where acceptance and respect were hard won, where the only way to overcome the doubts my disability created in others was to be better than the best. I proved myself, all right, and in the process attained professional and material success beyond my wildest expectations. Why, then, did returning home like this, with my hand out, feel like failure?

It wasn't as though I had any choice.

Racial unrest was sweeping through New York City, triggered by the brutal assassination of a controversial public figure four days earlier. An articulate voice for the poor and powerless, Jose Delgado was at once the most beloved and most hated man in the city. When the activist's investigations got too close to the slumlords and sweatshop owners who held his constituency in serfdom, he was silenced. Delgado's people demanded justice. The police were too slow in providing it. The inner city became an inferno of fury and frustration.

My caregiver — my poor sweet Genevieve — was injured in the riot, leaving her in the hospital and me in the lurch. Hiring reliable help was damned near impossible with the city in flames and the National Guard patrolling the streets. Going home was the only sensible solution to the problem.

Or so I kept telling myself.

The taxi pulled up to a formidable wrought-iron gate set into a high stone wall. It was barely visible from the main road thanks to the deep shadows cast by the ancient white oaks that grew thickly on both sides of the wall. We waited. A camera mounted atop the wall whirred as it changed focus. The gate quietly swung open.

It stood steaming in the summer heat a hundred yards farther down the broad cobblestone driveway. Though currently registered with the Calumet County tax assessor as the Bartholomew Lash Memorial Center for Geriatric and Long-term Convalescent Care, the locals still called it Lash House.

The 34-room mansion was not a beautiful structure, objectively speaking. It was gaudy and ostentatious, a cluttered jumble of leaded glass windows, gingerbread and chimneys. Its jagged silhouette was punctuated by four conically-crowned towers and topped by a widow's walk. These idiosyncrasies gave it character, a quirky charm that undermined the sense of intimidating grandeur most houses its size shared. It was the perfect disguise, just as its original master meant it to be.

Few people today remember “Bat” Lash but he was once as famous as Wyatt Earp, Jonah Hex or Buffalo Bill. Dime novels and silent movies portrayed him as a steely-eyed killer. In reality, Lash had been a reluctant gunfighter. A gambler by trade and a womanizer by nature, he wandered the Old West leaving a trail of emptied wallets and broken hearts behind him. He fancied himself a gourmet and aesthete, a connoisseur of fine wines and romantic poetry, though rumors that he left school forever at the tender age of eight would dog Lash to the end of his days. His intellectual credentials were in doubt but there was no disputing his facility with a Buntline Special. Contemporary newspaper accounts tell of eleven confirmed kills, the dime novels credit him with at least forty-six more and Lash himself once speculated that the count might be into three digits.

How and why this deadly dandy made his way to the eastern shore of Lake Winnebago was as much a mystery as how he acquired the $7,500,000 he brought with him. Local lore is strangely silent on the subject. What is known is that by the time construction of the mansion was completed in 1889, the handsome rogue had convinced himself and nearly everyone else that he was Devereaux Corners' most sterling citizen.

Not far from Lash's ornate homestead stood a building almost aggressively nondescript. Within its spartan walls, the most popular casino and brothel in the Great Lakes region — a den of iniquity that made a night in Storyville look like a church social — entertained its patrons. Year after year, Lash stood up at town meetings and denounced its shameful operations. Year after year, the law turned a deaf ear to his sermons. When he died in 1917, an underground tunnel system was discovered connecting his eccentric but proper mansion to the infamous bawdyhouse. A scandal ensued.

To make amends for this joke at his neighbors' expense, Bat Lash left everything to the town. Creditors descended on the Corners like a Biblical plague. Lash's bank accounts were emptied to pay his debts. All that remained were the two buildings, their furnishings and the 175 acres of land on which they sat. His will stipulated that the property must be sold in total, not piecemeal. The town council needed to make a sale, any sale, too badly to quibble about details. It made no difference either way. All it ever took was a single night in the house or the brothel for a potential buyer to make a panicky dash for the county line at the break of day stammering of strange lights and unholy laughter.

When Ana Stevens first approached the town elders in 1968 about purchasing the Lash estate and converting it into a nursing home, they gaped at her as though she proposed moving it to the dark side of the moon. They told her of the supernatural doings on the property. “That's all right,” she is supposed to have said, “some of my best friends are ghosts.” Feeling they had done their Christian duty, the officials got down to business. They kept the dickering to a minimum, insisting only that the facility be named after the original donor. Perhaps that would satisfy his restless spirit.

Anticipating ruins fit only for demolition, Mrs. Stevens was astonished to find the manse's walls still straight, its floors level, its windows airtight, its wood dry and termite-free, its plumbing uncorroded and its wiring sound despite a half-century of vacancy. The brothel was in a similar state of preservation. It was disquieting, even unnatural, but it was a huge break financially. She shelved her reservations and changed her plans from construction to conversion.

Remodeling was completed in a little over five months.

The first floor of the mansion became the Lash Center's administrative offices, the second became a half-dozen guest suites, and the third became the private residence of the Stevens family. The towers were converted into studio apartments. Below ground, the basement was expanded to accommodate a two-bed hospital complete with operating theater, therapy room, pathology lab and morgue.

The makeover of the brothel — now known as the annex — was equally stellar. Its severe facade was replaced with a downscaled version of the mansion's overwrought busyness. The main casino was divided into a recreation room and a formal dining and assembly hall. An open-air roof garden perched atop it. Various anterooms were converted into nurses' stations, supply rooms, a laundry and a pharmacy. The working girls' rooms became residential suites, men's in the south wing, women's in the north.

The subterranean tunnel between the buildings was reinforced with concrete, lit and heated. It proved ideal for moving patients to and from the mansion's medical facilities without exposing the frail old dears to the bitter cold of Wisconsin winters. A ten-car garage, a staff parking lot, a boathouse, a horse barn, a tennis court and several small outbuildings were added to the grounds.

It was a lot of work. Mrs. Stevens wisely relied on local labor for that work, further endearing her to the community. When it came time to install the security system, however, she brought in a team of specialists from elsewhere who came, worked and left without the townspeople ever realizing they were there. Discretion was vital. No one at Lash House was prepared to explain why a nursing home required proximity detectors along the property line, closed-circuit infra-red cameras in the woods, a camouflaged radar installation in the attic or a submarine trap half a mile offshore. No one dared reveal the true identities of its aged and infirm residents, for each had many merciless enemies whose hate for them still ran hot and deep.

Chapter 2

“Val!”

Only one set of lungs could have issued that brassy bellow. I had barely transferred from the cab to my power chair before my fragile sense of dignity was being cheerfully mauled by a rotund little force of nature in a nurse's uniform. Under any other circumstance, I would be horrified to find myself the focus of this display of hair-ruffling, cheek-pinching, sloppy-kissing affection but I couldn't help laughing with delight.

“Hello, Aunt Etta. Did you miss me?”

“I'm so glad to see you, kid, I can't tell you.”

She stepped back and appraised my appearance.

“You ain't eatin' enough, that much is obvious,” she said. “Gonna have to fatten you up.”

She gestured to the man in hospital blues standing patiently to one side.

“This here's Mark, our staff supervisor. He's gonna be helpin' you out while you're here with us.”

Mark reached for my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“I'm glad to finally meet you, Mr. Stevens,” he said. “You're all the ladies have been able to talk about since your call.”

“If we're going to get along, Mark,” I said with a grin, “you'd better start calling me Val.”

I liked Mark immediately. A trim man in his mid-to-late fifties with the easy grace of the lifelong athlete, he radiated honesty, confidence and good humor. I had a flash of déjà vu, the feeling I'd seen him before, but I shook it off.

“What do I owe you?” I asked, turning to the cabby.

“This one's on the house,” the driver answered. “I'm a big fan of your columns, Mr. Stevens. You really give it to those bums in Washington. It's been an honor to have you riding with me.” He tipped his hat before getting in and starting the car. “Take care, folks,” he said as he drove off.

“Bet you don't get much of that back in the big city,” Etta said.

“That's a fact,” I agreed. “Especially not this last week.”

“Is it as bad as the news reports make it look?” Mark asked.

“Worse,” I replied. “Not a place I want to be right now.”

“Well, let's get you in and settled, kid,” Etta suggested. “Everybody's anxious to see you.”

She waddled on ahead of me, happily chattering about how my old room was just as I'd left it. Her gait had changed since I'd last seen her. Arthritis, from the look of it. That explained her earlier comment. Staff supervisor had always been Etta's title. If Mark now held it, the pain must be worse than she was letting on. It saddened me. This dear lady, who loved me as if I was her own, was no longer getting old. She was there.

“Where's Ana?” I asked. “I thought she'd be here to meet me.”

“We lost one of the old oaks down by the boathouse to lightnin' night before last,” Etta answered. “Your ma's out pullin' up the stump. She thought she'd have time to get it done before you got here.”

“I think I'll drive around back and see her before I go in.”

“Good idea,” she said. “Mark an' I will take your stuff up to your room.”

I drove my chair past the mansion's southern façade, heading west down a paved footpath that meandered through stands of hickory and maple trees on its way to the lakeshore. For the first time since leaving my apartment ten hours earlier, I was alone. I breathed a sigh of relief. Solitude would be as precious as diamonds to me in the next few days and harder to come by. Even here amid the silent giants of the woodlands, I could feel the others, their presence whispering incessantly at the edges of my awareness.

From early childhood I have possessed a sixth sense, an intuitive awareness of people's emotional states, a sort of super-empathy. The innermost feelings of close friends and total strangers alike are laid bare before me whether I want to know them or not. It would be misleading to say I read auras — the power both embraces and transcends the five common senses — but no words yet exist to describe how I record and process these empathic impressions. I just know.

In New York, the emotional emanations of the millions surrounding me canceled each other out, creating the empathic equivalent of white noise, but here in the sparsely populated hinterland there would be no escape from these unwanted sensations. It had been a mistake to come here.

One glimpse of my mother from afar changed my mind.

Ana Stevens was 79 now but looked four decades younger. I stopped to watch as she secured a length of heavy chain around a blackened tree stump. The rest of the oak lay nearby in a heap of charred splinters. She took a few steps back before wrapping the taut chain around her wrists. A breeze blew past, carrying on it the soft syllables of the prayer she was whispering. She tensed, her face set with determination, her strong thighs threatening to split the seams of the dirty old Levis sheathing them, and the stump — which must have weighed at least seven hundred pounds — popped from the ground like soap from a wet fist. It fell back to earth with a crash. It was only then that Ana noticed me.

She pulled off her heavy work gloves as she walked toward me, sunlight glinting off the thick metal bracelets she always wore. Her lustrous black hair was shot through with fine silver and a delicate tracery of laugh lines overlay her finely chiseled features but she was otherwise the same beautiful madonna whose face filled my earliest memories.

“Welcome home,” she said, her musical voice resonant with just a hint of exotic lands. Arms that could crush granite to powder hugged me tightly but tenderly.

“It's good to be home,” I said. “Funny. I'd forgotten how beautiful the grounds are and how fresh the air smells when the wind blows in off the lake. How could I have forgotten that?”

Ana sat down on the grass next to my chair and held my hand as she searched my eyes.

“What is it, Val?” she asked. “When you called out of the blue the other night and said you were coming home for a while, I knew something was wrong. I thought at first you just wanted out of the city until things cooled down but I see it's more personal than that. You look like hell. Tell me.”

She was right. She usually was.

“It's nothing,” I began. “Not really. It's just that...”

I took a deep breath.

“The syndicate has been pushing me to make the jump to television. They think it would help circulation if I could land a gig as a commentator with one of the cable networks. I wasn't crazy about the idea — you know how I feel about public appearances — but I went along. They arranged a tryout. We had twenty minutes of tape in the can when management pulled the plug. The show's anchor refused to work with me. He was afraid he'd look unsympathetic if he argued with me on air. And...”

I ground my teeth in renewed anger.

“...and they said people would tune out if they put someone so severely deformed on the air.”

“It sounds to me like they've set themselves up for a discrimination suit.”

“I thought so too, at first. I should've known better. The network pays legions of lawyers truckloads of money to ensure that their actions are always within the letter of the law. As far as they were concerned, they met with me only as a courtesy to my syndicate, they'd never said anything about a job. They had documentation to back them up. There was nothing I could do about it.”

“So you hit the glass ceiling this time,” Ana said. “That doesn't mean you always will.”

“But don't you see? Nothing I've accomplished matters. I thought my talent and experience would automatically open any door I chose to walk through, but in the end it was still my handicap that I was judged by.”

“Val...”

“I can't write, Ana. Every time I try, I go blank. I had to get out of New York, had to get away from that pressure cooker. I didn't know where else to go and...”

I fumbled for the words that might erase the ingratitude my long absence from home implied.

“Ana... Mom... There's so much I need to make up to you for.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “I love you and I've never doubted that you love me. I've always understood why you needed to be away from this place. You have a full life, a career. Don't apologize for the very things that make us all so proud of you... and don't be ashamed of needing us now.”

She kissed me before getting to her feet.

“Etta will have lunch ready soon and if I don't shower beforehand, I'll spoil everyone's appetite. Why don't you come upstairs with me? The General will be glad to see you.”

Would he?

General Trevor Stevens and I filled our quota of father-and-son spats. No major damage resulted until the night I loudly declared, with all the arrogance only a teenager can muster, that America's involvement in Vietnam had been less than honorable. He took this as a personal insult, as well he might. The General had been on assignment with Special Services in '67 when a Viet Cong land mine tore his spine in half, paralyzing him from the neck down. It was to care for him and keep him safe from her enemies that Ana retired her very public persona, changed the family's name and relocated them to the Midwest. My father and I rarely spoke after that argument. Years later, I devoted a column to the courage of Vietnam veterans as an apology. I had no idea if he ever saw it.

“Do you remember the piece you wrote about Vietnam?” Ana asked, as if she'd read my mind. “Your father carried it in his pocket for six months. I think he was prouder of that than of his Medal of Honor. He has it framed above his bed.”

She stopped and looked off in the distance.

“I'm telling you this because he may not. His mind is going, Val. Some days he doesn't even know who I...”

Her voice trailed off and she turned away but not before I saw her blinking back tears.

As nostalgic as my stroll across the grounds had been, it was not until we stepped into the house itself that the reality of being home set in. Little had changed. Acres of hand-carved woodwork still warred with the mansion's many windows in a primal clash of darkness and light. The elegance of its crystal chandeliers and parquet floors, the dignity of its high-beamed ceilings and museum-quality furniture still contrasted vividly with the haphazard quirkiness of its exterior. There were some differences, of course. New paintings hung on the walls among familiar old friends. Carpeting, window dressings and upholstery bore contemporary color schemes. Appliances and electronics were state-of-the-art. Despite such ephemera, the soul of Lash House remained constant. Only the hush took me by surprise. I had forgotten the way sound seemed to disappear here, absorbed by the house like water by a sponge. Would I be able to sleep tonight without the city's ceaseless rumbling in my ears?

My parents' suite shared a parlor with Etta's. I waited there while Ana moved the General from his bed to his wheelchair. I could hear her talking to him, telling him he had a special visitor, and his barely audible grunts in reply. It took an act of sheer will not to gasp when she wheeled him out. Could this scarecrow with its death's-head stare be my father, the man I remembered as proud and vigorous despite his grievous injuries?

“Look, Steve, it's Val,” Ana said. “He's come home.”

“Hello, General.”

His eyes remained unfocused at first. Then he saw me. Suddenly the General was back. His posture straightened; his slack face grew aware and intelligent. I stole a glance at Ana, whose face shone simultaneously with hope and despair and a profound love for this man.

There was an uncomfortable silence at first after Ana left the room. I was searching for something to say when the General leaned forward conspiratorially.

“They think I don't know, Valentine. They think the old soldier's too far gone to figure it out.”

“Figure out what, sir?” I asked warily.

“That your Aunt Etta is dying!”

I rocked back in disbelief. Why hadn't Ana said anything? It wasn't like her at all. In fact, it was so not like her that I began to think it might be the imaginings of an ill and addled old man.

“I've seen it in your mother's eyes,” he continued. “She's about to lose someone close to her, someone she dearly loves. She and Etta are always whispering in the corner like schoolgirls, peeking at me to make sure I can't hear. The other day, I overheard her talking to Arlington about a burial plot. Etta's a decorated veteran, you know. She's entitled.”

So are three-star generals, I thought.

“Diana never had to deal much with death growing up,” he said. “I suppose that's why she always takes it as a personal affront when it strikes close. How are you holding up, kid? Your mother says you've had some trouble.”

I'd been so preoccupied with feeling sorry for my father that the question took me by surprise but I recovered and smiled gamely.

“I'll get through it, General.”

“I know you will, son. You're strong. You're... you...”

As he spoke, a change came over the General. The intensity of his gaze melted away, his features went slack once more and he slowly sank back into his chair. I continued to make conversation, to which I received no coherent response, until Ana returned. Our eyes met just long enough for me to silently assure her that I understood.

The General turned and looked at her. His eyes cleared for a moment and a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “My angel,” he whispered before slipping off again. She allowed herself a deep sigh before she began to wheel him back to their room.

“I love you, Dad,” I heard myself say.

There was no reply.

Man... reading Lash House again is such a treat. Kurt was kind enough to share it with me many years back and I was thoroughly entertained and gripped by it at the time. It was actually the first and still only work of any length that I have read electronically. Actually, shortly after I finished Lash House the first time I had to reformat my computer without any back-up... something I've resolutely corrected since... and so I "lost" my copy.

But I really like this serialization way to present of the book.

Thanks Kurt!

Chapter 5

Most people would be startled to wake at 2:30 in the morning and find the ghost of a notorious gunslinger grinning at them from the foot of their bed. I, on the other hand, was not in the least surprised.

“Howdy, amigo,” the apparition said, touching the brim of his Stetson.

“Hello, Bat,” I replied sleepily. “I wondered when you'd pop up.”

I first met Bartholomew Lash when I was nine. He had been haunting the old house for decades, sighted by many but unable to communicate meaningfully with the living until the day we discovered I could hear him thanks to my empathic sense. We formed a fast friendship, a fact I hid from my family for fear they would object. Many a night I sat up late, listening to Lash's outrageous yarns about the Old West or quizzing him about the afterlife.

Ghosts are a real and common phenomenon. The vast majority are little better than psychic echoes, ectoplasmic xeroxes of the original being. Harmless and easily exorcised, they have no true consciousness. From time to time, a stronger soul remains on the mortal plane, sometimes to settle business unfinished in life, sometimes to watch over a loved one, sometimes for no apparent reason. Most, like Bat, are confined to a specific location. A chosen few roam the planet at will, charged with great missions by forces beyond mortal ken. Lash had come to know a handful of these over the years and looked forward to their occasional visits.

“I missed you, old son,” Bat said. “Ain't been nobody to jaw with in a coon's age.”

“No visits from your ghostly brethren?”

“The circus man drops in once in a while but other'n that, it's been a mite lonesome since you went away. Things been awful quiet since all that war trouble some time back. Lost a lot of the free-range spooks after that 'un. I heard tell Jimmy Corrigan got hisself destroyed permanent durin' it. Ain't nobody saw 'im since, anyways. Just as well, maybe. That 'un scared even me.”

I smiled at this show of bravado. Lash once admitted he spent the first thirty years after his death terrified of his fellow phantoms, even the harmless ones that haunted the brothel for a time. Not that I could blame Bat for being frightened of the ghost named James Corrigan. Doctor McNider used to tell gruesome stories about Corrigan that caused me more than one sleepless night.

“I'm sorry you've been so lonely,” I said.

“Oh, I stay plenty busy keepin' an eye on the folks here, y'know, but I got to admit it feels mighty fine to talk to somebody fer a change.”

An ineffable sadness overwhelmed him.

“Doggonit, Bartholomew, you promised you was goin' to stick to the truth,” he chided himself.

He met my eyes, something the gambler in him rarely allowed.

“When ghosts git old, Valentine, they start to... fade, less'n they got some big hurt to keep 'em goin'. 'Til you come along as a baby, I was hardly here no more. I could feel livin' people around me but I couldn't see 'em or hear 'em so good, kinda like they was the ghosts insteada t'other way 'round. About the time you come to live here, I started gittin' stronger. Those were good years. Then you went away. I was okay fer a spell, then I commenced to fadin' again. Now don't you be a'feelin' bad fer ol' Bat, amigo,” he added hurriedly, seeing the distress in my face. “It's the natcheral order of things, I reckon, an' it ain't nobody's fault but God's. Anyways, I was gittin' to where I didn't mind so much. I even got to thinkin' that maybe I'd finally git to go up. But somethin' changed. A couple weeks back I started to git strong agin. First off, I was happy about it, but...”

He was silent for a moment, pretending to pick at a loose thread on his richly embroidered vest but obviously fortifying his courage to say something he didn't want to say. A rivulet of cold sweat ran down my spine.

“Somethin's comin', Valentine,” Lash said at last, his voice a barely intelligible croak. “Somethin' bad. Somethin'... evil.”

My mouth went dry.

“What is it, Bat? What's coming?”

“I don't know!” he cried out, and he threw his hat to the floor in frustration, the little ectoplasmic flower tucked in the band falling loose. “All I can tell you is I been seein' signs an' they ain't good.”

His fear was now palpable but he pulled himself together and continued.

“There's a peculiar thing happens ever once in a while. When somethin' real bad is goin' to happen in the mortal world, somethin' that ends up killin' a lot of people, ghosts are drawn to it. They can't help it, leastways not the simpleminded ones. It's like moths an' flames, y'know? An' I ain't talkin' about earthquakes or airyplane crashes or even big wars. I'm talkin' about when evil men work at death.”

“I'm not sure I understand.”

“Like when that Hitler feller had all them Hebrew folks killed. Ev'ry spook not tied down drifted over to them death camps of his. Same thing's happened in Russia an' China an' Africa. An' you ain't never seed such a convention of chain rattlers as showed up fer the to-do in Metropolis. Hell, even I was wantin' to go to that 'un. Woulda, too, if'n I warn't tied to this ol' house.”

“And you're feeling like that again?”

He bent down and picked up his hat, replacing the daisy with a distracted delicacy.

“It's worse'n a feelin', Valentine. The spooks're on the move.”

“Where are they going?” I asked, sick with the certainty of what he would say.

“Here.”

My head swam with fear but I pressed on.

“Why? What's going to happen?”

“I been tryin' to find out, swear to God I have,” Bat said as he began to pace about the room, sometimes passing heedlessly through the furniture. “Right now, it's only a handful of ghosties headin' this way so's I can't tell jist how big the bad's a'goin' to be. I never been no good at the hoodoo part of ghostin' anyways but it seems like somethin's a'workin' to cut me off from my fellow spooks lately. I've tried ever which way to contact the circus man, he always knows what's what, but he either can't or won't get back to me. I even...”

If it's possible for a ghost to blush, Lash did.

“I even tried prayin'. No answer.”

He sat down on the bed next to me.

“Here's what I think,” he continued. “I think it has somethin' to do with the kind of people as live here and with the kind of people as hate the first kind. I think it's an old hate lookin' fer one last showdown. An' I think that maybe it doesn't have to happen, leastways not all of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“We're part of it, you an' me. Deep down, I feel like... like this is why I've stayed behind all these years an' why your ma — your real ma, whoever she was — left you here. So's I can tell you this an' you can tell all the others.”

His eyes lost focus as he stared off into a distance no living soul can envision.

“I warn't the nicest feller when I was flesh 'n' blood an' I always sorta figgered bein' a ghost beat goin' where I shoulda gone. But Heaven's doors are a'waitin' me, Valentine, I can smell 'em. An' all I got to do to earn 'em is what I'm doin' right here, right now. People're goin' to die, old son. Can't either of us change that. But if we can stop some of these people from dyin' afore their times then I'll be one proud cousin, even if'n it don't git me through them pearly gates.”

We sat together quietly for a time while I digested this. I thought of the events that brought me back to Lash House. Were they more than the random occurrences they seemed? I couldn't accept that. I hated the notion of dancing at the behest of some unseen puppeteer. I believed everything happens for a reason but in the scientific sense, not the metaphysical.

“I don't know what to think, Bat,” I said. “I've never been a big believer in destiny” — simply uttering the word made me surprisingly uncomfortable — “but I can't deny that my being here doesn't feel like a coincidence. Maybe it's as you say and maybe it isn't but I'll keep my eyes open for trouble. Good enough?”

He stood up.

“Good enough. I warn't sure if'n you'd be changed after all your time away, feared you mighta lost the knack of seein' me or... or might not have no use fer ol' Bat no more. Glad I was wrong. It's up to you now, Valentine. I don't know how much help I can be, seein' as how I'm a ghost an' all, but if'n you need me, call and I'll be there.”

With that, he tipped his hat and dissolved into the night air.

Chapter 7

I awoke to the sound of a gentle rapping on my door. The morning sun streamed through the open windows of my bedroom and a soft breeze carried on it the scent of the lilacs that grew just outside. In the distance, I could hear the drone of a small tractor and the unmistakable voice of Bob Tinker singing “Good Morning Starshine.” If I remembered the dark forebodings of the night before at all, it was as a vaguely unpleasant nightmare. In the days ahead, as the dying began, I would recall this morning with nostalgia and regret.

The door opened slightly and Mark poked his head in.

“Good morning, Val. Are you ready to get up yet?”

“Good morning, Mark, come on in,” I replied with a smile.

He walked in with his arms loaded with magazines and newspapers. My workday routinely began with my skimming through the dozens of periodicals to which I subscribed. These were delivered to my office and waiting for me when I arrived. Until now, it never occurred to me what a pain in the ass this must be for our mailroom staff. Watching Mark awkwardly lay them on the desk, I promised myself to send the mailroom something really nice this Christmas.

As Mark helped me get ready for the day, I was impressed by the man's professionalism. In less than half an hour I was showered, shaved and dressed in my most comfortable grubbies. Although my ability to float did facilitate things somewhat, I suspected that Mark would have done the job just as efficiently without that edge.

I joined my parents in their room for breakfast. The General was in good spirits, if not entirely alert. Ana, dressed in one of the immaculate white pantsuits she favored as business wear, betrayed no sign of a late night or early morning. We spoke briefly of my plans for my proposed book.

“Would it be possible to have someone drive me into town today?” I asked. “I'd like to get my research started right away, and I'll need a good tape recorder and some tapes.”

“I really can't spare the staff today,” she said. “There's a state inspector coming at the end of the week and I need everyone here to help with cleaning and inventory. What if Pat Dugan takes you?”

I smiled.

“That would be great. I'd love to spend time with Pat. He can be my first official interview. Does he still have the old Packard?”

“Are you kidding? He could run the Indy 500 in that dinosaur and probably win,” Ana laughed. “Everyone's been asking about you over in the annex. Why don't you have lunch over there and you can ask Pat then about that ride?”

I started to agree but was interrupted by the appearance in the open doorway of a gentleman in his late seventies whose ramrod-straight bearing marked him as a military man. Even dressed in a flannel shirt and frayed corduroys, he looked as if he had just stepped off the parade grounds. Only the jaundiced cast of his skin, the rheumy wateriness of his eyes and the uncontrollable tremor in his hands betrayed his illness. A scattering of burst blood vessels across his nose and cheeks told me the old man had once had a serious drinking problem.

“Good morning, Rip,” Ana said. “I was beginning to worry you weren't feeling well today. Your coffee is getting cold.”

“Good morning, sir.”

Ignoring Ana, he turned and threw the General a perfect salute. Only then did he reply to her.

“I'm sorry I'm late, ma'am. My morning calisthenics took longer than I expected. I hope I haven't inconvenienced you.”

Ana smiled at him warmly.

“Of course you haven't. Please, sit down and have some breakfast. I'm sure you and Steve have a lot to talk about today.”

She paused to spoon another dollop of scrambled eggs into the General's mouth then carefully wiped his chin.

“I don't think you've met our son Valentine before, Rip. Val, this is Major Ripley Carter. He's been our guest here at Lash House for the last four years.”

“I'm pleased to meet you, Major Carter,” I said, offering my hand.

Carter hesitated, distaste for my deformities passing swiftly across his face, then took the offered hand and gave it a brusque yet friendly shake.

“The pleasure is mine, sir. I admired the hell out of that piece you did on Nam. I can see why General Trevor is so proud of you.”

Despite the seeming geniality of this conversation, something didn't ring true. I looked deeper. Ana was emotionally quiet but the major... Rip was a blast furnace of hatred, all of it directed at my mother.

I sat stunned. It must have shown on my face because Ana gave me a concerned look. I derailed her coming question by asking if Carter had heard the latest news from Iraq. This precipitated a lengthy tirade about how shameful it was for America to be mocked by a little no-account sand flea like Saddam Hussein, how that damned draft dodger in the White House needed to grow a spine, how any single division of World War II vets could clean up the Middle East situation in a week and all the other ancient bromides conservative old soldiers like Rip Carter were prone to. He was still at it when Ana and I finished our breakfasts and walked back down the hall to my room.

“Who is Major Carter, Ana?” I asked. “His name rings a bell but I can't place him.”

“Have you ever heard of the Boy Commandos?”

“Sure. They were a squad of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds that proved amazingly effective behind the lines in the European theater during World War II.”

“Rip was their commanding officer.”

“Of course, I remember now. I thought I read someplace that Carter made a small fortune after the war with a fried chicken franchise or something along those lines. What's he doing here?”

“I'm not sure of all the details. Rip isn't very forthcoming about that period of his life. The rumor is he married a USO hostess in the early Fifties and somehow she managed to steal the business out from under him, leaving him with nothing. He started drinking and dropped out of sight until five years ago. You know Dan Turpin?”

“Sure. Maggie Sawyer's right hand man in the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit. I met both of them at an FBI seminar on urban crime a few months back.”

“Most people don't know that Dan was once one of the Boy Commandos.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You're telling me Turpin was Brooklyn?”

“That's right. Dan found Rip wandering around Suicide Slum in a drunken stupor. He took him in, cleaned him up and got him into a rehab program. Rip took it to heart. I think it meant something to him that one of his boys still cared about him after all these years. Unfortunately, his sobriety came too late. He has an advanced case of cirrhosis and it's only a matter of time before his liver fails. Dan wanted to take care of him but knew his work would keep him away from home too often. So he asked Kara Kent to contact me and here he is. Turpin, that tough old bird, was crying like a baby when he put him on the plane. It was something to see.”

She paused to consider her next words.

“I'm... glad he's here. He and your father keep each other company. The General's missed having military men to talk to since we moved to Wisconsin. Etta and I were both WACs, of course, but we didn't see any combat, at least not in the sense that Steve and Rip did. Steve is more... more Steve when Rip's in the room.”

Her face grew inexpressibly sad for an instant before she resumed control.

I knew then that my mother was well aware of Carter's antipathy towards her and that she consciously tolerated it for the General's sake. But Ana was not one to suffer fools gladly. When he was no longer needed, Rip Carter would find himself swiftly transformed from houseguest to patient, well cared for but no longer welcome in the Stevens' private quarters.

She left to tend to the business of the house. I was at loose ends. There was little real work for me to do. The syndicate was reprinting old columns for the two weeks of my vacation. Still, I should stay current. I regarded the pile of papers and magazines with reluctance. Before I settled into it, I decided to give my agent a call.

Patricia Blum was an amazing woman. She looked like Susan Sarandon, talked like Fran Drescher, dressed like Janet Reno and every man who knew her was either afraid of her, in love with her or both. She had clawed her way to the top of her profession through a combination of charm, intellect and sheer chutzpah. Trish could be abrasive, even vicious, in the interests of her clients but that only made me happier to have her on my side.

She answered the phone on the first ring.

“Trish, it's Val.”

“Valentine, you doll,” she said in her nasal bray, “to what do I owe the honor? Your next collection doesn't go to press for another ten months.”

“I'm writing a book.”

“Really? What about?”

I heard both greed and caution in her voice. She often urged me to write more but secretly worried I'd produce an incomprehensible think piece that wouldn't make back its print costs.

“About super-heroes and super-villains, something showing the human side of that life, what it's really like to be a part of that whole scene. Interested?”

“Interested? Sweetie, if you're serious, I can have it sold by the end of business.”

“You're kidding.”

“Super-heroes are hot, babe! Haven't you heard? Since the Enquirer broke that story about the first Black Canary and the original Starman, people can't get enough of the super-guys. Michelle Pfeiffer's signed to play the Canary for a movie and the rumor mill says they're after Mel Gibson to play Knight. Your timing couldn't be better.”

I was well aware of the Enquirer story. It had triggered Doctor Mac's rant about the press at lunch yesterday. Some sleazy private investigator went to the tabloid claiming he had photos of Ted Knight and the late Dinah Lance doing the wild thing in some no-tell motel outside Baltimore shortly after the duo, both married, had broken up a crime wave in 1965. The pictures themselves were blurry and could've been anybody but that didn't stop the headlines screaming about “Canary's Love Nest!” The Canary's daughter and granddaughter, both of whom assumed the identity in turn, denied the story. Ted Knight, long since widowed, refused to dignify the accusation with a response. It didn't matter. The genie was out of the bottle and the media was in a feeding frenzy over super-hero scandal.

“You understand, Trish,” I cautioned her, “I'm not going to churn out a bunch of lascivious swill to appeal to the tabloid crowd. This is going to be a serious, respectful work.”

“I know that, kiddo. I'd be disappointed in you if it weren't. Personally, I think those guys deserve better than the shit that's going down right now. A fair and accurate book about them written by a respected journalist is something I'd read. That it's you writing it and me pitching it is just gravy.”

Her solemn demeanor couldn't sustain itself.

“Christ, Val, we're going to make a fucking fortune!”

Stuck as I was in a town whose public library could fit into the back of a pickup truck, I knew I would need someone in the city to help with research. Trish agreed to use any advance money to hire an assistant who would explore the official history of super-heroes at her end while I began conducting interviews on mine. We talked a bit about who we should make the first offer to, how big an advance to ask for and other points of business. That decided, Trish allowed herself to indulge her curiosity.

“I have to ask you, hon. This didn't just come out of the blue. You've got access to these people or you couldn't even get started on a project like this. How? And who?”

“I wish I could tell you, Trish, I really do, but confidentiality is crucial and...”

“I know,” she laughed. “Telegraph, telephone, tell a Trish. I can't keep a secret. It's okay, Val. I'll console myself by counting the money as it rolls in. Now, get off the phone, get your ass busy and make me rich!”

Chapter 8

I made a valiant effort to get through my stack of reading material but Trish's enthusiasm proved contagious. I spent the morning staring out the window and thinking about the book. By noon, the grapefruit and English muffins I had breakfasted on were nothing but a memory.

The mansion was quiet as I took the elevator down, only the voices of Rip Carter on the third floor and a pair of young lab technicians in the basement breaking the stillness.

The entry to the tunnel connecting the mansion and the old casino had originally been concealed in Bat Lash's game room behind a false wall festooned with the mounted heads of tigers, polar bears and other dangerous forms of wildlife that the old liar had never been within an ocean's distance of in their living states. Ana, whose love of animals was profound, thought this trophy room distasteful and had it completely refitted. It now served as the hospital's waiting area. The false wall was removed entirely. To cover the distance between the two buildings, a pair of electric rails were installed in the tunnel on which rode modified golf carts capable of carrying a wheelchair and up to four ambulatory passengers. At the press of a button, the cart would run to the opposite end of the line. I rolled my chair onto one of these and a few minutes later emerged in the annex. An elevator took me up to the dining room.

Lash House didn't look like a nursing home. There was nothing institutional or antiseptic about the place. The annex dining hall was a case in point. The former casino stood two stories tall. It resembled nothing so much as the main room of a five-star restaurant, all polished mahogany and brass fixtures, with fine art on the walls and recorded chamber music played low. Nor was the food the typical bland fare associated with hospitals. Ana hired the finest chefs available. If they had complaints about the lack of creativity in preparing menus for the sick and elderly, they were too well compensated to voice them.

I paused in the doorway to quickly scan the room. There were perhaps thirty-five people seated about the tables, both staffers and residents. Many faces were familiar. Many more were not.

At a table directly beneath an immense chandelier, Ana and Etta sat sharing a huge chef salad with a tiny grandmotherly woman and a beautiful redhead in her mid-thirties. The coppertop was one-time supermodel Lia Briggs. She wore a moleskin mask that completely covered the right side of her face and neck. The older lady was Byrna Brilyant, a retired college professor. Ana was speaking intensely to three staffers — a chubby Asian man, a scrawny white man with a pockmarked face and a beefy white woman — who nodded once, then hurried in different directions.

In a corner beyond the ladies' table, sitting quite alone, an impeccably dressed little man with an impressive shock of white hair nursed a glass of Chablis. He watched the room with a relaxed intensity, his eyes never staying on one spot for more than a second but drinking in every detail in that short time.

Before I could look around further, a raucous shout rose from a table to my right where three old men sat waving me over. This was the accustomed meeting place of the “Sidekicks Club.” Its membership had all served as Man Friday to one or another great hero of the past and now spent their afternoons telling tall tales and getting unobtrusively drunk. The Sidekicks considered themselves my “uncles.” They'd made me an honorary member on my fifth birthday. I could see other old friends scattered about the hall but I knew there would be no peace if I chose anyone else to sit with on my first full day home. I drove over and took the place offered me.

“Lookit you, all growed up,” Stretch Skinner drawled, his Ozark accent strong despite sixty years of big city life. He reached out with his bony hand and ruffled my hair.

“We're so proud of you, kid,” added Woozy Winks, his color sickly and his consonants slurred. “We always knew you'd become important someday.”

“Y'notice he's not such a big shot he ain't got time for his old pals,” chimed in Noddy Toylan, looking remarkably hale for a man who had been given six weeks to live twenty-one years ago. “Da old club ain't been da same widout you.”

“Beats me why a respectable gent like Val would want to bend an elbow with you old reprobates,” said a familiar voice behind me. “Then again, I don't understand why I would want to either but here I am.”

I turned around, surprised and delighted, to see a lanky man in a cheap gabardine suit at least sixty years out of date. Despite his steel gray hair, the slight quaver in his voice and the liver spots on his hands and at his temples, he had flawlessly wrinkle-free skin, as if it had kept the elasticity it had in youth. Donal “Eel” O'Brian was a frequent visitor to Lash House in my youth. Now he lived here.

He sat down in the chair to my left.

“Where you been, Eel?” asked Woozy. “I thought you was gonna play bridge with us this morning. We had to play a dummy.”

“He musta felt right at home,” Eel smirked. “I couldn't help it. Nurse Hutton said it was time for my sponge bath. Who am I to argue with Nurse Hutton?”

Stretch scratched his head in puzzlement.

“Nurse Hutton? Ain't she the little yaller-haired gal with the big...?”

“Tongue depressors!” Woozy snorted.

The four old men laughed at what I realized was a joke they'd shared a thousand times before. I felt left out.

“So where's Uncle Max?” I asked.

The laughter quieted. Stretch removed his battered straw boater and placed it over his heart. Noddy crossed himself. Woozy sighed heavily. Eel placed a manicured hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently.

“The late Mister Maximilian O'Leary lies in the soil of his native Flatbush,” he said reverently. “His great heart gave out at last and he slipped away peacefully last May the tenth.”

“Poor Maxie. He never did get over losing Sargon,” Woozy said as he wiped away a solitary tear. “At last they're together again.”

“And fleecing the heavenly host out of their haloes and harps, no doubt,” laughed Eel. “A toast to his memory.”

They all drained their glasses, then began signaling for refills.

There was a commotion by the main entrance. Pat Dugan burst into the dining hall with a confused middle-aged man in tow. Pat was a big Irishman whose ruddy face bore the weathered creases of years of hard living. He guided the other man gently but firmly to Ana's table. She rose to her feet, relief on her face.

“Where have you been, Snapper?” she asked.

“Golly, I'm sorry, Wo... I, I mean Diana,” he answered. “I couldn't find my signal device. What's the emergency?”

She sighed and began gently pushing him toward the Sidekicks' table.

“We've talked about this, Snapper,” she said. “We aren't in the League any more, remember? Did you look at your calendar this morning, like you're supposed to?”

He stopped and hung his head like an abashed toddler.

“I forgot, Princess. I'm sorry.”

Who was this pathetic child-like man in the black tee shirt and scuffed Keds sneakers? Long ago, in the days of Dobie and Maynard, a New England teen named Lucas Carr with aspirations to join the Beat movement became instead the mascot and confidante of the world's greatest super-heroes. “Snapper” Carr had been the envy of every teenage boy in the country in those days and the favorite pin-up of every preteen girl. He was the Ultimate Sidekick. A quarter of a century later, the assassin and archer called Merlyn the Magician shot Carr in the head with a diamond-tipped arrow during the Battle of Metropolis as the former mascot stood protectively over a fallen super-heroine named Celsius. Her wounds had been mortal but Snapper was a little luckier. His life was saved after eighteen hours of cranial surgery and the removal of 30% of the right frontal lobe of his brain.

Ana scowled at the Sidekicks.

“You boys promised me you'd keep on eye on Snapper today.”

The quartet squirmed guiltily. Eel slowly stood up and took Snapper's arm.

“Don't blame the boys, Ana. It was my fault. I had him and I got distracted...”

“I know what distracted you, Donal O'Brian, and I'll be transferring Miss Nancy Hutton to the mansion ward this afternoon. I can't stop you from having your little intrigues but I can remove the temptation for her to play on duty. If this happens again, Eel, you'll leave me no choice.”

She glanced quickly but meaningfully over at Uncle Woozy.

“You'll have to get an apartment in town.”

O'Brian swallowed hard and leaned closer to Ana, speaking hurriedly in a low voice.

“All right, Ana, you win. Please don't make me move. Not when he's got so little time left. He...”

His voice broke.

“He needs me.”

Ana's hard demeanor softened.

“All right. But please keep Snapper with you.”

She turned to me.

“Pat will drive you into town after lunch. He's delighted to do it.”

She gave Eel one last stern glance then returned to her table. As she walked away, I was astonished that beneath all the other emotions the Sidekicks were experiencing lay fear. They were afraid of my mother. I pushed the thought away but it would return at odd moments to torment me.

Through the rest of lunch, the Sidekicks and I swapped jokes and listened to Eel O'Brian spin yarns about the Depression-era mob. I came to suspect that Eel sometimes missed his days on the wrong side of the law. It was obvious the tough-talking ex-gangster cared about these old men and delighted in their company.

To most people, even the heroes that came later, the Sidekicks were a joke, dated relics of a naïve past, living trivia questions. It wasn't fair. Each had laid his life on the line time after time for his friends, his country and for humanity. Adventure had been their only desire and their only reward. They'd never asked themselves what they would do when, inevitably, their heroic buddies retired or died. They had no pensions, no families. They were the forgotten detritus of The Life.

There were more of them when I was younger, not only Max O'Leary but Noddy's best friends, Winky Boylan and Blinky Moylan, who died within days of each other in '78. Their colorful pasts had cost them dearly. Noddy and his buddies all contracted lung cancer from asbestos exposure. Max was once wounded by a shotgun and suffered terribly from those pellets the surgeons dared not remove. Stretch had crippling arthritis in his hands, a consequence of too many hastily thrown punches resulting in too many broken knuckles. Woozy, on the other hand, had been the picture of good health when I last saw him. His present illness was presumably the result of forty-five years of overindulgence in alcohol, tobacco and rich food.

I dreaded the day the last of these noble idiots passed away.

Brushing aside such somber thoughts, I listened to Snapper tell the story of the original JLA's first battle with the Amazo android. Carr may have been hazy on the here and now but he remembered his glory days with crystal clarity. Though at times his lapses into Beat slang bordered on the incomprehensible and his constant finger snapping — a habit from whence came his nickname — grew irritating, he was a gifted raconteur.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pat Dugan — who had joined Ana and the other ladies at their table — stand up and take Miss Brilyant by the arm. Ever the gentleman, he was escorting the lady back to her suite. As they strolled past the Sidekicks' table, Pat slapped a meaty hand on my back.

“Just let me see this fair flower safely home, kid,” Pat said, “and I'll bring the car around.”

Miss Brilyant smiled warmly at me.

“Why don't you walk with us, dear? While Mr. Dugan is warming up his steel mistress, I can show you my paintings.”

That was fine with me. The Sidekicks were drunk enough that a turn to the maudlin was only minutes away. Much as I loved my honorary uncles, I would just as soon be elsewhere when that moment arrived.

As I said made my excuses, I felt the penetrating eyes of the little man at the corner table on me. It was unsettling. Of all the persons in the room, he alone did not register on my empathic sense. If even Bob and Naomi Tinker left a slight impression, what did that make him?

“Pat,” I whispered, after making sure my back was turned to the object of my curiosity, “who is that man in the corner, the tiny white-haired man?”

“You mean the Old Timer?” Pat laughed. “Gives you the heebie-jeebies, does he? Don't worry, everybody feels that way at first but you'll get used to him. He's harmless.”

“And quite charming once you get to know him,” added Miss Brilyant.

“But who is he? What's his name?”

“As far as I know, ‘Old Timer’ is his name,” said Pat. “At least that's the only name I've heard.”

“He told me once after one too many glasses of wine that he came here to study the phenomena of aging and death firsthand,” Miss Brilyant said. “Now what do you suppose that meant?”

I had no idea but I made a mental note to find out.

When we reached the women's wing of the annex, Pat departed with a gallant kiss of the lady's hand. Miss Brilyant's suite was decorated almost exactly as one would expect an old maid's room to be: crowded with framed photographs, bric-a-brac and cut flowers. Almost. As always, I found myself drawn to the glass display case sitting against one wall, its sinister contents belying the frills and fripperies of its surroundings.

“Somehow, I expected him to be gone,” I told her, nodding at the costume in the case.

“Oh, I could never throw out the Snowman, dear. I'm sure I should and I'm positively wicked not to but somehow I never... well, you don't want to hear all this ancient history.”

“Oh, but I do,” I said eagerly. “Please, go on.”

She walked up to the case and pressed a tiny hand to the glass.

“I was a wild little thing when I wore this suit,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “Just a girl, really, with a talent for invention and a yen for the good life. I grew up poor, you see, dirt poor, and I swore revenge on the whole world for it. I wanted people to fear me but who's scared of a little girl? But the Blue Snowman, him they feared!”

Her voice rose, regaining the power it had in her prime.

“The Snowman brought whole cities to their knees and bled them dry of their treasures until...”

She stood away from the case, its spell broken.

“Until Ana caught you,” I finished.

“Yes. Yes, that's right. If I'd been caught by the cops or one of her teammates, I'd have gone to prison. Who knows what kind of horrible person I would've become? But your mother was different. She sent me to that island and helped me see the error of my ways. By the time I came back, I wasn't angry anymore and, without the anger, the Snowman was just a silly costume. Ana got me a job teaching atmospheric science at Calvin University. I liked my work and I never considering quitting but I wanted more than just a comfortable living so I... I began selling my freezing technology to other criminals: Joar Makent in '47, Victor Fries in '55, that little weasel Len Snart in '57. I had to keep selling, you see, because I couldn't seem to make the money last.”

I looked at her in astonishment.

“The Icicle, Mister Freeze and Captain Cold all...?”

“All bought my designs and claimed them as their own. You may be the first person besides me to know that. Certainly your mother doesn't. I'm sure she'd be quite put out with me. You won't tell on me, will you, dear?”

The three criminals named had all done tremendous damage — and Freeze committed nine murders — using Byrna Brilyant's inventions. Ana would hold her responsible for that. She wouldn't make her leave Lash House but it would sour their relationship. The villains in question were all dead, casualties of the Battle of Metropolis. They would never hurt anyone again.

“I won't tell her, Miss Brilyant,” I assured her. “Still, perhaps you ought to consider putting the Snowman in storage.”

Her eyes locked onto the empty eye sockets of the costume's headpiece, its color long faded to a benign baby blue.

“Perhaps I should, dear, perhaps I should.”

She snapped out of her reverie and was once again the sweet old maid I remembered.

“I almost forgot. I was going to show you my paintings.”

My jaw dropped when I followed her to the corner of her bedroom she'd converted to a studio. I expected sentimental paintings of children or kittens or clowns, at best some kind of Grandma Moses primitives. Instead, on her easel sat a huge oil depicting a blizzard, its ferocity captured with an exactitude that bordered on the surreal yet was simultaneously almost abstract. Scattered around the room were half a dozen others of the same type. Even the painting in Ana's parlor, which I'd assumed was from an expensive gallery, was a product of this woman's brush.

“These are magnificent, Miss Brilyant,” I said. “Who else has seen these?”

“Oh, Lia has, and Mister Dugan. And your mother, of course. Some of the staff, too, but all they ever say is that I need better ventilation if I'm going to work in oils. I'm so pleased you like them, dear.”

“Like them? Miss Brilyant, these should be seen by the public. Have you considered a show?”

“A show? Of my work? Oh, I couldn't... could I?”

“Let me make a couple of calls. I know some folks who would lose their minds over these.”

I gave her a wry smile.

“You may just conquer the world yet.”