From the Corner of His Eye

house."
        "You planning to run off with some blonde?"
        He couldn't get the car started, because he repeatedly tried to turn the key in the wrong direction. "You know what I mean. I'm going to be around a long time yet, but women outlive men by several years. Actuarial tables aren't wrong."
        "Always the insurance agent."
        "Well, it's true," he said, finally turning the key in the proper direction and firing up the engine.
        "Gonna sell me a policy?"
        "I didn't sell anyone else today. Gotta make a living. You all right?"
        "Scared," she said.
        Instead of shifting the car into drive, he placed one of his bearish hands over both of her hands. "Something feel wrong?"
        "I'm afraid you'll drive us straight into a tree."
        He looked hurt. "I'm the safest driver in Bright Beach. My auto rates prove it."
        "Not today. If it takes you as long to get the car in gear as it did to slip that key in the ignition, our little girl will be sitting up and saying 'dada' by the time we get to the hospital."
        "Little boy."
        "Just calm down."
        "I am calm," he assured her.
        He released the hand brake, shifted the car into reverse instead of into drive, and backed away from the street, along the side of the house.
        Startled, he braked to a halt. Agnes didn't say anything until Joey had taken three or four deep, slow breaths, and then she pointed at the windshield. "The hospital's that way."
        He regarded her sheepishly. "You all right?"
        "Our little girl's going to walk backward her whole life if you drive in reverse all the way to the hospital."
        "If it is a little girl, she's going to be exactly don't think I could handle two of you." he said.
        "We'll keep you young."
        With great deliberation, Joey shifted gears and followed the drive way to the street, where he peered left and then right with the squint-eyed suspicion of a Marine commando scouting dangerous territory. He turned right.
        "Make sure Edom delivers the pies in the morning," Agnes reminded him.
        "Jacob said he wouldn't mind doing it for once."
        "Jacob scares people," Agnes said. "No one would eat a pie that Jacob delivered without having it tested at a lab."
        Needles of rain knitted the air and quickly embroidered silvery patterns on the blacktop.
        Switching on the windshield wipers, Joey said, "That's the first time I've ever heard you admit that either of your brothers is odd."
        Not odd, dear. They're just a little eccentric."
        "Like water is a little wet."
        Frowning at him, she said, "You don't mind them around, do you, Joey? They're eccentric, but I love them very much.
        "So do I," he admitted. He smiled and shook his head. "Those two make a worrywart life-insurance salesman like me seem just as light hearted as a schoolgirl."
        "Your turning into an excellent driver, after all," she said, winking him.
        He was, in fact, a first-rate driver, with an impeccable record at the age of thirty: no traffic citations, no accidents.
        His skill behind the wheel and his inborn caution didn't help him, However, when a Ford pickup ran a red traffic light, braked too late, and slid at high speed into the driver's door of the Pontiac.

Chapter 9
        
        ROCKING AS IF AFLOAT on troubled waters, abused by an unearthly and tormented sound, Junior Cain imagined a gondola on a black river, a carved dragon rising high at the bow as he had seen on a paperback fantasy novel featuring Vikings in a longboat. The gondolier in this case was not a Viking, but a tall figure in a black robe, his face concealed within a voluminous hood; he didn't pole the boat with the traditional oar but with what appeared to be human bones welded into a staff. The river's course was entirely underground, with a stone vault for a sky, and fires burned on the far shore, whence came the tormenting wail, a cry filled with rage, anguish, and fearsome need.
        The truth, as always, was not supernatural: He opened his eyes and discovered that he was in the back of an ambulance. Evidently this was the one intended for Naomi. They would be sending a morgue wagon for her now.
        A paramedic, rather than a boatman or a demon, was attending him. The wail was a siren.
        His stomach felt as if he had been clubbed mercilessly by a couple of professional