From the Corner of His Eye

millions and millions of worlds all here in the same place and invisible to one another, where we keep getting chance after chance to live a good life and do the right thing."
        People like Enoch Cain, of course, never choose between the right and the wrong thing, but between two evils. For themselves, they create world after world of despair. For others, they make worlds of pain.
        "So," he said, "you see why I'm not sad?"
        Angel raised her attention from the salt shaker to Tom's face, studied his scars for a moment, and said, "No."
        "I'm not sad," Tom said, "because though I have this face here in this world, I know there's another me-in fact, lots of other Tom Vanadiums-who don't have this face at all. Somewhere I'm doing just fine, thank you."
        After thinking it over, the girl said, "I'd be sad. Do you like dogs?"
        "Who doesn't like dogs?"
        "I want a puppy. Did you ever have a puppy?"
        "When I was a little boy."
        On the sofa, Celestina finally worked up the courage to dial her parents' number in Spruce Hills.
        "Do you think dogs can talk?" Angel asked.
        "You know," Tom said, "I've never actually thought about it."
        "I saw a horse talk on 'TV."
        "Well, if a horse can talk, why not a dog?"
        "That's what I think."
        Her connection made, Celestina said, "Hi, Mom, it's me."
        "What about cats?" Angel asked.
        "Mom?" Celestina said.
        "If dogs, why not cats?"
        "Mom, what's happening?" Celestina asked, sudden worry in her voice.
        "That's what I think," Angel said.
        Tom pushed his chair back from the table, got to his feet, and moved toward Celestina.
        Bolting up from the couch-"Mom, are you there?"-she turned to Tom, her face collapsing in a ghastly expression.
        "I want a talking dog," Angel said.
        As Tom reached Celestina, she said, "Shots." She said, "Gunshots." She held the receiver in one hand and pulled at her hair with the other, as if with the administration of a little pain, she might wake up from this nightmare. She said, "He's in Oregon."
        The inimitable Mr. Cain. The wizard of surprises. Master of the unlikely.

Chapter 76
        

      "BOILS."
        In a stolen black Dodge Charger 440 Magnum, Junior Cain shot out of Spruce Hills on as straight a trajectory to Eugene as the winding roads of southern Oregon would allow, staying off Interstate 5, where the policing was more aggressive.
        "Carbuncles, to be precise."
        During the drive, he alternated between great gales of delighted laughter and racking sobs wrought by pain and self-pity. The voodoo Baptist was dead, the curse broken with the death of he who had cast it. Yet Junior must endure this final devastating plague.
        "A boil is an inflamed, pus-filled hair follicle or pore."
        On a street a half mile from the airport in Eugene, he sat in the parked Dodge long enough to gingerly unwind the bandages and use a tissue to wipe off the pungent but useless salve he'd purchased at a pharmacy. Although he pressed the Kleenex to his face so gently that the pressure might not have broken the surface tension on a pool of water, the agony of the touch was so great that he nearly passed out. The rearview mirror revealed clusters of hideous, large, red knobs with glistening yellow heads, and at the sight of himself, he actually did pass out for a minute or two, just long enough to dream that he was a grotesque but misunderstood creature being pursued through a stormy night by crowds of angry villagers with torches and pitchforks, but then the throbbing agony revived him.
        "Carbuncles are interconnected clusters of boils."
        Wishing he had left the gauze wrappings on his face, but afraid that the airwaves might already be carrying news of the bandaged man who had killed a minister in Spruce Hills, Junior abandoned the Dodge and hurriedly walked back to the private-service terminal, where the pilot from Sacramento waited. At the sight of his passenger, the pilot blanched and said, Allergic reaction to WHAT? And Junior said, Camellias, because Sacramento was the Camellia Capital of the World, and all that he wanted was to get back there, where he'd left his new Ford van and his Sklents and his Zedd collection and everything he needed to live in the future. The pilot couldn't conceal his intense revulsion, and Junior knew that he