From the Corner of His Eye

listened intently and nodded her head, "wasn't really into Gunsmoke, 'cause that's not a place, it's just a show. See, maybe he threw it into a place where I'm not blind, or into a place where he doesn't have that messed-up face, or a place where for some reason you never came here today. There's more places than anybody could ever count, even me, and I can count pretty good. That's what you feel, right-all the ways things are?"
        "I see. Sometimes. Just quick. For like a blink. Like when you stand between two mirrors. You know?"
        "Yeah," Barty said.
        "Between two mirrors, you go on forever, over and over."
        "You see things like that?"
        "For a blink. Sometimes. Is there a place where Wally didn't get shot? "
        "Is Wally the guy who's gonna be your dad?"
        "Yeah, that's him."
        "Sure. There's lots of places where he didn't get shot, but there's places where he got shot and died, too."
        "I don't like those places."
        Although Paul had seen Tom Vanadium's clever coin trick, he didn't understand the rest of their conversation, and he assumed that for everyone else-except Angel's mother-it was equally impenetrable. But taking their clue from the risen Celestina, all those present had fallen silent.
        Oblivious that she and Barty had become the center of attention, Angel said, "Does he ever get the quarters back?"
        "Probably not."
        "He must be really rich. Throwing away quarters."
        "A quarter's not much money."
        "It's a lot," Angel insisted. "Wally gave me an Oreo, last time I saw him. You like Oreos?"
        "They're okay."
        "Could you throw an Oreo someplace you weren't blind or maybe someplace Wally wasn't shot?"
        "I guess if you could throw a quarter, you could throw an Oreo."
        "Could you throw a pig?"
        "Maybe he could if he was able to lift it, but I couldn't throw a pig or an Oreo or anything else into any other place. It's just not something I know how to do."
        "Me neither."
        "But I can walk in the rain and not get wet," Barty said.
        At the far end of the table, Agnes shot up from her chair as her son said rain, and as he said wet, she spoke warningly: "Barty!"
        Angel looked up, surprised that everyone was staring at her.
        Turning his patched eyes in the general direction of his mother, Barty said, "Oops."
        Everyone confronted Agnes with expressions of puzzlement and expectation, and she looked from one to another. Paul. Maria. Francesca. Bonita. Grace. Edom. Jacob. Finally Celestina.
        The two women stared at each other, and at last Celestina said, "Good Lord, what's happening here?"

Chapter 79
        
        ON THE FOLLOWING Tuesday afternoon in Bright Beach, across a sky as black as a witch's cauldron, seagulls flew out of an evil brew toward their safe roosts, and on the land below, humid shadows of the pending storm gathered as if called forth by a curse cooked up from eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog.
        By air from San Francisco south to Orange County Airport, then farther south along the coast by rental car, one week in the wake of Paul Damascus and his three charges, following directions provided by Paul, Tom Vanadium brought Wally Lipscomb to the Lampion house.
        Eleven days had passed since Wally stopped three bullets. He still had a little residual weakness in his arms, grew tired more easily than before he'd wound up on the wrong end of a pistol, complained of stiffness in his muscles, and used a cane to keep his full weight off his wounded leg. The rest of the medical care he required, as well as physical rehabilitation, could be had in Bright Beach as well as in San Francisco. By March, he should be back to normal, assuming that the definition of normal included massive scars and an internal hollow space where once his spleen had been.
        Celestina met them at the front door and flung her arms around Wally. He let go of his cane-Tom caught it-and returned her embrace with such ardor, kissed her so hard, that evidently residual weakness was no longer a problem.
        Tom received a fierce hug, too, and a sisterly kiss, and he was grateful for them. He had been a loner for too long, as a hunter of men pretty much had to be when on a long hard road of recuperation and then on a mission of vengeance, even if he called it a mission of justice. During the