The Night Listener : A Novel

him into such a deep depression that it’s taken his voice. Unless, of course, he was born that way. Unless Donna had been his voice all along, telling his story on the phone because he wasn’t able to do it himself. Or maybe it was something more gruesome, something that happened later, something to do with the people who’d abused him.
    Maybe they had forced him into silence. Maybe they had cut out his tongue when they were done with him.
    I closed my eyes against the force of my own imagination. When I opened them again, I made an unnerving discovery: the mirror behind the cash register reflected another mirror that caught the face of Donna Lomax. She was looking down, so I risked a quick assessment: late thirties, long brown hair, strong jaw, handsome fleshy features. Not far from the image I’d already constructed. That might have reassured me somewhat had I not also noticed that she was completely alone in the booth.
    She’d been talking to herself.
    At that point all I wanted was to get out without being discovered, to avoid a showdown at any cost. But I knew my voice would betray me if I asked for my check, and there was no way to leave without passing Donna’s booth. So I just sat there and sipped my tea and waited for the problem to resolve itself. If I stayed long enough, she might just go on her way. She had probably come in here for the same reason I had: to thaw out before heading home, wherever that might be. All I had to do was keep quiet and bide my time and hope that she didn’t spot me in the mirror.
    But keeping quiet wasn’t easy. The waitress returned seconds later with a big solicitous grin on her face.
    “How’s that cobbler?”
    I smiled back, nodding appreciatively but not making a sound.
    “You need another tea bag?”
    I shook my head, desperately afraid that the next question would require something more than a yes-or-no. But my interrogator just yawned noisily and moved to the next booth. The one with Donna in it.
    “Oh,” I heard the waitress say pleasantly. “You’re back.”
    “Mmm. Does twice in one day make me a cocoa junkie?” The waitress chuckled. “Not in this weather. That’s what you want, then?”
    “Please.”
    “What about him?” asked the waitress.
    Him? I thought. Had I heard that right? My eyes dared another glance at the mirror, but there was still no one but Donna in the booth.
    “No, thanks,” said Donna. “We shouldn’t make a habit of it. He’ll expect it every time we come in.”
    What the fuck?
    “It’s just those eyes,” said the waitress. “They get to me every time. You mind if I…”
    “Of course not,” said Donna. “He needs all the lovin’ he can get.
    Don’t you, Janus?”
    Janus? Janus!
    Another glance at the mirror revealed that the waitress had already squatted to stroke the Lomaxes’ beloved family pet. I couldn’t see the dog—a yellow Lab, wasn’t it?—but I could hear its murmurs of gratitude. It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud.
    “Okay,” said the waitress, rising to her feet again. “We’ve had our fix. One cocoa coming up.”
    I looked down at my cobbler, still wary of being nailed as a spy.
    But the mere sound of that dog had erased my misgivings. Pete had played with this very animal, I remembered; he had laughed with me about its hatred of vacuum cleaners; I’d even heard Janus barking in the background.
    It was such a relief to be in the presence of sanity again.
    More time passed. Most of it I spent composing my remarks, rehears-ing the breezy, unthreatening tone I would use when I approached her table. I would admit to almost everything, I decided. I would tell her that I’d flown to Wysong to surprise them, having made a stupid assumption about their address. I would leave out the part about the water tank, which might sound desperate or even a little unhinged.
    I wouldn’t mention my role in the book cancellation until I could prove my good intentions. And maybe, if Donna invited me home to meet Pete, I wouldn’t have to tell her at all. I could call Ashe Findlay in the morning and say that I’d seen the boy with my own two eyes and demand that he proceed with The Blacking Factory .
    Everything would be back to normal again.
    Had I thought a little less about my salvation and a little more about that unseen dog in the next booth, it might have occurred to me why Janus was such a familiar sight to the waitress, and why, for that matter, he was even allowed in a