The Second Coming

you wish to go back to Valleyhead?”
    â€œNo. Assuredly not. Not ever. Never.”
    â€œVery well. You don’t have to. Dr. Duk and your mother and possibly the sheriff are coming for you later this afternoon, but you don’t have to go.”
    â€œI don’t?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWho says?”
    â€œI say.”
    â€œLet’s leave now.” She buried her face in his shirt. “The cave! Let’s go in the cave!”
    He laughed. “No. We don’t have to go in the cave. The cave is over and done with. We can live up here. How would you like to begin your life?”
    â€œIt is time. How would you like to begin yours?”
    â€œI would like to.”
    â€œIt’s about time.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIs it possible for you?”
    â€œYes. Now listen to me.”
    â€œI am.”
    â€œPack a few things.”
    â€œI only have a few things.”
    â€œDon’t worry, we can buy some more clothes later. There will be plenty of time but I want you to leave here within ten minutes. The sheriff’s coming for you. Don’t worry, this is your property and you can come back and live here if you want to. So is the island. But go get ready. I’m taking you to the Holiday Inn for a few days.”
    â€œOkay,” she said. “Let me get my NATO knapsack. Do you recall how Perry Mason would stash away a client in an obscure hotel under a false name for a few days?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI read two hundred Perry Masons at Valleyhead. It was beguiling to think of the client living there with Delia Street in the Beverly Arms on Sepulveda.”
    â€œYes, but never mind that. Let’s get out of here. I want to get you some hot food, a hot bath, and some clean clothes. You’re too thin.”
    â€œDo I also smell bad?”
    â€œYou smell like peat moss and army clothes. I think I’ll buy you a dress. Imagine you in a dress! While you take your bath, I’ll get a hot plate from the Holiday Inn buffet. They close at three, so hurry up. Then while you eat, I have a short errand to run. Then I will have something to tell you.”
    â€œHow about my dog?”
    â€œLeave him here with some food. We’ll come back for him. He’ll discourage visitors. He knows you’ll be back, doesn’t he?”
    â€œYes. Let’s go.”
    2
    The room at the Holiday Inn was second floor rear. It was warm from the afternoon sunlight. The balcony overlooked a parking lot, a strip of grass, a chain-link fence, a meadow to the west where Holstein cows grazed, and beyond, the violet hulk of the Smokies, tall and dim enough to be a cloud.
    While she bathed, he fetched two plates from the buffet, Tennessee pork sausage, sweet potatoes, butter beans, corn on the cob, ten pats of butter, corn bread, buttermilk, and apple pie. This was no ordinary Holiday Inn. When she came out of the bathroom in her pajamas, the very pajamas she had worn in her escape from Valleyhead, places were set at the round black woodlike table next to the drape, which was drawn enough to show a strip of sunlit meadow.
    She began to eat. She ate fast and ate it all, gazing dry-eyed at the slot of meadow, sky, and violet mountain.
    â€œI have an errand to run,” he told her, standing and gazing down at her, hands in pockets. “I have to see Slocum about something. I’ll be back in an hour.”
    She nodded as she finished her apple pie.
    â€œTake a nap.”
    She nodded.
    At the door he turned to look at her.
    â€œI just realized something,” he said. “I don’t have an address. I don’t live anywhere.”
    She smiled. “Do not trouble yourself unnecessarily. That is not necessarily unfavorable. Many people have addresses, yet observe them.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œHowever, I should like eventually to have an address.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œCould we live together?” she asked.
    â€œI think so, yes. At an address.”
    â€œWhat joy.”
    â€œYes.”
    3
    It took half an hour.
    He asked only two questions, and though they were unusual, Slocum blinked only once and answered them readily, looking at him closely only when he walked in, registering his dark suit with a nod and motioning him to a chair.
    They sat in a pleasant office smelling of law books and balsam. A big window let onto a view of the mountain with its skewed face and one eye out of place.
    â€œYou’ve left the