Kornwolf (10 page)

For his follow-up article, therefore, he gathered the choicest reports from the previous days, and, with minimal formatting, gave them to Jarvik.

The old man couldn't have been more pleased.

He burst into laughter on reading the text. He dabbed his face with a handkerchief, giggled, then nodded approvingly. “This will do.”

Owen went home feeling relatively satisfied, if intent on a few basic changes.

For one thing, he wanted his story, for as long as it ran, to be more than a public ledger. One time around, that format worked. But the impact would lessen with repetition. He would have to find a new angle, somehow. He would have to explore The Basin …

More confusingly, he didn't know what he was after, exactly. What was he getting at? Mass hysteria? As in: the provocation thereof?

—Most likely, yes.

But, theatrics aside, was that justifiable?

—Sometimes it's right to do the wrong thing …

Beyond all of which, there was also the matter of what exactly did
he
“believe”? Now, there was a question worth considering.

When his mother had called him to talk that morning, things had been plenty confusing already. Explaining to her the situation had proven no easy matter for Owen. Mostly, she hadn't been able to figure out where he was coming from, why he was doing this. By her estimation, he was one of what he called those “paranormal geeks” himself. Yet his tone was imbued with the glee of a prankster.

Moreover, she couldn't have known the extent to which he and his coverage were having an impact.

On Thursday morning, however, that changed—as the story began to appear in newspapers all across the nation, including her chosen daily in rural Connecticut. “
Beelzebub in Pennsyltucky
”—disgusted, she quoted the lead by phone. And a caption beneath the photo: “
It Came From Blue Ball
.”

“I suppose you think that's funny.”

Even though neither term was Owen's, his mother was sure to blame him for both.

What she didn't, and couldn't, have known was that Owen, despite his giggle on breaking it down, had questions himself—and couldn't entirely write this matter off as a hoax.

On first appearance, he'd taken the motion detector photo for having been staged—and brilliantly so: far and away the best thing ever to come out of Stepford. But after a day in The Basin, he'd been given to wonder—
not
so much by the tavern and deer ranch debacles, which barely held water, but owing more to the hostile reception afforded him that afternoon at the market. Those vendors had been more than simply unfriendly. They had been spooked. There was no doubt about it.

Whatever the case, he was certain of one thing: the Blue Ball Devil was a bonafide smash—a syndicated humdinger, national copy. And as a result, in spite of his initial resolve on returning to Stepford to begin with, Owen found himself back in reporting as never before.

He felt like a rock star.

An estimated three hundred papers across the country had printed the story and photo. There was talk of coverage in Europe too. And on TV: at one point, a network executive called to speak with “the werewolf reporter.” A late night radio DJ from Texas had gotten himself in trouble for claiming the creature was Uncle Shrub in drag.

A brick had been thrown through the station window.

Just down the street from
The Plea
, the Press Room Deli was humming with talk of the matter. On stopping in before work that day, Owen had silenced the room completely. While standing
in line, he could feel their contempt in a noxious, stifling cloud all around him. Slowly, their conversation resumed, but in hushed mutters, with awkward pauses.

Bess, a sickly attractive, chain-smoking thirty-something from Format approached him.

“Man,” she squinted unsmilingly, leaning forward to whisper. “These people hate you.”

For what it was worth, he hated them back—especially Kegel, the junior editor: chronically dour, with a bulging vein that divided his forehead in times of duress: Kegel, the Stepford Anus incarnate …

That afternoon, he pounced on Owen straight out of the elevator: “Mister Brynmor.” He sidled up, waving some papers. “I don't know how it's done elsewhere, but here we
staple
submissions. It's clear that you haven't consulted your style book.”

Blam.

He probably went golfing every Thursday.

He would make working the bag less torturous.

For Sunday's edition, Jarvik ordered a “week in review” piece—intended not only to recap the story's development to date, but to focus as much on worldwide coverage the photograph, and thereby Stepford, was receiving: interviews with recognized “experts” in Tucson who claimed that the beast was an astral traveler, to locals from Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, who yodeled of Pumpkinhead's return.

Somewhere in the article, mention was made of a bid for the photo's original negative (quoted at $2,000) being surpassed by a TV executive's offer. In truth, the original bid had been placed by a comic book collector from Delaware, who, like his corporate competitor, had been referred directly to Dwayne Gibbons. Apparently, Gibbons, who owned the original negative, had not received their calls—or at least had yet to benefit by them—as, Sunday morning, he phoned
The Plea
to complain. “It says here two thousand dollars.” His tone was belligerent. “What's this about?”

He wanted to speak with the “author” in person—and, yes, he had news—an update, of sorts. He was down at the Dogboy, east on 21.

Owen hung up.

He knew the address.

The tavern was nearly empty at that hour. Most of the regular crowd was sleeping. A couple of stoolhuggers sat at the end of the bar. The air smelled of lovely tobacco.

The barkeep, a ruggedly fierce-looking woman, came over. She looked at him blankly.

“I'm here to see someone named Dwayne Gibbons,” he told her.

She nodded, turning.

Behind her, down at the end of the bar, a figure sat up. He was wearing a hood.

“The reporter's here to see you,” the bartender called to him, jerking a thumb toward Owen.

The figure let out a belch. Then, getting up: “So he is.” He started to weave down the aisle. “You think he'll buy me a drink?”

Owen nodded to the bartender.

“One for yourself?” she asked.

He nodded again.

As Gibbons approached down the length of the bar, Owen turned for an introduction.

“I'm Brynmor,” he said. He held out his hand.

Sliding onto a stool before him, Gibbons looked back in silence, frowning. “I know who you are.” He wiped his chin.

Gradually, Owen dropped his hand.

Right off, he didn't like what he saw. There was something overtly obscene about Gibbons. More than shady, he was all-out beady-eyed.

“Look,” he commenced, producing a paper. “It says here an offer for two thousand dollars.”

“That offer was forwarded straight to you,” said Owen. “I gave him your number myself.”

Gibbons blinked. “It says here offers.”

“—were forwarded straight to you, as I said.”

Surely, this weasel had more to say.

The bartender brought over two pints of beer.

Owen placed a five on the counter.

Shaking his head, Gibbons continued with a forced, unnaturally casual leer. “The way I see it, you owe me some money.”

Owen stared at him, trying to pinpoint the physical features that most repulsed him—maybe the way his eyebrows intersected just over the bridge of his nose—or his scrawny neck, marked with cuts and a horribly razor-burned Adam's apple—the way his back was bowed to a permanent C—his darkly tobacco-stained lips.

Yet even in combination, none of those features surpassed his venomous gaze.

It was disappointing to think that the Blue Ball Devil, and thereby the current renown of Stepford (let alone Owen's career), had been triggered by one with the eyes of a viper.

“You won't get a dime out of me,” said Owen.

He stood up. Twenty-five minutes he'd wasted driving here. “Check your answering machine.” He chased his beer in clear disgust.

Gibbons cracked a hideous grin: you could follow it back to his fortieth aunt. “I didn't expect a dime out of you,” he said. “I was talking about your boss. But now that you mention it—” Sliding his empty glass across the counter, he nodded. “Buy me another drink, and I just might tell you something.”

The bartender cut in. “Don't buy him anything, mister.”

Furious, Gibbons glared at her.

Ignoring him, she added, “He's just trying to tell you what everyone in here already knows. And that is—”

“Shut your mouth!” snarled Gibbons.

She followed up: “The Devil was here last night.”

Until then, Owen had been intent on walking out with no further remark.

He lifted a finger. “Give him a drink.”

A heap at the end of the counter sat up.

“And that one too,” Owen added. “And one for yourself.”

He pulled up a stool and sat.

They were silent at first, the four of them hitting their beers, until finally, the bartender spoke: “It came in at midnight.”

The Heap interjected. “It was closer to one.”

“It was midnight exactly. Bob had just left. I remember.”

“Bob worked late last night.”

They argued the point. Owen allowed it to roll for a moment. Then he cut in: “So what did it look like?” he asked, not knowing where to begin.

They shifted uncertainly.

The Heap was the first to venture an effort: “He looked like Nixon.”

“Right,” said Gibbons. “Maybe after a beating.”

The bartender shook her head. “It weren't Nixon. More like an ape in overalls.”

“Dirty ones.”

“Smelled like it …”

“Ugly.”

“—as Nixon.”

“And talks like him.”

Owen's head was spinning. “Hold on now.” He stepped in, reeling. “Do you mean to tell me this thing wears
clothing?
”

He could hear how ridiculous the question sounded.

They stared at him.

“
And
that it talks” he continued, trying to justify having spoken.

(The Blue Ball Devil as Richard Nixon?)

“That's right,” said Gibbons. “He's a regular guy. Though to my ear, it don't speak English too good.”

“He's
not
a regular guy,” said the barkeep.

“He ain't a guy at all,” said The Heap. “He's a devil. Just like you called him, mister.”

Owen gestured to Gibbons's newspaper. Sitting faceup on the counter, the motion detector photo begged his retort. “That doesn't look like a person to me.”

“Of course not.” Gibbons said, shaking his head. “That picture was taken on October first.”

Owen stared for a moment. “And what does that mean?” he asked.

Gibbons stared back. “All I can say is: check your calendar.”

Suddenly, Owen felt disadvantaged, as though the ground were sliding beneath him. What did these people know that he didn't? What did that sneer of Gibbons's mean?

Just then, a beverage delivery man stepped in. He was older, grizzled, stocky. The door swung shut behind him. The barkeep directed him back toward the take-out coolers. She picked up a clipboard and moved to join him.

The Heap kept talking: “I heard The Devil's a chimp they shaved and taught to speak.”

Gibbons dismissed him. “The Devil's no chimp.”

“How would you know?”

“Cuz.” He glowered. “I seen it.”

Another argument started up. Owen listened in disbelief as they went back and forth on the creature's appearance, then onto theories of nuclear accidents just down the river and Nature's revenge …

In spite of his prior insistence, The Heap was now sure that the Blue Ball Devil, the original, was dead: some local farmers had shot it. The freak that had come in the night before was a fake, he claimed: an imposter, a charlatan.

Down the bar, at the end of the counter, the beverage delivery man overheard them. He looked up from tallying invoice figures to chime in, calmly: “It's definitely dead.”

Everyone looked at him.

“What would you know?” Gibbons demanded. “You don't even live in this area.”

“True,” said the man, unfazed. “But I used to.”

“So, then?” asked The Heap. “Have you seen it?”

“No,” the man admitted. “But it ripped the handle off of my grandfather's whiskey still, if that counts.” He laughed out loud.

“I thought you said it was dead,” Owen followed up.

“I said, the Blue Ball
Devil
's dead. You folks are talking about something else.”

“Like what?” asked Gibbons.

The man shook his head with a grin: “The Mennonites call it the Corn Wolf.”

“The what?” said Owen.

The Heap added: “What is it?”

Grinning still, the man came back. “Hey, you tell me. I don't live here, remember?”

At last, The Heap and Gibbons fell silent.

But Owen continued to press the issue: “How do you know for certain it's dead?”

The man replied with a casual shrug. “Because,” he said, reaching into his pocket to pull out a Swisher Sweet cigarillo. He lit it, puffed and concluded: “His name was Jacob Speicher. He died in The Nam.”

Jack was on the telephone with Jarret Yoder the moment Scarlet walked into the gym. Her appearance found him, The Coach, in ill humor. It had been a hell of a morning already.

To start off, somebody—probably one of the heroin dealers from down the street—had blown two holes in a neighbor's car hood, and planted a third in the gym's back wall.

Then the plumbing had gone out downstairs: a septic pump flooding a third of the level. It smelled like a field of outhouses, wafting up, halfway over the training floor …