8

"What do we do now?" John asked. We were in the kitchen, eating a big salad I had made out of a tired head of lettuce, half of an onion, some old Monterey jack cheese, and cut-up slices of the remaining luncheon meat.

"We have to do some shopping," I said.

"You know what I mean."

I chewed for a little while, thinking. "We have to work out a way to get him to take us to those notes. And I've been running a few lines of research. I want to continue with those."

"What kind of research?"

"I'll tell you when I have some results." I didn't want to tell him about Tom Pasmore.

"Does that mean that you want to use the car again?"

"A little later, if that's all right," I said.

"Okay. I really do have to get down to the college to take care of my syllabus and a few other things. Maybe you could drive me there and pick me up later?"

"Are you going to set up Alan's courses, too?"

"I don't have any choice. April's estate is still locked up, until it gets out of probate."

I didn't want to ask him about the size of April's estate.

"It'll be a couple of million," he said. "Two something, according to the lawyers. Plus about half a million from her life insurance. Taxes will eat up a lot of it."

"There'll be a lot left over," I said.

"Not enough."

"Enough for what?"

"To be comfortable, I mean, really comfortable, for the rest of my life," he said. "Maybe I'll want to travel for a while. You know what?" He leaned back and looked at me frankly. "I have gone through an amazing amount of shit in my life, and I don't want any more. I just want the money to be there."

"While you travel," I said.

"That's right. Maybe I'll write a book. You know what this is about, don't you? I've been locked up inside Millhaven and Arkham College for a long time, and I have to find a new direction."

He looked at me, hard, and I nodded. This sounded almost like the old John Ransom, the one for whose sake I had come to Millhaven.

"After all, I've been Alan Brookner's constant companion for about ten years. I could bring his ideas to the popular audience. People are always ready for real insights packaged in an accessible way. Think about Joseph Campbell. Think about Bill Moyers. I'm ready to move on to the next level."

"So let's see if I get this right," I said. "First you're going to travel around the world, and then you're going to popularize Alan's ideas, and after that you're going to be on television."

"Come off it, I'm serious," he said. "I want to take time off to rethink my own experience and see if I can write a book that would do some good. Then I could take it from there."

"I like a man with a great dream," I said.

"I think it is a great dream." John looked at me for a couple of beats, trying to figure out if I was making fun of him and ready to feel injured.

"When you do the book, I could help you find the right agent."

He nodded. "Great, thanks, Tim. By the way."

I looked attentively at him, wondering what was next.

"If the fog lets up by tomorrow, I'm going to take the car out of Purdum and drive it to Chicago. You know, like I said? Feel like coming along?"

He wanted me to drive him to Purdum—he probably wanted me to drive the Mercedes to Chicago, too. "I have lots of things to do tomorrow," I said, not knowing how true that statement was. "We'll see what happens."

John seemed inclined to stay downstairs with the television. Jimbo was telling us that police had reported half a dozen cases of vandalism and looting in stores along Messmer Avenue, the main shopping street in Millhaven's black ghetto. Merlin Waterford had refused to acknowledge the existence of the Committee for a Just Millhaven, claiming that "the capture of one lunatic does not justify tinkering with our superb system of local government."

I picked up 365 Days, a book by a doctor named Ronald Glasser who had treated servicemen wounded in Vietnam, and took it upstairs with me.