Lightning

"Oh. yes, we can."

"No, we can't, really we can't. Just because I wrote a lousy book and you want to make me feel better—"

"You didn't write a lousy book. You wrote a toad-worthy book. A. four-load book on a scale of one to four, four being the best. We can afford that bowl precisely because you wrote Shadrach. This book is beautiful, Laura, infinitely better than the last one, and it's beautiful because it's you. This book is what you are, and it shines."

In her excitement and in her eagerness to hug him, she nearly dropped the three-thousand-dollar bowl.

A skin of new snow covered the highway now. The Jeep wagon had four-wheel drive and was equipped with tire chains, so Stefan was able to make reasonably good time in spite of the road conditions.

But not good enough.

He estimated that the tavern, where he had stolen the Jeep, was about eleven miles from the Packard house, which was just off state route 330 a few miles south of Big Bear. The mountain roads were narrow, twisty, full of dramatic rises and falls, and blowing snow ensured poor visibility, so his average speed was about forty miles an hour. He could not risk driving faster or more recklessly, for he would be of no use at all to Laura, Danny, and Chris if he lost control of the Jeep and plunged over an embankment to his death. At his current speed, however, he would arrive at their place at least ten minutes after they had left.

His intention had been to delay them at their house until the danger had passed. That plan was no longer viable.

The January sky seemed to have sunk so low under the weight of the storm that it was no higher than the tops of the serried ranks of massive evergreens that flanked both sides of the roadway. Wind shook the trees and hammered the Jeep. Snow stuck to the windshield wipers and became ice, so he turned up the defroster and hunched over the wheel, squinting through the inadequately cleaned glass.

When he next glanced at his watch, he saw that he had less than fifteen minutes. Laura, Danny, and Chris would be getting into their Chevy Blazer. They might even be pulling out of their driveway already.

He would have to intercept them on the highway, scant seconds ahead of Death.

He tried to squeeze slightly more speed out of the Jeep without shooting wide of a turn and into an abyss.

Five weeks after the day that Danny bought her the Lalique bowl, on August 15, 1979, a few minutes after noon, Laura was in the kitchen, heating a can of chicken soup for lunch, when she got a call from Spencer Keene, her literary agent in New York. Viking loved Shadrach and were offering a hundred thousand.

"Dollars?" she asked.

"Of course, dollars," Spencer said. "What do you think, Russian rubles? What would that buy you — a hat maybe?"

"Oh, God." She had to lean against the kitchen counter because suddenly her legs were weak.

Spencer said, "Laura, honey, only you can know what's best for you, but unless they're willing to let the hundred grand stand for a floor bid in an auction, I want you to consider turning this down."

"Turn down a hundred thousand dollars?" she asked in disbelief.

"I want to send this out to maybe six or eight houses, set an auction date, see what happens. I think I know what will happen, Laura, I think they'll all love this book as much as I do. On the other hand. maybe not. It's a hard decision, and you've got to go away and think about it before you answer me."

The moment Spencer said goodbye and hung up, Laura dialed Danny at work and told him about the offer.

He said, "If they won't make it a floor bid, turn it down."

"But, Danny, can we afford to? I mean, my car is eleven years old and falling apart. Yours is almost four years old—"

"Listen, what did I tell you about this book? Didn't I tell you that it was you, a reflection of what you are?"

"You're sweet, but—"

"Turn it down. Listen, Laura. You're thinking that scorning a hundred K is like spitting in the faces of all the gods of good fortune; it's like inviting that lightning you've spoken about. But you earned this payoff, and fate isn't going to cheat you out of it."

She called Spencer Keene and told him her decision.

Excited, nervous, already missing the hundred thousand dollars, she returned to the den and sat at her typewriter and stared at the unfinished short story for a while until she became aware of the odor of chicken soup and remembered she had left it on the stove. She hurried into the kitchen and found that all but half an inch of soup had boiled away; burnt noodles were stuck to the bottom of the pot.

At two-ten, which was five-ten New York time, Spencer called again to say that Viking had agreed to let the hundred thousand stand as a floor bid. "Now, that's the very least you make from Shadrach — a hundred grand. I think I'll set September twenty-sixth as the auction date. It's going to be a big one, Laura. I feel it."