Small Town

There were two other messages, but not ones he wanted to respond to. He erased them and sat down at the keyboard, and the book drew him in almost instantly, and the next thing he knew it was dark outside and he was hungry. He saved his work, ran spell-check, and printed out the day’s pages. While they were printing he picked up the phone and ordered Chinese food.

He could have gone out, but he hardly ever did, except for interviews. The phone rang more frequently these days, with old friends who’d avoided him after the arrest now eager to pick up where they’d left off. He was cordial enough, but found himself turning down dates, pleading the pressures of work. He gave the same excuse to a couple of new friends, if that’s what they were — people he’d met that magical night at Stelli’s, who hadn’t dropped him earlier because they hadn’t even known him then. He didn’t bear resentments toward the old friends — at least he didn’t think he did — and he didn’t want to reject the overtures of the new friends. But he really didn’t feel very social.

He wondered how much the rabbit had to do with this.

Not its mystical energy, nothing like that. Just the enormous fact of its presence, because until he’d come upon it in his sock drawer he’d been looking forward to an expansion of his social activities, to nights at the Kettle and the Corner Bistro, to field trips uptown to Stelli’s. Dinners at fine restaurants, and night games at Shea, and the company of women.

He looked at the rabbit, serene enough in front of its dish of cornmeal. He heard Bogart’s voice in his head, speaking in haiku:

Of all the sock drawers

In all the towns in the world

You hopped into mine...

Hitting on the girl who’d sold him the little black dish had been spontaneous, and more of a surprise to him than to her. It was probably just as well she’d had a husband, or invented one. Jesus, she was half his age, and what would they talk about when they ran out of Zuni fetishes and Pueblo pottery?

And suppose she’d come back to his apartment, and wanted to see his fetish? Suppose she recognized it, suppose she’d sold it to Marilyn Fairchild? That wasn’t as far-fetched as it sounded; Tenth Street was just a block from Charles Street, and the woman could very easily have shopped there.

He went over and took another look at the rabbit. Was he supposed to name it? That was something he could have asked the girl. He wasn’t inclined to think of a name for it. He had to name characters, every little walk-on in Harry Brubaker’s life needed a name and a history, and that made him think of the biblical folk tale of Adam in the garden, required to assign names to all the animals. It felt presumptuous, like playing God, when he arbitrarily assigned names and back stories to characters, but maybe it was more a matter of playing Adam.

The first day or two, he’d figured he had to get rid of the rabbit. It was dangerous to have it in his possession, and he was just lucky beyond belief that the cops hadn’t found it when they’d come looking for it. How likely would they be to overlook it a second time?

He thought of ways to dispose of the rabbit, simple things like dropping it into a sewer, more elaborate strategies like walking a few blocks west and tossing it off a pier into the Hudson. You wouldn’t have to weight it down, like a body. It would, appropriately enough, sink like a stone.

But for some reason he wanted it.

He liked the thing, and wasn’t that nutty? Although, if you thought about it, it wasn’t all that surprising. If he’d liked it enough to swipe it in the first place, why shouldn’t he go on liking it?

Had he somehow killed her for it? Had she caught him taking it, and called him on it, and had that triggered the fight that left her dead? He could see how that might have happened, but that was the trouble, he could imagine anything and everything.

He’d keep it, he decided. At least until it was time to buy more cornmeal.

Her card was still in his sock drawer.

Susan Pomerance, who sold folk and outsider art, and what was a turquoise rabbit if not folk art? Probably not the sort of thing she dealt in, but she very likely knew something about the art of the southwestern tribes.

Come up and see my fetish — how was that for an opening line?

Did he even need an opening line? She’d made her interest clear enough. All that had been required of him was that he call her the next day, or the day after, and they could follow her script.

But he hadn’t called. He’d found the rabbit, and walked around in a daze for a few days, and then forgot about her and her calling card, and now far too much time had elapsed. Hi, this is John Creighton, I’ve had better things to think about than you, but I’m horny as a toad right now, so why don’t you come on over? Yeah, right.