The Servants of Twilight

Pushing his chair back from the desk, getting up, wanting to comfort her, feeling awkward and inadequate, Charlie said, "I think you need a drink."

She shook her head.

"It'll help," he said.

"I don't drink much," she said shakily, and the tears poured from her even more copiously than before.

"Just one drink."

"Too early," she said.

"It's past eleven-thirty. Almost lunchtime. Besides, this is medicinal"

He went to the bar that stood in the corner by one of the two big windows. He opened the lower doors, took out a bottle of Chivas Regal and one glass, put them on the marble-topped counter, poured two ounces of Scotch.

As he was capping the bottle, he happened to look out the window beside him-and froze. A white Ford van, clean and sparkling, with no advertising on it, was parked across the street.

Looking over the tops of the uppermost fronds of an enormous date palm that rose almost to his fifth-floor window, Charlie saw a man in dark clothing leaning against the side of the van.

Coincidence.

The man seemed to be eating. Just a workman stopped on a quiet side-street to grab an early lunch. That's all. Surely, it couldn't be anything more than that.

Coincidence.

Or maybe not. The man down there also seemed to be watching the front of this building. He appeared to be having a bite of lunch and running a stakeout at the same time. Charlie had been involved in dozens of stakeouts over the years. He knew what a stakeout looked like, and this sure as hell looked like one, although it was a bit obvious and amateurish.

Behind him, Christine said, "Is something wrong?"

He was surprised by her perspicacity, by how sharply attuned to him she was, especially since she was still highly agitated, still crying.

He said, "I hope you like Scotch."

He turned away from the window and took the drink to her.

She accepted it without further protestations. She held the glass in both hands but still couldn't keep it from shaking. She sipped rather daintily at the whiskey.

Charlie said, "Drink it straight down. Two swallows. Get it inside you where it can do some good."

She did as he said, and he could tell that she really didn't drink much because she grimaced at the bitterness of the Scotch, even though Chivas was about the smoothest stuff ever to come out of a distillery.

He took the empty glass from her, carried it back to the bar, rinsed it out in the small sink, and set it on the drainboard.

He looked out the window again.

The white truck was still there.

So was the man in the dark pants and shirt, eating his lunch with studied casualness.

Returning to Christine, Charlie said, "Feel better?"

Some color had crept back into her face. She nodded." I'm sorry for coming apart on you like that."

He sat half on the edge of his desk, keeping one foot on the floor. He smiled at her." You have nothing to apologize for.

Most people, if they'd had the scare you've had, would've come through the door blubbering incoherently, and they'd still be blubbering incoherently. You're holding up quite well."

"I don't feel as if I'm holding up." She took a handkerchief from her purse and blew her nose." But I guess you're right.

One crazy old lady isn't the end of the world."

"Exactly."

"One crazy old lady can't be that hard to deal with."

"That's the spirit," he said.

But he thought: One crazy old lady? Then who's the guy with the white truck?

8

Grace Spivey sat on a hard oak chair, her ice-gray eyes shining in the gloom.

Today was a red day in the spirit world, one of the reddest days she had ever known, and she was dressed entirely in red in order to be in harmony with it, just as she had dressed entirely in green yesterday, when the spirit world had been going through a green phase. Most people weren't aware that the spirit world around them changed color from day to day; of course, most people couldn't see the supernatural realm as clearly as Grace could see it when she really tried; in fact, most of them couldn't see it at all, so there was no way they could possibly understand Grace's manner of dress. But for Grace, who was a psychic and a medium, it was essential to be in harmony with the color of the spirit world, for then she could more easily receive clairvoyant visions of both the past and future. These visions were sent to her by benign spirits and were transmitted on brilliantly colored beams of energy, beams that, today, were all shades of red.

If she had tried to explain this to most people, they would have thought her insane. A few years ago her own daughter had committed Grace to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation; but Grace had slipped out of that trap, had disowned her daughter, and had been more cautious ever since.

Today she wore dark red shoes, a dark red skirt, and a lighter red.