I watched my visitor
as he seemed to walk through some kind of invisible curtain. I called out, “Maybe
we’d be more comfortable sitting at the kitchen table.” There was no response
and nothing more of my visitor as far as I could see. He seemed to pass into
some rent in the air! Does that make any sense? Whatever the Ali Baba passage
was neither Open sesame, nor Open simsim were the magic phrases to
permit me follow. Buster apparently felt safe enough now to run out from his
hiding place behind the sofa to the kitchen door. He still needed to go out. I
grabbed a jacket.
As Buster and I
strolled, or rather I strolled while Buster sniffed out a suitable spot for his
business, I attempted to clear my head. My mind had other ideas. My
conversation with Masson Number Two played as an inner audio loop. A couple
things he said became magnified with repetition. The main one being that he
thought I must have killed the man in the park. Secondly, he had only tracked
him on line. On line? What did that mean? I always considered myself to be
somewhat a man of the world. After all, didn’t I own a Rambler, Motor Trend’s
1963 Car of the Year instead of a Ford or Chrysler?
I decided I would
pay a visit to the local library to do a little research. Somehow the discovery
of the meaning of on line was
instrumental to understanding Number Two’s message. The library was only a
short walk away so Buster and I headed in that direction. I tethered Buster to
the empty bicycle rack, gave him a treat and told him, “I’ll be right out, boy.”
All I could find
about the secret phrase was that English people don’t stand in line. They queue up or else stand on line. Masson’s statement that he had
tracked Number Three on line made no
sense. My only option was to give it up, at least for now, and go home.
Buster sprang to
his feet when I reached the bike rack. He stood on his hind legs as wolfed
softly a couple of times in greeting while pawing the air between us. I untied
the lead and squatted to give Buster a hug and to receive his adulations.
Buster has a way of kissing my face and sniffing my breath at the same time to
see if I ate anything during my absence. Whether I had or not, this was his way
of letting me know he expected a treat. I always gave him one.
Buster stopped all
of a sudden as we turned the corner onto our street, pulling backward on the
lead. Next thing he leapt up and into my arms, which is what he did whenever
the boxer was around; the boxer belonging to Masson Number Two. The dog was
standing on alert in the middle of the driveway. When he spotted me, he wagged
his cropped tail and sat down to await my arrival. My Buster turned to put his
arms around my neck and hide his face. Sight of the boxer cheered me as I took
it as a sign Number Two and I would be able to finish our earlier conversation.
I wanted to understand what he was talking about as well as his reasons for
accusing me of murder.
The front door of
the house opened. Someone whistled. The boxer stood up and walked toward the
door. Just like his master had done, he disappeared into thin air right before
me eyes. I closed my eyes and shook my head. The house was exactly as we had
left it. The front door was closed. There was so sign of the boxer or his
owner. My Buster jumped down and ran to the backyard gate. His fear and
affection had managed to allow him to slip out of his gentle lead. I realized
then I didn’t have his lead either. Buster was out of sight. I stood alone.
***
The man on the
phone instructed me to meet him in the northeast corner of the park near the
playground. He said he was bringing someone he was sure I would like to meet. A
glance at my watch confirmed he was late. I stood up from where I sat at one of
the picnic tables and strolled over to the edge of a grove of trees. I heard a
crush of dry leaves behind me, the crack of a baseball meeting a bat, and a
flash of white light. Then everything went black. I heard or saw nothing more.
A foot to my ribs broke one. I inhaled the pain and released it. More dry
leaves blanketed me. My final thoughts struck me as odd since I knew I was
dying. I wished I had had a dog. I would have named him Buster.
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