The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [39]
That someone and something were alive to this day, and had left a trail by which Max himself and later Melony followed, a history of incident and mishap which led to Nigel’s discovery, the discovery of a boy still six years old after three decades, murdered as he was thought to have been, but found as though he’d been murdered that very same day.
And after three decades, three of the beings which came to be involved were now together, whether or not either one knew it, and were now together here. At a two-bit dive called The Crow Job.
And Melony Polito was right there with them.
Not really knowing what she was getting herself into, or how high into the clouds she had flown.
9.
Andrew Erlandson at the Crow Job
For heaven’s sake and all the saints, meet someone....
...tonight may very well be a night of nights....
Andrew Erlandson had ceased wondering what Bari had meant by the time he’d completed his journey to the end of the block and made his way past the flock of Cooper fans and followers and through the front entrance of The Crow Job. He ceased wondering because wondering wouldn’t do him any good and he knew it, when it came to Bari matters. But he also ceased wondering because Bari tended to be right with those trivial prophesies of hers, right on the nail, and he knew that, too.
He’d rather not deal with that right now.
Besides, he had enough to wonder about with the Ralston show and all; if Ralston’s band sucked, Andrew would never hear the end of it, simply because (like it or not) he and the mega-ego mock horror writer were so damn close. There was another matter, too, regarding the completion of Andrew’s latest ghostwritten novel for Ralston....
Now that the manuscript for the latest and brand newest of Ralston books was presented to his majesty hot off the typewriter key-stroked assembly line, Andrew wondered how high the book would fly.
Not how high it will fly with the public, the millions of fans returning time and again to flip their millions of coins into the addicting story-snack machine that was Ralston Cooper. That was a given.
Andrew wondered how high it will fly with Ralston himself.
More often than not, Andrew found himself anticipating Ralston’s own appreciation for the latest written work rather than the public’s. Ralston's appreciation was personal, considering how he was the one Andrew was truly writing for. That, and considering how Ralston was the only person besides Andrew who knew of their joint little secret, how he was the only one from whom the true author could directly receive credit as well as praise.
At least, the only human being.
Ralston always seemed to lack any true appreciation, which by now was just as dandy as a lost cause, almost as much of a lost cause as true respect.
For some reason, however, Andrew wondered how high the book will fly with Ralston, this latest book, more than ever, more than he had ever wondered with any previous work.
Something else concerning this particular book bore a wonder, too:
Andrew could not at all recollect even a fragment of memory as to how he finished the damn thing.
Nor could he remember anything at all about last night, about today, about where he was, what he was doing throughout that missing time. The only reassurance he had was in how he’d so readily accepted his circumstances when he awoke early that evening.
And how he at last completed another blood-tingling chiller for Ralston.
Yet still, there was something not quite right.....
***
Andrew made his way past the swarming obstacles of Ralston-mongers and bar maggots, past Abbott and Costello at the front entrance, past the cashier and turnstile and the dawdling line of Crow Job integrators flowing at their painstaking leisure down the carpeted steps along the lengthy wall mirror. It was a strange and familiar task to make his way inside, strange with the crowd, familiar, as he’d made himself a semi-frequent bar maggot there, though usually he did not drink anything