“Or the shit passing through my bowel. Put the gun down and we can get real close to each other, Caz. I’ll French kiss you while I cut out your brain.” A bad thought blinked on in my head. “Where is George?”

Floon furrowed his brow and sounded surprised. “At his house. Where else would he be?”

“You didn’t hurt him?”

“No, I need him. I need George and you but I don’t know in what way yet. When I do, we’ll see. But don’t follow me now because I’ll shoot you in an instant. You know that?”

“Yes, Floon, I know that.”

“But don’t be sad when I’m gone because I’ll always be nearby. I’ll check in with you now and then.” His voice was cheerful, all good will.

“What are you going to do?”

“Make some changes here now. So that life will be even nicer than it was.”

“For you. Not for anyone else.”

“Of course for me, Frannie. At least I’m honest about it.”

Disgusted, I turned away and looked toward Gee-Gee to show myself again that it had really happened. But his body was gone and so was the dog’s.

Floon must have seen my expression change; aiming the gun at me, he looked over and grew a smile. “Ah, that’s considerate; they saved you the trouble of having to explain two bodies to your colleagues on the police force.”

“Who’s doing all this, Floon? Do you know? Did you meet Astopel?”

“No. But my guess is God. And if it is, I like this deity. Maybe He decided to get involved again. Wouldn’t that be interesting? I’ll see you.” He waved with his gun hand and walked away.

When he was gone I stood-stock still without a single idea of what to do next. The obvious move was to go to George’s and see if he was okay. Instead I stared at the spot on the sidewalk where the boy and the dog had lain when I last saw them.

I’d always thought of him as the boy, the pain in the ass, or Gee-Gee. Now that he was gone I remembered, if that was the right word, he was me. And he was dead. That me was gone and I was sure there were more things he still had to show me but never would now.

I was back in my own time with too many bits and pieces of information to swallow but no time to digest them. I assumed that there were only a few days left to complete whatever it was I was supposed to accomplish. I couldn’t return to the future for another look because my magical phrase “holes in the rain” hadn’t worked when I tried it. I couldn’t ask Astopel or Gee-Gee any questions. And the cherry on top of this shit was Floon had gotten loose in the here and now and would surely snarl things up more. All I could hope was that he would stay out of my way while I tried to figure out what had to be done.

“Hey, Frannie, how come that guy was pointing a gun at you?”

Johnny Petangles is a tall fat man. He exists on Burger King Whoppers and candy. Physically he has looked the same for fifteen years. There are people in our town who think he’s some kind of idiot savant. I don’t know about that. The only unusual thing Johnny ever did that shows he’s more than mildly retarded is memorize decades of television commercials—not a talent that’s going to get you a job at the White House or Microsoft. Since his mother died a few years ago I’ve kept an eye on him. That isn’t hard because so do most of the people in Crane’s View. We feed him when he’ll accept it, give him odd jobs that pay for his hamburgers and Arnold Schwarzenegger video rentals, and feel very protective toward him. He may not be a rocket scientist, but he’s our Johnny and that’s enough. I have always tried to be as straight with him as I can.

“Where are you coining from?”

“Mrs. Darnell made me French toast for breakfast. That was nice, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. He’s a bad man, Johnny. His name is Floon. If you see him around town steer clear of the guy.”

“Shouldn’t you arrest him? He held you at gunpoint.” Johnny loved movie phrases like that—”held you at gunpoint.” Sometimes when he was watching a video he would hear one and laboriously write it down in block letters on a pad he kept near the television.

“Maybe later. Not right now.”

“Okay. But would you like me to follow him? I could give you a secret report on where he goes.”

My first instinct was to say forget it, but I stopped. What could it hurt? Even if Floon noticed him, he only had to speak with Johnny for two minutes to realize his mental Swiss Army knife didn’t have all its blades. Who would feel threatened by a fat retarded guy reciting Isuzu commercials? What Floon didn’t know was that once John got his mind set on something he was as tenacious as a mongoose battling a cobra. Why not let him follow Floon?

“You’d have to be very careful, Johnny. If he saw you he might make big trouble.”

Johnny never smiles but he did then. “I know how to hide. I used to hide from my mother and she could never find me anywhere. I’ll just hide from him too. You watch—I bet you ten thousand billion dollars that guy will never see me.”

“Then go ahead, John, but be careful. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I am a little stupid, Frannie, but not about hiding.” He was still smiling when he left.

So much had already happened in the last few hours that it was a wonder I arrived at George’s house on two feet rather than crawling on all fours. My brain felt like it had been fucked by demons on acid and then tossed away. On reaching his street I began walking faster and faster without realizing it. I wanted to see my friend George Dalemwood, someone real and solid and an important part of the life only a few days before I had taken so blithely for granted.

I climbed the porch steps and pressed his doorbell. No one answered but that was no big deal. Even when he was home George frequently ignored a ringing telephone or doorbell. “They want me,” he was apt to say, “but I probably don’t want them, no matter who it is.” And he would go on doing what he was doing, oblivious to whatever bell scolded him in the background.

Before trying again, I walked back down a few steps and looked toward the roof. That’s where he’d been sitting the other day when my world was a simpler place, a world where “only” dead dogs reappeared and not versions of myself past present and future. Who then subsequently got shot by Dutch industrialists from the twenty-first century.

My friend wasn’t sitting on the roof today, but while looking up there I heard something that calmed my heart. George is an exceptionally good guitarist. He’s such an original that that shouldn’t be surprising but it is. And knowing his strange and conservative tastes, you’d expect him to play only classical music but not so. He ranges from Mozart to the Beatles to damned good imitations of Michael Hedges or Manilas de Plata. He spends at least two hours a day practicing on the most beautiful guitar I have ever seen. I would love that instrument just for its name alone—a very rare model called a “Church Door.” When I asked George how much it cost, he swallowed hard and got colloquial on me, saying only “five figures.” It’s worth it. He handles that wooden box like he’s making love to it and maybe he is.

While standing with one foot on a porch step, I heard him playing Scott Joplin’s darkly beautiful waltz “Bethena,” a great favorite of his. Relieved, I blew air out through my lips in a quiet raspberry. Hearing it told me he was all right. George played certain pieces depending on his moods. I knew “Bethena” was performed when he was stuck in his work and trying to figure his way out. Normally that tune meant stay away if you happened into his neighborhood; George was definitely not fun to be around when he was thinking something through. But today he would have to put that Church Door down and listen to me.

The music flowed out from behind the house. I made my way around to the back. George sat on the ground in the middle of his yard with the guitar propped between his knees. An unopened Mars chocolate bar lay on the ground nearby. Music filled the air. Chuck the dachshund sat nearby staring at his master like the dog staring at the old victrola on the RCA label.