A question mark.

Meaning: Why? Why have you been so depressed? Why do you feel life is pointless, empty?

The dog apparently understood what he had told it. All right, okay, so maybe it didn’t understand language exactly, didn’t follow every word that he spoke, but it somehow perceived the meaning of what he was saying, or at least enough of the meaning to arouse its interest and curiosity.

And, by God, if it also understood the purpose of a question mark, then it was capable of abstract thinking! The very concept of simple symbols- like alphabets, numbers, question marks, and exclamation points-serving as shorthand for communicating complex ideas… well, that required abstract thinking. And abstract thinking was reserved for only one species on earth: humankind. This golden retriever was demonstrably not human, but somehow it had come into possession of intellectual skills that no other animal could claim.

Travis was stunned. But there was nothing accidental about the question mark. Crude but not accidental. Somewhere, the dog must have seen the symbol and been taught its meaning. Statistical theorists said an infinite number of monkeys, equipped with an infinite number of typewriters, would eventually be able to recreate every line of great English prose merely by random chance. He figured that this dog forming a Milk-Bone question mark in about two minutes flat, merely by purest chance, was about ten times as unlikely as all those damn monkeys recreating Shakespeare’s plays.

The dog was watching him expectantly.

Getting up, he found he was a bit shaky in the legs. He went to the carefully arranged biscuits, scattered them across the floor, and returned to his chair.

The retriever studied the disarranged Milk-Bones, regarded Travis inquiringly, sniffed at the biscuits again, and seemed baffled.

Travis waited.

The house was unnaturally quiet, as if the flow of time had been suspended for every living creature, machine, and object on earth-though not for him, the retriever, or the contents of the kitchen.

At last, the dog began to push the biscuits around with its nose as it had done before. In a minute or two, it formed a question mark.

Travis chugged some Coors. His heart was hammering. His palms were sweaty. He was filled with both wonder and trepidation, with both wild joy and fear of the unknown, simultaneously awestricken and bewildered. He wanted to laugh because he had never seen anything half as delightful as this dog. He also wanted to cry because only hours ago he’d thought life was bleak, dark, and pointless. But no matter how painful it was sometimes, life was (he now realized) nonetheless precious. He actually felt as if God had sent the retriever to intrigue him, to remind him that the world was full of surprises and that despair made no sense when one had no understanding of the purpose-and strange possibilities-of existence. Travis wanted to laugh, but his laughter teetered on the brink of a sob. Yet when he surrendered to the sob, it became a laugh. When he attempted to stand, he knew that he was even shakier than before, too shaky, so he did the only thing he could do: he stayed in his chair and took another long swallow of Coors.

Cocking its head one way and then the other, looking slightly wary, the dog watched him as if it thought he had gone mad. He had. Months ago. But he was all better now.

He put down the Coors and wiped tears out of his eyes with the backs of his hands. He said, “Come here, fur face.”

The retriever hesitated, then came to him.

He ruffled and stroked its coat, scratched behind its ears. “You amaze me and scare me. I can’t figure where you came from or how you got to be what you are, but you couldn’t have come where you’re more needed. A question mark, huh? Jesus. All right. You want to know why I felt life had no purpose or joy for me? I’ll tell you. I will, by God, I’ll sit right here and have another beer and tell it to a dog. But first… I’m going to name you.”

The retriever blew air out of its nostrils, as if to say, Well, it’s about time.

Holding the dog’s head, looking straight into its eyes, Travis said, “Einstein. From now on, fur face, your name is Einstein.”

Streck called again at ten minutes past nine.

Nora snatched up the phone on the first ring, fiercely determined to tell him off and make him leave her alone. But for some reason she clenched up again and was unable to speak.

In a repulsively intimate tone of voice, he said, “You miss me, prettiness? Hmmmm? Do you wish I’d come to you, be a man for you?”

She hung up.

What’s wrong with me? she wondered. Why can’t I tell him to go away and stop bothering me?

Maybe her speechlessness grew from a secret desire to hear a man-any man, even a disgusting specimen like Streck-call her pretty. Although he was not the kind who would be capable of tenderness or affection, she could listen to him and imagine what it would be like to have a good man say sweet things to her.

“Well, you’re not pretty,” she told herself, “and you never ever will be, so stop mooning around. Next time he calls, tell him off.”

She got out of bed and went down the hall to the bathroom, where there was a mirror. Following Violet Devon’s example, Nora did not have mirrors anywhere in the house except the bathrooms. She did not like to look at herself because what she saw was saddening.

This one night, however, she wanted to take a look at herself because Streck’s flattery, though cold and calculated, had stirred her curiosity. Not that she hoped to see some fine quality that she had never seen before. No. From duckling to swan overnight… that was a frivolous, hopeless dream. Rather, she wanted to confirm that she was undesirable. Streck’s unwanted interest rattled Nora because she was comfortable in her homeliness and solitude, and she wanted to reassure herself that he was mocking her, that he would not act upon his threats, that her peaceful solitude would endure. Or so she told herself as she stepped into the bathroom and switched on the light.

The narrow chamber had pale-blue tile from floor to ceiling with a white-tile border. A huge claw-foot tub. White porcelain and brass fixtures. The large mirror was somewhat streaked with age.

She looked at her hair, which Streck said was beautiful, dark, glossy. But it was of one shade, without natural highlights; to her, it wasn’t glossy but oily, although she had washed it that morning.

She looked quickly at her brow, cheekbones, nose, jaw line, lips, and chin. She tentatively traced her features with one hand, but she saw nothing to intrigue a man.

M last, reluctantly, she stared into her eyes, which Streck had called lovely. They were a dreary, lusterless shade of gray. She could not bear to meet her own gaze for more than a few seconds. Her eyes confirmed her low opinion of her appearance. But also… well, in her own eyes she saw a smoldering anger that disturbed her, that was not like her, an anger at what she had let herself become. Of course, that made no sense whatsoever because she was what nature had made her-a mouse-and she could do nothing about that.

Turning from the mottled mirror, she felt a pang of disappointment that her self-inspection had not resulted in a single surprise or reevaluation. Immediately, however, she was shocked and appalled by that disappointment. She stood in the bathroom doorway, shaking her head, amazed by her own befuddled thought processes.

Did she want to be appealing to Streck? Of course not. He was weird, sick, dangerous. The very last thing she wanted was to appeal to him. Maybe she wouldn’t mind if another man looked on her with favor, but not Streck. She should get on her knees and thank God for creating her as she was, because if she were at all attractive, Streck would make good on his threats. He’d come here, and he’d rape her… maybe murder her. Who knew about a man like that? Who knew what his limits were? She wasn’t being a nervous old maid when she worried about murder, not these days: the newspapers were full of it.