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I SHOULD have gone straight back to Wainwright House. The community meeting was just a few hours away, and the plan to destroy the lamp was likely to go forward. If I had the lamp in hand, the town could get this over and done with. In hindsight, that would have been a hell of a lot better all around.
But how could I persuade Anne to give up the lamp? “How about fifty bucks for that old lamp in your window?” She’d want to know why I wanted it, and my suspicions about the lamp’s involvement in her husband’s death might come out. It would be a tricky conversation, and I didn’t feel up for it. It had already been a long day.
Plus which, I didn’t have that much time before the meeting if I wanted to grab some dinner. I had a quick drink at Al’s, where there was a bigger crowd than I’d seen before, though no one I recognized. Maybe the regulars stayed away on Fridays, or maybe Hank and his pals were helping organize the meeting.
I had some half-decent lo mein at Lost Lake’s one Chinese joint, then walked over to the Grange Hall, suddenly aware of how many miles I’d already done, and on a day when I’d planned to be less active. But it seems it’s like that on vacation, you end up walking places you’d otherwise just drive to.
The Grange was a plain white building with a peaked roof. Above the front door was the Grange symbol, a sheaf of golden wheat. Inside, beyond the foyer, it was one big open room with a wooden floor, waist-high wainscoting of stained oak, and white clapboard walls, a small stage taking up one end, usually occupied, I had to guess, by a fiddle and banjo band. Chairs had been set up for the meeting, and the place was already crowded.
I arrived right on time for Zeke to call the meeting to order. Matt, Jonathan, Mary, and a couple of others I didn’t recognize stood nearby on the stage. I spotted Chief Reilly standing off to one side, surveying the crowd. Hank was there, seated with a bunch of other folks, all wearing yellow shirts with Anderson’s Systems on the back. I didn’t see Dolores anywhere. Maybe she felt like she’d be blamed somehow for releasing this genie on the town.
I’d been to a bunch of meetings over the course of my career, usually the formal gatherings of one public board or another, sometimes town halls. This wasn’t like any of those. Zeke began the meeting by reciting the publicly-known misfortunes the town had faced, then invited the attendees up to the mic to give their own tales of woe. That went on for a while, and it seemed to me like nothing more than the random misfortunes of life. The four I’d met at Al’s went last.
“What are we going to do about it?” someone shouted when they were through.
“That’s what we’re here to discuss,” Zeke said. “It all has something to do with that lamp.”
“Where’s Dolores?” someone else called out “She’s the one who started all this.”
Zeke held up his hands for silence. “She’s not the only one who had the lamp. The mayor had it before she did.”
“So where is he?”
“Yeah, and where’s the lamp?” The crowd was pretty much talking over each other.
I’d seen Reilly on his radio during the storytelling portion of the meeting, and now two more uniforms entered through the door at the back of the hall, taking up positions near where I stood against the back wall. A sensible precaution, considering the temper of the crowd.
“We’ll get to that in a minute,” Zeke said. “But first we have to figure out what to do with it.”
“Wait a damned minute!” This from Hank, who had jumped to his feet. “This lamp stuff is pure nonsense.” Shouts and nods of agreement from his cohort. “What we need is justice for Anderson’s employees. That kid who burned it down should be in jail.”
Zeke tried to look placating. “I sympathize with your situation, but you’ve heard people’s stories. The whole town is cursed, not just Anderson’s.”
That led to a back-and-forth between the Anderson’s contingent and much of the rest of the crowd. At one point, Chief Reilly stepped up to the mic and threatened to clear the room if people didn’t calm down. Soon after, the yellow shirts got up and left, to cheers from their neighbors who remained.
After that, they got into the debate over whether to melt it down or take it out of town, with Zeke and Jonathan presenting their arguments and the rest of the gathering contributing at will. No one here had heard of Robert or his rules.
“Dolores needs to be here!” someone shouted. “If anyone knows what to do with a magic lamp, it’s her.”
A woman in her mid thirties stood up and raised her hand. She wore all black, with plenty of piercings and dyed black hair. Zeke called for quiet and acknowledged her.
The woman spoke so quietly, it was hard to hear. “Everyone should know that the way to destroy a genie is to throw its lamp into a fire, or preferably lava. Don’t any of you remember The Return of Jafar?”
Great. As if considering what to do with a magic lamp wasn’t absurd enough, now the town was going to get advice from Disney screen writers.
The debate went on for another twenty minutes, after which the crowd decided, by a lopsided show of hands, to melt the lamp into slag. Zeke proposed a bonfire on the beach the following evening. Someone pointed out the fire rings were pretty small, prompting Zeke to offer his own farm. “Plenty of room for people to park, and we can have as big a bonfire as we want, no pesky enviro regs to hold us back.”
That received universal assent.
“All right,” Zeke said, looking my way, “now we just need to get our hands on it. Detective Pulaski, would you come up and tell us what you’ve learned?”
I stayed where I was, raising my voice as I spoke. “I know where the lamp is, but I can’t comment on that.”
“It’s at Amos’s, isn’t it?” The questioner was a woman, I couldn’t see who.
“Like I said, I’m not going to comment on its whereabouts.” I had to raise my voice more to be heard over the grumbling that followed. “All I can promise is that I’ll do my best to bring it to the bonfire.”
“And when will you know?” Zeke asked.
“Most likely by noon tomorrow.”
“You heard it, folks. Follow our Facebook page, and we’ll let you know by noon whether it’s a go.”
I’d hoped this would settle things, but apparently not. One of the younger guys I’d seen at Al’s stood up. “This is good and all, but someone needs to pay for what’s happened to this town, and that’s anyone who’s had the lamp.” He looked significantly over at me.
“This is about putting an end to the curse, not retribution,” Zeke said before Chief Reilly elbowed his way to the mic.
“Ronnie, did you just threaten the mayor?”
The young man looked a little flustered. “Well, no, but what about Amos? He’s the one who brought the lamp to town.”
Reilly shook his head. “It’s hard to believe we’re standing here talking about a magic lamp. I think you’ve all lost your minds, but my opinion’s not important. The mayor supports getting rid of the lamp because then we can turn the corner on this run of bad luck. He’s thinking of it more as a ceremony to usher in a new dawn of good fortune, I think was the way he put it. He’d like to be there if it’s okay with you, Zeke.”
Zeke shrugged and nodded.
“But if I hear one more statement that can be taken as a threat against any citizen or public official, I’ll shut this meeting down. In fact, it’s eight o’clock and I think it’s time we all went home…”
I took that as my cue to leave, the grumblings and shouts about free speech fading as I passed through the foyer and out into one of those golden evenings of summer, the sunlight still warm on the skin and glinting off the lake.
But I hardly noticed as I walked back to my room, preoccupied with how to approach a conversation I didn’t want to have.
* * *
I woke up the same way I had the previous nights, thinking I’d heard a loud bang. Only this time there was a noise: sirens. A glance at my phone told me it was three a.m. I went to the window. Downtown was lit up with a yellow glow.
I pulled on sweatpants and a T-shirt and headed downstairs, out the door and down the front steps. Summer weather was back; there was hardly a chill in the air. What there was in the air was more than a whiff of smoke.
I followed the glow and the sirens to downtown, where a building was fully engulfed. Amos’s. It looked like the firefighters had moved on to keeping the inferno from spreading into the abandoned bookstore next door.
My first thought was to wonder how Amos could have gotten into the lift, down the stairs, and out the door before the flames blocked his escape.
A gaggle of onlookers had gathered across the street down the block. The mayor and I walked up at the same time, from opposite directions, Chief Reilly turning at our approach.
“Amos?” Mayor Sharp asked.
“Staying at his granddaughter’s for the weekend.”
“Oh, thank God!”
Reilly turned a baleful eye to me. “This is what happens when you stir up trouble.”
I had to think the trouble would have stirred itself, but I didn’t want to get into it with him. “Arson?” I asked instead.
“Too soon to tell for sure, but what else, after tonight’s meeting?”
“You’ll have plenty of suspects.”
“Our detectives are out rousting them right now.”
The fire marshal came over. “We’re pushing the safe zone back.” The crowd obediently moved back to the line he indicated.
“Too bad we didn’t have that lamp at the meeting,” the mayor said. “Then maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
Chief Reilly looked back and forth between the two of us. “You think that would have made a difference? You didn’t hear that crowd. They wanted revenge.” I could tell it pained him to say anything in my defense. As if to make up for it, he added, “And all of this over superstitious bullshit.”
“On that, we’re agreed,” the mayor said. “But maybe destroying the lamp will calm people down. You’re sure you can bring it to the bonfire tomorrow — I mean tonight?”
I told him I’d do my best. After that, I felt like I was in the way, so I headed back to my room. Sleep did not come easily, if at all.
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