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ack to Frazier. There was a bar there called the Bull Moose. He’d been past it many times, always<br />
with the recovered drunk’s reflexive speculations—what was it like inside? What was on draft? What<br />
kind of music was on the juke? What whiskey was on the shelf and what kind in the well? Were there<br />
any good-looking ladies? And what would that first drink taste like? Would it taste like home? Like<br />
finally coming home? He could answer at least some of those questions before Dave Stone called the<br />
cops and the cops took him in for questioning in the matter of a certain little girl’s disappearance.<br />
A time will come, Casey had told him in those early white-knuckle days, when your mental defenses<br />
will fail and the only thing left standing between you and a drink will be your Higher Power.<br />
Dan had no problem with the Higher Power thing, because he had a bit of inside information. God<br />
remained an unproven hypothesis, but he knew there really was another plane of existence. Like Abra,<br />
Dan had seen the ghostie people. So sure, God was possible. Given his glimpses of the world beyond<br />
the world, Dan thought it even likely . . . although what kind of God only sat by while shit like this<br />
played out?<br />
As if you’re the first one to ask that question, he thought.<br />
Casey Kingsley had told him to get down on his knees twice a day, asking for help in the morning<br />
and saying thanks at night. It’s the first three steps: I can’t, God can, I think I’ll let Him. Don’t think too<br />
much about it.<br />
To newcomers reluctant to take this advice, Casey was wont to offer a story about the film director<br />
John Waters. In one of his early movies, Pink Flamingos, Waters’s drag-queen star, Divine, had eaten a<br />
bit of dog excrement off a suburban lawn. Years later, Waters was still being asked about that<br />
glorious moment of cinematic history. Finally he snapped. “It was just a little piece of dogshit,” he<br />
told a reporter, “and it made her a star.”<br />
So get down on your knees and ask for help even if you don’t like it, Casey always finished. After all, it’s<br />
just a little piece of dogshit.<br />
Dan couldn’t very well get on his knees behind the steering wheel of his car, but he assumed the<br />
automatic default position of his morning and nightly prayers—eyes closed and one palm pressed<br />
against his lips, as if to keep out even a trickle of the seductive poison that had scarred twenty years of<br />
his life.<br />
God, help me not to dri—<br />
He got that far and the light broke.<br />
It was what Dave had said on their way to Cloud Gap. It was Abra’s angry smile (Dan wondered if<br />
the Crow had seen that smile yet, and what he made of it, if so). Most of all, it was the feel of his own<br />
skin, pressing his lips back against his teeth.<br />
“Oh my God,” he whispered. He got out of the car and his legs gave way. He fell on his knees after<br />
all, but got up and ran into the garage, where the two men were standing and looking at Abra’s<br />
abandoned pack.<br />
He grabbed Dave Stone’s shoulder. “Call your wife. Tell her you’re coming to see her.”<br />
“She’ll want to know what it’s about,” Dave said. It was clear from his quivering mouth and<br />
downcast eyes how little he wanted to have that conversation. “She’s staying at Chetta’s apartment. I’ll<br />
tell her . . . Christ, I don’t know what I’ll tell her.”<br />
Dan gripped tighter, increasing the pressure until the lowered eyes came up and met his. “We’re<br />
all going to Boston, but John and I have other business to take care of there.”<br />
“What other business? I don’t understand.”<br />
Dan did. Not everything, but a lot.<br />
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