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Автор John Darnielle

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A Note About the Author

to Nancy Chavanothai: in loving memory

But secret agents, like God, only give signs to their confidants. They are also very cruel and even unhappy at times. At any rate, they keep quiet.

—BENJAMIN TAMMUZ, Minotaur, translated from the Hebrew by Kim Parfitt and Mildred Budny

PART ONE

People usually didn’t say anything when they returned their tapes to the Video Hut: in a single and somewhat graceful movement, they’d approach the counter, slide the tapes toward whoever was stationed behind the register, and wheel back toward the door. Sometimes they’d give a wordless nod or raise their eyebrows a little to make sure they’d been seen. With a few variations, this silent pass was the unwritten protocol at video rental stores around the U. S. for the better part of two decades. Some stores had slots in the counter that dropped into a big bin, but Nevada was a small town. A little cleared space off to the side of the counter was good enough.

Bob Pietsch was renting Advanced Big Game and Best of Bass Fishing Volume Four today; he stood there now, at the counter, patient, semimonolithic. He stopped in sometimes on his way home from the co-op; any tapes he rented he’d keep for a week. Stephanie Parsons was in line behind him; Jeremy could see her back there, looking mildly anxious, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

Bob spent most of the year by himself in a farmhouse on a property he owned outside Collins. If he still hunted or fished, it wasn’t with anybody he’d known back when he lived in town: nobody really knew what Bob did with his time. People talked a little about him, out there all by himself; it was hoped he’d remarry. But he’d sold the family home after his wife died, and the Collins place was pretty remote.

There weren’t a lot of opportunities to meet people. When he made conversation these days he sounded like a farmer at an auction waiting for the bidding to start.

“This one’s a real good one,” he said, tapping Best of Bass Fishing Volume Four. “They get smallmouth, they have to throw half of them back. ”

“Ever get up to Hickory Grove?” Jeremy asked him. He had lived in Iowa all his life. Men in his family always talked about fishing.

“Used to. All the time,” said Bob. “We used to go out for bluegill in the winter. ”

“Sure,” said Jeremy. It continued like this for a minute. Bob eventually dug his Video Hut membership card out from behind his driver’s license and signed for the tapes. His card was one of the old laminated ones; it had gone yellow at the edges. Membership cards were really a formality at this point, but Jeremy let him show it anyway.