Ashley-Montague checked the darkening yellow sky and realized that no birds were making a racket as they usually did in the tall trees here at sunset. Perhaps they were worried that a tornado was coming. Ashley-Montague for a loan for some business venture, and next to him the flat-faced, overly muscled Taylor boy-his grandfather had received capital injections from Dennis Ashley-Montague's grandfather in exchange for some favors of forgetfulness at the time of the Scandal.īut few other children, and not many families tonight. He saw Charles Sperling, the bratty son of that Sperling man who had had the sheer temerity to approach Mr. Ashley-Montague did not see the boys he was looking for. The timer had not yet turned on the streetlights. Ashley-Montague felt a great sense of claustrophobia seize him: from where he stood the town seemed sealed in by eight-foot-tall corn-to the south beyond the ruins of his ancestral mansion, to the north four long blocks up the dark tunnel of Broad Avenue, west only a few hundred yards to where the Hard Road doglegged to the north, and east down the silent gauntlet of Main Street with its dark shops. usually the twilight would linger another thirty minutes in these latitudes. It was not yet eight-thirty in the evening. The millionaire finished his drink and strolled back to the bandstand, where Tyler had finished his final arrangements. Ashley-Montague knew of nothing that could help any of them if that were the case, himself included. Ashley-Montague saw nothing in that book that could help the boys if his grandfather's Stele of Revealing were actually awakening from its long slumber.
he had actually had the temerity to steal a leatherbound copy of Crowley's translation of The Book of the Law.
Then that amazing little fellow who had shown up at Mr. but he had never really looked at one until that fat boy-the one whose friend said he had been killed-had questioned him on the bandstand over a month earlier.
He had seen them at previous Free Shows over the years their grimy little faces watching the movie as if it were some bright miracle, their cheeks protruding with gum and popcorn. He had considered not coming tonight-not allowing any more Free Shows-but the tradition ran deep and his sense of being the village squire to this assortment of inbred bumpkins and rednecks served a certain perverse purpose in his life. A handful of other trucks and cars pulled in to park diagonally while Tyler was arranging the speakers and other equipment, but overall the turnout was one of the lowest in the nineteen years that the Ashley-Montagues had been providing this free Saturday-evening entertainment for the dying little town.ĭennis Ashley-Montague returned to the backseat of the limousine, locked the doors, and poured a tall glass of Glenli-vet unblended Scotch from the bar set into the soundproofed partition behind the driver. Instead of the usual scores of families waiting patiently on the grass, only a few faces watched Tyler carry the massive projector from the limousine's trunk to the bandstand. Ashley-Montague stepped out of the limousine at Bandstand Park, the darkness overhead was immediately perceptible. Ashley-Montague did not take undue notice of the dark skies and sickly light that lay over the forests and fields and rivers like a rotting curtain on the verge of opening.Įlm Haven's Main Street was emptier than usual, even for a Saturday night, and when Mr.
The limousine's tinted windows always imparted a certain element of storm light to the view, so Mr. Ashley-Montague saw no reason to break the silence. Tyler, his head butler, chauffeur, and bodyguard, did not speak, and Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague sat in the back of his black limousine and stared at the passing cornfields and crossroads towns during the hour drive to Elm Haven.