In For a Penny Read Online Free PDF

him.
    “Not a chance, man. It’s good to hear from you, though.” There was doubt in his voice, however. Evidently it wasn’t all
that
good to have heard from Art, at least under the circumstances: five years of silence and then a nut call out of the blue. When he hung up he wondered whether to reveal this to Beth or to keep it to himself. He remembered what Anthony had said about cutting the heads off dogs, which had seemed funny to him at the time. Now it didn’t seem so funny.
    Had he
made
the possum cross the road, just like he had apparently made the phone do his psychic bidding? Why not? And if he had, then where would it end? Airplanes plunging from the sky? Cars veering off the road? His
own
car veering off the road, just as his own telephone had veered off course?
    He was full of a new fear, something that he hadn’t seen before, although it had always been right there in front of him: none of these episodes was within his conscious control. All of them had simply
happened
to him while he was thinking of something else, like the onset of a disease. He hadn’t
wanted
Nancy or Steven to call. He hadn’t been in high hopes of spotting a possum. This new aspect was horrifying in its simplicity. He had a sort of psychic Midas touch, only worse, because at least Midas had to put his finger out and poke something.
    He took out his wallet and found the receipt from the bookstore, then punched Krystal’s number into the phone, counting the rings, ready to be connected to any damned thing at all. The telephone had become a monster of unpredictability. The world had become a monster of unpredictability. Krystal, God bless her, answered the phone with a simple hello.
    “Yeah, hey, I’m a friend of your brother’s and he gave me your number,” Art said. “I’ll come straight to the point. I’ve had a couple of psychic experiences, and I’m really … mystified. He says you’ve got some kind of group.”
    He half hoped that she would ask questions so that he could unburden himself right now, but she didn’t; she simply told him to come by on Thursday night at seven and to bring cookies. He wrote her address on the receipt and put it into his wallet again. Beth might roll her eyes at the very idea of him being involved in a society of psychics, but he had to go, and realistically she would agree that he had to go. After all, Nancy didn’t know Steven from Adam, and even a skeptic like Beth would admit that the two of them couldn’t be in cahoots to plague Art with some kind of complex phone prank. Beth’s attempts at simple explanations, even the theory that he was crazy, just didn’t work.
    . . .
    Beth turned out to be almost encouraging about the Thursday night meeting, not even objecting to Krystal’s name. She was simply happy that he would have another ear to bend. By now the paranormal had become virtually the only subject that he could focus on. All their discussions drifted in that direction—either that or his mind drifted that way and he left Beth and the discussion behind. He had promised Nina twice that he would go feathering with her, but had put it off both times, and Beth wasn’t picking up the slack there. She was leaving Nina’s project to him, giving him a chance to keep his promises.
    Krystal’s house was in Santa Ana, a nice old Mediterranean place off Flower Street with arched windows and a tile roof. The door was opened by a small man in a goatee and startlingly thick eyeglasses, who took the cookies from him. “Welcome,” he said, showing Art in. “Krystal is meditating. My name is Roderick Gunther.”
    “Art Johnson,” Art said, nodding. “Pleased to meet you.” There were a dozen others milling around inside. Art seemed to be the only one who had brought cookies, although there were pots of tea kept hot on metal racks. He could smell incense and burning Sterno.
    He was a little unnerved to see that the rest of the crowd were members of an identifiable type—bookish and