Night Relics by James P. Blaylock

make up for … for what had happened before.
    The cat bite throbbed worse than ever. Beth had been right about seeing a doctor. That had been good advice. He would keep
    an eye on his hand. Right now, though, he had a couple of other things to do.
    He smelled dead rats and realized that the plastic bag was still tucked into his pants pocket. So he wound down the window
    and threw it out before driving away west, toward civilization. Things were going well. Even the damned cat bite had paid
    out. He grinned suddenly, anticipating his phone conversation with Lance Klein.

10
    K LEIN WATCHED THE HILLSIDES THROUGH THE WINDOW . He knew it was crazy, but something inside him, almost like a memory, whispered that at any moment she would appear. He’d
    been waiting for her, expecting her. He could picture her face clearly—the pale porcelain cast of her skin, her dark eyes
    and hair. Her name flitted into his head without his making any conscious effort to invent one for her, as if he had always
    known it.
    The wind fell suddenly, and the shadows and trees were still, the hills empty. He imagined it was dark, late at night,the moon high in the sky over the ridge. Heavy with expectation, he walked toward the hills through the high grass. She appeared
    in the moonlight, and he went out to meet her, taking her hand and leading her to a room that smelled like pine and wool and
    tallow. Her clothes were a puzzle of ties and buttons, but with practiced hands he undressed her, the two of them moving together
    slowly in the sepia-toned candlelight….
    When the telephone rang he nearly knocked it onto the floor. It took a moment for him to recognize Pomeroy’s voice.
    “I think we’ve got a live one out at the end of the road,” Pomeroy said.
    “Which cabin?” Klein forced himself to look at the countertop, to yank his eyes and his mind around to business and away from
    the windy hillside.
    “Thirty-five,” Pomeroy said.
    “They settled on a price?”
    “Nope.”
    “You make any kind of offer?”
    “Nope.”
    Klein waited. He did a lot of waiting when he talked to Pomeroy, whose pronouncements were full of pauses that seemed to imply
    things, except that Klein never knew if the pauses implied stupidity or secret knowledge. “So what did you tell them?” he
    asked, finally giving in. Two points for you, he thought.
    “I told the woman to talk it over with her husband. My idea is to drive back out there in a couple of days, after they’ve
    had time to get worked up, and tell them I’m not interested. Then one of the new fronts can pick it up.”
    “All right,” Klein said. “I’ll go for that. Give me the name and phone number.”
    After listening for a moment he hung up the phone and shook his head, immediately punching in a number. The phone rang three
    times before a man picked up at the other end and said, “Callaway.”
    “Bob, this is Lance Klein, calling about that little real estate deal we talked about at the Spanglers’ party. That’s right,”
    Klein said. “She was a riot, wasn’t she? I
am
a lucky man. You don’t know the half of it. Anyway, about that little deal,
    it’s easy money, payment up front.”
    Klein nodded at the phone, peering out at the hills again. “Well,” he said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ve got the particulars
    if you’re interested. That’s right. Vacation home out here in the canyon, party name of Monroe. They’ve got a year-round home
    in Southgate.”
    Klein loved the view from the backyard, especially on a clear, windy day. The Japanese had the idea that you should build
    your house so that you couldn’t see the view, so that you had to go looking for it. You wouldn’t lose your appreciation of
    it that way. Sometimes the Japanese were purely full of crap.
    Klein had cut, filled, surveyed, and built on the hills a hundred times in his head. It was a sort of mental exercise—creative
    thinking. Up behind the house there was a gradual slope for something like two