23.
Walter and Mary were sitting in her kitchen.
"We've got a tough problem with this guy, Mary. We know his name, we know what he's driving, we even know the fact that his car is registered in Utah and he travels on a California license. But we can't find him, although we strongly suspect he's in L.A. because of the route he took."
Walter's way of telling you something made you wait. Mary hated that. She knew that there was nothing she could do but keep listening and hope he'd land on the point soon.
"As far as California is concerned, the bastard is dead. What this means is, he's living publicly under another name. When he's in danger he pulls out his real ID, which makes as a deceased. It's a damned clever wrinkle."
Absently, she twisted a piece of Kleenex she had in her hand until it was reduced to little, rolled-up bits. She wanted to scream, to throw things, to hit. But she was wiser now in the ways of her rage.
"Have you told Mark?" It was so hard to have him out doing things while she just sat. The nights were long, the days were long, and she and Sally were getting on each other's nerves. The poor girl was scared it would happen to her, too—and in a curious way ashamed that it hadn't.
"That gets me to the good news. And it's very good."
"Why didn't you tell me right away!"
"No, I'm sorry. Forgive me. I'm just on edge." He pulled a piece of paper out of his briefcase. "This is the man that kidnapped Billy."
Mary took the picture in her hands. Before her was a pudgy man with wide-set eyes and thick, sensuous lips. The nose was broad, the brows were light and curved in such a way that the eyes looked back with startling innocence. It was not an adult countenance. Barton Royal looked like a very sad little boy who had weathered.
"The IdentiKit done by the Nevada witness fit this picture very closely. So did the one done by the trooper who stopped him out in Neola."
"But here's the kicker." He dropped an acetate sheet over the photograph, and suddenly Barton Royal was wearing dark glasses. "Jerry Edwards says this is definitely the guy who played RPM with Billy."
"Is this implying—did Billy know —"
"He was just a guy in the arcade. Billy showed no evidence of knowing him."
"But they played—why?"
"The guy asked Billy for a game."
She looked at the picture, trying to imagine this man with her son. She thought of him stalking Billy, of him coming through these very rooms that night, of him standing right here in the living room. This man, with his sensuous lips and his big, baby eyes, had been here. He had carried Billy out of the house in his arms.
"Barton Royal, present age forty-four."
"We can have this picture?"
Walter handed it to her. "It's yours. We're going to use it, too. The FBI's put Royal on their 'most wanted' list, which changes everything. Now that they have a name, an identity, things are going to get much hotter for your man. This poster will go up at every 'wanted' location in the U.S. We're also going to put Billy's picture on the poster."
Hope flowered in her heart, followed at once by questing impatience. She was so emotionally fragile that any news— good or bad—brought tears. Carefully, she regarded her lap, smoothed her dress. She wished to display only the calm, efficient exterior that she liked and trusted. The gushing, mercurial Mary Neary she had found inside herself was not reliable.
"What can I do? I'm having a really rough time just sitting here, Walter."
"I think you might have another shot with the media. If we have a little luck here and there, we're going to get this man. You can't hide behind a false ID forever. He left a trail somewhere. We'll find that trail. You could help a lot if you could get another round of TV."
This was one of those awful decisions that made her come wide awake in the middle of the night. "What if Barton Royal sees his face on TV?"
Walter raised his eyebrows.
"I know he's already hurt Billy. Mark told me."
"Publicity—"
"If he realizes that he's got problems—I don't see Billy living through that!"
Walter did not reply.
"You don't have an answer."
"No. It's obviously a possibility."
"Anyway, the publicity—we won't get on TV in a big place like L.A. They wouldn't give us ten seconds. We'll get Des Moines. A lot of good it does, anyway. People bring you those damned covered dishes and then they tune you out. They don't care, Walter."
"We care."
"The police care professionally."
"I want to close the case. But I also want to help that little boy, Mary, and you know it! There are cops eating their hearts out over this case. Believe it!"
It was true that people cared.
Jim McLean had been an angel. The whole school board had helped, the police chief, teachers, kids, parents, the neighborhood. She knew that she had to make just one or two calls and the new poster with Barton Royal's face on it would be up in store windows from here to Des Moines before tomorrow noon.
"My instincts tell me to hunt for him. We're just dead broke, but I could get out to L.A. on plastic."
"It's an impulse lots of parents follow. You might even get lucky."
Again she felt the wild flush of hope, then the familiar dead sensation that followed it. She shook her head, trying literally to shake off the chains that bound her to her agony. "The
thing is, if he's never found I'll feel like this for the rest of my life."
He reached out to her with the familiar half-gesture that never completed itself. But this time things changed: she took the grasping hand. "You always do this. You reach for me. Then you stop."
He was looking gravely at her. Had there been sexual content in his expression she would have withdrawn. Clumsily because she was sitting down, she let herself go toward him. They stood up as politely as if he had asked her to dance. Then he was holding her. Under his suit Walter Toddcaster was massive and unyielding. This was not a fat man, but a strong one. She could feel his gun tucked in its holster. He smelled of cigars and Paco Rabanne.
She was so tired now, so afraid. She was not a physically intimate person, except with Mark. But he was a long way away and Walter had the gruff softness of her dad.
She leaned over and pressed her cheek against his shoulder. He stopped dead still. Then he began stroking her hair with quick, nervous gestures.
They were silent. 'This is like time of war,' she thought, 'when people cease to believe in their own futures.'
"It's OK," Walter said. "It's OK."
She lifted her head. It was shocking to realize how little it would take for her to go to bed with this man. Through her sixteen married years she had touched no man but Mark. Such subtle ruptures as these are among the most destructive of the many undocumented side effects of violence.
She drew away from him. "Mary," he said, his voice low and harsh. She knew that tone well: it was the voice of desire.
"Walt—I'm sorry."
He nodded, as if to say that he understood what he must now do. He lowered his head, his lips became a tight line and a distant expression replaced the softness that had filled his eyes. She saw the truth of his life—a barren old marriage long worn out, two people like ghosts in one another's lives.
Victims were Walter's family, stolen kids his children. When he sorrowed for them, he sorrowed also for himself, and when he fought for them it was really the soul of Walter Toddcaster he sought to redeem.
"I'm going to drive down to Des Moines to get some of the official posters,'' he said. "They'll be printed by noon, and I'll bring them up. We'll start by giving them to schools, to the Y, places like that."
"I'll call Father Turpin's poster committee, and Jim McLean. We'll get them out as soon as you get them to us."
Quite suddenly and without another word he left the house. The kitchen door slammed behind him. Even though she had seen it swinging closed, Mary jumped. The sound wasn't what had startled her. She hated being alone.
She was as if bound to her chair, her kitchen, its silence. This morning she'd tracked a smell to the cookie jar. It was full of moldy Oreos. Cleaning it reminded her of the old ritual of the washing of the body.
"
Lots to do," she said. First she would alert Jim McLean. Then she would phone Sally, get her back from Donna's. She was beginning to spend all her days in that dark, air-conditioned house with its purple drapes and its big-screen television. Sprawled together on the Antonios' cream-colored couch, Sally and Donna watched soaps and sitcoms. They ate Twinkies and drank Cokes and sometimes, Donna had said, Sally would just cry.
When Mark left, Sally went silent. Her dream of the family becoming a detective team had been the foundation of her hopes. But teams cost money. Sally's solution was to anesthetize her mind. Mary didn't like it, but she also couldn't blame her daughter. Again she considered just going after Mark and the hell with the money. In addition to what cash they still had, there was some credit on their MasterCard. Perhaps another thousand dollars. She didn't want to think about it. She was afraid that she might have to go and not be able to afford it. What would she do then—beg?
Damn right she would. She'd call Father Turpin, ask for more money. She would ask some of the rich families like the Edwardses for a loan.
She phoned Jim, who wanted to come right away to see the picture. He could get the picture into the local paper, maybe also the Des Moines
Register.
Then she called Sally. Every time her daughter left her im
mediate presence, Mary became uneasy. The phone rang once, then a second time. On the third ring her hands were sweating. On the fourth her throat was getting tight.
When the phone was answered she closed her eyes, let out her breath. "This is Mary."
"Just a second."
Sally came on.
"Do you know it's nearly eleven? Why don't you come home."
"Sorry, Mom."
"Sally, we've had a break. We know what Barton Royal looks like."
"Are we gonna get him?"
"Sally—" She had to stop. The choking tears hit her. Since Mark had left they'd been coming on like this, suddenly and without warning.
"Mommy?"
She managed to croak the words, "Come home."
When she was here alone she had taken to visiting Billy's room. Earlier this evening she had embraced his pillow, inhaled the fading odor of him that was still in the sheets. She had cried until her throat started closing and she was afraid she would gag. There had been murmurs in the hall, muffled footsteps. For a time she had been afraid to leave the room.
Last night Billy had called her name. She'd heard his voice so clearly it had woken her right up. She'd gone into his room then, too. The night made it seem somehow dangerous, as if the shadow of Barton Royal waited there.
A bird had been singing on the wire outside his window. She'd leaned on his windowsill, and listened to it for a long time. Now she took Barton Royal's picture in her hands. "Barton," she said. She tasted the name. "Barton Barton Barton." If she could, she was going to get this man. When she got him she was going to kill him.
She had believed that crime was a psychosocial illness, evil a medieval concept invented to frighten the serfs into compliance. But life was turning out to be more mysterious than either of those notions would allow. Evil had most assuredly
walked the floors of this house. And Barton Royal was also a sick, sick man.
"I will kill you, Barton Royal," she said as she stared at the picture. Then she laughed. For Mary Neary this kind of laughter—so bleak, so bitter—was something very new. She understood little about grief, except that it always has a concrete origin: somebody is lost.
As if his life depended on it she raced up to Billy's room. Once there she did nothing but stand in the doorway. She was as still as a resting moth.
How could it hurt this bad? She didn't know anything could hurt this bad. Moonlight was just appearing in the window where last night she had listened to that bird. It must be the one he'd been trying so hard to imitate. Imagine wanting to talk to a bird! She could almost hear his voice singing in the wind, see him on the faraway. Where he was it was dark, except she knew he was dancing. "Billy," she said, and the name touched her lips like balm.
A voice screamed deep and long, and then there was silence. The sound might have sliced her heart in half, a child in jeopardy. But she knew it was only some toddler chasing lightning bugs. That child was up too late!
Somewhere Billy was dancing. She imagined a ballroom full of painted men and their prisoner boys.
Then came the bird, singing as the moon rose. As if by a cunning hypnosis she was drawn again to its voice. It was just a little thing standing on a wire, but its song was so very free, so very wild. Part of Billy was there.
There was something there deeper than the freedom, the wildness. There, she heard it. Yes, then it was gone again. It was so mysterious, as if her very grief had secretly possessed the heart of the bird. Or no, it was not grief. In the bird's song she heard something more primal: encased as in an amber of sound was the first savage screaming of the beast.
It was to that music her son's ghost danced.
24.
At first Billy did not understand what was happening to Barton. He left the table and went across to the living room, taking the wine bottle and his glass with him. "What's your taste in music?" he asked. "My collection is eclectic." His voice was high and weird. It was getting scarier and scarier around here.
This wasn't because Barton was getting mad again. It was for the opposite reason. He was totally overfriendly. For once he didn't sound like he was going to get mad again any second. Billy watched him as he flipped through his pile of old record albums. "I suppose you like rock."
"Sure."
"I despise rock. It's mean-spirited. What else?"
Billy knew one good way to make people like you was to let them get their way. "I like all kinds of stuff.
You
decide."
"I have the sound track from
Cabaret
. I have the divine Kiri singing
Songs of the Auvergne
. I have the sound track to
The Singing Detective
. Did you see that on TV?"
He remembered it, a public television special about a writer with all his skin flaking off, which was pretty neat. "My folks wouldn't let us watch much of it."
"Well, the sound track is marvelous." He drank down his glass of wine and put on a record. Billy was fascinated with the ancient hi-fi. It looked like something you saw in old black-and-white movies, huge and made of wood with an "RCA" emblem in the middle of the speaker. It only had the one big speaker, so it couldn't even be a stereo. Barton must be worse than poor, he must be on his way to living out of a bag.
The record came on and a song rose up out of an ocean of scratches. It was frowzy music from very long ago, the kind that was popular when dancing meant hugging each other and sliding along the floor.
The first song he played started out, "You always hurt the one you love." Barton said, "Don't be bashful, come over here with me." He poured himself more of the wine.
As Billy went toward him he suddenly spit out a word. "Dance!" His voice had changed, and now he didn't look friendly anymore. He advanced on Billy. "Dance!"
Billy had no idea what to do. He had hardly ever danced in his life. He knew there were special steps to the old dances, but what were they? He stood there.
Barton folded his arms, gave him an appraising look. "You can't dance?"
"I don't know how."
"Fox-trot, rumba, swing, jitterbug. Any of those words mean anything to you?"
Billy shook his head.
"You always hurt the one you love," the singer crooned, "the one you shouldn't hurt at all ..."
"OK," Barton said. Billy saw something in his hand, then all of a sudden he was unlocking one of his handcuffs. As quickly as it had appeared, the key went back into his pocket.
"You always take the sweetest rose, and crush it till the petals fall . . ."
"I'll teach you," Barton said. But he didn't say it pleasantly. There was menace in it, sneering and hard. He yanked Billy to him. "I'll teach you to fox-trot first, that's the easiest."
Being close to Barton was seriously creepy.
"Come and trip it as you go, on the light fantastic toe. Do you know that?"
"No."
Barton slipped his arm around Billy's waist. "Now you put your right hand on my shoulder. No, don't grab it, you're not drowning. Lightly, delicately. That's it. Better, anyway. It's Milton, incidentally. You've read Milton, surely?"
Billy was trying not to cry but it was hard. This was a hateful thing Barton was making him do. Nevertheless he stood with
his hand poised on Barton's shoulder. If he let himself cry it might be all over. He could not allow Barton to know how awful he really felt.
"Milton—surely you have. You're so
fucking smart!"
There was that tone again, from the car. No more friendliness. Barton was getting like he'd been when he tore up the steering wheel. Only now Billy was leaning against his moist shirt, and the record was spinning and Barton was full of wine.
Barton swung Billy through the air, tightening his grip around his waist. Billy closed his eyes and went limp.
"If I broke your heart last night," Barton sang, "it's because I love you most of all . . ." His singing voice was thin. He sounded like a boy littler than Billy, or a woman.
Billy pretended he was in his own room. It was night, and the summer wind was billowing the curtains across his bed and he was looking up at the moon.
They swept around the room and the windows passed and the doors, and out the back door there was an ocean of lights.
The song stopped but Barton just slowed down. Now he hung heavily on Billy's shoulders, weighing him down so much he thought he might collapse. "Now we clasp our left hands— intertwine our fingers—yes, that's the way. This is how you are when you really dance." He pulled Billy yet closer. Another song started.
"I get along without you very well," the voice sang. Barton slid and sidled along. "Of course I do, except when soft rain falls . . ."
Barton was leaning over, burying his face in Billy's hair. Then Billy heard him crying and all of a sudden he couldn't help himself any longer and he was crying too.
"... but I should never think of spring, for that would surely break my heart in two."
Because of his crying Barton gradually lost the rhythm of the dance. Billy bore his weight as best he could. Now they just shuffled, ignoring the music. "Do I worry when the iceman calls ... do I worry if Niagara falls . . ."
"Am I furious 'bout your little white lies . . ." Barton sang along with the record, his voice sunken to a weepy whisper.
His hand in Billy's was ice cold and soaking wet. His other
hand was like a claw around Billy's waist, each finger pressing tightly against his skin. Round and round they went, slow-dancing, Barton doing a rough box step while Billy stumbled along with his bruised and bare feet, trying not to connect with Barton's shoes.
Barton was now kissing his hair. The feeling of lips tickling against his scalp was almost unbearable. Then there was something else, a wet, squeezing something. When Billy realized that it was Barton's tongue, he quite involuntarily cried out and pulled back.
Barton flung his arms wide, as if Billy's body had suddenly become awful to hold. Without skipping a breath, he said, ' 'Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee,'
Billy!
Author, quick!"
"Hemingway!"
"And I thought you were supposed to be so
fucking smart!
The author is John Donne. Hemingway used the line for a title." He threw himself down on the couch, spreading his arms out along the back. Then he patted a place beside him. "C'mere."
He put his arm around Billy's shoulders, absently massaging his chest. "Do you ever think about death?" His voice was very gentle.
"No. Well, hardly ever."
" 'Never, never, never say a big big "D." Well, hardly ever.' That's from
HMS Pinafore.
Do you know Gilbert and Sullivan?"
"I'm not sure."
"Well, hardly ever. Let me see your palm."
Billy held his hand out as flat and straight as a soldier might.
"No, come on, relax. I can't see the lines that way." He took Billy's hand. "I've forgotten you felt like I should," the record sang, "of course I have . . ." Barton traced the line in Billy's hand with a fat finger. "I was a boy once. I was! They called me Fat Royal. I've never told that to a living soul. Oh, look, this is your lifeline—do you know palmistry?"
"No. I don't believe in it."
"OK, OK, we're just doing this my way, OK? Your lifeline is this one here. See it?"
Billy looked into his palm. "I'll get along without you very well," Barton sang with the record.
Billy's very soul yearned for home. He could smell breakfast cooking, could see the east light pouring in his door, could hear Sally singing in her shower.
"Dear child, your lifeline is so short!" Barton took another long drink of wine, refilled his glass with the last of the second bottle. "Well, the good die young, I guess." He raised his eyebrows. "Let me ask you a question. Have you ever been whipped?"
"I don't know."
Barton chuckled. "You lied to me. Your father never whipped anybody. Let me tell you, the first couple of licks, you think you're going to make it. Strong, silent type. Then the third time, maybe the fourth, you let out some sound, just can't help it. By then it's hurting so bad you think it can't get worse." He paused. He was choking as he talked, slurring his words. "Have you ever wanted to kill anybody?"
"No."
"You're a liar! You'd like to kill me!"
"No, Barton! I like you! Really!"
"This isn't a game, you little asshole. This is the real thing. Do you understand?"
Billy was too scared to talk. Barton turned over his hand. "I see blood vessels." He traced the blue shadow along the back of Billy's hand. "Do you ever wonder what you look like inside. Like, inside your hand?"
Billy nodded. "Yeah, I wondered that." He'd once gotten into an awful lot of trouble for operating on a live frog.
"The stomach is protected by first a layer of skin, then fatty tissue, then there are muscles that look like beef jerky, but light pink. Under that there's the viscera, which is hard and stringy when you pull it apart. Then there are the organs. Have you wondered, ever, what it's like to look inside a living body? How it would feel to touch a heart while it was still beating?"
"No, I never wondered that."
"But you have a science class at your school, don't you?"
"We dissected shrimp," Billy said miserably.
"Shrimp, really! You dissect shrimp at the dinner table. The thing about L.A. is, it's practically always summer. So you can always barbecue if you feel like it. But they have strict laws. No
emissions! The air is terrible here. Have you ever barbecued shrimp?"
"Yeah. Dad makes Shrimp Wilder. He likes to barbecue."
"Oh, Shrimp
Wilder
. That's a very elegant dish. The sauce is green, as I recall."
"Yeah, it is."
"Do you like me holding your hand?"
"I don't care."
He laughed silently, throwing his head back. "You care." Then he took Billy's open hand to his mouth and licked it with his fat tongue. "Do you like that?"
It made Billy start shaking again. His heart was hammering so hard he almost couldn't hear. "I don't care," he stammered again.
Barton stopped. "I disgust you."
"No, you don't, Barton. Really, it's OK."
"No, it isn't." He drew Billy closer. "Put your head on my shoulder. That's it."
It was like Mom would do, especially when she was feeling sad about something. She liked to lean her head on Dad's shoulder.
Barton was getting more tense by the second. His muscles were hard. There was deep trembling, slowly getting stronger and stronger.
"We all have to die," Barton said." 'After the first death there is no other.' How about that line? Do you know that?"
"No."
" 'A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London.' Do you know Dylan Thomas?"
" 'Never until the mankind's making bird, beast and flower'—I know that."
"Well, you know a little Dylan Thomas. The death of a child by fire—it's an incredibly sad thought. When death is quick, it's best. But it's usually a slow thing. The body struggles. Everything alive wants to keep living. We have a very sick attitude toward death in our society. A writer named Henry James called it 'the distinguished thing.' I think that's quite beautiful. 'The distinguished thing.' "
Billy wished Barton would stop talking about death. But he did not stop.
His voice grew mellow, like he was remembering things from a long time ago. "I guess the worst death is to be told in detail how it's going to be done, and then have it done." He stretched out his legs, wriggled in his seat, sighed. "That's the worst, all right. There is no worse death."
Billy was devastated. He knew, now, that there was no hope and there had never been any hope. He was here for one purpose and one purpose only: to be killed.
His chest seemed to burst open and a great roar of pain poured up his throat and just stuck there. Barton held his head, stroking it. "I'm goin' to Jesus," Billy said. It was so strange, so very mysterious!
Barton seemed more like a force of nature now. "You go ahead and cry, darling. It's best to have a good cry when you first realize. Then you'll get it together and it'll become like a kind of project we do together."
Billy looked at him in amazed horror. Had he heard that right? Barton's eyes were twinkling. He took a long pull on the wine bottle. His glass lay on the floor.
"Barton, please let me be your son."
"That's just a game, Billy. The game is over."
"I'm a good boy, Daddy!"
"No, that game's over." His voice bubbled. "New rules." Now he sounded more serious. "I think you have to get philosophical about it. It's going to happen, Billy. I didn't want it to. When I got you, I wanted you to be a real son to me. I thought we'd work it out."
"We still can, Barton, honest. Honest!"
"But you turned out to be nothing but a
fucking little actor!"
"I'm not, I'm not!"
"You are an actor and a liar!"
Billy jumped up and ran straight toward the big glass door that opened out onto the backyard. Beyond that was the canyon, and beyond the canyon Los Angeles itself. If he could just make it down that hill, then he would be safe, he would be free!
He threw open the door. Barton, slowed by drink, was not quite fast enough to stop the desperate, racing child. He did not try particularly hard, however. Had Billy seen the slight smile on his face, he might not have run so fast, or been filled with such wild hope.
But all he knew was that he was free. Free! He had the use of his hands and the lights of the city to guide him.
At the end of the yard he ran hard into a fence, but it was low and only stopped him for a moment. He climbed the few dry logs easily and hopped into the rougher ground beyond. His feet were still healing, and they were too sensitive for him to run really fast on the tumble of stones that formed the bottom of the canyon.