Slowly, carefully, Billy was crafting his reply to the bird. He was producing deep music, amazing sonorities that were at once beautiful and weird.
Shadows came out from behind the furnace, from out of the disused coal cellar, down the steps that led to the storm door with its rusted hinges and loose lock.
Since it was a summer Saturday night, dinner was free icebox, no call and no formal table. At six he sucked up the Butterfinger, counting on it to sugar-high him through until about nine, when Jer would show up and they would hit B-King. Jer had promised to treat him to a small fries.
Finally there was no light in the basement but the pale glow of his monitor. It was past eight when Billy leaned back from his work and rubbed his eyes. He noticed with mild interest that there was a pair of legs visible beyond one of the basement windows.
Somebody was standing there. Dad? Jerry, inexplicably wearing gray slacks?
Never mind, it didn't matter.
But it did.
3.
Barton had felt sick when he saw the sea of kids in the video arcade. In only thirty minutes the place had filled up. Kids must have been pouring in steadily almost from the time he left.
He should have stayed; he'd never catch sight of his boy in this crowd. But he'd been seen, he'd had no choice.
Even now it was perfectly obvious that he was looking for somebody. He went down to the bookstore. Absently, he paged through a new novel, Fire. God, what an upsetting title. People did not know how much fire could hurt unless they had seen somebody being burned. If a person is burned extensively enough they start feeling cold. After a really thorough session they shiver like they were in a freezer—not that Barton had any knowledge of that.
There was such a thing as a wild scream. When a person knew that their agony would only be ended by death, that is how they shrieked. The black room had the most expensive ceiling tiles you could buy, and the cinder-block walls were double-thick. It swallowed screams.
If there is one place on earth where you can do absolutely anything you want, you are free.
A steam iron.
Barton's stomach churned. He put the book down. Again he made a run past the arcade. He rolled along casually, watching out of the corner of his eye.
And there he was, the angel being manhandled by the bigger boy who'd been with him earlier. Barton was livid. Had the situation been different he might have intervened. Then the muscle-boy saw him. As he moved off, he just glimpsed himself
being pointed out to the angel. Damn, that wasn't supposed to happen even once, let alone twice!
Uneasy about lingering in the mall, he had returned to his van yet again. He gripped the steering wheel, staring into the void of the parking lot. Stevensville might be a small town, but Crossland Mall was huge, designed to serve this whole part of the state. What was he going to do?
He'd definitely been noticed again.
Then a miracle had occurred. God must love him: he saw his boy coming out of the mall by himself. Barton was so excited he couldn't get his engine going. As he sat furiously grinding the starter the child moved toward the bike rack.
Barton's thoughts had flashed back to the first time he had seen Jack, on an October afternoon. Yellow leaves had been running in the streets and skywriters scrolling an enormous Pepsi ad across the blue of heaven. That had been at the Mill Run Mall in Tappan, California.
The engine ground to life, and for the first time Barton thought he might get this child.
The boy finished unlocking his aged bike and started for the exit. Despite the risk of losing him, Barton waited a full thirty seconds before following. He had to submit himself to the discipline of the quest. You had to know how to breathe, how to move, how to empty your mind and concentrate with total attention. Finally he started off, moving with the gliding slowness that most drivers adopt in mall parking lots. He wanted to jam the gas pedal to the floor.
By the time he caught sight of the boy again he was already turning onto crowded Lincoln Avenue. Accelerating smoothly as he slipped into traffic, Barton cruised past the child. He kept him in sight with the special wide-angle rearview mirror he'd bought for just this sort of maneuver.
He'd bought it when he was following Timmy. The technique was to get ahead and let the child catch up.
Poor Timmy. He had been—
'Not now, Barton.' He was on the hunt. It wasn't time for memories. He coached himself: breathe in, breathe out. "Control your breath and you control your soul," said those who were spiritually aware.
The boy rode into the Burger King parking area. Quickly
maneuvering the van, Barton cut into the far end of the lot. As he wheeled around he expected to see the bike cross right in front of him, but there wasn't a sign of the boy or his bike.
Barton looked out toward the street just in time to see the Schwinn disappear beyond some parked cars. As fast as he dared he left the lot. The boy was far down the street, pedaling hard. What did this mean? Surely the child hadn't seen him. Of course not. Boys changed their minds in an instant. Very well. He would keep his eyes on the bike. It was at least a quarter of a mile away—and just then it had turned a corner. To keep the boy in sight Barton had to gun his motor. So much for caution. He covered the distance to the side street in a few seconds.
Hicks Street. He looked down its tree-lined expanse. No bike. Damn. The boy must live in one of these houses. Unless— it was also possible that he had made the next corner and turned again. Barton moved to the end of the block. There he was, just disappearing up a driveway. In a moment Barton was cruising past 630 Oak. He had him. The boy walked his bike into the garage and dropped it onto an equally aged girl's bike. The child knew this place well. Barton was virtually certain that the boy lived here.
Next Barton checked the property for signs of a dog. What he glimpsed of the backyard revealed that it wasn't enclosed. There was no doghouse. He spotted no telltale heaps of dog feces, no spots of dead grass indicating that a dog had urinated there.
At the end of Oak, Barton turned onto Maple, then went up Elm to Hicks. Then he drove down the six hundred block of Oak a second time.
While the condition of the yard suggested that there was no large dog present, a smaller pet might still lurk within the house. When he penetrated he would bring a hammer, raw meat and a plastic garbage bag for the animal's body.
If people like him got caught it was because they were careless. He could assume nothing, trust nobody.
He had never met another person like himself, but he had studied their failures in newspapers and magazines. He'd even done volunteer work for Missing America, a large support
group for parents of missing children. He needed to get inside the mind of the parent and the police detective as well as the child.
He knew the law. He knew exactly what would trigger FBI involvement. He also knew police, and what telltale signs would make them suspect a runaway. If they thought a boy had left home on his own they would quietly downgrade the case.
Abduction by strangers was rare. In most places it was a sensational crime, not forgotten for years and years by the community. Etan Patz, abducted from SoHo in New York in 1976, was still being hunted.
Because Jack was listed as a runaway everybody had forgotten about him. But Timmy was on those damnable posters all over the country.
Barton had mixed reactions to that. The prospect of being investigated made him wake up sweating in the night—and yet the idea also caused a deep, illicit tingling.
Most guys like him took their kids right off the street. Barton had done that in the past, but his new method was far more subtle and extraordinary than simply luring a kid into the back of a van.
He drove slowly past the target house. Suddenly he became aware that his pants were soiled. There was a stain on his thigh. How long had he been wearing these pants? He couldn't remember. It could have been since last week, since Timmy. Revolted, Barton tried to pull the cloth away from his skin. He inadvertently turned the wheel. The van swerved badly.
There—another moment of inattention. Somebody might have noticed the white van that swerved the day before Johnny So-and-So disappeared. And under hypnosis the witness might remember the license number of that van.
It was so easy to fail.
He headed back out to the interstate, driving quietly for a time, to calm himself. He would have to live with the stain. It was probably just grease anyway.
He took an exit ramp about ten miles from Stevensville and drove down under a bridge where he had already scouted a good place to park the van.
He thought over what he had seen. The family lived in a
lovely old neighborhood, but their house was visibly shabby. In addition both of the kids' bikes were old, and the station wagon in the garage had seen better days. These were good signs. A poor child was easier to dazzle.
So he was part of a family of four or more. Unless the target had a brother whose bike Barton hadn't seen, it was likely that he would have a bedroom of his own in that big old Victorian house.
Barton looked at his watch. One-forty. He would not return to Oak Street until after dark, sometime between eight and eight-thirty. It would be his first chance to check out the house on foot. If they had their name on the mailbox, that would be when he would learn it.
Since it was likely that he could act tonight, he would have to check out of his motel now. Following his plan, he would start driving west immediately after making the hit. He'd sleep in Colorado and Utah, living in the van until he reached L.A., which would be on the fourth day.
It was a hard drive but he'd done it before in that time, without ever once exceeding the speed limit. The idea of getting stopped for speeding with a kid in the van was too horrible to contemplate.
Maybe he was pushing too hard.
He probably should have taken the week on Maui before coming out here. As it was, he was going to have a hard time convincing Gina that his extended absence was in any way legitimate, let alone forgivable. She had to give in, though. It would be suicide to fire such a popular employee. In his own very small way, he was a star.
He
needed
another boy, and it couldn't wait even
one fucking minute.
4.
A hand dropped down on Billy's shoulder.
"Dad!"
"Would you believe it's eleven o'clock?"
"No. I thought Jerry was coming by at nine."
His father laughed. "He came. You told him to leave you alone."
"I've gotta just put this one sequence together, Dad. I've got all the tracks laid, it's just a question of linking—"
"It's the end of the day, Birdman."
"I'm not tired."
"You're never tired."
"So let me finish this. I want to talk to that bird."
"Formula for long life, says Chinese sage: bed, sleep and sweet dreams."
Hand in hand they went upstairs.
Barton was lying in the yard under a twisted old tree. The moonlit shadows of its limbs made crooked fingers in the grass. When the basement light finally went out he sat up. But there were still lights on upstairs. Didn't these people ever sleep?
It was a beautiful night, and every so often he would raise his eyes to watch the moon through the branches of the tree.
"I see the moon and the moon sees me, high up in the old oak tree ..." On his nights of boyhood the breeze would come fifty miles from the sea, bringing with it the magical scents of the ocean mixed with night-blooming flowers.
Barton would dream of evil green waves and the ocean giant
the Bible called Leviathan. Whisper-quiet, Leviathan would come up from the depths of his dreams . . .
The last of the lights finally went out.
Earlier he'd watched the boy playing with his computer. There had been terribly complex images on the screen, and music, such music, wild and beautiful. He had watched that lovely face concentrating, seen the graceful curve of his neck, the softness of his boy's hands and the laughing, gentle eyes. He was the most perfect boy Barton had ever seen. Just absolutely perfect.
He wondered how this boy was punished. Probably just talked to, the lucky little
bastard!
Barton would be laid in his mother's lap. The purpose of the ritual was to correct and teach. There was love in every blow, Barton knew that. Dad would never help him. Dad would never tell her to stop, tell her it hurt too much.
Dad had been so weak at the end, Barton had just laid his hand over his nose and mouth. He'd had to do this to see if his father was still alive.
Barton had called to his mother, who was in the shower. "Mother, Dad has died."
Dad had never come to his bed in the night.
And he hadn't smothered Dad.
He stood up, took three deep, hungry breaths and moved toward the house. His feet whispered in the dewy grass.
Billy dropped his clothes into the hamper. As always, there were a number of issues connected with the shower. First, how long. Second, how hot. Naturally the most desirable situation was very long and very hot. But Billy knew the risk of depriving his mother of her hot water. She also showered at night, and could become dangerous if this happened. "Since you wanted such a long shower, take mine, too."
"But it's cold, Momma."
"I know."
He wanted her to have her small pleasures. She saw to so many of everybody's needs. Given Dad's profound lack of technological skills, it was she who assembled the toys of Christmas, she who had connected up the Amiga and taught him the
rudiments of it. Basics like food and clothing came from her, and she also was the one who understood that his mind was on a major growth curve. She had introduced him to
The Catcher in the Rye
when Dad was still promoting
Tom Swift and His Amazing Underwater Toaster Oven.
Billy lathered himself efficiently with Ivory. He took special care with his underarms, for he had noticed again today a musky odor lingering around him during the noontime heat. As he washed, he touched his privates.
Amanda.
He almost collapsed. The merest flickering thought of her made his penis leap to life. It stood before him in the spattering water, and he checked to make sure the door was locked. What would his sister do if she saw this? Call the police, probably. What—would—Amanda—do?
You would end up wearing a bicycle around your neck, young man. Boy, if this thing wasn't working yet, it sure was about to start.
Amanda ... to walk with her, hand in hand, to the gazebo in the center of MacIntyre Park, dear Lord, and there to place my lips against her lips and perform extremely pleasing acts . . .
Awash with desire he faced in the privacy of his shower the fact that there was no hope. Amanda Bartlett would never pay him the least attention.
"Ach du lieber Augustine —"
And what was the rest? Two months out of school and he was already brain-dead in German.
"Du lieber Amanda ..."
You did not impress a girl like Amanda by being recording secretary of the German Club. Let's face it, Jerry had elaborate muscles and could prance the gridiron before her admiring gaze.
When baby-faced William Neary came up to her and said,
"Ich bin lieben —or lieber
—uh ..." he could expect the proverbial wet
Spaetzle.
As the shower turned tepid his erection collapsed and he stepped out. He dried himself and pulled on his yellow cotton pajamas.
Bedroom, bed. To sleep, perchance . . .
* * *
Because there were basement windows secluded at the back of the house Barton could take his time entering. He examined a window frame with his penlight, taking inventory of its various weaknesses. He did not want there to be any sign of entry or exit.
He'd learned from his work with the missing children group that policemen felt ill-equipped to fathom the secrets of families and read the hearts of children; the most beloved child could decide to leave home, and for unknown reasons. A flower of youth might end by turning tricks on Sunset Boulevard or Lexington Avenue in the Fifties and nobody would ever know why.
Barton intended to create the appearance that this particular kid had packed up and moved out. But before he did that, he had to face the tricky part; indeed, it was the best ruse he had ever contemplated.
In his pockets he carried wire in various grades, a group of plastic cards of different thicknesses and even some old-fashioned skeleton keys he'd bought at a yard sale. Small-town locks were sometimes old enough to give up their secrets to these keys. Finding that the window was secure, he tried the storm door. He was pleased to discover that entering here could not be simpler: there was a padlock, but that had been locked onto the broken hook. The tongue of the hasp hung open. He took out his 3-In-1 Oil and oiled the hinges—very, very lightly. Then he wrapped some felt around the loose parts of the lock. He checked his other equipment: the cloth packs, the ether, the duct tape, the hammer, the bags.
He was going to be a wonderful father to this boy. They would have a fabulous life together.
Billy listened to the quiet. Everybody's light was out. Only Billy was still awake—as usual. He simply did not sleep as much as other people, at least not as much as the members of his own family did.
He threw off his sheet and stepped into the faded shaft of moonlight that shone on his rug. He went to the window. The breeze was scented with the perfume of corn tassels. He loved
the night, and was all too aware that this night fell at the end of his last childhood summer. In October he would be thirteen. He'd heard his father and mother talking one night, and his mother had said, "He's disappearing. Right before our eyes, he's just disappearing."
The moon was high, and the bird sang into the silence. He could see it sitting on its telephone wire. To his ear there was no sound in the world quite so pure as the voice of a bird. Carefully he directed the microphone of his tape recorder out the window. He drew in breath, rolled his tongue into the back of his mouth and let out three notes. The bird went on singing to itself, all alone on the wire.
The world swimming in moonlight, the whispering breeze, the bird's clear, sharp song—nobody could re-create such beauty. But he could try. This time he closed his eyes. He let his ears become his only senses. He filled his lungs and pretended he was a bird also, soft and quick and smitten by the moonlight.
He sang.
The bird sang back.
Again he sang.
And the bird sang back.
He replied.
The bird fell silent.
Billy opened his eyes. Goose bumps covered his skin and his blood rushed with wonder. His first impulse was to wake Mom and Dad up and tell them, but that might be a mistake. He would almost certainly get a strict order to slide back between the sheets.
There was no time for sleep now. He had to go down to the basement and play this recording into the computer, examine the exact nature of the notes that had gained response.
Had he actually duplicated the bird's voice, or simply deceived the creature?
As he slipped along the hall he heard the bird again. At the top of the stairs, he paused. Aside from the bird, the only sound was the ticking of the big clock in the living room.
Quietly he went downstairs.