Mr. X (59 page)

This morning I snatched sans payment a copy of the
Edgerton Echo
from the newsstand and nipped up Chester Street, scanning the front page. The editors had been allowed time enough only to insert a paragraph reporting the destruction by fire of a
“modest rooming house.” A single fatality was considered a possibility. Tomorrow’s rag would supply photographs and complete details.

I strolled to the scene of the happy event in the guise of an ordinary mortal. My visible, daytime self possesses the dignity of a retired statesman or diplomat, with perhaps a hint of a general’s authority. In a weathered manner, I am still handsome, if I say so myself. (To complete these details of my mundane existence, I employ a false or assumed name, which contains a revelatory joke no one is likely to perceive, and I have recently retired from an executive position.)

One matter niggled as I neared the site. I should have
known
of my son’s death, as I had
known
of his mother’s. Yet this was the weakling offspring, whose share of my legacy may have been too insignificant to permit telepathic transmission.

The “modest rooming house” had been reduced to a heap of rubble. Within a network of red tape declaring
DO NOT CROSS HAZARDOUS AREA DO NOT CROSS HAZARDOUS AREA,
investigators in orange space suits prowled through the mess. A collection of dimwits and ghouls had assembled across the street.

I circulated through them and picked up what I could. Several blamed the fire on faulty wiring. Many considered Helen Janette, the landlady, an ill-tempered harridan. I nearly went mad with impatience:
What about the fatality?

At last I buttonholed a wheezing wreck.
Didn’t one of the tenants perish?

“Say what?”

Some guy died
.

“Oh, yeah. Otto. Damn shame. Did you know him?”

Not to speak to
.

The wreck nodded. “It shakes you up more than you want to let on.”

Oh, it does shake me up
.

I hastened back to the sty and fastened onto the news broadcasts. An unidentified body had been removed from the scene. An hour later, identity was suspected but unconfirmed. Identity had been confirmed but withheld. Not until noon was the victim named as Otto Bremen, a seventy-year-old crossing guard at Carl Sandburg Elementary School.

By evening, the broadcasters were exercising their internally amplified voices to announce that investigators and fire specialists in the pay of Edgerton’s Departments of Fire and Police had concluded that the fire was of suspicious origin.

You understand my complaints about the servant problem.

Truth be told, Frenchys are hard to come by. I have decided to give the snake a second chance. Frenchy is not so stupid as to boast of his crime. (Except to Cassie Little.)

Frenchy’s life shall be spared, as long as he can repair the damage and look up some old acquaintances to discover if they have been unwise. Star would never have divulged the name “Edward Rinehart”: she was good at secrets. Clearly, she never told the weakling that he had a brother. Blast him. Blast his brother, too.
I thought there was only one of them—

Years back, I nearly
had
the boy—the atmosphere electric—my excitement profound—I sensed the
presence—
yet the quivering shadow slipped from me—the singularity of the occasion troubled & intrigued—now I understand.

I believe the two
connected—joined together
. The Dangerous Son was close to hand—
Resolution
nigh. My failures had a single cause—
Ignorance
. I thought there was but One—not Two—I believed the
Shadow
the image of my Prey—not the helpless
Shadow
of his brother.

I object! You People got things wrong!

But no more complaint. During her lifetime, the cow apparently exerted a protective influence. Understanding strengthens me, as does blessed Recognition—success in maturity—in what some may call old age—is sweeter than in youth.

82
Mr.X

Six hours later. I require sleep. Unpleasant dreams beset my brief doze, and I tossed and turned for yet another hour. However.

The morning’s edition of the
Edgerton Echo
informs all and sundry that the Chester Street fire resulted from an act of arson.
Below the fold, two elegiac columns accompany a photographic representation of Crossing Guard Bremen’s bloated visage. PLUS!—the mind reels—in devotion to the memory of Mr. My Mustache Is Bigger Than Yours, Carl Sandburg Elementary School has announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the arsonist.

I am on the verge of palpitations. If I were found incinerated, would anyone fork out $10,000 for the name of the incinerator? Besides that, Cassie Little would slit her mother’s throat for a handful of nickels, much less $10,000.

Before the sun travels another five feet of sky, Frenchy receives his marching orders.

83

Before Ashleigh’s flight the next morning, I walked over to Merchants Hotel to pick up the satchel and tell her about the fire and Captain Mullan while we had breakfast.

“Laurie called earlier. I told her I managed to get some useful information. I didn’t say how, and she didn’t ask.”

“Good.”

Ashleigh jabbed her spoon into her granola. “Mullan checked you for a wire? It sounds like he’s being investigated. Or is afraid he will be. I bet he’s worried about what’s going to come out if Hatch is indicted. About two days from now, these guys will be sweating bullets.”

“Not Mullan,” I said.

“You’ve been here no longer than I have, and you know that. You’re an interesting man, Ned.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Ned?” She put down her spoon. “Why are you laughing?”

Toby Kraft came from behind his counter and wrapped his arms around me. “Heard the news this morning, couldn’t believe my ears! You okay? What happened?”

I said that I had moved to the Brazen Head after his friend had evicted me. “I guess you knew her when her name was Hazel Jansky.”

“We did some business together about a million years ago. The lady got in trouble, and I helped her out. I do favors for my friends.” Toby was not even faintly uneasy. “What did she do, tell you her life story?”

“Part of it. I hope you had that building insured.”

“Bet your ass. Do your aunts know you’re all right?”

“I didn’t tell them where I was, but I should call them anyhow,” I said.

Toby looked at the satchel, and I asked him if he would keep it in his safe for a while. He caressed the soft leather. “Touch an item like that, you feel like J. P. Morgan.”

He shoved the bag on top of the jumble of files and loose papers in his safe and grunted back onto his feet. “Helen chewed me out for telling you her old name. But you didn’t get that here.”

“I saw some old articles from the
Echo
,” I said. “Toby, was that why you went to Greenhaven?”

“Sit down.”

The same piles of papers flowed across the top of his desk; the same women in the same sad, blunt poses covered the walls. Toby folded his hands on his belly. “Want to know the truth of that deal? Certain people have problems with the adoption process. Other people, they don’t want the babies God gave them. I can’t defend the legality of what I did, but I do defend its morality.”

“The morality of selling babies,” I said.

“Adoption agencies don’t take fees?”

“They don’t abduct babies and tell their mothers they died.”

“A child deserves a good home.” Toby spread his arms. “Me, I am a guy who takes care of people. I took care of your grandmother, I took care of your mother, and I’m going to take care of you. The day I am dragged kicking and screaming from the face of the earth, and I hope at the time I am in the sack with a good-looking dame, you are going to hear from the greatest lawyer ever lived, Mr. C. Clayton Creech, and it will be your duty to get your ass back to Edgerton. No fooling around.” His magnified eyes made sure I got the message. “Understood?”

“Understood,” I said.

“I should give you his particulars.” Toby snapped a business card out of his wallet.