The Child Buyer (27 page)

THE CHILD BUYER

lution but hints at it. Looking at that tattoo, I very nearly had itf And by a curious coincidence Flattop must have experienced the same illumination at the same moment, because he exclaimed, 'Jeez, Hairy Barry, I got the answer. "I Was a Pre-Tccn-Age Stickleback." '

Senator SKYPACK. So then you picked your victim?

BARRY RUDD. There followed the third phase of creative work. We knew we were on the right track, but we needed a period of consolidation, verification, elaboration. The basic notion was that I would break a rule beautifully, and get caught, that it would be with a female of the species, because we both sensed that here was where the rules were most deeply tribal. I would be not simply delinquent, I would be taboo. I would make my protest against civilization in terms as old as civilization itself. I give Flattop just as full marks as myself for this apt insight. You see, this is where Flattop, in his way, has a kind of talent. If only there were some way of harnessing it.

Senator SKYPACK. So now you want to put an ordinary J.D., a time server, on a pedestal!

BARRY RUDD. He deserves a pedestal, Senator. He'd be a worthy citizen if one could be found for him. Anyway, we discussed many details. For the central approach to my misbe-havioral adventure I adopted a line of which Flattop disapproved: the gynecological approach. Flattop wanted a more elemental action, something meatier. As things turned out, I think he may have been right. My crime passionel turned out to be a flimsy curiosity. Here we sit politely mulling it over, when what I needed was to be clapped into Clarkdale. But be that as it may, I told Flattop that I had to follow my own natural bent, which was, alas, scientific rather than lascivious. I could read up on my approach at the library, with Miss Cloud's help—and later I did.

Senator MANSFIELD. How could you be sure you'd be caught?

Monday, October 28

BARRY RUDD. This again was Flattop's contribution, in large part. He had observed, during his frequent visits to the boys' bathroom, which is in the basement of Lincoln, that Dr. Gozar inspects the cellar installations of the school at two o'clock sharp every day, that her tour takes twelve minutes to the dot, and that afterwards she invariably returns to her office. I remembered the closet off her office. Florence Renzulli contributed the bit about planting her shoe in Dr. Gozar's office; Florence was most co-operative. I'm very fond of her, and very grateful. My time alone with her was fascinating. She has a mature development, prepubesccnce like young corn silk, excellent pelvis.

Senator SKYPACK. I see you're not repentant in the slightest degree.

BARRY RUDD. Repentant—no. Regretful—yes. Abashed that my little protest was so futile. It has, however, taught me something about adults.

Senator SKYPACK. Namely.

BARRY RUDD. Namely, that what is commonly called juvenile delinquency is largely ineffective as protest because it simply acts out things that grownups would secretly like to do. The horror adults felt at what I did appeared to be in direct ratio to their envy of me. Mr. Cleary was beside himself with rage. I don't think I ever saw a person gnash his teeth before. It's a sort of rotary sharpening process.

Senator MANSFIELD. Why did you want to be caught by Dr. Gozar?

BARRY RUDD. Because I knew that she's strict about things that matter—such as letting a book be damaged by rain.

Senator MANSFIELD. Any other questions, gentlemen?

Senator VOYOLKO. This Piggy Kowalski, he get that tattoo in the Navy?

BARRY RUDD. I don't know, but there's an anchor tattooed on

THE CHILD BUYER

his left forearm. Entwined in a serpent.

Senator VOYOLKO. Anchor. See? I thought so. I thought he was in the Navy. You talk about national defense!

Senator MANSFIELD. If there are no further questions, gentlemen, I think the time has come to call it a day. Tomorrow, as I understand it, Mr. Broadbent, we'll take up the attack on the Rudd home.

Mr. BROADBENT. That's right, sir.

Senator MANSFIELD. O.K. We'll stand adjourned until ten in the morning.

(Whereupon, at 4:18 p.m., Monday, October 28, the hearing was recessed, subject to the recall of the Chair.)

(The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:15 a.m., in Ordinary Session, in Room 202, Capitol Offices, Senator Aaron Mansfield presiding. Committee members and counsel present.)

Senator MANSFIELD. We will come to order. Again I must caution our spectators against disturbing our committee in any way. We intend to be orderly and expeditious here, and if there are any disturbances we'll be obliged to clear the room forthwith. Mr. Broadbcnt, you may go ahead.

Mr. BROADBENT. First, this morning, I'd like to call the boy Charles Perkonian. Usher him in, please.

Senator MANSFIELD. Sit down over there again, sonny. In a talking mood this morning, I hope.

CHARLES PERKONIAN. Barry says sing, I sing.

TESTIMONY OF CHARLES PERKONIAN, MINOR, TOWN OF PEQUOT

Mr. BROADBENT. Yesterday, Master Perkonian, the boy Barry Rudd testified to us that you gave him advance warning of the attack on his home, and you yourself made some broad hints in testimony here yesterday morning that the child buyer knew all about the assault beforehand. You remember that?

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CHARLES PERKONIAN. Knew all about it? You can say that again. His baby.

Mr. BROADBENT. Are you suggesting that the child buyer engineered the attack?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. Like I said, it was his baby. Beginning to end.

Mr. BROADBENT. What makes you say that? How do you know it?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. What you think I got ears for? Flap off the flies?

Mr. BROADBENT. You heard something. What did you hear?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. The guy the flat hat, I heard him telling them fellas what to do, how to do it. A to Z.

Mr. BROADBENT. Where was this?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. Where was what?

Mr. BROADBENT. This conversation you overheard. These instructions.

CHARLES PERKONIAN. The drugstore.

Mr. BROADBENT. Ellithoip's drugstore?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. I don't know no names. The drugstore fella the stomach out to here.

Mr. BROADBENT. Mr. Ellithorp. Search your memory, Master Perkonian. Was this in Mr. Ellithorp's store?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. You're the one said that.

Mr. BROADBENT. The record will show that the alleged conversation took place in a drugstore in Pcquot, presumably Elli-thorp's. Please tell what happened.

CHARLES PERKONIAN. I already told. Stupid. Like I already told. The guy the flat fedora, cooking up the deal.

Mr. BROADBENT. How did you happen to overhear? What were you doing in the drugstore?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. Doing? Buying a bottle Bromo, my old lady got herself a head. Minding my own business.

Mr. BROADBENT. Where were they talking?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. In the back. I come in there after this bottle Bromo, nobody's around, the fat guy's usually got this white coat, like he's playing doctor like my pal Hairy Barry, anyway he's not there, nobody around. So I ease around behind the place he stashes all these bottles a medicine.

Mr. BROADBENT. And?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. Mumbo-jumbo in the back. The guy, the drugstore guy, he got this office in the way behind. I can hear 'em. So I crotch down, there's this trash barrel around the corner there, I crotch down where nobody can't see me, and I hear the whole thing.

Mr. BROADBENT. Who was there?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. I din see 'em, I only heard 'em.

Mr. BROADBENT. So far as you could tell from overhearing, who was there?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. I don't like to use no names. Gives me the hecmie-jeemies, I ain't no squealer. Just those guys in there.

Mr. BROADBENT. We know the child buyer and the druggist were in there. Who else?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. These two hoody guys. You want I should stool on 'em or something? I don't go for that stuff.

Mr. BROADBENT. What was the child buyer saying?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. The whole deal. What time. Motorcycles. Pick-up truck. Baseball bats. How to open up the chimblcy, side the house, pour this crap and stuff down it.

Mr. BROADBENT. Where did Barry come into all this?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. He dint.

Mr. BROADBENT. The police picked him up. You know that.

CHARLES PERKONIAN. You want to know about him, you ask him. I already talk too much. You get him in here, you want to know about him. Lay off from me on him.

Mr. BROADBENT. What was the purpose of the attack to be? Did you gather that?

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CHARLES PERKONIAN. They was going to scare the living—

Mr. BROADBENT. Watch your language, now.

CHARLES PERKONIAN. Daylights. Anything the matter with daylights? What's so dirty about daylights?

Mr. BROADBENT. I thought you had something else in mind. Goon.

CHARLES PERKONIAN. Stupid. I suppose you think daylights is dirty or something.

Mr. BROADBENT. Go on, Master Perkonian.

CHARLES PERKONIAN. Jeez, a guy can't even say daylights around here. I ain't surprise you got a hatful a guys down Clarkdale. A guy can't say nothing till you come along and decide he's a criminal or something like that. You call this a democracy, a guy can't even finish a sentence he's in Clarkdale.

Mr. BROADBENT. You were saying about the purpose of the attack.

CHARLES PERKONIAN. I don't know. You got me so I don't want a open my trap, find myself down Clarkdale again.

Senator MANSFIELD. We're not going to do anything to you, sonny. Just go ahead.

CHARLES PERKONIAN. Well, I'd like to know what gives with this stupid jerk. Can't even say daylights. They going to give me a vote like anybody else, one these days. I'll bomb this jerk when they give me a vote.

Senator MANSFIELD. Never mind, sonny, just answer the question.

CHARLES PERKONIAN. How'm I supposed to say it? They got this idea they're going to scare the . . . the . . . Look at him! Just can't wait to ship me off to the correction house! They call it justice! . . . O.K., O.K. Supposed to throw a scare into mostly Mrs. Rudd, so she'll up and sell Barry like this guy the flat fedora wants to buy him.

Mr. BROADBENT. The attack was to intimidate Mrs Rudd?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. You accuse me the dirty words, I ac-

cuse you words a guy can't understand. You oughta watch TV, mister, learn to talk like a normal person the way they talk on the programs there. You can understand every single word.

Senator VOYOLKO. I agree with this boy. Wouldn't do you a bit of harm, Mr. Broadback.

Mr. BROADBENT. You then joined up with the attack yourself at the appointed rendezvous?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. I don't know what you mean, that roundy-view, but sure I went along. Who wouldn't? It was going to be cool.

Senator SKYPACK. One more question, son. What do you think—should they sell Barry?

CHARLES PERKONIAN. Why not? What's to stop 'cm? People don't have no choice. My pal don't want to go, that's just tough . . . Oh-oh. Mr. Daylights looking down my tonsils again, looking for dirty words. I was only going to say, Just tough luck. Barry don't have a look-in. Did they ask me, did I wanta go down Clarkdale? A free country, only trouble is, it don't work that way. Under twenty-one, it ain't always all that free.

Senator MANSFIELD. All right, sonny. Thank you.

CHARLES PERKONIAN. What's all this about, anyway? What's the fuss about? What's so special about Mr. Barry Rudd Esquire? Who ast me when they sent me down Clarkdale? Did they have these Senators and all this Mr. Daylights jazz then? I don't get the whole thing.

Senator MANSFIELD. All right, sonny. You're excused now.

Mr. BROADBENT. I will ask for Master Barry Rudd.

Senator MANSFIELD. Take your place, sonny.

TESTIMONY OF BARRY RUDD, MINOR, TOWN OF PEQUOT

Mr. BROADBENT. Now, Master Rudd, yesterday you told us that on last Tuesday afternoon your friend Flattop informed

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you about the imminent attack on your home. What did you and he do?

BARRY RUDD. What do you mean? Together?

Mr. BROADBENT. Flattop has testified here that he took part in the attack, and we know about the police apprehending you at the end of it. How did you and he enlist in the attack?

BARRY RUDD. You have the whole thing wrong.

Mr. BROADBENT. How wrong?

BARRY RUDD. About my role.

Mr. BROADBENT. Would you kindly give an account of the attack, then, from your point of view?

BARRY RUDD. As I explained to you, Charley Perkonian told me about the plan that afternoon at the bowling alleys. I went home about six o'clock. Father bowls in a league on Tuesday nights, and he'd already left for the lanes when I got home; we must have passed each other in transit—of course I was on foot and he was driving. It had been summery that afternoon, but it was suddenly turning snappy, I could see my breath as I walked.

Mr. BROADBENT. What did you do when you got home?

BARRY RUDD. I warned Momma and my sister Susan. I stood in the living room, still in my coat, hat, sweater, and gloves, and I tried to tell Momma all I had understood of what Flattop had told me. It was hard for me to get it out.

Mr. BROADBENT. What did your mother do?

BARRY RUDD. Momma got redder and redder, and then purple, and almost blue, until I thought she might have an attack of some kind and die. She was transformed. She was gradually transmogrified into something I had never seen before, as if she were going from larva to pupa—or, rather, the other way around, regressing from pupa to larva. Why, the sons of bitches!' she finally roared. 'The dirty lowdown sons of bitches!' I'd never heard such words from my mother's lips, and it seemed as if her

body had changed and become coarser. From a proud, timid, genteel lady she had turned into a big, coarse woman, with a broad, florid face slashed by deep furrows across the forehead. Her hair, which is naturally curly, stood out in a bush all around. Her eyes were their usual remarkable clear light blue, but her mouth seemed thick and had no lipstick on it and was twisted. She wore a drab, beltless, dirty, hanging dress, and under it her bosoms hung long and huge, like the milch bags of Capra hircus, and out from short sleeves came two great, muscular, hairy arms. I'd never seen my mother look like that. I'd certainly never heard her shout the way she did, yet at first, rather than being frightened or mortified by her, I was overcome with pity for the big, helpless, cursing hulk she'd turned into.