The Voice of the Night (14 page)

Well after the late, summer sunset, his father took him home. As always, Frank drove too fast and with no regard at all for other motorists.

Ten minutes from Santa Leona, Frank Jacobs turned the conversation away from the events of the day to more personal matters. “Are you happy living with your mother?”

The question put Colin on the spot. He didn’t want to spark an argument. He shrugged and said, “I guess.”

“That’s no answer.”

“I mean, I guess I’m happy.”

“You don’t know?”

“I’m happy enough.”

“Is she taking good care of you?”

“Sure.”

“Are you eating well?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re still so skinny.”

“I eat real well.”

“She’s not much of a cook.”

“She does okay.”

“Does she give you enough spending money?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I could send you something every week.”

“I don’t need it.”

“How about if I sent ten dollars every week?”

“You don’t have to do that. I have plenty. I’d just waste it.”

“You like Santa Leona.”

“It’s okay.”

“Just okay?”

“It’s really nice.”

“You miss your friends from Westwood?”

“I didn’t have any friends there.”

“Of course you did. I saw them once. That red-headed boy and—”

“Those were just guys from school. Acquaintances.”

“You don’t have to keep a stiff upper lip for me.”

“I’m not.”

“Know you miss them.”

“I really don’t.”

They swerved left, passed a truck that was already exceeding the speed limit, and pulled back into the right lane much too quickly.

Behind them the trucker angrily blew his hom.

“What the hell’s eating him? I left plenty of room, didn’t I?”

Colin said nothing.

Frank let up on the accelerator. The car slowed from sixty-five to fifty-five miles an hour.

The truck tooted again.

Frank pounded hard on the Cadillac’s horn, trumpeted for at least a minute to show the other driver that he wasn’t intimidated.

Colin glanced back anxiously. The big truck was no more than four feet from their bumper. Its headlights flashed.

“Bastard,” Frank said. “Who the hell does he think he is?” He slowed down to forty miles an hour.

The truck swung into the passing lane.

Frank whipped the Cadillac to the left, in front of the truck, blocking it and holding it at forty.

“Hah! That’ll piss the son-of-a-bitch! That’ll burn his ass, won’t it?”

The trucker used his horn again.

Colin was sweating.

His father was hunched forward, hands like talons on the wheel. His teeth were bared; his eyes were wide as they moved rapidly back and forth from the road to the mirror. He was breathing heavily, almost snorting.

The truck shifted to the right-hand lane.

Frank quickly cut it off again.

At last the trucker seemed to realize that he was dealing with either a drunk or a nut, and that extreme caution was the best course of action. He slowed to about thirty and fell steadily behind.

“That’ll teach the asshole. Did he think he owned the goddamned road?”

Having won the battle, Frank put the Cadillac back up to seventy, and they rocketed away into the night.

Colin closed his eyes.

They rode in silence for a few miles, and then Frank said, “What with your friends all down there in Westwood, how’d you like to come back and live with me?”

“You mean all the time?”

“Why not?”

“Well ... I guess that would be okay,” Colin said, only because he knew it was impossible.

“I’ll see what I can do, Junior.”

Colin glanced at him with alarm. “But the judge gave Mom custody. You’ve just got visiting rights.”

“Maybe we can change that.”

“How!”

“There’s several things we’d have to do, and a couple of them wouldn’t be exactly pleasant.”

“Like what?”

“For one thing, you’d have to be willing to stand up in court and say you’re not happy living with her.”

“I’d have to do that before they’d make a change?”

“I’m pretty sure you would.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Colin said noncommittally. He relaxed a little because he didn’t intend to tell the court any such thing.

“You’ve got the guts to do it, don’t you?”

“Oh sure,” Colin said. Because it might help to know the enemy’s strategy, he said, “What else would we have to do?”

“Well, we’d have to show that she’s an unfit mother.”

“But she’s not.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I have a hunch we could prove a loose-morals charge to the satisfaction of any judge.”

“Huh?”

“That art crowd,” Frank said sullenly. “Those people she hangs around with.”

“What about them?”

“Those artists have different values from most people. They pride themselves on it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well ... weird politics, atheism, drugs... orgies. They sleep around a lot.”

“You think Mom—”

“I hate to say it.”

“Then don’t.”

“For your sake, I’ve got to consider the possibility.”

“She doesn’t... live like that,” Colin said, although he wasn’t sure if she did or not.

“You’ve got to face the facts of life, Junior.”

“She doesn’t.”

“She’s human. She might surprise you. She’s sure as hell no saint.”

“I can’t believe we’re talking about this.”

“It’s worth considering, worth looking into if it’ll get you back with me. A boy needs to have his father around when he’s growing up. He needs a man there to show him how to become a man himself.”

“But how would you ever prove that she... did things like that?”

“Private detectives.”

“You’d really hire a bunch of private eyes to snoop on her everywhere she goes?”

“I don’t want to have to do that. But it might be necessary. It would be the quickest and easiest way to find out about her.”

“Don’t do it.”

“I’d only be doing it for you.”

“Then don’t.”

“I want you to be happy.”

“I am.”

“You’d be happier in Westwood.”

“Please, Dad, I wouldn’t be happy if you put a pack of dogs on her.”

His father scowled. “Dogs? Who’s talking about dogs? Look, these detectives are professionals. They aren’t goons. They wouldn’t hurt her. She wouldn’t even know they were watching.”

“Please, don’t do it.”

All his father would say was, “I hope it isn’t necessary.”

Colin thought about going back to Westwood, about living with his father, and it was like having a nightmare without being asleep.

At eleven o‘clock Sunday morning, Roy arrived with his swimsuit wrapped in a towel. “Where’s your mother?”

“She’s at the gallery.”

“On Sunday?”

“Seven days a week.”

“I thought I’d get to see her in a bikini.”

“ ‘Fraid not.”

The house was what the real-estate people called “prime lease property.” Among other things, it had a sunken living room with a huge stone fireplace, three large bathrooms, a gourmet kitchen, and a forty-foot pool. Since they’d moved in, they’d used the living room less than two hours a week, for they’d had no company; they hadn’t entertained overnight guests and had no reason to use the third bath; and of all the fancy equipment in the kitchen, they’d used nothing but the refrigerator and two burners on the stove. Only the pool was worth the rent.

Colin and Roy raced the length of the pool, played with inner tubes and inflated plastic rafts, made a game of retrieving coins from the bottom, splashed, splattered, and finally dragged themselves out onto the concrete apron to bake in the sun.

It was the first time Colin had been swimming with Roy, the first time he had gotten a look at him without a shirt—and the first time that he had seen the horrible marks that disfigured Roy’s back. Jagged bands of scar tissue slanted from the boy’s right shoulder to his left hip. Colin tried to count them—six, seven, eight, perhaps as many as ten. It was difficult to be sure, for they melted together at a couple of points. Where there was healthy skin between the ugly lines, it was well tanned, but the raised scars did not take the sun; they were pale and shiny-smooth in some places, pale and puckered in others.

• “What happened to you?” Colin asked.

“Huh?”

“What happened to your back?”

“Nothing.”

“What about those scars?”

“It’s nothing.”

“You weren’t
bom
that way.”

“Just an accident.”

“What kind of accident?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Were you in a car wreck or something?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why not?”

Roy glared at him. “I said I don’t want to fucking talk about the fucking scars!”

“Okay. Sure. Forget it.”

“I don’t have to give you any reason either.”

“I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Well, you did.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” Roy sighed. “So am I.”

Roy got up and walked to the far end of the pool. He stood there for a while, his back to Colin, staring at the ground.

Feeling stupid and awkward, Colin quickly slid into the pool, as if he wanted to hide in the cool water. He swam hard, trying to work off a sudden overcharge of nervous energy.

Five minutes later, when Colin climbed out of the pool again, Roy was still at the corner of the concrete apron, but now he was hunkered down. He was poking at something in the grass.

“What’d you find?” Colin asked.

Roy was so intent on whatever he was doing that he did not hear the question.

Colin went to him and squatted beside him.

“Ants,” Roy said.

At the edge of the concrete lay a teacup-size mound of powdery earth. Tiny red ants were scurrying around and over it.

Grinning broadly, Roy mashed the insects into the concrete. A dozen. Two dozen. As he killed them other ants came out of the hill and raced into his shadow, as if they had abruptly realized that their destiny was not mindless labor in the hive but sacrificial death under the hands of a monster god a million times their size.

Roy paused now and then to look at the greasy, rust-colored remains that stained his fingers. “No bones,” he said. “They squash into nothing, into just a little drop of juice, ‘cause they don’t have any bones.”

Colin watched.

After Roy had smashed a great many ants and had kicked apart their hill, he and Colin played water polo with a blue-and-green beach ball. Roy won.

By three o‘clock they were tired of the pool. They changed out of their swimsuits and sat in the kitchen, eating chocolate-chip cookies and drinking lemonade.

Colin drained his glass, chewed on a sliver of ice, and said, “Do you trust me?”

“Sure.”

“Did I pass the test?”

“We’re blood brothers, aren’t we?”

“Then tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“You know. The big secret.”

“I already told you,” Roy said.

“You did?”

“I told you Friday night, after we left the Pit, before we went out to the Fairmont to see that porno flick.”

Colin shook his head. “If you told me, I didn’t hear.”

“You heard, but you didn’t want to.”

“What kind of double-talk is that?”

Roy shrugged. He rattled the ice in his glass.

“Tell me again,” Colin said. “This time I want to hear.”

“I kill people.”

“Jeez. That’s really your big secret?”

“Seemed like a hell of a secret to me.”

“But it’s not true.”