He was looking at the door, at the black horse imposed on it, with Tracey Quintero riding on its back.
Five minutes later Joyce pinched his rump as she walked by and he jumped, blushed at her laugh, and nodded when she asked him to check the lights and lock up. As he did, he thought about Tracey, and about the kid who had been killed. It could be that what he had heard was the murderer himself, thinking there had been a witness and coming to kill him. He felt cold, and he stayed to one side when he drew the draperies and double-checked to make sure the bolts on the front and back doors were turned over. Then he ran upstairs and into his room, considered telling his parents, and changed his mind. Mom would only get excited and demand they call the police; and Dad would tell them both there was nothing to worry about, the boy is all right, and since he didn"t actually see anything, there was no sense their getting involved.
And he would be right; there would be no sense at all.
A wash, then, and a careful scrutiny to be sure his face hadn"t broken out since that morning and that his eye wasn"t getting any worse. Then he closed his door and sat 69.cross-legged on the bed. He was in nothing but his underwear, and he looked around him-at the panther, the bobcat, the elephants, rejecting each one silently until he came to the poster over the desk.
There, he thought; there"s what I need.
"Hey, look," he said to the barely visible horse, "I hope you don"t mind if I don"t give you a name. I mean, I suppose I could, but all the good ones are already taken, and half of them sound like you"re in the movies or something anyway. Besides," he added with a look to the panther lying in the jungle over his bed, "I don"t want to make the other guys mad."
He grinned, and rolled his eyes, m.u.f.fling a laugh in a palm.
"But you don"t need one anyway, right? You"re too tough for a stupid name. What you want to know is, how come you and not the black cat over there, right? Well, because you"re big, and you"re strong, and ... just because. Besides, Tracey likes horses, and you"re a horse, and she"ll like you, and if she likes you she"ll like me and then we"ll all be pals, right? Right. And boy would you scare the s.h.i.t outta that kid with the dumba.s.s hat."
He grinned again and rocked back, struck his head against the wall and didn"t feel a thing.
He didn"t think his other pals would mind, him singling out just one, just this once. They would understand. They always had, and they would this time.
"So listen up, old fella," he said, looking to the ceiling where Tracey floated on a cloud, "you"re gonna have to teach me a few things, y"know,because I figure you"ve been around, if you know what I mean. Give me some hints and stuff, okay? And if you take care of me, I"ll take care of you. That"s what pals are for, right? Right."
And he slipped off the bed, kissed the tips of his fingers, and placed his hand on the horse"s head.
"Pals," he said. "Pals."
70."He"s talking to those animals again," Norm complained while Joyce was brushing her teeth. She mumbled something, and he shook his head, pointing to his ear.
"I said," she told him after spitting out the toothpaste, "kids talk to themselves all the time. It"s like thinking out loud. You should hear my cla.s.sroom sometimes."
"Yeah, but you teach flakes."
"Budding artists are flakes?"
"Look in the mirror."
She threw her hairbrush at him, launched herself after it, and they wrestled on the bed until he had her pinned under him.
"Norm?" she said, putting a hand on the hand that was covering her breast.
"What?"
The willow at the corner of the house scratched lightly at the window, and he could hear the cooing of the grey doves that nested in the eaves of the garage.
"It"s terrible, but did you ever wish we"d never had any kids? So when something like this comes up, I mean, we could walk away without worrying about tender psyches and trauma and warping the kid"s mind? Did you ever think about that, Norm?"
He tried to see her face in the dark. "Are we being honest?""
"Yes."
"Then ... yes. Yes, it has crossed my mind now and then." But he didn"t tell her about the guilt he felt when it did.
"That doesn"t mean we don"t love him," she said anxiously, begging for belief. "And G.o.d, I still miss my little Sam."
"I know."
"But it would be so much easier, you know what I mean?"
71."Yeah."
The alarm clock buzzed softly. The wind blew over the roof. They couldhear, faintly, two cars racing down the street.
"Don was in the park tonight."
"So?"
"Didn"t you listen to the news after the fight?"
"Oh." He shifted but didn"t release her. "Yeah. I guess I"d better have a talk with him. At least until they catch that guy."
"Maybe he saw something."
"No. If he did, he would have told us." He kissed her right ear and made her squirm.
"Norm?"
Wearily: "Yes?"
"Don"s grades are going down. Not a lot, but it worries me. You should talk to him about that too. He spends too much time fixing up those animals of his, and making new ones."
"I will," he promised. "Maybe we should tell him to get rid of the beasts."
"That would be cruel."
"He wouldn"t waste time on them." As she agreed, he nipped an earlobe.
"Norm?"
"Jesus, now what?"
"I want to work things out, really I do."
"Good," he said, rolling her breast beneath his palm.
"No, I mean it, Norman. I really do want to work at it."
"So do I," he said, almost believing. His head shifted to the hollow of her shoulder. "So do I, love."
"Norm, it"s late," she whispered, her eyes half closed, "and you know how tired you get lately after this. Besides, I have a committee meeting first thing tomorrow. We have to decide on the fireworks."
72."Good for you. Make them loud as h.e.l.l." "Norman!"
"Joyce," he said, "if you really want to work things out, you"d better shut up."
73.Four.On Sat.u.r.day afternoon Don returned with his mother from a shopping expedition for new clothes during which she cited dubious, sometimesoutlandish statistics which contrasted the annual before- and after-taxes incomes of veterinarians and surgeons, suggesting jokingly that spending the day shoving your hand up animals" r.e.c.t.u.ms and down their throats was about as glamorous and status-marking as his late grandfather"s working for the cloth mills here in town. Don laughed and almost told her what he was really planning.
When they arrived home, he found his father in his room, looking at his pets.
"Aren"t you a little old for these?" Norm asked, and left without an answer.
In the middle of the hall on Monday Don grabbed Jeff"s arm and nearly spilled the books he was carrying.
"Jeff, you got a minute?"
"Hey, it"s the Detention Kid. What"s up? The bell"s gonna ring. Jesus, that eye looks like h.e.l.l!"
74."Thanks a lot, pal. It feels better, sort of. Look, I want to ask you about Tracey Quintero."
"What"s to ask? You know her as well as I do."
"I want to know if she"s with Brian."
"Brian? Brian the p.r.i.c.k Pratt? That Brian?"
"Stop kidding, Jeff, I gotta know."
"Jesus, where the h.e.l.l"ve you been? And she isn"t. Hey, you know that kid that got offed in the park last week? It was the Howler, they said.
Chewed the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d up like he was dog meat or something. That guy"s a real pervert, you know it? Killed five kids in New York. Like us, I mean, not little kids."
"Jeff, I don"t care about some freak, I am talking about Tracey."
"And I told you she"s not with Brian, okay?"
"But the other night at the park, after the concert ..."
"You mean all that talk about her b.o.o.bs?"
"Well ..."
"Boyd, are you really that dense?"
"I don"t know what you mean."
"Brian sees b.o.o.bs on anything that even faintly looks like a female. And if you listen real close, you"d think he"s laid every d.a.m.n one of them."
"Then she isn"t."
"His? h.e.l.l, no.""Jeez. Oh ... jeez."
"You gonna tell me what this is all about or am I gonna have to read it in the paper?"
"Can"t, Jeff. The bell"s rung. We"re late."
That afternoon Detective Sergeant Thomas Verona walked into Norm"s office, Patrol Sergeant Luis Quintero at his side. After a few minutes of small talk, Quintero left to have a word with the secretaries in the outer office, and Verona asked the princ.i.p.al if he had heard anything, rumors or 75.otherwise, about a stranger hanging around the school. Norm insisted he hadn"t, but if the police wanted to ask either students or teachers during school time, it would have to be cleared with the board first. He himself didn"t mind, though he didn"t quite understand why they were interested if the man was already gone. That, he said when the policeman looked at him oddly, was the usual pattern as he understood it: the Howler would strike, then move on to another town. Verona, whose father had worked the mills and had known Norman since they were kids, told him off the record that if the guy had actually approached any of the students, or if he had gotten wind of the Ashford Day activities, there was a fair chance he"d stick around because there were going to be a lot of people on the streets starting the middle of next week, and safety in numbers was apparently something he counted on. When Norm asked why the man hadn"t yet been caught, Verona, again off the record, told him there wasn"t a picture, not a fingerprint, nor a sc.r.a.p of cloth or drop of blood to build even the skimpiest physical profile. They couldn"t begin to guess at his appearance, though they didn"t have to guess at his strength. Norman didn"t ask for more details, but he did promise to keep his ears open and to have a quiet word with the faculty to the effect that it would probably not be a good idea to keep kids very long after school for a while. Verona appreciated the cooperation and suggested they stop being strangers after so many years and have a beer together sometime soon. Verona"s wife was on the committee with Joyce, and the detective allowed as how he was tired of being an Ashford Day widower.
Norman laughed, but he didn"t think it was very funny.
After gym Don managed to get next to Fleet under the last nozzle, for the first time forgetting his embarra.s.sment at seeing another guy naked.
It took him a moment, too, to stop staring at the clouds of freckles that covered Fleet"s body.
76."Hey, Fleet, is Trace ... you know, is she Brian"s girl?"
"Trace? Gimme the soap, man, I smell like horses.h.i.t. Trace Quintero, the cop"s kid?"
"Yeah."
"Nah. Last I heard she wasn"t with n.o.body."
"No kidding."
"Man, will you look at that gorgeous eye! You put a steak or somethingon that, or you"ll go blind, sure as s.h.i.t. Jesus, Brian can be ... never mind. Hey, you interested in Trace?"
"I don"t know. Hey, Fleet, c"mon, that"s my soap! Don"t pa.s.s it around."
"Y"know, you"d do better with somebody like Chrissy Snowden, man. Don"t you dare tell Amanda I said this, she"ll cut my a.s.s off, but that"s one h.e.l.l of a woman, if you catch my drift."
"I guess."
"You guess? Jesus, Don, you mean you ain"t once whacked off just thinking about that fox?"
"Donny, you are truly hopeless. You are an excellent human being, but you are truly hopeless."
"I suppose."
"A good thing you didn"t meet up with that dude that stomped that kid.
You probably would"ve asked him home for dinner. You"re a good man, Don, but you need a little s.p.u.n.k, you know what I mean? A little of the old intestinal fort.i.tude when it comes to dealing with the real world."
"I do all right, and gimme back my soap, d.a.m.nit."
"What I think you"d best do is tell everyone you got that eye in a fight. You get a little respect and you get all the women you need, if you know what I mean."
"It"s a little late for that."
"It"s never too late to lie through your teeth, if you know what I mean."
"Yeah, I know."