‘The saddest thing of all? Oh, no question. Being alone, that’s the saddest thing of all. When you don’t have nobody to say “Look at that!” to, or “What do you think of that?”’
‘You don’t feel like that now, do you?’
‘Not now.’ Pause. ‘I did.’
‘But why? You’re a very attractive young guy. I mean you’re way interesting.’
‘I don’t know. I always felt all my life like everybody in the world knew something that I didn’t, and they weren’t going to tell me what it was. I could never work out if anybody felt really affectionate toward me or if they were just dissimulating, you know? Even my mother. I remember I hugged her once but I saw her face in the mirror while we were hugging and she looked like she was thinking, how much longer do I have to stand here pretending that I love him?’
‘Maybe you were hugging her too hard but she didn’t like to say so.’
‘No,’ said Feely, emphatically. ‘That was the face of somebody who wanted to be doing anything else in the world rather than hugging me. And do you know what she did afterward? She cleaned the toilet. She would rather have been cleaning the toilet than hugging her first-born son. The prosecution rests.’
Serenity traced a circle on the back of his hand, over and over. ‘Have you had enough to eat?’
‘Oh, sure. I’m stuffed. I’m going to have to acquire myself some of that Cap’n Crunch. I mean you could devour it straight out of the box, right? You wouldn’t necessarily have to be furnished with a bowl and milk and everything?’
Serenity’s finger kept on circling, and circling. ‘Sure . . . you can eat anything straight out of the box, if that’s what turns you on.’
‘Do you have any more milk? I could really relish another glass. Back home, the milk always used to taste cheesy, or garlicky.’
‘Ew.’ Serenity stood up and went to the fridge. ‘You were going to show me what was in your folder.’
‘I don’t know. It’s not very cataclysmic.’
‘I don’t mind.’
Feely picked up the cardboard folder and laid it on the kitchen table. He opened it up and carefully took out twenty large sheets of paper, each of them crowded with cartoon drawings. On the first page, a muscular man was bursting through a huge leather-bound book. He was dressed entirely in white, with words printed all over him; and he had a fan-like mask that was made out of folded paper. ‘With nothing but the power of words . . . I can exterminate all evil!’ he was shouting. The huge book was resting on stacks of other books, which between them formed the letters CAPTAIN LINGO.
Serenity looked through the first four or five pages in amazement. ‘You drew all of these yourself?’
‘Penciled, inked, and colored. And did the lettering.’
‘They’re incredible. You’re a majorly good artist.’
‘I’m not very good at hands, though. Look at his fingers, they look like five frankfurters.’
‘They don’t. These are wonderful.’
‘I had the idea for Captain Lingo after Father Arcimboldo told me about words being much more lethal than guns and bombs. The story is that Captain Lingo is trying to defend New York City against the Grunters.’
‘The Grunters?’
‘These ugly purple guys here with the spots and the sloping foreheads. They can only speak in grunts, that’s why they’re called the Grunters. They’re trying to rip up every single book and every single newspaper so that people forget what words are and have to grunt when they want anything. Like, there’s a special grunt for “food” and another grunt for “money” and another grunt for “sex.” But there are no grunts for words like “freedom” or “liberty” and there isn’t even a grunt for “no.” If people want something, they grunt, and if that doesn’t work, they grab it anyhow. Food, money or sex.’
Serenity held up a drawing of a girl with a mass of curly black hair and eyes like a leopard and enormous breasts. ‘Who’s this, then? Your fantasy woman?’
‘That’s Captain Lingo’s assistant, Verba. She gets caught by the Grunters and they torture her, and rape her. But she escapes and she finds out that the Grunters are controlled by the Hoarders, who are storing up all the words for themselves, so that only they can understand what’s transpiring. Own the words, own the world. That’s their motto.’
Serenity said, ‘This is very deep stuff. Have you ever thought about showing it to anybody, like maybe Marvel Comics?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think it’s so good.’
‘I think it’s so brilliant. I’ll bet if they published this, you’d make a fortune.’
Feely carefully tucked his cartoons back into their folder. Serenity said, ‘Where do you think you got it from? All this word thing?’
‘Maybe my father, I don’t know. He was a musician, like my Uncle Valentin. He played in restaurants and clubs, like that. But I don’t know much about him. I don’t even know if he’s alive or dead. I think most probably he’s dead, but my mother won’t say. Either that, or she doesn’t know.’
Serenity took hold of his hand and separated his fingers, one by one. ‘I talk to my parents sometimes about T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound and there’s this certain look in their eye which tells you that they’re not really listening and they don’t understand and not only that, they don’t want to understand.’
‘Haruspicate,’ said Feely, with satisfaction.
Serenity half stood up and leaned across the table and kissed Feely on his open lips. ‘The web of destiny,’ she replied. ‘The box of Cap’n Crunch.’
She kissed him again, and then she licked his cheeks, and his nose, and his eyes, so that his eyelashes stuck together, and he was blinded with saliva. He was breathless. He didn’t know what to say.
It was then that the doorbell rang and the doorknocker banged and a voice shouted out, ‘Feely! Are you in there? Feely, this is Robert! Why the blue hell did you run out on me like that?’
Home is the Hero
Steve went home at two o’clock that afternoon because he was hungry and tired and he badly needed to change his shirt. He lived only two-and-a-half miles away from the Western District headquarters, on Litchfield Ponds Road, but in the time it took him to drive there, it started to snow again, in earnest.
The road was utterly silent and lined with naked trees. The only sign of life was old Mr Brubaker, in a fake-fur hat, salting his driveway. Steve lived at the very end of the road, in the nondescript square three-bedroomed house that his grandparents had built in the 1950s, and then added to, with verandahs and a sunroom and an ugly kitchen extension that Steve couldn’t afford to replace.
He parked his Chevy Tahoe next to Helen’s Bravada. As he climbed out, he heard the front door slam, and his son Alan came down the steps, shrugging on his parka. Alan was skinny and fair, quite unlike Steve, with a sharply turned-up nose and his hair messed up in that ‘just woke up’ look.
‘What are you doing home?’ Steve asked him. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in school?’
‘I’m sick, OK? I’m taking the day off.’
‘You’re sick? What’s the matter with you?’
‘Strep throat.’
‘Well, if that’s true, which I very much doubt, the best place for you is inside, keeping warm.’
‘I have to run this errand for Mom.’
‘Oh, yeah? What errand?’
‘Listen, what is this? Are you interrogating me?’
‘I just asked you what errand, that’s all.’
‘What’s it to you? I’m not one of your goddam suspects.’
‘Don’t use language like that with me. You’re damn well taking advantage again. Just because I didn’t happen to be home this morning, you thought you could do whatever you damn well liked.’
‘Oh, whatever,’ said Alan, and tried to push past him.
Steve snatched Alan’s collar and twisted it around. ‘You’re going nowhere.’
‘I see. Am I under arrest or something? You didn’t read me my ri
ghts.’
‘Get back in the house,’ said Steve. He could feel his anger banging inside his brain.
‘I’m running an errand for Mom, OK?’
‘I said, get back in the house.’
‘And I said, I’m running an errand for Mom, or have you gone deaf?’
Steve shoved Alan, hard, so that he fell back into the snow. Alan lay there for a moment, his eyes closed, and then he opened them and started laughing. ‘You’re so sad, aren’t you? You’re so predictable! You’re supposed to be a police officer, steady under pressure, and what happens? You can’t even talk to your own son without going psycho!’
There was a moment when Steve thought that he could handle it, that he wasn’t going to lose his temper. But then Alan climbed to his feet and brushed the snow off his storm jacket and gave him the finger.
‘You are nothing but a loser, man. I mean, look at you.’
Steve slapped him, hard, across the side of the head. Alan didn’t fall down this time, but he clapped his hand against his ear and said, ‘Shit. You psycho.’
‘Get back in the house,’ said Steve.
‘Oh, so that you can beat up on me where the neighbors can’t see you? No thanks! You psycho.’
Steve turned around and, sure enough, Mr Brubaker was standing in his driveway with his sack of salt, staring at them. He gave Mr Brubaker a half-hearted salute but Mr Brubaker didn’t wave back. ‘Alan, this is your last warning,’ he said. ‘Get back in the house.’
‘Or what?’
Steve wiped his nose with his glove. He couldn’t believe the hatred that he saw in Alan’s face. Hatred for what? He had adored this little boy, when he was young. Every fall they had walked through the leaves together, kicking their feet up. Every summer weekend they had gone fishing together on the lake. Night after night Steve had made up stories for him, about gingerbread men who ate their own toes for breakfast, and stroked his hair while he fell asleep.
And now? Now they could barely sit at the same breakfast table together. When Steve walked into the room, Alan walked out.
‘It’s simple,’ said Steve. ‘Either you get back in the house or don’t bother to come back at all.’
Alan stood there for a moment, still nursing his ear, then he turned round and started to walk away.
‘Where are you going?’ Steve demanded.
Alan didn’t answer, but kept on walking.
‘You listen to me, mister! I want to know where the hell you’re going!’
Without looking around, Alan gave him the finger again.
Steve stood and watched him while the snow began to fall thicker and thicker, and Mr Brubaker stood and watched both of them. Although it wasn’t even 2:30, the sky was the color of corroded zinc, and there was that end-of-the-world feeling. Eventually Alan disappeared into the gloom.
Steve was tempted to drive after him, but he didn’t think he could handle any more anger. ‘Kids today!’ Mr Brubaker called out.
Steve gave him another wave. He had never felt so inadequate in his life.
‘My dad used to hit me with a hickory stick!’ said Mr Brubaker. Then he added, ‘Hard enough to raise lumps!’
Steve unlocked the front door and went inside. The house was chilly and smelled of woodsmoke and wet washing. He looked into the living room. The fire was lit, but it obviously hadn’t been burning for very long, and Barry their marmalade cat was lying on the hearthrug looking deeply aggrieved.
Steve went through the kitchen and found Helen in the laundry room. The floor was a half-inch deep in water, and there was laundry dripping everywhere.
‘For Pete’s sake. It looks like Lake Naugatuck in here.’
‘I tried to wash the Indian throw. It’s jammed up the washing machine and I can’t get it out.’
‘You tried to wash it? You’re supposed to take it to the cleaners.’
Helen looked close to tears. She was a small woman, for a big man like Steve. Her blonde hair was tied back with a scarf, which made her features look even finer. The first time that Steve had seen her, dancing through a lawn sprinkler on a summer afternoon, he had thought that she looked like a pretty little elf. And she had clear turquoise eyes, which she had inherited from her Swedish mother, the color of the sea, at Hyannis, in July.
‘Look,’ said Steve. ‘You start bailing and I’ll see if I can’t get this darn thing disentangled.’
‘I feel so stupid. I thought it would save us money if I washed it myself.’
Steve took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. ‘I can’t stay long. I just wanted to take a shower and grab something to eat.’ He reached inside the washing machine and gave the throw a hefty tug. Somehow it had managed to wrap itself around the paddles in a wet and inextricable knot. ‘If I can’t get this free now, you’ll have to call Pushnik.’
‘How’s it going with those shootings?’ Helen asked him. ‘I saw you on the news just now. That was terrible, that woman being killed.’
Steve gave the throw another heave. ‘It’s much too early to say if they’re connected. Jim Bangs thinks they could be. The shooter used the same caliber bullet, and the MOs were very similar. Apart from that, though, we don’t have much evidence at all. What Lennie used to call NSN, NHN, NKN. Nobody saw nothing, nobody heard nothing, nobody knows nothing.’
Helen said, ‘Come on, Steve, leave this. Go take a shower and I’ll make you a cheese-and-ham sandwich. You want tomato?’
‘Just let me give it one more—’ Steve told her. He reached right inside the tub and pushed the paddles anticlockwise, an inch at a time. Then he wrenched the throw violently from side to side as if he were Tarzan, fighting an anaconda.
‘You’ll tear it!’ Helen protested. ‘You’ll break the washing machine!’
But Steve suddenly found the strength to twist the throw clear of the paddles, and it came free. He dragged it out of the tub and dropped it into the sink.
‘My hero,’ said Helen.
Steve said, ‘Let it dry out, then I’ll take it to the cleaners. Marjorie owes me a favor, anyhow. She’ll probably clean it for free.’
He went back into the kitchen and dried his hands. ‘By the way, what was Alan doing home?’
‘Alan? He said it was a home study day.’
‘Oh, really? He told me he had a strep throat. I asked him what he was doing outside, if he was so sick, and he said that you’d asked him to run an errand. Not to mention using all kinds of bad language and giving me the finger.’
‘You two didn’t fight?’
‘It wasn’t really a fight. Kind of a scuffle.’
‘Oh, Steve.’
‘For God’s sake, tell me when we don’t fight. I don’t understand that kid at all. He has a good home, a good education. If he needs anything, all he has to do is ask for it. Yet he struts around like a total punk.’
‘He’s rebelling, that’s all. He’s trying to show his independence.’
Steve unbuttoned his shirt cuffs. ‘He can show his independence as much as he likes, so long as he doesn’t show it around here. So long as he’s living with us, I expect him to show some respect.’
‘Steve . . . you don’t realize sometimes that you throw a very big shadow. It isn’t easy for Alan to come out from under it.’
Bare-chested, Steve put his arms around her waist and kissed her. ‘We should have had a girl. Then she would have looked like you, like the little fairy that fell off the top of the Christmas tree.’
Helen kissed him back. ‘You think we should have had a girl? You don’t have the first idea what trouble is, until you’ve had a girl. She would have had her tongue pierced, and a tattoo, and skirts so short she was flashing her fanny. You wouldn’t have had time to solve any crimes. You would have been following her everywhere, making sure that she didn’t smoke pot or have unprotected sex. Or any sex at all, for that matter.’
‘What do you think I am? Some kind of control freak?’
‘Go take a shower. You smell like stale detective.’
He was halfway up the stairs when his cellphone rang. He wrestled it out of his pants pocket and said, ‘Wintergreen.’
‘Detective? This is Trooper MacCormack. We have ourselves an eyewitness. A young guy who saw a van parked opposite the Mitchelson property, at the approximate time of the shooting.’
‘That’s good news. Where is he?’
‘Right here, at Lakeside Road. What do you want me to do? Bring him down to Litchfield?’
‘No, that’s OK. I’ll come on up to Canaan. Is he happy to wait?’
‘No problem. He’s going through coffee and frosted donuts like there’s no tomorrow.’
Steve had the fastest shower on record. He toweled himself dry, pulled on the clean woolen underwear that Helen had laid out for him on the bed, buttoned up his shirt, laced up his boots, and he was ready to go. Helen pushed a sandwich into his mouth as he opened the front door, and handed him two more sandwiches in a brown paper bag.
‘Be careful,’ she said. He kissed her, slid on the icy front steps, and landed on his butt in the snow.
‘I said “be careful!”’ she laughed.
He brushed himself off and tried to laugh, too, but he had bruised the base of his spine and anyhow he didn’t feel like laughing.
Ask No Questions, Tell No Lies
Afew minutes before three o’clock, Sissy heard a knock at the kitchen door, but before she could open it, Sam Parker came in, his cap and his shoulders covered in snow. He stamped his feet on the mat and clapped his gloves together like a performing seal.
‘Hi there, Sissy! I’m on my way to Torrington and I just dropped by to make sure you didn’t need nothing or nothing!’
Sam was going to be seventy on Christmas Day. He was a widower, who lived about a half-mile away, overlooking Lake Waramaug. He was stocky, and short, with a big head and a little mustache, like Clark Gable. Sissy had been close friends with his wife Beth, and watching Beth waste away from motor neurone disease had been one of the most painful experiences of her life.
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