Vanished

by Mary McGarry Morris

“What’re you talking about, arrested?” Dotty demanded. “You tell me what the hell you mean by that!” She grabbed Kelly’s shoulder. The child began to scream for her mother in a voice of such grating terror that Dotty lurched back and held up her hands in submission.

  “What the …” It was Huller in the doorway.

  “What’s she mean, I’m gonna get arrested?” Dotty demanded.

  “Ma! Ma!” the child screamed, beginning to gag. Her chest heaved and fell and her eyes rolled and her lips darkened to blue. Suddenly her head jerked back on the chair and her legs stiffened in front of her. She fell writhing and thrashing onto the floor. Spittle foamed in the corners of her mouth.

  Wallace was horrified. He looked at Canny, who continued to eat. It was only when Alma came running into the room that she laid down her fork.

  Alma knelt over her daughter. “Gimme a pillow!” she cried. Krystal ran to get a sofa pillow, which she slid under Kelly’s head.

  “She said I’m gonna be arrested,” Dotty kept trying to tell Jiggy as he bent over Alma and Kelly.

  “She’s having a fit!” he said, batting away Alma’s hands as she attempted to hold down the child’s kicking legs. “Let her alone!” he said.

  “She’s dying!” Alma shrieked, pushing him away. “She’s dying and it’s all their fault and I want them out!”

  “She’s not dying, you stupid ass! She’s having a fit,” he screamed at his wife over the little girl’s wracked body.

  “Listen to him,” Dotty begged Alma. “Listen to Jig!”

  “Don’t die,” Krystal was sobbing into the front of her undershirt. “Please don’t die.”

  Canny slipped off her chair and went into the living room and turned on the television. She sat facing the kitchen, but she didn’t look in. Her gaze never wavered from the screen. Every now and again she scratched her head. She’s too quiet, Wallace thought. He knew he had to say something about what had happened in the barn. But every time he looked at her and thought of it, he was too ashamed.

  “Gimme some water,” Kelly murmured. Her eyes opened slowly. Dotty sat next to Wallace. She slumped in the chair. Her hand trembled as she lit a cigarette.

  Alma stood up while Jiggy picked up Kelly. He carried her upstairs, followed by Alma, who was insisting that they take Kelly to the hospital.

  “It was a fit,” he said again. “I seen a lot of fits.”

  “You saw what happened,” Dotty said to Wallace. “I never laid a hand on her, right, Aubie? You were there. You saw what happened.”

  She got up and stood at the foot of the stairs, listening. She paced back and forth between the worn wooden treads and the table. Every now and again, she reached over her shoulder and scratched her back. “Can still feel it,” she said under her breath.

  Upstairs, the voices grew louder.

  “… business …,” came Jiggy’s voice.

  “… Your own daughter? … more important than that?” came Alma’s voice.

  Dotty looked at Wallace and before she had said a word, he knew that the time had come. It would be tonight. Dotty made a move toward him, but Jiggy and Alma were on their way downstairs.

  “They come and they go,” Jiggy was saying, as they came into the kitchen.

  “Listen to Doctor Huller here!” Alma announced. “Well my aunt had fits and swallowed half her tongue once and they had to pull it out and sew it back together!” She glanced at Dotty and Wallace for support.

  “She might never get another one,” Huller said, washing his hands in the sink.

  “Yah, and she might get ten more tonight!” Alma retorted.

  “She’ll be okay,” Dotty said. “Really.”

  Alma ignored her. “Please, Jig,” she begged. “It won’t take long.”

  He was wetting his comb under the faucet. Just as he began to slick back his hair, she grabbed his arm.

  “Listen to me!” she shrieked. “You listen!”

  He pulled away and wet the comb again. He drew it slowly through the wet, darkening wave on the crown of his head.

  Alma looked sick to her stomach. “I know what’s going on!” she cried. “Don’t think I don’t. I can see,” she said, tapping her temple. “I got ears! I can hear!”

  Drawing his fingertips carefully after the comb, Huller flattened the wave.

  “I know what you’re up to!” Alma said, and Dotty’s face froze. She, too, stared at the back of Huller’s smooth yellow head.

  He turned. “Look,” he warned, shaking the comb at Alma. “You just shut up! You just shut up and get out of my way.”

  With her arms folded and her sagging chin quivering, she stood directly in front of him. “I seen the stains,” she burst out. “And the look she gets around you.…”

  “Alma …,” Dotty began.

  “Well I’m telling you, mister. You’re just as bad as Carl. Only worse, ’cause poor Carl’s got a problem and you … you just don’t care who you screw.” She stepped closer then and swung her fist, catching him on the chin. “You son of a bitch,” she bawled as he began to laugh.

  “Go ahead,” she sobbed. “Laugh! You’ll see how funny it is when I call your probation officer and tell him about your fifty fucking thousand dollar big deal you and El …”

  “Shut up, you pig!” Huller bellowed, clamping his hands on her throat, squeezing and shaking her. “You fat, miserable pig!”

  15

  The truck sped through the night. Bugs splattered the windshield. Dotty chain-smoked and drummed her fingers on her purse. Next to her, Huller squinted over the wheel, his face cold and impassive.

  “Here,” he said, when they were still on the highway. Ahead, over the treetops, was a huge sign that said EASTPORT MALL, 1 MILE. He turned on his directional. “All you have to say is what’s on the paper,” he spoke loudly over the clicking. “And if Bird asks any questions, just say them back … repeat them.” He glanced past Dotty at Wallace, who slumped in the seat with the baseball cap low to the bridge of his nose. “That way we can give you the answers.” Huller nudged Dotty. “Tell him what I said.”

  “He heard you,” she said dully.

  Wallace did not move or speak.

  Huller snorted. “Hell, this is gonna be a piece of cake, Pops. Nothing to worry about.” He kept glancing over at Wallace. “You’re doing them a favor. You got what they want and they’re willing to pay for it.” Huller laughed. “It’s the American way.” He laughed again as he sped onto the exit ramp and over a bridge, where they turned left into the shopping center.

  Huller parked at the far end of the lot, where the three empty storefronts had FOR RENT signs in their windows. He pointed at the telephone booth on the edge of the parking lot. His voice thinned as he explained how hard it had been to find a telephone booth that stood alone; most of them came in twos or threes and were attached to stores. He had even taken the precaution of removing the light bulb from this one. He had thought of everything. As he spoke Dotty unzipped her purse and removed two sheets of lined paper.

  “I’ll go in with him,” she said, reaching past Wallace for the door handle.

  “Wait!” said Huller. “One more time, read it.”

  “You make me nervous,” she said.

  “I won’t say a word. I just want him to hear it again,” Huller said.

  Dotty began to read in a lifeless monotone and Huller nodded eagerly with each phrase.

  “You listening, Pops?” Huller interrupted.

  “Yup,” Wallace said.

  “The important thing here is to convince Bird that you know what you’re talking about. That you’re the kidnapper,” Huller said.

  “But I ain’t,” Wallace said.

  “Yes you are,” Huller said, in a soft warning slither.

  “Not a real one. Not really,” Wallace said, as he got out of the truck, but neither Dotty nor Huller had heard him. Huller gave Dotty a handful of change and then he walked to the phone booth with his arm on Wallace’s shoulder. “It’ll be over in a minute,”
he said. “Just be cool, Pops.”

  Wallace and Dotty were pressed against one another in the airless booth, which was littered with dusty yellowed newspapers and Styrofoam cups. Dotty inserted a dime, listened, and began to dial. In Wallace’s hand was the paper she had helped him memorize. Over his shoulder, she trained a small flashlight on the paper. The phone was ringing. Dotty’s quick nervous breath tickled the back of his neck. Huller leaned in the doorway, gripping the frame of the booth with both hands. Wallace stared at the words Dotty had printed. His toes curled over the wadded lump in his sneaker and he couldn’t remember what it was, just as he couldn’t remember why he was here. In fact, if someone had asked him at that moment, his honest answer would have been, “I got to read this paper here. Why? I dunno. What’s it mean? I dunno. I just got to, that’s all. Don’t mix me up. Don’t ask me nothin’.”

  The phone continued to ring. A mosquito was biting the back of the hand that held the receiver.

  “C’mon! C’mon!” Dotty growled, jiggling anxiously against him.

  “Shit!” Huller said, tapping his fingers on the metal door strip. “Hang up. We’ll go sit in the truck a while.”

  It was at the moment that Dotty clicked off the flashlight that all of the darkness was consumed by an oddly familiar voice in his ear.

  “Hello?” the child repeated. “Who’s this? Hello?”

  “Hang up,” Dotty said, reaching for the receiver.

  “Hello?” said the child.

  “Hello,” Wallace said, the speech coming from memory. “Hello, Mr. Bird. I am calling about Caroline.…”

  “She’s dead,” the child said. “You want my Daddy?” she asked, and Wallace nodded as she began to call, “Daddy! Daddy! He’s in the pool,” she confided into the phone. “We’re having a party.… Daddy! Daddy!”

  Dotty had turned on the flashlight. Its trembling beam made the words jump out at him.

  “Just a minute,” the child said, and the phone fell with a clunk. There were footsteps. A door slammed.

  “What’s going on?” Dotty whispered fiercely. She jabbed his back. “Who’re you talking to?”

  “Nobody,” he gulped, shaking his head.

  “DADDY …,” the child’s shouts were drifting back, “… a man on the phone … Caroline.…”

  “You’re talking to …,” Huller began.

  But to his ear came another click, this one more distant. The child’s voice was still in the air, in his mind, imprinted like crickets, like rustling leaves.

  “Hello!” came a man’s voice, angry and breathless, and, as he spoke, all the voices around him, all the splashing and laughter and conversations and tinkling glasses, ceased. Wallace could feel, could almost see, the men and women frozen, their faces all Kluggses and Mooneys. It was Hazlitt in his ear, his father-in-law lodged there like a sharp stone, Hazlitt wanting his truck back after all this time.

  “Hang up!” the voice commanded, and Wallace thought he meant him and his hand moved toward the phone. “Elizabeth! Hang up the phone!”

  It clicked. The child was gone. What child? Did the Kluggses have Canny? Dotty shook the papers at him.

  “Who is this?” the man demanded. “What the hell do you want?”

  In the background a woman gasped “Louis!” and Wallace’s eyes widened. He imagined another woman on the line and, connected to her phone, another, and another, like the paper doors in a picture book Canny used to have, one door opening onto another smaller door that opened onto an even smaller door and so on, until the last door opened, and there was a tiny mirror in which you could see yourself.

  Dotty hissed and slapped the papers at him.

  “Hello,” he said. “Is Mr. Bird there, please? Can I talk to him? Thank you, I’ll wait.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Is Mr. Bird there?” Wallace repeated in his faint singsong tone. He was horribly confused. His brain felt stuck and there was nothing he could do to make it work right.

  “Is this supposed to be funny? I’m Mr. Bird.… Is this a joke?”

  Dotty had pressed her ear to the receiver, listening. Now she cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s him!” she said. “Tell him!”

  Wallace looked at her. Tell him what? All Kluggs wanted was his truck back. The truck was gone. They had sold it.

  “It’s Canny’s father!” she said, backhanding her fingers against his head. “I am calling about Caroline,” she coaxed, rolling her hand expectantly.

  “I’m calling about Caroline,” Wallace said, his voice trembling, the words jumbled and run together. “I am the person August thirty, nineteen eighty, that took her and I still have her. She is fine. I want to give her back to you if you will give me the reward money.”

  “You’re the same nut as last summer! Well, this time I’m prosecuting,” said Bird, and he slammed down the phone.

  Wallace just stood there, while Dotty and Huller both fired questions at him.

  “What’d he say?”

  “He sound like he believed you?”

  “He ask any questions?”

  “He wanna know about Canny?”

  “He hung up,” Wallace said, the receiver still in his hand, which gripped it like a claw.

  “What’d he say before he hung up?” Huller asked.

  “He said he was a prostitute,” Wallace said.

  “A what?” Huller demanded in a high voice; Wallace repeated himself.

  Huller hollered all the way back. “All he had to do was keep him on the phone. Keep talking, that’s all he had to do! Is that so hard?”

  Dotty didn’t answer and Wallace stared out the window. They were on the highway. The truck could go no faster. Huller pressed the pedal to the floor and the speedometer trembled on 75, 76.… The truck shimmied and the steering wheel vibrated loudly. Dotty popped open two beers, one for herself and one for Huller.

  “I got to do everything myself? Get the maps! Get the number! Write the speeches! Jesus Christ, I might as well call Bird myself; might as well tell him I did it!”

  “Huh,” Dotty murmured.

  “I might as well. Might as well for the little he can do!”

  “It’s phones,” she said, turning her head toward Huller and lowering her voice. “I told you. He gets all screwed up on phones.”

  “Yah?” Huller said, taking a long black capsule from his shirt pocket. He flipped it into his mouth and washed it down with beer.

  “You had one on the way,” Dotty reminded him.

  “Fuck off!” he snapped, slowing as they approached an empty rest area. Huller pulled in and parked directly in front of a telephone booth. He guzzled the last of his beer, then jumped out of the truck, giving the door a vicious slam.

  Wallace and Dotty watched him insert his dime. He dialed, hung up quickly, dug the dime from the coin return, and dialed again and again.

  “He’s getting shit-faced,” Dotty said, under her breath. “He scares me when he gets like that.”

  “We could go,” Wallace said. “Tonight. There’s gas in the barn.”

  “Go where?” she sighed.

  “I dunno. Someplace.”

  “We been every place, Aubie.”

  He thought a minute. “You said Hollywood before.”

  “Aren’t you tired, Aubie?” Her head rested back on the seat. Her gold-lidded eyes were closed. “Aren’t you just … tired?” She sat up suddenly at the angry roar, which was followed by shattering glass. Huller had just heaved a large rock through the telephone booth.

  “Fuckin’ phone’s off the hook,” he muttered, pulling back onto the highway. He held out his hand for another beer and swore because Dotty was having a hard time opening the can. The tab had broken off. “Gimme the opener,” he growled. “In the glove compartment!”

  Dotty leaned past Wallace and fumbled through the greasy maps and wadded napkins. “What’s this?” she asked, holding a newspaper clipping to the light of the dashboard.

  “Gimme that!” Huller commande
d.

  “It’s about Canny.” She glanced up at Huller.

  “It’s the same one,” he said.

  “No,” she said, peering at it. “It’s different. It’s a picture of her father.” She bent low to the paper and began to read, “It was announced this morning at …”

  “I said give me that!” Huller roared, snatching the paper from her. “Don’t do that!” he exploded. “Don’t be such a pushy broad! Don’t just grab things,” he said, as he folded the paper into his shirt pocket. With a quick glance in the mirror, he changed lanes. They had come to another rest area with a telephone booth. The truck squealed in on two wheels and Huller jumped out. The line was still busy. He was about to drop in his dime again, when he dashed out of the booth instead. He stood by the window on Wallace’s side and leaned in with a crooked smile.

  “How ’bout if I bring you there in person, Pops?” Under the tall arc lights, Huller’s face glowed with a pinkish, luminous sweat.

  “You crazy?” Dotty gasped.

  “That way, you could tell what happened.…”

  “You’re kidding!” Dotty said. She leaned past Wallace. “What’re you, nuts?”

  “How ’bout it, Pops? What d’ya think?” asked Huller, ignoring her. Wallace shook his head and looked at Dotty.

  “You could tell him what happened. No phones, no thinking.…”

  Wallace continued to shake his head.

  “Cut it out, Jig!” Dotty said.

  “You got the balls for that?” Huller asked, grinning.

  Suddenly the door opened and Huller was grabbing Wallace’s arm and pulling him out. He stumbled and staggered into Huller, who clamped both hands down on his shoulders. “You got any balls at all?” Huller spat at him.

  “Leave him alone,” warned Dotty, scrambling to get out of the truck as Huller grabbed the front of Wallace’s shirt in his fist.

  “Don’t you touch him!” she screamed, and ran at Huller’s back and grabbed him around the waist with her hands locked on his belly. Roaring, Huller spun around and around, and like a doll, Dotty flew with him, her feet dragging in the dust. Huller’s laughter had the crack of a fist. Like a sprung bow, he arched and broke free, throwing her backward onto her hands.