The waitress showed up with their drinks before Peter could reply, and that suited him fine. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore tonight.
When the girl left, Roger said, “Your boy and mine spent some time together at the same daycare. Did you know that?”
“Yeah. After I met you last week I remembered.”
“Jason used to talk about David all the time. They really hit it off. He cried every morning for nearly a month after you guys left.”
Peter said nothing. One of his principal regrets about a life in medicine was the amount of family time it had robbed him of. He knew that, compared to many of his colleagues, he’d done his best, reserving the majority of his time away from work for his wife and son. Still, he could have done so much better.
Roger poured half his beer into a frosted stein and took a gulp, a thin crescent of foam sticking to his lip. He wiped it away and said, “You into movies?”
“Love ’em. If I had to do it all over again, I’d try to get into the business.”
Roger grinned. “Star potential?”
“Hardly. No, the creative end. Writing, maybe. And the software they’ve got now? Fascinating. I was just getting David interested in a computer animation course for kids the university offers. He was a whip with computers.”
“How do you feel about going to them? Movies, I mean.”
“You and me?”
“Don’t get worked up. It’s not a date.”
Peter snorted laughter. “Relax, you’re not my type. When were you thinking?”
“That new Spielberg flick starts tomorrow. I’m on graveyard shift tonight, so I’ll sleep till one or so. Why don’t you call me anytime after that?” He jotted his number on a napkin and gave it to Peter. “We could do the early show, beat the rush, then maybe catch a bite at Mr. Prime Rib.”
“My favorite place in the world. I’m in.”
“How do you want to work it?”
Peter glanced at Roger’s vanishing beer and said, “You’re the boozehound. I’ll pick you up.”
Roger smiled. “Deal.”
The waitress came back all smiles with her tray and said, “Can I get youse anything else?” and both men broke into helpless laughter.
* * *
Peter felt good. He was watching Tommy Boy, a Chris Farley movie he and David had watched together about a million times. David had loved the film so much, he’d named his goldfish after the main character, and for a while Dana had made ‘Tommy Boy’ her pet name for David. Peter laughed out loud in a dozen places watching the film, and by the time it was over felt relaxed enough to call it a night. Brushing his teeth, he realized that a big part of the way he was feeling came from the prospect of a friendship with Roger Mullen. Roger was a good guy who understood Peter’s situation. The other friends he had were mostly couples left over from the days he and Dana socialized with members of the medical community. A friendship with Roger would allow them to lean on each other, outside of the sometimes morbid circle of the group. He was actually looking forward to their outing tomorrow night.
Passing David’s door on the way to bed, Peter considered going inside again; but in spite of what Erika had suggested at the meeting—and in spite of his own vain hope that what he’d seen in this room had actually been his son—he’d already reconciled himself to the belief that what he’d experienced was a dream...vivid, terrifying, heart-breaking, but a dream nonetheless. He could see no point in attempting to relive it.
He climbed into bed, pulled the covers up to his chin and slipped into a deep, dreamless slumber.
6
Friday, June 15
FRIDAY DAWNED DAMP AND COOL, interrupting an unseasonable, week-long heat wave. Peter drove to work under a dense cloud cover that looked more like snow than rain.
He was on Paris Street now, making a mental note to check the show times on the Internet at work, then call Mr. Prime Rib and book a table for two. He had to brake suddenly for the endless construction that went on every summer on this busy thoroughfare and his briefcase slid off the back seat, spewing books and papers everywhere. Reduced to a snail’s pace, he steered through a cordon of orange pylons, shifting his gaze between the back seat and the road ahead while using his free hand to scoop up the scattered contents of his briefcase.
The third time he glanced back, the morning sun found a rift in the cloud cover and flared through the passenger-side windows, dazzling him. Peter flinched away from the glare, checking ahead of him again, then squinting into the back seat. When he saw the four candied finger smears on the glass back there—the same ones he'd so vigorously scrubbed away a week ago—he felt an actual impact below his sternum, and he gasped like a man with the wind knocked out of him.
He heard a shout now, and swung around in time to see the hood of the car crunch under the tailgate of a huge dump truck. He hit the brakes hard and the airbag deployed, releasing a dusty gas that stung his throat.
A flag girl appeared at the window and started rapping on the glass. The truck driver climbed down from his cab and a half dozen workers converged on the vehicle.
Peter forced the airbag away from his face and turned to look at his son’s smeared fingerprints on the window, still unable to catch his breath.
* * *
“Roger, it’s Peter. Did I wake you?”
“Just getting up. What time is it?”
“Five after one.”
“Damn. Still looks dark out.”
“It’s raining.”
“You at work?”
“No, Toyota dealership. I had an accident on the way in this morning; they’re giving me a loaner.”
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. Listen, I need to talk.”
“Sure. Tell you what—when you’re through there, why don’t you drop by the house? Just give me a half hour or so to shower and get dressed.”
“Thanks, Roger. What’s your address?”
Roger told him and Peter jotted it on the back of a business card.
* * *
They sat at an antique oval table in the kitchen of Roger Mullen’s tidy York Street home, Roger eating the bacon and eggs he’d been cooking when Peter arrived, Peter sipping listlessly from a glass of water. Outside a gentle rain fell from a white sky, a damp breeze sifting in through the small screen at the base of the kitchen window.
“So what’s going on?” Roger said.
Peter told him about the finger marks he’d scrubbed off the car window last week, and how they’d reappeared this morning. “I just about polished a hole in the glass getting them off. There’s no way I missed any. That glass was clean.”
“So what are you suggesting?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.”
“Do you think somebody’s messing with you?”
“If so, I don’t know how or why. The fingerprints were inside the vehicle, and unless I’m using it, I keep it locked all the time.”
“You haven’t driven anybody?”
“Not since before David got sick.”
Roger wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin, his breakfast finished. “I don’t believe in ghosts, Peter, so there’s got to be a sane explanation. Maybe it was just one of those stubborn stains, you know? I’m always dealing with shit like that at work.”
“It was candy, Lick-M-Aid or something like that. Clear but crusty; you could feel it. I saw the cleaner dissolve it. It was gone, Roger. Gone.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, chum, except I wouldn’t make too much of it. My advice would be to just let it go. You’ve got enough on your plate already without giving yourself the willies.”
“What about my dream?” Peter said. “What if it wasn’t just a dream?”
Roger stood, clearing his place at the table. “You know what? You’re talking to the wrong person.” He opened the dishwasher and stacked his dishes inside.
Peter said, “Erika?”
“I have her number.”
Pete
r stood now, too, handing Roger his empty glass. “I'll call for an appointment right now.”
* * *
Erika Meechum lived in a basement apartment in the Gatchell area. There was a home-made sign above her aluminum door, visible from the street: FORTUNES TOLD.
Peter pulled into the gravel drive and looked at Roger, who grinned and said, “Sure you want to do this?”
“You think I’m crazy.”
Roger shook his head, the grin vanishing. “You want to talk about crazy? I walked into a bar one night a few months after Jason disappeared. I hadn’t slept in weeks and at the best of times I’m an angry drunk. A biker-type kept eyeballing me, and the more I drank, the more convinced I became he was the one who’d taken my son. I ended up beating that man almost to death, along with two of his friends. Spent a week in jail because of it.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. Turns out the guy had trained under me for a few days at Inco, years back. He was looking at me because he was trying to figure out where he knew me from. Luckily, when he and his friends found out about my situation, they decided to drop the charges. So if you think talking to a fortune teller’ll help, or a snake charmer, I say go for it. I ended up seeing a shrink. Court appointed.”
“Did it help?”
“No. But it led to something that did.”
“The group.”
Roger was grinning again. “You got it.”
Peter glanced at Erika’s door.
Roger said, “Want me to come in with you?”
Peter opened the car door, returning Roger’s grin. “The voice of reason? No thanks. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go it alone.”
“Okay,” Roger said, angling his seat back as Peter got out, “but leave the keys. I’m going to tune into the Q, maybe catch a few more winks.” Peter handed him the keys and Roger said, “We’re still on for tonight, right?”
“Are you planning on drinking?”
“Afraid I’ll kick your ass?”
“Yes.”
Roger laughed. “Then I’ll try to keep it to a minimum.”
Peter swung the door shut, watching as Roger tipped his ball cap over his eyes and eased back into the reclined seat of the tiny blue loaner. Then he turned to Erika’s door and the chipped sign above it, hesitant now, wondering what he’d been reduced to. What could this woman possibly tell him? What Roger had said made sense. Maybe he hadn’t cleaned the glass as thoroughly as he thought. He’d been a wreck for months, driven to distraction, crying his eyes out while he cleaned that window. The loss of his son, coupled with this chronic, grinding fatigue, could explain all of it: the nightmares about David, errors of perception. Maybe he was overreacting, giving himself the willies, like Roger said.
He put his hand on the cool metal door handle, thought, Screw it, and got back in the car.
Roger raised the ball cap off his eyes. “That was quick.”
Peter said, “Let’s try the snake charmer,” and keyed the ignition.
The two men shared a rare laugh as Peter backed into the street. Partway down the block he called Erika on his cell phone and left a message on her machine, apologizing for breaking the appointment.
* * *
Roger said he had a few chores to run in town, stuff he’d planned on doing before their get-together this evening. Peter told him he had the rest of the day off anyway and offered to chauffeur him around. That was why, at shortly after two o’clock on that drizzly afternoon, Peter found himself in the New Sudbury Shopping Center, picking up a pair of work boots from a shoe-repair kiosk with this man who stood a head taller than him and could beat the tar out of three guys at once. The matinee they’d decided on started at 4:15 and now, with the last of Roger’s chores done, Peter realized he was hungry. Roger suggested a plate of stir fry from a Japanese place in the food court. Peter ordered the beef teriyaki and Roger followed suit.
They ate in silence at a table in the busy dining area, Roger only picking at his food, his blue eyes constantly roving, the eyes of a soldier on the alert for snipers. At one point he came partway out of his seat, big hands closing into fists, and Peter followed his gaze to a tall man in work clothes leading a cranky blond kid of five or six through a stream of shoppers. The boy was fighting the man, dragging his heels, verging on a tantrum.
Peter returned his gaze to Roger only to find his new friend already looking at him, ghost pale, beads of sweat on his upper lip.
“See?” he said, then tipped the remains of his lunch into a garbage bin.
* * *
The movie was great, the food even better. Peter drank only rarely, but tonight he had a glass of wine with dinner and now the alcohol was making him giddy.
“Goddam,” Roger said around a jaw full of Black Angus beef, “who’s the drunk now? Looks like I’ll have to do the driving.”
“Nah,” Peter said. “I’m already facing a reckless driving charge, why not round it out with a DUI?”
“Crazy bastard.”
They chatted comfortably through dinner, Roger saying he’d grown up in Sudbury, married his high school sweetheart and followed his father and three brothers into the mines. His wife Ellen had left him two years to the day following Jason’s abduction, moving to Montreal to live with her sister. He said they rarely spoke anymore. Peter told him about growing up in Ottawa, his plans to work in the north for just a couple of months, and how his love for Dana had altered his course. The conversation lightened after that and Peter talked about an idea he had for a screenplay, something he referred to as ‘the ultimate reality show’. He said the only reason he hadn’t started it years ago was that he’d expected the whole reality craze to dry up before he got a chance to finish. They talked about how unlikely that was now, television riddled with the crap, and Roger told him he should go for it, the distraction might do him good. Peter said he didn’t know the first thing about screenwriting and Roger told him he was lazy. Peter picked up the tab—he insisted—and Roger said he’d get the next one. Peter liked the sound of that.
They got to Roger’s place just after nine and Roger invited him in. “I got all the Clouseau videos for Christmas about four years ago and I still haven’t cracked ’em open.” He asked Peter if he wanted a beer and Peter declined, asking instead if he could use the bathroom. Roger directed him upstairs, “Blue door at the end of the hall,” saying he’d cue up the film while he waited.
The long stairwell opened into a dimly lit hall, the blue door at the end partway open, revealing a checkered ceramic floor and a glimpse of beige shower curtain. There were three doorways along the length of the hall, two on Peter’s left, one on his right. The nearest on the left gave onto a small office with a computer table, an old couch, and a couple of wooden chairs. The one on the right, centered between the other two, opened onto what was clearly the master bedroom. The last door on the left, closest to the bathroom, was shut. There were chips of paint missing from the door and Peter thought, Jason’s room.
He put his hand on the brass knob and looked back along the hallway, listening for Roger. In that moment the TV came on down there, startling him, and Peter went ahead into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
Though Roger had been separated for at least a year, Peter saw signs of a woman’s touch wherever he looked: the subtle flower print on the shower curtain; the framed prints on the walls, continuing the botanical theme; the lavender cover on the toilet seat.
When he was done, he rinsed his hands and dried them on a bath towel. In the hall he walked past Jason’s door...then turned and came back, grasping the knob again, listening. He could hear Roger downstairs, doing something in the kitchen now. And though his heart was racing, he did not let go of the knob.
Standing outside this door, Peter found himself in the grip of a compulsion he could scarcely comprehend. A trespass like this was completely out of character for him. He was a decent man who respected the privacy of others...yet the urge to open this door, to see what was on the other side
, was more powerful than any in recent memory.
Sweating now, he turned the knob and pushed on the door; it opened silently, releasing a pocket of stale air. The room inside was dark, curtains drawn against amber streetlight, revealing only shapes until his eyes adjusted. He found a light switch inside the door, but didn’t turn it on.
He stepped into the room, clearly Jason’s: a child’s painted dresser by the window; a long folding table against one wall supporting an elaborate electric train set; Spiderman wallpaper with matching comforters on the bunk bed...
Peter went to the bed and put his foot on the ladder.
* * *
Roger was preparing drinks when he heard a sound that made him drop the glass he was holding. The kitchen was directly under Jason’s bedroom and sometimes, getting himself a beer or a late night snack, Roger would hear the squeak of the ladder on his son’s bunk bed, a signal that Jason was restless and changing beds. Though the little guy had always preferred the bottom bunk, when he had a bad dream or just couldn’t nod off, he’d climb up top all on his own, telling his dad it was cooler up there.
Roger heard that squeak now.
Time folded back on itself as he took the steps in bounding threes, the merciless guilt he carried for sleeping through his son’s abduction welling up in him undiluted. He ran the length of the hall flat out and slammed his son’s door open, flipping the ceiling fixture on, flooding the room with light.
Peter Croft was curled on his side on the top bunk, squinting at Roger against the light, tears streaming from his eyes. “I’ve been in this room,” he said in a voice that sent chills up Roger’s spine. “I’ve seen the man who took your boy.”
* * *
Roger’s left hand seized Peter’s right arm at the elbow, the other closed around his throat. Peter heard the man grunt and then he was airborne, coming off the edge of the top bunk as if he weighed no more than a pillow. Clutching the vice at his neck, he landed on his back on the mat beside the bed and Roger’s knee came down on his chest, pinning him beyond all hope of escape. He was suffocating, black dots swirling in his vision, his single attempt to speak producing only a strangled croak. He looked into Roger’s slitted eyes, their usual sky blue shot through with red.
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