by Marc Olden
Which was why the world was told that Anthony Paul Bofil had died while smoking in bed.
His dead bodyguards were found miles away, each in a separate place. The newspapers weren’t interested in their deaths, which police stated were a result of petty underworld feuds.
Authorities listened to the actress and the detective, but it was Bofil’s party that had the last word. And so the world learned that a pair of psychotics, having taken a dislike to the actress because of her unsympathetic role on a popular television series, had attempted to kill her. The actress managed to defend herself and kill them, though the couple did take the life of one of the actress’s dear friends.
Bofil’s “accident.” Marisa Heggen’s “dramatic survival against an attack by murderous fans.” The press and public devoured both stories then went on to other things.
Anxious to put the entire matter behind them, the actress and the detective went along with the cover-up. They had no choice. Who would have believed the truth?
Who would have believed that Robert Seldes hadn’t committed suicide, that he had actually been thrown from his twelfth-floor apartment by the boy’s grandmother?
Who would have believed that the man in Bofil’s party, the man responsible for the cover-up, was actually a changeling sworn to protect the village?
It was he who assured the village that these things would soon be forgotten, forgotten along with the disappearance of the boy’s sister, just one of 600,000 American youngsters who ran away from home each year.
These things would soon be forgotten.
The September leaf was brown, crisp, and Marisa kissed it lightly, her eyes on Joseph Bess, who had presented the leaf to her. They were in a supermarket buying groceries and Bess was counting his change carefully before putting it in his pocket. The leaf, he explained, was his first month’s rent. He’d decided to move in with Marisa and he was back to being strictly a milk drinker and Marisa couldn’t be happier.
She’d wanted him to move in and to stop drinking, but he wasn’t a man you could push, so she’d waited. When the alcohol had gone to work on his ulcer, Bess had been forced to give it up. Which was what Marisa wanted, for when he drank he brooded about Gina. No booze meant no Gina. And when he’d asked Marisa this morning if the invitation to move in was still open, she had drawn him to her in their bed and said it was.
They left the supermarket arm in arm. Marisa carried the leaf inside her blouse and against her breast. She was happy. She was living a script she could easily play the rest of her life.
In the supermarket, the boy stood near the front door and watched them walk down the street. He thought of the thick silver bracelet hidden in his closet at home, where no one could find it. His grandfather’s ritual knife was hidden there, too.
And then his “mother” appeared and he grinned, holding out his bag of potato chips to her. She didn’t know he wasn’t her son, that he was not of her blood.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1980 by Marc Olden
cover design by Connie Gabbert
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