THE LAST BOY

by ROBERT H. LIEBERMAN

  by Robert H. Lieberman

  NOVELS

  Baby

  Perfect People

  Paradise Rezoned

  Goobersville Breakdown

  FILMS

  Green Lights

  Faces in a Famine

  BoyceBall

  Copyright © 2002 by Robert H. Lieberman Cover design © 2002 by Sourcebooks, Inc. Cover image © Pictor Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in The Last Boy are fictitious. The setting is the state of New York, and certain public institutions and public offices are mentioned, but the characters involved in them are entirely imaginary. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P. O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

  www.sourcebooks.com

  Lieberman, Robert.

  The last boy / by Robert H. Lieberman.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 1-57071-943-8 (alk. paper)

  1. Global warming—Environmental aspects—Fiction. 2. Police—New York (State)—Ithaca—Fiction. 3. Missing children—Fiction. 4. Single mothers— Fiction. 5. Ithaca (N. Y.)—Fiction. 6. Hermits—Fiction. 7. Boys—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3562. I44 L37 2002

  813’.54—dc21

  2001054267

  Printed and bound in the United States of America

  MV 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  for GUNILLA

  Contents

  Prologue

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  BOOK THREE

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  prologue

  The pages felt like parchment but were not made of animal skin; they had the texture of a wood product yet were not paper. Tripoli remembered seeing some material like it once at an exhibition at the university museum. Tapa cloth, it was called, and it was made by the Polynesians from the bark of mulberry trees. The leaves of these ancient volumes sitting on Tripoli's kitchen table had the exact same feel. Tissue thin, yet strong.

  Outside, the wind suddenly picked up and came whistling around his isolated farmhouse, rocking the trees as the sky darkened and flashes of electrical discharge illuminated the distant hills. Oblivious to the weather, he hunched over the books that sat nestled in the small ring of yellow light spilling from his lamp.

  The bindings on the books—and there were five of them in all—were hand-sewn. Each gathering had been stitched together, then connected to make the whole. Tripoli's father had been a collector of old books. What a pity that he was no longer alive, he would have relished seeing these.

  Tripoli began on what he guessed to be the first volume. It was not easy going. The books were in a multiple of languages, both ancient and modern. They were written in what looked to be Hebrew and Greek, English that spanned the gamut from old to medieval to modern. There were even portions written in Chinese-looking characters, other sections in what might be Sanskrit.

  He concentrated on the portions that were in English. They were handwritten in a florid style that was difficult to decipher, and the language was old-fashioned and strange.

  The first book appeared to be about the world, the greater world, not just the sun and planets but other galaxies and solar systems. There were drawings of orbits, endless charts with numbered entries. Interspersed throughout the book were elaborate illustrations adorned with gold leaf and colored with hues of lapis lazuli and the most dazzling of red-orange pigments. There were pages covered with what could have been mathematical formulas, though the symbols were like none that he had ever seen; and diagrams, too, plans and schematics for what looked like machines and odd contraptions.

  Once Tripoli started, everything around him seemed to fall away: the day vanished into night, then dawn broke through with its early, pink light.

  Slowly, very slowly, he began to understand—or thought he understood. Here, locked away in these precious books, was a virtual treasure trove of accumulated wisdom, a merging of philosophy and science, psychology and engineering.

  Tripoli pushed on through the next day, breaking only to give the animals some water and fresh fodder, reading until his eyes burned and his brain ached. Jumping ahead to the more recent volumes, he discovered small inserts attached in strategic places where gaps had been left in the text. When he ran his fingers over the surface of these attachments, he discovered that the paper was different from the surrounding pages, crisper, newer. The ink, too, seemed fresher. When he put his nose close to the paper, it smelled of bark and berries. The notations contained some kind of ideograms commingled with numbers. One of the images looked like that of a little boy.

  That evening as he wandered the fields and forests surrounding his home, he thought about the old texts, thought about himself, the transformation he was undergoing, he a streetwise, hard-boiled cop. He thought, too, about Molly. How she would somehow change, though she might continue to resist. How their lives would never be the same. And how it all began with the disappearance of a child.

  POLICE EXPAND HUNT FOR BOY

  Police widened their search this morning for five-year-old Matthew Roland who mysteriously disappeared from his Watertown Elementary School classroom. State Police have joined local authorities, extending their search to include a three- county area.

  The boy was last seen two days ago in his kindergarten class. Shortly before noon, the boy's teacher, Lydia Munson, noticed his absence and notified the school's principal, who then alerted the Jefferson County Sheriff's office.

  “This is one of the most exhaustive searches we’ve ever done,” explained Sheriff Dennis Holbrow.“If the boy is lost outside, we’d better find him fast. The weather's getting very cold.”

  The boy's mother was reported in seclusion and could not be reached for comment. Anybody with information concerning the disappearance is asked to contact the police.

  —Watertown Daily Times

  November 5, l938

  BOOK ONE

  chapter one

  In Ithaca, New York, traffic signals are controlled by a central computer that usually keeps traffic flowing. Local and state police agencies are linked by fiber-optic networks, and news travels at the speed of light.

  A small boy walks up the north side of Green Street past the photo store and Diamond's Indian Restaurant. Though the afternoon is chilly, in fact downright cold for October, the child seems skimpily dressed in his red flannel shirt with blue and yellow lines, bib jeans, and sneakers. Perhaps because he is so short, a little kid of four or five, no one appears to notice him. He walks with a determined stride as if he knows where he's
going, has done this before— though neither is true. Reaching the safety of the sidewalk, the child wends his way through a small cluster of shoppers leaving the Woolworth's department store.

  A frail old woman, with her once fine coat buttoned up against the wind, is standing on the sidewalk in front of the store, staring aimlessly at the sky. She lowers her gaze to watch the little boy as he darts diagonally across the busy intersection, the traffic swirling around him. Clutching her thin coat tighter to her throat, the old woman continues to peer at the child as he progresses up the street. Her skin stretches taut on the bones of her face, tissue thin, revealing the blueness of the veins that course just below the surface. She, too, appears to be out of place amidst the driving bustle of people on the street. And only she seems to notice the incongruity of the little boy's solitary presence.

  Shoppers and workers rush past, hurrying to catch the bus that has just pulled up, nearly knocking the child over. Where's his mother? the old woman wonders. Her children would never be out alone like this, not at his age. She briefly tries to remember how old her children are, but becomes muddled as the memories wash over her. She knows they are a bit older. Maybe a lot older. Maybe not.

  As he nears, she steps forward to meet him, her gait a little unsteady.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be crossing streets by yourself, young man?” she inquires as she tries to block his path.

  “Huh?” says the little boy, looking up at her warily. His nose is running.

  “What's your name?”

  “Danny.”

  “Danny what?”

  “Danny Driscoll.” He starts to edge around her.

  “Does your mother know where you are, Danny?”

  “I’m okay,” he says, wiping his nose with his sleeve and continuing his march up the street.

  “Wait a minute!” The old woman calls after the little boy. She attempts to keep pace with him, but quickly tires and abandons the effort. She steps back to lean against the store's wall and catch her breath. A jet descending toward the Ithaca airport skims by overhead, the whine of its engines piercing the snowy clouds. It captures the old woman's attention and her eyes shift skyward. When at last she again looks up the street, the little boy is gone and she has already forgotten her purpose. Suddenly she remembers: “My little Mary is forty-six… no…forty-eight,” she murmurs under her breath.

  The sky broke open for an instant, yielding a chink of blue in the sea of heavy gray. Then the sun, half buried behind the western hills above the lake, suddenly burst through the gloom. The sunlight flooded the valley with a final but fading flare, causing the maples behind the magazine's office to flame a spectacular red and splashing a blazing shaft of golden yellow against Molly's computer screen.

  Molly Driscoll hadn’t realized how late it was until that final flash of sun caught her attention. She had been so absorbed in work, putting out fires as Larry called it, that the day had just slipped by. The office was often a madhouse, but Molly loved it, thrived on it, fed on the excitement. Had Doreen not reminded her, she might have forgotten lunch. It was almost three before she had stopped for a quick sandwich. That was the way it was in this new job. Larry Pierce was the kind of guy who made you want to give everything.

  It was only in the late afternoon that Molly began to think about Danny. They had both overslept that morning—the alarm had failed to go off, and she had had to yank Danny out of bed, frantically throwing on her own clothes while getting him dressed, too. She had packed a lunch and then stood over Danny in the kitchen of their trailer, rushing him through his oatmeal.

  “Come on, Honey. You can eat in the car—we’ve got to run.”

  “It's too hot. I can’t eat it!” he complained as she shepherded him to the old Chevy. She had run back to the trailer to pour on more milk to cool it. The runny cereal kept dribbling down his sleepy chin as they drove to town.

  Shortly into the ride, Danny had a coughing fit and put down the half-eaten bowl. At first Molly thought that he was choking on the cereal, but then suspected that he was coming down with another cold. He always seemed to be picking things up at Kute Kids. A couple of weeks before, Danny had gotten a stomach bug and she had taken the entire day off. Last week her wreck of a Chevy wouldn’t start and she lost half the morning. Well, she thought grimly, unless Danny had a fever he had to go to daycare. The crew at the Upstater magazine pulled together as a team and she couldn’t leave them in the lurch yet again. And these days, jobs in an Ithaca of darkened and emptied downtown stores were scarce. Especially decent-paying ones with a promising future. Day jobs. And working at the magazine was a hell of a lot more stimulating— not to say more respectable—than her nights cocktail waitressing at the Ramada where the construction workers from the new bypass on Route 13 stared down her top as she served them drinks.

  The publication was a small operation. Larry ran it with three editors, two editorial assistants, and the newest addition—Molly. She was essentially the secretary—with a fancier title—but the job came with the promise of advancement to assistant, then, maybe, some day, to full editor. A dream job. People like Doreen and Sandy and Ben could come and go as they pleased, sometimes even work at home if they wanted to.

  Now, as the sun sank behind the hills, it was nearly 5:30, and Molly was eager to leave but didn’t dare until Larry started packing up or gave her the nod. Her boss was a tall man, somewhere in his forties, she guessed, an exuberant, entrepreneurial type with a head of dark, curly hair and strong, chiseled features—the kind of man who knew how to get things done. Before coming to Ithaca, he apparently had been a hotshot executive at New York Magazine. All it took was a call from him and he had a guy like Danny DeVito in town visiting the local wineries and generating a piece in the Upstater.

  Molly thought him a bit vain: he worked out to keep himself trim and always had a bright-colored handkerchief folded into the breast pocket of his suit. She had seen him around town with a number of different women. Some of them were married. Ostensibly it was for business, but Molly wondered—not that it was any of her concern. “He's a dandy,” she often thought to herself with a half smile. The kind of guys who had always attracted her were more rough and tumble, men who were a bit on the outs with society. Like her ex.

  Now the office was empty, silent except for the sound of Larry's voice. He was still on the phone. Molly was about to call Kute Kids to let them know she’d be a little late, but an important fax came in and she got distracted. Then the other lines started ringing. A writer in Vermont hadn’t received his check. An artist was still missing two photos that he needed to retouch. Panic. Panic.

  Once it passed 5:30, Molly started getting anxious. She really needed to pick up Danny by six when they closed Kute Kids. If parents came late, they were fined. And the fines were hefty—$15 for the first fifteen minutes, $25 for every ten minutes thereafter. Mrs. Oltz, the director, was usually pretty pissed about it, too, thought Molly with a rising sense of panic.

  Molly finally stuck her head into Larry's office and raised a finger. He covered the mouthpiece and mouthed,“Five more minutes.”

  Molly busied herself, though her eyes kept darting to the clock. Quarter to six. If she drove at breakneck speed, she could still make it—if traffic wasn’t bad. When Larry got off the line, she sneaked a peek into his office, hoping to find him packing up his briefcase. He was reaching again for the phone—didn’t even notice her.

  While Molly waited for her chance to finally leave the office, she kept thinking about Danny, about bedtime, the way he always wanted her to crawl under the covers with him, cuddle him and tell him stories. Sitting at her desk, Molly closed her eyes and summoned his image; now she could feel him, smell the scent of his hair, sweet and clean, hear his voice, high and excited, his words tumbling into each other. Danny.

  Molly made good time down the highway. Curving down from the eastern heights, she skimmed the edge of the lake, on her right Stewart Park with its tall willows arching graceful
ly over the shore. She’d be late for Danny's pickup—but not that late. Once she reached the edge of town, however, it seemed every stoplight and intersection conspired against her. Then she hit the construction on Route 13. The downtown traffic was snarled. The air was rife with choking dust as commuters heading home through the hub of town were slowed to a crawl. Then Molly's lane came to a complete stop as men with red flags waved the oncoming traffic around a swirl of dump trucks and graders.

  “Come on. Come on,” she said, banging her hands futilely on the steering wheel.

  She switched on the radio. It was already well into the local news. She listened to some mindless babble about sports, then the recap: something about a Conrail tanker car derailing alongside a trout stream just south of town. Seven thousand gallons of diesel fuel had spilled out. The plume was now in the fast-flowing waters of the inlet and heading toward the lake, killing all the fish and aquatic life in its path. There was mention of development plans for the Westend. Sales figures for new and existing homes. Though the economy in the rest of the country was vibrant, the sales figures for last month were still sharply down. Molly listened but couldn’t quite concentrate. She put on an easy listening station, but it just irritated her. She peered up at the distant sky; in the waning light she could see a fresh line of dark, menacing clouds moving in from the west.

  Traffic started to move again. She checked her watch. Twenty after six! There goes a chunk of today's pay to fines, thought Molly, and could feel her stomach wrench into knots. By now all the other children were certainly picked up and Molly could envision Danny waiting just inside the door, his jacket on, his little lunch box clutched in his hand. He always looked so desperate when she was late—though he never uttered a complaint; he just looked at her with that hurt look.