THE LAST BOY

by ROBERT H. LIEBERMAN

  “Hey, Pal!”Tripoli called after him,“you’re not supposed to lose half of it on the way.”

  The boy just laughed and kept dancing along. Tripoli had never seen him quite so happy and was at a loss to explain how his grief could have dissolved so abruptly.

  The man stood in the doorway of Molly's office holding a straw hat in his hand. Tasha must have been in the ladies room. “I just gotta talk to the boy,” he said. He was dressed in a heavy flannel shirt and overalls.“I just need to know when I should make my next cutting of hay. And I gotta know soon if I should plant winter wheat or—”

  “Danny's not here,” she said, ushering him towards the door, “and he doesn’t know about farming.”

  “But I heard—”

  “Well, you heard wrong.” said Molly, hoping to hustle him out the door before Larry saw him. The farmer stood with his feet rooted wide on the ground refusing to budge. “Look, if you don’t leave now I’m going to call the police.”

  All afternoon people tried to get ahold of Molly—or actually Danny. They tied up the phones or just planted themselves in the outside office. They urgently needed to see the boy, to ask him questions about their future. The paralyzed wanted to walk, and the blind wanted to see. Stock and commodity traders wanted tips for the futures markets. A poultry farmer offered to hire Danny because his hens had all but stopped laying eggs. Maybe if Danny talked to them real nice, they could step up production.

  “I’d certainly be willing to share profits with you and the boy,” he offered, caught up in his excitement.

  Molly was beside herself with distraction. Trying to control her anxiety, she summoned Tasha to her desk.“I want you to field every call. If it's not about magazine business, then get rid of them. And no unwanted visitors, please Tasha, please. And whatever you do, don’t give out my private number.”

  “You can count on me,” said Tasha.

  Nevertheless, somehow Wally Schuman got through on her direct line.

  “I’d like to come over and see Danny.”

  “Well, he's not here,” she answered “Maybe later then. I could drop by your place.”

  “Please don’t,” she said, tersely.

  “The boy. He knew about the storm.”

  “All he said was that he heard a storm. I hear storms all the time. Does that make me—”

  “Look, Mrs. Driscoll. Molly. I’m not a religious nut or anything. Given what I’ve seen in life, I’m not sure I even believe in God. I’m strictly a newsman. I only trust what I can hear and see for myself. If you read the news or even watch the—”

  “I don’t have time to follow the news. I’m just trying to keep my job and—”

  “…see what's going on around the world,” he kept on. “Look carefully and you begin to realize that something terrible is happening.”

  Molly didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “With the weather,” he added,“the climate.”

  “What's Danny got to do with that?” she asked. Again she could feel that queasy feeling unfolding in her stomach.

  “More than just predicting that tornado, I think he—”

  “Look, please…” Molly fidgeted with the cord on her phone, snarling it around her fingers.

  “I think that Danny may have something important to tell people. Not just here in Ithaca. But the country. The world.”

  “Please,” she said.“I’ve got to get back to work.” And she hung up.

  Later, when the pasturage was all in and the animals were contentedly munching away, they rested in the shade of the porch. Tripoli lay in a hammock nursing an icy beer while Danny gulped down a big glass of orange soda.

  “I like the bubbles,” he said.“They tickle my nose. How do they get them into the water?”

  “I think they put the carbon dioxide in under pressure.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Danny.

  “You know what carbon dioxide is?”

  “I think it's the stuff that plants breathe in.”

  Tripoli was mildly surprised. “The Old Man. He taught you that, too, huh?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Danny. A neighbor's cat came by and jumped up on the deck. It was a big calico and Danny crept over to it and petted it.“Maybe he did.”

  “You know, Daniel, I keep wondering.”

  “Hmmm?”The cat was now in his lap, licking Danny's fingers. Danny giggled.

  “How did you get to him?”

  “I walked,” he said, matter-of-factly.“Oooh, feel her tongue. It's so rough.”

  “Was he waiting for you?”

  “Huh?” He turned the cat over on its back and stroked its belly.

  “The Old Man?”

  “Oh, not really.”The cat was purring like an engine.“But he did say I was waiting to find him.”

  “How did you know where to go?”

  He stroked the cat under its chin.“I dunno. I just did.”

  “He taught you a lot, didn’t he?”

  “Yup!”

  “I mean besides reading.”

  “Yup!” Danny was now on all fours, pretending to be an animal. The cat, tail high, was snaking in and out between his limbs, rubbing herself against the boy.“He told me a lot of stories. And had me tell him stories, too.”

  “What kind of stories did you tell him?”

  “About things.”

  “Like?”

  “Oh,” Danny lowered his head to rub his nose against the cat's, “he wanted to know what life was like. Things we did. You know, here. In town.”

  “So what did you tell him about?”

  “Oh, television. He wanted to know about the things I could see on it. And video games. What my mother had learned in her school and about her computer and stuff.”

  The boy was suddenly opening up in a way he never had before, and Tripoli decided it was safe to gently prod him.“And what else?”

  “He wanted to know about phones that didn’t use wires. He had seen someone using one, but I didn’t know anything about them— not then. You know, like that little black phone you always have in your pocket.”

  “He didn’t like those things—computers and television and such—did he?”

  “Oh, no, he did!” said Danny looking up. “He was very interested in them. He wanted to know all about them. How they worked. But I didn’t know. Not yet.”

  “So why didn’t he just come and look for himself?”

  “He just didn’t like being in the city with the noise and machines and stuff.”

  “Like you?”

  “It doesn’t bother me as much.”

  “And the stories he told you? What were they about?”

  “Oh, just everything.”The cat leaped off the porch and crawled underneath it. Danny jumped down and crept along the ground, peering into the darkness under the porch.

  He was now out of Tripoli's vision.“Like for instance?”

  “He would make up these stories. Like once he told me about a lady who lost her way. She was nice and everything, but she was at this place where there were all these roads and she was all mixed up and…and…and didn’t know which one to take. She couldn’t read the signs.”

  “You mean they were not in English?”

  “No! Not like that!” his head popped into view above the edge of the porch.“The signs. The signs!”

  “Oh?”

  “The kind you have to look for carefully. Or listen for. They’re always there. It's just that the lady didn’t see them. Now where's that crazy kitty?”

  When Tripoli went in to get another beer from the fridge, the phone was ringing. He hesitated, debated, then, figuring it might be Molly, picked it up.

  “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all day,” said Sisler. Your answering machine isn’t picking up. Your cell's off…Where the hell have you been?”

  “Out.”

  “Out where?”

  He sat down, leaned back in his chair far enough to reach the fridge door. The beer was sitting on the top shelf
. He popped the top and took a long, thirsty drink.“Oh, just out wandering…walking and ruminating,” he said with a laugh.

  “Hey, are you okay?” asked Sisler.

  “Sure. I’m fine. What's up?” He lifted a hand to wipe his face and noticed that it smelled pleasantly of fresh grass.

  “What's up? Haven’t you heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “The body's missing.”

  “What body?” It took him a moment.“You mean the Hermit?”

  “Yeah!”

  “What the hell do you mean missing?”

  “Just that. The old guy's body is gone. Disappeared.”

  It took all of Tripoli's effort to pull his mind out of the barnyard and back into focus. He sat up on the edge of his chair and leaned into the phone as if to cover it. Danny was on the other side of the screen door, lying on the porch, his head over the edge. He was dangling a piece of string, laughing excitedly every time the cat lunged for it.

  “So when did all this happen?”

  “No one knows. Yerka went to begin the autopsy and the locker was empty.”

  “You’re kidding!” said Tripoli.

  “Hey, I don’t make jokes like that. And the chief is going ballistic.”

  “Jesus H. Christ!” uttered Tripoli.

  “Yeah, exactly,” said Sisler with a snort.

  Tripoli was perplexed.“I don’t get it. I mean, Jimmy Teeter was there from the beginning. And Paolangeli was supposed to—”

  “Yup, he took over. And then Pellegrino. There was a man there right up until Yerka opened the locker.”

  “So somebody swiped the body?”

  “You tell me how.”

  Tripoli didn’t know what to tell him.

  “Oh, and the prints!” He could almost hear Sisler slapping his forehead.

  “They came back?”Tripoli was now on his feet.

  “Yeah. That's another reason I called.”

  “Go on, go on,”Tripoli urged impatiently.

  “They came up as a missing person.”

  “And?”Tripoli knew there was more.

  “They came up in the FBI registry. They’re the prints of a kid. Missing from Watertown.”

  Tripoli listened expectantly. He knew there was still more. A great deal more.

  “Now this is the weird part. The kid disappeared in 1938.”

  “How old?”

  “Six. I think a little over six.”

  “Yes!” trumpeted Tripoli, snapping his fingers triumphantly. “That's what I thought!”

  Danny glanced up from where he lay on the porch.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Sisler.

  “I don’t really know—but I think I’m starting to get it. Does this guy have a name?”

  “Of course. Matthew Roland.”

  “Matthew? Huh? Matthew?”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Matthew.”

  “Did he have a middle name?”

  “Like what?”

  “You know, a middle name.” Like John, he thought.

  Tripoli could hear papers rattling on the other end. “Errr…Wait. Here. I got it. Matthew Peter Roland.”

  “What else have you got?” Tripoli noticed that Danny had stopped playing with the cat and was looking his way. Although the boy couldn’t hear Sisler's end of the conversation, Tripoli had the uncanny sensation that he somehow knew what they were talking about.

  “Nothing else. That's it. Period. I mean you’re talking here ancient history. More than sixty years ago. That's before the invention of the typewriter, isn’t it?”

  “Some swell babysitter you are,”muttered Molly when Tripoli appeared at her office. Danny was with Ben in the kitchen getting an ice cream. It was 4:30, her desk was awash in paper: she still had hours of work left.“I thought you were keeping him until dinner so I could get stuff done,” she shuffled through a lower drawer looking for a file. “I was hoping…” She glanced up from her desk as Danny stepped into the office, a chocolate-covered popsicle in his hand and a big smile encircled by chocolate. He looked happier than she had seen him in days.

  “I wanted to stay, too,” piped Danny.“Trip's got all our animals!”

  “I really was planning on keeping him. But—look, something urgent just came up.” Tripoli was clean-shaven and dressed in a freshly pressed shirt and slacks.

  “Swell, I’ve got two great au pairs, you and Rosie…” She said in mock complaint, realizing that whatever it was that Tripoli had done it had broken the spell that had plagued Danny since the old man's death.

  “Look, I gotta run.” He reached for the door, then turned. “Daniel and I had a swell time, didn’t we?”

  Danny nodded. “Can’t I come with you? Please?” He wrapped his arms around Tripoli's waist.

  It was hard to pull away from the boy.“Not now. But I’ll make it up to you. You’ll come out again. And real soon. We’ll do more stuff together. You’ll see.”Tripoli ruffled his hair, gave Molly a quick kiss, and then was back on the street.

  Tripoli drove over the inlet bridge and went straight up to the hospital, cutting across the line where the tornado had ripped through a section of dense woods. Stately oaks and towering maples lay deposited in heaps as if they were matchsticks.

  “Not you, too,” said a disheveled Yerka when he stepped into the M. E.'s office. “I’ve already had visits from the D. A., your beloved chief, the State BCI people, and the governor's office is even sending in an emissary. And now you!”

  “Well, it's not every day you lose a body,” said Tripoli.

  “Please,”Yerka held up his hands in surrender, “do me a favor. No jokes this afternoon. It's brutally hot. I’m bone tired. My sailboat was wrecked in that storm. I’ve had just about—”

  “Look, Phil, the body had to get out of here some way, right?”

  “Okay. But why is everybody talking to me?”Yerka poked himself in the chest.“It was your fucking guys who were here continuously—or were supposed to be. It's not my job to guard a corpse. I’m a physician, not a cop. And the door to the morgue was locked. With God as my witness, I locked it when I left last night.” As he described the scene, Yerka's long arms were waving comically in all directions. “The body was there. I know that for a fact. And Paolangeli was sitting right here in the front office playing solitaire when I took off at seven. No one could go into the morgue without running smack into him—or whoever the hell was on duty.”

  “Hmmm, I suppose not,” muttered Tripoli.

  “Come on, I’ll show you,” said Yerka grabbing his arm and starting to lead him into the morgue.

  “Okay, but just hold your horses.”

  Tripoli kneeled to examine the entry lock to the morgue door. It didn’t appear to have been tampered with, but then the place wasn’t exactly Fort Knox. It could easily have been picked by somebody with a modicum of skill.

  He joined Yerka who stood waiting in the morgue room.

  “See?” said the pathologist, pulling the lever and opening the refrigerated locker. He slid out the tray. The sheet that had been covering the old Hermit's corpse lay crumpled to one side of the stainless steel drawer, just as Yerka had found it.

  Tripoli examined the door to the locker. The latching mechanism was controlled from the outside. Then, to Yerka's surprise, he stooped down and carefully examined the inside of the door.

  “What are you thinking? Listen, Trip, they don’t put handles on the inside of these things.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m just looking at everything.”

  “Let me slide you in and see if you can get out,” said Yerka angrily.

  Tripoli actually contemplated it for a moment, then smiled.“No thanks, Phil. I don’t want to catch cold. Besides, I can see enough like this.”

  “Trip, the guy was dead as a doorknob. Believe me. They don’t come any deader. And unless you’re Houdini, there's only one way to open this locker—and that's from the outside. It's very simple. Some idiot came in here and helped himself to a dead body. T
he old guy didn’t rise from the dead. He didn’t pass through walls. Somebody picked him up and schlepped him out of here. Period.”

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll buy that. But then the question is who? And why?”

  “What are you doing asking me?” Yerka raised his voice and was almost shouting.“I’m a doctor, not a fucking detective! You want to know who? I’ll tell you who. It was probably one of those religious nuts. This town is crawling with borderline crazies. And with this spiritual hermit nonsense, the whole fucking city is rapidly going off the deep end.”

  “We’ll get this thing figured out,” said Tripoli calmly.

  “I don’t even care if you figure it out. Far as I’m concerned, just get me my corpse back and I’ll be happy.”

  “We can’t have this,” said Ozmun, the landlord of the trailer park. Molly had just returned home and was getting ready to prepare a stir fry for dinner when Ozmun opened the door to her trailer without so much as a knock. Nobody ever saw him unless there was trouble.

  A former bouncer at the Wooden Nickel, Ozmun was huge, hairy, and not particularly bright.

  Danny was out in the garden tying up the vines that had been torn away by the storm, and when the door handle turned, she was sure it was him. The man's menacing presence frightened her.

  “Hey, don’t you believe in knocking?” she said, trying not to appear cowed.

  He simply glared at her.

  “Okay, what do you want?”

  “This has gotta stop. I’m getting all kinds of complaints. People comin’ and goin’ at all hours. You’ve got the cops here all the time.”

  “They’re here protecting my boy. And I certainly didn’t invite these other people. They—”

  “I don’t want to hear no more bullshit about the boy.” He swiveled in the doorway so he could face Danny.“And he's dug up the lawn. You don’t have permission!” He leveled an accusing finger at Danny, who hunkered down amidst his tomatoes.“I want all this crap ripped out and reseeded.”

  “It's my garden,” the boy said quietly, slowly standing up. Molly felt a brief flash of pride at his fearlessness. She pushed right past Ozmun and stood defiantly beside Danny.

  “You call this pile of rock a lawn?” She spat back.