Norm boy, he thought, for an intelligent man, you are one very stupid sonofabitch.'
A chill settled on the back of his neck and he shuddered violently to banish it, and glanced up to see that the office was dark.
A look behind and out the window, and he groaned; the sun had gone down, the streetlamps were on, and the traffic on School Street was mainly people coming home from shopping and work.
He was virtually alone, then, in the building. Just him in his office, and the custodial staff sweeping the hallways and auditorium, washing the blackboards, and probably stealing him blind from the supply room in the basement.
"Stupid," he muttered, staring at the vial. "Stupid, and dumb, and you ought to be shot."
Jesus, how could he believe Don had really tossed that bottle into Hedley's room? How could he believe it? Or was he trying too hard to believe the boy was really normal, doing normal things like any normal kid.
That was the problem, thinking Don was special. He wasn't. He was perfectly, sometimes unnervingly fine, with quirks like any other kid to set him apart. And there was Norman Boyd, forgetting who they both were and playing King of the Mountain, Lord of the Hill, laying down the law as if he were Moses.
As if he were his own father.
For the first time in ages he wished Joyce were here, to remind him that he wasn't Wallace Boyd still working the mills, that Don wasn't Norman struggling out of the gutter. He recalled with a silent groan the day Joyce had told him she was pregnant the first time. He had sworn on everything he held dear that he would do better, that he would be there-a harbor for childhood storms, a rock to hang on to when the winds grew too strong. A father; nothing more, nothing less.
He covered his face with his hands and took a deep breath.
It was the pressure, that's what it was. After Sam had died, the pressure had begun; he didn't know how, and he wasn't sure why, but it was there. Waiting for him.
Whispering to him that Donald had to be protected at all costs. And when he recognized the futility of it, and the unreason, he hadn't realized how far in the opposite direction he had gone with the boy's life.
It was the pressure.
What he needed was a respite. What he needed was for Falcone and his teachers to cave in and stop the strike. Then they'd be off his back, and the board would be off his back, and the press and the mayor and the whole damned world would leave him alone to reacquaint himself with his son.
Twice he had blown it—first, Don's announcement about being a veterinarian, and now this afternoon.
Twice, and suddenly he was very afraid.
His wife was falling out of love with him.
What would happen if his son did the same?
... and so the crow saw how bad the little boy was feeling, and he flew out of the tree and into the night ...
The park was deserted. A breeze crept through the branches and shook loose a few leaves, spiraling them down through the dark, through the falls of white light, to the ground, to the paths, to the pond where they spun in lazy turns, creating islands that floated just below the surface.
No one walked.
The traffic's noise was smothered.
... and found the evil king alone in his bedroom, and he flew in through the window, and before the evil king could wake up and defend himself, the giant crow had plucked out both his eyes!
The only concentrated light was set around the oval. A dim light, and there was no warmth to it, no weight, as he sat on a bench and stared at the water, rolling his shoulders to drive off the cold.
His eyes were closed.
His lips moved so slightly they might have been trembling.
And then the giant crow flew through the castle until he found the evil king's brother, who was just as evil and just as mean, and the giant crow tore out his throat with one swipe of his giant talons.
The houses that faced the park were hidden by the trees and the width of the land, and the boulevard that ran past it on the south was too far away to matter. He was alone; no one would bother him unless he stayed until dawn, and on a night like this not even a tramp would try to make a bed on the redwood benches. He was alone. His hands were clasped tightly between his knees, and his jacket-was too light for the sudden temperature drop, turning the air brittle and the leaves to brown glass.
A noise in his throat; his shoulders slumped a little more.
He had waited nearly an hour in his father's office before the man finally walked in. Don had jumped to his feet and was ordered down again. A fussing with papers, instructions not to interrupt him, and he was lectured forever on the image both of them had to project—to the faculty as well as to the student body. Norman brandished the vial as if he were going to throw it. Don explained for the second time how the kid—he was sure now it was Pratt—shoved the bottle into his hand on the way down the stairs. His face hurt as he talked, and he kept touching the side of his face to be sure it hadn't bloated. His father saw the situation, sympathized for the injury, but refused the whole pardon while relenting to the degree that he supposed Brian was capable of such a trick.
"I didn't say it was him." Don had retreated; suddenly fearful his father would call the boy in and unknowingly start a war. "I just think it was."
Norman seemed doubting, and Don didn't understand. In all his life he'd never done anything like that; he had been told often enough that he was neither to take advantage of his position—whatever that was—nor pretend he was only one of the boys. He wasn't. He was, by fate, special, with special problems to handle. And Norman expected more of him than to have it end up like this.
"End up like what?" He sprang to his feet and approached the desk. "Dad, why don't you listen to me? I didn't do it!"
Norman stared and said nothing.
"All right, I left the nurse's office when I shouldn't have, I guess, and I wrote out my own pass. All right, that's wrong. Okay. But I did not throw that crap in Mr. Hedley's room!"
"Donald," his father said in perfect control, "I will not have you speak to me that way, especially not in here."
"Oh, Jesus." And he turned away.
"And you will not swear at me. Ever."
Don surrendered. Suspended between belief and suspicion, bullied off the subject by time-worn and weary pronouncements, he surrendered, he didn't care, and he didn't argue when he was given six days detention, beginning the next day.
"You should count yourself lucky," Norman said as he escorted him out the door just as the last bell rang. "Most other kids would have been suspended."
"Then suspend me!" he said, surprised to hear himself on the verge of begging. "Please, suspend me."
"Don't be smart, son, or I will."
Don pulled away from the hand that guided him around the counter, ignored the curious looks the five secretaries gave him. "You don't get it," he said as he walked out the door. "You just don't get it."
He fetched his books and went home. His mother wouldn't be in for at least another hour, and his father would stay at South until just before dinner. That gave him time to unload his gear and change into his jeans, fix himself a peanut butter sandwich and go for a walk.
Shortly before dark he walked into the park.
... and then the crow ...
He stopped, and cocked his head.
He could not see far beyond the lights that ringed the oval, but he was positive he had heard someone approaching out there. Listening, his hands gripping his knees, he guessed it was his mother, come to take him home and scold him and make him eat a bowl of soup or drink a cup of watery cocoa. And when the noise didn't sound again, he convinced himself it wasn't really a footstep he had heard.
He heard it again.
To his left, out there in the dark.
A single sound, sharp on the pavement, like iron striking iron as gently as it could.
Without looking away he zipped his jacket closed and stood, slowly, sidling toward the pond for an angle to let him see through the light.
> Again. Sharp. Iron striking iron.
Not his mother at all; someone else.
"Hey, Jeff, that you?" he called, jamming his hands into his pockets.
Iron striking iron. Hollow.
"Jeff?"
The breeze husked, scattering leaves at his feet and making him duck away with his eyes tightly shut. The pond rippled, and a twig snapped, and something small and light scurried up a trunk.
Swallowing, and looking once toward the exit, he walked around the oval and a few steps up the path. With the light now behind him his shadow crept ahead, reaching for the next lamppost fifteen yards away. And between there and here he saw nothing that could have made the sound that he'd heard. A frown, more at his own nervousness than at the puzzle, and he walked on, cautiously, keeping to one side and wincing each time his elbow brushed against a shrub.
Iron striking iron, hollow, an echo.
He started to call again, changed his mind, and made a clumsy about-face. Whatever it was, it didn't want to be seen, and that was all right with him; more than all right, it was perfect. He hurried, shoulders hunched, cheeks burning as the wind worked earnestly to push him faster, the tips of his ears beginning to sting. His own shoes were loud, slapping back from the trees, and his shadow had grown faint, even under the lamps. He looked back only once, but all he could see was the pond reflecting the globes, freezing them in ice, turning the oval into a glaring white stage.
Iron. Striking iron.
He ran the last few yards, skidded onto the sidewalk and gaped at the traffic on the boulevard. The air was warmer, and he took a deep breath as he chided himself for being so foolish.
Then he turned to check one last time.
And heard iron striking iron, muffled and slow, and not once could he see what was back there in the dark.
Tanker cowered in the bushes, covering his face with his hands and praying that the moon would keep him hidden from whatever was walking out there in the dark.
At first it had been perfect. He had been feeling the familiar pressure all day, building in his chest and making it swell, building in his head and making it ache. He had ignored it when it started, thinking it was because he was hungry for people-food; so he had scrounged through some garbage cans, panhandled four bucks in front of the movie theater on the main street and had filled himself with hamburgers and dollar wine. But the pressure wouldn't go away, and his hands shook with anticipation when he could no longer deny it-it was going to be soon, no question about it. Maybe tonight, and that kid was going to help him.
Slowly, using every skill he had left and a few he hadn't learned from the babyfucks in the army, he had made his way through the underbrush toward the oval once he had heard the lone voice telling itself a story.
It was too good to be true, but when he peered through the bushes, he almost shouted. It was the punk from the other night, the one who had been dressed in black and talked about a giant crow. And there he was, looking like he'd just lost his best girl, and for god's sake, would you believe it, telling himself a stupid story.
It was perfect.
Then the punk turned his head sharply, and Tanker had looked back into the park.
Iron striking iron.
There was absolutely no reason for it, but the sound terrified him, loosened his bowels, poured acid into his stomach, and he couldn't help it, he whimpered softly and covered his face with his hands. Listening.
Trying to make himself invisible. Hearing the punk walk away and swearing in a cold sweat that he couldn't follow and get him.
The sound grew louder and Tanker dropped to the ground, shifted his hands to the back of his head and waited, holding his breath, listening as whatever it was moved in front of him, as if following the boy.
And stopped.
The breeze died; there was no traffic noise, no footsteps.
He swallowed and turned his head to expose one eye. Through the shrubs he could see pieces of the pavement, the dark on the other side, and nothing else. A puzzled frown. His hands sliding off his hair to press on the grass and lift him up. Slowly. Bloodshot yellowed eyes darting side to side, taking in as much of the path as they could before his head rose over the top, before his knees straightened, before his arms spread outward to balance for flight, to lunge for a fight.
But there was nothing there.
The path was empty, the punk gone, and when he pushed through to the oval and checked both directions, he realized he was alone.
Alone with the pressure, and nobody to kill.
Then he heard it again.
Iron striking iron, muffled, slow cadence; and when he whirled around to meet it his eyes opened, his mouth gaped, and he couldn't stop the denying shake of his head.
He was alone.
He could hear something large moving toward him, but he was completely alone.
The booze, he thought; it's the goddamned booze. He rushed back into the trees, zigzagging to lose whatever was out there, then made his way to the westside wall. His lungs were aching and his hands were trembling, and when he tried to swallow, his throat felt coated with sharp pebbles.
He listened, hard, and sagged with relief when he heard nothing but the wind.
Then the pressure came again, in his head, in his chest. A deep solemn throbbing as he looked up at the moon.
It was time, then, no stalling, and he vaulted the wall nimbly, keeping to the shadows as he hurried to his right. The houses facing the park were large and lighted, but he couldn't hear a television, a radio, or any voices through open windows.
All he could hear was that noise from the park, and it goaded him to the corner, where he slumped against a telephone pole and checked the street up and down, panting slightly while his fingers flexed and his forehead creased.
Five minutes later Tanker saw him.
He was walking on the same side of the street, fingers snapping, hips and feet moving. Tanker frowned, thinking the punk was drunk, until he saw the earphones, and the radio clipped to his belt.
A great way to die, he thought, grinning, and angled back around the wall's corner. A great way to die—smiling, listening to your favorite music, a nip in the air and on your way home.
He chuckled, and it sounded like a growl.
He followed the kid's progress carefully, poked his head out, and saw him tap the top of the wall in time to his listening, once spinning around and snapping those fingers high over his head.
When he spun around a second time, Tanker was there, smiling. Taking the kid's throat and pitching him effortlessly into the park. Before the kid landed, Tanker was kneeling beside him.
Before the song ended, Tanker was howling.
"Don the Barbarian sees the slime-covered trolls at the end of the witch's tunnel," he whispered as he moved slowly out of the kitchen, half in a crouch, his left arm braced across his chest for a shield, his right extended to hold his anxious pal, Crow. "The sexy maiden is chained to a burning rock, and only Don has the strength to break the magic chains and save her from a fate worse than death." He looked to his right. "Crow, what's a fate worse than death?" His pal didn't answer, and when he tripped over the fringed edge of the hall rug and slammed into the wall, the telephone rang.
"Got it!" he shouted, wincing at the pain. His parents were in the back, in what used to be his father's study and was now the television room.
There was a championship fight on some cable channel, and he could hear his father cursing while his mother told the underdog's manager what he could do with his fighter and all his fighter's family.
Despite the language it was a good sound, a normal sound that hadn't been heard in the house for several weeks. They were laughing, cheering together, and it sounded so right, he wished they would make up their minds how they felt about each other.
On the other hand, maybe they already had. Maybe they had made up and it was going to be all right.
The telephone rang again on the low table by the entrance to the living room. He snatched
up the handset, winked a good-bye at Crow, who was off to save the maiden from whatever her fate, and leaned against the doorframe.
It was Tracey. He had completely forgotten she had said she would call.
"Sorry I'm late," she said, her voice muffled as though she were cupping her hand around the mouthpiece.
"No problem. I was out walking anyway."
"Oh, yeah? Anybody I know?"
"Nope. Just me." But he was pleased she had asked.
"Oh, yourself, huh? Not much company, Boyd."
"I wouldn't say that. If you must know, I happen to be very sophisticated when the mood strikes me."
She giggled, and he looked blindly toward the ceiling.
"How's the eye?"
He tested the side of his face. "Still there, I think."
"Bummer about the detention."
Christ, he thought, bad news travels fast.
"I don't care," he said. "My grades haven't been all that good this year. I could use the time to study."
"Senior slump," she said. "You get complacent, y'know?"
Depressed is what you get, he thought, but he only grunted.
"Well, listen, Vet, about tomorrow night."
His stomach filled with insects too crawly to be butterflies; he could hear it in her tone-she was going to say she already had a date with Brian. "Yeah?"
"I can't make it."
He decided to slit his throat; then he decided he was glad because now he wouldn't have to face Brian. But first he would slit his throat.
"My father's got the weekend off and we have to go see my grandmother on Long Island. We're gonna leave right after school, he says."
"Oh. Well, okay."
"But look, we can go next Friday, if that's okay with you. Next Friday would be great. If you still want to, I mean."
He didn't say anything. His throat healed, the ceiling abruptly came into focus, and he could see her up there, floating, smiling, her dark hair in a wisp over her eyes.
"Vet, you still there?"
"Yeah, sure," he said, shaking himself.
The Pet Page 6
