Black House (Page 37)

— A cadence?

— Bet your ass, junior. An underlying rhythm, like your own personal drummer. All through The Good Soldier I kept trying to remember where I’d heard it before. Faded in, faded back out. A couple of days ago, I nailed it. Lily Cavanaugh. You can’t me blame for wanting to see if I was right, can you?

— Blame you? Jack said. I’m too stunned to blame anybody, but give me a couple of minutes.

— Your secret’s safe. When people see you, you don’t want their first thought to be, Hey, there’s Lily Cavanaugh’s son. Makes sense to me.

Henry Leyden has great ears, all right.

As the pickup rolls through French Landing the din filling the cab makes conversation impossible. Dirtysperm is burning a hole through the marzipan center of "Where Did Our Love Go" and in the process committing hideous atrocities upon those cute little Supremes. Henry, who claims to loathe this kind of thing, slouches in his seat, knees up on the dash, hands steepled below his chin, grinning with pleasure. The shops on Chase Street have opened for business, and half a dozen cars jut at an angle from parking spaces.

Four boys astride bicycles swerve off the sidewalk before Schmitt’s Allsorts and into the road twenty feet in front of the moving pickup. Jack hits his brakes; the boys come to an abrupt halt and line up side by side, waiting for him to pass. Jack trolls forward. Henry straightens up, checks his mysterious sensors, and drops back into position. All is well with Henry. The boys, however, do not know what to make of the uproar growing ever louder as the pickup approaches. They stare at Jack’s windshield in bafflement tinged with distaste, the way their great-grandfathers once stared at the Siamese twins and the Alligator Man in the freak show at the back of the fairground. Everybody knows that the drivers of pickup trucks listen to only two kinds of music, heavy metal or country, so what’s with this creep?

As Jack drives past the boys, the first, a scowling heavyweight with the inflamed face of a schoolyard bully, displays an upraised second finger. The next two continue the imitations of their great-grandfathers having a hot night out in 1921 and gape, idiotically, mouths slack and open. The fourth boy, whose dark blond hair beneath a Brewers cap, bright eyes, and general air of innocence make him the nicest-looking of the group, gazes directly into Jack’s face and gives him a sweet, tentative smile. This is Tyler Marshall, out for a spin — though he is completely unaware of it — into no-man’s-land.

The boys glide into the background, and Jack glances into the mirror to see them pedaling furiously up the street, Sluggo in front, the smallest, most appealing one in the rear, already falling behind.

"A sidewalk panel of experts has reported in on the Dirtysperm," Jack says. "Four kids on bikes." Since he can scarcely make out his words, he does not think Henry will be able to hear them at all.

Henry, it seems, has heard him perfectly, and he responds with a question that disappears into the uproar. Having a reasonably good idea of what it must have been, Jack answers it anyhow. "One firm negative, two undecideds tending toward negative, and one cautious positive." Henry nods.

Violent marzipan-destruction crashes and thuds to a conclusion on Eleventh Street. As if a haze has blown from the cab, as if the windshield has been freshly washed, the air seems clearer, the colors more vibrant. "Interesting," Henry says. He reaches unerringly for the EJECT button, extracts the disc from the holder, and slips it into its case. "That was very revealing, don’t you think? Raw, self-centered hatred should never be dismissed automatically. Morris Rosen was right. It’s perfect for the Wisconsin Rat."

"Hey, I think they could be bigger than Glenn Miller."

"That reminds me," Henry says. "You’ll never guess what I’m doing later. I have a gig! Chipper Maxton, actually his second in command, this Rebecca Vilas woman, who I am sure is as gorgeous as she sounds, hired me to put on a record hop as the slam-bang climax to Maxton’s big Strawberry Fest. Well, not me — an old, long-neglected persona of mine, Symphonic Stan, the Big-Band Man."

"Do you need a ride?"

"I do not. The wondrous Miss Vilas has attended to my needs, in the form of a car with a comfy back seat for my turntable and a trunk spacious enough for the speakers and record cartons, which she will be sending. But thanks anyhow."

"Symphonic Stan?" Jack said.

"A knocked-out, all-frantic, all-zoot-suit embodiment of the big-band era, and a charming, mellifluous gentleman besides. For the residents of Maxton’s, an evocation of their salad days and a joy to behold."

"Do you actually own a zoot suit?"

Magnificently inexpressive, Henry’s face swings toward him.

"Sorry. I don’t know what came over me. To change the subject, what you said, I mean what George Rathbun said, about the Fisherman this morning probably did a lot of good. I was glad to hear that."

Henry opens his mouth and summons George Rathbun in all his avuncular glory. " ‘The original Fisherman, boys and girls, Albert Fish, has been dead and gone for sixty-seven years.’ " It is uncanny, hearing the voice of that charged-up fat man leap from Henry Leyden’s slender throat. In his own voice, Henry says, "I hope it did some good. After I read your buddy Wendell Green’s nonsense in the paper this morning, I thought George had to say something."

Henry Leyden enjoys using terms like I read, I was reading, I saw, I was looking at. He knows these phrases disconcert his auditors. And he called Wendell Green "your buddy" because Henry is the only person to whom Jack has ever admitted that he alerted the reporter to the crimes of Albert Fish. Now Jack wishes he had confessed to no one. Glad-handing Wendell Green is not his buddy.