Black House

She turns to Henry, who looks as though he wishes he were a hundred miles away. "Sorry, I know that sounded awfully cold. I’m as distressed about this Fisherman business as everyone else, what with those two poor kids and the missing girl. We’re all so upset we can hardly think straight. But I’d hate to see us dragged into the mess, don’t you see?"

"I see perfectly," Henry says. "Being one of those blind men George Rathbun is always yelling about."

"Hah!" Pete Wexler barks.

"And you agree with me, don’t you?"

"I’m a gentleman, I agree with everybody," Henry says. "I agree with Pete that another child may well have been abducted by our local monster. Officer Cheetah, or whatever his name is, sounded too anxious to be just picking up a lost bicycle. And I agree with you that Maxton’s cannot be blamed for anything that happened."

"Good," Rebecca says.

"Unless, of course, someone here is involved in the murders of these children."

"But that’s impossible!" Rebecca says. "Most of our male clients can’t even remember their own names."

"A ten-year-old girl could take most of these feebs," Pete says. "Even the ones who don’t have old-timer’s disease walk around covered in their own . . . you know."

"You’re forgetting about the staff," Henry says.

"Oh, now," Rebecca says, momentarily rendered nearly wordless. "Come on. That’s . . . that’s a totally irresponsible thing to say."

"True. It is. But if this goes on, nobody will be above suspicion. That’s my point."

Pete Wexler feels a sudden chill — if the town clowns start grilling Maxton’s residents, his private amusements might come to light, and wouldn’t Wendell Green have a field day with that stuff ? A gleaming new idea comes to him, and he brings it forth, hoping to impress Miz Vilas. "You know what? The cops should talk to that California guy, the big-time detective who nailed that Kinderling ass**le two-three years ago. He lives around here somewhere, don’t he? Someone like that, he’s the guy we need on this. The cops here, they’re way outta their depth. That guy, he’s like a whaddayacallit, a goddamn resource."

"Odd you should say that," Henry says. "I couldn’t agree with you more. It is about time Jack Sawyer did his thing. I’ll work on him again."

"You know him?" Rebecca asks.

"Oh, yes," Henry says. "That I do. But isn’t it about time for me to do my own thing?"

"Soon. They’re all still outside."

Rebecca leads him down the rest of the corridor and into the common room, where all three of them move across to the big platform. Henry’s microphone stands beside a table mounted with his speakers and turntable. With unnerving accuracy, Henry says, "Lot of space in here."

"You can tell that?" she asks.

"Piece of cake," Henry says. "We must be getting close now."

"It’s right in front of you. Do you need any help?"

Henry extends one foot and taps the side of the flat. He glides a hand down the edge of the table, locates the mike stand, says, "Not at the moment, darlin’," and steps neatly up onto the platform. Guided by touch, he moves to the back of the table and locates the turntable. "All is co-pacetic," he says. "Pete, would you please put the record boxes on the table? The one on top goes here, and the other one right next to it."

"What’s he like, your friend Jack?" Rebecca asks.

"An orphan of the storm. A pu**ycat, but an extremely difficult pu**y-cat. I have to say, he can be a real pain in the bunghole."

Crowd noises, a buzz of conversation interlaced with children’s voices and songs thumped out on an old upright piano, have been audible through the windows since they entered the room, and when Pete has placed the record boxes on the table, he says, "I better get out there, ‘cuz Chipper’s probly lookin’ for me. Gonna be a shitload of cleanup once they come inside."

Pete shambles out, rolling the handcart before him. Rebecca asks if there is anything more Henry would like her to do for him.

"The overhead lights are on, aren’t they? Please turn them off, and wait for the first wave to come in. Then switch on the pink spot, and prepare to jitterbug your heart out."

"You want me to turn off the lights?"

"You’ll see."

Rebecca moves back across to the door, turns off the overhead lights, and does see, just as Henry had promised. A soft, dim illumination from the rank of windows hovers in the air, replacing the former brightness and harshness with a vague mellow haze, as if the room lay behind a scrim. That pink spotlight is going to look pretty good in here, Rebecca thinks.

Outside on the lawn, the predance wingding is winding down. Lots of old men and women are busily polishing off their strawberry shortcakes and soda pop at the picnic tables, and the piano-playing gent in the straw boater and red sleeve garters comes to the end of "Heart and Soul," ba bump ba bump ba ba bump bump bump, no finesse but plenty of volume, closes the lid of the upright, and stands up to a scattering of applause. Grandchildren who had earlier complained about having to come to the great fest dodge through the tables and wheelchairs, evading their parents’ glances and hoping to wheedle a last balloon from the balloon lady in the clown suit and frizzy red wig, oh joy unbounded.

Alice Weathers applauds the piano player, as well she might: forty years ago, he reluctantly absorbed the rudiments of pianism at her hands just well enough to pick up a few bucks at occasions like this, when not obliged to perform his usual function, that of selling sweatshirts and baseball caps on Chase Street. Charles Burnside, who, having been scrubbed clean by good-hearted Butch Yerxa, decked himself out in an old white shirt and a pair of loose, filthy trousers, stands slightly apart from the throng in the shade of a large oak, not applauding but sneering. The unbuttoned collar of the shirt droops around his ropy neck. Now and then he wipes his mouth or picks his teeth with a ragged thumbnail, but mainly he does not move at all. He looks as though someone plunked him down by the side of a road and drove off. Whenever the careering grandkids swerve near Burny, they instantly veer away, as if repelled by a force field.