Tennis players. The Sculptor hated tennis players.

As the Shadow set off in pursuit of this week’s villain, The Sculptor watched his father closely. And when he saw his eyes begin to flutter, The Sculptor removed the syringe from his forearm and dabbed the needle mark with an alcohol swab. He had given him just enough of the sleepy juice to keep him dreaming until morning. Yes, The Sculptor knew deep down that his father dreamt-had to be dreaming from the way his face jerked and his eyes twitched when The Sculptor sat in the big chair by the window watching him when he himself could not sleep. Indeed, The Sculptor had conditioned himself over the years to sleep very little-had no need for it other than to repair and rebuild the torn muscle tissue from his strenuous workouts in the cellar. And unlike his father, as far as The Sculptor knew, as far as he could remember, he never dreamt himself.

The Sculptor replaced his father’s colostomy bag, washed his own face and hands in the upstairs bathroom, and lay down naked on his big four-poster bed. He had many years ago redecorated the room in the baroque style of which he had always been the fondest, but his bedroom still carried with it the memories of his youth, especially memories of his mother who, sometimes-when his father was away on business and she had had too much to drink-would crawl into bed naked with him to apologize, to warm him up from the ice baths into which she often plunged him facedown when he was naughty.

The Sculptor reached for the remote control and pressed the On button-the DVD player and the big television in the armoire flickering to life simultaneously. There was no TV reception here-no cable hookup in the main house. No, The Sculptor merely thought of the big TV in the armoire in the corner of the room as his “memory box.” Yes, he would relax for a while in the old routine-he might even allow himself to take a little nap before the big night ahead of him.

Play.

The Sony DVD logo dimmed, then was replaced with the trip to Niagara Falls -the first of the eleven 3-minute-long Super 8 films The Sculptor had strung together and digitized onto DVD. The trip to Niagara Falls was silent-shot in 1977 when the boy named Christian was only two years old. There he is in his mother’s arms, waving to the camera by the old-style, coin-operated observation binoculars-the falls misting like ghosts far off in the distance behind them. The mother-a lovely looking woman with large lips and a yellow scarf around her neck-whispers something in the boy’s ear. He laughs and waves again.

Cut to-

The boy is now in his father’s arms, standing next to the same coin-operated binoculars. He waves happily as his father bounces him up and down. No, unlike the man in the room next door, the father has no trouble moving-looks young and handsome and strong in his tight white polo shirt. And his eyes-so full of life, of love for his son and the woman out of sight behind the camera. He blows her a kiss. Does it again. Speaks to his son, and then they both blow her a kiss.

Cut to-

Panning across the falls.

Cut to-

Close-up of the mother at the railing. She gazes out at the scene before her, unaware that her husband is filming. She looks happy, but lost in thought. And The Sculptor, watching from his bed, wonders, as he has done now for many years, what she was thinking at that moment-knows that it is too early for her to be thinking about the tennis pro, the man with whom she would have an affair years later. The mother realizes she is being filmed, smiles, and mouths to the camera shyly, “Eddie stop!” But her husband goes on filming. The wind blows her hair, her yellow scarf, as she tries to look natural. She starts to speak-

Cut to-

The mother with the boy looking out over the falls. The boy has his thumb in his mouth and is snuggled tightly against his mother’s bosom. He seems somewhat afraid-is not crying, but looks only at the camera while his mother speaks to him.

Cut to-

The mother-smiling, holding the sleeping boy in her arms-gets into the passenger side of the white Ford LTD.

Cut to-

The mother, again with the sleeping boy-darker, this time filmed inside the car from the driver’s seat. The camera zooms on the boy named Christian-his thumb still in his mouth.

Cut to-

The father driving, laughing, and speaking to the camera as his wife films him.

Cut to-

A quick series of shots of the road, of the scenery, and then the first reel ends.

The rest of the Super 8s-shot over the next three years-follow the same happy pattern: Lake George, the Story Land theme park in New Hampshire, a trip to the beach at Bonnet Shores. But only the last of the eleven has any sound-shot in 1980, when the boy named Christian was just five years old.

It is his birthday party, in fact, filmed outside in the backyard, against the woods on a bright sunny day of ice cream cake and pin the tail on the donkey. The boy named Christian opens some presents-a soccer ball, a Tonka truck-while other children and people whose names The Sculptor has long forgotten look on with oohs and ahs. The Sculptor knows all the dialogue by heart; he has watched this film many, many times.

“What’s my present gonna be, Mary?” asks his father from behind the camera, to which his mother smiles and replies, “How about a fat lip?”

The partygoers laugh.

There are a couple of quick shots of the boy named Christian kicking the soccer ball across the lawn with a little girl, then finally the scene The Sculptor has looked forward to for thirty-three minutes-the scene for which he always waits so patiently.

The boy named Christian is sitting alone outside at the table-the open canisters of blue and green Play-Doh barely noticeable amidst the paper cups and frosting covered plates that litter the plastic Empire Strikes Back tablecloth. He is hard at work on something-entirely unaware that his father is filming him.

“What are you making, Christian?” asks his father from behind the camera.

“My friend David,” says the boy perfunctorily, not looking up.

“Who’s David?” whispers another man off camera.

“His imaginary friend,” the father whispers back. “Says he lives out back in the carriage house.”

The unidentified man off camera mumbles something inaudible. And with the sounds of partygoers, of happy children echoing off in the distance, just as the camera begins to zoom in on the boy named Christian and his blue-green Play-Doh sculpted man, the home movie of The Sculptor’s fifth birthday party abruptly cuts to black.

Chapter 28

Cathy Hildebrant and Sam Markham sat in silence outside her East Side condo-the intermittent sound of the windshield wipers swiping in time to the dull tick-tick of the Trailblazer’s idling motor. Since his return from Quantico, they had been in this position many times-sitting like teenagers in the car outside the Polks’ in what Cathy had come to think of as their stereotypical “awkward end of the date scene.”

Unlike the afternoon two weeks earlier when she had kissed him on the cheek, Cathy had yet to make such a bold move again. Upon his return from Quantico, Markham seemed distant-much more professional and much less apt to reveal anything personal. Even on the handful of occasions when they had been alone in his tiny office in downtown Providence, working on his computer and studying the printouts from Boston late into the evening, Special Agent Sam Markham always made sure that he was occupied away from her, always made sure that he did not get physically too close to his new partner. And on the one occasion when he accidentally brushed up against her-the only time their eyes met and their faces were so close that Cathy was sure he’d kiss her-instead, Markham only smiled and turned his flushed cheeks away from her.