“If that’s all it takes to make you happy, show up behind the backstop at the softball field next Tuesday evening,” Mattie said. “He’ll be there in his fancy wheelchair, laughing and clapping and sucking his damned old oxygen every fifteen minutes or so.”
“Not a bad idea,” John said. “I have to go back to New York for the weekend—I’m leaving apres Osgood—but maybe I’ll show up on Tuesday. I might even bring my glove.” He began clearing up our litter, and once again I thought he looked both prissy and endearing at the same time, like Stan Laurel wearing an apron. Mattie eased him aside and took over.
“No one ate any Twinkles,” she said, a little sadly. “Take them home to your daughter,” John said. “No way. I don’t let her eat stuff like this.
What kind of mother do you think I am?” She saw our expressions, replayed what she’d just said, then burst out laughing. We joined her.
Mattie’s old Scout was parked in one of the slant spaces behind the war memorial, which in Castle Rock is a World War I soldier with a generous helping of birdshit on his pie-dish helmet. A brand-new Taurus with a Hertz decal above the inspection sticker was parked next to it. John tossed his briefcase—reassuringly thin and not very ostentatious—into the back seat.
“if I can make it back on Tuesday, I’ll call you,” he told Mattie. “If I’m able to get an appointment with your father-in-law through this man Osgood, I will also call you.”
“I’ll buy the Italian sandwiches,” Mattie said. He smiled, then grasped her arm in one hand and mine in the other.
He looked like a newly ordained minister getting ready to marry his first couple. “You two talk on the telephone if you need to,” he said, “always remembering that one or both lines may be tapped. Meet in the market if you happen to. Mike, you might feel a need to drop by the local library and check out a book.”
“Not until you renew your card, though,” Mattie said, giving me a demure glance. “But no more visits to Mattie’s trailer. Is that understood?” I said yes; she said yes; John Storrow looked unconvinced. It made me wonder if he was seeing something in our faces or bodies that shouldn’t be there. “They are committed to a line of attack which probably isn’t going to work,” he said. “We can’t risk giving them the chance to change course. That means innuendos about the two of you; it also means innuendos about Mike and Kyra.” Mattie’s shocked expression made her look twelve again. “Mike and Kyra! What are you talking about?”
“Allegations of child molestation thrown up by people so desperate they’ll try anything.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “And if my father-in-law wanted to sling that kind of mud—” John nodded. “Yes, we’d be obligated to sling it right back. Newspaper coverage from coast to coast would follow, maybe even Court TV, God bless and save us. We want none of that if we can avoid it. It’s not good for the grownups, and it’s not good for the child. Now or later.”
He bent and kissed Mattie’s cheek. “I’m sorry about all this,” he said, and he did sound genuinely sorry. “Custody’s just this way.”
“I think you warned me. It’s just that. . the idea someone might make a thing like that up just because there was no other way for them to win…”
“Let me warn you again,” he said. His face came as close to grim as its young and good-natured features would probably allow. “What we have is a very rich man with a very shaky case. The combination could be like working with old dynamite.” I turned to Mattie. “Are you still worried about Ki? Still feel she’s in danger?” I saw her think about hedging her response—out of plain old Yankee reserve, quite likely—and then deciding not to. Deciding, perhaps, that hedging was a luxury she couldn’t afford. “Yes. But it’s just a feeling, you know.” John was frowning. I supposed the idea that Devore might resort to extralegal means of obtaining what he wanted had occurred to him, as well. “Keep your eye on her as much as you can,” he said. “I respect intuition. Is yours based on anything concrete?”
“No,” Mattie answered, and her quick glance in my direction asked me to keep my mouth shut. “Not really.” She opened the Scout’s door and tossed in the little brown bag with the Twinkies in it—she had decided to keep them after all. Then she turned to John and me with an expression that was close to anger. “I’m not sure how to follow that advice, anyway. I work five days a week, and in August, when we do the microfiche update, it’ll be six. Right now Ki gets her lunch at Vacation Bible School and her dinner from Arlene Cullum. I see her in the mornings. The rest of the time…” I knew what she was going to say before she said it; the expression was an old one.
”… she’s on the TR.”
“I could help you find an all pair,” I said, thinking it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than John Storrow. “No,” they said in such perfect unison that they glanced at each other and laughed. But even while she was laughing, Mattie looked tense and unhappy. “We’re not going to leave a paper trail for Durgin or Devore’s custody team to exploit,” John said. “Who pays me is one thing. Who pays Mattie’s child-care help is another.”
“Besides, I’ve taken enough from you,” Mattie said. “More than I can sleep easy on. I’m not going to get in any deeper just because I’ve been having megrims.” She climbed into the Scout and closed the door. I rested my hands on her open window. Now we were on the same level, and the eye-contact was so strong it was disconcerting. “Mattie, I don’t have anything else to spend it on. Really.”
“When it comes to John’s fee, I accept that. Because John’s fee is about Ki.” She put her hand over mine and squeezed briefly. “This other is about me. All right?”
“Yeah. But you need to tell your babysitter and the people who run this Bible thing that you’ve got a custody case on your hands, a potentially bitter one, and Kyra’s not to go anywhere with anyone, even someone they know, without your say-so.” She smiled. “It’s already been done. On John’s advice. Stay in touch, Mike.” She lifted my hand, gave it a hearty smack, and drove away. “What do you think?” I asked John as we watched the Scout blow oil on its way to the new Prouty Bridge, which spans Castle Street and spills outbound traffic onto Highway 68. “I think it’s grand she has a well-heeled benefactor and a smart lawyer,” John said. He paused, then added: “But I’ll tell you some-thing—she somehow doesn’t feel lucky to me at all. There’s a feeling I get… I don’t know…”
“That there’s a cloud around her you can’t quite see.”
“Maybe. Maybe that’s it.” He raked his hands through the restless mass of his red hair. “I just know it’s something sad.” I knew exactly what he meant… except for me there was more. I wanted to be in bed with her, sad or not, right or not. I wanted to feel her hands on me, tugging and pressing, patting and stroking. I wanted to be able to smell her skin and taste her hair. I wanted to have her lips against my ear, her breath tickling the fine hairs within its cup as she told me to do what I wanted, whatever I wanted.
I got back to Sara Laughs shortly before two o’clock and let myself in, thinking about nothing but my study and the IBM with the Courier ball. I was writing again—writing. I could still hardly believe it. I’d work (not that it felt much like work after a four-year layoff) until maybe six o’clock, swim, then go down to the Village Cafe for one of Buddy’s cholesterol-rich specialties. The moment I stepped through the door, Bunter’s bell began to ring stridently. I stopped in the foyer, my hand frozen on the knob. The house was hot and bright, not a shadow anywhere, but the gooseflesh forming on my arms felt like midnight.
“Who’s here?” I called. The bell stopped ringing. There was a moment of silence, and then a woman shrieked. It came from everywhere, pouring out of the sunny, mote-laden air like sweat out of hot skin. It was a scream of outrage, anger, grief… but mostly, I think, of horror. And I screamed in response. I couldn’t help it. I had been frightened standing in the dark cellar stairwell, listening to the unseen fist thump on the insulation, but this was far worse. It never stopped, that scream. It faded, as the child’s sobs had faded; faded as if the person screaming was being carried rapidly down a long corridor and away from me. At last it was gone. I leaned against the bookcase, my palm pressed against my tee-shirt, my heart galloping beneath it. I was gasping for breath, and my muscles had that queer exploded feel they get after you’ve had a bad scare. A minute passed. My heartbeat gradually slowed, and my breathing slowed with it. I straightened up, took a tottery step, and when my legs held me, took two more. I stood in the kitchen doorway, looking across to the living room. Above the fireplace, Bunter the moose looked glassily back at me. The bell around his neck hung still and chimeless.