The Narrows(72)

“Fantastic,” Ben bemoaned. He located the plastic bottle of Advil behind his Rolodex, popped the cap off the bottle, and shook two into the palm of one hand. After brief consideration, he shook out a third tablet. He dry swallowed them, one at a time.

“I just dried out my goddamn cellar from the last flood,” Eddie went on. “Lousy sump pump is fine as long as the power stays on. Well, we both know the score on that.”

Ben leaned forward in his chair. “What are you watching?”

“Huh?” Eddie glanced up from his container of Chinese noodles at the black-and white-TV. On the screen, a disfigured humanoid creature was vomiting acid onto another actor’s arm. “Oh! Man, this is a classic! Well, a remake of a classic, anyway, but it’s a classic remake, too. The Fly, with Jeff Goldblum. Ever see it?”

“Once,” Ben said, his eyes locked on the television. On the screen, the actor’s arm sizzled and withered beneath the gout of acid. “That’s what happened to the animals.”

“What’s that?” Eddie said, stuffing more noodles into his mouth.

Ben jabbed a finger at the screen. “That. That’s what it looked like happened to them. Porter Conroy’s cows and Ted Minsky’s goats.”

Eddie turned around and leered at Ben from over one shoulder. Around a mouthful of food, he said, “Are you serious or just screwing with me?”

“The way the flesh was eaten away…the melted look of the bones and the goat’s horns at Minsky’s place…” Ben leaned back in his chair, one set of fingers rubbing circles into his left temple. His head continued to bang like a drum.

“Come on, Ben. Who would do something like that?” Eddie coughed into one fist and swallowed the rest of his food. “How would someone do that?” he added.

Ben just shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong, but…”

They both turned back to the television. Goldblum was in full insect mode now, his face having split down the middle to reveal the bulbous hammerhead eyes of a giant fly.

The telephone at Eddie’s desk rang. Eddie set his carton of Chinese food down and scooped up the receiver. “La Pointe,” he said into the phone.

Still watching the TV, Ben reached over and snatched one of the cartons off Eddie’s desk, along with a pair of chopsticks. He had just gotten the chopsticks out of the cellophane when Eddie hung up the phone and looked at him. The blood had drained from Eddie’s face.

“What?” Ben said. “What is it?”

“That was Platt,” Eddie said, switching off the television set. “He and Haggis are over at Bob Leary’s place. Bob’s kid, Billy, is missing.”



4



Bob Leary and his son, Billy, lived out on Town Road 5, a perilous twist of unpaved roadway that wound with the discipline of a jumbled garden hose up into the foothills of the mountains. Their home was a run-down ranch house with a stone fa?ade and chimney that looked about one good storm away from falling down. When Ben and Eddie approached, they found Haggis and Platt’s cruiser already parked in front of the house, its bar lights casting intermittent red and blue light into the neighboring trees.

Inside, Bob Leary sat forward in a tattered La-Z-Boy recliner, a can of Coors Light on one knee. There was a look of hollowed desperation on his face. Across the room, Officers Haggis and Platt sat like matching bookends in their uniforms at either side of a cramped little sofa. Melvin Haggis had a notepad flipped open on one thigh and a look of consternation on his face.

“Where’s the chief?” Bob Leary said the second Ben and Eddie came into the house. “Where’s Harris?”

“Out of town.” Ben took his hat off. Beside him, Eddie swayed from foot to foot like a player waiting his turn to take the football field. “Your son’s gone missing, Mr. Leary?”

“I was just telling the guys here.” He jerked a pointy chin at Haggis and Platt, who looked like they were being punished and had been told not to move. “The boy’s been gone two days now and I’m fixing to worry.”

Ben said, “Two days?”

“It ain’t unusual for him to stay out late or sometimes at some friend’s house. But even then he usually comes home the next day. And see, I been out of work, so’s I been home more. I catch his comings and goings. He ain’t been around and I don’t like it.”

“He says the last time he saw him was Saturday afternoon, Ben,” Haggis said, consulting his notepad.

“He was out in the front yard patching up a tire on his bike,” Leary said. “I went out to Crossroads and when I come back, he was gone.”

“His bike was gone, too?” Ben asked.

“Yeah,” Leary said.

Melvin Haggis scribbled something in his notepad.

“Have you tried contacting any of his friends?”

“Made a few calls.” Leary sounded irritated having to answer the questions. “Nobody’s seen him.”

“Okay. You want to give a list of these friends to one of my guys, Mr. Leary?”

“So you can double-check on me?”

Ben ignored the comment. To Platt and Haggis, he said, “Why don’t you guys check around the area, see if you can find anything.” He knew the foothills could be dangerous, and that danger had little to do with blood-starved carnivores; the sudden drops and unsteady footing were the real dangers. Though nothing of the sort had ever happened in Stillwater, Ben had assisted on a few occasions over in Garrett County when some careless hikers had gotten lost or hurt—and sometimes killed—in the mountains.