NOS4A2(147)

Vic wept. She put a fist against the kitchen counter and swayed, crying into the phone.

The child she had heard on the other end of the line spoke in Wayne’s voice . . . but was not Wayne. Not exactly. There had been a dreamy, spacey disconnect—not only from the situation but from the serious, self-contained child he had always been. He had only finally sounded like himself at the very end, after she reminded him about Hooper. Then, for a moment, he seemed confused and afraid, but himself. He sounded drugged, too, like a person just resurfacing from deep anesthesia.

The car was anesthetizing him in some way. Anesthetizing him while it drained him of his essential Wayneness, leaving behind only a happy, thoughtless thing. A vampire, she guessed, like Brad McCauley, the cold little boy who had tried to kill her at the cottage above Gunbarrel all those years ago. There was a line of reasoning there that she could not bear to follow, that she had to turn away from or she might start to scream.

“Are you all right, Victoria? Should I call back another time?”

“You’re killing him,” she said. “He’s dying.”

“He’s never been more alive! He’s a fine boy. We get along like Butch and Sundance! You can trust me to treat him well. You have my promise, in fact, that I will not hurt him. I have never hurt any child. Not that anyone would know it after all the lies you told about me. I have lived my entire life in the service of children, but you were happy to tell everyone what a great kiddie fiddler I am. I would be within my rights, you know, to do terrible things to your son. I would only be living up to the tall tales you told about me. I hate to fall short of the myth. But I don’t have it in me to be vicious to children.” He paused, then added, “Adults, however, are a different story.”

“Let him go. Please let him go. This isn’t about him. You know it isn’t about him. You want to get even with me. I understand. Park somewhere. Just park and wait. I’ll use my bridge. I’ll find you. We can trade. You can let him out of the car, and I’ll get in, and you can do whatever you like to me.”

“You would have a lot of making up to do. You told the whole world that I sexually assaulted you. I feel bad that I stand accused of something I never had the pleasure to try.”

“You want that? Would that make you happy?”

“If I raped you? Goodness no! I am just being spleeny. I do not understand such depravity. I am aware that many women enjoy a brisk whack on the backside during the sexual act and to be called degrading names, but that is merely a bit of sport. To take a woman against her wishes? I don’t think so! You may not believe it, but I have daughters of my own. I will tell you, though, sometimes I think that you and I got off on the wrong foot! I am sorry about that. We never had a chance to get to know each other. I bet you would have liked me if we had met under other circumstances!”

“Holy shit,” she said.

“It is not so unbelievable! I have been married twice and have rarely been without female companionship. Someone found something to like.”

“What are you saying? You want to f*cking date?”

He whistled. “Your mouth! You could make a stevedore blush! Considering how your first date with Bing Partridge went, I suppose it would be better for my long-term health if we just settle for talking. Come to think of it, our first couple of encounters weren’t terribly romantic. You wear a man down, Victoria.” He laughed again. “You’ve cut me, lied about me, and sent me to jail. You’re worse than my first wife. Still . . . you’ve got something that keeps a man coming back for more! You do keep a boy thinking!”

“I’ll give you something to think about. Think about this: You can’t drive forever. Sooner or later you’ll have to pull over. Sooner or later you’re going to stop somewhere to close your eyes for a while. And when you open them, I’ll be there. Your friend Bing got off easy, Charlie. I am one mean, degenerate cunt, and I will f*cking burn you to death in your car and take my son back.”

“I am sure you will try, Victoria,” he said. “But have you stopped to think what you will do if you finally catch up to us and he doesn’t want to go with you?”

The phone went dead.


AFTER MANX HUNG UP, VIC BENT OVER, GASPING, AS IF SHE HAD JUST finished a long and furious run. Her weeping was an angry thing, as physical and exhausting as vomiting. It was in her heart to take the receiver and begin smashing it into the wall, but a colder part of her stayed her hand.

If you’re going to be mad, she heard her father say, then use it, and don’t be used by it.

Had he ever actually said such a thing? She didn’t know, only that she heard his voice in her head.

When she was done crying, her eyes were sore and her face burned. She started to walk to the sink, felt something tug at her hand, and realized she was still holding the receiver, which was attached to the wall phone by a long black coiled line.

Vic walked it back to its cradle, then stood looking at the rotary dial. She felt empty and sore, yet now that her crying jag was past, she also felt, for the first time in days, a kind of peace, much like the calm she felt when she was sketching one of her Search Engine illustrations.

There were people to call. There were choices to make.

In a Search Engine puzzle, there was always a lot of distracting visual information, a lot of noise. The first book had culminated inside an alien spaceship. Search Engine had to find his way through a cross section of the craft, flipping various self-destruct switches as he went and arriving finally at the escape pod. Between him and freedom, there were lasers, locked doors, radiation-filled compartments, and angry extraterrestrials that looked like big cubes of coconut jelly. Adults had a harder time with it than children did, and Vic had gradually realized that this was because grown-ups were always trying to see their way through to the end, and they couldn’t do it because there was too much information. There was too much to look at, too much to think about. Children, though, didn’t stand back from the puzzle and look at the whole thing. They pretended they were Search Engine, the hero of the story, down inside the puzzle itself, and they looked at only the little bit he could see, each step of the way. The difference between childhood and adulthood, Vic had come to believe, was the difference between imagination and resignation. You traded one for the other and lost your way.