The Mirror Thief(51)

What is your name, son?

I’m Stanley.

Your full name. What is it?

Stanley can’t see the man’s face well enough to read his expression. His short fingers are still absently gathering his dog’s leash. His spectacles pick up the coppery glare from the boardwalk, and both lenses are split down the middle by a dark shape, like the pupil of a cat’s eye, which Stanley realizes is his own shadow.

Glass, Stanley says. It’s Stanley Glass. Sir.

Welles’s right hand comes back into view. He wipes it against his jacket, rests it on his hip, lets it drop to his side. I saw you tonight, he says. In the café. Why didn’t you say something to me then?

I wasn’t sure it was you at first. I thought maybe, but I didn’t know. You, uh, probably oughta slack up on that leash a little bit, Mister Welles.

The leather braid has spooled thickly around Welles’s first two fingers, and the dog is twisting and backpedaling, thrashing the air with its forelegs, winched partway off the sand. Its growls have faded to a jowly sputter. Oh, Welles says. Yes.

Stanley looks out to sea, then down at the beach. He shuffles his feet, nervous again. He has so many questions, a labyrinth in his mind, one that seems at no point to intersect with the realm of normal human speech. This is much harder than he expected. I read your book, he says.

Yes.

And I have some questions about it.

Yes. All right.

I’m not real sure how to ask them, though.

At Welles’s back, the waves mutter softly. Down the shore, the foghorn sounds. It must have been sounding all night, but Stanley hasn’t noticed it.

Would you mind, Welles says, if we went back to the boardwalk? There are a lot of dope addicts and juvenile delinquents on this beach at night, and it’s better not to stay too long in the dark.

Uh, sure. That’s fine.

Welles sets out on a diagonal path away from the water; the dog scurries after him. Stanley follows, then pulls forward to walk by his side. I’m sorry if we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, Welles says. Recent events have made me preoccupied, perhaps overmuch, with my own safety. Although not without some justification. At any rate, I hope you’ll forgive me. My evening stroll is generally south to Windward Avenue, at which point I turn back. But tonight, provided Pompey will oblige us, I think we should walk through town. I can give you a little tour. What say you, old chum?

Stanley’s opened his mouth to answer before he realizes that Welles is speaking to the dog. It marches on, not acknowledging the question, announcing every step with a tiny snort.

As they approach the streetlamps Welles’s broad face takes shape: tanned, small-nosed, creased around the mouth and across the forehead. Large blue eyes. Hair and beard flecked with white. Nothing about him is remarkable. Stanley figures him for about fifty.

They hit the boardwalk at the point where the storefront colonnade begins its long southward run. Welles stops, empties his pipe over an ashcan, and pulls a tobacco tin from an inside pocket. The dog pisses against the side of the can, stretching its hind leg skyward like a midway contortionist. Its fur is lustrous red and white; its small face is bug-eyed, short-snouted, terrifically ugly. It peeks from under velvety ears like Winston Churchill in a Maureen O’Hara wig.

You say you’ve been looking for me, Welles says. I don’t think I’ve seen you in the café before. Do you live nearby?

We’re staying in a squat off Horizon Court. Me and my pal. We been here going on three weeks now. We were working the groves in Riverside before that.

But you don’t come from Riverside originally.

No sir. My partner’s a wetback Mexican, and I’m from Brooklyn.

Brooklyn! You’re a long way from home. How old are you, if I may ask?

I’m sixteen.

Do your parents know where you are?

My dad died in Korea, Mister Welles, and my mother’s pretty well lost her mind. There’s nobody back home who’s missing me.

I am very sorry to hear that. What branch of the service was your father in?

The Army. Seventh Infantry. He fought the Japs in Okinawa and the Philippines, and he reenlisted. He got killed at Heartbreak Ridge.

He must have been very brave. He must have loved his country.

He was brave. He was good at being a soldier, and he liked it. He never said too much about his country.

Welles smiles, puts the pipe in his mouth. He strikes a match, lets it burn for a second, and moves it in tight circles over the briarwood bowl. When the tobacco is smoldering, he tamps it out, packs it again. I was in the Army myself, he says. I was at Anzio, in the summer of 1944. But I was in payroll—I am by trade an accountant—so I was able to avoid the worst of the fighting. I was very glad when the war ended. It upset me profoundly.

He looks up from the pipe and narrows his eyes. I met you once before, he says. You were running a card game on the boardwalk.

Yeah. That was me.

I won a dollar from you.

Stanley looks down, bashful. You were smart to quit when you did, he says. I don’t let nobody win more than a dollar.

You’re a gambler! Welles says. You live by skill and fortune. Goddamn it, I’m intensely envious of you. That’s been one of my romantic fantasies, ever since I was a lad. To be a riverboat gambler. With a white linen suit, and a derringer in my pocket.

You got me pegged wrong, Mister Welles. That boardwalk game is a straight con. I play cards a little bit, sure, but I’m no gambler.