Duma Key(184)

"Sometimes dolls fall out of favor," I said. I was looking at that red and smiling mouth. Still red after all these years. Red like the place memories went to hide when you were wounded and couldn't think straight. "Sometimes dolls get scary."

"Her pictures talked to you, Edgar," Wireman said. He waggled the doll, then handed it to Jack. "What about her? Will the doll tell you what we want to know?"

"Noveen," I said. "Her name's Noveen. And I wish I could say yes, but only Elizabeth's pencils and pictures speak to me."

"How do you know?"

A good question. How did I know?

"I just do. I bet she could have talked to you, Wireman. Before I fixed you. When you still had that little twinkle."

"Too late now," Wireman said. He rummaged in the food-stash, found the cucumber strips, and ate a couple. "So what do we do? Go back? Because I have an idea that if we go back, 'chacho, we'll never summon the testicular fortitude to return."

I thought he was right. And meanwhile, the afternoon was passing all around us.

Jack was sitting on the stairs, his butt on a riser two or three above the ha-ha. He was holding the doll on his knee. Sunshine fell through the shattered top of the house and dusted them with light. They were strangely evocative, would have made a terrific painting: Young Man and Doll. The way he was holding Noveen reminded me of something, but I couldn't put my finger on just what. Noveen's black shoebutton eyes seemed to look at me, almost smugly. I seen a lot, you nasty man. I seen it all. I know it all. Too bad I'm not a picture you can touch with your phantom hand, ain't it?

Yes. It was.

"There was a time when I could have made her talk," Jack said.

Wireman looked puzzled, but I felt that little click you get when a connection you've been trying to make finally goes through. Now I knew why the way he was holding the doll looked so familiar.

"Into ventriloquism, were you?" I hoped I sounded casual, but my heart was starting to bump against my ribs again. I had an idea that here at the south end of Duma Key, many things were possible. Even in broad daylight.

"Yeah," Jack said with a smile that was half-embarrassed, half-reminiscent. "I bought a book about it when I was only eight, and stuck with it mostly because my Dad said it was like throwing money away, I gave up on everything." He shrugged, and Noveen bobbed a bit on his leg. As if she were also trying to shrug. "I never got great at it, but I got good enough to win the sixth-grade Talent Competition. My Dad hung the medal on his office wall. That meant a lot to me."

"Yeah," Wireman said. "There's nothing like an atta-boy from a doubtful dad."

Jack smiled, and as always, it illuminated his whole face. He shifted a little, and Noveen shifted with him. "Best thing, though? I was a shy kid, and ventriloquism broke me out a little. It got easier to talk to people I'd sort of pretend I was Morton. My dummy, you know. Morton was a wiseass who'd say anything to anybody."

"They all are," I said. "It's a rule, I think."

"Then I got into junior high, and ventriloquism started to seem like a nerd talent compared to skateboarding, so I gave it up. I don't know what happened to the book. Throw Your Voice, it was called."

We were silent. The house breathed dankly around us. A little while ago, Wireman had killed a charging alligator. I could hardly believe that now, even though my ears were still ringing from the gunshots.

Then Wireman said: "I want to hear you do it. Make her say, ' Buenos d as, amigos, mi nombre es Noveen, and la mesa is leaking.'"

Jack laughed. "Yeah, right."

"No I'm serious."

"I can't. If you don't do it for awhile, you forget how."

And from my own research, I knew he could be right. In the matter of learned skills, memory comes to a fork in the road. Down one branch are the it's-like-riding-a-bicycle skills; things which, once learned, are almost never forgotten. But the creative, ever-changing forebrain skills have to be practiced almost daily, and they are easily damaged or destroyed. Jack was saying ventriloquism was like that. And while I had no reason to doubt him it involved creating a new personality, after all, as well as throwing one's voice I said: "Give it a try."

"What?" He looked at me. Smiling. Puzzled.

"Go on, take a shot."

"I told you, I can't-"

"Try, anyway."

"Edgar, I have no idea what she would sound like even if I could still throw my voice."

"Yeah, but you've got her on your knee, and it's just us chickens, so go ahead."

"Well, shit." He blew hair off his forehead. "What do you want her to say?"

Wireman said, very quietly indeed: "Why don't we just see what comes out?"

v

Jack sat with Noveen on his knee for a moment longer, their heads in the sun, little bits of disturbed dust from the stairs and the ancient hall carpet floating around their faces. Then he shifted his grip so that his fingers were on the doll's rudiment of a neck and her cloth shoulders. Her head came up.

"Hello, boys," Jack said, only he was trying not to move his lips and it came out Hello, oys.

He shook his head; the disturbed dust flew. "Wait a minute," he said. "That sucks."