Hearts in Atlantis(16)

Ted Brautigan shrugged and finished his glass of rootbeer without meeting Bobby's eyes. 'I'll decide when that time comes. If it comes. If I'm lucky, the feelings I've had for the last few days - my sense of these men - will go away.'

'Has that happened before?'

'Indeed it has. Now why don't we talk of more pleasant things?'

For the next half an hour they discussed baseball, then music (Bobby was startled to discover Ted not only knew the music of Elvis Presley but actually liked some of it), then Bobby's hopes and fears concerning the seventh grade in September. All this was pleasant enough, but behind each topic Bobby sensed the lurk of the low men. The low men were here in Ted's third-floor room like peculiar shadows which cannot quite be seen.

It wasn't until Bobby was getting ready to leave that Ted raised the subject of them again. 'There are things you should look for,' he said. 'Signs that my . . . my old friends are about.'

'What are they?'

'On your travels around town, keep an eye out for lost-pet posters on walls, in shop windows, stapled to telephone poles on residential streets. "Lost, a gray tabby cat with black ears, a white bib, and a crooked tail. Call IRoquois 7-7661." "Lost, a small mongrel dog, part beagle, answers to the name of Trixie, loves children, ours want her to come home. Call IRoquois 7-0984 or bring to 77 Peabody Street." That sort of thing.'

'What are you saying? Jeepers, are you saying they kill people's pets? Do you think . . . '

'I think many of those animals don't exist at all,' Ted said. He sounded weary and unhappy. 'Even when there is a small, poorly reproduced photograph, I think most are pure fiction. I think such posters are a form of communication, although why the men who put them up shouldn't just go into the Colony Diner and do their communicating over pot roast and mashed potatoes I don't know.

'Where does your mother shop, Bobby?'

'Total Grocery. It's right next door to Mr Biderman's real-estate agency.'

'And do you go with her?'

'Sometimes.' When he was younger he met her there every Friday, reading a TV Guide from the magazine rack until she showed up, loving Friday afternoons because it was the start of the weekend, because Mom let him push the cart and he always pretended it was a racing car, because he loved her. But he didn't tell Ted any of this. It was ancient history. Hell, he'd only been eight.

'Look on the bulletin board every supermarket puts up by the checkout registers,' Ted said. 'On it you'll see a number of little hand-printed notices that say things like CAR FOR SALE BY OWNER. Look for any such notices that have been thumbtacked to the board upside down. Is there another supermarket in town?'

'There's the A&P, down by the railroad overpass. My mom doesn't go there. She says the butcher's always giving her the glad-eye.'

'Can you check the bulletin board there, as well?'

'Sure.'

'Good so far, very good. Now - you know the hopscotch patterns kids are always drawing on the sidewalks?'

Bobby nodded.

'Look for ones with stars or moons or both chalked near them, usually in chalk of a different color. Look for kite tails hanging from telephone lines. Not the kites themselves, but only the tails. And . . . '

Ted paused, frowning, thinking. As he took a Chesterfield from the pack on the table and lit it, Bobby thought quite reasonably, quite clearly, and without the slightest shred of fear: He's crazy, y'know. Crazy as a loon.

Yes, of course, how could you doubt it? He only hoped Ted could be careful as well as crazy. Because if his mom heard Ted talking about stuff like this, she'd never let Bobby go near him again. In fact, she'd probably send for the guys with the butterfly nets . . . or ask good old Don Biderman to do it for her.

'You know the clock in the town square, Bobby?'

'Yeah, sure.'

CHAPTER 4

'It may begin ringing wrong hours, or between hours. Also, look for reports of minor church vandalism in the paper. My friends dislike churches, but they never do anything too outrageous; they like to keep a - pardon the pun - low profile. There are other signs that they're about, but there's no need to overload you. Personally I believe the posters are the surest clue.'

'"If you see Ginger, please bring her home."'

'That's exactly r - '

'Bobby?' It was his mom's voice, followed by the ascending scuff of her Saturday sneakers. 'Bobby, are you up there?'

3

A Mother's Power. Bobby Does His Job.

'Does He Touch You?' The Last Day

of School.

Bobby and Ted exchanged a guilty look. Both of them sat back on their respective sides of the table, as if they had been doing something crazy instead of just talking about crazy stuff.

She'll see we've been up to something, Bobby thought with dismay. It's all over my face.

'No,' Ted said to him. 'It is not. That is her power over you, that you believe it. It's a mother's power.'

Bobby stared at him, amazed. Did you read my mind? Did you read my mind just then?

Now his mom was almost to the third-floor landing and there was no time for a reply even if Ted had wanted to make one. But there was no look on his face saying he would have replied if there had been time, either. And Bobby at once began to doubt what he had heard.