‘Did Dussander have any friends that you knew of?’ Richler was asking.
‘Friends? No. There used to be a cleaning lady, but she moved away and he didn’t bother to get another one. In the summer he hired a kid to mow his lawn, but I don’t think he’d gotten one this year. The grass is pretty long, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. We’ve knocked on a lot of doors, and it doesn’t seem as if he’d hired anyone. Did he get phone-calls?’
‘Sure,’ Todd said off-handedly — here was a gleam of light, a possible escape-hatch that was relatively safe. DussanderY phone had actually rung only half a dozen tunes or so in all the time Todd had known him — salesmen, a polling organization asking about breakfast foods, the rest wrong numbers. He only had the phone in case he got sick… as he finally had, might his soul rot in hell. ‘He used to get a call or two every week.’
‘Did he speak German on those occasions?’ Richler asked quickly. He seemed excited.
‘No,’ Todd said, suddenly cautious. He didn’t like Richler’s excitement — there was something wrong about it, something dangerous. He felt sure of it, and suddenly Todd had to work furiously to keep himself from breaking a sweat. ‘He didn’t talk much at all. I remember that a couple of times he said things like, “The boy who reads to me is here right now. I’ll call you back.”’
‘I’ll bet that’s it!’ Richler said, whacking his palms on his thighs. ‘I’d bet two weeks’ pay that was the guy!’ He closed his notebook with a snap (so far as Todd could see he had done nothing but doodle in it) and stood up. ‘I want to thank all three of you for your time. You in particular, Todd. I know all of this has been a hell of a shock to you, but it will be over soon. We’re going to turn the house upside down this afternoon — cellar to attic and then back down to the cellar again. We’re bringing in all the special teams. We may find some trace of Dussander’s phonemate yet.’
‘I hope so,’ Todd said.
Richler shook hands all around and left. Dick asked Todd if he felt like going out back and hitting the badminton birdie around until lunch. Todd said he didn’t feel much like badminton or lunch, and went upstairs with his head down and his shoulders slumped. His parents exchanged sympathetic, troubled glances. Todd lay down on his bed, stared at the ceiling, and thought about his .30-.30. He could see it very clearly in his mind’s eye. He thought about shoving the blued steel barrel right up Betty Trask’s slimy Jewish cooze -just what she needed, a prick that never went soft. How do you like it, Betty? He heard himself asking her, You just tell me if you get enough, okay? He imagined her screams. And at last a terrible flat smile came to his face. Sure, just tell me, you bitch… okay ? Okay ? Okay ?…
‘So what do you think?’ Weiskopf asked Richler when Richler picked him up at a luncheonette three blocks from the Bowden home.
‘Oh, I think the kid was in on it somehow,’ Richler said. ‘Somehow, some way, to some degree. But is he cool? If you poured hot water into his mouth I think he’d spit out icecubes. I tripped him up a couple of times, but I’ve got nothing I could use in court And if I’d gone much further, some smart lawyer might be able to get him off on entrapment a year or two down the road even if something does pull together. I mean, he’s still a juvenile. Technically, at least In some ways, I’d guess he hasn’t really been a juvenile since he was maybe eight He’s creepy, man.’ Richler stuck a cigarette in his mouth and laughed — the laugh had a shaky sound. ‘I mean, really fuckin’ creepy.’
‘What slips did he make?’
‘The phone calls. That’s the main thing. When I slipped him the idea, I could see his eyes light up like a pinball machine.’ Richler turned left and wheeled the nondescript Chevy Nova down the freeway entrance ramp. Two hundred yards to their right was the slope and the dead tree where Todd had dry-fired his rifle at the freeway traffic one Saturday morning not long ago.