His first thought is to call the homes of Ty’s friends. It would be easy; those numbers are posted on the fridge, printed in Judy’s neat back-slanting hand, along with the numbers of the fire department, the police department (including Dale Gilbertson’s private number; he’s an old friend), and French Landing Rescue. But it takes Fred only a moment to realize what a bad idea this is. Ebbie’s mother is dead and his father is an unpleasant moron—Fred met him just once, and once is more than enough. Fred doesn’t much like his wife labeling some people “low-raters” (Who do you think you are, he asked her once, Queen of the doggone Realm?), but in the case of Pete Wexler, the shoe fits. He won’t have any idea of where the boys are today and won’t care.
Mrs. Metzger and Ellen Renniker might, but having once been a boy on summer vacation himself—the whole world laid at your feet and at least two thousand places to go—Fred doubts it like hell. There’s a chance the boys might be eating lunch (it’s getting to be that time) at the Metzgers’ or Rennikers’, but is that slight chance worth scaring the hell out of two women? Because the killer will be the first thing they think of, just as sure as God made little fishes . . . and fishermen to catch ’em.
Once more sitting on the bed beside his wife, Fred feels his first real tingle of apprehension on his son’s behalf and dismisses it brusquely. This is no time to give in to the heebie-jeebies. He has to remember that his wife’s mental problems and his son’s safety are not linked—except in her mind. His job is to present Ty, front and center and all squared away, thus proving her fears groundless.
Fred looks at the clock on his side of the bed and sees that it’s quarter past eleven. How the time flies when you’re having fun, he thinks. Beside him, Judy utters a single gaspy snore. It’s a small sound, really quite ladylike, but Fred jumps anyway. How she scared him when he first saw her in Ty’s room! He’s still scared.
Ty and his friends may come here for lunch. Judy says they often do because the Metzgers don’t have much to eat and Mrs. Renniker usually serves what the boys call “goop,” a mystery dish consisting of noodles and some gray meat. Judy makes them Campbell’s soup and baloney sandwiches, stuff they like. But Ty has money enough to treat them all to McDonald’s out by the little mall on the north side, or they could go into Sonny’s Cruisin’ Restaurant, a cheap diner with a cheesy fifties ambience. And Ty isn’t averse to treating. He’s a generous boy.
“I’ll wait until lunch,” he murmurs, completely unaware that he is talking as well as thinking. Certainly he doesn’t disturb Judy; she has gone deep. “Then—”
Then what? He doesn’t know, exactly.
He goes downstairs, kicks the Mr. Coffee back into gear, and calls work. He asks Ina to tell Ted Goltz he’ll be out the rest of the day—Judy’s sick. The flu, he tells her. Throwing up and everything. He runs down a list of people he was expecting to see that day and tells her to speak to Otto Eisman about handling them. Otto will be on that like white on rice.
An idea occurs to him while he’s talking to her, and when he’s done, he calls the Metzgers’ and Rennikers’ after all. At the Metzgers’ he gets an answering machine and hangs up without leaving a message. Ellen Renniker, however, picks up on the second ring. Sounding casual and cheerful—it comes naturally, he’s a hell of a salesman—he asks her to have Ty call home if the boys show up there for lunch. Fred says he has something to tell his son, making it sound like something good. Ellen says she will, but adds that T.J. had four or five dollars burning a hole in his jeans when he left the house that morning, and she doesn’t expect to see him until suppertime.
Fred goes back upstairs and checks on Judy. She hasn’t moved so much as a finger, and he supposes that’s good.
No. There’s nothing good about any of this.
Instead of receding now that the situation has stabilized—sort of—his fear seems to be intensifying. Telling himself that Ty is with his friends no longer seems to help. The sunny, silent house is creeping him out. He realizes he no longer wants Ty front and center simply for his wife’s sake. Where would the boys go? Is there any one place—?
Of course there is. Where they can get Magic cards. That stupid, incomprehensible game they play.
Fred Marshall hurries back downstairs, grabs the phone book, hunts through the Yellow Pages, and calls the 7-Eleven. Like most of French Landing, Fred is in the 7-Eleven four or five times a week—a can of soda here, a carton of orange juice there—and he recognizes the lilt of the Indian day clerk’s voice. He comes up with the man’s name at once: Rajan Patel. It’s that old salesman’s trick of keeping as many names as possible in the active file. It sure helps here. When Fred calls the man Mr. Patel, the day clerk immediately becomes friendly, perfectly willing to help. Unfortunately, there isn’t much help he can give. Lots of boys in. They are buying Magic cards, also Pokémon and baseball cards. Some are trading these cards outside. He does recall three that came in that morning on bikes, he says. They bought Slurpees as well as cards, and then argued about something outside. (Rajan Patel doesn’t mention the cursing, although this is chiefly why he remembers these boys.) After a little while, he says, they went on their way.
Fred is drinking coffee without even remembering when he poured it. Fresh threads of unease are spinning spider-silky webs in his head. Three boys. Three.
It means nothing, you know that, don’t you? he tells himself. He does know it, and at the same time he doesn’t know it. He can’t even believe he’s caught a little of Judy’s freakiness, like a cold germ. This is just . . . well . . . freakiness for freakiness’s sake.
He asks Patel to describe the kids and isn’t too surprised when Patel can’t. He thinks one of them was a bit of a fat boy, but he’s not even sure of that. “Sorry, but I see so many,” he says. Fred tells him he understands. He does, too, only all the understanding in the world won’t ease his mind.
Three boys. Not four but three.
Lunchtime has come, but Fred is not the least bit hungry. The spooky, sunny silence maintains itself. The spiderwebs continue to spin.
Not four but three.
If it was Ty’s bunch that Mr. Patel saw, the fattish boy was certainly Ebbie Wexler. The question is, who were the other two? And which one was missing? Which one had been stupid enough to go off on his own?
Ty’s gone. Gorg fascinated him and the abbalah took him.
Crazy talk, no doubt about it . . . but Fred’s arms nevertheless break out in a lush of goose bumps. He puts his coffee mug down with a bang. He’ll clean up the broken glass, that’s what he’ll do. That’s the next step, no doubt about it.
The actual next step, the logical next step, whispers through his mind as he climbs the stairs, and he immediately pushes it away. He’s sure the cops are just lately overwhelmed with queries from hysterical parents who have lost track of their kids for an hour or so. The last time he saw Dale Gilbertson, the poor guy looked careworn and grim. Fred doesn’t want to be marked down as part of the problem instead of part of the solution. Still . . .
Not four but three.
He gets the dustpan and broom out of the little utility closet next to the laundry room and begins sweeping up broken glass. When he’s done he checks on Judy, sees she’s still sleeping (more deeply than ever, from the look of her), and goes down to Ty’s room. If Ty saw it like this, he’d be upset. He’d think his mom was a lot more than a Coke short of a Happy Meal.
You don’t have to worry about that, his mind whispers. He won’t be seeing his room, not tonight, not ever. Gorg fascinated him and the abbalah took him.
“Stop it,” Fred tells himself. “Stop being an old woman.”
But the house is too empty, too silent, and Fred Marshall is afraid.
Setting Tyler’s room to rights takes longer than Fred ever would have expected; his wife went through it like a whirlwind. How can such a little woman have such strength in her? Is it the strength of the mad? Perhaps, but Judy doesn’t need the strength of the mad. When she sets her mind to something, she is a formidable engine.