They thought he was crying, a twelve-year-old ninny who had gotten
separated from his family and was too much of a pussy to handle it.
Their incomprehension only made him laugh harder.
When the laughter passed, he sat forward on the bench, staring at his
sneakered feet, working on the line of crap he would give Mrs.
Ledderbeek when she came to collect him and Tod at ten o’clock-assuming
park officials didn’t identify the body and get in touch with her before
that. It was eight o’clock. “He wanted to ride daredevil,” Jeremy
mumbled to his sneakers, “and I tried to talk him out of it, but he
wouldn’t listen, he called me a dickhead when I wouldn’t go with him.
I’m sorry, Mrs. Ledderbeek, Doctor Ledderbeck, but he talked that way
sometimes. He thought it made him sound cool.”
Good enough so far, but he needed more of a tremor in his voice: “I
wouldn’t ride daredevil, so he went on the Millipede by himself. I
waited at the exit, and when all those people came running out, talking
about a body all torn and bolldy, I knew who it had to be and I. ..
and I. ..
just sort of, you know, snapped. I just snapped.” The boarding
attendants wouldn’t remember whether Tod had gotten on the ride by
himself or with another boy; they dealt with thousands of passengers a
day, so they weren’t going to recall who was alone or who was with whom.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Ledderbeck, I should’ve been able to talk him out
of it. I should’ve stayed with him and stopped him somehow. I feel so
stupid, so… so helpless. How could I let him get on the Millipede?
What kind of best friend am I?”
Not bad. It needed a little work, and he would have to be careful not
to overdramatize it. Tears, a breaking voice. But no wild sobs, no
thrashing around.
He was sure he could pull it off.
He was a Master of the Game now.
As soon as he felt confident about his story, he realized he was hungry.
Starving. He was literally shaking with hunger. He went to a
refreshment stand and bought a hot dog with the works-onions, relish,
chili, mustard, ketchup-and wolfed it down. He chased it with Orange
Crush. Still shaking. He had an ice cream sandwich made with
chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies for the “bread.”
His visible shaking stopped, but he still trembled inside. Not with
fear.
It was a delicious shiver, like the flutter in the belly that he’d
experienced during the past year whenever he looked at a girl and
thought of being with her, but indescribably better than that. And it
was a little like the thrilling shiver that caressed his spine when he
slipped past the safety railing and stood on the very edge of a sandy
cliff in Laguna Beach Park, looking down at the waves crashing on the
rocks and feeling the earth crumble slowly under the toes of his shoes,
working its way back to mid-sole… waiting, waiting, wondering if the
treacherous ground would abruptly give way and drop him to the rocks far
below before he would have time to leap backward and grab the safety
railing, but still waiting … waiting.
But this thing was better than all of those combined. It was growing by
the minute rather than dimmishing, a sensuous inner heat which the
murder of Tod had not quenched but fueled.
His dark desire became an urgent need.
He prowled the park, seeking satisfaction.
He was a little surprised that Fantasy World continued to turn as if
nothing had happened in the Millipede. He had expected the whole
operation to close down, not just that one ride. Now he realized money
was more important than mourning one dead customer. And if those who’d
seen Tod’s battered body had spread the story to others, it was probably
discounted as a rehash of the legend. The level of frivolity in the
park had not noticeably declined.
Once he dared to pass the Millipede, although he stayed at a distance
because he still did not trust himself to be able to conceal his