‘Bobby?’ the voice said, and there was a kind of insinuating pleasure in the voice, a sensuous recognition. ‘Bobby,’ it said again, this time without the question-mark. The flecks began to stream across Bobby’s vision; the living room of the apartment suddenly filled with black snow.
‘Please . . . ‘ Bobby whispered. He gathered all of his will and forced himself to finish.
‘Please let him go.’
‘No can do,’ the voice from the void told him. ‘He belongs to the King. Stay away, Bobby.
Don’t interfere. Ted’s our dog. If you don’t want to be our dog, too, stay away.’
Click.
Bobby held the telephone to his ear a moment longer, needing to tremble and too cold to do it. The itching behind his eyes began to fade, though, and the threads falling across his vision began to merge into the general murk. At last he took the phone away from the side of his head, started to put it down, then paused. There were dozens of little red circles on the handset’s perforated earpiece. It was as if the voice of the thing on the other end had caused the telephone to bleed.
Panting in soft and rapid little whimpers, Bobby put it back in its cradle and went into his room. Don’t interfere, the man at the Sagamore Family number had told him. Ted’s our dog.
But Ted wasn’t a dog. He was a man, and he was Bobby’s friend.
She could have told them where he’ll be tonight, Bobby thought . I think Carol knew. If she did, and if she told Mom —
Bobby grabbed the Bike Fund jar. He took all the money out of it and left the apartment.
He considered leaving his mother a note but didn’t. She might call HOusitonic 5-8337 again if he did, and tell the nimrod with the low voice what her Bobby-O was doing. That was one reason for not leaving a note. The other was that if he could warn Ted in time, he’d go with him. Now Ted would have to let him come. And if the low men killed him or kidnapped him?
Well, those things were almost the same as running away, weren’t they?
Bobby took a final look around the apartment, and as he listened to his mother snore he felt an involuntary tugging at his heart and mind. Ted was right: in spite of everything, he loved her still. If there was k a, then loving her was part of his.
Still, he hoped to never see her again.
‘Bye, Mom,’ Bobby whispered. A minute later he was running down Broad Street Hill into the deepening gloom, one hand wrapped around the wad of money in his pocket so none of it would bounce out.
10
Down There Again. Corner Boys.
Low Men in Yellow Coats. The Payout.
He called a cab from the pay telephone at Spicer’s, and while he waited for his ride he took down a BRAUTIGAN lost-pet poster from the outside bulletin board. He also removed an upside-down file-card advertising a ’57 Rambler for sale by the owner. He crumpled them up and threw them in the trash barrel by the door, not even bothering to look back over his shoulder to see if Old Man Spicer, whose foul temper was legendary among the kids on the west side of Harwich, had seen him do it.
The Sigsby twins were down here now, their jump-ropes put aside so they could play hopscotch. Bobby walked over to them and observed the shapes —
— drawn beside the grid. He got down on his knees, and Dina Sigsby, who had been about to toss her stone at the 7, stopped to watch him. Dianne put her grimy fingers over her mouth and giggled. Ignoring them, Bobby used both of his hands to sweep the shapes into chalk blurs. When he was done he stood up and dusted his hands off. The pole-light in Spicer’s tiny three-car parking lot came on; Bobby and the girls grew sudden shadows much longer than they were.
‘Why’d you do that, stupid old Bobby Garfield?’ Dina asked. ‘They were pretty.’
‘They’re bad luck,’ Bobby said. ‘Why aren’t you at home?’ Not that he didn’t have a good idea; it was flashing in their heads like the beer-signs in Spicer’s window.