cellar before Dussander could reply.
He had almost completely covered the wino when he began to think there was
something wrong. He stared into the grave, grasping the spade’s handle with one hand.
The wino’s legs stuck partway out of the mound of dirt, as did the tips of his feet – one old shoe, possibly a Hush Puppy, and one filthy athletic sock that might actually have been
white around the time that Taft was President.
One Hush Puppy? One?
Todd half-ran back around the furnace to the foot of the stairs. He glanced around
wildly. A headache was beginning to thud against his temples, dull drillbits trying to
work their way out. He spotted the old shoe five feet away, overturned in the shadow of
some abandoned shelving. Todd grabbed it, ran back to the grave with it, and threw it in.
Then he started to shovel again. He covered the shoe, the legs, everything.
When all the dirt was back in the hole, he slammed the spade down repeatedly to tamp
it Then he grabbed the rake and ran it back and forth, trying to disguise the fact the earth
here had been recently turned. Not much use; without good camouflage, a hole that has
been recently dug and then filled in always looks like a hole that has been recently dug
and then filled in. Still, no one would have any occasion to come down here, would they?
He and Dussander would damn well have to hope not.
Todd ran back upstairs. He was starting to pant.
Dussander’s elbows had spread wide and his head had sagged down to the table. His
eyes were closed, the lids a shiny purple – the colour of asters..
‘Dussander!’ Todd shouted. There was a hot, juicy taste in his mouth – the taste of fear
mixed with adrenalin and pulsing hot blood. ‘Don’t you dare die on me, you old fuck!’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Dussander said without opening ins eyes. ‘You’ll have
everyone on the block over here.’
‘Where’s your cleaner? Lestoil … Top Job … something like that. And rags. I need
rags.’
‘All that is under the sink.’
A lot of the blood had now dried on. Dussander raised his head and watched as Todd
crawled across the floor, scrubbing first at the puddle on the linoleum and then at the
drips that had straggled down the legs of the chair the wino had been sitting in. The boy
was biting compulsively at his lips, champing at them, almost, like a horse at a bit. At last the job was finished. The astringent smell of cleaner filled the room.
‘There is a box of old rags under the stairs,’ Dussander said. ‘Put those bloody ones on
the bottom. Don’t forget to wash your hands.’
‘I don’t need your advice. You got me into this.’
‘Did I? I must say you took hold well.’ For a moment the old mockery was in
Dussander’s voice, and then a bitter grimace pulled his face into a new shape. ‘Hurry.’
Todd took care of the rags, then hurried up the cellar stairs for the last time. He
looked nervously down the stairs for a moment, then snapped off the light and closed the
door. He went to the sink, rolled up his sleeves, and washed in the hottest water he could stand. He plunged his hands into the suds … and came up holding the butcher knife
Dussander had used.
‘I’d like to cut your throat with this,’ Todd said grimly.
‘Yes, and then feed me to the pigs. I have no doubt of it’
Todd rinsed the knife, dried it, and put it away. He did the rest of the dishes quickly,
let the water out, and rinsed the sink. He looked at the clock as he dried his hands and
saw it was twenty past ten.
He went to the phone in the hallway, picked up the receiver, and looked at it
thoughtfully. The idea that he had forgotten something – something as potentially
damning as the wino’s shoe—nagged unpleasantly at his mind. What? He didn’t know. If
not for the headache, he might be able to get it The triple-damned headache. It wasn’t
like him to forget things, and it was scary.
He dialled 222 and after a single ring, a voice answered: This is Santa Donato MED-
Q. Do you have a medical problem?’
‘My name is Todd Bowden. I’m at 963 Claremont Lane. I need an ambulance.’
‘What’s the problem, son?’
‘It’s my friend, Mr D-‘ He bit down on his lip so hard that it squirted blood, and for a
moment he was lost, drowning in the pulses of pain from his head. Dussander. He had
almost given this anonymous MED-Q voice Dussander’s real name.
“Calm down, son,’ the voice said. Take it slow and you’ll be fine.’
‘My friend Mr Denker,’ Todd said. ‘I think he’s had a heart attack.’
‘His symptoms?’
Todd began to give them, but the receptionist had heard enough as soon as Todd
described the chest pain that had migrated to the left arm. He told Todd the ambulance
would arrive in ten to twenty minutes, depending on the traffic. Todd hung up and
pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
‘Did you get it?’ Dussander called weakly.
‘Yes!’ Todd screamed. ‘Yes, I got it! Yes goddammit yes! Yes yes yes! Just shut up?’
He pressed his hands even harder against his eyes, creating first senseless starflashes
of light and then a bright field of red. Get hold of yourself, Toad-baby. Get down, get
funky, get cool. Dig it.
He opened his eyes and picked up the telephone again. Now the hard part. Now it was
time to call home.
‘Hello?’ Monica’s soft, cultured voice in his ear. For a moment – just a moment – he
saw himself slamming the muzzle of the .30-.30 into her nose and pulling the trigger into
the first flow of blood.
‘It’s Todd, mommy. Let me talk to dad, quick.’
He didn’t call her mommy anymore. He knew she would get that signal quicker than
anything else, and she did. ‘What’s the matter? Is something wrong, Todd?’
‘Just let me talk to him!’
‘But what -‘
The phone rattled and clinked. He heard his mother saying something to his father.
Todd got ready.
Todd? What’s the problem?’
‘It’s Mr Denker, daddy. He … it’s a heart attack, I think. I’m pretty sure it is.’
‘Jesus!’ His father’s voice lagged away for a moment and Todd heard him repeating
the information to his wife. Then he was back. ‘He’s still alive? As far as you can tell?’
‘He’s alive. Conscious.’
‘All right, thank God for that Call an ambulance.’
‘I just did.’
‘222?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good boy. How bad is he, can you tell?’
(not fucking bad enough!)
‘I don’t know, dad. They said the ambulance would be here soon, but… I’m sorta
scared. Can you come over and wait with me?’
‘You bet Give me four minutes.’
Todd could hear his mother saying something else as his father hung up, breaking the
connection. Todd replaced the receiver on his end.
Four minutes.
Four minutes to do anything that had been left undone. Four minutes to remember
whatever it was that had been forgotten. Or had he forgotten anything? Maybe it was just nerves. God, he wished he hadn’t had to call his father. But it was the natural thing to do,
wasn’t it? Sure. Was there some natural thing that he hadn ‘t done? Something -?
‘Oh, you shit-for-brains!’ he suddenly moaned, and bolted back into the kitchen.
Dussander’s head lay on the table, his eyes half-open, sluggish.
‘Dussander!’ Todd cried. He shook Dussander roughly, and the old man groaned.
‘Wake up! Wake up, you stinking old bastard!’
‘What? Is it the ambulance?’
The letter! My father is coming over, he’ll be here in no time. Where’s the fucking
letter?”
‘What… what letter?’
‘You told me to tell them you got an important letter. I said…’ His heart sank. ‘I said it
came from overseas … from Germany. Christ!’ Todd ran his hands through his hair.
‘A letter.’ Dussander raised his head with slow difficulty. His seamed cheeks were an
unhealthy yellowish-white, his lips blue. ‘From Willi, I think. Willi Frankel. Dear … dear
Willi.’
Todd looked at his watch and saw that already two minutes had passed since he had
hung up the phone. His father would not, could not make it from their house to Dussander’s in four minutes, but he could do it damn fast in the Porsche. Fast, that was
it. Everything was moving too fast. And there was still something wrong here; he felt it.
But there was no time to stop and hunt around for the loophole.
‘Yes, okay, I was reading it to you, and you got excited and had this heart attack.
Good. Where is it?’
Dussander looked at him blankly.
‘The letter! Where is it?’