night he screamed in the middle of the night and finally, when I got up the cojones to go in, he was
standing up in bed and screaming. “The boogeyman, Daddy. . . boogeyman.
wanna go wif Daddy, go wif Daddy.”‘ Billings’s voice had become a high treble, like a child’s. His eyes
seemed to fill his entire face; he almost seemed to shrink on the couch.
‘But I couldn’t,’ the childish breaking treble continued, ‘I couldn’t. And an hour later there was a scream.
An awful gurgling scream. And I knew how much I loved him because I ran, in, I didn’t even turn on
the light, I ran, ran, ran, oh, Jesus God Mary, it had him; it was shaking him, shaking him just like a
terrier shakes a piece of cloth and I could see something with awful slumped shoulders and a scarecrow
head and I could smell something like a dead mouse in a pop bottle and I heard . .
He trailed off, and then his voice clicked back into an adult range. ‘I heard it when Andy’s neck broke.’
Billings’s voice was cool and dead. ‘It made a sound like ice cracking when you’re skating on a country
pond in winter.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Oh, I ran,’ Billings said in the same cool, dead voice. ‘I went to an all-night diner. How’s that for
complete cowardice? Ran to an all-night diner and drank six cups of coffee. Then I went home. It was
already dawn. I called the police even before I went upstairs. He was lying on the floor and staring at
me. Accusing me. A tiny bit of blood had run out of one ear. Only a drop, really. And the closet door
was open – but just a crack.’
The voice stopped. Harper looked at the digital clock. Fifty minutes had passed.
‘Make an appointment with the nurse,’ he said. ‘In fact, several of them. Tuesdays and Thursdays?’
‘I only came to tell my story,’ Billings said. ‘To get it off my chest. I lied to the police, see? Told them
the kid must have tried to get out of his crib in the night and. . . they swallowed it. Course they did.
That’s just what it looked like. Accidental, like the others. But Rita knew. Rita. finally. . . knew .
He covered his eyes with his right arm and began to weep.
‘Mr Billings, there is a great deal to talk about,’ Dr Harper said after a pause. ‘I believe we can remove
some of the guilt you’ve been carrying, but first you have to want to get rid of it.’
‘Don’t you believe I do?’ Billings cried, removing his arm from his eyes. They were red, raw, wounded.
‘Not yet,’ Harper said quietly. ‘Tuesdays and Thursdays?’
After a long silence, Billings muttered, ‘Goddamn shrink. All right. All right.’
‘Make an appointment with the nurse, Mr Billings. And have a good day.’
Billings laughed emptily and walked out of the office quickly, without looking back.
The nurse’s station was empty. A small sign on the desk blotter said: ‘Back in a Minute.’
Billings turned and went back into the office. ‘Doctor, your nurse is -,
The room was empty.
But the closet door was open. Just a crack.
‘So nice,’ the voice from the closet said. ‘So nice.’ The words sounded as if they might have come
through a mouthful of rotted seaweed.
Billings stood rooted to the spot as the closet door swung open. He dimly felt warmth at his crotch as
he wet himself.
‘So nice,’ the boogeyman said as it shambled out. It still held its Dr Harper mask in one rotted, spade-
claw hand.