but it was too late to get the kickstand up before I heard a voice say “Who is
that?” Mrs. Lezander got out, her bulk made bearish in a brown overcoat. She
must’ve recognized my bike, because my collar was turned up. “Cory?”
I was caught. Easy, I thought. Just take it easy. “Yes ma’am,” I
answered. “It’s me.”
“This is providential,” she said. “Will you help me, please?” She went
around to the passenger side and opened the door. “I’ve got some groceries.”
Rocket might have whispered to me in that second. Rocket might have said
in a silken, urgent voice Get away, Cory. Get away while you still can. I’ll
take you, if you’ll just hang on.
“Help me, please?” Mrs. Lezander hefted the first of a half-dozen
burdened paper bags. On all of them, printed in red letters, was Big Paul’s
Pantry.
“I’m goin’ to the movies,” I said.
“It’ll just take a minute.”
What could be done to me in broad daylight? I took the bag. Mrs.
Lezander, a second bag under one arm, slid her key into the back door’s lock.
A gust of wind blew around us, and I saw the folds of her overcoat move and I
knew she had been the figure I saw standing at the edge of the woods.
“Go on,” she said, “the door’s open.”
With Mrs. Lezander hulking at my back and a boulder of fear in my throat,
I walked across the threshold as if into a mine shaft.
“Ten points,” Mr. White said as he plunked down another domino.
“And ten,” Dad said, his own domino going down at the end of the L-shaped
pattern.
“I swear I didn’t think you had that one!” Mr. White shook his head.
“Tricky fella, ain’t you?”
“I try my best.”
There was a tapping sound. Mr. White peered out the window. The clouds
had darkened, the gas station’s light splashed across the concrete. Little
flecks of sleet were striking the glass. Dad took the opportunity for a glance
at the clock on the wall, which showed twelve minutes before noon. “All right,
where was I?” Mr. White rubbed his chin and pondered his dominoes like a
hunchbacked sphinx. “Here we go!” he said, and reached for one. “Just mark
down fifteen points in my fa—”
Something hissed.
Dad turned his head to the left.
The Trailways bus was pulling in.
“—vor,” Mr. White finished. “How do, how do! Look who’s early this fine
day!”
Dad was already on his feet. He walked past the cash register and the
shelves of oil and gasoline additives toward the door. “Must’ve caught a
tailwind!” Mr. White said. “Probably caught sight of that monster out on Route
Ten, and Corny gave it the lead foot!”
Dad walked out into the cold. The bus pulled to a halt beneath the yellow
TRAILWAYS BUS sign. The doors folded outward with a breath of hydraulics.
“Watch your step, gents!” Dad heard the driver say.
Two men were getting off. Sleet hit Dad in the face and the wind whirled
around him, but he stood his ground. One of the men looked to be in his
sixties, the other half those years. The older man, who wore a tweed overcoat
and a brown hat, carried a suitcase. The younger, dressed in blue jeans and a
beige jacket, carried a duffel bag. “Enjoy your stay, Mr. Steiner!” Corny
McGraw said, and the older man lifted a gloved hand and waggled the fingers.
Hiram White, who’d come out of the office behind Dad, said, “Howdy” to the two
men, and then he looked up the steps at Mr. McGraw. “Hey, Corny! You want some
hot coffee?”
“No, I’m gettin’ on down the road, Hiram. My sister Jenny had her baby
this mornin’, and as soon as I finish my route I can go see her. Third
young’un, but first boy. Bring you a cigar next time ’round.”
“I’ll get a match ready. You be careful, Uncle Corny!”
“Ta-ta, ya’ll,” he said. The doors closed, the bus pulled away, and the
two strangers stood facing my father.
The older one, Mr. Steiner, had a wrinkled face but a chin like a slab of
granite. He was wearing glasses, flecks of sleet on the lenses. “Sir? Pardon
me,” he said with a foreign accent. “Is there a hotel?”
“Boardin’house will do,” the younger one said; he had thinning blond hair
and a flat midwestern brogue.
“No hotel in town,” Dad said. “No boardin’house, either. We don’t get a
lot of visitors here.”
“Oh my.” Mr. Steiner frowned. “Where’s the nearest hotel, then?”
“There’s a motel in Union Town. The Union Pines. It’s—” He stopped, his
arm rising to point the way. “You fellas need a ride?”
“That would be very nice, thank you. Mr… ?”
“Tom Mackenson.” He shook the gloved hand. The man’s grip jammed his
knuckles.
“Jacob Steiner,” the older man said. “This is my friend, Lee Hannaford.”
“Pleased to meet the both of you,” Dad said.
The sixth bag was the heaviest. It was full of dog-food cans. “That goes
downstairs,” Mrs. Lezander said as she put other canned goods into the
cupboard. “Just set it on the counter, I’ll take it myself.”
“Yes ma’am.”
The lights were on in the kitchen. Mrs. Lezander had shed her overcoat,
and beneath it she wore a somber gray dress. She took a jar of Folger’s
instant coffee out of the fourth sack and opened it with a slight wrist-twist.
“May I ask,” she said, her broad back to me, “why you were looking in the
window?”
“I… uh…” Think fast! I told myself. “I thought I’d drop by because… uh…”
Mrs. Lezander turned around and watched me, her eyes flat and impassive.
“Because… I wanted to ask Dr. Lezander if he… like… needed some help in
the afternoons. I thought maybe I could clean up downstairs, or sweep, or—” I
shrugged. “Whatever.”
A hand grasped my shoulder from behind.
I almost cried out. I came very close to it. As it was, I felt my face
freeze as the blood left it.
Dr. Lezander said, “An ambitious young man. Isn’t that right, Veronica?”
“Yes, Frans.” She turned away from me and continued putting the groceries
up.
He released me. I looked at him. He obviously had just awakened; his eyes
were sleep-swollen, the hairs had come out in a grizzle around his neatly
trimmed chin beard, and he was wearing a red silk robe over pajamas. He yawned
and stifled it with the same hand that had just been on my shoulder. “Coffee,
please, dearest,” he said. “The blacker the better.”
She began to spoon coffee into a cup that had the picture of a collie on
it. Then, that task done, she turned on the hot water faucet.
“I heard East Berlin this morning around four,” he told her. “A wonderful
orchestra was playing Wagner.”
Mrs. Lezander filled the collie cup full of steaming water and stirred
it. She handed the ebony coffee to her husband, who first inhaled its aroma.
“Ahhhhhh, yes!” he said. “This should do the trick!” He took a little slurpy
sip. “Good and strong!” he said, satisfied.
“I’d better be goin’ now.” I edged toward the back door. “Ben Sears and
Johnny Wilson are waitin’ for me at the Lyric.”
“I thought you wanted to ask me about an afternoon job.”
“Well… I’d better go.”
“Oh, nonsense.” He reached out again, and his hand found my shoulder. He
had iron in his fingers. “I’d be pleased and happy to have you come by and
help in the afternoons, Cory. As a matter of truth, I’ve been looking for a
young apprentice.”
“Really?” I didn’t know what else to say.
“Really.” He smiled with his mouth. His eyes were careful. “You’re a
smart young man, aren’t you?”
“Sir?”
“A smart young man. Oh, don’t be so modest! You pursue things, don’t you?
You grip a fact and shake it like a… like a terrier.” His mouth smiled again,
and the silver tooth sparkled. He took a longer sip of coffee.
“I don’t know what you mean.” I heard my voice tremble, the slightest
bit.
“I admire that quality in you, Cory. The terrier determination to get to
the root of things. That’s a fine quality for a boy to have.”
“His bicycle’s outside, Frans,” Mrs. Lezander said as she put away packs
of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat.
“Bring it in, will you?”
“I’ve gotta go,” I said, and now the fear had started choking me.
“Non”—he answered, smiling—“sense. If we have a freezing rain—and it
certainly looks grim out there today—you don’t want that fine bicycle of yours
to be covered with ice, do you?”
“I… really have to—”
“I’ll bring it in,” Mrs. Lezander said, and she went outside. I watched,
Dr. Lezander’s hand on my shoulder, as the woman pushed Rocket across the
threshold and into the den.
“Very good,” Dr. Lezander said. He drank some more coffee. “Better safe
than sorry, yes?”
Mrs. Lezander returned, sucking her left thumb. She brought it from her
mouth to show blood on it. “Look at this, Frans. I cut myself on his bicycle.”
She said it with an almost clinical detachment. The thumb returned to her
mouth. There was blood on her lower lip.
“While you’re here, Cory, it seems to me you should see what your job
would entail. Don’t you agree?”
“Ben and Johnny… they’re gonna miss me,” I said.
“Yes, they will, I’m sure. But they’ll go in and sit down and watch the
film, won’t they? They’ll probably think”—he shrugged—“that something
happened. Like things do to boys.” His fingers began to knead my shoulder.
“What film is it?”
“Hell Is for Heroes. It’s an army picture.”
“Oh, an army picture. I expect it’s the conquering American heroes
destroying the wretched German dogs, isn’t it?”
“Frans,” Mrs. Lezander said quietly.
A look passed between them, as hard and sharp as a dagger.
Dr. Lezander’s attention returned to me. “Let’s go downstairs, Cory. All
right?”
“My mom’s gonna be worried,” I tried, but I knew it was no good.
“But she believes you’re at the film, doesn’t she?” His eyebrows lifted.
“Now, let’s go downstairs and see what I’m prepared to pay you twenty dollars
a week to do.”
My breath was stolen. “Twenty dollars?”
“Yes. Twenty dollars a week for an able and understanding apprentice
seems like a bargain to me. Shall we go?” His hand guided me toward the steps
that led down. It was a powerful hand, and it would not be denied. I had to
go. Dr. Lezander flicked a switch that turned on the light over the stairs and
flooded light below me. As I descended, I heard the rustle of his red silk
robe and the shuffle of his slippers on the stairs. I heard him slurp his
coffee. It was a greedy sound, and I was afraid.
My father had not taken Jacob Steiner and Lee Hannaford directly to the
Union Pines Motel. On the way, jammed in the pickup truck with the wipers
knocking away sleet, he’d asked them if they wanted some lunch. Both men had
said yes, and that was how they’d wound up walking into the Bright Star Cafe.
“How about a booth in the back?” Dad asked Carrie French, and she guided
them to one and left them with luncheon menu cards.
Mr. Steiner took off his gloves and overcoat. He was wearing a tweed suit
and a pale gray vest. He hung his overcoat and his hat on a rack. His hair was
as white and thick as a bristle brush. As Mr. Steiner slid into the booth and
Dad sat down, too, the younger man peeled off his jacket. He was wearing a
blue-checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his muscular biceps. And on
the right bicep… there it was.
Dad said, “Oh my God.”
“What is it?” Mr. Hannaford asked. “I’m not supposed to take my jacket
off in here?”
“No, it’s all right.” A sheen of sweat had broken out on my father’s
forehead. Mr. Hannaford sat down beside Mr. Steiner. “I mean… that tattoo…”
“You got a problem with it, friend?” The younger man’s slate-colored eyes
had narrowed into dangerous slits.
“Lee?” Mr. Steiner cautioned. “No, no.” It was like telling a bad dog to
sit.
“No problem,” Dad said. “It’s just that…” He was having trouble
breathing, and the room wanted to spin. “I’ve seen your tattoo before.”
The two men were silent. Mr. Steiner spoke first. “May I ask where, Mr.
Mackenson?”
“Before I tell you, I want to know where you’ve come from and why you’re
here.” Dad pulled his gaze away from the faint outline of a skull with wings
swept back from its temples.
“I wouldn’t,” Mr. Hannaford warned Mr. Steiner. “We don’t know this guy.”
“True. We don’t know anyone here, do we?” Mr. Steiner glanced around, and
Dad saw his hawklike eyes take in the scene. A dozen or so people were having
lunch and shooting the breeze. Carrie French was fending off the good-natured
flirting of a couple of farmers. The television was tuned to a basketball
game. “How can we trust you, Mr. Mackenson?”
“What’s not to trust?” Something about this man—the way he carried
himself, the way his eyes were darting this way and that, sizing things
up—made Dad ask the next question. “Are you a policeman?”
“By profession, no. But in a sense, yes.”
“What profession are you in, then?”
“I am… in the field of historical research,” Mr. Steiner answered.
Carrie French came over on her long, pretty legs, her order pad ready.
“Help you today?”
“Got any griddle cakes?” Mr. Hannaford plucked a pack of Luckies out of
his breast pocket.
“Beg pardon?”
“Griddle cakes! Do you have ’em here or not?”
“I think,” Mr. Steiner said patiently as the younger man lit a cigarette,
“that they’re called pancakes in this part of the country.”
“We’re not servin’ breakfast now.” Carrie offered an uncertain smile.
“Sorry.”
“Just gimme a burger, then.” He spouted smoke through his pinched
nostrils. “Jesus!”
“Is the chicken noodle soup fresh?” Mr. Steiner asked, examining the menu
card.
“Canned, but it’s still good.”
“I will not eat canned chicken noodle soup, my dear.” He gazed at her
sternly over the rims of his glasses. “I, too, will have a hamburger. Very
well done, if you please.” Pliss, he pronounced it.
Dad ordered the beef stew and a cup of coffee. Carrie paused. “Ya’ll
aren’t from around here, are you?” she asked the two strangers.
“I’m from Indiana,” Mr. Hannaford said. “He’s from—”
