第 26 页

Feed and grain, planning and sawing, teaching . . . Long, long days. Then he's seen the ad in the paper for a deputy and he'd applied.

After Bill and Diane had moved back to New Lebanon he had five years with his father before the stroke. Five full years of opportunities to talk about what happened at the Fairway Mall. But what the two men spent those years on was pheasant loads and movies and carburetors and memories of their wife and mother.

One day, a month before the blood clot swapped a clear, complicated mind for one that was infinitely simple, Corde was crouched down, sharpening a mower blade in his father's garage. He heard the footsteps and he looked up to see the old man standing hunched and pale, licking the top of a Dannon yogurt container. His father said, "Bout time to deal with St Louis, wouldn't you say?' Corde stood, his knee popping and pushing him oh-so-slowly upward. He turned to face his father and cleared his throat. The elder Corde said solemnly, 'Ten bucks says they'll cave to New York.' Corde rolled grass flecks off his hands and dug into his pocket for a bill. "You're on,' he said. His father wandered into the yard while Corde turned back to the iron blade in complete remorse.

Q. If someone else had read the number of the door to the policemen in the alley, the mishap might not have happened. Or if you had taken your time and read the number slowly?

A. (garbled)

Q. Could you repeat that please.

A. The mishap probably would not have happened, no.

He'd never told anyone in New Lebanon. The facts were there, somewhere in his file in St Louis. If Steve Ribbon or Hammerback Ellison or Jim Slocum or Addie Kraskow of the Register wanted to go to the trouble to look it up, they would find everything. But the New Lebanon Sheriffs Department simply glanced at his resume and believed the truthful statement that the reason for termination from his last job was that he'd quit. They believed too his explanation that he had grown tired of fighting city riverfront crime and had wanted to move back to his peaceful home town. After all, he had a six-year-old son and a baby on the way.

Who'd think to look beyond that?

Another snap, nearby. Corde turned. The animal materialized. A buck. He saw two does not far off. He loved watching them. They were elegant in motion but when they stopped - always as if they were late for something vitally important and had time to give you just a brief look - they were completely regal. Corde wished he was a poet. He wanted badly to put into words what he felt at this moment: The knowledge in the deer's eyes.

The melting sun.

The unseen movement of the woods at dusk.

The total sorrow when you fall short of the mark that you know God's set for you.

With a single crack of wet wood, the deer were gone. Bill Corde scooted off the rock and slowly made his way to his twentieth-century home, with his pickup truck and television, and his family.

2

Special to the Register- Two days after the slaying of a second Auden University co-ed by the man known as the 'Moon Killer, 'John Treadle, Harrison County Supervisor, ordered Sheriffs Department deputies to step up nighttime patrols around New Lebanon:

'But,' he said, 7 can't emphasize enough that girls shouldn't travel by themselves after dark until we catch this man.'

The body of the student, Emily Rossiter, a resident ofSt Louis, was found floating in Blackfoot pond on the night of the full moon. She had been struck on the head and left to drown. The body was reportedly mutilated.

"We're devoting a hundred and ten percent of our time to solving these cult murders,' Steven Ribbon, Sheriff of New Lebanon, said last night. He added that he had taken the unusual step of asking an outside consultant to assist in the investigation.

'This man has a number of years of homicide investigation experience with a big city police department and he's already provided some real helpful insights into the workings of this killer's mind.'

Citing security, Sheriff Ribbon would give no details on this consultant's identity or exact role in the case.

The Chamber of Commerce estimates that the series of murders has cost the town one million dollars in lost revenues.

Her biggest fear is that somehow her father has scared off the Sunshine Man.

It is now a couple of days in a row that her daddy has gotten up late, had breakfast with them and then been home before supper. But worse than that he had gone for long walks in the woods behind the house, the woods where the Sunshine Man lived. Sarah considers herself an expert on wizards and she knows that they resent people who don't believe in them. Her father's certainly a person like that.

Although she's questioned Redford T. Redford at length about the wizard the bear has remained silent. She has left several presents and painstakingly written notes for the Sunshine Man in the magic circle. He has not picked them up or responded.

She has thought about running away again. But because her mother has agreed with Dr Parker to keep her out of school for a while, Sarah is willing to postpone her escape plans. She listens to her books on tape, she looks at her picture books, she watches television, she plays with her stuffed animals.

At night Sarah sits and stares out the window. Once, when the waning moon is bright, she thinks she sees the form of a man walking through the woods. She flashes her bedside light and waves. Whoever it might be stops and looks at the house but does not respond. He seems to vanish. She stares after him until the trees begin to sway and the night sky opens up in great cartwheeling streaks of stars and planets and giants and animals, then she crawls under the blankets. She holds tight to her piece of magic quartz and, knowing the Sunshine Man may be out there, sends him a message in her thoughts.

Sarah wishes her father would start working late again. And sure enough, after just two days, she gets this wish. He's up and gone before breakfast, and home long after she's gone to bed. One morning, when he hadn't seen her for two days, her father left a note at the breakfast table for her; it sounded all stiff. Sarah sadly thinks the Sunshine Man is much smarter than her father.

She hopes the wizard will come back and make her smart. She believes he can do it. She also knows though that this will be a very hard wish to grant so she tells herself to be patient. She knows she'll have to wait just a little while longer.

Philip closed his bedroom door and immediately they were warriors once again, tall and dignified and ever correct, struggling to understand this strange dimension.

Jano looked around the room. 'Your sister here?'

'Nope.'

The boys who knew Philip's sister, and that was a lot of boys, did not call her 'Rose' or 'Rosy'; they called her 'Halpern,' which seemed to Philip to say everything there was to say about her.

Jano whispered urgently, 'Well?'

'What?' Phathar shoved a dripping handful of popcorn from a half-gallon bag into his mouth.

He whispered, 'Did you do it?' Jano's eyes were red and it looked like there was a streak of dried snot under his nose. Phathar wondered if his friend had been crying (Phathar assumed he was the only freshman boy who still cried).

Jano repeated, The girl at the pond. Emily something. Did you?'

He ate another mouthful. 'Nope.'

Jano whispered, 'I don't believe you.'

'I didn't do it, dude.'

'You wanted to fuck her so you killed her.'

'I did not.' With a pudgy finger Phathar worked a hull out from between an incisor and his gum.

'I am like totally freaked. What are we going to do?'

'Have some popcorn.'

You are like too much, man. She's dead too and you're like-'

'So what? You saw the way the Honons mowed down the Valanies. They just like went in with the xasers and totally mowed them down. The women and the kids, everyone.'

That's a movie.'

Phathar repeated patiently, 'I didn't like kill her.'

'Did you find the knife?'

'I might have if I hadn't been alone.'

'I couldn't make it. I told you. Maybe you didn't lose it.'

'I lost it.'

Jano said, 'Man, we've got to get rid of everything.'

'I told you, I put a destructor on the files. It's great. Here look.' Phathar walked to a. locked metal file cabinet. He unlocked it and pulled a drawer open. Inside were stacks of charts and drawings and files. Resting on top of them was a coil from a space heater. 'Look, this is a lock switch that I got from Popular Mechanics. It's great. If you open the cabinet without shutting off the switch...' He reached inside the cabinet and pointed to two pieces of wood wound with wires pressing against each other, like a large clothespin.'... Somebody opens the drawer and it closes the circuit. The coil gets red hot in like seconds and torches everything.'

Totally excellent,' Jano said with admiration. What if it burns the house down?'

Phathar did not respond. Through the closed door, they heard Philip's father singing some old song. 'Strangers in the Night.'

Jano looked in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet. 'What's that?' He picked up the brown purse, smeared with mud.

Phathar froze. He was in a delicate position. This was his only friend in high school; he couldn't do what he wanted to - which was to scream to him to put it back. He said simply, 'It's hers.'

Jano clicked it open. The girl's? The second one! You did do it!'

Phathar reached out and closed it. 'Would you just chill? I saw her but-'

'I don't see why you're denying it, man.'

'-I didn't kill her.'

'Why'd you keep it?'

'I don't know.' Phathar in fact had wondered that a number of times. 'It smells nice.'

"You get over with her too?' Jano had stopped looking shocked and was curious.

'Are you deaf? Like are you totally deaf?'

'Come on, Phathar, I tell you everything. What was it like?'

You're a fucking hatter. I followed her for a while but then I took off. There was some dude wandering around.'

'Who?'

'I don't know.'

They found her in the pond. Yuck. If you did it with her your dick'll probably fall off, with that water. What's in the purse?'

'I don't know. I didn't open it.' Phathar stood up and took the purse away from his friend. He put it in the file cabinet and laid another heater coil on top of it. He closed the drawer.

'I don't think that's a good place for it,' Jano said.

'How come?'

'Even with the destructor it'd take a while for the leather to catch fire.'

Phathar decided this might be true. He retrieved the purse. He held it out to Jano. You take it. Throw it someplace.'

'No way. I don't want to get caught with it. Why don't you burn it?'

'I can't. My dad'd whack me again. Maybe I'll hide it under the porch and some night when he's playing cards I'll burn it.'

The terrible, glass-splintering crash came from the living room. The boys each stared at the dirt-smeared wall through which the sound had come. Philip dropped the purse into the empty popcorn bag and wadded it, along with some trash, into a green plastic garbage bag, which sat in the corner of this room. They stepped into the hall.

Philip's mother was on the floor, on all fours, her knees spread out, skirt up to her trim waist. The eyes in her pretty face were nearly closed and her head lolled as the muscles in her smooth arms tried to keep her shoulders from dropping to the ground. Mr Halpern stood above her, his hands gripping the stained orange blouse, saying desperately, 'It'll be all right, it'll be all right. No, no, it'll be all right.'

And she was repeating louder and in a shrill soprano, 'Lemmealone, lemmealone!' In her hand was a white wad of cloth. On the stained carpet was a fresher stain of vomit. The smell of sour gin was thick in the air. Philip started to cry.

'Mrs Halpern,' Jano whispered.

Philip's father looked up. 'Get the fuck out of here, both of you.'

Jano said, 'But she's sick.'

Whimpering, Philip said, 'She's not sick.'

'Get the fuck out!' his father shouted. 'Both of you. Out out out!' He stamped his foot as if he were spooking dogs.

Philip said to Jano, 'Please.'

'But-'

'Please,' Philip said. His friend fled outside. Staring out the front window Philip heard the scuffling of his mother's shoes. His father had lifted her into an armchair and was whispering to her. Philip walked past his parents and out the back door then he slipped under the porch.

Philip hid the bag containing the purse under a mound of soft black dirt. He rocked back and forth in the crisp dusty leaves.

Oh, he was tired.

He was tired of so much. His father wore torn T-shirts and made the handy man visit. His mother packed him greasy sandwiches for lunch - when she made his lunch - and forgot to wash the clothes. There were enemies everywhere, everywhere you looked. His sister was a 'ho, he was fat. She was Halpern, he was Philip. Phil-lip. He got a D in phys ed and a Bin biology and, while another glass shattered somewhere in the house above him, a single thought centered in his head - an image of a shy young girl leaning on a lab table and telling him how brave he was while Philip stuck a needle way deep into a frog's brain then slit its belly open and watched the slick lump of a heart continue to beat on and on and on.

Bill Corde was sitting in infamous Room 121 of the Student Union. He was alone, surrounded by the now familiar scents of fatty meat, bitter paper and burnt coffee.

More students, more three-by-five cards. Today's questions were similar to last week's but they were not identical.

Today he was asking about two victims.

Corde took notes, jotting down the boxy oriental letters, but the hours were unproductive; he heard variations on what he had already learned or pointless, obscure details. 'Emily wore this yoked dress a lot then one day it got stolen from the laundry room. That was just before she was killed. I mean, like the day before.' Corde nodded and recorded this fact, unsure what it might mean or what he would ever do with it but afraid to let the item get away. He had this feeling often.