第 39 页

Ebbans said, 'We better call the state and tell them we got one loose.'

'You might want to mention,' the rib-cracking deputy said, 'he's got a gun.'

Outright silence. Every head in the room turned to him.

The deputy blushed then said, 'Forgot to say, what with Lance being down and all. He got Lance's gun. I thought he'd gotten the Speedloaders but they'd fallen under the bunk. Just the gun he got. I was relieved to find the extra shells.'

Corde said, 'Nobody's supposed to go into the cells with a gun! He didn't leave it in the box?"

'Guess he forgot.'

'Sweet Mary,' Corde whispered. 'Get on the horn,' he ordered Slocum. 'Make it APB to county and state. Armed and emotionally disturbed. Tell them that he's scared but he doesn't want to hurt anybody.'

Mahoney asked, 'You sound like you're in charge here, Detective. I seem to recall you're under suspension.'

The others looked at Corde cautiously, waiting for him to blow. He however had not even heard the words. He was in a different place altogether, running through bushes and trees, wheezing and hawking, right next to Philip Halpern. The boy's fifteen. So he doesn't have a driver's license. He's probably trying to get out of the county on foot. How would he do that?'

Slocum said, 'I don't know. I don't think we've ever had an escape situation here.'

Ebbans said, 'What about a Greyhound out of Fredericksberg.'

'Maybe,' Corde said slowly. 'How about the state park?'

Slocum said, 'Damn, sure. It'll lead him right to the river and I bet he thinks he'll snatch a canoe or boat and head south.'

The door opened and Harrison County Sheriff Hammerback Ellison stepped into the office. He was a solid, heavy man but his face was pointed and delicate and he had very small feet and narrow ankles. 'I just got the call. The boy got away?'

'Sure did.' Ebbans stood up and picked up his hat. 'And he's got a gun. You and me ought to get over to the state park. That okay with you, Bill?' Ebbans asked. His voice was strident; he was challenging anybody to question the shift of authority back to Corde. Bless you on this, T. T. Corde nodded and said to Slocum, 'Jim, why don't you take 302. Just on the chance that he's hitching. I'll take 117 down to the river and see if I find him there.'

Slocum looked at Ebbans, who said, 'Do it, Jim.'

Then Corde said to Mahoney, 'Charlie, maybe you ought to check out downtown. He could be trying to outsmart us and hole up till night somewhere around here.'

Mahoney reluctantly said, 'I don't think he's that smart. But it's not a bad idea.'

They all hurried outside to the parking lot. Slocum got into his car and sped off. Ellison and Ebbans vanished in a cloud of dust and tire smoke. Corde hung back. He started the engine then drove slowly out of the parking lot.

He did not however make the right turn onto Cress, which would have taken him directly to Route 117. He turned left then slammed his foot onto the accelerator.

By the power of Your wisdom, by the strength of Your might, guide me, O Guardians, to the Lost Dimension, from darkness to light.

Philip pauses to smell the deputy's gun. The scents are oil, plastic and metal warmed to 98.6 by the abundant flesh of his stomach. It is a small gun but very heavy.

Systems armed. Xaser torpedoes in launch tubes...

Philip is in the woods that border his parents' house. He is surrounded by lean pines and the hot stems of wild sunflowers and long, bowed grass. Within a frame of trees he can see the Chevrolet. He can see the tail of the duct tape that holds the station wagon's grille, which was shattered when his mother went off the road two years ago. He can see the barbecue. He can see the back porch with its lattice door open wide - left that way by his father after digging up the purse. Philip can see the green of the sagging shack in the backyard. Under one eave of the shack is a huge, skin-creepy wasp nest that has weighed on his mind like a fat pimple for a week. After he kills his father and after he kills Jano the Honon traitor he will fire the rest of the bullets into the wasp nest.

Lock on target, entering Dimensional shift now. ..

No, Philip remembers, he will not shoot all the bullets into the nest. Hell save one.

Philip steps out of the woods and starts toward his house.

Faith. To the Lost Dimension. From darkness to light.

12

'Doing that,' Creth Halpern said, 'won't help much at all.'

His wife looked at him curiously - as if he hadn't spoken, as if he were simply standing in front of her, moving his mouth silently. As if the words buzzed around her head like bees in an old cartoon.

They were both surprised at his comment. It had been years since he'd referred to her drinking. His wife emptied the contents of the heavy glass into her throat and swallowed. She poured another and replaced the plastic pitcher in a refrigerator that held Kraft cheese slices, a near-empty box of Post Toasties, a package of grey ground beef, a half quart of milk. She leaned against the wall. Halpern gripped the screwdriver he was using to crack open a paint-frozen window. He dug the blade into the seam and levered upward, crushing the wood of the sill. The window didn't budge.

'Damn.'

His wife sipped the drink and looked out at a blooming lilac bush outside windows bordered with curtains on which were printed tiny brown tepees.

Halpern for the life of him couldn't understand why she looked so good. In the mornings, a little puffy-faced; at night, eyes dead to all who bothered to look. But that was the only real evidence. Last summer one of Philip's friends had hit on her. A skin-and-bones high school kid! Halpern admitted she had a great bod. How could she pour down the Beefeaters faster than any one of the guys down at the Tap and still keep her face clean and her hair all permed up nice? Her nails done? Her legs shaved?

'Our son,' she said by way of announcement, 'in jail.'

'He didn't do it. He'll be out tomorrow.'

'Oh, come on. He did those things to her...' She didn't even sound drunk. He wondered if he'd just gotten used to it. He tried to remember her voice when he'd met her, when he'd first started hanging out in the New Lebanon Inn, where she was waitressing. He couldn't. This saddened him greatly.

His wife said to a lumber yard calender. 'I can't call my mother. How can I call her? I'd be so ashamed.'

'He did some things to that girl, yeah, and he oughta be whipped and he will be. But he didn't kill anybody. I'll swear to that. What we should do is get some help.'

'Oh, sure. How?'

There's state help, I guess. Talk to a... I don't know. Somebody.'

'Oh, just like that? Sure. If you made money maybe.' Her voice clear as gin.

'I put a roof over his head. I put food in his mouth. And yours too. Food, and that's not all.' Two digs in one day. Halpern was shaken.

'If you made money-'

'I fucking make money. You could make money too.'

'-we could do a few things.'

'I'm stopping you from getting a job?'

"You don't remember. You don't remember anything.'

Halpern said, 'I can't talk to you when you're this way.'

'How come,' she asked curiously, 'you don't fuck me anymore?'

Halpern's temper blazed then died immediately to a simmer. He considered open-handing her cheek but was paralyzed by a bottomless remorse. He joined his wife in gazing out the window. It occurred to him that most of their arguments happened just this way - her drunk, him thinking about other places and people, both of them staring out the window. Wanting to smack her and not having the energy or the type of hate required.

'Oh, go to hell,' his wife said as if giving directions.

Halpern snatched up the screwdriver. He squeezed it a dozen times, feeling the resilience of the rubberized handle spattered in paint. He stepped slowly to the kitchen sink, leaned forward and dug the screwdriver furiously into the seam of the window, cracking chunks out of the soft pine sill.

He heard a clatter of pans behind him.

He heard the sticky sound of the refrigerator door opening.

He heard the sound of pouring liquid.

He heard his wife's voice. 'Philip!'

Halpern turned. The boy had entered through the back door and stood in the center of the kitchen.

When d'you get out?' his father asked. He felt a horrid urge, a salivating urge, to step forward and bloody the boy's nose. To scream at him. (To scream what? 'How could you do that to a poor girl? How could you, you stupid little prick?' To scream: "What'd I do to make you this way? I loved you! I really loved you! I'm so sorry!)

Creth Halpern stood completely still, the screwdriver sliding from his hand. He stood twenty feet away from his son, whose upper lip glistened with snot and whose face was glossy with sweat, his fat three-dimensional chest heaving.

'How did you?-'

His wife whispered, 'Oh my God.'

Creth Halpern too saw the gun.

'Whatcha got there, boy?" he asked.

Philip's head turned to his mother. The glass fell from her grip, hitting the floor and whipping a tail of liquor against the refrigerator. Her smooth hands, tipped in unchipped red nails, went to her mouth. Philip turned back to his father. The boy's mouth moved but no words came out. It was the mouth of a fish eating water.

Finally, he swallowed then said in a weak voice, The handy man's here.'

'Listen up, young man. Put that gun down.'

'The handy man.'

His mother said, 'Philip, don't do this.' She sobbed, 'Please, don't do this.'

'I never did anything to you,' the boy said to his father.

'Son-'

Philip held the gun up and said, 'Handy man. Handyman, handymanhandyman-'

'I only wanted to help you, son.'

'I never did anything to you,' Philip whispered.

'Son, I know you didn't hurt those girls.'

'You were talking to the sheriff. I saw you.'

'I was giving him that purse you hid. The note! The note was inside. You know what I'm talking about! It shows you didn't kill her.'

In a voice more assured and more adult and more frightening than Halpern had ever heard, Philip said, 'I'm sorry, Dad, but the handy man's here.'

'I wanted to help you,' his father said.

Philip said, 'Hold out your hand.'

Bill Corde stepped silently past a drowsy old mutt, chained to the worn railing of the front porch. He slipped through the door and made his way toward the back of the house along the pink carpet runner, stained with dark patches. He smelled dog piss and old food and bleach. He could see Philip in the kitchen, holding the dark gray gun. He could see Halpern nearby. He could see a woman's white arm ending in long polished nails. Corde stopped in the dining room outside the kitchen doorway. He left his revolver bolstered then took off his hat and set it on a dusty Sanyo TV. He paused next to the dining room table, which was covered with sticky soiled dishes and scraps of food, crusts from last night's pizza. In the center of the Formica a large paisley spill of ketchup had coagulated darkly.

'Hi, Philip,' Corde said softly.

Creth Halpern jumped at the sound. His wife's shocked face appeared in the doorway. Philip looked at the detective, uninterested, then back to his father and said, 'Hold out your hand.'

Halpern said slowly to Corde, 'He's got himself a gun.'

'Hold up your hand!'

Halpern raised his hands above his head.

'No, not up. Handy man is here. Hold out your hand! You know how to do it.'

'Phil,' Corde said. The boy looked at him for a minute then back to his father. When Corde moved a step closer to the living room Philip raised the gun to the center of his father's chest.

'Philip,' Corde said, speaking casually. Why don't you set the gun down? Would you please?'

His parents looked helplessly at Corde. He saw despair in their faces and he saw that the boy's father wore it the hardest.

'Please honey, please son,' his mother was whimpering.

Philip looked at her. He smiled. He said, 'Open the refrigerator.'

'Please honey...'

'OPEN IT!'

She screamed, and tore open the door. Philip held the gun up and fired a ringing, deafening shot into the bottom of the pitcher. The stained beige Rubbermaid exploded in a mist of gin. His mother screamed again. Neither Corde nor Halpern moved. Philip turned back to Corde.

Corde said, 'Nobody's going to hurt you.'

Philip laughed triumphantly. 'You think I don't know about that? That's what they tried with Dathar. They tried to fool him. They lied to him but he didn't believe them.'

'We want to help you, Phil.'

'Jamie turned me in.'

Corde said sternly, 'No, he didn't. I talked-'

'He did.'

'He didn't!' Corde shouted furiously, risking the boy's reaction. 'I talked to him about what happened. Some people at the sheriffs office tricked him. He didn't know they followed him. He was trying to save you. He has a message for you.' Corde held his hand in the Naryan salute.

The gun in Philip's hand wobbled. He said that?'

'He sure did.'

Philip nodded and smiled weakly. Then he turned to his father and spoke in a mournful voice. "You didn't come to see me.'

They said I couldn't. There was visiting hours. I was coming tonight. Like at the hospital when we went to visit Gram. They said I could only come at four o'clock.'

Philip looked at Corde, who said, That's true, Philip. It's the Sheriffs Department rules.'

The boy's eyes swept the floor.

Outside when he heard the gunshot and the scream, Charlie Mahoney put aside the Motorola walkie-talkie on which he'd just called T.T. Ebbans and Hammerback Ellison. He pulled his federally licensed automatic pistol out of his pocket and started up the porch stairs.