Lost Boys Part 34

Gla.s.s looked him right in the eye, and for a moment it seemed that he was going to answer-angrily? With a joke? Step could not begin to guess. Finally Gla.s.s just shut his mouth tight and turned his head to look out toward the entrance to the park.

OK, so I've made an enemy, thought Step as he carried Betsy back down toward DeAnne. But I'm not making this up. Gla.s.s had Betsy for no more than a couple of minutes before he had her off behind a car, where n.o.body could see, and if I hadn't come up there he would have added her to his list of treasured stories of times he has cleaned the private parts of little girls. Until now Step had begun to think that Gla.s.s had never actually molested a child, that perhaps what he had said to Step in the hotel room in San Francisco had been nothing worse than a weird fantasy of his, an obsession that was still only in his imagination. Now Step knew better. Call it "checking her diaper" or "helping her wash," it was still s.e.xual molestation and he had come this close to doing it to Betsy.

When Step got back to DeAnne, Mrs. Keene was still there-and she was frankly curious. "What was all that about?" she said.

"Just time for us to go home, I think," said Step.

"You certainly seemed upset when you heard that Bubba McIntyre was taking her for a walk. I can a.s.sure you, Bubba's the sweetest boy and he's very good with children."

Step remembered Allison Keene and had to ask. "Did Bubba ever babysit for you, Mrs. Keene?"

"He used to, back when Allison was just a toddler. He used to come around and ask if he could babysit, he was such a dear. That's how he got started programming on our old Commodore Pet-that's where he first wrote Scribe, you know-only when he started really working for Ray, Ray told me never to ask Bubba to babysit for us again. It wouldn't be right to have his best programmer also tending his children, I suppose!" But there was still a quizzical expression on her face.

"Is Betsy all right?" asked DeAnne.

"He was about to check her diaper," said Step. "To see if it was wet."

"Of course it isn't," said DeAnne. "I just changed her. I told him so."

"You told him?"

"He asked if she needed changing, and I told him I'd just changed her."

Mrs. Keene was not stupid. "Good G.o.d," she said. "You're not saying that Bubba-but that's-"

"No, I'm not saying anything about Bubba," said Step. "Except that if I ever catch him alone with my little girl again, a jury will be deciding between life imprisonment and capital punishment for me."

Mrs. Keene looked sick. "But he tended Allison all the time when she was your little Betsy's age."

"At least he doesn't tend her anymore," said Step.

"No, because Ray ..." Mrs. Keene's expression darkened. "I knew he was a son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h, but even he wouldn't hire a ... a ... person that he knew was ..." She shook her head firmly. "I'm not going to believe malicious gossip." She turned her back and stalked away.

"Oh, Step," said DeAnne, her face stricken. "Why didn't you tell me about that boy?"

"I forgot," said Step.

"You forgot!"

"No, I mean I forgot that when we brought the kids to the picnic, Gla.s.s would be here. He's been asking to babysit for us from the first moment I met him. But after San Francisco, when I realized what direction his fantasies go, I've been making sure he never gets a chance to meet the kids. And nothing happened today, not really. It was my fault things came so close, not yours, and now let's please get the h.e.l.l away from this place."

DeAnne did not demur. In a couple of minutes they were back in the car, pulling out of the lot and heading home. Step was very calm all the way, and because Robbie and Stevie were in the car they hardly said anything-nothing at all pertaining to what happened with Betsy and Gla.s.s.

At home, DeAnne wasted not a moment before she had Betsy undressed and in the bathtub. Step stood at the door and thought of all the times he had changed Betsy and bathed her and never once had he thought of anything except to talk to her and smile at her and be close to her, just as such times had always been close, affectionate times with his sons. But now the idea of watching DeAnne bathe Betsy made him feel guilty, as if the mere fact of knowing how Gla.s.s had looked at her made it so that any man's eyes that looked at her were vile, even Step's own.

The rage and shame he felt were too strong for him. He fled into the bedroom and threw himself on the bed and buried his face in the pillow and roared, a wordless animal shout that he couldn't contain a moment longer. Again. Again.

Panting, exhausted, he rolled over onto his back.

Gradually he became aware that he was not alone. He turned his head and saw Stevie in the doorway. "Hi, Stevedore," he said.

"Did that man hurt Betsy?" asked Stevie.

"No," said Step. Of course, he thought. Stevie isn't as young as Robbie. He isn't as oblivious. He watches more. He understood some of what had gone on at the picnic. "No, Betsy's fine."

"Then why were you yelling like that? You sounded really mad."

How much to say? The truth, as much as it was fair to tell someone as young and innocent as Stevie. "I was mad, but mostly at myself, because I didn't protect Betsy well enough. And also I was afraid, because we came so close to something bad happening."

"What?" asked Stevie. "What bad thing?"

"There are people in the world who do bad things to children," said Step. "People like that are the worst people in the world. Jesus said that if any man harmed a child, it would be better for him if he tied a millstone around his neck and threw himself in the sea. And if you think somebody like that might hurt your child, well, it makes you really angry and afraid."

Stevie nodded. "Yeah," he said.

"But nothing bad happened, OK? I was just upset because I thought maybe we came close to having something bad happen, that's all."

"Sometimes the bad things really do happen," said Stevie.

"Yes, I guess they do," said Step. "But if I can help it, it'll never happen to any child of mine."

"I know," said Stevie. "You and Mom are really good." He turned and went back to his room.

This was the most Stevie had said to him about anything since they moved to Steuben. He couldn't wait for DeAnne to get through bathing Betsy so he could tell her.

But when DeAnne came into the room Step had fallen asleep. He didn't get to tell her what Stevie had said until late that night, when they were in bed together, and when he told her what Stevie said at the end she nestled closer to Step and said, "Maybe we are pretty good parents, Junk Man. At least we're not Ray Keene or his wife."

That was why Step got back to thinking about Ray Keene, and realizing that Ray almost certainly knew about Gla.s.s's predilections, and yet he kept him around Eight Bits Inc., and hired other people to work with him, people for whom Gla.s.s would certainly offer to babysit, and Ray said not one word to help other people protect their children. Now, maybe Ray didn't really know, maybe it was just coincidence that he didn't let his wife hire Gla.s.s to babysit Allison anymore. But maybe Ray did know, and just didn't tell anybody because he needed Gla.s.s too much, needed Scribe 64 too much to risk losing the strange sick boy-man who had created it for him.

Dr. Weeks didn't come to the door of her office anymore when Stevie's hour was up. He pushed the heavy wooden door open by himself, and came out, looking-or so it seemed to DeAnne-smaller every time he did. She really is shrinking him in there, she thought. Yet Stevie never complained about going and never talked afterward about what went on. It was as if it didn't really happen to him, or as if it was something not important enough to be discussed.

On Monday, the eighteenth of July, DeAnne got the kids home from the psychiatrist's office and let Robbie and Elizabeth run out into the back yard to play, while she and Stevie got the mail.

She headed for the side door that led from the carport into the laundry room and then to the kitchen-it was the door they always used. But Stevie called to her. "Mom, there's a package at the front door!"

In fact, it wasn't a package at all. It was a manila envelope. It had been mailed, but the postman had left it at the door, probably because it had a rubber stamp on it, DO NOT BEND, and there would have been no way to get it into the mailbox without bending it. It had a Steuben postmark, but no return address, and the mailing label had been neatly typed: "Stephen & Diane Fletcher, 4404 Chinqua Penn, Steuben, N.C."

No zip, and while they had got Stephen's name right, DeAnne's was wrong. Usually people either got both right or got both wrong. It probably meant it was from someone who knew Step and not her. Or from someone who wanted to peeve her and not Step! Why was someone careful enough to get it stamped DO NOT BEND and then careless enough not to include a return address?

Stevie came into the house with her, and as she opened the mail at the kitchen table she heard him start up the Atari. It bothered her that he didn't go outside enough, even though it was summer. He was spending altogether too much time at the computer. It was probably time for her and Step to inst.i.tute time limits on computer games just as they had for television. An hour a day-that wasn't unreasonable. And then let Stevie find something else to do. Something healthier, something that would get him out in the sun. He looked downright pallid compared to Robbie and Elizabeth, who were getting quite a golden glow, with nice highlights in their hair.

Most of the mail was ordinary. She set aside the letter from the mortgage company in Indiana-it could only be bad news, and it could wait. Then she opened the anonymous manila envelope.

Inside was a 45-rpm record, and nothing else. It was by a group DeAnne was only vaguely aware of. She really didn't follow rock music, not the way Step did. But she did enjoy watching the new videos now and then. Cable had MTV here in Steuben, the way they had in Vigor, and she left the TV tuned to that channel sometimes while she worked. She liked the "Billy Jean" video-the lighting sidewalk appealed to her. But that one where Michael Jackson became a monster had scared the children and she had stopped just leaving MTV on when the kids were up. Still, she was aware of rock music, however vaguely. She must have seen something by the Police before.

They never bought forty-fives, and so DeAnne had no idea where she could find one of those little plastic doodads you had to put in the middle of them to play them on the stereo. It had to be somewhere near the stereo. They certainly wouldn't have thrown it away-throwing things away was not their problem.

There was a knock at the back door, the one that led from the family room into the back yard. It was Robbie. "Can we have the sprinkler?"

"OK," said DeAnne. "Come on in, both of you, and get into your swimsuits."

Elizabeth trooped in after Robbie with an exaggerated lope. Giant steps. "Pink-er, pink-er, pink-er," she chanted. It took a moment to realize that Elizabeth was saying "sprinkler." Why it had become a chant, and what it had to do with taking great galumphing steps through the family room, DeAnne could not begin to guess. It was the great mystery of childhood-what they thought they were doing when they did such weird things.

Of course, that was also the great mystery of adulthood.

Then DeAnne glanced down at the stereo and saw immediately what she had missed before: the 45-rpm adapter was built into the turntable.

She got the record from the kitchen table and slipped it onto the adapter and turned on the stereo and set the needle on the record. It sounded like big dumb lummoxes singing lumberjack songs. She lifted the needle, changed the speed to 45, and set the needle down again. Now it was a rock song.

It was a strange kind of love song. No matter what the woman did, the man would be there watching her. It didn't sound like he loved her, either. Or even liked her. It talked about her faking smiles, staking claims, breaking promises. And the rhyming was relentless. "Every cake you bake," she thought, and almost laughed. "Every child you wake. Every thirst you slake. Every duck and drake. Every well-done steak." Amazing the number of words in English that rhymed with take. The songwriter had barely scratched the surface.

Then it didn't seem funny anymore. Because somebody had sent that record to them anonymously. Why would they do that? They wanted to send a message. And what was the message? That no matter what they did, somebody would be watching.

She went around the house, checking the locks on all the doors. In the meantime the record had ended. She came back into the family room and started it over. After just a few notes of the song, she lifted the needle and turned off the stereo. Step would play it tonight, and that would be plenty.

Elizabeth came into the room in her diaper, carrying her swimsuit. DeAnne laboriously sat on the couch to help her get it on. "I can't just put it on you like I used to, Elizabeth," said DeAnne. "I can't reach over my tummy. You have to step into the suit."

It took about a dozen tries, but Elizabeth was finally standing in her swimsuit and now DeAnne could pull it up and tie it behind her neck. "Are you going to come out into the sprinkler, too, Stevie?" she asked.

Stevie didn't stop playing even for a moment. "No," he said.

"You used to like to," said DeAnne.

Robbie ran into the room, wearing not only his swimsuit but also the Superman cape that DeAnne had made for him two Halloweens ago. "Ta-da!" he shouted. "Ta-da!"

"Here you are to save the day," said DeAnne.

"Turn on the sprinkler, Mommy!" shouted Robbie.

DeAnne leaned to the side and sort of rolled up onto her feet, supporting her weight on the front of the couch as she did. She felt like an elephant she had seen once in a movie, wallowing in the mud.

"Stevie, " she said. "You used to like to play in the sprinkler."

"It wouldn't be fair," he said.

"What wouldn't be fair?" she asked.

"Cause I can and they can't."

She knew the answer, but still she had to ask. "Who can't?"

"Scotty and Jack and those guys."

She curbed her frustration and spoke in what she hoped was a reasonable tone. "Well, they can't play computer games with you, either."

"Yes they can," he said.

She opened the back door and Robbie and Elizabeth burst out into the sunlight. She turned back into the dark cave of the family room, where Stevie now seemed to be only a shadow in the corner, his head silhouetted against the bright screen, where a train sped along a track.

"Stevie, even if they can't play with you in the sprinkler, if your friends are really your friends, they'd want you to play in the sunlight. Real friends wouldn't stop you from playing with your brother and sister sometimes. Your brother and sister need you, too."

She couldn't believe she was talking to Stevie as if his imaginary friends were real.

But if these imaginary boys were at the center of Stevie's life, then shutting them out would mean shutting Stevie out, too. She had to try to reach him, and if this was the only door he held open, then she would reach in through that door.

Stevie reached behind the computer and switched it off. "OK," he said. "I'll get my suit on."

She felt weak with relief as she turned the water on.

The sprinkler began its sweep back and forth across the lawn. Elizabeth ran through it, screaming. Robbie, however-the one who had suggested this-hung back. "Go on!" DeAnne said. "Just run through it and get wet. The water won't hurt."

Robbie still hesitated.

Then Stevie came out, walked over to where Robbie was, took him by the hand, and said, "OK, they're about to drop the bomb on us, let's run!" And, screaming, he and Robbie ran through the water.

DeAnne went back in the family room and brought out the folding chair she always used when she sat in the back and watched the kids play. She sat there, watching, and thought, Somebody wants me to think that he's watching, too. Somebody wants me to sit out here in my back yard and be afraid.

Well, it's working.

Step knew that something was bothering her, so when he woke up at three in the morning and found her side of the bed empty, he was not surprised. He knew why she couldn't sleep. The letter from the mortgage company had laid things out in no uncertain terms. "Your single payment was insufficient to keep this account open. If we do not receive in our office all back payments and late fees, along with the July payment currently due, for a total payment of $3,398.40, by 22nd July, we will begin foreclosure proceedings against the property." It was only then that Step discovered that DeAnne had not paid the back payments in June, when the first check from Agamemnon arrived. She hadn't spent the money on anything else; it was still there, ready to be paid. But it had been strange, to say the least, for DeAnne simply not to pay. It wasn't as if they didn't owe the money. It was their moral obligation to pay it. They had decided together that they would pay it. And yet the money still waited in the bank.

DeAnne had obviously been unwilling to discuss it with Step last night. She agreed at once that she would send the payment tomorrow, but she seemed distracted, as if she wasn't paying attention. She told him twice about Stevie playing with the other kids in the sprinkler, and she seemed jumpy. Now she couldn't sleep. Well, neither can I, thought Step. He got up and went in search of her. He found her in the family room and started rea.s.suring her about the mortgage.

"It's not the house, Step," she said. "But you were so worried about it tonight that I didn't want to pile on anything more."

"You were protecting me? That's not how it's supposed to go."

"I'm sorry," she said. "We depend so much on your being able to concentrate on your work. But I can't handle this alone." She gave him the record and the envelope it came in. "It was waiting at our front door."

As soon as it started playing, he recognized it. He had the car-radio habit as DeAnne did not, and the song was hot right now. He had even liked it, the cleverness of it, the nastiness. But not when someone sent it anonymously to his family. He took it off the stereo before it finished playing. Then he broke it in half and carried the pieces outside to the garbage. There was nothing he could say that would rea.s.sure DeAnne. He could only take her to bed and hold her until finally she fell asleep.

He slept badly the rest of the night, and the next day at work, the question kept nagging at him. Who could have sent it? Who would want to disrupt their lives, fill them with fear?

DeAnne had figured that whoever it was knew Step better than DeAnne-but that didn't really leave anybody out, because it seemed as though Step had made all the enemies they had anyway. Who, after all, would want them to think that they were being watched? It might be Lee Weeks, of course, punishing them for the baptism thing. Or Gallowgla.s.s, after the Fourth of July picnic-he had been cool and distant at work ever since, and who knew what might be going through his mind in response to the clear accusation in Step's actions that day?

There were others who might harbor ill feelings, too. It might conceivably be Mrs. Jones, who had missed her last month of teaching and, according to Dr. Mariner, would not be coming back next year. Could she have sat at home, brooding, until she thought of sending that record to make the Fletchers suffer a little, too? It could even be Sister LeSueur, though that seemed beyond possibility-it was hard to imagine her ever hearing a rock song, let alone buying one, even as a satanic weapon.

d.i.c.ky? It couldn't be d.i.c.ky. He was a vindictive man, Step already knew that, and they had already had one confrontation too many. But surely d.i.c.ky would confine his vengeance to bureaucratic infighting at work. Wouldn't he?

It was an appalling list, really: Lee, Gla.s.s, Mrs. Jones, d.i.c.ky Northanger, Sister LeSueur-these were the people who definitely felt they had cause to hate or fear or resent Step Fletcher after he had lived in Steuben, North Carolina, for less than five months. Just think how many enemies he could make by New Year's! Yet he hadn't set out to make any enemies at all. He had come to Eight Bits Inc. expecting to be friends with d.i.c.ky Northanger-he had liked him well enough during interviews. It was d.i.c.ky who decided to be Step's enemy. It was Sister LeSueur who intruded into their lives, not the other way around. It was Mrs. Jones who singled out Stevie and mistreated him-should Step have let it go on, in the effort to be a "peacemaker"? What kind of peacemaker would he be, how blessed exactly would he be, if he pursued peace at the expense of his children's happiness?

As for Gla.s.s and Lee, well, standards of reasonable behavior clearly did not apply. No one could blame him for their enmity, surely.

By ten o'clock he realized that he was not going to get anything meaningful done this morning. He might as well go hang out in the pit and see if he could pretend to be useful there.

On the way he pa.s.sed the spare office where unused equipment was stored and noticed that someone had left the light on. Step opened the door just enough to snake his arm in and flipped off the light.

Someone inside the room bellowed.