Dreamland Lake (10 page)

Along in there, I began to have this feeling that maybe it was Elvan who was running the show and Flip and I were the ones being sort of maneuvered.

Elvan couldn’t wait to show us what his real place was, though, so right away, he started herding us downstairs. His mother cut us off as we were trooping
past the kitchen, with Elvan like a big hen trying to keep us in line. He really was showing signs of taking over.

But she said, “All right now. I know boys. They’re always hungry. You three young fellows just step right into this kitchen and see what’s on the table for you. I have to keep your strength up, you know.” What was on the table for us young fellows was a three-layer chocolate devil’s-food with fudge exterior icing and interior divisions of marshmallow cream. Three chocolate malteds straight from the blender. And a fancy glass dish full of chocolate-covered peanuts. The only thing she’d left out was cocoa.

It was a pretty gross display, and it explained quite a bit about Elvan’s physical condition—maybe, even his emotional state. But it was too tempting to pass up. We sort of fell for it. That woman knew how to bake. And she stood around beaming while we dug in. But the funny thing was—Elvan didn’t have any appetite. He kept saying things like, “Aw, Motherrrr, we guys have got other things to do.”

And she kept pinching his ear, and getting cute with him, and saying, “This doesn’t sound like
my
boy.” It about put me off my feed. But since Flip was telling her what good cake it was—and it was—I kept on eating.

By the time we’d polished it off, Elvan was starting to quiver. He was getting wild to have us finish up and start moving. And finally, we got away from the table after we promised Mrs. Helligrew we’d be back for seconds since she didn’t seem to want to put away what was left of the devil’s food.

“Come on,” Elvan said, very impatient. He was beginning to bark. “I want you guys to see something
down in the basement.” And he pounded off down the steps, looking back to make sure we were following.

The first thing we saw was a ping-pong table, and Flip said, “Look, Elvan, we haven’t got time to play—”

“We’re not playing any ping-pong. Come on.” He led us around behind the furnace and the washer-drier. And there was another door. On it was printed a hand-lettered sign that said
KEEP OUT OF ELVAN
’
S PLACE
. He had a padlock on it. The key to it was hanging on a chain in one of the fat folds around his neck. Flip and I gave each other a look and a shrug. We stood there like a couple of clods while Elvan fiddled nervously with the key and the lock.

He pushed the door open and started in, but said, over his shoulder, “Just hold it right there until I find the string for the light.” He came right back with the end of a string in one hand. “Okay, you two, just step inside the door, and I’ll turn on the light.” We were inside with the door shut behind us before he pulled on the string. He was really paying us back for that scene in the museum tower—whether he knew it or not. Then the light went on.

The only thing I really enjoy remembering about that moment was the look on Flip’s face. But being able to remember it doesn’t mean I can describe it. I don’t even know how I had the time to glance at him.

When the light went on, we were looking directly at a Nazi flag—full size—nailed up on the far wall of a little laundry room with no windows. On either side of the flag were crates or something all covered up with bright red cloth. On top of each of them were styrofoam heads—like those stands women buy to
put their wigs on when they’re not wearing them. And on these were German helmets from World War II—real storm trooper helmets, the kind that dip down over the ears. They looked like two cutoff heads at a human sacrifice. And they were sort of turned like they were looking at the big red, white, and black Nazi flag with the swastika in the middle of it. Underneath it was one of those artificial wreaths that people leave at graves on Memorial Day.

That was just the beginning, though; it was sort of the centerpiece for the room. On all the walls were pictures and medals pinned up. One of the pictures was of Hitler and his girl friend. He was wearing German-style shorts, and she was laughing, and they were playing with a dog. It was a picture cut out of a magazine, but somehow, down there, it looked like a personal family portrait.

The walls were full of stuff like that. Hanging down from the ceiling were little scale models of Stukas and Messerschmitts and all kinds of out-of-date German fighter planes, dangling there in frozen aerial combat. It was like going back thirty years in time. On the wrong side.

We just stood around with our mouths open—completely forgetting the big point: that this was another piece of the puzzle right there ready to fall neatly into place. The effect on us must have given Elvan a deep and satisfying charge. Finally, he said, very modest, “Well, this is my place.”

For once, I had to step in and do the talking. I did the best I could. “Well, Elvan, this is quite a collection. Yessir, you must be pretty proud of it.”

“It’s a few things my dad brought home from the war. He’s not interested in them, though. The flag and the helmets and a few other pieces. But I got most
of this stuff myself with money I saved and trading with other collectors. I bought most of the medals.” He was puffed up to half again his size. And standing sort of stiff with his heels together.

“I guess they must be pretty valuable by now—historic stuff like that.”

“I’d never sell them,” he cut right in. “I might trade up on a few pieces and duplicates, but I’d never just sell them. I keep them for my own self and to show to a few friends.”

I had the feeling we were the first friends to view the collection. For one thing, if anybody else had seen it, word would have got around. For another thing—what friends?

“People didn’t understand the Germans,” he was saying in a high whine. “You don’t get a true picture from what they write about them over here.”

“Over where?”

“Over here. In this country. That’s always the way when a country wins a war. They discredit the losing side. This always happens after wars. If Germany had won the war, it’d have been a different story.”

“No question about that, Elvan,” I said. Flip just stood there.

“Look, I wouldn’t let anybody else, but you guys can try on the helmets. Here, let me . . .”

“I don’t think so, Elvan.” Flip had finally found his voice—it was a smooth, soothing voice. “You just leave them right there on those . . . heads. They look real good there. Let’s just leave things like you got them fixed up. Like a display in a museum. It’s interesting that way . . .”

“It’s not just a museum,” Elvan said loud. “It’s more than that to me. You guys can understand, it’s
like . . .” Then he just stopped and looked at us. With his eyes bright, but tiny, in his big, round face. It was like he suddenly had a bad speech impediment that kept the meaning from coming out. There was some kind of a war inside him—not World War II. Something more personal to him.

We told him we had to get down to the pickup and get the papers out, and he didn’t try to hold us up. We got out of there as quick as we could.

And as we were heading down the front walk, fast, his mother came out on the front step and yelled, “Remember, our home is your home!”

“Jeee-sus,” Flip finally said, when we were halfway out of Beechurst Heights, “talk about sick! That guy . . .”

“It’s what you were looking to find out, wasn’t it? Like this solves everything, and we don’t have to turn our investigations in new directions.”

“Yeah, well,” he said.

“Yeah, well, shut up.”

We didn’t talk about it for maybe a week. Finals were coming on, and we were about to leave the seventh grade behind us for good.

It was coming around to locker-clean-out day. We’d spent the week since that Saturday at Elvan’s keeping clear of him. It’s not hard during the school day since he’s not in any of our classes, and he’s excused from gym. And we could bury ourselves at a crowded table during lunch.

Then one evening, Flip called me up after supper. “Look, we’ve got to do something about Elvan before school’s out, and we’ve got to talk it over first.”

“So talk.”

“Well, it’s about the sword we found. It’s his, of course.”

“Yes.”

“And that day, he dropped it down where he knew we’d walk by and find it.”

“Probably.”

“What do you mean
probably?
”

“I mean, yes, I think he did.”

“Got any idea why?”

“It’s my same idea that starts you off calling me a doctor of psychiatric brain-shrinking.”

“All right, I won’t. Just say your theory.”

“For the second time, my theory still is he wanted to get us to notice him, and that sword was a real attention-getter. Besides that, it’s something that really means a lot to him. It’s his own private treasure. It was like an offering to us. Like here’s something really great I’m giving you—now like me.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Flip said. “But how come he’s so carried away with all that Nazi crap?”

“Now you’re getting off the point.”

“Well, okay, if I am. Give your theory about that. I know you’ve got one.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” I said.

Silence at the other end.

“I’ve been thinking maybe he admires the Nazis because he thinks they were supermen, which is what they thought themselves.”

“And?”

“And he’s not a superman. He’s an unsuperman. He’s a zero. It gives him something big and impressive to be a part of.”

“But what good’s that if nobody knows?”

“We know.”

“Yeah, but what good is that going to do him?”

“Well, indirectly it’s already got us over to his house, which nothing else in the world would have done. You saw how even his mother was overjoyed to see us.”

“Okay, they’re both weird as hell. But how about the swastika carved on the concrete out in the woods?”

“Easy,” I told him. “He got all excited about us to begin with because we found the dead man in the woods. That’s the sort of thing that might get him all fired up—almost like we live a real exciting life, and things happen to us. So after it was all over, he probably went down there to where the body had been and carved the swastika to kind of be in on it himself. I mean anybody interested in the Nazis has got to be interested in death and like that. Besides, he probably figured we’d go back there sooner or later. He probably even figured that’s where we were going when you hired him to take the route that day.”

“Maybe so,” Flip said, “but how’d he know we’d go into the tennis clubhouse and find the candles and all?”

“Look, I don’t know. For all I know, he planted a lot of stuff around in the hope that we’d find it and get curious. Maybe there’s lots of other clues he put around we didn’t even come across. I mean, once he gets something in his mind, he goes all the way. You can see that. Besides, maybe he gets his kicks by scratching swastikas around on everything. It’d figure.”

“Well,” Flip said, like he was giving it all his serious concentration, “your theory’s good as far as it goes, but . . .”

“Dammit, that’s what you say about all my theories.
I think it goes far enough, and, if you ask me, I think we’ve gone too far. How much farther do
YOU
think the theory ought to go, Mastermind?”

“Maybe just one more step,” Flip said.

“Which is?”

“Which is—maybe he wants us to notice him because he’s got something to tell us. Like he was trying to tell us something that day at his house. Maybe he has something specific he wants us to know.”

“Such as?”

“Such as he knows how the dead man died.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “Don’t give me any of that. You’re going too far as usual. You hate to see the end of anything, so you’re dragging it out. Next thing, you’re going to say is he . . . I don’t know what you’re going to be saying next.”

“Yes. Maybe he did it. He’s nutty enough to,” Flip said. “Maybe he really did. With his little sword.”

We wrapped it up in brown paper, the Nazi sword. And we addressed it to Elvan, and propped it up outside his locker on clean-out day, and left it there. It was like buying him off. I wish we had.