The Boy Detective Fails (12 page)
Violet shakes her head. “I was. It didn’t go so well.”
“I see.”
“Did you ever …?”
“No.”
Violet sighs. “It’s because we’ve been ruined, Billy.”
“Yes. That’s true.”
Violet drops her hand and they both stare down at their feet.
“Why are you here?” Billy asks.
“I’ve been hired to run interference and make sure no one intergurrupts this meeting.”
“But they are all villains,” Billy says.
“You know the score, Billy. If you’ve got a case, take it to the police.”
“Why are you helping them?”
“I’m not in the position to turn away much work these days.”
“I see.”
“And I must warn you that you’re trespassing on private property and unless you leave, I’ll be forced to call the police.”
Billy nods, sizing up the threat. “Hmmmmmm,” he says.
“Hmmmmmmmmmmm,” she says. “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” he repeats. “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” she responds.
It is not over. Not quite. Billy suddenly takes Violet’s hand and smiles. He holds it and stares at her and the feeling of her palm against his is warm and soft and Violet is surprised and blushes quick.
He leans in and whispers in her ear: “You wrote me a letter once.”
“Billy, you said you would never mention it.”
He frowns, still holding her hand. “Once we were waiting in a clock tower and there were cobwebs in your hair and I said something that made you laugh.”
“Billy, please, don’t.”
“I am asking you for your help, Violet. I need to solve this case. If I don’t, I’m as good as dead.”
Violet closes her eyes. She has never looked so beautiful in all her life. “Billy, if we weren’t so damn alike …”
“Please, Violet.”
The smartest girl in the world nods and leans in, kissing his cheek.
“Thank you, Violet.”
Violet smiles. “Yes—and Billy?”
“Yes, Violet?”
“Do something good, Billy. Like we used to, OK?”
It is then that the boy detective lets his true identity be known: Removing the long black beard and mustache, it becomes quite obvious he is not a villain at all. He is Billy Argo, boy detective. He steps past the young woman and gives the doors of the meeting room a dramatic shove.
The Blank is trying to remember a joke he was to make about the problem with time bombs, but in his nervousness it seems he cannot remember it. He pauses, searches through his note cards, itches his neck, searches through his note cards again, and then gives up. “Yes, well, now then, we will answer your questions,” he says.
The man in the cape and mask raises his hand. “Why do all the buildings have to be the same?” he asks. “It seems kind of pointless. I mean, why bother with that kind of thing?”
“We will establish a death grip on the world through complete and total uniformity. We will start with surface structures, like buildings, and then … it will all be very easy.”
The caped man sits down, shaking his head.
It is at this exact moment that the boy detective enters.
The Blank looks up and sees the bandaged face of his longtime adversary, then places a black hand against his white forehead in a gesture of defeat.
“Oh no. Oh, no,” he says.
Every villain in the room sees the quickstepping young man moving toward the podium and draws in a breath. Certainly they remember the lad: the brash twinkle of his eyes, the nervous though intelligent eyebrows, the small blue cardigan sweater. Billy dashes down the aisle and stands before the stage, the Blank’s white-faced henchmen hurrying aside. The boy detective stares up at the wood podium and then points at the masked man onstage.
“It is now over, fiend. Whatever you had planned will now come to an end.”
“Ah, but it is too late, boy detective. For at this very moment, a disintegration bomb is being hidden at a secret location in town, a bomb which is set to go off at midnight tonight, a bomb with absolutely no failsafe device. Not even
you
will be able to stop it.”
“I see.”
“Perhaps you would like to know the whereabouts of the bomb?”
“Yes, I would.”
“It is none other than … the bus station.”
“The bus station?”
“Yes, of course—a more hideously designed building has never been raised. It is circular and asymmetrical at the same time. It is quite awful to behold. I am doing this town a favor.”
“The bomb cannot be disarmed?”
“No. It cannot.”
“I see.”
“Any other questions?”
“I do not think so. Other than the one about whether it can be disarmed or not.”
“As I said, it does not seem very likely. Even if you could, the bomb has been carefully hidden. You would have to find it first, which would be nearly impossible.”
“Oh, I did not think about whether it would be hidden or not.”
“Yes, it is hidden quite well. Now if you don’t mind, we’re having an important meeting,” the Blank says.
“Oh yes, I’m sorry,” the boy detective whispers, defeated. He suddenly becomes aware of the bandages on his face. He suddenly becomes aware that he is about to faint. People are staring at him, mumbling. He has failed. He will not be able to save the day. He silently apologizes to the conventioneers, as he turns and drifts through the doors of the meeting room. The convention is at once silent. A chair squeaks and the sound rises through the room like a scream. Someone begins whispering.
Everyone holds their breath, wondering what might happen next.
The boy detective and the Mumford children are sitting sadly beneath the front porch.
“But why did they kill my bunny?” the girl asks.
“I am afraid there is no answer to that question, other than what we may have already discovered: to make you sad. It is their job to break all our hearts. Theirs is a world of evil and it seems we are truly at their mercy.”
Gus hands Billy a small note. It reads:
Why are we under the porch?
“We have no way of saving ourselves at the moment. We have no way of knowing when the world of evil will find us. We have no way of knowing how to stop evil from happening, so all we can do is wait here and hide.”
In the looming twilight, the sunlight dying as it makes its way through the slats in the porch, the boy detective lays on his side and, bringing thumb and forefinger together in a small circle, while keeping his other three fingers straight, he watches the shape of the shadow of his hand change suddenly. He holds his fingers against the concrete foundation of the house, imagining the head of a small shadowy rabbit, waiting there in the near dark.
Why is a mystery so terrifying to us as adults? Is it because our worlds have become worlds of routine and safety and order the older we’ve grown? Is it because we have learned the answer to everything and that answer is that there is never a secret passageway, a hidden treasure, or a note written in code to save us from our darkest moments? Why are we struggling so hard against believing there is a world we don’t know? Is it more frightening to accept our lives as they are than it is to entertain a fantasy of hope?
Depressed, the boy detective pops two Ativan and lies in the television room of Shady Glens, watching an episode of
Modern Police Cadet
.
In this episode, titled “Evil Is Everywhere,” young Leopold Jones has been double-crossed by an unscrupulous policeman named Constable Heller. Heller wears black-framed glasses and a black beard. He is something of an intellectual and argues that crime is a positive plague enacted by nature to wipe out the poor and weak. It becomes clear that the Modern Police Cadet has been tricked when, after discovering a bomb planted outside a displaced-persons shelter, Constable Heller prepares to shoot him in the back.
“I wish it could go some other way, my friend,” the Constable says, then draws his small silver pistol.
Leopold Jones, Modern Police Cadet, turns, unwilling to look the villain in the eye. “If you are going to shoot me in the back, I will not give you the pleasure of watching me cower at your feet,” he says, and begins walking away.
Constable Heller, in a moment of truly brilliant acting, pauses, wipes his mouth, and takes off his black-framed glasses, as Leopold continues to stride toward the police coupe, the lights still flashing bright white. Constable Heller stares at the bomb, then at Leopold’s back, then at the bomb again, while a violin howls terribly. It is clear this is a moment of serious deliberation for the evil Constable. The next sound is a loud gunshot, and young Leopold drops to his knees. For some reason, the Modern Police Cadet begins smiling.
“You poor fool,” Leopold says, losing consciousness. “Now you will never ever save yourself.”
Although the boy detective has seen this particular episode many times before, it is still very startling when the Constable fires and the Cadet is left for dead in a ditch. But he knows that the Modern Police Cadet is not dead. Leopold Jones has studied many forms of Eastern medicine, like Chinese acupuncture and herbal botany, while serving as a science officer in Asia Minor sometime after he was separated from his division during a British mission to Burma, and he knows what specific plants can be found floating in a ditch along the side of the road in urban London that can quickly cure a bullet wound in his own back.
Billy stares at the flashing screen and wonders why nothing in his own life is ever so easy. He stands to switch the television set off, still watching as the Modern Police Cadet judo chops a great-necked thug, discovering the Constable’s hideout. The Constable, in the time span of a half hour following the Cadet’s near-fatal gunshot wound, has risen to be the new London kingpin. The final scene is, of course, Leopold, the Modern Police Cadet, chasing the Constable across several shadowy rooftops, until finally the evildoer surrenders. A Scotland Yard helicopter circling overhead, the episode ends with the Modern Police Cadet handcuffing the criminal mastermind and leading him away.
The boy detective wonders if the Modern Police Cadet ever feels totally alone. He wonders this and finally decides that somehow the Cadet has found a way to face the evils of the world and still live with who he is.
Leopold Jones, kissing his wife in the final frame of the show, whispers, “The world of evil is only as evil as we allow it to be,” as they sit waiting at the London train station, off together for a much overdue holiday.
Billy finds himself standing there and clapping for some reason. The wing of Shady Glens is utterly silent. The entire world is quiet. Billy puts on his shoes and immediately begins running down the hallway.
En route to the Gotham bus station, the boy detective is riding near the front, directly behind the driver, silently wondering what exactly he will do when he arrives. Very soon he discovers he is again sitting across from Professor Von Golum. The buzz of traffic hums outside the window as Billy tries to speak.
“Professor?”
“Ah, boy detective. We meet yet again.”
“I’d like to ask you something.”
“You know you’ll pay for the answer with your life.”
“If that’s what you say,” Billy whispers.
“Your question then?”
“Why do people do evil things?”
The Professor nods, tugging on his white tuft of beard. “It is our true selves: our identities as they appear in nature. The natural world is full of disorder and so, by our flawed definition, the natural world is evil. We are immoral by design, and so when we act evilly, we are only revealing our most basic selves, the simplest, most convenient action, to fend for oneself and oneself only. To do right—to act justly, to put the needs of someone else above your own—now that is an act of true mystery. It is completely unnatural—a gigantic step beyond the jungle instincts of man and a leap into the unknown wisdom of silent grace which lurks, harbored in the small vessel of mankind, within us all.”
“But why? Why did you do the evil things you did?” Billy asks suddenly.
“Ah, because I could not imagine consequences,” the Professor says. “To do harm, to live through evil, is to align oneself with chaos. Now it is the same chaos which is slowly destroying me.”
“Excuse me?”
“It has begun to rule my body, my health, my mind. My left hand has stopped working. My breathing comes and goes and then is lost. And I cannot remember the way to leave this bus. I’ve been on it for hours now and I have forgotten how to get them to stop.”
“Just pull this cord.”
“The cord! Yes, now I remember.”
“Good evening, sir.”
“Good evening, Billy.”
At the town’s bus station, there is much intrigue: Billy searches about the nearly empty waiting room, expecting the strange bomb to explode at any moment. He hurries through the aisles of seats, crawling furiously on his knees, knocking the few suitcases aside and trampling over someone’s sleeping feet. He bolts down the narrow hallway, running from bathroom to bathroom. He upends garbage cans, he tears open the machines which dispense newspapers, he raises his hands and howls and pounds his hands against the large glass windows and nearly begins crying.
Then Billy turns and notices the enormous wall of small orange lockers, perhaps a hundred of them, their orange keys glimmering in their locks. Frantically, he begins to pull at their doors, one after the other—empty, empty, empty—until there, in the lowest right corner, one of them is definitely locked and definitely seems to be ticking. He places his ear against the dull orange metal and nods. He starts pulling, shouting, kicking, but the door will not budge. He looks up, the
tick-tick-ticks
still clicking along in his head. He counts quickly. There are maybe four people in the bus station at this time of night. He dashes toward the ticket booth and begins shouting, but the ticket agent is uninterested. He is a small man with glasses and has a hard time believing what he is hearing. He closes the window and disappears behind the booth and leaves Billy there shouting.
Billy continues screaming, grabbing a young mother towing a bright-faced baby in a blue stroller. He hurries them outside, leaving them standing there on the corner, staring back at the small bus station, the sounds of the city muffled and sad in the middle part of the night. Billy hurries back inside, finds a bearded vagrant, lifts him under the arms, and drags him out, depositing him on a bus stop bench nearby. The man seems both unconscious and unimpressed. Another man is sitting in the last aisle of the bus station reading his magazine. Billy approaches him. The man decides he does not believe the idea of the bomb. He licks his thumb, turns the page of his paper, and looks away. Billy stands arguing before him, jumping up and down and pulling at his own hair, but the man in a tan check suit and hat does not agree. “It is impossible,” the man says. “No, I do not believe it.”
