THE LAST BOY (44 page)

Tripoli sped on through the papers, the print streaking past as he flew forward in time—Matthew still there on the first pages. Word of the boy was spreading. People were claiming that he had
supernatural powers. That he could read minds. Foretell the future. Predict the weather. That he could heal with the simple touch of his small hands.

In one account, Dr. Oskar Friedmann, an expert in child psychiatry who had worked with the famous Sigmund Freud in his native Vienna, traveled all the way from New York City to Watertown. Following two days of extensive examinations, Dr. Friedmann announced that the boy had undergone a severe trauma initiating a marked transformation of personality. The article was couched in a lot of psycho babble, but its net result, from what Tripoli could fathom, was that this episode had propelled Matthew into a heightened state of nervous receptivity.“It is like the volume control on your radio set,” explained the psychiatrist.“Imagine turning it all the way up so you could hear absolutely everything. And I mean every little sound, every station. It would make you crazy, wouldn’t it?”

Then, as quickly as the news had ballooned, it tailed off again. By the end of August, two months after Matthew miraculously walked into his mother's diner, there was nothing. Public interest had moved on to more pressing matters: the proposal for a new municipal water system, the County Board working on its new budget, the movement of German troops in Eastern Europe.

Tripoli vainly searched through the days of September. Then, October 7, 1939:“Matthew Roland Missing Again!”

“So when was all this decided?” Molly asked when she was finally alone with Larry in the early evening. Everyone but she and Danny had finally left the office, and Molly simply couldn’t take the waiting any longer.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy I didn’t have a chance to talk to you.”

“But you did have time to talk to Ben.”

He got up from his chair.“Molly dear,” he intoned, approaching with outstretched hands.

“Molly, nothing.” She jumped back, refusing to be placated.“Just level with me. Please.”

“The business is growing,” he explained. “We need to expand the staff. You know that as well as anybody.”

“And you’ve got the money?”

“Well…” he paused, “I think I’m getting additional financing. We’ve got some V. C.s who are interested. And revenues are moving up nicely.” He was talking fast and Molly knew that usually meant a smoke screen.“And I’m going to need you to train the new people.”

“Larry,” she finally confronted him straight out,“are you thinking of firing me?”

He didn’t answer.

“Well?” she persisted.

The question hung in the air.

He turned away from her, pretended to busy himself examining some papers, but Molly kept her eyes fixed on him.

Finally he turned back. “Let's face it,” he said. “No one is indispensable.”

“Well, that's pretty clear.”

He went to shut the door, then hesitated.

Molly stuck her head out in the corridor. Danny was waiting in the hallway, ready to go. “One minute, Honey, and we’ll take off,” she said. “Okay, Sweetie?” He nodded and she gently nudged the door closed.

“I’m willing to work with you on this,” said Larry in a lowered voice. Now he was close, looking her right in the eye, and she could feel the edge to her anger blunting. She tried to calculate how long her savings might last if she was out of work. Her mind flooded with memories of being poor and needing food stamps, her furniture out on the street in the pouring rain, going to that lawyer, Mr. Greenhut,
for help. Her hands were trembling, and she clasped them together.

“I’ll give you another couple of weeks until Danny starts school,” said Larry.“But then this nonsense has got to cease.”

The word “nonsense” stung. Molly bit her lip to keep her eyes from tearing up.“I’ve worked my ass off for you,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Maybe, but these days little is getting done. Molly,” he tried to put his hand on her shoulder, but she jerked away.“You think I don’t know what's up when you streak out of this office because Danny has bolted again? Or those endless lunches? Or the kid nagging at you all afternoon to take him out? People coming and going like Grand Central Station. Molly, Molly, you used to be a real power-house. You did the work of ten.”

“No, two.”

“Please,” he pleaded,“You’ve got to understand. This magazine,” he said and she could have sworn there were tears in his eyes, “this is my
baby.
I’ve got my whole life wrapped up in it. All my chips are on the table. If I lost it…well, I’d be almost as devastated as you were when Danny disappeared. Can you understand that?”

Molly tried. “Well, I suppose so,” she said hoarsely and had to keep clearing her throat.

“And I want to keep you. I really and truly do.”

“What about the new people?”

“I need you to train them.”

Train my replacements? she thought.

“You’ll have a new slot,” he said, anticipating her thoughts. “You’ll be in a supervisory position. Next quarter we’ll do a salary review. But you’ve got to get your life straightened out, get Danny into school and resume a normal existence. Everyone has a breaking point. Including me.”

The evening in Watertown was sticky, and Tripoli, with a bit of time
on his hands, ambled aimlessly through the quiet streets, peering in store windows and thinking…pondering the history of Matthew Roland…the circumstances surrounding the boy's vanishing the second time. By the time he decided to check in with Sisler at headquarters, Sisler had already signed out for the day. Tripoli tried him at home, and Sisler's wife, Tracy, picked up the phone.

“Oh, hi Trip,” she said, recognizing his voice.

“Is Jerry around?

“No. Did you try at the station?”

“Yeah. But he just left.”

“Can I have him call you when he gets in? I know he really wanted to talk to you.”

“He might not be able to reach me. I’ll have to try him later.”

“Sure. By the way, have you found out anything about that old man?

“Naw,” he answered vaguely.“Nothing very much yet.”

“I mean it's none of my business, but everybody in town's been talking about Danny and that—Whoops, hang on, there's a car coming up the drive. That could be Jerry.”

There was a pause and Tripoli could hear Tracy in the background, calling out to her husband. A door slamming. Footsteps.

“Hey, Trip,” said Sisler, coming on an instant later and sounding a little winded.“Glad you called.”

“What's cooking?”

“There was a nurse. Wait…” Sisler took a moment to catch his breath.

“What nurse?”

“There was a nurse who went into the morgue that morning of the day the body disappeared. Around five. She had a key.”

“And? What was she doing in there?”

“Some old lady on the medical ward croaked and they took her down to put her in a locker.”

Tripoli waited.

“Now the interesting thing is that this nurse claims there was no officer on duty. She was sure of it. And she's sure of the time, too. There's a death certificate. I took a look at her patients’ charts and the entries are bracketed in time—before and after she went down to the morgue.”

“Five? That was before Pellegrino took over. Paolangeli's shift, right?”

“Yeah. And I talked to him. He insists that he never left his post.”

Tripoli didn’t say anything. He was thinking.

“Now somebody's not telling the truth. Trip?”

“Go on, I’m listening.”

“They both can’t be right. I hate to say this, but I think I believe the nurse. I mean, why should she distort anything? I think he went to take a dump or smoke or whatever, and now he doesn’t want to own up to it. The nurse is pretty sure she locked the door, but who knows? It starts to explain everything—well, almost everything.”

There was a prolonged silence, and it was Tripoli who finally broke it.

“I’m not so sure,” he said.

“
Huh?
What do you mean? It's perfectly clear. Paolangeli takes a hike. The door is open, the place unguarded. Someone slips in— or maybe they got a key, I don’t know—they grab the old man's body. And bingo, that's it, he's gone. Right?”

“Well, that's certainly one explanation,” said Tripoli.

“
One?
Okay, how many others do you have?”

Tripoli had checked into a motel on the outskirts of Watertown and he found a diner nearby. That its parking lot was jammed with tractor trailers, Tripoli took as a propitious sign. Once seated in the corner booth, he couldn’t decide between the meat loaf and the spinach lasagna; finally he went for the lasagna special. Even though it was
meatless it was surprisingly tasty, and for $6.95 it came with everything from salad to dessert, coffee included. There was a bunch of truckers sitting in a nearby booth and Tripoli eavesdropped on their conversation. They were griping about their loss of haulage. Something about milk production being sharply down. New environmental regulations that were costing them a fortune. They were being so squeezed they could hardly make a living anymore. After dinner, he had a couple of beers in a dark corner of a nearby tavern. Finally, he went to the pay phone and called Molly. It was well after eleven.

“Sorry to call so late.”

“No, no. No problem. I was trying to catch up on some work.”

“I just wanted to hear how Daniel is.”

“Fine, of course. And why shouldn’t he be?” she asked and there was an edge to her voice.

“Oh…no reason at all. I was just calling to see how you guys were doing.”

“Trip, this line sounds strange. Where are you?” She could hear loud music playing in the background.

“In Watertown.”

“
Watertown?
What are you doing up there?”

“Following up some leads to a case.”

Silence. He took a gulp of his beer and Molly could hear him swallowing.

“You still angry at me?” he inquired cautiously.

“Never was. Just annoyed. I’m under a lot of stress at the office.”

“Yeah, I figured as much.”

“And then you start in with this stuff about how Danny's the second coming.”

“I never said quite that. I just—”

“Or whatever. You know, you and Rosie ought to get together. She keeps telling me that Danny is some kind of saint. And on top
of it, all everybody and his brother has got advice for me.”

Tripoli remained silent. He knew that anything he said carried the risk of inflaming her further. But how could they keep any relationship going if he had to censor his every thought?

“You still there?”

“Yeah,” he said, softly, “still here.”

“We shouldn’t be arguing.” Molly heaved a long sigh. “You’re not just my lover. I think of you as my friend, Trip.”

“And I am. For life. You can always count on me.”

“Then take it easy on me.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll make you a deal. You don’t hammer me about Danny being in contact with the angels, and I won’t get pissed. How's that for a bargain?”

“Sorry, but I’m not making any promises,” he said, quietly.

“Oh, Trip,” she sighed.

“Not until I know what this is all about.”

“I wish you were here,” she said longingly. “But then, when you’re here, I get so furious. It's not like me.” What she didn’t dare say was that she didn’t quite trust him anymore. Couldn’t trust anybody. Everybody had their own agenda.

“I know,” he growled comfortingly.“I know that.”

“Something odd happened,” she said finally.

“What happened?”

“I found something.” She told him about the pouch and the map.

“I want to see it as soon as I get back.”

“You can’t.”

“Huh?”

“I tore it up.”

“Oh, Jesus!” he groaned.

“I know. I know it was stupid. But I was so enraged—and afraid.
Afterward, I kept having this creepy feeling. Like the old man has been watching us, trying to lure Danny back.”

“Hey,”Tripoli cut her off.“He's dead. I saw him. Touched him. Believe me. Just ask Yerka, the medical examiner. Look, Molly, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said.“Just stay calm.”

After she hung up, Molly sat staring at the phone. Some fool in a souped-up Camaro was burning rubber on the road by her trailer, screeching to a halt and then accelerating with a squeal. Back and forth he went. Danny was trying to sleep, and she debated going out and yelling at the jerk.

Molly made a cup of coffee, then sat at the kitchen table listening to the sounds in the night. Thumbing through the newspaper, she came upon an article on the OpEd page by the Reverend Glen Thorne. He had written a piece on the danger of what he called “pernicious cultism.” That people, he wrote, “witnessing the endemic corruption and wickedness swirling around them, seeing before their very eyes the breakdown of the Earth's fragile ecology, are turning in their desperation to false prophets. The day of reckoning is upon us today. It is Sodom and Gomorrah revisited. And those who worship the Antichrist are doomed to eternal damnation.”Though he didn’t specifically say it, Molly knew exactly what he was writing about: it was Danny.

Tripoli went back to the motel and flipped on the TV. He lay down on the lumpy mattress and, still dressed in his clothes, fell soundly asleep.

He awoke the next morning with rumpled clothes, a bad taste in his mouth, and the television running. The morning news seemed to be filled with nothing but disasters. A preseason hurricane had ripped through the Florida panhandle, destroying countless citrus orchards and dairy farms in the central region. Another early storm was brewing in the Gulf of Mexico and threatening Galveston.

He showered and put on fresh clothes, the television droning on in the background.

Catching his reflection in the speckled motel mirror, he saw how haggard he looked and blamed his restless night on the heavy dinner and late beers; the sagging mattress hadn’t helped things either.

As he reached for the remote to cut off the TV, the news anchor was just starting in on a story about the wheat crop that was failing in Canada.

Tripoli grabbed a quick cup of coffee and a muffin in the lobby of the motel and drove over to the courthouse. His plan was to research the Roland family, to see what he could dig up along the lines of birth and death certificates, deeds and property transfers.