Black House js-2

by Stephen King

  Again, he extends his hand to the ashtray. Abruptly aware that he is paying more attention to the bottom of his dashboard than to the road, he glances up and cuts his speed by half. He refuses to hit his brakes. It’s just an ashtray, for God’s sake. His fingers meet the panel, then curl under its lip. Jack glances at the road once more. Then, with the decisivesness of a nurse ripping a strip of tape off a patient’s hairy abdomen, he yanks out the sliding tray. The lighter attachment, which he had unknowingly dislodged in his driveway that morning, bounces three inches into the air, greatly resembling, to Jack’s appalled eye, a flying black-and-silver egg.

  He veers off the road, bumps over the weedy shoulder, and heads toward a looming telephone pole. The lighter drops back into the tray with a loud, metallic thwack no egg in the world could have produced. The telephone pole swims closer and nearly fills the windshield. Jack stamps on the brake and jerks to a halt, arousing a flurry of ticks and rattles from the ashtray. If he had not cut his speed before opening the ashtray, he would have driven straight into the pole, which stands about four feet from the hood of the pickup. Jack wipes the sweat off his face and picks up the lighter. “Shit on a shingle.” He clicks the attachment into its receptacle and collapses backward against the seat. “No wonder they say smoking can kill you,” he says. The joke is too feeble to amuse him, and for a couple of seconds he does nothing but slump against the seat and regard the sparse traffic on Lyall Road. When his heart rate drops back to something like normal, he reminds himself that he did, after all, open the ashtray.

  Blond, rumpled Tom Lund has evidently been prepped for his arrival, for when Jack walks past three bicycles lined up next to the door and enters the station, the young officer takes off from behind his desk and rushes forward to whisper that Dale and Fred Marshall are waiting for him in Dale’s office, and he will show him right in. They’ll be glad to see him, that’s for sure. “I am, too, Lieutenant Sawyer,” Lund adds. “Boy, I gotta say it. What you got, I think, we need.”

  “Call me Jack. I’m not a lieutenant anymore. I’m not even a cop anymore.” Jack had met Tom Lund during the Kinderling investigation, and he had liked the young man’s eagerness and dedication. In love with his job, his uniform, and his badge, respectful of his chief and awed by Jack, Lund had uncomplainingly logged hundreds of hours on the telephone, in records offices, and in his car, checking and rechecking the often contradictory details spun off by the collision between a Wisconsin farm-insurance salesman and two Sunset Strip working girls. All the while, Tom Lund had retained the energetic sparkle of a high school quarterback running onto the field for his first game.

  He does not look that way anymore, Jack observes. Dark smudges hang beneath his eyes, and the bones in his face are more prominent. More than sleeplessness and exhaustion lie behind Lund’s affect: his eyes bear the helplessly startled expression of those who have suffered a great moral shock. The Fisherman has stolen a good part of Tom Lund’s youth.

  “But I’ll see what I can do,” Jack says, offering the promise of a commitment greater than he intends.

  “We can sure use anything you can give us,” Lund says. It is too much, too servile, and as Lund turns away and leads him to the office, Jack thinks, I didn’t come here to be your savior.

  The thought instantly makes him feel guilty.

  Lund knocks, opens the door to announce Jack, shows him in, and vanishes like a ghost, utterly unnoticed by the two men who rise from their chairs and fasten their eyes upon their visitor’s face, one with visible gratitude, the other with an enormous degree of the same emotion mixed with naked need, which makes Jack even more uncomfortable.

  Over Dale’s garbled introduction, Fred Marshall says, “Thank you for agreeing to come, thank you so much. That’s all I can . . .” His right arm sticks out like a pump handle. When Jack takes his hand, an even greater quantity of feeling floods into Fred Marshall’s face. His hand fastens on Jack’s and seems almost to claim it, as an animal claims its prey. He squeezes, hard, a considerable number of times. His eyes fill. “I can’t . . .” Marshall pulls his hand away and scrubs the tears off his face. Now his eyes look raw and intensely vulnerable. “Boy oh boy,” he says. “I’m really glad you’re here, Mr. Sawyer. Or should I say Lieutenant?”

  “Jack is fine. Why don’t the two of you fill me in on what happened today?”

  Dale points toward a waiting chair; the three men take their places; the painful but essentially simple story of Fred, Judy, and Tyler Marshall begins. Fred speaks first, at some length. In his version of the story, a valiant, lionhearted woman, a devoted wife and mother, succumbs to baffling, multifaceted transformations and disorders, and develops mysterious symptoms overlooked by her ignorant, stupid, self-centered husband. She blurts out nonsense words; she writes crazy stuff on sheets of notepaper, rams the papers into her mouth, and tries to swallow them. She sees the tragedy coming in advance, and it unhinges her. Sounds crazy, but the self-centered husband thinks it’s the truth. That is, he thinks he thinks it’s the truth, because he’s been thinking about it since he first talked to Dale, and even though it sounds crazy, it kind of makes sense. Because what other explanation could there be? So that’s what he thinks he thinks—that his wife started to lose her mind because she knew that the Fisherman was on the way. Things like that are possible, he guesses. For example, the brave afflicted wife knew that her beautiful wonderful son was missing even before the stupid selfish husband, who went to work exactly as if it were a normal day, told her about the bicycle. That pretty much proved what he was talking about. The beautiful little boy went out with his three friends, but only the three friends came back, and Officer Danny Tcheda found the little son’s Schwinn bike and one of his poor sneakers on the sidewalk outside Maxton’s.

  “Danny Cheetah?” asks Jack, who, like Fred Marshall, is beginning to think he thinks a number of alarming things.

  “Tcheda,” says Dale, and spells it for him. Dale tells his own, far shorter version of the story. In Dale Gilbertson’s story, a boy goes out for a ride on his bicycle and vanishes, perhaps as a result of abduction, from the sidewalk in front of Maxton’s. That is all of the story Dale knows, and he trusts that Jack Sawyer will be able to fill in many of the surrounding blanks.

  Jack Sawyer, at whom both of the other men in the room are staring, takes time to adjust to the three thoughts he now thinks he thinks. The first is not so much a thought as a response that embodies a hidden thought: from the moment Fred Marshall clutched his hand and said “Boy oh boy,” Jack found himself liking the man, an unanticipated turn in the evening’s plot. Fred Marshall strikes him as something like the poster boy for small-town life. If you put his picture on billboards advertising French County real estate, you could sell a lot of second homes to people in Milwaukee and Chicago. Marshall’s friendly, good-looking face and slender runner’s body are as good as testimonials to responsibility, decency, good manners and good neighborliness, modesty, and a generous heart. The more Fred Marshall accuses himself of selfishness and stupidity, the more Jack likes him. And the more he likes him, the more he sympathizes with his terrible plight, the more he wishes to help the man. Jack had come to the station expecting that he would respond to Dale’s friend like a policeman, but his cop reflexes have rusted from disuse. He is responding like a fellow citizen. Cops, as Jack well knows, seldom view the civilians caught up in the backwash of a crime as fellow citizens, certainly never in the early stages of an investigation. (The thought hidden at the center of Jack’s response to the man before him is that Fred Marshall, being what he is, cannot harbor suspicions about anyone with whom he is on good terms.)

  Jack’s second thought is that of both a cop and a fellow citizen, and while he continues his adjustment to the third, which is wholly the product of his rusty yet still accurate cop reflexes, he makes it public. “The bikes I saw outside belong to Tyler’s friends? Is someone questioning them now?”

  “Bobby Dulac,” Dale says. “I talked to them when they
came in, but I didn’t get anywhere. According to them, they were all together on Chase Street, and Tyler rode off by himself. They claim they didn’t see anything. Maybe they didn’t.”

  “But you think there’s more.”

  “Honest to God, I do. But I don’t know what the dickens it could be, and we have to send them home before their parents get bent out of shape.”

  “Who are they, what are their names?”

  Fred Marshall wraps his fingers together as if around the handle of an invisible baseball bat. “Ebbie Wexler, T. J. Renniker, and Ronnie Metzger. They’re the kids Ty’s been hanging around with this summer.” An unspoken judgment hovers about this last sentence.

  “It sounds like you don’t consider them the best possible company for your son.”

  “Well, no,” says Fred, caught between his desire to tell the truth and his innate wish to avoid the appearance of unfairness. “Not if you put it like that. Ebbie seems like kind of a bully, and the other two are maybe a little on the...slow side? I hope . . . or I was hoping . . . that Ty would realize he could do better and spend his free time with kids who are more on, you know . . .”

  “More on his level.”

  “Right. The trouble is, my son is sort of small for his age, and Ebbie Wexler is . . . um . . .”

  “Heavyset and tall for his age,” Jack says. “The perfect situation for a bully.”

  “You’re saying you know Ebbie Wexler?”

  “No, but I saw him this morning. He was with the other two boys and your son.”

  Dale jolts upright in his chair, and Fred Marshall drops his invisible bat. “When was that?” Dale asks. At the same time, Fred Marshall asks, “Where?”

  “Chase Street, about ten past eight. I came in to pick up Henry Leyden and drive him home. When we were on our way out of town, the boys drove their bikes into the road right in front of me. I got a good look at your son, Mr. Marshall. He seemed like a great kid.”

  Fred Marshall’s widening eyes indicate that some kind of hope, some promise, is taking shape before him; Dale relaxes. “That pretty much matches their story. It would have been right before Ty took off on his own. If he did.”

  “Or they took off and left him,” says Ty’s father. “They were faster on their bikes than Ty, and sometimes they, you know . . . they teased him.”

  “By racing ahead and leaving him alone,” Jack says. Fred Marshall’s glum nod speaks of boyhood humiliations shared with this sympathetic father. Jack remembers the inflamed, hostile face and raised finger of Ebbie Wexler and wonders if and how the boy might be protecting himself. Dale had said that he smelled the presence of falsity in the boys’ story, but why would they lie? Whatever their reasons, the lie almost certainly began with Ebbie Wexler. The other two followed orders.

  For the moment setting aside the third of his thoughts, Jack says, “I want to talk to the boys before you send them home. Where are they?”

  “The interrogation room, top of the stairs.” Dale aims a finger at the ceiling. “Tom will take you up.”

  With its battleship-gray walls, gray metal table, and single window narrow as a slit in a castle wall, the room at the top of the stairs seems designed to elicit confessions through boredom and despair, and when Tom Lund leads Jack through the door, the four inhabitants of the interrogation room appear to have succumbed to its leaden atmosphere. Bobby Dulac looks sideways, stops drumming a pencil on the tabletop, and says, “Well, hoo-ray for Hollywood. Dale said you were coming down.” Even Bobby gleams a little less conspicuously in this gloom. “Did you want to interrogate these here hoodlums, Lieutenant?”

  “In a minute, maybe.” Two of the three hoodlums on the far side of the table watch Jack move alongside Bobby Dulac as if fearing he will clap them in a cell. The words “interrogate” and “Lieutenant” have had the bracing effect of a cold wind from Canada. Ebbie Wexler squints at Jack, trying to look tough, and the boy beside him, Ronnie Metzger, wriggles in his chair, his eyes like dinner plates. The third boy, T. J. Renniker, has dropped his head atop his crossed arms and appears to be asleep.

  “Wake him up,” Jack says. “I have something to say, and I want you all to hear it.” In fact, he has nothing to say, but he needs these boys to pay attention to him. He already knows that Dale was right. If they are not lying, they are at least holding something back. That’s why his abrupt appearance within their dozy scene frightened them. If Jack had been in charge, he would have separated the boys and questioned them individually, but now he must deal with Bobby Dulac’s mistake. He has to treat them collectively, to begin with, and he has to work on their fear. He does not want to terrorize the boys, merely to get their hearts pumping a bit faster; after that, he can separate them. The weakest, guiltiest link has already declared himself. Jack feels no compunction about telling lies to get information.

  Ronnie Metzger shoves T.J.’s shoulder and says, “Wake up, bumdell...dumbbell.”

  The sleeping boy moans, lifts his head from the table, begins to stretch out his arms. His eyes fasten on Jack, and blinking and swallowing he snaps into an upright position.

  “Welcome back,” Jack says. “I want to introduce myself and explain what I am doing here. My name is Jack Sawyer, and I am a lieutenant in the Homicide Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. I have an excellent record and a roomful of citations and medals. When I go after a bad guy, I usually wind up arresting him. Three years ago, I came here on a case from Los Angeles. Two weeks later, a man named Thornberg Kinderling was shipped back to L.A. in chains. Because I know this area and have worked with its law enforcement officers, the LAPD asked me to assist your local force in its investigation of the Fisherman murders.” He glances down to see if Bobby Dulac is grinning at this nonsense, but Bobby is staring frozen-faced across the table. “Your friend Tyler Marshall was with you before he disappeared this morning. Did the Fisherman take him? I hate to say it, but I think he did. Maybe we can get Tyler back, and maybe we can’t, but if I am going to stop the Fisherman, I need you to tell me exactly what happened, down to the last detail. You have to be completely honest with me, because if you lie or keep anything secret, you will be guilty of obstruction of justice. Obstruction of justice is a serious, serious crime. Officer Dulac, what is the minimum sentence for that crime in the state of Wisconsin?”

  “Five years, I’m pretty sure,” Bobby Dulac says.

  Ebbie Wexler bites the inside of his cheek; Ronnie Metzger looks away and frowns at the table; T. J. Renniker dully contemplates the narrow window.

  Jack sits down beside Bobby Dulac. “Incidentally, I was the guy in the pickup one of you gave the finger to this morning. I can’t say I’m thrilled to see you again.”

  Two heads swivel toward Ebbie, who squints ferociously, trying to solve this brand-new problem. “I did not,” he says, having settled on outright denial. “Maybe it looked like I did, but I didn’t.”

  “You’re lying, and we haven’t even started to talk about Tyler Marshall yet. I’ll give you one more chance. Tell me the truth.”

  Ebbie smirks. “I don’t go around flipping the bird at people I don’t know.”

  “Stand up,” Jack says.

  Ebbie glances from side to side, but his friends are unable to meet his gaze. He shoves back his chair and stands up, uncertainly.

  “Officer Dulac,” Jack says, “take this boy outside and hold him there.”

  Bobby Dulac performs his role perfectly. He uncoils from his chair and keeps his eyes on Ebbie as he glides toward him. He resembles a panther on the way to a sumptuous meal. Ebbie Wexler jumps back and tries to stay Bobby with a raised palm. “No, don’t—I take it back—I did it, okay?”

  “Too late,” Jack says. He watches as Bobby grasps the boy’s elbow and pulls him toward the door. Red-faced and sweating, Ebbie plants his feet on the floor, and the forward pressure applied to his arm folds him over the bulge of his stomach. He staggers forward, yelping and scattering tears. Bobbie Du
lac opens the door and hauls him into the bleak second-floor corridor. The door slams shut and cuts off a wail of fear.

  The two remaining boys have turned the color of skim milk and seem incapable of movement. “Don’t worry about him,” Jack says. “He’ll be fine. In fifteen, twenty minutes, you’ll be free to go home. I didn’t think there was any point in talking to someone who lies from the git-go, that’s all. Remember: even lousy cops know when they’re being lied to, and I am a great cop. So this is what we are going to do now. We’re going to talk about what happened this morning, about what Tyler was doing, the way you separated from him, where you were, what you did afterward, anyone you might have seen, that kind of thing.” He leans back and flattens his hands on the table. “Go on, tell me what happened.”

  Ronnie and T.J. look at each other. T.J. inserts his right index finger into his mouth and begins to worry the nail with his front teeth. “Ebbie flipped you,” Ronnie says.

  “No kidding. After that.”

  “Uh, Ty said he hadda go someplace.”

  “He hadda go someplace,” T.J. chimes in.

  “Where were you right then?”

  “Uh . . . outside the Allsorts Pomorium.”

  “Emporium,” T.J. says. “It’s not a pomorium, mushhead, it’s a em-por-ee-um.”

  “And?”

  “And Ty said—” Ronnie glances at T.J. “Ty said he hadda go somewhere.”

  “Which way did he go, east or west?”

  The boys treat this question as though it were asked in a foreign language, by puzzling over it, mutely.

  “Toward the river, or away from the river?”

  They consult each other again. The question has been asked in English, but no proper answer exists. Finally, Ronnie says, “I don’t know.”

  “How about you, T.J.? Do you know?”

  T.J. shakes his head.

  “Good. That’s honest. You don’t know because you didn’t see him leave, did you? And he didn’t really say he had to go somewhere, did he? I bet Ebbie made that up.”