The Disappeared

by David B. Silva

  That was too bad for Mrs. Knight.

  [116]

  When the door opened, Gabe was watching Huckleberry Hound and absently scratching under the lip of his cast. He looked up, fully expecting to see Tilley step through, a slick smile on her face and a man or two behind her, just in case things got a little out of hand. That seemed to be the way things had shaped up around here. There were only two reasons that door ever opened. First, if she was bringing him a meal—and it wasn't meal time, he knew that much, because he had just finished eating a tuna fish sandwich and a bag of potato chips for lunch. Or second, if she was here to take another stupid sample.

  The worst of the sample taking had taken place yesterday. He had learned not to put up a fight when she was after blood. It didn't hurt as much if he just closed his eyes and let her take what she wanted to take. But it hadn't been his blood that she had wanted yesterday.

  “We're going to take another sample,” she had said, matter-of-factly. “And this one's going to be a little different from the others. I don't want to have any trouble out of you, do you understand? You can make it easy on yourself by just relaxing and keeping your eyes closed. If you do that, you'll hardly even notice what's going on.”

  It hadn't been that simple. Nor had it been as horrific as he had imagined after that little speech of hers. When he felt the first pin prick over his right lower ribs, he realized she had given him some sort of a shot.

  “You rest for a few minutes and I'll be right back,” she said. When she returned, she pinched him just below the ribs, complaining to herself that he was all skin and bones and they were going to have to do something about that. “How does that feel?”

  “Tingly.”

  “Good.”

  She had him close his eyes again. Seeing the needle, she said, would only make the pain seem worse than it actually was. It hurt just the same, even without seeing the needle. Maybe that was because what he did see was enough to scare him half to death. Tilley had taken a knife and cut a slit into his side, just above his lower ribs. She was twisting and turning a needle in there, hunting around for just the right prize the way you hunted for the biggest stuffed bear at one of those crane-like vending machines you see at carnivals.

  Gabe snapped his eyes shut.

  “There,” she said, a moment later. “That wasn't so bad, now was it?”

  He looked down and saw a Band-Aid covering the damage. It was one of those children's Band-Aids, the ones with the bright colors and shapes, as if that could somehow make what had happened less horrifying for him. It didn't. It made it worse, in fact. Because suddenly he had a longing to be home again, with his mother, where there were no needles, no antiseptic smell, and no stupid witch posing as a nurse.

  God, how he hated this place.

  Then late last night, he had rolled over in his sleep and the soreness had suddenly brought him awake. He had peeled back the Band-Aid and discovered a small black-and-blue circle where Tilley had pinched him. The slit underneath, where the needle had gone in, was barely visible.

  So the worse of Miss Tilley's taking had come yesterday.

  And now, as she was stepping through the door, Gabe wondered what she was here to take from him this time.

  [117]

  D.C. followed fifteen or twenty feet behind as the man took his mid-morning walk along the paved trail that meandered alongside the Sacramento River. There was a hillside to their left, topped with a line of expensive Mediterranean-style houses. Patches of shade fell randomly across the path, just often enough to bring relief from the overhead sun.

  D.C. picked up his pace until he was directly behind the man, then pulled a gun from beneath his jacket and placed it against the small of the man's back. “What the hell do you think you're doing, Webster? You're going to shut down the whole project.”

  Webster stopped without turning around, and though he appeared not the least bit unsettled by the gun in his back, D.C. drew a certain degree of pleasure from having placed it there. “How nice of you to join me. It is a beautiful day, isn't it?”

  “You think so?” He shoved the barrel of the gun a little deeper into the man's flesh. “You think Peggy Landau is enjoying it as much as you?”

  “Landau? She a friend of yours?” Webster said softly. “Or one of those extra wives you have stashed all around the country?”

  “You know who the hell she is. You're the one who had her killed.” They stood in the middle of the path, alone for the moment, though that wouldn't remain the case forever. D.C. nudged the man in the direction of a bench next to the river, and motioned for him to sit down. “What are you doing? Sending up a fucking flare so everyone in the world will know what's going on?”

  Webster grinned. It was a grin that D.C. had seen before, a grin that he had come to despise almost as much as he despised the man himself. “The flare was only meant for you, my friend.”

  “Why?”

  “Are you aware that your Miss Landau died of an overdose?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “They haven't decided yet if it was an accident or not, were you aware of that as well?”

  D.C. couldn't believe it. “You're setting me up? That's what this is all about?”

  Webster shrugged half-heartedly and gazed out across the slow current of the river. Someone passing by might look at him and think what a kindly old gentleman he must be, and how much he must be enjoying his retirement out here, taking in the peaceful sounds of the water. “It's just a little insurance, that's all. Just a little incentive for you. I wouldn't want you to worry about it, but it is something for you to keep in mind.”

  “This is on your own, isn't it, Webster? The agency doesn't even know you're out of your fucking head, or you're out here running around killing people, does it?”

  “No, to be perfectly honest, they think you're the one who's out of his head. And you're the one who's running around killing people.”

  [118]

  “I need to make a stop,” Walt said.

  They were on their way back to the apartment after visiting the Building Department at the County Offices, where they had picked up the blueprints to the Institute. Walt had seemed draggy the last thirty or forty minutes, not tired so much as self-absorbed. He had been distant and uncommunicative, and Teri had wondered if maybe he knew something that she didn't, if maybe it had something to do with Aaron Jefferson.

  They had bumped into Aaron on the steps outside the County Offices. It was the first time she had ever met the gentleman. He was tall and thin and had a smile that came easily. It left you feeling as if you had been friends most of your life.

  For the most part, they exchanged small talk, Aaron mentioning something about a proposed change in the structure of the department, Walt remarking on how easy it had been to get the set of blueprints. The exchange had been short and affable. It was after they parted and they were on their way to the parking lot that Walt mentioned that Aaron was the man who had run the fingerprint checks on her shoe.

  “Did he find anything?” Teri asked, not remembering if they had discussed the results or not. So much had happened the past week; it was hard to keep track of it all.

  “Nothing important,” Walt said, and then he had fallen uncharacteristically silent. He climbed into the car, turned on the radio and lost himself somewhere in the lyrics of Neil Young's The Needle and the Damage Done. For a man who purported to abhor the Sixties, wasn't that a little red flag going up? Teri let it flap in the wind, without making an effort to extract any kind of explanation. If he had something on his mind that he wanted to talk about, she told herself, then sooner or later it would come out on its own. As long as he understood that she would be there to listen...

  The stop Walt had wanted to make was at the Hillcrest Cemetery, off Remington Drive just north of the city, overlooking a small agricultural valley nestled in the foothills. They parked out front, next to the Hillcrest Chapel.

  “My father's buried here,” he said, unbuckling his
seat belt. He sank back, his hands suddenly wrapped around the steering wheel, and stared out across the graveyard, a man who had seen his share of ghosts in his life. “So's my son.”

  “You want me to wait?” she asked.

  “No, you can come.”

  They got out. He locked up the car and waited for her to join him. A gentle afternoon breeze kicked up, whistling through the trees, stirring the souls of all the ghosts that made their residence here.

  “My father's greatest fear was dying,” he said solemnly as they walked through the huge ironwork gate. “I never understood that.”

  “A lot of people fear death.”

  “I don't.”

  As strange and as stark as that might have sounded, Teri didn't doubt it in the least. In fact, she thought she might even understand it. She had felt much the same way after Gabe had disappeared, especially after she reached the point of giving up her search for him. After that, whether she lived or died hadn't mattered much. Death, she decided, was something you feared when you had a reason to live. Her reason had gone the way of the wind.

  “My father died a thousand little deaths in his life. Every time he changed a name or quit a job or moved to a new town. Each and every one of them, they were all little deaths and it never occurred to him he was even dying.”

  They came upon the gravesite, which was at the far end of the third row, just out of the shade of an old oak. It was marked by a marbled headstone set flush in the ground, the grass long and unkempt around the edges. There was a small bouquet of yellow daffodils above the name on the marker.

  WILLIAM JACOB TRAVIS

  1919-1992

  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

  Walt knelt and crossed himself, then brushed away the debris that had collected around the chiseled-out letters. Underneath a matting of oak leaves and pine needles, he stirred up a red-ribbon bow, faded and pinkish and curled at the edges. He stuffed it into his pocket.

  “I hated him as much as I loved him, you know. He was that kind of man.”

  Teri stood back, silent, not knowing what to say. She wished now that she had opted to wait in the car. She was out of place here, a voyeur catching a glimpse of a moment best left private.

  “We moved around a lot when I was a kid; I ever tell you that?”

  She shook her head.

  “That was because we were running most of the time.” He sat back on his haunches, then raised his eyes to the sky, which was still overcast, though you could catch a patch or two of blue trying to battle its way through in the distance. “Oh, Christ, what we do with our lives.”

  Teri placed a hand on his shoulder.

  He covered it with his own.

  “Ever wish you could go back and start all over?”

  “Sometimes,” she said.

  “Me, too. I'd live in a small town, in an old Victorian. Maybe go to the same school all my life. Come home to mom baking cookies, the smell in the house warm and delicious. I'd play catch with dad when he got home, talk about the Giants, oil up my mitt, make plans to go down to the creek and do a little fishing. So many things would have been different.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “Guess I'm making an idiot of myself, huh?”

  “We all wish things could be different, Walt.”

  He nodded and made a face. It was something he already knew, and something she imagined he had already tried to deal with on numerous other occasions. The way a childhood could follow you around the rest of your life, though – that was frightening. There was no escaping the little boy, was there? He was your conscience, your memory, your teacher, your student.

  Walt finished a silent prayer, crossed himself, then moved to the adjacent plot and kneeled again. The marble headstone marked the grave as follows:

  BRANDON KINLEY TRAVIS

  1976-1985

  Sweet Dreams and Ice Cream

  You Left Too Soon

  Walt's son.

  He climbed back to his feet. He brushed off the knees of his slacks where they were grimed with gravel and loose blades of grass. He looked at her, almost apologetically, then leaned over and picked up the bouquet of daffodils. A bright yellow ribbon formed a bow around the middle. Beneath the bow was a card. He opened the card and read it twice before handing it to her.

  She accepted it reflexively. The card said: There's nothing quite like family, is there? Sorry to hear of your daddy's death. It was signed: Richard Boyle.

  Walt shook his head. “Bastard's sure enjoying himself.”

  Teri fell silent.

  If she hadn't felt the voyeur before, she felt the voyeur now.

  [119]

  Michael pulled into a McDonald's off Cypress and found himself in a drive-through line of five or six cars. He rolled down the window and hung his arm over the door. The sky was clear, the sun bright, the outside temperature nearing ninety. He had been running the air conditioner most of the morning and realized now that he had lost sight of how hot the day had actually become.

  He had lost sight of quite a few things lately, he supposed. Not the least of which was how far he had drifted from most of his old college friends. After Peggy's purported overdose, Michael had started calling as many of the old crowd as he could track down. He didn't really know what he was looking for, only that it was too much of a coincidence that Peggy's death had come when it had. So he did some calling and was surprised to find that Teri had spoken to many of these same people only a few days before.

  She had made some small talk and had asked about their children and somehow the conversation had always seemed to work its way around to Dr. Childs. Listening to them talk about her calls, Michael had slowly begun to piece together a little of what Teri was after and what she had apparently discovered. There were other children in this group that had disappeared around the time that Gabe had disappeared. And in one way or another, all of the children had been in contact with Dr. Childs.

  That was as much as he knew at the moment.

  No one had heard back from her.

  The line of cars moved forward and it became Michael's turn to order, which he did: a Quarter Pounder with cheese, the meal, Super Sized with a Diet Coke. He wasn't as hungry as he was thirsty, but it there was no telling how long it would be before he might get a chance to eat again.

  He finished placing his order, and glanced in his rearview mirror at the car behind him. A Chevy minivan. A woman was driving; the back seats were loaded with half-a-dozen kids. She moved up behind him and rolled down her window, her face drawn and haggard. There was another car behind the minivan, a Honda Civic it appeared to be, from this angle it was hard to be sure.

  Michael was getting fairly adept at knowing who and what was in the vicinity.

  They were no longer following him (whoever they had been). That had stopped the night he had walked out the back door of the police station after his interview with Lieutenant Sterns. Michael was staying at a run-down motel off Market Street now, with all the amenities that such accommodations afforded: lumpy bed, rust-stained toilet, broken television, and a smell that he didn't even want to venture a guess as to its origin.

  But he could look out his window at night without seeing that dark-colored Ford sitting across the lot like a vulture waiting for the last throes of death to kick in. And that was all the peace he needed to sleep through the entire night. A comfortable bed and a clean bathroom weren't necessities at this point. They could wait their turn. With a little luck, it wouldn't be that long.

  He listened to the idle of the engine, thought about the last time he had talked to Teri over the phone, and wondered for the thousandth time how they had come to find themselves in this bizarre situation. It's what happens when you learn not to trust anyone, he supposed. First you quit trusting strangers, because any one of them could be the one who has walked off with your son. Then you begin to lose trust in the police, who either seem indifferent or incompetent. And finally you begin to lose trust in each other. That's w
hat got you here. You lost trust in Teri and she lost trust in you,

  and...

  He finally arrived at the pick-up window. Michael paid a young high school girl with braces that looked terribly uncomfortable, then accepted his burger, fries and drink, and drove out of the lot.

  He knew exactly where he was going. And he knew exactly what he was going to do when he got there. What he didn't know was if it would lead him to Teri.

  [120]

  Tilly apparently wasn't after another sample after all.

  She stepped through the door and asked Gabe how he was doing today. All right, he told her, having learned never to offer anything more than absolutely necessary. You never knew what the crazy woman was going to do. She could be your grandmother when she wanted. Or she could be Nurse Ratched, depending on the kind of mood she was in or if you happened to say the wrong thing.

  She did not move all the way into the room as was her usual routine. Instead, she stood by the door, her hands clasped behind her. “Got a surprise for you,” she said.

  Gabe didn't say a word.

  “How'd you like to have a roommate?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On who it is.”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, it really isn't up for debate. Like it or not, you've got yourself a little playmate now.”

  She wheeled in a boy who looked as if he might be nine or ten years old. He was pale and on the thin side, had blond hair and a spattering of light freckles across the bridge of his nose. His eyes darted from one side of the room to the other, taking it all in, making no secret of his fear and confusion. Tilley wheeled him over to the first bed on Gabe's left, and helped him out of the chair and into the bed.

  “He's still a little weak,” she said. “But he'll get stronger.”

  His name was Cody, and he was neither nine nor ten. He was eight. After Tilley left, they talked for awhile and he told Gabe that he didn't remember how he had gotten here, only that he had gone to the park to play. He tried not to cry, but eventually lost the battle, and tears filled his eyes. He missed his mommy, he said. And he didn't like it here. And he wanted to go home again.