Dodger leaned forward in his chair and filled Sly in about the strange man who had come to his uncle's house and had left with his brother in a black Caddy with Illinois license plates.
"Why haven't you gone to the police?" Sly asked.
"I think they're in on it too. I heard my uncle speaking to someone he called Kenwood. Later, when I went down to the police station to get help, I noticed the police chief's name was Kenwood."
"Why would your uncle do such a thing?"
"I think my mom put him up to it. You see, my dad is dead. He was quite wealthy but when he died, he left most of the money in a trust fund to take care of my brother."
"How about you? Didn't he leave any money for your mother and you?"
"Sure, but my mom spent it months ago. It wasn't a lot, not in comparison to the trust fund. You see, my brother is . . . well, he isn't all there. He needs a lot more care than I do. So, most of the money is in the trust fund. My mom can't touch it. My dad's attorney, his old college roommate, controls the trust and he's real careful about how it gets spent."
Sly thought about what Dodger was saying, then smiled. "But if your brother were to have an accident . . ."
"That's right. The trust fund would revert over to my mom to take care of me. She's afraid it'll get all used up on Elliot before he dies."
"Elliot? That your brother?" Sly asked as he took a notepad from his hip pocket and jotted down the name.
'Yeah. Listen, you're going to help me, aren't you? You see why I can't go to the police. I can't trust anyone else. You're it."
Sly chuckled. "Kid, you can't trust me either. You'll make out better in this world if you don't trust anybody, got it? But in this case, you're probably right. You gotta trust me 'cause I'm your only hope. Of course, you could just let this guy do away with your brother. Sounds like you and your mom would be better off."
"No!" Dodger screamed as he jumped up from his chair. "I don't want to live with my brother's life on my conscience. You've got to help me."
"All right, take it easy. I'll give it a shot. Shouldn't be too hard to find a vintage Cadillac like you've described. You said it had a trailer hitch on it?"
"That's right and on the door were the words, "Fortunes from the Future, Pasguill Ill." Dodger replied.
"Well, let's start by checking out the trailer parks around here. If they haven't already left for parts unknown, we might get lucky." Sly stood up and started toward the door.
"Hey, you got a gun?" Dodger asked. "These folks could be dangerous."
Sly stopped, a confused look on his face, then smiled. "Yeah, thanks for reminding me." He walked behind the desk and opened the top drawer.
"Here, you better take one too. No telling what we might be getting into," he said as he tossed a shiny black pistol to Dodger.
"Are you serious?" Dodger asked, as he caught the gun, then studied it and the one Sly was holding. "Hey, these are water pistols."
"Yeah, I know. Fancy, huh? More environmentally safe. Besides which, they're great for getting cats off of counters and the like. Stick it in your belt. Don't worry, they don't leak—much."
"No, thanks," Dodger said, tossing it back. "I've got my own." He pulled his jacket open to show the butt of the pistol sticking out of the inside pocket.
"You got wheels?" Sly asked.
"Yeah, but they're on a skateboard," Dodger replied, pointing to the board next to the door.
"Never mind. We'll take my car. It's a little faster, although not much. Let's go."
THEY FOUND THE BLACK Cadillac in the third trailer park.
“Kid, you must be good luck for me. I figured we'd be spending the rest of the night checking out tin can dumps," Sly said, as he cut the engine off. "We better wait a few minutes before we check it out. Let it get a little darker."
"But we don't know what they might be doing to Elliot," Dodger protested.
"I said we wait until dark. We won't do him any good if we're spotted and get shot for trespassing." Sly pushed the car's lighter in and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
They sat in the car for several minutes as the sky darkened, and Dodger squirmed in his seat every few minutes to look back at the silver trailer. "Do you have any idea how we're going to get him out of there?"
"No, not exactly. We'll play it by ear. First, I want to check out the lay of the land. The second car suggests there is at least one other person in the trailer. In a few more minutes, I'll sneak up and see what's going on."
A couple more minutes passed. Finally, Sly snuffed out his third cigarette and glanced in the rear view mirror. "Okay, here I go."
"I'll come with you," Dodger said, as he started to open the door on his side.
"No. Stay in the car ready to get us out of here if anything happens. I want you ready to drive this thing out of here. Don't worry about me. If I can't get my tail in the car as it goes by, I deserve to be left behind."
Sly pulled the water pistol out of his belt. "You know how to drive a stick?"
"Hell, yes," Dodger replied. He had driven a stick shift—once. He remembered back to the time Uncle Matt had tried to teach him. They bumped and jumped and stalled for twenty minutes until Uncle Matt had finally lost his patience. But that was when Dodger was still a little kid, almost a year ago.
Dodger held his hand over the light as Sly opened the car door. Sly eased the door closed and looked back at Dodger through the open window. "Remember, stay here."
Dodger nodded, but Sly had already been swallowed by the darkness, only to be regurgitated a few minutes later next to the trailer. Dodger could just make out his slender shape against the lighter background of the trailer. The shadow made its way to one of the windows, stopped for a few seconds, then moved on to the next window and stopped again.
He makes a good peeping tom, Dodger thought. He's quiet and graceful—like a cat.
Dodger glanced down at the clock on the dash, but it was too dark to make out the hands. He pushed the lighter in and after a few seconds pulled it back out, using the glowing red tip to read the clock. He continued to check the clock for the next fifteen minutes until he began to wonder if the clock kept the right time. He had never known fifteen minutes to move so slowly, not even in Mrs. Peterson's class.
"Damn, come on back here and tell me what's going on," he muttered, growing more exasperated by the minute.
"Enough is enough," he said ten minutes later as he unscrewed the light bulb from the overhead lamp, then slipped out the door on the driver's side. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled across the driveway towards the trailer. He sat on his haunches next to Sly waiting for the detective to notice him, but all of Sly's attention was on what was happening on the other side of the window.
Finally, frustrated by being ignored for so long, Dodger reached over and pulled on Sly's pant leg. The man jumped as though he had been stuck with an electric cattle prod.
Sly's right arm pulled back, ready to deliver a haymaker, when, at the last instant, he realized his attacker's size was too small to be much of a threat. Instead, he reached down and grabbed Dodger by the collar and pulled him up close to his face.
"What the hell are you doing, scaring the shit out of me like that?"
"I wasn't trying to scare you. I just wanted to know if they've killed my brother yet. You didn't seem interested in stopping them," Dodger whispered back. "Let go of me."
Sly released his grip on Dodger's collar. "Sorry, I forgot about you. You wouldn't believe what's going on in there, or maybe you would since he's your brother. You didn't bother to tell me he was a psychic."
"Well, it didn't . . . seem important." Dodger stammered. Psychic? What was going on in there?
"Have you seen him in one of these trances before?" Sly asked.
"Well, not in a long time. Let me see what you mean." Dodger stood on his tiptoes and looked through the window for the first time.
Despite Sly's comments, he wasn't prepared for the sight before him. In the center of the
room, sitting cross-legged on a large purple pillow, was Elliot. But it didn't look like Elliot. He wasn't drooling. His face that Dodger had last seen twisted by pain and fear now had a peacefulness that bordered on angelic. Elliot stared straight ahead, his eyes unfocused. No, thought Dodger, not unfocused. More like they were focused on something that no one else was able to see.
As Dodger continued to look, he noticed Elliot's lips moving, and Dodger could just make out a soft eloquent voice. Could that be coming from the mongoloid he’d seen a few hours ago in the back of the Caddy? Somehow, since their first meeting, a magical transformation had taken place.
Next to Elliot, also sitting cross-legged with his back to the window, was the old man who had almost run over Dodger and an even older woman Dodger didn't recognize. Between the two of them and across from Elliot sat a much younger woman, one vaguely familiar to Dodger, and around them all was a circle of candles.
"I recognize the younger lady across from Elliot," Dodger said, when he noticed Sly had joined him at the window. "She's Mrs. Smotherman from the hardware store. What do you think they are doing with all the candles?"
"It's a séance," Sly whispered.
It all started to make sense: the "Fortunes from the Future" sign on the side of the Caddy, the candles, even the funny looking outfit Elliot was wearing that made him look a little like a genie.
"We've got to get my brother out of there before they kill him," Dodger said in a voice that was just barely a whisper.
Sly pulled Dodger away from the window.
"It doesn't look like anyone is planning to kill the boy, least not anytime soon," Sly said, still whispering.
"I told you, they are. Those two kidnapped him and if we . . ."
"I don't think so," Sly interrupted. "You're a right good liar. I'll give you that. I'm not usually sucked in so easily. But unless you tell me what is really going on here, I've got some pictures to hang back at the office."
"No, you can't leave. You gotta save him." Dodger wasn't whispering anymore. "I swear, they are up to no good. You gotta believe meumpp. . . " Sly slapped a hand across his mouth and pulled him away from the trailer.
"What was that?" a voice from the trailer asked.
"Probably just a voice from the future," a gruff voice replied. "It happens sometimes."
Sly pulled Dodger back towards the car. When he was sure they were out of earshot, he turned to Dodger.
"Now talk, and if at all possible, try telling the truth this time.”
"Okay, I'll tell you the truth, I promise, but you've got to promise to help . . ."
"Whoa. You're in no position to be making demands," Sly said.
"If you want the truth, it's the only way I'll tell you," Dodger replied, stubbornly.
Sly glared at him for several seconds before answering. "All right. I planned to help the boy anyway."
Dodger relayed the story as it actually happened, with Sly stopping him to ask an occasional question.
In the end, Sly asked, "Why didn't you tell me the truth in the first place?"
"Because I was afraid you wouldn't help me. I was desperate. No one ever listens to me. Uncle Matt wouldn't help when I told him the truth." Dodger stopped, on the verge of tears.
"I suspect that's because you tell the truth so seldom. Anyway, let's see what we can do to get the kid out of there." Sly thought for a few minutes, then pulled Dodger close to him.
"Okay, listen up. Here's the plan. We'll wait 'til Smotherman leaves . . ."
A short time later, the taillights of Mrs. Smotherman's blue sedan disappeared down the road.
"Okay, that's our cue. Let's go. Follow my lead," Sly said, as he pulled his water pistol from his waist and started towards the side door of the trailer with Dodger close behind.
He hit the door without even pausing. The door flew open, crashing against the wall. Side-by-side, Sly and Dodger ran into the room with guns drawn.
"Freeze—don't nobody move a muscle," they both shouted in unison, just as Sly had instructed.
The three occupants of the trailer jerked around towards the commotion as though on the same set of puppet strings. Grunt and Gracie, who were standing on either side of the wooden box, preparing to lower Elliot into it, looked liked they were witnessing the second coming. Elliot, however, standing in front of the box, had the same look of peaceful bliss on his face as during the seance.
"Get you hands up!" Dodger shouted.
Grunt's hands flew up so fast that, for a moment, Dodger was afraid he'd jammed them through the trailer's low ceiling, but they cleared with a couple inches to spare. Gracie glared first at Grunt then at Dodger, her hands firmly gripping Elliot.
"What the hell are you doing?" Gracie yelled, turning back to Grunt. "It's only a boy with a water pistol. Get him!"
But before Grunt could move, Elliot took a step forward towards the intruders, then suddenly turned and, with a swing of his arms, knocked Gracie off her feet and into the weathered coffin. As her head hit the side of the container, the newly repaired top slammed shut. Elliot promptly sat down on the cover and slipped the padlock through the latch.
"Don't. . .don't shoot. . . I'm just an old man trying to make it to his next meal. Gracie there was the ringleader. She made me do it. I didn't want to. . . I like idiot here. . . really. . . "
"Shut up!" Sly and Dodger yelled at the same time, then looked at each other in surprise.
"Find something to tie him up with, Dodge, my boy," Sly instructed. "If you can't find anything else, look for an extension cord."
Dodger leaped into action. Finding some nylon cord under the sink, he sat Grunt down in a chair and tied him securely to it.
"Okay, now what?" Dodger asked, as he stepped back to examine his handiwork.
"Time to call the authorities," Sly said.
"Ahhh. . . " Dodger hesitated. "Maybe you should call. I'm not real popular down at the station."
"No, you call. In fact, call your uncle and have him bring the police."
"Are you sure?" Dodger asked.
"Yeah," Sly replied with a wink.
Dodger started towards the door but before he reached it, Sly stopped him.
"I'm going to have to leave—for a while. You can handle it from here can't you, Dodger?"
There was a strange tone to Sly's voice. It reminded Dodger of the voice he'd heard through the window earlier in the evening.
"What's going on here?" Dodger asked, turning first to Sly, then to Elliot. As he looked at Elliot, he noticed Elliot's eyes were closed as though in a trance, but he continued to have the same peaceful aura surround him.
"Wait just a minute, here," Dodger looked again at Sly. "Why couldn't the old lady see anyone but me?"
"I guess some people have no imagination," Sly answered, with Elliot's voice. "Now, go fetch the cops. Everything is going to be fine from here on out. I promise."
Dodger turned to leave, but Sly stopped him once more. "See that bottle there on the table? Take it with you. It's my . . . Elliot's medicine. Two cc's is plenty most of the time."
Dodger picked up the medicine and the pack of syringes and stuck them in his coat pocket. "But, how did you . . . "
"Not now, Dodger. Go call your uncle," Sly said and winked again.
Still confused, Dodger ran down to the trailer park's office and called his uncle. He knew the response to expect from his uncle and was ready. As soon as his uncle picked up the phone, he blurted out, "Hi, this is Dodger. I'm fine. I'm at the Blue Herring Trailer Park. Come quick and bring the police. Trailer site #23 Bye." He hung the phone up with his uncle still stuttering on the other end of the phone.
Sly was gone by the time Dodger returned to trailer site #23. Elliot sat on the box in the lotus position, the look on his face already taking on the dull, vacant appearance Dodger had seen through the window of the Caddy. By the time Dodger's uncle arrived with the cops, Elliot sat in a stupor, a thin stream of drool sliding down the corner of his mouth.
"I'
VE TOLD YOU A DOZEN times already. Don't make me keep repeating it. He can stay tonight, but in the morning he's got to go to the hospital."
"But, Uncle Matt, Mom's coming in the afternoon. Please, let him stay 'til then,” Dodger pleaded. “I know when Mom meets Elliot, she'll want us to take him home with us.”
Uncle Matt turned around, his face red with anger. He opened his mouth to yell at his nephew, but then noticed the syringe in Dodger's hand.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Chill out, it's just Elliot's medicine. I know what I'm doing."
"Are you sure?" Uncle Matt picked up the bottle sitting on the table between Dodger and Elliot. "What's it for?"
"It . . .well, it helps him. That's all. I'm not the doctor. I'm just doing what I was told. Now, give me a hand, will you? You got any alcohol?"
"Got some vodka in the cabinet," Matt replied with a puzzled look on his face. "Are you sure. . . ?"
"The vodka will have to do," Dodger interrupted. Can you get it for me . . . and some cotton, too?"
Matt walked into the kitchen, returning with a half-emptied bottle of vodka and a paper towel.
"Fresh out of cotton. This will have to do."
Dodger took the vodka and towel. He rolled Elliot's sleeve up and cleaned his arm with the vodka. Then squinting his eyes, he gave Elliot the injection.
"Damn. He didn't even flinch. He must really be gone," Matt said, staring at Elliot's blank expression.
"He's not gone," Dodger argued. "He's just used to the shots."
"Well, I hope he's going to be okay here tonight. It's about time the two of you went to bed."
"But, Uncle Matt, can't we let him stay. . ."
"Don't start with me, boy. I told you. He's got to go to the hospital in the morning."
"Who's going to the hospital?" A woman's voice came through the front door screen. "Dodger, you didn't break your fool arm again, did you?
"It's Mom!" Dodger yelled, running to the door and flinging it open.
"No kidding?" the lady said, as she glanced around. "Oh, you mean me? Well, fancy that. How have you been, son?"
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