Mystery Writers of America Presents Vengeance

by Lee Child

  “It’s good,” he said, surprised. “I want one of these.” Instantly, the vendor began to scoop pineapple ice into a cup. Britta gave me a look of pure gratitude.

  “Thank you.”

  “Of course. Anything to help.”

  “How has he been doing?” she asked quietly, adjusting the bonnet around the doughy face of Dylan’s baby sister. Dylan was a few steps away.

  I shrugged, playing coy. “Pretty good, mostly. What’s he like at home?”

  She shook her head sharply, which I took to mean Don’t ask. I wanted to know more, but just then Dylan inserted himself between us, still sucking on my pineapple ice. He looked sharply at Britta.

  “He won’t let me make my galley.”

  I smiled. “Yup, I’m Mr. Mean, all right.” I tousled Dylan’s hair and leaned in closer to Britta. She smelled of baby powder and suntan lotion and looked as beautiful as any girl I’d ever seen. “What’s this galley he keeps talking about?”

  She turned away, and I couldn’t tell if she didn’t know or if she felt this wasn’t the moment to tell me. I wanted to press her further, but I didn’t have the chance. Something cold and sticky began to dribble onto my leg, and I saw that Dylan had turned over the paper cup and was pouring pineapple ice on me.

  “Goddamn it, what the…” Glancing at Britta, I let the anger sputter out, smiling instead. “Lost your grip, huh, little guy?”

  Dylan said nothing, just let the paper cup fall to the ground. He reached out to the vendor to take his own cup of ice and began to lick it with relish.

  “I’m so sorry,” Britta said. “Let me buy you another one.”

  “No need,” I said, and I was about to say Why don’t you make it up to me by going out with me sometime, but then the baby started to squawk. I noticed that Dylan was beside her, one hand around his ice, the other inside her stroller. He must’ve pinched her or hit her and made her cry.

  You little bastard, I thought, but I kept that smile right on my lips, still sticky from pineapple ice.

  “Let’s go,” Britta said, spinning the stroller away from me. As I watched them head down the sidewalk, Dylan looked back, only once, a faint smile on his lips.

  EARLY THE NEXT week, a heat wave settled over the city. Temperatures soared into the high nineties, and the humidity was off the charts. The kids moved sluggishly through our barely cool classroom, and even Royce hardly stirred during nap time. No one showed any signs of energy all day until it was time to go up to the pool.

  The aboveground pool sat on the rooftop and was filled with just enough water to reach most kids’ chins. There was an area on the far side of the roof for those who didn’t like to swim, with a sprinkler and a sandbox. Rebecca and I switched off which of us went in the pool, and that day was my turn.

  She sat on a wooden picnic bench beside a mound of towels, wiping sweat from her face. I couldn’t help but smile. Although the water only came up to my belly button, it was deliciously cool.

  “Look at me,” squealed Amber, whose soggy Band-Aids hung from her elbows. “I’m going underwater.”

  She ducked her face at the surface, went just deep enough to splash her nose and some of her round cheeks.

  “That’s great,” I said. “Do you want to maybe try putting your whole head under?”

  “No.” Amber giggled. “That’s too scary.”

  “You want to see scary?” I asked, ducking underwater and sticking my elbow up like a shark fin. Amber splashed away, giggling. When I rose, Dylan tugged at my leg.

  “You want to see me swim?” he asked.

  Dylan was like a little duck, one of the few kids who could swim. Dutifully, I watched him churn across the pool as I tossed a beach ball back and forth with Amber and a couple of the other kids.

  After a few minutes I got tired of Dylan’s swimming and turned away. “You’re not watching,” Dylan whined, and Amber threw the ball at me again but missed.

  The ball drifted toward Dylan. He grabbed it and hurled it over the side of the pool, onto the roof.

  Amber leaned out. “Hey, someone get the ball!” But everyone else was on the far side of the roof, out of earshot, including Rebecca.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, going right for the ladder since I was closest. I didn’t even think about it, really. It wasn’t a big deal. I’d have my hands on the ball in five seconds and be right back in the pool. What could possibly happen?

  My feet had barely touched the hot rubber that covered the roof when I heard a shriek from behind me. At the sandbox, Rebecca had whirled and spotted me outside the pool. Anger crossed her face.

  “Who’s watching the kids?” she shrieked.

  I was halfway up the ladder when I saw Dylan holding Amber’s head underwater, her hair floating like kelp. I broke the surface with a crash, landing inches from the two kids. Dylan let go of Amber instantly and swam away.

  I picked her up, wiped tendrils of hair out of her face, and made sure she was breathing okay. I felt Dylan brush by my legs, circling like a piranha.

  “Shhh, it’s okay,” I told Amber, leaning her against my shoulder. But she just cried, rubbing her eyes with her hands. The wet Band-Aids had fallen off her elbows.

  “You are in very serious trouble,” Rebecca said, and Dylan and I both looked up at once. I didn’t know if she meant me or him.

  APPARENTLY SHE’D MEANT me. “That’s goddamn unacceptable, leaving those kids in the pool alone.” I’d never heard Rebecca curse before. Of course at the moment, our kids had gone off with another group, so we were alone by the pool. “Somebody could’ve drowned in there.”

  “Yeah, like Amber,” I said. “But only because Dylan was holding her underwater.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. The kids were horsing around, that’s all. Which would’ve been fine if someone were supervising.” She shook her head at me. “This is it, your last free pass. Don’t screw up again.”

  I nodded and went to the bench where I’d stashed my clothes. As I started to slip on my sneakers, I noticed that one of the laces was gone. I looked around inside the sneaker and under it, but I couldn’t find the lace. Was this some trick the kids were playing on me? But I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I had only fifteen minutes until afternoon snack.

  I STAYED IN the city after work that day and saw a movie, a comedy. I was glad to get some laughs, but my good mood didn’t last. Soon I was standing on the sweltering subway platform, my anger starting to resurface. Then I noticed a familiar figure at the edge of the platform. Britta.

  “How’s the nanny business?” I asked.

  She smiled when she saw me, and my bad mood disappeared again in an instant. “Pretty good.”

  “Seems like a tough job. Dealing with Dylan, I mean.”

  She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it. After a moment, she said, “He’s… how do you say it? Hands full?”

  “Hands full is right,” I said, and we both laughed. “How long have you worked for his family?”

  “Three months. My friend worked there before me. She told me not to take the job, but…” She shrugged. “I need the money.”

  “Tell me about it.” I looked down at the end of the platform, then back at her. I wanted to find out more about Britta, who she was and where she came from, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Dylan. I was still haunted by that image of him holding Amber’s head underwater. “Have you ever wondered if he might be… dangerous?”

  I thought about a case we’d studied in criminal justice during spring semester, involving two seven-year-old boys who had murdered a toddler. We discussed whether they should be punished as severely as teenagers, or even as adults, despite their age. Their attorney had argued they were too young to know what they had done and should be released, but the court disagreed. The boys were sentenced to juvenile detention until the age of twenty-one, which some of my classmates thought was extreme.

  Not me. I believed they were stone-cold killers. They wouldn’t stop. As soon as they got out, the
y’d just do it again.

  “Dangerous? No, not little Dylan.” Britta shook her head emphatically, but there was uncertainty in her eyes.

  A train rumbled at the edge of the tunnel, its headlights blasting through the dark. I turned to Britta.

  “So I was thinking… do you want to get together sometime? For coffee? We could even talk about something besides Dylan.”

  She smiled, beaming at me. “Yes. I would certainly like that.”

  AFTER THE POOL episode, Dylan was on his best behavior for the next two days, and I started to think that maybe I was wrong about him. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad kid, and I had just overreacted.

  And then there was the incident with the Star Wars figures.

  Kids weren’t supposed to bring their own toys to camp, but I didn’t see it as any big deal. He’d brought them out of his cubby during afternoon playtime, and since Rebecca hadn’t noticed, I didn’t say anything.

  “This is me,” he said, holding out an Anakin Skywalker figure. “And this is you.”

  Apparently I was Darth Vader.

  When I reached for the figure, Dylan pulled it away. “Huh-uh,” he said with a fake babyish voice. “It’s mine.”

  He sat at one of the tables and moved the figures across an imaginary starscape. Ignoring him, I let myself get drawn into the kitchen area by Amber, who served me an imaginary breakfast of pancakes and ice cream. “Delicious,” I said, spooning it up.

  And then I heard Dylan call my name. “Eddie! Eddie!”

  I looked over but all I saw was Royce jabbing his paintbrush furiously at the easel, creating a splotchy mess, and Michael painting a picture of a dog the exact same shade of green as his socks.

  “Eddie!” I heard for the third time, and when I finally saw him, I was shocked.

  Dylan had built his favorite shape, the tall tower with a single long block on top, only this time he had added something else to it. My missing shoelace. Dylan had tied one end of it along that top block and the other end of the lace hung down, forming a makeshift noose around the Darth Vader action figure.

  “You’re on my galley,” he said, smiling.

  And I thought: gallows. He’s been saying gallows. He must have learned about them on his family vacation to England, during a visit to some medieval castle or other. Now instead of a fort or a spaceship or anything a normal kid would create, the little son of a bitch was making a gallows, just so he could threaten me.

  I charged across the room, my arm pulled back, and Dylan flinched as though he thought I might hit him. I didn’t. Instead, I swatted the blocks aside, watched them scatter across the floor. A couple of the pieces flew toward the easel and landed at Royce’s feet. He stared at me in utter shock. Rebecca whirled and stared at me. But I ignored her and looked right at Dylan.

  “You knocked down my galley,” he said, his lower lip starting to quiver.

  “Yeah, well, fuck you and your goddamn galley.”

  I was about to say more when Rebecca stomped over, kicking aside one of the fallen blocks. “Eddie, get your stuff and go.” That was all she said, that I was fired.

  When I got down to the lobby, I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face and then ducked into a stall, where I tried to throw up. But I couldn’t. I was angry and confused. I went through it all, trying to imagine what I should have done differently, but I knew that things had had to end like this. Dylan had made sure of it.

  I sat in the stall for an hour, maybe more, and tried to calm myself down. Dylan was dangerous. He was sick, truly sick. At least I wouldn’t have to see him again, but what about Britta? What if he tried to hurt her to get back at me? Or one of the kids I really cared about, like Amber?

  I couldn’t allow that. I wouldn’t.

  I slipped out of the bathroom, but instead of going for the exit, I ducked into the shadows of the sprawling lobby. Behind me, the basement door had been propped open and I stepped inside the stairwell and peered out from there. I heard the murmur of restless adults waiting for the elevators to come down. Through the faint noise, I soon heard the voices of eager campers, including some of mine: Amber and Michael, Royce and Cory.

  I stepped out from the shadows and saw Britta leaning wearily on the baby stroller and talking to Rebecca. I wanted to wait for Rebecca to go away so that I could explain to Britta what had really happened with Dylan. I felt sure that she would understand.

  In the stroller, Dylan’s sister opened her mouth in a wide O and began to wail. Britta fumbled around in the stroller, opening and closing zippers, muttering. Finally, she found a bottle and stuffed it in the baby’s mouth.

  “Let’s go,” Dylan said, tugging at Britta’s hand. “I want an ice.”

  “Just one minute,” she said, turning back to Rebecca.

  Dylan began to push his sister’s stroller in circles around the lobby. Britta watched casually, listening to Rebecca, nodding. I wondered what kind of lies my former boss was telling her. Would Britta even want to go out with me after what she’d heard?

  Dylan wheeled closer to me. It was almost as if he knew I was there. But no, he must not have, because he jumped when I put a hand on his shoulder.

  “You think you’re so smart, don’t you, you little shit.”

  Dylan was as solemn and obedient as if he were standing in a church pew.

  “I am smart,” he said.

  “Not as smart as me.”

  I hadn’t thought about what I would do next, not really. It just happened. I grabbed the stroller from Dylan and started walking, looking down at the baby cocooned inside, sucking on her bottle, swinging her tiny fists, Dylan must have looked like that once too, I thought, so helpless and small. No one ever would’ve suspected what he would someday become.

  “Where we going?” Dylan asked in surprise as I wheeled the stroller through the basement door.

  “You’re going away, my little friend,” I said, and then the baby dropped her bottle. It rolled into the corner of the stairwell and she started to scream, but only for a moment. I had no choice but to act, so I did. I pushed. The whole thing took maybe three or four seconds and then the baby was quiet, the sound of Dylan’s tears filling the void.

  I don’t know what happened next. I was already gone, out the service door, then walking calmly down the sidewalk. But I imagine that Britta and Rebecca ran over, and so did everyone else who was there, and they all covered their mouths in horror. I see the baby lying at the bottom of the basement stairs, covered in blood, head cracked open like a coconut. Dylan must’ve stared down at her in disbelief as Britta shook him by the front of his shirt and said, Why did you do this?

  No, it was him.

  It was who? Rebecca would have asked.

  Eddie did it. Eddie, not me! He pushed her, he hates me, he did it!

  But as everyone knew, I had left camp at least an hour earlier. The police interviewed me several times, but they weren’t suspicious. Dylan was the guilty party. Of course, no charges were filed, since Dylan was only five and no one could—or wanted to—prove that he had purposely pushed the baby down the stairs. It was probably just an accident. Some blamed the janitor who’d left the basement door propped open, while others blamed Britta for not watching the kids more closely.

  I went back to college that fall and I met a girl, one even prettier than Britta, and joined a fraternity. I had a lot of friends and a good life and whenever I thought about Dylan, I felt a little sadness mixed with relief.

  Dylan’s story got lots of coverage in the papers. I read that he was hospitalized for a while and faced a barrage of psychiatric tests and behavioral evaluations. They must have prescribed him tons of pills. Someone who saw Dylan on the street three or four years later told me he was like a walking zombie, so drugged up that he wasn’t capable of hurting anyone. Not even himself.

  I also heard that no matter how many times Dylan was asked, he wouldn’t admit to pushing his sister down the stairs. That’s too bad, because, as I’m sure someone must hav
e told him, confession is good for the soul.

  IN PERSONA CHRISTI

  BY OREST STELMACH

  Two days before the killers came for Maria, a gang of teenagers rampaged across church property. I was washing the liners under my prosthetic arm when I heard them. Their whistles and shouts came from everywhere, as though they had the rectory surrounded. It was just past dusk, too dark to see clearly out the window. All I could detect were amorphous black images, vaguely human, flitting in and out of my field of vision.

  Manuel, Maria’s thirteen-year-old son, was the first to come downstairs. As always, he spoke with facial expressions and physical gestures, as opposed to using his tongue. He hadn’t said a word to me since he and his mother had moved into the rectory, two months ago. Given his father had recently been hanged to death over the course of an hour while a block of ice melted beneath his feet, I wasn’t surprised. He stood now at the base of the stairs, his deceased father’s gold watch around his wrist, lips quivering and eyes bulging, begging me to tell him his mother and he weren’t in danger again.

  A Catholic priest must be a father. He is a spiritual provider and protector in the image of God, in the person of Christ. The role of father is my favorite part of being a priest, the one that comes most naturally to me and gives me the most joy.

  I walked up to Manuel and put my arm around him. I spoke to him in Spanish. “Don’t worry, son,” I said, as though he were my own child. “There’s nothing to fear. I’ll take care of you.”

  When I opened the front door, the clucking and crowing stopped immediately. The sight of a six-foot-three, two-hundred-twenty-pound, one-armed and one-legged priest limping on his prosthetic limb as an empty sleeve dangled at his side sent the boys scurrying. All I could hear was the sound of feet pounding the asphalt as they escaped into old Dillon Stadium, across the street.

  “You boys go on now,” I said. “And don’t come back. This is a church, you know.”