The Quiet Boy

by Ben H. Winters

  “Yes.”

  “In which he said that Wesley’s condition has not been seen before, and therefore could not have been detected or predicted?”

  “Yes. I was present for that testimony.”

  “And what did you make of it?”

  “Well. The thing is, I hate to be…” She inhaled; she twisted her lips; a little show of hesitance. They had practiced this, late at night in his office, the stutter step of humility. The little ol’ twentysomething gal not wanting to show up her superiors in open court. They had practiced it and practiced it.

  “It’s OK, Dr. Pileggi. Go ahead. Were they correct or not, when they testified that this outcome could never have been predicted?”

  “No, Mr. Shenk, they were not,” she said. “My colleagues and I published an article about Syndrome K in the Spring 2006 issue of Proceedings in Neuropathology.”

  “Oh.” Shenk turned to Riggs, pulled his face into a shocked pantomime. “Maybe Dr. Catanzaro let his subscription lapse.”

  “Objection,” said Riggs flatly, and Cates sustained it, but it didn’t matter. The point had been made. Catanzaro hadn’t known about the danger, but he could have. He should have.

  Shenk risked a direct glance at Officer Gonzalez, who not only nodded but looked at him directly, making eye contact, like an old friend. To Pileggi he said “I thank you,” but what he might have equally said was “I’m very proud of you.”

  Riggs was already standing for cross-examination, but Judge Cates, after an extended examination of his watch, after a long, thoughtful exhale, called them into recess for the day.

  It was because the judge’s son was due back from college that day; it was spring break at Oberlin and he was coming home for a visit.

  That’s all it was, a trick of the calendar, pure randomness.

  Shenk would find this all out later, years later actually, at a bar, when he ran into Jackie Benson, whom he hadn’t seen in a good long time and who, at first, didn’t recognize him. Normally Judge Cates would not have been concerned about pushing the day’s testimony for another hour, but young Ellis Cates was at that moment on a plane home from Ohio, and the judge’s wife had planned a small special dinner at the family’s favorite seafood place, in Playa.

  And as we know, the universe turns on such inconsequentialities.

  “We’ll proceed tomorrow,” Cates announced, and lifted his gavel and smacked the future into place. “Ten a.m.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah, honey?” Shenk looked up from his reverie with a broad grin on his face, scooper in one hand.

  “Dad, I think there’s someone in the house.”

  “What, bud?” said Jay, and as sometimes happened on Tabor Street the parent-child roles were flipped: while Shenk was lost in his happy memory, Ruben had been paying attention, nervous and responsible, but at the same time he was right, someone was in the house, and he knew who it was, too, but before he could say more the light behind Jay went out, and Jay’s glass fell from his hand and exploded on the linoleum, because Dennis had yanked him by the ponytail, pulled back his head, and pressed a knife to his throat.

  Ruben screamed, and Dennis grinned, revealing the pearl-white line of his teeth. “This is great,” he said casually. “I’m so glad you guys are home.”

  Someone grabbed Ruben now, and held him tightly from behind: the bar of a forearm pressed across his chest, individual fingertips jammed into his upper arm, just below the shoulder. It was Samir who was holding him, the thin Indian man who had been with Dennis in the office that day, wearing a white dress shirt like he’d worn then. Ruben fought against his grip, struggling so hard he lifted himself off the ground. He was a kid, though, he was only a kid, and Samir was a full-grown man, holding him tightly, squeezing while Ruben kicked and howled.

  “Take it easy, Ruben,” said Dennis sweetly, and angled the knife so it dug slightly farther into Jay’s neck. The blade winked back at Ruben in the moonlight. “Be a good boy, now.”

  It was a serrated knife, the bread knife from the knife block on the counter. Marilyn had replaced all the knives in the kitchen the year before she died, knowing that soon she’d be gone. She had wanted that Jay in his widowerhood would have a kitchen he would use.

  The big knife with its sawtooth blade was for bagels, for baguettes, all things resistant to cutting. Now Dennis had it drawn tightly against Shenk’s throat. His hair was blond and stringy, streaked with moonlight, falling lank around his pale grinning face. His hands were dirty and callused, but—Ruben noticed it now, why was he noticing it now?—the fingernails were perfect, clean and pink as seashells.

  “It’s OK, sweetheart,” said Jay to Ruben. “I’m all right.”

  “It’s OK,” murmured Dennis, a sickly-sweet echo, his eyebrows dancing, humor twinkling in his pale blue eyes. “He’s all right.” He raised his voice, called into the other room. “Katy, honey? You find anything?”

  “Not yet. I’m looking.”

  “Take your time, sweetheart. Take as much time as you need.”

  “OK.”

  Katy’s voice from the living room was thin and wavering, on the brink of panic. What had she been before she fell in with all of this? An accountant, Ruben thought. Maybe a medical student. Ruben could hear her rummaging through papers, opening boxes. Fumbling open the rolltop desk.

  Samir’s fingers trembled where they were pushed into Ruben’s shoulder. He was just as scared as Katy. They were doing what they had to do, what they had been commanded. They were in thrall. Ruben wondered if he could maybe get free. Pull his arms away from Samir, kick him in the nuts, punch him in the gut. But then the night man would kill his father. Slit his throat, release his grip, watch Jay slip to the ground while the life pulsed out of him. He would slaughter him.

  “OK, so, look, man,” sighed Dennis into Shenk’s ear. “I know this sucks. Violence, the threat of violence. But you gotta understand, I have been chasing this thing for years. I’m, like—maybe a little crazy on this. I need to know where these people are, and we have run out of options.”

  “We don’t know where he is. I told you that.”

  “Yeah, no, I know, that’s your line, man. The lawyer’s line. Nobody told me nothing. I’m in the dark.” He adjusted his hand on the knife handle. The blade kissed Jay’s Adam’s apple. “So OK, so we’ll see. We checked your office, now we’re checking here. Katy’s looking.” Then, sharply, “Katy?”

  “Not—not—no, nothing yet.”

  “Nothing yet.” He grinned. “So maybe you just cough it up, Katy stops looking, you save us some time. But.” He licked his lips, gave his head a little shake. “But. But if you tell me you don’t know, and then it’s here all along, that’s when things go red, man.”

  Dennis’s voice was calm and even, but his eyes were wild. They twitched in their sockets. Ruben looked helplessly at Jay, who looked right at him and mouthed the words I love you, which made Ruben more scared.

  “You understand, right, that I’m not doing any of this for me,” Dennis went on. “None of this is for my own personal benefit. It’s for you. It’s for everybody that lives and breathes, in this brutal and terrible world. It’s for fucking mankind, OK? It’s”—his voice rose slightly and Ruben could see a strange heat in his eyes—“it’s here. The future, the good and golden future, it’s here. It wants in. But it is still trapped inside that boy.”

  They heard a thump, Katy maybe knocking a file box off the desk, and then they heard her say “Shit,” and Dennis hissed.

  Ruben shut his eyes. He could smell Samir’s skin.

  He had seen the Keeners at the Palladium that day; he had talked quietly with Evelyn while Wesley was walking endlessly inside. He could have called Dennis right then—I have him! I got him! He’s here—but he didn’t do it, because how could he do it, and now he was sorry, he was so sorry and he was so scared. Now the Keeners were somewhere else, they were in some other secret location until the trial was over, and he didn’t know where. He would te
ll if he knew. It was awful but if it would make these people leave, he would have told. Ruben was about to pee in his pants.

  He heard a dog barking as it walked down the street. “Hey,” a man said to the dog, his chiding tone clearly audible from the street. “Hush up.”

  It was that collie, Ruben thought desperately. That ugly little brown border collie. Surely the owner would wonder why it was barking—surely he’d call for help. Surely the Shenks’ terror was a tangible thing, billowing out from this troubled smashed-glass kitchen like smoke.

  “Just tell me, Mr. Shenk,” said Dennis at last. “Where the fuck is he?”

  “I’ve told you,” said Jay in a low whimper. “I don’t know.”

  “Hey, should I—” Samir started, and Dennis looked at him fiercely. “Maybe I oughta take the boy somewhere else?”

  “To the contrary!” Dennis said, and then, loudly, “Katy? Nothing?”

  “No.” She sounded frantic. “It’s not here.”

  “Nothing in writing. Is that it, Jay?” He pulled away a little bit, to make eye contact with his captive, never letting the knife leave his throat. They were like a two-headed person, examining himself. “Once more. Where is he?”

  Jay swallowed hard, and his Adam’s apple rolled under the line of the knife. “I don’t know.”

  “We should go,” Samir said. “I think we should go.”

  Dennis considered for a moment. He adjusted his knife hand, flexed the fingers of the other. And then made a low hissing noise, a tiny growl in the back of his throat, as his eyes lit on Ruben.

  He handed the knife to Samir.

  “Cut the kid’s finger off.”

  “What?” said Samir, and Jay shouted “No!”

  Ruben felt heat on his leg. He had done it. He’d peed. He started to cry.

  “Index finger. Left hand.” Dennis smiled. “For starters.”

  Shenk shouted “No” again, and then “Please,” and Dennis punched him, hard, a quick thump to the side of his head, and Jay’s head rolled and when it came back up his eyes were clouded. He blinked and smiled at Ruben, as if from miles away and years ago.

  “Rubie,” he said softly, “oh, Rubie…”

  Dennis said “Now” to Samir, “the finger,” but Samir was shaking his head, lips quivering, mewling, “I can’t, I can’t.” Ruben lurched out of his light grip and was free, but Dennis booted him in the stomach and he fell backward and the small of his back slammed into the kitchen cabinet and jolted him forward onto the floor. He landed in the pool of spilled root beer, spiked with broken glass, and he screamed as the shards bit into his kneecaps.

  And now Dennis had the knife back, pressed again into Jay’s throat, the edge of it sunk into the pale flesh of his neck. A bright red line of drops appeared, as if by carnival magic. Ruben’s father whimpered; he moaned.

  Ruben would never forget the sound. He knew right away that he would never forget it, and he never did.

  “I mean, Jesus, kid.” Dennis looked down at Ruben carefully. An intimate whisper, just between them. “How many parents can one person lose?”

  Ruben lunged out of his crouch holding a thick piece of glass in his hand, a convex shard from the fat base of the glass, sticky with sugar and blood. Not thinking, no time to think. He stabbed the night man in the cheek, dug in the glass and turned it, and Dennis’s hideous smiling face exploded into red. Then he grunted and pushed Ruben hard, with two hands, knocked him over and climbed on top of him.

  And then there was a siren, screaming and screaming in the night.

  Dennis jerked his head up, showering blood down across Ruben’s face. For an instant, he looked scared, and then the next instant he did not. It came and went from his eyes, jumping back and forth, in and out: he was the night man, a beast from the dark place in Ruben’s own heart, and at the same time he was just some dirtbag, a con man and a cultist—he was both, he was a criminal and he was a monster who lived only to loom over Ruben, to fuck with him and follow him and drip blood in his eyes.

  “Your blood is all over this room,” said Jay Shenk quietly, from where he was curled up against the wall, as the sirens cried out. Shenk the lawyer, the expert, working the lever he knew. “Your fingerprints. That’s all evidence.”

  Dennis stood. The sirens were getting closer.

  “If I were you,” Jay said, “I’d go.”

  “Yeah,” said Dennis, thinking it over. “Maybe.”

  Katy rushed into the kitchen, her eyes popping with fear. Samir grabbed her and she grabbed him. The sirens were very close. “What’s happening?” she said. “Let’s go. Are we going?”

  “Yeah,” said Dennis. “Going. Now.”

  Jay exhaled. It turned into a cough.

  “We’re going,” Dennis said, and he crouched one more time and touched Ruben’s face. He arranged the boy’s hair, tucked a stray lock behind his ear. “We’re gone.”

  For a very long time, the Shenks, father and son, sat trembling on the kitchen floor. Slowly they moved, but didn’t speak—not for real, not for a long time. Ruben got the first-aid stuff out, and gingerly they cleaned each other, dabbed Neosporin on their wounds. Applied bandages.

  At some point, much later, they gave their report to the detectives: two women, both with severe buns and solemn, skeptical expressions. Evidence was taken—fingerprints from the wall, fingerprints from the back door, fingerprints from the bloody hilt of the knife.

  A case was opened. Technically it’s probably still open now. Dennis and the others became fugitives. They disappeared, leaving behind the trembling Shenks, trailing blood and shards of what was broken. They went dark, they lost themselves in the darkness. In the months and years to come they would spend time in Arizona, in New Mexico, in Texas, and in Montana; their numbers would grow and fall away; and Ruben would see none of them again—not for years and years.

  As for Jay, his concerns were immediate. He was aghast at the possibility of what would happen next. What if these violent lunatics did, somehow, find their way to the Keeners, and to Wesley, wherever they had hidden him away?

  But that’s not what happened.

  Dr. Theresa Pileggi was in her room at the Courtyard by Marriott, drinking tea and reviewing her notes from today’s testimony, preparing herself for tomorrow, when she would be cross-examined by defense counsel.

  She looked up at the sound of the elevator, rising in the hallway.

  February 8, 2019

  “There’s no rest for the wicked—”

  Evie the Soulful—Evie the Wise—in the studio, hard at work, her bright white hair pulled back and covered by giant headphones—

  “—but we fools all sleep like babies every night—”

  She stopped and scowled. “Once more. Go again.”

  The engineer rolled his eyes and puffed out his lips, as if he thought she couldn’t see his irritation through the soundproof glass. The engineer’s assistant, Bobby or Robby, was chewing on a piece of licorice, writing something on a notepad, keeping track of takes, counting wasted hours. Evie Keener was too young to be a diva but too good to be told. What they were making in this storied studio in Hollywood proper was theoretically the first single on the second album, everybody participating in the recording industry’s mass delusion that albums and singles were still meaningful commercial objects and not mere marketing devices, space-time events around which tours could be booked and interviews given, from which some tart quote or controversial interaction might pierce the skin of Instagram and draw attention, but Evie—Evie the Naive, Evie the Willful—believed in her art, like some old-fashioned idiot, and she had a particular melody in her head, a little rise and fall on babies. And no matter how many times Fat Face and Red Vine said it was time to move on, she would not move on until she got it clean and clear on the master, and meanwhile in the corner of her eye her brother was laughing, leaned against the foam-padded wall, egging her on, since this was one of those days where Evie was so conscious of the past that it was like a living thi
ng inside her. Like one of those jungle trees that splits down the center but keeps growing, in two parts, standing on the forest floor with smaller trees growing up between its legs, with vines spiraling up inside the core.

  So, for example, right now, here she is, at Sunset and Gower, the enormous headphones making her cheeks sweat, trying not to fuck up these lyrics she doesn’t even necessarily love, and also here she is at twelve, out by the lap pool in the immaculate backyard of a B-list movie star’s guesthouse, in pink corduroys with rolled cuffs, her toes tickling the water line, leaning her head back against a lounge chair while her brother walks a slow circle in the gated yard, since the star was shooting in Vancouver and had generously made her home available to the Keeners during this, the time of their literal trial.

  All the things are at once. Evie was in the studio, thinking about herself as an audacious twelve-year-old, and Evelyn was twelve, remembering herself at twenty-two, and we are rolling again, and she is bent to the microphone, singing words she wrote but doesn’t entirely understand, throwing open her arms to expand her voice, climbing the melody toward the end of the song—and by the stranger’s pool she works her way up to her question, glancing over her shoulder to watch Wesley walking even as she draws out the final note.

  Hey, dude.

  Her brother had started calling her dude of late, in the months before the accident, a signal that he now included his little sister in his circle of recognizable humans, and so she called him that now, rising from the waterside and padding across the grass to stand in his way, so he stopped walking. She leaned her head on his chest.

  Hey, dude.

  Nothing. Sometimes she would make these jokes, when nobody could hear.

  “Why are you giving me the silent treatment, Wesley?”