The Passage (24 page)

“Ready?”

The line for the Octopus was long but moved quickly. When their turn to board came, the operator stopped them with a raised hand.

“How old is she?”

The man squinted skeptically over his cigarette. Purple tattoos snaked along his bare forearms. Before Wolgast could open his mouth to answer, Amy stepped forward. “I’m eight.”

Just then Wolgast saw the sign, propped on a folding chair:
NO RIDERS UNDER SEVEN YEARS OF AGE
.

“She don’t look eight,” the man said.

“Well, she is,” Wolgast said. “She’s with me.”

The operator looked Amy up and down, then shrugged. “It’s your lunch,” he said.

They climbed into the wobbling car; the tattooed man pushed the safety bar against their waists. With a lurch the car rose into the air and abruptly halted so other riders could board behind them.

“Scared?”

Amy was pressed against him, her sweatshirt drawn up around her face in the cold, both hands clutching the bar. Her eyes were very wide. She shook her head emphatically. “Uh-uh.”

Four more times the car lifted and stopped. At its apex, the view took in the whole fairgrounds, the high school and its parking lots, the little town of Homer beyond, with its grid of lighted streets. Traffic was still streaming in from the county road. From so far up, the cars seemed to move with the sluggishness of targets in a shooting gallery. Wolgast was scanning the ground below for Doyle when he felt the car lurch again.

“Hold on!”

They descended in a spinning, plunging rush, their bodies pressing upward against the bar. Screams of pleasure filled the air. Wolgast closed his eyes against the force of their descent. He hadn’t been on a carnival ride in years and years; the violence of it was astonishing. He felt Amy’s weight against his body, pushed toward him by the car’s momentum as they spun and fell. When he looked again, they were dipping close to the ground, skating just inches above the hard-packed field, the lights of the fair whirling around them like a rain of shooting stars; then they were vaulted skyward once more. Six, seven, eight times around, each rotation rising and falling in a wave. It took forever and was over in an instant.

As they began their jerking descent to disembark, Wolgast looked down at Amy’s face; still that neutral, appraising gaze, yet he detected, behind the darkness of her eyes, a warm light of happiness. A new feeling opened inside him: no one had ever given her such a present.

“So how was that?” he asked, grinning at her.

“That was
cool
.” Amy lifted her face quickly. “I want to go again.”

The operator freed them from the bar; they returned to the back of the line. Ahead of them stood a large woman in a flowered housedress and her husband, a weather-beaten man in jeans and a tight western shirt, a fat plug of tobacco pouched under his lip.

“Aren’t you the cutest,” she proclaimed, and looked warmly at Wolgast. “How old is she?”

“I’m eight,” Amy said, and slipped her hand into Wolgast’s. “This is my daddy.”

The woman laughed, her eyebrows lifting like parachutes catching the air. Her cheeks were clumsily rouged. “Of course he’s your daddy, honey. Anyone can see that. It’s just as plain as the nose on your face.” She poked her husband in the ribs. “Isn’t she the cutest, Earl?”

The man nodded. “You bet.”

“What’s your name, honey?” the woman asked.

“Amy.”

The woman shifted her eyes to Wolgast again. “I’ve got a niece just about her age, doesn’t speak half so well. You must be so proud.”

Wolgast was too amazed to respond. He felt as if he were still on the ride, his mind and body caught in some tremendous gravitational force. He thought of Doyle, wondering if he was watching the scene unfold from somewhere in the crowds. But then he knew he didn’t care; let Doyle watch.

“We’re driving to Colorado,” Amy added, and squeezed Wolgast’s hand conspiratorially. “To visit my grandmother.”

“Is that so? Well, your grandmother’s very lucky, to have a girl like you come to visit.”

“She’s sick. We have to take her to the doctor.”

The woman’s face fell with sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear it.” She spoke with quiet earnestness to Wolgast. “I hope everything’s all right. We’ll keep you in our prayers.”

“Thank you,” he managed.

They rode the Octopus three more times. As they moved into the fairgrounds in search of dinner, Wolgast couldn’t spot Doyle anywhere; either he was shadowing them like a pro or he had decided to leave them alone. There were a lot of pretty women around. Maybe, Wolgast thought, he’d gotten distracted.

Wolgast bought Amy a hot dog and they sat together at a picnic table. He watched her eat: three bites, four bites, then it was gone. He got her a second and, when that was gone, a funnel cake, dusted with powdered sugar, and a carton of milk. Not the most nutritious meal, but at least she had the milk.

“What’s next?” he asked her.

Amy’s cheeks were spattered with sugar and grease. She reached up to wipe them with the back of her hand, but Wolgast stopped her. “Use a napkin,” he said, and handed one to her.

“The carousel,” she said.

“Really? Seems pretty tame after the Octopus.”

“They got one?”

“I’m sure they do.”

The carousel, Wolgast thought. Of course. The Octopus was for one part of her, the grown-up part, the part that could watch and wait and lie with confident charm to the woman in the line; the carousel was for the other Amy, for the little girl she really was. Under the spell of the evening, its lights and sounds and the still-churning part of him that had ridden the Octopus four times in a row, he wanted to ask her things: who she really was; about her mother, her father if she had one, and where she was from; about the nun, Lacey, and what had happened at the zoo, the craziness in the parking lot. Who are you, Amy? What brought you here, what brought you to me? And how do you know I’m afraid, that I’m afraid all the time? She took his hand again as they walked; the feel of her palm against his own was almost electrical, the source of a warm current that seemed to spread through his body as they walked. When she saw the carousel with its glowing deck of painted horses, he felt her pleasure actually pass from her body into his.

Lila
, he thought.
Lila, this was what I wanted. Did you know? It’s all I ever wanted
.

He handed the operator their tickets. Amy picked a horse on the outer rim, a white Lipizzaner stallion frozen in mid-prance, grinning a bright row of ceramic teeth. The ride was almost empty; it was past nine o’clock, and the youngest children had gone home.

“Stand next to me,” Amy commanded.

He did; he placed one hand on the pole, another on the horse’s bridle, as if he were leading her. Her legs were too short to reach the stirrups, which dangled freely; he told her to hold tight.

That was when he saw Doyle, standing not a hundred feet away, beyond a row of hay bales that marked the edge of the beer tent, talking energetically to a young woman with great handfuls of red hair. He was telling a story, Wolgast could see, gesturing with his cup to make some point or pace a punch line, inhabiting the role of the handsome fiber-optic salesman from Indianapolis—just as Amy had done with the woman in line, spinning out the detail of the sick grandmother in Colorado. It was what you did, Wolgast understood; you started to tell a story about who you were, and soon enough the lies were all you had and you became that person. Beneath his feet, the carousel’s wooden decking shuddered as its gears engaged; with a burp of music from speakers overhead, the carousel began to move as the woman, in a gesture of practiced flirtatiousness, tossed back her head to laugh, while at the same time reaching out to touch Doyle, quickly, on the shoulder. Then the deck of the carousel turned and the two of them were gone from sight.

Wolgast thought it then. The sentences were as clear in his mind as if written there.

Just go. Take Amy and go
.

Doyle’s lost track of time. He’s distracted. Do it
.

Save her
.

Around and around they went. Amy’s horse bobbed up and down like a piston. In just these few minutes, Wolgast felt his thoughts gather into a plan. When the ride was over, he would take her, glide into the darkness, the crowds, away from the beer tent and out the gate; by the time Doyle realized what had happened, they’d be nothing but an empty space in the lot. A thousand miles in every direction; they’d be swallowed whole into it. He was good, he knew what he was doing. He’d kept the Tahoe, he saw, for just this reason; even back then, standing in the parking lot in Little Rock, the germ of the idea had lain inside him, like a seed about to break open. He didn’t know what he’d do about finding the girl’s mother, but he’d figure that out later. He’d never felt anything like it, this blast of clarity. All his life seemed to gather behind this one thing, this singular purpose. The rest—the Bureau, Sykes, Carter, and the others, even Doyle—was a lie, a veil his true self had lived behind, waiting to step into the light. The moment had come; all he had to do was follow his instincts.

The ride began to slow. He didn’t even look in Doyle’s direction, not wanting to jinx this new feeling, to scare it away. When they reached a complete stop, he lifted Amy from her horse and knelt so they were eye to eye.

“Amy, I want you to do something for me. I need you to pay attention to what I’m saying.”

The girl nodded.

“We’re leaving now. Just the two of us. Stay close, don’t say a word. We’re going to be moving quickly, but don’t run. Do just as I say and everything will be fine.” He searched her face for comprehension. “Do you understand?”

“I shouldn’t run.”

“Exactly. Now let’s go.”

They stepped from the deck; they’d come to rest on the far side, away from the beer tent. Wolgast hoisted her quickly over the fence that surrounded the ride, then, bracing his hand on a metal post, vaulted over himself. No one seemed to notice—or maybe they did, but he didn’t look back. With Amy’s hand in his he strode briskly toward the rear of the fairgrounds, away from the lights. His plan was to circle around to the main gate or else find another exit. If they moved quickly, Doyle would never notice until it was too late.

They came to a tall chain-link fence; beyond it stood a dark line of trees and, farther still, the lights of a highway, hemming the high school’s playing fields to the south. There was no way through; the only route was around the perimeter, following the fence back to the main entrance. They were moving through unmown grass, still wet from the storm, soaking their shoes and pants. They reemerged back near the food stands and the picnic table where they had eaten. From there, Wolgast could see the exit, just a hundred feet away. His heart was thumping in his chest. He paused to quickly scan the scene; Doyle was nowhere.

“Straight out the exit,” he told Amy. “Don’t even look up.”

“Yo, chief!”

Wolgast froze. Doyle came jogging up behind them, pointing at his watch. “I thought we said an hour, boss.”

Wolgast looked at him, his bland midwestern face. “Thought we’d lost you,” he said. “We were just coming to look for you.”

Doyle glanced quickly over his shoulder toward the beer tent. “Well, you know,” he said. “Got caught up in a little conversation.” He smiled, a little guiltily. “Nice folks around here. Real talkers.” He gestured at Wolgast’s water-stained slacks. “What happened to you? You’re all wet.”

For a moment, Wolgast said nothing. “Puddles.” He did his best not to look away, to hold Doyle in his gaze. “The rain.” There was one other chance, maybe, if he could somehow distract Doyle on the way to the Tahoe. But Doyle was younger and stronger, and Wolgast had left his weapon back in the car.

“The rain,” Doyle repeated. He nodded, and Wolgast saw it in the younger man’s face: he knew. He’d known all along. The beer tent was a test, a trap. He and Amy had never been out of sight, not for a second. “I see. Well, we have a job to do. Right, chief?”

“Phil—”

“Don’t.” His voice was quiet—not menacing, merely stating the facts. “Don’t even say the words. We’re partners, Brad. It’s time to go.”

All Wolgast’s hopefulness collapsed inside him. Amy’s hand was still in his; he couldn’t bear even to look at her.
I’m sorry
, he thought, sending her this message through his hand.
I’m sorry
. And together, Doyle following five paces behind them, they moved through the exit toward the parking lot.

Neither of them noticed the man—the off-duty Oklahoma state trooper who, two hours before, had seen the wire report on a girl kidnapped by two Caucasian males at the Memphis Zoo, before clocking out and heading off to the high school to meet his wife and watch his kids ride the bumper cars—following them with his eyes.

NINE

I was called … Fanning
.

All that day the words sat on his lips: when he awoke at eight, as he bathed and dressed and ate his breakfast and sat on the bed in his room, flipping through the channels and smoking Parliaments, waiting for the night to come. All day long, this was what he heard: