The True Detective (26 page)

The boy shakes his head slightly again.

Vernon keeps looking at the boy, who merely stares back. He wants to ask if he knows
who
he is, but doesn’t let himself do so.

“Don’t fall asleep,” he says, as the boy’s face is dipping once more.

His eyes open again, but in a moment begin lowering as before.

“Well, go ahead and sleep,” Vernon whispers, and settles him back down.

Getting to his feet, Vernon looks on the boy for a moment. He is drifting away. His head bobs slightly, as he either inhales or exhales, and Vernon wonders if he is hurt, if he has suffered some kind of concussion. He is thinking, too, that the way to get out of this awful situation is to make things right again, to like the boy and return him home.

The kitchen clock says ten minutes past twelve. Vernon rinses the dishes in the sink. Two o’clock, he thinks. He will have
to be out of here by two, to be on the safe side. If any of them comes in before that, he will say the boy is his cousin. His aunt was going to Boston, he will say. She had to go to a doctor there. A specialist. Women’s problems. His cousin wasn’t feeling well, so she left him here.

He sits on the bench of the picnic table watching the boy. The corner of the boy’s mouth is open and the slightest bubble keeps coming up there. A small stain is under his mouth on that side. He is hurt, Vernon thinks then. He has had sexual contact with him and has hurt him. People go to jail for such things. For years.

If only he could not remember who I am, Vernon is thinking. If only he has experienced some kind of amnesia or developed a blank spot. He could take him home. Drop him off. Come back and go to his class this afternoon. Even if someone wanted the boy to tell, he wouldn’t be able to. He’d worry about everything for a while, for sure, but then it would fade. It would be forgotten. An incident long ago. Everyone must have such moments in their lives.

He thinks of Anthony. This at least has pushed Anthony from his mind. At least for a while.

Reaching, he squeezes the boy’s shoulder to wake him. The boy sleeps on. Vernon shakes him some, until his eyes open and he is looking at him.

“Eric,” he says. “Do you know what’s happened to you?”

The boy only looks back at him, as if he hadn’t spoken.

“Do you?” Vernon says. “It’s very important. Do you know where you are or if anything has happened to you? Or what?”

The boy stares at him. He seems to shake his head.

“Yes or no?” Vernon says. “It’s important.”

“What?” the boy says.

Encouraged that he has spoken, Vernon says, “Do you know what’s happened to you?”

“What?” the boy says.

“Do you know who I am?”
Vernon says.
“Do you? I want to know! Do you know my name?”

The boy, looking at him, shakes his head.

“Say it!”
Vernon says.
“Say it!”

“No.”

“You’re not lying are you?” Vernon says.

The boy shakes his head.

“Say it!”
Vernon says.

The boy only shakes his head some more, looking as if he is about to cry.

“You’re lying, aren’t you?”
Vernon says.

“No,” the boy says in a whimper.

“You are!”

“No,” the boy cries.

“You don’t know who I am?”

“No.”

“You don’t know what’s happened?”

“No.”

“Nothing
has
happened, has it?
Has it?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” the boy cries.

“Do you want to go home?”

“Yes,” the boy cries.

“You’re sure you don’t know who I am?”

“I don’t,” the boy cries.

“And nothing’s happened to you, has it?”

“No,” the boy cries. “No.”

Vernon takes a breath. He pauses, staring at the boy. “Okay,” he says. “I’m going to take you home. I’m going to clean you up.
I’m going to give you a bath is what I’m going to do, and then I’m going to take you home. And you aren’t going to say anything at all about anything happening, are you—because nothing has happened. Has it? Nothing has happened.”

The boy whimpers, utters, “I won’t.”

“Okay, I’m going to do it,” Vernon says. “Let’s see you walk. Come on. Come on, get up.”

The boy moves his feet to the floor and stands, reaching a hand back to steady himself.

“Are you okay?” Vernon says.

“I’m okay. I’m just dizzy, a little.”

“Let’s go, this way,” Vernon says, placing his hands on the boy’s shoulder and arm to guide him to the bathroom. “I’m going to clean up that little cut on your head,” he says. “Then you’ll feel better.”

He guides the boy along, but then is pushing him and stops. “What’s the matter?” he says. “Are you okay?”

“I just can’t go so fast,” the boy says.

“Fast? That’s not fast. Aren’t you okay?”

“Yes,”
the boy cries.
“I’m okay.”

“If you’re not okay, I can’t take you home.”

“It just hurts a little,” the boy cries.

“Where does it hurt?”

“Here,” the boy cries, reaching his hand to the back of his leg.

“What happened that it hurts there?” Vernon says. “Did you fall down?”

“Yes,” the boy cries.

In the bathroom, Vernon is going to have the boy sit on the toilet seat while he dresses the wound in his head, but trying to sit, the boy cries out in pain. Having him rest on his knees on the bathmat, Vernon separates the hair around the cut in his scalp and uses a damp washcloth to clean away more of the dried
blood in the immediate area. Each time the boy cries or begins to wail, Vernon says, “I’m not going to hurt you.” Nor does he put a Band-Aid over the cut as he had planned to, as it passes through his mind that he might leave his fingerprints there.

Helping the boy to his feet, he begins unbuttoning his shirt, saying to him. “Everything off now. You’re going to take a bath and then I’m going to take you home. Turn this way.”

The boy doesn’t resist. Stripped, though, as Vernon says, “Use the toilet now, before you get into the tub,” he says, “I don’t have to.”

“Use it,” Vernon says. “Look how filthy your underpants are. Use it!” Turning away, Vernon sits on the floor to start the water running in the old tub. Looking back, though, there is the boy sitting on the toilet crying, his toes just reaching the floor. “My God!” Vernon says.

“I can’t go!” the boy cries.

“Why not? Look what you did in your pants!”

“I just don’t have to,” the boy cries.

“You haven’t gone since last night!” Vernon says. “I know you haven’t.”

“I just don’t have to,” the boy cries.

Getting to his feet, Vernon stands over him for a moment. “Does it hurt?” he says.

“Yes,” the boy cries.

“Okay. I’m going to go out of the room,” Vernon says. “You see if you can go then—okay?”

“Okay.”

Turning off the faucets in the steaming tub, Vernon leaves the room and closes the door. Walking into his own room, he looks around. He has walked out and is in the kitchen looking outside when he hears the toilet flush.

“Did you go?” he says, reentering the bathroom.

“Yes,” the boy says.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

The small naked child is standing there, and Vernon feels momentary embarrassment looking at him and realizes again that he doesn’t like him anymore. At the tub, he tests the water with his hand. “I’m going to help you get in,” he says. “This is going to make you feel a lot better. Then I’m going to take you home. When you’re feeling better. And you’re not going to say anything, are you?”

“No,”
the boy says.
“No.”

Holding the boy’s smooth arms and shoulders, he helps lift and guide him into the tub of water and helps him sit, then lie back, in a way which is not entirely painful. “There’s the soap,” Vernon says, standing upright “Soak a little first if you want to. I’m going to wash out your underpants is what I’m going to do. That’s a sign of real friendship, isn’t it, to wash someone’s soiled underpants? Wouldn’t you say?”

The boy is lying in the water, looking ahead; he doesn’t say anything.

At the sink, Vernon runs hot water on the boy’s underpants and scrubs them together to loosen the sediment. Rinsing them again, he lowers the stopper and fills the sink with several inches of water. Adding hand soap to the fabric, he squishes and squeezes and rinses. “See,” he says then, turning to show the clean garment.

The boy doesn’t look; he continues staring ahead, as if be has come more awake.

“See,” Vernon says.

The boy still doesn’t respond.

“It doesn’t really matter to you, does it?” Vernon says. Vernon looks down at him. “Nothing I do matters to you, does it?” he says.

Upon a pause, without expression, the boy says, “You fairy.”

Vernon stands with the sopping wet underpants in hand. Something like a bubble comes up into his face. “Why do you say that?” he says. He would say more to the boy, but for the moment has lost his ability to speak.

R
OLLING IN ON THE BLACKTOP OUTSIDE THE
S
EX
B
ARN
, D
ULAC
turns off his motor and looks around for a moment. There are five cars and two pickup trucks parked here, an eighteen-wheeler along the side. At least two cars are parked down behind a cinder-block addition to an old barn. Looking over license plates, Dulac takes a breath and exhales. The complex is, he realizes, a former orchard.

Apple red—although fringed with flaming orange—the main building could still pass for the roadside orchard sales barn. The portable electric sign—bright yellow—doesn’t say
Fresh Cider, Macintosh,
and
Pick Your Own,
however, but
Non-Stop XXX Movies, Peeps, VCR Exchange,
and
Adult Novelties.

Take it easy now, he reminds himself, leaving his car. Keep the lid on.

Only three men are present within the immediate room. Two are customers, studying cellophane-wrapped magazines, while the third, clerk or proprietor, stands behind a counter on a raised platform, reading something on the counter. This man,
Dulac notices, doesn’t look up. He notices also, realizes, an immersion he is undergoing into the explicitness all around. Flesh is everywhere. Hard-core. There are nipples the size of finger joints reaching between leather straps, massive penises within and without various openings male and female, penises ejaculating, breasts the size of football halves squeezed in the hands of women with tongues signaling. He has to admit a degree of unintended response. And a degree of anger.

And something unclean in the air, Your Honor. Other people’s sweat. A sticky floor. Staleness, although I’m not sure if it was physical or moral.

At the counter, Dulac removes his ID wallet. The clerk, he notices, is glancing at him, lifting his eyes. The clerk does not have ex-con written in his face, as Dulac had expected; rather he looks like a weathered farmer, come in from the cold. Neither helpful nor friendly, the man says, “What do you need?”

“Lieutenant Dulac, Portsmouth PD,” Dulac says anyway, still hanging out his shield. “I just need some information.”

“Always thought Portsmouth was in New Hampshire,” the man says.

“I think you’re right about that,” Dulac says. “If you like, I can have the Maine State Police stop by in a few minutes.”

“Maine State Police don’t bother me,” the man says.

“From what I understand, they’re very pleased with the business you have here.” He and the clerk both turn their heads to see one of the men who had been browsing slip away through the front door. “I think they’d like it a lot if I called and told them how cooperative you are.” At once the other man leaves.

“You’re just scaring away the customers,” the man says. “If you’ve got a police car parked out there, you’re gonna scare away more.”

“I wonder why that is,” Dulac says.

The man returns his stare directly.

“You don’t have to make this any more difficult than it has to be,” Dulac says. That’s the way, he says to himself. Be cool. “All I want is some information.”

“Let’s have it,” the man says.

“In your theater there, you were showing a film called
Children in Bondage.
”

“It’s not illegal.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Dulac says. “You listen to what I have to say. That way we can get done with this.”

The man stares, doesn’t speak, and it occurs to Dulac how much he wants the man to defy him.

“A twelve-year-old boy has come up missing. In Portsmouth. Saturday night. We’re trying to find him and we don’t have much to go on. It’s possible, given the subject matter of that film, that someone could have left here and gone looking for a victim. It’s remote, I know, but we’re checking it out.”

“So what do you want from me?”

Dulac, glancing at the man, reminds himself again to cool it. “A couple things,” he says. “I want the times the film was shown. I’d like a description of the contents of the film. And I want to know if anyone was here to see the film—I’m especially interested in Saturday before seven p.m.—who might have aroused suspicion in any way. I’d like to know how many days the film has been shown, and if anyone, that you might have noticed, came to see it more than once. In any way called attention to themselves. I may also want to see the film itself, have it viewed by some experts, to see what they think it might suggest to certain persons.”

“Can’t give you the film,” the man says, “It isn’t mine, for one. For another, it’s not here anymore. It’s a rented film and it’s on its way somewhere else as of this morning. I’m not even sure where right now.”

“Did it just go out?”

“More or less.”

“Let me say this again,” Dulac says. “A local twelve-year-old boy is missing. It’ll be in the paper today. It’s not a TV show. He may have been abducted for sexual purposes, which is the story these days. I’m asking for your help as a citizen. On the outside chance this film could be related to his disappearance.”

“I’d like to help,” the man says. “Far as I know, though, it was proved in Denmark long ago that this kind of stuff doesn’t have anything to do with what you’re talking about. In fact, they say it does the opposite.”