The Sculptor

bottom of the hill—the same duplex in which he had lived ever since his divorce from Laurie’s mother. Between himself and his ex-wife, John Wenick knew that he had always been Laurie’s favorite, for he had a special bond with his daughter that his alcoholic ex could never understand. And even though Laurie’s mother retained custody of her after the divorce, their relationship at best had always been strained. And so it was only natural that Laurie should have spent the majority of her time at her father’s—that is, until she started hanging out with Gangsta Number One. And so it was also only natural that John Wenick should have felt somewhat responsible for his daughter’s predicament—that if only he had kept an eye on her, if only he had kicked Gangsta Number One’s ass at the beginning, all this would never have happened. Hence, John Wenick decided to let Laurie live with him for good—was more than happy to set up his daughter and little Michael next door; actually considered it his duty to look after the boy when Laurie enrolled in nursing school.

But more than a sense of responsibility, more than a sense of obligation, John Wenick looked after his grandson because he loved him as if he were his own. And ever since little Michael was five years old, almost every Saturday morning during the summers the two of them could be found fishing at the end of the short driveway that branched off from Lexington Avenue to the woody banks of Blackamore Pond. Without a doubt, Michael Wenick loved to fish more than anything else in the world—even more than the Nintendo Wii his grandfather had bought for him the previous Christmas. And how thrilled Michael had been when, the summer before he disappeared, his grandfather took him fishing on a boat off the coast of Block Island! For young Michael Wenick it had been the experience of his short lifetime; for his grandfather, it had been only one of the many happy chapters fate had written since his daughter moved in with him for good nine years earlier.

And so it came as an unfathomable shock to the Wenicks—to the entire community, to the entire state— when on a cool September afternoon sometime between 4:30 and 6:00 little Michael Wenick vanished without a trace from the woods around Blackamore Pond. The Wenicks and the people of Lexington Avenue could never have dreamed of such a thing happening in their neighborhood—in the very woods where their children played; in the very woods where they themselves had played when they were children, too. No, the Wenicks, the police, the people of Cranston had no idea that a stranger had entered their midst; had no idea that The Sculptor had been watching little Michael Wenick for weeks—ever since he randomly spotted him walking home from the Cranston Pool one day with two of his companions. Yes, The Sculptor knew immediately that the boy’s slight, somewhat small-for-his-age torso would be perfect for the upper half of his satyr. And whereas Laurie and John Wenick would never have been able to comprehend the possibility that fate would soon snatch their little Michael from their lives, The Sculptor had understood upon the sight of him that he and his satyr had been destined to come together that day.

And so The Sculptor studied his satyr’s movements—followed him home, always at a distance, at first from the pool during the summer, and then from Eden Park Elementary School in the fall; watched him from across the water as he fished with an older man with forearms like Popeye; spied on him with binoculars while he played with his two friends by the big drainpipe in the woods at the northern edge of Blackamore Pond. The satyr was the smallest of the three boys, but he more than made up for his size in daring. Someone, perhaps an older kid, had attached a rope to one of the larger branches, and on many occasions The Sculptor watched the two bigger boys look on in awe as his satyr swung like Tarzan farther and farther out over Blackamore Pond. One afternoon, the tallest of the three boys brought some firecrackers, and The Sculptor could not help but laugh out loud when he saw his satyr drop one into an empty beer bottle and then dive behind a tree.

Yes, The Sculptor had thought. My satyr certainly is a mischievous one.

And perhaps it was ultimately Michael Wenick’s mischievousness that brought him and The Sculptor together on that cool September afternoon. The Sculptor had discovered that often his satyr would remain behind in the woods after his companions had gone home for dinner, whereupon he would throw various objects out into the water—usually just large stones, but sometimes bottles and cans, and once even a rubber tire. But always his satyr stayed close to the big drainpipe, or to the tiny, open shoreline beneath the high cement retaining wall of one of the backyards that directly overlooked the pond. And so The Sculptor decided that the safer of the two areas would be by the big drainpipe, for in order to capture his satyr he could not allow himself to be seen; yes, in order to acquire the first figure for his Bacchus he would have to be very, very careful.

The Sculptor had studied the satellite imagery of Blackamore Pond many times on Yahoo! Maps, but the first time he actually set foot in the surrounding woods was at night—after the older kids who smoked cigarettes and drank beer by the retaining wall had all gone home. He parked his blue Toyota Camry—one of two cars he owned in addition to his big white van—on a street nearby and used his night vision goggles to negotiate his way through the dense terrain.

The mouth of the drainpipe was large enough even for him to crouch into, and with his night vision The Sculptor had no trouble seeing down almost half the length of the shaft. He slipped a plastic bag over each of his sneakers, a plastic glove over each of his hands, and entered the pipe. The smell was not too bad—musty and swampy—but the air felt uncomfortably thick and damp in The Sculptor’s lungs. Fortunately, The Sculptor had to go only about forty yards before he found what he was looking for: the manhole cover and the runoff opening to the adjoining street. Here, in the storm drain at the end of the pipe, The Sculptor could stand up straight; could see his tires through the narrow slit in the curb—right where he parked his car not even fifteen minutes earlier. And with a heavy push, The Sculptor lifted the manhole cover and peeked out.

The location was perfect.

As he had learned from Yahoo! Maps, the storm drain was located at the end of a street named Shirley Boulevard—a quiet, middle-class lane just two blocks over from Lexington Avenue, the street on which his satyr lived with the Popeye-armed fisherman and the pretty blond nurse who drove a Hyundai. The Sculptor had cased this part of Shirley Boulevard during the daytime; knew that most of the people did not return home until around 5:15 P.M.; knew that even in broad daylight the surrounding foliage would conceal him from the nearby houses when he emerged from the manhole—a manhole that was just big enough for the massively muscled Sculptor to squeeze through. There was no sidewalk here, only a concrete slab that capped the sewer opening. And thus The Sculptor also knew that he would be vulnerable only from across the street; knew that it would be safer to get in and out of his car from the passenger’s side, upon which he could drop directly into the manhole.

It was almost too good to be true.

And so it was that The Sculptor waited in the drainpipe on four different occasions before he finally abducted Michael Wenick. Yes, there was always the chance that the satyr and his companions might venture into the drainpipe and discover him. And even though in the weeks that The Sculptor had been watching the boys he never once saw them step into the mouth of the dank, dark tube—probably already conquered that fear years ago, The Sculptor thought—nonetheless he was prepared with his night vision goggles and the silencer on his Sig Sauer .45 just in case. He did not want to kill the satyr’s companions—did not want to waste good material that others might want to use someday. However, The Sculptor had resigned himself from the beginning that he would do whatever was necessary to capture his satyr. Most of all, if he did as a last resort have to kill the satyr himself before he could get him back to the carriage house, he would try to aim for the back of his head. Yes, more important than his satyr’s awakening was The Sculptor’s desire not to damage his material.

Besides, The Sculptor thought, it is only through Bacchus’s awakening that the world shall be enlightened.

In the end, however, The Sculptor’s contingency plan was unnecessary. For on the last of the four consecutive afternoons in which he had waited in the sewer, when he saw by his watch that it was 4:35, when he crept to the edge of the shadows just shy of the entrance to the pipe, The Sculptor had a clear view of his satyr a few yards away at the shore. Finally he was alone—had thrown a beer bottle filled with dirt into the water and was trying to shatter it with rocks before it sank into the murky, polluted depths of Blackamore Pond. And before poor Michael Wenick had time to turn around at the sound of footsteps behind him, like a snake The Sculptor snatched him from the woody shoreline and pulled him back into the drainpipe.

The boy tried to scream, tried to struggle against his abductor’s grip as the darkness of the drainpipe closed in around him, but the catcher’s mitt–size hand over his mouth, the vicelike grip around his neck and torso was too much for him—so much so that by the time The Sculptor got Michael Wenick back to the storm drain at the other end the boy was already dead.

No, not until he released Michael Wenick and the boy’s lifeless body fell to the ground did The Sculptor realize that, as he had struggled and twisted with his satyr down the drainpipe, he had inadvertently snapped the boy’s