'I know,' she said at last, but without apology in her voice. 'I ...'
She began to cry and Norman cursed, and the water began running again.
Don didn't wait to hear any more. He climbed slowly up the rest of the stairs, shuffled down the hall, and pushed open his bedroom door. He yanked the towel off the lampshade and dropped it on his desk. His shoes were kicked under the bed, his shirt dropped onto the floor. For a moment he stood at the window, looking down at the tree. There was nothing there, the horse was gone, but he no longer questioned the state of his mind.
When he finally dropped onto the mattress, he deliberately fell back so his head would hit the wall. Maybe they'll hear it, he thought; maybe they'll think I've had a relapse or something, and they'll come running up and see what's wrong.
Or, he thought, they'll call the papers first, and then come up to see if I'm dead.
And maybe, he thought with a cold, mirthless grin, I'll take them both outside and show them my new pet.
He lay there for nearly an hour before he blinked and saw his father standing in the doorway.
'You okay, son?'
'Sure. Just thinking.'
'You'd better turn out the light. School isn't going to be exactly normal for you tomorrow.'
He nodded and swung his feet over the side. 'Dad?'
Norman stiffened, and raised his eyebrows.
'Do you think-'
A sudden, faint shattering of glass stopped him, had him on his feet and beside his father in the hallway. Joyce came out of their bedroom, a robe wrapped loosely around her.
'What?' she said nervously.
Another shattering, and the sound of heavy blows on something metal.
'Damn, the car!' Norman said, and ran for the stairs, Don just behind though his mother called to him to stay where he was. The front door was locked, and Norman fumbled with the bolt before flinging it open and switching on the porch light. Don crowded out past him, not feeling the snap of cold air on his bare chest. The bulb was directly over his head, and he shaded his eyes, scanning the lawn before looking to the driveway.
'Oh, god,' he whispered.
Norman shoved him aside and leapt over the stairs, hit the walk at a run, and didn't stop until he came up against the station wagon's front fender. The windshield was smashed, there was a dent in the hood, and lying on the blacktop just under the bumper was Don's bike-the handlebars twisted out of place, the front wheel broken, half of its spokes wavering like antennae where they'd been snapped from their places along the rim.
Norman whirled and raced around the side of the house, but Don only stumbled to the driveway and knelt beside the bike, one hand reaching out to touch it, withdraw, touch it again and follow the lines of its destruction. When he shifted and leaned over to stare at the back wheel the glint of metal made him pause, made him reach out and pull a red leather key case wedged beneath the battered frame.
'Don?' his mother called from the doorway. 'Are you all right?'
'Fine,' he said dully, slipped the case into his pocket, and heard her gasp when she saw the damage.
'Oh Jesus, my god, look at that,' she said just as Norman appeared around the far side of the house, panting heavily, one palm massaging hard at his side. She held out a trembling hand, and he took it, pulled her to him and glared at the empty street. 'Who?' she asked.
'How the hell should I know?' he said. 'Damn, that's going to cost a fortune to fix.'
Joyce took a step to one side, the glass crunched under her slipper.
'I'll get a broom,' she said. 'We can't have that stuff lying around.
It's dangerous. Someone'll get hurt.'
'Sure.'
'Look, you'd better call the police. Don? Get the broom from the garage, will you? Help me here.'
Don looked over his shoulder. Neither of them were looking at him-Norman was staring at the depression in the hood and absently rubbing his wife's back; Joyce was trying to smooth the hair from her eyes. And when she finally saw him looking, she pointed to the garage, then turned Norman around and pushed him gently toward the house.
Don rose, dusted off his jeans, and reached down to grab the handlebars, to drag the bike away.
'Leave it,' Joyce said. 'There might be fingerprints or something.'
He straightened and fetched the broom, handed it to her and returned inside, where he listened to his father explaining to the police what had happened. When he rang off, he told Don to put on a shirt before the cops arrived. You never know, he said. There might still be some reporters hanging around, and when they got wind of this, it would be circus time again.
'Damn,' he said as he headed out the door. 'With my luck, it'll probably rain tomorrow.'
The police came and went in less than an hour. They made a decent show of searching the yard, but they found nothing, not a clue, and explained to the Boyds that in cases like this there was nothing much they'd be able to do if no one saw anything or offered information. No one came out to watch because the patrol car had arrived without its lights spinning; no one overheard the conversations because Joyce kept them speaking low, or whispering. And they asked Don nothing at all when Norman told them the boy was with him, inside, when the incident occurred.
After they left, Don dragged the bicycle into a corner of the garage and stared out at the street, at his father using a small brush to get the glass from the front seat. Joyce was inside, making coffee.
A press of a button and the garage door lowered. Norman looked up and gave his son a rueful smile. 'You win some, you lose some, right?' he said. 'Sorry about the bike.'
'Yeah.'
Don shivered at a gust of wind and turned to go inside, and stopped when he saw something white fluttering in the shrubs that fronted the house and ended at the drive. He leaned close, closer, and picked a feather from a branch.
'Dad?'
Norman grunted.
He found another one at the bush's side, two more on the ground. 'Hey, Dad?'
'In a minute, okay? I don't want to slice my thumb off on this stuff.'
He parted the branches, and his mouth opened in a silent gasp.
There, on the ground under the bush was the body of a bird, its neck twisted around, its eyes closed, its feathers covered with blood.
'Dad, look!'
Norman pushed him aside with a hip and knelt down, gagged when he saw the mutilation, and poked at it with his toe.
'Jesus,' he said. 'It's a goddamned duck.'
ELEVEN
beautiful, thought Tar as he watched Mr. Boyd shovel the remains of the dead bird and dump them with his face averted into a plastic garbage bag. Don was in the driveway, hands in his pockets and staring out at the street. For a moment Tar thought the Duck had seen him, but no alarm was given. He heard the rattle of a garbage can lid being slammed into place, then the principal came out of the garage and put his arm around the Duck's shoulders. They went into the house like that, the door slammed, and the porch light went out.
'Excellent,' Tar whispered, crouched low and bouncing on the balls of his feet. 'Beautiful.'
He had run behind the empty tool shed in old man Delfield's backyard when the cops finally came around, wedging himself between a stack of empty orange crates and the rear wall. They weren't looking very hard, missed him, and after he was sure they weren't coming back, he snuck around the side of the house and dropped into the corner of the front yard, protected by the hedges and a twisted oak at the curb. From there he had been able to watch everything, sorry only that he couldn't hear what the two bastards were saying.
He waited another five minutes, licking his lips and grinning, before bulling through the hedge into the adjoining driveway. He walked slowly in case someone was watching, the baseball bat held tight against his leg, his football jacket turned inside out. As soon as he reached the corner, he slipped the bat into the storm drain and
