That night they both dreamed of murder, and both of them awoke in mingled terror and exhilaration.
Todd awoke with the now familiar stickiness on his lower belly. Dussander, too old for such things, put on the Gestapo uniform and then lay down again, waiting for his racing heart to slow. The uniform was cheaply made and already beginning to fray.
In Dussander’s dream he had finally reached the camp at the top of the hill. The wide gate slid open for him and then rumbled shut on its steel track once he was inside. Both the gate and the fence surrounding the camp were electrified. His scrawny, naked pursuers threw themselves against the fence -. wave after wave; Dussander had laughed at them and he had strutted back and forth, his chest thrown out, his cap cocked at exactly the right angle. The high, winey smell of burning flesh filled the black air, and he had awakened in southern California thinking of jack-o’-lanterns and the night when vampires seek the blue flame.
Two days before the Bowdens were scheduled to fly to Hawaii, Todd went back to the abandoned trainyard where folks had once boarded trains for San Francisco, Seattle, and Las Vegas; where other, older folks had once boarded the trolley for Los Angeles.
It was nearly dusk when he got there. On the curve of freeway nine hundred yards away, most of the cars were now mowing their parking lights. Although it was warm, Todd was wearing a light jacket. Tucked into his belt under it was a butcher-knife wrapped in an old hand-towel. He had purchased the knife in a discount department store, one of the big ones surrounded by acres of parking lot.
He looked under the platform where the wino had been the month before. His mind turned and turned, but it turned on re-thing; everything inside him at that moment was shades of black on black.
What he found was the same wino or possibly another; they all looked pretty much the same.
'Hey!’ Todd said. ‘Hey! You want some money?’
The wino turned over, blinking. He saw Todd’s wide, sunny grin and began to grin back. A moment later the butcher knife descended, all whicker-snicker and chrome-white, slicker-slicing through his stubbly right cheek. Blood sprayed. Todd could see the blade in the wino’s opening mouth… and then its tip caught for a moment in the left corner of the wino’s lips, pulling his mouth into an insanely cockeyed grin. Then it was the knife that was making the grin; he was carving the wino like a Halloween pumpkin.
He stabbed the wino thirty-seven times. He kept count. Thirty-seven, counting the first strike, which went through the wino’s cheek and then turned his tentative smile into a great grisly grin. The wino stopped trying to scream after the fourth stroke. He stopped trying to scramble away from Todd after the sixth. Todd then crawled all the way under the platform and finished the job.
On his way home he threw the knife into the river. His pants were bloodstained. He tossed them into the washing machine and set it to wash cold. There were still faint stains on the pants when they came out, but they didn’t concern Todd. They would fade in time. He found the next day that he could barely lift his right arm to the level of his shoulder. He told his father he must have strained it throwing pepper with some of the guys in the park.
‘It’ll get better in Hawaii,’ Dick Bowden said, ruffling Todd’s hair, and it did; by the time they came home, it was as good as new.
13
It was July again.
Dussander, carefully dressed in one of his three suits (not his best), was standing at the bus stop and waiting for the last local of the day to take him home. It was 10:45 p.m. He had been to a film, a light and frothy comedy that he had enjoyed a great deal. He had been in a fine mood ever since the morning mail. There had been a postcard from the boy, a glossy colour photo of Waikiki Beach with bone-white highrise hotels standing in the background. There was a brief message on the reverse.
Dear Mr Denker, Boy this sure is some place. I’ve been swimming every day. My dad caught a big fish and my mom is catching up on her reading (joke). Tomorrow we’re going to a volcano. I’ll try not to fall in! Hope you’re okay.
Stay healthy, Todd He was still smiling faintly at the significance of that last when a hand touched his elbow.
‘Mister?’
‘Yes?’
He turned, on his guard — even in Santa Donato, muggers were not unknown — and then winced at the aroma. It seemed to be a combination of beer, halitosis, dried sweat, and possibly Musterole. It was a bum in baggy pants. He — it -wore a flannel shirt and very old Keds that were currently being held together with dirty bands of adhesive tape. The face looming above this motley costume looked like the death of God.
‘You got an extra dime, mister? I gotta get to LA, me. Got a job offertunity. I need just a dime more for the express bus. I wudn’t ask if it wasn’t a big chance for me.’
Dussander had begun to frown, but now his smile reasserted itself.
‘Is it really a bus ride you wish?’
The wino smiled sickly, not understanding.
‘Suppose you ride the bus home with me,’ Dussander proposed. ‘I can offer you a drink, a meal, a bath, and a bed. .All I ask in return is a little conversation. I am an old man. I live alone. Company is sometimes very welcome.’
The drunk’s smile abruptly grew more healthy as the situation clarified itself. Here was a well-to-do old faggot with a taste for slumming.
‘All by yourself! Bitch, innit?’
Dussander answered the broad, insinuating grin with a polite smile. ‘I only ask that you sit away from me on the bus. You smell rather strongly.’
‘Maybe you don’t want me stinking up your place, then,’ the drunk said with sudden, tipsy dignity.
‘Come, the bus will be here in a minute. Get off one stop after I do and then walk back two blocks. Ill wait for you on the corner. In the morning I will see what I can spare. Perhaps two dollars.’
‘Maybe even five,’ the drunk said brightly. His dignity, tipsy or otherwise, had been forgotten.
‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ Dussander said impatiently. He could now hear the low diesel drone of the approaching bus. He pressed a quarter, the correct bus fare, into the bum’s grimy hand and strolled a few paces away without looking back.
The bum stood undecided as the headlights of the local swept over the rise. He was still standing and frowning down at the quarter when the old faggot got on the bus without looking back. The bum began to walk away and then — at the last second — he reversed direction and boarded the bus just before the doors folded closed. He put the quarter into the fare-box with the expression of a man putting a hundred dollars down on a long shot. He passed Dussander without doing more than glancing at him and sat at the back of the bus. He dozed off a little, and when he woke up, the rich old faggot was gone. He got off at the next stop, not knowing if it was the right one or not, and not really caring.
He walked back two blocks and saw a dim shape under the streetlight. It was the old faggot, all right. The faggot was watching him approach, and he was standing as if at attention.
For just a moment the bum felt a chill of apprehension, an urge to just turn away and forget the whole thing.
Then the old man was gripping him by the arm… and his grip was surprisingly firm.
‘Good,’ the old man said. ‘I’m very glad you came. My house is down here. It’s not far.’
‘Maybe even ten,’ the bum said, allowing himself to be led.
‘Maybe even ten,’ the old faggot agreed, and then laughed. ‘Who knows?’
14
