wore a Nazi SS uniform, the cap with its lightning-bolt insignia cocked rakishly to one side. His buttons gleamed heartlessly, his boots were polished to a killing gloss.
Clasped in his arms was a huge and slowly bubbling pot of lamb stew.
And the dream-Denker, smiling his dark, suave smile, said: You must sit down and tell us all about it-as one friend to another, eh? We have heard that gold has been hidden. That tobacco has been hoarded. That it was not food-poisoning with Schneibel at all but powdered glass in his supper two nights ago. You must not insult our intelligence by pretending you know nothing. You know EVERYTHING. So tell it all. Omit nothing.
And in the dark, smelling the maddening aroma of the stew, he told them everything. His stomach, which had been a small grey rock, was now a raving tiger. Words spilled helplessly from his lips. They spewed from him in the senseless sermon of a lunatic, truth and falsehood all mixed up together.
Brodin has his mother’s wedding ring taped below his scrotum!
('you must sit down’)
Laslo and Herman Dorsky have talked about rushing guard tower number three!
(’and tell us everything!’)
Rachel Tannenbaum’s husband has tobacco, he gave the guard who comes on after Zeickert, the one they call Booger-Eater because he is always picking his nose and then putting his fingers in his mouth, Tannenbaum gave some of it to Booger-Eater so he wouldn’t take his wife’s pearl earrings!
(’oh that makes no sense at all you’ve mixed up two different stories I think but that’s all right quite all right we’d rather have you mix up two stories than omit one completely you must omit NOTHING!’)
There is a man who has been calling out his dead son’s name in order to get double rations!
(’tell us his name’)
I don’t know it but I can point him out to you please yes I can show him to you I will I will I will I
(’tell us everything you know’) will I will I will I will I will I will I will I
Until he swam up into consciousness with a scream in his throat like fire.
Trembling uncontrollably, he looked at the sleeping form in the other bed. He found himself staring particularly at the wrinkled, caved-in mouth. Old tiger with no teeth. Ancient and vicious rogue elephant with one tusk gone and the other rooted loose in its socket Senile monster.
‘Oh my God,’ Morris Heisel whispered. His voice was high and faint, inaudible to anyone but himself. Tears trickled down his cheeks towards his ears. ‘Oh dear God, the man who murdered my wife and my daughters is sleeping in the same room with me, my God, oh dear dear God, he is here with me now in this room.’
The tears began to flow faster now — tears of rage and horror, hot, scalding.
He trembled and waited for morning, and morning did not come for an age.
21
The next day, Monday, Todd was up at six o’clock in the morning and poking listlessly at a scrambled egg he had fixed for himself when his father came down still dressed in his monogrammed bathrobe and slippers.
‘Mumph,’ he said to Todd, going past him to the refrigerator for orange juice.
Todd grunted back without looking up from his book, one of the 87th Squad mysteries. He had been lucky enough to land a summer job with a landscaping outfit that operated out of Sausalito. That would have been much too far to commute ordinarily, even if one of his parents had been willing to loan him a car for the summer (neither was), but his father was working on-site not far from there, and he was able to drop Todd off at a bus stop on his way and pick him up at the same place on his way back. Todd was less than wild about the arrangement; he didn’t like riding home from work with his father and absolutely detested riding to work with him in the morning. It was in the mornings that he felt the most naked, when the wall between what he was and what he might be seemed the thinnest. It was worse after a night of bad dreams, but even if no dreams had come in the night, it was bad. One morning he realized with a fright so sudden it was almost terror that he had been seriously considering reaching across his father’s briefcase, grabbing the wheel of the Porsche, and sending them corkscrewing into the two express lanes, cutting a swath of destruction through the morning commuters.
‘You want another egg, Todd-O?’
‘No thanks, dad.’ Dick Bowden ate them fried. How could anyone stand to eat a fried egg? On the grill of the Jenn-Aire for two minutes, then over easy. What you got on your plate at the end looked like a giant dead eye with a cataract over it, an eye that would bleed orange when you poked it with your fork.
He pushed his scrambled egg away. He had barely touched it Outside, the morning paper slapped the step.
His father finished cooking, turned off the grill, and came to the table. ‘Not hungry this morning, Todd- O?’
You call me that one more time and I’m going to stick my knife right up your fucking nose… dad-O.
‘Not much appetite, I guess.’
Dick grinned affectionately at his son; there was still a tiny dab of shaving cream on the boy’s right ear. ‘Betty Trask stole your appetite. That’s my guess.’
‘Yeah, maybe that’s it.’ He offered a wan smile that vanished as soon as his father went down the stairs from the breakfast nook to get the paper. Would it wake you up if I told you what a cunt she is, dad-O? How about if I mid, ‘Oh, by the way, did you know your good friend Ray Trask’s daughter is one of the biggest sluts in Santa Donate? She’d kiss her own twat If she was double-jointed, dad-O. That’s how much she thinks of it. Just a stinking little slut. Two lines of coke and she’s yours for the night. And If you don’t happen to have any coke, she’s still yours for the night. She’d fuck a dog If she couldn’t get a man.’ Think that’d wake you up, dad-O? Get you a flying start on the day?
He pushed the thoughts away viciously, knowing they wouldn’t stay gone.
His father came back with the paper. Todd glimpsed the headline: SPY TRIALS CLOSER, STATE DEPARTMENT SOURCE SAYS.
Dick sat down. ‘Betty’s a fine-looking girl,’ he said. ‘She reminds me of your mother when I first met her.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Pretty… young… fresh.’ Dick Bowden’s eyes had gone vague. Now they came back, focusing almost anxiously on his son. ‘Not that your mother isn’t still a fine-looking woman. But at that age a girl has a certain… glow, I guess you’d say. It’s there for a while, and then it’s gone.’ He shrugged and opened the paper. ‘C’est la vie, I guess.’
She’s a bitch in heat. Maybe that’s what makes her glow.
‘You’re treating her right, aren’t you, Todd-O?’ His father was making his usual rapid trip through the paper towards the sports pages. ‘Not getting too fresh?’
‘Everything’s cool, dad.’
(if he doesn’t stop pretty soon I’ll… /’//… do… something. Scream. Throw his coffee in his face. Something.)
‘Ray thinks you’re a fine boy,’ Dick said absently. He had at last reached the sports. He became absorbed. There was blessed silence at the breakfast table.
Betty Trask had been all over him the very first time they went out. He had taken her to the local lover’s lane after the movie because he knew it would be expected of him; they could swap spits for half an hour or so and have all the right things to tell their respective friends the next day. She could roll her eyes and tell how she had fought off his advances -boys were so tiresome, really, and she never fucked on the first date, she wasn’t that kind of girl. Her friends would agree and then all of them would troop into the girls’ room and do whatever it was they did in there — put on fresh makeup, smoke Tampax, whatever.
And for a guy… well, you had to make out. You had to get at least to second base and try for third. Because there were reputations and reputations. Todd couldn’t have cared less about having a stud reputation; he only wanted a reputation for being normal. And if you didn’t at least try, word got around. People started to wonder if you were all right.
So he took them up on Jane’s Hill, kissed them, felt their tits, went a little further than that if they would allow it. And that was it. The girl would stop him, he would put up a little goodnatured argument, and then take her
