condition of his soul.
“We’ll catch eight hours of sleep,” says Polly, “and discuss the situation over an early dinner.”
“Maybe by then,” says Cass, “some things won’t seem quite so … baffling as they seem now.”
“Maybe,” Curtis says, “but maybe not. When things are baffling they usually don’t unbaffle themselves. Theirs just, you know, a certain amount of baffling stuff that always, like, really baffles you, and I’ve found that it’s best to accept bafflement whenever it comes along, and then move on.”
Paralyzed by the intensity of the double blue stares, Curtis is motivated to review what he has just said, and as he hears his words replaying in his mind, they no longer seem as smooth and convincing as they did when he spoke them. He smiles, because according to Mom, a smile can sell what words alone cannot.
Even if he were selling dollars for dimes, the sisters might not be buying. His smile doesn’t elicit return smiles from them.
Polly says, “Better sleep, Curtis. God knows what might be coming, but whatever it is, we’ll need to be rested to deal with it.”
“And don’t open the door,” Cass warns. “The burglar alarm can’t distinguish whether someone’s coming in or going out.”
They are too tired to discuss recent events with him now, but they’re ensuring that he won’t slip away before they have a chance to make a lot of chin music with him later.
The sisters retire to the bedroom.
In the lounge, Curtis slips under a sheet and a thin blanket. The dog has yet to receive a bath, but the boy welcomes her onto the sofabed, where she curls atop the covers.
Applying will against matter, on the micro level where will can win, he might disengage the burglar alarm. But he owes the twins some honest answers, and he doesn’t want to leave them entirely mystified.
Besides, after a difficult and tumultuous journey, he has at last found friends. His socializing skills might not be as smooth as he had briefly believed they were, but he has made two fine chums in the dazzling Spelkenfelters, and he is loath to face the world alone again, with just his sister-become. The dog is a cherished companion, but she isn’t all the company that he needs. Though praised by nature poets, solitude is just isolation, and loneliness curls in the heart like a worm in an apple, eating hope and leaving a hollow structure.
Furthermore, the twins remind him of his lost mother. Not in their appearance. For all her virtues, Mom wasn’t born to be a Las Vegas showgirl. The twins’ spirit, their high intelligence, their toughness, and their tenderness are all qualities that his mother possessed in abundance, and in their company, he feels the blessed sense of belonging that arises from being among family.
The weary dog sleeps.
Placing one hand upon her flank, feeling the slow thump of her noble heart, Curtis enters her dreams and grows aware of the playful Presence, from which simple creatures like the dog have not distanced themselves. Worlds away from any place that he has ever called home, the orphaned boy quietly cries, less with grief for his loss than with happiness for his mother; she has crossed the great divide into the light, and now in God’s presence she knows a joy similar to the one that her son had always known in her presence. He can’t sleep, but for a while, he finds a little peace this side of Heaven.
Chapter 52
The sun burned a bright hole in the western sky, still a few hours above the quenching sea, and the breeze that swept through the trailer park seemed to blow down out of that hole, hot and dry and seasoned with a scent of scorched metal.
Friday afternoon, only five hours after Micky met with Noah Farrel, she loaded a single suitcase in the trunk of her Camaro.
She’d sprung for an oil change, new filters, new fan belts, a lubrication, and four new tires. Counting the money that she had advanced to the detective, more than half her bankroll was gone.
She dared not fail to connect with Leilani in Nun’s Lake, Idaho. Even if she discovered where Maddoc intended to go from there, she probably wouldn’t have enough cash left to chase him down and then get all the way back to California with the girl.
When Micky returned to the house, Aunt Gen was in the kitchen, fitting two Ziploc bags full of ice into a picnic cooler already packed with sandwiches, cookies, apples, and cans of Diet Coke. With these provisions, Micky wouldn’t have to waste time stopping for meals through lunch tomorrow, and she would save money, as well.
“Don’t you try to drive all night,” Aunt Gen cautioned.
“Not to worry.”
“They don’t even have a full day’s head start, so you’ll catch up with them easy enough.”
“I should make Sacramento by midnight. I’ll get a motel there, zonk out for six hours, and try to reach Seattle by tomorrow evening. Then Nun’s Lake, Idaho, late Sunday.”
“Things can happen to women alone on the road,” Geneva worried.
“True. But things can happen to women alone in their own homes.”
Putting the lid on the insulated picnic cooler, Geneva said, “Honey, if the motel clerk looks like Anthony Perkins or if some guy at a service station looks like Anthony Hopkins, or if you meet a man anywhere and he looks like Alec Baldwin, you kick him in the crotch before he has a chance to say two words, and you run.”
“I thought you shot Alec Baldwin in New Orleans.”
“You know, that man’s been pushed off a tall building, drowned, stabbed, mauled by a bear, shot — but he just keeps coming back.”
“I’ll be on the lookout for him,” Micky promised, lifting the picnic cooler off the table. “As for Anthony Hopkins — Hannibal Lecter or not, he looks like a Huggy Bear.”
“Maybe I should go along with you, dear, ride shotgun,” Geneva said, following Micky to the front door.
“Maybe that would be a good idea if we had a shotgun.” Outside, she squinted into the hard sunlight that flared off the white Camaro. “Anyway, you’ve got to stay here to take Noah Farrel’s call.”
“What if he never calls?”
At the car, Micky opened the passenger’s door. “He will.”
“What if he can’t find the proof you need?”
“He will,” Micky said, setting the cooler on the passenger’s seat. “Listen, what’s happened to my aunt Sunshine all of a sudden?”
“Maybe we should call the police.”
Micky closed the car door. “Which police would we call? Here in Santa Ana? Maddoc’s not in their jurisdiction anymore. Call the cops in whatever town he might be passing through in California or Oregon, or Nevada, depending on the route he’s taken? Hitler could be passing through, and as long as he kept moving, they wouldn’t care. Call the FBI? Me an ex-con, and them busy chasing drug lords?”
“Maybe by the time you get to Idaho, this Mr. Farrel will have your proof, and you can go to the police up there.”
“Maybe. But it’s a different world from the one you see in those old black-and-white movies, Aunt Gen. Cops cared more in those days. People cared more. Something happened. Everything changed. The whole world feels… broken. More and more, we’re on our own.”
“And you think I’ve lost my sunshine,” said Geneva.
Micky smiled. “Well, I’ve never been exactly jolly. But you know, even with this damn hard thing to get done, I feel better than I’ve felt in … maybe better than I’ve ever felt.”
A shadow seemed to pass through Gen’s green eyes, between the lens and an inner light, darkening her stare. “I’m scared.”
“Me too. But I’d be more scared if I wasn’t doing this.”
Geneva nodded. “I packed a little jar of sweet pickles.”
“I like sweet pickles.”
“And a little jar of green olives.”
“You’re the best.”
