Werehunter (anthology)

shouldn’t talk to. Then she responded, and he had given her a broken popsicle in her favorite flavor of banana. “Do me a favor and eat this, all right?” he’d said, in his kindest voice. “I can’t sell a broken popsicle, and I’d hate for it to go to waste.” Then he’d lowered his voice to a whisper and bent over her. “But don’t tell the other kids, okay? Let’s just keep it a secret.”

She nodded, gleefully, and ran off. After that he had no trouble getting her to come over to the truck; after all, why should she be afraid of the friend who gave her ice cream for free, and only asked that she keep it a secret?

Today she’d had money, though, and from the sly gleam in her eyes he would bet she’d filched it from her momma’s purse this morning. He’d laid out choices for her like a servant laying out feast-choices for a princess, and she’d sparkled at him, loving the attention as much as the treat.

She’d dawdled over her choice, her teddy bear clutched under one arm, a toy so much a part of her that it could have been another limb. That indecision bought time for the other kids to clear out of the way, and all the teachers to get to their cars and putt out of the parking-lot. His play-acting paid off handsomely, especially after he’d nodded at the truck and winked. She’d wolfed down her cone, and he gave her another broken popsicle; she lingered on, sucking on the yellow ice in a way that made his groin tighten with antici­pation. He’d asked her ingenuous questions about her school and her teacher, and she chattered amiably with him between slurps.

Then she’d turned to go at the perfect moment, with not a child, a car, or a teacher in sight. He reached for the sock full of sand inside the freezer-door, and in one, smooth move, gave her a little tap in just the right place.

He caught her before she hit the ground. Then it was into the special side of the ice-cream truck with her; the side not hooked up to the freezer-unit, with ventilation holes bored through the walls in places where no one would find them. He gave her a whiff of ether on a rag, just in case, to make sure she stayed under, then he slid her limp body into the cardboard carton he kept on that side, just in case somebody wanted to look inside. He closed and latched the door, and was back in the driver’s seat before two minutes were up, with still no sign of man nor beast. Luck, luck, all the way.

Luck, or pure genius. He couldn’t lose; he was invulnerable.

Funny how she’d kept a grip on that toy, though. But that was luck, too; if she’d left it there—

Well, he might have forgotten she’d had it. Then somebody would have found it, and someone might have remembered her standing at the ice-cream truck with it beside her.

But it had all gone smoothly, perfectly planned, perfectly executed, ending with a drive through the warm September afternoon, bells tinkling slightly out-of-tune, no different from any other ice-cream man out for the last scores of the season. He’d felt supremely calm and in control of everything the moment he was in his seat; no one would ever suspect him, he’d been a fixture since the beginning of school. Who ever sees the ice-cream man? He was as much a part of the landscape as the fire-hydrant he generally stopped beside.

They’d ask the kids of course, now that Molly was officially missing—and they’d say the same stupid thing they always did. “Did you see any strangers?” they’d ask. “Any strange cars hanging around? Anyone you didn’t recognize?”

Stupid; they were just stupid. He was the smart one. The kids would answer just like they always did, they’d say no, they hadn’t seen any strangers.

No, he wasn’t a stranger, he was the ice-cream man. The kids saw him today, and they’d see him tomorrow, he’d make sure of that. He’d be on his route for the next week at least, unless there was a cold snap. He knew how cops thought, and if he disappeared, they might look for him. No way was he going to break his pattern. Eventually the cops would question him—not tomorrow, but probably the day after that. He’d tell them he had seen the little girl, that she’d bought a cone from him. He’d cover his tracks there, since the other kids would probably remember that she’d been at the truck. But he’d shrug helplessly, and say that she hadn’t been on the street when he drove off. He’d keep strictly to the truth, just not all the truth.

Now Molly was all his, and no one would take her away from him until he was done with her.

He drove home, stopping to sell cones when kids flagged him down, taking his time. It wouldn’t do to break his pattern. He took out the box that held Molly and brought it upstairs, then made two more trips, for the leftover frozen treats, all in boxes just like the one that held Molly. The neighbors were used to this; it was another part of his routine. He was the invisible man; old Jim always brings in the leftovers and puts ’em in his freezer overnight, it’s cheaper than running the truck-freezer overnight.

He knew what they said about him. That Jim was a good guy—kept to himself mostly, but when it was really hot or he had too much left over to fit in his freezer, he’d pass out freebies. A free ice-cream bar was appreci­ated in this neighborhood, where there wasn’t a lot of money to spare for treats. Yeah, Jim was real quiet, but okay, never gave any trouble to anybody.

If the cops went so far as to look into his background, they wouldn’t find anything. He ran a freelance ice- cream route in the summer and took odd jobs in the winter; there was no record of his ever getting into trouble.

Of course there was no record. He was smart. Nobody had ever caught him, not when he set fires as a kid, not when he prowled the back alleys looking for stray dogs and cats, and not later, when he went on to the targets he really wanted. He was careful. When he first started on kids, he picked the ones nobody would miss. And he kept up with the literature; he knew everything the cops would look for.