It wasn’t a long wait. Less than fifteen minutes.
From my vantage point on the porch of the hillside farmhouse, I could see down on the gravel road where half a dozen kids of various ages were walking, kicking up a little dust as they did. He was the youngest—what would he be, now? Six? Almost six. This was either his first or second year of school.
He came up the gravel lane all alone, a tiny figure in a brown coat and gray slacks; his hat—it made something catch in my throat to see it—was an aviation-style helmet with decorative goggles that the kids had been wearing the last couple years. He had mittens. No schoolbooks—too young for that yet, I guessed. He walked up the lane like a little soldier. A little man. And the closer he got, the more that face was Slim’s.
He hesitated when he saw me, then he moved confidently toward the porch and said, “Who are you, mister?”
I got up off the swing. I smiled. “I’m a friend of your parents. Come on up here, Carl.”
He thought about that. The dimpled chin, the baby face, were so familiar. Was he hesitating, because somewhere in his memory he remembered getting pulled here and there by strange people?
“Where are Mom and Dad?”
“They had to go away, suddenly. They asked me to pick you up after school, and take you to them.”
The little eyes narrowed. “I’m supposed to go with you?”
“That’s right. I’m going to take you to your folks, real soon.”
“Well. Okay. But I’m hungry.”
“Let’s see if we can find you something in the kitchen,” I said.
A pie was cooling on the kitchen table. Other food was still in various stages of preparation; some chicken Madge had been about to roll in breading sat naked on the counter. Peeled potatoes were in the sink. But the little boy didn’t put it together.
“Can I have a piece pie?” he asked. He was taking off his coat and hat and putting them neatly on a chair; his mittens were already off.
“Sure,” I said. “Then later we’ll stop for a hamburger on the way to see your folks, okay?”
“Okay.”
So I cut him a “piece pie.” Dutch apple. I had a big slice myself; I’d worked up an appetite. Delicious.
I gave him a napkin and he wiped off his cute little Lindy mug and said, “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Okay,” I said.
I followed him upstairs. He asked me to undo his pants and I did. But he went in by himself and did what he had to. I stood by the closed door and listened as he flushed the toilet and ran the water and washed his hands.
He was drying them on his pants as he came out.
“Let’s go in your room,” I said, bending to button the pants back up, “and get some of your things, and then we’ll go. If you have some special toys you want to take with you, pick ’em out. We can’t take everything.”
“Why do you keep your raincoat on in the house?”
“Because we’re going, real soon. Now, let’s get your things.”
He was picking some toys out of a chest by the window, while from a dresser I was getting a few of his clothes, which I was in the process of stuffing in a pillowcase, when I heard something outside. Something like gravel stirring. I went to the window.
A car was pulling in, next to mine. It was a black Ford, brand shiny new. Two men got quickly out.
“Jesus,” I said.
“What’s wrong, mister?”
“We’re going to play a game, Carl,” I said, bending down again, taking him by his little shoulders and looking him straight in his dark-blue eyes. “It’s like hide-and-go-seek. I want you to hide under your bed, and I don’t want you to say a word or make a sound, okay? Until you hear me say, olly olly oxen free.”
“Okay.”
He scurried under the bed.
“Quiet as a mouse, now,” I said, and got my gun in my hand.
The two men I’d seen were old friends. I hadn’t seen them in a very long time. The last time had been four years ago in a suite at the Carteret Hotel in Elizabeth, New Jersey. When they’d been shooting Max Greenberg and Max Hassel to shit.
I stood just around the corner from the top of the stairs as I heard the front door open.
“Where is everybody?” A high-pitched whiny voice.
“I’ll check the house.” A gravelly baritone.
They were whispering, but I could hear them.
“What should I do?”
“Like the boss said—nobody breathing.”
“Jesus, a little kid, Phil?”
