Blaze

Route 289. Up the road, almost lost in the blowing snow, was a blinker-light he remembered well — red on two sides, yellow on the other two. Beyond it, a few streetlights glimmered like ghosts.

Blaze crossed the road, which was snow-coated and empty of traffic, and walked up to the Exxon on the corner. A small pool of light on the side of the cinderblock building highlighted a pay phone. Looking like an ambulatory snowman, Blaze stepped to it — hulked over it. He had a panicky moment when it seemed he had no change, but he found two quarters in his pants and another in his coat pocket. Then — bool! — his money came back in the coin return. Directory Assistance was free.

“I want to call Joseph Gerard,” he said. “Ocoma.”

There was a blank pause, and then the operator gave him the number. Blaze wrote it on the fogged glass that shielded the phone from the worst of the snow, unaware that he had asked for an unlisted number and the operator had given it to him per FBI instructions. This of course opened the flood-gates to well-wishers and cranks, but if the kidnappers didn’t call, the traceback equipment couldn’t be used.

Blaze dialed 0 and gave the lady the Gerard phone number. He asked if that was a toll-call. It was. He asked if he could talk three minutes for seventy-five cents. The operator said no; a three-minute call to Ocoma would cost him a dollar-ninety. Did he have a telephone credit card?

Blaze didn’t. Blaze had no credit cards of any kind.

The operator told him he could charge the call to his home phone, and there was a phone at the shack (although it hadn’t rung a single time since George died), but Blaze was too clever for that.

Collect, then? the operator suggested.

“Collect, yeah!” Blaze said.

“Your name, sir?”

“Clayton Blaisdell, Junior,” he said at once. In his relief at finding he hadn’t made this long slog just to come up empty for lack of phone-change, Blaze would not realize this tactical error for almost two hours.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you,” Blaze said, feeling clever. Feeling cool as a fool.

The phone rang only once on the other end before being picked up. “Yes?” The voice sounded wary and weary.

“I’ve got your son,” Blaze said.

“Mister, I’ve had ten calls today saying the same thing. Prove it.”

Blaze was flummoxed. He hadn’t expected this. “Well, he’s not with me, you know. My partner’s got him.”

“Yeah?” Nothing else. Just Yeah?

“I seen your wife when I come in,” Blaze said. It was the only thing he could think of. “She’s real pretty. She ‘us in a white nightie. You guys had a pitcher on the dresser — well, three pitchers all put together.”

The voice on the other end said, “Tell me something else.” But he didn’t sound tired anymore.

Blaze racked his brain. There was nothing else, nothing that would convince the stubborn man on the other end. Then there was. “The ole lady had a cat. That’s why she came downstairs. She thought I was the cat…that I was…” He racked his brain some more. “Mikey!” he shouted. “I’m sorry I hit her so hard. I sure didn’t mean to, but I was scared.”

The man on the other end of the line began to cry. It was sudden and shocking. “Is he all right? For God’s sake, is Joey okay?”

There was a confused babble in the background. A woman seemed to be speaking. Another was yelling and crying. The one yelling and crying was probably the mother. Narmenians were probably specially emotional. Frenchies were the same way.

“Don’t hang up!” Joseph Gerard (it just about had to be Gerard) said. He sounded panicky. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s good,” Blaze said. “Got another tooth through. That makes three. Di’per rash is clearing up good. I — I mean we — keep ‘is bottom greased up real good. What’s the matter with your wife? Is she too good to grease his bottom?”

Gerard was panting like a dog. “We’ll do anything, mister. It’s all your play.”

Blaze started a little at that. He had almost forgotten why he called.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what I want you to do.”

In Portland, an AT&T operator was speaking to SAC Albert Sterling. “Cumberland Center,” she said. “Gas station pay phone.”

“Got it,” he said, and pumped his fist in the air.

“Get in a light plane tomorrow night at eight,” Blaze said. He was beginning to feel uneasy, beginning to feel he’d been on the phone too long. “Start flying south along Route 1 toward the New Hampshire border. Fly low. Got it?”

“Wait…I’m not sure…”

“You better be sure,” Blaze said. He tried to sound like George would. “Don’t try to stall me, unless you want your kid back in a bag.”

“Okay,” Gerard said. “Okay, I hear you. I’m just writing it down.”

Sterling handed a scrap of paper to Bruce Granger and made dialing motions. Granger called the State Police.

“The pilot’ll see a signal light,” Blaze said. “Have the money in a suitcase attached to a parachute. Drop it like you wanted it to land right on top of the fla — of the light. The signal. You can have the kid back the next day. I’ll