“As to their sexes—”
“A few boys, a few girls,” Dale said. “We don’t remember exactly how many of each.”
“And as for Ty, how he was taken, what happened to him—”
“He said he didn’t remember,” Dale said, smiling.
“We left. We think we called to the other kids—”
“But don’t exactly remember—” the Beez chips in.
“Right, and in any case they seemed safe enough where they were for the time being. It was when we were putting Ty into the cruiser that we saw them all streaming out.”
“And called the Wisconsin State Police for backup,” Dale said. “I
“Of course you do,” Jack said benevolently.
“But we have no idea how that darn place got blasted all to hell, and we don’t know who did it.”
“Some people,” Jack said, “are all too eager to take justice into their own hands.”
“Lucky they didn’t blow their heads clean off,” said Dale.
“All right,” Jack tells them now. They’re standing at the door. Doc has produced half a joint, and four quick, deep tokes have calmed him visibly. “Just remember why we’re doing this. The message is that we were there first, we found Ty, we saw
“Amen,” Dale says. “Sweet old Uncle Henry.”
Beyond the door of the Winnebago, he can hear the surflike rumble of hundreds of people. Maybe even a thousand. He thinks,
“Anything else,” Jack says, “questions that get too specific—”
“We can’t remember,” Beezer says.
“Because the air was bad,” Doc agrees. “Smelled like ether or chloro or something like that.”
Jack surveys them, nods, smiles. This will be a happy occasion, on the whole, he thinks. A love feast. Certainly the idea that he might be dying in a few minutes has not occurred to him.
“Okay,” he says, “let’s go out there and do it. We’re politicians this afternoon, politicians at a press conference, and it’s the politicians who stay on message who get elected.”
He opens the RV’s door. The rumble of the crowd deepens in anticipation.
They cross to the jury-rigged platform this way: Beezer, Dale, Jack, and the good Doctor. They move in a warm white nova glare of exploding flashbulbs and 10-k TV lights. Jack has no idea why they need such things—the day is bright and warm, a Coulee Country charmer—but it seems they do. That they always do. Voices cry, “Over here!” repeatedly. There are also thrown questions, which they ignore. When it comes time to answer questions they will—as best they can—but for now they are simply stunned by the crowd.
The noise begins with the two hundred or so French Landing residents sitting on folding chairs in a roped-off area directly in front of the podium. They rise to their feet, some clapping, others waving clenched fists in the air like winning boxers. The press picks it up from them, and as our four friends mount the steps to the podium, the roar becomes a thunder. We are with them, up on the platform with them, and God, we see so many faces we know looking up at us. There’s Morris Rosen, who slipped Henry the Dirtysperm CD on our first day in town. Behind him is a contingent from the now defunct Maxton Elder Care: the lovely Alice Weathers is surrounded by Elmer Jesperson, Ada Meyerhoff (in a wheelchair), Flora Flostad, and the Boettcher brothers, Hermie and Tom Tom. Tansy Freneau, looking a bit spaced out but no longer outright insane, is standing next to Lester Moon, who has his arm around her. Arnold “Flashlight” Hrabowski, Tom Lund, Bobby Dulac, and the other members of Dale’s department are up on their feet, dancing around and cheering crazily. Look, over there—that’s Enid Purvis, the neighbor who called Fred at work on the day Judy finally high-sided it. There’s Rebecca Vilas, looking almost nunnish in a high-collared dress (but cry no tears for her, Argentina; Becky has stashed away quite a nice bundle, thank you very much). Butch Yerxa is with her. At the back of the crowd, lurking shamefully but unable to stay away from the triumph of their friends, are William Strassner and Hubert Cantinaro, better known to us as Kaiser Bill and Sonny. Look there! Herb Roeper, who cuts Jack’s hair, standing beside Buck Evitz, who delivers his mail. So many others we know, and to whom we must say good-bye under less than happy circumstances. In the front row, Wendell Green is hopping around like a hen on a hot griddle (God knows how he got into the roped-off area, being from La Riviere instead of French Landing, but he’s there), taking pictures. Twice he bumps into Elvena Morton, Henry’s housekeeper. The third time he does it, she bats him a damned good one on top of the head. Wendell hardly seems to notice. His head has taken worse shots during the course of the Fisherman investigation. And off to one side, we see someone else we may or may not recognize. An elderly, dark-skinned gentleman wearing shades. He looks a little bit like an old blues singer. He also looks a little bit like a movie actor named Woody Strode.
The applause thunders and thunders. Folks cheer. Hats are thrown in the air and sail on the summer breeze. Their welcome becomes a kind of miracle in itself, an affirmation, perhaps even an acceptance of the children, who are widely supposed to have been held in some bizarre sexual bondage linked to the Internet. (Isn’t all that weird stuff somehow linked to the Internet?) And of course they applaud because the nightmare is over. The boogeyman died in his own backyard, died at the foot of a prosaic, now vaporized aluminum clothes whirligig, and they are safe again.
Oh how the cheers ring in these few last moments of Jack Sawyer’s life on planet Earth! Birds are startled up from the bank of the river and go squawking and veering into the sky, seeking quieter environs. On the river itself, a freighter responds to the cheers—or perhaps joins in—by blasting its air horn over and over. Other boats get the idea and add to the cacophony.
