“You don’t have no daddy. Now, run along.”
Caspar stares confusedly between Melchior and the men. It is clear he wants to do what Melchior says, but the men are grown-ups. They trump him. He takes a half step backward, a half step forward.
“My daddy’s in heaven.”
The tall man stands, gives Melchior an amused, annoyed look. He seems to think the mere fact of his gaze will banish Melchior, and when the boy stands his ground, he says, “This here’s none of your business, boy. Whyn’t
His accent is deep but not local. Southern but not city. Gentry, like the people whose house his aunt cleaned, before he got to be too much for her and she sent him here.
The bearded man looks not at him but at Caspar.
“Look at his face, Frank. See how torn he is—he doesn’t know whether to obey his friend or us. He’s trying to think of a way he can win both our approval.”
“What are you guys, a couple-a perverts? Can’t you screw each other instead-a little boys?”
The man called Frank whistles. He is entertained, but it is a nasty kind of pleasure—the kind the Romans took in watching Christians being mauled by lions and barbarians. Melchior knows immediately that not only will this man hit a kid, he’ll enjoy it.
“You sure got a pair, don’t you, boy? Got a mouth, too, and I don’t like that. Now, hightail your ass outta here, or I’m-a stick my foot so far up it you’re gonna taste shoe leather.”
Melchior holds his ground. Gives the man a look that tells him if he hits him he’d better knock him
“You been drinking,” he says, “cheap shit, too,” and turns on his heel. He walks not toward the orphanage but toward the withered live oak in the northern corner of the playground. His pace is steady, neither too fast nor too slow. The last thing he hears is Frank saying,
“The first thing we gonna teach you, son, is not to hang around with niggers.”
Only when he reaches the live oak does he turn around. The bearded man has taken Caspar’s hand and is leading him toward the gate. Caspar walks slowly, looking around in every direction. Frank has an impatient look on his face, like he just wants to kite the kid under his arm and get going. He, too, is looking around.
By now Melchior has retrieved his slingshot, and he pulls one of the marbles he has just won from his pocket.
The words come to his lips unbidden, and he pauses with the marble in the pocket of his weapon. After his mother disappeared, the nuns had taught him to say the Office of the Dead as though she’d died rather than run off. The only phrase he remembered was
The marble catches the bearded man in the temple. He screams and falls to the ground.
The man called Frank is reaching for the inside pocket of his coat like a heavy in a gangster movie, but before he can pull his hand out, Melchior’s second shot catches him in the cheek. He staggers backward but doesn’t fall or cry out. But he doesn’t take his hand out of his jacket either.
“The next one takes out an eye,” Melchior calls quickly, calmly. “Now, let go of him and get the hell outta here.”
The bearded man is cowering behind the bush, but Frank is looking at the blood on his fingers with wide-eyed wonderment. A huge smile splits his face.
“You see that, Joe? He made that shot at twenty-five yards.”
A prick in his arm; sludge filling his veins, his brain. A terrific weight that seemed to press down on him from inside and out at the same time. The room returned, fuzzy edged, its colors paled to duns and grays. Keller was pulling a syringe from his arm.
“Enough for today,” he said.
As an irresistible fatigue sapped the energy from his limbs, Chandler’s head lolled to the side. There he was: Melchior. His eyes were closed and his clothes disheveled and drenched with sweat, but a strange smile was plastered on his face.
Chandler’s own eyes were drooping as Melchior’s opened. He looked over at Chandler, his expression exhausted but satisfied, like a man who’s just been serviced by his favorite whore.
“We gotta do that again,” he said.
Washington, DC
November 7, 1963
There was nowhere to hide in the Vault, so BC ran into the director’s office. It, too, was wide open. No closets, no nooks and crannies, not even a couch to scurry behind. The largest object in the room was the desk. If Hoover sat down, BC would be found instantly, but it was his only shot.
As he ducked behind the desk, he noticed the curtains on the window: thick blue muslin draperies that billowed all the way to the floor. Without giving himself time to think, he stepped behind the nearest one even as the key turned in the door to the Vault. As the curtain stilled around his body like a mummy’s bandages, he remembered the director’s story about Amenwah, although the truth is he felt more like Polonius. He hoped Hoover had left his sword at home that day.
