Unspeakable

and he laughed and almost lost his balance on the curb.

'Sorry, sorry, sorry!' he said. 'But seriously, I think it's about time you found somebody. It doesn't have to be the love of your life, after all. But you've always said that being deaf makes it difficult for you to socialize. It's bound to. Why not give him a try? I mean, he can't be that much of a freak, can he?'

'You want to bet? He's in wood pulp.'

'Oh. I have to confess that I don't know a whole lot about wood pulp.'

'Neither do I. But I expect I'm going to find out.'

They were about to cross the street when Holly realized that something was happening on the opposite corner. A streetcar had come to a halt at the intersection, and a crowd of people were gathered around the front of it. An ambulance came speeding down Third Street, its lights flashing, quickly followed by two police cars.

'Oh God, there's been an accident,' said Matthew. 'Somebody's been knocked over.'

'Come on,' said Tyrone, taking Holly's arm. 'We can go in by the back door. You don't want to see this.'

But as Tyrone led Holly away from the scene of the accident, the crowds parted as if they had been choreographed, and she could suddenly see quite clearly what had happened. The man she had met in the Bellman's Bookstore, the man with the shaving-brush eyebrows that she had imagined for a moment was David, was lying on the streetcar tracks, on his back, with his arms spread. His face was as pale as a suffering medieval martyr, and his lips were wet with blood. More blood was running across the street and creeping along the pavement, heading southwest.

'Oh, shit,' said Matthew, and pressed his hand in front of his mouth and started to retch.

'Come on,' said Tyrone.

But Holly couldn't take her eyes away from the vision of the man with the shaving-brush eyebrows and the green Burberry coat just like the one David had worn. The streetcar had rolled over him and stopped and its front wheel was resting in the middle of his chest, so that he was almost cut in half. Pale and martyred as he was, he was staring up at the sky with a strangely confident look in his eyes, as if he were hoping that this had never happened and that it was nothing more than a bad dream.

'Holly, come on,' Tyrone urged her.

'No,' said Holly. 'Wait.'

The paramedics were already kneeling down on the pavement and opening up their resuscitation packs, although it was obvious to everybody that the man on the tracks could never survive. Holly heard nothing: She only saw them gesticulate, and silently argue, and hurry backward and forward. The man turned his eyes toward her, and it seemed to Holly as if he were asking her why this had happened, and whether he was imagining it, and if she had been anything to do with it.

She looked down. On the pavement lay the books that he had bought from the Bellman Bookstore, on George Stevens and David O. Selznick. The book about George Stevens had fallen open, and the rain was already crinkling its pages. It was marked with blood, too, in a strange jagged pattern, like a claw, and the claw spread right across a black-and-white photograph of James Dean inGiant.

Holly turned to Tyrone and opened and closed her mouth but didn't say anything. She couldn't find the words. Tyrone led her away, holding her elbow firmly, propelling her, until they reached his gallery. Matthew followed close behind.

'Are you all right?' he asked her once they were inside. 'Do you want a coffee? A brandy? Another glass of wine?'

'I'm fine. It was the shock, that's all. I saw that guy in the bookstore. I talked to him. I thought-I had the impression that he was David.'

Outside, the rain was cascading into the street so much that the stormdrains were overflowing, and the roofs of the passing taxis carried a fine mist of spray. Tyrone knelt down and held both of Holly's hands. 'Do you know something?' he said. 'I'd give a million dollars if only you could hear my voice.'

The Heilshorn Home

Holly arrived at the Heilshorn home a few minutes after threeP.M. The rain had long since passed over and the sky was streaked with thin gray clouds, like unraveling wool. The Heilshorn home was right at the end of a new housing development called Hawthorne View, a three-bedroom home with a neatly trimmed lawn and unnaturally bloodred chrysanthemums glittering with raindrops. A girl's pink bicycle lay on its side on the path outside, along with a bracelet of bright plastic beads.

She rang the doorbell. At first there was no answer, but when she rang it again, Mrs. Heilshorn appeared behind the frosted- glass door and opened it.

'Yes?' she said blankly. She was a small woman with intensely black hair and bright red lips. She was wearing a wraparound dress in cerise satin with a large gold brooch in the shape of a spray of roses, and large gold earrings. She had a deep, finely wrinkled cleavage and a sharp little up- tilted nose that saidovercorrective surgery.

'Mrs. Heilshorn?' Holly produced her ID card. 'Holly Summers, Portland Children's Welfare Department. We have an appointment, if you recall.'

'We do? What day is it?'

'Thursday.'

'Oh my Lord, I forgot all about it. I'm so sorry. I have a memory like a sieve.'

'That's all right, I can be pretty forgetful myself sometimes. Do you mind if I come in?'

'Well, you're welcome, but I'm afraid that Sarah-Jane isn't here right now. She's out playing with friends.'

'I do need to see her, Mrs. Heilshorn. Can you tell me where she is?'

'I'm afraid I don't have any idea. Her friend's mother has taken them all out for the day, goodness knows where. Maybe the zoo.'

'What time do you expect her back?'

Mrs. Heilshorn shrugged and widened her heavily made-up eyes. 'Who knows? She may even sleep over.'

Holly stepped into the hallway.

'You won't mind taking off your shoes, will you?' said Mrs. Heilshorn, although it wasn't really a question. Holly slipped out of her pumps and followed her into the sitting room.

'We've just had a new carpet fitted,' Mrs Heilshorn explained. 'And I do like everything to stayperfect,don't you?'

The sitting room looked as if nobody was ever allowed to draw breath in it, let alone sit in it. It was almost psychotically neat and tidy, with a sculptured nylon carpet in the palest of honey colors, wallpaper with brown-and-cream curlicues, and a coffee table with a glass top and fluted brass legs, on which was spread an arrangement of shells and pebbles and a china figurine of a mermaid sitting on a rock, as well as a pristine copy ofWoman's Ownwith the cover lineEasier Orgasms!

Above a sandstone fireplace hung a large reproduction of a Gypsy girl with sultry eyes and a blouse that had slipped down from her shoulder to reveal a single bare breast.

Mrs. Heilshorn perched on the arm of one of the large brown brocade armchairs, crossing her legs as if she were posing for a magazine cover. Holly sat on the couch, opened up her briefcase, and took out her notes. 'You know why I'm here, don't you?'

'Well, I know that there was some ridiculous nonsense about Sarah-Jane having bruises.'

'Sarah-Jane's phys-ed teacher noticed last Monday that she had bruising around her upper thighs and wrists. Her class teacher has also reported that in recent weeks Sarah-Jane has changed from being one of the most outgoing girls in the fifth grade to one of the quietest and least involved. She's been having no problems at school, either with her classwork or with her relationships with other pupils, so her teacher concluded that something must have upset her at home.'

'Such as what?'

'That's what I'd likeyouto tellme,Mrs. Heilshorn. Has she had any kind of argument with you or your husband? Is there somebody else in the neighborhood she could have had trouble with? Either a neighbor or one of her friends?'

'She's probably starting her period.'

'That's not impossible. She's ten and a half, after all. Has she mentioned anything to you? Asked you about it?'

Mrs. Heilshorn shook her head.

'Have you tried to broach the subject yourself? I mean, given her sudden change in behavior.'

'To be honest with you, I can't say that I've noticedanychange in her behavior. Her teachers might call her 'outgoing,' but as far as my husband and I are concerned, she's never been anything but difficult.'

'Really? In what way difficult?'

'Why do you think we've had to go to all the expense of having a new carpet? Sarah-Jane walked in here with her shoes on and tracked in dog mess all over the last one.'

She looked around the room with such irritation that Holly half expected to see that the footprints were still there.

'Couldn't you have had it cleaned?'

'Cleaned?That would have totallyruinedit. Have you ever seen what cleaning does to your pile? Flattens it, mats it, makes it go every which way. Maybe a less particular person wouldn't mind about it butIalways would. I have to have everything-' She didn't actually say the wordperfectagain, but the word was there, hiding behind her pursed red lips.

'I see. What else did Sarah-Jane do that was difficult?'

'Do you want a list? She broke one of my Wedgwood saucers from Woodburn's. Just dropped it on the kitchen floor when she was drying it. She took a peanut butter sandwich to bed and wiped peanut butter all over the throw. That was pure merino wool, that throw. Do you know what peanut butter does to pure merino wool?'