“Okay,” I said.
“Creative people simply must create. If you’re not a creative person, you wouldn’t understand.”
“I know,” I said. “I have the same damned problem.
Right now for instance, I’m trying to create some information, and, for heaven’s sake, I’m not getting anywhere at all.”
Her husband said, “Yeah, will you for crissake, Marge, stop talking about yourself?”
She looked a little puzzled, but she shut up.
“Did the boy take anything besides the guinea pig?” I asked.
“No.”
“Has he ever run away before?”
There was a long pause while they looked at each other.
Then, like the punch line in a Frick-and-Frack routine, she said yes and he said no.
“That covers most of the possibilities,” I said.
“He didn’t really run away,” Bartlett said. “He just slept over a friend’s house without telling us. Any kid’ll do that.”
“He did not; he ran away,” his wife said. She was intense and forgot about displaying her legs—the skin slid over as she leaned forward and covered them entirely. “We called everywhere the next day, and Jimmy Houser’s mother told us he’d been there. If you hadn’t gone and got him at school, I don’t think he’d have come back.”
“Aw Marge, you make everything sound like a goddamned drama.”
“Roger, there’s something wrong with that kid, and you won’t admit it. If you’d gone along with it when I wanted him looked at—but no, you were so worried about the money. ‘Where am I going to get the money, Marge, do you think I’ve got a money tree in back, Marge?” If you’d let me take him someplace, he’d be home now.“
The mimicry sounded true. Bartlett’s tan face got darker.
”You bitch,“ he said. ”I told you, take the money out of your goddamned acting lessons and your goddamned pottery classes and your goddamned sculpturing supplies and your goddamned clothes. You got twenty years psychology payments hanging in your goddamned closet…“
I was going to get a chance to check my erosion theory.
Tears began to well up in her eyes, and I found I didn’t want to check my theory nor did I want to see her erode. I put my fingers in my ears and waited.
They stopped.
”Good,“ I said. ”Now, let us establish some ground rules. One, I am not on the Parent-of-the-Year committee. I am not interested in assessing your performance. Yell at each other when I’m not around. Second, I am a simple person. If I’m looking for a lost kid, that’s what I do. I don’t referee marriages; I don’t act as creative consultant to the Rog and Margie show. I just keep looking for the kid until I find him. Third, I charge one hundred dollars a day plus whatever expenses I incur. Fourth, I need five hundred dollars as a retainer.“
They were silent, embarrassed at the spillover I’d witnessed.
Bartlett said, ”Yeah, sure, that’s okay, I mean hey, it’s only money, right? I’ll give you a check now; I brought one with me, in case, you know?“
He hunched the chair forward and wrote a check on the edge of my desk with a translucent ballpoint pen. Bartlett Construction was imprinted in the upper left corner of the check—I was going to be a business expense. Deductible.
One keg of 8d nails, 500 feet of 2 x 4 utility grade, one gumshoe, 100 gallons of creosote stain. I took the check without looking at it and slipped it folded into my shirt pocket, casual, like I got them all the time and it was just something to pass along to my broker. Or maybe I’d buy some orchids with it.
”What is your first step?“ Mrs. Bartlett said.
”I’ll drive up to Smithfield after lunch and look at your house and look at his room and talk to teachers and the local fuzz and like that.“
”But the police have done that. What can you do that they can’t?“ I wondered if I was cutting into her modern dance lessons.
”I can’t do anything they can’t, but I can do it full time.
They have to arrest drunks and flag down speeders and break up fights at the high school and keep the kids from planting pot in the village watering through. I don’t. All I have to do is look for your kid. Also, maybe I’m smarter than they are.“
”But can you find him?“
”I can find him; he’s somewhere. I’ll keep looking till I do.“
They didn’t look reassured. Maybe it was my office. If I was so good at finding things, how come I couldn’t find a better office? Maybe I wasn’t all that good? Maybe nobody is. I stood up.
”I’ll see you this afternoon,“ I said. They agreed and left. I watched them from my window as they left the building and headed up Stuart Street toward the parking lot next to Jake Wirth’s. An old drunk man with a long overcoat buttoned to his chin said something to them. They stared rigidly past him without answering and disappeared into the parking lot. Well, I thought, the rents are low. The old man stumbled on toward the corner of Tremont. He stopped and spoke to two hookers in hot pants and fancy hats. One of them gave him something, and he shuffled along. A blue Dodge Club van pulled out of the parking lot and headed down Stuart toward Kneeland Street and the expressway.
