don’t really know him well enough for that. But I do know him well enough to know I could never be a fan of his. There’s something sleazy about him.”
“Sleazy?”
“It’s hard to put into words,” Heather said. “But I always get the feeling that Roy’s never… sincere. Not ever. Not about anything. Most of the time he seems to be putting on an act. Apparently, no one else ever notices it. But I get the feeling he’s always manipulating people, using them one way or another, and then laughing about it inside.”
“Yeah!” Colin said. “Oh yeah! Exactly. That’s exactly what he’s doing. And he’s good at it. Not just with other kids. He can manipulate adults, too.”
“My mother met him once,” Heather said. “I didn’t think she was ever going to stop talking about him. She thought he was so charming, so polite.”
“My mother, too,” Colin said. “She’d rather have him for a son than me.”
“So what happened?” Heather asked. “Why aren’t you and Roy friends any more?”
He told her everything, beginning with the day he had first met Roy. He told her about the cat in the birdcage. The games with the electric trains. Roy’s story about killing two other boys just for kicks. Roy’s desire to rape and kill Sarah Callahan, his neighbor. The nightmare at Hermit Hobson’s automobile graveyard. The lighter-fluid attack. He told her everything that he’d learned in the library, the entire story of Belinda Jane Borden’s hideous accidental death-and the eventual hospitalization of both Roy and Mrs. Borden.
Heather listened in stunned silence. Initially, her face registered doubt, but the skepticism gradually faded and was replaced by a look of growing if reluctant belief. She was horrified, and when Colin finally finished, she said, “You’ve got to tell the police.”
He looked out at the rolling sea and the sky with its swooping gulls. “No,” he said. “They won’t believe me.”
“Sure they will. You convinced me.”
“That’s different. You’re a kid, like me. They’re adults. Besides, when they call my mother to ask her if she knows anything about it, she’ll tell them I’m lying and that I’ve got a drug problem. God knows what they’ll do to me then.”
“We’ll tell my folks,” Heather said. “They’re not really all that bad. Better than yours, I guess. They actually listen now and then. We can convince them. I know we can.”
He shook his head. “No. Roy charmed your mother before. Remember? He’ll charm her all over again if he has to. She’ll believe him, not us. And if your folks call Weezy to discuss it with her, she’ll convince them I’m a crazed doper. They’ll split us up. You won’t be allowed to come near me. Then if Roy knows you believe me, he’ll try to kill both of us.”
She was silent for a while. Then she shuddered and said, “You’re right.”
“Yeah,” he said miserably.
“What are we going to do?”
He looked at her. “Did you say ‘we’?”
“Well, of course I said ‘we.’ What do you think-that I’d turn my back on you at a time like this? You can’t handle it alone. No one could.”
Relieved, he said, “I was hoping you’d say that.”
She reached out, took hold of his hand.
“I’ve got a plan,” he said.
“A plan for what?”
“For trapping Roy. There’s a part in it for you.”
“What do I have to do?”
“You’re the bait,” Colin said. He told her about his scheme.
When he was finished, she said, “It’s clever.”
“It’ll work.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t make very good bait,” she said. “You need to use a girl that Roy would find… desirable … sexy. A girl he’d want real bad.” Her face colored. “I’m just not… enough. ”
“You’re wrong about that,” Colin said. “You’re enough. You’re more than enough. You’re plenty.”
She looked away from him, looked down at her knees.
“Pretty knees,” Colin said.
“Knobby.”
“No.”
“Knobby and red.”
“No.”
Sensing that it was what she wanted him to do, he put a hand on her knee, moved it up her thigh a few inches, then down again, stroking softly.
She closed her eyes, trembled slightly.
He felt his own body responding.
“It would be dangerous,” she said.
He couldn’t lie to her. He couldn’t minimize the risk just to secure her co-operation. “Yes,” he said. “It would be very, very dangerous.”
She picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle slowly through her fingers.
He gently stroked her knee, her thigh. He couldn’t believe he was touching her like that. He stared at his bold hand with excitement and amazement, as if it had acquired a will of its own.
“On the other hand,” she said, “we’d have the advantage of planning.”
“And surprise.”
“And the gun,” she said.
“Yes. And the gun.”
“You’re sure you can get the gun?”
“Positive.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it. We’ll trap him. Together.”
Colin’s stomach rolled unpleasantly, powered by a strange mixture of energies: desire and fear in equal measure.
“Colin?”
“What?”
“Do you really think I’m… enough?”
“Yes.”
“Pretty?”
“Yes.”
She looked deep into his eyes, and then she smiled and turned away, stared out to sea.
He thought he saw tears in her eyes.
“You’d better go now,” she said.
“Why?”
“It’ll work better if Roy doesn’t realize you and I know each other. If he happens to see us here, together, he might not fall for the trick later.”
She was right. Besides, he had things to do, preparations to make. He got up and folded his beach towel.
“Call me tonight,” she said.
“I will.”
“And be careful.”
“You too.”
“And Colin?”
“Yeah?”
“I think you’re enough, too. You’re plenty.”
