Laying low. No Vigil meetings or activities. His leadership of the Vigils was a tiling of delicate calibration, and he knew instinctively when to call meetings, to adjourn them, or to allow the Vigil members to go their way. Like now. Knowing everyone's discomfort, knowing they would resent any extra effort, any assignment.
The heat also took the pressure off current events. Although maintaining a reserved attitude, Archie had as usual been keen-eyed without seeming to be, watching, observing. Two targets of observation, Obie and Carter, seemed like twins. Both walking trancelike, preoccupied with their thoughts and worries. Which meant they would be unlikely to do anything foolish or threatening. At certain moments Archie was a bit apprehensive — what was going on inside Obie? Was he plotting revenge in a quiet way or merely accepting his fate? Carter was easier to read. The swaggering athlete had turned into a shoulders-hunched, narrow-eyed specimen these days, like a hunted creature, passing quickly by, not talking to anybody. Archie knew what was going on inside him and delighted in the knowledge. Let him stew awhile in his thoughts and fry in the heat. Time enough to take care of Carter, the traitor, in his own way. Meanwhile, Carter was torturing himself — a sweet Archie touch, letting the victim be his own torturer. All in all, Archie found a certain satisfaction in the heat wave.
The heat did not touch Caroni, either.
He had erected a screen around himself, invisible obviously, which the heat could not penetrate. Neither could anything else in this world.
His world was without seasons. And, thus, without weather. He operated beautifully in this atmosphere, his mind clear and sharp, a thing apart from his body. He marveled at the way he responded to the necessities of life, performing his silly but necessary duties as a student, son, brother. He could perform so well because he knew that he would not have to do so forever. He knew there was a moment when the command would be given, and events would be set in motion.
David was drawn incessantly to the parlor and the piano. The parlor was cool, windows closed, curtains drawn, isolated from the rest of the world. David raised the piano lid, sounding middle C. Waiting. For an echo? He didn't know.
He was a bit afraid of the piano, the keys grinning at him in the shadowed room. As he was staring at the keys one afternoon, a thought occurred to him. Transmitted somehow from the piano to himself. The thought was actually an image. A knife. The butcher knife his father used on occasion for big roasts and turkeys. He checked to see if the butcher knife was in the special drawer with the other kitchen utensils. He touched the knife, ran his finger across the blade, and announced: 'Yes, I found it.' He did not know whom he had said his words to. But knew that someone, something, had heard him. And that he was drawing closer to the time of the command.
Thus, in the heat, David Caroni waited. For the signal. Knew it must come soon. He didn't mind waiting, he didn't mind the heat. Every day he went into the cool parlor and stood near the piano, waiting.
The heat always made Emile Janza horny. Actually he was almost always horny, but the heat intensified his feelings. Girls dressed flimsily' in the heat, of course, wearing sleeveless, see-through blouses, brief skirts, or short shorts that exposed their bodies beautifully.
Other things made him horny as well, something he noticed increasingly as time went on. He noticed it first in football during plays in which he tackled his opponents bruisingly and without mercy. A distinct wave of sexual pleasure swept him on these occasions. Sometimes when he engaged in a scuffle in the parking lot — Trinity was a very physical place — he would be instantly aroused. He had felt that kind of swift pleasure last fall when he had faced the Renault kid in the boxing ring, and even earlier when he had beat him up in the woods behind the school. Those were beautiful moments, really.
The beauty had returned the other day when he spotted Renault in the park. Sitting on the lawn with his creepy friend whose name Emile did not know. Spotting Renault, recognizing him even from that distance, he was surprised to find he had returned to Monument. Janza had heard the kid had run off to Canada, afraid he might get beat up again. And now he was back. Asking for more trouble. Janza was tempted to tell Archie Costello about Renault's return. Then decided against it. He wanted to keep Renault for himself.
Now, in the heat, in his house, nobody home, Janza picked up the telephone book. Looked up the
Flipping the pages, he found Rathburn. . Raucher. . Red Cross Hdqtrs. . Reed, and, finally, Renault. Two Renaults in the book. Easy to check out.
Renault, that little jerk. He should not have come back to Monument. He should have stayed in Canada.
Sudden booming thunderstorms interrupted the hammering of the heat. The skies exploded with thunder, split radiantly with lightning. Rain sluiced down as if from giant faucets turned on full force. Steam hissed from the concrete pavement as rain drummed on heated surfaces. Gutters overflowed, debris bobbed along like tiny boats to the catch basins and sewers. Drippings from the edges of buildings and trees struck like a thousand small water tortures. Or so it seemed to Obie, who was undergoing a special land of torture. The torture of losing Laurie.
It had taken a few days to track Laurie down after her brother had disclosed the news of her return to Monument. The telephone route still did not work: she was never at home when he called or, at least, did not come to the phone. Making his way wearily through the steaming streets, he stood watch in front of Monument High, checked out her friends, all those Debbies and Donnas who regarded him with blank faces as if they had never seen him before, giving him no information whatever.
His vigil was finally rewarded when he saw her emerging from Baker's Drugstore (he had missed her going in) and walking to a mailbox, where she slid a letter into the slot. A farewell letter to him, saying good-bye forever? Not even that. A renewal of her subscription to
On a busy sidewalk with the smell of bus exhaust fouling the heavy air, one of her girl friends, a blonde with bangs that almost covered her eyes, waiting near a yellow fire hydrant, a screaming child being pushed in a baby carriage while a young mother licked a melting strawberry ice cream cone, that was where Laurie Gundarson said good-bye to Obie. No throbbing background music, no hushed intimacy. Her eyes told him the truth before she said a word, her expression distant, as if her mind was on more important matters than Obie's plight. He could have been a beggar asking for a handout, somebody passing out leaflets, a stranger asking directions. She answered his questions — he couldn't remember afterward what words he'd used, what questions he'd asked — in monosyllables, patiently, as if talking to someone slightly retarded. Until she said: 'Obie, it's over.' Addressing him at last directly, recognizing him as a person.
A kid on a skateboard zipped by, brushing Obie's sleeve, spinning away.
'Why?' he asked.
'A million things,' she said. 'God, it's hot.' Touching a stray strand of hair. 'But mostly because I don't feel anything anymore. Nothing.'
'Was it because of what happened that night?'
She shook her head. 'That was bad, Obie. And I always thought your creepy friends at Trinity did it. But don't blame them. Blame me.' She looked around, as if the words she wanted were written in a store window or on the side of a passing bus. 'I don't know. It was all too physical. We hardly knew each other—'
'We went out four weeks,' Obie said. 'More than that. Thirty-one days. .'
Laurie lifted her shoulders, dropped them. Christ, she acted bored.
'I don't believe what you're doing, Laurie. People just don't fall Out of love like that—'
'Who said it was love?' she asked.
'You did. More than once.'
'Love. . it's just a word,' she said.
He wiped his nose, jammed the damp Kleenex into his pocket, and braced himself. Then asked the question he had been dreading to ask:
'Was it all that stuff about Archie Costello? And that secret society?'
She looked away. 'I knew you were lying, Obie. I knew you were a part of it. One of the. . bunch.' Had she almost said
'Okay, okay. But after we met, after we started going together, things were different. I was breaking away —'
'But you didn't, did you? You still belonged, still served your lord and master, that monster Archie Costello. . '
