When I opened the door to my new home, Darrell Caton was sitting in the chair behind my desk. Victor Woo sat across from him. They had been talking. I tried to imagine what the two of them would have to say to each other. Then I saw the small photograph in front of Darrell. I knew what it was. I had seen it before, on a table in the booth of a bar in Urbana, Illinois. Victor had shown me the photograph of his smiling wife and two small, smiling children.
“Mind reader, Lewis Fonesca,” said Darrell. “Knew where to find me and knew I was hungry. What kind of pizza you bring me?”
“Moussaka with extra onion,” I said.
Ames placed the box on the desk. Darrell opened it and examined the pizza.
“What the f… hell is musical pizza? Beans?”
“Let’s get you back to the hospital,” said Ames.
“Hell no,” said Darrell, handing a slice of lukewarm pizza to Victor. “They’ve got diseases and all kinds of shit in there. Worst place to be when you’re sick. I read about it.”
“Let’s get you back,” Ames said again.
“Your mother’s worrying about you. Sally is worried about you,” I said.
“Think about it, Lewis Fonesca,” said Darrell. “Four people may be worrying about me. Four. You. Big Mac here. My mother and Ms. Porovsky. Him?” he added looking at Victor. “I don’t know what he’s thinking.”
“What about Flo and Adele?” I said.
“They know I escaped from Alcatraz?”
“No.”
“Then they can’t be worried, can they? Pizza’s good. What’s that yellow thing?”
“Eggplant,” I said.
“Woo,” Darrell said. “I’ll wrestle you for the last piece.”
Victor shook his head no. Darrell picked up the last slice of pizza. He tried to hide a wince as he brought it to his mouth. Darrell was fifteen. No father. His mother had kicked a crack habit two years earlier and was holding down a steady job at a dollar store.
“You’re going back to the hospital,” Ames said.
“Don’t make me run,” said Darrell chewing as he spoke. “You won’t catch me and running could kill me. Besides, if you do get me back in the hospital, I’ll just get up and leave again.”
“Why?” Victor asked.
We all looked at him.
“Why?” asked Darrell. “Because I’d rather die than be hooked up to machines waiting for Dr. Frankenstein and a bunch of little Frankensteins to come in and look at me.”
“Fifteen,” said Victor.
“Fifteen little Frankensteins?” asked Darrell.
“You are fifteen. You wouldn’t rather die.”
Victor looked at me. There were times after Catherine died that I wouldn’t have minded dying, but I never considered suicide as an option. There were times, I knew, that after he had killed Catherine, Victor had considered death as an option.
“Mr. Gloom and Mr. Doom,” said Darrell. “You didn’t answer your damn phone. I broke out because I have to tell you something, Lew Fonesca.”
“Tell it,” I said.
“You should have brought more pizza.”
“That’s what you have to tell me?”
“Hell no. I had a visitor during the night in the hospital. I was asleep and drugged up. Room was dark. Machine was beep-beep-beeping, you know. Then I heard him.”
“Who?”
“A man, I think, or maybe a woman. He was across the room in the dark. He thought I was asleep. At least I think he thought I was asleep. He said something like, ‘I’m sorry. My fault. Silky sad uncertain curtains.’ Shit like that. Creepy. Then he said he had to go but he’d be back. I could do without his coming back. So, I got up and
…”
“Anything you could tell from his voice?” I asked. “Young? Old?”
“Like I said, couldn’t tell,” said Darrell. “No, wait. He had one of those English accents, like that actor.”
“Edgar Allen Poe,” said Ames.
“Edgar Allen Poe, the guy who wrote those scary movies?” asked Darrell.
“‘The silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain wrought its ghost upon the floor,’ ” said Ames.
“Yeah, creepy shit like that.”
“It’s from a poem by Poe, ‘The Raven,’ ” said Ames.
“I guess. You know him? This Poe guy?”
“He’s been dead for a hundred and fifty years,” I said.
I knew one person involved in all this that had what might pass for an English accent.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” said Darrell. “You should have bought more pizza. Next time just make it sausage.”
“Let’s get you back to the hospital.”
“Let’s order a pizza to go,” said Darrell. “Do that and I go back to the hospital.”
“Ames and Victor will get you the pizza and take you back to the hospital.”
Darrell looked decidedly unwell when they went through the door. I called Information and let them connect me with the number I wanted. The woman who answered had a pleasant voice and a British accent. She told me that Winston Churchill Graeme wasn’t home from school yet, but soon would be. She asked if I wanted to leave a message. I said no.
When I hung up I walked over to the wall where the Stig Dalstrom paintings were and looked for truth in black jungles and mountains and the twisted limbs of trees. I focused on the lone spot of yellow in one of the paintings. It was a butterfly.
I folded the empty pizza box and carried it out with me. At the bottom of the steps I dropped the box into one of the three garbage cans and called Sally. With no preamble, I said, “We found Darrell.”
“Where?”
“My place. Ames and Victor are taking him back to the hospital.”
“I’ll call his mother.”
“Are you at work?”
“Yes.”
“What can you tell me about Winston Churchill Graeme?”
Twenty minutes later I was parked about half a block down and across the street from the Graeme home on Siesta Key. The house was in an ungated community called Willow Way. The house was a lot smaller than others in the community, but it wasn’t a mining shack.
Winn Graeme hadn’t called back to set up a time to talk. I wondered why.
I didn’t think Winn Graeme was home yet but, just to be sure, I called the house. I was wrong again. He answered the phone.
“This is Lew Fonesca,” I said.
“Yes?”
“I’m parked on your street, half a block West.”
“Why?”
“I’d like you to come out and talk.”
“You can come in.”
“I don’t think you want your mother to hear what we have to talk about.”
“I don’t…”
“Your visit to the hospital last night.”
It was one of those silences, and then, “I’ll be right out.”
There was no one on the street. A white compact car was parked in the driveway of the house from which Winn Graeme emerged. The house was at the top of a short incline with stone steps leading down to the narrow
