Lost Girls

Tripp now sticks his own tongue out and laughs from the back of his throat. I can't help but notice that its surface is coated in a glistening layer of lime-green film, and that he displays it for an unnecessarily long time before pulling it back in.

''So I took her in the car to the clinic,'' he continues, ''and they put four stitches in her knee. When they were done I dropped her off near her house. I noticed the blood on my shirt the next morning. And in the car, little dots in the backseat. I didn't mind, though. They were just stains. And they were Krystal's.''

''When did this happen?''

''April Fool's Day. Isn't that amusing?''

I study Tripp's face for evidence of a lie but it's an impossible task. Even in my few years of practice I've had to deal with some remarkably accomplished liars, some you know are so good, you will have made yourself promise to never believe a single word that comes out of their mouths. The next thing you know you find yourself thinking that maybe on this point, this one issue, they're speaking the truth. But they're not. And this is the art of all great liars: making you believe the single fiction that among all the others is most important for them to have you believe. Tripp may well be a great liar himself, or he may only be the fucked-up dullard that he appears. All I know is that I've never met anyone--client, witness, or otherwise--who provided so few clues.

''Thanks, Thom. I'll come by again next week to see you before the big day,'' I say, but he looks at me as though he doesn't know what day I'm talking about or why it would be big.

Bartholomew, this is Houston. Come in, Bartholomew.''

Graham's voice on the speakerphone.

''Roger, Houston. This is Bartholomew.''

''So good to hear your voice, old man! Just wondering how our star is doing up there in the land of the midnight sun. Oh, and I heard who was assigned to your case. Dear Naomi. Lyle, Gederov, and the entire Toronto underworld owe her so much. Three cheers for Justice Goldfarb! Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip--''

''Graham, I was sleeping,'' I lie. ''Can we do this another time?''

''Of course we can. You need your beauty rest, I know. Only wondering when you were planning on getting back down to the city for a little strategic pow-wow with us old guys. The festivities start tomorrow for you, and I think before things move too far along in the Crown's case it might be nice to have a three-way brainstorm. Make everybody feel better. What say thee?''

''I wasn't planning on it, actually.''

''No?'' He smacks his lips as though working on a hard candy at the back of his mouth. ''You think that's wise?''

''I think it's better that I stay put up here, that's all.''

''I applaud your commitment, but perhaps a meeting of the minds would only make things a little clearer for us and for you before things really get rolling. And you could eat some real food. My God, you must be dying! Do they even have a Thai takeout up there? Or a steak house, for the love of--''

''I'm fine. I'm not hungry.'' Easy now, Barth. He's listening for cracks. ''And you know what? There's really no need for me to come back down to the city. I'm ready to rock up here. Everything's cool.''

For a moment I can almost hear Graham's thoughts gauging whether I'm bullshitting or not, if he was prepared to insist at this point, how all this would pass with Bert. But when he speaks next it's warm and teasing.

''Cool and ready to rock, eh? Well, can I at least make a request that you let us know how you're doing every once in a while? The last thing we want is the wheels falling off our boy's little wagon.''

''I'll stay in touch. I just need to get some sleep now, that's all.''

''Well, you do that, my good man,'' Graham says rather doubtfully. ''You get some sleep. And you stay in touch, too, or I'll have to come up there myself and give you a good thrashing. Understood?''

''Yes, Pa.''

Then Graham's gone and there's nothing but the room again. And me. Me and the room.

It's the eve of trial and I'm walking the streets of town wishing for morning, for a cigarette, for a little company. Three things I normally have no interest in. Surely this is an initial sign of middle age, the sudden desire to dispose of old habits and take on some healthier new ones. Because it's all going, isn't it, little by little? My body calcifying, mysterious pains flashing through internal organs, muscles aching without just cause. Basic mechanics sliding out of my control and nothing but the brain left to count as my own. Which wouldn't be so bad if it, too, hadn't become doddery, endlessly gabbing away to itself but always failing to arrive at conclusions. It's not even interested in conclusions anymore. All it wants is to avoid the big questions and gnaw at a harmless puzzle every once in a while. Still, overall I must consider myself among the lucky. At least I'm not worried about my weight.

In fact, now that I think of it, if anything I'm aware of how light I feel. The weight of a forgotten name. A party balloon blown full of nothing. If I couldn't look down and know that my feet were still tied into my shoes I wouldn't be surprised if I just lifted off the ground once and for all, drifted up past the buzzing streetlights and slumped hydro wires into the supposedly infinite night sky. And the thing is I wouldn't really mind, not too much, although I'm not crazy about the dark and have every reason to believe it would be cold up there.

The offstage yowl of a backyard cat fight. A car washes past in the street, brake lights glaring. Nobody looks my way.

After a while I stop at the playground at the side of St. Mary's Elementary, plant myself into one of the canvas swings. Hold my legs out straight and creak back and forth through solid air.

I'm thinking: This is where kids play. Watched by parents standing on the other side of the fence or from their idling minivans, believing that if they could just manage to be around their children enough of the time they might afford them some protection. But how can you protect them from something you can't see? What defenses can be drawn against the anonymous monster that lives three doors down the hall, delivers your mail, gives you a smile on the way to the bus stop, lies next to you in bed?

I'm thinking: Maybe this was Tripp's daughter's school. Maybe he even pushed her on this same swing once, or stood below her as she clambered over the bars of the jungle gym to make sure he'd be there if she fell. Maybe this was the same place where he stood outside in the rain, looking up at her face in the classroom window. Thinking of how much he loved her, how desperately he missed her, and the injustice of being denied her company. But who knows? Maybe he was thinking to hell with all the goddamn lawyers and cunning ex-wives and court orders that say you can't come within two hundred yards of your own child. Maybe he was already working on alternative plans. How he would take her away and nobody would ever see either of them again. How maybe he'd do something bad to somebody else if it all didn't work out. Or then again it could be that he was just another awkward father who didn't quite know how to love.

Nobody really thought it was the English teacher anyway until he was arrested. He looked normal enough. So why are we always surprised when normal-looking people do terrible things? Almost all of my clients have been the sort about whom it is said that they look and talk just like you or me. Because they are you and me. And this is the only really startling thing about the evil of the world: not that so much of it exists, but that nobody ever expects it.

Later that night I dream of being asleep in my bed in the honeymoon suite. I know it's a dream even as it's happening. Everything as it actually is but with some of the details slightly altered: the distance between my feet and the windows the length of a bowling alley, the moon hanging like a paper plate over the town. Yet when I look up at the ceiling I know where I am. The feeling the same as looking at your own reflection in a mirror: I know I am here; I know I am there.

There's the room's coolness that keeps me from sleep even with the covers pulled around my ears. The newsprint on the walls that in the dark gives the appearance of a papier-mache cave. A nearly human sculpture that is my clothes thrown over the back of a chair, a squirrel digging through the eaves trough outside the window.

Then a new sound. So distant at first it could just be another layer I've added onto the others but slowly coming forward, distinct. The brush of something soft against wood, the squeak and snap of the floor taking on new weight. Outside the bedroom door, moving down the hallway. Closer.