Lost Boy Lost Girl

loss—he just wished he could have gotten a glimpse of the lucky son-of-a-bitch kid who owned that truck. Mark swung his head around to look forward again, and bright, gleaming red flashed in the periphery of his vision. He looked to his left and discovered that while he’d been strategizing with Jimbo, the red pickup had done a U-turn and come far enough down his side of the street to arrive at a point immediately behind him. He waited for it to move past him, but it did not.

Curious, he looked over his shoulder again. The dark gray-green panel of the pickup’s windshield reflected gold sunlight straight into his eyes. Blinking, Mark shaded his eyes with one hand. All he could see were the windshield and the windows; whatever was inside the cab was invisible. The truck still did not move past him, but kept inching along at exactly his pace.

Mark wished he had gone into the Sherman Diner with Jimbo.

Then he told himself not to worry. He was being silly. The guy hidden behind the slick windshield was a kid from Eastern Shore Drive who had managed to get lost on the decidedly ungridlike streets of the former Pigtown. Getting lost in the Sherman Park area wasn’t difficult: Uncle Tim, who had grown up here, had told him that he’d had trouble finding Superior Street on his first day back. The pickup’s driver was going to roll down the passenger window and ask for directions. Mark turned around and began walking backward, waiting to be questioned.

The pickup simply trundled along at two, three miles an hour, hanging back at the unvarying distance of eight or nine feet. Seen close up, the vehicle looked amazingly clean and well polished. The curves of the hood and the fenders appeared almost molten. Along the side and the door panel, the red seemed lacquered in layer after layer, so that for all the brilliance of its surface Mark could look down and down, deeper and deeper, as if into a red pool. Completely free of dirt and pebbles, the tires shone a clear, liquid black. Mark had the feeling that this truck had never been driven in the rain, that it had never seen mud or snow, had never been entrusted to a valet or a public parking lot. It was like someone’s pet cougar that, after having been pampered and brushed every day of its life, was now at last permitted to explore the outer world. It seemed to Mark like a living thing—a large, dangerous living thing, a real entity.

He was letting himself get spooked. Those tinted windows were doing it to him, he knew. If he were able to see the driver, everything about the situation would feel different.

Mark turned his back on the pickup and decided to act as though nothing unusual was going on. In a little while, the truck would drive past him. It had to. And if it did not, he would lose it when he turned onto West Auer, because the red pickup would have no reason to follow him when he left Sherman Boulevard. He moved along the pavement, wondering if anyone in the vicinity thought it was strange that a vehicle should follow along behind a teenage boy, keeping pace as he proceeded down the street. In fact, that was exactly the sort of thing the Sherman Park Killer might do.

The corner of West Auer lay fifteen yards ahead. Mark wanted to look back over his shoulder, but he thought it best to ignore the pickup. In a second, in a couple of seconds, it would pick up speed and move off down Sherman. He quickened his pace, not by much, and the truck clung to him like a shark to its pilot fish. Mark moved along a little faster, but he was still just walking, not jogging or running. He was moving a little faster than usual, that was all. He thought someone watching him would get no special impression of haste.

Ten feet from the corner of West Auer, the pickup moved ahead, advancing into Mark’s field of vision, and pulled up level with him. He flicked a glance at it and kept moving. This was getting scary, but he forced himself to keep his pace steady. Out of the side of his eye he checked to see if the passenger window was being lowered. It was not, which helped. Maybe the driver was just trying to frighten him—that almost made sense, if the driver were a rich, bored twenty-year-old from Eastern Shore Drive or Old Point Harbor. Someone like that would get a kick out of throwing a scare into a high school kid from Pigtown.

Pigtown . . . that was a joke, right? Who could take a place seriously if it had a name like Pigtown?

The pickup moved along at exactly his speed. The window did not roll down, but Mark was certain that the driver was looking at him. He could practically feel the driver’s gaze on his body. Then he thought he could feel it. His stomach turned cold.

He came to Auer and executed a neat, military right-face, hoping to make his getaway before the guy in the pickup realized he was gone. To his dismay, he instantly heard the sound of tires turning in behind him. Mark glanced sideways and saw the hood of the pickup gliding alongside him. When the cab came into view, the passenger window was winding down. No, no, he said to himself, I really don’t think I want to have a conversation with you. Heart pounding, Mark burst into a sprint, thinking that he would run between the houses and make it home through the alley.

The pickup shot ahead and squealed to a halt a little way down the block. The passenger door cracked open. Mark stopped running, unsure of what to do. The driver was not going to come running after him, that was obvious: he wanted to sit behind the wheel and say something to Mark. He had something on his mind, and he wanted to share it. Mark did not want to hear whatever the man had to say. He took a step backward.

The passenger door swung completely open, revealing the dark interior of the pickup’s cab and the huddled, massive shape behind the wheel. It was like looking into the back of a cave. The driver was a big, big man, wrapped in a coat that fell around him like a blanket or an opera cape. A squashy, wide-brimmed hat covered his head. He looked mountainous. A big hand fumbled out of the folds of cloth and waved Mark forward.

“No need to be frightened,” said a low, soft voice. “Aren’t you Mark Underhill? I realize this looks a little funny, but I want to pass on a message to your father. It’s about your mother.”

“Talk to my father yourself,” Mark said. The man behind the wheel seemed shapeless and without a face—a huge pile of flesh equipped with a hand and a soft voice.

“I’m afraid I don’t know him. Come a little closer, will you?”

Somewhere, a door slammed. The shapeless man behind the wheel leaned forward and gestured. Mark looked in the direction of the sound and saw, stepping out onto a porch one house up, the University of Michigan football alum who had called him and Jimbo “youngbloods.” The pickup had swerved into the curb directly in front of this man’s house.

“Pardon me,” the man shouted, “but could anybody use a little help down there?”

Before Mark could answer, the man slouched behind the wheel had thrust out his arm, yanked his door shut, and spun the gleaming pickup backward into the middle of West Auer. In an instant, the pickup was speeding toward the next intersection; a second later, it skittered around the corner and was gone.

“Holy shit, what was that?” the man said. “Are you okay?”

“That guy said he wanted to tell me something about my mother.”

“No shit.” The man stared at him for a second. “He knew your name?”

“Yes.”

The man shook his head. “I didn’t get his license number. Did you?”

“No,” Mark said.

“Well, I guess that’s that,” the man said. “But you should probably stay away from red pickup trucks for a while. I’ll call the police, tell them what I saw. Just in case.”

Still vibrating, Mark went home to look up Joseph Kalendar on the Internet.

This is how the Sherman Park murders, which were more numerous than even Sergeant Pohlhaus had suspected, were solved. After a wretched lunch with his brother, Timothy Underhill decided to drive around to see Tom Pasmore before returning to his room at the Pforzheimer. Tom welcomed him warmly, poured out a measure of whiskey, and led him to his beautiful old leather sofas and the shelves of sound equipment. For old times’ sake, he put on a CD of Glenroy Breakstone’s greatest record, Blue Rose.

Tom asked, “Have the police come up with anything new concerning your nephew’s disappearance?”

“No,” Tim said. “But today I discovered that he spent a lot of time fooling around in Joseph Kalendar’s old house.”

“Do you think that might be relevant?”

“I’m sure it is,” Tim said. “Sergeant Pohlhaus said he’d look into it, but I had the impression he was just humoring me.”

“He must like you,” Tom said. “Sergeant Pohlhaus doesn’t have a reputation for humoring people. It might be interesting to learn who owns that house. Who does, do you know?”

“I don’t think anyone owns it.”

“Oh, somebody does, you can count on that. Why don’t I go upstairs and snoop around on my computer? It’s