Koko

(probably Maggie): that was why the photo of the eight-year-old Victor Spitalny looked more like the man they had known than the more adult photographs they had been shown. Only in the face of the boy on the bicycle, with his protruding ears and big adult front teeth in his child’s face, could you see his desperation.

5

Back in the double room, Underhill took off the black wide-brimmed hat and long black coat he must have picked up on Canal Street, and Poole called downstairs and ordered what looked like the best red wine on the Pforzheimer’s list, a 1974 Chateau Talbot, and a Sprite for Underhill. They all wanted something to take the taste of their dinner from their mouths.

“You even put ketchup on your cabbage,” Maggie said to Tim.

“I just asked myself, what would Conor Linklater do if he were here?”

“Who do we call first?” Michael asked. “Debbie, or one of the boys?”

“Would he have written to her?”

“Possible,” Poole said, and dialed Debbie Tusa’s number.

A teenage boy answered the phone and said, “You want my mom? Hey, Mom! Mom! A guy on the phone!”

“Who’s this?” asked a tired voice a moment later. Poole could hear a television set bellowing in the background.

He introduced himself and briefly explained what he was doing.

“Who?”

“Vic Spitalny. I believe you used to go out with him when you both attended Rufus King High School.”

She said nothing for a moment. “Oh, my God. Who are you again?”

Poole again recited his name and history.

“And where did you learn my name?”

“I’ve just been with Victor’s parents.”

“Vic’s parents,” she said. “George and Margaret. Well, well. I haven’t thought about that poor guy in about ten years, I bet.”

“So you haven’t heard anything from him since he went into the service.”

“Since long before that, Doctor. He dropped out of school in our senior year, and I had been going out with Nick, that’s the guy I married, for a year already. Nick and I split up three years ago. How come you’re interested in Vic Spitalny?”

“He kind of slipped out of sight. I’m interested in what happened to him. Why did you call him ‘that poor guy’ just now?”

“I guess that’s pretty much what he was. I went out with him, after all, so I never thought he was as bad as the other kids did. In fact I thought he was kind of sweet, but … Vic wasn’t what you’d call a real oddball, there was at least one guy who was worse off than what he was, it was just, nobody would give him a chance. He was kind of shy—he loved working on his car. But I hated going to his house.”

“Why?”

“Old George’s tongue used to drop out of his mouth the second I set foot on the sidewalk—he was always touching me. Ugh. I could see what he was doing to Vic—he just cut him down, all the time. I just couldn’t take it anymore, eventually. Then Vic dropped out of school. He was flunking a lot of courses, anyway. And he got drafted.”

“You never heard from him after that?”

“I just heard about him,” she said. “It was in all the papers, when he deserted. Pictures and everything. Right before Nick and me got married. There was Vic on the front page of the Sentinel. Second section. All that stuff about his running away when that Dengler guy was killed—everything about that was weird. It was even on TV that night, but I still didn’t believe it. Vic wouldn’t do anything like that. It all seemed so mixed up to me. When the army guys came around after that—you know, investigating—I said, you guys made a mistake. You got it wrong.”

“What do you think happened, then?”

“I don’t know. I guess I think he’s dead.”

Room service arrived. Underhill let Maggie taste and approve the wine, tipped the waiter, and brought Michael a glass just as he finished his conversation with Debbie Tusa. The wine immediately dissolved the greasy taste of the sausage.

“Cheers,” Maggie said.

“She doesn’t even think he deserted.”

“His mother doesn’t either,” Maggie said. Poole looked at her in surprise. She must have picked up this information on her Maggie-radar.

Bill Hopper, one of Spitalny’s high school friends, said in the course of Michael’s short conversation with him that he knew nothing about Victor Spitalny, had never liked him, and didn’t want to know anything about him. Vic Spitalny was a disgrace to his parents and to Milwaukee. Bill Hopper was of the opinion that George Spitalny, with whom he worked at the Glax Corporation, was one hell of a good man who had deserved a better son than that. He went on for a time, then told Poole to get off his case, and hung up.

“Bill Hopper says our boy was a sicko, and nobody normal liked him.”

“You didn’t have to be normal to dislike Spitalny,” Underhill said.

Poole sipped the wine. His body suddenly felt limp as a sack. “I wonder if there’s any point in my calling this other guy. I already know what he’s going to say.”

“Aren’t you going on the theory that Spitalny will eventually turn to someone for help?” Maggie asked innocently. “And here we are in Milwaukee.”

Poole picked up the phone and dialed the last number.

“Simroe.”

Poole began speaking. He felt as though he were reading lines.

“Oh, Vic Spitalny,” Mack Simroe said. “No, I can’t help you find him. I don’t know anything about him. He just went away, didn’t he? Got drafted. Well, you know that, right? You were there with him. Umm, how did you get my name?”

“From his parents. I had the impression they thought he was dead.”

“They would,” Simroe said. Poole could hear him smiling. “Look, I think it’s nice you’re looking for him—I mean, it’s nice somebody’s looking for him, but I never even got a postcard from the guy. Have you talked to Debbie Maczik? Debbie Tusa, she is now?”

Poole said that she had not heard from him either.

“Well, maybe that’s not too surprising.” Simroe’s laugh sounded almost embarrassed. “Considering, I mean.”

“You think he’d still be that guilty about his desertion?”

“Well, not only that. I mean, I don’t think the whole story ever came out, do you?”

Poole agreed that it had not, and wondered where all this was going.

“Who’s going to go check up on a thing like that? You’d have to go to Bangkok, wouldn’t you?”

You would, and he had, Poole said.

“So was it just coincidence, or what? It sure seemed funny at the time. The only guy worse off than he was —the only guy who was as much of a loser as he was, actually more so.”

“I’m not sure I’m following you,” Poole said.

“Well, Dengler,” Simroe said. “It sure looked funny. I guess I thought he must have killed him over there.”

“Spitalny knew Dengler before they got to Vietnam?”

“Well, sure. Everybody knew Dengler. All the kids did. You know how everybody knows the one kid who just can’t get it together, whose clothes are all raggy—Dengler was a basket case.”

“Not in Vietnam, he wasn’t,” Poole said.

“Well, naturally Spitalny hated Dengler. When you’re down low, you hate whatever’s beneath you, right?”