wheelchairs. They bring them every two weeks as an outing. Just coming here is a treat for them, I guess. They certainly don’t buy any big ticket items, you know. At that age, why bother?”
The man called Fred spoke with his teeth clamped together to hold the toothpick in place, giving him the look of a man with lockjaw, Becker thought.
“This afternoon there were the kids from the school. I saw them, sure, they trooped right by here on their way to the scientific toy shop, I guess. I didn’t see where they went. Sometimes it’s the pet store. They look at the tropical fish as part of their science projects, something like that, I don’t know. I know they don’t stop here.”
“Kids don’t like doughnuts?” Becker asked.
The police officer in charge shot Becker an annoyed glance until he noticed the FBI medallion on Becker’s chest. The officer still looked annoyed but said nothing.
“Who doesn’t like a doughnut? But these kids were supervised, you know what I mean? You got a teacher in front of the pack, another one alongside, a school nurse bringing up the rear to get the stragglers. It’s like a cattle drive or something. They’re not about to get loose to come over for a quick doughnut.”
“Did you see any of the kids alone at any time?” the officer asked.
“How’m I supposed to know that? You see individual kids alone all the time. How do I know if they’re from that group or with their friends or with their parents or just here to ride the escalators. They don’t wear signs saying ‘I am alone.’ ”
“Do you pass your shop to get to the men’s room?” Becker asked.
The manager thought for a moment, striking the toothpick with his tongue so that it danced up and down.
“You can, sure, but I’m not that close to the john, if that’s what you mean. You can pass down the whole corridor to get to the john. Or you can get there from the other direction.”
“Did you see any boys in the company of an adult during that time?” the officer asked.
“That time? What time?”
“The time we’re talking about,” the officer said wearily. This was his fifth interview in less than an hour. It was like asking people sitting on their lawn if they’d seen any grass. “Between three-thirty and four o’clock.”
Fred snorted rudely as if the cop were an idiot. “Did I see any boys with adults between three-thirty and four o’clock? When do you think parents take their kids shopping?”
The cop tried to ignore the sarcasm by controlling his breathing. It made him sound more impatient than ever.
“Did you see anything unusual? Any sign that any of these adults was forcing the children in any way?”
“Forcing them? You got kids? You got to force them half the time.”
“What do you mean?” Becker asked.
“Well, they’re like wild animals, ain’t they? You got to control them. So you give them a yank on the arm, a swat on the butt, you know what I mean.”
“Yes,” said Becker.
“Sometimes you grab them by the scruff of the neck and march them along. Is that what you mean by forcing them?” Fred was now addressing himself to Becker, attracted to the FBI initials like a moth to a brighter light than the ordinary policeman.
“Did you see any of that?”
“I see it all the time. Did I see it between three-thirty and four? How do I know? Probably. You see parents with kids, you’re going to see some forcing. Nothing wrong with that, I do it myself. If I didn’t give my kids a yank by the ear every now and then, we’d never get anywhere. Frankly, they need a swift kick every so often.”
“Thank you for being so frank,” said Becker. “Did you notice any men with boys? That’s not as common, is it?”
“No, it’s not. Except on the weekends. Then you see plenty of it, guys pushing strollers, guys with Cub Scouts, you name it.”
“How about today? Between three-thirty and four.”
“Look, I don’t really keep that close track of what I’m seeing when, you know? It all just kind of passes in front of you, people, just lots of people. You notice the real strange ones, or the real good-looking ones, but otherwise…” He shrugged. “I get paid to sell doughnuts, is what it is. I’m a people watcher, yeah, but I ain’t a student, if you see what I’m saying. Now you, you guys in the FBI are trained observers, right?”
“How about weight lifters?”
“I mean, you’re trained to look at a crowd and pick out the one guy you’re after by the way he’s walking, or something, right? Is it true you can look at a guy and see if he’s carrying a gun?”
Becker looked directly at the policeman, his eyes holding on the holstered pistol on the man’s belt.
“He’s carrying one, for instance,” Becker said.
Fred laughed. “No, I mean…”
“Did you see any weight lifters, any body builders, any men who were particularly pumped up?”
“That’s not uncommon these days.”
“Did you see anyone who looked particularly strong with a nine-year-old boy? That ought to be something a little different that you’d notice, wouldn’t it?”
Fred paused for a moment, his eyes falling from Becker to a point in the middle distance. He even took the toothpick from his mouth.
“No,” he said at last. “I don’t think I saw that combination.”
“Did you see any men who looked like that at all, with or without a kid? Did you see any men out of the ordinary, period?”
The manager shrugged again. “What’s ordinary? We get all kinds in here. We get the whole world through here, eventually. But no, I know what you mean, and no. I didn’t see anybody like that. I didn’t see anybody I’d call suspicious at all.”
Becker started to leave, then pivoted on his heel and came back for one more question. This time the policeman made no attempt whatever to disguise his annoyance.
“Were the people from the nursing home gone by the time the kids from the school got here?”
Fred stared at him blankly for a moment before Becker continued.
“You would have noticed that. Children mixing in with the walkers and wheelchairs. Did you see that?”
The cop turned to Becker and spoke to him for the first time.
“You’re thinking somebody put him in a wheelchair and took him out that way?”
“Seems possible.”
But the manager was shaking his head. “Nah, the old people were long gone. They don’t have that much attention span, you know. Or they get cranky, I don’t know. They never stay more than a couple hours before their nurses wheel them out of here. They were gone before lunch.”
“Are you certain?”
“Absolutely. I was hoping to sell them doughnuts at lunchtime. They love sweets, you know.” Fred spoke as if he were referring to 3 different species.
“Who does?”
“Old people.”
“And children?” Becker asked.
“And children. And I didn’t make any sales to either one of them, come to that. Too much supervision. Entirely too much supervision.”
“It’s like that every time,” Karen said as they drove back toward Clamden. “That’s why we call him Lamont; he seems to get around like The Shadow.”
“He’s not invisible,” Becker said.
“Of course not,” Karen said. “There’s probably another word for someone who can come and go unseen.”
“He’s seen,” Becker said. “He’s just not remembered.”
“Because he clouds men’s minds.”
Becker put his head all the way back against the headrest and tried to ignore the speed at which Karen was driving. She used the car as an instrument of her anger, battering space with it.
