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Quietly, Toby said, “I got breakfast.”
“Stay there! Don’t move a Goddamned inch!”
“I lost my supper last night!”
Before going into the shower, Spike said, “You stay there!”
Toby stayed there.
* * *
When Spike came out of the shower, Toby said, “Spike? When you take a shower, do you take the glass eye out of your head first?”
“Jeez!”
“I just want to know.”
Spike said, “It’s not gonna be hard to twist your head off. Fac’ is, it’ll be a pleasure.”
He began getting dressed.
“There’s a swimming pool,” Toby said.
Spike said nothing.
“Special kind of water. Guaranteed to get you wet.”
Spike looked at him.
“It’s a nice day,” Toby said. “Sun’s out hot.”
Spike checked his hair in the mirror.
“There’s a place across the street. A shopping center. We can get all kinds of things there. Pajamas. Toothbrushes. Clothes. Swim suits.”
“You think you know everythin’, doncha?”
“I went on an explore.” Toby giggled. “I even found the Silvermine.”
“Well, you don’ know nothin’. Fac’ is, I’m goin’ for breakfast. And you’re goin’ to stay here. Then we’re goin’ to stay in this room until we get a telephone call. Until your mother calls.” Spike checked his pants pocket for the room key. He switched on the television. “Here, you look at T.V. See if you can learn somethin’.”
After Spike left, Toby heard the sound of the key in the lock. On the television a man in a yellow suit was telling the story of Moses in the bulrushes. “And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive….”
Toby got off the bed and went to the door. He tried the handle. The door opened. No one was in the corridor. He went back into the room, pushed a chair into line with the television and sat down.
“And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother….”
Eighteen
“Mr. Ambassador?”
Sylvia Menninges’s voice blurted through the intercom. Again, Teddy had been sitting at his desk, staring at his wastebasket.
“Yes.”
“Assistant Secretary of State Skinner. Line 253.”
“Yes.” He picked up the phone. “Yes?”
“Teddy! How goes the battle?”
Teddy remembered he was to be hearty with Pat Skinner. Characteristically hearty. He and Pat had known each other since Government 101 at Harvard. They were friends. Which was why Patrick Skinner had been named Assistant Secretary of State when Teodoro Rinaldi had been named Ambassador to the United Nations: almost exclusively to deal with Teddy.
The Ambassador tried to lighten his voice. “How be Frannie and the little skinnies?”
It was stupid of him to ask about Pat’s wife and children. They had talked just after lunch yesterday.
“Teddy, what’s the matter?”
“Guess I didn’t sleep too well last night.”
“Well, you must be relieved at the good news this morning.”
“What good news?”
“Monday night. You get to introduce your Resolution Monday night.”
“Oh.”
“You didn’t know that?”
“No.”
“I should think your office would have had that information by seven thirty this morning. Don’t they check?”
Teddy’s eyes wandered slowly to his desk calendar. It’s Friday noon.
“I mean, it’s sort of imperative you know how much more time you have to negotiate.”
Indeed, Teddy thought, to negotiate the life of my son.
“How did the meeting with the Iranian bunch go this morning?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The Iranian delegation. You said you were going to meet with them at eight thirty,”
“…I didn’t see them.”
“Oh. You were meeting with the East German delegation at ten.”
Teddy said, “I didn’t.”
The extension buttons on his telephone had been flashing all morning, but Teddy had been only dimly aware of them. They’ve been leaving me alone! The staff has been leaving me alone. Damn, dear Ria Marti. Now they all must know something’s wrong.
“Mr. Ambassador,” Pat Skinner said. “You have a bit of a hangover this morning, or something?”
“Yes,” Teddy said. “It’s possible. Something like that.”
“Well, you have the weekend,” Pat said.
“Yes. I have the weekend,” Teddy said. “Pat, I’ll call you back.”
* * *
Pat Skinner walked into the enormous office of the Secretary of State. The Secretary, coat off, shoes off, was sitting back in a recliner lounge near the fireplace, reading. His briefcase was open on the floor beside him.
“Morning,” Pat said. “Just talked with Rinaldi.”
“And how’s Rinaldi?”
“Showing signs of stress.”
“Oh?”
“His concert’s Monday night. Eight P.M.”
“Resolution 1176R….” the Secretary said, “to work longer, harder, more intelligently…diplomatically—if I may use such a stupid word—than Teddy Rinaldi has on Resolution 1176R.”
“All that won’t do any good, Mr. Secretary, if when the curtain goes up, ol’ Teddy can’t play his fiddle.”
“That bad?”
“Stress level seven…nine…”
“This whole world,” the Secretary said, “is run, always, by tired people. People who eat a little too much, drink a little too much, take a few too many pills, sleep too little. History,” he said, looking over the rims of his glasses, “is nothing more than the best arrangements that can be achieved by tired minds.”
“Just thought I’d alert you,” Pat said.
“It would be too bad if we had to back away from this Resolution, from supporting it.”
“It would.”
“Which of course we’ll have to do if you tell me Teddy’s chances of carrying it off are slipping.”
Pat Skinner took a deep breath. “I know.”
The Secretary of State said, “Keep me informed.”
* * *
Alone in his office, Teddy was staring off into space. Earlier that morning, Mrs. Brown had come into the dining room where he was breakfasting alone.
“Nobody slept,” she said. “I spent the night awake. Whatever I did, it wasn’t sleepin’. No more the same for you, Mr. Ambassador.”
Her presence made him put some egg in his mouth.
“Oh, I had some horrible thoughts. I’m sure we all did.” She was pretending to do something at the sideboard—straighten something. “But I had some good thoughts, too, Mr. Ambassador. You know your son is a rare cookie.”
The egg yolk wouldn’t stay on his fork. “Is he?”
“Indeed he is, sir. He can handle himself, take care of himself, better than anyone would suspect. A genius at handling people. Put him in almost any situation, sir, and he never loses sight of his direction. Remember his wantin’ to go to that sailin’ camp? And the time he wanted that Egyptian boy to stay with him when our two countries weren’t precisely talkin’ that week? Well, sir, I tell you. If there’s a way out, don’t be too surprised if Toby finds it for himself.”
The Ambassador knew Mrs. Brown had been awake all night trying to think of something to say to make himself, Christina, the staff feel better.
He also knew his son, Toby, was only eight years old.
Standing by the kitchen door, innocent blue eyes sad, she said, “Now, what should I do about the carpets, sir?”
“Carpets?”
“Yes, sir.”
He stood up from the dining-room table.
“I don’t care. Give ’em to the Salvation Army.”
>
Nineteen
In Room 102 at the Red Star-Silvermine Motel, Spike and Toby were on their beds.
On the television there was a game show. The telephone had not rung.
The air conditioner was making a boring noise.
At breakfast, Spike had bought a newspaper he had been reading ever since. The headline read: WOMAN KEEPS HER BABY’S SKULL IN PURSE SEVENTEEN YEARS. The one under that read: STARS PREDICT FALL FROM HORSE FOR EX-PRESIDENT’S WIFE—Your Horoscope, page 36. I’LL NEVER LOVE AGAIN, Says Teenaged Star of TV’s “There’s Always Tomorrow.” Spike was taking a half hour to read each page.
“Spike?”
No answer.
“I’m hot.”
On the TV, people were guessing whether a particular young husband had ever tried on his wife’s brassiere.
“What’s a brassiere?”
“Dumb kid. Don’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’.”
It turned out the young man had tried on his wife’s brassiere, and everyone laughed, including the young man. Someone referred to it just as a bra. Toby knew what a bra was.
He got up and opened the drapes. A wide shaft of sunlight came into the room. It bleached the images on the TV screen. The noon news was coming on. Toby turned the TV off and flopped on his bed, belly down.
“Swim,” Toby said. “Pool.”
Spike said nothing.
“Place across the street. We can get toothpaste, swimming trunks, pajamas. Only, Mr. Silvermine says we have to drive across, because of the traffic.”
“Who’s Mr. Silvermine?”
“The owner. He wears shorts.”
Spike’s look was sharp. “You talked with him?”
“Had to. To get breakfast.”
Spike shook his head. “Jeez.”
Aloud, Toby read a headline from an inside page of the newspaper: “War Predicted for Persian Gulf. President Terms Oil Flow Essential for Free World Survival. What does that mean, Spike?”
“Means you’re a dumb kid what don’ know nothin’ ’bout nothin’,” Spike muttered.
“Oh,” Toby said. “I see.” Smiling, he put his face against his arms. “I get it now,” he said. “Anyway, I know what a bra is.”
Spike had unbuttoned his shirt.
“Spike? You like stayin’ in a room, just one little room like this, all the time?”
“Fac’ is, I’m used to it.”
Toby said, “So am I.”
“Sure, kid. You been in jail, too. Right?”
Toby lifted his head. “You been in jail?”
Spike shrugged. “Like everybody else. Twic’t.”
“For tearing that man’s stomach off?”
“Naw. They never caught me for that. The guy croaked. They never caught me for a lot of things. Just chicken-shit stuff.”
“Like what? What’d they catch you for?”
“Oh, when I was fourteen I borried a car. Somethin’ was wrong with the steerin’, you know? So I went a block or two and smashed into another car. Knocked me silly. So when the cops arrived, there I was, high as a grasshopper, asleep at the wheel. Unconscious. Reformed school for me.” Spike had put the newspaper aside. “For two years I had to eat burned rice. A lot a wet, burned rice.”
“We get rice at school.”
“Not wet, burned rice.”
“Wet, burned rice.”
“Not a lot of it.”
“A lot of it.”
“Other time, I was just outa reformed school. I was hungry. You never been hungry.”
“I been hungry.”
“No money. Unemployed. Who’d hire a kid who’d been in jail? All day I’d been waiting, you know? Money, food come from somewhere. Well, it didn’t. Ten thirty at night, I couldn’t stand it no more. Waited outside a bar. Decided to mug the next guy who came out. Well, fac’ is, I did, and fac’ is, he was a cop. Bye, bye, Spike, so long, nice to know ya. That place even had rice soup. You know, water with rice in it?”
“I know.”
“Whadda you know?”
“What’s jail like?”
“Spend a lot of time locked in a room. Even have the crapper in there so you smell yourself all the time; don’t have no place to go. No toilet seat. ’Fraid you’d wear it as a necklace or somethin’. Sit around the machine shop. Sit around the cell. Shavin’ and takin’ a shower, fresh clothes—things you really get to look forward to. And the guys you have to talk to! Stupid shits. If they weren’t stupid, they wouldna got caught.”
“You got caught.”
Spike looked at him. “I was just a dumb kid. Like you. Didn’t know nothin’. I know a lot more now than I did then. You’d better believe it. You don’t see me in jail now, do you?”
“It seems like we’re in jail.”
“Well, we’re not. I can walk outa this room anytime I want to.”
“Why don’t we?”
“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. School. Home to Mommy. Cookie-milk anytime you want it. Hugs and kisses, sleep tight, don’t let no skeeters bite.”
“No.”
“Whaddaya mean, ‘no’?”
“I don’t go to that kind of school. I don’t live at home.”
“If you don’t live at home, where do you live?”
“School. I live at school.”
“You live there?”
“Yeah.”
“Alla time?”
“Mostly.”
“No foolin’. What’s it like?”
“Big. Heavy, gray stone.”
“You have a room there?”
“A little room.”
“But you’re never locked in it.”
“Sort of. Every afternoon from four thirty to six, I have to be in there doin’ homework, and then again at night from seven thirty to nine. The lights go out at nine twenty, ready or not.”
“Yeah. But where’s the crapper?”
“Down the hall.”
“You can go there anytime you want….”
“You’re not supposed to. If you’re out of your room during those times and they catch you, you have to spend Sunday afternoon in detention hall.”
“But you can take a crap?”
“You’re supposed to before or after.”
“Jeez! Strict! Can’t even take a crap in your place or it’s solitary for you—no shit! What’d you ever do to get sent to a place like that?”
Toby shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m gettin’ a fine education, I guess.”
“Sounds worse’n my reformed school. They feed you good?”
“Lot a rice,” Toby said. “Lot a rice.”
“Where is this place of yours?”
“New Hampshire.”
“In the sticks?”
“What?”
“I mean, is it in the city or the woods?”
“Woods. Country.”
“You mean, even when you look through the window there’s nothin’ to see? No girls? Just fuckin’ trees?”
“I don’t think the trees around there fuck.” Toby smiled. “At least, I’ve never seen them.”
“You know what fuck means?”
“Yeah,” Toby said.
“Jeez. No wonder you’re in reformed school, age of ten.”
“Eight. I’m eight.”
“Worse. And you never get to go anywhere? You never get to go home?”
“Sometimes. Ten days. Last summer I went to a sailing camp.”
“Yeah, they were startin’ the furlough program second place I was at. Just like your place. Out in the sticks.”
“You know this motel has a swimming pool?” Toby said. “I seen it.”
“Mr. Silvermine says it has a special kind of water. I mean, in the swimming pool.”
“Yeah?”
“Guaranteed to get you wet all over.”
“I don’t swim so good.”
“I can teach you. A little.”
“I don’t need you teachin’ me nothin’.”
“Hot in here,
isn’t it?”
Spike sighed. “Yeah. What’s on the television?”
“Golf,” said Toby.
“Anybody who watches golf on television is a birdie,” said Spike.
“We can use the pool, you know,” Toby said. “Because we’re guests here.”
“Yeah? I suppose so.”
“Spike?”
“What.”
“Let’s go for a swim.”
“Naw. Have to wait for the telephone.”
“No, we don’t. I asked Mr. Silvermine. He said if a call came for us, I mean, if my mother calls, he’d transfer the call out to the pool.”
“You said what?”
“There’s a telephone by the pool.”
“Jeez, you had quite a chin wag with that old coot, didn’t ya?”
“He’s a nice man. Though I didn’t understand a lot of what he said. He’s been to Fantazyland, too.”
“You tol’ him you’re goin’ to Fantazyland?”
“Sure.”
“What else did ya tell him?”
“Nothin’. Waitin’ for my mother to call.”
“Tha’s good. Jeez, kid, you’re dumb.”
“Anyway,” Toby said, “we could get swimming trunks and toothpaste and clothes at this place across the freeway.”
“Jeez. Why didn’t cha call the cops?”
“Cops? Why would I call the cops?”
“I dunno, kid. I dunno.”
“Fact is, Spike, I need clothes. I’m hot. Mr. Silvermine says everybody here wears shorts. He wears shorts. He said you don’t see many people around here dressed like this.”
Spike tossed him a quick look. “He said that?”
“Yeah.”
Spike was biting the end of his thumb. “You may be right, kid. At that. Yeah.”
Spike sat up on the edge of his bed. “Yeah. Let’s go get you some clothes. Fac’ is, you don’t look right. Not at all. And that’s a fac’.”
Toby jumped off the bed.
“And swimming trunks, and pajamas?”
“Yeah, yeah. Maybe.”
“And then we’ll go to the pool?”
“Yeah. Maybe. Dirty bastids. Allus puttin’ us in a room and tellin’ us to stay there. Fuck ’em’s what I say.”
“Right!” Toby said. “Fuck ’em!”
Twenty
“Dubrowski’s OD’d,” Cord said over the phone to Turnbull. “Like fish on ice.”
“You gave money to a junkie before he did his job!”