The Boy Detective Fails (23 page)
Billy and the cleaning lady glance at one another, then around the great, empty office.
The actor continues with his story: “It seems the Axeman of New Orleans drew many revelations from pulp stories concerning Jack the Ripper. Like that other famous murderer, the Axeman penned frightening letters to the city’s various newspapers, often asserting he was a demon of some kind. On March 13, 1919, a letter allegedly written by the Axeman was published in the city’s newspapers, claiming that he would commit a murder just past midnight on the night of March 19, but strangely, or so the missive said, he would avoid any location where jazz music was being played. On that bizarre evening of March 19, 1919, every one of New Orleans’s dance halls was full of people, while bands played jazz music at gatherings at thousands of homes around the city. More odd, perhaps, was the fact that, as promised, there were no killings that evening.”
At the end of the program, Billy returns to his desk, thanking Lupe for sharing her small television. He stares at the phone, suddenly afraid to speak to anyone for quite a while. Instead, Billy tries his hand at solving Mr. Lunt’s riddle. Throughout the night, the single light above his desk flickering, Billy attempts to discover the secret to the old man’s clues—now his final words—a mysterious glimpse of someone Billy barely knew. Billy lowers his pencil for a moment and wonders:
Without death, there is hardly any threat strong enough to truly appreciate human life
. He thinks:
I am as good as dead
—
too afraid to live, only waiting, never taking a risk—I am as good as dead already.
Billy pops an Ativan and feels its effects quite quickly. He spins around in his chair, around and around and around, and the next thing he knows, he is
Again, returning from his job, the boy detective discovers some strange new commotion at Shady Glens. As breakfast is being served and beds are being made, the hospital staff is surprised to discover that Professor Von Golum disappeared sometime in the middle of the night. His clothes and personal effects have all been removed and a single note, left posted on Billy’s door, provides the only clue.
Billy,
I have deduced that it is the unknown which, in the end, sustains Life and since I am so nearing the termination of my own, I have decided to embark on one final adventure
—
better that than to die in the safety of deathly boredom. I must salute you for years of superb opposition. You remain, to this day, my greatest foe.
Yours truly,
Prof. Josef Von Golum
Billy stares at the note a moment longer and then crumples the paper into a ball and throws it as hard as he can down the hall. Within a few seconds, the object explodes in a flash of green fire and cloudy, phosphorous smoke.
Mr. Pluto begins to cry softly, staring at the vacant room. The giant lowers his head and says, “Our worlds are so momentary. We are alone all our lives and then go off that way as well.”
Holding Mr. Pluto’s hand, the boy detective walks to the small park, past the statue of the armless general. The two sit on a park bench, not speaking for a long time. It is a day where the sun has returned, but only temporarily: a soft white dot in the sky hanging there familiar and lazy. The gloom of the end of autumn is momentarily cast away as the two men sit, watching the children in their winter jackets chasing the pigeons. They sit and stare for quite a while until Billy says, “I have never been very strong nor brave. I would be quite happy to know someone who is.”
The giant nods.
“I would like to be your friend. I would like to be your friend because I would like to be remembered fondly by someone who knew me.”
The giant nods again.
“Would you like to be my friend?” Billy asks.
Mr. Pluto nods once more and, patting the boy detective on the shoulder, says, “Before you came to Shady Glens, I doubted I would have a friend ever again.”
“Well, I am glad that has been settled.”
“Yes. Yes, I am very glad.”
An inquisitive pigeon comes pecking near their feet. Mr. Pluto reaches into the pocket of his large overalls and, smiling, drops three small crumbs of bread at the cooing bird, which quickly gobbles them up.
“Well, what would you like to do now?” Billy asks. “I am free all afternoon.”
“I have never been to the museum. I have been too afraid someone would laugh at me. Would you like to go there with me?”
Billy nods and the two march off toward the art museum, a strange-looking white building which rises before them a few short blocks away.
Stumbling into his room later that afternoon, the boy detective receives another secret message. It is like the others, in a white envelope with simple black handwriting. Opening it, he finds a similar code:
K-24
15-22-25-25-12,
14-15-5-14-16-14-17-14-15-5-14!
Billy’s nose twitches. There is something about this third message, unlike the two others—perhaps the strange symmetry of the coded words rising like a wonderful little pyramid—that makes Billy decide to sit down on the dusty spring bed and, with a pen and pencil, begin to solve the secret message. It does not come easy at first. But when he discovers the pattern, the message quickly reveals itself. He stares down at the words and does not like what he has discovered—no, not at all. He crinkles the paper up into a ball and hides it beneath his mattress.
Billy lays in bed wondering who might have sent such a thing
. Why, why, what is the meaning?
He scrambles and takes the last of his Clomipramine. He stares at the vial of pills sadly and searches for his bottle of Ativan. It too is empty, and Billy decides not to ask Nurse Eloise for any more. He decides he will face the world of mystery now on his own. Thinking once again about the message now balled under his mattress, Billy turns on his side and stares at the newspaper clippings of Caroline and Fenton on the wall, wondering.
In the twilight just before evening, the boy detective is surprised to find both of the Mumford children standing among the graves of the Gotham town cemetery. Effie Mumford in her purple and white winter jacket, black headphones clamped over her ears, holds a large microphone raised between her hands, aiming the device at a large gray headstone near their feet.
“How is your experiment going?” Billy asks with a small smile.
“The dead are quiet tonight,” the girl says. “All we have recorded so far is a strange sound coming from that mausoleum over there. We thought someone was singing, but then we heard the record skip.”
“I see. Perhaps someone requested that a certain song be played over and over again after their death.”
“Gus ran away from it at first.”
Gus Mumford, in a hat and scarf and holding a small silver compass, nods, embarrassed. He hands Billy a note:
It most definitely sounded like a ghost.
Billy smiles. “I understand,” he says.
“What are you doing here?” Effie Mumford asks.
“I do not know, really. I saw the gates and decided I would walk inside. I have not been here in quite a while.”
“Do you know anyone who’s buried here, Billy?”
Billy stares across the great wide expanse of gray headstones and frowns.
“Yes, I am afraid I do.”
Without a word, Billy heads over a small green hill, down a stone path, to a large grave marker, the two Mumford children following, both holding his hands now. There, at the end of the little path, is an enormous slab of stone which reads,
DAISY HOLLIS, beloved daughter
. Billy lowers his head and whispers, “If you’ve come to find a ghost, this is as good a place as any.”
“Who is it?”
“A young girl. But she is not in there.”
“Why not?” Effie Mumford asks.
“The body, sadly, was never found.”
“Oh, that is terrible,” Effie says. “I bet she is a ghost just waiting to be seen.”
The wind whips through the empty trees, howling behind their backs then.
“Perhaps,” Billy says. “Perhaps, all this time she has been patiently waiting.”
It begins snowing. This makes it seem like all the gravestones are somehow frowning.
At work that evening, the boy detective sits at his desk, staring at Caroline’s small gold diary. He flips through it for a moment, then picks up the phone and calls his parents.
As the telephone on the other end picks up, he knows immediately it is his father who has answered. He can tell because he recognizes the sounds of his backyard, and from his father’s labored breathing he knows that he has been practicing karate, breaking boards with his bare fists.
“Father … it’s me, Billy.”
“Billy, my boy, how have you been?”
“I … I have some questions I’d like to ask, Dad.”
“Well, sure, of course, of course. What’s the matter, son?”
“Well, I guess I was looking through Caroline’s diary, and there’s a page missing.”
“Didn’t we talk about how that wasn’t a good idea, you ruminating on these kinds of things?”
“Yes, I … I don’t know, I …”
“Well, you know how I feel about you dwelling on the past. Let me ask this: Have you been exercising?”
“No, I mean, I … I was thinking … about Caroline, right before she died.”
“Oh no, Billy, it’s not healthy for you to be still focused on this. Did you read that last book we sent,
Grief Is OK
?”
“No, no, I can’t read those books anymore. I just need to talk with you about this. I need to know what happened.”
“Well, it’s not a good time. Your mother and I … well …”
At that moment, Billy hears the crackle of electricity and imagines the fizzy tang of test tubes bubbling, as Mrs. Argo suddenly picks up the extension.
“Billy, this is your mother. This is a very bad time, darling.”
“But, I—”
“Your father and I are having a rough time now, dear. We’re talking about getting a divorce. It’s very tense here. He’s out in the backyard breaking boards all day.”
“Well, if I was
allowed
in the house, but it isn’t my house, is it, darling? I only worked my whole life—”
“Please, listen, I need to speak with you both about this,” Billy says.
“That’s not going to be helpful right now, Billy. Your mother, she’s … she’s contemplating becoming a painter and leaving me for an ambassador from Zaire.”
“But please, listen, I need to know.”
“You’re an adult now, Billy,” his mother says. “Part of being an adult is dealing with the terror of being an adult and not knowing what might happen next. Maybe the doctors misjudged you. Your father and I weren’t quite sure you were ready—”
“Mom, Dad.”
“No, ands, ifs, or buts, Billy. You’ll get through this, champ, I promise. Keep your chin up and sail straight ahead, partner.”
“But Dad—”
“We’ll speak again soon, my boy.”
“Goodbye, Billy.”
Billy hangs up the phone and stares at the diary. He flips through the pages and comes to a page with some clippings pasted on it. There is a photograph of all of them so young—Billy, Caroline, and Fenton—all smiling.
Billy places his finger on top of Fenton, slowly, sadly tapping. He stands, carrying the diary, leaving his desk.
On the bus, the boy detective opens his briefcase, then stares at the closed diary and Caroline’s fingerprint set.
There again is the label which has been perfectly typed and reads,
Property of Billy Argo
, but the
Billy
is crossed out and has been replaced by a handwritten
Caroline
in cursive. Beside the label is a small black thumbprint that belongs to Caroline. He stares at the small formations of ridges, and remembers the subtle softness of each one.
The boy detective stands on the front porch of a small yellow house and rings the door bell. The porch creaks as he waits. An overweight woman in a yellow housecoat answers. She is wearing furry blue slippers. She stares into Billy’s face and is nearly speechless, her eyes going wide, her lips fluttering.
“Is that you, Billy Argo? Is that really you?”
“Hello, Mrs. Mills.”
“He’ll be … he’ll be so happy to see you.”
At that moment, like most moments, Fenton Mills is lying in bed. He is massively overweight. His room is like an eight-year-old’s: Pennants of sports teams are posted on the walls, comic books are strewn wildly across the floor. There are newspaper clippings from all of the boy detective’s cases pinned to all the walls. Fenton’s mother calls from the other room, excitedly, “Fenton, Billy Argo is here to see you!”
Billy enters Fenton’s room, very slowly. He stares at his old friend and smiles a small, nervous smile.
“Fenton,” Billy says. The other young man does not respond. He is enormous, in large white and blue pajamas, lying in a small white bed. He is deeply embarrassed of his large size. His little blue eyes dart about the room nervously, terrified to glance upon his old friend’s face.
“Billy,” he replies finally.
“I believe you’ve been sending me letters of some kind.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“You haven’t been sending me secret messages?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Nothing about ‘Abracadabra’?”
Fenton’s large, round face goes soft. He nods as his eyes get cloudy. “It was the only way I knew you’d answer me,” he says. “I tried forever to get ahold of you. Why didn’t you ever call me back, Billy? I called you in the hospital! I even went there, but they said you didn’t want to see me. How come?”
“I … I couldn’t see anyone. I didn’t want to see anyone. I’m sorry.”
“Do you have any idea what happened to me? Look at me for God’s sake, Billy.”
“I’m … so sorry.”
“You wouldn’t even talk to me at the funeral. I tried to talk and you wouldn’t even talk to me. Until you blamed me, Billy. You fucking
blamed
me.”
“Fenton, please. I need you to forgive me.”
“Why should I? You’re a real asshole, you know that? You’ve made me feel like shit, because I thought I had done something wrong or something. You said … you said it was my fault.”
