THE LAST BOY (9 page)

“I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I don’t have any. Kids, that is.” He wondered why he said it. He thought with a touch of emptiness about his ex-wife, Kim, who never really wanted children.

She looked at him for a moment. Wondered why he had mentioned it. Wondered how it would affect the search for Danny. Could he really understand what she was going through?

He bent down and picked up the Lego windmill that lay on the floor.“Your boy make this himself?”

“Certainly wasn’t me.” Molly swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to smile.

“Pretty neat for a four-year-old,” he said spinning the blades.

“The only thing I was worried about was that he might go into contracting,” she said with a sad smile as she picked up his Nerf gun. She loaded it and shot it against the wall and watched as the Nerf bounced to the floor.“This was his favorite toy. He was always going around shooting everybody with it. Kept shooting me in the butt while I was trying to do the dishes,” she laughed and cried at the same time. “He played with the Pakkala kids in the other trailer. They have them, too. They’d have these Nerf wars.”

Molly dropped the gun and walked over to the dresser to pick up the empty picture frame. She held it as if the picture were still there.“He had such beautiful eyes. The longest lashes—” She finally realized what she had been saying.“I mean
has…
Has! He
has
beautiful eyes. He
plays
with the kids. Not played!”Then she broke down and wept. She cried and cried and couldn’t stop. Lou Tripoli put his arm around her and held her convulsing shoulders.

Molly was so tired she was numb. She put water on the stove to boil and sat staring into space, telling herself that as long as it was night there still remained a reasonable chance Danny would pop up. In her mind, daylight became the enemy. It represented a new phase, a new
page. She thought back on Tripoli…

“You gonna be all right?” he had asked when she had finally calmed down.

She wiped her eyes and nodded her head.“You want coffee or something? I can make some fast.”

“No, I’ve got to get moving,” he had explained.

“To where?”

“I’ve still got some ideas. Hey, mind if I take one of these?” he asked picking up one of the photos of Danny.

“Take a bunch. Take them all.”

“All I need is one. We’ll copy it into a report and every officer will have one in his hand.”

She took a piece of paper toweling from the kitchen and blew her nose.“You said you had ideas. Like what?”

Tripoli didn’t dare mention the red pickup, didn’t want to needlessly alarm her. He just shrugged and smiled encouragingly.

“You’ll find him, won’t you,” she said when he didn’t reply.

“I’m going to stay on top of it,” he responded, sidestepping the question. The answer, of course, was probably yes. Ultimately, the whereabouts of missing kids always became evident—in one form or another. Given the time that had already passed, unless an ex-husband or someone who had an insatiable longing for a child had abducted Danny, the probability of a happy resolution was rapidly diminishing. It was best she somehow prepare herself for the unthinkable, perhaps even get ready to bear the unbearable. But he didn’t say any of this.

He had put his hand on her arm. She had looked down at where he touched her. His hand was big and broad and there were little tufts of dark hair on the backs of his fingers. Then he had left…

The pot of water on the stove was boiling over, and it brought her back to the present. She stared at the dead screen of the television. Danny loved to watch cartoons—especially the old ones like
Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote. He would roar with laughter at Road Runner, then run in dizzying circles around the trailer making beep-beep noises and bumping into everything. Oh God, she moaned, he's still such a baby. If there has to be something bad, let it happen to me, not him.

Later, when she looked out the front window, there was still no hint of light. Good, she told herself, good, there's still time.

About five in the morning she dozed off, still sitting on the couch. The sound of a noisy truck starting its engine insinuated itself into her trailer. It was probably Rick Dolph going off to his job as a custodian, she reasoned somewhere in sleep. Then she dreamed. Disjointed, confused dreams. Dreams about a phone urgently ringing…

But the phone really was ringing. Molly popped open her eyes, trying to orient herself. She was sprawled half off the sofa, and the trailer park was humming with activity, radios and TVs blaring, babies crying, motors running. She could smell bacon frying. The sky had already lightened in the east. Morning. And Danny. He was still gone. The ringing kept going. Danny.
Danny!
Molly lunged for the phone.

“Molly!” cried a familiar voice. It was Rosie Green. They had been friends since junior high when she was Rosie Lopez.

“I just got to work,” exclaimed Rosie, “and I saw the morning paper. And my God—there's Danny's picture!”

“He's—” Molly started to cry.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I did. I did! I kept trying, but no one was—”

“I was overnight at my cousin's, remember?”

“Oh!” exclaimed Molly.“Damn! I forgot. I wasn’t thinking.”

“And Ed, he was—”

“Oh, Jesus!”

“I’m coming right over,” she said and hung up.

Ten minutes later she came rushing into the trailer. Molly threw herself into Rosie's arms and wept.

“What happened?” asked Rosie, stroking her.

Molly pulled her hands through her hair and shook her head.

“Did someone take Danny?” asked Rosie.

“I don’t know,” she sobbed.“I just don’t know. Nobody knows.”

Rosie sat Molly down and clutched her tightly. Simply waited for her to speak. Haltingly, Molly related how she had gone to Kute Kids to pick up Danny.“I was late!”

“That has nothing to do with anything. They’re supposed to be watching the kids, right? And the cops, what the hell are they doing?”

“They’re looking,” said Molly.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Rosie was now crying, too.

“Yesterday was a complete nightmare. Nobody's talking to any-body. The State Police didn’t even have a clue. And—”

“That's the police for you. When you don’t need them, they’re all over you, hassling the shit out of people. Then, when you
really
need them—”

“But Freddy's brother was here. He's on the case.”

“Who?”

“You remember Freddy Tripoli.”

“Sure.”

“Well his brother Lou is a cop. A detective now.”

“Oh, yeah. That's right…that's the guy who kept harassing my brother.”

“Well, he's in charge.”

“And we’re supposed to feel good about that?” asked Rosie.

“He seems like a smart guy. And he's really on top of it.”

“Well, maybe,” said Rosie grudgingly, “but I wouldn’t screw around. I’d get myself a private detective. Ed's got a cousin who's married to a…”

Molly weighed the idea. Thought about Lou Tripoli's visit.“No,” she said finally.“Not yet. We’ve got to give the cops a chance. I think they’re on top of it now. They’re going to find him. You’ll see.”And she tried to smile. Obviously Rosie didn’t really know what to do either. She kept pacing the trailer, wringing her hands and trying to come up with schemes. She’d get all her friends and relatives together and they’d form a search party. And they should call the FBI, of course! It was a kidnapping, right? And that was a federal offense.

“And how did Danny get out? Little boys don’t just evaporate.”

“I don’t know.” Molly tossed her hands.“That's the mystery.”

“Who the hell was watching him? Hey, wait! Did Danny do anything different that day? Say anything? Like maybe he wanted to go somewhere?”

Rosie kept going, searching for clues, but Molly realized that she was running through the same maze of questions that had plagued her all night. Yet there was comfort in having Rosie here, tracking back and forth, racking her brain. At least she wasn’t alone. She thought back about Rosie. How they’d been going to the same schools since the third grade. Most of the kids Molly had grown up with had left town in search of jobs and better lives—and some had ended up bouncing in and out of jail. Rosie had been one of the few to stick with her family in Ithaca. One of the few old and trusted friends she had left.

“I don’t believe this,” uttered Rosie, slumping back down on the couch next to Molly and taking her hand.“Oh, God, little Danny.” Her voice cracked.“He's like my own little boy.”

It was true. Rosie had helped take care of Danny since he was a toddler. It was little more than a month after Rosie had lost her own baby that she and Ed had taken Danny into their home so that Molly could commute to classes in Cortland. Without them, she would never have made it through the community college. And
they had refused to accept a penny. If that wasn’t friendship, then…

“Listen,” said Molly finally. “You’d better go back to work. I don’t want you getting in trouble.”

“I’m not leaving you,” said Rosie fiercely.

“I need to be alone a little,” she lied. “I haven’t slept and…”

Rosie looked askance at her.

“I’ll be okay. You’ll come back, right?”

“Of course!”

After Rosie left, Molly felt even more alone than before and regretted sending her off. She kept thinking about Rosie, whose newborn baby had died in her arms after four agonizing and uninsured days in the hospital. At the time, Rosie had been working at the auto body shop out on the Elmira road, keeping the books and inventory. Molly had once gone out to the shop to deliver something to Rosie. The building was enveloped in a fog of wretched-smelling solvents and paint, and Molly couldn’t guess how she could stand it. When Rosie had lost her baby, she was convinced it was because of the chemicals and swore she would never again expose her body to those kinds of poisons.

Now Rosie stood anchored to a cash register at the East Hill P&C, still working off the medical bills. Laid out end to end, the groceries she had checked through her line would probably reach another solar system. Her husband Ed, a black guy who was a union mason, earned a decent hourly wage when he worked. The trouble was that the building trades had come to a virtual stop. The last thing Rosie needed was to lose a day's precious wage.

Tripoli had trouble finding the magazine office. It shared the rear quarters of a low-slung, brick structure that sat on the edge of the industrial park by the airport, a drab affair in which someone had planted some young maples in the rear to break up the institutional bleakness. The building had been chopped up into a myriad of sections. Inside were a number of tiny biotech labs and a couple of startup electronic and software companies. The place smelled of chemicals and human sweat. The signs were confusing and, when he finally found it, there was no one at the front desk. Tripoli walked past the receptionist's desk and directly into the publisher's office.

Larry Pierce, who was on the phone, looked up, annoyed. “I’m busy,” he said covering the mouthpiece, “and my assistant's out. If you could—”

“I can wait,” said Tripoli calmly and seated himself, Larry letting out an impatient sigh and making no attempt to hide his annoyance. He watched Larry in amazement as he banged out an email, checked his Palm Pilot, fished through a drawer for a file, and checked the Caller I. D. readout on his cell phone clipped to his belt, all the while keeping rapid-fire conversation going. The man seemed to give multitasking a new dimension.

Tripoli took in Larry's side of the discussion. Something about rate of return, loans to the magazine that would be convertable stock.
Clearly he was hustling someone, trying to be smooth, but Tripoli could feel the waves of energy coming off the guy. Maybe this was the speed of the city, but he certainly was out of place in Ithaca.

From what Tripoli had managed to learn, Pierce had been a top editor at a New York magazine, the kind of bigshot for whom people would drop everything just to see him—cancel their appointments and divorce their wives. Yet here he was in a kind of self-imposed exile which Tripoli found a little hard to comprehend.

Tripoli was still waiting. In his sport jacket and tie, he figured Pierce had him pegged as a paper salesman or jobber. Everything fit except the five-o’clock shadow. He ran his hands across his jaw. God, he needed a shave. And a nice hot shower, too.

Larry drummed his fingers on his desk.

“Look,” he said impatiently into the phone,“why don’t you let me talk to your partner. A couple of quick minutes. That's all I’ll need…Okay. Okay. Look, I got somebody in the office now. Yeah. Right. Great!”Then he slammed down the phone.

“Okay,” he said at last, turning to the visitor. “I don’t have a lot of time today.”

“I’m Detective Tripoli.” He brought out his badge and took a perverse delight in Pierce's surprise, which made him realize that for some reason he didn’t really like the guy. Too full of himself. Pompous. A touch arrogant.“Ithaca Police.”

“
Huh?
”

“I understand Molly Driscoll works for you?”

“Molly's my editorial assistant, but…” His face turned florid. “What's the matter?”

“Was she here yesterday?”

“Yes. Yes. Of course.”

“The whole day?”

“Yeah. Well…”

“You were here all day yourself?”

“Except for a lunchtime meeting. Hey, what's up? What's this all about?”Apparently he hadn’t seen the paper.“Molly left a message this morning that there was some kind of family emergency and—”

“What time were you out for lunch?”

“I don’t know exactly. Well, maybe between quarter of twelve and two.” Pierce took off his glasses and rubbed the indentations on the bridge of his nose. Without his glasses he looked owl-eyed. “What gives, anyway?”

Tripoli kept going.“Was anybody else in the office then?”

“Sure. Molly was here. And Doreen, too. She's one of our senior editors.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“Of course.” He buzzed Doreen to come in.“Why don’t you at least tell me what's going on?”

“Her boy's missing. Disappeared out of daycare.”