“No. Not Dracula.”
“I get scared just talking about him,” Eric said. He shuddered. “Well, what are you scared of, if not him?”
“I don’t know.”
“There’s no ghosts, you know,” Eric said. “Mommy told me that.”
“I know there aren’t.”
“There aren’t, are there?” he asked doubtfully.
“No. No ghosts.”
“Or monsters either?”
“No. No monsters either.”
“Then what are you scared of?” Eric asked.
“Nothing,” Buddwing said, and he smiled. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” He rose and extended his hand to Eric. “Come on,” he said. “It’s time to go.”
“Why?”
“Well, we can’t sit here all day.”
“Why not?”
“There are things to do,” Buddwing said.
“We are doing things,” Eric replied.
“I know. I meant...”
“Don’t you like it here?” Eric asked.
“Yes. Yes, I do,” Buddwing said, and there was an oddly wistful note in his voice.
“Then stay.”
“No, I...” He looked at Eric’s face, the wide-open blue eyes, the plaintive mouth, and very gently he said, “You see, I lost something, Eric. And I have to find it.”
“What did you lose?”
“Myself,” he said.
Eric studied him for a moment, the blue eyes solemn, not sure whether this was another joke or not. And then he broke into cautious laughter and began walking up toward the highway with Buddwing. “How can you lose yourself?” he asked. “That’s impossible.”
“I don’t know how,” Buddwing said, smiling, “but I seem to have managed it.”
“Well, who are you, then?” Eric asked. “If you lost yourself, then who are you, huh?”
“Well, that’s what I have to find out, you see.”
They paused at the highway’s edge, waiting for a lull in the traffic. They crossed then, and again climbed the iron railing and walked up the steep grassy bank to the path. As they climbed the white steps near the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Eric asked, “What do you get if you find it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Yourself, I mean. If you find yourself, what will you get? Is there a reward?”
“Oh, certainly,” Buddwing said.
“How much?”
“Three cents and a collar button.”
Eric laughed.
“And also a used peach pit,” Buddwing added.
“What can you do with a used peach pit?” Eric asked, still laughing.
“You can make a peach-pit ring out of it,” Buddwing said. “Don’t you know how to make a peach-pit ring?”
They were coming up 90th Street now, walking toward West End Avenue. The sun slanted through the canyon ahead of them, dazzling in its brilliance. They walked in deep shade, but the sun was ahead of them, a bright dagger-shaped wedge of light, capping the buildings.
“No, I don’t,” Eric said. “Will you show me how to make one?”
“Too early,” Buddwing said. “Peaches aren’t in season yet.”
“When are they in season?”
“During the summer.”
“Will you show me how to make one in the summer? If I don’t go to camp?”
“If you don’t go to camp,” Buddwing promised, “I will show you how to make a peach-pit ring in the summer.”
“You think we’ll still be friends this summer?” Eric asked.
“I hope so.”
“I do, too. You’re a nice kid,” Eric said.
He looked at Eric, and for a moment his eyes filled with tears. He blinked them back. “Thank you, Eric,” he said. “You’re a nice kid, too.”
They had reached Broadway. They stopped on the corner where they had met.
“Well, I’ll see you,” Eric said.
“You bet.”
“You won’t forget my name, now, will you? Eric Michael Knowles.”
“I won’t.”
“Or the peach-pit ring?”
“No, I won’t forget.”
“Okay, Sam,” Eric said, grinning. Then he winked and said, “I’ll see you, huh?” and went into his building.
The shock was waiting at the next corner.
5
He was shocked only because he thought he had forgotten her, and then doubly shocked because even when he remembered her, he could not really remember who she was. She came out of a building on 89th Street and walked quickly to the curb, obviously looking for a taxicab. She was a girl of seventeen, with long black hair that was pulled to the back of her head in a ponytail. He could not see her eyes from this distance, but he knew they were a dark brown, and he recognized instantly the long-legged lope that took her to the curb. She was wearing black stretch tights under a black skirt. She wore a black sweater, too, and her pulled-back hair bobbed like some strange proud crest of feathers as she moved hurriedly to the curb, so that she resembled a rather tall and scrawny, black-legged, black-crested, black-breasted bird. He saw her raise her arm to hail a cruising cab, saw the taxi move toward the curb, saw her hand dart out to open the door of the car, and began running toward her instantly.
“Doris!” he shouted. “Doris!”
The girl did not turn; the girl gave no sign that she had heard him at all, even though he was shouting at the top of his voice. The taxi door slammed just as he approached the corner. He crossed the street against a light, and the taxi emitted a brief cloud of exhaust fumes and pulled away from the curb. He stood on the corner and frantically shouted, “Doris! Doris!” but the taxi was moving away, and he stood in undecided panic for just an instant, and then brought his lips back over his teeth and, using the whistle he had tried to teach to Eric, hailed the next taxi that came by. He scrambled onto the back seat and said, “Would you follow that taxi up ahead, please?” and the cabbie turned to look at him with a curiously sour expression, as though he expected to find a private eye in a trench coat and was disappointed to find only a rather ordinary-looking man in a blue suit. He nodded perfunctorily and set the cab in motion. Buddwing leaned forward, watching the rear of the girl’s cab, wishing his own driver would go a little faster, and then finally saying, “Don’t lose it, huh?”
“Mister,” the cabbie said with infinite patience, “I am going as fast as the law allows. You want to pay the fine if I get a speeding ticket?”
“Yes,” Buddwing said at once, knowing the possibility of the cabbie’s getting a ticket was extremely remote, and also knowing that his verbal agreement could hardly be held binding should the matter ever come to a legal test. “Yes, I’ll pay the fine. Now, hurry up, will you?”
“You’ll all pay the fine,” the cabbie said wisely, “until it comes time to pay the fine. Then nobody wants to pay the fine.”
“I don’t want to lose that cab. It’s very important to me.”
“It’s very important to me that I don’t get in trouble with the police in this rotten city,” the cabbie said. “Besides, the driver up there ain’t allowed to go any faster than I’m allowed to go. So sit back and relax, like the sign says, and leave the driving to us, okay?”
“All right, but don’t lose it,” Buddwing said, still leaning forward.
“I get it, I get it already,” the cabbie said. “You don’t want me to lose that cab, right?”
“That’s right.”
“I get it. Relax.”
Buddwing could not relax. His mind was swarming with a hundred thoughts, who was that girl in the cab ahead, he had called her Doris, who was Doris, how did he know her, how much would it cost to follow her through the city of New York with a meter ticking away, was it forty-five cents already, how much money did he have left, Doris, who was she, who?