I’m better at connecting things now.
Not right then, though. Not at the very beginning-before things got truly weird.
A man died in an accident and a woman turned 100, both on the same day.
Life and death.
It happens all the time, doesn’t it?
THE NEXT MORNING, I WENT ONLINE.
There’s a little-known Web site listing every registered sex offender in the United States-NSOPR.gov.
I’d already called the sheriff’s office for his name. Dennis Flaherty. From Ketchum City, Iowa.
The Web site is mostly visited by moms and dads who want to make sure that the neighbor who’s always staring at their 5-year-old hasn’t ever dabbled in pedophilia. These days, the authorities are supposed to alert you when a registered pervert moves into the neighborhood. It sometimes slips their minds.
In certain states, sexual predators can avoid jail if they agree to make themselves less dangerous. And how do they manage that? Not through therapy. It doesn’t work with NAMBLA members.
They agree to have their testicles taken off.
That’s right. Repeat offenders become like nervous batters against Roger Clemens: two strikes and no balls. It’s next to impossible to rape someone when your libido has been surgically removed.
I got no hits on Dennis Flaherty.
I tried spelling it differently.
Still nothing.
I kept at it for a while. I got a few Dennises, but no one who lived in Iowa. After a half hour or so, I gave up.
I switched to the online phone directory for Ketchum City.
There were three Flahertys.
The first one wasn’t home.
The second one said there was no Dennis in the house.
Then I tried the third one.
“HELLO?”
“Hi, this is Tom Valle of the Littleton Journal.”
“The Littleton what?” It was a woman. Older, her voice sounded weary, lived in.
“The Littleton Journal,” I repeated, remembering when I used to be able to impress people with something more prestigious. “It’s a newspaper. I’m calling about Dennis.”
“Oh.”
Bingo.
“May I ask what relation you are to him, ma’am?”
“Relation? I’m his mother.”
“Has anyone spoken to you about Dennis, Mrs. Flaherty?”
“Yes.”
“So you know about the accident.”
“Yes.”
“I’m terribly sorry for your loss.” It’s amazing how many times I’d uttered those words. To mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, fiancées, husbands, wives-often enough to have long ago achieved the utter hollowness of platitude.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Flaherty said.
“This must’ve been a shock to you.”
Silence. “Yes.”
“Did Dennis live with you, Mrs. Flaherty?”
“No. I’d lost touch with him.”
“For how long?”
“How long?”
“Since you’d last seen him?”
“I don’t know. Five years.”
“But you’d spoken to him?”
“No.”
“What kind of business was he in?”
“Business? Why? He died in a traffic accident. That’s what they told me. What does it matter what business he was in? I’d like to go.”
She didn’t. She stayed on the line-I could hear raspy, shallow breathing. A smoker, I thought. Probably widowed or divorced. I’d lost touch with him, she’d said in the flat consonants of the Midwest-not we’d. She sounded half-annoyed at the unexpected intrusion, but half-flattered at the attention. Maybe she didn’t want to answer my questions, but she couldn’t bring herself to hang up. Not yet.
“Was Dennis ever in trouble with the law, Mrs. Flaherty?”
“What?”
“Was Dennis ever arrested?”
“What are you talking about?”
I’m talking about your son’s castration.
“I’d like to know if he ever did anything he shouldn’t have? Something, I don’t know, sexual?”
“What is this? What are you asking me? My son was a good person. Any problems he had were because of her.”
“Her?”
“His wife.” She made wife sound like the worst vulgarity on earth.
“What problems were those?”
“His depression. His drinking. You try living with a whore.”
“So they experienced some marital difficulties.”
“She experienced every man who looked at her. She was trash. I don’t even know if my grandson…”
“Were they still married?”
“No.”
“When were they divorced?”
“I told you. About five years ago.”
She hadn’t told me. She’d told me she’d lost touch with her son around then.
“So he began drinking.”
“I’m getting off the phone. I’m not going to sit here and talk ill of the dead.”
Only of the dead’s ex-wife.
“One other thing… did Dennis ever have cancer?”
This time she meant it about getting off.
“No,” she said, and hung up.
IT ALL MIGHT HAVE STOPPED RIGHT HERE.
Right that very moment.
What did I have exactly?
Nothing.
A curious observation by the attending doctor-that’s all.
An accident victim missing his testicles.
It had piqued my interest, sure it had, but that wasn’t hard to do. Not these days. I covered birthday parties, traveling rodeos, and used-car dealership openings, a charity case quietly doing his penance.
It might have all stopped here.
Except for two things.
I LIVED IN A RENTED HOUSE.
When I came home, a plumber was working on my hot-water heater.
He was banging around downstairs with some kind of tool.
I hadn’t called a plumber.
When I informed him of this fact, he said, okay, then the home’s owner must have.
I hadn’t complained to the home’s owner.
My hot water was hot. There was nothing wrong with the heater.
Okay, he said, routine maintenance.
He smiled at me throughout. As if we were indulging in small talk at a party.
It made me feel uneasy. That and the slow realization we were alone in a basement. Basements are dark subterranean places you descended into at your own risk-every kid knows that. And there were other things. His face, for instance. His features were oddly indistinct-as if he hadn’t actually finished evolving yet. And there was his voice-squeaky high, as if he’d just sucked helium. It was decidedly creepy.
“Can I ask what company you’re with?” I said.
It was impossible to ignore what happened then.
To close my eyes to his ensuing hesitation.
Believe me, I tried.
There are certain questions bound to elicit a moment’s pause.
Do you love me?
Where were you tonight, honey?
Did you fabricate this story?
Yes, that one, too.
What company do you work for isn’t one of those questions.
I must’ve shrunk back, the way you can increase the physical distance between yourself and someone else without really moving. What you do in the presence of a stray dog who may, or may not, intend to rip your throat out.
You’re not supposed to show fear-every kid knows that, too.
We were both on to each other.
I felt the metal thing in his hand before I actually saw it.
SIX
It must’ve glanced off my forehead.
That’s what I determined later.
That I managed to turn my head just enough to avoid a dead-on blow. Nothing really hurt then-my nerve endings were numbed by the natural Novocain of raw fear.