Stevie went on. "So I crawled under there and buried myself up but it didn't help, I still couldn't do it, and anyway you got mad at me for getting so dirty and going outside and so I didn't try that again."
My son was under there, Step thought. He wanted to scream the way he had screamed after the Fourth of July picnic. But he held it in.
"I didn't know what to do anymore," said Stevie, "and so I gave up, I thought nobody could ever see them.
But I couldn't just let him go on doing it, could 1, Dad? That wouldn't be right. They didn't like it, I knew that, even if they didn't tell me how much it hurt."
He looked at the other boys, and some of them looked away, perhaps ashamed.
"So I remembered what you said about how bad people hate the truth, it scares them, so I broke the rules and I went outside when he was doing the lights and I said, I know what you're doing, and he said, I don't know what you're talking about, and I said, They told me about you, and he said, Who told you? and I said, They told me about Boy, and I said, Mr. Douglas is a friend of mine, I met him, and he said so. And I said, You got to stop, and he said, I already did. He said, Boy don't do that no more. But I knew he was lying, because I could see that Boy wasn't like they told me, Boy wasn't somebody else, he was Boy, Boy was his own self, and then I ran to get back in the house but I wasn't fast enough."
DeAnne was crying now, her face covered in her hands, and Step could feel tears on his own cheeks, because now he knew, beyond all doubt, beyond all hope, that there were eight lost boys, not seven, sharing Christmas in their house tonight. Eight lost boys, not seven, buried in the crawlspace.
"And I thought I wrecked everything," said Stevie. "But then I knew that I didn't at all. Because I did know how to make you see me. It was really hard the first night and I think a couple of times you didn't see me when you were supposed to, but I got better and better at it and then I really could show them how because I was like them now, and so Daddy, here we are, and you got to call Mr. Douglas because Boy is still there and he's got to stop."
"Yes," said Step. "Will you stay, boys? Till Mr. Douglas comes?"
They didn't answer; they looked at each other, some of them, and others looked at the floor.
"They're afraid of seeing him again," said Stevie. "The old guy."
"Boy" whispered one of Stevie's friends.
"Boy," echoed several others.
"I know what we should do," said DeAnne. She was trying to sound cheerful, despite her tears. "You've all sat here and seen what our family does for Christmas Eve. Why don't you each tell the rest of us what your family does. You don't have to if you don't want to, but I'd really like to know, because I don't think any two families in the world do Christmas exactly alike. What about you, Jack?"
DeAnne led them in sharing tales of Christmases past as Step went to the kitchen and called the police station. "Call Mr. Douglas and tell him that Step Fletcher has to see him tonight. I know it's Christmas Eve, but tell him that the answers are all here but only if he comes now to see them with his own eyes."
Step worried for a moment that this policeman might be too fearful of offending someone, of losing his job or a promotion, to dare to call his boss on Christmas Eve.
"I promise you, my friend," said Step, "that if you make this call, you'll be giving Doug Douglas the best Christmas present he ever had."
"Easy for you to say," said the man. "But I'll give it a shot and see if he wants to talk to you."
It seemed less than a minute-yet such a long time-before the phone rang. Step picked it up so fast it barely had time to echo.
"What have you got on Christmas Eve, Mr. Fletcher?"
"I had the list before, Mr. Douglas, and that wasn't a fake, right? I told you the truth, right?"
"Right."
"Come now, come quickly. I have all the answers here. But no lights, no sirens. Because you'll frighten them and they might go."
"Them? Who?"
"The boys, Mr. Douglas." Step hung up, trusting that Douglas would have faith enough in him to come.
He got there before the boys had finished telling all their memories. He came in quietly, and when he saw them gathered there, Step could see the hope in his eyes, the wonderment that they were not dead after all. But then he saw Step's face, and Step knew that it was no secret that he had been grieving, and then Douglas began to understand. "Your boy really did see them," said Douglas.
"All along," said Step.
"But why is it that we can see them now?"
"Because Stevie showed them how. And he kept them here so you could see them."
Douglas walked slowly, carefully, to the center of the room. "Ah, boys. If only I could have found him sooner. If only I could have stopped him before ... But I can stop him now. Just tell me who it is."
So Stevie told it all again, and this time with more details. The deep place under the house. How he didn't really understand what had happened to his friends until he saw that place and then he made them tell him, and he made them tell him who it was, too. "Bappy" he said.
"Boy," said a couple of the others.
"Baptize Waters," said Step. "Our landlord's father. He used to live here. I wrote down his address and phone number for you while you were on the way."
"Boys," said Douglas. "I'll tell you something. I don't think you should ever see that man again. I don't think any children should ever have to see him again."
They nodded.
"So I promise you that if you stay right here in this room for just a little while longer, you won't ever see him again. And if you wait, I'd like to call your parents. I'd like your parents to have a chance to see you."
"They'll be mad," said one of the boys. "I didn't stay where I was supposed to."
"No," said Douglas. "I've talked to all of them and I can promise you that not one of them will be mad. Not one. Can you stay just that much longer?"
"It's hard," said one of the boys.
"Then I'll hurry."
Douglas left the room, went into the kitchen. Step could hear him phoning, speaking quie tly. Later he would learn how the phone calls went. We have found where the bodies are hidden, and your son is one of them. But there's also something else, a chance of something else, to say good-bye to your son, if you hurry.
Tell no one. Come quickly They didn't understand, of course, but they came. And soon they had spread out through the house, the grieving parents, the boys, shy at first, and softspoken, for none of them was as strong as Stevie.
And while they talked inside the house, the policemen worked beneath it and outside it, and the bodies were brought out one by one on pallets and were laid under the bright lights on the lawn. Bappy was brought to the house on Chinqua Penn, he and his son and his son's lawyer, furious at first about being dragged out here on Christmas Eve. But then they saw the bodies on the lawn, and the son turned to the father, and in a voice rising steadily to a shout, to a scream, he said, "You told me you stopped. You told me you were too old to want it anymore. But you didn't stop, you old son-of-a-bitch, you went on doing it only now you killed them!" Weeping in shame and rage and terrible memories of his own, the son shoved his father to the ground and then he kicked him until the police grabbed him and held him, and he stood there sobbing. "He said he stopped. I would have told you about him if I'd known he was still doing it, if I'd known he'd do this, I would have told you."
"So why didn't you tell us anyway?" asked Douglas.
For a moment he couldn't think of how to say it. And then he could. "He's my father."
"It wasn't me," said Bappy.
"Yes it was," said Douglas.
"It was Boy," said Bappy. "I never wanted to. What do you think I am, anyway? I'd never do anything like this. It's always that Boy."
All of it was on videotape. The son. The father. The grim- faced lawyer urging them both, far too late now, to be quiet, to say no more. All on tape, and so there was no need for any of the men outside the house to see or even know about what was happening inside.