“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“A goddamn bank robber. Haven’t I raised you better than that?”
“Yessir.”
And then we heard the first sirens, loud and near on the hot dark night.
“They’re probably going to get the body.”
“Yessir.”
He swigged more beer. “You let me go talk to Pike first. I’ll tell him everything and then I’ll call and have you come down.”
“All right.”
“He won’t be happy when I tell him about Cushing. He’s got a blind spot for that guy. Thinks he walks on water. I guess it’s because his own son died in that tractor accident awhile back and Cushing sort of fills the void. And Cushing’s own folks died in that car accident when he was ten.”
“Yessir.”
He stood up. “I’m going to go get ready. Put on a clean shirt and all.”
“Yessir.”
“I’m also going to tell your mother.”
I nodded.
He stood looking at me for a long time in silence then he shook his head and left the kitchen.
I went into the living room. I could feel this awful sadness come over me. I just kept thinking of Roy and how sad and frail he looked when he dropped the lighter because he’d been too sick to hold it up—
And right then I became aware of the lighter in my pocket. I dug it out and then turned on the floor lamp and held the lighter up to the round yellow bulb.
It was Roy’s, the Zippo with the skull and crossbones designed into the silver surface. I must have stuck it in my pocket after I lit his cigarette. I shoved it back in my pocket. I wasn’t going to mention it to anybody. It was something I intended to keep.
Clarence came down with Mom right behind him. They looked the way they usually do at funerals, grim in a very formal way. Clarence had on a short-sleeved white shirt and a dark pair of pants. He reeked of Old Spice. He walked over to me and said, “I’ll call you in a little while.”
I nodded.
Clarence went over and gave Mom a quick small peck on the cheek and then went out, the screen door banging behind him.
Mom went over and sat primly on the edge of the couch. I could tell she wanted to talk. I could also tell she didn’t know what to say.
After a time, she cleared her throat and said, “You’ve hurt your father very deeply.”
“I know.”
“He has to maintain a certain reputation in this town.”
“I know.”
“And he’s worried that you might—”
“I know what he’s worried about, Mom. That I might have to go to reform school.”
And then she broke into tears and in the light from the floor lamp she looked suddenly old and haggard and even more frail than Roy had there at the last, and so I went over to her and took her in my arms and held her and just let her cry the way Clarence would have in this circumstance. There really wasn’t much else I could do.
Every few minutes while we waited, I’d touch the lighter and think of Roy dying and I’d get sad all over again. I’d never see him or hear him again. That’s the strange part. How people just vanish from your life like that. Forever.
Just after eleven, the phone rang. Mom insisted on getting it.
After she spoke a few words standing next to the stairway, I knew she was talking to Clarence.
She still looked pretty old, as if some kind of age transformation had taken place just in the last hour and a half.
Then she said, “Your father wants to speak with you,” and held the phone out to me.
Clarence said, “You’d better get your butt over here fast. This isn’t turning out the way I thought.”
“I’m not sure what that means.”
“I can’t explain right now, son. But you get over here to the police station right now.”
“How about Barney?”
“You let Barney’s folks worry about Barney. Right now my only concern is you.”
“Yessir.”
This late at night, the old town was pretty neat. Almost nothing moved, all the cars were parked, all the people were inside, and the streetlight shadows gave everything the texture and depth of a very gentle painting of a small town all asleep.
I rode my bike through the empty town square and down the block past all the storefronts where the mannequins watched me go. Only the taverns were open, big hot smoky machines grinding out chilly neon light and jukebox wisdom and hard desperate laughter. As I went by I smelled yeasty beer and dirty cigars.
There was a Channel 3 station wagon parked in the No Parking space in front of the police station. Up on the top of the steps stood Chief Pike and Detective Cushing being interviewed by a whole gaggle of reporters. Everything was a blaze of light and a click and clack of still cameras and motion picture cameras. The mayor was there and all the city council and maybe six local gendarmes in uniform and—
And Barney.
He stood right between Pike and Cushing.
And as I dropped my bike on the sidewalk and started walking toward the front of the station, Barney started talking into this microphone this reporter had put in his face.
“How does it feel to be a hero, Barney?”
A hero? What the hell was going on here? All I could think of was how strange Clarence had sounded on the telephone, how he’d said, “This isn’t turning out the way I thought.”
And then Chief Pike saw me and shouted, “Look! There’s our other hero now!”
Fifty faces turned to look at me. Me — the most self-conscious guy I knew. Even walking up in front of a class to read a paper makes me sick to my stomach. All those eyes staring, staring — and right at me.
And the reporters deserted Pike and Cushing and Barney and came running down the stairs toward me.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I wanted to run but I knew I’d better not do that.
“How does it feel to be a hero?” asked this guy in a bow tie and straw hat.
“I’m afraid I—” I started to say.
Flashbulbs went nova in my face. I was blinded.
“No need to be modest,” another reporter said. “Detective Cushing told us all about it. How you and Barney called him and told him where to find Roy Danton. You boys are heroes!”
“Too bad Detective Cushing didn’t find the money, though,” said a third reporter.
“Danton hid it somewhere around here, you can be sure of that,” an auxiliary cop named Michaelson said. He was one of Cushing’s friends, or liked to pretend he was anyway. But mostly he was a fat, pushy jerk.
My sight was starting to come back.
I raised my eyes and looked up the stairs to Barney. He just shrugged, seeming just as confused about all this as I was.
“Even without the money, though,” the reporter with the bow tie said, “you boys’ll get some kind of reward. You just wait and see.”
And then I felt an arm slide around my shoulder and when I turned my head I saw Clarence.
“How does that boy of yours make you feel?” asked a reporter.
“Proud. Darned proud.”
“Let’s get a picture of you two just like that,” said a photographer.
Then they all started snapping pictures.
And then somebody had the notion of me and Clarence going up the steps for a group shot. And after the group shot—
“How about you two boys standing over there on either side of Detective Cushing? We’ll get a good shot of just you three.”
It was all kind of like a movie, real and unreal at the same time, especially the part where Barney and I stood on the step beneath Cushing so he could put his hands on our shoulders.
“That’s great! Just great!” cried the photographer. “Now if I could just get you boys to smile a little!”
Cushing dug his hands into our shoulders and leaned down and whispered, “I saved you two little assholes from going to reform school. So smile!”