Neither of the two answered. One, however, stepped past Edward and peered into the living room. Professor Latzarel waved out at him. “We’re authorized to search your house,” said the other officer, a burly man with a nose like a golf ball. “This is the house belonging to the alleged suspect?”
“To Mr. Hastings?” Edward asked. “Yes, it is. I’m his brother-in-law.” He showed the two in. “Cup of coffee?”
“No,” said the one with the nose.
“What is it, exactly, that you were looking for?”
“Didn’t we just say?” said the other, scowling at Edward. “William Hastings.”
“Oh!” Edward said, feigning surprise. “Here?”
Both of them gave him a long tired look, as if to suggest that he’d best think twice about cracking wise.
Edward decided to brass it out. “I had no idea he’d headed this way. None at all.”
“Right,” said the burly one.
“In fact,” said Edward, following the two into the hallway, “I suggested to Dr. Frosticos that Mr. Hastings had fled north — to Humboldt County. He’s done it before. He’s not entirely well, if you catch my meaning, and he has the peculiar notion that northern California is a sort of magical place.”
“Do you have any knowledge of his actual whereabouts?”
“Actual knowledge of his actual whereabouts? No. Not actual knowledge. Just a hunch. He used to take a cabin every spring off Trinity Head. Last time he escaped they found him holed up there.”
“Take this down,” said the burly one to his partner, who hauled a little notebook out of his pocket and scribbled into it.
Professor Latzarel wandered in from the living room. “Can I be of any help?” he said.
“No.”
“I know a good bit about human psychology,” Latzarel said, as if that revelation would change things entirely.
“Me too,” said the one with the bulbous nose. “Piss-cology is what I call it.” He pushed open the door to Edward’s room, freezing at the sight of the mobile of stuffed bats that hung in the center of the room and at the mummified head and shoulders of a human being that sat in a glass case on the dresser. The floor around the bed was a whirlwind of books and papers.
Golf ball nose squinted at Edward, unsure, perhaps, whether he hadn’t ought simply to shoot him at once. “Take this down,” he said to his younger companion, waving generally at the room. Then under his breath he muttered, “Some people live like pigs,” and pushed down the hall past Edward and Latzarel who followed along, both of them wondering exactly how the bats and mummy contributed to Edward’s living like a Pig.
The rest of the house yielded nothing revealing. They tramped in a procession out the back door and into the maze shed, where the axolotl and the baithouse octopus drew more utterances of contempt. Finally, after glancing into the aquarium shed, they shined flashlights under the house, having heard, perhaps, that William had been known to hide there. They left without a word.
Five minutes passed before Edward dared give William the all clear. It was entirely possible that the two would simply circle the block and return, hoping to catch them out. But there was no further sign of them. The street was empty and the rain began to pour. Edward and Professor Latzarel hurried out into the back yard and around the maze shed, tapping three times on the side of a fifty gallon plastic trashcan. The lid tumbled off, followed by a cardboard carton of grass clippings that fit neatly into the can. William came smiling out from beneath it, his hair fall of cut grass.
Chapter 17
The weeks passed. William would have supposed they’d fly by, since time was so short and their efforts to locate Giles so entirely futile. But they didn’t. They crept along like bugs, peering at them day to day, crawling toward the end of March and — William was increasingly certain — an end to all things, to human dreams and illusions.
With the approach of the first day of spring — dismal, upended days that never really dawned but simply murked into a sort of gray drizzle that continued into the evening — came an ice cream truck. Whether it was Pinion’s truck, Edward couldn’t say. Neither he nor Jim had paid enough attention to it to identify it for certain. And anyway, Pinion wasn’t driving it. An Oriental man, not Yamoto, hunched behind the wheel, playing tinny jingles through a speaker perched on the top of the truck. He appeared from the mist, driving slowly but apparently pointlessly along the street. For when Edward, in a sudden fit of suspicion, hailed him through the drizzle waving a dollar bill, the truck rumbled away down the block unheeding. The same thing happened the following afternoon.
The two policemen returned twice, asking about the alleged suspect, but William was too quick for them, going to ground in his trashcan until the baying of the hounds faded. On their second visit they performed a cursory sort of search — a tired search, as if under orders. On the third visit they stood on the porch and threatened Edward with a jail term for harboring a criminal. Edward played the fool.
Mrs. Pembly, blessedly, was off visiting a sister for the first week, and so was unaware of William’s return. And later, when she spied him one afternoon through the window, it was possible that she had no way of knowing that he was a wanted man, that he hadn’t been released from the asylum. Edward made it a point to be obsequiously nice to her, giving her a bagful of avocados once and assuring her in heartfelt tones that William, finally, had come to his senses. Edward himself would guarantee his good behavior. Twice he had to talk William out of going for her when the mysterious and inexplicable globs of dog waste appeared under the elm. It was almost more than William could bear.
Professor Latzarel haunted the bluffs at Palos Verdes, standing on the cliffs like Moses, hoping that the seas would swirl and part to reveal a long straight corridor into the Earth, or that Giles Peach would rise out of the depths like an undernourished Neptune and give him a sign. But there was nothing but seagulls and wind and the sound of breaking waves until the end of the second week of William’s freedom.
Then a postcard arrived — from Giles. It had been mailed in Windermere a week earlier. He’d sent it to his mother who brought it along at once to Edward. Giles had gone off to find his father, and to “think things through.”
“Think things through?” said Professor Latzarel. “Why the devil would anyone go to England just to think things through? It’s a miserable place in March. Nothing but cold and rain. And why couldn’t he have stayed here and thought?”
“He wanted to confront his father, I suppose,” said Edward.
Latzarel shook his head as if he found the whole thing hard to believe. “I hope so. Because once Basil finds out that Frosticos has gotten hi? hands on Giles, he’ll take steps. How much do you think he knows about Reginald’s fate?”
Edward shrugged.
“I rather think,” said William, lighting his pipe, “that there’s more to this than meets the eye.”
“Isn’t there always?” asked Latzarel.
“I mean to say that Giles didn’t come to this decision alone. He was sent to Windermere. Frosticos and Pinion were through with Giles, and they feared that we’d get hold of him. They’re more worried about us than we give them credit for. They’ve shipped him off.”
“But they need him,” Edward complained. “To run the machine. They wouldn’t dare take the chance of letting him roam so far. Not now.”
William shook his head, playing devil’s advocate. “How do you know they need him? That’s speculation. The digger is finished — all signs point that way. Perhaps whatever magic Giles put into it is there to stay.”