Ed shook his head. A drop of drool ran down his lip. The detective was about to wipe it off with a napkin when Ed slid the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Nothing ever lasts,” Ed said, his eyes drifting off into other memories. “What was the point of living them? I have regrets, Detective-”
“Sam,” the detective interrupted.
“Sam.” Ed smiled briefly with a puzzled expression on his face. “I forgot. I don’t regret big things. Don’t regret that I didn’t climb no god-damn mountain or travel to some godforsaken place, or gamble my money on some woman dressed in red. Regret things I didn’t say. Those mornings I could have told my wife she was still beautiful. Or that I didn’t tell that tough-looking kid sitting in the station, scared out of his mind, that it was okay. He’d survive the experience. None of us survive life. You regret anything, Sam?”
Sam was lost in a daze, watching Margaret carry two plates across the floor. He didn’t hear the old man’s question. He gestured to Margaret.
Ed stopped talking, his voice trailing off into his mind. When Margaret arrived at their table, Sam asked for a refill on their coffees. Margaret smiled and moved off.
“That your girl?” Ed asked, a sly smile flashing across his sunken face.
“Just a friend,” Sam responded.
“Looks like more than that,” Ed responded. “Especially the way her eyes are on you when you’re not looking.”
Sam smiled uncomfortably.
“No women will ever look at me that way again,” Ed added wistfully, dropping his eyes. “You ever wake up feeling guilty, Sam? Guilty for something but you can’t remember what. And you’re afraid to remember. Afraid to see that lizard crawling inside you. Afraid to look at your soul. You know what the soul is, Sam? It’s time. Dripping like acid from a leaky faucet inside. Eating your flesh. Until there’s nothing left but bone and memories.”
Ed stopped for a moment.
“Sometimes I get a bit weepy,” he said. Ed took a napkin and blew his nose.
“That’s all right,” Sam responded. “I have my moments too.” Margaret came by with a coffee pot and filled up their cups. She smiled at the detective and nodded secretively toward the old man. The detective nodded back. As she walked away, Sam watched her with a smile.
“Just a friend, eh?” Ed chuckled slyly.
Sam blushed.
“Any luck finding my files?” Ed asked.
“Not much, I’m afraid. Actually, I was hoping you might be able to help me on another case.”
“Hope I can be of more use than that last one,” Ed replied.
“A boy named Johnny Gray disappeared one summer. At the time everyone assumed that he was just another runaway.”
“A kid?” Ed asked.
“A teenager. He was almost twenty so you could say he was an adult.
The kid had been under a lot of pressure. From what I’ve learned, he 113 flunked out of college. His parents didn’t know about it. And he was having trouble getting a job.”
“Blond kid? Good-looking? Something of an athlete?” Ed asked.
The detective nodded.
“Knew that kid from when he first started riding a bike. Always trouble. Stealing from stores when he was no more than ten. Looked like an angel but was a real hellion. His parents couldn’t control him. There were a series of break-ins that we suspected he was involved in but we could never catch him at it. He was a track star at the local Catholic high school, Michael Power. An article in the paper about him. Broke all these Ontario records for the mile. What a waste of talent, good looks, and charm. Never saw him without a pretty girl on his arm. No character. No spine in the boy. Put his parents through hell.”
“You knew about him disappearing then?” the detective asked.
Ed nodded. “Wasn’t surprised. He was up on assault charges.”
“I didn’t know that,” the detective replied.
“One of his girlfriends,” Ed added. “Never could take responsibility for his mistakes. Always blamed it on someone else. Taking off was exactly what you would have suspected from him. He’d be about your age now, Detective. Maybe a few years younger.”
A crowd of teenagers stepped into the restaurant and fell into a corner booth. Ed watched them and smiled. He turned back to Sam.
“You ever meet a kid you just couldn’t like? Johnny was that kind of kid. Everything came too easy for him. Haven’t thought about that boy in thirty years. You think he didn’t run off?” The detective leaned back in his chair.
“Ed, I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
Ed laughed then looked across the room.
“What?” the detective asked.
“The waitress,” Ed replied. “Your girlfriend. I know her.” Gone
“This isn’t a good idea,” Frank cried, his lip fluttering nervously. He could feel that something terrible was going to happen. He leaned on the trunk. “I don’t care what kind of shithead he is, what if no one finds him?”
Terry moved Frank gently aside and opened the trunk of the Chev.
“He fucking tried to rape my girl, Frank. What more do you want?” Terry grabbed one end of the sleeping bag that lay tied up with rope in the trunk.
“Gobble, gobble, gobble.” Wiggy laughed as he danced around the car like a chicken.
“I thought you were a friend of Johnny’s?” Frank asked, grabbing Wiggy’s arm. “Can’t you see what’s happening here?” Wiggy brushed Frank off. “The fucker ain’t no friend of mine. You heard what he tried to do to Cathy. And then beats up on my boy, Terry.
Johnny deserves what he gets. And what do you care? He wasn’t no friend of yours. You said he was an asshole.”
“Will you two shut up and help with this fucker,” Terry cried.
The two boys helped Terry lift their prisoner out of the trunk and set him on the ground.
“When does old man Mackenzie get home from work?” Terry asked.
“I gotta get this car back to Cathy.”
“We got lots of time,” Wiggy said, pointing at the sleeping bag. “Hey, look, the bubble boy has come back to life. It’s good I gagged him. The bastard would be screaming like a banshee.”
Johnny began to wiggle around in the sleeping bag.
“Hold him down!” Terry barked at Frank.
Reluctantly, Frank grabbed Johnny’s feet.
“This is some serious shit you guys are getting us in,” Frank whined, trying to restrain the wiggling sleeping bag.
“We’re just going to lower him down old man Mackenzie’s well,” Wiggy explained. “He won’t drown, Frank. There hasn’t been water in it for years. It’ll take him a couple of hours to wiggle out of these ropes.
College boy will learn who the real bosses around here are. Sometimes you’ve got to put guys in their place and right now that place is at the bottom of this well.”
“He’ll go to the cops,” Frank added. “And we’ll be facing charges.”
“He ain’t going to charge anyone with anything,” Terry responded.
“Not unless he wants Cathy to press rape charges.”
“She didn’t say he raped her,” Frank responded.
“Did you see the bruise on her cheek?” Terry replied.
“Like she’s going to tell us about being raped,” Wiggy added, then laughed. “Not that I wouldn’t mind hearing the details. Hey, don’t look at me that way.”
Terry laughed and turned to Frank.
“Remember that time we caught Wiggy reading Dear Abby?” 115
Frank nodded with a smile.
“He was always a pervert,” Frank said.
“What’s your point?” Wiggy responded. “Anyway, I like Dear Abby.
She gives a lot of good advice to teenagers-especially about relationships.”
“And you need all the advice you can get,” Terry howled.
Johnny continued to squirm inside the sleeping bag. Wiggy kicked him.
“Shut up!” Wiggy turned to his comrades. “I wish we had a wheelbar-row. It’s going to be tough dragging him over to the well.” Wiggy knelt down over the sleeping bag.
“I know you can hear me, Johnny. You’d better settle down or you’ll get a lot more boots.”
Wiggy stood up and kicked Johnny again. He stopped squirming.