Текст книги "Prodigal Blues"

Автор книги: Gary A. Braunbeck

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

"I swear on Lawrence Welk's bubbly grave that that nephew of mine would drop a consonant if you super-glued it to his hand.  Don't get me wrong, I love 'im, but physical prowess is not that boy's strong point."  He slammed open a cooler door and pulled out a bottle of beer.  "We got a set of delivery doors, right, that're wide enough you could drive a small car straight through them and not bump either of the side mirrors—they give a body a wide berth, is what I'm saying—yet Jim Thorpe back there manages to walk sideways into one of them and drop the handle of the supply cart right onto a box of brand new pots and pans, then trip over his own two feet and fall ass-first into the grease barrel."  He popped the cap of bottle.  "That requires some serious skill."  He took a couple of swallows from the beer, wiped his forearm across his mouth, then slapped the bottle onto the bar and said, "And you are?"

"Uncle Herb, I take it?"

"No, Uncle Herb would be me, and since today is one of my good days and I remember who I am, I guess that means we're talking about you, so once again I ask:  and you are?"

I pulled out the badge and said, "Chief Deputy Samuel Gerard of the U.S. Marshal's Office."

Uncle Herb looked at the badge, then at my face.  "Well, I'll be damned.  A genuine U.S. Marshal, right here in my own place of business.  Nice badge."

"Thanks," I said, putting the wallet back in my pocket.

"You know," said Uncle Herb, "it's a real shame they don't let you guys keep them badges after you retire."

"I always thought so."

He took another sip of his beer.  "What's a U.S. Marshal do when he retires, anyway?  I mean, how does a guy like that get away from it all once he's got time?"

"I'm quite a few years away from retirement, so I haven't given it much thought."

"That's a shame," he said, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.  "Because I got a feeling your career's about to come to an abrupt end."  He flipped open the wallet to show me a gold badge exactly like the one I'd shown him.  "When I said that about not being able to keep your badge after retirement, I lied."

"I get that now."  I rubbed my eyes.  "Oh, shit…."

Uncle Herb replaced his wallet, then leaned on the bar toward me.  "You probably can't see them too well from here, Mr. Tommy Lee Jones—by the way, I thought you deserved your Oscar for that movie, but damn if you don't look a thing in real life like you did up on that screen—anyway, you can't see 'em from here, but a couple of those pool players back there are State Police.  Andy and Barney—yes, those are their real names and no, I wouldn't make Mayberry or Floyd the barber jokes around them if I was you.  They come in here every night right after their shift finishes and play a couple of games.  Says it helps them relax, and trust me, Andy and Barney are a couple of real tense guys.  Now, unless you can give me one goddamned good reason why I shouldn't call them over here and have your ass arrested right here and now, then your day's about to have a crimp put into it.  You got any idea what the penalty is for impersonating a Federal officer?—don't bother answering that, it wasn't a real question."  He finished off his beer, opened another one.  "I usually take about five minutes to finish off my second beer, son.  You got until then to convince me that you shouldn't spend the next forty years of your life in prison being ass-candy for a big cranky guy named Bubba."  He lifted the bottle to his lips.  "Clock's running."

I said the first thing that came into my mind.  "I found John and Ellen Matthews' son."

Uncle Herb paused with the bottle almost to his mouth.  "Christopher?"  He lowered the bottle.  "You telling me that you found Christopher Matthews?"

"Yes, sir."

He nodded, then sipped his beer.  "You want a refill on that Pepsi or maybe something stronger?  I'm buying."

"That's awfully nice of you, considering."

"Considering that you're still in spitting range of being Bubba's pillow-biter?  Not all that nice."  He handed me a beer.  "The cap twists off but I like to pop 'em.  Seems more macho, the way Hemingway'd do it, if you ask me.  Ever read Hemingway?  Man could make a semicolon seem like it had an overload of testosterone."  He found a stool behind the bar and pulled it up to sit directly across from me.  "What's your real name?"

"Mark."

"Got a last name or are you one of them one-name wonders like Madonna and Prince?"

"I've got a last name.  I'd rather not tell you what it is."

He stared at me for several seconds, then said:  "All right, I'll let you keep it to yourself for the moment, but understand:  I've got a Bulldog .44 within easy reach, you try to dart on me, Mark No-Last-Name-For-The-Moment and I will not hesitate to shoot you in the back of the leg."

"I believe you."

"Fine.  I'm guessing from that addition to your nose and all them other decorations on your face—not to mention the blood on your shirt that you think that jacket's covering up—that you haven't had the best couple of days."

"No, sir, I haven't."  And I proceeded to tell him about what had happened since yesterday.  I was about a third of the way through it when he said, "Indiana."

"What?"

He slapped the bar with his open hand.  "Son-of-a-bitch!  I must be getting old—any other time I'd've made the connection toot-sweet in a second flat.  You're the guy who brought them two kids into the Dupont emergency room, aren't you?  The diabetic girl and that little colored boy with his face all scarred up."

My stomach and throat tried changing places.  "You've heard something about Arnold and Rebecca?"

"Is that what their names are?  News reports didn't say."

I reached out and grabbed his forearm.  "Is the girl all right?  Did the reports say—?"

"Easy there, son."  He pulled my hand from his arm.  "The girl's fine.  She's still listed in guarded condition, but the news says she's gonna be just fine."

"What about their families?  Did the reports say whether or not—?"

"Last I heard, the families had been located and were on their way to get 'em—but keep in mind, this was the late news last night; for all I know, their families might've already gotten them and be on their ways back home.  The kids ain't saying who it was that brought them to the hospital, though a security guard there claims it was a U.S. Marshal.  Kids won't give him up.  But you can be they've been talking all about the guy who abducted them… Grendel?"

I nodded.  "Grendel."

"So far they ain't made so much as a peep about this 'mystery man' who rescued them."  He ran a hand through his hair.  "How bad is the girl's face?"

"Almost half of it's gone, and not all in one place, either."  I rubbed my eyes.  "Plus one of her breasts has been cut off."  I looked at him.  "Grendel made her cut it off, then cook it up and eat it.  If you want to call any of your friends who're still with the Marshal's office or on the force or whatever and check on that, I promise you I'll sit right here and wait."

His lower lip trembled.  "He made her… cut it off and… and…?"

"Yeah."

He shook his head.  "The news reports ain't saying the extent of the disfigurement on either of them, except some about the colored boy—Arnold?  Says his face was deliberately scarred in patterns."

"Ta Moko," I said.  "It's a traditional method of facial scarring among ancient Maori warriors.  To hide a boy's age and show his place amongst the hierarchy of the tribe."

Uncle Herb wrote that down in pencil on the back of a bar ticket, then looked at me, considered something, and set out two more beers.  "You want something more to eat than them rings?  Beth could fix us up a couple of mean burgers."

"You still buying?"

"Why not?  Can I see that driver's license of yours again?"

"Then you'll know my last name."

"I'm gonna trust you not to bolt when I step away from this bar, then you gotta trust me."  He held out his hand.  "Your license."

I handed over the wallet; he did not open it; instead, he slid back the lid of the beer cooler, tossed it inside, then closed the lid.  "I'll go put in our order, make a call or two."

"I'll wait right here."

"I believe you.  How many burgers you want?"

"Two.  One for here, one for the road."

"Sounds like you're assuming that Big Bad Bubba isn't still lurking in your future."

I did not blink.  "I like to assume the bright side whenever possible."

He said nothing to that, only smiled, shook his head, and disappeared through the swinging doors.

I sat there staring at the rings of condensation made by the beer bottles on the marble of the bar.  I have no idea what I thought about, or for how long I sat there doing so; all I remember is that I was scared half out of mind, the rings kept spreading out toward each other, and that I really truly seriously didn't want to know anyone named Bubba or Brutus or even Bruce.  Especially not Bubba.  Bubba was a name you saw on Wanted posters in post office lobbies.  And they were never smiling.  Bubba the Unsmiling One.  Meet Mark, your new cellmate.  No thank you.

"Who'd you get the badge from?"

His voice startled me.  I shuddered from my thoughts, cleared my throat, had to pause for a moment to remember what he'd just asked me, then said:  "From them.  They stole it from Grendel, who I guess got it from an actual U.S Marshal."

Uncle Herb's face turned into a slab of granite.  "That's the only way he could've gotten it.  I've seen the phonies—some of them damned good and expensive phonies—and what you flashed there was the real thing."

I took it out of the wallet and handed it to him.  "Is there any way that badge can be traced back to the man who originally had it?"

"You damned well better believe it.  And if it turns out the guy's dead, they have ways of finding out the who and how of stuff like this.  If the guy isn't dead, he'll soon enough wish he were."  He looked at the badge, then blinked.  "Silly me—I went and smudged it."  He took the towel he'd used on his hands and began wiping off the badge, then winked at me as he slipped it into his shirt pocket.  "But the two kids are gonna be fine.  Seems to me you might be something of a hero, Mark."

"So you got hold of someone…?"

"Yeah.  A friend of mine with the Indy State Police.  He's damned curious how it is I know about Rebecca's breast when that information hasn't been released.  He was also glad to know the term Ta Moko.  Seems several of the guys have been trying to remember what that type of scarring is called."

"But the kids are all right?"

"They're both in real good shape, Mark.  And their families are there with them."

I exhaled, dropped my chin onto my chest, and started crying.  "Oh, God… oh, you have… you have no idea how worried I was about them, that… that…"

He patted my shoulder.  "I understand.  If it's any consolation, you did the exact right thing, considering the circumstances."  He handed me some napkins so I could blow my nose (gingerly, and it still hurt like hell) and wipe my eyes, then tossed my still-unopened wallet back onto the bar.  "All right, then.  What happened after all of you left the motel room?"

I filled him in on most of it—excepting the murder and what we had stashed in the trailer.  While I spoke, Uncle Herb's eyes narrowed into slits, grew hard, then sad.  As I was finishing, he polished off the rest of his beer, did not call Andy and Barney over, then pulled a pack of smokes out from behind their hiding place near the cash register.  "Beth and Larry been lecturing me for years to quit these things.  I know they're bad for you, but dammit, they taste good sometimes, you know?  Especially right after hearing a story like yours."  He lit up, offered me one, and I took it.

We smoked in silence for a moment.

"Are you going to have me arrested?"

"I'd've done that by now if I was going to."

"What are you going to do with me?"

"I'm going to give you your burgers and let you leave here.  I don't know your last name, so all I can give the State Police boys from Indiana is your description—by the way, lose the nose-splint as soon as you can."

"Your friend's that curious how you came to know about Rebecca?"

"He's downright perplexed.  I hung up soon as I could, but it's not gonna take him too long to realize what's happened and get someone over here."  A bell sounded from back in the kitchen.  "Food's up.  Anything else I can do for you, Mr. Mark No-Last-Name-To-Speak-Of?"

"Yes—did you buy this place from John and Ellen Matthews?"

"I bought it from the Matthews family, yes."

"Then can you please, please tell me where I can find them?"

He exhaled a thin stream of smoke, brushed something off his sleeve, then looked at me and said, "I certainly can."

I walked toward the bus with a slip of paper in my hand.  Written on it was an address which, according to Uncle Herb, wasn't all that far from where we were now.  The rain was coming down a lot heavier, and rumbles of serious thunder were getting louder and closer.  I pulled up the hood on my jacket and ran the rest of the way to the bus.

Once inside, I pulled down the hood and handed Christopher a brown paper bag.  "I got us some hamburgers.  I figured maybe we ought to eat something."

"Thanks," he said, taking the bag from me.

I looked at him for a moment, then at the slip of paper in my hand.  "Christopher—"

"No fries?"

"What?"

He closed the bag and looked at me.  "How can you order hamburgers and not get any fries?"

"I'm… I'm sorry, it didn't occur to me."

He sniffed the air around me.  "Do I smell onion rings?  Is onion rings what I'm smelling?"

"I had some, yeah, but—fuck that, you need to—"

"You need to calm down, Mark."

"I'm… what're you talking about?  I'm fine.  Listen to me—"

"I said calm down!"

"Jesus Christ, will you shut up for a second and listen—?"

He reached across the seat and zapped me in the neck with the Taser and that was it for me for a while…

…until I opened my eyes to almost total darkness.  My body was still thrumming from the Taser and movement came in slow degrees.

I took in the entirety of the mess, then broke it down into bite-sized pieces of disorder.

Disorder first:  I was alone in the bus, which was still running.

Disorder second:  wherever we were, it was fairly enclosed, because I could smell the exhaust fumes growing stronger by the minute.

Disorder third:  if the scene illuminated by the headlights was for real and not some leftover images from a dream I didn't remember having, then we were parked deep inside a cave—

–or the entrance to a mine.

Shit, shit, shit.

I did not so much turn toward my door as I did flop in its general direction.  Getting a solid grip on the handle was one of the supreme accomplishments of my life, because my arms and hands were still half-numbed, but I got a grip; I then lost it, got it back, and had the door opened before it occurred to me that my legs might not be up for walking or standing.  By the time this did occur to me, I was already face-down on the soggy ground.  I pushed myself up, reached into the bus, thought I had a grip on the lower part of the seat, and tried to pull myself up only to slip and fall once again.

I'd grabbed the gun.  I looked at it, cursed, then slipped into the back of my pants and grabbed the running board, managing to balance myself enough to stand with the aid of the door, which I clung to like a life preserver.

I could see the entrance in the distance, framed by timbers as Christopher said it would be.  Outside it was deep gray, the rain pounding down and the thunder so loud I expected it to rip through the roof and bring all that limestone crashing down on my head.  I took several slow, deep breaths, feeling some strength return to me, hesitantly, like a child afraid it was about to be scolded or punished.

Christopher was just inside the entrance, fiddling with a barrel.  A barrel strapped to a dolly.  A barrel strapped to a dolly with all sort of wires running around it.

Shit, shit, shit.

He checked all the connections, checked a device I assumed was the timer, then set it aside and started walking back toward me.

He stopped by the door to the trailer, his face expressionless.  "You okay?"

"What… what the hell did you do that for?"

"You were pretty out of control there, dude.  If I'd realized that just stopping to use the toilet and get some food was going to cause you to flip out, I'd've made you take dump in one of the coolers."

I shook my head, which was a mistake because it sent a wave of dizziness and nausea rolling through my entire body.  "…didn't have to use the goddamn bathroom… I found out about your—"

He opened the trailer's door.  "In a minute, Mark.  Hold that thought."

Light from inside the trailer spilled out against the walls.  They were wet, and dark, and raggedly uneven; if it weren't for the supports around us, I would have sworn we were deep inside a grave.

Christopher emerged a few seconds later pushing—of all things—a fairly-expensive motorcycle, a wide one made for long travel, complete with windshield, side compartments for storing small pieces of luggage, and a small rack across the back of the seat.

"Where'd you get that?" I managed to say.

"Saving up cigarette coupons—where do you think I got it?  I stole it from one of the rest stops we made before we picked you up.  Arnold and me painted it and changed the plates—that's where he got the bright idea about painting the trailer.  You gonna be all right there for a minute?"

"But your family—"

"—is going to be real glad to see us.  I hope you're hungry, because you can bet that Mom's going to make you eat something.  No guest ever leaves our home unfed.  You stand warned."  He rolled the motorcycle up to the entrance and leaned it against the wall.  I noticed for the first time that he had some other things up there, as well; a duffel bag and several shoulder bags which held, I assumed, the computers.

As he came back to help me to my feet, I said:  "Don't you want to know?"

"I already saw the address, I don't need to know anything more.  It's about forty-five from the truck stop.  Be there in a jiffy, you'll see."

He led me toward the opened door of the trailer.

The smell hit me hard; it was much more than human stink—although the odor of old piss and shit was more than enough on its own; the smell of the bodies inside was overpowering.  It was this thick, moist, heavy, spoiled, meaty, swollen reek that assumed invisible physical shape within and without; the kind of smell that immediately sinks down through every layer of skin and takes about a month to wash off and whose coating in my nostrils would probably never completely go away.

The strange thing is, I gagged but did not throw up.

Christopher helped me up into the doorway.  "I thought you might like to meet my former host.  You know—witness what may or may not be his final words and all that."

"Do I have to?"

"It would mean a lot to me, Mark, if I didn't have to face him alone this last time."

I looked into his eyes and saw a frightened little boy still hiding back there.  "Sure thing, buddy.  Sure thing."

We moved into the trailer.  I was amazed at how quickly the stink went away.  I realize now that the smell didn't go anywhere, it was just that my olfactory senses had had enough, tuned out, and stopped sending signals to my brain.  The stink was still there, my nose was simply pretending it wasn't.

The lights in here still worked—which is why Christopher had left the bus running, I now realized—so everything was easily visible.

The interior of the Airstream had been stripped bare of everything—seats, built-in appliances, tables, even the toilet and carpeting was gone.  The floor was bare metal, covered in dust and torn shreds of paper and stray sections of electrical wire, as well as tire tracks and blood.

The two bodies—one of them naked—were laid out next to each other at the far end of the trailer where the bomb had once been.  They were both face-down, for which I was grateful; despite what these two had been a part of, I knew that their eyes would be frozen in final accusation:  How could you be a part of this?

Okay, Dad; if you were in my position, what would you do?

Whatever it took, that's what I'd do.  Whatever it took to end this as soon as possible, that's what I'd do.  I love you, Mark.

Love you too, Dad.

A duffel bag sat near the door, beside which was large tool box; Christopher knelt down to open the lid.  I lost my balance a little, caught myself on the door frame, and did not collapse.  The maps fell out of my pocket and hit the floor at an angle, skittering a few feet to stop at the foot of a large cardboard box that, according to its markings, once held a new water heater.

Christopher pulled something from the tool box and set it to the side, then closed the lid, locked it with a padlock, and tossed the key outside into the darkness.

Something moved inside the box, made a muffled sound, then kicked out at the edge, causing the box to move a few more inches in our direction.

"I'm surprised he's got that much energy left," said Christopher, walking over to the box and moving it aside.  The back had been cut out so as to set flush against the wall.

Christopher threw the box down, then kicked it over by the bodies.

The man chained up against the far wall looked like a skeleton covered in fish-belly skin.  He was pale, emaciated, and covered from the waist down in the semi-dried remains of his own filth.  He too was naked, except for the heavy layers of bandage covering the stump of his right leg, which had been removed just above the knee.  Both his right and left arms were manacled, and none-too-gently, judging from the open sores encircling his wrists.  The chains on his arms were short—less than three feet—and were soldered into opposite walls.  The chain attached to the manacle around his left ankle was much longer—easily eight feet—and was soldered into place just below the other left-side chain.  His mouth was stuffed with a small rubber ball held in place with a thick rubber band that encircled his head, which had been scalped; sections of skull were visible here and there through the ragged, bloody, chewed-looking tissue that remained.  Darkened trails of dried blood ran straight down over his face, pooling around the top edge of the blinking electronic collar around his neck, then dribbling down onto his chest.  His body was covered in gashes, cuts, and burns, all of them in various stages of healing. Directly behind him hung an IV packet from which snaked a clear, thin plastic tube whose other end disappeared up his nose and was held in place there by medical tape.  I assumed the IV was some kind of liquid nutrient used to keep him alive.  He glowed with sweat, making his pale flesh seem all the more ghostly in the harsh light.  His face was drawn and hollow, covered in ten-day-old beard speckled with gray.

But his eyes were the worst.

Have you ever noticed, whenever you see pictures of serial killers, rapists, mass-murderers, that all of them seem to have the same dead eyes, forever frozen in a cool, detached, hundred-yard stare, as if they've given up trying to make you understand the logic behind their actions and so are content in themselves by staring at their goal you'll never be worthy enough to gaze upon?  Once, in college, a friend of mine was doing a photograph collage for an art project.  She took photos of Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, and about a dozen others whose names I don't remember and don't want to, and she cut out their eyes, interchanging them with each other—Dahmer got Gacy's, Gacy got Manson's, Manson got Bundy's, and so on.  When she was done we both stood back and looked at the results.

You couldn't tell she'd done a thing to any of them.

They all had the exact same eyes—

—You are not worthy enough to understand—

–just like Grendel's, that stared out dispassionately and patiently from within dark circles and above puffy, discolored bags.  He did not blink as Christopher approached him, checked the IV, then removed the ball and rubber band and gently pulled the tube from his nose and stomach.

"Don't swallow, don't swallow," he said to Grendel in a soothing voice.  The tube came out and flopped on the floor, snaking around and spitting out clear liquid.  Christopher grabbed the free end of the tube and clamped it closed, then stood up and walked over to the chain and manacle holding Grendel's right arm in place.

Not once during all of this did Grendel look at Christopher.

Instead, he stared unblinking at my face.

Unlike the "distributor" at the rest stop, Grendel's gaze nailed my feet to the floor.  Until this moment, I had never really embraced the idea of evil being something pure, something compelling, seductive, charismatic, and attractive.

Now I did.  What stared back at me from behind those eyes was something so purely evil, so flawlessly degenerate, so perfectly perverse and mad that it seemed almost benevolent.

I managed to look away just before he spoke in a voice that sounded like rusty nails being wrenched from rotten wood.

"You have a new friend, Christopher."  So sing-songy in that voice from nightmare.

"Yes, I do."

"Does your new friend have a name?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?"

Grendel's head snapped around in Christopher's direction.  "Never use contractions like that in my presence!  Do you understand?"

Christopher paused and smiled down at him.  "Oooooh, I'm shakin' in my shoes."  And then kicked Grendel squarely in the chest.  Grendel jerked backward, banging the back of his head against the metal wall, then groaned, shook it off, and glared up, his breathing heavy and fast.

"I suppose you feel that I had that coming to me," he said.  "Very well, my little boy.  I will give that to you."

"You're too kind.  There are no words to express my gratitude."

"Do not mock me, Christopher."

"Seems to me you're not in much of a position to do anything about it."

"Situations change."

They glared at one another.  Then Grendel gave a short, phlegmy laugh and look toward me.  "I do not believe I have had the pleasure, sir.  Who might you be?"

"One of the listening North Danes."

His eyes widened and his smile widened.  "Then you know of me already?"

"'Rage-inflamed, wreckage-bent, he ripped open the jaws of the hall.'  Yeah, I've heard some things."

"How marvelous—though the passage you quoted leads me to believe that you have been exposed to one of the more bumbling translations of the story."

"My education is what you might call incomplete."

"I see.  And do you not find me attractive?  Even in this unfortunate state?"

"Not particularly."

"Then you must allow me the chance to redeem myself in your eyes."

"Not possible."

His smile slithered wider.  "Everything is possible, good sir."

Christopher unlocked his right arm, letting it drop free, then stepped over beside me.  For a few moments Grendel neither said anything nor looked at us; he was too busy shaking some feeling back into his arm.

"You should pick up the rubber ball and squeeze it," said Christopher.  "It'll help get your hand back in working order."

"How ingenious," said Grendel, picking up the ball.

It was only after he'd grabbed the ball and was squeezing away that something else caught his attention; he leaned forward—insomuch as he could—and looked at the floor.

At the maps that had fallen from my pocket.

"My, my, may," he said, looking up at us and smiling.  "Do my eyes deceive, or are those maps of the lovely Kentucky hills?"

Christopher looked down at them, then at Grendel.  "Yeah, so what?"

"'Yeah, so what?'" Grendel repeated in a mocking, childish voice.  "My God, how ugly your voice has become, how sloppy and ungracious your speech.  I am ashamed."

"I'll learn to live with your disappointment."

Grendel made an amused noise, then twisted his head slightly to get a better view of the maps.  "Kentucky, indeed."  His eyes looked up but his head remained still.  "So we have come home, have we, Christopher?"

"That's right."

"Of course.  How wonderful for you.  How delightful.  I assume that the others are now back home, all safe and warm and snuggly."

"Yes."

"That moves me, Christopher.  Sincerely.  Can you not see how deeply, deeply moved I am?  To think of all the effort and planning that you must have done to bring all of this about… why, it almost makes me not ashamed of you."

"Fuck you."

"Unchain me, then.  Oh, I see—it was an insult, not a request.  A pity.  I do feel rather amorous, despite everything.  But then, you always did have that effect on me, Christopher-my-favorite-child.  How beautiful you are.  Has your new friend seen your actual face?"

"Yes."

Grendel looked at me.  "Did you appreciate the skill of my handiwork?"

"Not really."

"Not really?  Ah, well—the ability to truly appreciate a work of art is something acquired and refined over time, after all.  Worry not—my feelings are not in the least hurt, nor are my sensibilities in any way offended."

"I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear that," I said.

"Well, naturally, it would not do to have you worrying yourself over it, would it?  I find that, while guilt is such a useful thing, unearned and unnecessary guilt is far too messy and distasteful to bother with.  It has rarely served my purposes well."

"You are one smarmy motherfucker, you know that?"

"I choose to take that as a compliment.  Now, do please pardon me."  He looked down at the maps again, then at Christopher.  "Tell me, my lovely boy—how is the family?"

Christopher started.  "Uh… I haven't seen them yet, but we've got the address."

"Oh, it is we who have the address, is it?"  He looked at me.  "I do believe I detect the lingering aroma of onion rings."  His eyes sparkled.  "You know, don't you?"

"Shut up."

"What's he talking about?" asked Christopher.

I took hold of his arm.  "We need to step outside for a minute, buddy."

"What for?"  His voice rose on the second word.

"Because we do."

"Oh, please," said Grendel.  "Do tell him in front of me."

I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction.

"Tell me what?" shouted Christopher.