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  “Oh, hi there,” said Debbie, letting him in, sounding almost genial.

  “Hi,” said Wanda, hugging him around the knees.

  “Bye-bye,” said Charley, chuckling and beaming as Debbie swathed him in layers of outdoor clothes.

  Alan look on, feeling sorry for her. Debbie was living close to the edge of disaster. It was true she was doing a lousy job of taking care of Charley, but at least by becoming a foster mother she was trying to make her own way. She wasn’t depending on the welfare system of the city of Boston, she wasn’t a hooker, she wasn’t selling drugs. You had to give her credit for standing on her own feet.

  “Look,” said Debbie, “I still don’t get it. What you’re doing this for, I mean. You didn’t even know the kid’s mother. It’s weird.” Her tone implied some perversion on Alan’s part.

  He laughed, pulled the hat down over Charley’s head and tweaked his nose. “Oh, I don’t know. I just like him, that’s all.”

  Charley chuckled, happy in anticipation of another romp. There was a knock at the door.

  “Oh, God,” whispered Debbie. “Son of a bitch.” Galvanized, she raced around the room, snatched up a couple of brimming ashtrays, dumped them in the wastebasket and switched off the TV. There was a howl of protest from Wanda.

  “Just a minute, I’ll be right there,” called out Debbie, in a sweet unnatural voice. “Come on,” she muttered to Alan, “get in the goddamn closet.” Dragging him by the arm, she tugged him into the bedroom.

  Alan guessed it was a surprise visit by Debbie’s social worker. Dumbfounded, he allowed himself to be chivvied into the bedroom closet, which was only a curtain hanging across a corner of the room. Inside, squeezed among Debbie’s clothes, he felt laughter building in his chest. But it was no joke. Suppose he were found hiding in this little bitch’s closet?

  The legs of a pair of tights wrapped themselves around his neck. Alan slumped against the wall and listened to the social worker’s brisk, “Good morning, Debbie. I’m Mrs. Barker. How’s everything going?”

  There was a murmur from Debbie. Alan could hear Charley beginning to whimper, deprived of his outing. Wanda whined, and the TV came on loud and strong. Debbie spoke to Wanda sharply. The noise from the TV stopped. Charley sobbed.

  The voices came closer. The social worker was only a few feet away, inspecting Debbie’s bedroom with its unmade bed, its scattered clothing. Did she guess at the hidden Lothario in the closet?

  She did. The footsteps came closer. Mrs. Barker flung aside the curtain. Light flooded the closet.

  Debbie flared at Alan. “Asshole,” she hissed. “Your foot was sticking out.”

  Alan unwound Debbie’s tights from his neck and grinned foolishly. “I can explain,” he said, feeling like someone in a comic opera.

  “He’s just a guy who takes the baby out,” said Debbie sulkily.

  “He’s what?” Mrs. Barker stared at Alan. She was a neatly dressed thickset woman in designer glasses.

  “It’s true,” said Alan sheepishly. “I take Charley out for walks.”

  “Debbie,” said Mrs. Barker, “this is a very serious violation of our agreement.”

  “It’s not my fault,” wailed Debbie.

  “It’s true,” said Alan, “it’s nothing to do with her. I come here twice a week to take the baby for a run in the stroller. I’m not a friend of Debbie’s, I’m a friend of Charley’s, that’s all.”

  Mrs. Barker’s eyes narrowed. “Just what is your relationship to the child? You’re not the father. The father’s dead. Are you the mothers boyfriend?”

  Alan ran his hand through his hair. Poor Charley was still crying. “No, no, I didn’t even know Rosie Hall. I know it’s hard to believe, but I don’t know anybody in her family but Charley. I was the one who found him after his mother was kidnapped. I called you about it, way back before Christmas. Look, may I pick him up?”

  Mrs. Barker stared at him with eyes that had seen every kind of human folly. “Why,” she said softly, “were you hiding in that closet?”

  Alan shrugged, feeling more idiotic than he had ever felt before in his life.

  “It was me,” said Debbie sourly. “I knew what you’d think, some guy in my apartment. I knew you wouldn’t believe that stuff about Charley.”

  Alan picked up the baby and soothed his crying. “Is it okay if I take him out for a while?”

  Mrs. Barker looked at Debbie. “How long has this been going on?”

  “A couple of months.”

  Mrs. Barker patted Charley’s tearstained cheek. His face was red, his nose was running. He was anything but cute. Her shoulders drooped. Appalling human problems were her daily lot. Even her own home life was a problem. Marilynne Barker’s family consisted of a senile mother waiting to be tended by her exhausted daughter every evening as soon as the expensive caregiver left.

  Sometimes everything was too much, just too much. Mrs. Barker waved a helpless hand. “Well, go ahead. I guess it’s all right.” She gave Alan a tired, half-amused look. “But for heaven’s sake, from now on don’t go hiding in closets.”

  A light snow was falling on Mount Vernon Street as Alan pushed Charley down the steep brick sidewalk. They stopped to admire a poodle on a leash. Charley was delighted. “Doggie,” said Alan, “that’s a doggie.”

  Charley chuckled and said nothing, and they went on bumping down the street to the bottom, while Alan thought over the embarrassing scene with the social worker. It occurred to him that Alan Starr and Deborah Buffington were now on the same side. Had they persuaded Mrs. Barker they were telling the truth? He hoped so. If she were to remove Charley from Debbie’s foster care, the baby would end up somewhere else, and Alan would never find him again.

  CHAPTER 27

  When I preach, I sink myself deep down.

  Martin Luther

  On the third Sunday in February Homer and Mary Kelly attended the morning service in the Church of the Commonwealth. Actually the important destination on their minds that morning was a remote wrecked-car lot halfway to Cape Cod, but the detour to the Back Bay was part of the plan.

  Homer was curious about the church. He hadn’t entered the building since the morning after the conflagration that destroyed the organ and the balcony and killed old Mr. Plummer. Reverend Martin Kraeger, of course, had confessed to starting the fire with his own carelessness, but Homer had his doubts about that. And it was certainly odd that the missing Rosalind Hall had lived next door.

  Anyway, this corner of Commonwealth Avenue was afflicted with fire, blood and death, and Homer wanted to get closer to the scene.

  They sat in the last pew, a little awed by the lofty space. It made one feel small, and yet at the same time important, a little puffed up. Normally, thought Homer, people lived and worked in rooms only a little higher than their heads. This place was big enough for elephants and giraffes, or for great blue whales, if they should come swimming in to stand on their giant flukes and sing their songs. Of course the sense of sublimity was artificial, a phony spell guaranteed by so many feet of colored glass and so many tons of stone vaulting. If religion meant anything at all, and maybe it didn’t, why did it have to be propped up by so much grandeur?

  Not that Homer had anything against churches on the whole. In fact it had become a habit with the Kellys to go to church on Sunday morning. Homer sat grouchily beside his wife, Sunday after Sunday, disagreeing with everything, demurring in hoarse whispers, while she murmured, Homer dear, shut up.

  The organ prelude was beginning. Mary looked at her order of service, showed it to Homer, and tapped the name of Alan Starr.

  Homer raised his eyebrows and growled in her ear. “Hey, isn’t that the same thing he—”

  “Yes,” whispered Mary. “Ssshh.”

  It was “Wachet Auf,” Awake, Awake, the chorale prelude performed by Rosie Hall on the cassette in her apartment.

  Mary and Homer sat quietly, staring at the packed pews in front of them as the music poured down. The piercing sound
of the new organ in the stony chamber fell from the balcony upon the shoulders of the congregation, it rang in their ears, it ricocheted from the great round pillars, rolled along the arched aisles, cascaded in surges along the floor, then bounded in rushes and leaps to the vaulted ceiling. When it was over, the service began. Homer and Mary stood up and sat down with everybody else, bowed their heads, pulled money out of their pockets, sang hymns and listened to the anthem—it was the choir’s first performance under the direction of Barbara Inch.

  Then Martin Kraeger began his sermon. Homer remembered the big heavyset clergyman who had repeated so often, It was my fault, on that morning nearly a year ago, after the fire. Today he was a different man. His voice was strong and a little rough. He was speaking without notes.

  His subject was repentance, because the season of Lent was about to begin. It was not the kind of repentance urged upon Homer in his Catholic youth. Kraeger began with a remark by Henry Thoreau, If I repent me of anything, it is that I behaved so well.

  Homer whispered, “Hey,” and Mary muttered, “Shut up,” and Kraeger went on to demolish all traditional attitudes toward guilt and self-reproach, clawing down the entire history of sin and depravity until the moral law lay in ruins around the pulpit and his audience sat gasping, utterly deprived of ethical standards and the promptings of conscience. Then little by little he built it up again, adding stone after stone until a new morality rose before them like a tower. Kraeger finished with a calm remark about the coffee hour, and they all stood up to sing the last hymn.

  Homer was speechless. He hauled on his coat and shuffled after Mary, following Martin Kraeger out into the broad vestibule facing Commonwealth Avenue.

  Kraeger stood in the open door shaking hands. It was a thawing day. The light snow that had fallen the day before was exhaling from the ground in a milky mist, blowing off the trees. Sparkling flakes landed on Kraeger’s black gown.

  Edith Frederick was first in line. She stood beside Kraeger with the sunlight glittering down on her prim gray hair. Clearly under her delicate makeup Martin could see the fine blades of her skull. Almost as clearly he could imagine at her side the jolly Holbein skeleton, its bony arm hooked tenderly around her little jacket. Swiftly he banished the image and greeted her warmly, then turned to Homer and Mary Kelly.

  “Ah,” he said, grasping Mary’s hand, “the Kellys of Concord. I met Homer last year. And I’ve read your book on the British suffragettes, Mrs. Kelly.”

  Mary was pleased. “Oh, have you?”

  Homer grinned politely, expecting a similar compliment, because he too had taken pen to paper from time to time. Instead Kraeger introduced them to Edith Frederick. And then his attention was distracted by a woman who rushed up the steps from the sidewalk, dragging after her a small child.

  “Why, Pansy,” said Kraeger, bending down to the little girl, “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

  Kay Kraeger was in a hurry. “I couldn’t telephone because I’ve been so rushed.”

  “But I’ve got a budget meeting right now. Oh, well, it’s all right. Welcome, Pansy, dear.” Kraeger picked her up and hugged her. “Whoops, I think maybe Pansy had better—” Excusing himself, he pushed through the long line of smiling parishioners, carrying his small daughter.

  “Had better what?” cried Kay Kraeger, craning her neck to stare after him. “Pansy had better what?”

  But Martin and Pansy were out of sight, hurrying to the bathroom. Pansy was four years old, but she was inclined to postpone important matters far too long.

  Mary and Homer walked to their car, avoiding puddles on the sidewalk. “Homer,” said Mary, “I’ve had a revelation.”

  “No kidding. It’s amazing what a dose of religion will do to a person.”

  “No, no, it’s Mrs. Frederick. Did you see the way she was dressed?”

  “Well, no, I guess not.”

  “Right. Do you know why you didn’t notice? Because she dresses just like me. Look at me, Homer! My jacket, it’s just like hers, it’s got silver buttons just like hers, my pleated skirt, look, Homer! So ladylike! And the shoes, she had proper little low-heeled shoes with pompoms. Look at mine, they’ve got pompoms, they’re just the same.”

  “No, they’re not. Yours are three times as big.”

  “Oh, Homer, I’m so ashamed. We’re both so ladylike, so horribly, dreadfully ladylike. Both of us, we’re part of a vast horde of respectable women, all marching timidly through life in identical uniforms. I’m just not going to do it any more. Do you hear me, Homer?”

  “Good Lord, my love, of course I can hear you. They can hear you in Copley Square.”

  Someone was shouting at them. “Homer? Homer, wait.”

  It was Alan Starr, racing after them. “The burned car, Rosie’s car, did you find out where it is?”

  “I did indeed. Matter of fact, we’re on our way there right now. Want to come along?”

  “Yes, yes.” Impulsively Alan climbed into the back of the Kellys’ car and leaned forward between the front seats as Mary pulled away from the curb. “How did you find out where it is?”

  Homer groaned with self-pity. “It’s supposed to take only five phone calls to learn anything, isn’t that right? Well, this took fifteen. Campbell passed me along to Bleach, and Bleach passed me along to McArthur, and McArthur said talk to Smithies, and I forget all the rest. And all the time I could distinctly hear the shuffling of paper going on in the background. You know, slip, slap, slop, and red tape has a special sort of slippery sound when they tie it in bowknots on stacks of flabby interoffice correspondence.”

  “Pay no attention to Homer,” said Mary. “The point is, he finally found out. The only question is, does Rosie’s car still exist? Maybe they’ve sent it to Korea by now, mashed into a little cube.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Experience has proved the toad to be endowed with valuable qualities.

  Martin Luther

  The sign beside the turnoff said, WRECKED CARS.

  The surrounding landscape was a sad rural slum, old farmland turned into mattress salesrooms, car dealerships, Hawaiian restaurants and sinister-looking roadhouses. Over New England the wintry cloud cover had come back. It was hard to imagine the sun ever shining on this landscape. As they turned in to the dirt road there was a distant rumble like war in another country, thunder in winter, ominous and unnatural.

  The swamp beside the rutted driveway was wild and mysterious, but miscellaneous car parts rose out of it here and there like metallic eruptions of skunk cabbage. Mary slowed down on the bumpy track and grieved for the violated countryside. “What a shame.”

  “Well,” said Homer, “you gotta have balance. You want a lotta pretty little New England farms and fields? Gotta balance ’em with wrecked-car lots. It says so in the Bible.”

  Rounding a curve they came upon the whole panorama of the wrecked-car emporium. It was a landscape of disaster. The relics of a thousand tragedies lay bent, burned and twisted in drifts and heaps—natty bashed-in sports cars in which harebrained young guys had perished, crumpled station wagons in which whole families had been wiped out, the smashed remains of ghastly collisions at railroad crossings. The place was a melancholy testament to human recklessness.

  They sat for a moment, mesmerized, then got out slowly, just as another vehicle bumped up beside them and came to a stop. It was a shining black limousine, a hearse with a buckled side. The driver climbed out and grinned at them. “Hiya, you want shumping? My name’zh Brown, Boozher Brown.”

  For a moment Homer was speechless. So was Mary. They recognized Boozer Brown. “Mr. Brown, Boozer Brown,” said Homer, reaching out a hand, “is it really you?”

  Boozer smiled hugely. “Hey, ri’ you are. Whazh your name? Nantucket, ri’? Zheezh! Hey, you shtill got the shame mizhush, ri’? Zheezh.”

  “But Boozer,” said Homer, “what happened? What are you doing here on the mainland? I thought you were Nantucket born and bred?”

  “Oh, Jheezhush, I losht
the battle. You know. Nantucket real eshtate intereshtsh, they took away the lizhench for my garage, bought me out for a shong. Sho here I am.” He gestured proudly around his new empire. “All mine. Thizh whole thing you shee here, it’sh all mine.” Boozer took a bottle of Old Fence Rail out of his pocket and offered it around.

  Alan declined politely. So did Mary and Homer. “Now tell me,” said Boozer, “what can I do for you? Mush be shumping.”

  “We’re looking for a particular car, Boozer,” said Homer, “sent over by the Boston Police Department. It’s a Ford Escort, destroyed by fire, registration number two-two-one-H-O-K.”

  “Oh, that one, oh, zhure, I know that one. Don’t tell nobody, but it’sh full of all kinzha good shtuff. Alternator’s shtill okay, and sho’zh the air conditioner, radio, water pump. And, Jheezhush, the engine’zh shtill pretty mush okay.” Boozer gestured vaguely at a distant part of his domain. “You wanta shee it?” He waved hospitably across the sea of wrecked cars. “Ri’ thish way.”

  They followed him along a narrow path between heaps of wrecked automobiles. The ground was littered with bits of upholstery, rags of stuffing, stained bucket seats, contorted bumpers, flattened gas tanks, rusted exhaust pipes and gasoline engines crushed as if by falling from the moon.

  “Here she izh.” Boozer stopped and waved dramatically. “Help yourshelf. It’sh all yourzh.” He wandered away and lifted the hood of a smashed pickup truck.

  Rosie’s Ford Escort was a uniform velvety black. The windows were cracked and splintered.

  “Awful, awful,” murmured Mary, sickened. Alan turned away, seeing all too clearly the inferno that had consumed the soft flesh of someone who might once have been Rosalind Hall.

  Homer, careless of his churchgoing clothes, turned the door handle on the driver’s side and looked in. The interior too was black, and the vinyl seat was cracked and curled. But the knobs and switches on the dashboard had not melted. It was as though the sudden flare-up of fire around the car had quickly subsided.