The Face on the Wall(13)

Mary read the part of the article that had been missing from the scrap on Annie’s table.




… It is rumored that

real estate is involved, a large parcel

of land upon which Frederick Small

intends to build a gold-plated housing

development of million-dollar homes.

The deal awaits the signature of the

missing Mrs. Small.




“Mr. Jackson,” said Mary, “where did you get this story?”

“What?” He turned away from the map and looked vaguely at the folded page Mary held under his nose. “God, I don’t know. Somebody phoned it in. I’ve got these people out there”—he waved his arm at Washington Street, and, out of sight beyond the girlie theater across the way, the rest of the world, beginning with Boston Common and the Charles River—“they send in stuff.”

“I see. Well, thank you.” Mary went out and closed the door gently, feeling sorry for George Jackson. The poor kid had aspirations for higher things. He wanted to interview heads of state. He wanted to race down a bomb-cratered road in an armored Jeep. Instead, he was here in Boston, on Washington Street above a joke-goods store, mired in shameless voyeurism and subpornograpbic trash, neck-deep in shucked sheiks and sizzling flings. Poor wretch.

Mary glanced in the window of the joke-goods store on her way out. The gruesome drooping eye of the monster ogled her. Its ghastliness was exactly what she had expected to find upstairs in the office of the Courier. And perhaps she really had. Perhaps that pink-cheeked would-be foreign correspondent was actually a monster in the flesh.

She turned away, shuddering. It was beginning to rain. On the way home the heavens opened. Lightning flashed. Mary had to pull the car to the side of the road, because the windshield wipers couldn’t handle the water sheeting down the glass.





Chapter 11



Brave soldier, here is danger!

Brave soldier, here is death!

Hans Christian Andersen,

“The Steadfast Tin Soldier”




“I’m afraid,” said Eddy. His hair was drenched. Rivulets of water poured down his cheeks. He struggled after his father up the difficult ascent behind the house. It was a long walk in the downpour to the top of Pine Hill.

“It’s just a little rain.” Bob Gast had to shout to be heard above the thunder, which rumbled and crashed like lumber falling downstairs. The lightning was simultaneous. “We’ve come out to watch. I really want you to see this, Eddy.” There was a sharp splintering noise behind them, and Bob Gast jumped. Turning, he saw a split tree fall slowly, crashing through other trees, snapping the trunk of a big white pine.

Eddy cowered against his father. He had to be dragged up the steep side of the underground reservoir at the top of the hill.

“Here we are. Now we can see everything, Eddy. See? We can see everything from up here.” Gast gripped his son’s hand and braced himself on the battered grass, while the trees below them lashed to and fro, their branches snapping and crashing heavily to the forest floor.

He did not look down at his terrified son. Clearing his throat, he shouted the words he had been rehearsing in his head. “Okay, Eddy, now I want you to go over there and bring me my knife. I lost it right over there. See it over there, lying on the ground? Just go over there and get it for me, okay, Eddy? Just go get it and bring it here.”

Eddy gaped up at his father. Gast had to give him a little shove. “Now, Eddy, you’ve got to be brave. Go ahead.”

Eddy started forward toward the clearing at the crest of the hill. Around it the lightning struck down in a ring, once, twice, thrice. Soon it was a perpetual circle of white fire. Running on his short legs, Eddy stopped in the center and gazed around, turning to see it all, his small figure dwarfed by the broad landscape and the surrounding forest of storm-tossed trees. Thunder fell out of the sky and lightning danced in a ring of searing white light. Eddy was enchanted. He was no longer afraid. He could see that the thunder and lightning meant him no harm.

“Eddy,” shouted his father. He was crying. “Eddy, come back.”

The lightning dimmed and moved away. The thunder grumbled softly. The rain diminished and stopped. Slowly Eddy trotted back out of the ring of fire, his mind alight. Water streamed from his wet hair, it poured down his cheeks and ran into his open mouth. It tasted of tears and the pure water of heaven.



Next day Eddy knocked on the south door of Annie’s house. Flimnap, who had been staining Annie’s cabinets, let him in. He greeted Eddy cheerfully and helped him take off his jacket.

Annie turned away from painting Scheherazade on the first division of her wall and greeted him warmly. “Well, hello there, Eddy.”