Dark Rivers of the Heart

mother to Roy.
        "Of course, you're scared, aren't you?" he said.
        With her thumb stuck in her mouth, sucking fiercely, she nodded.
        "Well, there's no reason to be scared of me. I'd never hurt a fly. Not even if it buzzed and buzzed around my face and danced in my ears and went skiing down my nose."
        The child stared solemnly at him through tears.
        Roy said, "When a mosquito lands on me and tries to take a bite, do I swat him? Noooooo. I lay out a tiny napkin for him, a teeny tiny little knife and fork, and I say, 'No one in this world should go hungry. Dinner's on me, Mr. Mosquito."' The tears seemed to be clearing from her eyes.
        "I remember one time," Roy told her, "when this elephant was on his way to a supermarket to buy peanuts. He was in ever so great a hurry, and he just ran my car off the road. Most people, they would have followed that elephant to the market and punched him right on the tender tip of his trunk. But did I do that? Noooooo. 'When an elephant is out of peanuts," I told myself, the just can't be held responsible for his actions." However I must admit I drove to that market after him and let the air out of the tires on his bicycle, but that was not done in anger.
        I only wanted to keep him off the road until he'd had time to eat some peanuts and calm down."
        She was an adorable child. He wished he could see her smile.
        "Now," he said, "do you really think I'd hurt anyone?"
        The girl shook her head: no.
        "Then give me your hand, honey," Roy said.
        She let him take her left hand, the one without a wet thumb, and he led her across the kitchen.
        Vecchio released the mother. The woman scrambled to her knees and, weeping, embraced the child.
        Letting go of the girl's hand and crouching again, touched by the mother's tears, Roy said, "I'm sorry. I abhor violence, I really do.
        But we thought a dangerous man was here, and we couldn't very well just knock and ask him to come out and play. You understand?"
        The woman's lower lip quivered. "I… I don't know. Who are you, what do you want?"
        "What's your name?"
        "Mary. Mary Z-Zelinsky."
        "Your husband's name?"
        "Peter."
        Mary Zelinsky had a lovely nose. The bridge was a perfect wedge, all the lines straight and true. Such delicate nostrils. A septum that seemed crafted of finest porcelain. He didn't think he had ever seen a nose qllite as wonderful before.
        Smiling, he said, "Well, Mary, we need to know where he is."
        "Who?" the woman asked.
        "I'm sure you know who. Spencer Grant, of course."
        "I don't know him." just as she answered him, he looked up from her nose into her eyes, and he saw no deception there.
        "I've never heard of him," she said.
        To Vecchio, Roy said, "Turn the gas off under that tomato sauce.
        I'm afraid it's going to burn."
        "I swear I've never heard of him," the woman insisted.
        Roy was inclined to believe her. Helen of Troy could not have had a nose any finer thlan Mary Zelinsky's. Of course, indirectly, Helen of troy had been responsible for the deaths of thousands, and many others had suffered because of her, so beauty was no guarantee of innocence.
        And in the tens of centuries since the time of I-leten, human beings had become masters at the concealment of evil, so even the most guileless-looking creatures sometimes proved to be depraved.
        Roy had to be sure, so he said, "If I feel you're lying to me-"
        "I'm not lying," Mary said tremulously.
        He held up one hand to silence her, and he continued where he had been interrupted: "I might take this precious girl to her room, undress hen"
        The woman closed her eyes tightly, in horror, as if she could block out the scene that he was so delicately describing for her.
        And there, among the teddy bears and dolls, I could teach her some grown-up games."
        The woman's nostrils flared with terror. Hers really was an exquisite nose.
        "Now, Mary, look me in the eyes," he said, "and tell me again if you know a man named Spencer Grant."
        She opened her eyes and met his gaze.
        They were face to face.
        He put one hand on the child's head, stroked her hair, smiled.
        Mary Zelinsky clutched her daughter with pitiful desperation. "I swear to God I never heard of him. I don't