Relentless

Lassie?”
    “Probably in a drawer.”
    “You put her in a drawer?”
    “No. I’m just guessing.”
    “What drawer, where?”
    He pointed to a knotty-pine chest. The lower two drawers were deep, the top three more shallow.
    When I opened the bottom drawer, I found Lassie lying on her back, her hind legs spread wide, her forepaws tucked against her chest. She grinned, tongue lolling, and her tail swished around the interior of the drawer.
    “How did this happen?” I asked Penny.
    “I have no idea.”
    “You didn’t put her in here?”
    “Why would I put a dog in a drawer?”
    “Well, she seems to like it.”
    “How on earth would I know she’d like it?”
    “Relax. You didn’t put her in here. I believe you.”
    I tried to coax Lassie out of the drawer, but she remained comfortably ensconced.
    “There’s something wrong with this dog,” Penny decided.
    “She’s just a little eccentric.”
    “Maybe I can lure her out with those bacon biscuits she likes.”
    “Good idea.”
    Leaving the dog in the open drawer, I knelt on the floor beside Milo.
    Evidently his mom had encouraged him to shower. He wore fresh clothes. Bold red letters on his white T-shirt spelled PERSIST .
    His collection of custom T-shirts came from an ordinary mall shop. Periodically, he gave his mother a series of new words that he wanted to wear.
    No, I can’t explain it to you. Milo can’t explain it to us, either. Our conversations about it have all been like this:
    “Why do you have to wear words, Milo?”
    “Names are important.”
    “These aren’t names.”
    “Every word is a name.”
    “How do you figure?”
    “Every word names an object, an action, a quality, a quantity, a condition….”
    “So why are names important?”
    “Nothing could be more important.”
    “But why?”
    “Because nothing is if it isn’t named.”
    Kneeling at his side in the cottage living room, I said, “I’m going to get take-out. What would you like?”
    Fixated on his work, Milo said, “I’m not hungry.”
    When we stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s in Eureka, he had been so absorbed by the strange displays on his Game Boy that he ate only half his cheeseburger and none of his fries.
    “You’ve got to eat, Milo. I’m not going to let you sit here doing … whatever it is you’re doing … if you don’t eat.”
    “Pizza,” he said. “Vegetarian with black olives.”
    “All right.” I patted his shoulder. “And I promise never to tell your grandmother you ate vegetarian.”
    Grimacing, he said, “No. Grandma Clotilda—she’ll read about it in her coffee grounds or something. Better add pepperoni.”
    On my walk to and from the Casas house, I had seen a pizza shop a block from the motor court. I called and placed an order.
    Later, as I was about to leave, Milo said, “Dad, be really, really careful. Keep your eyes open. We’re running out of time.”
    That declaration alarmed Penny. “What do you mean? Keep his eyes open for what?”
    “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
    “You better be,” Penny said. “Hear me clear, Cubby, you damn well better be.”
    I hugged her. “I love you, too.”

   At Smokeville Pizzeria, no one tried to kill me.
    Walking back to the cottage in the twilight, I learned why the town was named Smokeville. At certain conditions of temperature and humidity imbalance between the ocean and the shore, the sea gave up some of its substance, and the thirsty land drew the mist eastward so aggressively that it looked less like fog than like smoke harried by the heat of a fire behind it. Faux smoke seethed through the trees, the houses smoldered, and twilight dimmed behind the racing fumes.
    Milo ate well, but not at the dinette table with us. He remained on the floor, engaged in his mysterious project. Lassie watched him from atop the television cabinet.
    I told Penny about Henry Casas, his mother, Arabella, and the painfully tedious method by which he now painted.
    She was as astonished as I had been that the impressionistic portrait of one of his tormentors should at once be recognizable as the deformed man in the Maserati. Most disturbing, however, was Henry’scontention that he had been imprisoned and mutilated not by a lone psychopath or even two, but by an organization of many.
    His hands and tongue were removed with clinical precision, under anesthesia, and he received competent postoperative care while being held against his will. Consequently, the