The Night Listener : A Novel

Cool with you? Why was I talking like a VJ from MTV? And why had I taken this idiotic approach? It sounded much too desperate and wormy.
    I was debating whether to reveal my benign homosexuality when I realized that the clerk was smirking at me. “You know why most people pay us, don’t you?”
    “Sorry, I…”
    “They pay us so they don’t hafta use their real address. That’s the whole point of this place.”
    “Well, of course, I understand that completely, but…Donna’s an old friend, and I’ve come a long way, and I’m sure she’d…”
    “I can’t make that judgment, pal.”
    “Not even if—”
    “Nope. Not even.”
    “Right.” I gave him an insipid smile. Now the people behind me had started to shuffle, fully aware that I had no valid business here.
    “You can use the phone,” the clerk offered, “if you wanna call her or something.”
    “You know her, then?”
    “Who?”
    “Donna Lomax? You recognize the name? She has a box here?”
    “Look, man, you’re gonna hafta…”
    “Okay. Fine. Sorry.”
    I slunk out without argument, my face as scarlet as the countertop, while the other customers witnessed my humiliation. I could feel their eyes on me as I left, hear their little grunts of disdain. And I knew what fine camaraderie they would share at my expense, once I was out the door.
    Dazed, I wandered without purpose or thought for at least ten minutes, finally seeking refuge in one of those Italian restaurants where Christmas decorations are all but lost amid the raging year-round gaudiness. There, over a cup of coffee, I faced the question of the hour:
    What, if anything, did I know for sure?
    I could see that house so clearly in my mind’s eye: a single-story bungalow with its scaffolded bed and its shelves full of Tom Clancy and The X-Files and me. I could see rooms that Pete had never described: a blue kitchen with a neat row of cereal boxes, and the bedroom across from Pete’s, where Donna probably slept. I could even see into the yard sometimes, especially at night, when the light from Pete’s window would cast a golden Rembrandt glow on the snow. There were trees in that yard, I imagined, evergreens and sturdy sentinel oaks that baffled the sound of the cars out on Henzke Street.
    No. Not Henzke Street. Somewhere else entirely. And who could say where that might be? It had to be here, though, somewhere, maybe only blocks away. Maybe I could find it. Wysong wasn’t huge, after all; I could walk around for a while, ring a few doorbells until someone recognized Donna’s name or knew of Pete’s predicament.
    Uh-huh . They’d call the cops the minute I left, tell them about this strange man from California who’d been asking about that poor little boy. I could explain myself, of course, but only after a great deal of trouble and public embarrassment. Should I care about that?
    Yes, I decided, I should. Donna and Pete might well be angry with me already, knowing more than I thought they knew. This was hardly the time to make a spectacle of myself.
    What about her car, then? People actually parked in front of their houses here, and Donna’s car could be the tip-off. But what did it look like? Pete had bitched about it, I remembered, annoyed by those long drives to the hospital in some totally uncool machine. Had he ever mentioned its make or color? And was it Donna’s car or someone else’s—like that friend across the street who rode with them sometimes: Margaret Something. No, Marsha . Marsha might help me, assuming she was listed in the phone book, assuming I could remember the rest of her name.
    I couldn’t, of course; I wasn’t even sure if Pete had ever told me.
    My memory of our conversations was anecdotal at best, too crowded with jewelled elephants to be useful now. And even those precious images felt perishable, shimmering and fading beyond recognition, like a photograph in a darkroom when the door is opened suddenly without warning.
    A boy came into the restaurant, stopped at the counter, asked something of the cashier.
    About thirteen, I figured. Dark-haired and handsome, but decidedly healthy-looking.
    I watched him from the corner of my eye, lifting my cup to my mouth as camouflage. His face was angled away from me, so I waited for his profile to appear in relief against the faux-grotto wall. My mind began to fidget with a troubling new possibility, until someone snapped me out of it: a man of forty or so, obviously the kid’s father, signalling to him