— I want to see if I'm right about something.
— Okay. Ask.
— Thank you. Were your parents in different aspects of the industry?
— Um.
— Was one of them in the business end of things, and the other a performer?
— Um.
— Was your mother an actress?
— Uh-huh.
— A famous actress, in a way. She never really got the respect she deserved, but she made a ton of movies all through the fifties and into the mid-sixties, and at the end of her career she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
— Henry, Jack said. Where did you —
— Clam up. I intend to relish this moment. Your mother was Lily Cavanaugh. That's wonderful. Lily Cavanaugh was always so much more talented than most people gave her credit for. Every time out, she brought those roles she played, those girls, those tough little waitresses and dames with guns in their handbags, up to a new level. Beautiful, smart, gutsy, no pretensions, just lock in and inhabit the part. She was about a hundred times better than anyone else around her.
— Henry . . .
— Some of those movies had nice sound tracks, too. Lost Summer, Johnny Mandel? Out of sight.
— Henry, how did —
— You told me; how else could I know? These little things your voice does, that's how. You slide over the tops of your r's, and you hit the rest of your consonants in a kind of cadence, and that cadence runs through your sentences.
— A cadence?
— Bet your ass, junior. An underlying rhythm, like your own personal drummer. All through The Good Soldier I kept trying to remember where I'd heard it before. Faded in, faded back out. A couple of days ago, I nailed it. Lily Cavanaugh. You can't me blame for wanting to see if I was right, can you?
— Blame you? Jack said. I'm too stunned to blame anybody, but give me a couple of minutes.
— Your secret's safe. When people see you, you don't want their first thought to be, Hey, there's Lily Cavanaugh's son. Makes sense to me.
Henry Leyden has great ears, all right.
As the pickup rolls through French Landing the din filling the cab makes conversation impossible. Dirtysperm is burning a hole through the marzipan center of "Where Did Our Love Go" and in the process committing hideous atrocities upon those cute little Supremes. Henry, who claims to loathe this kind of thing, slouches in his seat, knees up on the dash, hands steepled below his chin, grinning with pleasure. The shops on Chase Street have opened for business, and half a dozen cars jut at an angle from parking spaces.
Four boys astride bicycles swerve off the sidewalk before Schmitt's Allsorts and into the road twenty feet in front of the moving pickup. Jack hits his brakes; the boys come to an abrupt halt and line up side by side, waiting for him to pass. Jack trolls forward. Henry straightens up, checks his mysterious sensors, and drops back into position. All is well with Henry. The boys, however, do not know what to make of the uproar growing ever louder as the pickup approaches. They stare at Jack's windshield in bafflement tinged with distaste, the way their great-grandfathers once stared at the Siamese twins and the Alligator Man in the freak show at the back of the fairground. Everybody knows that the drivers of pickup trucks listen to only two kinds of music, heavy metal or country, so what's with this creep?
As Jack drives past the boys, the first, a scowling heavyweight with the inflamed face of a schoolyard bully, displays an upraised second finger. The next two continue the imitations of their great-grandfathers having a hot night out in 1921 and gape, idiotically, mouths slack and open. The fourth boy, whose dark blond hair beneath a Brewers cap, bright eyes, and general air of innocence make him the nicest-looking of the group, gazes directly into Jack's face and gives him a sweet, tentative smile. This is Tyler Marshall, out for a spin — though he is completely unaware of it — into no-man's-land.
The boys glide into the background, and Jack glances into the mirror to see them pedaling furiously up the street, Sluggo in front, the smallest, most appealing one in the rear, already falling behind.
"A sidewalk panel of experts has reported in on the Dirtysperm," Jack says. "Four kids on bikes." Since he can scarcely make out his words, he does not think Henry will be able to hear them at all.