Overhead, the winter-stripped limbs of the trees scratched at one another and rattled when a gust of the inconstant wind passed through them. The last birds hardy enough to perch in those leafless bowers cast themselves, with much flapping of wings and shrieking, into a rush of wind and let it carry them to roosts in the more sheltered eaves of nearby buildings.
When my father came out of the diner, he was not in the company of Miss Delvane. Instead, the man with him was a few inches past six feet, with long dirty-blond hair that the wind tossed. They huddled for a moment, sharing a last word, and then my father walked west toward the avenue. His tall companion stood at the curb until a cluster of cars passed, and then he crossed the street as if he had business at the shoe-repair shop.
Having crossed, however, he turned east toward me, and I found a soda can to kick along the fence, hoping to pass for a bored kid with nothing more interesting to do than to haunt a vacant lot and hope others like me might come along for a game of kickball. I noisily booted the can eastward, then turned and kicked it toward the west, looking up at him as he approached along the farther side of the chain-link.
Although his short hair was now long, although he had a poorly groomed mustache when once he had been clean-shaven, although he was perhaps twenty-five instead of seventeen, as he had been when I had seen him in a dream, I recognized him at once. Lucas Drackman. Murderer of his parents. Bomber of military-recruitment offices. He so little resembled the police artist’s portrait that he was in no danger whatsoever of being identified by it.
In memory, I heard the voice of Miss Pearl, who had seemed to be in my bedroom, sitting on the edge of my bed, on the night that I dreamed of this killer: Go to sleep, Ducks. Go to sleep now. I have a name for you, a name and a face and a dream. The name is Lucas Drackman and the face is his.
His dragon-smoke breath pluming from his open mouth, he met my eyes through the fence, and for a moment I couldn’t look away from him, for I felt that I was staring into the eyes not of a man but of a demon. Perhaps in that moment, he sensed that my interest was not that of someone to whom he was a stranger, because when I moved again and sent the can tumbling, he came to a halt. I kept going, kicking that tortured scrap of aluminum to the west end of the property, turned, and started back, pretending that I didn’t realize he was waiting for me.
As I approached him, he said, “Hey, kid.”
Trying to look pissed-off at the world rather than frightened, I dared to look at him.
He studied me for a moment and then said, “What’s with you?”
I did what I thought a juvenile delinquent in the making might have done. I flipped him my middle finger and turned away and booted the can hard toward the center of the vacant lot. I gave that can hell for a while, kicking it this way and that half a dozen times, and when at last I looked toward the fence, Lucas Drackman had gone.
39
At home, after putting the cheese bread in the oven, which served as our breadbox, the chili and cupcakes in the refrigerator, I took Mr. Yoshioka’s business card from my wallet and went to the telephone.
The card provided no company name, but a woman answered the phone with, “Metropolitan Suits. May I help you?”
Although she must have thought it peculiar that a young boy would be ringing them up, she didn’t hesitate to give me their address when I asked for it.
I felt the need to consult with Mr. Yoshioka at once, but what I had to tell him could be conveyed convincingly only face-to-face. The address I’d been given was in the city’s Garment District, two short blocks and four long blocks from our apartment, farther than I had permission to roam alone. I regret to say that I hesitated not at all to be disobedient, but instead set out at once.
At the street number that I’d written on the card, I found a large, plain single-story building, impressive only for its size. The street was almost clogged with big trucks making deliveries and picking up shipments at an array of businesses. A marshaling yard on the north side of Metropolitan Suits, adjacent to the company’s loading docks, seemed to be the busiest place of all.
The front door brought me into a reception area. To the right, a counter separated the public space from four desks where women sat typing, working adding machines, and answering phones. The center of the room was open, and to the left were eight chairs, all empty, and a coffee table on which glossy magazines were fanned like a hand of cards.
One of the women got up from her desk, a nice older lady with curly gray hair, and came to the counter and smiled and asked if she could help me.
“I need to see Mr. George T. Yoshioka, please. I’m sorry to bother him on the job, I don’t want to get him fired or anything, but it’s very important, it’s an emergency.”
“And your name?” she asked.
“Jonah Ellington Basie Hines—” I checked myself. “Jonah Kirk, ma’am. I’m Mr. Yoshioka’s neighbor. He’s fifth floor, see, and my mom and me are on the fourth.”