Charles Grant - Night Songs

Matt looked up at him, large eyes unblinking.

Colin cleared his throat. "Well… it's crossed our minds, yes."

"Would you live here?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I guess so."

Matt pulled the pad over his knees and began doodling birds, small dogs, and elaborately-trimmed, sleek cars. "Mom says I'm the man of the house, so I have to take care of her." A pause. "That's silly. I don't need a babysitter, but Mom's really the man of the house." He paused again, then giggled. "If Mom's the man of the house, you'll have to wear a dress."

"There aren't any my size," he said.

"I'll get one of hers for you."

"You try it, m'boy, and I'll shave that pointy head with a dull toothbrush."

Matt stared at the pad, pushed it away and slipped off the bed. Colin stood as soon as he could get his own legs untangled, watched as the boy headed for the doorway. When he turned, there was a brief, Peg-like decisive nod.

"I think… it's okay, Mr. Ross."

Colin smiled. "Thanks, Matt."

"My father's dead, you know."

He nodded.

"He was killed. In the car. The one that exploded."

"Yes. I know."

"You'll be my new father, then?"

His cheeks puffed, deflated, and he whistled softly. "I'll be your mother's husband, for sure, but I hope we'll still be friends. Anything else is up to you."

"Okay," Matt said, grinning suddenly. "C'mon, we're gonna be late."

The boy was gone before he could move, feet pounding on the stairs as he shouted for Colin to hurry. He whistled again, wondering at the way children always seemed to know more than they let on, more than they seemed to want anyone else to know. Then he looked around the room and tried to remember what his own room had been like. He certainly hadn't had a television set, but he seemed to recall an old Emerson radio his father had threatened to leave in the dump. It had loomed, a grilled walnut cabinet in the corner by his bed, and he'd listened to it at night, to the last of the serials and adventure shows before they were taken off in favor of what some claimed was music.

He smiled to himself wistfully. The perils of advancing middle-age-nostalgia for the good old days which were, if he remembered correctly, damnably boring.

A quick stride and he was at the window, looking out at the trees that formed an evergreen wall at the back of the small yard. The sky was overcast, though the morning was sun-bright. He hadn't been outside yet, but he suspected the air had finally regained its sharp touch of autumn. It would be cool at the cliffs. Peg, however, had said nothing about postponement, so he assumed the picnic would go off as planned.

Listen, she'd said to him quietly just before she'd left for work, he knows. Don't ask how. He knows.

As he walked toward the stairs he marveled again at the powers of children, and at the relief he felt that Matt seemed to accept him. Though Peg was positive there'd be no trouble, too many times he'd seen the trauma of remarriage visited on sons, on daughters, on the innocent bystanders of lives gone wrong. Matt, was special, though, and Colin suspected strongly that his work being displayed at the Whitney would be insignificant indeed to the day the boy first called him Dad.

"C'mon."

Matt was already at the door, wicker basket in hand, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other. He sighed as Colin reached for his jacket, fumbling with a sleeve turned inside out. When he'd finally pulled it right, he grabbed the cuff and pumped it as though he were shaking a man's hand.

"What was that for?"

"Nothing," Colin said. "A superstition. It's supposed to keep your good luck from getting away." When he saw the frown, he pursed his lips and stroked his chin. "So. I guess you're not superstitious. Okay, then it was just an ancient prayer to the gods of sunny days."

Matt peered anxiously at the overcast weather. "I think- they're sleeping. Do you believe in God, Mr. Ross? Mrs. Wooster-she's in Philadelphia, you know-she says God lives on a mountain in the sky. Is that true?"

They took the steps together and headed for his car. "Well-"

He stopped with his hand on the door as someone called his name. He looked up and across the street, first at Hattie Mills' place, then to the right when he heard it again. It was Rose Adams standing on her porch, wrapped in a flowered silk bathrobe that glistened without the sun. Her long, graying hair was hastily coiled into a bun, and he could see a glint of red on her nails.

"Hey, Rose!" he called with a smile as Matt clambered into the car and pulled the door shut. He walked around the front, keeping the smile on when she hustled down the steps and crossed the lawn toward him. He held back his relief when she stopped at the far curb.

"Going on a picnic, Colin?"

"Yup," he said loudly, so she could hear him. Rose was slightly deaf, her own voice naturally loud and carrying.

"Thought so."

He looked up. "Not a great day, but it'll do."

"Could be worse. Could get that storm, but I doubt it, I really doubt it." She smiled but it was forced, and he could see the makeup pancaked on her puffed cheeks gleaming like suede worn too long. "Say, I wonder if you could do me a favor."

"If I can." He avoided looking at Matt. "What is it?"

Her hands, as puffed as her face, retreated into the robe's deep pockets. "It's my little boy." She shook her head sadly. "He didn't come home last night that I know of. I've been calling Garve all morning, but he must have better things to do with his time than chase after someone's lost child."

He guessed then she hadn't heard about Warren.

"Well, I-"

"Of course, Mitchell is hunting him now, but you know how he is. He'll have the child strapped to within an inch of his life if he catches him before I do. Mitchell," she said with a saint's forbearance, "has a temper when it comes to protecting his own."

"I can imagine," he said, the smile beginning to strain. "But I'll do-"

"I'd appreciate your keeping a sharp eye out, then," she continued. "Maybe, if you pass by, you could stop in at Garve's and leave him a note if he's not there."

He opened the door and hefted the basket into the back seat. "I'll do that, Rose."

The hands left her pockets and clasped at her waist. "Oh, thank you, Colin, you're a dear."

"I try, I try."

"And if you should see that… that Carter Naughton-"

"I'll ask around, Rose," he promised, and ducked behind the wheel, closed the door and rolled down the window. Matt was deliberately looking the other way, and he poked the boy with his forefinger before firing the ignition and sweeping the car into a U-turn that ended in front of Mrs. Adams. She leaned down and smiled expectantly.

"Open the window, Matt," he said, and poked the boy again.

"I've talked to Denise, of course," Rose said, the pancake at close range cracked and peeling, "but she's just like her father. She's loyal. Very loyal. Of course, if something happened to Frankie she'd tell me in a minute. That's why I'm not worried. She hasn't even gotten out of bed. But it's Saturday, and a day off, I always say, is a day well spent sleeping till noon."

Colin smiled and slowly lifted his foot from the brake.

"You tell Garve I'll be around later," she said, raising her voice as the car drifted from the curb. "Around one or so, if I can make it."

Colin nodded and lifted a hand to wave. When he checked the rearview mirror she was still there, silk bathrobe, red nails, distance smoothing the pancake and taking twenty years from her face.

"Tommy says she has liquor in her purse," Matt confided once they'd reached the corner. "Does she really?"

"I doubt that, Matthew," he said, not bothering to signal since there was no one behind him and no cars on Bridge Road. "She's just had a bad time of it lately."

"Tommy says she smells like gin!"

"Really? Arid how does Tommy know what gin smells like? His father doesn't drink and his mother's never at home."

"I don't know," Matt said, "but Tommy says so."

"Oh."

Two blocks later he braked slowly to a stop, staring at the Clipper Run.

"Gee!" Matt said, poking his head out the window.

Bob Cameron was standing at the entrance in soiled jeans and a workshirt open to the belt. His hair was dark with moisture, and around his forehead was tied a rolled blue bandana. A large truck was in the parking lot, and several teenaged boys were busily unloading cartons of foodstuffs. When Cameron looked toward the street, Colin started to move, but it was too late. The man was beckoning, and his hand was a fist.

"We're gonna be late," Matt said.

"This won't take long, pal," he said, turning off the engine and dropping the keys on the dash. "Hang on, I'll be right back."

He wanted to smile, or say something about this being the first time he'd ever seen Cameron out of a suit unless he was on the beach, but the look on the man's face precluded anything but a studied, concerned frown.

"What's up?" he asked as he reached the end of the hedge to meet him. "Your suppliers go on strike?" He recognized all the boys, each one a local.

"It's that goddamned Sterling," Cameron said angrily. "Went on one of his toots last night, left the goddamned ferry at the island landing. I was lucky Ed Raines was in the bay and heard the horn or I'd have shit for dinner tonight." His hands gripped his hips tightly and he spat at the street. "Son of a bitch oughta be locked up."

Colin almost laughed until he suddenly glanced down Bridge. "You mean there's no one to run the ferry?"

"Well, I can, so can a few others if it comes to it. We're not marooned if that's what you're thinking.

But it's the principal of the thing, Ross. Jesus Christ, you can't depend on anyone these days."

Cameron nodded sharply to punctuate the condemnation, then took Colin's elbow and drew him down the street, away from the unloading, away from the restaurant. When he stopped he dropped his hand, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face vigorously.

"Listen," he said then, his voice lowered, his gaze on the library next door. "Listen, Colin, about yesterday-"

Colin shook his head. "I don't-"

"Listen!"

He almost turned on his heel and headed back to the car, but the harsh voice didn't match the look he saw in the man's eyes. He waited, though he couldn't find a way to still the chill in his stomach.

"Those men, Lombard and Vincent, they're… damn it, Colin, I'm in trouble."

It took a moment, a long moment, before Colin said, "Yes. I think I tried to tell you that once."

"Yes," Cameron admitted. "But you still don't understand."

"I think I do. But this isn't the place for another one of our discussions, Bob. I've got Matt Fletcher in the car and we're-"

Cameron grabbed his arm, stared hard into his face. "Half the land back there in the woods belongs to me, you know that," he said quickly, softly. "That's where the casinos were going."

"Were?" Colin said.

"Oh, they still are, for sure, but now there's a catch. Lombard says I have to sell half of it to him or there isn't going to be a deal."

"I didn't think there was supposed to be a decision until after the election."

Cameron's eyes closed slowly, opened slowly, and he took his hand from Colin's arm. "Ross, this election doesn't mean a damned thing. Christ, haven't you realized that by now? Those men, and their fatcat buddies over in Trenton, up there in New York, and out in Las Vegas, they're going to have all the land they need and the legislation they need to put up the casinos whether I win or lose."

Colin stepped away. "You've known that all along?"