God Save the Child

“I have to change,” she said, “and put on my face and do something with my hair. I can’t go out like this.” She had on jeans and sneakers and a man’s white shirt. The curls on each side of her face were held in place by Scotch Tape.

“We are not going out dancing to the syncopated rhythms of Blue Barron,” I said.

She said, “I can’t leave the house looking like this,” and went upstairs. Twenty minutes later she descended in a double-breasted blue pinstripe pants suit with a blue and white polka-dot shirt and three-inch blue platform shoes. She had on lipstick, rouge, eye makeup, earrings, and doubtless much more that I didn’t recognize. Her hair was stiff with spray. She put on big round blue-colored sunglasses, got her purse from the table in the front hall, and said she was ready.

I said, “I hope you got on clean underwear so if we get in an accident.” She didn’t answer me. And I left it at that. As long as she was quiet, I didn’t want to press my luck.

When we found him at the construction trailer, Roger Bartlett was wearing green twill work clothes and carrying a clipboard.

“Hey,” he said when I told him, “hey, that’s great. Wait a minute, I’ll tell the foreman and I’ll be with you. Hey, that’s okay.” He went across the bulldozed road to a half-framed house and yelled up to one of the men on a scaffold. Then he put the clipboard down on the subfloor of the house and came to my car.

“Get in back, Roger, would you? It’s hard for me without wrinkling my suit.”

She leaned forward and held the seat, and he slid into the back.

On the ride in I told them a little of what I knew. I didn’t mention Croft or Fraser Robinson. I merely told them that I had an address in town where Kevin was staying, and I knew he was staying with Vic Harroway. Neither Bartlett nor his wife knew Harroway. “The sonova bitch,” Bartlett said, “if he’s hurt my kid, I’ll kill him.”

“No,” I said. “You let me handle Harroway. He is not easy. You stay away from him.”

“He’s got my kid, not yours,” Bartlett said.

“He hasn’t harmed Kevin. They like one another. Kevin’s with him by choice.”

Bartlett said, “The sonova bitch.”

We drove along Storrow Drive with the river on our right, took the Kenmore exit, went up over Commonwealth Avenue and onto Park Drive. On the right, apartment houses in red brick and yellow brick, most of them built probably before the war, some with courtyards, low buildings, no more than five stories. It was a neighborhood of graduate students and retired school teachers and middle-aged couples without children. On the left, following the curve of the muddy river, was the Fenway. In early fall it was still bright with flowers, the trees were still dominantly green, and the reeds along the river were higher than a man. Whenever I passed them, I expected Marlin Perkins to jump out and sell me some insurance.

Number 136 was three quarters of the way down Park Drive, across from the football field. At that point the drive was divided by a broad grass safety island, and I pulled my car up onto it and parked.

Marge Bartlett said, “It’s not a bad neighborhood. Look, it’s across the street from the museum. And there’s a nice park.”

“Breeding shows,” I said. We went across the street and rang the bell marked Super. A fat middle-aged woman with no teeth and gray hair in loose disorganization around her head shuffled to the door. She was wearing fluffy pink slippers and a flowered housedress. When she opened the door, I showed her a badge that said “Suburban Security Service” on it and said in a mean vice-squad voice, “Where’s Apartment Three?”

She said, “Right there on the left, officer, first door What’s the trouble?”

“No trouble,” I said, “just routine.”

I knocked on the door with the Bartletts right behind me. No answer, I knocked again then put my ear against the panel. Silence. “Open it,” I said to the super.

“I don’t know,” she said, “I mean the tenants get mad if...”

“Look, sweetheart,” I said, “if I have to come back here with a warrant, I might bring along someone from the Building Inspector’s office. And we might go over this roach farm very closely, you know.”

“Okay, okay, no need to get mad. Here.” She produced a key ring and opened the door. I went in with my hand on my gun. It was not a distinguished place. Two rooms, kitchen and bath off a central foyer that was painted a dull pink. The place was neat. The bed was made. There was a pound of frozen hamburg half-defrosted on the counter. In the bedroom there were twin beds. On each were some clothes.

Roger Bartlett looked at a pair of flared jeans and a pale blue polo shirt and said, “Those are Kevin’s.” On the other bed was a pair of Black Watch plaid trousers with deep cuffs, and a forest-green silk short-sleeved shirt with a button-down collar. A pair of stacked-heel black loafers was on the floor beside the bed. On the bureau there was a framed eight-by-ten color photo of Harroway and the boy. Harroway had an arm draped over the boy’s shoulders, and they were both smiling.