Apt Pupil

17

The stewbum was wearing a ragged, unravelling reindeer sweater that looked so startling it almost seemed surreal here southern California. He also wore seaman’s issue bluejeans which were out at the knees, showing white, hairy flesh and a Dumber of peeling scabs. He raised the jelly glass — Fred and Wilma, Barney and Betty dancing around the rim in what slight have been some grotesque fertility rite — and tossed off the knock of Ancient Age at a gulp. He smacked his lips for the last time in this world.

‘Mister, that hits the old spot. I don’t mind saying so.’

‘I always enjoy a drink in the evening,’ Dussander agreed from behind him, and then rammed the butcher knife into the stewbum’s neck. There was the sound of ripping gristle, a sound like a drumstick being torn enthusiastically from a freshly roasted chicken. The jelly glass fell from the stewbum’s hand and onto the table. It rolled towards the edge, its movement enhancing the illusion that the cartoon characters on it were dancing.

The stewbum threw his head back and tried to scream. Nothing came out but a hideous whistling sound. His eyes widened, widened… and then his head thumped soggily onto the red and white oilcloth check that covered Dussander’s kitchen table. The stewbum’s upper plate slithered halfway out of his mouth like a semi-detachable grin.

Dussander yanked the knife free — he had to use both hands to do it — and crossed to the kitchen sink. It was filled with hot water, Lemon Fresh Joy, the dirty supper dishes. The knife disappeared into a billow of citrus-smelling suds like a very small fighter plane diving into a cloud.

He crossed to the table again and paused there, resting one hand on the dead stewbum’s shoulder while a spasm of coughing rattled through him. He took his handkerchief from his back pocket and spat yellowish-brown phlegm into it. He had been smoking too much lately. He always did when he was making up his mind to do another one. But this one had gone smoothly; really very smoothly. He had been afraid after the mess he had made with the last one that he might be tempting fate sorely to try it again.

Now, if he hurried, he would still be able to watch the second half of Lawrence Welk.

He bustled across the kitchen, opened the cellar door, and turned on the light switch. He went back to the sink and got the package of green plastic garbage bags from the cupboard beneath. He shook one out as he walked back to the slumped wino. Blood had run across the table cloth in all directions. It had puddled in the wino’s lap and on the hilly, faded linoleum. It would be on the chair, too, but all of those things would clean up.

Oussander grabbed the stewbum by the hair and yanked his head up. It came with boneless ease, and a moment later the wino was lolling backwards, like a man about to get a pre-haircut shampoo. Dussander pulled the garbage bag down over the wino’s head, over his shoulders, and down his arms to the elbows. That was as far as it would go. He unbuckled his late guest’s belt and pulled it free of the fraying belt-loops. He wrapped the belt around the garbage bag two or three inches above the elbows and buckled it tight. Plastic rustled. Dussander began to hum ‘Lift Marlene’ under his breath.

The wino’s feet were clad in scuffed and dirty Hush Puppies. They made a limp V on the floor as Dussander seized the belt and dragged the corpse towards the cellar door. Something white tumbled out of the plastic bag and clicked on the floor. It was the stewbum’s upper plate, Dussander saw. He picked it up and stuffed it into one of the wino’s front pockets.

He laid the wino down in the cellar doorway with his head now lolling backwards onto the second stair-level. Dussander climbed around the body and gave it three healthy kicks. The body moved slightly on the first two, and the third sent it slithering bonelessly down the stairs. Halfway down the feet flew up over the head and the body executed an acrobatic roll. It belly-whopped onto the packed dirt of the cellar floor with a solid thud. One Hush Puppy flew off, and Dussander made a mental note to pick it up.

He went down the stairs, skirted the body, and approached his toolbench. To the left of the bench a spade, a rake, and a hoe leaned against the wall in a neat rank. Dussander selected the spade. A little exercise was good for an old man. A little exercise could make you feel young.

The smell down here was not good, but it didn’t bother him much. He limed the place once a month (once every three days after he had ‘done’ one of his winos) and he had gotten a fan which he ran upstairs to keep the smell from permeating the house on very warm still days. Josef Kramer, he remembered, had been fond of saying that the dead speak, but we hear them with our noses.

Dussander picked a spot in the cellar’s north corner and went to work. The dimensions of the grave were two and half feet by six feet. He had gotten to a depth of two feet, half deep enough, when the first paralyzing pain struck him in the chest like a shotgun blast He straightened up, eyes flaring wide. Then the pain rolled down his arm… unbelievable pain, as if an invisible hand had seized all the blood-vessels in there and was now pulling them. He watched the spade tumble sideways and felt his knees buckle. For one horrible moment he felt sure that he was going to fall into the grave himself.

Somehow he staggered backwards three paces and sat down on his workbench with a plop. There was an expression of stupid surprise on his face — he could feel it — and he thought he must look like one of those silent movie comedians after he’s been hit by the swinging door or stepped in the cow patty. He put his head down between his knees and gasped.

Fifteen minutes crawled by. The pain had begun to abate somewhat, but he did not believe he would be able to stand. For the first time he understood all the truths of old age which he had been spared until now. He was terrified almost to the point of whimpering. Death had brushed by him in this dank smelly cellar; it had touched Dussander with the hem of its robe. It might be back for him yet But he would not die down here; not if he could help it.

He got up, hands still crossed on his chest, as if to hold the fragile machinery together. He staggered across the open space between the workbench and the stairs. His left foot tripped over the dead wino’s outstretched leg and he went to his knees with a small cry. There was a sullen flare of pain in his chest. He looked up the stairs — the steep, steep stairs. Twelve of them. The square of light at the top was mockingly distant.

"Ein,’ Kurt Dussander said, and pulled himself grimly up onto the first stair-level. ‘Zwei.Drei. Vier.’

It took him twenty minutes to reach the linoleum floor of the kitchen. Twice, on the stairs, the pain had threatened to come back, and both times Dussander had waited with his eyes closed to see what would happen, perfectly aware that if it came back as strongly as it had come upon him down there, he would probably die. Both times the pain had faded away again.

He crawled across the kitchen floor to the table, avoiding the pools and streaks of blood, which were now congealing. He got the bottle of Ancient Age, took a swallow, and closed his eyes. Something that had been cinched tight in his chest seemed to loosen a little. The pain faded a bit more. After another five minutes he began to work his way slowly down the hall. His telephone sat on a small table halfway down.

It was quarter past nine when the phone rang in the Bowden house. Todd was sitting cross-legged on the couch, going over his notes for the trig final. Trig was a bitch for him, as all maths were and probably always would be. His father was seated across the room, going through the chequebook stubs with a portable calculator on his lap and a mildly disbelieving expression on his face. Monica, closest to the phone, was watching the James Bond movie Todd had taped off HBC two evenings before.

‘Hello?’ She listened. A faint frown touched her face and she held the handset out to Todd. ‘It’s Mr Denker. He sounds excited about something. Or upset.’

Todd’s heart leaped into his throat, but his expression hardly changed. ‘Really?’ He went to the phone and took it from her. ‘Hi, Mr Denker.’

Dussander’s voice was hoarse and short ‘Come over right away, boy. I’ve had a heart attack. Quite a bad one, I think.’

‘Gee,’ Todd said, trying to collect his flying thoughts, to see around the fear that now bulked huge in his own mind. That’s interesting, all right, but it’s pretty late and I was studying—’

‘I understand that you cannot talk,’ Dussander said in that harsh, almost barking voice. ‘But you can listen. I cannot call ib ambulance or dial 222, boy… at least not yet. There is a mess here. I need help… and that means you need help.’

‘Well… if you put it that way…’ Todd’s heartbeat had -reached a hundred and twenty beats a minute, but his face was calm, almost serene. Hadn’t he known all along that a night like this would come? Yes, of course he had.

Tell your parents I’ve had a letter,’ Dussander said. ‘An important letter. You understand?’

‘Yeah, okay,’ Todd said.

‘Now we see, boy. We see what you are made of.’

‘Sure,’ Todd said. He suddenly became aware that his -mother was watching him instead of the movie, and he forced a stiff grin onto his face. ‘Bye.’

Dussander was saying something else now, but Todd hung up on it ‘I’m going over to Mr Denker’s for a while,’ he said, speaking to both of them but looking at his mother — that faint expression of concern was still on her face. ‘Can I pick up anything for either of you at the store?’

‘Pipe cleaners for me and a small package of fiscal -responsibility for your mother,’ Dick said.

‘Very funny,’ Monica said. Todd, is Mr Denker—’

‘What in the name of God did you get at Fielding’s?’ Dick interrupted.

That knick-knack shelf in the closet. I told you that. There’s nothing wrong with Mr Denker, is there, Todd? He sounded a little strange.’

There really are such things as knick-knack shelves? I thought those crazy women who write British mysteries made them up so there would always be a place where the killer could find a blunt instrument’

‘Dick, can I get a word in edgeways?’

‘Sure. Be my guest But for the closet?’

‘He’s okay, I guess,’ Todd said. He put on his leather jacket and zipped it up. ‘But he was excited. He got a letter from a nephew of his in Hamburg or Dusseldorf or someplace. He hasn’t heard from any of his people in years, and now he’s got this letter and his eyes aren’t good enough for him to read it’

‘Well isn’t that a bitch,’ Dick said. ‘Go on, Todd. Get over there and ease the man’s mind.’

‘I thought he had someone to read to him,’ Monica said. ‘A new boy.’

‘He does,’ Todd said, suddenly hating his mother, hating the half-formed intuition he saw swimming in her eyes. ‘Maybe he wasn’t home, or maybe he couldn’t come over this late.’

‘Oh. Well… go on, then. But be careful.’

‘I will. You don’t need anything at the store?’

‘No. How’s your studying for that calculus final going?’

‘It’s trig,’ Todd said. ‘Okay, I guess. I was just getting ready to call it a night.’ This was a rather large lie.

‘You want to take the Porsche?’ Dick asked.

‘No, I’ll ride my bike.’ He wanted the extra five minutes to collect his thoughts and get his emotions under control — to try, at least. And in his present state, he would probably drive the Porsche into a telephone pole.

‘Strap your reflector-patch on your knee,’ Monica said, ‘and tell Mr Denker hello for us.’

‘Okay.’

That doubt was still in his mother’s eyes but it was less evident now. He blew her a kiss and then went out to the garage where his bike — a racing-style German bike rather than a Schwinn now — was parked. His heart was still racing in his chest, and he felt a mad urge to take the .30-.30 back into the house and shoot both of his parents and then go down to the slope overlooking the freeway. No more Apt Pupil 241 worrying about Dussander. No more bad dreams, no more winos. He would shoot and shoot and shoot, only saving one bullet back for the end.

Then reason came back to him and he rode away towards Dussander’s, his reflector-patch revolving up and down just above his knee, his long blond hair streaming back from his brow.

‘Holy Christ!’ Todd nearly screamed.

He was standing in the kitchen door. Dussander was damped on his elbows, his china cup between them. Large drops of sweat stood out on his forehead. But it was not Dossander Todd was looking at It was the blood. There seemed to be blood everywhere — it was puddled on the table, an the empty kitchen chair, on the floor.

‘Where are you bleeding?’ Todd shouted, at last getting his frozen feet to move again — it seemed to him that he had been standing in the doorway for at least a thousand years. This is the end, he was thinking, this is the absolute end of everything. The balloon is going up high, baby, all the way to the sky, baby, and it’s toot-toot-tootsie, goodbye. All the same, he was careful not to step in any of the blood. ‘I thought you said you had a fucking heart attack!’

‘It’s not my blood,’ Dussander muttered.

‘What?’ Todd stopped. ‘What did you say?’

‘Go downstairs. You will see what has to be done.’

‘What the hell is this?’ Todd asked. A sudden terrible idea -had come into his head.

‘Don’t waste our time, boy. I think you will not be too surprised at what you find downstairs. I think you have had experience in such matters as the one in my cellar. First-hand experience.’

Todd looked at him, unbelieving, for another moment, and then he plunged down the cellar stairs two by two. His first look in the feeble yellow glow of the basement’s only light made him think that Dussander had pushed a bag of garbage down there. Then he saw the protruding legs, and the dirty hands held down at the sides by the cinched belt.

‘Holy Christ,’ he repeated, but this time the words had no force at all — they emerged in a slight, skeletal whisper.

He pressed the back of his right hand against lips that were as dry as sandpaper. He closed his eyes for a moment… and when he opened them again, he felt in control of himself at last.

Todd started moving.

He saw the spade-handle protruding from a shallow hole in the far corner and understood at once what Dussander had being doing when his ticker had seized up. A moment later he became fully aware of the cellar’s fetid aroma — a smell like rotting tomatoes. He had smelled it before, but upstairs it was much fainter… and, of course, he hadn’t been here very often over the last couple of years. Now he understood exactly what that smell meant and for several moments he had to struggle with his gorge. A series of choked gagging sounds, muffled by the hand he had clapped over his mouth and nose, came from him.

Little by little he got control of himself again.

He seized the wino’s legs and dragged him across to the edge of the hole. He dropped them, skidded sweat from his forehead with the heel of his left hand, and stood absolutely still for a moment, thinking harder than he ever had in his life.

Then he seized the spade and began to deepen the hole. When it was five feet deep, he got out and shoved the derelict’s body in with his foot Todd stood at the edge of the grave, looking down. Tattered bluejeans. Filthy, scab-encrusted hands. It was a stewbum, all right The irony was almost funny. So funny a person could scream with laughter.

He ran back upstairs.

‘How are you?’ he asked Dussander.

‘Ill be all right Have you taken care of it?’

‘I’m doing it, okay?’

‘Be quick. There’s still up here.’

‘I’d like to find some pigs and feed you to them,’ Todd said, and went back down the cellar before Dussander could reply.

He had almost completely covered the wino when he began to think there was something wrong. He stared into the grave, grasping the spade’s handle with one hand. The wino’s legs stuck partway out of the mound of dirt, as did the tips of his feet — one old shoe, possibly a Hush Puppy, and one filthy athletic sock that might actually have been white around the time that Taft was President.

One Hush Puppy? One?

Todd half-ran back around the furnace to the foot of the stairs. He glanced around wildly. A headache was beginning to thud against his temples, dull drillbits trying to work their way out. He spotted the old shoe five feet away, overturned in the shadow of some abandoned shelving. Todd grabbed it, ran back to the grave with it, and threw it in. Then he started to shovel again. He covered the shoe, the legs, everything.

When all the dirt was back in the hole, he slammed the spade down repeatedly to tamp it Then he grabbed the rake and ran it back and forth, trying to disguise the fact the earth here had been recently turned. Not much use; without good camouflage, a hole that has been recently dug and then filled in always looks like a hole that has been recently dug and then filled in. Still, no one would have any occasion to come down here, would they? He and Dussander would damn well have to hope not.

Todd ran back upstairs. He was starting to pant.

Dussander’s elbows had spread wide and his head had sagged down to the table. His eyes were closed, the lids a shiny purple — the colour of asters..

‘Dussander!’ Todd shouted. There was a hot, juicy taste in his mouth — the taste of fear mixed with adrenalin and pulsing hot blood. ‘Don’t you dare die on me, you old fuck!’

‘Keep your voice down,’ Dussander said without opening ins eyes. ‘You’ll have everyone on the block over here.’

‘Where’s your cleaner? Lestoil… Top Job… something like that. And rags. I need rags.’

‘All that is under the sink.’

A lot of the blood had now dried on. Dussander raised his head and watched as Todd crawled across the floor, scrubbing first at the puddle on the linoleum and then at the drips that had straggled down the legs of the chair the wino had been sitting in. The boy was biting compulsively at his lips, champing at them, almost, like a horse at a bit. At last the job was finished. The astringent smell of cleaner filled the room.

‘There is a box of old rags under the stairs,’ Dussander said. ‘Put those bloody ones on the bottom. Don’t forget to wash your hands.’

‘I don’t need your advice. You got me into this.’

‘Did I? I must say you took hold well.’ For a moment the old mockery was in Dussander’s voice, and then a bitter grimace pulled his face into a new shape. ‘Hurry.’

Todd took care of the rags, then hurried up the cellar stairs for the last time. He looked nervously down the stairs for a moment, then snapped off the light and closed the door. He went to the sink, rolled up his sleeves, and washed in the hottest water he could stand. He plunged his hands into the suds… and came up holding the butcher knife Dussander had used.

‘I’d like to cut your throat with this,’ Todd said grimly.

‘Yes, and then feed me to the pigs. I have no doubt of it’

Todd rinsed the knife, dried it, and put it away. He did the rest of the dishes quickly, let the water out, and rinsed the sink. He looked at the clock as he dried his hands and saw it was twenty past ten.

He went to the phone in the hallway, picked up the receiver, and looked at it thoughtfully. The idea that he had forgotten something — something as potentially damning as the wino’s shoe-nagged unpleasantly at his mind. What? He didn’t know. If not for the headache, he might be able to get it The triple-damned headache. It wasn’t like him to forget things, and it was scary.

He dialled 222 and after a single ring, a voice answered: This is Santa Donato MED-Q. Do you have a medical problem?’

‘My name is Todd Bowden. I’m at 963 Claremont Lane. I need an ambulance.’

‘What’s the problem, son?’

‘It’s my friend, Mr D-’ He bit down on his lip so hard that it squirted blood, and for a moment he was lost, drowning in the pulses of pain from his head. Dussander. He had almost given this anonymous MED-Q voice Dussander’s real name.

"Calm down, son,’ the voice said. Take it slow and you’ll be fine.’

‘My friend Mr Denker,’ Todd said. ‘I think he’s had a heart attack.’

‘His symptoms?’

Todd began to give them, but the receptionist had heard enough as soon as Todd described the chest pain that had migrated to the left arm. He told Todd the ambulance would arrive in ten to twenty minutes, depending on the traffic. Todd hung up and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

‘Did you get it?’ Dussander called weakly.

‘Yes!’ Todd screamed. ‘Yes, I got it! Yes goddammit yes! Yes yes yes! Just shut up?’

He pressed his hands even harder against his eyes, creating first senseless starflashes of light and then a bright field of red. Get hold of yourself, Toad-baby. Get down, get funky, get cool. Dig it.

He opened his eyes and picked up the telephone again. Now the hard part. Now it was time to call home.

‘Hello?’ Monica’s soft, cultured voice in his ear. For a moment — just a moment — he saw himself slamming the muzzle of the .30-.30 into her nose and pulling the trigger into the first flow of blood.

‘It’s Todd, mommy. Let me talk to dad, quick.’

He didn’t call her mommy anymore. He knew she would get that signal quicker than anything else, and she did. ‘What’s the matter? Is something wrong, Todd?’

‘Just let me talk to him!’

‘But what—’

The phone rattled and clinked. He heard his mother saying something to his father. Todd got ready.

Todd? What’s the problem?’

‘It’s Mr Denker, daddy. He… it’s a heart attack, I think. I’m pretty sure it is.’

‘Jesus!’ His father’s voice lagged away for a moment and Todd heard him repeating the information to his wife. Then he was back. ‘He’s still alive? As far as you can tell?’

‘He’s alive. Conscious.’

‘All right, thank God for that Call an ambulance.’

‘I just did.’

‘222?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good boy. How bad is he, can you tell?’

(not fucking bad enough!)

‘I don’t know, dad. They said the ambulance would be here soon, but… I’m sorta scared. Can you come over and wait with me?’

‘You bet Give me four minutes.’

Todd could hear his mother saying something else as his father hung up, breaking the connection. Todd replaced the receiver on his end.

Four minutes.

Four minutes to do anything that had been left undone. Four minutes to remember whatever it was that had been forgotten. Or had he forgotten anything? Maybe it was just nerves. God, he wished he hadn’t had to call his father. But it was the natural thing to do, wasn’t it? Sure. Was there some natural thing that he hadn ’t done? Something -?

‘Oh, you shit-for-brains!’ he suddenly moaned, and bolted back into the kitchen. Dussander’s head lay on the table, his eyes half-open, sluggish.

‘Dussander!’ Todd cried. He shook Dussander roughly, and the old man groaned. ‘Wake up! Wake up, you stinking old bastard!’

‘What? Is it the ambulance?’

The letter! My father is coming over, he’ll be here in no time. Where’s the fucking letter?"

‘What… what letter?’

‘You told me to tell them you got an important letter. I said…’ His heart sank. ‘I said it came from overseas… from Germany. Christ!’ Todd ran his hands through his hair.

‘A letter.’ Dussander raised his head with slow difficulty. His seamed cheeks were an unhealthy yellowish-white, his lips blue. ‘From Willi, I think. Willi Frankel. Dear… dear Willi.’

Todd looked at his watch and saw that already two minutes had passed since he had hung up the phone. His father would not, could not make it from their house to Dussander’s in four minutes, but he could do it damn fast in the Porsche. Fast, that was it. Everything was moving too fast. And there was still something wrong here; he felt it. But there was no time to stop and hunt around for the loophole.

‘Yes, okay, I was reading it to you, and you got excited and had this heart attack. Good. Where is it?’

Dussander looked at him blankly.

‘The letter! Where is it?’

‘What letter?’ Dussander asked vacantly, and Todd’s lands itched to throttle the drunken old monster.

The one I was reading to you! The one from Willi What’s—his-face! Where is it?’

They both looked at the table, as if expecting to see the letter materialize there.

‘Upstairs,’ Dussander said finally. ‘Look in my dresser. The third drawer. There is a small wooden box in the bottom of that drawer. You will have to break it open. I lost the key a long time ago. There are some very old letters from a friend of mine. None signed. None dated. All in German. A page or — o will serve for window-fittings, as you would say. If you hurry—’

‘Are you crazy?’ Todd raged. ‘I don’t understand German! How could I read you a letter written in German, you numb fuck?’

‘Why would Willi write me in English?’ Dussander countered wearily. ‘If you read me the letter in German, / would understand it even if you did not. Of course your pronunciation would be butchery, but still, I could—’

Dussander was right — right again, and Todd didn’t wait to hear more. Even after a heart attack the old man was a step ahead. Todd raced down the hall to the stairs, pausing just long enough by the front door to make sure his father’s Porsche wasn’t pulling up even now. It wasn’t, but Todd’s watch told him just how tight things were getting; it had been five minutes now.

He took the stairs two at a time and burst into Dussander’s bedroom. He had never been up here before, hadn’t even been curious, and for a moment he only looked wildly around at the unfamiliar territory. Then he saw the dresser, a cheap item done in the style his father called Discount Store Modern. He fell on his knees in front of it and yanked at the third drawer. It came halfway out, then jigged sideways in its slot and stuck firmly.

‘Goddam you,’ he whispered at it. His face was dead pale except for the spots of dark, bloody colour flaring in each cheek and his blue eyes, which looked as dark as Atlantic storm-clouds. ‘Goddam you fucking thing come out!’

He yanked so hard that the entire dresser tottered forward and almost fell on him before deciding to settle back. The drawer shot all the way out and landed in Todd’s lap. Dussander’s socks and underwear and handkerchiefs spilled out all around him. He pawed through the stuff that was still in the drawer and came up with a wooden box about nine inches long and three inches deep. He tried to pull up the lid. Nothing happened. It was locked, just as Dussander had said. Nothing was free tonight.

He stuffed the spilled clothes back into the drawer and then rammed the drawer back into its oblong slot. It stuck again. Todd worked to free it, wiggling it back and forth, sweat running freely down his face. At last he was able to slam it shut He got up with the box. How much time had passed now?

Dussander’s bed was the type with posts at the foot and Todd brought the lock side of the box down on one of these posts as hard as he could, grinning at the shock of pain that vibrated in his hands and travelled all the way up to his elbows. He looked at the lock. The lock looked a bit dented, but it was intact. He brought it down on the post again, even harder this time, heedless of the pain. This time a chunk of wood flew off the bedpost, but the lock still didn’t give. Todd uttered a little shriek of laughter and took the box to the other end of the bed. He raised it high over his head this time and brought it down with all his strength. This time the lock splintered.

As he flipped the lid up, headlights splashed across Dussander’s window.

He pawed wildly through the box. Postcards. A locket. A much-folded picture of a woman wearing frilly black garters and nothing else. An old billfold. Several sets of ID. An empty leather passport folder. At the bottom, letters.

The lights grew brighter, and now he heard the distinctive neat of the Porsche’s engine. It grew louder… and then cut off.

Todd grabbed three sheets of airmail-type stationery, closely written in German on both sides of each sheet, and -an out of the room again. He had almost gotten to the stairs when he realized he had left the forced box lying on Dussander’s bed. He ran back, grabbed it, and opened the third dresser drawer.

It stuck again, this time with a firm shriek of wood against wood.

Out front, he heard the ratchet of the Porsche’s emergency brake, the opening of the driver’s side door, the slam shut.

Faintly, Todd could hear himself moaning. He put the box in the askew drawer, stood up, and lashed at it with his foot. The drawer closed neatly. He stood blinking at it for a moment and then fled back down the hall. He raced down the stairs. Halfway down them, he heard the rapid rattle of his father’s shoes on Dussander’s walk. Todd vaulted over the banister, landed lightly, and ran into the kitchen, the airmail pages fluttering from his hand.

A hammering on the door. Todd? Todd, it’s me!’

And he could hear an ambulance siren in the distance as well. Dussander had drifted away into semi-consciousness again.

‘Coming, dad!’ Todd shouted.

He put the airmail pages on the table, fanning them a little as if they had been dropped in a hurry, and then he went back down the hall and let his father in.

‘Where is he?’ Dick Bowden asked, shouldering past Todd.

‘In the kitchen.’

‘You did everything just right, Todd,’ his father said, and then hugged him in a rough, embarrassed way.

‘I just hope I remembered everything,’ Todd said modestly, and then followed his father down the hall and into the kitchen.

In the rush to get Dussander out of the house, the letter was almost completely ignored. Todd’s father picked it up briefly, then put it down when the medics came in with the stretcher. Todd and his father followed the ambulance, and his explanation of what had happened was accepted without question by the doctor attending Dussander’s case. ‘Mr Denker’ was, after all, seventy-nine years old, and his habits were not the best The doctor also offered Todd a brusque commendation for his quick thinking and action. Todd thanked him wanly and then asked his father if they could go home.

As they rode back, Dick told him again how proud of him he was. Todd barely heard him. He was thinking about his .30-.30 again.