Ritual. Part 9

'Yes, I do understand your position,' said Charlie furiously. 'Your position is that for some reason best known to yourselves you're trying to fool me into thinking that my son wasn't even here last night, and that the woman with whom I spent the night was some kind of figment of my imagination.'

93.The manager smiled without warmth or interest. 'You said it, sir, not me.'

Charlie said tightly, 'I want my son.'

The manager didn't reply, but beckoned the bell captain to lean over the desk toward him. He whispered something into the bell captain's ear and the bell captain nodded.

'What was that all about?' Charlie demanded.

'Nothing to do with your son, sir,' said the manager. 'As I say, I'm very sorry, but we're unable to a.s.sist you.'

Charlie had always scoffed at those Hollywood movies in which unscrupulous relatives try to steal a woman's fortune by driving her mad; but he could understand now how quickly a person's sense of reality could slip away. He walked away from the reception desk for a moment in sheer exasperation; then he turned back again and said, 'Call the police.'

The bell captain glanced at the manager, but the manager shrugged in agreement. 'Of course. It's the only thing you can do. But can I ask you one favour? Be discreet. The Windsor has a reputation to keep up.'

'There's something else,' said Charlie. 'I want to talk to your maitre d'. He knows the woman I stayed with last night.'

'He won't be awake yet, sir. He doesn't come on duty until eleven o'clock.'

'Well, in that case, I'm sorry. You'll just have to disturb him. The police will want to see him anyway.'

The manager interlaced his fingers, and then said to the bell captain, 'Put a call in to Arthur. Tell him to meet me in my office in ten minutes.' He turned back to Charlie and said, 'You will allow him ten minutes, sir, to dress?'

While he waited for the police and for Arthur, Charlie went outside and walked around the hotel parking lot. It must have been raining during the night. The air was cold and damp and all the cars were bejewelled with raindrops. He opened up his own car to see if Martin had left him a message on the steering wheel or the seat, but there was nothing there at all. He slammed the car door and wiped the rain off his hands with his handkerchief.

The police took nearly fifteen minutes to arrive. Two deputies, one middle aged and as lean as a whippet, the other young and pudgy with close-bitten nails. Charlie walked up to them as they parked outside the hotel, and said, 'My name's McLean. It's my son who's gone missing.'

The lean deputy sniffed, wiped at his nose with his finger and looked around him. 'You've searched the hotel? He's not hiding or anything? Little kids do that sometimes, just to annoy their parents. Found one kid hiding in the trash once, all ready to be collected and sent off to the dump.'

Charlie said, 'He's fifteen. He's not a little kid.'

The lean deputy made a face that was obviously meant to be interpreted as Fifteen? What do you expect from a kid of fifteen? They're always running away. It's the prime age for running away.

'Want to give me some kind of description?' the lean deputy asked. His pudgy partner tugged out a notebook and a stub of pencil and frowned at him expectantly.

'He's a fifteen-year-old boy, that's all. Brown hair, brown eyes. Slight build. He's probably wearing a pale blue wind-breaker and Levi jeans.'

The pudgy deputy a.s.siduously wrote all this down while the lean deputy gritted his teeth in imitation of Glint Eastwood and looked this way and that as if he expected a sign from G.o.d or at least an imminent change in the weather! 'When was the last time you saw him?' he asked.

'Last night. I don't know, round about seven-thirty.'

'Here, at the Windsor?'

'That's right, in the room we were sharing.'

The lean deputy frowned. 'If you were sharing a room with your son, how come the last time you saw him was at seven-thirty yesterday evening?'

'Because I spent the night in another room.'

94.95.'You spent the night in another room?'

'I was sleeping with a lady.'

The lean deputy raised an eyebrow. 'You were sleeping with a lady and when you returned to your own room you found that your son was no longer there?'

'That's the nub of it, yes.'

The pudgy deputy scribbled in his notebook for a long time while the lean deputy peered first to the northern horizon and then to the south.

At last, the lean deputy said, 'Did you have any family problems?'

Charlie shook his head. 'His mother and I are divorced, but there isn't any hostility between us. His mother's taking a vacation right now, and so I agreed to bring him along with me. I'm a restaurant critic, I travel around eating in restaurants and writing reports.'

The lean deputy nodded his head towards the entrance to the Windsor. 'What do you think of this place? Stinks, don't it?'

'Deputy, I'm interested in finding my son, that's all.'

'Well,' said the deputy, 'the whole point is that teenage disappearances are pretty much two for a nickel these days. Kids have plenty of independence, plenty of money. They're smart, too. As soon as they're old enough to strike out on their own, they generally take the opportunity and do it. You can never tell when it's going to happen. Sometimes it happens after an argument, sometimes it just happens.'

'Thanks for the sociological a.n.a.lysis,' Charlie retorted.

The manager came out and said coldly, 'My maitre d' is here, as you requested. I hope you won't be keeping him for very long. He has a full lunchtime schedule ahead of him, and a Lodge dinner at seven-thirty.'

Charlie didn't answer, but led the way back into the hotel. In the manager's office, Arthur, the maitre d', was standing in green striped pyjamas and a maroon silk bathrobe with stains 96.on the belly. He was unshaven, although Charlie could smell that he had already had a quick squirt of Binaca. He glared at Charlie with eyes like freshly peeled grapes.

'Arthur?' said the lean deputy. 'How are you doing?'

'I was doing all right before I was woken up,' said Arthur harshly.

'One of those dreams, huh?' the lean deputy gibed. 'A desert island and you and forty naked women and no rescue imminent for at least six months.'

Arthur looked away dismissively. It was quite obvious that he had no respect for anything or anybody - his employers, his customers, or the law.

'Arthur,' said Charlie, 'do you remember that woman who was sitting in the lounge with me? The woman in the blue dress?'

Arthur stared at Charlie, and then looked in perplexity from the lean deputy to the manager, and back again. 'What kind of a question is that?' he asked.

The lean deputy said, 'It's simple enough. Do you remember a woman in a blue dress sitting in the lounge with this gentleman last night?'

Arthur shook his head in apparent disbelief. 'If there was a woman there, she was the Invisible Woman. I didn't see any woman.'

'You mean that Mr McLean here was sitting on his own?'

'Well, that's right. He looked kind of fed up and lonesome so I made sure we gave him a cognac on the house.'

Charlie jabbed a finger at him. 'I was sitting talking to Velma Farloe and you d.a.m.ned well know it! Velma Farloe - she was right in front of your face.'

The maitre d' frowned at the manager for moral support. 'Velma Farloe? I don't know anybody called Velma Farloe.'

'Oh, she knew you all right,' said Charlie. 'She said your nickname was Bits. Now, isn't that true? Bits, that's what she said, because you used to have the habit of saying for two bits 97.you'd do this, or for two bits you'd do that. Now - how could I possibly have known that unless Velma Farloe was real and I'd met her?'

The maitre d' stared at Charlie for a long time and then turned appealingly toward the two deputies. 'Bits?' he asked, in complete disbelief. 'What is this guy, some kind of a fruitcake, or what? I mean, Bits?

Charlie glanced at the manager and then at the deputies. Their faces all wore the same expression of caution. We've got a funny one here, guys. Let's just play along with him until he runs out of steam.

'All right,' said Charlie. 'If you don't want to believe me, you don't want to believe me. But I can warn you here and now that I'm going to the sheriff, and if I don't get any satisfaction from the sheriff I'm going to the FBI. I have friends, don't you make any mistakes about that. I have influential friends.'

'Well, we're sure you do,' said the manager. 'But you have to see the situation from our point of view, Mr McLean. You checked in here yesterday on your own, you ate dinner on your own and, as far as I can understand it, you slept on your own. I guess the best thing we can do for the time being is to put the whole incident down to exhaustion, maybe, or to over-excitability.'

Charlie was so angry at that instant that he could have punched the manager in the face. Instead, however, he closed his eyes and clenched his fists and waited for the fury to die down inside of him. When he opened his eyes again, he caught the manager winking conspiratorially at the bell captain, and the lean deputy shuffling his feet as if he were practising his ballroom dancing. The pudgy deputy was eating the end of his pencil and staring out of the window.

'Okay,' said Charlie. 'Okay. Just give me some time to think this through. It happened because it happened and because I know that it happened. But I don't have any evidence to prove it and you guys obviously aren't going to break your a.s.ses in any kind of effort to help me prove it.'

'Mr McLean,' the lean deputy appealed to him, 'we aren't going to break our a.s.ses because so far we haven't seen any evidence that your son was actually here, let alone any evidence that he disappeared.'

Charlie said, 'Don't worry about it, okay? I said not to worry about it. Let me think it all through by myself. Then I'll call you, when I've worked something out.'

'We don't want you to think that we're failing in our duty,' the lean deputy said. 'But the simple fact is that we don't have anything that looks like a legitimate complaint here. I mean, this looks like your common-or-garden misunderstanding, which in a district like this is what occupies most police time. Maybe your son was here, maybe he wasn't. If he was here, he sure isn't here now, and he sure didn't leave any kind of evidence that he was. These good people here didn't even see him, didn't even check him in. So where is he now? Or more to the point, was he ever here at all?'

'It's all right,' said Charlie, as apologetically as he could. 'I guess I made a genuine mistake. I guess I thought that my son was here when all the time he wasn't. I guess that's it.'

'It has been known,' the lean deputy prompted him. 'You know, like mirages, all that kind of stuff. You're walking through the desert and what do you see but cans of cold Pabst. It's something you want, and because you want it so much, you think that you can actually see it in front of your eyes. That's what happened to you. You wanted to have your son with you, but you couldn't. So instead you imagined he was with you, but now he's gone, even though he wasn't there in the first place.'

Charlie raised his head and stared at the deputy with level eyes. The deputy was gazing eagerly at him, like a dog antic.i.p.ating a reward. Charlie said, 'How dare you talk such bulls.h.i.+t to me? I've just lost my son.'

The deputy coughed and shuffled and looked embarra.s.sed.

99.'I have to keep every possible option open, sir. You must understand that. And that includes the option that your son wasn't here at all - that he was only riding along with you inside of your own mind.'

Charlie knew then that there was only one way in which he was going to be able to find Martin, and that was by himself. These people might be right. Perhaps Martin hadn't come along with him at all. Perhaps the stress of his job at MARIA had all grown too much for him, and he had driven to Connecticut under the illusion that his son was with him. But he could live his life only by his own perceptions, and by his own reality, and he remembered Martin coming with him as clearly as he could see these people standing in front of him now. All he could think was, If they don't believe me, that's too bad. Til go look for Martin on my own.

He was aware, however, how unwise it would be tell them that. The best course of action would be for him to apologize for being hasty; to make out that he was confused by everything that had happened; and to leave the Windsor with an idiot smile on his face. He knew that Martin had been with him. He knew just as distinctly that he had slept with Velma Farloe. The only possible reason why the manager and the bell captain and the maitre d' and these Laurel-and-Hardy deputies were pretending that he was deluded was because they knew where Martin had gone, and why.

And the only possible reason why they were keeping up the pretence was because they had been ordered to; or paid to; or because they were in fear of their lives if they told him what had really happened.

Charlie found it completely unreal that he was thinking this way. Yet his instinct for survival had always been strong. It had enabled him to travel around the continental United States year after year, testing and tasting, sleeping in unfamiliar beds, and to endure the long-drawn-out agonies of his divorce from Marjorie and everything that had happened in Milwaukee.

Stiffly, he raised his hand, and said, Til leave it to you, then, deputy. If anybody calls and says they've seen my son -well, I hope that you'll let me know. I'll leave a forwarding number at the desk here, and I'll call you regularly so that you know where I am.'

The lean deputy nodded, and said, 'That's a real sensible way of going about it, Mr McLean. Come on - I know you're upset. Maybe disoriented, too. But we'll do everything we can to clear this little problem up p.r.o.nto. You won't have to worry about a thing. Believe me, your son is probably home with his mother right now, watching television and eating popcorn and totally oblivious to all of your worries. We'll check into it. The very worst that could have happened is that he's decided to light out for a day or two. So many kids do it these days.'

Charlie reached into his coat and took out his wallet, and said to the manager, 'How much do I owe you?'

The manager shook his head. 'Let's call this one a gimme, shall we? You've had a bad time at the Windsor. I don't want anybody to drive away from here with a sour taste in his mouth, for whatever reason.'

Charlie wasn't in the mood to argue. It made no difference to him, after all. MARIA picked up all of his tabs. And he had the feeling that he wouldn't be filing a report on the Windsor Hotel; nor on any of the restaurants he had visited on this trip. In fact, he had the feeling that his time at MARIA was already over; that his career had vanished overnight, like the mist over the Connecticut River.

'This won't adversely affect your report, I hope?' the manager asked him, taking hold of his elbow and smiling at him from close quarters.

'I can't think why it should, can you?' Charlie replied. The manager's smile gradually faded, and he turned toward the bell captain and said, 'Bring the gentleman's bags, would you?'

100.101.

Charlie stood by the door and waited while a black bellboy was sent to find his suitcase. The two deputies made themselves comfortable up against the reception desk and discussed football with the bell captain. When Charlie's suitcase eventually arrived, the lean deputy said, 'Don't you worry, sir, we'll make sure we keep in touch. Remember that ninety-nine per cent of all those kids reported missing return to their parents within seventy-two hours.'

Charlie said, 'What about the other one per cent?'

The lean deputy made a face. 'You want better chances than ninety-nine out of a hundred?'

Charlie stowed his case in the trunk of his car and then climbed behind the steering wheel. For a moment he regarded his eyes in the rear-view mirror. G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Charlie McLean, sometimes you're hopeless, he told himself. Then he started up his engine, drove out of the parking lot, and headed towards Alien's Corners.

He was going right back to the moment when things had started going off at a tangent. Back to the Iron Kettle, back to Mrs Kemp's boarding house, and back to the place which seemed to be exerting a dark and ever-increasing influence over him: Le Reposoir.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

He reached the Iron Kettle shortly after ten o' clock. The front door was locked, so he walked around the house on the wet stone pathway until he reached the kitchen. The door was open and Charlie could hear the brisk, sharp sound of scrubbing. He knocked on the door frame and stepped inside.

The kitchen was small but professionally equipped with stainless steel Jenn-Air hobs and Amana ovens. Mrs Foss, wearing a large floral pinafore, was down on her hands and knees scrubbing the brown quarry-tiled floor.

'Mrs Foss?' asked Charlie.

Mrs Foss raised her head like a penitent who had been interrupted in her prayers. She didn't recognize him at first, but then she said, 'Ah, you. Yes, well, h.e.l.lo there. I'm afraid we're not open until twelve-thirty.'

'Mrs Foss, I need to ask you some questions,' said Charlie.

'Questions? What kind of questions?'

'You remember I came here with my son? He went missing this morning.'

Mrs Foss grasped the edge of the kitchen table to help herself up. She reached for a towel and dried her hands, keeping her eyes on Charlie all the time. 'How did it happen?' she wanted to know. Charlie, briefly, told her - omitting the fact that he had spent the night with Velma. Mrs Foss listened, and nodded, and then said, 'Come through to the parlour.'

The parlour was a small gloomy room smelling of potpourri and damp. Mrs Foss obviously used it partly as an office and partly as a sitting room. There was a desk with invoices and bills arranged neatly on top of it, and two wheelback chairs 103.

with tapestry seat cus.h.i.+ons. The window gave a view of the garden in which Martin had first seen the small, hooded dwarf-person; or claimed he had.

'Sit down,' said Mrs Foss. 'Would you care for a cup of coffee?'

Charlie shook his head. 'I want to track down my son, that's all.'

'So why did you come here?' Mrs Foss looked at Charlie directly and he could see the curved reflection of his own face in her upswept spectacles. Two desperate moon-faced Charlies searching for the same son.

'We had lunch here, during that electric storm - remember? - and Martin said he saw somebody in the garden. Well - I thought I saw somebody, too. I don't know what it was, maybe it was one of the neighbourhood children. Maybe it was nothing at all, just two tired imaginations playing tricks on each other. But from that moment on, things began to go wrong between Martin and me, and this morning he's gone.'