When we reached her house, she said,

  “Richard, you are an angel. Please drop John’s wet things in the butler’s pantry. I am going to take him upstairs to bed. He is having a chill. I’ll never be able to thank you enough. Your afterschool surprise is on the hall table, an almond chocolate bar. Come over and see John later.”

  But that evening just before my nursery supper when I went to show John the developed prints of the Mauretania and Buckingham Palace, his father met me in the living room and said that John was ill — his chill had gone worse. His mother was upstairs with him, and I must not go up.

  “Well, Richard,” said Howard Burley, “God only knows what they would have done to John if you hadn’t come to get his mother. They will catch it, never fear. I have talked to their fathers.”

  I had been feeling all afternoon a mixture of guilt and fright for having snitched on the boys. Now I was sure they would avenge themselves on me. Something of this must have shown in my face.

  “Never fear,” said Mr. Burley. “Their fathers will see to it that nothing happens to you. Come over and see John tomorrow.”

  But the next day they said that John was really ill with grippe.

  “Did they send for Dr. Grauer?” asked my mother.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  He was our doctor, too, and we would have known his car if he had come to attend to John. But all day nobody came, and the next day, John was worse, and my mother said to my father, with glances that recalled my presence to him, which must require elliptical conversation,

  “Grippe sometimes goes into pneumonia, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” replied my father. “But they know how to treat these things.”

  “Yes, I know, but sometimes something is needed beyond just home remedies.”

  “Then Grauer has not yet—?”

  “No, not today, either.”

  “That is odd. Perhaps he isn’t so sick as we think.”

  “Oh, I think so. I talked to Gail today. She is frantic.”

  “Well.”

  “But she says she knows what to do. They are doing everything, she says. Everything possible.”

  “I am sure they are. — Sometimes I can’t help thinking that it might be better all around if—”

  “Yes, I have too,” said my mother hastily, indicating me again. “But of course it must only be God’s will.”

  My father sighed.

  I knew exactly what they were talking about, though they thought I didn’t.

  On the third day, John Burley died. My mother told me the news when I reached home after school. She winked both eyes at me as she always did in extremes of feeling. She knelt down and enfolded me. Her lovely heart-shaped face was an image of pity. She knew I knew nothing of death, but some feeling of death came through to me from the intensity of color in her blue eyes. The power of her feeling upset me, and I swallowed as if I were sick when she said,

  “Richard, my darling, our dear, poor, little John died this morning. His chill grew worse and worse and finally turned into pneumonia. They have already taken him away. His mother wanted me to tell you. She loves you for what you tried to do for him.”

  “Then he’s gone?”

  “Yes, my dearie, you will never be able to see him again. That is what death means.”

  I was sobered by these remarks, but I did not weep. I was consumed with wonder, though I was not sure what I wondered about.

  There was no funeral. Burial, as they said, was private. I missed John, but I was busy at school, where I was cautious with the Grandvilles and the others until enough days passed after the punishments they had received to assure me that I was safe from their reprisals. Perhaps they wanted to forget that they had given away death in heedless play. Howard Burley went to the office quite as usual. His wife stayed home and saw no one for a while.

  “I cannot help wondering,” said my mother, “why she never called Dr. Grauer.”

  “Hush,” said my father. “Don’t dwell on such things.”

  But I dwelled on them now and then. They were part of my knowledge on the day when Gail Burley asked my mother to send me to see her after school.

  “Mrs. Burley has some things of John’s that she wants to give you. You were his best friend.”

  I knew all his toys. Some of them were glorious. I saw them all in my mind again. I went gladly to see his mother.

  The housemaid let me in and sent me upstairs to Mrs. Burley’s sitting room. She was reclining against many lacy pillows on a chaise longue in the bay window. She was paler than ever, and perhaps thinner, and there was a new note in her voice which made her seem like a stranger — a huskiness which reflected lowered vitality. She embraced me and said,

  “Do you miss John?”

  “Yes.”

  “Poor little John.”

  Her hazel eyes were blurred for a moment and she looked away out the window into the rustling treetops of autumn, as though to conceal both emotion and knowledge from me. “Oh, my God,” I heard her say softly. Then she let forth one of her controlled breaths, annoyed at her own weakness as it lay embedded in the general condition of the world, and said with revived strength,

  “Well, Richard, let’s be sensible. Come and pick out the toys you want in John’s nursery. What you don’t take I am going to send to Father Raker’s orphanage.”

  She led me along the upstairs hall to John’s room. His toys were laid out in rows, some on the window seat, the rest on the floor.

  “I suppose I could say that you should just take them all,” she said with one of her unwilling smiles, “but I think that would be selfish of us both. Go ahead and pick.”

  With the swift judgment of the expert, I chose a beautiful set of Pullman cars for my electric train, which had the same track as John’s, and a power boat with mahogany cabin and real glass portholes draped in green velvet curtains, and a battalion of lead soldiers with red coats and black busbies and white cross belts tumbled together in their box who could be set smartly on parade, and a set of watercolor paints, and a blackboard on its own easel with a box of colored chalks. These, and so much else in the room, spoke of attempts to reward John for what he was not — and for what they were not, the parents, too. I looked up at his mother. She was watching me as if never to let me go.

  “Your cheeks are so flushed,” she said, “and it is adorable the way the light makes a gold ring on your hair when you bend down. Richard, come here.”

  She took me in her hungry arms. I felt how she trembled. There was much to make her tremble.

  “Do you want anything else?” she asked, again becoming sensible, as she would have said. Her concealed intensity made me lose mine.

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Burley.”

  “Well, you can take your new toys home whenever you like. You can’t carry them all at once.”

  “I’ll take the boat now,” I said.

  “All right. Garsh, it’s big, isn’t it. John loved to sail it when we went to Narragansett.”

  She took me downstairs to the door. There she lingered. She wanted to say something. She could have said it to an adult. How could she say it to me? Yet most grown people spoke to me as if I were far older than my years. Leaning her back against the door, with her hands behind her on the doorknob and with her face turned upward so that I saw her classical white throat and the curve of her cheek until it was lost in the golden shadows of her eye, she said,

  “Richard, I wonder if you would ever understand — you knew, didn’t you, surely, that our poor little John was not like other children?”

  “Sometimes, yes.”

  “His father and I suffered for him, seeing how hard it was for him with the other children; and then we thought of how it would have to be when he grew up — do you know?”

  I nodded, though I did not know, really.

  “We are heartbroken to lose him, you must know that. He was all we had. But do you know, we sometimes wonder if it is better that God took him, even if we had to lose him. Do you know?”

  She looked down at me as if to complete her thought through her golden piercing gaze. When she saw the look of horror on my face, she caught her breath. Conventional, like all children, I was amazed that anyone should be glad of death, if that meant not seeing someone ever again.

  “Oh, Richard, don’t judge us yet for feeling that way. When you grow up and see more of what life does to those who cannot meet it, you will understand.” She was obsessed. Without naming it, she must speak of the weight on her heart, even if only to me, a first-grader in school. In my ignorance, perhaps I might be the only safe one in whom to confide. “Garsh, when you see cripples trying to get along, and sick people who can never get well, you wonder why they can’t be spared and just die.”

  The appalling truth was gathering in me. I stared at her while she continued,

  “John was always frail, and when those horrid boys turned on him and he caught that chill and it went into pneumonia, his father and I did everything to save him, but it was not enough. We had to see him go.”

  Clutching John’s beautiful power boat in both arms, I cowered a little away from her and said,

  “You never sent for a doctor, though.”

  A sharp silence cut its way between us. She put one hand on her breast and held herself. At last she said in a dry, bitter voice,

  “Is that what is being said, then?”

  “Dr. Grauer always comes when I am sick.”

  She put her hand to her mouth. Her eyes were afire like those of a trapped cat.

  “Richard,” she whispered against her fingers, “what are you thinking? Don’t you believe we loved John?”

  I said, inevitably,

  “Did you have him die?”

  At this she flew into a golden, speckled fury. She reached for me to chastise me, but I eluded her. I was excited by her and also frightened. Her eyes blazed with shafted light. I managed to dance away beyond her reach, but I was encumbered by the beautiful power cruiser in my arms. I let it crash to the floor. I heard its glass break. Escape and safety meant more to me just then than possession of the wonderful boat. I knew the house. I ran down the hall to the kitchen and out the back door to my own yard and home, out of breath, frightened by what I had exposed.

  The Burleys never again spoke to my parents or to me. My parents wondered why, and even asked, but received no explanation. All of John’s toys went to Father Raker’s. In a few weeks the Burleys put up their house for sale; in a few months Howard retired from business and they went to live in Florida for the rest of their lives.

  Anomalies

  by Stephen Wasylyk

  © 1993 by Stephen Wasylyk

  A new short story by Stephen Wasylyk

  Stephen Wasylyk belongs to that rare breed of writers who devote their time exclusively to the short story. He attributes this partly to having grown up “with a volume of 0. Henry’s works in one hand,” but also to the fact that with a novel one must live with the characters one creates for a much greater length of time. Mr. Wasylyk prefers to move on to entirely new creations, as he has done in most of the more than six dozen short stories he has had published, including this new entry for EQMM...

  ❖

  Deep in her lower back, persistent pain gnawed away, bringing the mental image of a TV commercial with twisting ropes and lightning bolts. Her job, the doctor said. Not so. The pain had been there ever since Allan had run off with that malnourished sex object with the big eyes. Sitting behind this teller’s window had nothing to do with it. Not being able to get her life into gear did.

  Funny. Still thinking like Allan, who had always said cars came with automatic transmissions, but life came with a gear shift. You had to select the proper gear at the right time and do it smoothly. Great gear shifter, Allan. All she’d managed so far was loud grinding noises.

  She squirmed, braced one foot against the partition under the counter to ease the pain, and smiled as she passed the deposit slip to the woman. The next patron stepped into view: elderly, gray hair curling from beneath a battered cap pulled low over his eyes. New. Never seen him before.

  She glanced at the slip he slid toward her.

  Oh Lord.

  DON’T LOOK AROUND OR MAKE A SOUND. PUT THE MONEY IN THE BAG WITH THIS SLIP.

  Oh, Lordy, Lord, Lord. The way she was sitting, she couldn’t reach the silent alarm with her toe. Wait until she tried to explain that.

  Tellers must he alert at all times.

  Practiced fingers slid a wad of bills into the small paper sack along with the note and pushed it toward him. She looked up in time to see the thick tubular muzzle appear over the edge of the counter, the eyes below the bill of the cap fired with a deep, unholy glee.

  “Goodbye, Helga,” he whispered.

  She jammed her foot against the partition and went over backward just as the gun coughed, the bullet a hot whisper passing over her face; rolling under the protection of the counter as the pistol coughed again.

  Her mind was numb. Ice filling her stomach. Noises penetrated: Grace shrieking her name from the booth beside her, a man in the lobby shouting indignantly as he was knocked from his feet, a woman screaming, That man!

  Her eyes focused slowly on the dun-colored carpet, the stains and wear magnified, the ice in her stomach now working up toward her heart.

  He called me by name. How did he know? Just the initial on the nameplate. Not just a holdup. No. He came to kill me.

  Why?

  They didn’t believe her, of course. Not uncommon for someone who had just escaped death to believe she’d been singled out. Called her by name? He must have been in before, heard a customer say something like, “See you tomorrow, Helga.” She must have done something to provoke him. She hadn’t? Oh well, these people weren’t wired very tightly, you know. He must have thought she did. No question he was short in the mental department. Most of these people knew that bank robbery was a federal crime and generally avoided adding to the charge.

  That silencer. Intriguing detail. They’d have to hit their computer to see if it showed up elsewhere.

  She was seated behind the manager’s desk in the small office. Cowper, the senior federal agent, perched on the desk and looked down at her. Dark hair gray at the temples, a face no one would ever pick out of a crowd, gray business suit. Marlowe, his junior partner, leaned against the wall, her hands behind her. Long brown hair with the hint of a wave, thin face with a wide mouth, white blouse and the feminine version of Cowper’s suit. The tape recorder on the desk hummed.

  Harry Roth duplicated Marlowe’s pose against the opposite wall, noting the pale face of the woman behind the desk and the hands so tightly clasped in her lap that the knuckles were white. Remarkable woman. No hysterics. He’d seen men who needed a tranquilizer shot. It was there, though, in the face and hands, and couldn’t be controlled forever. Cowper didn’t see it. He was going down one road and she was going down another.

  He glanced at Marlowe, caught her looking at him with an appeal in her eyes. As junior member of the team, she could do nothing.

  He grunted as he pushed himself erect. “I think that’s enough for today. I’m taking this woman home. She can sign her statement and answer any further questions tomorrow.”

  Cowper appeared to be on the verge of objecting, looked at Roth’s expression, and smiled.

  “Of course. I hadn’t realized we were being so insensitive.”

  Insensitive is newspeak for stupid, thought Roth.

  He took Helga’s arm and led her out of the office, where she was immediately pounced upon by Michelle Buford, the branch manager.

  “Helga,” she said in a kind voice, “go home and rest. The bank will arrange for you to see Dr. Bostov—”

  “I’ll be right back,” said Roth.

  He joined Maguire and Polansky to become one of a trio reflected in the plate glass by the grayness of a dim fall morning: Roth of medium height, at least a month overdue for a haircut and wearing a rumpled suit that sagged because he’d never regained the weight he’d lost after his wife died a year ago; Maguire tall and thin, with styled hair and a suit that sagged through style rather than weight loss; Polansky short and broad, dressed better than both, hair trimmed and tie knotted precisely.

  “The sexy manager said she had a good look at him,” said Roth. “Take her in to talk to the composite man. We’ll compare what she and Mrs. — ” He turned to Maguire. “What’s her name?”

  “Helga Vivaldi.”

  “—what they each say. If they agree, fine. If not, we’ll go somewhere in between.”

  “Why bother?” asked Maguire. “Bank jobs are for the Feds.”

  “Tell me who uses a silencer. A rejected lover? Someone whose toes she mashed when the bus lurched? Why should he anticipate shooting at all? Everyone knows tellers give up the money with no fuss. You don’t even need a weapon. Just a note.”

  “You really think it was a hit? Why? Buford says Mrs. Vivaldi lives alone in an apartment, doesn’t own a car, doesn’t go anywhere or do anything except take an accounting course at the university twice a week—”

  “Magoogan—” Roth never remembered names. Except his own, and many were convinced he sometimes had trouble with that. “—look at Miss Bedford.”

  Maguire grinned. “Buford. It’s a pleasure.”

  Michelle Buford wore a very stylish business suit with a very tight, mid-thigh skirt that showed off very long, shapely legs. Her blond hair appeared to be a frazzled halo. Roth didn’t quite approve. How she dressed was her business, of course, but in banking, confidence was the name of the game. Those old bankers with their starched white shirts and somber clothing knew that. People had to be uneasy about trusting their money to someone dressed like a high-priced call girl.

  “—to her, a woman like Mrs. Vivucci couldn’t possibly generate enough emotion in a man for him to shoot her. Miss Bufoss lives in a very small world. You, Powloski—”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34