David Wiltse - The Edge of Sleep

Becker screwed up his lips, thinking.

“I’ll call you back, Malva,” Karen said into the telephone. “I’m on my way home now. I’ll be there by seven if you need me.”

“It’s no good, though, is it?” Karen said as soon as she hung up.

“You got to try,” said Becker.

“If he drugged them to keep them quiet there’s bound to be a fuss of some kind. If the drug takes effect immediately he’d have to carry them to the hiding place. If it has a delayed effect, the boys would struggle… Unless they walked straight into the hiding place and he drugged them there. But how would they even know where the hiding place was? What is he, the Pied Piper? And why wouldn’t someone notice a boy walking into their storage rooms or wherever? He could not use drugs. He could bind and gag them, but that’s hardly an activity no one would notice-again, unless they walk right into his lair and it’s big enough for both of them-it just doesn’t work, does it?”

“Still, you have to check it out,” said Becker.

“Of course.” She banged the steering wheel with the flat of her palm, then wheeled the car into the passing lane again, accelerating until Becker squirmed nervously in his seat.

“I thought for a second we might have something,” she said.

“Could I make a request?” Becker asked.

“Of course. What?”

“Could you slow down?”

“Slow down?”

“The car. Could you slow down the car?”

Karen glanced at him and laughed. “Scared?”

“Spitless.”

“I took the course in defensive driving, too, you know,” she said, smiling. “Or is it that you don’t trust a woman driver?”

Becker noted that she did not slow down.

“I don’t trust the speed,” Becker said. “Where in hell is a cop when you need one?”

Karen looked at her watch. “I’ll just make it by seven as it is,” she said. “Close your eyes and think clean thoughts.”

“I’m trying to remember my prayers,” he said.

“I’m surprised you know any.”

Becker’s tone turned darker. “Oh, I used to pray a lot,” he said. “A lot.”

Karen noticed the change and let the topic drop. It was so easy to say the wrong thing with Becker. He could sail through the worst of incidents with his spirits up, joking and buoying those around him in the midst of horrors enough to depress anyone else, but when he looked inward, into what Karen thought of as the rat’s nest of his personal memories and emotions, he could turn sorrowfully ironic in a second. Words took on a double meaning with him then, his frame of reference shifted baroquely, and every sentence uttered by another became to him a referendum on his past.

Karen’s sympathy for him at such times was matched by her growing impatience. The best cure, she had discovered, was to just be quiet. Becker did not enjoy the episodes. He did not relish self-pity, and he willed himself out of it as soon as he could. It was his resilience, in fact, that had most impressed Gold, the Bureau psychiatrist with whom Becker had spent so much time.

“He just refuses to be defeated,” Gold had told Karen. “By his memories or his demons or anything else. Believe me, anyone else would have sunk into clinical depression or psychosis long since. They’ve been tipped over by a lot less than Becker’s had to carry. The concept of the will is not in great favor in my business, but that’s the best way I can think of to explain it. He can’t prevent the flashes of-sorrow, rage, pain-he can’t prevent them from happening, but he seems to be able to shut them down almost immediately by the strength of his will. What you have to remember most of all about Becker, Ms. Crist, is that above all else, John Becker wants to do the right thing. There is a certain kind of person he wants to be, and he keeps willing himself to be that person, despite continual setbacks. We should all come as close to our goals, believe me. He’s a remarkable man.”

Remarkable in other ways, too, Karen thought. Ways that Gold knew nothing about. She reminded herself of that during the moments when his most overriding characteristic seemed to be that of a pain in the ass.

“Another thought,” Becker said, already out of his funk. He tried to keep his eyes focused on the dashboard so he wouldn’t have to watch the traffic that Karen continued to pass with undiminished speed.

“Go ahead.”

“Have you done any investigation of the victims’ backgrounds?”

“The usual. Any relatives who might have taken the boys, any family enemies, that kind of thing.”

“You might try to find out if there’s any history of physical abuse prior to the kidnappings.”

Karen looked at him sharply.

“Why?”

“Studies show that women who have been sexually abused as children are more apt to be rape victims than those who have not. Right?”

“So?”

“So maybe Lamont is picking on those who have been preselected.”

“And he can tell in some way?”

“Maybe, I don’t know.”

“What are you doing, blaming the victim?” she demanded angrily.

Becker noticed that she slowed the car.

“Some boys might make themselves more available.”

“So they can be beaten to death? Jesus, Becker.”

“I mean they might be more docile. I know I was an awfully good little boy.”

“You, John?”

“I was so good it makes my teeth ache to think about it.”

“Hard to believe.”

“Trust me,“ Becker said dully. “I did everything I was told-but instantly.”

Karen remembered that Gold had said that most of all Becker wanted desperately to be a good man. Still, it was difficult to reconcile the contradictory facts that this man whose reputation within the Bureau for independence was matched only by his reputation for lack of tact had ever been a child trying to curry favor with anyone.

“Why were you like that then, if you’re not that way now?”

“Because I was under the impression that there were rules I could follow that would make me safe-if I could only figure out what they were. I assumed I was being beaten because I was bad and, believe me, I would have done anything to keep it from happening again… There wasn’t anything I could do, but it took me a long time to realize it

… And you?”

“And me what?”

“Weren’t you… Wouldn’t you do anything to keep it from happening again?”

“God damn you, Becker.”

“Didn’t you do exactly what you were told? You kept quiet, you didn’t tell anyone, you were afraid what would happen to your family, you knew no one would believe you, anyway…”

“God damn you! Leave me out of this. You don’t know anything about me, nothing.”

“Who was it, Karen? Your father, your brother, some ‘uncle’… ”

“Just stop it!”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Becker said softly.

“I won’t be linked with you, John. Stop trying to do it.”

“You already are, it’s nothing I’m doing, it’s your past.”

“You’re just guessing, just flailing around in the dark. You want there to be some connection so you’re making it up.”

“I don’t want that kind of connection. I don’t wish it on anybody.”

“You’re doing it with me and I won’t put up with it.” Becker studied the traffic for a moment, allowing Karen to cool down. He tried to estimate whether they had accelerated or slowed without looking at the speedometer. “What kind of child were you?” he asked after a time.

“I was a fucking tomboy, all right? I was a holy terror. I used to chew up the boys and spit them out again.”

“What did you have against the boys?”

“They were jerks. Still are. Gold is better than this, isn’t he?” Karen asked. “He must be.”