David Morrell: Long lost

"Brad!"

At first, I thought it was one of my staff trying to catch my attention about something I'd forgotten. But when I turned, I didn't recognize the man hurrying toward me. He was in his mid-thirties, rough-looking, with a dirty tan and matted long hair. For a moment, I thought he might be a construction worker I'd met on one of my projects. His clothes certainly looked the part: scuffed work boots, dusty jeans, and a wrinkled denim shirt with its sleeves rolled up. But I've got a good memory for faces, and I was sure I'd have remembered the two-inch scar on his chin.

"Brad! My God, I can't believe it!" The man dropped a battered knapsack to the sidewalk. "After all these years! Christ Almighty!"

I must have looked baffled. I like to think people enjoy my company, but very few have ever been so enthusiastic about seeing me. Apparently we had once known each other, although I hadn't the vaguest idea who the guy was.

His broad grin revealed a chipped front tooth. "You don't recognize me? Come on, I'd have recognized you anywhere! I did on television! It's me!"

My brain was working slowly, trying to search my memory. "I'm afraid I don't-"

"Peter! Your brother !"

Now everything became totally clear. My brain worked very fast.

The man reached out. "It's so damned good to see you!"

"Keep your hands away from me, you son of a bitch."

"What?" The man looked shocked.

"Come any closer, I'll call the police. If you think you're going to get money from-"

"Brad, what are you talking about?"

"You watched the CBS Sunday program, didn't you?"

"Yes, but-"

"You made a mistake, you bastard. It isn't going to work."

On TV, the reporter had mentioned Petey's disappearance. The day after the show, six different men had called my office, claiming to be Petey. "Your long-lost brother," each of them cheerily said. The first call had excited me, but after a few minutes' conversation, I realized that the guy hadn't the faintest idea about how Petey had disappeared or where it had happened or what our home life had been like. The next two callers had been even worse liars. They all wanted money. I told my secretary not to put through any more calls from anyone who claimed to be my brother. The next three con men lied to her, pretending to have legitimate business, tricking her into transferring the call. The moment they started their spiel, I slammed down the phone. The day after that, my secretary managed to intercept eight more calls from men who claimed to be Petey.

Now they were showing up in person.

"Stay the hell away from me." Too impatient to go down to the traffic light, I turned sharply, found a break in traffic, and headed across the street.

"Brad! For God's sake, listen!" the man yelled. "It really is me!"

My back stiffened with anger as I kept walking.

"What do I have to do to make you believe me?" the man shouted.

I reached the street's center line, waiting impatiently for another break in traffic.

"When they grabbed me, I was riding home on my bicycle!" the man yelled.

Furious, I spun. "The reporter mentioned that on television! Get away from me before I beat the shit out of you."

"Brad, you'd have a harder time outfighting me than when we were kids. The bike was blue."

That last statement almost didn't register, I was so angry. Then the image of Petey's blue bike hit me.

"That wasn't mentioned on television," the man said.

"It was in the newspaper at the time. All you needed to do was phone the Woodford library and ask the reference department to check the issues of the local newspaper for that month and year. It wouldn't have been hard to get details about Petey's disappearance."

"My disappearance," the man said.

On each side, cars beeped in warning as they sped past.

"We shared the same room," the man said. "Was that ever printed?"

I frowned, uneasy.

"We slept in bunk beds," the man said, raising his voice. "I had the top. I had a model of a helicopter hanging from a cord attached to the ceiling just above me. I liked to take it down and spin the blades."

My frown deepened.

"Dad had the tip of the little finger on his left hand cut off in an accident at the furniture factory. He loved to fish. The summer before I disappeared, he took you and me camping out here in Colorado. Mom wouldn't go. She was afraid of being outdoors because of her allergy to bee stings. Even the sight of a bee threw her into a panic."

Memories flooded through me. There was no way this stranger could have learned any of those details just by checking old newspapers. None of that information had ever been printed.

"Petey?"

"We had a goldfish in our room. But neither of us liked to clean the bowl. One day we came home from school, and the bedroom stank. The fish was dead. We put the fish in a matchbox and had a funeral in the backyard. When we came back to where we'd buried it, we found a hole where the neighbor's cat had dug up the fish."

"Petey." As I started back toward him, I almost got hit by a car. "Jesus, it is you."

"We once broke a window playing catch in the house. Dad grounded us for a week."

This time, I was the one reaching out. I've never hugged anybody harder. He smelled of spearmint gum and cigarette smoke. His arms were tremendously strong. "Petey." I could barely get the words out. "Whatever happened to you?"

Pedaling home. Angry. Feelings hurt. A car coming next to him, moving slowly, keeping pace with him. A woman in the front passenger seat rolling down her window, asking directions to the interstate. Telling her. The woman not seeming to listen. The sour-looking man at the steering wheel not seeming to care, either. The woman asking, "Do you believe in God?" What kind of question? The woman asking, "Do you believe in the end of the world?" The car veering in front of him. Scared. Hopping the bicycle onto the sidewalk. The woman jumping from the car, chasing him. A sneaker slipping off a pedal. A vacant lot. Bushes. The woman grabbing him. The man unlocking the trunk, throwing him in. The trunk lid banging shut. Darkness. Screaming. Pounding. Not enough air. Passing out.

Petey described it to me as we faced each other in an isolated booth at the rear of the deli I'd been headed toward.

"You never should have made me leave that baseball game," he said.

"I know that." My voice broke. "God, don't I know it."

"The woman was older than Mom. She had crow's-feet around her eyes. Gray roots in her hair. Pinched lips. Awful thin… Stooped shoulders… Floppy arms. Reminded me of a bird, but she sure was strong. The man had dirty long hair and hadn't shaved. He wore coveralls and smelled of chewing tobacco."

"What did they want with you? Were you…" I couldn't make myself use the word molested.

Petey looked away. "They drove me to a farm in West Virginia."

"Just across the border? You were that close?"

"Near a town called Redemption. Sick joke, huh? Really, that's what it was called, although I didn't find out the name for quite a while. They kept me a prisoner, until I escaped. When I was sixteen."

"Sixteen? But all this time? Why didn't you come to us?"

"I thought about it." Petey looked uncomfortable. "I just couldn't make myself." He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.

But as he lit a match, a waitress stopped at our table. "I'm sorry, sir. Smoking isn't permitted in here."

Petey's craggy features hardened. "Fine."

"Can I take your orders?"

"You're good at giving them."

"What?"

"Corned beef," I told the waitress, breaking the tension.

Petey impatiently shoved his cigarettes back into his pocket. "A couple of Buds."

As she left, I glanced around, assuring myself that no customers were close enough to hear what we were saying.