Rona Jaffe - Mazes and Monsters

“Almost …” She was going to say “almost six weeks,” but then she realized it would scare him too much. “Almost a month,” she said.

“I don’t know why I can’t remember,” Robbie said. “There’s blood all over my knife.”

“What knife?” Kate asked. It occurred to her that he might be thinking of the sword in the game, and perhaps there was no bloody weapon at all.

“My Boy Scout knife,” Robbie said. “And there’s blood on my clothes, but it isn’t mine.”

“Go get Jay Jay, quick,” Kate whispered to Daniel. “Robbie, where in New York are you?”

“In a phone booth on Eighth Avenue,” Robbie said. “I don’t even have any money. Kate, I can’t remember …”

“Did you call your parents?”

“I can’t,” Robbie said. “What am I going to tell them? They’ll have questions and I don’t have answers.”

“Tell them you’re alive and safe,” Kate said. “They’re so worried about you. We all were. The police in Pequod searched the caverns — they thought somebody murdered you.”

“Do you think someone tried to kill me?” Robbie asked. “Is that why I had to stab him?”

Jay Jay came running into the room with Daniel, wearing his bathrobe. “Robbie!” he said, all excited. “Is he all right?”

Kate shook her head. “We’ll come and get you,” she said to Robbie. “Unless you want your parents—”

“No!” Robbie said, frightened. “Not my parents. I have to get my head together. I can’t handle this.”

Jay Jay and Daniel were listening, close together with Kate as she held the receiver so they could hear.

“I look like a seedy bum,” Robbie went on. “Like I’ve been sleeping in the street. I don’t even know what else I’ve done. I could have done anything.”

“Keep calm,” Kate said. She had the awful feeling she would lose him any minute, that he might hang up and vanish again. “It’s all right, Robbie. We’re here.” She turned to Jay Jay. “Where can he go until we get there?”

“Covenant House,” Jay Jay said, grabbing the receiver. “Look in the phone book and go to Covenant House. I know all about it because it’s one of my mother’s charities. They won’t ask you any questions; just if you’re all right. They’ll give you food and clothes and let you take a shower, and they’ll let you sleep there free.”

“Are the police after me?” Robbie asked. He sounded as timid and desperate as a lost child, and Kate wanted to put her arms around him and protect him from any more harm.

“Just for disappearing,” she said, taking the receiver from Jay Jay. “Nobody’s after you for anything bad. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“How do I know?” Robbie said.

Jay Jay took the receiver. “Listen, Robbie,” he said. “When you get to Covenant House, tell them your name is Lionel Stander. That’s so we’ll know who to ask for when we come.”

“Who’s Lionel Stander?” Robbie asked.

“An old movie star. Okay?”

“Okay,” Robbie said tentatively. “Kate?”

“I’m here,” Kate said. She took the receiver.

“Kate …”

“What, Robbie?”

“Will you come get me?”

“Of course. We’ll be there bright and early in the morning.”

“Will you help me remember?”

“Yes,” she said. What else could she say? She groped for something that would reassure him. “When you have a good meal and a night’s sleep you’ll feel a lot better.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t remember,” Robbie said.

“Everything’s going to be all right now, Robbie,” Kate said. “You have us, and we’ll stick together. You remember how we always used to do that?”

“Yes.”

“Now you go where Jay Jay told you to, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And then we’ll come get you, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And when you get there, you call your mother and say you’re safe, and then you can just hang up. She won’t know where you are. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Daniel says hello, and the three of us will help you through this, whatever it is. I promise. Everything’s going to be all right.”

“You won’t tell the police?” Robbie asked, sounding panicked.

“No, don’t worry. You can trust us.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Robbie said. “I have to get out of here now.”

“We all love you, Robbie,” Kate said. But he had hung up, and she wasn’t even sure he had heard her.

Daniel looked at the clock next to the bed. “We should leave in an hour,” he said. “We’ll take your car. Where should we bring Robbie when we’ve gotten him?”

“My apartment,” Jay Jay said. “My mother won’t care. We have lots of room.”

“And then what?” Daniel said.

“Then we find out if he really killed somebody,” Kate said. She sat down on the bed, suddenly very sad. “I was so glad he was safe, but he really isn’t safe at all, is he?”

“We’ll have to take him to his family and they can get a psychiatrist,” Daniel said. “It’s not murder if he thought he was playing the game.”

“Maybe we don’t have to tell,” Jay Jay said. “Maybe he’s all right now.”

Kate looked at him in surprise. “But the police will find out.”

“People get killed every day in New York,” Jay Jay said. “You never hear about it unless it’s some kind of human interest story, or a famous person. Maybe it will be an unsolved crime.”

“We can’t just cover it up,” she said.

“Why not? Nobody knows but us. Robbie doesn’t even remember. He was supposed to be the victim in this affair.”

“You’re crazier than he is,” Daniel said.

They argued about it all the way to New York in Kate’s car. Jay Jay had insisted on taking Merlin, who hopped around in his cage looking very nervous. Jay Jay had abruptly gotten it into his head that if he left Merlin with his friend Perry, that Perry would hurt him. The events of the night were getting to all of them.

“This could be the end of Robbie’s whole life,” Jay Jay said. “He won’t be allowed back at school — he might even get put away in one of those places for the criminally insane.”

“They’d never …” Kate said.

“It’s a crime to cover up a crime, you know,” Daniel said. “That’s us.”

“Suppose there isn’t any crime,” Kate kept saying.

“But suppose there is,” Jay Jay would answer back.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Daniel said.

“Everything’s always somebody’s fault,” Jay Jay said morosely.

“They’ll kick us out of school too,” Kate said.

“We’re not going to tell them we know,” Jay Jay said.

“I think everybody needs some sleep,” Daniel said.

By the time the sun was up over the skyline of New York the three of them had arrived exhausted. They stopped to look up the address of Covenant House, and then they drove there and parked in a lot nearby, hoping no one would steal their suitcases out of the trunk. They had packed enough things for a few days, not knowing what they were going to do. The neighborhood was part lots, part slums. The large tan brick building looked like a prison, but there was a dove of peace painted on the side, which was reassuring. Jay Jay took Merlin with him.

They walked into a reception room with a few large chairs in it, and a gray-haired woman sitting behind a desk. Through a glass wall they could see a sort of lounge, with brightly patterned carpeting, leather sofas and chairs, and a color television set. There were a lot of kids sleeping on the sofas and chairs, and on the carpet, but none of them was Robbie. Most of them were black. They were all neatly dressed, in pressed jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers. Kate, Daniel, and Jay Jay marched up to the receptionist.