Billy by Whitley Strieber
When the setting was complete it looked more than a little impressive: the handsome plates, two long-stemmed wineglasses, all of it over a nice piece of linen that you could hardly tell was a bed sheet.
Barton took out his groceries and set about their preparation. He'd cheated a bit, but Billy was probably too hungry to notice. Everything could be microwaved, even the cherry pie.
"Whistle while you work," he sang. He didn't know the rest of the words, so he simply repeated the phrase again and again, in an undertone as rapid as his movements. "Whistle while you work! Whistle while you work!"
The meal was coming together nicely.
Billy had been examining the closet for some moments. There had to be an explanation for the disappearance of the jacket. The ceiling was intact, just ordinary Sheetrock. Besides, Barton wasn't tall enough to get anything up that high, even if there had been a hatch into an attic.
Now he turned his attention to the floor. He'd always loved secret passages. There was a period when he wanted to be a professional secret passage designer when he grew up.
"William Neary, Ph.D. Secret Passages Designed and Constructed." Despite his excellent plans, nothing could ever induce Dad to install his designs in any of the houses they'd lived in. "I don't need anything that turns the shower stall into an elevator." That had been his final word on the last one.
The back of the floor was built up and slanted forward. A one-by-one strip along its middle indicated that it was intended to hold shoes. The strip would hook the heels. Their house in New Jersey had a similar arrangement in the master bedroom. Billy had once tied string to all of Mother's and Dad's shoes, and run it through a small hole drilled into the attic, and down to a similar hole in his own bedroom. When his parents were peacefully reading in bed he pulled the string and all of their shoes suddenly shot out of the closet.
Dad had theorized about what he called a "microquake." Later he'd heard his father at a party: "One night all of our shoes came jumping out of the closet." In the silence that followed this remark, he had laughed nervously. "It was a mini-earthquake," he'd added lamely. He'd never brought the matter up again.
Billy tapped the floor. Hollow. He pressed against it in various places, trying to see if there was any give. Then he noticed that the line between the board that held the shoes and the one on which it rested was slightly irregular. This gave him an idea. Sure enough, when he pushed, the board lifted easily. But he did not find a small storage space with a jacket in it. Instead, there was blackness and depth. A musty, greasy stench came from the opening.
He peered down into what could be darkness without end. He thought to himself: It's hell.
21.
Even setting, the sun of the West was brutal. As Mark drove it beat him in the face; it was a harder sun than he had ever known back East.
He was traveling his son's path down Interstate 15 in the little Plymouth he'd rented for twenty-five dollars a day after landing at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas. His plane had landed at seven, two hours late. It was already eight-fifteen. He was trying to get to Estes where Billy had made the call by eight-thirty.
He wanted to be there when his son had been there, to see what he'd seen, to hear the sounds of the place, to walk and think and breathe there. Above all, he wanted to ask questions there, and at that time. No doubt this wasn't a professional investigative technique, but it seemed sensible to him.
He knew he was chasing a shadow. Billy was gone. The time of day didn't matter anymore.
When the road rose to the summit of one of the long hills it was crossing, he could see an ocean of lights in the rearview mirror. Soon though, they were swallowed in the dark eastern sky.
That had been Las Vegas. Billy's plight seemed so enormous to him it was difficult to believe that the lights were not dimmed and the voices of laughter subdued. A child was being carried to destruction, but only one soul trailed along behind.
The road spun endlessly past, and his mind went over and over his small resources. He had little money. It had cost him the fantastic sum of four hundred and eighty-three dollars to fly to Las Vegas. That would take care of most of the Searchers' check right there.
You couldn't make two thousand dollars go very far. And people spent hundreds of thousands on their searches, offered rewards in the six figures, expended years, created foundations, hired publicists.
Xerox Express in Stevensville had made up their five hundred posters for the cost of the paper. On the road he would eat one meal a day and sleep in the car. His present salary was twenty-two thousand dollars a year, and there was nothing in the budget for an extended leave of absence.
If he didn't find Billy soon, he was going to have to bear the pain of standing in front of classrooms full of kids who knew him, lecturing on the Battle of Chickamauga and the Teapot Dome Scandal. He could hardly conceive of anything more excruciating.
He drove toward his destination with one critical resource: he loved his lost son with the passion of the damned. This pallid, staring, gaunt man just wasn't going to stop.
Driving along in his shabby slacks and shirt, a plastic shield protecting his pocket from his pens, he was alert to possibilities. Billy was alive. A few hours ago he'd been right here, looking at this very sunset at this very hour.
Mark had sat in the plane listening to the whoosh of the engines, drinking the coffee they gave him, eating the bread-sticks and processed cheese while reading Techniques of Investigation.
He felt comfortable with the methods suggested by the book. Crime and history were strikingly similar, and so were the techniques of discovery. You had to be relentless and logical. Both the historical event and the crime were generally brutal and stupid, and both obscured by shabby camouflage.
Suddenly he realized that he was passing a small town. A water tower stood black against the orange horizon, a McDonald's flooded the highway with curiously pure light. A couple of gas stations stood at the roadside, then there was a big truck stop, its lot choked with eighteen-wheelers. He noted all of these places for tomorrow's postering effort.
He was supposed to go straight to the sheriff's office when he reached Estes, but because of the time he had changed his plan and headed for the Mobil station instead.
Now that the sun had set the highway had become a black strip disappearing into the purple distance.
God help my son.
It was still ten miles away when he saw the first, faint indication of the station. About here the abductor must have glanced at his gas gauge, seen it was standing on empty. As he drew closer the familiar Mobil logo came into clearer focus.
The station itself was a pool of light in the large darkness of the desert. There were two cars at the pumps when Mark pulled up, a Pontiac and an elderly BMW with its sun roof open. Around the side of the station there was a dun Plymouth Duster, probably the attendant's transportation.
Mark saw him standing behind the register, taking money from a customer. He was wearing a coverall uniform. His face was long and solemn, and he wore a pair of aluminum-framed glasses. He was an old man.
Just beyond the station was a bank of telephones. They stood a little apart, and the light around them was dim.
With exaggerated care Mark pulled his car to a stop beside the Duster. Would the attendant be helpful? Cold? How did he explain himself? What did he say? He got out and started toward the station. There was a customer there, and Mark was too polite to interrupt. He used the time to examine the telephones. One after another he read the numbers on the dials.
It was the third one from the end. He had held this exact telephone in his hand, had pressed that "0," had spoken into this mouthpiece. Mark held the phone, too. He put it to his ear, listening to the wavering dial tone. The phone was covered with a faint film of graphite dust in which numerous fingerprints could be seen. Mark could have wept; the police were still working the case.
Until this moment he hadn't realized that coming here would be painful in the same way that visitin
Mark bent down. They were small enough to be a boy's prints. He could be looking at a mark left by his own son. He wondered if the police had noticed these prints. And then he thought, so what? They already knew Billy had been at this phone. The footprints were a poignant hint, nothing more.
"I figure you for the father."
The voice startled Mark. He looked up into the face of the attendant. Mark got to his feet. "Yeah. I don't want to disturb you while you're working—"
"Oh, come on. Come up to the station, I'll tell you everything I can."
Walking beside the man, Mark felt a sense of reassurance. "You have kids?"
"Four kids and eight grandkids."
"Wow."
The man chuckled. They entered the station. "I just sit in here makin' change mostly. Welcome a little talk. Especially if it can do some good."
"First, let me put up one of my posters."
"I'll do it. 'Course, I don't know company policy. Only the owner knows that and he's not around here except on Tuesdays. He'll take it down, for all I know."
Feeling enormously reassured, Mark went back to the car and got three posters.
"Gimme 'em," the man said. "Hm. Same picture the sheriff has. I just got a glimpse, but I saw your boy. William Neary. That your name, too?"
"No, excuse me, I should have introduced myself. I'm Mark Neary."
The attendant, whose coverall said "George," opened the battered steel desk that held the cash register and took out a big felt-tipped pen. "I think this'll be a good idea, Mark," he said. On the poster he wrote, "Seen at this station getting in a white Ford Aerostar at 8:40 p.m., August 17, 1989." He underlined the first four words a number of times. Then he looked up at Mark. Quite suddenly, he smiled. "I'm George Yost." He took the poster and Scotch-taped it into the window. "You want the whole story, I guess."
"If you can, I sure would like it."
"I told the sheriff and the state police."
"Still—"
"You don't have to explain." He put a hard hand down on Mark's shoulder. There was nothing Mark could do but lower his eyes. His emotions were in an uproar. It seemed the greatest blessing in the world that this man was being kind. "I was out working on a lube job we'd got in that afternoon. Lube and oil change and check the brakes." He paused, picked up a coffee mug captioned "Maximum Leader," gestured with it.
"No thanks."
"I know, eats your stomach lining. Well, it's my poison of choice since I stopped smoking." He poured a mugful from a deadly looking pot that sat on an automatic hotplate at the edge of the desk. "So I came out of the lube hole and there was this Aerostar sitting there. Big deal, guy's filling up. He's on the far side and I can't see him. Hell, I don't but glance at the van. Why look at it? The state police brought an Aerostar in here and took measurements and figured out that the man is no taller than five foot ten. Based on I couldn't see the top of his head across the roof of the van." He blinked, seemingly amazed at this deduction. "So then all of a sudden I notice this boy. He is going back to the van from the phones. He's noticeable, first because he's hunched, like, and running like he was scared half to death. Second, I can just see the front of his shirt and it seems to me that it's covered with blood." At those words the world receded to a bright dot at the end of a long tunnel. To cover his shock, Mark went for the coffee. His hands shook so much he had to concentrate on every detail of getting a mug, grasping the pot, pouring. "You told the police this?"
George nodded. He must have perceived that Mark was hearing it for the first time, because his voice became very soft. "I thought to myself, how does that guy feel—meanin' you— when the cops told me you were on your way. I just wish to God I could say somethin' more about your boy."
Mark gulped down hot coffee and poured himself more. His overwhelming urge was to jump in his car and give chase. For an insane moment he contemplated trying to catch the Aerostar.
"I noticed one other thing. When they were pulling out, I got that it was a Utah plate. Normally I never see a plate. But that boy, runnin' like that, and the blood—you know. Don't ask about numbers. I don't remember, except a '3.' "
He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "I've tried to remember more. There's only one thing I wonder about: Why didn't Billy just come in here? Why didn't he come to me? I woulda helped him."
Mark had heard stories of children being won over by their abductors, or terrified into compliance. But if that had happened, he obviously wouldn't even have made the phone call. "I suspect that the abductor was armed. If my boy had gone to you for help, he risked getting you killed. Knowing Billy, he wouldn't have taken a risk like that with somebody else's life."
"A little boy who thinks like that?"
"Admittedly I might be crediting him with too much insight. You want to believe your kid can handle himself. But Billy is very bright."
"My youngest is at Stanford. Full scholarship. First Yost to go to college in a long time. My great-granddad went, so they say."
"Stanford's a fine school."
"Gonna go for a law degree. That's the way to make money these days. Them lawyers . . . you see the Mercedes, the Jag, the big Lincoln—odds on, you're lookin' at a lawyer's car. And if there's a chauffeur, then you're plumb certain."
"Did you see the man who had Billy?"
"Glimpsed. A long glimpse, though. I'd recognize him by his profile. He had a sort of blunt face. The police are going to do an IdentiKit job Saturday morning. They're takin' me up to Las Vegas for it. What they do is, get a guy to put together the profile from my description, then they use a computer to turn it into a front view. Hell of a thing."
Mark wanted to ask if the man had looked cruel or crazy, but he didn't know how to phrase the question. "Did he seem—"
"He was just normal. Dark, curly hair."
"Like me?"
"Nah. Really curly. He had a pug nose, and I remember his skin seemed really smooth. It was kind of sickly looking, too. 'Course people all look like Count Dracula under these sodium lights they got here."
Mark feared that he was finally getting at the truth. "Is that how he looked—like a vampire? A monster?" Inside himself he asked the real question: 'Was he the kind of man who would not only wound but kill? Please, tell me.' Tell me why my boy was covered with blood!
"He was just a guy in a car. Like I say, I wouldn't have noticed, it hadn't been for that blood on your little fella's chest."
Walter Toddcaster was not waiting for calls. He never waited for calls. What he was doing when the call came was reading a follow report on a young man who was almost certainly dealing crack behind the Studer Theatre. They were about ready to make him and send him to boarding school for a couple of years.
He picked up his phone on the second ring. "Yeah?"
"Detective Toddcaster?" A young male voice, with the pasteurized tone that said trooper.
"This is Officer Torrence of the State Police. I'm calling in reference to your inquiry about incident reports on a white Ford Aerostar."
"Yes?"
"We had one stopped and warned last Monday at eleven-fifteen a.m. on IH 80 outside of Neola. Failure to display the proper renewal sticker on a license plate. The license number was Utah 1-C32A. It was registered to a Utah resident named Barton Samuel Royal. The town of registration is Salt Lake. We have an address."
"Jesus."
"Problem is, the address is a mail drop. The driver was carrying a California license, no notations and no record kept."
"This is gold, Officer Torrence."
"Yes, sir."
When Torrence hung up Walter just sat there for a moment. Neola was about forty miles from Council Bluffs. Billy's abductor could have easily made it that far on Monday morning. They had a possible make working here.
He went into the ready room and pulled down a tattered Rand McNally Road Atlas. A few measurements with a ruler told him that the position was time-consistent with the later sighting in Nevada as well.
Walt picked up the phone and called the California Department of Motor Vehicles. They wanted his request on letterhead, but would respond immediately if he faxed it to them.
Half an hour later he was looking at the driving record of Barton Royal. The man had an address in Sacramento. There was only one problem. According to the report, Royal had deceased on October 12, 1985. The bastard had managed to pull himself out of the records.
There were moments when a man wanted to kill. Walter Toddcaster had one of those moments.
Estes was profoundly rural: Las Vegas very definitely did not extend this far west. Mark had come forty-five miles and he was in a place of an entirely different order. The moment he turned off the interstate he was in America's past, a world of dusty pickups and feed stores.
The sheriff's office was constructed of tan brick. It was a small building on the main street, newer than most. "Amon County Sheriff's Department, Estes Substation." Mark went in. He knew who he was supposed to meet: Deputy Richards. As it turned out, the only person present was Deputy Richards, who could not have been more than twenty-five. As Mark entered, he unfolded from his chair.
"I'm Mark Neary. I've just been out to the Mobil station."
"George is a good guy. He's been pumpin' gas in this town ever since I can remember. I don't know why he does it. He owns three stations. He could afford to drive a Cadillac, I guess."
"He said he was just the attendant."
"That's George. He tell you what you want to know?"
"No, he didn't tell me where my boy was." But he had taken three posters, Mark remembered. And now he knew why: he owned three stations.