Red Dragon - Thomas Harris [54]
They trooped around the Florida State League while he was in the Cardinals' farm system. They took Willy with them and had a terrific time. Spam and spirit. He got a tryout with the Cardinals and hit safely in his first two games. Then he began to have difficulty swallowing. The surgeon tried to get it all, but it metastasized and ate him up. He died five months later, when Willy was six.
Willy still watched baseball whenever he could. Molly watched baseball when she was upset.
Graham had no key. He knocked.
“I'll get it.” Willy's voice.
“Wait.” Molly's face between the curtains. “All right.”
Willy opened the door. In his fist, held close to his leg, was a fish billy.
Graham's eyes stung at the sight. The boy must have brought it in his suitcase.
Molly took the bag from him. “Want some coffee? There's gin, but not the kind you like.”
When she was in the kitchen, Willy asked Graham to come outside.
From the back porch they could see the riding lights of boats anchored in the bay.
“Will, is there any stuff I need to know to see about Mom?”
“You're both safe here, Willy. Remember the car that followed us from the airport making sure nobody saw where we went? Nobody can find out where you and your mother are.”
“This crazy guy wants to kill you, does he?”
“We don't know that. I just didn't feel easy with him knowing where the house is.”
“You gonna kill him?”
Graham closed his eyes for a moment. “No. It's just my job to find him. They'll put him in a mental hospital so they can treat him and keep him from hurting anybody.”
“Tommy's mother had this little newspaper, Will. It said you killed a guy in Minnesota and you were in a mental hospital. I never knew that. Is it true?”
“Yes.”
“I started to ask Mom, but I figured I'd ask you.”
“I appreciate your asking me straight out. It wasn't just a mental hospital; they treat everything.” The distinction seemed important. "I was in the psychiatric wing. It bothers you, finding out I was in there. Because I'm married to your mom.
“I told my dad I'd take care of her. I'll do it, too.”
Graham felt he had to tell Willy enough. He didn't want to tell him too much.
The lights went out in the kitchen. He could see Molly's dim outline inside the screen door and he felt the weight of her judgment. Dealing with Willy he was handling her heart.
Willy clearly did not know what to ask next. Graham did it for him.
“The hospital part was after the business with Hobbs.”
“You shot him?”
“Yes.”
“How'd it happen?”
“To begin with, Garrett Hobbs was insane. He was attacking college girls and he - . . . killed them.”
“How?”
"With a knife; anyway I found a little curly piece of metal in the clothes one of the girls had on. It was the kind of shred a pipe threader makes - remember when we fixed the shower outside?
"I was taking a look at a lot of steamfitters, plumbers and people. lt took a long time. Hobbs had left this resignation letter at a construction job I was checking. I saw it and it was . . . peculiar. He wasn't working anywhere, and I had to find him at home.
“I was going up the stairs in Hobbs's apartment house. A uniformed officer was with me. Hobbs must have seen us coming. I was halfway up to his landing when he shoved his wife out the door and she came falling down the stairs dead.”
“He had killed her?”
“Yeah. So I asked the officer I was with to call for SWAT, to get some help. But then I could hear kids in there and some screaming. I wanted to wait, but I couldn't.”
“You went in the apartment?”
“I did. Hobbs had caught this girl from behind and he had a knife. He was cutting her with it. And I shot him.”
“Did the girl die?”
“No.”
“She got all right?”
"After a while, yes. She's all right now.
Willy digested this silently. Faint music came from an anchored sailboat.
Graham could leave things out for Willy, but he couldn't help seeing them again himself.
He left out Mrs. Hobbs on the landing clutching at him, stabbed so many times. Seeing she was gone, hearing the screaming from the apartment, prying the