The New Yorker Stories - Ann Beattie [187]
“Some crazy guy pulled up and wanted to buy the house,” he said.
“Tell him we’d sell for a million?” she said.
“I wouldn’t,” he said.
Jo looked up. He turned and went into the kitchen. Byron had left the top off a jar, and a fly had died in the peanut butter. Tom opened the refrigerator and looked over the possibilities.
Later that same week, Tom discovered that Rickman had been talking to Byron. The boy said he had been walking down the road just then, returning from fishing, when a car rolled up alongside him and a man pointed to the house and asked him if he lived there.
Byron was in a bad mood. He hadn’t caught anything. He propped his rod beside the porch door and started into the house, but Tom stopped him. “Then what?” Tom said.
“He had this black tooth,” Byron said, tapping his own front tooth. “He said he had a house around here, and a kid my age who needed somebody to hang out with. He asked if he could bring this dumb kid over, and I said no, because I wouldn’t be around after today.”
Byron sounded so self-assured that Tom did a double take, wondering where Byron was going.
“I don’t want to meet some creepy kid,” Byron said. “If the guy comes and asks you, say no—O.K.?”
“Then what did he say?”
“Talked about some part of the river where it was good fishing. Where the river curved, or something. It’s no big deal. I’ve met a lot of guys like him.”
“What do you mean?” Tom said.
“Guys that talk just to talk,” Byron said. “Why are you making a big deal out of it?”
“Byron, the guy’s nuts,” Tom said. “I don’t want you to talk to him anymore. If you see him around here again, run and get me.”
“Right,” Byron said. “Should I scream, too?”
Tom shivered. The image of Byron screaming frightened him, and for a few seconds he let himself believe that he should call the police. But if he called, what would he say—that someone had asked if his house was for sale and later asked Byron if he’d play with his son?
Tom pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He’d drive across town to see the farmer who’d owned the land, he decided, and find out what he knew about Rickman. He didn’t remember exactly how to get to the farmer’s house, and he couldn’t remember his name. The real-estate agent had pointed out the place, at the top of a hill, the summer he showed Tom the property, so he could call him and find out. But first he was going to make sure that Jo got home safely from the grocery store.
The phone rang, and Byron turned to pick it up.
“Hello?” Byron said. Byron frowned. He avoided Tom’s eyes. Then, just when Tom felt sure that it was Rickman, Byron said, “Nothing much.” A long pause. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “I’m thinking about ornithology.”
It was Byron’s mother.
The real-estate agent remembered him. Tom told him about Rickman. “De de de de, De de de de,” the agent sang—the notes of the theme music from The Twilight Zone. The agent laughed. He told him the farmer whose land he had bought was named Albright. He didn’t have the man’s telephone number, but was sure it was in the directory. It was.
Tom got in the car and drove to the farm. A young woman working in a flower garden stood up and held her trowel up like a torch when his car pulled into the drive. Then she looked surprised that he was a stranger. He introduced himself. She said her name. It turned out she was Mr. Albright’s niece, who had come with her family to watch the place while her aunt and uncle were in New Zealand. She didn’t know anything about the sale of the land; no, nobody else had come around asking. Tom described Rickman anyway. No, she said, she hadn’t seen anyone who looked like that. Over on a side lawn, two Irish setters were barking madly at them. A man—he must have been the woman’s husband—was holding them by their collars. The dogs were going wild, and the young woman obviously wanted to end the conversation. Tom didn’t think about leaving