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“Oui,” Ricky replied. “Bien sûr.”

“But, is not this day the day you are leaving us?”

“Only for a brief visit home. Less than a week.”

The gnomelike doctor nodded. Ricky could see lingering doubt in his eyes. Auguste Dumondais had not asked many questions when Ricky had arrived at the clinic door six months earlier, offering his services for the most modest salary. The clinic had thrived after Ricky was set up with an office much like the one he was standing in at that moment, nudging le Docteur Dumondais out of his own, self-imposed poverty, and allowing him to invest in more equipment and more medicines. Lately, the two men had discussed obtaining a secondhand X-ray machine from a clearinghouse in the states that Ricky had discovered. Ricky could see that the doctor was afraid that the serendipity that had delivered Ricky to his door was going to steal him away.

“A week at the most. I promise to you.”

Auguste Dumondais shook his head. “Do not promise me, Ricky. You must do whatever it is that you have to do, for whatever purpose that you have. When you return, we will continue our work.” He smiled, as if to display that he had so many questions that it was impossible for him to find one with which to start.

Ricky nodded. He removed his notebook from the bellows pocket of his shorts.

“There is a case…,” he said slowly. “The little boy I saw the other week.”

“Ah, yes,” the doctor said, smiling. “Of course, I recall. I suspected this would interest you, no? He is what, five years old?”

“A little older,” Ricky said. “Six. And indeed, Auguste, you are correct. It interests me greatly. The child has not yet spoken a single word, according to his mother.”

“That is what I, too, understood. Intriguing, I think, no?”

“Unusual. Yes, very true.”

“And your diagnosis?”

Ricky could picture a small child, wiry like so many of the islanders, and slightly undernourished, which was also a typical statement, but not tragically so. The boy had a furtive look in his eyes as he’d sat across from Ricky, scared even though he occupied his mother’s lap. The mother had cried bitterly, tears streaking down dark cheeks, as Ricky had asked her questions, because the woman thought her boy to be the brightest of her seven children, quick to learn, quick to read, quick with numbers-but never speaking a word. A special child, she thought, in most every way. Ricky had been aware that the woman had a considerable reputation in the community for magical powers, and made some extra money on the side selling love potions and amulets that were said to ward off evil, and so, he understood, for her to bring the child to see the odd white man in the clinic must have been a truly hard-reached concession that spoke of her frustration over native medicines, and her love for the boy.

“I do not think his difficulty is organic,” Ricky said slowly.

Auguste Dumondais grimaced. “His lack of speech is…?” This became a question.

“A hysterical response.”

The small black doctor rubbed his chin, and then ran his hand across his glistening skull. “I remember this, just a little bit, from my studies. Perhaps. Why do you think this?”

“The mother would only hint at some tragedy. When he was younger. There were seven children in the family, but now, only five. Do you know the family history?”

“Two children died. Yes. And the father, too. An accident, I recall, during a great storm. Yes, this child was there, that I remember, too. This could be the origin. But what treatment can we perform?”

“I will come up with a plan after some research. We will have to persuade the mother, of course. I don’t know how easy that will be.”

“Will it be expensive for her?”

“No,” Ricky said. He realized that there was some design in Auguste Dumandais’s request for him to examine the child at the same time that Ricky had a trip out of the country planned. It was a transparent design, but a good one, nonetheless. He suspected he might have done more or less the same. “I think it will cost them nothing to bring him to see me after I return. But I must learn much more, first.”

Doctor Dumandais smiled and nodded. “Excellent,” he said, as he hung a stethoscope around his neck, and then handed Ricky a white clinical jacket of his own to wear.

The day went by rapidly, busily, so much so that Ricky almost missed his CaribeAir flight to Miami. A middle-aged businessman named Richard Lively, traveling on a recently issued American passport with only a few modest stamps from various Caribbean nations, was waved through U.S. customs without much delay. He realized he didn’t fit any of the obvious criminal profiles, which were invented primarily to identify drug smugglers. Ricky thought he was a most unique criminal, and one that defied categorization. He was booked on the eight a.m. plane north to La Guardia, so Ricky spent the night in the airport Holiday Inn. He took a lengthy, hot, soapy shower, which he enjoyed from both a sanitary and sensual point of view, and thought bordered on true luxury after the spartan accommodations he was accustomed to. The air-conditioning that defied the heat outside and cooled his room was a remembered treat. But he slept fitfully, in starts, tossing for an hour before his eyes closed, then waking twice, once in the midst of a dream about the fire at his vacation home, then again, when he dreamed of Haiti, and the boy who could not speak. He lay in the bed in the darkness, a little surprised that the sheets seemed too soft and the mattress too springy, listening to the hum of the ice machine down the hall, and an occasional footstep passing by in the hallway, muted by the carpet, but not completely so. In the quiet, he reconstructed the last call he’d made to Virgil, nearly nine months earlier.

It was midnight, when he’d finally covered the distance to the cheap room on the outskirts of Provincetown. He had felt an odd, contradictory sense of exhaustion and energy, tired from the long run, enthused by the thought that he had come through a night very much alive that should have seen his death. He had slumped down on the bed, and dialed the number of her apartment in Manhattan.

When Virgil picked up the call on the first ring, she said only, “Yes?”

“This isn’t the voice you expected,” he replied.

She fell instantly quiet.

“Your brother, the attorney is there, isn’t he? Sitting across the room from you, waiting for the same phone call.”

“Yes.”

“Then have him pick up the extension and listen in.”

Within a few seconds, Merlin, too, was on the line. “Look,” the lawyer started, blustery with false bravado, “You have no idea-”

Ricky interrupted him. “I have many ideas. Now be quiet and listen to me, because everyone’s lives depend upon it.”

Merlin started to say something, but he could sense that Virgil had thrown a glance in his direction, shutting him up.

“First, your brother. He is currently in the Mid Cape Medical Center. Depending on their abilities, he will either remain there, or be airlifted to Boston for surgery. The police will have many questions for him, should he survive his wounds, but I think they will have difficulty understanding what crime, if any, was committed this night. They will have questions for you, as well, but I think that he will need both the support of the sister and brother he loves, as well as some legal advice before too long, assuming he makes it. So, I think the first task ahead of you is to deal with his situation.”

Both remained silent.

“Of course, that is for you to decide. Perhaps you will leave him to handle things by himself. Perhaps not. It is your choice, and you will have to live with your decision. But there are a few other matters that need to be dealt with.”