Richie liked that. Not the bad words, but the young one smiling at him like there was a secret between them. Like he understood how older people could be.
They set the wooden box down where Richie’s mini-gym ended and the storage area began. The pudgy one was huffing and puffing, but he got some words out.
“So now... now we’re damn... damn morticians,” he said. His hands were on his waist above his gun belt. “Wait till... till the police union... hears about... about this.”
The pudgy policeman was sweating. The skinny one wasn’t. It was pretty cool up there, the air conditioner on high.
The young one asked, “You don’t really think that thing is for real, do you?” He wasn’t breathing hard at all.
“You heard ‘em talkin’ down there. You heard the doc and all that talk about his brother digging up shit in Mexico.”
“Language,” Richie said.
The pudgy policeman just looked at him. “Is this where you want it, kid?”
“Can you take him out?”
“Take who where?”
Richie pointed. “My friend. Lift him out and set him there. In front of those boxes?”
The pudgy policeman let out a whole bunch of air. The skinny one laughed. Not loud. Just one “ha.”
“What if he comes apart,” the pudgy policeman asked the skinny policeman, “in our hands?”
“Then he comes apart in our hands,” the skinny policeman said and shrugged. “But we can’t leave him in this crate.”
“Why not?”
“Just do it, Lou. Be careful with that thing. It’s even older than you are, y’know.”
“Very funny.”
The skinny one came around on the pudgy one’s end and together they lifted the sitting mummy from the crate. Dust puffed off the figure like smoke. Both policemen made faces and turned their heads away. Richie’s friend was in a kind of dress, Richie noted, very worn-out looking. No, more like kind of rotted but not rotted everywhere. The fancy color collar was faded but it was still cool. Even though that looked like a dress, Richie assumed this was a man. The white hair on top of his head was real short.
The skinny policeman pushed the mummy toward the pudgy one and said, “Kiss him, Lou.”
The pudgy one made a face and turned away. “You crazy or something, Freddie?”
“Ah, he’s only a dummy, you dummy.”
Richie said, “Be careful with my friend.” But at least now he knew his friend wasn’t a girl. The skinny policeman had called him “him.”
They set the mummy down on the wooden plank flooring in that same sitting position, backside on the floor, knees bent and up, feet on the floor, too. Then they slid the empty crate back with the other boxes and stuff. An old rocking horse of Richie’s was back there between an old trunk and a fake Christmas tree.
The pudgy policeman wasn’t breathing hard now. He looked at Richie, over by his stationary bike.
“I remember,” the pudgy policeman said to the skinny policeman, “when kids went somewhere on their bike. Not nowhere.”
Richie felt like he could say something about that even though they weren’t speaking to him. They were speaking about him, so he said, “I have a bike. We live on the outskirts.”
“So what?” the pudgy policeman said.
“So it’s dangerous out here for a boy on a bike. Trucks and cars picking up speed. But Dad takes me to the park, sometimes. And then I ride my bike.”
“Yeah, swell, good for you, kid. Is this piece of crap okay here?” The pudgy policeman gestured to Richie’s seated friend.
The skinny policeman said, “If the chief hears you talking to that kid like that, Lou, you’re gonna lose your goddamn pension.”
“Language,” Richie said softly.
“Yeah, yeah,” the skinny policeman said. “So is he all right here, kid?”
“Yes.”
More proof his friend was a boy. Or a man. The skinny policeman called the mummy “he.”
The policemen headed for the well of the stairs, but Richie called out to them.
“And he is real.”
The two policeman looked at him.
“And he’s my friend.”
“Sure he is,” the skinny policeman said. Not mean. Just agreeing. But the pudgy policeman was shaking his head and muttering.
More bad language.
When they were gone, Richie went over and sat in front of the mummy. Both were sitting on the floor, mummy with knees up, Richie cross-legged. The light wasn’t good here, but it wasn’t bad either. He could see his friend but his friend’s face didn’t seem so scary like it did under a lot of light. His friend’s eye holes were dark and Richie really kind of liked that big smile.
Richie stared at his friend’s face and, after a while, he thought he could see something glowing in those eye holes.
At Helen’s insistence, Roy walked with her outside to have a look at the footprints. The two cops who’d lugged the crate upstairs had rejoined the other two officers patrolling. The mugginess still lingered and the sun was high and hot now. The strange footprints were still there and Helen knelt over them.
She asked, “Could this be some horrible prank?”
He crouched beside her. “I don’t follow.”
“Maybe somebody faked these things.”
He gave her a look. “You accusing me again of some bizarre stunt to—”
“No! No.”
She stood and so did he. “But couldn’t those prints come from boots or shoes of some kind?”
“Oh, Helen...”
With a raised palm, she said, “Hear me out. Could this be some kind of fear campaign? The grotesque footprints, the flaming projectile... Do you have enemies? Someone who owes you money for medical services on treatment they consider botched? Some husband whose wife died because he thinks you were negligent?”
His eyebrows climbed. “Oh, well thank you. Glad you have such a high opinion of me. No, my patients seem perfectly content with the quality of their medical care. Anyway, I saw whatever it was, remember... You sketched the damn thing! Or do you think I’m lying, or imagining things, or... what?”
She shook her head, frowned but not angrily. “No, no. Nothing like that. We’re past such accusations. Could it have been a child? Some poor thing from Richard’s special education class?”
“Are you serious?”
Her forehead tensed. “Some twisted child with a grudge against him...?”
“Right. Some kid Richie’s age who has special needs problems but somehow fabricated monster boots and put together a creature-feature get-up, fright wig and all. Just getting a jump on Halloween.”
She sighed, shook her head again, laughed bitterly. “I know how I sound.”
He slipped his arm around her. “Like a mother crazy with concern for her child. It’d be unnatural otherwise.”
“Something unnatural is happening here. Roy, we have to protect Richard.”
“Damn straight we do.”
They walked to the front of the house, Roy’s arm still around her.
She said, “I’m going to spend the afternoon with Richard. Drawing, doing crafts. He’s probably up in the attic with that awful thing.” She shivered. “I could just kill your brother-in-law. And your sister!”
It was Roy’s turn to sigh. “He meant well. But, yeah — that was over the line even for Pete.”
Her eyes lifted to the ceiling. “I want you to go up there and make sure that child is not... not fooling with that disgusting thing. Will you please?”