An hour later, when he reached the intersection of the tracks and Santa Leona Road, he was weary to his bones. His mouth was dry. His back ached. Every muscle in his legs was knotted and throbbing.
He considered following the highway into town. It was tempting: fairly straight and direct, with no holes or ditches or obstacles hidden in its shadows. He already had shortened the trek as much as he possibly could by going overland. From this point on, continued avoidance of the roads would only prolong the journey.
He took a few steps on the blacktop but realized again that he did not dare pursue the easy route. He almost surely would be attacked before he reached the edge of town, where people and lights would make murder more difficult than it would be in the lonely countryside.
— Hitchhike.
There’s no traffic at this hour.
— Someone will come along.
Yeah. Maybe Roy.
He left Santa Leona Road. He veered southwest from the railway line, striking out through more scrubland where only he and the tumbleweeds moved.
Within half a mile, he came to the dry creekbed that paralleled Ranch Road. It had been widened and deepened for flood-control purposes, and the walls of it were not earth but concrete. He descended on one of the regularly spaced service ladders, and when he stood on the floor of the creek, the rim was twenty feet above him.
Two miles farther, in the heart of town, he climbed up another ladder and through a safety railing. He was on the sidewalk along Broadway.
Although 1 A.M. was fast approaching, there were still people on the streets: several in passing cars; a few in an all-night diner; an attendant at a filling station. An elderly man walked arm-in-arm with a pixie-faced, white-haired woman, and a young couple strolled past the closed stores, window-shopping in spite of the hour.
Colin had an urge to rush up to the nearest of them and blurt out the secret, the story of Roy’s madness. But he knew they would think he was a lunatic. They didn’t know him, and they didn’t know Roy. None of it would make sense to strangers. He wasn’t even sure it made sense to him. And even if they did comprehend and believe, they couldn’t help him.
His first ally would have to be his mother. When she heard the facts, she would call the police, and they would respond to her much more quickly and seriously than they would to a fourteen-year-old boy. He had to get home and tell Weezy all about it.
He hurried along Broadway toward Adams Avenue, but after only a few steps he stopped because he suddenly realized that he would have to undertake the last part of his journey with the same caution that had marked it thus far. Roy might intend to ambush him within a few feet of his front door. In fact, now that he thought about it, he was positive that’s what would happen. Roy would most likely lie in wait directly across the way from the Jacobs house; half that block was a pocket park with many hiding places from which he could observe the entire street. The instant he saw Colin approaching the house, he would move; he would move real fast. For just a moment, as if briefly cursed with a clairvoyant’s vision, Colin could see himself being clubbed to the ground, being stabbed, being left there in blood and pain to die within inches of safety, on the threshold of sanctuary.
He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, trembling. He stood there for quite a while.
— Got to move, kid.
Where?
— Call Weezy. Ask her to come get you.
She’ll tell me to walk. It’s only a few blocks.
— So tell her why you can’t walk.
Not on the phone.
— Tell her Roy’s out there, waiting to kill you.
I can’t make it sound right on the phone.
— Sure you can.
No. I’ve got to be there when I tell her. Otherwise, it won’t sound right, and she’ll think it’s a joke. She’ll be mad.
— You’ve got to try to do it on the phone so she’ll come get you. Then you’ll get home safely.
I can’t do it on the phone.
— What’s the alternative?
Finally he walked back to the service station near the dry creekbed. A telephone booth stood on one comer of the property. He dialed the number and listened to it ring a dozen times.
She wasn’t home yet.
Colin slammed down the receiver and left the booth without recovering his dime.
He stood on the sidewalk, hands fisted at his sides, shoulders hunched. He wanted to punch something.
— The bitch.
She’s your mother.
— Where the hell is she?
It’s business.
— What’s she doing?
It’s business.
— Who’s she with?
It’s just business.
— I’ll bet.
The service-station attendant started closing for the night. The banks of fluorescent lights above the pumps blinked out.
Colin walked west on Broadway, through the shopping district, just passing time. He looked in store windows, but he didn’t see anything.
At ten minutes past one, he went back to the telephone booth. He dialed his home number, let it ring fifteen times, then hung up.
— Business my ass.
She works hard.
— At what?
He stood there for several minutes, one hand on the receiver, as if he were expecting a call.
— She’s out screwing around.
It’s business. A business dinner.
— This late?
A long, late business dinner.
He tried the number again.
No answer.
He sat down on the floor of the booth, in the darkness, and hugged himself.
— She’s out screwing around when I need her.
You don’t know for sure.
— I know.
You can’t.
— Face it. She screws like everyone else.
Now you sound like Roy.
— Sometimes Roy makes sense.
He’s crazy.
— Maybe not about everything.
At one-thirty he stood up, popped a dime into the phone, and called home again. It rang twenty-two times before he hung up.
It might be safe to walk home now. Wasn’t it too late for Roy to keep a vigil? He was a killer, but he was also a fourteen-year-old boy; he couldn’t stay out all night. His folks would wonder where he was. They might even call the cops. Roy would be in terrible trouble if he stayed out all night, wouldn’t he?
Maybe. And maybe not.
Colin wasn’t sure that the Bordens really cared what Roy did or what happened to him. So far as Colin knew, they had never set down rules for their son, other than the one about staying away from his father’s trains. Roy did pretty much what he wanted, when he wanted.
Something was wrong with the Borden family. The relationships were curious, indefinable. Theirs was not a traditional parent-child arrangement. Colin had met Mr. and Mrs. Borden only twice; but both times he had sensed the strangeness in them, in their attitudes toward each other, and in their treatment of Roy. Mother, father, and son seemed like strangers. There was a peculiar stiffness in the way they talked among themselves, as if they were reciting lines from a script they hadn’t learned very well. They were so formal. They almost seemed… afraid of one another. Colin had been aware of a coldness in the center of the family, but he had never spent much time wondering about it. Now that he gave it some thought, however, he realized that the Bordens were like people living in a rooming house; they smiled and nodded when they passed in the hall; they said hello when they met in the kitchen; but otherwise they led separate, distant lives. He didn’t know why that was true. Something had happened to turn them away from one another. He couldn’t imagine what it might have been. But he was certain that Mr. and Mrs. Borden wouldn’t care very much if Roy stayed out until daybreak or even disappeared forever.