To this day I cannot tell whether those pictures were any good. George thought they were the work of a prodigy, someone on par with other great naive “outsider” artists like Henry Darger or A. G. Rizzoli. I wouldn’t know. To me they seemed more like explosions on paper. Looking at them, you knew whoever drew these things was seriously troubled and maybe even insane.
Old Vertue was doorman to Antonya’s warped kingdom. In the first illustration, at the bottom of a page of notes on Greece, the dog sat in that familiar pose with the feather in front of him. Startled I mumbled, “What’re you doing here?” and turned the page.
The second drawing was of him lying in the parking lot of the Grand Union market. It took a moment to remember that’s where he’d been found the first day I met him. What set An-tonya’s drawings apart was at the center of each was a careful likeness of something literal and easily recognizable—Vertue in the parking lot, Frannie Junior and me looking at the Schiavo house. But everything else in her pictures was from Antonya Corando’s outer limits.
Her “Vertue in the parking lot” was a perfect example. Around the outside edges of the paper, like a Hieronymous-Bosch-meets-R-Crumb designed picture frame, dancing razor blades held hands with pieces of popcorn which were shitting lizards with human heads. Immediately inside that frame was a second: cabbages with smiley faces bleeding gobbets of bright red blood from hatchets and knives buried in their heads. Androgynous angels flying overhead pissed down on them. Giant words were black-crayoned across all of the drawings. Words like “smegma,” “abscess,” “Hi, Mom!” as well as obscure phrases like “Jesus Soup” or “manus maleficiens.” George explained that was Latin for “the hand that knows no good.”
He slid his glasses down his nose and over until they hung precariously off his right ear. “When did this all start, Frannie?”
“The day I buried Old Vertue.”
He nodded and flipped pages in the book till he came to Antonya’s drawing of me putting the dog in the ground. “Did you notice this?” He pointed to a small detail in the picture. I couldn’t see it clearly so I leaned forward.
“What?”
“The black shovel. There are three things that appear in every one of her drawings—that shovel, lizards—”
“And me.”
“And you, that’s right.”
“What am I supposed to do with that, George? Shovels, lizards, and me? No, wait a minute—I also buried my father with that shovel. You think that has anything to do with it?”
“Let’s assume it does. What about the lizards?”
“What about them?”
“Do you like lizards? Are they important to you?”
“Are you nuts?” I jabbed a finger at the middle of my forehead to emphasize the point. “George, forget the lizards, willya? I’m confused enough.”
“All right. Then the best thing now is to go see if the dog is still buried in the yard.”
“That’s what I was thinking. Have you looked back there since we put him in?”
“Yes. Nothing was different.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d resurrected and was sitting on my front step.”
George put down Antonya’s notebook and slowly laid his glasses on top of it. He paused, sighed, ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I’m nervous about this, Frannie. I think I’m afraid to look.”
“Nothing wrong with being afraid.”
His eyes fell to his lap. “Are you ever afraid?”
I made to say something but stopped. George knew me too well. It was useless to lie. “No, not very often.”
He nodded as if he’d known that all along. “You were never afraid. As long as I’ve known you I’ve never seen you afraid.”
I reached into a pocket and brought out my knife. “Fear is like this knife, George. It serves one purpose: it cuts into things. Keep it folded in your pocket and it can’t hurt you.”
“How do you do that?”
“You create your fear. It’s not out there like an infectious disease. Mostly it comes from love. When you love something so much you can’t bear to lose it, then fear’s always nearby. I’ve never loved anything enough to worry about losing it. That’s my fuckup. Magda says it’s the most pathetic thing about me. She’s probably right.”
“You don’t love your wife enough to fear losing her?”
I shook my head.
“Do you really mean that, Frannie?”
I wouldn’t look at him. “Yes. Let’s go.”
Chuck the dog led the way. He’s a silly little guy who thinks he’s king of the world. The moment we stepped outside he disappeared. It was so abrupt and ridiculous that we just stopped and froze. He was walking three feet in front of us with the confident waggle dachshunds have. From one moment to the next he was gone—zoop!
George took a step forward and said uncertainly, “Chuck?”
The yard was small and well kept. There wasn’t a place he could have gone without being seen. But George still hurried to a far corner and, bending way down, searched the grounds.
My cell phone rang. Instinctively I knew something else was wrong.
“Chief?” Bill Pegg’s deep voice came through, completely wired.
“Yeah?”
“The Schiavo house is on fire. It’s a meltdown. Somebody had to’ve set it. It’s going up like gasoline.”
“I’m on my way.” George scurried around uselessly looking for the dog. I flicked off the phone and called out to him. “Forget it. Whoever disappeared him is playing with us. You won’t find him now.”
He glared at me. “Don’t say that!”
“He’s gone. Come with me. Someone set fire to the Schiavo house. Everything is connecting up, George. He might even be over there.”
Eyes closed, he shook his head. “No, I have to stay. He might be here somewhere.”
I went over and took his arm. “The minute we’re going to dig up Old Vertue I hear the Schiavo house is on fire. Is that a coincidence? You don’t think somebody’s messing with our heads? We’re not supposed to do this now.”
“Maybe we are. Maybe that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do, Frannie! Dig up your dog right now.”
I stopped and realized he might be right. But what was I supposed to do? The chief of police has to be where there’s trouble. At that moment trouble was burning five blocks away. “Look, I gotta go over there now. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He looked frantically around. “What’s happening, Frannie? What’s going on?”
“I’m going to find out.”
“Ooh, baby, baby, you fucked up this time!” The boy stood on the burning deck… or rather this familiar boy stood in front of the burning Schiavo house, his back to the fire, hands in pockets. Next to him was a black man of indeterminate age. Neither paid any attention to the blaze. They seemed intent on watching me approach.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
Behind them the Crane’s View Volunteer Fire Department worked hard to control the flames. Those guys knew what they were doing, but the fire was roaring and it took everything they had.
The black guy stepped forward smiling and put out his right hand. “I came to see you, Mr. McCabe. My name is Astopel.”
Warily, I shook with him. The kid stood with arms crossed and a strange, anxious expression on his face. What did it say?
“You’re only a few inches from the hangman’s shove, Mr. McCabe. That’s what necessitated this visit.”
As if for dramatic affect, the roof on the house chose that moment to collapse in an explosion of sound, flying sparks, and debris.
“Is this your calling card?” I pointed at the house and tried to sound cool.
Junior cringed and mouthed, “Don’t!”
“Haven’t you seen enough wonders recently to convince you life has changed?” The man barked a short cough and tried repeatedly to clear his throat. “No, that isn’t my calling card, but if you’d like, I could turn you into a wood louse. Or perhaps a spine-tailed swift, the fastest bird on earth. Would you rather suffer from a hideous rare disease for five minutes? Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome? Opitz Disease? How about Alien Hand Syndrome?”