“This is a good time of year,” said Chet. “All this sex in the air — the birds and the bees and the people. We got these sparrows at home, building a nest up in the eaves. Every spring they come back and do it. And every year, the birds grow and get feathers and look just like the adults — you can hardly tell them apart. Then they leave the nest. It takes them about four hours. One at a time. And while one is out at the edge of the sticks, checking out the world, getting ready to go, the other ones watch to see how he does it. I swear. And every year, the dog sits there and waits for the first bird to take off and fall into the bushes on his maiden voyage, and eats him. That first try at flying, you know, they hardly ever get it right. Then, when the next one tries, the dog eats him, too. Ate three out of four, last year. I set up a screen, but the dog pushed it down. Then I figured I’d go with the program — let nature do things her own way. You interfere with the natural world and all you do is make things worse. You interfere with natural desires and you get somebody like The Horridus.”
His logic escaped me, but I agreed. “Yeah. Seems like you could put the dog in the garage or something.”
“It’s full of junk.”
“Or the house.”
“She’s got fleas.”
That’s one thing you learn fast about creeps in general, and kiddy-sex creeps in particular: they’ve got an excuse for everything, a reasonable explanation why they can’t do this, or have to do that. They’re great rationalizers, and at some level they’re convinced by their own arguments. On a deeper level, most of them are aware that their actions are shameful and repugnant. But their actions, of course, are never their fault, because they build these little reason-structures to justify and explain what they do, and the shame they should feel runs off the roofs of those structures, just like rain. Inside, the creep stays dry. They’ve always got an angle.
Chet turned off the radio. I looked at his soft, pale fingers and the manicured little flip of his nails. They looked aerodynamic. We headed right on Lilac and left on Daffodil. Daffodil was a cul-de-sac and Chet’s house was on the right, the first of three that made up the curve at the end of the street. The upside of a cul-de-sac is you know the exit route and it’s easy to cover. The downside is it’s hard to work without being obvious. Johnny and Frances were going to park on the other side of the wall that ran behind the houses, and listen in from there. They’d have to jump the wall when the time came. Louis was already parked near the entrance of the street, inside a van with a two-foot-long black plastic ant and the words “Countywide Pest Control” on each side. The ant is magnetized and removable. We have another set of signs for carpet cleaning, but I like to use the ant for busts because it’s been lucky for us. Chet looked at the van as we drove by.
“Could get them to spray for fleas, maybe,” he said.
“It really stinks up the house,” I said. The less attention Chet paid the exterminators the better. “Probably not worth it for a couple of sparrows. I guess Lauren must be an animal lover.”
“Yeah. Wanted a horse once. Looking forward to seeing her?”
“Got to be honest, Chet — I am.”
“That’s what it’s all about, friend.”
Chet hit the opener on his visor and up went the garage door. We parked inside, next to a Chevy, and the door closed behind us. Coming in from the sharp optics of springtime, it was a little hard to see. In the corner stood a set of golf clubs in a red and white bag with red-knit head covers. Chet had met Danny in the country club bar. There were five large cardboard boxes, neatly stacked beside the clubs. A few garden tools on wall hangers. This garage was not full of junk at all, I thought: the privacy of pulling his car in and out is much too important.
We went into the house. The living room was newly carpeted in light blue and had plump, oak-accented furniture that was heavy and graceless. The couch was beige. There was a tin vase on the coffee table with silk or paper daisies inside. There were brass-framed prints of flowers on the wall. The wall was papered in wide vertical bands of white with little flowers in it, separated by narrower stripes of dark blue. Homey and trite, cheaply cheerful.
A sliding glass door opened to a backyard charged with sunlight. A woman with yellow hair and two men reclined on chaise longues with drinks in their hands. A low table beside the woman had bottles and an ice bucket on it. The pool glittered light blue and silver. A woman’s laugh, uncannily piercing, bounced off the water and through the screen door to us. The men chuckled. When Chet slid open the door, all three heads were already turned our way.
Chet introduced us. Danny, an associate professor of mathematics at a local private college, was fifty and distinguished looking, slender from a diet of cigarettes and gin. He gave no sign of knowing me. Marlon was sad faced, big shouldered and slow. A bright green and yellow Hawaiian shirt with parrots on it hung over him. Late twenties. Beneath his lugubrious eyebrows, his blue eyes were fast and anxious. We didn’t shake hands: sex criminals generally don’t like to touch or be touched by strangers. Neither do I. Caryn was mid-thirties. Her yellow hair was cut big — blown and sprayed back from her face like the Cosmo models of some years ago. She had smooth skin and a receding chin made worse by big teeth. After she smiled she closed her mouth down pretty quick, like her teeth might get away. She was short legged and full in the chest, and all the hair made her look top-heavy. Her voice was a rasp, vaguely southern.
“Well, nice to finally meet you, Art. Chet here’s been telling me all about you.” Her voice was friendly and open while her dark brown eyes narrowed to study me hard. “Whatcha drinkin’?”
“Scotch and soda, if you have it.”
“We can handle that.” She started making the drink. “Chet tells me you’re an investor?”
“I do have a few investments. Conservative stuff, mostly just mutual funds. Some munis, so long as the Fed rates stay down. Some company stock.”
“Like it strong?”
“Please.”
“She’s going to like you.”
“I’m still a little—”
She handed me a clear highball glass with a silhouette of the Manhattan skyline on it.
“—Drink up, Art. It’s a good way to get yourself comfortable. Drink all you want, just so’s it doesn’t make you mean.”
“Thanks, Caryn.”
Her dark little eyes bore into me suddenly. “No rough stuff, Art. I mean none.”
“Chet told me.”
“Now I’m telling you again.”
“That’s not me.”
Her eyes stayed hard but her teeth escaped into a smile. “I’m not gonna win any mom-of-the-year award, but I keep a close eye on my girl.”
“That’s the way it should be.”
“That’s the way it is here.”
Caryn’s hard gaze dissolved as she looked over at Danny. He nodded and lifted his drink.
“You know, Art,” she said, “you’re going to have to give me some tips on investing. I want to make some good money. I got to thinking about starting an emu ranch. They’re worth a lot of money. You know, those big birds they got out now?”
“Steer clear of that, Caryn. It’s more like a pyramid scheme. Plus, who the hell’s going to buy an emu from you?”