The Night Listener and Others Read Online Free PDF Page B

never really sure. That was the same summer my hair turned gray. The other kids thought it was funny. Ten years old and gray hair.”
    The Youngers weren’t smiling anymore.
    “You hadn’t quite gotten it down by then, had you? Not quite able to control it, huh?”
    Her mouth opened, trembled, and shut.
    “And last night I put it all together. After thirty years I remembered, and it all went click. And I knew why you looked so familiar the first time I saw you this summer. I’d seen you before. Hadn’t thought about it for years, but it was still back there. Not every day strangers give you candy. One each. You gave us a candy bar each. A long time ago, you probably don’t remember. But then why would you? Why remember one out of so many?”
    I bit the inside of my lip. My words had been coming in a rush, and I didn’t want to get upset, emotional. I had a job to do. “It’s time to stop now,” I said. “You took too much. Get out of this park and don’t ever come back. But I’ll be watching you, and if you ever try to touch another child, I’ll kill you both.” I pushed back the front of my jacket just far enough to let them see the butt of the .38 Special I had wedged in my waistband.
    Faces pale, they turned without a word and walked away. I followed them to make sure they left the park, and then I followed them to their home, a small house on a quiet residential street in a town fifteen miles from Magicland. Their lights went off at midnight, and I drove to my place, got my bag, woke up the security head with a phone call, and told him I had to go out of town for a week or so.
    I think a week’s about right. To obtain youth with just a touch must be more addictive than any drug, and I can hardly blame them for slipping. In the past few days we’ve been to two zoos, a library, three museums, and two small-town parks with playgrounds. Although they look for me, they haven’t seen me. But they will soon.
    Today they bought some candy.

Night Deposits
     
     
    You almost got to know Zane Kaylor to appreciate this. Course young as you are you probably wouldn’t. You might recall, though, seeing Zane on the street. A big, tall, skinny fella he was, built like a fence post a rough wind split in two. Jesus, but he was thin.
    Wasn’t always like that, though. Hell, I remember him back in the thirties being really stocky like. That was when he owned the mill. Big wood mill, everybody in town got their lumber there, back before wood got so dear nobody can afford it no more. Course too that was before the Martin boy’s accident. That was what made Zane so thin. And what made him finally start making those queer night deposits of his at the bank.
    Must’ve been ‘34 or so when it happened. There wasn’t much call for safety things back then, and there was a great big band saw Zane had at the mill. Now it would’ve been all right if Zane had grown men who knew what the hell they were doing on that saw. If he had, I doubt the sheriff ever would have said a thing. But Tommy Martin was working it after school, since Zane hired boys like that rather than pay his regular men overtime after four.
    Well, Bill Painter—he was sheriff then—comes in to pick up some planks and sees Tommy Martin working on that big old saw without no blade guard or nothing, and he tells Zane that he’s a fool to put a kid on that machine and if he’s going to do it he’d better goddam well put a blade guard on it, or maybe Painter’ll take a close look at some fire regulations that Zane wasn’t paying all that much attention to.
    This pisses Zane off something awful, but he don’t want to get on Painter’s wrong side, so he says real sulky that he’ll get a guard on it and not to worry. Tommy Martin hears all this, but he don’t pay no attention to it much. Hell, a quarter an hour was damn good for a high school boy then, and it’s fun sawing them boards up.
    But Zane, he’s pretty tight with money anyway, he looks for the