4. WE STOP IN THE SHADOW of an oak near the garçonnière. There is a movement in the window. It is a woman, standing, arms folded, looking out, but not at us. She seems to be smiling, but perhaps it is a shadow. No, it is Mrs. Cheney. I recognize the heavy dark eyebrows, rimless glasses, oval face still young-looking despite the heavy iron-colored hair pulled down tight.

Presently she turns away.

Several minutes pass. The uncle is as still as if we were in a duck blind. Vergil is watching me.

“Let’s go over here.” I move closer, into the shadow of the porch. Now we can see what Mrs. Cheney is doing. She is standing, arms still folded under her breasts, watching a boy playing cards on the floor. She is still smiling. She is often described as having a “sweet face” and she does. She has always been a sitter hereabouts, babysitter, sitter for old people. She is one of those women who have no other qualification than pleasantness and reliability. She used to sit with Meg and Tommy. Her best feature is her skin, which is like satin, smooth and dusky as a gypsy’s. She has gained some weight. Her forearms under her breasts are still firm-fleshed, but there is a groove along the bone separating the swell of pale underflesh pressed against her body from the dark outer arm.

“Well?” says Vergil, still watching me. He is worried about me, my silence. Do I know what I’m doing?

“Let’s go say hello to Mrs. Cheney. Uncle, you’re going to have to leave the shotgun by the door.”

“There is no way—” he begins.

“Put it behind that sweet olive. You don’t want to frighten Mrs. Cheney.”

We knock and go in. Mrs. Cheney looks up, smiling. She seems no more than mildly surprised.

“Dr. More!”

“Hello, Mrs. Cheney. You know my uncle, Hugh Bob Lipscomb, and Vergil Bon, Claude’s father.”

“I surely do, and that’s a fine boy. Hugh, that bluebird never came back. Hugh made me a bluebird box,” she explains to me.

“That was a while ago,” says the uncle, eyes somewhat rolled back. He’s embarrassed and feels obliged to explain. “She had a bluebird nesting in her paper tube. I gave her the box but told her it would be better not to mess with the bird that season. But something ran it off.”

“Is that right?”

“I first knew Mrs. Cheney when she used to sit with Lucy,” the uncle explains to Vergil.

“They were all lovely people,” says Mrs. Cheney. “All of y’all.” Mrs. Cheney is nodding and smiling, eyeglasses flashing, as if nothing could be more natural than that the three of us should have appeared at this very moment.

While we talk, we are gazing down at the child. He is a boy, seven or eight. He looks familiar. He is picking up playing cards which are scattered face down on the floor. He is a very serious little boy, very thin, dressed in khaki pants and matching shirt like a school uniform. His narrow little butt waggles as he crawls around picking up cards. When he picks up four cards, hardly looking at them, he stacks them awkwardly against his chest and makes a separate pile.

“Ricky, you speak to these nice gentlemen.”

“Aren’t you Ricky Comeaux?” I ask him. Ricky doesn’t speak, but he sits around to see us, large head balanced on the delicate stem of his neck. Finally he nods.

“What game are you playing, Ricky?” I ask him.

Mrs. Cheney answers for him. “Concentration. Y’all remember. I put all the cards on the floor face up. He takes one look. Then I turn them face down. You know. Then you’re supposed to pick them up by pairs. You make mistakes, but you begin to remember where the cards are.”

“I remember that,” says the uncle.

“You know what Ricky does?” He picks them up by fours and in order, you know, four aces first, deuces, and so forth. And he doesn’t make mistakes.”

“I got to see that,” says the uncle, eyes still somewhat rolled back.

“Do you want to see him do it, Dr. More?” Mrs. Cheney asks me.

“Yes.”

Vergil looks at me: Why are we watching this child play cards?

Mrs. Cheney shuffles the cards expertly. Now she is on her hands and knees putting the cards down face up. She is agile and quick. A stretch of firm dusky thigh shows above the old- fashioned stockings secured in a tight roll above her knee. Ricky watches her but does not appear to be concentrating on the cards.

“Where are the others?” I ask Mrs. Cheney.

“Who? Oh, the children. Some are in class, some in rec. They’re all over at Belle Ame.”

“What are they doing in rec?”

“Oh, some watch the picture show, some play in the attic.”

“Why isn’t Ricky with them?”

“Ricky just came last week. He’s still in our little boot camp, getting strong on vitamins in mind and body so he can join the teams. And he’s doing so well!”

“We came to pick up Claude Bon. Do you know where he is?”

“Pick him up? What a shame! He’s one of our stars. What a fine big boy. He’s probably watching the movies or playing sardines.”

“Where do they have the movies?”

Mrs. Cheney doesn’t mind telling me. “They show the regular movies for the children in the ballroom and the staff watches the videos up there.”

“You mean upstairs here?”

“You know, they take videos of the children and the staff sees them to check on their progress, you know, like home movies.” Mrs. Cheney has turned the cards face down and now stands up, face flushed. “All right, Ricky.”

Ricky starts picking up cards, first four aces, shows them to us in his perfunctory way, stacks them against his stomach, then four deuces.

“Well, I be dog,” says the uncle. “That’s the smartest thing I ever saw.”

“Where does he get his vitamins, Mrs. Cheney?” I ask.

“Right there.” She nods to the bank of water coolers. “They all do. It’s enriched Abita Springs water, for little growing brains and strong little bodies. You can see what it does.”

“Enriched by what?”

“Vitamins and all. You know, Doctor.”

“How much do they drink?”

“Eight glasses a day. And I mean eight, not seven.”

Ricky picks up four sixes, shows them, stacks them.

“Do you drink it too?”

“Me? Lord, Doc, what’s the use? It’s too late for me. We are too old and beat-up.”

“Why, you’re a fine-looking woman,” says the uncle, his face keen, and begins blowing a few soft duck calls through his fingers.

Is Mrs. Cheney winking at me?

“Mrs. Cheney, call the big house and get Claude. Ask for Dr. Van Dorn or whoever, but I want Claude. Now.”

“What, and interrupt sardines up in the attic. They would have a fit.”

“I see. I’ll tell you what, Mrs. Cheney,” I say, changing my voice.

“What’s that, Doctor?”

“I want you to go over to the big house and find Claude Bon and bring him back here.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that, Doc!” cries Mrs. Cheney.

“Why not?”

“I’m not supposed to leave Ricky.”

“We’ll look after him.”

“No, I’m not allowed to do that.”

“Mrs. Cheney, get going. Now.”

Both Vergil and the uncle look at me when my voice changes.

“All right, Doctor!” says Mrs. Cheney, smile gone, but not angry so much as resigned. “As long as you take the responsibility.”

“I take it.”

“It may take a while to find him.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage.”

“All right!” Her voice is minatory, but she leaves.

“How can you talk that way to Mrs. Cheney?” the uncle asks me. “I mean she’s one fine-looking woman.”

I don’t answer. We are watching Ricky pick up cards. Vergil is frowning.

“If that ain’t the damnedest thing I ever saw,” says the uncle. “That boy ain’t even concentrating.”

“He doesn’t have to,” I say. Somehow it is difficult to take my eyes from the back of Ricky’s slender neck.

Ricky picks up kings, shows them, sits around cross-legged, evens up the cards against his chest to make a neat deck.

“Ricky.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come over here and sit by me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ricky sits on the plastic sofa close to me, legs sticking straight out. He’s got a seven-year-old’s guarded affection: You may be all right, I think you are, but— He hands me the deck, looking up, big head doddering a little. I flip through the deck, showing Vergil and the uncle. “That’s very good, Ricky. Say, Vergil—”

“Yes, Doc.”

“You notice anything unusual about the water fountains?”

“There’s that tube coming down from the ceiling behind the drinking fountains.”

“Yeah. It’s clamped off with a hemostat, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll tell you what let’s do. You listening, Uncle?”

“Sho I’m listening. But you tell me how in the hell that boy did that. I don’t think he knows himself, do you, Ricky?”

Ricky looks up at me but doesn’t reply.

“Vergil, you go upstairs and take a look around. Look for the source of whatever is coming down that tube. Look for tapes, video cassettes, photos, transparencies, anything like that. Books, comics, and such.”

“Okay.” He starts for the iron stairs.

I look at my watch. “I think we’ve got about five minutes. Mrs. Cheney will bring Claude, all right, but the others will be coming too. Ricky and I are going to talk a little bit, maybe play a card game. Uncle, I think it would be a good idea for you to stand outside. When you see the others coming, give a couple of knocks, okay?”

“Don’t worry about a damn thing,” says the uncle, not quite sure what is going on but glad to do something.

“All right, Uncle. Do this. Keep your eye peeled on the big house. When you see anyone come out and head this way, knock twice.”

“No problem,” says the uncle, glad to get back to his shotgun.

“Ricky, where is Greenville, Mississippi?”

“That’s”—Ricky is practicing some trick of ducking his big head rhythmically to make the sofa creak—“one hundred and thirty miles south of Memphis, one hundred miles north of Vicksburg, on the river.”

“Where’s Wichita, Kansas?”

He doesn’t stop ducking, but I notice that he closes his eyes and frowns as if he is reading the back of his thin veined eyelids. “About a hundred and twenty-five miles southwest of Kansas City.”

“Do you know your multiplication tables?”

He shrugs, goes on ducking.

“How about your sevens?”

“You mean going by the tables?”

“Yes.”

“Sure.” But he strikes out, doesn’t know seven times three.

“What’s the biggest sunfish you’ve caught?”

He shows me.

“What’s eighty-seven times sixty-one?”

He doesn’t stop ducking but closes his eyes. “Five thousand three hundred and seven.”

“Do you know how to play War?”

“Sure. You want to play?”

“Sure.”

We play War on the sofa. War is the dumbest of all card games, requiring no skill. High card wins. If there is a tie, it is a war. You put three cards face down and the next high card wins.

Ricky plays with pleasure, takes a child’s pleasure in taking my cards, takes the greatest pleasure in double war, when there are two ties in a row and he wins nine cards. He evens up the cards against his stomach.

Vergil interrupts the second game of War. He comes down the stairs slowly. He is holding both rails as if he were unsteady. When he clears the ceiling and his face comes full into the fluorescent light, I notice that his skin is mealy. His eyes do not meet mine.

Without a word he sits on the sofa on the other side of Ricky and puts his hands carefully and symmetrically on his knees.

“Your turn,” says Ricky.

I am looking at Vergil.

“Come on,” says Ricky.

“Ricky, I have to talk to Vergil for a minute. Would you like to play that game over there?”

“Star Wars 4? It costs fifty cents.”

“Here’s three quarters. Vergil, you got any quarters?”

Vergil gives a start. “What? Oh, sure.” He digs in his pockets, gives Ricky more quarters. He puts his hands back on his knees. His expression is still thoughtful, but his face is still mealy.

“Okay,” says Ricky. “But leave the cards right here.”

“Okay.”

Presently lasers are lancing out into a three-dimensional cosmos. Satellites explode.

“Well?” I say to Vergil.

He opens his hands on his knees, inspecting them carefully, as if he were curious about the sudden change from the liver-colored backs to the creamy palms.

“Vergil?”

“They have a rocking horse up there,” says Vergil, bending his fingers and inspecting the large half-moons on his nails. For some reason he is talking like his father.

“A rocking horse?”

“A rocking horse with a socket holder for a buggy whip.”

“I see. What about tapes, cassettes, movies?”

“All that. There was a 3-D tape all set up. All I had to do was turn it on.” He falls silent.

“And?” I ask, irritated with him.

“It was pornography.”

“Pornography? What do you mean? Commercial? The stuff you can buy? Child pornography? What?”

“All that. I’m not sure. There wasn’t time. What they had set up to roll was a local tape. It was like home movies. I mean a tape of folks here. But there were commercial cassettes. I brought three.” He taps his jacket pockets.

“What did you see?”

The Star Wars 4 game stops. We wait while Ricky feeds new quarters and the laser explosions start up again.

“Vergil?”

Vergil hits on a way to tell me. Vergil is probably the most decorous man I know. He tells it as a report, as matter-of-factly as if he were reporting the soybean harvest to Lucy, number of bushels, price.

“In the home movies, that is, the 3-D videos, they had the children doing it with each other.”

“You mean boys and girls having intercourse?”

“Yes.” Vergil clears his throat. “And boys with boys. Going down, you know.”

“And?”

“They also have the children with the grown people.”

“I see. What grown people?”

“All of them. I didn’t have much time. I fast-forwarded it, you know.” He clears his throat, drums his fingers on his knees, looks around.

“Okay. What grown people?”

“Okay. Dr. Van Dorn, the Coach, Mr. and Mrs. Brunette.”

“Mrs. Cheney?”

Vergil snaps his fingers softly, as if he had forgotten a soybean sale. “Mrs. Cheney? You’re right. Mrs. Cheney.” He nods in appreciation of the correction.

“What were they doing?”

“Let me see.” Vergil is drumming his fingers and frowning in routine concentration. “Mr. Brunette was with Mrs. Brunette, but not in the regular way, and there were two girls with them. And—ah—Dr. Van Dorn was with a little girl—there was a lot more but I was fast-forwarding—there wasn’t time—”

“I understand. And there’s not time now.”

“Don’t worry. I have these cassettes. We can look at them later.” He does not know how to tell me.

“I understand, but I need to know now what you saw. I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell me directly. I know you have a great sense of propriety, but I have to know what you mean when you say that Mr. Brunette was with Mrs. Brunette but not in the regular way and about the two little girls. Ricky cannot hear us.”

“Right,” says Vergil, appearing to take thought, but falls silent.

“Goddamn it, tell me, Vergil. This is important.”

“All right. Mrs. Brunette was sucking off Mr. Brunette with the two little girls placed in such a way that they could watch, don’t you know.”

“I see. And Dr. Van Dorn?”

“Oh. Well, he had this child and he was holding her like—Oh. I also picked up these stills.” He is leaning over, fishing in his jacket pocket. “I had to grab what I could.”

“Stills?”

In the space on the sofa where Ricky was sitting and out of sight of Ricky, Vergil carefully lines up half a dozen glossy 5x7 photographs, taking care to place them at an angle so I can see them easily and he has to slant his head. Vergil is finding it useful to be overly considerate. There is only time to catch a glimpse of the Coach and Mrs. Cheney, Mrs. Cheney on all fours, naked, the Coach behind her, also naked and kneeling, torso erect above her, and Mr. Brunette kneeling at a young man, not Claude, and Van Dorn lying on his back holding a child aloft as a father might dandle his daughter except that—when there are two knocks at the door, too sharp for knuckles, either boot heel or gun butt.

I sweep up the photos, slip them under the plastic cushion. Strange to say, what sticks in the mind about the photos is not the impropriety but the propriety: Mr. Brunette’s carefully brushed hair, cut high over the ears and up the neck in 1930s style, the vulnerability, even frailty, of his pale, naked back; the young man’s solemn, smartest-boy-in-the-class expression; the child’s—perhaps a six-year-old girl—demure, even prissy simper directly at the camera.

“And I got these cassettes here,” says Vergil helpfully.

“Never mind,” I say quickly. “There isn’t—” I see only the top cassette, Little Red Riding Good, showing Little Red Riding Hood without her hood astride the wolf in bed, who is dressed like Grandma in a bonnet and is arched up under her, in a cheerful opisthotonos, keeping her in place with his paws. “Just tell me quickly what the setup is with the additive, the source of the tube there.”

He speaks rapidly, hands on his knees. He could be in his chemistry class at L.S.U. “They have metal canisters lined up. They’re double-walled like a thermos. One was empty, so I could see that. One is upended right there in that corner and connected to that tube, rubber-stoppered, you know, like a chemical reagent. The reagent was stenciled on the side. Sodium 24.

“Concentration?”

“Molar.”

“I see.”

“They have a little card which gives the amount of additive per bottle down here. One cc. per ten gallons. What they must do is measure out the additive and add it to the Abita Springs water down here before they upend it on the fountain.”

“I see.”

After a while Vergil stirs uneasily.

“I wonder where they are.”

“What?”

Vergil leans forward to see me better. “I said I wonder where they are.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll be here.”

“You all right, Doc?”

“Sure.”

After another while Vergil gets up. “Doc, let’s go get Claude and get out of here.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll be here with Claude.”

“Doc, what you got in mind?”

“We’ll see. Here they are.” There’s a commotion outside and two more knocks.