Page 70 of A River Red With Blood
“I’m starting to think you shouldn’t.”
“Because if we forget about Norton, the Saint might not lie awake at night worrying about whether our dead DEA agent is going to damn him?We forget if he forgets?”
“I didn’t say nobody should talk to the Saint.I just said it shouldn’t be you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the one who killed Hurvich when he stepped out of line.”
Kenney absorbed this.
“And what I did once, I might do again?”
“Wouldn’t you be thinking the same, in the Saint’s shoes?”
“Are you scared of him?”
Teal stared at Kenney.
“Aren’t you?”
“Not scared.Wary.”
Kenney didn’t enjoy playing the Game as much with the Saint.There was always more suffering when the Saint was involved, and Kenney couldn’t even look the women in the eyes toward the end.What he saw there drained the Game of any pleasure.
Kenney spotted that Teal was toying with his wedding band.Teal never took off the ring, not even when he was deep in the Game.He was afraid he’d forget to put it on again afterward.Kenney, by contrast, always left his ring in the next room, on top of his clothes; that way, he’d only forget it if he also forgot to get dressed.Kenney supposed that the men’s differing attitudes toward their rings reflected disparate attitudes to their marriages: Teal’s showed how little respect he accorded his vows, whereas Kenney tried to keep his marriage and the Game separate.
While Teal played with the ring, he was debating whether to inform Kenney of the visit from the private investigator.Teal had never told Kenney about the misappropriation of departmental funds, or the deal he’d cut with the Saint to divide the proceeds.It was none of Kenney’s business, and anyway, it was in the past, or had been until Berrien made one last attempt to screw Teal over by bringing Parker into his life.But if Teal didn’t tell Kenney about Parker, and Kenney found out about it later, there’d be hell to pay.Kenney surely had a right to know, because what threatened one of them—or, in this case, two—threatened all.
“There’s another problem,” said Teal.
Chapter 67
At Spero, Patrick Elgot was checking the dormitories.All the boys were supposed to be at movie night in the main hall, where this week’s presentation was another minor superhero flick that bombed at the box office before being rushed to streaming and physical release.Elgot had picked up the Blu-ray used at Bull Moose in Bangor just days after new copies first appeared on the shelves.Even if it was garbage, it would keep the boys entertained for a couple of hours and bring a bit of joy into their lives.Elgot had taken the Spero job hoping he might be able to do good, and it paid better than some of the positions he’d been offered in regular schools, but Spero was sapping his spirit.He feared that if he stayed much longer, he might lose any sense of vocation.Scott Theriault’s death was the clincher in that regard, allied to the growing influence of James Renders.
In Elgot’s view, there was a badness to Renders.It might have been that Principal Santopietro didn’t see it, or did but chose to ignore it because Renders knew his subjects, could control the boys, and whatever the badness was, it didn’t impact on his work.The third possibility, one that Elgot had begun to embrace as he paid more attention to how Renders and Santopietro interacted with each other, was that Santopietro had some of the same badness in him, and Renders might have been hired because of, not despite it.
In the main hall, Elgot had done a head count to discover that one boy, Kaspar Filipowski, was missing, and none of the others could say where he was.Even Leonard Levesque professed ignorance of Kaspar’s whereabouts.If anyone was a candidate for inflicting harm on Kaspar Fillyourpantski, or Kaspar Shitstain as he was also known, it was Levesque, but the latter hadn’tbeen out of Elgot’s sight for hours.So Elgot left the boys in Renders’s care, with the start of the movie delayed, to go looking for Kaspar.
Technically, Elgot was supposed to report even the most minor breaches of the rules, which included unpunctuality, but he tried to let as many of them slide as he could, the boys having enough to contend with as it was.The school’s prospectus promised expert psychological care, but what it meant, in reality, was that Santopietro had taken a couple of online psychotherapy courses from a college operating out of a strip mall in Laconia, New Hampshire.He’d even had the certificates framed and hung on his office wall, which suggested, worryingly, that he regarded them as consequential, even if one suicide and one more recent fatality offered compelling evidence to the contrary.
Elgot found no trace of Kaspar in his dorm, the ablution block, or any of the other rooms.Lord, he hoped the boy hadn’t tried to run away.He wouldn’t get far, not after the Scott Theriault mess, but he’d be in a world of hurt when he was picked up and returned to the school, and Elgot would be forced to share the pain because Kaspar had wandered off the reservation on his watch.
Elgot stood in the hallway of John Ford and called Kaspar’s name.
“It’s Mr Elgot.I came to see if you were okay.You don’t have to be worried.It’s just me.”
He listened.Nothing.
“Goddammit, Kaspar—”
Then he heard it: a whimpering, like a puppy separated from its mother.
“Kaspar?”
He listened harder, following the sound, eventually tracing it to the laundry closet at the end of the hallway.It was always kept locked to prevent the boys running riot with towels, sheets, and pillowcases.Elgot hadn’t noticed that the padlock was gone and the door, although closed, was unbolted.
“Kaspar?”said Elgot again.“Are you in there?”
