Mystic River / Таинственная река. Деннис ЛихэйнЧитать онлайн книгу.
and Jimmy were smart not to have gotten in that car. His father patted his shoulder and said things would be fine. Dave will be home tonight. You'll see.
Sean looked at the rows of cars on the street. He told himself that this – all of this – was part of some plan that made sense. He just couldn't see it yet. He would see it someday, though. He saw the place where he, Jimmy, and Dave Boyle had fought and he waited. He waited for the plan to form and make sense. He waited and watched the street, and waited some more until his father stood up and they went back inside.
Jimmy walked back to the Flats behind his old man. The old man smoked his cigarettes and talked to himself. When they got home, his father might give him a beating, or might not. After he'd lost his job, he'd told Jimmy never to go to the Devines' house again, and Jimmy thought he'd have to pay for breaking that rule. But maybe not today.
Jimmy walked a few steps behind his father, just in case[11]. He threw the ball up into the air and caught it in the baseball glove he'd stolen from Sean's house while the cops had been saying their good-byes to the Devines. Nobody had even said a word to Jimmy and his father as they'd walked toward the front door. Sean's bedroom door had been open, and Jimmy had seen the glove lying on the floor with the ball inside, and he'd picked it up, and then he and his father were out.
As they were crossing Buckingham Avenue, he'd felt that familiar shame and embarrassment that came whenever he stole something. Then a little later, as they walked into the Flats, he felt proud as he looked at the glove in his hand.
He had no idea why he'd stolen the glove. Maybe it had something to do[12] with Sean hitting Dave Boyle, and not stealing the car, and some other things that had happened over the year they'd been friends. Jimmy hated Sean, and he'd been dumb to think they could've been friends, and he knew he'd keep this glove for the rest of his life, never show it to anyone and never use the goddamn thing.
Jimmy looked at the Flats before him as he and the old man walked past the Penitentiary Channel, and he knew – he knew that they'd never see Dave Boyle again. Where Jimmy lived, things got stolen all the time. That's how he felt about Dave – he was stolen. Maybe Sean was feeling that way about his baseball glove now, knowing that it was never, ever, coming back.
Too bad, because Jimmy had liked Dave, although mostly he couldn't see why. Just something about the kid, maybe the way he'd always been there, even if you didn't notice him.
2
Jimmy was wrong.
Dave Boyle returned home four days after he'd disappeared. He rode back in the front seat of a police car. When the two cops brought him home, to his mother's house, reporters from the papers and TV were already there.
There was a whole crowd there that day – parents, kids, a mailman, two shop owners, and even Miss Powell, Dave and Jimmy's fifth-grade teacher. Jimmy stood with his mother and felt jealous as the cops and Dave were laughing like old friends, and pretty Miss Powell clapped her hands. I almost got in that car, too, Jimmy wanted to tell someone. He wanted to tell Miss Powell more than anyone. She was so beautiful and clean. Jimmy wanted to tell her he'd almost gotten in that car and see if she gave him the look she was giving Dave now. Miss Powell was uncomfortable there, Jimmy could tell. After she'd said a few words to Dave and touched his face and kissed his cheek, other people moved in. Jimmy was watching the crowd surround Dave, and he wished he'd gotten in that car, so he could see all those eyes looking at him like he was something special.
It all turned into a big party, everyone running from camera to camera, hoping they'd get on TV or see themselves in the morning papers – Yeah, I know Dave, he's my best friend, grew up with him, you know, great kid, thank God he's okay. Even later, when the reporters had all gone home, and the sun was starting to set, no one was going inside. Except for Dave. Dave was gone.
Dave's party was in full swing[13], but Dave must have gone back into his house, his mother, too, and when Jimmy looked at their windows, the shades were drawn. Then suddenly, one of the shades rolled up and he saw Dave standing in the window, staring down at him. Jimmy held up his hand, but Dave didn't move, even when he tried a second time. Dave just stared. He stared at Jimmy, and even though Jimmy couldn't see his eyes, he could sense blankness in them. Blankness, and blame.
Jimmy's mother came up to him, and Dave stepped away from the window. She put her hand on Jimmy's shoulder and said, “How you doing, Jimmy? You didn't say anything to Dave.”
He shrugged. “I'll see him tomorrow in school.”
His mother lit a cigarette. “I don't think he'll be going in tomorrow.”
“Well, soon, then. Right?”
Jimmy's mother nodded and blew some smoke out of her mouth. She was looking at him now.
“What?” he asked, and smiled.
She smiled back at him. “Hey, Jim,” she said. “You got a great smile, boy. You're going to be a heartbreaker.”
“Uh, okay,” Jimmy said, and they both laughed. He loved it when she called him “Jim.” It made him feel like they were in on something[14] together.
“I'm really glad you didn't get in that car, baby.” She kissed his forehead, and then she stood up and walked over to some of the other mothers.
Jimmy looked up and saw Dave in the window staring down at him again, a soft yellow light in the room behind him now.
Damaged goods. That's what Jimmy's father had said to his mother last night: “Even if they find him alive, the kid's damaged goods. Never be the same.”
Dave raised a hand. He held it up and didn't move it for a long time, and as Jimmy waved back, he felt sad. Jimmy was just eleven years old, but he didn't feel it anymore. He felt old. Old as his parents, old as this street.
Damaged goods, Jimmy thought. He watched Dave nod at him and then pull down the shade to go back inside his quiet apartment with its brown walls and ticking clocks.
Jimmy was glad, too, that he hadn't gotten in that car.
For a few days, Dave Boyle became a celebrity, and not just in the neighborhood, but also in the state. The headline the next morning read LITTLE BOY LOST/LITTLE BOY FOUND. The photograph showed Dave, his mother, and some smiling kids from the Flats, everyone looking just happy, except for Dave's mother, who looked like she'd just missed her bus on a cold day.
The same kids who'd been with him on the front page started calling him “freak boy” within a week at school. Dave would look in their faces and see anger he didn't understand. Dave's mother said they probably got it from their parents, and they'll soon get bored and forget all about it and be his friends next year.
Dave would nod and wonder if there was something about him – some mark on his face that he couldn't see – which made everyone want to hurt him. Like those guys in the car. Why had they picked him? How had they known he'd get in that car, and that Jimmy and Sean wouldn't? Looking back, that's how it seemed to Dave. Those men (and he knew their names, or at least the names they'd called each other, but he couldn't make himself use them) had known Sean and Jimmy wouldn't have gotten into that car without a fight. Sean would have run for his house, screaming, probably, and Jimmy – they'd have had to fight with Jimmy to get him inside. The Big Wolfhad even said later: “You saw that kid in the white T-shirt? The way he looked at me, with no real fear? Kid's going to kill someone someday, and not lose a night of sleep over it.”
It helped to give those men silly names: Big Wolf and Greasy Wolf. It helped Dave to see them as creatures, wolves, and Dave himself as a character in a story: the Boy Taken by Wolves. The Boy Who Escaped and found his way through the woods to a gas station. The Boy Who'd Stayed Calm, always looking for a way out.
In school, though, he was just the Boy Who Got Stolen, and everyone wondered what had happened during those four lost days. In the bathroom one morning, a seventhgrader stopped beside Dave and said, “Did
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