Thorn by Fred Saberhagen (reading like a writer TXT) 📕

you last. I can recognize you, but … you’ve changed. How old are you, anyway?”

      Helen tossed back well-cared-for brown hair from her face. “When was that? When did you see me before?”

      “Look, kid, you’ve seen me before, right? You were pretty sure about my name.”

      “That’s … different.”

      “Yeah, sure. You know when we saw each other,” Gliddon assured her softly, “if you can get your brain working. It was at your dear Uncle Del’s house in Phoenix. One night he had a special kind of party there, he used to have them regularly, and I suppose the old fart still does. This time he wanted you to play along, and your Mommy wanted to make him happy and she said you could. Either he didn’t invite your Mommy that time or else she didn’t want to come. But I remember I was wishing she had, because she looked like a real good piece still.” Gliddon paused. He was remembering what he had done with this very kid on that very night. But that had nothing to do with anything now, and the look on her face assured him that she wasn’t remembering much of anything at all.

      He went on. “Anyway, where we met doesn’t matter all that much. The point is that I know you, and that I’m going to find out why you came out here tonight. How’d you know that I was here, and had a radiophone, and so on?”

      The girl brightened; she understood now what he was talking about. “Your phone has some kind of a scrambler thing on it. So if someone else listens in when you talk to Uncle Del or Mommy or Daddy, they can’t understand a thing.”

      “Uncle Del and Mommy and Daddy Ellison really tell you a whole bunch, don’t they? I wonder why.”

      “Uncle Del does. I don’t see Mommy much any more. Because I sleep in the attic a lot now. And Daddy thinks I’m dead. But he doesn’t really care. He’s only my step-daddy anyway.” Helen giggled prankishly.

      “I get it. Or maybe I don’t. So I suppose you brought your friends out here tonight to show them the radiophone.”

      “Pat is the only friend I brought. I don’t know the others, we just ran into them by accident. And what I wanted to show Pat was the painting.”

      Gliddon sighed. At this stage, he wasn’t really surprised. “You can sit down again if you want to, Helen. Who told you about the painting being here? Uncle Del? Or was it your mother?”

      Accommodatingly she sat down. “Uncle Del. He’s always wanting to talk to me about it.”

      Well, people could get their kicks in an infinite variety of ways; Gliddon had understood that for a long time. Still there was something going on here that he knew he didn’t yet understand. “Now look, Helen, what I’m going to ask you now is very important. You want to get out of all this trouble that you’re in, don’t you? How many other people have you talked to about there being a painting out here, and a radiophone, and all?”

      “Nobody.” And now at last, delayed, the sniffles started. “Just the kids who are here.”

      “Nobody else at all? You’re sure? You’re very sure?”

      “Yeeesss.” The word trailed off into a great sour violin-note of a sob.

      Gliddon felt like slapping her, like killing her. But for the moment he wasn’t rough. He was very seldom rough without calculation, and right now it wasn’t called for by the situation. He found himself tending to believe the kid. If what he heard from the other three captives tended to confirm her story, then these four but only these four would have to go. Then maybe the operation of selling the painting as Delaunay planned could still go on.

      He patted Helen gently on the head. “Just take it easy, kid. We’re going to get this all straightened out, but it’s going to take a little time. I’m going to have to keep your hands tied up for a while yet, okay?”

      She was sobbing and didn’t answer. Maybe he ought to talk to her again, Gliddon told himself, when she’d had a little time to come out of it. He picked up his lantern and went out through the sagging door, which almost fell off when he moved it. Ike, still ski-masked, was sitting at the end of the corridor like a guard in a prison, in a position to keep an eye on all the cells. Gliddon nodded to him, then turned away and went into the cell where they had put the boy he also remembered from Phoenix. Another Uncle Del special.

      This one was obviously scared shitless. He sat on the floor in the corner as Helen had been sitting, but he had twisted to hide his face in the corner of the wall. He looked around with eyes squinted almost shut when Gliddon entered with the lantern.

      Gliddon put the lantern down casually on the floor, and then took a relaxed pose, leaning with his back against the wall. “Kid, we got ourselves a real serious problem here. But I have hopes that we can straighten it out without anyone getting hurt. Does that sound to you like the way we ought to go?”

      The boy nodded quickly. “Oh yeah. Gosh.” Obviously he wanted desperately to believe what Gliddon had just said, about no one being hurt—but maybe he couldn’t quite believe it. He made a little choking noise in his throat.

      “On your driver’s license it says your name is Pat O’Grandison.” Gliddon’s mind had had a little time to work on the name by now, and it sounded right to him, like he had heard it before and it really belonged to this punk he recalled from Phoenix.

      “Yeah, that’s right. We didn’t mean any harm by walking around here, we just got lost. The bridge was out down there, and one of the cars was stuck. The girl said she knew where there was a phone, back this way.”

      “The girl?”

      “The one I was