No, no, that was wrong, not what he meant at all. A horrifying possibility. Horrifying. Because this Kyle Byrne was just a boy, an orphan, missing his father, trying to recapture a little of what he had lost. Yearning for love and acceptance, that was all. And who knew better than Robert Spangler what it was like to yearn for just those things, or the price that such yearning could exact? Who could be more sympathetic to what the boy was going through? And yet, still, he couldn’t help but stare at the smooth, dark skin of the phone as it lay on the television console, couldn’t help but hope for the ring that would signal a problem and send him off into the night seeking the peculiar satisfactions of a bowl of hot and sour soup.

Oh, God, what had he become, what had she made of him? He didn’t want to be a monster. He wanted to be the boy running out of his house with a peanut butter on Wonder bread sandwich. That boy played and laughed and dreamed sweet dreams, and yearned only for the taste of Coca-Cola in his mouth. That boy would grow up to have a family of his own, make peanut butter sandwiches on Wonder bread for his son. That boy had possibilities.

But that was before, before she made her leap and started whispering to him that maybe he could follow her path, calling him “Bobby dear,” importuning him, making him an instrument of her deepest desires and her unearthly will. And in the process turning a part of him into some sort of a fiend who gloried in the taste of blood. Except he didn’t feel like a fiend, which comforted him a bit. But then maybe fiends didn’t ever feel like fiends, maybe that was what was so fiendish about them.

That was why the phone had become for him something of an obsession, as it reclined before him, open and easy, waiting for the ring that would force him to rise and send him into action. Its ring would be like the sweetest note of her sweet voice, reaching out to take hold and caress the monster she had created. Would he reject its blandishments and prove his utter humanity? Or would he let the monster respond to her caress, to arise and swell and march into the world to seed its darkness? Only the phone could give him that answer.

So he stayed close, sleeping with the phone resting on the empty pillow beside him, bringing it to the lavatory with him or taking it out to lunch. Or now, in the early-evening hours, sitting across from where it perched on the television, sitting in a deep easy chair, naked and alone, staring at the phone with hope and fear all at once, as if that cheap piece of disposable plastic held the very fate of his soul in its silicon chip. Hour after hour. Sitting. Staring. Waiting for the decision.

He wondered again if the phone was still operational. Maybe it needed to be recharged. Maybe something was interfering with the signal. He couldn’t help himself. He lifted the handset off his landline and redialed the number.

The cell phone rang.

He hung up.

The phone kept ringing.

And ringing.

He dialed again and was sent straight to voice mail.

The phone still rang.

He stood up, stepped to the desk, picked up the cell phone, checked

the number. Not his own. He pressed the talk button. “Hello,” he said. “Hello.”

He listened for a moment, and then, from deep inside, a voice he didn’t recognize slithered like a snake from his throat. “So,” it said, this other voice, sibilant and foreign. “It is you. How nice that you called, Mr. Byrne. Shall we meet once again?”

CHAPTER 23

ROBERT HAD PICKED the spot long before the call came in. Someplace remote and yet still covered with the noisome noise of traffic, someplace that seemed public but in fact could be very private, someplace where the danger was well hidden.

He arrived early, parked on the other side of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, crossed at the light, and walked up the traffic ramp that led to the art museum. It was late enough so that the museum was closed, and an array of shadows covered the landscape. He stayed within the lines of darkness as he climbed down the broad staircase to the arcade flanked with the statues of Revolutionary War heroes and then cut to the left at the wide traffic circle. He walked through the grass and past the great columned buildings of the Fairmount Water Works, closed now due to the hour, and headed to a grand gazebo that rested on the very edge of the Schuylkill River.

The rise where the museum now sat, which used to house the eighteenth-century reservoirs that supplied the city its water, acted as a shield to the rear of the gazebo. The Schuylkill River was at its front, with the sounds of water rushing over a low dam, and traffic on the expressway on the river’s far bank, blanketing the site with a continuous muffled roar. On the left was a bend in the river, on the right a small grove of trees blocking the well-lit but deserted row of boathouses. To Robert’s eye it was an almost perfect place for murder.

He cased the area for a moment more, before slipping into the shadow about a hundred feet away from the gazebo, where he could scan the parking lots and roads surrounding the area. He didn’t yet know how the night would turn, he didn’t yet know which part of himself would take control of the encounter with the young Byrne. He was terrified at the probability that he would be forced to use violence, and thrilled, too, and frightened at the thrill, and ashamed of the terror. The only thing he could trust was the solidity of the gun in his pocket.

He leaned against a wall and waited. And waited. He waited up to the time that had been set for the meeting, and then beyond. He let his sharp incisor bite into his tongue and draw blood as he waited.

A silhouette appeared out of the trees in the direction of the boathouses. It looked to be the right size, this silhouette, but something was wrong. It was making its way to the gazebo as if it were the shadow of a wreck of an old man, hobbled and limping. With a crack pipe and a fresh chunk of escape, no doubt. The meeting time was now long past, and Robert was beginning to doubt that Byrne would show, but Robert still needed to get rid of the old man. He pulled a ten out of his wallet, gripped his gun, and made his approach.

“You want to earn some money, old man?” he said in a hoarse whisper to the hobbling silhouette.

“I’m not that old,” said the silhouette with a grunt. “O’Malley?”

Robert’s hand tightened around the gun. “Byrne?”

“That’s right.”

“What happened to you, boy?”

“I fell into a hole,” said Byrne.

“Be more careful next time.”

“There won’t be a next time.”

“There’s always a next time. Go on to the gazebo. We’ll talk there.”

Robert followed the boy as he limped toward the river. Byrne was taking small steps and was bent at a strange angle, as if his ribs had been savaged. Someone had done a job on him already, which was good. There wouldn’t be any question of Byrne fighting back when things turned nasty. Robert gave his gun a caress as they entered the gazebo. The structure smelled furry and sickly at the same time, as if wet diabetic rodents had pissed on its walls. The din of the river hurtling over the dam grew loud enough to swallow a shot. If a body flipped over the dam, at this time of night it might not be found until it floated by the navy yard at the southern tip of the city.