Father Willie stood thinking. He had no wish nor right to share the matters of counsel with a parishioner, but Payne had spoken often of Frederick Conrad, and Father Willie himself had grown concerned about Payne's absence. Payne was a troubled man, so deeply troubled that Father Willie often probed him for the possibility of suicide.

Father Willie saw the concern on Frederick 's face, and weighed what he could offer.

"Payne didn't tell you he was going away?"

"No, sir, and I'm getting scared. I'm thinking I should call the police."

Father Willie thought calling the police might not be such a bad idea. His conversation with Mrs. Hansen about folks gone missing had put the spook into him, though he also knew that Payne had made plans.

" Frederick, I don't think you need to call the police just yet. If you're truly worried, you should follow your heart, but Payne was planning a trip to Los Angeles. That much I can say. I didn't know he would go so soon or be gone so long, but he did tell me he was going."

Something like a ripple worked across Frederick 's face, and his eyes grew smaller.

"Why Los Angeles?"

"I can't really get into it, Frederick. Suffice it to say that Payne felt the need to make peace with himself. You ask him when he gets back."

Frederick wet his lips.

"Can you tell me how to reach him?"

"I'm sorry."

"Well, he just left us, Father. We have this station to run."

Father Willie wanted to go home, but Frederick didn't move. The priest already regretted the conversation, reminding himself this was why you could never tell people anything-they always wanted to know more, and seemed to feel it was their right.

"I really don't know what else to tell you. Maybe tomorrow you should call the police like you said."

Father Willie tried to turn, but Frederick caught his arm, and the force of it almost pulled Father Willie off his feet.

"He was planning this trip? It was Los Angeles, you said?"

"I think you'd better calm down."

"Why was he going to Los Angeles?"

Father Willie stared into Frederick 's eyes, and felt a fear he had not known since his days volunteering on death row at the penitentiary. He found the pistol in his pocket, and gripped it, then came to his senses. He let go of the gun. He drew his hand from his pocket and patted Frederick 's hand, the same hand that held tight to his arm.

"Let go, son."

The eerie wrongness faded from Frederick 's eyes, and he made an embarrassed smile.

"Jesus, I can't believe I did that, Father. I'm sorry. I'm just so worried about Payne, is all. Can you forgive me?"

"Of course I can. Let's talk about this tomorrow."

"I'm just worried, you know."

"I can see that."

"Listen, will you let me confess to you? I'm not a Catholic, but would that be okay?"

"We can talk, son. You can tell me anything you need to say. Let's talk about it tomorrow."

"I want to confess, is all. Just like Payne. I got a lot to get off my chest. Like Payne."

Father Willie wanted to comfort this man, but could not divulge that Payne's anguish had remained private. Payne had never confessed, not the things that most tortured him. Payne wanted to confess, knew he desperately needed to confess, but he had not yet found the strength. Father Willie had been seeing Payne as a counselor to help him find that strength, but-so far- had failed.

Frederick stepped away and slipped his hands into his pockets.

"Let's go inside, Father. I won't keep you. I know you want to go."

"We can talk tomorrow. Whatever it is, it will keep. You can come back tomorrow."

"Tomorrow."

"That's right."

"You're sure it was Los Angeles, where he went? You won't tell me why, but you know it was Los Angeles?"

"Payne's reasons are between himself and God."

"I'll have to go find him. I got no other choice."

"We can talk about it tomorrow."

"Okay, tomorrow. I can find him tomorrow."

Father Willie turned away, but didn't have the chance to slip his own hands back into his pockets. Something powerful lifted him off his feet and carried him struggling to the side of the church. He glimpsed a truck hidden in the darkness.

He did not see the blade, but felt it.

When I first came to Los Angeles, I made the drive on Route 66, mostly because of an old television series I enjoyed as a child, two cool guys played by Martin Milner (the rich mama's boy trying to come into his own) and George Maharis (the rootless loner from the wrong side of town), off in search of themselves and adventure along America's pre-interstate coast-to-coast highway (Route 66). Route 66 began in Philadelphia and tracked its way through the center of the country to L.A. where it merged with Sunset Boulevard, then Santa Monica Boulevard, rolling inevitably west until it reached the amazing amusement park that bloomed along the length of the Santa Monica pier. I had followed the highway to its end, not running from but going to, like Milner and Maharis, searching until I reached the sea. It wasn't the first time I had sought out an amusement park, and now I sought one again.

I left my home that night amid the deepening sense that some important business I started a long time ago had remained unfinished. I drove back to the ocean and parked on a bluff overlooking the Santa Monica pier, not so far from Stephen Golden's home in Venice. I got out of my car, climbed over a low fence, and stood at the edge of the bluff. Below me, the lights of the Ferris wheel and the roller coaster spun across the black sea. The bluff was fragile from erosion and uncertain in its nature. Signs warned the unwary not to cross the fence because more than once the precipice had calved like ice from an iceberg, but the earth felt firm to me. Maybe I didn't recognize the danger.

I watched the swirling lights, and wondered if Herbert Faustina had also come to this pier.

Once upon a time I ran away to join the circus. I ran away because my mother told me my father was a human cannonball. Do you think that's silly? My mother never told me my father's name, or showed me a picture, or even described him. Maybe she didn't know these things. Neither my grandfather nor my aunt knew any more than me. After a while, it didn't matter whether he was a human cannonball or not; her description was my truth. If she said my father was a human cannonball, then he was a human cannonball.

I searched, but I did not find him. In my boyhood fantasies, he sometimes came to find me.

Learning a Trade

Wilson

The private detective was a short oval man named Ken Wilson. He wore a dark gray business suit and tan Hush Puppy loafers that didn't go with the suit. Creases cut his jacket and pants because of the long drive, but he smelled of Old Spice and he checked his hair before he got out of his car. Appearance was important in his line of work; people were suspicious of someone ill-kept.

Wilson was one hundred sixty-two miles from home, having made the long drive to collect a fourteen-year-old runaway named Elvis Cole. This was the third time Wilson had tracked down the kid, and at least one other dick had worked for the family before him. Wilson had to hand it to the kid, he had perseverance. He kept trying to find his father.

The carnival was set up at the edge of a small town in a field used mostly for crop dusters. Wilson left his car in the parking area and walked through an arched gateway beneath a shabby banner that proclaimed: Ralph Todd's 21st Century Shows Diversions!!! Twin rows of tents swallowed anyone who walked through the gate, but not before running them past roach-coach food stands and game arcades that Wilson suspected were magnets for pedophiles. Everything looked patched together and poorly maintained. Wilson thought that if this was the twenty-first century they could keep it.