Page 75 of The Furies

But they had increased the pressure on her once already, and might have to do so again. She could argue that she didn’t yet have all the money together, and she probably wouldn’t even be lying, painful though it was for Pantuff to admit. Yet by moving everything forward they would also restrict her opportunities for duplicity, and be able to slip into seclusion a day earlier.

“What are your thoughts?” said Veale.

“That we can proceed in one of two directions,” said Pantuff. “We take whatever she can give us, even if it’s less than we’d hoped for, and we vanish. That’s the first.”

“Or?”

“Or we pick up what we can now and come back for a second bite later, but that would mean returning some of the stuff. If we don’t, we’ll never get more money out of her. Give her a little when she pays the first time, and dump the remainder somewhere after we receive the second portion. I’d prefer to deprive her of all of it, but a man has to learn the art of compromise.”

Veale shook his head.

“I don’t want to come back here again,” he said. “And I want all of what we took disposed of as soon as possible.”

“So that you can stop hearing the footsteps of a child,” said Pantuff. “Because that’s what you hope will happen once we’re rid of it, right?”

“Yes,” said Veale, but it wasn’t only that. He wanted the items gone before he stopped just hearing the child and began seeing it, too.

“Your superstitions are going to cost us money,” said Pantuff.

“I’ll make it up to you next time.”

“I don’t want that. I’m just saying, is all.”

Pantuff pulled into the traffic heading toward the Old Port. He wasn’t in the mood to return to the Braycott. Life was depressing enough without spending more of it in a dump like that, and being away from it would help Veale. Pantuff speculated on whether there might be a way for him to burn the Braycott to the ground at some time in the future. It wouldn’t take much effort. The place was a firetrap as it was, and he’d be doing the city a favor.

“I’m wondering,” he said.

“About?”

“Again, just supposing it is the Sawyer kid you’re hearing, because I remain skeptical.”

“Accepted. Go on.”

“Do you think,” said Pantuff, “that her mother hears her as well?”

The possibility had not crossed Veale’s mind until now. He weighed it as they turned toward Commercial, the Fore River ahead of them. The bascule was open on the Casco Bay Bridge to allow a huge container vessel access to the sea. Veale had read that even the largest container ships sometimes had as few as twenty crew members on board. He had often pictured himself going to sea, losing himself in the immensity of oceans. If he could be entrusted with a task to be completed alone, a simple, repetitive action he could do well, his oddness might be accommodated. If he surrounded himself with those who did not speak English, it might not be noticed at all.

“Yes,” said Veale, “I suspect she does. If I can hear the girl, why not her?”

The girl. He was starting to humanize the apparition. This displeased him.

“So the child must have a connection to what we took,” said Pantuff, “a bond of some kind, or else why wouldn’t it have stayed close to her? I mean, assuming it exists, which I don’t.”

“That’s one explanation for what’s happening.”

“You have a better one?”

“Not right now.”

“What I’m getting at,” said Pantuff, “is we assumed the value of what we stole was purely sentimental, but what if it’s more than that? Suppose a little of her daughter remains attached to those mementos—like, I don’t know, a spirit?”

“What of it?” said Veale. “It doesn’t mean she’ll be able to get more money, even if we squeeze her.”

“I don’t want to squeeze her,” said Pantuff. “I want to hurt her.” He patted the fingers of his right hand on the steering wheel, tapping out a rhythm familiar only to himself. “We’ll take whatever cash she’s pulled together, then we’ll destroy everything we took from her. We’ll burn it, and what’s left of her child along with it. We’ll film it so she can watch it burn and know that the kid is no longer in the world. How about them apples, huh?”

“It sounds,” said Veale, “like you’re starting to believe.”

But he didn’t immediately agree with Pantuff’s plan. He wanted time to examine it.

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