Ralph began to laugh, and the others joined him. Even Howie and Alec joined in, although they had missed most of the interplay. Ralph had a moment to think how laughter drew people together, and was glad Claude had brought his mother along. She was a hot ticket.
“Small world,” she repeated. “Yes it is.” She leaned forward so that her considerable bosom pushed her plate forward. She was still looking at Yune with those bright bird eyes. “You know the story she told us?” She cut her eyes to Holly, who was picking at her salad with a small frown.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You believe it?”
“I don’t know. I . . .” Yune lowered his voice. “I tend to.”
Lovie nodded and lowered her own voice. “Did you ever see the parade in Nuevo? Processo dos Passos? Maybe when you were a boy?”
“Sí, señora.”
She lowered her voice further. “What about him? The farnicoco? You see him?”
“Sí,” Yune said, and although Lovie Bolton was as white as she could be, Ralph thought Yune had fallen into Spanish without even thinking of it.
She lowered her voice further still. “Give you nightmares?”
Yune hesitated, then said, “Sí. Muchas pesadillas.”
She leaned back, satisfied but grave. She looked at Claude. “You listen to these folks, sonny. You’ve got a big problem, I think.” She winked at Yune, but not as a joke; her face was grave. “Muchos.”
4
As the little caravan pulled back out onto the highway, Ralph asked Yune about the processo dos Passos.
“A parade during Holy Week,” Yune said. “Not exactly approved by the church, but winked at.”
“Farnicoco? That’s the same as Holly’s El Cuco?”
“Worse,” Yune said. He looked grim. “Worse even than the Man with the Sack. Farnicoco is the Hooded Man. He’s Mr. Death.”
5
By the time they got to the Bolton home in Marysville, it was almost three o’clock and the heat was like a hammer. They crowded into the small living room, where the air conditioner—a noisy window-shaker that looked to Ralph old enough for Social Security—did its best to keep up with so many warm bodies. Claude went out to the kitchen and brought back cans of Coke in a Styrofoam cooler. “If you were hoping for beer, you’re out of luck,” he said. “I don’t keep it.”
“This is fine,” Howie said. “I don’t think any of us will be drinking alcohol until we settle this matter to the best of our ability. Tell us about last night.”
Bolton glanced at his mother. She folded her arms and nodded.
“Well,” he said, “the way it turned out, there really wasn’t nothing to it. I went to bed after the late news, like always, and I felt all right then—”
“Bullpucky,” Lovie broke in. “You ain’t been yourself since you got here. Restless . . .” She looked around at the others. “. . . off his feed . . . talking in his sleep—”
“Do you want me to tell it, Ma, or do you?”
She flapped a hand for him to go on and sipped from her can of Coke.
“Well, she’s not wrong,” Bolton admitted, “although I wouldn’t want the guys back at work to know it. Security staff in a place like Gentlemen, Please ain’t supposed to get all spooked, you know. But I have been, kind of. Only nothing like last night. Last night was different. I woke up around two, out of a nasty dream, and got up to lock the doors. I never lock em when I’m here, although I make Ma do it when she’s here alone, after her Home Helpers from Plainville leave at six.”
“What was your dream?” Holly asked. “Can you remember?”
“Somebody under the bed, lying there and looking up. That’s all I can remember.”
She nodded for him to go on.
“Before I locked the front door, I stepped out on the porch to have a look around, and I noticed all the coyotes had stopped howling. Usually they howl like everything, once the moon’s up in the sky.”
“They do unless someone’s around,” Alec said. “Then they stop. Like the crickets.”
“Come to think of it, I couldn’t hear them, either. And Ma’s garden out back is usually full of em. I went back to bed, but couldn’t sleep. I remembered I hadn’t locked the windows and got up to do that. The catches squeak, and that woke Ma up. She asked me what I was doing, and I told her to go on back to sleep. I climbed into bed and almost drifted off myself—by then it had to be going on three—when I remembered I hadn’t locked the window in the bathroom, the one over the tub. I got the idea that someone was climbing in through it, so I got out of bed and ran to see. I know it sounds stupid now, but . . .”
He looked at them and saw none of them smiling or looking skeptical.
“All right. All right. I guess if you’ve come all the way down here, you probably don’t think it sounds stupid. Anyway, I tripped over Ma’s damn hassock, and that time she did get up. She asked me if someone was trying to get in the house, and I said no, but for her to stay in her room.”
“I didn’t, though,” Lovie said complacently. “I never minded any man except my husband, and he’s been gone a long time.”
“There was no one in the bathroom or trying to get in there through the window, but I had a feeling—I can’t tell you how strong it was—that he was still out there, hiding and waiting for his chance.”
“Not under your bed?” Ralph asked.
“No, I checked under there first thing. Crazy, sure, but . . .” He paused. “I didn’t go to sleep until daybreak. Ma woke me up and said we had to go to the airport so we could meet you.”
“Let him sleep as long as I could,” Lovie said. “That’s why I never made any sammitches. The bread’s on top of the fridge, and if I try to reach up there, I lose my breath.”
“And how do you feel now?” Holly asked Claude.
He sighed, and when he ran a hand up the side of his face, they could hear the rasp of his beard. “Not right. I stopped believing in the boogeyman right around the same time I stopped believing in Santa Claus, but I feel all upset and paranoid, the way I did when I was on the coke. Is this guy after me? Do you really believe that?”
He looked from face to face. It was Holly who answered him. “I do,” she said.
6
They were silent for a bit, thinking. Then Lovie spoke up. “El Cuco, you called him,” she said to Holly.
“Yes.”
The old woman nodded, tapping her arthritis-swollen fingers on her oxygen bottle. “When I was a little girl, the Mex kids called him Cucuy and the Anglos called him Kookie, or Chookie, or just the Chook. I even had a pitcher book about that sucker.”
“I bet I had the same one,” Yune said. “My abuela gave it to me. A giant with one big red ear?”
“Sí, mi amigo.” Lovie took out her cigarettes and lit one. She chuffed out smoke, coughed, and went on. “In the story, there were three sisters. The youngest one cooked and cleaned and did all the other chores. The two older girls were lazy and made fun of her. El Cucuy came. The house was locked, but he looked like their papi, so they let him in. He took the bad sisters to teach them a lesson. He left the good one who worked so hard for the daddy who was raising the girls on his own. Do you remember?”