Page 190 - What They Did to the Kid

178 Jack Fritscher

Actually, I was incensed that Hank gave the distinct impression he
knew more than the rest of us.
“Who told you?” I asked him.
“It’s out,” Hank the Tank said. “My brother, Peter, found it out.”
“And what is it?” I asked him directly.
“What it always is,” he said. “S-e-x. Rumors of s-e-x.”
“You say Dryden was framed?”
“Some truth to tell. Certain activities were politically reinter-
preted for Rector Karg’s convenience in reporting to Rome.”
“It can’t all be true,” I said to Hank’s fat face, “because if it’s true,
it means you were involved. And who’d have sex with you? Isn’t that
why you came to Misericordia, because girls ran away.”
Hank the Tank rumbled toward me. I shoved him. I pushed us
apart. He let me push us apart. For the first time.
“I’m not involved in anything, Ryan.”
“Deny me three times.”
“Screw you, Virgin Mary.” Hank the Tank tugged at his shirt.
“It’s true!” He wouldn’t stop. “The old priests manufac tured the
story, twisting it the very way they wanted. They already smashed
his piano and the Broadway original cast albums.”
“But that stuff’s his!” I said.
“Not in their minds.” Hank moved in closer. “Did you know
they’re saying Chris had an open affair with one of the most famously
flaming maître d’s in Rome?”
“What’s a ‘flaming maître d’?’” I said.
“You are impossibly naive,” Hank said, “and maybe even really
as innocent as you act, you poor fub duck thing.”
Mike returned and opened the trunk. He looked me full in the
face. “I’ve heard,” he said. “Everyone knows. Roman Holiday turned
into La Dolce Vita, with a lot of dolce. Get in the car. I need out of
here.”
“And last night!” Hank oozed up against the white car, practi-
cally performing “The Snake Dance” from The Garden of Eden Bal-
let. “Last night, nineteen high-school boys were shipped out under
cover of darkness.”
I reeled with the news. Sunlight hurt my eyes. The cars of par-
ents arriving to pick up their sons roared in my ears. “It’s true,” Mike

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