They Never Came Home

Dave sat back, his fists clenched in his lap.

  He said, “Prove it.”

  “Prove what? What do you mean?”

  “Prove that my name’s David Carter. I want to see some identification. I don’t have anything, not a thing. No driver’s license, no Social Security card, nothing. Where are they, Lance? They exist, they must, because I know how to drive. I must have a New York license.”

  When Lance did not answer, he continued.

  “I’ve been thinking tonight about a lot of things, things I’ve been too befuddled to really wonder about before. The license on that Volkswagen of yours, it’s not New York, it’s New Mexico. How come?”

  “I—I bought it there.” Lance’s eyes shifted from his face. “We left New York by bus. In New Mexico I picked up the car.”

  “What about luggage? You have clothes with you. Why don’t I? I had to buy shirts and pants and stuff after we got out here, but you were all fixed up—sweaters, sports jackets, everything. Where’s my stuff?”

  “It was lost. Your suitcase—on the bus—”

  “I don’t believe that. I don’t believe anything, not a thing you’ve been saying.” Dave’s voice was controlled, but he knew that his rising rage must show on his face, for the other boy was watching him nervously, his own face drained of color. “I think you’re a smooth, practiced, angel-faced liar! I want to know who I am! I want the truth! I’m bigger than you are, Lance, a whole lot bigger, and so help me, I’m going to get the truth if it means knocking you all the way across the room! What kind of game are you playing? I want to know, and I want to know now!”

  For a moment Lance was silent. Then, slowly, he nodded.

  “Okay. Okay, you asked for it. I’ve been trying to look out for you. You’ve been sick, and I thought it would be better to play it cool for a while. You’re right about your name—it’s not David Carter. I made that up. Your name’s Dan, just as you’ve guessed it is. Dan Cotwell.”

  “Dan Cotwell.” He spoke it softly. “Yes, I’ll buy that. The girl at the restaurant called me that. God, she must really have known me before!” He paused. “Okay, I’m Dan Cotwell. Why did you give me this story about my being somebody else?”

  “Don’t push it, Dan, will you?” There was a note of pleading in the younger boy’s voice. “Why don’t you let well enough alone? I even scrounged up some fake I.D. to support that. Why don’t you relax and be Dave Carter? That’s what I’d hoped. It’s a whole new start, a new life. Can’t you just accept it?”

  “No,” Dan said quietly, “I can’t. Whatever the story is, I want to know it, all of it. So start talking, little brother. You are my little brother aren’t you? Or is that a lie too? Are you Lance Carter or Lance Cotwell or what?”

  The boy drew a long breath.

  “Neither one.” He shoved back the sheet and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “You want to see some original I.D.? Okay, I’ll get it for you – New Mexico licenses and Social Security cards for both of us.”

  He got up and crossed the room to the bureau, pulled open the top drawer, and rummaged for a moment among the shirts and underwear. When he turned back, he had the cards in his hands. He handed them to Dan. On the top of them was a clipping from a newspaper.

  Dan studied them in silence.

  Then he said, “This clipping about the two missing boys, Daniel Cotwell and Lawrence Drayfus, Jr. Those boys are us?”

  “Right.”

  “They have us listed as dead!”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe,” Dan said carefully, “you’d better tell me how it happened.”

  “You read the article,” Larry said. “It’s correct up to a point. We are from Las Cruces, New Mexico, we’re close friends, we went on a weekend camping trip together. We never came back from it as far as the rest of the world is concerned. What actually happened is that while we were hiking you slipped and fell, hitting your head. It was a long time before you regained consciousness. In fact, you were only conscious at intervals all the way out here. Even when you were awake, you couldn’t remember anything.”

  “But why are we here? What are we doing in California when our families think we’re dead?” Dan asked in puzzlement.

  “You had it planned that way,” Larry told him, “before we ever went on that camping trip. You were never going home. You were coming out here to start a new life for yourself. You told me about it that weekend after we left the house and begged me to help you. I was to go back on Monday and tell them there had been a terrible accident, that you were swept into the river. You and I aren’t really brothers, it’s true, but we’re as good as, as far as friendship goes. We’ve been buddies for years, Dan. You knew I’d do anything in the world for you. That’s why I was so sick about …”

  He hesitated.

  “About what?” Dan asked grimly.

  “About the trouble you were in. You started out with it, I guess, just as a way to earn some extra cash. By the time you told me about it, you were in too deep to get out again. I couldn’t believe it at first, but then I saw how scared and desperate you were, and I knew it was true. You were beginning to realize that it would be just a matter of time before you got caught, and when you did it would mean jail—years and years of it. You’re over eighteen. You’re not a juvenile. You’d be right in there with the rest of the bunch.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dan asked. His head was pounding. Great waves of pain swirled beneath his forehead. The room seemed blurred and out of focus as the light-haired boy continued saying the unbelievable things, the incredible things that somehow were not completely incredible at all. The ground had been wet and slippery and he had slipped—no, he hadn’t actually slipped, somehow he had the feeling there had been hands on his back, a hard shove.

  “You had your plan all made,” Larry was continuing. “I agreed to help you as far as I could. Then when you fell, you were hurt, Dan, you were out of your head. You could no more have driven out here by yourself than you could have flown! I knew I’d have to bring you myself.

  “Actually, it wasn’t the sacrifice it sounds, for me, I mean. I come from a lousy home. I’ve never been happy there. My folks never gave a darn about me one way or the other. They were counting the days until I came of age and they could pitch me out. So I stopped by my house and picked up some clothes while my folks were out somewhere. Then we took off west.”

  He paused.

  “I didn’t want to tell you all this until you were completely well. You’ve had a rough time. I thought you’d be better not knowing. That way you could start all over, no strings, no regrets.”

  “But, why?” Dan asked the question dazedly. “Why would I plan something like this? Why would I need to get away so completely? God, Larry, what did I do?”

  “You were part of a dope ring,” Larry told him solemnly. “You were helping to smuggle heroin across the border from Mexico and were distributing it to the high school kids in Las Cruces.”

  “Smuggling heroin!” Dan repeated in horror. “I couldn’t have been! I’d never do a thing like that!”

  “You needed cash, Dan. There’s a lot of money in that sort of thing. More—a hell of a lot more—than for doing something like delivering newspapers! And you don’t have to kill yourself getting up at the crack of dawn either!”

  “I don’t believe it!” Dan said. He pressed his hand hard against his throbbing forehead. “If only I could remember! But, I will soon—I’m bound to. Now that things have started coming back to me, they’re sure to keep coming. They’ll get sharper and sharper.”

  “Sure, they will.” Larry reached over and patted his shoulder. “Say,” he added in a brighter voice, “you know what our landlord did today? He had some repairmen come and fix our balcony.”

  “The balcony?” Dan stared at him. He did not believe he could have heard him correctly. “The landlord fixed the balcony! What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Nothing, really,” Larry said quietly. “I just tho
ught you’d want to know. I mean, we can use it now. You might want to sit out there when you do your remembering.”

  FIFTEEN

  FRANK PULLED THE CAR into the parking lot and turned off the ignition. It was a beautiful night, some odd, disconnected corner of his mind observed ironically. The air that flowed in through the open window was fresh and cool and smelled like autumn. Over the flat, adobe-style roof of the motel, the round circle of moon stood out in the dark sky, surrounded by pinpricks of stars.

  How could I not have known? Frank asked himself. It was so clear. There was so much to point to it. How could I have helped but know?

  Everybody in school had heard about the drug bash at the Brownings’. The papers had not mentioned names because the participants were juveniles, but they had published anonymous quotes from youngsters involved.

  “I don’t know who brought the stuff,” one boy was quoted as saying. “It just sort of turned up. None of us knew it was going to be there. We just thought it was going to be another Saturday night party music and dancing.”

  “We didn’t shoot up,” another student told reporters. “If we hadn’t been busted I guess some kids might have tried it just to see what it was like. It doesn’t hurt to try anything one time, does it?”

  The papers had made a great deal of that answer.

  The question that no one seemed able to resolve was “Where had the drugs come from?” There were no adults at the party; Mr. and Mrs. Browning were out of town and there was no chaperon. The drugs must have been brought by one of guests. But, which one?”

  No wonder he had so much money in his possession, Frank thought now. There wasn’t anything small-time about what Larry was doing. He wasn’t duped into this the way Joan and I were; he was right in there on the ground floor, part of it all. He wasn’t just hauling the stuff across the border, he was actually distributing it!

  Maybe the kids at the party truly had believed that shooting up “just one” would do them no harm. Frank had heard enough and read enough to know better. There was seldom any “one time” when it came to shooting heroin. At the next party it would have been there again, except there would have been a charge for it. Then, before long, it would not be confined to parties, kids would be buying it privately and shooting up in their bedrooms. Once you become addicted there was no going back.

  That first party was like bringing germs into a new land, Frank thought. It was like planting the beginning of a disease so you could sit back and watch it grow into an epidemic. And Larry knew exactly what he was doing!

  The night was sweet and still. Out on the highway beyond the motel, headlights of cars moved past in ribbons of white. Overhead, bright dots of red and green streaked across the sky and had almost disappeared from sight before the sound of a jet broke the stillness. That faded too, and there was silence again.

  Well, Frank told himself, I can’t put it off any longer. I have to go in.

  He opened the car door, his hand lingering on the handle. Then, resolutely, he climbed out and shut the door firmly behind him. Carrying the brown paper parcel that contained the jewelry samples, he crossed the parking lot and rapped firmly at the door to number eighteen.

  The door opened immediately, as though the man behind it had been standing at the open window, watching him as he sat in the parked automobile.

  Mr. Brown said, “It’s about time you showed up. I was beginning to get worried.”

  “We had some car trouble,” Frank told him. “It delayed us.”

  “Car trouble?” The man regarded him sharply.

  “Nothing serious. I was able to fix it.”

  Clutching the parcel tightly in his hand, Frank stepped forward into the room.

  Mr. Brown cast a quick glance out into the night. “Where’s Joan Drayfus?”

  “I dropped her off at her house,” Frank said as casually as he could. “She’d promised her dad she’d be home early.”

  “That’s the trouble with hiring women for any kind of responsible job,” Mr. Brown said with a snort of disgust. “Everybody and everything comes before the job they’re being paid to do.” He held out his hand for the package. “No trouble at customs, was there?”

  “Not really.” Frank paused. “I think they’re beginning to wonder about us a little though. We’ve been through so often lately, they recognize our names. It must seem funny for kids our age to keep going down and coming back all the time.”

  “They didn’t ask you questions?” Mr. Brown asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s good. Not that there was anything you couldn’t have answered. Still, you’re probably right about their beginning to notice you. Maybe it’s time to switch to somebody else for this delivery work.”

  As he talked he was unknotting the string around the package. He opened the paper and took out the three silver pins.

  “Did you have a chance to get a real look at these?”

  “No,” Frank said. “Not really.”

  “Well, come over here and take a gander. Then sit down. I have something to discuss with you. Another kind of business proposition, since your value in this one seems to be about over.”

  He spread the pins out on the bed, and Frank slowly crossed the room and stood gazing down at them. They were shiny and decorative, but ordinary in design and clumsy in construction. It seemed absurd to him now that he had ever allowed himself to conceive of anyone’s taking the pain to import and copy them.

  He raised his eyes to find Mr. Brown watching him closely.

  “Well, Frank, what do you think of them?”

  “They’re—pretty,” Frank said awkwardly.

  “Sure they are. Anything made out of silver is ‘pretty.’ The Indian stuff is pretty too, don’t you think? Is this any prettier? Come on, be honest!”

  “No, I guess it isn’t.” Frank shifted nervously from one foot to the other. What was the man trying to say to him, or to get him to say? “I don’t know much about jewelry. I’ll take your word for it that this is designed better. I guess New York shops would pay more for this.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Mr. Brown said firmly. “They’ll take the Indian jewelry just as quickly as they’ll take this and pay the same thing for it. You’re not a dumb kid, Frank, or at least you don’t seem to be. Do you mean to tell me you’ve never had the slightest doubts about the value of this junk jewelry?”

  “Well, I have wondered—it didn’t look so special—but then, like I said, I don’t know enough about jewelry to be a judge of it.” He braced himself and met Mr. Brown’s eyes squarely. “What are you trying to tell me? There must be a point to this, but I don’t seem to be getting it.”

  “You, will, Frank. You will.” Mr. Brown gestured toward a chair. “Sit down. I think it’s time that you and I had a little talk.”

  Frank moved to the indicated armchair and lowered himself into it. He felt suddenly grateful for the support beneath him, as his knees were unaccountably weak. What was this all about?

  “I’m glad the Drayfus girl isn’t with you tonight,” Mr. Brown began. “Girls are fine in their place, but, as I mentioned before, their place isn’t in the world of business. It takes a man, with a man’s logic, to understand what a real business opportunity is. Larry Drayfus was that kind of young man. He had a sharp business sense, a lot of ambition.” He paused. “How about you, Frank? Are you ambitious?”

  “I don’t know,” Frank said. “I guess I might be.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Mr. Brown said approvingly. “I had you pegged as a bright kid who’d like to get ahead in the world. Larry Drayfus, as you know, worked for me for some months. He had a lot on the ball, Larry did. He realized immediately that our ‘import’ business was a—screen, shall we say?—for other activities. It is this—other field—that brings in the real income to support our varied enterprises.”

  He waited expectantly. Frank asked the obvious question.

  “We import a product that makes people feel good,” M
rs. Brown said matter-of-factly. “Problems – cares – they disappear. Worried about grades? Girlfriends? Family problems? Our product makes little concerns like those go away. It’s magical, Frank. Ever tried it?”

  “No,” Frank said. “And I don’t plan to. If I have problems I’d rather work them out, not dope myself up so I can pretend they don’t exist.”

  “You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to,” Mr. Brown said agreeably. “Larry didn’t. That didn’t stop him from making a good bundle of money helping us sell it. That’s the difficult part, the distribution. Anybody can bring the stuff across the border, but once it gets here it has to be disposed of. People have to be introduced to it before they’re willing to buy it. Kids, we’ve found, are more receptive to trying something new if somebody their own age is the one to give it to them.”

  “Then, what you’re suggesting,” Frank said, “is that I work as a kind of go-between. You want me to go to parties and take this – product – and get other kids to start using it?”

  “That’s about the sum of it,” Mr. Brown said quietly. He leaned back in his chair, regarding Frank calmly through the thick lenses of his glasses. “With Larry gone, we need a replacement. We’ll be willing to pay you the same kind of money we did Larry. The one difference will be, you’re not going to handle any large hunks of ‘company cash.’ That’s where we made our mistake with the Drayfus boy.”

  “How do you mean?” Frank asked blankly.

  “Larry Drayfus was too smart. He learned too much too fast. He wasn’t satisfied with being a small frog, he wanted the whole pond to himself. He may have looked like an innocent baby, but that kid was sharp as a nail. He learned the business from one end to the other the first couple of months he was with us, and then, first chance he got, he emptied the till and took off. That business of letting everybody think he fell in a river up in the Mogollons was engineered like a professional.” There was a hint of reluctant admiration in his voice.

  “You mean, you don’t think he was really lost on that camping trip? You think he’s alive somewhere?” Frank exclaimed.