Free Eye of the Cricket by James Sallis Page A

the phone in the time it took to hand the receiver over.
    "Mr. Griffin. Thank you for calling. You have news?"
    "Nothing substantial." I told him about the donut shop closing, briefly recounted my conversations at the florist's next door
     and with Keith LeRoy. "Reason I'm calling is to ask if you know anything about a cousin of Shon's, guy he's been seen with
     lately."
    "How lately?"
    I said I wasn't sure. Couple of weeks maybe.
    "And someone told you this was Shon's cousin?"
    "That's how Shon identified him to the assistant manager at the donut shop, yes. Sounded like they might be tight. Getting
     that way, anyhow."
    "Did you get a name?"
    "No."
    Moments went by. I could hear a TV in the background. X-Men, Ninja Turtles, something on that order. Kids' voices.
    "I was afraid of that."
    "So afraid that you didn't bother to tell me about it."
    "I guess I thought if I said it aloud, somehow that was going to make it true. Like the kids when they were younger. They'd
     be in bed at night and think they saw something in the corner, so they'd be very careful not to look that way. Because if
     they did, it was going to be there."
    "So who's this cousin?"
    "His name's Armantine Rauch, everyone calls him Army. And he's not a cousin, he's Shon's half brother—like I am. One of Shon's
     old man's other adventures."
    "You know him?"
    "Much to my displeasure and misfortune, I do. Years back, Army showed up on our doorstep saying he had no other place to go.
     I was about Shon's age then—fifteen, sixteen. Mom's a pushover, as always. Has no idea how she's going to take care of the
     kids she already has but never even skips a beat before taking in this new one."
    "How long was he with you?"
    "Less than a year. First, money started disappearing from the coffee can in the kitchen, then from Mom's purse. Never much money, mind you, because there wasn't much. Fifty cents here, a dollar. Then we heard neighbors start complaining. Mail was missing from their box, they'd say.
     A grill or a lawn chair left on the gallery had disappeared. One man said the gallon of gas he'd put in his moped the night
     before, to get to work on, was gone when he went out the next morning 'round five. Few clays later, a car got stolen from
     up the street. Not long after, police came knocking at the door. Wanted to know if an Armantine Rauch lived there."
    "This had happened before, then."
    "Every place he lived."
    "It's the kind of thing that usually escalates."
    "Did here too. Cops came by more than once, those last months. But then on one of the rare days Armantine actually went to
     school a teacher told him to do something he didn't feel much like doing and wound up with a pair of scissors in his chest.
     Kids said you could hear the air gushing out around them whenever the teacher, Mr. Sacher was his name, tried to talk, tell
     someone to please go get help."
    "Rauch get tried for that?"
    "After about fifteen social workers and agencies and this-n-thats you never heaid of or saw before quit arguing, he did. Mama
     said we'd probably never see him again. Too goddamn bad. She used to visit, the firstyear or so, but it got to be way too
     hard on her and she stopped going. Funny. Maybe some ways, all that's why I'm in law school." He paused. "Almost in law school."
    "He was tried as a juvenile?"
    "Yes. Sentenced to twenty years, but they told us he'd be out when he hit twenty-one."
    "And you haven't seen him since then, right? He didn't turn up at your mother's, you had no reason to think Shon might have
     taken up with him."
    "Not really. Just that thinking about it, Shon disappearing that way, then finding out how things'd started changing on him
     and how none of us knew that, it gave me a bad feeling. Made me wonder."
    "Okay, for the time being I guess that's it. Unless you have something else you forgot to tell me."
    "No. I'm sorry."
    "I'll get back to you."
    "What—" he began.
    But I hung up and immediately dialed Don.
    "What's the name again?" he