They left notes. They asked a couple of the neighbors to watch for the grandpa and the dogs. They left the back garage door propped open, with the food and the water in there, for the dogs. They called the Humane Society. They left the kitchen door unlocked, in case Lloyd found his way home, too.

It seemed to Ry that they were being incredibly thorough and responsible. Covering all the bases. And then they got back into the w.i.l.l.ys, to drive to the third sandpile on the left, on the Island of the Saint of Lost Causes, an emerald dot in the azure of the Caribbean Sea. The time was just a little past six, CDT. Waupatoneka slipped away from them like a twig dropped into a stream. Or a boot...into a river.

PART THREE.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE ROTTEN.

In the middle of Indiana, in the middle of the night, Del and Ry paid a social call. Ry thought it was late to be showing up at someone's house, but Del said it was only a few minutes from the freeway and he wouldn't feel right if he drove past without at least saying "h.e.l.lo." He said they wouldn't stop if the lights weren't on. So they rolled down the exit ramp, then crept through dark streets that were still, except for a flash of commotion and light spilling from a tavern door as it opened and shut. They pulled up in front of a little house barely visible behind the overgrown bushes and towering evergreens that filled the yard. A twinkle of lamplight made its way through the foliage, so they made their way up the short broken sidewalk, toward it.

The woman who answered the door was surprised but happy to see them, or at least Del. She was friendly and welcoming to Ry, too, in his role as friend of Del. Her name was Sharon, and she told them to come in, come in!

"Can I get you a beer?" she asked Del. "Or do you want coffee? Are you going to drive through the night?"

Del said they were, but that one beer would be nice. Sharon looked at Ry and said she had some apple juice, would that be okay? Ry said, "Sure." She returned with bottles of beer for Del and for herself and two tiny child-sized juice boxes for Ry.

"Sorry," she said. "Life with a toddler. I have lots more in the fridge. Help yourself to as many as you want." Then, "So, what's the deal?" she asked Del. She curled up in a frayed armchair and folded her legs beneath her. "Where are you off to? What's the adventure?"

Del said they were driving to the Caribbean to find Ry's parents.

"Ha!" said Sharon. "Where are they?"

"We're not one hundred percent sure," said Del. "But how hard can it be? They're pretty small islands."

Sharon laughed again. Longer. With more ha's. The way she laughed made Ry want to know how to say things to make her laugh again. She laughed as if Del had just said the funniest thing she had ever heard.

"There's a lot of water in between those little islands, though," said Sharon. "What're you gonna do about that?"

"I'm pretty sure we can borrow a boat," said Del. "Yulia's in San Juan."

"Ah, yes, Yulia," said Sharon. "And you will get to San Juan how?"

"I have a friend who lives south of Miami," said Del, "who has a plane."

"Couldn't we go on a boat to San Juan, too?" asked Ry.

"A plane is a lot faster," said Del. "Besides, I don't know anybody with a boat until San Juan. Do you?"

"Is it a really small plane?" asked Ry.

"About as small as a plane can be without being a toy," said Del. "He made it himself."

Sharon laughed. Her laugh was as good as before, but Ry didn't know if he was willing to go up in a homemade airplane over vast expanses of deep water just to hear someone laugh a beautiful laugh. Was he willing to do it to find his mother and father, though?

It might depend on how vast and deep the expanses of water were. Like, if they could see the island they were aiming for from where they started, he would do it. He had to admit that his geography was fuzzy. He had a general idea that all those islands were off the coast of Florida, but that was about it. His brain did a search and came up with the words Bermuda Triangle, in bold type. Also Pirates of the...

Just then a small child in pajamas entered the room rubbing its eyes. It took one look at Ry and Del and began to bawl. Sharon held out her arms and the child ran to her and climbed into her lap, then turned and glared at them. Balefully.

"This is Miles," said Sharon. "Miles, this is Del and Ray."

"Ry," said Ry.

"Ry," repeated Sharon.

"Hi, Miles," said Del. "We've met, but you probably don't remember."

Ry waved and smiled. Miles glared.

"You should go home now," Miles said.

"We will," said Del. "Pretty soon."

"Now," said Miles. Ry was willing. Miles was looking like he could be a pain in the b.u.t.t.

"What do you want me to do?" Del asked. "Stand on my head?"

Miles eyed Del warily, then nodded.

"All right," said Del. The next instant he was standing on his head in the middle of the floor. "Is that better?" he asked Miles. "Do you want to try to knock me over?"

Miles flew from his mother's lap to give Del a push. Del obligingly curled down onto the floor, flat on his back.

"Wow," he said. "You're pretty strong."

Miles was smiling now. Sharon was smiling. Even Ry was smiling. Del knew other toddler-pleasing tricks, too. He knew airplane, horsey, upside-down walking, swing the kid in a circle, steal my thumb, steal your nose, and many others. Sharon settled gratefully, gracefully, into her chair. Del only had to ask her a brief question and her talking would flow forth as a babbling brook. Before long, Ry was only half listening. He sipped from his tiny juice boxes and surveyed the room. Even he could tell it was a piece-of-c.r.a.p house, but Sharon had made it homey. There were colorful pillows and curtains and a vase with flowers, like one of those magazine ads where they display bright new products in a ruin and it looks kind of cool.

Now Del and Sharon were talking about someone they both knew. At least Sharon was. She was a talker, once she got started. A yakker, really. Del was not a big talker. He reminded Ry sometimes of a detective in an old movie, one of those guys of few words. Ry half expected Del to say things like "I just might do that, ma'am," or "I wouldn't put it that way, miss."

A cat appeared on the scene, a cat of the large black variety, with fur as long as a llama's. It had the face of a cat who is easily offended, a cat who is pretty sure it won't like you. A smashed-face, tight-lipped cat.

Ry dangled his fingers in a welcoming gesture of friendship. The cat glared with yellow eyes. Maybe he was sitting in its chair. He scooched over and scratched the surface of the chair lightly, in a let's-share gesture. The cat stalked over and teleported itself into the geographical center of the s.p.a.ce Ry had made for it.

Feeling he was making progress, Ry held his hand a few inches from the cat's face, so it could smell him and see what a great guy he was. The cat's head leaned forward as if that's what it meant to do, then it opened its tight lips and sank its pointy teeth into Ry's flesh. CraOWap!

Only for a second. Then it was sitting there innocently, a puddle of black hair with malevolent eyes. Some cats are just like that. Maybe it was one of those rescue cats that had trouble trusting people.

Ry decided he would like another juice box or two. Through hand signals (he held up the juice boxes, Sharon pointed), he indicated his plan and went into the kitchen.

He found the light switch in the traditional location, spotted the fridge, and headed out across the linoleum. But as he pa.s.sed the sink, the last remaining molecular bonds holding the rotting wooden strands of subfloor together gave way. His foot and most of his leg went through the floor, and he found himself suddenly sitting. Where he landed felt spongy, too, and he leaned back onto his hands, trying to spread his weight as if he were on thin ice. The empty juice boxes had leaped from his hands and skidded across the floor.

The crack of the floor giving way and the thump when his b.u.t.t made contact were surprisingly gentle sounds. He let out a yelp, though, as he sank, and the conversation stopped in the other room.

"Everything okay?" Sharon called out. Ry didn't answer right away. He was too busy absorbing the impact of what had just happened. A tumbling of footsteps came his way. The footsteps reached the threshold and came to a stop. He did not want to turn and look over his shoulder at the three faces he knew were positioned in the doorway.

Behind him Miles's voice said, "Uh-oh."

Sharon's voice said, "Oh, s.h.i.t." It sounded almost pleasant when she said it.

Del's old western cowboy voice said, "I reckon your sink is leaking, ma'am." Or his detective voice said, "How long has your sink been leaking, miss?" Or, he just said, "Is there a leak under your sink?" But it sounded like the other two.

Ry turned his head toward them.

"I'm sorry," he said. "All I did was walk across the room."

Del grabbed him under the armpits and pulled. Sharon helped from the other side to guide his foot and leg back up through the hole. They moved around the hole in a circle, bouncing gingerly to find out how far-reaching was the rottenness of the subfloor.

"I noticed it was soft in spots," said Sharon. "But I didn't know it was that bad."

"Do you have any tools?" asked Del. He kneeled down and wiggled a piece of wood. It broke off in his hand like a stale graham cracker.

"I'll call someone," said Sharon. "Tomorrow. First thing."

"Do you have any wood?" asked Del. He leaned out and reached across the hole to open the cabinet under the sink. The floor of the cabinet had warped into a rippling landscape of rolling hills. Tilting villages of buckets and cleaning products nestled in the valleys. A drop of water fell from a joint in the pipe to a small puddle below it. A lake in the tilting village.

"I don't suppose you have a wrench?" asked Del.

"Actually, I probably do," said Sharon. "Jerry was going to fix it before I told him to get lost. He left everything here. I was going to try to figure it out myself. I just haven't had time."

It was midnight. An owl hooted beyond the open window as Del laid a couple of two-by-fours across the hole to kneel on. Crickets chirped in their sleep as he and Ry moved all the cleaning junk out of the cabinet into a corner of the kitchen. Sharon led Miles away to put him back to bed.

Del fixed the leak first. It wasn't that hard to do, and he explained it to Ry as he went along. He had Ry use the wrench so he would know how it should feel. Then he scored the linoleum with a utility knife outside the rottenness and had Ry start to yank it up inside that boundary, while he used a saber saw to cut away the warped floor of the cabinet. With the saw, Del cut the subfloor along the edge of the linoleum and, together, they ripped that up, too. It was mesmerizing and satisfying work to rip up the nasty stuff and toss it onto the growing pile. Ry almost hated to stop to use the bathroom, but he had to, so he hurried off.

"I'll be right back," he told Del. He wasn't sure where the bathroom was, but the house was tiny; it couldn't be hard to find. On his way there, he looked into a softly lit room and stopped. Miles and Sharon were fast asleep. Miles was under the covers, Sharon was outside them, curled around her child. A picture book lay open, facedown, a little away from them.

Ry felt the n.o.bility of what he and Del were doing for this mother and her child. It was a new and interesting feeling, and he thought he would like to feel it some more. He tiptoed into the room. He looked around for a blanket or something that he could put over Sharon. Everything seemed to be small, or plastic, or small and plastic. Then he spotted a rumpled heap of fabric underneath some smallish plastic items.

He made his way over to it, picking out stepping stones of uncluttered clearings of carpet. Lifting the fabric up and letting it fall to its still-rumpled full size, he saw that it was a superhero cape, with a hood. The hood had pointy ears; it was a Batman cape. The cape was fuzzy; that was nice. He tiptoed over to the bed and prepared to drape the cape over the sleeping Sharon. She turned over onto her back and said, "Well, if that's how you feel about it."

Ry froze in his tracks. He glanced toward the doorway and considered bolting, then back at Sharon. Her eyes were still closed. She crossed her bare arms across her chest and drew up her knees, putting one bare foot over the other. Ry lay the cape over her, covering as much of her as he could. He had to choose between bare arms and bare feet. He chose arms because there was more square footage of them. Then he reached under the lampshade and turned out the lamp.

With only a dim path of light from the living room, finding open places on the carpet to step on was harder. He didn't want to break or crunch anything. He moved across the floor like a spastic flamingo, one foot always hiked up under him while he reconnoitered for the next landing.

As it was a small room, this only took three steps, but it seemed like a long time. With one more step before he could leap into the hall, he reached down, balancing carefully, to push aside a stuffed animal blocking his way. He hadn't noticed it coming in. His eyes were adjusting to the dim light, and as he reached down he saw the thing lift its head, observe his approaching hand, rise to its feet, and pad silently out of the room. Not before tossing him a quick glare with its faintly visible yellow-green eyes. It was the hostile wretched cat.

Ry jerked his hand back in surprise as the dark, evil blob moved away. His own sudden movement threw off his balance. He teetered and flapped his arms. The foot that was in the air lunged toward the toy-free zone of the hallway, landing with only a mild thump, but he was in the splits now and as both hands went to the floor to keep him from tipping over, one of them found something wet and viscous. He did not want to think about what it might be. He paused there, listening to the sawing and tapping coming from the kitchen and the quiet breathing of Sharon and Miles behind him.

He could not stay there for long, and as he worked his way back to a standing position, the words pulled groin presented themselves in his mind. The effort not to cry out caused his eyebrows to lift several inches and stretched his mouth into a cornucopia of anguished shapes. He found the bathroom. The stuff he had put his hand into was PB&J. Not so horrible. He washed it off, glancing up at his face in the mirror. Not too bad, compared to before. The eye shape was normal. Just a bruise, now.

Back in the kitchen, he knelt down to help Del. Ow, he said silently, to himself. Then, despite all his n.o.ble, mighty efforts, there was Sharon, blinking, the Batman cape pulled around her shoulders.

"Oh my G.o.d, Del," she said. "What are you doing?" Her face had a stunned expression to it, which made Ry view the scene in a new way. She was probably thinking that a couple of hours ago she had a kitchen floor, albeit one with a soft spot, and now she had a gaping hole. A huge gaping hole. That would be dismaying. He could see her point of view. Plus the pieces of what used to be her floor were piled in a trashy heap on the sh.o.r.es, the rim of the crater.

"The leak is fixed," Del said calmly.

"You need to stop now," said Sharon.

"I can't stop," said Del. "I'm not finished. It wouldn't be right."

"What do I have to do to get you to stop?" asked Sharon. She put her hands on her hips.

"I guess you could call the police," said Del.

"Maybe I will," said Sharon. She folded her arms across her chest.

"Tell them someone is fixing your rotten floor against your will," said Del. Ry could tell he was enjoying himself. He kept his features still, but his eyes were twinkling. Sharon didn't know what to say next. She let her hands drop to her sides.

"You should go to bed," said Del.

"How can I sleep with all this racket?" asked Sharon. Hands simulating racket.

"Shut the door," said Del. "I'll hammer as quietly as I can."

"You're not going to stop, are you?" she said. It wasn't a question. One hand returned to her hip. The other rested against the doorjamb.

"No," said Del. "Not yet."

She threw up her hands and walked away. A door closed. Another door closed. Ry and Del looked at each other. Del's smile broke out from inside into the open, full force.

"It's just dangerous to have a hole in the floor, especially with a little kid," he said. By way of explanation.

"I can't believe I put my foot through someone's floor," said Ry. "I don't even know her, and I come into her house..." The end of the sentence was his hand gesturing toward where the floor used to be.

Del shrugged. "It was an accident waiting to happen," he said. "It's actually lucky we were here. It was lucky it was you, not Miles.

"You should try to get some sleep on the couch," he said then. "That way, when I finish this, you can drive and I can sleep. Then we can make up for the lost time."

So Ry went out to the couch. He pulled a red fuzzy throw over himself and laid his head on a corduroy pillow. (Did you hear about the guy who fell asleep on the corduroy pillow? It made headlines.) He was becoming like a dog, he thought, that can curl up anywhere and fall asleep. After a few minutes, he found another pillow to put over his head to m.u.f.fle the sawing and hammering. Because he wasn't quite like a dog. He didn't have a furry, floppy ear.

CONCURRENTLY (THAT SAME NIGHT), ALSO IN THE MIDWEST (CON-PLACENTLY?).

Lloyd was being taken somewhere in the backseat of a car. The highway was a blur; the exits were all generically named and populated with Comfort Inns, BP gas plazas, and whatnot, all with signage glowing into the night. The car left the highway for a briefly busy thoroughfare lined with car dealerships, big box stores, and fast food franchises that soon dwindled to a county road. There had been some social events, with people he didn't know, but he didn't feel unsafe. He was with Betty and her sister.

The car slowed and turned onto a dirt two-track. The two-track jolted and meandered haphazardly into a thicket, which thinned and heightened and spread into a woods, which dimmed into a forest.

The b.u.mpiness of the road did not soothe a dull throbbing Lloyd felt at the back of his head. The car crept along behind its headlights. He closed his eyes. When, after a time, the car rolled to a stop, he didn't notice. What woke him was the clunk and squeak of the car door opening next to him, and the cool air from outside. It was falling asleep that threw him off. His recovering brain cells had not had time to regroup. Disoriented by sleep and by his skipping synapses, he looked to see who had opened his door, but the inside of the car was lit and it was dark beyond; black as ink, black as pitch. As black as night, you could say. He heard footsteps walking away in pine needles and soft earth, then a key being inserted into a lock. A door was opening, creaking lightly. He wondered if he was in danger; a memory fragment surfaced, something about a car pulling up beside him as he walked on an unfamiliar sidewalk, the apprehensiveness he felt as he turned to see who it was. He wondered whether he shouldn't disappear silently into the darkness, the pitchy inky night. While he had the chance, he swung his feet out and down to the ground. He stood up and stepped out of the circle of light.

"Where did he go?" said Betty to her sister, Ruth.

They were twins, but they had different dispositions. Betty was cheery and friendly, Ruth was more on the cranky side.

They were searching through the dark woods with flashlights, trying not to get lost themselves.

"I guess I shouldn't have brought him there," said Betty. "It was probably confusing with all those people. I just thought-"

"If you would mind your own business," said Ruth, "you'd save yourself a lot of trouble. Not to mention other people."