Characters in Blaze

George also got a monster whacking from the gray-faced pimp his mother was by then living with. This was Aidan O’Kellaher, who had notoriously bad kidneys — hence his street-name, Pisser Kelly. Pisser beat on him until George’s half-sister screamed for him to stop. “You want some?”

Then, at 4:30 PM on that gray day, SAC Albert Sterling got a call from Nancy Moldow. As soon as Sterling and his partner, Bruce Granger, stepped into the Baby Shoppe, Nancy Moldow said: “There’s something wrong with your picture.

Blaze lost his virginity. The girl’s name was Anne Bradstay. She was in Pittsfield for arson. She and her boyfriend had burned down six potato warehouses between Presque Isle and Mars Hill before getting caught. They said they did it because they couldn’t think of anything else to do.

An octogenarian named Arlene Merrill got suspicious and called the police while the Rev. Gary and his “assistant” were in the living room. Then she walked back to the living room to talk to them until the police arrived. The Rev. Gary smelled it and took off. Blaisdell stayed.

At that, Beatrice McCafferty exploded. Heaving herself up from her folding chair (which might have given a creak of thanks) and without waiting for so much as a nod of recognition from Mr. Moderator, she trumpeted: “All right, let’s get to it! Hanky-panky!

He got in because he had grown up with one of the Smarties, a prematurely gray mobster named Billy O’Shea with frog eyes and bluish lips. Billy O’Shea called George Raspy, because of his voice, or sometimes just Rasp.

… familiar face from South Portland turned up — Billy St. Pierre. They went out and bought each other many beers. Billy confided to Blaze that he and a friend were going to hold up a liquor store in Southie. The place was a tit. He said there was room for …

What’s past it if he slips through?” Bradley barked a laugh. “Nothing but the Royal River. Like to see him ford that.” “Is it iced over?” “Sure, but not enough to walk on.” “All right. Let us press on. Franklin, take point. Short point. This guy is very dangerous.”

“Brant Romano. Sir. That guy was driving a Ford.” He named the year with what Sterling deemed to be a high degree of confidence. “Only it wasn’t blue, like it says in the paper. It was green.” Sterling turned to Moldow. “What did this man buy, ma’am?”

It turned out that this fellow, Brian Wick, just happened to have come to the Bluenote farm equipped with a pocket-sized digest called Fizzy. Toe allowed that he had heard good things about Fizzy, and the two of them worked out a trade.

As soon as Sterling and his partner, Bruce Granger, stepped into the Baby Shoppe, Nancy Moldow said: “There’s something wrong with your picture. The man you want has a big hole in the middle of his forehead.” “Yes, ma’am,” Sterling said. “We’re holding that back.” Her eyes got round.

… and Billy, plus another South Portland alum named Calvin Surks, knocked over a loan agency with a betting room in the back. They took over a thousand dollars. “We’re hitting the big time now,” Billy said as the three of them split the swag in a Duxbury motel room. “This …

The police had picked up a man named Charles Victor Pritchett, a big drifter from Aroostook County who had been laid off some sawmill job a month earlier. Then he had been released. Probably that scrawny little door-opener Walsh couldn’t make him for it, Blaze reasoned. Too bad.

I am going to get a little place and will send for You once I do. Well, write me a little Letter and tell Your old Pa how it goes. Can you send a Foto. It was signed With Love, Clayton Blaisdell.

… found it interesting to see what would be bandaged and what would be bruised when Clay Blaisdell came to school on Mondays. “It will be a miracle if he gets his size without being badly hurt or killed,” Sarah Jolison remarked one day in the teachers’ room. The miracle didn’t …

Granger? Bruce? Copy?” The voice that came back sounded apologetic. “This is Corliss.” “Corliss? I don’t want you, Corliss. I want Bruce. Over.” “Agent Granger’s down, sir. Think he broke his leg. Over?” “What?” “These woods are lousy with deadfalls, sir. He, ah, stumbled into one and it gave way.

The judge — who had lost a son Curtis Prebble’s age in Korea — had no understanding of such boredom, nor sympathy for it. He sentenced the boy to six years in Shawshank State Prison. Anne got a year in what the girls called The Pittsfield Kotex Factory.

“That’s Daniel J. Monahan. Detective Daniel J. Monahan, of Boston’s Finest. I don’t suppose you’d like to talk to him about how a couple of hicks such as your fine selves have twenty to put down on prime beef?” John Cheltzman looked suddenly sick.

Four months later, he and Billy and Billy’s brother-in-law Dom knocked over a combination gas station and grocery store in Danvers.

… Hetton House doctor (a Camel-smoking old quack named Donald Hough) as nothing but a bad case of the flu. This diagnosis would kill John, but not for another year. “Here’s your cabin,” Doug Bluenote said. He had his father’s farmer’s face, but not his father’s strange pale eyes. “There’s a …

The low blueberry bushes were in full fruit. Harry and Douglas Bluenote dropped the truck tailgates and everyone jumped down. The field had been divided into strips with white cloth pennants fluttering from low stakes. Another truck — older, bigger — pulled up. This one had high canvas sides.

What do they call you?” “Blaze.” “Okay, Blaze, I’m Frank Holloway.” He stuck out his hand, then winced and clamped the end of his cigarette with his teeth as Blaze wrung it. “Now tell me exactly what you did to wind up here.”

Martin Coslaw might have objected, but Frank Therriault didn’t answer to that priss. He liked Blaze’s broad shoulders. A quiet man himself, Therriault also liked Blaze’s way of saying yes and no and not much more. The boy didn’t mind heavy work, either.

Franklin got there first. “Corliss,” he said. “Dead?” Sterling asked, joining him. “Oh yeah.” Franklin pointed to tracks that were now little more than vague dips. “Let’s go,” Sterling said. This time he took point.

Every spring, Bowie bred one of his cows with Franklin Marstellar’s bull, Freddy. On the wall of the shed was a walking-halter he called a “love-halter” and a nosepiece. Bowie took it from its peg and held it by the nosepiece, fingers curled through the lattices.

Every spring, Bowie bred one of his cows with Franklin Marstellar’s bull, Freddy. On the wall of the shed was a walking-halter he called a “love-halter” and a nosepiece. Bowie took it from its peg and held it by the nosepiece, fingers curled through the lattices.

Bowie had called up George Henderson, who was on the schoolboard, and asked if the shots cost money. They didn’t, so Bowie signed. Margie Thurlow was also in line. She looked very pale. Blaze felt bad for her. He wished he could go back and hold her hand.

A suspected accomplice, George Thomas Rackley, aka Rasp, had gotten off because Blaze wouldn’t testify against him. According to police files, Blaisdell and Rackley had been a team for at least eight years before Blaisdell’s fall on the bunco rap, which had been a religious con just a little too …

… gave Sterling the number of a woman named Georgia Kingsbury. Ms. Kingsbury had been reading the evening paper when her son looked over her shoulder, pointed to the police sketch, and asked, “Why is that man from the laundrymat in the paper? And how come that doesn’t show the hole …

Glen Hardy was a huge eighth-grader, the kind that will play football, then run to fat. He had red hair that he combed back from his forehead in big waves. His father was a farmer on the west end of town, and Glen’s arms were slabs of muscle.

She was also, happy days, knocked up. Hankie Melcher was eager to marry her. George was surprised at first, then wasn’t. The world was full of fools falling all over themselves to show you how smart they were. George took to Blaze because Blaze was a fool with no pretensions.

The man who hired them, Harry Bluenote, was a straight. Not in the contemptuous sense in which Blaze would later hear George use the word, but in the best Lord Baden-Powell tradition. He owned fifty acres of prime blueberry land in West Harlow, and burned it over every other spring.

His name was Harry Nason, and he was majoring in animal husbandry. When the big man with the dented forehead walked in at ten minutes of one, Nason was reading a book from the paperback rack. The book was called Big and Hard.

A boy named Henry Gillette accused one of the other South Portland boys of cheating at blackjack (technically not poker). Blaze simply picked Gillette up by the scruff of the neck and hauled him off. Then he made the other boy give Gillette his money back.

“You want to get choppin,” Hubert Bowie said again. “Oh,” Blaze said. It was the first word he had said to either of them. The Bowies watched him go over to the chopping block and free the ax.

… Head Injury Special to the Evening Express By James T. Mears THE MAN WHO DROVE the getaway car in the Gerard baby kidnapping — and possibly the only kidnapper — is pictured on this page, in an Evening Express exclusive. The drawing was made by Portland P.D. sketch artist John …

The prices this place charges...and everybody knows Tim and Janet Quarles are, like, the biggest right-wingers since Adolf —” “Give me your wallet or I’ll blow your head off.” POT ROCKS suddenly realized he might be in some trouble here; for sure he wasn’t in a movie.

… out on Clayton Blaisdell, Jr. By that time Jerry Green of Gorham had discovered his Mustang had been stolen. The car was on State Police hot-sheets forty minutes or so later. Around that same time, Westbrook PD gave Sterling the number of a woman named Georgia Kingsbury. Ms. Kingsbury had …

“Live on Palmer Road?” “Yeah!” Blaze shouted back. “Jimmy Cullum used to live out there,” the trucker said, and offered Blaze an incredibly battered package of Luckies. Blaze took one. “Some guy,” Blaze said.

The drawing was made by Portland P.D. sketch artist John Black from a description given by Morton Walsh, a night attendant at Oakwood, a new high-rise condominium tower a quarter of a mile from the Gerard family compound.

No, one big score and out. It became his mantra. A high school teacher named John Burgess, in for manslaughter, had suggested kidnapping. “You’re trippin!” George said, horrified. They were in the yard on ten o’clock exercise, eating bananas and watching some mokes with big muscles throw a football around.

… and his only real buddy from Hetton House, John Cheltzman. There was also his lucky Kennedy half-dollar, an old bill for a muffler (that had been when he and George had been running that big bad Pontiac Bonneville), and a folded-over Polaroid. George was looking out of the Polaroid and …

… had called for FBI assistance, Castle County Sheriff John D. Kellahar said he could not comment at this time. He would also not comment on the possibility of a ransom note —” Oh yeah, Blaze thought. I got to send one of those. “— but he did say police have …

The young Mr. Gerard was Joseph Gerard III, and he really was young, just twenty-five. His wife was a Narmenian. George said that made her a spic. Blaze had thought only Italians could be spics.

Finally came the news. “The search for the kidnappers of Joseph Gerard IV continues,” the announcer said gravely, “and there may be at least one new development.” Blaze pricked up his ears.

The sign over his head billed him as Leopard Man. The pitchman raised his microphone and began to speak. His amplified voice rolled down the midway like thunder. “Hurry, hurry, hurry!

Wyeth), the old and mellow furniture, the long dining table with SET A SPELL carved on one bench and COME HUNGRY, LEAVE FULL carved on the other. Most of all they looked at the large oil portrait on the east wall. This was Marian Bluenote, Harry’s late wife.

… was a seventh-grader at Cumberland A School named Marjorie Thurlow. She had yellow hair and blue eyes and no breasts. She had a sweet smile that made the corners of her eyes turn up. On the playground, Blaze followed her with his own eyes. She made him feel empty in …

At first Blaze thought people were saying she had a stork, but finally he got it straight: stroke. It was a kind of headache that wouldn’t go away. Her replacement was Martin Coslaw. Blaze never forgot his name, and not just because the kids called him The Law.

She thought I was the cat...that I was...” He racked his brain some more. “Mikey!” he shouted. “I’m sorry I hit her so hard. I sure didn’t mean to, but I was scared.” The man on the other end of the line began to cry.

“Sure,” Blaze said, still smiling. Moochie came back with Hankie’s egg cream and George’s coffee. George took a sip, grimaced. He looked at Moochie. “Do you always shit in your coffee cups, or do you sometimes use the pot, Sunshine?” Hank said to Moochie: “George don’t mean nothin by it.”

The drawing was made by Portland P.D. sketch artist John Black from a description given by Morton Walsh, a night attendant at Oakwood, a new high-rise condominium tower a quarter of a mile from the Gerard family compound.

… you briefly on the third floor, ask for Mr. Flaherty. Room 7.” Blaze nodded and turned to the shirts again. The floorwalker left. Not far away, one of the clerks was getting ready to punch NO SALE on the register George had robbed. “Hey, you!” Blaze said to him, then …

“He ain’t got nothin, does he?” Mrs. Bowie asked. Her voice was high and reedy. It sounded strange coming from that mammoth breast, which rose under her plaid coat like a comber at Higgins Beach. “No TB nor nothin?” “He’s been tested,” said Coslaw. “All our boys are tested regularly.

Mrs. Bricker — the camp mom — dropped a pitcher of lemonade on the floor when they carried him in. Icecubes sprayed every whichway on the plank pine. They took Bluenote into the parlor and put him on the couch. One arm dangled on the floor.

Mrs. Cheney brought him along in reading, writing, and history. She understood early on that for Blaze, math (which he always called Arithmetic) was a lost cause.

And Mrs. Foster was screaming at Blaze to go inside. As he went, Blaze heard her telling Peter Lavoie to go to the office and get the First Aid kit, to run. He was sent from school. Suspended.

The only stuff that stuck was dumb stuff. Like that poem Mrs. Selig made them learn way back in the fifth grade: Under the spreading chestnut tree, the village smithy stands. What good was that?

Mrs. Waslewski, who was a Catholic, saw him toting first-graders around on his shoulders one day when she had playground duty and started calling him St. Francis of the Little People. Mrs. Cheney brought him along in reading, writing, and history.

The saleslady was Nancy Moldow. She was on commission, and as the afternoon progressed, her eyes took on an almost supernatural glow. Finally the total was rung up and when Blaze counted out the money, Nancy Moldow threw in four boxes of Pampers. “You made my day,” she said.

Norma Gerard, said to be in her mid-seventies, was taken to the Maine Medical Center, where her condition is listed as critical. When asked if he had called for FBI assistance, Castle County Sheriff John D. Kellahar said he could not comment at this time.

Get Frankland out of the office.” “He’ll be in bed, actually —” “Get him out. And tell Norman to get his ass over here. He can mind the phone.” “You’re sure that’s how you want to —” “Yes.

At 8:20, Sterling received a call from State Trooper Paul Hanscom, at the Portland barracks. Hanscom reported that a 1970 Mustang had been stolen from the same mall where Georgia Kingsbury had seen Blaisdell, and at approximately the same time.

“Peter Hogan.” “Dump out your pockets, Mr. Hogan.” “I certainly will not!” The store dick said, “Dump em out or I’ll call the cops.” George strolled toward the escalator, looking as alert and lively as the best Hardy’s employee who ever punched a time-clock.

He came to Peter Lavoie, batting the tetherball on its post with one mittened hand, and asked if Peter knew what had happened to Margie. “Glen hit her in the shot,” Peter Lavoie said.

His name was Randy. He was eleven. He had one milky eye. He scared the shit out of Blaze. His teeth were like old yellow tusks. There was a white stripe down the center of his skull.

Boy Bradstay became Rufus Wyatt. He was named All-State Tackle from his high school team when he was seventeen; All-New England a year later. He went to Boston University with the intention of majoring in literature.

… named Ryder. He claimed to be half Penobscot Indian, and he looked it. When George picked up the dice a seventh time instead of passing them, Ryder threw twenty dollars down on the crapout line. “Come, dice,” George said — crooned. His thin face was bright. His cap was yanked …

When the trucks hit field-bumps, everyone laughed. There were no formal introductions. Sally Ann Robichaux had Winstons and shared out the pack; even Blaze, sitting on the end, got one. One of the ball-busters from South Portland began discussing girly books with Toe-Jam.

“It will be a miracle if he gets his size without being badly hurt or killed,” Sarah Jolison remarked one day in the teachers’ room. The miracle didn’t happen.

… were pictures of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Sister Mary Hetton on the walls. Sister Hetton had pale skin and black hair scrooped back from her face and balled into a kind of doorknob on the back of her head. She had dark eyes that sometimes came back to accuse …

It was driven by a small black man named Sonny. Blaze never heard Sonny say a single word. The Bluenotes gave their crew short, close-tined blueberry rakes. Only Blaze did not get one. “The rake is designed to take nothin but ripe berries,” Bluenote said.

John bought a Portland Press Herald from Stevie Ross, who had a paper route, on Monday morning. He and Blaze went out behind the toolshed and opened it to the classified ads. John said that was the place to look. The lost and founds were on page 38.

He wanted every bush and grove of trees beaten for his bird on the way in. “Sterling, this is Tanner. You copy?” “Got you, Tanner. Come back.” “We’re at the head of the road leading to the orphanage.

He also invented a few. His mother listlessly signed a paper making him Tansy Rackley’s legal guardian, and George kept the little whore in school. Came a day when he discovered she was skin-popping heroin. She was also, happy days, knocked up. Hankie Melcher was eager to marry her.

“Wallet,” he said. “Dude,” POT ROCKS said, not losing the grin, “I’m on your side. The prices this place charges...and everybody knows Tim and Janet Quarles are, like, the biggest right-wingers since Adolf —” “Give me your wallet or I’ll blow your head off.”

Blaze couldn’t remember the Italian-looking kid’s real name, only that everyone had called him Toe-Jam. Blaze turned right at the fork a mile up and onto a pitted tertiary road that had been carelessly (and narrowly) plowed, then allowed to drift back in.

… He was put up for adoption and taken almost immediately by a childless couple from Saco named Wyatt. Boy Bradstay became Rufus Wyatt. He was named All-State Tackle from his high school team when he was seventeen; All-New England a year …