Montaro Caine A Novel - By Sidney Poitier Page 0,2
a pair of old jeans that were much too large for him. He moved toward Robert Caine with an unsettling look of determination in his haunted, unblinking gray eyes. The youngster’s face looked deformed—his bottom jaw seemed to swing severely to the left of the rest of his face. Both Caine and Banks tried to alter their course to move around him, but the boy blocked their way.
“This is Luther,” Dr. Banks told Caine. “Luther, this is Dr. Caine. Now step aside, Luther.”
But the boy interrupted by reaching out to Robert Caine. In his hands was a sleek black circular object that resembled a woman’s compact. Caine, still holding his Dictaphone, pointed his microphone at the child. “For me?” he asked with a smile, looking down at the boy.
“Son,” the boy corrected in a garbled, guttural voice that was not easy for Robert Caine to understand.
“The sun?” repeated Caine, gesturing up toward the ceiling.
“I think he means your ‘son,’ ” Banks explained. Then Banks asked Robert, “You do have a son, don’t you?”
“Oh yes,” said Caine, looking at the boy with surprise, wondering how Luther could have known. “I do have a son, and this is for him?”
The boy nodded.
“That’s very nice of you,” said Caine, examining the item. “And this is very nice, too. What is it?”
“It’s a ship,” Luther said in his halting speech, which sounded as if it arrived after passing through a mouth filled with marbles.
“Aha. It’s a very nice-looking ship,” Caine said, though the object didn’t bear even the slightest resemblance to a ship. He turned it over, rubbing his fingers along its smooth surface, then held it to his ear and gave it a gentle shake; the compact seemed to have a hollow interior, and Robert made a gesture toward prying it open.
“You’re not supposed to open it,” the boy said firmly.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Robert. “But I think I hear something inside.”
“Yes, but it’s not delivering anything to you. It’s coming to get something.”
“And what’s that?”
“Information,” the boy stated.
“What kind of information?”
“It’s a secret.”
“I see.” Caine thought for a moment, then smiled. “But suppose my son wants to know. What do I tell him?”
“I’ll tell him when he comes to see me.”
“When will that be?”
“When he’s older.”
“Has it got a name, this ship?” Caine asked. He felt awkward and didn’t know what else to say to the physically afflicted child.
Dr. Banks stepped forward. “All right, Luther, Dr. Caine has to be off. He has a plane to catch.”
“Thank you, Luther,” Caine said as he and Dr. Banks proceeded down the hall.
“It’s called the Seventh Ship,” Luther shouted.
After a brief look over his shoulder at the small lone figure standing in the hallway, Caine, making sure that the boy was out of earshot, asked Banks, “What’s his situation?”
“He makes objects out of wood,” replied Banks as they continued to walk.
“He made this compact?” Caine asked.
“To him it’s a ship,” Banks corrected with a playful smile.
“Whatever it is, he made it?”
“Yes.”
“From wood?”
“Yes.”
“The finish is remarkable. It’s beautiful—as a compact, that is,” he added with a chuckle.
“Oh that’s nothing,” replied Dr. Banks. “He can sculpt.” Banks slowed his pace and pointed as they approached a door near the exit. “His room is right here. Why don’t we just peek in for a second?”
Luther’s tiny, windowless room was surprisingly well ordered. Everywhere were carvings of toys, buildings, cars, animals, and birds, all astonishingly realistic.
“The hospital allows some of his work to be shown at two art galleries in the city, and in several others around the state,” said Banks. “His situation is the same as Tom Lund’s and the others in our study—all the classic signs of retardation, except in the one area where they are exceptional.”
“How old is Luther?”
“Fourteen.”
To Caine, the boy had seemed much younger, perhaps because he was so short, only around four-and-a-half feet tall.
“What’s his last name?”
“He doesn’t have one,” said Banks. “He was abandoned when he was two or three years old. Because ‘Luther’ was all he could tell them at the agency when he was first taken there, they called him Luther John Doe. They never learned anything about his background, so now he’s just ‘Luther.’ Come, I think you’d better be off.”
As they exited Luther’s room, Banks continued, “On your next visit, after you see Tom Lund, maybe you’d like to spend a little time going over our findings on Luther.”
“I certainly would,” said Robert Caine. “But let me ask you something.”