BY THE TIME SAM’S mother found her son again, she did not really care where Mr. de Vere was. She had her son, and that was all that mattered. Sooner or later she would find someone else to buy her painting.
When Sam went to the black-suited cashiers and paid the hotel bill, she was proud of him. When he phoned the private detective in the Yellow Pages, she was amazed at how grown-up he had become. But when he announced that he was taking his mum and dad out to dinner, she burst into tears and kissed him.
Vanessa Kellow put on her best evening dress and carried the embroidered clutch bag that had belonged to her mother. Earl put on his tux.
The snowstorm had finally ended and all of Toronto was out again in the bustling streets, all bundled up against the cold. Sam and his mother and father took the subway to Osgoode and walked beside the six-foot snowbanks to a cozy little restaurant on King Street.
When Sam saw that Nancy and her parents were sitting at the next table, he felt the happiest he could ever remember.
This was chance. Completely chance. But before long they had pushed the tables together, and then they were all talking about Jamaica and looking at the brochures Nancy had brought for her parents, and by the time they had finished the main course, they were all planning to take the trip together.
And then Sam’s mother gave a little squeal and stood up, holding her napkin across her mouth.
Sam turned and saw three people standing at the doorway. The first two he knew—the judges from the Perfecto competition: the young man in the navy-blue suit and the older woman with all that clanking jewelry. But when he saw the third person, the hair on his neck stood on end.
“Mr. de Vere!” his mother cried.
Could this peculiar little person be the famous Mr. de Vere? The man who was now emerging from the huge black fur coat had a long snouty face and soft gray eyes. He was shorter than Sam and he was dressed in a gray striped suit which revealed the curve of a splendid little belly. As he handed over his coat, he perched a small pair of wire-framed spectacles on the tip of his shining black nose.
“Mr. de Vere,” Vanessa said, half whispering.
She was interrupted by the man in the navy-blue suit pointing his finger at Sam. “That’s him,” he hissed to Mr. de Vere. But Mr. de Vere was looking at Sam’s mother and shaking his head.
“Vanessa,” he said, “thank heavens!” He was now smiling broadly. Just behind him, the judges were furious—snapping and squalling like seabirds.
“It wasn’t a majority decision,” said judge number one.
“It has to be a majority decision,” judge number two said. “The rules state it clearly.”
But Mr de Vere was not listening to the Perfecto judges. He was walking toward Sam’s mother, his small jeweled hands outstretched. “I want my beautiful painting,” he said. “I want it now.”
“You weren’t there,” Sam’s mother said to Mr. de Vere. “We all searched for you, but your door wasn’t there.”
“My dear, I sent you a change-of-address card in Australia.”
“But we weren’t in Australia,” Earl Kellow said. “We’ve been traveling, Eddie.”
“Mr. de Vere,” said the female judge, pushing forward and pointing at Sam. “That’s him, the party who was wrongly given the prize.”
“This is not a party,” said Vanessa. And she put her hands on Sam’s shoulders and held him as if someone wished to steal him from her. “This is my son, Sam Kellow.”
Mr. de Vere pushed his wire-framed spectacles all the way back from the end of his nose to his small, mild, blinking eyes.
As Mr. de Vere studied him, Sam could smell a damp earth smell, not dirty, but really rather nice-smelling.
“This is the villain who won my contest?” Mr. de Vere asked at last.
“Yes, that’s the boy,” said the woman. “That’s the girl, too. Drinking that red drink.”
But Mr. de Vere did not look at Nancy, only at Sam. “Ha-ha …” he said. He clapped his small jeweled hands together. “Your son,” he said, smiling at Vanessa. “The very woman I’ve been looking for everywhere. And it is your son that is causing this catastrophe in my business. My people are upset,” he said to Earl.
“Your people?” Earl Kellow said.
“My Perfecto product managers, my marketing people.”
“You don’t own Perfecto,” said Earl. “You don’t.”
“Who else, kiddo? I didn’t get rich licking stamps. My people were furious. You know, young fellow,” the odd little man said to Sam, “you’ve just ruined my entire worldwide marketing plan.”
“That Perfecto Kiddo stuff is yours, Eddie?” Earl could hardly believe it.
“It is the source of all my wealth.”
“It’s kind of disgusting, isn’t it, Eddie? Did you ever meet the parents?”
“Well,” said Mr. de Vere, “I do admit that many of the contestants are not my sort of people…. But then, who is?”
He looked at Sam, blinking rapidly. Sam could not stop staring at him. He was so odd. He looked like nothing so much as a mole. Indeed, when you studied him closely, you could see that he had soft, sleek gray fur all over his face.
“I myself,” said Mr. de Vere, looking down at the backs of his own small furry hands, “am hardly perfecto.”
There was a long sad silence in the room.
“You are warm and alive,” Vanessa said at last. “You are curious and intelligent and you have a great eye. That’s what perfecto should mean—not name-dropping and meanness and cheating.”
“Sadly,” said Mr de Vere, “sadly, people are affected by one’s appearance.”
The silence this time was shorter.
“Not so deeply as they are by kindness,” said Vanessa firmly, “or courage. Mr. de Vere, this is my son, Sam. He went off to find you, in his sleep, and then he was kidnapped, and then he set out to make the money his family needed.”
Mr. de Vere put out his strange little hand and patted Sam on the shoulder. Sam looked at the glistening gold rings and smelled the damp earth smell again.
“If it was up to me, Vanessa, the Perfecto commercials wouldn’t be like this.”
“But it is up to you. You own the company.”
“It is just that he isn’t the type our customers would identify with,” said the man in the navy-blue suit.
“He is the type who would chance everything for his family,” said Earl. “Who wouldn’t want to identify with that?”
“I would,” said Mr. de Vere, looking suddenly sentimental, wiping a tear from his furry gray cheek. “Oh yes, I would. There is nothing to beat that. Not anything.” He looked at the two judges and seemed to be waiting for their comments.
“In human terms,” said the man from Perfecto, “who could argue?”
“In human terms,” said the woman, and she suddenly blew her nose.
“Well,” said Vanessa, “that is what I’d like to think, too. Sam took a big chance. That’s what life is, don’t you think, Mr. de Vere? You absolutely have to take a chance.”
“Oh, life is a gamble,” said Mr. de Vere. “There is no doubt about it. Love, business, art—you have to take a chance. You took a chance,” he said to Sam, “and it seems …” He looked at Vanessa and then at the floor. “It seems … well, it does appear that he has won.” He looked over his shoulder toward the judges. “In human terms,” he said, his eyes twinkling.
Sam’s dad put his hands under his son’s arms and lifted him high into the air. “That’s my boy,” he said. “You won the Big Bazoohley. When things are bad, it’s sometimes hard to believe the bad times are ever going to end, but then, pow, here we are, the Big Bazoohley. You’re on a winning streak, my boy.” Earl Kellow snapped his fingers and pointed to the kitchen door. “I bet you something good comes out that door.”
As the fingers snapped, a waiter came out, bearing a beautiful Bombe Alaska on a silver tray.
“You see.” He snapped his fingers again. (He was such a great finger-snapper. He made a noise like a whip crack.) And then the restaurant lights were dimmed and the waiter lit a sparkler and the Bombe Alaska burst briefly into flame, and Nancy leaned across and squeezed Sam’s hand under the table, and his mother smiled at him, and the grown-ups stood and held their glasses high to the two kids.
“To the Big Bazoohley,” they said, even the two judges.
Then everyone ate cake.