Ask the Dark (11 page)

I get down that tree and in a flash I’m at that car ’cause I want a look inside, to see if maybe that chip bag is still there. But the doors’r locked and I can’t see nothing. Then a light catches my eyes. I look over. Attic light at Miss Gurpy’s shines on, I can see the square of the window through the black of the bramble. And I stand there, my mouth hanging open.

He’s
hiding
things in there,
I’m thinking.
Taking things from the other house and hiding them here.

What’s
he hiding?

For a minute more I watch him, ’cause inside there I see his shape through the window. Then I turn to run like hell.

But I don’t run. This man, he might be watchin’ me, I think. Following me in the neighborhood, watchin’ me mow lawns. He followed me that first day I talked to Sam in the bushes, and I seen’m drive by a couple times since and maybe it’s on purpose.

So he got to know
I’m
watchin’
him.

I kneel down and do to that car something I ain’t done for two years to
no
car, ever since my mother died. I pull off both sideviews and bend up the wipers. Fucked it up good, scuze my language. That’s something I used to think was fun, don’t ask why, I couldn’t tell you.

But I ain’t doing it for fun now.

I’m doing it to
scare.

Then I run like hell, and I get home soon and back in the window to my room, lying in bed, breathing hard, and thinking,
I got to get in that damn Miss Gurpy’s house.

Chapter Seventeen

I wanted to ask Richie what to buy with the twenty-three hundred I’d made, tell’m ’bout the fruit stand and hear what he thinks, so I went out early looking for’m. Found him up on the avenue loading an old washing machine in the bed of his pickup. He do that sometimes ’cause just for bringing in a busted one, used one, a store’ll give him cash money. Some people collect them old machines, but most folks, ’specially those as had’m a while too long, just see’m as junk.

Hey, Monkey Boy, he said through his teeth without no other hello, steady that ramp, will ya?

I done it, come up behind his pickup and leaned hard on the ramp, which was a old door, laid straight down from the bed. I could tell he was in a bad mood ’cause he smacked that washing machine around harder than he had to, and didn’t say a word while we worked. With me holding the ramp it didn’t take long for him to get it up, and after we’d tied it down we both got in and was soon going downtown t’where them used-appliance shops is.

He sat driving, window open, wind blowin’ through that short-cut hair of his, lit cigarette stuck in his mouth, burning, that he never took out and made his eyes squint and water a little. His T-shirt was white and had big stains, oil stains, and no sleeves ’cause he’d ripped’m off, strings hanging loose. He took hard turns and I had to hold on, and once I even heard the washing machine slide a little over loose lumber he got in the bed.

Whoa, hold on! I yelled.

He laughed a little, not looking at me.

How you doin’, Monkey Boy? he says, voice all hard.

Good, I says. How ’bout you?

Me?
Shit. Who wants to know?

Now he looked at me, quick, that sunburned face of his all scowly, eyes pinched.

He says, I spent all last night in
jail,
Monkey Boy. Whole night. Took my daddy and three lawyers to get me out. That surprised those fuckin’ cops, I’ll tell you that.

Jesus, I said. What all happened?

He laughed again, short and nasty.

They pulled me in.
Suspicion.

Suspicion for what? I say.

What the hell you think? For killing those boys.

Who the hell thought that?

That fucker Officer Dryker, he said.

I know’m, I said.

He came and got me, Richie gasped. Right out back my
father’s
house. My father saw him cuff me and take me ’way. I almost smacked the fucker, but his damn fool partner was there with his goddamn hand on his gun.

That’s all Richie said about getting busted, because now he turns his face to me and there was a look in his eyes I can’t hardly say. It was mad but also sort of teary, and his voice was breaking when he yelled. And all this while he’s just driving like a crazy man.

Who the hell would think
I
took those boys! he yelled, his voice the same as crying, and dropping a hand from the wheel to smack hisself on the chest. If there’s
anything
like a watchdog in this neighborhood it’s
me,
not that damn asshole Dryker! All night they talked at me, wanting to know where I was and what I was doing, sometimes a whole year back! I—I—

Why’d they’d come? I said.

You know
why!
he said. ’Cause of that day I beat his ass! Jimmy pussy-ass Brest! Some damn lady saw me, out her damn kitchen window. She didn’t see you ’cause you was lying on the ground with your nose busted! I didn’t even say you were there!

Should’f told, I said. I’d of come down.

He hit the wheel now, thumped it, jumped a stoplight and swerved fast round this car he almost hit, then poked his head out the window and yelled,
DRIVE RIGHT, YOU FUCKER!
Then looking ahead he’s breathin’ fast and sayin’, Man, I oughta turn back around and kick that fucker’s ass!

But he didn’t stop, thank the Lord.

It’s all right, Richie, I say. Nobody’s gonna think you did anything.

He looked at me.
Yeah?
Bullshit! They’re
all
gonna think it! Who
am
I? Used to drink, quit college, I haul garbage! All I
am
is this neighborhood, I got nothing else!

Nobody will think it, Richie, I said. Dryker’s a fuckin’ nut.

Richie didn’t talk now, just shook, something I seen him do before. Strong a man as he is, I think that drinking he used to do hurt his head, and there’re some things he just can’t figure out, ’specially when’s he’s bothered.

Dryker talked to me, too, I said, and I was telling true, because about a week before I’d stopped him on the street and asked him some questions.

I told him I wanted to catch who’s taking the boys, I said. Know what he told me? Said he didn’t want to hear none of my accusations, like I even had any or if I did I’d just tell’m to lie about people. Laughed right in my face. Said what I had to have was
proof.
I said, What proof? Know what he said? He said, The man himself, that’s all I’ll take from you.

He’s an asshole, Monkey Boy, Richie said. But you’re right. Only way to do it is catch him. Somebody’s
got
to catch him. Only way to clear my name!

We dropped the washer at All Brand Appliances down at Twenty-Eight and Calvert, and Richie got forty dollars for it, which had me wishin’ I had three/four hundred old washing machines. Then we headed on back, him still in the same sort of pissed-off cocky mood he’d been in before, his face with that tight-grin look and wide-awake eyes like he
expected
shit to happen, and was maybe like one clock-tick away from
making
shit happen.

I didn’t see that going away, his mood, I mean, but I could see he was feelin’ a little more used to having been chucked in jail, and the main thing he did, now that he was back in the neighborhood, was look long at any neighbors when he passed’m on their lawns, and slow down going by them, giving them a kind of hard-starey eyeball, as if the whole neighborhood and not just one dumbass cop had accused him of bein’ a child killer.

That was his way and I didn’t say nothing, till I said, Richie, you gonna help me with something?

Yeah? he said.

I got twenty-three hundred dollars. ’S what I made this summer. I gotta make it make more. Buy something and sell it.

What you want to buy?

Don’t know yet, I said.

Having something other to think about sort of cooled him, I could tell. He thought a minute driving along, and then looked over at me.

Hmm. Buy and sell. Where at?

Downtown market. We’ll make a bundle.

Again he thought a minute, sometimes his face looking serious, other times grinning and laughing a little like he thinks what I’m saying is a joke.

Finally he says to me, Nah, I can’t do it right now. I got a big job. Hauling. And that’s something we gotta talk about.

What’s there to talk about? I say. ’Cause me, I’m thinking I really don’t want to spend a day with Richie hauling for chump change when I could start on making some big money.

I really need the money
now,
I say. For saving my daddy’s house! Won’t you help me? I can’t sign the permit myself!

Richie, he grins a little hearing ’bout the house, ’cause he already told me he don’t think I can make all that money. Then he says, Well, this gonna take just a day or two. And you won’t be hauling. I need you for something different. You don’t do it I gotta ask Skugger, and that boy don’t know how to work. Anyway it ain’t a problem for you. You already know the lady.

Who’s that?

Now he grins real wide. Miss Gurpy.

I couldn’t say nothing, just stare. He looked at how surprised I was and laughed right at me.

Now don’t go thinking I swiped the job from you! he says. You’re the one who told me ’bout clearin’ her gutters! So I went by and asked about her whole house. It’s filled up with forty years’ worth of junk! She gotta clear it ’cause she’ll get an injunction and get put in a nursing home, ’s all she can talk about! That’s something
you
put in’r head! She doesn’t want that sort of trouble, Monkey Boy. Anyway I’m no stranger to her. I worked a little for’r a couple years ago.

I took a second to catch my breath. I was gonna get a chance at looking at them boxes! I felt like yelling right then and there.

You say you got room for me on it? I asked.

Sure, Monkey Boy, but why you changin’ your mind? I thought you were so hot to double that twenty-three hundred?

For a second I couldn’t explain myself. Felt like a damn fool for having ever said no. I didn’t wanna answer too quick or say too much, ’cause it wouldn’t do having him thinkin’ I’m antsy to get in there, and have’m start asking questions.

So I waited a minute and sort’f moved my shoulders like maybe I didn’t care about nothing. Then I said, sort’f sputtered, Well, you’ll do the other thing after, the market, I mean?

Sure, if you’re still up to it. You coming on with me? I’m starting tomorrow, and you know what she says she’s got?

What’s that? I ask.

Rats,
he said, grinning crazy.

No
way,
I say.

Oh c’mon, Monkey Boy! He was laughing now. What, you wanna say no again? His voice is sort of happy now, like he thought rats was something I wanted to hear about. And for a sec he took his hands off the wheel and held’m up ’bout two foot apart.

He says,
Big
ones. Big fucking nasty rats, and she’s right, too, ’cause she had me in yesterday and I seen the rat shit all over, them little black peas. Whole attic, Monkey Boy! Wanna help me do it? I’m gonna need a hand for rats.

I don’t know, I say. How much you payin’?

Give you a hundred. Ain’t a rip-off. I got truck costs and expenses.

How we gonna do it? I say.

Shit, he said, smiling, looking down. Same as before.

With a
gun?
That shit’s crazy, I said. I’m still picking pellets out my ass from the last time!

He looked up bright, eyes like half-crazy, that frazzle he gets sometimes. No, Monkey Boy! I got a new one! I hold the gun, you flick the lights! What else you want to do? Use traps? That’ll never work, damn rats are too smart. And we can’t use poison. Old Gurpy’ll probably eat it herself. C’mon, he said, that grin still on his face lighting up his eyes. Another hundred’ll help that buy-and-sell thing you want to do.

I shook my head a little. Being in an attic with Richie Harrigan and a gun weren’t something to take lightly. But I couldn’t skip a chance of seeing all what’s up there.

I nodded. All right, I said. But I
am
gonna stand behind you.

Sure you are! he said. And he smacked my shoulder with his hand like to seal the deal, too hard I thought, and we went driving on.

Chapter Eighteen

Coming home I let the screen door bang shut, and I saw my daddy. He was coming up from the kitchen, wearing one of them check shirts he wears, baggy one, and his cheeks was just gray grizzle ’cause he ain’t shaved, and his eyeglasses shine like chrome rings on his face. He looked a little jolted to see me, like I busted in on his thoughts.

Oh, hi, son, he says. Help me here, will you?

I don’t move. I’m looking at him, then down at something I don’t believe I see.

Boxes.

At his feet are about twenty of’m, all cardboard and cut down flat, so now what he’s doing is taking this roll of packing tape and making them all back again, folding the flaps and taping them down.

Daddy, what’re you doing?

He’s still looking at me, face just as gray as his hair.

I’m gonna pack, son. Start it, anyway. We’ll need more boxes when move time comes.

Move
time? I say.

He don’t say nothing for a minute. Stares at me.

That ain’t necessary, I say. Daddy, we still got more’n three weeks! It’s wrong to do this! You can’t just give up! We gotta
do
something—

Billy, he says, you can’t make the money in three weeks. The house belongs to the bank now. It ain’t mine no more.

You worked twenty years for it, I say.

Billy—

Twenty years, I say.

Now he looks down at the boxes at his feet, and the others he already taped and folded, stacked against the wall there.

Leezie left, he said quietly. She told me ’bout the baby. She gone to live with Ricky.

This time I didn’t say nothing. Even though I’d known it was coming, I couldn’t believe she’d really gone and done it. First my mother dies—now Leezie goes. It was like my whole family was over and done with.