Goldilocks (34 page)

“I explained myself once. I’m not going to do it again.”

“You’re a cool lady.” His grin was all over her. “It’s why I’ve always had a thing for you.”

“This is over, I don’t ever want to see your face again.”

They opened their doors. He was still grinning. “Don’t be so sure,” he said. “How many heavyweights can you find like me?”

It was a small garage, without cars, without a lift or a pit, with a few workbenches but no tools. Tires, worn out or blown out, had been thrown into corners. Odors of motor oil, rubbish, and cats permeated the shadows. The light came from a fluorescent fixture dangling precariously from the ceiling, illuminating an old overstuffed chair that might have been rescued from a dump. Magazine photographs of naked women clung to the far wall, sexless against the dank concrete, resembling inmates more than models. Louise, hanging back, murmured, “He’s not here.”

“He’s here. He’s in the toilet.” Chick laughed. “Come on out, Rafael.”

The toilet was a cubicle without a door. The man who emerged surprised her. She had expected somebody shabby and shaped like a frog, pop-eyed and cold-blooded, but he was as slender as she, clean-shaven, sinewy in an immaculate white T-shirt, his full mustache worn with formality. His neat nappy hair was African, his face Indian, and his nose, thin-walled, was Spanish. He was almost beautiful.

He said, singsong, “You s’posed to come alone.”

Chick slung a glance back at Louise. “He’s dancing on a cloud.”

“What you say?”

“Look at the lady, Rafael. Smile your prettiest.”

Brilliant teeth made the smile audacious. “What you bring her for? Fun?”

Louise had been gazing at him without emotion, but suddenly the moment outside the funeral home spun back at her, not Rafael’s hypnotic face, for she had failed to freeze it in her mind, but the scrape of his shoe, the sound and stink of the gunshots, the chill in her soul as Barney Cole rushed to hold her up.

She advanced with a shaky step. “Remember me?”

He did not, but something seemed to alert him. His glazed eyes leaped from her to Chick. “We s’posed to talk business. What we doing this for?”

“Tell him, Louise.”

“You tell him,” she said.

Rafael said, “What she want? A snort? I got crack, that’s all.”

“Don’t tell me, tell her,” Chick said, and drew a small-caliber pistol from the back of his pants under his shirt. He fired it. Louise staggered backward, and Rafael dropped to his knees, a spot bubbling up on his T-shirt. It was as if a tick with blood had burst. No more than that. Then Chick shot him in the head.

Louise stood with a hand over her mouth and sweat cooling on her forehead. “I’m going to be sick.”

“I thought you were tough,” Chick said with cold disdain, every line in his face mocking her. “Why the fuck have I been scared of you? All you got are connections.” His eyes glued to her, he seemed to mull something over. Then he tucked the pistol away. “Go on, get out of here. I got to spread some crack around, make it look like a dope deal gone bad.”

She wheeled around. The plock of her heels rang louder than the reports of the pistol had, the stench of which she carried with her. He called after her, “Hey, Lou. Barney Cole could see us now, wonder what he’d think of you.”

She made it to the door, her heart in her throat.

“Hey, Lou, you know what’s one step from a spic? A Lawrence wop. That’s all you’ll ever be.”

She stepped out into the heated night air, letting the door fall shut behind her. With a hand pressed to her chest, she took a deep breath. From the shadows a raspy voice said, “You all right?”

“Perfectly all right,” she replied, straightening her shoulders. “Where’s your car?”

“On the street.”

I’ll wait for you there,” she said.

John Rozzi reached up through a blizzard of moths and extinguished the burning bulb above the door.

“Don’t miss,” she said.

“I never do,” he answered.

• • •

Edith Shea rose early, the first tentacles of sun stealing through watery mists, the morning a gift not yet unwrapped. Her hands on the sill of the open window, she breathed in air not yet tainted by the heaves of the city. The lilac bush stood empty, the great clumps of blossoms gone, either snipped off or withered away, but her mind retained the ghost of the scent. Gone from the dirt driveway was Daisy’s clunker, sold for fifty dollars, which paid for shifting the plates to the new car already scratched by children in the neighborhood and anointed by pigeons. With a twinge, she looked back at Daisy, sprawled on the bed with the top sheet snagged between his naked legs, and hoped that he would sleep late, for the heat had kept him tossing. The small fan, still whirring, had not helped much. She bent over the bed, listened to his heavy breathing, and drew the tortured sheet over his sunken chest. Then, purposely allowing no time for feelings, she tiptoed out.

She tapped lightly on the bathroom door. “Are you going to be long?”

Her second daughter, who had a summer job at Raytheon and an unexpected scholarship to Merrimack, came out wrapped in a rose robe. She had Edith’s eyes, bones, cap of curly hair, even Edith’s voice, and little of Daisy. Of all the children she was the closest to him. “How’s Dad?” she asked.

Edith gave a little shrug. “Sleeping. Try not to wake him.”

“I was talking with him last night.”

“I heard you.”

The girl pulled at her robe, drew the top tight around her throat. “I wish he wouldn’t joke about it. You know what I mean.”

“It’s his way of dealing with it,” Edith said simply.

“He told me a story about a man who was given only weeks to live but found a way to delay his death indefinitely. He boarded airplanes and constantly shifted through the world’s time zones, so it was always yesterday, never today, which is how he avoided tomorrow.”

Edith said nothing.

The girl said, “He’s worse, isn’t he?”

“He’s not better,” Edith said simply. The girl’s narrow face was glum, and Edith slipped an arm around her, which was partly a way to confirm her own existence. “Don’t let yourself think about it too much, honey.”

“How can anybody be happy in the house? Knowing?”

“Happiness isn’t important right not. Later maybe.”

“If there was just something I could do, Ma, but there isn’t. I can’t even laugh at his jokes.”

“That’s the injustice of it,” Edith said with sympathy. “That’s what the dying do to us. They make us helpless, then they flatten us with guilt. We have to pick it up and carry it, worst baggage of all. Three years after my mother died, my father told me the grief had eased, but not the guilt.”

The girl, silent, suddenly squirmed free. “He won’t even be serious about the new car. Where did he get it?”

“It’s his secret. He deserves one.”

“He wants me to believe he bought it himself. Why?”

Edith said gently, “Why do you think?”

Her waitress’s uniform, which she had washed out last night, was hanging in the bathroom. She felt it to make sure it was dry and then took a fast shower, time pressing upon her. She needed to be at the coffee shop within the hour and was running late. In the kitchen, gulping instant coffee, she heard the tail end of a news report on the radio, which was tuned to the local station. “Double shooting” were the only words she caught. She placed her coffee cup in the sink, threw a pack of cigarettes into her bag, and then, for some reason feeling more protective than usual, looked in on Daisy.

He was in exactly the same position, but something was different. Something rigid about the set of his legs, something off in his color. She stepped to the bed, listened for his breathing, and heard none. His face was shut, his head tipped as if a prop had been pulled from the back of it. Viewing him numbly, she said in a hollow voice, “You’re never going to open your eyes again, are you Daisy?”

An eye jittered. It winked at her. “Fooled you,” he said.

“You bastard!” she said through a rush of tears.

• • •

Barney Cole drank his coffee fast. Kit Fletcher took her time. She was leaving later, after the commuter rush. She sat at the kitchen table with her bare feet tossed up on the chair Cole had just vacated. He looked at her from the kitchen sink, where he was rinsing out his cup. “I wish I had your hours,” he said.

“No, you don’t. Sometimes I’m in the office till midnight. When I’m in litigation I don’t sleep.”

“Ever consider taking things a little easier?” he asked, moving to her and standing neat and tall in a cord suit back from the cleaner’s. She lifted a foot, angling it at his pant legs.

“No, I’ve been thinking of increasing my schedule,” she said. Her foot was playful.

“You’re in a terrific mood.”

“I feel good, Barney. My life is going right, and I know where I want it to take me.”

“Am I included in the journey?”

She swept the hair out of her face. “In a very vital way, but we can talk about it tonight.”

“That’s not fair,” he said. “Give me a clue.”

“My biological clock is ticking loud, Barney.” She retracted her foot, its effect obvious. “I think it’s telling me something.”

“I see.”

“I thought you would. It’s worth discussing, no?”

He smiled down upon her. Smiling back, she seemed to give off her own golden light. “What would you want, a boy or girl?” he asked.

“I’d prefer a girl.”

We don’t always get what we want.”

“I understand there are ways now.”

“I wouldn’t want anything scientific.”

“We can discuss everything tonight.” She brought her foot up again, a soft jab. “Kiss me and get out of here.”

“One last question,” he said. “Would this be with or without a wedding ring?”

She lifted her face for the kiss, took it, and said, “In some ways I’m a very conventional gal.”

A couple of minutes later Cole backed the Cutlass out of the garage. Despite the unquestionable promise of more heat and humidity, it was one of those splendid summer days when he felt zestful, irrepressible, immeasurable, but when he turned onto Wildwood Road the car stalled. He let it roll to the shoulder and twisted the key. It started up again, gasped, and gave out for good. The motor, the battery, or something was dead.

Cutting across a neighbor’s lawn, admiring towers of Shasta daisies, he made his way back toward the house. He paused once to tie a shoe, propping his foot on a white wooden post serving as a property marker. He entered the house through the sun room. He did not see Kit and thought she might be showering. Then he heard her voice and stopped short.

“No, I can’t do that,” she said in a tone of exasperation. She was on the phone, the cord stretched to the sink and wrapped half around her waist. She had a hand on her hip. “Listen,” she said, “there’s a limit to what I can do.”

He smiled, guessing she was talking to a partner no longer a level above her, and moved into the dining room. Again her voice stopped him. It was cold and direct.

“Quit pushing, Cruickshank. I’ve had dinner with her, I’ve told you everything she said, I’ve done my bit… . What? … No, he’s told me nothing.” Then she turned slightly to free herself of the cord and saw Cole.

“Keep talking,” he said.

She killed the connection.

“Silly world, isn’t it?” he said, gazing at her from the archway of the dining room. “Full of weird surprises.”

Collecting herself, she said, “Would you like an explanation?”

“I’m sure it’s a good one,” he said, his smile bittersweet.

• • •

Louise Baker slept as if drugged until her mother shook her, shouted over her, raised the shade and let the sun hit her. Louise pulled the sheet tighter around her, and her mother yanked it off. She was naked. “I don’t see you that way since you be a baby,” her mother said, staring hard. “I don’t know you. Whose child are you?”

“Yours, Mama. Never anybody else’s.”

“Those not my bazooms. They my sister Rosa’s. You get up.”

She rose sluggishly and sat on the side of the bed, manipulating her arms into a robe. She yawned, rubbed a bare foot with the other, and said, “What time is it?”

“Eight.”

“Oh, my God.” She had wanted to sleep till noon. Her mother aimed a finger.

“You promise you take me to the cemetery.”

“So early?”

“Before it gets too hot. You hurry.”

Bathed and dressed, her feet fitted into white pumps, she drank her coffee in the kitchen, where her mother rambled in Italian, stories about her father she did not wish to hear, revelations she did not want to know, certain suspicions she did not want confirmed. When her mother’s mind wandered into fantasy, she said in an interrupting voice, “Were you listening to the radio at all?”

“What radio?”

“Any radio at all, Mama. I thought you might’ve had on the news.”

“What kind of news?”

“Any kind.”

“I don’t listen,” her mother said with sudden impatience. “You get ready now. Put some lipstick on.”

“Papa wouldn’t like that,” she said dryly.

“Papa won’t see.”

She was doing her face in the bathroom mirror when the telephone rang, the shrillness startling her. Quickly, resorting to an old trick learned as a child, she ran warm water over her wrists to calm herself. She was using the towel when her mother appeared.

“The woman who works for you says it’s very important.”

She folded the towel and hung it neatly. “Mrs. Mennick?”

“Something like that.”

“Why don’t you wait for me in the car, Mama? I’ll be right there.”

“Yes, you talk your business.”

“It’s not business. It’s personal.” She held the phone loosely until her mother left and then spoke into it, her voice clear and precise. “Yes, what is it?”

“Mr. Ben’s gone out of his mind,” Mrs. Mennick said.

She stared at gilt-framed religious pictures her mother kept on the wall, one Madonna and two Christs, one as an infant and the other nailed to the cross.

“It wasn’t my fault, Mrs. Baker.”

“Nobody’s blaming you.”

“Nothing I could do. Even Howard couldn’t handle him. He ran off, and we had to look for him in the dark.”