The Girl Is Murder (9 page)

Her eyes grew wide. “Suze Armstrong? Really?”

I nodded. So there was only one Suze. “Why are you so surprised?”

“She’s a Rainbow.”

“A what?”

She leaned toward me and lowered her voice. “A Rainbow. It’s what they call that gang she’s in.”

“You mean the people she hangs out with?”

She nodded.

“So what do the Rainbows do?”

“According to them, nothing. According to the school, steal anything that’s not nailed down. You heard about Tom Barney, right?”

“Heard about him? I was one of his victims. He robbed my locker my first day at school,” I said.

Pearl’s eyes grew as wide as the checkers. “Seriously? What did he take?”

“My purse. I got it back but not the cash. And the worst part is, I actually talked to Tom that morning. He seemed so nice—he even helped me find my first class. I guess I must be an idiot, huh?”

“You’re not an idiot. Tom is nice. In fact, up until his freshman year Tom was tight with Paul. Worked on the newspaper, played basketball—he was a real Abercrombie. But then he fell in with the Rainbows and started doing whatever they were doing, including wearing the zoot.”

“The what?”

She seemed to take pleasure in educating me.

“The zoot suit. Surely you’ve seen them? A lot of the colored boys wear them out on the town, and the Italians and Puerto Ricans have started, too.”

I might’ve read something in the newspaper about them a time or two, but it’s not like I’d encountered a lot of boys of different races during my time at Chapin. If you were colored and on the Upper East Side, you were either lost or somebody’s chauffeur.

“What do they look like?” I asked.

“Fancy suits. Bright colors. The jackets have shoulder pads, like women’s clothes, and the pants are cut close to the ankle. You’ve seriously never seen them?”

“Not at school.”

“Ah, they don’t wear them at school. The zoot’s strictly after-hours attire. For jitterbugging, mostly. The zoot and dancing go hand in hand.” She got a strange look on her face, almost like longing. “I think they look dapper, but my father says they make whoever’s wearing them look like a gangster. Or a cream puff.”

I took in the group assembled at the Jive Hive. Every boy there was wearing crisp, pressed shirts and slacks with precise pleats ironed down their centers. A sweater vest broke up the monotony here and there, but otherwise their clothes were clearly chosen to make them fit in, not stand out.

“So why do you think Tom became a Rainbow?”

“Rhona, of course. She’s the blonde in the tight sweater who’s always with him.”

“Is she bad news, too?”

“Rumor has it she can’t go into the five-and-dime without the manager patting her down. And she went away for a long time last year.”

“She was sent to juvie?”

“Nothing like that. The story was she’d been sent away after
getting in trouble.
Came back when it was all taken care of.”

What did she mean? My question must’ve shown on my face. Pearl raised both of her eyebrows multiple times. Sex. She was talking about sex. Rhona had been pregnant.

“Was it Tom’s?”

“Who knows? And I don’t even know if it was true. Anytime a girl leaves school, people talk.”

“How long have they been a couple?” I don’t know why I was so curious about them. I think I was still trying to figure out what made someone like Tom—who could help you and rob you in one day—tick.

“At least a year. That’s why everyone was so shocked that they broke up.” She hesitated before continuing. “She’s awful. He deserved so much better. He’s actually quite smart, though you wouldn’t know it from the way he ditches classes now.”

Why did Pearl know so much about them? Was she this observant about everyone, or was Tom someone she kept closer tabs on? “They broke up?”

“Yeah, right after he was arrested. I mean, they’re friendly to each other still, but they’re no longer a couple.”

By eleven o’clock I’d played four games of checkers, consumed three Royal Crown Colas, and learned everything there was to know about the student body at P.S. 110. Pearl may have been an outcast, but she was an observant one. I wasn’t the only one she’d scrutinized, just the only one who bothered to talk to her.

“I probably should go home,” I told her. “It’s getting late.”

“I’ll get Paul to walk you. You shouldn’t be out alone.” She returned the checkers to the board and started to go in search of her brother. Something stopped her, though, and she turned back toward me. “You don’t have to talk to me at school if you don’t want to. I’ll understand.”

What had brought this on? “Will you talk to me?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“Then why wouldn’t I talk to you?”

Her mouth fluttered, but she didn’t have an answer for me.

Paul, Denise, and Pearl walked with me to Orchard Street and waited until I was safely in the house. Pop’s office door was closed, so I figured he was working. As I crossed the parlor and headed toward the stairs, the newspaper on the table caught my attention. As I moved closer for a better look, it wasn’t the headlines that drew into focus, but the date.

It was Mama’s birthday.

So that was what Pop meant when he said it was good that I had plans. And what about him? What had he done to mark the occasion?

I approached the office door and knocked.

“Pop?”

“Yeah?” His voice sounded strange. I opened the door and found him seated at his desk. His face was a blotchy mess. Had he been crying? Pop never cried—not even when his leg was at its worst—and yet all the signs were there.

“I just wanted to let you know I was home.”

He forced a smile on his face. “Have fun?”

“It was better than I thought it would be.”

“Good, good.”

“What did you do?”

He cocked his head toward his typewriter. “Just typed up some case notes. You better get to bed. It’s getting late.”

“All right.” I felt like I should say more, but I was uncomfortable seeing him in his grief and embarrassed that I’d almost let the day pass without feeling any of my own. “Good night, Pop,” I finally said when nothing else came. And then I went upstairs and cried myself to sleep.

CHAPTER

6

I SLEPT IN THE NEXT MORNING. When I came downstairs Pop was sitting in the office writing notes in longhand.

“I was wondering how long you were going to sleep,” he said.

“Sorry. I was pretty beat. Where’s the typewriter?”

“Repair shop.” He pushed an envelope my way. “Give this to Mrs. Mrozenski for me.”

“Aren’t you joining us for breakfast?”

His head tipped toward the tablet in front of him. He was looking at a row of numbers. It wasn’t hard to imagine what these figures represented. Nor was it difficult to put together what the pawn ticket he’d tried to hide under the pad of paper meant. “Too much work, I’m afraid. I’ll make it up at lunch.”

I gave Mrs. Mrozenski the envelope just like he asked.

Now that I had a friend and found school slightly more tolerable, money became my new obsession. Not only did I worry over what we owed, I was constantly thinking about money I used to have and how wasteful I’d been with it. Maybe if Mama hadn’t been so indulgent, Pop wouldn’t be struggling now.

As sore as I was at Pop, I couldn’t stand the thought that he would be selling his office, little by little, to make ends meet. I wanted to help and that meant hocking the only thing I had of value: Mama’s pearls.

I took them to a pawnshop I’d seen on the way to and from school, a small storefront that always sparkled with jewelry that told the sad tale of life since the war: a wedding ring had less value if the person who’d given it to you had gone away.

I lingered on the sidewalk for a long time as I tried to get up the courage to go inside. What would Mama think if she knew I’d sold her jewelry? Would she be proud of me for helping Pop out, or mad that I’d gotten rid of the one thing I had left of her?

What did it matter what she thought? If she wanted to dictate what I could and couldn’t do, maybe she shouldn’t have killed herself.

“How’s Personal Hygiene?” said a voice just past my shoulder.

I turned to find Tom behind me. What was he doing there? Was he hoping to pawn something, or steal it? “It’s fine,” I said.

“You okay?”

I was crushing Mama’s pearls in my hand. I eased my hold and dropped them in my pocket.

“What do you want?”

He put his hand on the display window and leaned against it. “I hear you used to go to Chapin.”

My already sour mood gave me the strength to say what was on my mind for once. “Is that why you robbed me? Because you thought that if I used to go to private school it meant I had money?”

“Come again?”

“You heard me.”

Before he could respond, the pawnbroker banged on the glass and gestured for us to move away. It was Tom that was the problem. He didn’t want some thug scaring away his customers. “I better blow,” he said.

“Yeah, you better.”

He tossed a look my way but didn’t say another word. If I hadn’t known any better, I would’ve sworn he looked embarrassed.

I never got up the courage to go inside.

I told Pearl about the conversation over lunch. We sat together every day now, and walked home from school most afternoons.

“Why were you at a pawnshop?” she asked.

“I was just walking past,” I said. “He didn’t even have the guts to apologize to me. I guess now I know why he talked to me on my first day of school. He was probably casing me. Did he seriously think that if I was rich I’d be going to this school?”

She mulled this over a mouthful of sandwich. “He just found out you went to Chapin.”

“Huh?” I said.

“He didn’t know that when he robbed you. He came into the office a few days ago and said he’d heard that someone who used to go to Chapin went here now. I told him it was you.”

This was new. “Why did he want to know?”

She shrugged. “Beats me.”

For the next three days I tried to linger in places where I knew Tom hung out, hoping he would appear and explain why he was so interested in Chapin, but it never happened. On the fourth day I arrived at school only to find Tom wasn’t there. There was nothing new about that, of course, but his absence continued for five consecutive days.

“Have you noticed Tom Barney is missing again?” said Pearl during lunch about a week after I’d realized Tom was gone. We were in our usual spot at a table near the front of the cafeteria. She always brought her lunch, a strange concoction of sandwich, fruit, and some sort of dessert it was obvious her mother or grandmother had slaved over. I longed to try these confections—after all, sugar was becoming a scarcity—but I could tell that they were one of the only things Pearl could depend on to help her get through the day. She ate them so quickly, with such a ferocious hunger, that I had to wonder what would happen if one day she opened her plain brown bag and found they weren’t there.

“What was he arrested for this time?” I asked.

“Nothing. He’s actually missing. His mother met with Principal Deluca this morning.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw her.” Pearl studied me until her frown matched mine. “What’s the matter? Are you worried about him?”

“Hardly.” If anything I was irritated—I wanted to know why he’d been asking about Chapin and why he’d had the gall to rob me. “Why? Are you?”

She shifted her focus to what remained of her lunch. “No. Why would I be?”

The school that day was abuzz about the disappearance. Wild theories were tossed about wherever I went. Tom Barney had joined the Mob. He’d robbed the wrong person and paid for it with his life. He’d gone off to Hollywood. He was riding the rails. He was holed up somewhere drowning his sorrow in cheap booze over the breakup with Rhona. The only people who didn’t seem to be talking about Tom were the Rainbows.

At least not in public.

The next day while I was in the cafeteria restroom doing my business, Rhona and Suze came in to touch up their makeup.

“I’ll bet he went to the Jersey Shore again,” said Suze. “He’ll come back when he’s ready. Just like last time.”

At the sound of her voice, I stopped what I was doing. Unlike the restroom in the main hallway, these stalls mercifully had doors. Slowly, I pulled my feet off the floor.

“I don’t know. I’ve got a bad feeling,” said Rhona. Her voice was surprisingly gentle. I couldn’t see her, but I was pretty sure I could hear tears weighing down her words. “I can’t believe he hasn’t called to let me know he’s okay.”

“Sorry, baby doll, but you aren’t his to call anymore.”

“Still …” Rhona was definitely crying. I shifted, hoping to catch a glimpse of her face through the crack in the door. The toilet seat groaned when I moved and all activity in the bathroom stopped. “Who’s there?” asked Rhona. I didn’t respond though I was certain they could hear my heartbeat.

“Let’s make tracks,” whispered Suze.

I waited ten minutes before following them out the door.

A week passed and Tom didn’t reappear. Then another week, and another, until I was certain Tom Barney was gone for good.

I was just getting used to the idea that he wasn’t coming back when one afternoon, a dour-faced freshman interrupted my typing class with one of the dreaded notes that directed a student to go to the office immediately.

“Iris Anderson,” announced Miss Wisnieski, our instructor. She didn’t need to finish her sentence, though she did anyway. “You’re wanted in the front office.”

There were two reasons you were called to the office: for discipline and for bad news. I wasn’t the kind of girl who got into trouble. That meant, as everyone in the room probably knew, that bad news was waiting for me.

But what? Had something happened to Pop? “Should I take my things?”

She studied the note more closely, but apparently all the information it had to offer had already been communicated. “No. You may come back for them.”

As thirty faces watched, I left the room with the slip clasped in my hand.