Eddie's Bastard Page 24
“Good,” she breathed, relieved. “Then it shouldn’t be any more difficult than it needs to be not to see her again. What you do after work is your own business, of course. You’re almost sixteen. But while you’re working for us, you stay away from her.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She eyed me suspiciously.
“You seem to be taking this awful well,” she said.
I shrugged. I have other things on my mind, I thought.
“I raised three boys of my own. Tomcats, all of them. I don’t pretend not to know what’s going on. I’m not a prude, like most people. I don’t look down my nose at Elsie either, like most of the ladies do. A woman has to make her own way in the world, and sometimes it’s not easy with men running the whole damn place. But I draw the line at stringing along a young kid like yourself. Kids need to run around. But they have to be careful. And they ought only to run around with other kids. Not with grown women who should know better.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What was she getting out of it, anyway?”
“What?”
“Why was she doing it? Don’t tell me you just walked in there and seduced her. Not you. I don’t believe it.”
That hurt some, but I let it go.
“Free groceries,” I said.
“What?”
“I paid for her groceries.”
“With your own money.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Why?”
“She’s always broke.”
“Damn her,” said Mrs. Gruber. “She’s not too broke to go out to the bars every night, is she?”
“I don’t know anything about that, Mrs. Gruber.” In truth, I didn’t. Elsie’s other life, the ninety-nine percent 212of it that didn’t involve me, was a total mystery. I’d never even thought about it. The news that she went anywhere at all came as a surprise. It occurred to me at that moment that I’d never seen her outside her house. Maybe she was nocturnal, like an owl, coming out to play long after I was in bed.
“You’ve been used,” said Mrs. Gruber.
Well, I wanted to point out, so had she. It was more or less an even trade. We used each other for the things we needed, and as far as I was concerned I was getting the better end of the bargain. Mrs. Gruber may have had sons and a husband, but she would never know what it felt like to be a male, especially a teenage one. Sex was the greatest trophy there was, but it was more than a trophy—in fact, I had never bragged about my adventures with Elsie to anyone. Sex wasn’t a conquest, not for me. It was a passport. It was a glimpse into the world of adults, the world I wanted to belong to so badly I would have paid any price to get in. I doubted there was a woman alive who really knew how boys my age felt. Not even Elsie knew, although she certainly sympathized. But I knew better than to say a word, except for the safest reply: “Yes, ma’am.”
“She’s little better than a prostitute, Billy.”
“Now, just hold on there, Mrs. Gruber—”
“Don’t you argue with me, young man. I won’t have it. You go to Doctor Connor straight off and get yourself checked. You might have gotten something from her. She runs around with everyone. You knew that, didn’t you?”
Vaguely, I had. It was something I preferred not to think about. I nodded.
“If you had parents, you would know all this. If you only had a mother.” She sighed. “Or a father, at least.”
“Grandpa does a good job,” I said.
“I know he tries,” she said. “But a child needs two parents. One can’t cut it. There’s just too much work.”
Especially when that one is drunk all the time, I thought. But I could never bring myself to say that out loud. Not to anybody.
I headed home, despondent. I had no obligation to let Elsie go, of course. Mrs. Gruber had even said that what I did on my own time was my own business. But it had been going on for over a year now, and I’d spent nearly a thousand dollars on her groceries. I wanted that money back. I knew I wouldn’t get it, but I wanted it back anyway. I’d worked for it. Mrs. Gruber had called her, she said, and no doubt she’d given her a piece of her mind. Mrs. Gruber was a short woman with a high-pitched voice, gentle enough with me, but I’d heard her rip into her husband once or twice and it hadn’t been pretty. Mr. Gruber was stalwart, constantly smiling, and he seemed to believe it was his wife’s duty to tear into him every six months or so. She didn’t wait until they were alone, either. She was capable of saying things to her husband that made people’s ears burn. I had learned much about the Grubers I would rather not have known in this manner; so had many Mannvillians who happened to be in the store at the wrong moment. So I could just imagine how her conversation, if you wanted to call it that, had gone with Elsie.
Abruptly my despondence disappeared. I changed course and headed for Elsie’s place. I was young enough to be grateful that Mrs. Gruber had taken care of the hard part for me, but I was old enough to think that maybe I could put a different light on it for Elsie. Actually, it was embarrassing to have an elderly woman call and do your breaking up for you. If breaking up was the right word—Elsie had never claimed any romantic connection to me, nor I to her.
Parked in front of her house was a car I vaguely recognized. It was Wednesday, I thought—that’s my day. Did she know? Did she already have someone new? I went around to the back of the house and opened the kitchen door. Elsie was sitting at the kitchen table, a mysterious shaven-headed stranger seated with her. Then I remembered where I’d seen the car before. It was David Weismueller’s red Corvette, the Scarum of my early adolescence. And here was David Weismueller himself, minus his hair, three years out of high school and home on leave from the Army.
“H’lo, Weismueller,” I said to him.
“Hey, Mann,” he said.
Since our fight, my relationship with David Weismueller had changed dramatically. He no longer wanted to murder me; in fact, we seemed to have gained a respect for each other that only those who have fought nearly to the death can feel. This is a curious phenomenon among males—they might instinctively want to kill each other, and for reasons unknown perhaps even to themselves, but once they fight it out their tension is relieved and is replaced by a new sort of camaraderie. We’d gone so far as to have a conversation about football once. I even liked him, in a distant way.
“Hi, Else,” I said.
“Hi, Billy. How’s it goin’?”
“Pretty good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Just stopped in to say hi.”
“Well, I gotta get goin’,” said Weismueller.
“Come back again,” said Elsie, and Weismueller got up and went out the backdoor, our shoulders brushing casually as he passed me. I knew then that it was his first visit. Roles had switched suddenly: I was the seasoned hand and he was the new recruit, his training in the Orfenbacher method shortly to commence. Elsie wasted no time.
“Well,” said Elsie, when he was gone.
“Mrs. Gruber told me she called you,” I said, getting right to the point.
“Yeah.”
“That go all right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…I mean, I didn’t know she was gonna do that.”
“I figured.”
She lit a cigarette and looked at me with one eye through the smoke. She appeared different somehow. Mrs. Gruber’s diatribe had had its effect on me. Elsie’s lipstick looked too bright, her hair too blond. I abandoned my plan to ask her for my money back; suddenly I didn’t want it anymore. Maybe Mrs. Gruber was right about her. I wouldn’t ever think of Elsie as a prostitute, but my time with her was quickly taking on the air of a business transaction, the contract for which was about to expire.
“I guess it might be better if I didn’t come over anymore,” I said.
“All right,” she said. She looked bored.
“Long as you understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Just no hard feelings,” I said.
“Thanks for everything.”
She laughed. I’d never liked her laugh. It was loud, brassy, the wet guffaw of a smoker. It was naturally pitched to carry over the clink of glasses and the rumble of conversation in bars, so that everyone could hear it and know what a good time she was having.
“You’re a sweet kid,” she said, her manner softening. “You’re not like most guys.”
“Thanks,” I said, though I had no idea what she meant.
“I thought you’d gone and told on us.”
“Uh-uh. She figured it out.”
“Well. I shoulda known.”
“I’m not the kind of guy who goes around talking,” I said. “I never told anyone about you.”
“I appreciate it, kiddo,” she said. “Not that it makes a difference.”
“Why not?”
“You’re probably the only one who doesn’t talk,” she said. “All the rest of ’em do. Why should I care? I have fun, don’t I?”
“Sure,” I said. I thought, the rest of them?
“Shit. I wish you were older. Or no—I wish I was younger. You’re a catch. They don’t make ’em like you too often.”
“You neither,” I said, though privately I believed exactly the opposite. But she beamed under the compliment like a bleached-blond lighthouse.
“You wanna go at it one last time for the road?” she said.
I looked at her hard: her makeup too heavy around the eyes, her hair frayed like used rope at the ends, the lines in her face that grew deeper and darker when she dragged on her cigarette.
“Can’t,” I said. “Gotta get home.” I was trying to keep the new revulsion I felt for her out of my voice, but she squinted at me again, and there was a hurt look in her eyes. She’d detected it anyway.
“I guess you had enough of me,” she said.
“It’s not like that,” I told her.
“Sure it is.”
“Now knock it off. It is not.”
“Whatever,” she said. The bored expression was back. It was a wall, a defense; it was a trick to get me to try and break through again. But I wasn’t interested anymore.
“You can just forget about those groceries,” I said. “A present.”
“Thanks,” she said. I turned to go. “Hey.”
I turned around.
“You really aren’t millionaires anymore?”
“Jesus,” I said. “I think you’re the only person in town who thinks we still are.”
“What happened to it all?”
“Why?”
“Curious.”
“Ostriches took it,” I said. “They grabbed it in their beaks and jumped over the fence.”
“Ostriches,” she said.
“You never heard the story?”
“No.” Elsie wasn’t from Mannville, I remembered. She was from Springville. I was relieved to find that our infamy hadn’t spread that far.
“It’s true,” I said. “Ask anybody.”
“I see.”
“Yeah.”
“Well.”
“Bye, Elsie,” I said. I’d closed the backdoor behind me before I could hear her reply.
Walking down Frederic Avenue I saw Madison, Mannville’s lonely police officer. He was sitting in his squad car, staring blankly down the street. A chill shot through me. I had forgotten for the moment that I was a criminal, but the sight of him reminded me. I forced myself to wave at him.
“Hey, Billy.”
“Hey, Officer Madison.” He smiled at that; he was rarely called Officer.
“What’s new?”
“Oh, big news.”
“Yeah?”
“Jack Simpson’s dead,” he said darkly.
“No!” It was the first time I had repeated the script I’d so carefully prepared. I hoped desperately I wouldn’t stumble over my lines.
“It’s true.”
“What happened?” Not too dramatic now, I cautioned myself.
“Well,” said Madison, drawing out the word, “they say it was a heart attack.”
“Wow,” I said. “I can’t believe it.”
“You’re a friend of Annie Simpson. Ain’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“You ain’t heard?”
“Nope.”
“Seen her lately?”
I thought hard and fast. Here was a question I wouldn’t exactly have to lie to answer. I had seen her knocked out on her bed, of course, her nightdress pulled up to her waist. But we hadn’t conversed, and she didn’t know I’d been there. I hadn’t seen her before that in several days.
“No,” I said. “Not in a while.”
“How long?”
“Eight or ten days.”
“She didn’t call you?”
“No, sir. We never call each other,” I said. “He wouldn’t allow it.” Madison nodded at that. There was no reason to ask who he was; Mr. Simpson’s temperament and habits were well known.
“She called it in herself,” said Madison. “But when we got there she wasn’t around.”
“That’s kinda weird,” I said.
“And nobody’s seen her.”
“Huh.”
“You sure you ain’t seen her?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Reason I ask is, the circumstances under which he was found were mighty peculiar,” said Madison.
“What do you mean?”
“Well now, I can’t reveal any details of the ongoing investigation,” he said pompously. Madison had a special vocabulary that he reserved for discussions of criminal cases, the same kinds of words one heard on police shows. I suspected he’d gotten most of his law enforcement training from the television. “But lemme just ask you this. You see anyone wandering around in the woods back there around your place yesterday morning?”
“No,” I said. I hoped I was able to keep the note of horror out of my voice. “What time?”
“Early,” he said. “What time you get up yesterday?”
“Ten or so,” I lied. “I think.”
“Somebody reported seeing a suspicious individual. Dressed in black. Sneaking around the woods.”
“Whoa.”
“You didn’t see nobody like that?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, I guess it would have been too early for you,” he said. “And it does look like a heart attack. No sign of foul play. But you know there’s various poisons they got nowadays. Don’t leave no sign. You shoot ’em with a blowgun and there’s hardly a mark on ’em. Make it look just like a heart attack.”
“Really?” I had read about these poisons, but I wasn’t about to reveal that. In Madison’s Barney Fife world, that would be tantamount to a confession.
“Government uses ’em all the time. Cover-up type stuff. For people who know too much.”
“A blowgun?”
“Well now, this is just a little theory I have,” said Madison. “No proof. Yet. Don’t say nothing to nobody, okay, Billy? I don’t want the perp to find out I know about it.”
“The perp?”
“Perpetrator. It’s a police word.”
“I won’t say anything.”
“You know anybody with a blowgun?”
I was relaxing again. Madison was famous for his conspiracy theories, and the longer he entertained them in his bored and tiny mind, the bigger they became. With Madison investigating, I was in the clear.
“No, sir,” I said. “I’ve never even seen a blowgun.”
“Huh. And you don’t know where the Simpson girl is?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, when you see her, if you see her, tell her we need to talk to her.”
I was genuinely worried about where Annie might be. “I will,” I promised.
“You want a ride home?”
“Nah,” I said. “I like walking. Exercise.”
“Say hello to your gra
ndad for me, then.”
“Yessir.”
I walked on, my mind slowly beginning to turn, my thoughts gathering momentum. I would have to start going to school again, so that nothing would seem out of the ordinary. Sooner or later someone was going to notice I’d been skipping classes, and suddenly I didn’t want anyone to notice me at all.
Annie would have realized immediately upon waking what had been going on when her father keeled over. She would know that he’d been caught by his heart in the act of raping her yet again. She would have had to look at him naked, lying in his own piss on her bedroom floor. I wondered if she’d screamed. How long had it taken her to wake up from her drugged state? How long had he lain there before she’d come out of it? And where the hell was she?
“Annie,” I muttered. “Come out.”
We tried this sometimes, sending psychic messages to each other, beaming thoughts on mental airwaves because we couldn’t use the telephone. It had worked once, although it might have been coincidence: I’d called her name in my head several times, and a moment later she’d come walking up the driveway, claiming to have heard me. “Annie Annie Annie. Where the hell are you?”
It worked again, though not in quite the same way. In our mailbox I found a handwritten note, containing only two words: MY HERO.
So she knew.
How much did she know?
I had no idea.
The entire town of Mannville searched for Annie for two weeks. Citizens formed rescue teams and combed through fields, woods, and meadows, looking for clues to anything at all. There was an unspoken commitment to finding her, which everyone seemed to share. Even though she was a Simpson, and the Simpsons were trash, she was one of our own. At least this is what people seemed to be saying to themselves. And we knew—that was the other thing they were saying, without saying it. We all knew what was going on up there. That was the part that would never be admitted, not by anyone. But there was an undercurrent of guilt running through our town, the feeling that all this could have been avoided if only someone had had the guts to speak up. But guilt can be covered up by busywork, so normal business stopped in Mannville for a time as everyone assuaged their conscience by forming lines and walking through the woods and fields, wearing yellow vests that said VOLUNTEER on them and calling Annie’s name at the top of their lungs.