Earth Angel (32 page)

He shook his head. “I don’t see that many movies.”

“You’re not alone. Not many have seen this one. So, what was my special genius? The note referred to ‘tire’ and quoted a line.
I remembered the line and the bit about them hiding the money in the tire. Dust off that Nobel
Prize, ladies and gentlemen. Fuck those DNA guys, this is really important stuff.”

“Don’t get melodramatic.”

“Hey, you asked. I’ll tell it my way. Okay, so the second note read: ‘Keep this key: No one should ever be separated.’ That’s
from a movie called
Head Over Heels
, directed by Joan Micklin Silver. She also directed
Crossing Delancey
.”

“I’ve seen that on cable. The pickle guy, right?”

“Right. Well, this movie,
Head Over Heels
, was based on an Ann Beattie novel called
Chilly Scenes of Winter
, which was the movie’s original title. But the studio involved thought the title and ending were too bleak, so they had Silver
add a more upbeat ending and change the title to make it sound like a romantic comedy. In this new ending, the couple who
originally separated come back together. He notices that she still has the key to his house which he gave her, thereby proving
she still loves him. Also, she’s baked a fancy dessert for him. When he sweeps her into his arms and asks for the recipe of
the dessert, she says, ‘First, you separate some eggs.’ And he smiles and says something like, ‘That’s sad. I don’t think
anyone should ever be separated.’ They kiss. The end. The film bombed and was rereleased a few years later without the upbeat
ending and with its original title. It bombed again.”

I couldn’t read David’s expression—either awe or disgust—but I didn’t care. He’d started it. “The third note read: ‘Like the
apple says: There is no gravity, the earth sucks.’ Ever see an Elliott Gould movie called
Getting Straight?
”

He shrugged. “Missed that one, too.”

“Came out in nineteen seventy, with Gould as a grad student getting his master’s and screwing Candice Bergen while campuses
ignited in student revolution. Harrison Ford played his artist neighbor. It was directed by Richard Rush and based on a novel
by Ken Kolb. During the credits
there’s a very hip song playing while the camera is showing us a running gag of following this apple that people keep tossing
to each other, reading, then passing along. We see how wacky and cool everyone on campus is. Finally, when the credits stop,
the camera does a close-up of the apple, and carved into the skin are the words—”

“There is no gravity. The earth sucks.”

“Yup. And that’s all I told Lieutenant Trump. I have no idea what that meant, but she nodded and said, ‘Yes, that makes sense.’
Then she handed me a new note.”

“What’s it say?”

“ ‘Do not contest my will or it will be the fire next time. Ask Popeye the tailor. Or robin the roadkill. Or thy wife, neighbor.’
”

He laughed. “Christ. What’s it mean?”

“I have no idea.” I stretched out on Josh’s bed. “David, what if I’ve never seen the movie he’s referring to? He picks such
obscure ones.”

“Then you don’t figure the note out. It’s not your fault.”

Isn’t it? This wasn’t like a game show where you miss an answer and then smack your forehead and say, “I
knew
that.” If I was wrong here, if I messed up, children would be hurt. The kind of hurt that lasts a lifetime.

Piled next to the bed was a stack of graphic novels featuring Batman, Green Lantern, Flash, the X-Men. I picked up one of
Josh’s comics. Batman scowling at me. That’s what I needed, a mask and a cape. Swing into David’s home at night, hand him
the money, and disappear.

We heard the front door open and close, brief arguing between Rachel and Josh. Then heavy footsteps up the stairs. Josh entered
the bedroom, saw me lying on his bed and frowned. “Who’s been sleeping in my bed, asked Baby Bear.”

“Open the safe, Josh,” David said.

“It’s my safe. It’s none of your business.”

Rachel stood in the doorway. “Don’t be an asshole, Josh. You’re in enough trouble.”

“So are you,” he snapped and I realized then that he knew about her pregnancy.

Rachel glared at him for his betrayal and walked away. I thought about going after her, but I didn’t know what I’d say to
her. I hadn’t been all that helpful when she’d first told me at the kitchen table. We’d sipped matzoh ball soup silently for
a few minutes when I’d finally asked, “What about the father? Is he Jewish? Is that what your conversion is all about?”

“No,” she’d said. “To both questions. He’s just a nice guy from school I’d decided to lose my virginity to. We used condoms
so I thought we’d be safe. And Vaseline because it was my first time. I didn’t want it to hurt.”

“Vaseline damages the condom. You should have used K-Y jelly.”

“Really?” She shook her head. “The whole sex thing’s much more complicated than I thought. Especially now.”

“Are you sure you’re pregnant? Did you go to a doctor?”

“I took three different brands of home pregnancy tests. They all said I was.”

“Then you probably are. Do you know how pregnant you are?”

“We only did it twice, but over the same weekend. That makes me about six weeks.”

“Don’t you think you should tell David? Go over your options with him? I’m sure he’ll be very understanding.”

She’d absent-mindedly begun unscrewing the top off the salt shaker, spilling tiny granules onto the table. She’d pushed them
into a pile with her finger. “David’s cool. But he’ll be disappointed in me. He must have given Josh and me a dozen sex talks.
He’ll think I’m stupid.”

“No, he won’t.”

“Why not, I was stupid. I didn’t take enough precautions.
I didn’t love the boy. I was just tired of being a virgin and I knew he’d never tell anybody. I figured it was like practice.”
She’d pressed her fingertip against the salt until it stuck to the skin, then scraped the granules back into the shaker. She
went after every last sparkle of salt. “I don’t want you to think I’m so frivolous as to pick a religion because of a boy.
But this whole thing taught me a valuable lesson. I’m not capable of making smart decisions when I have too many options.
I need some rules. Jews have lots of rules, six hundred thirteen commandments. I figure if I stick with them, I’ll probably
end up doing some good in this world. It’s mathematically inevitable.”

“That’s fine. But in the meantime, what do you want to do about being pregnant?”

“I don’t know yet. I have to think.” She’d closed her eyes tight as if making a wish. “Orthodox Jews are against abortion,
you know?”

“Open the safe, Josh,” David repeated. “Let’s get this over with.”

“It’s my safe, my stuff. Dad gave it to me years ago. It has nothing to do with you.”

“When police come into this home to arrest you, then it has to do with me.”

“Why? It’s not your house. You didn’t buy it.”

“Just open the safe, Josh.”

Josh went over to his desk, pulled out the chair, and sat down. “No.”

David stood up, bouncing a little on his bad leg, which seemed to have stiffened. “Josh… ” he began softly, but stopped. David
looked tired and sad. He limped to the safe, knelt down, and began spinning the combination lock. He pulled the door open
in less than twenty seconds.

“You know the combination!” Josh hollered.

“It was among your father’s papers. I never opened it before now. Maybe I should have.” David reached into the
safe and began pulling out the contents. Three shoe boxes and half a dozen floppy disks. He flipped the lid off the shoe boxes;
each was filled with cash. “Where did you get this?”

“I earned it, every cent. And no, I don’t deal drugs or guns or any of that shit.”

“How much is here, Josh?”

“Almost ten thousand dollars.”

David waved the floppies. “What’s on here?”

“Records.”

“Of what?” When Josh didn’t answer, David snapped, “Stop being such a goddamned brat, Josh. I can stick these in your computer
and read them myself. Now tell me what’s on them.”

Josh hesitated, then sighed resignation. “Betting records, okay? I’m a bookie at school. I take the kids’ bets, give ’em odds,
and rake in the cash. It’s easy. A slacker’s dream job.”

David dumped each box’s contents onto the carpet. He poked at the cash as if it might be a dead skunk. “You don’t even like
sports, Josh. You never read the sports section of the paper. I mention the Lakers, you yawn.”

“The kids aren’t betting on sports. That’s for jock-sniffing wannabes and washed-up high-school MVP grunts. Nobody cool gives
a shit about sports.”

“What are they betting on then?” I asked.

“Movie grosses. How well a movie is doing.”

“You guys bet on how much money a movie is making?” I said, stunned.

“Basically, although it’s a bit more sophisticated than that. Weekend takes. Per screen amounts. Top-five rankings. Cumulative
grosses. There are lots of variations. I also have a separate book for television, weekly Nielsen’s, season rankings, that
sort of thing. I mean, isn’t that why those lists are published? Why else does the general public need to know how much money
a movie is making?”

“You told me you didn’t like movies,” I said.

“I don’t go to them, I just take bets on them.”

“Business must be good,” David said, restacking the money into the boxes.

“It is.”

David slumped against the safe, looking tired and disappointed. “Why’d you do it, Josh? What do you need all this money for?
A lousy car?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Josh turned away, straightened some things around on his desk, the stapler, tape dispenser. “I just
want enough that I don’t have to rely on anyone else. God bless the child who’s got his own, right?”

Another song lyric. Perhaps life was that simple after all.

“How much would that be, Josh?” David asked. “How much do you need not to have to rely on anyone else? Do you have an exact
figure in mind?”

Josh looked at the shoe boxes and shrugged. “Yeah. More.”

The news on television was filled with reports of little Zelda Cummings’s kidnapping and recovery. We saw shots of her parents
arriving at and leaving the hospital. Home video of Zelda playing with her black lab, Zorro. Interviews with her friends about
how sweet she was, a straight-A student and the goalie on her soccer team. News anchors always referred to her as “brave little
Zelda Cummings.” Much was made of her drinking her own urine, at which time she was referred to as “resourceful little Zelda
Cummings.” An expert from UCLA explained how drinking urine helped. A press conference with her doctors was shown announcing
her condition, which they said was stable. They refused to elaborate on the physical damages except to admit molestation.
There was talk of prosecuting the parents for negligence because they allowed a twelve-year-old girl to frequent the donut
shop that late. The parents’ attorney claimed that Zelda had just tagged along with her older sister. The parents hadn’t even
known. The
police spokeswoman said that extra police were patrolling the streets and that a special task force was working on the case,
the largest task force ever assembled in Santa Barbara. A reporter asked about the alleged notes from the kidnapper. The spokeswoman
declined to comment.

We were watching all this from David’s small bed. We were both naked and I felt a little ashamed being naked with him while
watching the news about Zelda Cummings. Suddenly everything about sex and nakedness seemed perverse and dangerous.

“He’ll probably kill himself,” David said. “The cops will close in and he’ll stick a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger.”

“Why do you think that?”

“He wants to be caught. Why else send notes? I mean, yeah, he wants to outsmart everyone, but he’s already doing that simply
by pulling these kidnappings and getting away with it. That’s not enough for him.” A pair of reading glasses rested low on
his nose and an open book was propped on his lap, a thick hardbound tome about religious rituals in the Australia outback.

I had a photocopy of the kidnapper’s note on my lap.
Do not contest my will or it will be the fire next time. Ask Popeye the tailor. Or robin the roadkill. Or thy wife, neighbor
. I’d been making lists of movies since we’d gone to bed. I looked at the legal pad David had given me. Movies that involved
a will or contesting a will:
Greedy
(there had to be a hundred more, what were they?). Movies with Popeye:
Popeye
(with Robin Williams; is he the “robin” who’s the roadkill?). Note to myself: Did Robin Williams ever play a tailor? Movies
with roadkills:
Wolf
(with Jack Nicholson),
Harry and the Hendersons
. My pen was poised to write more but I couldn’t think of anything. I stared at what I had written. Gibberish.

I looked over at David. “You sure this is a good idea, me staying here tonight?”

“Rachel felt comfortable enough to phone you in an emergency. Plus, you sacrificed yourself to save Josh. I think they’ll
understand.”

“Not Josh. He seems even madder at me than before.”

David closed his book and sighed. “He’s a handful.”

“No, David, a two-year-old is a handful. Josh is angry. And his anger is not going away.”

“I took all his money, which I’ll put into an account for him for college. I destroyed his computer disks. And I grounded
him for two months. What more can I do, Grace? You want me to rough him up a bit?”

“Maybe.” I dropped my pad on the floor and rolled over to face him. “Not really. Hitting a kid doesn’t change behavior, especially
at his age. Besides, I’m not so sure you could take him.” I grinned at him to let him know I was teasing.

David got out of bed, lifted his side of the mattress, and pulled out a paperback book he had hidden there.

“Jesus, you’re not going to start reading porno to me, are you?” I said.

He handed the book to me.
Tough Love
. I leafed through it. It was about how to handle children who are particularly troublesome.