If Jack's in Love (26 page)

“What's this I hear from Snead?” He was yanking his neck, getting rid of the creaks.

“About what?”

“He says you came up to him the other day and started talking nonsense about him and me robbing Gladstein. What the hell is that about?”

“That's what I heard.”

“Heard where?”

“I heard you and him talking outside my window one night. Your voices were so loud I could hear you.”

“So?”

“Y' all were talking about robbing Gladstein's store.”

“You're hearing things, kid.”

“I heard it loud and clear.”

“You really think I'd break into a man's store? That's how low an opinion you have of me?”

“I heard what you said, that's all.”

“You heard something, you got that right. You must have little green men in your head.”

“I heard what I heard.”

I wanted to be defiant. But I began to doubt myself. What if my imagination had been playing tricks?

“I don't appreciate your going to Snead like that. You have something to say you say it to my face.”

“Yes sir.”

“Snead must think we're a bunch of lunatics in this house.”

“We are,” I said.

He snorted grimly and left the room. While he was going out Stan was coming in. They edged past each other in the doorway.

Stan sat next to the desk and looked at me, on the bottom bunk. His shoulders drooped. He clasped his hands between his thighs. His hair hung near to his shoulders. His bosses at the Safeway had been getting on him lately about cutting it. He took off his sunglasses, played with them, walked them across the top of the desk. Then he stopped.

“What's Pop's problem?”

“I don't know.”

“He seems mad about something.”

He kept looking at me with his murderous eyes. “Wanna come to the drive-in with me and Anya tonight?”

They were going to a Hells Angels movie.

I told him no, I didn't want to go. I didn't trust these overtures he was making. Probably he figured his generosity would keep me quiet.

“You're a punk, you know that?”

“Why are you getting mad?”

“How come you don't wanna go to the movie, what's your problem?”

“I don't like Hells Angels movies.”

“Punk. Fuck you punk.”

“I have a right to not go.”

“Fuck you,” he said, “I oughta put your lights out.”

I got up and left.

In the hallway I bumped into Pop, who was heading towards the room.

“I want a word with you,” he said.

“Let's go somewhere else, I don't wanna talk around Stan.”

We went to the back yard. I sat on one of the swings and Pop picked up a branch and tossed it so that it twirled through the air like a boomerang. There was still plenty of light, and several dogs came along to greet us.

“I'd like you to tell me what you think you heard that night.”

A spaniel I'd never seen before came up and greedily licked the back of my hand. I wiped it on my shorts.

“Just what you and Snead were saying. You wanted him to call from Gladstein's house so you'd know the coast was clear. I heard him say he had the combination to the safe. Pop, just the other day you were asking me questions about Gladstein's burglar alarm.”

He grinned. “You're a little fool, you know that? We were joking, that's a standing joke we have, about robbing Gladstein. We joke about that all the time.”

“Okay, I didn't know it was a joke.”

I was happy to play along if it would keep me out of trouble.

“You're getting more like your mother every day. She doesn't have a sense of humor either.”

“I guess I don't,” I said.

“You really think I was planning on robbing Gladstein?”

“Not if you say you weren't. Whose dog is that?” I wanted to get off the subject. I didn't want to hear him lie anymore.

“I don't know whose dog that is, I ain't never seen him before. Come here pooch.”

Pop massaged the spaniel's head and neck lavishly.

“Wanna go get some ice cream?”

“I'm not hungry.”

“Come on, you're getting too skinny, we gotta put some meat on those bones.”

“I'm not in the mood.”

“You're still mad, aren't you? You really believed I was gonna hurt that Jewish friend of yours. You've been mad at me ever since I lost my job.”

“Well it's not as if you've been out looking for a new one.”

“There you go, that's what this is about, me losing my job.”

“I didn't say a word about you not having a job.”

I stood. I had seen Stan walking along the road, on his way to Anya's, and now I could go inside if I wanted.

Pop watched me go. A few minutes later Mom came into my room, just as I had anticipated.

“Were you arguing with your father?”

“All I want is people to leave me alone.”

I folded my arms sternly across my chest, so she could see me wanting to be left alone.

“Me too? You want me to leave you alone?”

She was only being kind, but that was worse.

I threw a pencil across the room. I shoved past her and darted out the door. I ran outside. I was just waiting for the first taunt to come at me. I was liable to punch somebody. I didn't care if my brother did do Gaylord in. I wasn't going to take it anymore.

I pounded the streets, walking really hard, and then I heard Reedy's cruiser pull up beside me. I couldn't believe it, it was seven at night. Didn't this guy take any time off?

“Hey Jack,” he said, stopping the car.

I kept walking and he inched along beside me. “What's the matter?”

“Leave me alone, I don't have to talk to you.”

“Why, what are you hiding?”

“This is against the law,” I said, “you can't question me unless I have a lawyer present.”

“I can ask anything I want. You don't have to answer, but I can ask.”

We came to a standstill.

“Don't waste your breath,” I told him.

“Come on kid, tell me what I need to know.”

I thrust my face into his.

“I killed Gaylord Joyner. I'm the one that did it.”

Reedy jerked his head backwards. And then he burst out laughing. “You're a comedian, I get it!”

His car accelerated. I went back to the house and saw the mismatching tires on the rear of the Ford (Pop had replaced the ones that got slashed)—the commode that Pop had left in the side yard—a rusty lawn mower in front. That was Witcher House.... I sat on the porch. It wasn't two minutes later that Snead's truck pulled up. I moaned and scrambled for my room. As I swung the door closed it jammed against something, and Mom moved her foot away.

She pulled me to the bed and took me in her arms.

“I can't hold you forever,” she told me.

“What if Stan killed Gaylord?”

“Don't say that. Your brother might be mean but he would never kill anyone.” She tightened her hold to prevent me from saying anything else.

“I think he would kill someone. I think he'd kill me if he got mad enough.”

“How can you say that?”

“Mom, look at the guy.”

She didn't say anything.

“I told Reedy I killed Gaylord Joyner.”

“What!”

“He's trying to get me to tell him something so he can arrest Stan.”

“Why on earth did you tell him you killed Gaylord?”

“He laughed when I said it.”

“Are you crazy? That's gonna make him think the Witchers had something to do with it even more.”

“I do think Stan killed Gaylord, I really do.”

“Stop that, I don't wanna hear that kind of talk.”

She left the room.

I got in bed. I heard indistinct voices at my window and chords coming from Snead's guitar.

I snuck out the back door and ran across the lot to the north end, where Pop and Snead wouldn't see. Then I went in the other direction, not wanting to pass Myra's.

Two or three kids were messing around at the drainage pipe and I changed my mind about going there. I went past the Coghills' and up the road behind Dickie Pudding's house and then I got on Myra Street and hoofed it 'til I came to the rear of the shopping center.

Gladstein's Continental wasn't in the lot. He had closed his shop for the night.

Across Matson from the shopping center was a tiny apartment complex. I was familiar with the grounds and I knew where there was a small laundry separate from the other buildings.

I found a few hard chairs in there and threw myself down. No one was using the room; the washers and dryers were perfectly still. A fluorescent light winked and hummed above me. Occasionally it made a waspish noise and flickered like a strobe lamp. Somehow that lulled me into sleep.

When I got home it was six in the morning. Mom was lying on the carmine sofa, using her hands for a pillow; she raised her head when I came in. She didn't say anything, she just told me to go to bed.

I admired her for that. It would have been so easy to yell, and she didn't.

I BARRELED to Gladstein's Saturday afternoon, hoping to get there before Snead came with his buffer. As I was entering the store I noticed a “Missing” poster in the window, with Gaylord's name on it.

“Witcher!” Gladstein hollered. “What has kept you away so long? What other tragedies are plaguing our El Dorado Hills?” He was wearing the doleful countenance of a veteran actor whom people get sentimental about too late in his career.

“Hi Mr. Gladstein.” I took a quick look around the store. “Last time I came you had customers.”

“Did you take a picture? I might need it as proof.” I heard his dogs sniffing at the back room door. “I meant proof I had customers,” he said. He thought I hadn't got the joke. “So tell me,” he went on, “have you been out with the search-andrescue parties?”

“I don't think they'd want a Witcher coming along. Everybody thinks my brother killed Gaylord.”

“What do you think?”

I just shrugged. “Myra gave me the ring back,” I said.

“Boy, you two are like Romeo and Juliet.”

“I feel you should know: when Myra gave me the ring I threw it over my shoulder, and now it's lost in the woods.”

Gladstein took this harder than I expected. He bit his lip and wrinkled his brow.

“Is it still lost?”

“Yes sir. I've gone back a couple times looking for it. I do have the bracelet, I found that.”

“You threw the bracelet away as well?”

“Yes sir, I'm sorry.”

I offered the bracelet and he snatched it. He unlocked a drawer with the key around his neck and placed it carefully inside.

“You have to find that ring, Witcher, this is no joke.”

“I'll go back and look.”

“You can't throw magic away like that. Magic will turn against you. I'm serious, I could be affected by this too. What did you throw it away for?”

“I don't know. If she didn't want it I didn't either.”

Gladstein shook his finger at me. “Now I might lose my protection.”

“From getting robbed? Oh no, you won't get robbed.”

“Who said anything about getting robbed?”

“Well, when you told me about the burglar alarm you said you never got it fixed.”

“Yes. Well, guess what? I've had it fixed! I took your asking as an omen. I called the burglary people and they came and repaired it.”

I had saved Pop! If only he knew!

Gladstein and I grinned back and forth.

And then he frowned.

“Witcher, listen. I have never worried about getting robbed. Do you seriously believe we take anything with us when we leave this world? People are fools, vain fools.” Gladstein shrugged, philosophically surveying the world from atop his stool.

We mulled this over for a moment. Then, seizing the opportunity for further reflection, I said, “Do you believe in God?”

“Well, I don't know. Magic I do believe in. That's in the Bible too, you know. Moses, Aaron, they were world-class magicians. You don't mess around with the Big Guy, He'll send plagues and frogs. It's all very supernatural.”

“My mom doesn't believe in God.”

“She doesn't? And what about you?”

“I believe in God, it's people I don't believe in.”

“Smart kid. You might have a future.”

“I'm sorry about the ring,” I said.

“Where is it, exactly?”

“In the woods behind Dickie Pudding's house.”

“Yes, I'm acquainted with Dickie Pudding's father. Something tells me he isn't exactly pleased with people of my persuasion.”

The extent of Gladstein's intelligence on neighborhood matters always surprised me.

“That was the friend's father I was telling you about, the one that's in the KKK.”

“Well, it's settled. If I go in the Pudding woods I'm likely to be lynched. Which means it's up to you to find the ring.” Gladstein rested the side of his head against his fingertips. He stayed that way a moment, prayerful, and then he said, “So your mother is an atheist.”

Through the window I saw Snead's truck trundling into the lot.

“Here comes Snead,” I said. “He told me he's coming to your house tonight.”