Red Rain: A Novel (11 page)

He’d expected the old man to spin around and come snarling back at him. But instead, he coiled his body, curled into a cowering position against the flowered wallpaper. To his shock, Andy realized his father was afraid of him.

It should have changed everything. But it didn’t. Anthony Pavano was a bully. His son Andy wasn’t.

Then Andy did twelve years as a New York City cop. Nothing as violent as that impulsive moment.

And why was he thinking of it now in this theater with people laughing all around him? Onstage, the nearsighted inspector was interviewing a coatrack. Andy glanced around, searching for Sari. But he couldn’t locate her in the dark.

He really needed a smoke. He could feel the pack of Camels in his jacket pocket. Cora probably wouldn’t approve. Who was Cora? He had to remind himself.

The play ended finally. Yes, the nearsighted inspector had committed the murder. But he was too nearsighted to realize it. At the end, he arrested himself.

Andy climbed to his feet and started to follow Cora across the aisle toward the exit.

“Very clever,” a woman said behind him.

“Too clever,” the man with her said.

“Did you guess the ending?”

“Yes. About an hour ago. But I still enjoyed it.”

“It’s one of his lesser works.”

“All of his plays are lesser works.”

Into the cool night air. A chatter of voices as people hurried to their cars. Cora walked along the sidewalk toward the pier till they were away from the crowd, then turned back to him. “It wasn’t very good, was it.” Said with a shrug and a sad smile.

“I don’t think I laughed,” he said. His eyes were over her shoulder, searching for Sari. How had she disappeared? He just wanted a glimpse of her.

“It was supposed to be sophisticated,” she said. “But the actors camped it up too much, don’t you think? If they’d played it sincere . . .”

He didn’t want to discuss the play. He wanted to catch one more look at Sari and have a slow, soothing smoke. He wanted to burn his throat and let the smoke make his eyes water.

No. He didn’t know what he wanted.

But when he heard the shrill shouts, he suddenly snapped alert. He turned toward the cries. From the pier? He spun away from Cora and took off running.

H
e heard shouts for help. Shrill cries. And, in the circle of light from a tall streetlamp, saw a small group of people wrestling against the side of the darkened lobster shack. He didn’t realize they were children until he was a few feet from them.

“Stop! Police!” he boomed.

He stepped in something soft. Glancing down, he saw a smashed ice cream cone on the pavement beneath his shoe. Another cone lay near it, ice cream still round at the top.

“You dumb shit! You dumb shit! You pay me back!” a blond-haired boy in a blue Southampton sweatshirt was screeching.

A big dark-haired kid, nearly twice his size, had him by the front of the sweatshirt and swung a meaty fist above the boy’s face. “Shut up! Shut the fuck up, liar!”

Two or three other kids stood back a few feet and watched. They were all shouting angrily at the big guy.

Not even teenagers, Andy realized. Their voices hadn’t changed.

“You fuck! You pay me for that cone!”

“You want a cone? I’ll shove it up your ass! You think I can’t? You want to dare me?”

Kids!

The big kid started to lower his fist to the smaller boy’s midsection.
Andy stepped between them and absorbed most of the blow on his side. The kid had a pretty good punch.

“Break it up. Police.”

He grabbed the big kid by the shoulders of his gray hoodie and pushed him backward.

“Get off me, asshole. You don’t look like no police.”

“Sag Harbor Police,” Andy said, as if that would convince the kid. “What’s the fight about?”

The blond-haired boy pointed to the asphalt. “My ice cream cone. He tried to take it.”

“Liar!” the big kid screamed. He lunged at the smaller guy again. Andy caught him and stood him up.

“Ethan is telling the truth!” a girl cried. The others joined in agreement.

“You’re Ethan?” Andy asked.

The blond kid nodded. He had tears in his eyes. He brushed back his straight blond hair with one hand. His whole body was trembling. Andy saw he was struggling with all his might not to burst out sobbing.

“And what’s your name?” Andy asked the other kid.

No reply. Instead, a sullen stare.

“Derek Saltzman,” the girl said. “He knocked down my cone, too.”

“I’ll knock
you
down, too,” Derek told her.

“You’re not going to knock anyone down,” Andy growled. “What’s your problem?”

“Derek is mean,” the girl said. “He’s always picking fights.”

“He’s always stealing our stuff,” Ethan said in a trembling voice.

“Fucking liars,” Derek muttered.

“Nice language,” Andy said. “How old are you?”

“Old enough,” the kid muttered, still offering up the surly glare.

He has a face like a bulldog,
Andy thought.
And a personality to match.

“He’s twelve,” the girl offered.

“And how old are you?” Andy asked Ethan.

Ethan took a step back. He didn’t take his eyes off Derek. “I’m twelve, too.”

Cora stepped up beside Andy. “What’s going on?”

“Kids fighting,” he told her. “Over ice cream.”

“I didn’t take their ice cream,” Derek snarled. His fat cheeks puffed in and out like a blowfish. “They’re total liars.”

Andy noticed he cleaned up his language with a woman present.

“Then how did the cones end up on the pavement?” Andy asked.

Derek shrugged. “They dropped them.”

“Liar!”

Cora squinted at them. “Why are you kids all alone out here? It’s ten o’clock at night.”

Before anyone could answer, hurried footsteps clicked over the asphalt. Andy turned to see a red-haired woman running awkwardly toward them on high, spiked heels. She was tall and lean and had a white jacket tied around her shoulders, which flared behind her like a cape as she ran. Gold bracelets jangled up and down one arm.

“Derek?” she called breathlessly. “What’s going on?”

She stopped a few feet from Andy and Cora and eyed him suspiciously. “Who are you? Is there a problem?”

“I’m a police officer,” Andy started. “I—”

“Police? What did he do? Who are these kids?” Her voice was throaty, hoarse, a smoker’s voice. It rose with each question. Her chest heaved up and down beneath her violet sweater. The bracelets matched a gold chain with a jeweled heart that hung from her neck.

“I didn’t do anything,” Derek said, jutting his fleshy jaw out defiantly.

“Is he your son?” Andy asked.

She nodded. Then she brushed a strand of coppery hair off her forehead. “Yes. Derek Saltzman. He’s my son. I’m Elaine Saltzman. I left him for ten minutes by the ice cream store.” She pointed toward the end of the pier.

“These kids say your son tried to take away their ice cream. I think there was some kind of scuffle.”

“Liars!” Derek shouted.

“We’re not lying!”

Mrs. Saltzman squinted at Ethan, seeing him for the first time. “I know you. You’re Ethan, right?” She turned back to Andy. “He’s in my son’s class. What happened, Ethan?”

Derek lurched forward. He raised both hands as if to give his mother a shove. “Why do you ask
him
? Why don’t you ask
me
?” In a whining voice that made Andy want to cover his ears.

He glanced at Cora. Her eyes were on one of the tall, white yachts at pierside. Three people had come onto the deck to watch the confrontation.

Bet Cora is impressed seeing a cop in action,
Andy thought wryly.
Spilled ice cream is a felony in this town. Ha. Wait till I slip the cuffs on the kid. She’ll be all over me.

“Derek tried to take our cones,” Ethan reported. “When we said no, he knocked them to the ground.”

“Stupid liar! They knocked
my
ice cream to the ground!”

Mrs. Saltzman stared down at her red-faced son. “Are you telling the truth?”

She didn’t wait for him to answer. She wrapped her hand around Andy’s arm and led him across the pier. She waited for an SUV to pass, then pulled him to the side of a parked car, out of her son’s hearing.

“Derek has problems,” she murmured, fingers still tight around Andy’s sleeve. She leaned against him and brought her face close to his. He could smell her flowery perfume and a whiff of alcohol on her breath. “Ever since his father left, he’s been angry, very troubled.”

This was definitely more than Andy wanted to hear.

“Mrs. Saltzman, I really have to be going. Why don’t you just solve this thing by buying cones for all three kids?”

She blinked. Did she expect him to get tough or something? She was still holding onto him. A strong breeze off the bay fluttered her hair.

“Good. Okay,” she said. “I just wanted to explain. I mean, these days sometimes Derek acts out. But he’s basically a good boy. He has a good head on his shoulders. A good head. Really.”

Of course, neither Andy nor Elaine Saltzman, nor anyone on the pier that night, had any idea of what would happen to Derek’s head a few weeks later.

“M
y parents say we’ll have a house in Malibu. That’s where they are right now. In L.A., buying it. It’s right on the ocean. See, you go out the back door and you’re on the beach.”

“That’s awesome, Ruth-Ann. Can I come live with you? I mean really.”

“It’s like being on vacation all the time. Only you live there. And there are celebrities all over the beach. You know. Movie stars. And TV. And you just hang out with them.”

“You think Johnny Depp could be your neighbor?”

“No way. He’s too old. They don’t let old people in Malibu.”

The girls both laughed. They sat almost side by side on Ruth-Ann’s bed, talking and texting each other at the same time.

“Dylan Sprouse?”

“You like him? I like the other one.”

“They could be your neighbors. You could hang with them and they’d ask you to be on TV. And you’d be a star.”

“No way, Elena. I’m only fourteen. I don’t want to be a star till I’m sixteen.”

That made them both laugh again.

Elena Sutter and Ruth-Ann Glazer had been friends since third
grade, and best-best friends for two years since sixth grade, mainly since they shared the same sense of humor, although Ruth-Ann was the real wit, sharp and sarcastic. And because they lived two houses down from each other and were in the same eighth-grade class at Sag Harbor Middle School, and because they looked so much alike, they could be sisters.

They agreed that Ruth-Ann looked like the older sister, because she was at least four inches taller than Elena, and already had the beginnings of a woman’s body, meaning she had breasts, and wore her hair in a more sophisticated, layered look, which she acquired during one of her many trips with her parents to L.A.

They were both pretty and smart and popular. They both had an easy way of getting along with other kids, and of not getting in their own way when it came to success at school. They were both spoiled but not in an obnoxious way. They knew how to get whatever they wanted from their parents and still allow their parents to think
they
were the ones in charge.

Elena was a miniature fourteen-year-old version of Lea, her mother. Creamy-white skin framed by straight, black hair, serious dark eyes, a delicate face and a wiry body, perfect for the gymnastics classes that she was becoming more serious about.

They tapped on their phones for a few minutes without speaking. Elena’s phone bleeped. She squinted at the screen. “Ethan.”

Ruth-Ann lowered her phone. “Ira’s friend Ethan? What’s he want?”

Elena shrugged. “Nothing. Just said ’sup.” She thumbed the keys rapidly.

Another bleep. “He wants to come over. His PlayStation broke.”

“Tell him no way. Tell him your brother Ira isn’t here. He’s at your house. Ethan pretends he wants to hang with Ira. Then he just stares at you. Like a sad puppy dog.”

Elena laughed. “He
does
look like a puppy dog.” The light from her phone gave her face a pale tint. “Hey, I’m not kidding about Malibu. Your parents would let me come with you, right? Just for the summer, I mean.”

Ruth-Ann studied her friend. “You’re joking. You’re getting two new brothers, and you want to come live with me?”

Elena scrunched up her face. “Why do I want two new brothers?”

“Because they’re hot? Show me that photo again.” She grabbed Elena’s phone and began shuffling through photo screens. She stopped at the twins’ photo and brought it close to her face.

Elena grabbed it away from her. “You think they’re cute? I think they’re blond freaks.”

“You’re messed up, Elena. They are totally hot. I mean, for twelve-year-olds. Check out those smiles. Those dimples on this one’s cheeks. What’s his name? Danny? Adorable. They could be on TV. Really.”

Elena stuck her finger down her throat and made a gagging sound.

She squinted at the photo. Daniel and Samuel. Wavy blond hair, almost white. And those big blue eyes. Wearing red T-shirts way too big for them. And those sick, sweet smiles.

“Like they’re posing as angels,” Elena said.
Where did that thought come from? Weird!

“Where are they going to stay?” Ruth-Ann studied the photo. “Are you changing rooms? They’re not moving into the playroom downstairs, are they?”

“No way. Dad fixed up the attic. He made it really awesome. He bought them a laptop and a TV, and he got them a Wii. He said they’ve had a tough life. He wants to make things nice for them.”

“Tough life? No kidding. They lost both their parents, didn’t they? And their house? And all their stuff?”

Elena nodded. “I think Dad wants to write a book about them.”

Ruth-Ann handed the phone back to Elena. “For real? You know, my parents were talking about your dad’s book. Did you read it?”

“Not really. Just kinda looked at it.”

“Mom said the book says parents should let kids do whatever
they want. Just let them be free. My parents made jokes about it. They said it would make a great sitcom.”