by Gail Dayton
"Oh." The word warbled up and down the scale with relief.
"You want me to have her call you when she gets out?"
"Yes, if you would, please."
"Sure. No problem." He turned the fire off under the bacon.
"Listen, Eli--while I have you on the phone."
What did she want now? "Yeah?"
"I hope you don't mind me asking..." Then she didn't say anything else.
"Kind of hard to tell if I mind, since you haven't asked anything yet."
Kate gave a faint chuckle, as if she wasn't quite sure it was called for. "What do you hope to get out of this--this relationship with my sister? I mean, she's thirty-nine and you're what? Twenty-two?"
"Twenty-five." He began to think he was going to mind Kate's queries very much.
"My, all of twenty-five." Her sarcasm annoyed him even more. "It's obvious the attraction isn't physical. I realize it may seem she's got money, but she doesn't. It's all tied up in--"
"I don't believe you people." Eli couldn't listen any longer. "Have you looked at your sister? She's a beautiful woman, sexy as hell. Who the fuck cares how old she is?"
Kate gasped. "Don't you use that kind of language with me."
"I'll fucking well use any fucking language I fucking want," he retorted. Then wished he hadn't. He sounded like some high school kid mouthing off to his mom.
"Listen here, you--" She broke off and took a deep breath, loud enough Eli heard it over the phone. "That's not the point. I'm trying to appeal to your better nature."
"Hard to do when you don't think I have one, isn't it?" That wasn't much better. He had to find his calm. Something about Marilyn ripped it to shreds.
"Can't you see that you're not good for her?" Kate said. First thing she'd said that made sense. "You're tearing our family apart. If you care about her at all, you should realize that the best thing you can do for her is to leave."
Eli took a deep breath and let it out. "I know I'm no good for her, okay? But I promised her. Long as she wants me to, I'm staying. Until she tells me to leave, I won't. I can't."
"Oh." Kate sounded stunned. "I see. Well--um--"
"You still want me to have Marilyn call you?"
"Um--yes. That is--yes. Please."
"Sure thing."
He'd just hung up the phone when Marilyn came out of the bathroom wearing that towel thing around her head. He liked when she did that. It made things feel all homey and domestic.
"Who was that?" She dried her ears with the end of the towel.
"Your sister. Kate. She wanted to tell me you didn't have any money I could get my grubby mitts on. And for you to call her back."
She sighed. "Later. Why'd you plug the phone back in?"
"I forgot we weren't taking calls. I did bacon, but if you want anything besides toast, you're going to have to cook it."
"I could go out for doughnuts or something."
"Maybe later." He sat in a dining chair and pulled Marilyn into his lap. She looked as if she needed to be held and he needed to hold her.
"Maybe I should unplug the phone again." She draped her arms over his shoulders and tipped her head against his.
"Would it do any good?"
"I figure there's a couple of calls still coming. I'm sure Mom enlisted everybody in her phone campaign. Probably it would just delay the calls, not stop them completely."
"So, is it better to go ahead and get it over with, or have another couple hours of peace?" He kissed her jaw where it curved into her neck. This part, holding her, being close, was almost as good as making love. More intimate, in a way.
Marilyn sighed and kissed his forehead. "Let's get it over with. With any luck, these are the last-gasp calls before I get disowned and they won't call any more after this."
"You might not like it as much as you think," he said, "if they stop calling entirely."
"Then again, I might like it even more." She shook her head. "The only time I've talked to any of them over the past six months, it turned into a lecture on how I needed to stop acting crazy and go back home. Except for Joey, of course. I'm tired of it all, Eli."
"Okay."
"You're restful."
He wanted to laugh at that. Restful? When he'd kept her out all night hunting a murdered woman? When he'd kept her up all the next night making love--not exactly restful either. But if that was what she thought... "Okay," he said again. "So rest."
"After breakfast maybe." She got up from his lap. "I'm hungry, too."
Breakfast over, Eli made a call downtown to ask what would be done with Teresa's body. He was told it would be at least a week before the full autopsy was done, given the backup of deaths. Every homeless person found frozen on the streets got one, to be sure they actually had frozen. Since he and Pete were Teresa's only relatives, they would release the body per his instructions once everything was finished.
Oh, shit. Eli hadn't yet told Pete. He hadn't even thought about it since the police found her. Probably because he couldn't think of anything he wanted to do less than tell a boy his mother had died.
He dug out his re-charging cell phone and hit the speed-dial. "Yeah, Fitz, it's me. Pete around?"
Fourteen
***
Marilyn heard him and came over to join him on the sofa. She put her arm around him and held him while he talked. It didn't make what he had to do any easier, but he didn't feel so alone while he did it.
"What's happened?" Fitz demanded, using that "trouble radar" of his.
"Pete's mom is dead. I have to tell him."
"Oh, shit. Overdose?"
"Murder. Look, I know this was supposed to be temporary, you keeping him, but--"
"Hell, boy, I'm old. I can't keep up with a kid his age, not for long. Not anymore. Not since I lost Sunny. You know I don't mind it for a while, but just for a while. You're his father. You ought to--"
"I know that. You don't think I know?" The responsibility scared him shitless. "Just--keep him for me a while longer, okay? Till I can figure out what to do. It's not safe here, yet."
Fitz sighed, a drawn-out raspy sound. "Okay. Let me get him."
Eli waited, wondering what kind of conclusions Marilyn was drawing from what she could hear.
"Hey, Eli." Pete's cheerful voice came over the phone.
"Hey, kid, how's it going?"
"Okay, I guess. Fitz is making me go to school. School here sucks."
"Not as much as being stupid."
"Why can't I come home and go to my school? You could stay with me while Mom's in rehab, like you did last time."
Eli blew out his breath. Here it was. Crunch time. How did you tell a kid something like this? He shouldn't be doing it over the phone. This was something that should be done in person, so he could hold his son while he cried. But he wasn't sure it was safe to go.
He shouldn't have let Marilyn take her car to look for Teresa. Flash probably knew it now. He probably couldn't track it to this apartment, or follow it to Erie if they went up there, but he wouldn't bet Pete's life on it. Or Marilyn's. She needed a new car.
"Come on, Eli," Pete begged. "It would be fun. And then when Mom gets out--"
First things first. He had to tell Pete now. The kid had already experienced a world of hurt in the nine years of his short life. Eli hated knowing he would add to it, but Pete had to know. "Is Fitz there, kid?"
"Yeah, you want to talk him? Tell him when you're coming?"
"No, just checking that he's there." He took another deep breath and let it out--the last breath had worn off. "Your mom's not in rehab, Pete. That's what I was calling to tell you."
"She's not? Where is she?" Pete sounded suspicious. As he should be. "Did she go out partying again?"
"Yeah." How did a guy make this hurt less? "Yeah, she went out partying. She's dead, Pete."
"No. No, Eli, she's not really. She just passed out." Tears and desperation were coming into the boy's voice now. "She does that sometimes, passes out and falls down and lies th
ere like she's dead no matter how much you shake her and yell at her. But she's not. She'll wake up. Really. She will."
Eli's chest hurt, hearing what Pete had been going through. Why hadn't he known? Because he sucked at being a dad. Just like he sucked at doing this. "Not this time, Pete. She won't wake up. She didn't pass out. She got--" He couldn't tell the boy his mother had been beaten to death. But he couldn't lie to him either. Maybe he could keep the worst from him. "Somebody killed her, Pete. She went out partying and she got killed."
"I don't believe you! You're lying!" Pete was crying in earnest.
God, he sucked at this. "I wish I was lying, kid. But she's dead."
"Maybe it's not her. Maybe it's somebody else and the police made a mistake."
"I'm sorry, Pete. I really am, but it's your mom. I saw her myself, with my own eyes."
Pete kept crying, saying "No, no, no," between sobs. Each "no" hit Eli like a bare-knuckle fist to the gut. Only worse. He knew what the fist felt like and this hurt more.
"Don't worry about what's going to happen to you, okay? Fitz is looking after you just fine, isn't he? He'll keep on taking care of you till we figure something out."
"My dad?" Pete said through his tears, knocking Eli dizzy.
"What about your dad?"
"Fitz said he knows who my dad is. Is he going to take care of me?"
Oh, God. Pete's dad couldn't even take care of himself. "I don't know, Pete. We'll have to see."
"Do you know who my dad is?"
What did he say to that? "Yeah. Yeah, kid, I do."
"So maybe you could talk to him and see if he wants me. You can tell him about all the stuff I can do and how smart I am. I'm smart, aren't I, Eli?"
Shit. What was this stuff coming out of his eyes? He didn't do tears. Not anybody else's and for sure not his own. Eli scrubbed at his eyes and squeezed, trying to stop the stupidity.
"Yeah, squirt, you're smart. Smart as a whip. But you got to go to school to get smarter."
"If I go to school, will you talk to my dad?"
That was Pete. Fastest kid in the USA with a deal.
"Okay, yeah." Eli gave in. What else could he do? "I'll talk to him. But no promises. I'll call you again when I know something, okay?"
"Okay." Pete paused. "Eli?"
"What, Petey?" He kept his voice gentle.
"Are you really, really sure it was her? She's really, really dead?"
Eli sighed. "Yes, Pete. I'm really, really sure it was her. Your mother really is dead." The sight of her would haunt his dreams the rest of his life.
"Okay."
"Did you get the picture I sent?"
"Yeah."
"So you believe I broke my arm and leg, right?"
"Yeah."
"Have I ever told you anything that wasn't so, or make a promise I didn't keep?"
Pete sighed. "No." The boy had heard this before, but it had never mattered more.
"So when I tell you that I am going to make sure you are taken care of, you believe me, right?"
"Right." He sniffled again. "I believe you."
"You got my number to call if you need me?"
Sounding put upon, Pete rattled off the number in their farewell ritual.
"Okay, then. You make sure Fitz behaves himself and I'll call when I know something. You call any time, okay?"
"Okay." The phone at Fitz's garage rattled and went dead.
"You really do love that boy, don't you?" Marilyn's voice startled him when she spoke.
Eli shrugged, embarrassed. She'd seen him almost crying.
"Will his father take him, do you think?"
That was the million-dollar question, wasn't it? Eli had kept a certain distance to avoid tainting Pete with his own darkness. But now, with Teresa gone... "I don't know," he said. "It's complicated."
"What's so complicated about it? That boy needs his father. The man either steps up and takes responsibility, or he doesn't." She got up from the couch and started to pace.
"Yeah, but what if--?"
"What if nothing. Or--" Marilyn frowned. "Will his father keep you from seeing Pete?"
"No. Nothing like that. It's...complicated." Would any father, even one like Eli, be better than the foster system? Because that's where Pete would wind up if Fitz couldn't keep him. He'd have to think of something.
"Please. How complicated can it be?"
"Pretty damn complicated. Can we talk about something else?"
"Can't you take him?"
"Me? I don't know anything about taking care of kids."
"Sounds to me like you know plenty."
"I don't know anything." He was going to lose his temper in a minute, if she didn't stop.
"You know to make sure Pete knows he'll be taken care of. The physical stuff--feeding him, clothing him, making sure he has a place to sleep--that's the easy stuff, Eli. The hard stuff is here." She tapped her forehead, then fisted her hand and dropped it to her heart. "And here.
"You have that. You can figure out the rest. You have to think about what's best for Pete. Tell his father. Make him understand."
"What's best for him sure as hell isn't me."
Marilyn opened her mouth to argue some more and Eli jumped in with a change of subject. He needed to think, not listen to Marilyn browbeat him.
"You need a new car," he said. "We should spend some time today on that."
"What?" She sounded as out of temper as he felt. "I do not need a new car, thank you. The one I have runs just fine. I don't drive it enough to make mileage an issue and I can't afford to go out and buy a new car."
"I didn't mean a new, new car. Just something different. Something that hasn't been seen in Flash's part of town."
"Oh." Marilyn stopped her pacing and sat in a dining chair, biting her lower lip. "You really think--?"
"No." He didn't. Flash didn't operate this far out in suburbia and he only had the kids he controlled and an occasional girlfriend to help him. "But there's always that one wild, quirky outside chance and I don't want to risk it."
She chewed on her lip some more. Eli wished she wouldn't do that. It made him want to come over there and pull her abused lip into his own mouth, and he didn't think she was in the mood.
"We could swap it out for my car, couldn't we?" she said after a minute.
"You mean that isn't your car we've been driving?" It couldn't be stolen. Marilyn didn't do things like that. "Whose car is it?"
Her cheeks turned a pretty pink. "Well, it's mine too. I mean, I own it--it was Bill's car. He was in his work truck when he had the wreck. Julie took my car--the one I usually drive--to college with her. It gets better mileage. I guess I was thinking she'd come home more than she has. And even if it is a 'mom car,' it has a higher cool quotient than the Barge."
"So we drive up to her college and swap out cars, is that what you're saying?"
Marilyn bit her lip again. "I need to see Julie. Talk to her face to face. I know Mom's bound to have called her, and I have no clue what her reaction will be. Maybe if she meets you..."
Eli blinked. Marilyn actually wanted him to meet her daughter? Most moms tried to keep him as far away from their daughters as possible, preferably a state or two over. Look at how Marilyn's mom was acting.
But then Marilyn was the one he was having this... He didn't know what to call it, this thing between them. Whatever it was, if it meant he had to meet her whole family, then he'd do it. He'd do whatever he had to. "Okay. Let's do it."
Marilyn called and left a message on her daughter's answering machine--her busy social life had apparently brought about the need for it--and they took off. The road to State College was four lane most of the way, and snow free, including the last two-lane stretch into town.
Eli waited by the car while Marilyn went in the dorm to look for her daughter. He felt a hundred years old, watching all the fresh-faced college kids, male and female, walk past. Eventually Marilyn came back, her cheeks red with the cold. Eli leaned forward and kissed
her on one of them, unable to stop himself.
"Did you find her?" he asked.
"No, she wasn't in. I went up and knocked. The stereo was on, but that doesn't mean anything. It probably plays twenty-four/seven. I left keys to the Barge in her mailbox in the lobby." Marilyn clutched her coat closer together at the neck, huddling against the cold. It was considerably colder here than it had been when they left Pittsburgh that morning. "We can go, I guess."
"Don't you want to wait? See if she comes back?"
Again she did that lip-biting thing. "I would like to talk to her."
"So we wait. No problem. We don't have anywhere else to be, do we?"
"Let's get the cars taken care of first. If I know my daughter, we'll have to clean it out before we can stand to get in it."
Eli nodded. "Fine by me. You know where it's parked?"
Marilyn spread her arms wide to indicate the massive parking lot surrounding them. "Somewhere in this lot. It's the only lot she has a permit for."
"Great." He reached in the back seat of the big car and pulled out his crutch. His leg would ache too much if he went on a search without it. "Let's go."
The gold mid-sized sedan wasn't as hard to find as he'd feared, among all the sports cars. There was the occasional barge, too, the general size and vintage of the one they were leaving for Julie, so she wouldn't feel too out of place.
Marilyn was hauling a load of empty drink cups and fast food bags to the trash can while Eli cleared the CDs out of the glove compartment when the inevitable happened.
"Keep your hands where I can see them and step slowly from the car."
Eli glanced over his shoulder to see a campus cop holding a gun leveled at his head. He swore under his breath, not loud enough for the cop to take offense, and did exactly what he'd been told. He wobbled a bit as he stood up but didn't dare reach for his crutch. The officer might misconstrue the action, and Eli sure as hell didn't want to get shot on top of everything else. He'd never been shot and didn't want to ruin his record.
Playing up the broken bones, Eli hobbled to the front of the car and assumed the position. He got patted down and hand-cuffed, partially. The cuff wouldn't reach around the cast on his right arm, nor would the arm go behind his back the way the officer wanted. He settled for leaving Eli's hands in front of him.
