Spoonbenders

by Daryl Gregory

  “Now,” he said. The men pulled him up by both arms, and he felt the stitches of the sleeves of the DeBartolo popping at his shoulders.

  Archibald and Cliff hauled him onto the grass like a porpoise from a tank. By the time he got to his feet, Graciella had reached the house, calling her sons’ names.

  Then Teddy saw Buddy. Irene sat beside him, tears in her eyes.

  Not Buddy, Teddy thought. He couldn’t take it if Buddy was hurt. He was their innocent. Maureen’s most beloved.

  Teddy glared at Archibald. “I thought you said—”

  “I meant the little children,” he said.

  IRENE

  She saw Dad and Graciella being pulled from the hole, and everything clicked. The evidence was laid out across the house and grounds. The instant sinkhole. The metal, ricochet-proof window blinds. The medal around his chest.

  She leaned close to her brother. “You did this, didn’t you? You saw it all.”

  “Is everybody okay?” he asked desperately.

  “Everybody’s okay,” Joshua said. She looked up. He was studying her with a desperate, worried expression. Jun was at his side, holding a white puppy. Where the hell had that come from? And why hadn’t Joshua run? All this craziness, and he was worried about her. He’d come looking for her.

  “How about Dad?” Buddy asked.

  “He’s fine, Buddy! He’s fine!”

  He burst into fresh tears.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said, holding him. “You did good. Look, Dad’s coming.” He was marching toward them, scowling. Dad’s worried face was a lot like his angry face, so it was hard to read his mood.

  “I saved one of them, at least,” he said.

  “You saved them all, Buddy. All the—”

  Oh. He meant one of his parents.

  “I think I want to rest now,” he said.

  “Just don’t go to sleep.”

  “It’s not that kind of tired,” he said. “I can’t keep on like this. Knowing. I’m worried all the time.”

  Oh God. All the time? This explained so much about Buddy.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know. Watching out for you guys—that was supposed to be my job.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “I can’t take it anymore.”

  She heard the truth of it in his voice—and recoiled from it. “I know it feels that way right now,” she said. “But someday soon—”

  “I don’t want to know about someday. I don’t want to know about any of it anymore. I just want it to…stop. There’s something you’re going to do for me now, Reenie.”

  Dad said, “What the hell is he talking about?” He loomed over them, grimacing. Up close, there was no ambiguity: Buddy was distraught.

  “Don’t pretend like you don’t know,” Archibald said.

  “That thing,” Irene said to the magician. She glanced at his hand. “Does that work?”

  “Absolutely,” Archibald said.

  “You’re telling the truth,” Irene said. She wanted Buddy to hear that.

  The pistol, this micro-lepton gun, looked like something she’d find at the Ben Franklin dime store when she was a kid. Irene reached up, palm open. Archibald’s eyes narrowed. Then he placed it in her hand.

  The gun was surprisingly heavy. Buddy watched her as she weighed it.

  “This is irrevocable,” Archibald said to Buddy. “Do you understand?”

  He looked at the weapon wistfully, as if he’d found an old photograph of someone he’d half forgotten. She’d assumed for years that Buddy’s gift had vanished with Mom’s death. After the funeral he never called another Cubs game, never wrote another lottery number. If he’d ever missed his moments at the Wonder Wheel, waiting for the applause of the crowd, he never spoke of it. In twenty years, he’d hardly spoken at all. But the wheel never stopped spinning. He’d carried the knowledge of it, alone, silently.

  She pointed the gun at his head, where she imagined his great power came from.

  Buddy looked at his watch, then held up a finger. “Wait,” he said.

  FRANKIE

  His daughters stared down at him as if he were a strange fish washed up on the shore of Lake Michigan. He wondered how bad he looked. His nose was certainly not where it ought to be. Several teeth were jostling for new positions. One eyelid had closed for the season.

  “You were brave,” Cassie said.

  “And so strong!” Polly said.

  Red and blue lights flashed against the side of the house. Mary Alice crouched beside his head.

  “Did we get him?” Frankie asked. His voice didn’t sound at all normal.

  “Oh, we got him, Dad,” Mary Alice said. “The government guy just put a knee in his back.”

  “That’s good,” he said.

  They were still broke. Still homeless. But Mary Alice had called him Dad. So that was something. He felt like Odysseus, returned home at last, to find his family waiting for him.

  Then he remembered.

  “Buddy.” He sat up—and almost fell back again when a rib stabbed his side. “Help me up.”

  “What about Buddy?” Matty asked. The kid held a fire extinguisher. He’d been putting out flaming patches of grass and the stray bits of burning auto parts.

  “Now. Please.”

  Frankie hobbled through the house, Mary Alice and Matty holding him up. In the backyard, his family surrounded the spot where Buddy lay. “Is he okay?” Frankie yelled. “Answer me!”

  G. Randall Archibald stepped back, and he could see Irene holding the micro-lepton to Buddy’s temple.

  “Reenie!” Frankie said. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Irene ignored him. Buddy looked at him and smiled. “You’re okay,” he said.

  “Ready now?” Irene asked Buddy.

  He glanced at his watch. “Twelve-oh-six,” he said. “Perfect.”

  Frankie said, “Would somebody please—”

  Irene squeezed the trigger. The gun discharged with an electrical buzz and pop:

  Zap.

  OCTOBER

  25

  FRANKIE

  He was surrounded by women. At least two, and possibly all three, were about to be annoyed with him.

  “I’m not going to sign,” he said.

  “What, the price is too steep?” Irene asked.

  “It’s the paperwork,” Frankie said. “It’s all wrong.”

  Graciella leaned across the conference room table. “Trust me, it’s all in order. The bank forms, the insurance, everything’s pretty standard. We don’t often have a closing like this, but it’s all in order.”

  Loretta said, “Just sign it, Frankie.”

  He put down the pen. “Nope. Not going to do it. The name’s wrong.”

  Graciella frowned. “Franklin Telemachus and Loretta Telemachus. Your name’s not Franklin?”

  “His name’s Franklin,” Irene said.

  “I don’t want my name on there at all,” he said. “Just Loretta’s.”

  “What are you talking about?” Loretta asked.

  “I want it to be yours,” Franklin said to her. “Just yours. Nobody’s going to take that house away from you again.”

  “Well technically,” Irene said, “if you’re married, in some cases the court can—”

  “Shut up, Irene,” Frankie said. “It’s hers. I don’t want any piece of it.”

  Loretta put her hand on his. “You don’t have to, Frankie.”

  “My mind’s made up.”

  Irene said, “You couldn’t fucking tell me this before I did all this paperwork?”

  “That was a mistake, and I’m sorry.” Truth was, the idea only came to him when he saw both their names on the paper.

  “Right.” She picked up the stack of documents. “I’ll get a couple of the secretaries to help me. This is going to take a few minutes.”

  Graciella said, “Who wants coffee?”

  They sipped coffee and talked about raising kids. All of them, it turned
out, wanted a puppy. Then Frankie said, “So I guess we’ll see you at Nick Senior’s trial.”

  “Eventually. These things take longer than you think.”

  “Sorry about Nick Junior,” Loretta said.

  “The important thing to remember is that thirty years is not a life sentence,” Frankie said. “They’ve got excellent health care inside.”

  Loretta said, “Jesus, Frankie,” but she was laughing.

  “What? They do!”

  “It wasn’t as bad a sentence as it could have been,” Graciella said. “And at least he didn’t have to testify against his father.”

  “That’s considered worse than anything,” he said. Then he realized that his own testimony against Nick Senior might cause him problems. The smart thing, he decided, was to never talk to anyone in the Outfit again, including Mitzi.

  After almost twenty minutes, Irene returned with a newly printed stack of documents. “We’re not changing another word,” she said.

  It took several minutes for Loretta to sign and initial each page, with Graciella and Irene explaining what she was signing and why.

  “Now the last step,” Irene said. “Payment.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Frankie said. “It’s all on her now.”

  Loretta shook her head and opened her purse.

  Irene said, “Usually we accept only certified checks—”

  Loretta slid her a crisp dollar bill.

  “But in this case, cash is acceptable.”

  The girls were waiting for them in the foyer, where the twins were cutting up magazines. “Malice said we could!” Cassie said.

  “I asked for old ones,” Mary Alice said.

  “Let’s go see our new house,” Frankie said.

  “You mean our old house,” Polly said.

  “Same thing,” Frankie said. The feds had been this close to seizing the house. Irene had hinted, though, that Graciella had made some kind of offer of cooperation on the other properties the Pusateris had been pushing through the company, and that had eventually cleared the house for purchase. Now they owned it, free and clear. Not even a mortgage.

  They piled into Irene’s Festiva, a car that won the award for most ironic distance between name and driving experience. Not that he could say this out loud; Irene was loaning it to them until they found a replacement for Loretta’s Corolla, and he wasn’t about to look a gift car in the grill. Fortunately, the family was in such a good mood that the cramped cabin couldn’t dampen their spirits. That was, until he went left on Roosevelt instead of right, and Loretta gave him a hard look.

  “Just one stop,” he said.

  He pulled into the parking lot, carefully avoiding the potholes, and parked in front of the warehouse-like building. The walls were still notionally white, but the years had painted them with grime and rust.

  “What are we doing here, Frankie?” Loretta asked.

  “We want to go home,” Polly said.

  “Come on, take a look, girls.” He went to the metal front doors and fished for the set of keys Irene had lent him. NG Group was handling the property.

  “This was quite the hangout back in the day. People in the fifties used to come dressed in ties and skirts. The White Elm was not just a skating rink, it was a destination.” He pushed open the door. A dank smell rolled out.

  “It’s a destination for something,” Mary Alice said.

  “Picture it,” Frankie said. “The largest, most complete pinball arcade in Chicagoland.”

  “Pinball?” Mary Alice said. “No video games?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “No teenager is going to come in here if you don’t have video games.”

  “I tell you, kid, pinball is poised to make a comeback.”

  “We’re not buying this,” Loretta said.

  “Let’s take a look around, and then we can talk about it.”

  IRENE

  “What am I forgetting?” she asked.

  “That we were supposed to leave a half hour ago?” her father said.

  “Funny man in a hat.”

  Graciella and Dad both laughed. They found her distress amusing, maybe because she was usually the most organized person in the building. “Traveling makes me nervous,” Irene said.

  “Right, traveling,” Graciella said, and the two of them laughed again. They sat on the couch in the waiting room, leaning into each other. Irene couldn’t figure them out. Graciella swore there was nothing sexual going on, but the two of them went out to dinner together, saw movies, and, most disconcertingly, hung out at her father’s house with all her kids running around. She was happy for her dad, but it struck her as unhealthy for Graciella.

  “I know there’s something,” Irene said. She’d loaded her suitcase into the trunk of Dad’s Buick this morning, so that was taken care of. It had to be something from the office.

  “Phone charger,” Irene said. She went into her office and unplugged the charger from the wall. Her Motorola had quickly become indispensable. Of course Matty wanted one. She told him to go back to work and save five hundred bucks.

  “I’ve got appointments, you know,” Dad said. “People to see.”

  “I’m ready, I’m ready,” Irene said.

  Graciella hugged her goodbye, and then turned to her father. They kissed. On the lips.

  “Thanks for all the help with Frankie,” Dad said.

  “The least I could do,” Graciella said. And kissed him a second time.

  “Christ,” Irene said. “I’ll be in the car.”

  Irene and Dad didn’t talk on the road. They were ten minutes from O’Hare when Dad said, “You’re doing that thing with your face.”

  “It’s just my normal face.”

  “You used to scowl like that when the boys misbehaved. Or I did. Don’t worry about Matty. I’m going to keep him on the straight and narrow. No marijuana or cocaine, and hardly any hookers.”

  “It’s not you I’m mad at,” she said.

  “You don’t have to go see him,” Dad said.

  “Oh, I do.” She felt like she’d die if she didn’t. This was her third trip to Phoenix since Labor Day.

  “I mean he could come here. He’s a hero! Took the gun right out of Nick’s hands.”

  “Nick barreled into him and the gun went flying.”

  “Sure, but Joshua grabbed it. That’s hero material, my girl. Tell him to come back and we can double-date at Palmer’s.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Dad.” She didn’t want Joshua coming back to her house, not yet. If anything non-normal happened—anything at all—he’d have permanent PTSD.

  “Fine. Move there, then,” Dad said. “You’re young.”

  “I love my job.”

  “Pfff.”

  “I don’t think I can live with him, either. We can hold it together for a weekend, but after that—the little lies just start piling up. Every day there’s a slipup, and I get more and more paranoid.”

  “So you’ve got to forgive him every day. How’s that different from any couple? Your mom? Hoo boy. She had to forgive me five times before breakfast.”

  “You’re a hell of a role model, Dad.”

  He pulled up to the curb, then reached down to pop the trunk. “Good luck out there, kid.”

  “I just wish I knew where this was going.”

  “Who does?”

  “Well…”

  “Not even your brother, not anymore.”

  Poor Buddy. Irene hoped he was happy, walking around in the dark like everyone else now. “Have you heard from him?” she asked.

  “Not a word, not a word.”

  “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

  “Me neither.”

  She pulled the bag out of the trunk, and was surprised to see that Dad had gotten out of the car. He never did that.

  “There’s only one thing you need to know,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “When your man says he loves you, is he telling the truth?”

/>   “That is so profound, Dad.”

  “Answer the question. Is he?”

  “Every time,” she said. “Every damn time.”

  TEDDY

  New love walks up and slaps you on the butt, demands your attention, gets your pulse racing. Old love lies in wait. It’s there in the evening when your eyes are closing. It slides into bed beside you, runs its ghost fingers through your hair, whispers your secret name. Old love is never gone.

  The envelope, this time, was delivered by Mrs. Klauser, his neighbor. “Buddy gave this to me a month ago,” she said. She held leashes for two dogs, one a puppy. “He made me promise not to deliver it until today. I hope it’s okay.”

  Multiple hands had been involved—a jagged ink for his name, and blocky pink crayon (crayon!) for today’s date—written decades apart, he guessed.

  “Oh, and this, too,” she said. An orange and white box, addressed in that same crayon, to Matthias Telemachus. Teddy walked into the house, set the package on the table, and then stopped, stunned.

  The house was quiet. No sawing or drilling. No elementary school girls squealing over stuffed animals. No one loudly complaining about who drank all the milk.

  Huh.

  It was a relief when he heard a thunk above him. He went upstairs and rapped on Matty’s door. “You ready?” he asked.

  “Almost,” he answered.

  Teddy went into his bedroom. He held the envelope to his nose, trying to catch a scent of her. Not a thing. The paper was old, and had traveled through machines and mail bins to reach him. Any whiff he caught now would be imaginary. He held the envelope to the front of the hat, in the traditional manner, and then opened it.

  Dearest Teddy,

  I hope you get this, out there in the future. Buddy says he can’t see anything after September of that year, and I’m so afraid for what this means. If your heart is broken now, as mine is, then the world is even crueler than I feared.

  I’ve been sneaking home to watch the children. It takes a lot out of me, but it’s worth it. How did we make such beautiful children? Our best trick. I’m so sorry for leaving you alone with them. There’s no sleight of hand that will get us out of this one. I know my body’s never leaving this hospital.