“That pig just turned twenty,” the uniform said. “He’s been suspended pending the results of our investigation.”
Jojo huffed. “Shyeah, right. You’re just gonna cover it up, aren’t you? That man you shot was a veteran of a really crappy war. He was in the Hanoi Hilton, for god’s sake. He deserves better.”
“We’re looking into it, sir,” the police guy said, flashing a fake smile with lots of teeth. He looked like a skull. “That’s why we’re here.”
“What I don’t understand is why they were hassling him to begin with. He wasn’t hurting anyone,” Crock said. He was leaning against the kitchen counter, slurping a Fresca.
Flattop said, “We’d received complaints from a prominent member of the business community that he was loitering. Obstructing customers.”
“Wait, you got complaints from the Fish Grotto?” Sonia said. “That can’t be right. Terrence has been sitting there for months. Everyone knows he’s harmless. Sometimes the waitresses give him leftover fries at the end of their shifts.” She turned to Jojo. “Who owns the Fish Grotto, anyway?”
I felt tendrils of black smoke reaching out for me, beginning with the fine hairs at the nape of my neck.
“Not the Fish Grotto,” I said, understanding. “The PfefferBrau Haus. Jurgen Pfeffer called you, didn’t he?”
Everyone looked at me like I’d just magically appeared in their midst. A starman, beamed down from another world.
The guy in the uniform and flattop narrowed his eyes in an expression I recognized: Oh yeah. You’re that kid. The one whose dad blew his brains out.
And then another man, one I hadn’t seen at first, stood up from the table and made his way over to me.
I didn’t know what Idiot Willy was doing here, since he was a member of the Gresham Police Department, not Portland’s. Backup, maybe.
I was still glad to see him. He had the same huge pores as always, same Wild West mustache. His smile was weak but sincere. “I’m glad you’re okay, Noah. When Crock told me what happened, I was afraid someone might’ve gotten you this time.”
The decorated pig, I mean policeman, coughed subtly into his sleeve.
“This is Deputy Chief Simmons,” Willy went on. “He’s here to take your statements. It seems your boss here has taken issue with the handling of the situation.” He jutted his chin toward the sofa.
Boss? Jojo?
Well, yeah, he did pay us for minding the store for him, so I guess that made him our boss.
I told Willy, “A man was shot in front of us. By a policeman. You can’t expect us to be levelheaded.”
Deputy Chief Simmons didn’t say a word.
Idiot Willy nodded toward the table, where Evan was still pushing around his food. “Come on, Noah. Have a seat. Tell me what you saw. I promise to do my best to see justice is done.”
I remembered him handing me a foam cup of coffee on the worst day of my life, and I followed him.
We sat at Jojo’s Formica table, still loaded with cartons of cold lo mein and dumplings, and little plastic packets of sweet orange sauce.
Idiot Willy reached for a can of Fresca in the middle of the table, popped the tab, and slid it over to me.
I wrapped my hands around it. It wasn’t even cold. “I don’t know how much they’ve already told you. The fight started before we showed up. We were just trying to help.”
Evan pushed the cabbage around his plate a little more loudly. Stab! went the chopsticks.
Idiot Willy cleared his throat. “Go on.”
“Did they tell you that Terrence was really upset about something? That he kept saying, ‘Keep her safe’ and ‘He’s on the prowl’? He didn’t say who, but he spent almost as much time around the PfefferBrau Haus as he did by the Fish Grotto. That’s why I asked you about Pfeffer. I mean, is it possible Terrence saw Pfeffer do something? Maybe that’s why Pfeffer complained about him? To get him out of the way?”
Deputy Chief Simmons was not smiling now. “That’s a serious accusation.” I had a feeling it wouldn’t be nearly so serious if Herr Sick Freak Pfeffer wasn’t such a prominent member of the business community.
“How serious?” Evan said. “I mean, we know for sure at least one girl turned up dead in their vat. Doesn’t seem like such a stretch to me.”
For a while nothing moved. Not even the air.
“Well?” I said.
You could see Deputy Chief Simmons trying to come up with an appropriate response. He finally said, “The individual you’re talking about was acquitted in a court of law.”
“We need to face facts, Noah,” Idiot Willy said. “And the fact is that while Terrence is a decorated veteran, he also has a history of schizophrenia. He sees things that aren’t there.” He stared at me as if he were sending me an encoded message. “Do you understand? Even if he thinks he saw something, who’s to say it’s real?”
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you,” Evan mumbled.
“Pardon?” Idiot Willy said.
Evan unhooked a slogan button from his T-shirt and tossed it to us. It was a simple design—white words on a black background. The same words Evan just quoted.
“Even if Terrence is schizo, who’s to say he’s wrong?” Ev said.
“A judge. A jury. A mental health care professional,” Simmons said.
I was getting real tired of this guy. Not tired enough to call him a pig to his face, but I definitely wanted him out of the Maxi Pad.
“You mean nobody’s going to listen to him just because he’s ill?” Jay’s eyes narrowed. “Nobody’s going to stand up for him for something that isn’t his fault?”
“It’s not as simple as that, miss—” Simmons started to say, but Jaime wasn’t listening.
“I’ve had enough.” She ran into the bathroom. Sonia was right behind her, ready to do whatever girls did in bathrooms when one of them was having a meltdown. Something with hugging and maybe mascara.
Jaime’s little display sent Jojo into a fury. He clenched his fists, stood up, and took two steps toward Simmons before Crock got between them. “Don’t,” Crock said. “It’s bad enough that Terrence is in the hospital. We don’t want to have to bail you out.”
“What am I supposed to do, man? I’m pissed off and way too old to be putting daisies in guns.”
Crock said, “You could litigate. That’s why the deputy chief is here, isn’t he? There was some wrongful something or other?”
“Do I look like the kind of guy who has a lawyer, man?” Jojo said.
“Maybe not,” Crock said. “But you remember freedom of speech, don’t you? There’s always the media.”
Simmons shot a glare at Idiot Willy as if to say, He’s your stepson. Can’t you keep him under control?
It was Jojo’s turn to smile in a way that showed too many teeth. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “And the ACLU. And the Oregonian. If I were you, Deputy Chief Piggy—oink oink—I would make sure the best doctors are operating on Terrence. And that you’ve got a flak jacket on, ’cause I’m about to unleash one hell of a shitstorm.”
While this was going on in the living area, Idiot Willy leaned over to me and whispered, “Do you trust me, son?”
And even though I didn’t want to provoke anyone today, I couldn’t help saying, “Duh.”
He led me out onto the landing, closing the door behind him.
He looked through the frosted glass pane into the apartment, probably to make sure no one would come storming out to bother us. He said under his breath, “Get the girls home and keep them there. Do you understand? Lock the doors. Barricade them in if you have to. I know you know how to do that.”
“So you believe Terrence,” I said. “You think another girl is going to disappear.”
For a moment his face seemed to crumble, like a piece of Jojo’s ceiling. “Officially I can’t comment. Let’s just say the only thing worse than kids covered in blood is no kids at all,” he said.
And that was it. I could n
o longer think of him as Idiot Willy.
“Lieutenant MacInnes . . .” I began.
“Will is fine, Noah.”
“I’ll take care of those two,” I said, nodding toward the Maxi Pad. He knew who I meant. “But what about the rest? It’s a big city.”
He breathed so hard I was afraid he’d have a coronary. “That’s our job.” The worry showed in the creases around his eyes. “If you think of anything else—anything at all—call me, okay?”
And he grasped my forearm, the one with the knife in it.
I don’t know how much he could feel through the layers of leather and towel, but he knew something was there, because he slid his fingers away.
Maybe he didn’t know that it was Terrence’s knife. Then again, maybe he did. He was a smart guy—definitely not an idiot.
He opened the door to the Maxi Pad. “Anything at all,” he repeated, and he went back to put on his official law enforcement face.
When I was alone on the landing, I flashed back to my sister, in her nightshirt, standing in the living room so many years ago, too scared to be bossy, while I ran around the house lobbing Dad’s stuff out on the lawn.
That was why Willy let me keep the knife. He was trying to tell me that I had to be ready for another siege. And this time, I had to win.
WE PRACTICED UNTIL ONE O’CLOCK, which in some ways wasn’t late at all, but in others was way too late. Everyone looked battle-weary. Ev, Crock, and I insisted on following Jaime’s car back to Gresham, and one of us walked each of the girls to the door. Neither of their dads was pleased to see us with their little girls, but there seemed to be a slight softening in Mr. Krajicek’s expression, and Mr. Deleuze looked as though he were about to chew me out, when he looked at my feet. “Those look like solid boots, son.”
“They are, sir. Plenty.”
“Use them, Noah. And don’t hold back.”
Crock and I deposited Ev at his house at the top of Walter’s Hill, then skulked back down to our own cul-de-sac.
Crock walked across the street back to his place, where he was probably jerking off to pictures of the female cast of Dynasty.
It was time for me to violate Dad’s inner sanctum.
It wasn’t like I never went in the garage anymore. I was there all the time. Dad may have been gone, but our house still had toilets that needed plunging, fridges that needed fixing, a lawn that needed mowing. But it was still his garage. Everything in it was his. And tonight I definitely needed his tools to clean Terrence’s knife. Whether Terrence lived or died was out of my control. But at least I could take care of his stuff.
Dad had been the kind of guy with a wall of particle-board and chalk outlines where each screwdriver, each hammer, each handsaw was supposed to hang. Which made it easy to see exactly what he’d left me to work with.
It was also creepy, because they made the wall look like a crime scene and the tools look like corpses. And the spaces that were empty? The ones where his guns used to be? I tried to ignore the two empty outlines every time I came in, but I never could. They freaked me out every time.
Two missing weapons. Why was it always two? I toted up more pairs in my life: Sonia and me. Evan and me. Sonia and Jaime.
Then I imagined Jaime and me.
No. I’d had this argument with Evan years ago, after that game of Mafia in the seventh grade. He said Jaime should be the last victim. I’d told him he was an idiot and that Sonia was the prize. And hey, look at how well that turned out.
There was only one way to think of her. Jaime was an Old Girl. The one we all hung out with but nobody wanted to date. Too much history, I guess. Like when we were sophomores and she used the words “tubular” and “gnarly” in a way that made me gnash my teeth, like she was trying to be a Valley Girl. I mean, if you have to imitate a trend, why pick one that was so annoying?
All this was going through my mind as I found Dad’s toolbox. There was a full can of WD-40 in it. I took off my jacket and ripped the knife off my arm, taking cuffs of arm hair with the medical tape. Yow!
I laid down an old rag on his tool bench and put the knife on it. I sprayed and rubbed it the way Dad had told me to. It was slow going, because my green hair kept getting in my eyes. I hadn’t sprayed it into a mohawk in weeks, and it was so long it flopped around a lot.
As I worked, I found myself thinking more and more about Jaime, how she’d looked this afternoon with her arms dripping red, and the way she’d let Evan lean on her even though she looked like she was also about to topple over.
Jaime had stupid hair. But I thought about the short side of it, the way it looked over her ear, and how it made her neck look longer. I wondered what it would feel like running my lips up the length of that neck. Did she have a ticklish spot at the top of her spine? Would she shiver if I lightly ran my tongue from her shoulder blades to her hairline?
It didn’t matter. She was leaving me. Just like Evan, she was going to some college on the other side of the country in a few months. I’d have to find a girlfriend from the remaining local herd, which was getting picked off, one by one.
The world was going to shit, and once again all I could do was clean.
I don’t know how much later it was when I looked down and realized that my work was done. Terrence’s blade wasn’t just clean; it shone like platinum. You could grip the rubber handle and it stayed gripped, not slippery with eons of sweat and grime and Jack Daniels and probably human pee.
I had a split second to think, I need to test this on something, when I grabbed a handful of my green hair, yanked it straight up, and mowed it like an overgrown lawn. I looked at the piles of it on the floor around me. The color looked toxic. What if that dye had leaked into my brain?
“Jesus Christ, nimrod, what the hell are you doing?”
Cilla stood at the entrance to the garage, wearing her beige zip-up uniform and sensible waitressing shoes. She took in the whole scene—the lights, the workbench, the chalk outlines we’d never bothered to erase, the remains of my hair on the ground all around me, the knife in my hand.
Of all the times in my life I must’ve looked like a dangerous wacko, this had to be the worst.
I was too tired to tell her the whole stupid story of the day, and how I’d come to be here. Instead, I said the first thing that came to my mind: “I was thinking about a girl.”
Time seemed to slow. The light over Dad’s workbench gave a zzzt sound. To me it sounded like craZZZy craZZZy craZZZy.
Cilla stared at me. “A girl.”
I nodded.
“Not Sonia?”
I shook my head.
Her expression didn’t change. “I take it this girl doesn’t like guys with mohawks.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I figured it was worth a try.”
She reached out, took the knife from me, and jammed it onto one of Dad’s pegs. It didn’t quite fit. Dad was going to kill us.
Wait—no he wasn’t.
I was about to clean up the mess when Cilla pulled the chain that turned off the tubular workbench light and linked her arm in mine. “Come on. Let’s fix your hatchet job.”
She led me upstairs to our Jack and Jill bathroom, opened a drawer marked CILLA’S! KEEP OUT!, and unrolled a small rug with slim compartments for different scissors. She ran her fingers over each of them, selecting just the right one. She snipped and cut and snipped and cut. While she worked, she bit her lip a lot, and said things like, “Maybe a little more from this side.” Didn’t give me a lot of confidence.
But it didn’t matter. Cilla was running her fingers through my hair again, the way she used to when she sang me to sleep.
“Well?” she said when she was done. “Whaddya think?”
I looked at my reflection in the mirror. She’d made my black hair spiky-short all over, like I’d gotten an electric shock. I still had the bull’s-eye T-shirt and the dog collar. The scar on my nose was red but already starting to fade.
Let me make one thing clear: I still wa
sn’t handsome. I wasn’t Bowie material. But for the first time ever, I liked what I saw.
“Well?” she said again, waiting for a compliment.
I leaned in closer, looking for flaws. There were plenty. Was that a zit or an ingrown hair on my jaw? But the biggest flaw, the one I didn’t know I’d been looking for, I didn’t find.
“I don’t look like Dad,” I said.
She put her hand on my shoulder and her eyes met mine in the mirror. “Is that why you’ve been doing this punk thing? You’ve been afraid you’d look like him?”
“Duh,” I said.
Cilla shook her head. “You’re not him, Noah. You could never be him.”
“How can you say that? After I pushed you?”
“I thought about it a lot, Noah. I’ve been pushing you for years in little ways. Expecting you to blow. And it wasn’t right. Everyone gets mad sometimes, little bro. You can’t go through life never getting angry. I see how hard you try. You come home stitched up, your jacket covered in blood . . .”
“You saw that?”
“Shut up, nimrod. We’re having a moment.” She whacked me on the head with a pair of scissors. “Where was I? Oh yeah. All these years. You’ve never tried to hurt anyone. I’ve seen you come back from clubs bruised and bloody. But it was always about you, Noah. You deliberately went to places where you hurt yourself again and again.”
I only knew Cilla was uncomfortable because she threw her hairdressing scissors into the tub without sweeping up the green hair first. This was hard for her to admit.
It was hard for me too. No one ever wants to know your older sister is right.
“That’s why you’re not Dad. Got nothing to do with your hair. I worry about you plenty, but never—not once—because I thought you’d turn out like him.” She looked at her watch. “It’s two thirty in the morning. I’m going to bed. But keep looking at yourself in the mirror, Noah. Remind yourself what you see.”
It was only later I realized she had called me by my name. Not “nimrod” or “idiot.”
Noah. That was the closest my sister ever got to telling me she loved me.
The Rise and Fall of the Gallivanters Page 12
