Property of / the Drowning Season / Fortune's Daughter / at Risk

by Alice Hoffman

McKay smiled. “Brothers, it’s time we be going.”

  “That is true,” said the Dolphin. He slipped his jacket on over the tattoos that covered him like a rainbow-colored shirt and nodded to Flash.

  “You be cool now,” said Flash. “And see me next week.”

  The Dolphin nodded again and McKay and I followed Jose and the Dolphin out into the street.

  “If you get tired of him,” Flash called out to me, “you know where to find me.”

  “Don’t expect me to look,” I said.

  Flash laughed. “You just don’t know what good is when you see it, girl.”

  I looked up at McKay; I disagreed with Flash.

  The Dolphin and Jose were already sitting in the front of the Chevy, the Dolphin at the wheel.

  “McKay,” I said as we neared the car, “is Flash something special?”

  “He thinks he is,” said McKay.

  “He’s no Orphan,” I said.

  “But he knows a little magic,” said McKay.

  “Him and the Dolphin,” I began, but we had reached the Chevy now.

  “Don’t ask no questions,” said McKay.

  McKay opened the door, and we got into the back seat together. The Dolphin started the engine and began to drive down the street. Jose turned to face us. “Got some good reefer,” he told McKay.

  “Fine,” said McKay.

  “Got some good hash. Man, that shit tastes like perfume.”

  The Dolphin was driving through a tunnel now, and the light was of night or of no time in that tunnel. Jose lit a thin paper cigarette and passed it to McKay.

  “What is that?” I said and Jose laughed.

  O.K., so I didn’t know about quality drugs. I only knew the dope of childhood—airplane glue in brown paper bags, breathing in and out in schoolyards and parking lots littered with the useless bodies of model airplanes that would never be constructed and would never fly. Bottles of cleaning fluid, of medicine, and of wine. I was no connoisseur.

  McKay dragged on the joint.

  “Try it,” Jose said to me.

  McKay handed me the joint and I inhaled. Exhaled. Nothing. I passed it to Jose. The Dolphin ignored us, he paid no attention, his eyes remained on the traffic signals, the tollbooth, the expressway. Maybe the Dolphin didn’t like the communal touch of a joint.

  “This reefer’s not bad,” said McKay. “It’ll do.”

  “Not bad?” said Jose as he rolled another joint. “Man, Flash sells a nickel bag like you’ve never seen.”

  I passed the joint to McKay, but he waved it away, and I smoked the rest myself. Nothing was happening. What was the big deal? I could get a better buzz from swallowing a bottle of Midol.

  “I’m not high,” I said to McKay. He smiled.

  The Dolphin still said nothing. I could see the silence around him as he drove, black-gloved hands on the steering wheel.

  “McKay,” I said. “You know, you have a very interesting face.” He did. More so than ever before.

  “Yeah,” said McKay.

  “Very interesting.” I nodded.

  “But she’s not high,” said Jose.

  “You know,” I told Jose, “a face defines a personality.”

  “I’m hip,” said Jose. “If you knew all the personalities of all the dead people in the world, especially the great ones, you could change the world.”

  That was brilliant. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, you’re right.” Brilliant. I stared out the window at the movement of the highway. “What did you say?” I asked Jose.

  “Dolphin,” McKay said, ignoring Jose and me, “how are we on money?”

  “We could stand to have some more,” said the Dolphin.

  “I’m going to be racing the Chevy, but that won’t pay shit.”

  “I’ve been making money, if you want to get in,” said the Dolphin.

  “No,” said McKay, “that’s your money. That has nothing to do with the Orphans. No, I was thinking of pulling some sort of job.”

  “Why bother?” said the Dolphin.

  “You know,” said Jose, “Flash sells some damn good reefer.”

  “Flash?” I said. “What did you say?” My hearing was not what it might have been. The words spoken in the Chevy seemed to float by me like air.

  “I got a job in mind,” said McKay.

  “If that’s the way you want it,” said the Dolphin.

  “It’s an easy job,” said McKay.

  “A bank?” I asked.

  “Don’t be smart,” said McKay.

  “With a motorcycle,” I said. “You could ride up to the teller on a Harley, and that would mean a real quick getaway.”

  “You still not high?” McKay asked me.

  “McKay, I’ll say it once,” said the Dolphin, “you’re asking for trouble with her.” I could feel the Dolphin’s eye on me in the rearview mirror. “I’ll tell you once. You start bringing her around with you, she starts knowing too much, and you got trouble.”

  “O.K.,” said McKay, “you said it once.”

  I might have said a word to the Dolphin, but I knew he wouldn’t answer and Jose began to talk about getting all the great dead people together at a conference.

  “There could be regional conferences, first,” said Jose. “Like all the great dead people from Texas, say. You hip? And then from Paris, say. Then the greatest of the great dead people could meet at a general conference.”

  “Shut up, boy,” said the Dolphin. “You talking bullshit trash.”

  “Hey, man, this is important stuff. It could change the world. Sort of like a U.N. for dead people.”

  The Dolphin raced the Chevy past the skeleton of the World’s Fair.

  “And New York City,” said Jose. “Man, forget it. We got the cities covered as far as dead people go. Lefty Gomez and those mayors, what’s their names? The Irish one, Walker, he was great. La Guardia. And then my cousin, who was pushed off a roof. He was great, man. Now, he had good reefer. You think Flash’s pot is something?”

  “He sure can babble,” I whispered to McKay, who nodded.

  “You get them all together, see. Kenny, that’s my cousin, and the two mayors, and Lefty. Oye. Terrific. We got the best. See, we could even take control. Yeah, New York City could control the main conference. And then we get someone like Nancy Sinatra to be the guest speaker.”

  “She wouldn’t come to the conference,” I told Jose.

  “You think she wouldn’t speak there? Shit, she’d be only too happy to.”

  “Jose, she’s not dead,” I told him.

  “That doesn’t matter,” said Jose. “She’d hear about the free liquor we was serving.”

  “Jose, enough,” said McKay.

  “Not wine,” said Jose. “The Orphans got too much class to serve wine.”

  “Jose, enough with your conference. Keep your conference plans a secret. Have a surprise guest speaker, and don’t tell us about it now.”

  “Man, it would be great,” said Jose.

  “You see what happens when you involve assholes in business matters?” said the Dolphin.

  “It would be,” I said.

  “You gotta be loose,” said the Dolphin. “Or you find out you lose. You gotta travel alone.”

  “I thought you were going to say it once,” said McKay.

  “McKay,” Jose said.

  “I know. I know,” said McKay. “We got the best dead people in the world in New York City.”

  “The greatest,” said Jose.

  “Yeah, and if you don’t want to be one of them you’ll know this is enough with your goddamn conference plans.”

  “McKay,” I whispered with my eye on the Dolphin. “I don’t like him referring to me that way.”

  “Don’t listen,” said McKay.

  I turned away from him as the Dolphin drove the car off our exit; the Avenue was before us. What more could I say to McKay if he wouldn’t even defend me? And who needed him to defend me, anyway?

  McKay moved his hand up along my thigh and be
tween my legs. “You gotta look at me sometime, girl,” he whispered.

  We traveled along the Avenue. I knew McKay was right. The Dolphin slowed the Chevy as we neared Monty’s, and I could see the Pontiac of Danny the Sweet, and the gathering of Orphans at the doorway of the candy store.

  “Sometime, you gotta look at me,” said McKay.

  As the Dolphin pulled the Chevy up to the curb I turned to face McKay, and I stared into his dark eyes. The Dolphin and Jose opened the front doors of the car and cold air rushed into the Chevy. It seemed now that I had begun to look at McKay, I could not look away.

  “What you staring at?” said McKay.

  I was staring at myself; myself reflected in the dark of his eyes.

  “You,” I said, and it seemed I could not turn away.

  THREE

  IN THE MOOD

  1

  “Why you want to make me worry?” said Danny the Sweet as I sat on a stool at Monty’s.

  “Danny,” I said, “I’ve told you before. Don’t worry about me. I’m not your responsibility. So just don’t you worry.”

  I had left McKay at the doorway, standing in the cold with the Orphans to discuss the Night of the Wolf and, I assumed from the hushed voices and gesturing, the threat of Pack retaliation. Danny sat alone in Monty’s, swinging his long legs and turning the stool right and then left. The corner kids had not yet been released from school and Monty cleaned the countertop with an old dishrag and winked at me as I entered the store and sat next to Danny. For Monty winking was an easy task; his eyes, morning, noon, and especially in the evening, were red and heavy with drink. Monty had a light hand when pouring syrup over a sundae, and a heavy one when pouring gin into a glass of tonic. His long white hair floated to his shoulders, and his eyebrows were long enough to intertwine with his lashes. The drink and the lashes gave Monty no choice; even when he wasn’t winking, he was winking.

  “The Sweet’s been sitting here and worrying and worrying, the poor dear boy,” said Monty.

  “Go on,” muttered Danny.

  “Ah, Danny,” I said and I winked back at Monty, “please don’t be like that.”

  “Like what?” said Danny the Sweet.

  “Like the Sweet that you are,” I said.

  “I ain’t sweet,” said Danny. “All I is is practical.”

  “You’re out of your head,” I told him. “There’s nothing to be uptight about. I can take care of myself.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Danny. “What do you know about the Orphans? You don’t know what’s what.”

  “The way of the world,” said Monty, and he poured coffee into the chipped porcelain mug he had set before me. “The way of the world upsets the poor dear boy.”

  Danny rested his elbow on the linoleum of the counter and knotted his hand in a fist, leaving his third finger free. “You know what this means, old man?” he said.

  “I believe I do,” said Monty. “It only serves to reiterate my preceding statement.” Monty winked at me. Cruel, to use language like that on poor Danny. All the Sweet could do was nod.

  “All the old man is saying, Danny,” I began.

  “Hey, I know what he’s saying,” said Danny.

  “Is that you’re too sweet, and too worried, and you should quit yelling at me for what ain’t your business.”

  “I see you ride up with McKay,” said Monty.

  “That goes for you too,” I said to Monty. “You too might find it much easier to mind your own business.”

  “But far less interesting,” said Monty. “If you knew my business you wouldn’t mind it either. Only so much concentration can be utilized in divvying out pieces of Bazooka bubble gum and wiping the counter clean.”

  I sipped coffee and looked through the frost of the door pane at the gathering of Orphans.

  “It’s no secret you’re fooling around with McKay,” said Monty. “The word travels fast down the Avenue. Particularly when it travels in a ’59 Chevy.”

  “I drink your coffee every morning, but I’m telling you this,” I said to Monty. “Don’t push me.”

  “Already association with McKay has produced a marvelous effect,” said Monty.

  “Do you want to sell me a pack of Marlboros or do you want to give a personality evaluation?” I said.

  Monty smiled and slid a pack of cigarettes along the counter. I lit one for myself and one for Danny, who sat with his head resting upon his long thin hands.

  “I understand, no intimate knowledge of course, I try to mind me own business”—Monty smiled—“that it was a particularly hard Night of the Wolf last night. Night o’ the Wolf, I’m remembering hearing last night titled.”

  Danny sat up straight, the Orphan in him aroused.

  “What do you know about the Night of the Wolf?” he demanded.

  “Boy, I know nothing but that which is carried down the Avenue by the wind. Only rumor and innuendo.”

  “Keep it that way,” said Danny.

  “That means he don’t know shit and is pumping you for information,” I said to Sweet.

  Danny turned to me. “Hey, I know it.”

  Then the three of us were silent; and as the familiar odor of syrup and Lysol surrounded us, I swung around on the stool so that I could see out the door into the street where stood McKay, the Dolphin, Jose, Martin the Marine, and Tosh. The Dolphin was moving his lips and McKay was nodding to words I could not hear.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” said Danny, and he pounded a fist against his head.

  I swung around to face him as Monty dropped a glass into the suds-filled metal sink.

  “Danny,” I said.

  “Why did I bring you with me?” cried the Sweet. “If anything happens to you, it’s my fault. There just ain’t no reason for me being so dumb. But that’s the way it is. I shouldn’t have brought you to the Orphans, but that’s the way it is. I’m dumb, and I didn’t think anyone would notice you, and you’d quit bothering me about McKay, and now I gotta be honest and admit how dumb I am.”

  “Shut up,” I said. “Danny, shut up. You’re just acting nuts, so shut up.”

  Danny stopped pounding his fist to his head and was quiet. But he continued to mutter softly to himself and his eyes had the faraway look of codeine.

  “Now, stop it,” I said. “What the hell. You ain’t dumb and neither am I. I stood up to Kid Harris and I’m O.K. Just look at me.”

  Danny stared mutely at my face.

  “See?” I said, and he nodded.

  Monty’s eyes winked furiously as he dipped his hand into the sink fishing for pieces of broken glass.

  “If he acts like a maniac, the poor boy, I want him out,” said Monty. “I’ll miss his business, but no maniacs in here. Not in my place.”

  “Look,” I said to Sweet, “you know McKay. Doesn’t he call you brother?” The Sweet nodded. “You ain’t responsible for introducing me to your brother.” Danny listened to me and his pale eyes were wide and blank with his old sweet stare. “You know McKay’s a man of honor,” I said and Danny nodded. “So just you quit it. I can take care of myself.”

  “My boy, Danny,” said Monty, as he poured more coffee into my cup. “I know McKay since he’s but a child. I knew his uncle Red Stuart in the six counties. We came to New York together, if you must know the truth. Shared many a sea-tossed night. He was a man to swear by. And you yourself know the Orphans as well as any man. So why pound upon your head like a mad dog or an Englishman? You’ll hurt yourself, boy. Go out, take a walk, smoke a cigarette. Above all, keep your mind clear, free from manias, and aired in the cold of the street.”

  Monty was telling him to get the hell out, and Danny nodded.

  “I’m going out in the street for a while,” Danny told me.

  “Sure,” I said, and Monty and I watched the Sweet edge his way out of the store, passing by the corner kids who had entered the store and were now rushing the candy counter. Danny paused to pick up a few bars of chocolate and lay some nickels on the counter. “If you need me
,” he said, “I’ll be out on the street.”

  The door closed after Danny and we could see the Orphans wave him away from their conference. Monty poured himself a drink and said, “And you never did meet a bigger liar, a craftier thief, than Red Stuart.”

  “Come on,” I said.

  “It’s true,” he said. “Oh, Lord, did that boy, he was a boy at the time I knew him, lie. What stories he told. What deals he did make. What stolen articles he did fence.”

  “Go on, you like the sound of your own words,” I said.

  “That’s not the point in question,” said Monty, as he drank the clear liquid he would have the corner kids believe was 7-Up or water.

  “Now, I’m not saying the boy McKay is a bit like his uncle,” Monty continued. I wrinkled my nose, but I didn’t mind listening to Monty’s words. I had listened to most of his stories at least once before. And now a new character or two to intertwine with Monty’s continuing plot: Ireland, civilization, and Monty’s various roles in its founding and continuance. There was little truth in his words, but sometimes his words were punctuated with a little magic. So I listened to him now.

  “What are you saying then?” I asked.

  “The Orphans are not for you,” said Monty. “Oh, I’ve heard McKay is a man of his word. Yes, yes, a man of honor. As Red, his uncle, was well known as a liar and, you’ll excuse me, a thief, so is McKay well known for his honor. That is the problem. As you should never trust a liar so should you never trust a man of honor. Those two are the worst of mankind.”

  “So you warn me against McKay?” I said. “And what of the Orphans? So I’m with McKay, that doesn’t mean I’m with the Orphans.”

  “The Orphans are known for their black-hearted thievery. What stories travel down the Avenue on the wind I keep to myself. But McKay and the Orphans are not to be separated. Be with one, and you be with the other.”

  “You is a fool, old man.” I smiled.

  “Trust the fool. Always trust the fool.” Monty took a chain from around his neck. Upon it dangled a silver locket. He opened the locket and within was a tooth edged in silver. “Look,” he said.

  Nothing but a locket and a tooth, rotted with age or decay.

  “Disgusting.” I laughed.

  Monty flipped the locket shut and held the chain out to me.