Stone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

I pulled the door closed, dropped the newspapers in my office, and sat down at the desk. Every moment with Jimmy was unknown territory for me, a man who had never had children. But this was even more unknown. Most of the shapes and influences he’d had in his life had nothing to do with me. I had only been a part of his life for the last few years, and directly involved only for the last year. I had no idea where those facts were going to take us as he made his way to adulthood.

  As if that were the problem. The problem, right now, was that he was angry at me for reasons I didn’t understand. And he refused to talk with me about them.

  I couldn’t let this slide, but I wasn’t sure how to press it, either.

  I felt like I was losing him, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

  SIXTEEN

  LAURA’S ARRIVAL brought Jimmy out of his room. He heard her knock on the apartment door, and ran down the hallway. I heard him instead of the knocks. By the time I came out of my office, Jimmy was taking hot pizza boxes out of Laura’s arms.

  She had changed from her work clothes. She wore tight blue jeans with ripped hems and appliqué flowers, a woven peasant blouse that accented her braless state, and she had her hair down.

  She looked so different from the woman who had entered this apartment in the wee hours of Monday morning. I liked her many incarnations, all of her different sides. She intrigued me like no one else ever had.

  The apartment smelled of cheese and tomato sauce. She had brought four large pizzas, apparently remembering the last time, when Jimmy had eaten most of a pizza all by himself.

  “Pop tonight?” Jimmy asked me, and his eyes were bright. The sullen boy I had brought home seemed to have vanished. But I had a hunch that if I said no to his request for soda, the sullen boy would be back.

  I didn’t have a chance to answer. Laura said, “I have root beer in the car. I just wasn’t able to carry it up.”

  “I’ll get it,” Jimmy said.

  “It’s not the usual car,” she said. “It’s the big ugly black thing parked behind your dad’s.”

  “What happened to your car?” he asked.

  Laura glanced at me, and I realized with surprise that I hadn’t said anything to Jimmy about our adventures at the hospital on Sunday night.

  “Got some major stains in the back,” she said, covering pretty well. “I had to take it in for cleaning.”

  “And they just gave you another car?” Jimmy asked.

  “Yeah,” Laura said. “They do that as a courtesy.”

  “Especially when you’ve just bought a new Mercedes from them,” I said.

  Laura frowned at me as if she didn’t approve of the comment. But Jimmy had to know that perks weren’t for everyone. If I took my rusted Impala back to the dealership where I had bought it and asked for a loaner car while someone cleaned mine, I would have been laughed out of the place. Of course, anyone with any sense would have laughed at me just for bringing the car in for cleaning.

  “It’s not locked, is it?” Jimmy asked. “I can get the root beer?”

  “It’s not locked,” Laura said. “But lock it before you come up here.”

  “Okay,” he said and ran out the door.

  She waited until he jumped on the bottom step before saying, “I thought you said he’s been down lately.”

  “He screamed at me to leave him alone not fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Wow.” She peered out the door as if she could get the answer just from his behavior now. “You’d never know it to look at him.”

  I took the pizzas off the chair where Jimmy had set them, carried them into the half-kitchen, and set them on the counter.

  “You planning to feed the entire building?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t remember what Jimmy liked, so I got half-and-half of everything in weird combinations.” She shrugged. “I figure he’ll probably eat the rest tonight and tomorrow anyway. Growing boy.”

  “Yeah,” I said. That was as much a part of the problem as anything else.

  I got out plates and handed them to Laura. She had a touch of color in her cheeks, and her blue eyes sparkled. She looked beautiful, and I couldn’t resist. As I set the plates in her hands, I kissed her.

  “Yuck,” Jimmy said as he came in the door. “Mushy stuff.”

  We both grinned at him. Then Laura set the plates on the table. Jimmy brought me the root beer, and I got out three glasses.

  Even more than pizza, Jimmy found soda for dinner—a staple before he moved in with me—to be a special treat.

  “Before I forget,” Laura said, “I have both lists for you.”

  She slung her purse off her shoulder and reached inside.

  “What lists?” Jimmy asked as he got the ice cube trays out of the freezer.

  “Laura brought me a list of former tenants at the building I’m inspecting,” I said.

  “Somebody steal something?” Jimmy took the metal prong from the middle of the tray, pulled it, and emptied the ice into a large plastic bowl we had inherited from the Grimshaws. The outside of the bowl was grimy with Jimmy-sized handprints. I hoped that Laura didn’t notice.

  “I guess you could say that,” I said.

  “What, then?” He grabbed the tongs and picked up ice, dropping cubes into each glass. Usually I had to remind him to do that.

  “It’s more like they left something behind,” Laura said.

  “That’s not the same thing.” Jimmy gave me the same glare from earlier, only he made certain that his back was to Laura, so that she couldn’t see it.

  I opened the ringtop on one of the Hires cans and poured the root beer into all three glasses, letting the foam rise. The sweet smell of root beer tickled my nose.

  “You said two lists,” Jimmy said.

  “The other one is for a case I’m working on,” I said.

  The root beer foam receded, and I filled the glasses a little more.

  “You know, I’m not a baby any more,” Jimmy said. “You don’t always got to hide stuff from me.”

  “I’ve never treated you like a baby,” I said.

  Laura handed me the lists, and Jimmy snatched them from my hands.

  “Jim,” I said, warning in my tone.

  “They’re just lists.” Laura kept her voice level. “Nothing suspicious.”

  “How come one’s typed and one isn’t?” Jimmy asked, looking at both pieces of paper.

  “One was done at the office by my secretary,” Laura said. “I did the other.”

  “How come your secretary didn’t?” Jimmy asked.

  “Because I didn’t have time to give it to her to type.” Laura reached for one of the glasses. She obviously did it so that Jimmy couldn’t see her face. Her voice handled the lie well, but the frown between her eyes gave away her concern.

  “It’s all names.” Jimmy shoved both pieces of paper at me.

  “That’s what a tenant list is,” I said.

  “What’s the other one?” Jimmy asked again.

  “It’s a list of some doctors I know,” Laura said, carrying her glass to the table. I grabbed the other two and set them near the plates.

  “You sick?” Jimmy asked me, his tone changing from belligerent to worried.

  I shook my head. “Like I said, it’s a case.”

  “Who’re you working for?”

  “You’re not supposed to ask me that,” I said. “You know that.”

  “Laura knows,” Jimmy said.

  “Yes, she does,” I said. “She was there when I got the case.”

  “It’s not fair, you know,” Jimmy said. “Everybody knows stuff but me.”

  “It’s not about being fair,” I said. “It’s about me handling my cases with professionalism.”

  “And telling me isn’t professional?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s not.”

  Jimmy’s mouth opened, and then he slammed a fist on the table.

  The glasses shook. One almost toppled, but Laura caught it.

  “Do that again,” I said, �
�and you’re heading to your room without supper.”

  Jimmy slid into his chair, his lips a thin line, his eyes narrowed. He made it clear that he had more to say, but he wouldn’t—at least until he had finished eating.

  I was so angry that I was shaking. I took the papers into my office, set them on the desk, and stood there for a moment, catching my breath. If only I knew where Jimmy’s anger was coming from, I could address that, rather than fight about little things. It was too easy to respond to his challenges, and I knew if I didn’t handle them right from the beginning, they’d only get worse as he got older.

  It took me a moment to gather myself, but I finally felt calm enough to return to the living room. Jimmy was still in his chair, and Laura had set napkins next to the silverware. Two of the pizza boxes, their lids cut off, sat like serving trays in the middle of the table.

  “Dig in,” Laura said.

  The pizza did smell good, and it had been a long time since that launderette lunch. I sat in my chair, and reached for a slice of pepperoni, as someone knocked on the door.

  “Damn,” I said.

  “No cursing at the table,” Laura said quickly—so quickly that I knew it was an automatic phrase, probably one she had heard as a child.

  Jimmy was staring at her in startled surprise. Apparently he had never heard anyone talk to me like I talked to him.

  I slid my chair back, went to the door, and looked through the spyhole. Marvella stood there, wringing her hands together. I wasn’t even sure if she was aware she was doing so.

  No one had locked the deadbolts, so I pulled the door open. She was wearing sandals, blue jeans, and a sweater. Her hair had reverted to its natural state.

  If it weren’t for her wringing hands and the shadows under her eyes, I would have thought she was looking better than she had the day before.

  “Come on in, Marvella,” I said.

  “Bill, I was wondering how the—” She stopped herself when she saw the food on the table and Laura standing in my kitchen as if she belonged there.

  Marvella had cooked for me a few times, shortly after the Grimshaws had moved out, and then once when I asked her to baby-sit Jim. Her meals were elaborate and delicious, and I had felt, when she served them, like I had stepped into a television program of the perfect family.

  Laura serving us pizza was something those TV moms frowned upon. You never caught June Cleaver serving pizza instead of a well-rounded meal.

  But then, neither Laura nor Marvella was June Cleaver. Nor were they like any other woman portrayed upon TV.

  Jimmy had gripped the edge of the table. When I saw that, I realized that my back muscles were tense. I, too, had braced myself for Marvella’s snide onslaught against Laura.

  Instead, Marvella gave me a weak smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were eating. I’ll come back.”

  “There’s no need,” Laura said. “Sit down. Tell us how Valentina is.”

  “Valentina?” Jimmy asked me.

  “A friend of Marvella’s,” I said softly. “She’s in the hospital.”

  “No,” Marvella said to Laura. “I don’t want to impose. I’ll come back.”

  “Please,” Laura said. “I insist. There’s plenty of food—too much, as Smokey told me when I showed up.”

  “You brought the pizza?” Marvella said, and Jimmy and I braced ourselves again, although Laura, who had taken the full brunt of Marvella’s wrath in the past, didn’t seem all that disturbed.

  “The working girl’s emergency meal,” Laura said with a grin. “I couldn’t even trouble myself to make a salad.”

  She took out another plate and set it on the table, along with an extra napkin.

  “What will you have to drink? We have lots of root beer, some milk, and I could make coffee. But Smokey doesn’t keep beer, and I don’t know what else goes with pizza.”

  Marvella let Laura steer her to the chair. I had never seen anything quite like it. In the past, it had been Laura who was at a disadvantage with Marvella.

  “I guess…root beer,” Marvella said.

  “I’ll get it,” Jimmy said, but I put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Eat,” I said.

  “Well, you guys gotta, too.”

  “We will,” Laura said. “I’ll get the root beer. Sit down, Smokey. Keep Marvella company.”

  I sat down too, feeling out of control in my own kitchen. Two of the pepperoni pieces were already gone, and only one of them was on Jimmy’s plate. The crust of the other one sat on his napkin.

  “What do you want, Marvella?” I asked. “We have sausage, pepperoni, sausage and pepperoni, cheese—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said as I took her plate. I gave her a slice of sausage. She took the plate with the piece on it, and stared at it for a moment. “You know, I didn’t mean to impose.”

  “You’re not imposing.” Laura set the root beer glass in front of Marvella, then sat down. Laura served herself some pepperoni. “I, for one, have been wondering how your cousin is.”

  “I thought she was a friend,” Jimmy whispered to me.

  I took a piece before the pepperoni vanished forever. “It’s complicated.”

  “I hate it when you say that.” He glowered at me, but it didn’t seem like the angry glare from before. He was too interested in the conversation to nurture his anger at me.

  Marvella cut her slice with a fork. “She’s still not awake.”

  “My God.” Laura bit into her piece of pizza, a big bite that squeezed tomato sauce onto her chin. “What’s the prognosis?”

  “Every day, every hour, that she keeps breathing is another step forward,” Marvella said. “But nobody’s promising anything.”

  Laura nodded, wiped the tomato sauce off her chin with a napkin, and then took another bite.

  “Fever gone?” I said.

  “No,” Marvella said. “But the infection seems to be better. The penicillin seems to be working, but I’m not even sure about that. No one’s talking, which has me worried.”

  “Not even to Truman?”

  “He left this morning,” Marvella said. “He sat around as much as he could, but I finally got him to go home, take a shower, and get some sleep. Maybe they’ll talk to him when he comes back tonight.”

  “Is that the cop?” Jimmy asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “What, he arrest her or something?” Jimmy asked.

  Laura looked at him, startled. She always seemed startled when his old life showed up in his questions. It was still more natural for him to think of a cop arresting a woman than being related to one.

  “He’s her ex-husband,” I said.

  “What happened to her?” Jimmy asked.

  We all looked at him, uncertain what to tell him. Then the women looked at me. Jimmy missed their reactions. He was focusing on devouring his third piece of pizza.

  “She was hurt in a crime,” I said, realizing how lame that sounded. “And things got worse. She had to have surgery.”

  “Hurt?” Jimmy said. “Mugged?”

  He wasn’t going to let up.

  “No,” I said.

  “Beat up?”

  “Kind of,” Laura said.

  “Some guy, huh?” Jimmy said. “He done stuff to her?”

  Marvella’s eyes widened and she stared at me. I wasn’t about to tell her that Jimmy’s mother had been a prostitute. I had no idea why I had even tried to protect him. He probably knew more about this stuff than I did.

  “Yeah,” I said. “He hurt her pretty badly.”

  “They catch him?” This he directed to Marvella.

  “Not yet.” Marvella stopped, stabbed her fork into one of the cut pizza pieces, and ate it. “Which was what I initially came here for. Have you got anything yet, Bill?”

  So much for keeping things from Jimmy.

  “No,” I said. “I’m finding that a lot of the people on your list aren’t at the address that you gave me.”

  “She gave you a list?”
Jimmy asked.

  “Jim,” I said, a bit more sharply than before. “It’s business.”

  His cheeks flushed. He set down his piece of pizza. “You’ll talk business with everyone but me?”

  “It isn’t like that,” I started, but Marvella spoke over the top of me.

  “He’s finding some stuff out for me, Jimmy,” she said.

  Jimmy looked from her to me, and then back to her. “You’re working for her?” he said, his voice low and angry. “You don’t even like her.”

  It was my turn to flush. “That’s enough!” I said.

  “It’s all right,” Marvella said, setting down her fork. “I haven’t been the nicest—”

  “This isn’t about you, Marvella,” I said. “It’s about Jimmy and me. He’s doing everything he can to piss me off, and it’s working. Apologize to her, Jim.”

  “For what? Telling the truth?” He looked at her. “You made him really mad—”

  “Jimmy, that’s it.” I stood, took his plate away, and carried it to the sink. It took all of my strength to stop myself from throwing it against the wall. “You’re done with dinner. Go to your room.”

  “You can’t order me,” he said.

  “I can, and I will,” I said. “You’re excused.”

  He stood up, grabbed one more slice of pizza and a napkin, and started for his room. I debated grabbing the slice from him, decided it was too petty, and let him go.

  “Wow,” Laura said. “I’ve never seen him like that.”

  “Neither have I.” I sighed and sat back down. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Then I looked at Marvella. Her cheeks were still flushed, and she was pushing the pizza around with her fork.

  “I owe you an apology,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “He’s right. I’ve been awful.”

  “We discussed it,” I said. “You apologized. I just didn’t tell him. I—”

  “It doesn’t seem like you can tell him anything right now.” She looked up and gave me a smile that her heart clearly wasn’t in. “I should go.”

  “Not yet,” I said. “I need to talk with you about the case.”

  She nodded.

  “If that’s all right,” Laura said, looking at me, knowing that she was stepping into an area that was mine and mine alone. “Sometimes things can be overwhelming and—”