“Yes,” I said.
“What’s the deal, pardner?”
“It’s got nothing to do with my folks,” I said. “It’s Amy’s problem. Well, it’s more than a problem. It’s a rotten situation.”
I didn’t think I was bound to secrecy anymore. What I really mean is, I’d broken my word once and it didn’t seem like too bad a thing to do it a second time. I told him about Ginette locking Amy in the closet and stabbing her. I told him a few things about Carter Bedford.
I finished up by telling him about Carter’s offer to me on the Georgica jetty.
Tom stared at me. “This geek wanted $10,000 from you, and if you forked it over he’d let you get it on with his twelve-year-old daughter? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Isn’t that gross?”
“Billy, it’s downright criminal. A man like that should be lynched.”
I told him all my dad’s reasons for not wanting Amy to live in our house, and that he’d said Amy should go to the social services to seek shelter and to file a complaint.
“Makes sense,” Tom said.
“But she won’t go,” I explained.
“And you sure can’t force her.”
“No, I can’t. I wouldn’t want to.”
He thought for awhile. “You know,” he said, “on my ranch we brand heifers. It hurts them. And we pen them up, which they don’t like, either. If we didn’t do all that, they’d wander off and die somewhere. See what I’m saying?”
I understood. But Tom and my dad didn’t see things the way Amy and I did. You couldn’t blame them for that. A crowded elevator smells a lot different to a midget than it does to Michael Jordan.
Suddenly, right in the midst of this discussion, I felt my eyes glaze. I started yawning and I couldn’t stop. That happens to me. From one minute to the next, I collapse. I can try to hang in there but all you have to do is look at me and unless you’re blind you can see that I’m gone. I wished that weren’t so, but I’ve said what I have to say about wishing.
“Where are you kids staying?” Tom asked.
“The Mayflower Hotel. Central Park West.”
“That’s real close to where the team stays. You want to wake the little gal, I’ll give y’all a lift home.”
On the drive into the city, over the Triboro and down the FDR Drive, Tom was silent. I thought he might be worrying about having walked all those Mets batters.
Chapter 28
A few minutes past eight o’clock the following morning, I was showered and dressed in a new white T-shirt from Macy’s and thinking about what Amy and I were going to do that day. Texas wasn’t the only state with ranches. I could put an ad in the HELP WANTED sections of a few newspapers out west. I’d start by trying Wyoming and Montana — they seemed like the most out-of-the-way places where some rancher might be happy to hire a really good cook even if he was just a kid.
Meanwhile, I’d decided that what we should do this day was take advantage of the good weather and go to the Statue of Liberty, unless Amy wanted to do something else like go to the bone museum. It looked like she really loved museums. The bone museum was going to knock her socks off.
The phone rang.
This was a snazzy joint. There was a phone in each room and wall phones in both bathrooms. No one knew we were here except Tom Egan, so it had to be him calling. Or else it was the hotel desk. But why would they call this early? I didn’t want the ringing to wake Amy — I grabbed the living room phone off the cradle.
I’d been right; it was Tom.
He said, “Billy, I had a hard night. I made a decision, and I didn’t want it to hit you like a brick falling off a wall. I made a few calls. The last call I made was to a New York State hotline number. I told them all about Amy and that rotten father of hers. Billy, I told them where you were staying. They’re gonna come get her, son. I wanted to prepare you. Don’t run. It’s the best thing could happen to your little gal.”
I found my voice from out of a deep dizzying well of helplessness. “Tom, I don’t believe you did that.”
When people use those words, what they really mean is that they do believe it but they don’t want to believe it.
It felt like I’d been thrown into that well of helplessness and been hit by a falling brick. My head actually hurt. Or maybe that was the power of suggestion. Who would have thought that my straightshooting, fastballing buddy, ace of the Colorado Rockies, even though the Mets had handed him his head on a platter, would do such a thing to me?
“Billy, one day you’ll thank me for this.”
This wasn’t that day. Even before he’d finished those words, someone was knocking on the door of the suite. I hadn’t ordered anything from Room Service. Tom was still on the line, waiting for me to say something. How could it happen so quickly?
“They’re here,” I said, and I called out: “Who is it?”
“Police. Open the door, please.”
I had no time to tell Tom that his good intentions had screwed up our lives in the worst way, so I hung up the phone. For a few seconds I didn’t move or even breathe. I was trying to figure a way out of a dead end. There had to be a way. In those movies where the hero’s cornered and there’s absolutely no way out, he always finds one. He’s the hero. The movie can’t go on unless he escapes. I love escape movies.
“If you don’t open up, son, we have a key. We can come in, and we will.”
I’d seen a dozen movies where the SWAT team, guns drawn, position themselves outside a locked door, ready to smash it in with a shoulder, a boot, or a ram. They never tell you they have a key. They don’t call you “son.” They don’t say “please.” This wasn’t a SWAT team.
“Can you wait a minute, please, so I can put some clothes on?”
I ran into Amy’s bedroom. She was sitting up in bed, eyes wide — she had heard some of what had happened. All her clothes were strewn over the chaise-longue, all her toys over the ocean-colored carpet. I said, “The cops are here to take you to social services. Do you want to go?”
“Are you nuts?”
“Then get dressed and get your stuff together fast as you can. And be super quiet.”
“What’ll we do, Billy?”
“I’m working out a plan, Amy.”
I ran back into the living room and opened the door. Two uniformed cops and a civilian stood there. One cop, a man, had a wide jaw and looked Irish; the other cop was a woman, blond, built like a weightlifter with a fat bottom. The civilian was a short, chubby man wearing a brown suit that sagged off his shoulders. He had a face like a fish.
The two cops were already eyeballing the suite — they weren’t used to picking up runaways or delinquents in places like this. The fish-faced man said, “My name is Jerry Siegel. Office of Children and Family Services. You’re Billy Braverman? Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir, I’m he.”
“Is Amy Bedford here with you?”
“Still asleep.”
“Don’t worry, nothing bad will happen. We’re on the same team, Billy. But we do require that both of you come with us.”
“Do we have to?” I asked. I didn’t want to seem too smart or too willing, or they might get suspicious.
“I’m afraid so,” Jerry Siegel said. When he smiled, his fish eyes popped a little, like they might fall out of the sockets onto the carpet.
“To where?”
“Just to my office. Geller House. It’s what we call a facility. We’ll talk to you there, and we’ll get in touch with both sets of parents. We’ll make an assessment. Don’t worry, Billy. This will all turn out all right.”
“I have to wake Amy,” I said, “and she’ll have to get dressed, and I have to go to the bathroom, and I have to get my stuff together, and she’ll have to do that, too. Is all that okay?”
Jerry Siegel seemed happy that I was cooperating, not making a fuss. He said, “That’s fine. We can wait outside.”
“No, come in. Sit down. Make yourself at home.”
&nb
sp; I practically dragged him into the room, and I made sure that the two cops followed. They looked around, inspecting things, sniffing, probably figuring there was dope around somewhere.
I knocked on Amy’s door, went in, and closed it part way behind me. She was stuffing things into her red sack.
I told her what to do and in what order to do it. First I had her poke her head through the door and give a quick look to the caseworker and the cops so that they knew it was a live girl in there and not just a figment of my imagination. After that I made sure that she ran the water in the bathroom sink. Then I jumped back out into the living room.
The big-bottomed woman cop was on the balcony now, enjoying the view, while the Irish-looking cop was blocking the front door. Jerry Siegel was seated on the sofa, cleaning his glasses with a pocket handkerchief.
“Two minutes,” I said.
I crossed the room and into my bedroom. I even left the door open part way. I opened Iphigenia’s cage, grabbed her, whispered a few words of caution in her ear, then stuffed her into her traveling bag. I threw my clothes and my bathroom stuff into my Macy’s sack. All that took about a minute. I flushed the bathroom toilet, turned on the taps of the sink, picked up Iphigenia and my stuff, and unlocked the hall door and opened it as quietly as I could. I stepped into the hallway, leaving the door open a bit. I didn’t want to close it and make any noise that would give us away.
Amy was out there in the corridor waiting for me. No one had bothered to warn the caseworker that we were in a suite with three doors that opened on the corridor. The elevators were close by. I grabbed Amy by the elbow, prodded her, and we broke into a run on the soft carpet.
When I jabbed the DOWN button, it glowed a pale creamy color.
I heard the cops screaming: “Hands against the wall! Spread your legs!” The shackles closed around my ankles…
That was the longest wait of my life. But the red DOWN light blinked, made that bleeping sound, and the elevator doors slid open. No one was inside the elevator. We jumped in, I punched the CLOSE button, and the door slid shut.
Amy turned to me. “Did you remember to bring the money, Billy?”
I made a noise, something like: “Aaaaaaaooogh!“
I couldn’t believe it. I had stuffed over $14,000 under my bedroom sofa and left it behind. It was all the cash we had. How could I do such a thing?
Asshole. I hate that word. But it described me.
Meanwhile, the elevator whooshed us down, stopping on the fourth floor. The doors opened. Suits crowded in. I moved my foot an inch toward the open door. I moved my body the other way. I swayed this way, that way — I didn’t know what to do. You can leave that kind of money behind if your life depends on your leaving it, but…
You can’t let money run your life. On the other hand, I’d already learned what most adults seem to know, that it’s hard to run your life without it. And it was a lot of money.
I whispered in Amy’s ear: “Go on down. Cross the park. You’ll come out on Fifth Avenue. Remember the toy store? Tom Hanks in Big? I’ll meet you there.”
“When?”
“Soon as I can. I’m going back up for the money.”
“Good luck, Billy.”
She was like that. She didn’t ask me more questions, like: “What if you don’t show up? Where do I go?” She believed in me.
On the second floor, with my sack of clothes and Iphigenia in her traveling bag, I squeezed past a couple of suits and jumped out. The door shut behind me and the elevator began blinking its way down to the lobby.
There had to be a staircase. But maybe Mr. Siegel and the cops were on it now, headed down. The door of another elevator slid open. Its green UP light blinked. I jumped in. All this probably took a lot less time to happen than it took to tell about it. If I get off at the fifth floor, I figured, where we started out from, I’m liable to bump into Mr. Siegel and the cops. Or they might still be in the living room, twiddling their thumbs, listening to the water run in the showers, believing they were still dealing with a caught and cooperative kid. I had left my hall bedroom door open a crack. I could slide back in, but if from one minute to the next they woke up to what had happened, or even wondered why I was taking such a long time, and barged in while I was digging under the sofa, there would be no more politeness and they wouldn’t let go of me until they had Amy in tow as well. Maybe no cuffs and shackles, but certainly a firm grip on the arm of this conniving kid. And the money? Kid must have stolen it. They were cops. They would confiscate it. Eventually, it would be given to my parents and vanish into the trust, and I wouldn’t see it again until I was twenty-one.
I got off at the sixth floor and quickly found the emergency exit. Nice and quiet in there on the concrete staircase. No sound of cops. I crept down the stairs to the fifth floor, pushed, shoved, got the heavy door open halfway and peered down the long wing of the H-shaped corridor. Coast was clear. I stepped out. As soon as I turned the corner to the elevators, I heard a distant yelp of surprise. Then another pair of yells — dismay and frustration, this time — then the bang of a door—then another door — smack! — as if it might come off its hinges. Then the sound of outraged feet pounding on carpet.
The maids were just beginning to clean on this side of the hotel. I had a fast glimpse of a uniformed maid, small and brown; she was there for a moment, then she vanished into a room. A few doors stood wide open. Two cleaning carts blocked the corridor. All this reminded me of Charlie on the run. Always on the move. You have to move.
I scuttled into one of the empty rooms. The big bed had been slept in, blanket, pillows and sheets tossed about, clothing and sections of the Times strewn about the room. The angry footsteps drew nearer. I flung open the bathroom door and jumped inside. It smelled of shaving lotion.
The footsteps slowed, drew closer. From the corridor I heard the commanding voice of the law:
“Couple of kids run by here?”
“No, suh. No one come by.”
Footsteps pounded off.
I popped out like a weasel from a hole. No one out there except a maid just vanishing into a doorway. I worked my way back past the elevators to our suite, where the bedroom doors were still open, just the way we’d left them.
I slipped inside the room, and got down on the carpet, grappling for the packet of money.
Not there.
“Aaaaaaaooogh!“
Has to be here. Has to be. Has to —
My hand closed around the manila envelope. I had looked in the wrong place, and not deep enough. I breathed again.
I stuffed the envelope into my sack and zipped it shut. I stayed hidden behind the sofa. I thought of all kinds of things, but mostly about what I’d be doing if I were home. It would be quiet. My heart wouldn’t be pounding like this. The tomato plants would be soaking up the sunlight. I’d be in the kitchen, mixing up my gallons of lemonade. I could hear Inez humming. I could hear the silent sounds of a big house. I began talking to myself in Spanish, pretending that Inez was there. I missed Oak Lane. I missed my bed, my old blue cotton blanket, my Dell computer — my stuff. I missed Inez. I missed knowing that horrible Simon was playing heavy metal on his Walkman in the next room. I reached into the travel bag and stroked Iphigenia on the head.
Cautiously, I peered out the door into the corridor. Cleaning carts, but no maids. I made my move. I hurried down the corridor. I took the stairs down.
I reached the lobby and peered out from behind the door to the staircase. No sign of the cops or of Mr. Siegel.
Running past Señor Garcia at Reception, I yelled, “Take it out of the debit card, please!”
Morning traffic on Central Park West was heavy: tour buses, taxis, delivery vans, limos. The heat walloped me on the head. The sun shone on the green grass of the park where dogs tugged at leashes. I was sweating. I looked for blue uniforms and didn’t see any. Iphigenia said, “Chit-chit-chit.“
“Don’t worry, I’ll feed you…”
I trotted across the park, c
arrying Iphigenia and my stuff. This was a hard life. Not one I had foreseen — running from the law every other day. I saw a hot dog vendor. Steam rose from the steel surface of his cart. I went up to him.
“Excuse me, but do you have any fruit, sir?”
“Only bananas.”
“One, please.” I wiped the sweat from my forehead with a paper napkin. “And a hot dog with mustard, relish, and lots of onion.” I was hungry and that’s all the guy had, except bananas.
I peeled the banana and shoved it into the bag. Grabbing it, Iphigenia hauled it down. Before I could bite into my hot dog, someone tapped me on the shoulder.
I didn’t want to turn to face them. I saw myself handcuffed, led away to prison.
“Billy.”
I spun around and Amy was grinning at me. She was already taking the last bite of her own hot dog. Her fingers and one side of her mouth were smeared with mustard.
“You scared me half to death,” I croaked. “Didn’t you go to the toy store?”
“I was on the way. The park’s so nice. And then I got hungry. I had some mad money left. That was a great idea, Billy. Did you get all the money from the room?”
“I got it.”
“Are you really gonna eat that thing?” She was pointing at my hot dog. “You said they were really bad for you.”
“Do you want it?”
I pulled Amy toward the carousel and the playground—I could see that there were plenty of other kids there now. Some of them were roller-skating, some were flying kites. We headed across the grass, our sacks swinging and bouncing. Amy trotted at my side, carroty hair flying in the breeze. She was laughing and having a great time. She ate my hot dog in three bites.
Chapter 29
Wearing a stained smock over a T-shirt and skivvies, Uncle Bernie was in his studio, grinding paints, then filling and labeling tubes. He stopped work when we jumped out of the taxi and rang the bell and took the old freight elevator up to the fourth floor. It was barely nine o’clock in the morning, and the loft smelled of turpentine and linseed oil and sweat. Uncle Bernie was a hard worker.
Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 04 - BOY ON TRIAL - A Legal Thriller Page 23
