Crying Wolf

by Peter Abrahams

  The old lady-old lady, but Leo Uzig’s wife, and therefore the other woman, the one who’d broken up the family he’d never had-gazed at the sheet of paper with her watery eyes. “Is this the contract?” she said.

  “Contract?” The voice-male-came from the kitchen door. Freedy turned quickly, saw Leo Uzig. Not a picture on the wall, but the man. Leo Uzig wore a crimson robe and under it a white shirt and knotted tie, but his feet were bare. His feet: he had the kind of second toes that were longer than the first. Freedy’s were the same way. Now he did feel a chill.

  “The swimming-pool contract, Leo,” said the old lady. “We have to make a decision. Malibu, Miami, Mediterranean. All beginning with M, as I’m sure you noticed. You most of all.”

  “What swimming pool contract?” Uzig said.

  “This gentleman is from the pool company,” said the old lady. “Freedy, my husband, Professor Leo Uzig. Leo, Freedy, last name to come.”

  “How’s it goin’?” said Freedy, slipping the birth certificate in his pocket.

  Uzig didn’t look at him. “Have you signed anything, Helen?”

  “And if I have?”

  They stared at each other until Freedy said, “Hey. Nothing’s signed. This is just the whatchamacallit. Checking out the dimensions. We’re strictly aboveboard. You know, integrity.”

  Now they were both looking at him.

  “Thank you, Freedy,” said the old lady, “but I don’t require your help.”

  “Huh?”

  She glanced at Uzig, back to Freedy. “May I present my husband? Professor Dr. Leo Uzig, Freedy. Short for Friedrich.”

  She was introducing them again? What the fuck was he supposed to say? Freedy was wondering about that when he noticed that the expression on Uzig’s face, still turned toward him, had changed. Hard to describe how: kind of like Uzig had suddenly realized he’d eaten something bad; Freedy recalled his own very first night in Tijuana, an all-you-can-eat bar called Gringo’s. Leo Uzig looked the same kind of sick. Why wouldn’t he, being married to a crazy old bag and her with the money? Freedy’d figured that one out in two seconds. She had the money, she wanted a pool, and he didn’t. He was way ahead of them. If I don’t watch out, I’m going to make my first sale, and I haven’t even got a fucking backhoe. That was really funny. Freedy caught himself smiling broadly, smiling in the direction of Leo Uzig. No harm in that: no harm in showing him those white teeth, big and perfect.

  Uzig smiled back, the kind of smile where teeth don’t show. “Perhaps it’s not such a bad idea,” he said.

  “What isn’t?” said Freedy.

  “A swimming pool-isn’t that the subject at hand?”

  Subject at hand? What was he talking about? Freedy, who’d never talked to a college professor before, expected them to make more sense than that. “Malibu, Miami, and Mediterranean,” he said, because he had to say something and that sounded pretty good. “You’ve got choices.”

  Now Uzig’s teeth showed, not bad teeth, but not as good as his. Probably smiling because he liked those names. Who wouldn’t? They were fucking brilliant, and created-yes, created, like those Budweiser lizards-created by him out of the goddamn blue. Maybe he didn’t even need a backhoe. Freedy realized he could have been a college professor himself, probably should have been. His rightful-what was the word? Birthright. He stopped smiling.

  “Why don’t we go out and survey the site?” Uzig said.

  “Hey,” said Freedy. “Sure.”

  “Me too,” said the old lady.

  “It’s much too cold,” Uzig told her. He pressed a button on the wall phone. A nurse entered moments later. What about her day off? Freedy almost said something.

  “Bath time,” said the nurse.

  “I’m clean,” said the old lady.

  The nurse led her away.

  Uzig put on boots. They went onto the deck. Richie pecked up one last seed and flew away.

  They stood on the deck, almost side by side, gazing at the snow-covered yard. Uzig wasn’t as tall as Freedy, but Freedy could sense he was built sort of solid. Nothing like Freedy, of course, but Uzig was older, and probably hadn’t lifted much, maybe didn’t know about andro.

  “I don’t believe there are many swimming pools in Inverness,” Uzig said.

  “Just another one of the fu-of the dumb things about this town.”

  Silence. Silence when the next question should have been where he was from, or how long he’d lived in town, or something like that. Freedy tried to figure out why it hadn’t been asked, gave up, answered it anyway.

  “You’ve heard of the flats?”

  “Of course.”

  “That’s where I grew up.” Did his voice sound a little angry? He softened it and said, “The pool business I learned in California.”

  “Naturally.”

  What was natural about it? He could have done other things in California, sold cars or tried Rollerblading. Something impressive occurred to him. “The demand curve for pools,” he said. “Up and up.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Uzig.

  Demand curve. How sharp was that? Freedy thought of a selling point, remembered someone saying it, really, but it was a good one just the same. “Kids love ’em.”

  “I don’t have kids,” said Uzig.

  Silence. They looked at each other. Freedy got a very weird feeling: like he was seeing into his own eyes. Reverb, reverb, reverb. That was the feeling. His own eyes resembled the eyes of some British actor, according to his mother. He tried to remember British actor names, came up with only one, the James Bond guy. Were his eyes like the James Bond guy’s? Were Uzig’s? Freedy didn’t know. Still, it couldn’t be bad. The James Bond guy was a big star.

  “No kids,” said Freedy. “That’s a shame.” Just toying now. Toying, which proved he was as smart as, maybe smarter than, a college professor. Came by it honestly. That was a good one. “But you know what would be even more of a shame?” he said. “Even more of a shame than having no kids?”

  Uzig watched him. His face was still, hard to read. Hard to read if that reverb thing hadn’t been going on. But it was, so Freedy knew him through and through. It was sweet, knowing everything about the other guy when he knew nothing about you; especially when it was a father-son deal. How about that for a mindblower?

  “What would be even more of a shame?” Uzig said at last.

  “Not to have a pool in a space like this.” Space was the word you used-Freedy’d watched an architect use it over and over on a woman in Palos Verdes. “A crying shame. That’s what it would be.”

  “What do you propose?”

  Freedy liked that. It made him want to clap Uzig on the back and say, I get the feeling this is the start of something good. It made him want to, so he did; even the clap-on-the-back part, maybe a little harder than he’d meant, but still well within the boundary of two guys hanging out, father-and-son style. “I propose to build you a pool you’ll never forget,” Freedy said. He held out his hand. After a second or two, Uzig extended his. They shook. The old man didn’t have much of a grip, and Freedy did his best to back off on the squeezing part. “How about I throw some specs together and get back to you?” he said.

  “As you wish,” said Uzig.

  Which Freedy took for yes. He tried to think of something else to say, some way to extend the conversation. Or maybe Uzig would say something. But he didn’t, so Freedy finally said, “Get back to you then. Real soon.” Plenty of opportunity for conversation in the future. He walked home, down College Hill, across the tracks, into the flats, jazzed all the way.

  She was on the kitchen phone when he went in, up early for her. Saw him, said something quick and low into the phone, hung up.

  “Freedy,” she said.

  “The one and only.”

  “I’m… glad you’re home. We should have a little talk.”

  Fine with him. He had lots to tell her. Should he hit her with the whole thing at once, or But she spoke first. “I-we’ve had some good n
ews, Freedy.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The fact is…” She bit her lip. “Maybe artists shouldn’t even have children at all.”

  Stoned again. Out of her goddamn mind. He would have pushed past her, gone into his room, except for that good-news part. He waited instead.

  “Do you know that song, Freedy, ‘Last Thing on My Mind’?” She started singing, in a little-girl voice that irritated him even more than normal singing: “ ‘Could have loved you better, didn’t mean to be unkind, you know that was the last…’ ”. Her voice trailed off.

  Pathetic. He could see Leo Uzig as his father, especially after the reverb thing. What didn’t add up was her as the mother.

  “But now maybe I can make it up to you,” she said. “The fact is, I’ve come into a little money.”

  “How much?”

  “Some. I know you don’t like it here.”

  “Who said that?”

  “You, Freedy. What with the cold and the lack of opportunity. Maybe I could help… set you up. In a warmer place, if you had some idea.”

  “What kind of idea?”

  “About what you’d like to do.”

  Yes, a lucky day. What was it all about? Choice. He heard that all the time. Bill Gates, all the others, they had choices, they chose from different possibilities. Malibu, Miami, Mediterranean: choice. “I’ve got some ideas,” Freedy said. “How much are we talking about?”

  “Some,” she said again.

  “Can’t start a pool-” Whoa, don’t give anything away. “ Some won’t cut it in the business world.”

  “What… what would be a likely amount?”

  “Depends what’s available.”

  Her eyes went to the phone. What was she going to do, call the bank? Had to be a dope deal, although he couldn’t imagine her making a big score.

  “How would ten thousand do?”

  Meaning there had to be four or five times that. Freedy was impressed. “Be a start,” he said.

  She nodded, like it wasn’t out of the question, like it could happen.

  “There’ll be some travel expenses too,” Freedy said.

  “To where?”

  “Florida.” Said it out loud. It was real, a real choice. “Let’s call it another two.”

  “Two?”

  “G’s.”

  She nodded again. Should have said three, four, even five.

  “When can I have it?”

  She glanced at the phone again, opened her mouth to reply. Freedy heard a car door close.

  He went to the window. A state police cruiser was parked on the street, a statie coming up the walk, but slow because she hadn’t shoveled. Freedy’s first thought: there goes the dope deal. Then he got a good look at the statie’s face: the same statie who’d eyed him in the men’s room of the stripper bar. He backed away from the window.

  Didn’t make sense. Ronnie had filed a complaint? What was wrong with him? Did he want to get seriously hurt? That wasn’t Ronnie. But if not Ronnie, what?

  No time to figure it out now. He turned to her; her mouth was still open. “I’ve gone back to California,” Freedy said.

  “Not Florida?”

  “That’s just what to tell him, for fuck sake. Address unknown.”

  “Tell who, Freedy?”

  There was a knock on the door. Freedy could move. He moved: down the hall to his bedroom, out the window, into the backyard, through some trees, angling toward the river; heading for Ronnie’s. Nothing to it; but he was pissed. This was supposed to be a lucky day.

  But as for getting away clean, that was never in doubt. Freedy had only one bad moment, when a helicopter suddenly appeared. What was this? LA? It swept low over the river, passed above him at treetop level, close enough for him to see it had no police markings; no markings at all, except a big black Z.

  25

  “You must become who you are.” Identify the quotation and relate to the concept of the Superman.

  — Final exam question 1, Philosophy 322

  That Ronnie.

  Just when things were getting promising, just when Freedy’s hard work was starting to pay off, who fucks it all up but Ronnie? Calling the cops? Calling the cops because he was too clumsy to avoid bumping his head on a laptop? This wasn’t like the hairy thing under Ronnie’s lower lip, or the girl from Fitchville South, both a bit funny in a pathetic way. There was nothing funny about this. Calling the cops about a private matter crossed the line-everyone in the flats knew that, and no one would blame Freedy, whatever he did. Ronnie was a disgrace.

  The slider to Ronnie’s basement was open a foot or so, off the track, askew. Ronnie had probably gone back to bed, was probably still asleep, maybe even with the girl. Was it a school day? Freedy realized he didn’t know what day it was. Cool, in a way. Did the wolf keep track of the goddamn days, or the tiger?

  Freedy went in, saw the weights lying around, saw someone’s cut-off sweatshirt-his Planet Hollywood sweatshirt, found by some pool in the Valley, how the hell did that get here? — on the bench press, heard water dripping. He went upstairs to the kitchen.

  All quiet, the fridge still humming away, the tub of KFC on the table. Freedy couldn’t remember taking it out of the fridge, but maybe he had. He helped himself to another drumstick, then noticed the laptop, still lying open and unblinking on the floor. Drumstick in hand, he went down the hall to Ronnie’s bedroom. Door closed. He opened it, went in.

  Ronnie was back in bed all right, and alone. Eyes closed, maybe sleeping. Oh yeah-and his head was all wrapped in bandages. Freedy moved to the side of the bed. “Ronnie?” he said, swallowed what he was chewing, and said it again, more clearly, “Ronnie?”

  No response, like he was in a… coma, or something. Impossible. Not even Ronnie. Freedy was thinking about giving him a little pat, a little poke, a little shake, when he heard footsteps in the hall; very light footsteps, but would anyone be surprised to learn that Freedy’s hearing was second to none? That was why he was already turned toward the door, readying some high-school joke for the Cheryl Ann substitute, when the footstepper walked in.

  But not the girl: Saul Medeiros, Uncle Saul, gnawing on a drumstick, just like him. Saul paused, paused in midchew, and said something, possibly not clear because the drumstick got in the way. It sounded like, “Boys.”

  Boys will be boys. Must be what he means, thought Freedy, and he started to relax. The laptop incident-no more than a boys-will-be-boys thing to Uncle Saul. Saul knew what Ronnie was all about; he remembered how Saul had smiled his nicotine-colored smile when Freedy said Ronnie was a pussy. Besides, he and Saul had developed a good working relationship. Not that they’d reached the mentor stage yet, but Two guys appeared behind Uncle Saul.

  “Look who’s here, boys,” said Saul.

  The two boys were big boys, one about Freedy’s size, the other a lot bigger. Both wore black satin jackets with Saul’s Collision in gold letters and crossed bowling pins on the front, plus gold crests reading Runners-Up ’99. Freedy wanted one.

  “This here’s Freedy, boys,” said Saul Medeiros. “Numbnut I was tellin’ you about. Don’t unnerstan’ the… what’m I tryna say? The importance of business ethics.”

  The boys didn’t look happy to hear it.

  “How can you say that, Saul?” said Freedy.

  “Mr. Medeiros,” said Saul.

  “How can you say that?” said Freedy, compromising by dropping the Saul; at the same time glancing at the window, hoping to gauge the distance to the ground. Surprisingly far from upstairs at Ronnie’s: that would be the fucking slope to the river, why Ronnie had that basement with the weights, why they were friends.

  “How can I say what?”

  “Ethics. When you’re the one that called the cops.”

  Saul and his two boys all wrinkled their foreheads. “What the fuck are you talking about?” said Saul.

  “The statie over at my place right now is what I’m talking about.”

  “Nothin’ to do with me,�
� said Saul. “Never called a cop in my life, never will, except for setting up a payment or some other legitimate business purpose.” The boys nodded their heads. “So don’t question my ethics. You’re the one broke the laptop agreement.”

  “The laptop agreement?”

  “You forgot?” said Saul. “Forgot we talked about laptops, you and me? Then all of a sudden-no laptops. Okay. I’m reasonable. If there’s no laptops, there’s no laptops. Supply don’t meet demand. Happens all the time-why you got scalpers. But if it turns out there is laptops all along, is laptops but I’m gettin’ some bullshit story there isn’t laptops, then what’s a reasonable, ethical businessman s’posta do?”

  “There were no laptops,” Freedy said.

  “What’s that-some hallucination on the kitchen floor?”

  The boys got a kick out of that one.

  “There’s just the one,” Freedy said, “and it wasn’t for sale.”

  “How come is that?”

  “I was keeping it.”

  “Getting into programming?” said Saul.

  The boys liked that too.

  “I needed it for research,” Freedy said.

  “Research?”

  “Nothing you’d be interested in. It’s a family matter.”

  Pause. “Family.”

  “Right.”

  “Family,” said Saul, “is very funny coming from you.”

  The boys nodded.

  “What’s that mean?” said Freedy.

  “Means we now come to the main event, laptops being like the undercard.”

  “Lost me,” said Freedy.

  “Don’t you worry-I’ll find you,” Saul said. “Refresh your memory-didn’t we talk about family, you and me? Or are you tellin’ me you forgot that too? Not surprisin’, your ma being a hippie cocksucker down at the old Onion. I done some checkin’, unnerstan’ why you might want to forget the importance of family. Forget family legends. Forget Cheryl Ann.”

  Family legends? Cheryl Ann? And that wasn’t very nice about his mother. Was this some kind of Portagee shit? These people were stuck in the past, going nowhere, total losers. It pissed Freedy off to be in the same conversation with them. This was America, after all. “Is this some kind of Portagee shit?” he said.