“I’ve seen you. Across the street.”
Zoey shrugged. “I play there sometimes.”
“You’re very good,” Mom said.
Zoey tugged a couple more of her dreads in front of her face. “Thanks.”
Nomi came to the kitchen door but stopped on the threshold, hugging the door frame. Zoey obviously freaked her out a bit.
Mom was silent too. She was thinking about something, staring oddly at Zoey. “I dreamed about you,” she said.
Zoey made a noise like something was stuck in her throat. “You dreamed about me?”
“You were beside the sea. You were playing your instrument, only it was falling to pieces. But you still played beautifully. Even the waves clapped. They went psh-psh-psh against the sand. A whole ocean, cheering for you.”
Zoey had no idea what to say to that. Who would?
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Mom said. She reached out with a limp hand and Zoey took it.
“Nice to meet you too.”
Nomi was gone when we turned to leave the kitchen. In my room, the first thing Zoey said was, “Your mom’s kind of … odd.”
“She’s not feeling well.”
“No offense, but I think that’s an understatement.”
“She’s just tired.”
“Well, anyway, I like her. She’s nice. Weird, but nice.” Zoey took in a quick survey of the room. “Okay. So where is it?”
“Hold on,” I said. I had carefully replaced my dirty laundry, covering the rattler where it protruded from under the bed. “Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“Would you ever sell it?”
“Yeah, right.”
“Really?”
“Never.”
“You’re sure?”
“Is this it over here, under your bed?” She poked her toe into my clothes, finding the base.
“What if I could get you a lot of money for it? Like, loads of money.”
“Not everyone cares about money, you know.” She picked away the dirty clothes. The rattler’s chains clinked on the floor. “This isn’t something you can just sell. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to make it.”
“Oh, yeah?” My voice came out with an edge. “How long would you say?”
She shrugged. “I dunno, a long time.”
“About how long?”
“It wasn’t like I was punching a clock. I can’t remember exactly.” She pulled the rattler all the way out, propping it against the wall. “I made it years ago.”
“Did you really?”
Her eyes narrowed at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s just a question.” I was getting angry. All I wanted was to hear the truth. “You really made it?”
“Yes. And it took a long time.” She was looking at the instrument, not me. “A couple years, maybe. Y’know, to get it to sound right.”
It was so obvious she was lying. Why hadn’t I seen it before?
“Maybe you’d understand,” she said, turning back to me with a look of disgust, “if you could actually make something instead of just fold towels.”
That hurt, especially because I knew she was lying. I almost wanted to grab the thing and toss it out the window. But instead, very calmly, I said, “Two years, huh?”
“Yeah, about that. Two years.”
“And you won’t sell it? Not even if I told you I knew someone who’d pay a ton for it?”
“Like who?”
“Maybe I know somebody.”
She sighed. “You don’t get it, do you? All you think about is money. It’s not like that for me. It’s about the who, not the how much. I’d only sell it to someone I trusted, someone special to me. Somebody who would take care of it—and play it. That’s what it’s made for.”
“Am I special to you?”
“You were. I don’t know, maybe you still are. It’s confusing.” She stared at me with her big, glittering eyes and I almost changed my mind.
Almost.
“Let me buy it off you.”
She laughed. “You? Why would you even want it?”
“It’s not for me,” I said—exactly the same as I’d lied to Nomi. “It’s for my mom.”
Zoey didn’t understand.
“You saw her. She gets depressed sometimes. And you heard what she said. She dreamed about you.” If Zoey wouldn’t tell me the truth, then I could spin my own lies. “When I was a kid, she played in an orchestra, and when she saw you playing, she told me she wished she could have it. She said it would finally get her playing again. Don’t you get it? It’s not just you she dreams about. She dreams about this, the rattler. And you said it yourself, it needs to be played.”
“She wants to play it?”
“You can always build another one. Right?”
Zoey nodded slowly, but she seemed unsure. “It’d have to be a shitload of money. Music schools aren’t cheap.”
I felt a jab of triumph. I had got her to admit it. Money mattered to her, just as much as it did to me.
“Okay,” I said. “How much do you want?”
“It depends. How much have you got?”
65
The Last Time I Saw Her, Part 1
The last time I saw Zoey Zamani, she was boarding a streetcar. The doors clapped shut and the iron wheels went slicing east along Steinway. When she took her seat, she didn’t look out through the glass. She just sat there, sitting on top of my whole life. That’s because in her back pocket there were twenty-two personal checks, each one for $500 and all signed by me. That’s how Zoey wanted it. She said it would save her some hassle. If it was all on a single check, it would be difficult to cash it.
Twenty-two little rectangles of paper. It was everything I had.
When the streetcar vanished over the rise, I went straight back upstairs and called the number on Andrew Myers’s business card. There was no answer. I waited for a messaging service to click in, but it never did. I hung up and tried again. This time, he picked up before the second ring.
“Yeah? Myers.” His voice was slower and gruffer than before, as if he’d just flopped out of bed.
“Mr. Myers?”
“Make it quick.” He cleared his throat and his voice slid back to the smoothness I remembered. “We’re just about to roll.”
“It’s Kaz Barrett.” I started explaining who I was, but he cut in before I finished.
“Oh, kid ! Sure, I remember who you are. You talk to your friend? You got some good news for me?”
“I do. I’ve got it right here. The instrument.”
“That’s great!”
“So can you come and get it? I’m ready to sell it to you.”
“Yes! Totally! But not right this instant. The shooting schedule is hell for the next few days, so … ” He paused to think. I heard indistinct chatter in the background, the rush of wind, or maybe traffic. “Okay, what about Sunday, lunchtime? I’ll swing by the laundromat before the airport. Sound okay?”
“Uh, no. Not there.” I didn’t think he needed to know I’d been fired, but I also didn’t want him coming to the apartment. “Better if we meet across the street. There’s a jewelry shop there called Mizra’s Fire & Ice.”
“Sorry, where?”
“It’s right where you parked last time.”
“I park a lot of places.”
“It’s directly across from the laundromat. You can’t miss it.” I had him write down the name, just in case. “Meet me there at twelve noon.”
After I hung up, I felt relieved. The arrangements were made. But I also had an awful feeling like I’d never see Zoey again. When I put her on that streetcar, what I remembered most was the look of disappointment on her face. It was as if, in some deep and unthinkable way, I had failed her.
A Bit of Blue Sky
To clear my head, I went for a walk. I ended up in Montgomery Park. The skinny guy in the straw hat was still there, still hawking his photographs of crumbling cathedrals.
“See anything you like?” There was a slight whistle to his S. It came from a black hole in the middle of his grin. All his front teeth were missing.
“Just passing through.”
“Look all you want, won’t cost a dime, but stand there for too long and I start charging rent!”
I gave the guy a half-hearted laugh.
“Where’s that?” I asked, pointing to the only color photograph on the blanket. It was a view from below of a crumbling wall of red and brown bricks. The only break from the pitted surface was a single bullet-shaped window, high in the corner. Through it, you could see a patch of clouds and blue sky.
“Just a stop along the way,” said the guy unhelpfully. “Probably not there anymore. Would’ja believe they’re gonna level the place for condos?”
“It’s a nice picture.”
“Like it enough to buy it?”
Maybe, I thought, but not yet. The picture summed up how I felt: hemmed in by the walls of Evandale, but with a bright flicker of blue sky up in some far-off corner.
“Not right now,” I told the guy, “but maybe later. I’ve got a very big paycheck coming tomorrow.”
“Good for you. Just make sure you come find me when your ship comes in.”
I was walking away, almost out of earshot, when I heard the guy call to someone else.
“Yo, B! Where’s Razor at?”
I spun around, and there he was. The whole time I’d been gawking at photographs, he’d been sitting right behind me, flopped on a park bench.
B-Man.
“Oh my god! You’re alive.”
B-Man shrugged as if he wasn’t sure. “I’m alive.”
“Where have you been?”
“Aw … ” He looked nervously up and down the street.
I sat down beside him and regretted it immediately. He smelled terrible.
“What happened?”
He shook his head. “Don’t wanna talk about it!”
“Talk about what?”
He winced, pulling his lips back like a snarling dog, but the effect wasn’t fierce. It wasn’t the glare of a wild animal. It made him look frightened. “You see A-Man?” he asked me.
“Not for a few days.”
B-Man shut his eyes tight. His teeth did the same, all gnashed together. “I lost it. Don’t know where it is. Or else they stole it. Somebody stole it! Anyhow, I can’t find it, because … aw, I’ll never find it.”
This was the part when I usually phased out, the part when B-Man flew off to his private planet of jibber-jabber. This time, I didn’t ignore him. “You mean your die, don’t you?”
B-Man nodded like a child without a toy. My hand was already in my pocket, about to get out the die, when he said, “It don’t matter.”
“How come?”
“Because nothing does. Get it?”
“No. I don’t.”
Suddenly, B-Man started to cry. Huge, kick-ass, full body sobs. The perimeter of people around us widened. That was them doing what I used to do, ignoring him. It was probably like that for B-Man all the time. So even though he smelled like complete shit, I put an arm around him. Meanwhile, he just sat there with snot streaming down his lip, panting out these fast, scary-sounding breaths.
“Razor’s dead! ”
“What?”
“A car hit her.”
And so, just like that, the little white cube in my pocket made sense. It wasn’t B-Man’s blood I saw, it was Razor’s.
“Behind the Sit ’n’ Spin, right?”
B-Man was stunned enough to stop crying. “How do you know that?”
“I saw Mr. Rodolfo cleaning up the—cleaning up behind the alley.”
B-Man nodded. “The guy didn’t even stop. Didn’t give a shit about neither of us.” He spat a glob of gray spit into the grass. “That’s where I been. I went up north to bury her. She liked it up north. There’s a field up there I found where she could run and run all she wanted. I took a shovel up there and buried her.”
“I know this might not seem like a big deal right now, but maybe it’ll cheer you up a bit.” I took the die out of my pocket and gave it back to him. “I found it in the alley.”
“Hey, thanks.” He stared at it for a while, rolling it around his palm. “Cracked the old girl’s skull wide open and just kept driving.” He closed his fist and looked at me. “You see a little red convertible with a big dent in the front, you do me a favor and slash the tires, scratch the paint. I don’t care, just fuck it up.”
“A red convertible?”
“That’s what did it.”
How many shiny red convertibles were there in Evandale? Andrew Myers had probably killed Razor. Why would a movie producer slow down to save the life of a homeless guy’s dog?
I decided I would give some of the money to B-Man. If he wanted to go out and buy a thousand little dice, he could. If he wanted to get himself a new, equally stinky mutt, I would help him find one.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Things’ll turn out okay. You’ll see.”
B-Man didn’t believe me. He turned his puffy, sunburnt, snot-streaked face away, covering his eyes with his sleeve. “She was my pinion,” he whispered.
“What?”
“My little piece of the machine.”
67
Haunted
On Sunday morning, I wrapped newspaper and blankets loosely around the rattler, fastening it all with masking tape. When I had finished, it looked very much like I’d murdered a scarecrow and was preparing to dump the body.
Mom was in her room, which was good, but Nomi was lying in front of the TV, watching the final episode of Big Daddy. There was no way to sneak past her, so I just went for it.
“Is that the thing for Mom?” she asked when I moved past the doorway.
I nodded and put a finger to my lips. “Don’t tell her, but there’s a problem. One of the pieces? It’s broken. I’m just gonna take it across the street. Dave Mizra has tools and he said he could fix it.”
Nomi nodded slowly, like it all made sense but there was something she was missing. “Why’s it all wrapped up?”
“I told you, because it’s broken.”
“Can I see?”
“No. I’ll be right back.”
It hadn’t rained since the storm, so the street was a blizzard of summer dust. Sand and grit and strips of paper collected in the gutter. It was five to twelve. I was right on time.
Across the street, Dave Mizra’s shop was closed. The poster of Shain Cope hung in the shadows of the back wall. He stared out at me through spirals of cigarette smoke. I felt haunted. It didn’t help that I was about to sell off what was possibly the man’s most prized possession. To escape the singer’s gaze, I dragged the instrument into an alcove beside the shop.
Every time something red drove past, my heart went crazy. It was always a taxi or a rusty minivan. Never a flashy convertible. By twelve fifteen, I began to worry. I called Myers’s number, but there was no answer. I tried again at twelve thirty, then at one o’clock. That was when the door in the alcove behind me opened up.
“Kaz-o-matic!” It was Dave Mizra, looking pretty haggard. He was uncharacteristically dressed in a baggy gray track suit and worn sandals. Stubble sprouted in tufts all over his face. His hairdo was a bird’s nest. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Why are you blocking the entrance to my home?”
“I’m waiting for someone.”
“Who?”
“Just somebody.”
This didn’t seem to satisfy him. “On my doorstep?”
“On this corner, that’s al
l.”
He blinked at the rattler in its morbid wrapping, propped against the wall. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Probably.”
“I haven’t seen her in a while.” He seemed genuinely disappointed.
“Me neither,” I said.
Dave Mizra locked and bolted his door with several keys. “When you see her, tell her I miss her music.”
“Me too,” I whispered, once he was already halfway up the block. I kept waiting.
One fifteen.
One thirty.
Two o’clock.
But Andrew Myers never showed up.
68
All Kinds of People
I lost count of how many times I dialed his number before he finally answered.
“Yeah, Myers. What’s up?”
“Mr. Myers! Oh, great! It’s Kaz Barrett, I’m sorry for calling so much, but … ” (Why the hell was I apologizing?) “But you were supposed to meet me at noon today. Remember?”
“Are you the screenwriter who keeps calling? I thought I told you I wasn’t—”
“No, we met earlier this week when you brought some suits in. For dry cleaning. It’s a place called the Sit ’n’ Spin. When you came in to pick them up, you saw—”
“Oh, shit, yeah! Sorry, kid. Was it today we were meeting?”
“At twelve o’clock.”
“Listen … ” His voice fell as he said the word. It dropped down to that minor chord you use when you’re ashamed of something. Or when you’re changing your mind.
“What is it?”
“Might be best if you and your friend just sit on that thing for now, okay?”
My chest tightened. I felt my most important parts grinding together, the gears stripping. “You said you wanted to buy it. You still do. Right? ”
“I did some checking around, and I got it on very good authority that there’s some people who might be trying to track the thing down.”
“What people? The police?”
“I’m not sure, but no, probably not the police. It sounds like they know it’s in town somewhere.”
“So, who? Like Shain Cope’s family? Or someone else? Who?! ” My voice was cracking into falsetto.
Blues for Zoey Page 17
