Invisible Boy

by Cornelia Read

  “Madeline went home,” said Cate. “She’s not feeling well.”

  “Not out the front door,” he said, “and I can see she didn’t go out the back way. Only one who walked on that snow is me.”

  Fuck.

  “I’m having a spell come on. I need my pills from upstairs.” Mrs. Underhill’s voice sounded weak and dizzy.

  “I can get them,” said Cate. “Just tell me where they are.”

  I heard her chair scrape back along the kitchen’s spic-and-span old linoleum.

  “Don’t you move!” Donald’s voice again.

  I heard something slam down, and the walls vibrated.

  Had he hit one of them?

  “All right,” said Cate, calm and steady. “I’ll just stand right here.”

  “Donald, let her just go upstairs. I need my pills from my bedside table. The doctor says, if I get excited—”

  “The other one’s upstairs, that what you mean?” he asked, his voice much louder now.

  “Madeline went home,” said Cate. “We told you that.”

  Mrs. Underhill’s bedroom door was open, three feet away. I edged along the hallway, thankful for its thick shag carpeting.

  The bedroom floor was bare hardwood, except for a braided rag rug beside the old four-poster bed. If I made the joists squeak, we were all fucked.

  I held my breath and stepped across the threshold, then stopped to listen.

  “Donald, please, I just need one pill. Then I’ll talk to you about whatever you want.” Mrs. Underhill started panting, sounding as though she were on the verge of tears.

  I took three more steps, then opened the drawer of her bedside table.

  There weren’t any pill bottles inside. She’d told me and Cate the truth, earlier, about not needing medication.

  The drawer contained a small white prayer book instead. And a Luger pistol her husband must have brought back as a souvenir from the war.

  I blew off God and took the gun, relieved as hell to discover that she kept it loaded, though I couldn’t imagine someone her size firing a nine-millimeter without getting knocked down by the recoil.

  “Donald,” said Mrs. Underhill, “how dare you bring a gun into this house when I practically raised you up?”

  Smart woman: now I knew what I was up against, below.

  “You just be quiet, now,” said Donald. “I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

  “I should think not.”

  “We need to have a little talk, is all,” he said.

  “We can certainly do that without any guns.”

  “We will, soon as Dougie gets back. We’ll bring your friend downstairs and get everything straightened out. She’s not going anywhere, and I’m not leaving you two alone.”

  I had to get down the stairs before Dougie arrived, then, whoever he was. I wished to hell I had X-ray vision so I could approach the kitchen when this Donald wasn’t looking.

  I moved out of the bedroom and back into the hallway, crouching down beside the staircase.

  How long did I have before there’d be two of these guys?

  Get your ass down the damn stairs.

  I crept forward, trying to peek at the kitchen through the banister, but the angle was all wrong. I could smell the chicken soup now, perfuming the whole house.

  I moved down three stairs, the Luger held straight out in front

  of me.

  I knew my way around guns but didn’t trust my aim left-handed. If I hadn’t had to stay so quiet, I would’ve shot the damn cast off.

  Mrs. Underhill spoke again. “Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind, Donald, while we’re waiting?”

  “We need to talk over what you want to say in court, about Angela,” he said. “But that can wait.”

  “Why is it any of your business?” she asked.

  “It’s our business as much as yours.”

  I climbed down three more steps, out in the open now if he looked up the hallway from the kitchen.

  “It is not,” said Mrs. Underhill. “Not yours, not your brother’s.”

  “We came up with Angela, since she was a baby. And you’re going to make certain she doesn’t have this baby while she’s inside, for real.”

  “Of course I will,” said Mrs. Underhill. “I protect my family.”

  I was on the bottom stair now, and hoped to hell she was lying about protecting Angela from jail time, the same as she had about needing pills.

  “We gonna make sure,” he said. “Be certain about that.”

  I stepped onto the hallway carpet, gun steady, ready to storm the kitchen.

  Behind me I heard the click of the front-door latch, and I spun around.

  There wasn’t any window in the front door, so Dougie wouldn’t see me before I saw him, at least. I turned sideways with my left arm out straight like an old-fashioned dueler, making a smaller target.

  The door swung wide and I caught a flash of leather jacket and jeans. Dougie lifted his head and saw me, eyes narrowing.

  He didn’t have time to raise his own pistol before I fired, nailing him straight in the chest, the first slug knocking him back against the door frame.

  The Luger ejected the spent cartridge, then chambered another round before I loosened my finger off its trigger.

  I heard a woman’s guttural yell from the kitchen and the slopping noise of a splash.

  Dougie’s eyes were still open. But he didn’t lift his gun.

  I stepped closer.

  Bang.

  And then Donald’s voice shrieked, higher and higher. “I’m burned, you fucking bitch. I’m fucking burned.”

  I held the pistol on Dougie as he twisted to one side and crumpled, leaving a smear of blood all down the flocked wallpaper as he slid to the floor.

  His eyes were shut now, but his gun hand twitched.

  I stepped closer and pulled the trigger a third time.

  Bang.

  Donald was still screaming, behind me. No words now, just incoherent whipped-dog shrieks and whines.

  Blood bubbled out of Dougie’s mouth, and his fingers relaxed on the gun in his hand: a Glock.

  I used my toe to move it away from his open hand, then kicked it into the living room, watching it spin under a sofa and out of sight.

  Turning away, I jogged toward the kitchen.

  Cate and Mrs. Underhill stood over a writhing man I presumed was Donald, each of them armed with a large carving knife.

  He rocked on the floor, moaning, surrounded by a still-steaming puddle of chicken soup, eyes swollen shut in his blistered face.

  So much for lunch.

  Mrs. Underhill looked over at me, steady as a rock.

  I nodded.

  “Did Angela send you here?” She poked Donald in the ribs with the sharp toe of her little shoe.

  He just moaned.

  “Answer me, Donald,” she said. “Your brother’s lying shot dead in my front hall, and I can take you right out of this world the same way. Lord knows even your mama wouldn’t hold that against me, after what you boys tried here today.”

  Donald started crying. “I’m burned so bad. I need a doctor.”

  Mrs. Underhill was unmoved. “You tell me whose sorry idea this was, maybe you’ll get one.”

  My rush of adrenaline was wearing off, and I started shaking.

  “Who sent you here, Albert or Angela?” Mrs. Underhill motioned me over, then took the Luger from me and pointed it at his face.

  “I don’t know if you can see well enough to tell,” she said, “but I’ve got my husband’s pistol aimed straight at your sorry forehead.”

  Donald flinched.

  The sight of his face was sickening, and the chicken-soup fumes seemed to be getting stronger.

  Cate prodded him with her foot. “I think you’d better tell us,

  Donald.”

  As for me, I’m ashamed to say I took one more inhalation of soupy air and passed out cold, right in the kitchen doorway.

  “Do you still want t
o talk about anything?” I asked Mrs. Underhill.

  Cate and she had brought me into the living room and helped me lie down along the sofa after I came to.

  The kitchen was full of cops and paramedics, with Skwarecki giving orders. I watched Donald getting wheeled down the front hall handcuffed to a gurney.

  Mrs. Underhill smiled at me. “Thank you, dear, but my mind is pretty clear on the matter, after today.”

  “I’m sorry to be such a wuss,” I said. “I think I’m coming down with the flu.”

  Mrs. Underhill gave me a knowing smile, the tiny gap between her front teeth exactly like Teddy’s. “You’ll be just fine, dear, soon as you get a bite to eat. And I need you in court tomorrow morning, for when I testify.”

  “Did he tell you whether it was Albert or Angela?” I asked.

  “Shhhh,” she said, stroking my hair. “Close your eyes for a minute and get some rest. No need to worry about that now.”

  “Mrs. Underhill, I’m so sorry about everything that’s happened.”

  “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about,” she said. “And I want you to call me Elsie.”

  She patted my head one more time and told me to rest.

  I closed my eyes, drifting off for a minute until Skwarecki’s voice brought me sharply back to the present.

  “Yo, Dare,” she said, “you and me need to have a little talk.”

  53

  Listen,” said Skwarecki, “we have to run you down to the station for a little while.”

  I sat up on Mrs. Underhill’s sofa. “Figured you might.”

  Someone had taken off my shoes, placing them neatly side by side under the coffee table. I reached down for them and got hit by another wave of dizziness.

  “You okay?” asked Skwarecki.

  “Sure. Just give me a minute.” I took a deep breath and waited for the black spots to swim back out of my vision a little, then got my feet into my shoes.

  “You want a hand up?” asked Skwarecki.

  “No, thanks. But you might want to look under the sofa. I kicked the dead guy’s Glock in there somewhere, before I passed out.”

  “You pick it up at all? Touch it?”

  “No. Should be just his fingerprints. He pulled it on me when he came through the front door. I kicked it in here, after.”

  “It was a righteous shoot. We know that.”

  “Even so,” I said, “I’d feel better if I watched you bag the thing up personally, you know?”

  I leaned down to tie my shoes as she pulled on a pair of gloves.

  They had a couple of patrol guys take me down to the One-Oh-Three, where they swabbed me for gunshot residue and took my fingerprints. I started feeling a little queasy again, replaying the day’s events in my head, and one of the guys got me a Coke to sip, which helped a lot.

  Two detectives I’d never seen before interviewed me, which wasn’t surprising. I hadn’t expected them to put me with Skwarecki, since we knew each other outside work pretty well by this point.

  It was all pretty low-key. They took me into a nice big interview room and their questions were gentle, all things considered.

  The older cop even looked a little embarrassed when he asked me why I’d shot the dead guy three times.

  He fiddled with his tie and looked down at the table between

  us. “I understand about the heat of the moment, but we have to follow up.”

  “Well, I guess the first two shots were because I’d never fired a Luger before. I didn’t know it was semiautomatic, so that just kind of happened.”

  The younger cop was still standing up, leaning against the wall to my left. “And the third time?” he asked.

  “He twitched,” I said. “And his eyes were still open. So, you know… I guess I just wanted to make sure.”

  “And then you took his gun?” asked the older guy.

  “I kicked it away. Into the living room.”

  “That was before you went into the kitchen?”

  “I didn’t know the other guy was completely out of commission at that point. I wanted to make sure he didn’t have access to another gun.”

  “But you never picked it up?” asked the young guy.

  “The Glock? No. Just moved it with my foot.”

  “Why didn’t you take it with you?” he asked.

  “I had a gun already. And I knew by that point that it worked pretty well. I didn’t think I needed another one.”

  “And then you went into the kitchen,” said the older guy.

  “Yeah. I mean, it all probably happened faster than I’m telling it, but it seemed pretty slow at the time.”

  They both nodded.

  “And what happened next?” asked the young guy.

  “Well, I stepped into the kitchen doorway, and Mrs. Underhill took the Luger from me, and then I pretty much looked at the burned guy’s face and fainted.”

  I took another small sip of Coke, willing it to stay down.

  “You okay?” asked the older guy, reaching his hand across the table toward mine.

  “Not really,” I said.

  “You did the right thing today,” he said. “Kept your head in an ugly situation.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Can we get you a ride home?” he asked. “I think we’re done here.”

  “Is Skwarecki back yet? I’d like to talk with her a minute.”

  “She was down at the hospital talking with the other guy,” said the younger detective. “Let me go check if she’s here.”

  He left the room, and the older detective gave me an encouraging smile.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Why’d these guys even do this? I mean, run me down with a car, threaten me at work… then today, after I’d already testified? Not to mention that all I had to say in court was that I found the little boy’s remains in the first place, back at Prospect. It all seems pretty pointless.”

  The guy looked me in the eye and shrugged. “Some people are just assholes.”

  * * *

  Skwarecki gave me a ride home half an hour later. All I could think about was sleep by that point.

  It was dark out, and snowing again. I watched her windshield wipers clearing the flakes off the glass as they melted, making all the taillights ahead of us blur into scarlet stars and ribbons.

  “You hanging in there?” she asked, slowing down for a stoplight.

  The car fishtailed a little in the slush.

  “I asked the other detective why this all happened,” I said.

  “Brodsky?”

  “The older guy.”

  She nodded. “What’d he say?”

  I told her, and his assholes comment made her laugh. “Yeah, got that right.”

  “I’m serious,” I said. “What were they thinking?”

  “Donald and Dougie?”

  “No, Liddy and Haldeman. Of course Donald and Dougie. Was it really a gang thing?”

  “Yeah,” said Skwarecki. “They were looking out for Albert

  Williams.”

  “Not Angela?”

  “Her too,” she said. “But on Albert’s say-so.”

  “I still don’t get what they thought they’d accomplish going

  after me.”

  The light turned green and Skwarecki hit the gas again, soldiering on through the slush.

  “According to Donald,” she said, “it wasn’t about you as much as Mrs. Underhill. Albert didn’t want her to testify. You, they didn’t care a lot.”

  “They were harshing out on me to scare her vicariously?”

  “She practically raised the two brothers, and Angela wouldn’t have wanted her hurt.”

  “Did Angela know about any of this?”

  “Donald said they kept her in the dark, but the rest of them knew you were spending time with the old lady.”

  “So they fucked me up just to send a message?”

  “Something like that.”

  �
��What,” I said, “you people never heard of Western Union out in Queens?”

  54

  Bost stood up. “The prosecution calls Elsie Underhill.”

  The courtroom’s side entrance opened, and Teddy’s great-

  grandmother stepped forward into the courtroom. She had a little halo of hat perched on her head, dark red, with a greenish black feather pinned to one side.

  Elsie took her seat, gripping the upright purse in her lap with both hands.

  I watched her glance at the jury, then at her granddaughter.

  Bost approached the stand. “Mrs. Underhill, to start off, I’d like to ask you to tell us a little bit about your great-grandson, Teddy. Was he an outgoing boy, or more shy?”

  “ Outgoing, definitely,” she said. “He was the most cheerful little person you can imagine.”

  “Can you tell us a bit about your plans for Teddy’s third birthday?”

  “I was planning to cook Teddy his favorite lunch. Spaghetti and meatballs. And a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. The weather was supposed to be fine that day. We were going to visit the zoo after lunch. Up in the Bronx.”

  “When was the last time you’d seen your granddaughter, Angela, before that day?”

  “The day before.”

  “What happened during that meeting?”

  “I gave her money. And a new outfit of clothes for him to wear—matching shirt and little overalls, with those shoes he had his heart set on.”

  “What was the money for? To buy presents?” asked Bost.

  “No, dear.” Mrs. Underhill shook her head. “That money was for drugs.”

  “Why would you give your granddaughter money for drugs?”

  “Because she told me she’d let me have Teddy, for the right price. And I knew I had to get him away from her, and Albert Williams.”

  “And how much money did you give her?” asked Bost.

  “A thousand dollars.”

  “I see,” said Bost. “And did Teddy come to visit you with his mother the day you gave her that money?”

  Mrs. Underhill clutched her purse tighter. “Yes. Teddy came with Angela that day.”

  “How long had it been since you’d seen him?”

  “A little more than six weeks.”

  “How did Teddy seem the afternoon before his birthday? Was he excited about it?”