Amateur Night

by K. K. Beck

  “It's not easy being a single mom,” said Carol. “He needs a man to play catch with him.” She looked up at Calvin hopefully.

  Damn, he thought. Watching a bunch of goofy kids floundering around the field was bad enough, because it meant having to sit on the bench listening to Carol whine about this and that so he couldn't even concentrate on the game. Now she wanted him to toss a ball around with her uninspiring kid and be a male role model. He'd heard her whole routine before. Calvin was sick of all this male role model stuff. He couldn't remember his own father or any other adult male playing catch with him. As Calvin remembered it, his father just came home from work, fired up a Lucky Strike, read the paper, and yelled, “Ruth, can't you get these kids to pipe down?” once in a while.

  “So how have you been? You're such a good mother, but you've got to be good to yourself too,” said Calvin, hating himself for pandering blatantly with the kind of stuff Carol ate up.

  She shrugged. “I don't know. There don't seem to be any decent men around.” Calvin nodded sympathetically. Carol was one of those women who didn't really like men very much but wanted one anyway. Fortunately, she'd never given any indication she wanted him, so presumably he was just another indecent one. Just in case Carol felt she was ready to scrape the bottom of the barrel, Calvin came up with a hasty move to deflect her.

  “Well, at least you've got that nice steady job, working for the city. You'll get a good pension and all that. This being self-employed isn't what it's cracked up to be. I'm trying to find a few thousand to throw in an IRA or something.” He paused. “In fact, my life is getting shabbier and shabbier.” That ought to do the trick. Calvin Mason was convinced that shaky finances were a big turnoff for most women, just as money and power could draw them like flies to some charmless, hideous toad of a man.

  Carol gave a sympathetic click of her tongue. “Yeah, work's okay, I guess,” she said.

  “That reminds me,” said Calvin. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

  “Sure,” said Carol, “but before I forget, you know how you fixed the garbage disposal before?” Carol tilted her head sideways the way women did when they wanted you to do something for them. “It's making the same noise it did before it crapped out last time.”

  “Mmmm,” said Calvin. He'd told Carol not to put celery and stuff down there. Last time he'd found a chewed-up twist tie and a rubber band in the disposal. No wonder her husband had bailed out.

  Calvin thought again about Jane da Silva. He never should have told her about that juror.

  He had only done it, he realized, because he liked her company. And because there was something mysterious about her. He was still trying to figure her out. What had she done in Europe for all those years, for instance. A hopeless case seemed the only thing he had that she needed. Why couldn't she just have had a broken garbage disposal?

  Now, because of her, he had to fix one anyway. When he got there, Carol would no doubt have rounded up a collection of broken small appliances. Then she'd throw a ladder against the side of the house and send him up to clear out the gutters, and if there was any time left over she'd probably ask him to have a man-to-man talk with Raymond about the importance of condoms. “I'll come over tonight and take a look at it,” he said. “I'll bring the plunger and the snake.”

  Chapter 6

  Dorothy's age, and her address in Wallingford, had given Jane the impression that she lived with her parents. It was a well-established neighborhood of older single-family homes, near Green Lake, in the North End of town.

  She had absolutely no idea what she would do when she got there, but she figured she could tell something about the situation just from looking the place over.

  The house, on Sunnyside, was a small cottagy-looking place, set back from the street with an untidy garden in front. Jane cruised by slowly, then parked under a shady tree across the street, just out of view of the windows.

  The houses in this neighborhood, built in the teens and twenties, had undergone many cycles of renovation over the past eighty years or so. When Jane was a little girl, it was a slightly scruffy neighborhood of working-class whites, people who couldn't afford to move to the suburbs with the upwardly mobile of the fifties and sixties. Later, because of its proximity to the university, it had taken on a bohemian tinge, and groups of students had lived in some of these houses. Now it had become gentrified, populated by the kind of people who'd grown up in the suburbs themselves and found them boring. The neighborhood was shared by representatives of each demo graphic wave, and it showed in the way the houses and gardens were kept.

  The old blue-collar element, on in years now, had favored vinyl siding and updating with aluminum windows and wrought iron railings. The new arrivals had encrusted their old houses, some of them architecturally quite simple, with lots of lattice, ripped off the fake siding and replaced it with cedar, and picked out the details of window trim and gables with interesting color combinations. They'd also enclosed their gardens with fences, a reaction, no doubt, to the boundless contiguous front lawns of their suburban childhoods.

  Their gardens went beyond the standard Seattle collection of ornamental cedars and rhododendrons with some clumps of heather. They favored clematis and standard roses and containers full of pansies.

  Dorothy's house looked as if it had been renovated in the seventies. For one thing, it was looking shabby. For another, it was painted olive green with mustard trim, and the numbers on the house were neither the slanted black plastic hardware store functional numbers of the old guard nor the prim brass numerals of the new wave. They were big, balloonish seventies numbers carved out of natural wood. There was also a dilapidated deck hanging from one end. Jane was thrilled to see a stroller sitting on that deck.

  She saw some movement within the house, shadows behind the Pier One bamboo blinds in the front window. Jane mulled over how she might get in the house. “Your baby is so beautiful, we'd like to use him in a commercial” appealed to her, but she thought it was a little cruel, getting some mother's hopes up.

  She circled the block, trying to get a glimpse of the rear of the house. There was an alley and a garage and not much else. But she did notice a FOR SALE sign on a house on the corner, which gave her the inspiration she needed.

  She parked in front of that house, and, just in case someone was watching, stood and looked thoughtfully at it. Then she walked around the block to Dorothy's house and went up the walk.

  From within the house, she heard raised voices. She went onto the porch and waited a second before knocking.

  “What are you going to do all day?” said an exasperated woman's voice.

  “Take care of the baby,” said an adolescent shout in reply.

  “Please. Please clean up the house today. When I get back from work my heart sinks when I walk in here and it's a mess.”

  “Mo-om.” Adolescent exasperation.

  Mom's reply was softer now. Fury under tight rein. “Dorothy, don't push me.”

  Jane had a hard time hearing. Frustrated, she leaned closer to the screen door.

  Dorothy's yelling reply, however, was easy to hear.

  “When we get Sean's fucking money, I'll move out, okay?”

  “You can stay here as long as you need to, honey.” Mom actually sounded a little tender here.

  “I still want the damn money,” yelled Dorothy.

  Jane couldn't believe her luck. Overhearing this remarkable conversation, which answered a few important questions about Dorothy, was incredibly fortuitous. But was it? Probably, Dorothy and her long-suffering mother had this high-decibel conversation or one like it every morning. It did have the stale ring of a long-running play.

  Jane had a story ready. “I'm thinking of buying that house around the corner and I couldn't help but notice your stroller, and I wanted to find out what kind of a neighborhood this is for kids.” She had already developed an instant persona. A nervous, older mother from Chicago. Her husband was a professor who just got a nice
tenured position at the university.

  It occurred to her now, however, that a more direct approach might yield some results. After all, if she was the professor's wife, she'd be stuck with that role. She could never come back as Jane. Which might come in handy sometime.

  She stood on the porch, trying to decide what to do, staring down at the doorbell. There was a piece of adhesive tape above it, with writing in ballpoint pen that said, DOESN'T WORK. PLEASE KNOCK.

  Before she had a chance to do that, however, the door opened, and she was looking through the screen door at a startled woman in her mid-forties with a big pouf of dark curly hair, and big dark eyes.

  “I was just about to knock,” Jane said, trying not to look like a Jehovah's Witness or an Avon lady.

  The woman was wearing a sexy knit dress in big red and white stripes and big white beachy-looking earrings. She carried a briefcase in one hand and a coffee mug with a heavy base, the kind designed for use in a car, in the other. Jane liked her looks. The woman looked at her with curiosity, but she smiled.

  “My name is Jane da Silva, and I work for an attorney in town. We're looking for Sean Carlisle.”

  “So are we!” said the woman with feeling. “Come on in. I've got to get to work, but I've got a minute or two.”

  Inside the living room there was more olive green—this time in worn carpeting. In an apparent attempt at updating, there was a cheap but attractive oriental laid over it. The furniture was rattan with tropical cushions, and there were some luxuriant plants around. It had a brave, festive-on-a-budget look to it. So did Mrs. Fletcher, thought Jane. As if she might sit in this room after work drinking a margarita and singing along with the stereo. There were a couple of rows of bookshelves and a big framed poster of poppies in a vase.

  “This is my daughter, Dorothy,” said the woman. Jane looked at her with interest. She was a sulky-looking girl, with fluffed-out sandy hair down to her shoulders. Her skin looked clear and young. Jane was glad to see that Dorothy looked a lot better than the way Mrs. Shea had described her a year and a half before. She had a big soft face, and suspicious-looking hazel eyes. She was wearing rolled-up cutoffs that showed off thick but firm-looking white thighs, and a T-shirt that said HARD ROCK CAFE, although Jane doubted the girl had much nightlife going for her lately.

  In the corner of the room, one hand poised on the coffee table, the other gracefully extended for balance, stood a solid-looking baby with big round eyes and curly dark hair. He was staring at Jane, blinking slowly. Then he broke into a big smile, showing off some tiny disclike white teeth.

  “What an adorable child,” said Jane.

  Both women's faces softened into proud smiles.

  “That's Charlie,” said Dorothy, gazing at him rapturously.

  “Is Sean in some kind of trouble?” said Mrs. Fletcher, throwing her briefcase on the sofa and sitting down. “Dorothy, honey, get some coffee for”-she turned back to Jane-“what did you say your name was?”

  “Jane. That would be lovely.” She gave Dorothy a nice smile to counter any possible sulks from her mother's having sent her summarily into the kitchen.

  Dorothy got up and slouched off. “Take anything in it?” she yelled over her shoulder. She was tall, taller than her mother.

  “Black, please,” said Jane.

  “Maybe you know,” said Mrs. Fletcher, apparently eager to get into it and sipping her own coffee, looking at Jane over the rim with her big brown eyes. “We're going to get a paternity suit going against the little shit. He's only a kid, of course, but he'll be eighteen soon, and all grown up in the eyes of the law. And his family's loaded.”

  “Have you got a good address on him,” said Jane, opening her purse and hoping there was something officiallooking in there to write on.

  “That sleazebag father of his won't give it to us,” said Mrs. Fletcher indignantly. “Says the boy's away at college. Out of state. Which will make it a big hassle for us, as you can well imagine. College. Right. Give me a break.”

  “Doesn't Dorothy know where he is?” said Jane.

  Dorothy came into the room, handed Jane a cup of coffee, took a swig out of her morning Diet Coke and sat down on the floor, legs crossed. “No,” she said sarcastically. “Dorothy doesn't know.”

  “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to talk about you as if you weren't here,” said Jane, giving her a level gaze. “I didn't know you'd come back in.”

  Dorothy shrugged, and Jane considered her apology accepted.

  “The thing is,” said Mrs. Fletcher eagerly, “even if the little worm doesn't have any money now, we want to get a judgment against him. That way if he comes into anything later, we can grab it.”

  Jane turned to Dorothy. Dorothy was why she was here. “Has he met Charlie?” she said.

  “Nope. Says he isn't his.” Dorothy flicked her hair back, and tried unsuccessfully to look tough. The baby tottered over to her side and buried his face in her shoulder, then peeked up at Jane flirtatiously. All three women paused to smile at him and admire him.

  “You can prove all this nowadays with blood tests,” said Mrs. Fletcher, with the eagerness of a litigant on the rampage. “We've got to get a blood sample out of him, but he's dodging us.”

  “He can only do that for so long,” said Jane.

  “What do you want Sean for?” asked Dorothy. It was a good question. One her mother, in her eagerness to outline her own case, had neglected to ask.

  “We think he may be a witness. In a criminal matter.” She watched Dorothy carefully. Dorothy just shrugged again. Jane didn't get, couldn't get, a reading.

  “It wouldn't surprise me a bit,” said Mrs. Fletcher. “He's into drugs, or at least he was, and ripping people off and everything. It's really disgusting.” She shot a look of irritation over at her daughter, who gave her a sullen look back.

  Jane wondered if by the time Charlie knew what she was talking about—namely his father—she'd shut up. She doubted it. Still, it was hard not to like Mrs. Fletcher. She had spirit.

  “So what's his father's address,” said Jane, who now had a pencil poised over the back of her checkbook.

  “Dorothy'll give it you,” said Mrs. Fletcher, now looking in panic at her red plastic watch. “Excuse me, but I've got to run. Listen, can we stay in touch? In case you find him?”

  “Of course,” said Jane, wishing she had a business card.

  “Dorothy, sweetie, get her phone number and stuff, will you? So nice to meet you,” said Mrs. Fletcher as she gathered up her briefcase.

  Jane made as if she were just about to leave herself, walking into the kitchen with her coffee cup. The refrigerator was plastered with pictures of Charlie in various stages of development. Dorothy, holding the child's hand, followed her in.

  “Is Sean in some kind of trouble?” she said off-handedly.

  “Maybe,” said Jane, turning to face Dorothy, crossing her arms and leaning against the counter. “Something to do with a drugstore robbery.”

  This time, Dorothy flinched. Jane leaned closer to her. “I didn't want to talk about it in front of your mother,” she said.

  Dorothy looked frightened but grateful.

  “I figured if you're old enough to be a mother yourself, you're old enough to talk to me about this without your own mother there,” Jane added.

  Dorothy's face instantly took on a more mature cast. “Sit down,” she said, indicating the kitchen table. “Would you like more coffee?”

  “No thanks.” Jane paused for effect, while Dorothy squirmed a little in her chair, finally setting the child down. He began to crawl around under the table. “Dorothy, there might have been a witness at that robbery. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? The day you and Sean went to look for Kevin Shea.”

  “Kevin. Kevin went to prison,” Dorothy said. “I heard about it.”

  “That's right. But he said you and Sean were with him. Were waiting around the corner.”

  “So? Even if we were, how were we supposed to know what he'
d do? All I know is what was in the newspaper.” Dorothy flipped her hair over her shoulder in an angry little gesture.

  “Dorothy,” said Jane. “I don't think you had anything to do with all this. But if it was Sean, it could be important.”

  She shrugged. “I don't know, I haven't hardly spoken to Sean all this time.” She was avoiding Jane's eye.

  “It wouldn't be fair to Charlie, would it?” said Jane. “If anything happened to you because of this. Not if it's Sean's fault.”

  Dorothy looked directly at Jane now. “I don't get it,” said Dorothy, her voice rising a little. “Who are you? The whole thing is all settled. Kevin was found guilty and he's in jail.”