Goldilocks

by Andrew Coburn

  “Hello, Barney.”

  “Damn you,” Cole said, coming out of his freeze.

  Chick Ryan leaned forward while keeping the weapon pressed against his leg, concealed from anyone who might enter the lot. He was in civilian clothes, a protective vest under his jacket. With chilling nonchalance, he said, “Louise was nervous. She was scared someone might try to blow her away.”

  “Then damn her too.”

  Chick tugged at his cap. “She’s not herself. You wouldn’t be either, somebody was gunning for you.”

  “Did she think I would set her up?”

  “You never know what you might do unwittingly.”

  Cole’s face was stark, and so was his voice. “Would you have shot me, Chick?”

  “Not you, Barney. Whoever else it might’ve been.”

  Cole turned the ignition key. The motor caught at once, held, and purred as if new. “I’m leaving, Chick.”

  “I know how you feel, and I don’t blame you. Let’s forget this even happened. Matter of fact, nothing happened. Right?”

  Cole slapped the gearshift into Drive. “Good-bye, Chick.”

  “Keep the faith, Barney.”

  “I’m not Catholic.”

  “God bless you anyway.”

  Cole wanted time to collect himself and drove through Lawrence in a roundabout way. The night mist gave fleecy contours to tenement buildings and to grand old houses that had been whittled into apartments, and moonlight gave an aura of mystery to an unoccupied store and the bushy vacant lot beside it. On a side street, where cars were parked bumper to bumper for the night, a bad smell flooded the air, as if a pipe had burst.

  On Mount Vernon Street the air blew clean, and Cole drove slowly past single-family houses, trying to remember which one belonged to Emma Goss. He had been there once when Harold Goss was alive and once or twice after his death. Then he spotted it, bathed in streetlight, small and neat. Visible in a window was the flickering glow of a televison screen. For a fraction of a second he considered stopping to see how she was doing, but then he remembered the hour and drove on. A minute later he crossed into Andover, where the air was even cleaner.

  • • •

  Shortly after midnight a light rain began to fall, and Emma Goss, wide awake, listened to it from her pillow. She lay straight and immobile under the covers and felt quite at odds, neither here nor there, and utterly without energy. Henry Witlo moved and mumbled beside her but, to her relief, did not wake. Soon he breathed deeply, reconfirming his sleep. The shadows of leaves twitched in the rain as if the tree outside the window had hundreds of heartbeats.

  The rain stopped a half hour later, and she fantasized stealing away into the night and forever leaving behind her degradation and shame. She easily imagined herself boarding a bus to Boston but trembled at the thought of peregrinating a hotel lobby and facing the desk clerk’s cold eye. An image rose up of the clerk taking one look at her and immediately shooing her out or, at best, simply ignoring her while others jostled her aside. When she placed a forearm across her eyes, Henry suddenly tossed in his sleep and gouged her with a toenail.

  Sometime after one-thirty she woke from a dream that vanished, leaving her only with the sensation that the dream had been vivid and perhaps pleasant. Unexpectedly she thought of her friend Mildred Murphy in Florida, and an idea burned in her head. It soothed and sustained her, it took the kink out of her neck and eased the knot in her stomach, and it almost put a smile on her mouth. Within minutes she dozed off.

  It might have been three o’clock when she woke again, her eyes leaping open as if someone had touched her. The silence was too profound to be peaceful, void even of Henry’s breathing, and her first thought was that he had left the bed. Then she heard the end of a snore flutter off his lips, and through the gloom she made out the broad line of his body and the naked curve of his shoulder, from which the covers had slipped. She would have felt better were the alarm system working, but he had long ago disconnected it with the boast that his presence was more than enough protection. She lay with her arms outside the covers, filled with a premonition that something was dreadfully wrong.

  She was still awake and fully alert when she heard the first sounds, a kind of ticking or tapping from the kitchen, followed by the chime and tinkle of falling glass. She reached over and firmly shook Henry’s shoulder. He came awake slowly, unwillingly, with his eyes cut small.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Somebody’s in the house,” she whispered.

  He pushed his head deeper into his pillow. “Probably Harold.”

  “No,” she said, “it’s not his step.”

  ELEVEN

  LYING STILL, his ears pricked, Henry whispered, “He’s in the kitchen.” In the dusk of the room, her voice failing, Emma Goss silhouetted two fingers to indicate a second intruder, for her ears had picked up nuances his had not. She knew from the smell of him that he was sweating. “It’s like Nam,” he murmured in a ragged breath. “You don’t know where they are. You don’t know how many.” His damp hand touched her. “Don’t move,” he told her. “Don’t breathe.” She waited for him to do something, but he stayed anchored under the covers. In a moment of giddiness, as if infection were the only threat, she concentrated on the throb in her ankle where his toe had torn the flesh. His hand stayed with her. “I don’t want to die, Mrs. Goss.”

  “I don’t either,” she said, though she had no problem imagining her death. Even a violent one was within the realm of her eye. She would merely think of other things, and it would be done with.

  “We lie low, maybe they’ll miss us,” Henry said. His arm bumped against hers. His flesh had gone cold, and the smell of him was dank as if he had lain a long time in wet leaves. She, on the other hand, lay hot and welcomed the cooling lick of breeze that carried the taste of the rain that had fallen earlier. Henry said, “They could be gone.”

  She knew they had just begun, for her ear detected drawers being opened in the den. Harold’s desk. She had no sense of violation, for she felt that too little remained that could be touched. “They’re not gone,” she said. “You should do something.”

  “Why me?” His tone was strange and remote, as if he were talking to others, not to her. His leg, cold as ice, stiffened against her. “Why should I get killed?”

  She tried to shift away, but an acute indifference came over her. How could everything and nothing be real at the same time? It made no sense, and she could not recall the last time anything had. “I think you should cut your toenails,” she said. “At least one of them.”

  “We’re gonna be all right,” he whispered.

  She heard the linen-closet door breathe open and then close as if by the soft kick of a heel, ear-searing to her. “No, we’re not,” she said, her uncanny eyes piercing the gloom. Two figures floated into the room, the first with a mincing little step that was like a dance. The other had less of a lilt and hung back. Each was pygmy in height. She thought they might be children, but they were youths with dirty mouths that proved to be mustaches.

  “Move, mother, I cut you.”

  “I won’t,” she said, for she thought he was talking to her. Then she saw that the tip of the knife was at Henry’s throat and that the hand gripping the hilt was as slender as a girl’s, the kind she imagined a mother kissing. The youth wielded a flashlight in the other hand and flicked it on. The light tore up her face, then Henry’s. The youth laughed.

  “What you doing sleeping with an old lady?”

  “Gooks,” Henry murmured, blinded.

  “Spies,” the youth corrected him.

  “He has money,” Emma said in a voice so definite her head rang. “He sold his car, but you can have Harold’s.”

  The light flew back and forth over their faces. “Who the fuck’s Harold?”

  “Her husband,” Henry said with sudden muscle in his voice as if he had swallowed spinach. “He’ll be home in a minute.”

  “He don’t care ‘bout you?” The youth,
much amused, shot a glance at his friend. “Hear that?” Then he played the point of the knife against Henry’s throat and traced it up to the chin. “You fuck Harold too?”

  Henry’s eyes fought the light and lost. Emma said, “The money’s in his jeans. On the floor.”

  “You being good to me, mama. You must like me, huh?” A brilliantly toothed smile lit the youth’s face, and he fired another look at his friend, who had not moved. “What you think?”

  The friend said, “Do him, keep her.”

  Henry’s hand leaped up. He was not quick enough to escape the kiss of the blade across his palm, but he was strong enough to wrench the youth’s arm nearly out of its socket. When the knife spun against the wall, Henry bent as many fingers back as he could grab and broke them. The youth screamed. Henry hit him.

  Emma put her fists to her face. The other youth was gone. She heard him bang through the kitchen and burst through a screen in the breezeway. She could not see Henry. She could only hear what he was doing. The slaps sounded like gunshots, and she rammed her fists against her ears to enjoy the crush of silence.

  She did not know how much time passed after Henry dragged the youth away by his hair and threw him out of the house. She knew only that she was struggling toward the bathroom when he reappeared, stained and bruised, naked except for Harold’s boxer shorts, which were nearly falling off his hips. She tried to avoid him, but he threw his arms around her and bloodied her with his wound. “I didn’t let them hurt you, did I, Mrs. Goss?” He was shaking, shifting his feet for balance, and squeezing her too hard. “They won’t be back, you can take my word for it.”

  “Let me go,” she said.

  He followed her into the bathroom and hung by her as she waited by the sink to be sick. When nothing happened, she wet a cloth and moistened her face. He said, “I saved us, Mrs. Goss. I did a brave thing.”

  “Please don’t stand so close.”

  “Why couldn’t I do that in Nam, Mrs. Goss? In Nam I let guys die. Do you know why?”

  She scarcely heard him. She was not interested.

  “Because I didn’t have you,” he said.

  She tossed the cloth aside. “You’d better run your hand under water.”

  “It’s pretty bad, Mrs. Goss. Will you fix it for me?”

  “No,” she said.

  He stayed in the bathroom, and she sat in a chair near the front window in the living room and listened to birds heralding the dawn. Once he called to her, but she did not answer. She rested her back and watched a police cruiser proceed slowly along the street, its headlights cutting through the gray mist. It hesitated near the house but did not stop.

  • • •

  “Stupid Russians, you’d think they’d learn from our mistakes.” Arnold Ackerman, a shaving cut on his chin, rustled his newspaper. “I don’t know, Barney, can you believe what you read?”

  Barney Cole stirred his coffee. “What are you talking about?”

  “Afghanistan. You ever been there?”

  “Never.”

  “I think it’s made up, meaning I don’t think it’s there. Pentagon propaganda.”

  Cole said, “You ever been to Vegas?”

  “You know I have.”

  “That’s made up too, but it’s there.”

  Arnold dumped his doughnut in his tea. He and Cole shared a table in Dolce’s, full of shuffle and chatter from the morning crowd. The retired judge at the next table whistled under his breath over an article in the local paper and flipped pages to read the runover. A young policeman with a face not yet fully awake punched a pill into his mouth and washed it down with grapefruit juice. Arnold said casually to Cole, “Federal boys been talking to you?”

  Cole’s surprise was immediate and revealing. “How did you know?”

  “Two of them, salt and pepper, came to the house last night. Thank God the place was picked up, but they caught me eating out of a frying pan. Big smirk came over the white guy’s face. He said he didn’t know big-shot bookies ate that way. I told him it’s how I get my iron. My age, you got to watch out for your blood. It’s not just women, you know.”

  “What did they want, Arnold?”

  “Dirt.”

  “On Louise?”

  “You. I told them they should be so clean.”

  “They buy it?”

  “What’s there to buy? It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

  “Truth doesn’t always wash.”

  “That’s their problem, right?” Arnold stuffed the remainder of the doughnut in his mouth and licked the glaze off his fingers. “I told them I was flattered they came to see me, being retired and out of circulation, and I asked the black guy how he liked working for the government. He smiled and asked me how I liked banking at the Arlington Trust. Then he took a list out of his pocket and read off a bunch of other banks I got accounts at. I asked him why he was trying to scare a poor old buck like me, and he said the last time anybody scared me was back in 1948 when a shark from Lowell was going to break my legs because I owed him money. Christ, I’d forgotten all about that. Then I remembred and told him he was wrong. The shark was from Dracut, a Greek.”

  Cole, after a moment of quiet, said, “Can they hurt you?”

  “Naw, I pay my taxes, always have.” Arnold looked over at the judge, who had finished with his breakfast and his paper. “How you doing, Your Honor?” he said in a loud voice, for the judge was hard of hearing and had been all his years on the bench. Rather than admit it, he had made defendants and witnesses feel at fault by shouting at them to speak up.

  He scowled and said, “You behaving yourself, Arnold?”

  “My age I have to, but Barney here, I don’t know about him.”

  The judge may not have heard. He said, “What did you do to your chin?”

  “Cut it shaving, Your Honor. A man retires, he’s got to make himself shave every damn day, otherwise people think he’s a bum.”

  The judge picked up his paper and, despite obvious protests from his arthritis, got to his feet. His Irish eyes went from Arnold’s dry rubbery face to Cole’s lean angular one. “Don’t let him corrupt you, Barney. He can do it.”

  Cole watched the judge leave with a gait that belied the arthritis. “How old is he now?”

  “Got to be past eighty. Good man, Barney. I went before him a few times. He always found a way to let me off.”

  Cole checked the clock. He had to be in district court in a few minutes. He said, “Do you know why the feds want something on me?”

  “Sure.” Arnold finished his tea. “Leverage.”

  “Then you can surmise the rest.”

  Arnold’s head rocked. “God, I’m proud of her. The feds never came after me.”

  “That’s a peculiar way of looking at it.”

  “I’m putting it into perspective, that’s all.”

  Cole reached down for his briefcase. “I have to go.”

  “Me, I got no place to go. I’ll sit in the back of the court with the rest of the old folks got nothing better to do.”

  The traffic on Common Street was heavy. Kid music — ear-splitting rock, a song howled as if by a maniac — surged out of a slowly passing car. Cole and Arnold crossed the street cautiously and then in a rush, which took away Arnold’s breath. He had to stop on the sidewalk. Cole waited, casting an impatient glance at the courthouse, where the sun was wincing off the windows.

  “Look, Arnold, do you mind if I run?”

  “Sure, forget the old man.”

  The young policeman, also on his way to the courthouse, was behind them. “You mind?” Cole said, and thrust his briefcase into the officer’s surprised hands. Then he gave Arnold a quick perplexed look. “You asked for it.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Cole swept Arnold Ackerman off the ground and, scarcely aware of the weight, carried him up the courthouse steps.

  • • •

  Mrs. Mennick served Ben Baker an egg, soft-boiled, scooped from its shell and lightly salted. She
worked a spoon delicately into the egg and brought a small portion to his mouth. “In it goes,” she said.

  “I can do it myself.”

  “But you won’t,” she said, and in it went. They were at the trestle table in the kitchen’s big bright bow window, which overlooked the lushness of the morning.

  “No more,” he said. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You’re not eating enough to fill a mouse. What’s Mrs. Baker going to say when she comes home and hears about it?” She forced the spoon upon him again. “You’re not taking your medication either. What’s she going to say about that?”

  “Why isn’t she here now?” he asked gloomily.

  “She’s still tending to her poor mother. You can’t begrudge her that. And I imagine she has business to attend to as well.”

  He spoke shakily. “Is it possible she’s left me?”

  “I don’t think that’s at all possible.”

  “She’s the best wife I’ve ever had.”

  “You’ve only had one other, Mr. Ben.”

  “Janet was a bitch.”

  Mrs. Mennick wiped egg off his mustache and said, “Maybe she just didn’t understand the care you need.”

  Later, standing over him, she made him take his medication, though he managed to hold one of the capsules in his mouth. He removed his tassled loafers and slipped on sturdy shoes for his customary walk on the grounds. Mrs. Mennick looped a silk ascot under his chin, fluffed it into his shirt, and placed a flat plaid cap upon his head. Then, top-heavy on her skimpy legs, she stepped back to admire him.

  “You’re a real country gentleman, Mr. Ben.”

  He gazed into the mirror. “Yes, I am, thanks to Mrs. Baker and you.”

  “No,” she said incisively. “It’s your bloodline. Never forget that, Mr. Ben.”

  Something nostalgic touched him deep, for in that moment Mrs. Mennick’s manner reminded him more of his mother than of his old nanny. She opened the door for him, and he stepped outside and waded into the morning sunlight washing a sparkling aura of fantasy over flowers and shrubs. Bees bundled themselves into the trellised roses, and jays bobbed on the outer branches of the berry bushes, attacking the fruit at will. A man in khaki was down on one knee repairing the nozzle of an endless lawn hose. Ben said, “Fine morning, Howard.”