Daisy fell in love with Luke and now he’s dead and she’s partly to blame. Maybe not “to blame” exactly, but suppose she’d stayed? She might have saved him. If only she wasn’t so goddamn modest or embarrassed … or cowardly.
It’s past lunch now. The plaza is empty. Still, Daisy stays out of sight behind the bushes. She keeps crying. She feels like she could cry all day and still not cry out her sadness.
But finally the tears stop. There are things to do. Things to do for Luke.
Should she call the papers? No, they would want to know too much, but she has to tell someone. Maybe his friend, Gwyneth Paltrow, or Gwyneth’s mother, Blythe Danner. It would be easier to call Blythe because she was sort of a New York actress and would probably be more accessible than a Hollywood star.
But would she be listed in the phone book or on the internet? Daisy frowns. Probably not. Still, she must belong to the actor’s union. Daisy read about them maybe going on strike a few months earlier, and then it was settled but she remembers it was some organization called Equity. She could call Equity and if she tells them how important it was and how it was about a friend drowning, they might give her Blythe Danner’s phone number.
Daisy decides to miss work in the afternoon as well. She’ll call the manager and say her tooth is still too swollen to come in. She stands, smooths her wrinkled cotton skirt, checks to see that no one she knows is around, and comes out from behind the bushes and hurries up Main Street in the direction of her house.
As she crosses behind the stores at the top of the hill, she thinks she catches a glimpse of the kids—Lucy’s friends—way down at the end of the street in the little playground near the day camp. But when she looks back, they’re gone.
She doesn’t want to see them anyway. What had started out as merely embarrassing has turned tragic. Eventually the police will get around to her and the kids. She will see them soon enough.
* * *
Daisy gets lucky. Mrs. McDonnell isn’t in her usual rocker on the porch, so Daisy doesn’t have to come up with a story to explain her swollen eyes and red nose.
She runs right up to her room where she left her cell phone on the charger. First thing she tries is information for New York, but there’s no listing for Blythe Danner. Then she gets the phone number for Actor’s Equity and dials it.
“I’m trying to get in touch with Blythe Danner. It’s very important, and I don’t have her phone number,” she tells the young man who answers the phone.
He’s probably a struggling actor with a deep personal knowledge of rejection, and even though there’s no way he can give out anyone’s phone number, he’s kind to Daisy.
“I’m sorry, we’re not allowed to give out numbers, but if you want I can give you her agent and he can help you get in touch with her.” Daisy takes the agent’s name and number and thanks the young man. He tells her good luck, and it makes her feel a little better.
She dials the agent and an assistant answers. From her voice, the agent’s assistant is a middle-aged woman not long on patience. She turns Daisy down flat.
“You don’t understand,” Daisy says. “There’s been a tragedy. Something terrible has happened to a friend of hers. It’s someone her daughter was just in a film with, but she’s friendly with him, too. In fact, they’re close friends.”
Now the assistant is interested. “Who is it?”
“I think I should wait and tell her.”
“What movie was it?”
“I’m not sure, but I think it was Walking Wonders.”
“Walking Wonders?”
“Yes, it just wrapped. I haven’t seen it yet.”
“I never heard of it. What’s the guy’s name?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I should …”
“Forget it, then. Unless I know who it is, I’m not giving out any numbers.”
“But I have to be the one to talk to her. This is going to be very painful, and he was a good friend of mine too. I was sort of there, so I can really explain it.”
“Look. You have to tell me who we’re talking about.”
Unsure whether she should give out his name, she hesitates. Then blurts out, “Lucas Baird.”
“Who?”
A small itch of discomfort touches Daisy. “Lucas Baird?” she says with the hint of a question.
“Never heard of him. What is he, an extra?”
Daisy’s voice grows timid. “Actually, I think … at least I thought he was sort of one of the leads.”
“No way, honey. We know pretty much everything that Gwyneth does, and I can tell you she was never in anything called Wonders, or whatever. And for sure not with anyone named Lucas Baird. Someone’s pulling your leg.”
“Thank you,” Daisy says, and clicks off the phone.
She sits quietly for a few moments. Long enough to give herself time to rationalize, find some possibility that would allow her to believe even part of Luke’s story. Foolish as it seems, she just isn’t ready to stop.
But who could she ask? No point in looking in the newspapers. If Luke truly is a movie actor and the film with Gwyneth does exist, Daisy would be able to find it on the Internet. She has a laptop, but Mrs. McDonnell doesn’t have wireless; she’d have to go to Starbucks.
Daisy doesn’t bother combing her hair or trying to hide the tear stains on her face. She walks slowly down the stairs and out of her house, an unhappy combination of dread, disappointment, and deep sadness weighing on her heart.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Larry spots Daisy coming up Main Street and rushes the other kids out of the playground. The conversation with the police has left them too frightened to notice anything wrong.
“What are we gonna do?” Dennis asks.
“Nothing, stupid,” Larry says, punching Dennis’s shoulder. “He’s dead—didn’t you hear the cops? He drowned.”
“Yeah, he’s drowned,” Benny says, easily abandoning his twin.
“What if the cops ask us about him?” Charley says.
“I don’t know nothin’, do you?” Larry says.
Immediately, the twins shrug and shake their heads, mumbling no, not me, not me. After an instant, Charley joins in.
They all turn to look at Lucy. She stares right back at them.
That’s when Larry knows for sure that he’s going to have to shoot her. If his father ever finds out what they did to the guy in the sewer, even though he was a homeless and he wouldn’t have even cared … Most of the time he whacked Larry around without any reason, but when he figured out he had one …
No way Larry is going to take that chance. Anyway, it wouldn’t be that hard to shoot Lucy. She’s just a little kid; she can’t really fight back. All he’d have to do is get her someplace alone and put a bullet in her head. He wouldn’t take a chance on shooting her in the heart because you never know exactly where the heart is. It’s supposed to be on the left side, but sometimes in a movie somebody would get shot in the middle of the chest and they said it was in the heart. He wouldn’t take any chances, he’d blow her brains out. And he wouldn’t have to worry about the gun. Nobody knows he has it. His father hasn’t missed it in two years. And then, after, he’d find a place to bury it.
Larry puts his palm on the gun and rubs it lightly. It feels good to be armed. Like when police say in a movie, “Hey, watch it, the guy’s armed!” He feels powerful, like nobody—not even adults—can push him around.
Charley is getting scared and making excuses for his sister. “She’s just a kid—who’s gonna listen to her? Besides, she’s not gonna say anything anyway, right, Luce?”
Lucy shrugs her shoulders and bends down to pick up a stick. She pokes aimlessly at a hole in the dirt while the boys watch.
Charley is desperate. “When she does that with her shoulders that means yes,” he says. Lucy doesn’t disagree so they accept Charle
y’s word and move on.
Larry almost smiles. He’s never going to have to worry about that little pain in the ass again.
Then Charley has another thought. “What if that lady Daisy says something?”
“Yeah, right,” Larry says. “Like she’s gonna say she was fucking this guy on the beach with kids watching.”
“I guess not.” But Charley has another worry. “What if they find the sewer and some of our things are still there?”
No one can worry better than Charley, but this time he has a point.
“You took my mother’s curtain rods,” Lucy says to Larry. “And you didn’t give them back.”
“So? They’re gonna know it’s your mother’s curtain rod? It’s got her name on it?”
“The police got special things where they can find out where anything comes from,” Charley says. “They always find out where the guy’s suit was made or the dry cleaners, things like that.”
And then Charley remembers that they took some of his father’s tools. Those would be easy to trace. “We gotta go back and get my dad’s stuff.”
“Not me,” says Benny.
Dennis nods his head in agreement.
“Chickenshit,” says Charley. “You coming, Larry?”
Larry doesn’t want to, but he can’t look scared in front of the twins. And anyway, he isn’t scared. The guy’s dead, and it would be fun to make the twins go. They’d piss in their pants.
“Sure thing. Come on!” Larry points to the twins. “Everybody!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Daisy looks through two movie websites, something called IMDb.com and a Who’s Who of Hollywood. No Walking Wonders, no Lucas Baird.
Oh boy, is she dumb.
And in love. Crying her eyes out for some goddamn hustler; some phony who—if he wasn’t dead—would be laughing his head off about the girl he fucked in Shorelane.
But he is dead, and she’s the one who can laugh. Except she can’t. If she was smart and really worthwhile, she would laugh. She wouldn’t feel so hurt. Hurt at being tricked by someone she so foolishly loved. And, stupidly or not, trusted.
A better woman would feel demeaned by such lies, Daisy thinks. She would feel outrage. But she doesn’t. Instead, she feels ashamed of herself—for not being outraged.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The small band of children trudge down the beach to collect their things from the sewer, careful to avoid being seen. Instead of going through the parking lot, they skirt it and go by way of the bushes lining the perimeter. They slip quickly through the broken fence and run over the weed-covered dune and down onto the beach.
The tide is low, and the exposed sand is covered with rocks, broken shells, and clumps of seaweed. Everywhere there is the pungent smell of fish and clams and black muck.
The construction site is empty, the workers still off enjoying the Fourth of July holiday. No cops are around either. They are all waiting down by the docks where the current would take a body.
Charley is ready first. He’s nervous about the police finding his father’s tools. “C’mon,” he whispers, “let’s go in and get the stuff before somebody sees us.”
Just as he says it, a man walking his dog passes by on the road beyond the parking lot. The kids duck down and stay quiet; the man is far enough away that the protruding dunes easily hide them.
“You go, Charley,” Larry says when they reach the sewer. “You know what your old man’s stuff looks like.”
“So do you. You took it.” Charley is surprised at himself. He never gave orders to Larry before.
Lucy nods, agreeing with her brother and giving Larry and the twins a rare smile.
Larry can’t afford to lose control so he says that everybody’s going in and shoves the twins toward the sewer. But Benny won’t move.
“What’s your problem, asshole? The guy’s drowned. His body’s not even there! He’s out in the bay somewhere.”
“So you go first,” Benny says, prodded either by an unusual burst of courage or terror.
Rather than risk anarchy, Larry goes toward the sewer. The others follow a good ten feet behind. Just at the entrance, Larry stops. Why is he scared? He has a gun. A strong feeling of power comes over him. Everything is different with a gun.
The twins and Charley hang back, but Lucy keeps walking. She passes Larry, and he lets her quietly disappear into the sewer opening. Barely ten seconds pass before she shoots out, horror widening her eyes and distorting her face.
“He’s in there!” she screams. “And he’s got blood all over him! He’s dead!”
The four boys gasp in horror. Without saying a word, they spin on their heels and start scrambling up the dunes.
That’s when they hear Luke’s shouts. “Wait! I’m here! I’m here! Come back!”
* * *
The children stop dead in their tracks, barely breathing. Luke keeps shouting, but they don’t answer. Not even Lucy, who is still in shock from the sight of Luke’s face covered in the rat’s blood and guts.
Luke pleads for them to answer.
Lucy, who was below the dune, pulls on Charley’s foot. “Charley, he’s hurt. I saw the blood.”
“We’re not going back there,” Dennis says. “Suppose he’s just pretending, just waiting for us to come back so he can kill us?”
“I’m not going!” says Benny.
Dennis nods.
Lucy looks at her brother, but he is not on her side.
“Maybe Dennis is right. Maybe he’s just waiting for us. We’re going home. C’mon!” Charley grabs her arm, pulling her up the dune.
But she won’t budge. “He’s bleeding. I saw.”
Charley knows he can’t leave his sister, but he’s scared to death that Luke will come charging out and kill them all. Then he gets an idea.
“Look, Luce, we’ll tell Mom and Dad; they’ll get the police to take him to the hospital if he’s hurt. That would be okay, right?”
“I guess. Yeah, that would be good,” Lucy says. Freed of her terrible responsibility, she starts scrambling up the dune.
The others are halfway across the parking lot when Larry changes his mind.
“You take the shithead and get her out of here,” he tells Charley. “We’re going back.”
The twins look at him aghast. It’s their worst nightmare, but horrified as they are, they say okay, grimacing all the while.
“You got a problem with that?” the bully asks them.
“No! No way.” In unison.
And trailing some feet behind their leader, the twins follow Larry back over the dunes to the sewer.
“You first,” Larry points midway between them.
Naturally, both boys point to the other. Larry watches while they argue. He lets them come to blows, and only when Benny has Dennis near tears in an armlock, he points to Benny and says, “You, asshole.”
To anyone else in the world, Benny would say, how come? Why me? But not to Larry. He slowly creeps into the sewer, ready to jump back at each step.
The darkness swallows the boy, and for a moment there is silence, and then he calls out in a loud brave voice, “Okay, guys, you can come in.”
“See, I told ya.” Big shot Larry waves Dennis in. “You’re just chickenshit. C’mon.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Luke is overjoyed to see somebody, anybody, but of all the anybodies he’d choose it wouldn’t be these three. Still, at least they didn’t abandon him.
“Where are the others?” he asks.
“None of your business,” Larry says.
“Look, kid,” Luke ignores the hostility and tries to talk to Larry in the most unemotional, reasonable voice he can muster. “I don’t know why you’re angry. If I did something to you, I’m sorry. I just want to get out of here. Are you going to help me or not?”
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“What’ll ya give me?”
“I don’t have anything to give you. I’m homeless, remember?”
“I want a hundred dollars. Maybe five hundred.”
“Yeah!” The twins jump in. “Us too. We want the same.”
“No way you’re getting what I get,” says Larry. “I decide how much. Got any problem with that?”
Of course they don’t.
“I’ll give you the money,” Luke says. “I don’t have five hundred, but I have some. It’s in my pocket. Get me out and you can have it all.”
“Yeah, right. Like we’re gonna fall for that. Why don’t ya get it from your cousin Mel Gibson?”
“Get me out, and I’ll get you all the money you ask for.”
Silence. And that’s when Luke loses it.
“For fuck’s sake, just get me out! Do you hear me? You know what kind of pain I’m in? You gotta get me out!”
But Larry has lost interest. He’s found one of the curtain rods from Charley’s house, and he swings it hard toward Luke’s head. Luke winces, but Larry stops the rod inches from Luke’s face, raising it up until it touches the ceiling. He whacks it across the loose piece of cement.
“Hey, watch it!” Luke shouts, slapping his free hand up to protect his face. He can’t reach far enough to shield his eyes. “That’s loose! It’s gonna fall on me.”
“No kidding?” Larry says. He’s found a new game. He pokes the cement ever so slowly and gently with the rod, carefully sliding the end under a loose corner and prying it up. Two small pieces break loose and fall.
The twins gasp. Luke yelps and twists his head as far to the side as he can, but one piece lands on his cheek, hitting hard enough to break the skin. A patch of blood wells up, dribbling back into Luke’s hair.
“If that big piece falls, it could kill me. Do you understand? You could kill me.”
Little Crew of Butchers Page 11
