Crusader

by Edward Bloor

  "It's personal belongings. It should be a small package with this number on it."

  The lady read the ID number. "Okay. Somebody's going to have to go back and find this." She looked around but didn't see anyone who might be inclined to help her. Seeing that there was no one in line behind me, she said, "I think I know where they keep these. Let me take a quick look."

  She was gone for about five minutes. One of the job applicants got in line behind me. The lady came walking out of the back section of the big room. As soon as I saw the package, I knew what was in it. So did she. She squeezed it as she handed it to me and said, "It feels like a videotape. Is that right?"

  My heart started to pound wildly. All I could do was nod vigorously. I practically snatched it away from her, muttering a low, "Thank you." Then I walked quickly out of the sheriff's department administrative office, like I had just robbed the place.

  I couldn't read on the bus ride home; I couldn't even think. I stashed the evidence package in my backpack and stared out the blue windows.

  A storm was gathering in the west. As soon as I got to my stop, it began thundering and lightning and pouring. I had to jump off the bus and run. By the time I reached the carport, I was soaked to the skin. I unlocked the door and squished through the kitchen and living room. Then I peeled off all my clothes and wrapped myself in a towel.

  I put on a pair of long pajamas, went out to the kitchen, and made some hot cocoa. The red light on the answering machine was blinking. I waited until the cocoa was ready. Then I clutched it in my shivering fingers as I listened to the message.

  It was actually a prerecorded announcement from Mrs. Biddulph. "This is Linda Biddulph at Memorial High School. I am calling to inform you that your child is not in school today. Please furnish your child with a note explaining this absence so that it will not be marked as unexcused."

  I drank the hot cocoa down as fast as I could. It made me shiver. Then I spotted my wet backpack, and I remembered what was inside it.

  I zippered it open and pulled out the videotape. I carried it into the living room and set it on the coffee table. But I didn't put the tape into the VCR. I couldn't. I just sat on the couch and stared at it.

  I was still sitting there at noon when the phone rang. This time it was Dad. "Roberta! You're home. Are you okay?"

  "Yes."

  "I got paged today by a Mrs. Biddulph from your high school. She said you weren't in school."

  "No. I'm not, Dad. I cut."

  "You what?"

  "I cut school. I ditched. I didn't go."

  Dad seemed confused. "Oh?"

  "You used to do that. Right, Dad?"

  "Well, yeah, actually. The truth is, I did, honey. But I never knew that you did."

  "Well, I do."

  "So where did you go?"

  "The beach."

  "Yeah? That's where I used to go. So, uh, I guess I'll see you at work?"

  "No, I think I'm going to cut that, too. Okay?" He didn't answer. I added, "You won't tell Uncle Frank, will you?"

  "No. No, of course not."

  "Okay, then, maybe I'll see you later."

  "Okay." Dad hung up.

  I continued to stare at the videotape for about another hour. Then I carried it into the bedroom and stuck it in the back of my closet, next to the rest of the evidence.

  SATURDAY, THE 21ST

  I have now possessed the videotape for five days. For five days it has been in the back corner of my closet, radiating at me like a chunk of plutonium. At times I had the opportunity to watch it but not the courage. Other times I had the courage but not the opportunity.

  Dad came out and had breakfast with me this morning. I took the opportunity to inform him, "I've been moving my things into Mrs. Weiss's condo, over in Century Towers."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah. I don't like being here alone. I've been feeling creepy."

  Dad nodded knowingly. "Have you had more nightmares?" He shook his head in regret. "Roberta, I'm sorry. I know I've been away too much. It's just that Suzie and me, you know, we're moving into a new phase of our lives. And you're moving with us. We all just need to hang in there until the first of the month. That's when we'll be at our new place."

  I waited for a minute. Then I told him, "But I've been thinking about that, too. I think it would be easier for me if I had my stuff at Century Towers. That way I could walk to the mall."

  "The mall? But I was thinking that you and I could have the same schedule. We could drive together."

  "That wouldn't always work. Anyway, another thing, a bigger thing, is this: If I move out of the school district, I have to go to another school."

  Dad looked like he had never even thought about that. "They wouldn't just let you stay there and graduate? You know, since you've been there all along, they wouldn't just let you graduate with your class?"

  "No. If we moved from this district, I'd be out. That day."

  "Well, okay then, but what if you wound up at a better school? You know, a better place to get ready for college?"

  "Dad, I'm fine where I am. I don't want to start all over at a new school."

  "No. I can understand that." Dad thought out loud, "Yeah. And that way you could have two places. You could have your real room at home, and you could have a pretend home at Century Towers. I like that. I think that's a good plan."

  I did, too, but I had my doubts about which would be my "real" home.

  Mrs. Weiss was not in the card store at opening time. She called me at Arcane, though, to claim that she was not really sick. She said, "This is just a test, Roberta. I want to see if Millie can handle a Saturday by herself. Check in on her, will you?"

  So I took a ten-minute break to watch Mrs. Roman wait on customers. When I got there she was ringing up a sale for a young black guy. She gave him change and thanked him, but he didn't say anything back.

  He walked out, and Mrs. Roman rolled her eyes at me. She said, "Did you see that, Roberta?"

  "See what?"

  "How that young man was dressed?"

  Yes.

  She shook her head. "It used to be, if you were walking around with your underwear sticking out, you'd want someone to tell you. Now they get all offended."

  I tried not to laugh. I asked her, "So how are you holding up?"

  "I'm fine; it's Isabel I'm worried about. She says she's fine. Then, in the next breath, she says the doctor wants to send her for tests. All I have to hear is the word 'tests' and I worry. I went in with my Joe for tests, and he never came out. Did I tell you what those doctors did?"

  I only had ten minutes. I said, "Please, Mrs. Roman. Not the enema story. Not now."

  She looked at me with hurt in her eyes. "What? You don't want me to talk? I won't talk."

  "No. It's just that I have a lot to do today."

  "Oh? And I don't? God forbid you should have to go through what I went through in that hospital."

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Roman. I didn't mean it like that." She sulked in silence for a minute, adjusting the register tape, until Leo walked in. Then she perked up.

  Leo was carrying a rolled-up parcel, like a wall poster. He said, "I got that architect's plans here."

  Mrs. Roman smiled. "I'll tell Isabel when she calls. I know she wants to see them."

  I had been gone longer than ten minutes, so I left them to themselves and went back to Arcane.

  Sam stopped by at around four o'clock. He stood by the Sony monitor, beckoning me to come out. As soon as I joined him, he broke into a you're-not-going-to-believe-this smile. "Guess who just stopped by?"

  "Who?"

  "Philip Knowlton. And he wasn't alone. He had a TV crew with him."

  "Lucky you."

  "Oh yeah. I was standing there with a customer. He walked right up and said, 'We want you to thank Mr. Lyons for what he did for you.'

  "I said, 'Wait a minute, what did he do for me?'

  "He said, 'You know, he stood up for you when you were getting attacked by those hate groups.
Here's what we want you to say.' And this sound guy actually held up a cue card for me to read. I started cracking up."

  "What was on the cue card?"

  Sam was just tickled. He had to compose himself. "Hold on. Let me think a minute. All right, here it is—" Sam switched into the voice of a TV pitchman. "When I was targeted by hate groups as a minority business owner, Ray Lyons heard about it, and he got involved. Thank you, Ray Lyons."

  I laughed along with him. "So what did you say?"

  "I told him to get lost."

  I must have looked doubtful, because he added, "Okay, so I told him nicely. I said, 'Tell you what—I'll thank Mr. Lyons when he announces the recap. Okay?' So he got mad and left."

  I loved that. And I wanted to keep talking, but Sam looked into Arcane and said, "Heads up, Roberta. You got a customer."

  I turned and saw a teenage boy at the counter. He was looking all around and holding a ten-dollar bill. "Oh. Okay."

  Sam said, "I'll let you go," and took off.

  I had a late dinner with Mrs. Weiss. She made tuna fish and applesauce sandwiches on toast. She looked pale, but she sounded like her old self. After dinner we sat out on the balcony with glasses of iced tea.

  I said, "Where's Mrs. Roman tonight?"

  "Poor thing. She's exhausted. She's had to learn the card business practically overnight."

  "How's she doing?"

  "You tell me."

  I thought of the young black guy. I said, "She's very helpful to her customers."

  "That's good. That's hard to find nowadays." Mrs. Weiss gazed out over the Everglades. "Millie is a good soul. She just talks too much for my liking. Do you know, she never worked a day in her life. Not until this."

  "That's unbelievable."

  Mrs. Weiss rested her hand on top of mine. "Not everybody grows up with a full-time job, Roberta. For someone like Millie, that sort of thing was unimaginable. She grew up in a nice family. Then she married her sweetheart. She had a boy and a girl. Nothing bad ever happened to her until she was old.

  "You and me, though, Roberta, we're the opposite. All the bad stuff happened to us when we were young. What worse thing could happen to me after the Nazis? Huh? After a father's suicide, after a mother's death, what am I going to get devastated about? That some loverboy doesn't have the hots for me? Bah!"

  I added, "We both lost a mother."

  "Yes. And I wouldn't count that father of yours, either. You are basically alone, Roberta. Some children have to raise themselves. I had to. So do you."

  I asked her, "How did you raise your child?"

  "We raised her to have an easy life. Harry and I both doted on her. She never had a job, except some on-campus thing at college, in the registrar's office. She got married right out of college. She married a man who I did not care for. Fifteen years her senior. A heart surgeon. Divorced. Not Jewish. She never worked again.

  "Suddenly she didn't need our money; she didn't need our advice; she didn't need our anything. We went in different directions. Sometimes that's best. I haven't heard from her since Harry's funeral."

  "She came down for that?"

  Mrs. Weiss looked at me oddly. "Oh, right. Of course, dear." She got up to go to the kitchen. When she returned, she had Ritz crackers and some Velveeta.

  I made up my mind, and then I said, "Mrs. Weiss, I met an undercover cop. He knows something about my mother's murder."

  Mrs. Weiss seemed to freeze. "Who is this? Do I know him?"

  "I'm sure you've seen him. He's been at Arcane a lot, working undercover."

  "Squat body? Looks like a little fireplug?"

  "Yes. A little."

  Mrs. Weiss held up the knife triumphantly. "I knew that one did not belong. He looked out of place." But then her face got a worried look. "So what did he tell you?"

  "He told me that we were entitled to some evidence. Some things that belonged to my mom."

  "Okay. So did you get this evidence from him?"

  "Yes."

  "And what was it?"

  "Some books and clothes. Some good stuff."

  She knew that wasn't all. She added, "And some not-so-good stuff."

  "Yes."

  "What was it?"

  "A surveillance tape."

  Mrs. Weiss stopped and put the knife down. "Oh no."

  "This tape was from our arcade on the Strip. It was running the night our store got robbed."

  "Oh no, Roberta. You don't need to see that. Never in your life do you need to see that."

  I said quietly, "I think I do."

  Mrs. Weiss practically jumped to her feet. "No! You don't! You give that thing to me, Roberta. That is an evil thing! That stupid cop ought to be fired for that. People weren't meant to watch murders! That's a sick, sick thing."

  I pointed inside, at her TV. "But, Mrs. Weiss, we watch murders, don't we? We watched all those Jews getting shot by the Nazis. How is that different?"

  She answered, angrily, "Listen to me! You don't know; I do." She clutched both hands and spoke as if she was reciting. "All I needed was an image of my mother, a bright image of a helping angel. It carried me through life. I didn't need to see all the bloody details."

  Mrs. Weiss stopped and stood in front of me. "And neither do you. Swear to me that you will not watch that tape."

  I said, "Okay."

  "Swear that you will give me that tape."

  "Okay."

  "Are you just saying that? Or do you mean it?"

  "I mean it."

  She stared at me for a long time. She spoke in a voice I had never heard before. "I mean it, too. You will disappoint me greatly if you do not."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "We'll go to your house tomorrow and you'll give it to me."

  "Yes, ma'am." I had pretty much destroyed our nice time on the balcony.

  Mrs. Weiss pointed weakly to the crackers and asked, "Do you want any?"

  "No. Thanks."

  "Me neither. I'm tired. I'm turning in."

  I helped clean up the balcony. Then I went into the guest room and got changed for bed. Mrs. Weiss came by to say good night. She pointed around the room and said, "This is your room now, Roberta. It's not a guest room anymore. It's your room, and everything in it is yours. Understand?"

  What could I say but, "Yes, Mrs. Weiss. Thank you." I felt really bad about upsetting her, about ruining our evening. Her voice had a sharp edge when she told me, "I'll see you in the morning."

  I looked around the room. It was clean and new, the opposite of my room at Sawgrass Estates. Despite Mrs. Weiss's insistence, I still felt like a guest in it. I lay down on the large, comfortable bed. I fell asleep quickly but I didn't stay asleep. I was awakened sometime after midnight by the most horrible dream I have ever had.

  In the dream I was my present age, but I was very small. I was sitting on my mom's lap, holding a book. We were in our reading chair, back at our old place, but we were not reading. I could not see her face. I could only see her midsection, from her waist up to her neck. I could feel that her midsection was wet. I didn't want to move my head to look, but I knew I had to. Then I could see that it was wet and red. She was leaking red blood, in a straight line, from her neck to her waist.

  I woke up with my mouth opened wide in horror. I looked around frantically. I was completely disoriented in that strange room, utterly lost and falling into the void. I tried to understand what was happening, to separate reality from dream. But when I started to do that, things got even worse.

  Because in reality, I was lying in a pool of blood. It was dark red and wet. I reached down and pulled up a smear of it on my hand. I lurched out of bed, fell to the floor, and began crying hysterically, "No! No! No! No!"

  Mrs. Weiss appeared, blinking and frightened, in her white robe. Then her eyes opened wide and she gasped, "Good god, Roberta! What has happened?"

  I started babbling to her, "They—they stabbed her! They stabbed her!"

  "What? Who stabbed her? Who stabbed somebody?"

&n
bsp; "I—I don't know."

  "What crazy thing is this? You didn't do anything to yourself?" Mrs. Weiss switched on the bedroom light. As her eyes adjusted she looked at the bloody mess all over me. She took my face in her hand and asked, "Roberta, is this your time of the month?"

  I stared at her blankly. I breathed in and out. That question seemed to bring me back from the dream. I told her, as reasonably as I could, "I ... I don't know. I've never had one. This has never happened to me before."

  I felt Mrs. Weiss's grip on my face tighten. "This has never happened to you before! At your age? Why didn't I know about this?"

  She saw how wretched I was, though, and she softened her tone. "Oh, I'm sorry, darling. Here. You sit here. You keep the sheet between your legs, just like this. Eckerd Drugs is open twenty-four hours. I'll be back in twenty minutes. You just sit there like you are. Okay?"

  I whispered, "Okay." I sat with the bloody sheet, on the bloody floor, leaning my head against the bed. I drifted in and out of sleep, like in a delirium. I saw my mom's face. I saw other things, weird things, lines and shapes that added up to nothing. It was like I was drifting in a sea of chaos. Out of control. No up or down, or backward or forward, or right or wrong.

  Then Mrs. Weiss was back, handing me an opened box with MAXIPADS written on it. She had taken out a sheet of directions, and she proceeded to read them to me. Then she led me, with the box, into the bathroom. She leaned me against the wall and ordered. "Stay put."

  She hurried out and returned with a pair of my underpants, some dark blue shorts, and a T-shirt. She turned on the shower and asked me, "Tell me the truth now, Roberta. Are you okay to stand?"

  Yes, ma am.

  "Are you sure? Because I'll stay in here with you."

  "I'm okay."

  "I'll give you some privacy, then."

  I took a quick shower. I noticed that the bleeding had stopped. I stuck the maxipad on the underpants as best I could, and then I squeezed into the shorts and shirt.

  When I walked back into the bedroom, Mrs. Weiss was dumping the bloody sheets into a big plastic bag. I said, "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Weiss. I ruined everything in here."