Ask the Dark (7 page)

Anyway, Skugger, he’s sittin’ there on the passenger side with his head out the window. Hey, Zeets, he says, kind’f smiling at me, you wanna buy some weed? I’ve got some good shit, man, he says.

I shake my head for no. Ain’t interested, I say, and I walk the other way. ’Cause this here Skugger is a boy who sells drugs to all the boys around, pot and pills mostly but worse stuff too, and he been caught at it plenty of times. Used to go to that private school with all them other boys once, but since gettin’ caught the last time, got kicked out. One thing I’ll say is he makes good money at it. But I never done no drugs and don’t care to sell’m, neither. And right now I figure the last thing I need is to get caught with pills in my pocket by some cop.

He keeps leaning his chin on the doorjamb there on the car, watching me, window rolled down, and he says, You better look out, Zeets. Better watch your ass.

I give him a stare.

Why’s that? I ask.

Jimmy Brest told me he’s looking for you.

Now ole Skugger grins, sort’f nasty, like he’s onto something, like the secret is told.

Let’m look, I say.
Here
I am. Ain’t afraid of’m.

This time is gonna be different, Skugger says.

Yeah, I says. ’Cause it’ll go the other way.

He just laughs. Opens his mouth a big O for a big
Ha-ha
, though he ain’t really laughing.

Look out for yourself, he says, sort’f friendly, and he turns and settles back in his seat puffing the last of some smoke out his mouth and pulling down over his head this hat he got on, knit hat that hangs off ’s head like a two-foot sock even though it’s summertime. Then the car slides forward, but at the last second with his hand still on the doorjamb, Skugger, he gives me one of them fuck-you fingers as he goes away.

I cussed him good right then, you bet I did, screaming, Goddamn motherfucker kiss my ass
,
scuze my language. And the car, it jerked to a stop, tires screeched, like he’s gonna maybe get on out and do something about it. But do that fucker come back for me? Shit no. He didn’t want a busted lip that day.

I still got a few blocks to cover, so I go through a yard and over a porch where there ain’t nothing but empty chairs and quiet toys and dust. Then I dodge down into an alley and go on walking slow over the concrete, garages on both sides.

Then something funny come to me.

When Skugger’d talked I’d watched that man in there driving the car, this sort’f hairy-looking man about Richie Harrigan’s age, ’cause I’d seen him round a few times over the years, last few years, and he and Skugger was always driving around together, as was lots of other boys who hung out with’m and liked to party. And even though I ain’t never met the man driving, right then I felt there was something real familiar about him, but I couldn’t say just what ’cause of all that smoke blowin’ round inside the car.

Then just like that I hear feet running up behind me. I turned back quick and saw Jimmy Brest, tall and straight and coming fast.

ZEETS!
he yelled, his face looking on fire.

I didn’t stay to hear more.

I ran.

I went through a gate into a yard, and knowing Brest was fast on his feet, I dodged right through the walk-in door on the side of a garage. I ducked just in time to see’m run past, the motherfucker running along with a big bag of chips in his hand, and his voice sounding funny yelling ’cause his mouth’s all full of chips.

I figured I had maybe thirty seconds till he backtracked. I stood still a second to slow my breath and listen. I wondered how the hell he’d found me, what with me just getting warned like I did. Then the thought come to me that Skugger’d prob’ly got pissed when I cussed him, called the fucker’n told him where I was.

The big garage door was open, so I went straight back out in the alley. I heard Brest off in some yard yelling,
Where are you, fucker?
but I didn’t hang around.

Across the alley was another garage, and I went in. Was the sort with a stairs to the rafters, wood stairs you get down by pulling on a rope, and I pulled. Keeping the rope in my hand I yanked the stairs back up once I got on the rafters, and just in time, too. Because a second later Brest came in below. I was sitting in the dark on a rafter and I heard’m, knocking things around, saying,
Where the fuck are you?
And me, I’m thinking,
I hope the fucker starts up after me, ’cause there some paint cans up’ere gonna make friends with his head if he do,
and I almost bust out laughin’ thinking that, the dumb fucker. But a second later he was out in the alley, running until his footscrapes faded away.

Chapter Eleven

When I got home it was after curfew. Sun was throwing shadows of trees all ’long the street. Leezie was there standing on the porch, house all dark behind her.

Where’s Daddy?

Took a bus ride, she says. Out all day.

Job counselor?

Don’t know, she said.

I looked at her. She was wearing this pair of pants cut so short the pockets flapped out, and she had this sort of pearly paint on her toenails, red it was, and for a shirt she had the flimsiest thing, no different than being naked, looking through it you could see her whole shape, and that black strappy underwear she got on underneath’t. Her face was made up too. Blue on the eyes right up to under the eyebrows, brown stuff on her cheeks like dark hollows, and mouth so red it looked like she’d split her lip. Wearin’ perfume too. Shit, I could smell’r ten foot off.

Leezie, why you dressed like that? I said.

She looked at me and winced. I ain’t dressed, she said. I’m
getting
dressed. Still ain’t put my shoes on!

Do you know what some boys say about you?

I don’t care. It ain’t true.

I know that, I said. I know it. But you stand there all day looking like that, it won’t matter. People gonna think it’s true anyway. So why not dress regular? Why not go put a dress on like you used to and wash your face. Will you do it?

Billy? she said.

Yar? I said.

Go to fuckin’ hell, she says. Then she turns around and goes inside, screen door smackin’ shut behind her.

I went up my room. Was tired from all day working, but that didn’t matter, and when I lay down I could think of nothing but what the hell was going on with the coat and the house and the boxes, and who that damn man was who come in the room, who also got full rights to go in Miss Gurpy’s, if them boxes tell it right.

I rolled over and was just about to shut my eyes when I stopped.

Saw them mittens on the floor where I threw’m.

I laughed, thinking ’bout how they could be jewels instead of mittens if I’d been smart enough.

But I got an idea. Maybe these mittens
is
worth something, but I just don’t know what. So I sat up and reached over and took’m in my hands. I looked at’m for a while, a good five minutes, turning’m this way and that. I’m thinkin’ maybe I got’m, took’m, for a reason, and I sit there trying to figure it out.

But I can’t. Too damn tired, for one thing.

Then I hear something. A car. Out front. Big engine sound like a truck revving, just faster, and a radio real loud with some singer screeching like he’s falling off a cliff.

Now like I said, Leezie’d been going out most nights, and never saying who with. Made me real curious, her doing that, ’specially how she weren’t payin’ no mind at all to the curfew. I thought findin’ out just where she’s goin’ and who with might sort’f clue me in to what she’s up to, ’cause she ain’t a girl to say what she’s gonna do but just goes ’head and does it.

So I jumped up fast and run downstairs and when I come in the hall I find Leezie standing there, ready to go out.

Who’s here? I say.

’S my date, Leezie says.

I dodge out front to the porch and look. Car’s down there parked in the street, a big GTO, old car but all souped up, painted slate gray with a six on the side, in red. Has an engine scoop stickin’ up through the hood and back tires wider than truck tires but with no tread, slicks is what they called.

Sitting in it is a boy I know who got this long frizzy hair, yellow, and arms folded to show off his muscles, tattoos all over the goddamn place.

Leezie comes out.

You going out with
him?
I say.

Why not! she says.

That’s Bad-Ass Ricky!

His
name
is Ricky Morgan, Leezie says, like I don’t know.

Leezie, you can’t go out with him! He’s the worst boy around! He tried to get me to rob Shatze’s once! I seen him in the back of squad cars plenty of times!

Go to hell, Billy, she says. I like him! He treats me real nice! He’s taking me to the circus!

She’s trying to sound bold, but I can tell she’s embarrassed a little.

I say, Don’t do it, Leezie! He don’t respect girls. Tell him to go away.

She glares at me, her face so colored it looks wild.

He talks dirty ’bout’m, I said.

She goes to smack me and I duck.

Ain’t lying! I say.

Down there Ricky, he come out the car and is leaning against it, not coming up ’cause the damn fool’s stopped in the middle of the street. Leezie, she goes down, walking in that gonna-fall stilt-walk girls got walking in them spike shoes. And she goes up and the bastard puts his arm around her.

Hiya, Ricky! I say. I’m tryin’ to sound friendly ’cause I seen this bastard get violent, beat the shit outta plenty of boys for no damn reason at all, and I sure don’t want him mad at me.

He don’t answer but just raises his hand and squints and makes like a pistol with his fingers and fires, and then laughs, the fucker. Wearin’ an Iron Maiden T-shirt, know the kind I mean? Me, I laugh too just to look agreeable, but boy I feel bad for Leezie. And before I even get back inside the door he’s got her in the car and then slipped through his window hisself not even opening his door and
BOOM
that GTO is five hundred yards up the street.

Circus my ass,
I think.

I turn to go back in, but I stop, looking down.

I still got them mittens in my hand.

Chapter Twelve

I sat in the kitchen and ate a little and when Daddy got home I talked to him ’bout what he’d done all day, which was nothing, ’cept he gone to see that man who owns the fish shop and talked with’m all about what it takes to run a store like that, what sort’f papers you gotta draw up and how much stake you need to have a go.

It was good hearin’ he really went so far as to actually meet the man and ask questions like he done, and I wanted to tell’m ’bout how I’d been goin’ around writin’ down addresses of empty stores I seen, but I figured it be best to wait till I called a few and found out just how much rent money they’d all want before getting Daddy’s hopes up.

Daddy, he also found out you gotta have a truck to haul your stock up from them wholesalers downtown, and other things to boot you gotta own to get goin’, like ’frigerators to keep it all cold.

He was pretty excited when he first started telling me, but after a while it seemed like there was so much to do and so much money needed for it that he got quiet and just sat there at the table. I told him it ain’t all that hard and not to worry ’cause I’d help’m, but he just sort’f shook his head and didn’t say nothing more, and I went upstairs.

But I didn’t sleep.

My head was all full of thoughts, especially thoughts about when to go to Miss Gurpy’s to check out them boxes, and really wishing she’d just let me clean her house on the inside, so I could take a look without no risk of sneaking in, and I figured I’d talk to Richie Harrigan about that.

One thing I gotta say is when I thought about the man or the house or the boxes, I didn’t think ’bout what Leezie was doing out with Bad-Ass or worry ’bout Daddy moping downstairs—all that just slipped my mind. Ain’t that funny? It was the best damn way I’d had to get my mind off things since I used to go out late nights ridin’ on that old bike. ’Cept this time it was even better. ’Cause it was like a puzzle, with the only rule book the one I figure out myself, and nagging at me hard enough to make my worries just fade away.

So I’m lying there in bed like that, sort’f dreaming almost about them boxes and the jewels and what to do to see’m, when just then I remember something and sit up straight like I been bit.

Remember how today Skugger’d warned me when he was in a car with a man? That’s what I was thinking about now. At the time there’d seemed something familiar about that man. I don’t mean who he was, ’cause even though I’d never met him and didn’t know his name I’d seen him around time and again, always driving that same old car, and always with one boy or another who liked to get high.

But right then in bed I knew what it was that I’d seen.

It was his
coat,
or really the shirt he had on.

I remember I was looking at’m through the smoke in the car, and he was smoking a jay and so high he was sort’f poking it at his face and missing his mouth, and sparks was falling on his shirt and he was rubbing’m out. And I saw it was a
green
shirt, green plaid, same as lumberjacks wear.

It was the goddamn shirt I’d seen on the floor of the dark house, lying there with the puffy jacket. Shirt looked hot for the weather and his face was all sweaty but he was smokin’ so much reefer it didn’t seem to faze’m.

I lay there staring, thinking ’bout that and all the other things I’d seen, and tryin’ my damndest to find a way to put’m together. And I must say it pissed me off not knowing just how to do it.

Then suddenly I thought,
I want to see that man . . .

Meaning I want to spy on him, follow him around, see what the hell he’s up to.

I was out of bed in a second and out the window even faster, climbing down the fire escape and walking crost the yard to the alley.

Th’night was dark and it was just a few minutes before I come near Simon Hooper’s. I’d run all the way and got short of breath and doubled up awhile panting, then when I was ready I went through Hooper’s yard and over the board fence to the house next door. I was in the front yard and nothing had changed. Porch was empty. No lights anywheres. And no sound, neither.