Boy's Life (82 page)

     A hand grasped my shoulder from behind.

     I almost cried out. I came very close to it. As it was, I felt my face freeze as the blood left it.

     Dr. Lezander said, “An ambitious young man. Isn’t that right, Veronica?”

     “Yes, Frans.” She turned away from me and continued putting the groceries up.

     He released me. I looked at him. He obviously had just awakened; his eyes were sleep-swollen, the hairs had come out in a grizzle around his neatly trimmed chin beard, and he was wearing a red silk robe over pajamas. He yawned and stifled it with the same hand that had just been on my shoulder. “Coffee, please, dearest,” he said. “The blacker the better.”

     She began to spoon coffee into a cup that had the picture of a collie on it. Then, that task done, she turned on the hot water faucet.

     “I heard East Berlin this morning around four,” he told her. “A wonderful orchestra was playing Wagner.”

     Mrs. Lezander filled the collie cup full of steaming water and stirred it. She handed the ebony coffee to her husband, who first inhaled its aroma. “Ahhhhhh, yes!” he said. “This should do the trick!” He took a little slurpy sip. “Good and strong!” he said, satisfied.

     “I’d better be goin’ now.” I edged toward the back door. “Ben Sears and Johnny Wilson are waitin’ for me at the Lyric.”

     “I thought you wanted to ask me about an afternoon job.”

     “Well… I’d better go.”

     “Oh, nonsense.” He reached out again, and his hand found my shoulder. He had iron in his fingers. “I’d be pleased and happy to have you come by and help in the afternoons, Cory. As a matter of truth, I’ve been looking for a young apprentice.”

     “Really?” I didn’t know what else to say.

     “Really.” He smiled with his mouth. His eyes were careful. “You’re a smart young man, aren’t you?”

     “Sir?”

     “A smart young man. Oh, don’t be so modest! You pursue things, don’t you? You grip a fact and shake it like a… like a terrier.” His mouth smiled again, and the silver tooth sparkled. He took a longer sip of coffee.

     “I don’t know what you mean.” I heard my voice tremble, the slightest bit.

     “I admire that quality in you, Cory. The terrier determination to get to the root of things. That’s a fine quality for a boy to have.”

     “His bicycle’s outside, Frans,” Mrs. Lezander said as she put away packs of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat.

     “Bring it in, will you?”

     “I’ve gotta go,” I said, and now the fear had started choking me.

     “Non”—he answered, smiling—“sense. If we have a freezing rain—and it certainly looks grim out there today—you don’t want that fine bicycle of yours to be covered with ice, do you?”

     “I… really have to—”

     “I’ll bring it in,” Mrs. Lezander said, and she went outside. I watched, Dr. Lezander’s hand on my shoulder, as the woman pushed Rocket across the threshold and into the den.

      “Very good,” Dr. Lezander said. He drank some more coffee. “Better safe than sorry, yes?”

     Mrs. Lezander returned, sucking her left thumb. She brought it from her mouth to show blood on it. “Look at this, Frans. I cut myself on his bicycle.” She said it with an almost clinical detachment. The thumb returned to her mouth. There was blood on her lower lip.

     “While you’re here, Cory, it seems to me you should see what your job would entail. Don’t you agree?”

     “Ben and Johnny… they’re gonna miss me,” I said.

     “Yes, they will, I’m sure. But they’ll go in and sit down and watch the film, won’t they? They’ll probably think”—he shrugged—“that something happened. Like things do to boys.” His fingers began to knead my shoulder. “What film is it?”

      “Hell Is for Heroes. It’s an army picture.”

     “Oh, an
army
picture. I expect it’s the conquering American heroes destroying the wretched German dogs, isn’t it?”

     “Frans,” Mrs. Lezander said quietly.

     A look passed between them, as hard and sharp as a dagger.

     Dr. Lezander’s attention returned to me. “Let’s go downstairs, Cory. All right?”

     “My mom’s gonna be worried,” I tried, but I knew it was no good.

     “But she believes you’re at the
film
, doesn’t she?” His eyebrows lifted. “Now, let’s go downstairs and see what I’m prepared to pay you twenty dollars a week to do.”

     My breath was stolen. “Twenty
dollars?
”

     “Yes. Twenty dollars a week for an able and understanding apprentice seems like a bargain to me. Shall we go?” His hand guided me toward the steps that led down. It was a powerful hand, and it would not be denied. I had to go. Dr. Lezander flicked a switch that turned on the light over the stairs and flooded light below me. As I descended, I heard the rustle of his red silk robe and the shuffle of his slippers on the stairs. I heard him slurp his coffee. It was a greedy sound, and I was afraid.

     My father had not taken Jacob Steiner and Lee Hannaford directly to the Union Pines Motel. On the way, jammed in the pickup truck with the wipers knocking away sleet, he’d asked them if they wanted some lunch. Both men had said yes, and that was how they’d wound up walking into the Bright Star Cafe.

     “How about a booth in the back?” Dad asked Carrie French, and she guided them to one and left them with luncheon menu cards.

     Mr. Steiner took off his gloves and overcoat. He was wearing a tweed suit and a pale gray vest. He hung his overcoat and his hat on a rack. His hair was as white and thick as a bristle brush. As Mr. Steiner slid into the booth and Dad sat down, too, the younger man peeled off his jacket. He was wearing a blue-checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his muscular biceps. And on the right bicep… there it was.

     Dad said, “Oh my God.”

     “What is it?” Mr. Hannaford asked. “I’m not supposed to take my jacket off in here?”

     “No, it’s all right.” A sheen of sweat had broken out on my father’s forehead. Mr. Hannaford sat down beside Mr. Steiner. “I mean… that tattoo…”

     “You got a problem with it, friend?” The younger man’s slate-colored eyes had narrowed into dangerous slits.

     “Lee?” Mr. Steiner cautioned. “No, no.” It was like telling a bad dog to sit.

     “No problem,” Dad said. “It’s just that…” He was having trouble breathing, and the room wanted to spin. “I’ve seen your tattoo before.”

     The two men were silent. Mr. Steiner spoke first. “May I ask where, Mr. Mackenson?”

     “Before I tell you, I want to know where you’ve come from and why you’re here.” Dad pulled his gaze away from the faint outline of a skull with wings swept back from its temples.

     “I wouldn’t,” Mr. Hannaford warned Mr. Steiner. “We don’t know this guy.”

     “True. We don’t know anyone here, do we?” Mr. Steiner glanced around, and Dad saw his hawklike eyes take in the scene. A dozen or so people were having lunch and shooting the breeze. Carrie French was fending off the good-natured flirting of a couple of farmers. The television was tuned to a basketball game. “How can we trust you, Mr. Mackenson?”

     “What’s not to trust?” Something about this man—the way he carried himself, the way his eyes were darting this way and that, sizing things up—made Dad ask the next question. “Are you a policeman?”

     “By profession, no. But in a sense, yes.”

     “What profession are you in, then?”

     “I am… in the field of historical research,” Mr. Steiner answered.

     Carrie French came over on her long, pretty legs, her order pad ready. “Help you today?”

     “Got any griddle cakes?” Mr. Hannaford plucked a pack of Luckies out of his breast pocket.

     “Beg pardon?”

     “Griddle cakes! Do you have ’em here or not?”

     “I think,” Mr. Steiner said patiently as the younger man lit a cigarette, “that they’re called pancakes in this part of the country.”

     “We’re not servin’ breakfast now.” Carrie offered an uncertain smile. “Sorry.”

     “Just gimme a burger, then.” He spouted smoke through his pinched nostrils. “Jesus!”

     “Is the chicken noodle soup fresh?” Mr. Steiner asked, examining the menu card.

     “Canned, but it’s still good.”

     “I will not eat canned chicken noodle soup, my dear.” He gazed at her sternly over the rims of his glasses. “I, too, will have a hamburger.
Very
well done, if you please.”
Pliss
, he pronounced it.

     Dad ordered the beef stew and a cup of coffee. Carrie paused. “Ya’ll aren’t from around here, are you?” she asked the two strangers.

     “I’m from Indiana,” Mr. Hannaford said. “He’s from—”

     “Warsaw, Poland, originally. And I can speak for myself, thank you.”

     “Both of you sure are a long way from home,” Dad said when Carrie had gone.

     “I live in Chicago now,” Mr. Steiner explained.

     “Still a long way from Zephyr.” Dad’s eyes kept ticking back to the tattoo. It looked as if the younger man had tried to bleach it out of his skin. “Does that tattoo mean somethin’?”

     Lee Hannaford let smoke dribble from the corner of his mouth. “It means,” he said, “that I don’t like people askin’ me my business.”

     Dad nodded. The first smolderings of anger were reddening his cheeks. “Is that so?”

     “Yeah, it’s so.”

     “Gentlemen, please,” Mr. Steiner said.

     “What would you say to this, hotshot?” Dad propped his elbows on the table and leaned his face closer to the younger man’s. “What would you say if I told you that ten months ago I saw a tattoo just like yours on the arm of a dead man?”

     Mr. Hannaford didn’t respond. His face was emotionless, his eyes cold. He drew cigarette smoke in and blew it out. “Did he have blond hair?” he asked. “Kinda the same color as mine?”

     “Yes.”

     “About the same build, too?”

     “I think so, yes.”

     “Uh-huh.” Mr. Hannaford leaned his chiseled face toward my father’s. When he spoke, the words left smoke trails. “I’d say you saw my brother.”

     “…and these cages must be kept scrupulously clean,” Dr. Lezander was saying as he pointed them out. They were empty right now. “As well as the floor. If you come in three times a week, I expect the floor to be scrubbed three times a week. You’ll be expected to water and feed all the animals in the kennel, as well as exercise them.” I followed along behind him as he showed me from room to room in the basement. Every once in a while I would glance up and see an air vent overhead. “I order my hay in bales. You’d be expected to help unload the truck, cut the baling wire, and spread out hay for the horse stalls. I can attest that cutting baling wire is not an easy endeavor. It’s tough enough to string a piano with. Plus your job will include whatever errands I need you to run.” He turned to face me. “Twenty dollars a week for three afternoons, say from four until six. Does that sound fair?”

     “Gosh.” I couldn’t believe this. Dr. Lezander was offering me a fortune.

     “If you come in on Saturdays, I’ll pay you an extra five dollars for… say, two until four.” He smiled, again with just his mouth. He drank his coffee and set the collie cup down atop an empty wire-mesh cage. “Cory?” he said softly. “I do have two requests before I give you this job.”

     I waited to hear them.

     “One: that your parents don’t know how much I’m paying you. I think they should believe I’m paying you perhaps ten dollars a week. The reason I say this is that… well, I know your father’s working at the gas station now. I saw him the last time I pulled in. I know your mother’s struggling in her baking business. Wouldn’t it be better for you if they didn’t know how much money you were coming home with?”

     “You think I ought to keep such a thing from them?” I asked, bewildered.

     “It would be your decision, of course. But I believe both your mother and father might be… anxious to share your good fortune, if they were to know. And there are so
many
things a boy could buy with twenty-five dollars a week. The only problem is, you’d have to be discreet about those purchases. You couldn’t spend it all in one place. I might even have to drive you to Union Town or Birmingham to spend some of that money. But couldn’t you think of a few things you might like to have that your parents can’t buy you?”

     I thought. And then I answered: “No sir, I can’t.”

     He laughed, as if this tickled him. “You will, though. With all that money in your pocket, you will.”

     I didn’t answer. I didn’t like what Dr. Lezander thought I would keep from my mother and father.