Crusader (26 page)

I answered, "No."

"Maybe I should let Suzie tell you."

Suzie didn't like that idea. "No. You tell her."

"We'll both tell her." Dad stopped smiling for a moment. He nodded gravely. "Roberta, maybe it's time we were a family again. Maybe it's time you had a mother again."

If I had been eating any food, I think I would have choked. I must have looked pretty shocked, because Suzie jumped right in with, "Of course, I could never replace your real mother."

The two of them stared at me uncomfortably. I finally said, pretty much for my own benefit, "So you two are getting married?"

Dad seemed relieved that I understood. He smiled again. "That's right."

As usual, I couldn't think of anything else to say. So I asked, "Where?"

Dad looked at Suzie mischievously. Suzie didn't respond. I think she was disappointed in my reaction, but Dad pushed on. "I don't know. Maybe on a boat."

That was unexpected. I said, "Whose boat?"

He pulled Suzie over. She flopped against him like a marlin. "Our boat. Suzie only wants two things in the world: me and a boat. Pretty soon she'll have both."

I couldn't look at either one of them. I looked outside and asked, "How can we spend money on a boat now?"

Dad was ready with an answer. "Did you ever hear the expression 'Two can live as cheaply as one'? Well, it's true. Suzie and I will have two incomes, but we'll only be paying one rent. That's a great savings."

The waitress came back with our drinks. She said, "Mr. Anthony suggests the leg of lamb for you tonight. He said he would make it special."

Dad held up one finger. "That's his name: Mr. Anthony." He looked at Suzie, then me. "Sounds good. Let's make it three."

The rest of the dinner went a little better. The food was really good, and we kept away from the topic of their marriage. Instead we talked about the West End Mall.

Mr. Anthony stopped by once to ask about the lamb. Then he came back with the waitress and a small cake with a lit candle. Mr. Anthony and the waitress started to sing "Happy Birthday." Dad joined in. Suzie, I think, lip-synched. After that Mr. Anthony said to Dad, "I know about this special birthday occasion. Is this beautiful lady the other one?"

Dad said, "Yep."

"You're ... you're what?"

Dad laughed and completed Mr. Anthony's thought. "Getting married. Yes."

"Ah! Congratulations." He told the waitress, "Let's have more champagne here. And whatever you're drinking, Roberta."

I was surprised that he remembered my name. I said, "Seven-Up." I added, "Can I ask you a question, Mr. Anthony?"

"Yes. Of course."

"Do you remember our old arcade?"

His smile became tense. "Sure I do."

"It's that tattoo parlor now, right?"

"Right."

"Do you know the owner?"

"I do know her. Her name's Connie. She comes in here. Real nice. But guess what?" He smiled. "She doesn't have a tattoo on her."

Dad laughed. "Is that right?"

I continued, "Do you think this Connie lady would mind if I stopped in there to look around?"

Mr. Anthony thought for a moment. "No, I'm sure she wouldn't."

Dad looked disturbed. He asked me, "Roberta, honey, why would you want to do that?"

"I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I have to see it."

"Why now? Why spoil tonight?"

"It's not spoiling anything. And when else will I ever get down here?"

Dad didn't know what to say. He turned to Mr. Anthony. "How long has it been a tattoo parlor?"

"A couple of years. It was a jewelry store before that, but it kept getting robbed." Mr. Anthony paused. He suddenly looked sick. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

Dad reassured him. "It's okay."

Mr. Anthony turned to me. "You tell Connie that I said you should come in and see your old store. And you have a happy birthday."

Dad and Suzie drank their champagne. Then Dad paid the check and we left. Outside, Dad unlocked the car door for Suzie, who slid into the front seat. I kept walking, around the car and up to the door of the Third Eye Tattoo and Body Piercing Parlor. I peered in and saw the same lady as last time sitting at a card table. It looked like she was playing solitaire.

I looked back at Dad. He wanted no part of this. He was staring at the ground, but then he looked up at me. "Roberta, I don't know what's going on here, but there's no way I can walk back into that building. Do you understand?"

"Sure, Dad. I don't want you to. This is something I want to do. For me. For my birthday."

Suzie said something to him, and he relayed it to me. "We'll sit in the car. Okay?"

"Okay." I looked closely at the frame of the doorway. I thought,
This is how people used to enter the arcade. This is how the killer entered, too.
I took a deep breath and pushed open the glass door. The woman at the table looked up at me. I could see now that, although there were cards on the table, she was actually filing her nails. I wouldn't call her look friendly. She said, "Did you want a tattoo? You'll need an adult with you."

"No. No, ma'am. Mr. Anthony said I could come in and look around."

"Who's Mr. Anthony?"

"He owns the restaurant next door."

The woman nodded. She lightened up a little. "Oh yeah. I forgot his name." She put down her nail file. "What do you want to look at?"

"This was our family business. We had an arcade in this building about seven years ago."

"Really? I heard there was a jewelry store here."

"We were here before them."

The woman thought harder. "Was that the woman who was—" She stopped before she said the rest.

I answered, "Right. My mother."

"Oh? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"That's okay. Can I look around?"

"Sure. Suit yourself. But please don't touch anything sharp."

"I won't." I walked slowly through the room, concentrating on the past. I wanted to remember the place exactly as it was—bright, neon, crowded with machines. I looked at the back wall. That was where my mother would stand, so that was where I chose to stand.

I tried to reconstruct where the cash register had been, where the safe had been, where the security camera had been. Then I tried to imagine the killer entering. Did he burst in? Or did he come in casually, posing as a customer? Was my mother afraid when it happened? Or was she too surprised, too stunned to be afraid? I stared at the door. I imagined him entering and closing in on me quickly. I imagined him pulling out a knife. I imagined the knife punching into my stomach, doubling me over.

I clutched my stomach and lurched across the room toward the door. Connie didn't look up. I pulled the door open and staggered outside. My eyes fell immediately on the spot, ten feet in front of the door, where my mother had fallen. I fell, too. I lay there, doubled over, with my hand plugging the imaginary hole in my stomach. I studied the sidewalk in front of my face. Was this the last thing she ever saw? I listened to the blood rushing in my ears. Was that the last thing she ever heard? I felt the grit of the sidewalk. I smelled the asphalt of the parking lot.

Suddenly a face was leaning over, looking down at mine. I knew the face. It was that street girl, the chubby one. She whispered, "Hey, are you okay?"

I unclenched my fist and pulled it back from my stomach. I stretched out, facedown. Then I got up to my knees. I told her, "Yeah. Yeah, I must have slipped."

The skinny boy was standing behind her. I looked from one to the other. Neither one believed I had slipped. The girl asked me, "Are you wasted?"

"Am I what?"

"Are you loaded?"

"What?"

The girl looked at me like she thought I was stupid. She tried, "Do you need some help?"

"No. Thank you. I'm okay now. I slipped."

"No, you didn't."

A car pulled into the space right in front of us. Its headlights made the street kids squint like moles in the sunlight. I was blinded, too, but I realized that it was Dad's Chevy Malibu. He yelled at me, "Come on, Roberta. That's enough now. Get in!"

I didn't react right away, so he yelled again, "I mean it. Get in the car!"

The street girl took a step toward the headlights. She asked me, "Is this guy after you?" But before I could answer, she whipped out a small metal cylinder and yelled back at the car, "Get outta here, you creep. I got Mace. I'll Mace you!"

I hopped up to my feet. "No! No, it's okay. It's my dad."

She remained standing between the car and me. "Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. He drove me here."

"Do you want to go back with him?"

"Yes. Yes, I've been waiting for him."

"No, you haven't. He's been parked right there all along."

"I mean ... I don't know what I mean. But I want to go with him now."

The girl stepped back, joining the boy. She put the cylinder away. "Okay. It's your funeral."

I walked to the passenger side of the car. Suzie opened the door enough for me to squeeze in. I looked back to thank the girl, but she and the boy had disappeared.

Dad pulled out with a squealing sound, just like Nina had. Maybe he thought that girl might still try to Mace him. He yelled back to me, "What were you doing lying on that sidewalk? What's the matter with you?"

I thought for a moment. Then I yelled into the front seat, "I think it was the lamb. I never had lamb before. I think it gave me cramps."

I guess Dad accepted that explanation. He didn't say anything else about it. We drove back with the radio on and no conversation. By the time they dropped me off at the bottom of the driveway, all was forgiven. Dad just said, "Do you have your key?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. You get to bed. I'll be back soon. I just need to drive Suzie home."

The Chevy Malibu started to back away. Suzie hadn't said anything all the way back, but now she called out cheerfully, "Good night. Happy birthday."

I crawled into bed and tossed all night. I know I had several jagged, dark dreams. But there's only one I can remember now, and only a few seconds of it: My mother sat at the table of the tattoo parlor, where that Connie lady had sat. She looked up at me when I came in. She spoke to me very calmly, without a trace of pain: "Roberta, I told them I didn't want one of these. I never wanted one of these." I looked at her arms. In my mind, I knew she was talking about a tattoo. Her voice was calm, even
peaceful, but her actions were anything but. Her right arm was busy doing violence to her left. She had a knife in her right hand, and she was scraping the skin away on her left forearm. The blood from this crude operation was running in a narrow stream, across the card table, onto the floor, and right out into the street.

Today is a teacher workday. That means that no kids in the county have to go to school. Only teachers.

I took advantage of this to get to the mall in the morning. When I got to the rotunda, I saw that Leo had pulled all the Santa's Workshop stuff out of storage and hauled it in there. He appeared to be having a problem with the Santa seat. Suzie, as usual, was on his case. She was staring at the Santa seat with alarm. "Leo? Why is that chair moving?"

Leo explained without looking up. "It's that pump under the grate. It's making the grate vibrate. So the seat moves a little."

"Does it move when somebody is sitting on it?"

"I don't know."

Suzie looked up to heaven, as if asking for help. She said sarcastically, "That's okay, Leo. I'll do it." Suzie walked over to the Santa seat and sat lightly on it. It stopped moving. She said, "Is this all it takes to hold it still?"

I guess so.

"So there won't be a problem when Gene is sitting here? He's a big guy."

"Problem? How could there possibly be a problem?" Leo displayed his oversize teeth.

Suzie looked at me for sympathy. "Cut it out, Leo." She got
off the seat, which started vibrating again. She walked past me and said, "Roberta, do you have any idea what Sam wants to talk to me about?"

"Sam? No."

"He's got a bug up his behind about something. He's waiting in the office."

I said, "No. I don't know."

Suzie hurried up to the office, so I followed after her. Sam was sitting in the chair across from the desk. Suzie sat in front of him and unfolded her hands as though to say,
Okay, what is it?

Sam spread out a newspaper on her desk, the campus newspaper from the University of South Florida. He said, "I picked this paper up today, after my accounting class."

Suzie looked at it without much curiosity. Sam pointed to one part of it and asked her, "Have you by any chance read this article?"

"I don't read campus newspapers, Sam. I'm real busy in here."

"I'm real busy, too, but I read this. It's an interview with the coach of the golf team."

"Is that right?"

"The coach of the golf team pals around with Ray Lyons's son, Richard. They can often be seen playing eighteen holes together on our lush fifty-acre campus."

"You're losing me here, Sam."

"The coach told the student reporter the following: 'I expect this area to have a major PGA golf course within two years.'"

Suzie flopped her hands outward this time, as if to say she had had enough. "Please, Sam, I have a big event to plan."

"He expects this golf course to be, quote, 'on the site of the old West End Mall,' unquote."

Suzie's head snapped up. She looked startled. Sam continued, "Now, to my recollection, the West End Mall is still here. In fact, we're sitting in it right now."

"Yes. Yes, of course."

"So why would he make such a bizarre statement?"

She looked at the article. "Well, it's just stupid. It's a stupid thing to say."

"So he just said it because he's stupid?"

"Sam, I don't know."

"Well, I know. He said it because he believes it to be true. He believes it to be true because he heard it directly from his pal Richard Lyons. The Lyons family has plans for this mall, all right. Demolition plans."

Sam got up dramatically. He told Suzie, "You can keep that and read it when you get a minute. I have my own copy."