Deviant (13 page)

“I want to ask Danny a question about the homework,” Tony said.

Mr. Meadows grunted something and went inside.

“What question?” Danny wondered.

“There's no question, I just wanted to say thanks for taking the missing cat seriously,” she said, taking his hand in hers and interlacing her fingers between his.

“I have a cat myself. I, uh, sorry I didn't notice it this morning,” Danny mumbled.

“That's OK.”

“So, do you think it's a coyote or a sicko?”

“I don't know. Could be either. It gives me the creeps to think that there's evil like that in the world.”

Danny squeezed her hand cautiously. “There is no evil in the world. There's no magic and no evil. If it's not an animal, it's a person; and if it's a person, he's doing it for a reason.”

“Yeah. Creepy either way … I better go inside,” she said.

She let go of his hand and slipped inside the house.

Danny stood there in the Meadowses' driveway for a while. He was grinning, and although it was a brisk, windy night, he didn't really feel that cold at all.

The wind in the fir trees sounded like an ocean to Danny. It woke him. He dressed and went downstairs to the chilly ground floor. He pressed the red button in the hall that ignited the thermostat. The night before, Walt had chopped logs and put kindling and newspapers in the fireplace, but Danny didn't want to light a fire. It seemed … what? Primitive. He put the kettle on the stove and made a pot of instant coffee, and when his mother came down he gave it to her. He even made one for Walt, who immediately went to the fireplace, poured kerosene on a scrunched-up newspaper and shoved it under the kindling. He lit a match and the fire caught.

“This reminds me of New Hampshire,” he said, rubbing
his hands. “OK, everyone, sit where you are and I'll make breakfast.”

“Don't bother, I'm not hungry,” Danny said, but after he saw his mother's look he said, “Great, thanks.”

“How old is Jeffrey?” Juanita asked Danny.

“Why?” Danny wondered.

“The Sheriff's Department sent us a flyer saying we have to register all our pets,” Juanita muttered, looking through the mail.

“And you have to pay a fee, right?” Walt asked.

“Twenty-five dollars,” Juanita said.

“Moneymaking scam,” Walt said contemptuously.

Danny didn't say anything; he was still thinking of the thirty-five bucks he supposedly owed Tom.

Walt made huevos rancheros, and it wasn't too bad for an Anglo.

But his mom was the real cook.

When they'd finished breakfast it was still only 7:05. Danny got up.

“Where are you going?” his mother asked.

“Payback,” he said, pulling on his puffy North Face coat.

He went outside into a frozen world.

No tire tracks or human footprints.

No dogs, cats, or even birds.

This was the opposite of Vegas, where something was always going on.

He broke the virgin snow with the soles of his shoes.

It was only an inch deep, but ice had frozen on top of
the snowfall and it felt like he was walking on a frosted piece of glass. As if he were on the other side of a mirror, like in those books everyone was always trying to get him to read.

The door opened behind him. Walt looked out.

“You can't skateboard on that; you'll break your neck,” Walt said.

“I'm not boarding, all right?”

He glared at Walt until he closed the front door again.

Danny composed himself and got back into the groove.

Frozen snow, silent houses, forest, mountain, little entrail-like curls of smoke escaping from the copper chimney tops.

It was a street from a town in a fairy tale.

He went across the cul-de-sac to Tony's house and walked up her drive.

The family drove a black Mercedes SUV. There was a Jesus fish on the back cargo door and predictable bumper stickers:
WWJD?, FOCUS ON THE FAMILY, METROPOLITAN FAITH CATHEDRAL—JOIN US!, MCCAIN-PALIN
08.

Danny hesitated at the front door.

He didn't have the moxie that Tony had. He couldn't just walk into someone's house, could he?

Well, she'd done it to him and supposedly that was what this street was all about. An upper-class version of the cup-of-sugar-borrowing ways of the barrio.
Mi casa es su casa
.

He wiped his feet on a mat that said
SHALOM
, and went inside.

The Christmas tree startled him. It was the middle of
January, and there in the massive, oak-paneled living room was a fully lit-up and decorated Christmas tree.

“Hello?” Danny said.

No answer.

“Hello?” he inquired, a decibel or two louder.

The lights weren't on, and the house was quiet. He was surprised. He'd taken them for early risers. Somehow he thought all religious people were early risers.

All the better to ambush Tony, then.

The living room had a big stone fireplace with family photographs, and there were deer antlers on the wall just like in his house.

There were old books in a locked glass case.

A coffee mug sitting on a glass coffee table.

It felt like a crime scene.

The staircase was a wide mahogany affair that half curved to the upper part of the house. He kicked the remaining snow off his shoes and walked up it. Tony's room was easy to find. It said “Tony” on the door.

Should he knock or just go in and weird her out like she'd weirded him?

He thought about it for a second.

Maybe he should get out of there.

There was a cat at his ankles. White, fluffy, very old, purring. The symmetry of the thing was perfect. Her cat, her room … just as she had taken his cat in his room.

“What's your name, kitty?” he asked, bending down, but before the cat could say anything a voice said, “Hold it right
there!” in a deep, gravelly, intimidating voice. Danny turned and there was Tony's father standing in his nightgown and pointing a double-barreled shotgun at him.

“I'd be well within my rights to shoot you,” Mr. Meadows said.

“Um,” Danny replied, terrified.

“At this range, you'd be blown to pieces,” Mr. Meadows said quietly.

“Please … don't!” Danny begged.

Mr. Meadows bit his lip.

“Have you taken Jesus as your personal savior?” he asked.

Danny wondered what the correct answer was. They didn't go to Mass that often. In fact, they never went. One or two times with his cousins and a couple of occasions on the feast day of Guadalupe, when his mom had been trying for another baby. Danny was pretty sure that Walt was an atheist and one of his grandfathers had been a Cherokee medicine man. Was Jesus his personal savior?

“I think so,” Danny said at last.

“You'll have to do better than that,” Mr. Meadows said.

“Well, I believe that Jesus existed,” Danny said, trying to keep the croak out of his voice.

“It's too late now. Put down the damn cat,” Mr. Meadows said.

The cat was snuggled against Danny's chest and hissing at Mr. Meadows. Danny had a fleeting notion that disturbed and intrigued him. He assembled it logically in his head: (1)
Cats were pretty good judges of character. (2) Mr. Meadows was a violent man who hated cats. (3) The coyote going around killing cats wasn't a coyote, but was instead—

It was an interesting concept, and it might be good to think about it when he wasn't about to lose control of his bladder or burst into tears or die a violent death.

“Put down the cat,” Mr. Meadows insisted.

“No,” Danny said.

Mr. Meadows smiled. “You think I won't shoot you
and
Snowflake? The devil's agent and his familiar?”

“Daddy, what are you doing!” Tony said, opening her bedroom door. Her arms were folded across her chest. She looked furious. She was wearing gray sweats and an iCarly nightgown.

“Caught a burglar red-handed,” Mr. Meadows said. “His life is in my hands now.”

“Daddy, it's Danny from across the street, and you and I know the gun's only loaded with talcum powder to scare the magpies.”

Mr. Meadows's brow furrowed. He gave her a withering look and let the gun point at the floor. “Why did you have to tell him that?” he muttered.

“What were you going to do?” Tony said, standing next to Danny and stroking his back. Mr. Meadows shook his head and looked at his feet. “I don't know, I thought maybe he would embrace the Lord.”

“Would that even count … a shotgun conversion?” Tony said.

“Of course,” Mr. Meadows said.

“Dad, I want you to apologize to Danny right now,” Tony said.

“I was well within my rights,” Mr. Meadows said.

“Apologize or I'll tell Mom!”

“Tell me what?” Mrs. Meadows said, coming onto the landing. She was a tall, athletic woman with blond hair and a pasty face that within the hour would no doubt acquire the bronzed shade typical of many women Danny had seen in Colorado Springs.

She took one look at the situation and coughed.

And apparently that was enough. “I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, son,” Mr. Meadows said quickly.

“Uh, it's OK. I wasn't scared, not for a second.”

Tony and Mrs. Meadows led him downstairs.

“Andrew works at NORAD,” Mrs. Meadows explained. “He always thinks we should jump to DEFCON 4 as a first response to anything.”

Danny looked at her to see if she was making a joke, but he couldn't tell.

“You want some toast or something, while I get ready?” Tony asked.

But Danny was still shook up and he did not want Tony or any other members of her crazy family to see that. Maybe it was hilarious to them that the gun had been loaded with talcum powder, but Danny had been genuinely afraid.

“You know what, I think I'll wait over at my house. You can come and get me,” he said.

Tony appeared twenty minutes later in her uniform, thick winter coat, and a little cream-colored wool hat with tassels running from the ears.

They walked in silence down the hill to school.

At the gate she turned to him and took his hand again. He could feel her cold fingers through the white gloves.

“I'm really sorry,” she said.

Danny smiled. “Don't sweat it,” he assured her.

It was only a Wednesday, but already it felt like a Friday (a Friday without joy), for it had been a long week.

Miss Benson gave them a combined math and English test and, on the basis of the results, moved Danny to a seat in the right-hand corner of the room, next to the window. Apparently, this was the second-worst position in the class, and the only student behind him was a boy who looked about eleven, with big glasses and a froglike face.

Danny was miles from Tony and Tom in the left-hand corner near the door.

He didn't care too much.

He'd wanted to be away from Miss Benson's desk, and the window was good even though it was snowing.

Snow, he had decided, was a bad thing on the whole.

It made skateboarding tricky and somehow it also slowed everything down. Time already went by slower in Colorado than in Nevada, but here in class things really ground along.

Danny wondered if it was going to be like this until March or April or whenever winter ended round these parts.

Miss Benson read from her prepared script, explaining all the different types of triangles you could get, and Danny listened and read along.

Later they did American geography.

Miss Benson read. The kids read. No one seemed engaged. It was like a school play. A bad, boring school play.

Miss Benson:
What is the capital of Colorado?

The kids:
Denver
.

Miss Benson:
What is the capital of the United States?

The kids:
Washington, DC
.

Miss Benson:
What is the longest river in the United States?

The kids:
The Mississippi-Missouri
.

Everyone dutifully speaking their lines, but no one really there at all.

Danny stared out the window at the big clumsy flakes falling so slowly it made you wonder if gravity had taken the day off.

During a bit on the Hoover Dam, Danny's beeper vibrated in his pocket.

Someone was sending him a text.

In class?

srry abt ths mng – tony

Danny looked at her and saw that she was looking at him. And not only that but Tom, Hector, and Charlie were looking at her looking at him.

What was the matter with her? Did she want to get him into even more hot water?

Danny turned off the beeper and focused on the prepared text.

“Indians were given reservations and food and schools, but many Indians didn't want to live like the white men,” Danny read. “The Indians did not embrace the benefits of civilization.”

He felt himself blushing. And ticked. In L.A. someone would have kicked up a fuss about a line like that—here everybody just read.