Spare Change (36 page)

Olivia

I
f a year ago somebody had told me I’d be loving an
eleven year old boy, I’d have figured them downright crazy. Me? I’d have said—me?
A woman with a deathly fear of anything eleven and no use whatsoever for
children? 

Now here I sit with Ethan
Allen Doyle tucked under my wing like a newborn chick; which just goes to show
how little folks actually know about themselves. I suppose Charlie would be
pretty surprised at this turn of events—I sure am. 

Of course, I’m also
frightened about what could happen. Ethan Allen’s right when he says the Cobbs
are worth worrying about. I don’t know the father, but the son sure is a mean
one. God only knows where I got the courage to take a swing at a man that big
and bad-tempered. I guess when I saw him coming after Ethan Allen, I didn’t
stop to think; I just started swinging. Well, swinging and praying that I’d be
able to get my boy inside before I fainted dead away.

My boy—it’s pretty ironic
to hear me saying such a thing, after a lifetime of running away from the very
thought. I should telephone Francine Burnam and tell her about this; she of all
people would get the biggest kick out of it.

The Greater Power

O
n the way to Wyattsville Scooter Cobb drove through
three red lights without so much as slowing down. “There’s no way,” he mumbled,
“…no way I’m gonna let that little shit send me to jail!” He sifted several
plans through his head, but it seemed the best was to catch the boy playing in
the street, then go straight at the kid with the gas pedal pushed flat to the
floor. Hit and run accidents were simply things that happened, not a crime
likely to be traced back to him. Scooter Cobb pictured how he’d drive off and
leave Ethan Allen lying in the street with tire tracks emblazoned across the
small of his back. 

Of course by the time he
arrived in Wyattsville it was almost nine o’clock and pitch dark; so dark, that
he failed to see Sam’s car parked in front of the apartment building and drove
clear to the center of town before realizing the mistake. Having to turn around
and backtrack caused his disposition to grow fouler. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he
grumbled over and over again. By then it was so late, he doubted he’d find the
boy outside in the street, which meant he’d have to go to the woman’s
apartment. 

His best bet was to get the
kid outside Scooter reasoned, get him outside, and then figure how to get rid
of him. That way, he could claim he was simply having a talk with Ethan Allen
when the kid up and ran off.   Kids like him ran off all the time. Nobody was
gonna worry about it. Without the kid, he reasoned, Mahoney had nothing.

B
y nine o’clock, most residents of the Wyattsville Arms
apartment building had settled down to watch their favorite television show or
thumb through the daily newspaper. No one expected trouble—why should they? 
Trouble was not a thing that came calling on folks once they were snug in their
own living room, with the windows locked and the door bolted for the night. 

Ethan Allen did not feel the
same way; he knew trouble was
most
likely to show itself in the dark of
night. It came when you least expected it. It came crashing through the door
and grabbed you by the throat—then you were good as dead. He tried not to dwell
on such a possibility as he lay across his bed listening to the Orioles lose
the last game of the season. He couldn’t help wishing he’d been able to slip
away long enough to buy cartridges for the Winchester. Okay, he still had the
Browning under his bed, but having a loaded Winchester would have made him feel
a lot better. Ethan tried to focus his concern on the fact that the Orioles had
the worst batting average in the entire American League, but it simply didn’t
seem to matter all that much. In the top of the ninth, with the Yankees leading
nine to three, he snapped off the radio and turned to a Superman comic book
he’d already read so many times the cover was torn loose.   

Olivia was not reading nor
was she watching television; she was busy at work preparing her favorite
pineapple upside down cake. The Bingo Club was having their annual bake sale
and she had volunteered to provide, not one, but two cakes; which seemed only
right seeing as how everyone had been so forgiving about Ethan Allen living at
the Wyattsville Arms. The first of these creations was already in the oven when
she discovered she’d run short of brown sugar. Had it been an hour earlier, she
could have dashed down to the market and purchased a box, but now, with
everything closed, she would have to try and borrow some. The first person she
called was Clara. “Brown sugar?” Clara replied, “Why, I’ve not used that in
years.” She suggested Olivia try white sugar mixed in with a cup or two of
maple syrup. “Now, I’ve got
plenty
of maple syrup,” Clara said. 

“No thanks,” Olivia answered
and then she set about calling a number of other people. As it turned out
Barbara Conklin had a brand new box of brown sugar, one that was not yet
opened. “Oh, would you mind?” Olivia asked. 

“Not at all,” Barbara
answered, “but I was just about to step into the tub. Soon as I finish my bath
and dry off, I’ll bring it up.”

Olivia would have happily
run downstairs to fetch the sugar herself, or sent Ethan Allen for it, but
knowing Barbara Conklin to be a person insistent upon doing things in her own
good time, she decided to wait.  She’ll be here soon enough, Olivia reasoned,
as she set about mixing the batter. When the doorbell rang fifteen minutes
later, she of course figured it to be Barbara and flung the door open without
inquiring as to who was on the other side.

Standing there was a man
half again the size of Sam Cobb; his face had a look of meanness too impossible
to imagine. Olivia knew without asking—the man was Scooter Cobb. She instantly
tried to bang shut the door, but such a thing was like trying to un-mix cake
batter—what was done, was done, and there was no undoing it.  

“Where’s the kid?” he
growled.

Fear grabbed hold of Olivia
and without thinking she fell back a step.  Almost immediately she realized the
move was a grave mistake, for now the baseball bat positioned alongside the
door was beyond her reach.  Scooter took advantage of the opportunity and
pushed his way inside the apartment. He slammed the door behind him with such
force it sent the hall table and potted plant flying.

Ethan Allen bolted upright
when he heard the noise. An apprehensive growl was rumbling in Dog’s throat but
the boy whispered, “Shhhh…” and held a finger to his mouth. He then waited,
listening to make certain he’d heard what he thought he heard.

“Where’s the kid?” Scooter
shouted a second time; his voice booming so thunderously it rolled through to
the living room and rattled the pictures on the wall.

“He’s not here,” Olivia
answered, reaching for every ounce of courage she possessed. “He’s gone; gone
someplace safe.”

Ethan Allen glanced over at
the window. He could easily enough raise the sash, step out onto the fire
escape and disappear down the metal stairs. Scooter would never be any the
wiser. Then what? With Scooter being the sort of man to take his frustration
out on somebody, that somebody would be Grandma Olivia. Ethan’s thoughts
flashed back to the image of Benjamin being beaten and tossed about like a
broken doll; that night he’d done nothing, he’d just let it happen, but this
time would be different. With his heart thundering like a kettle drum, he
climbed from the bed and reached for the Browning. As quietly as possible, he
cracked it open and checked the two buckshot shells in the side by side
chambers.  He closed the gun and released the safety.

“Well now, Scooter said to
Olivia, “you’re just gonna have to tell me where that place is, aren’t you?”
The sound of his voice was heavy and threatening.

“No,” she answered, the word
trembling through her throat. “The child is gone and that’s all there is to
it.”

Ethan Allen was more
frightened than he’d thought humanly possible.  He felt like his stomach could
slide out his back end at any minute. Even so, he raised the Browning into
position and wedged the butt of the shotgun tight against his shoulder. With
his hands trembling and a line of perspiration sliding down his back, he took a
step forward. If he had the Winchester he could count on felling Scooter Cobb
with a single shot—that was a rifle meant for killing; but all the Browning
gave off was a spray of buckshot, scattered about in every which direction.
With the Browning, he’d be lucky to kill a squirrel, but a man of that size,
never.  Yet if he didn’t do something…

“Lady, you are
so
wrong,” Scooter shouted angrily, “that’s not all there is to it! You’re gonna
tell me where that kid is, or you’re gonna get the shit kicked outta you!” He
moved a step closer.   

Olivia was hoping, no,
praying, that Ethan Allen would not try something foolish; that he’d have the
good sense to slip out the window and go for help. He had to have heard
Scooter’s voice by now, surely that would drive him away. She prayed the boy
would run, run fast enough to escape the ugliness that was coming. If she could
hold Scooter Cobb back for a few minutes he’d have time enough to get away,
time enough to find a place and hide. “Just go away,” she finally said to
Scooter, “leave the boy alone, he’s already had enough misery.”

“You and him is both gonna
learn something about
real
misery, if you don’t quick tell me where he’s
gone!”

“He ran off this morning, I
have no idea where he is,” Olivia answered. “Now, leave here or I’m calling the
police!”

Ethan pushed the bedroom
door open and silently inched his way along the back side of the foyer wall.
Maybe he’d be lucky; maybe the Browning would stun Scooter enough that he and
Olivia could get away. Hopefully, the spray of buckshot wouldn’t hit her;
hopefully the old shotgun wouldn’t explode in his face.

Scooter gave a loud laugh,
not the chuckling sort you’d expect to hear when a thing is funny, but a laugh
that was mean as mean can be. “You’re gonna call the police on
me!
” he
shouted uproariously and then charged toward Olivia. He slapped a huge hand
down on her shoulder before she had time to make a move. In one fleeting second—a
second you would believe too short to have any thought, let alone one so
profound—she suddenly
knew
why Ethan Allen was so deathly afraid of this
man. With his right hand still clamped to her shoulder, Scooter balled his left
into a fist and drew back. Olivia was too petrified to do anything; she tried
to pull loose but he had a firm grip. Nothing would stop him now, it was too
late, nothing could…  Like a lightning flash, Dog came flying through the air,
snarling, yapping, aiming himself at the attacker. Scooter didn’t let go of
Olivia’s shoulder, but his grip loosened the slightest bit as he turned toward
the sound. She stumbled backward, the heel of her shoe caught onto a bit of
carpet and then over she went, the weight of her body jerking her loose from
Scooter’s grasp. Just as she slammed into the floor, Ethan Allen stepped from
behind the wall and fired. For a moment Scooter Cobb stood there looking
bewildered, then he toppled over. 

Ethan Allen’s heart
catapulted from its rightful spot and began spinning like a whirligig; he
wobbled back and forth for a moment then fell backward onto the floor.  

As it turned out, he had
simply fainted dead away when the sound of the explosion rocketed through his
head. When he came to Olivia was fanning her hand in front of his face and calling
out his name. “Are you alright, Ethan?” she asked, but he was unsure of how to
answer. 

After a few moments, it
started to come back. He remembered shooting Scooter Cobb, he’d been scared, so
scared he thought he’d die, but he’d pulled the trigger anyway. He sat up to
make sure of what he’d done. Sure enough, there was Scooter Cobb, sprawled out
across the foyer, with biggest part of his chest blown away. A stream of tears
began rolling down Ethan’s face; “I did it, Grandma,” he said proudly. “This time
I wasn’t no coward. I didn’t run off and hide. I saved your life, didn’t I
Grandma?”

Olivia saw a look of pride
in the boy’s eyes, he was reaching out for her love and giving more than she
ever dreamed possible; the shell had cracked open and he was trusting her with
what he’d held inside. “Yes, Ethan,” she answered, “you surely did save my
life,” then she tearfully hugged him to her chest.

When the sound of the shots
echoed through the building, a fair number of the neighbors had been roused.
Fred McGinty was frantically pounding on the door. “What’s going on in there?”
he shouted.

“Shush,” Olivia hissed in
Ethan Allen’s ear, “don’t you say a word.” She knew such a thing could be viewed
as murder; even when the man was mean as Scooter Cobb, even if he deserved
whatever he got. The circumstances didn’t matter; they had a dead body on their
hands—a dead body with a blown-apart hole in the middle of his chest. A man the
size of Scooter Cobb wasn’t something that could be swept under the rug or slid
down the incinerator. 

“Go away, Fred,” Olivia
called back. “We’re okay.”

Clara pushed past Fred and
began her own fist-pounding. “You open up this door Olivia Doyle!” she
screamed, “Open it this minute!”