The Buried Book (12 page)

“There’s nobody back there, man. But go ahead. Help yourself.” The clerk’s voice sounded like someone had squeezed the air out of it.

The woman whisked him inside.

CHAPTER 21

Where did you go?

“Whatcha doin’ here, honey?” the woman whispered. She was wearing nothing but her underwear and a pair of black stockings full of little holes.

“I don’t . . . I’m sorry, ma’am. I just . . . ,” Jasper stammered. The detective would be there any second. He could hear doors being opened down the hall. He peered up at her painted face and begged, “I need help.”

“He do that to you?” she frowned and ran a finger next to his black eye.

It was too difficult to explain, so he just nodded.

“My pops used to do stuff like that too. Come here.” She grabbed him by the hand and led him through a dark room into another one filled with mirrors and glittery costumes. “Climb in. Quick.” She motioned him into a large locker. A red purse was hanging from a hook, and black rain boots sat at the bottom.

He hesitated before standing his suitcase up on its side and climbing in next to it.

“Don’t worry, honey. No one’s gonna look in here.” With that, she closed the door.

Inside the locker, there was just enough room for Jasper to sit down on the edge of his suitcase. The steel box was pitch-black except for three narrow slats of light streaming in through the vent at the top. Her high heels clicked away from his hiding place. A moment later, the light went out.

All Jasper could hear was his own shaky breath hissing in the dark. Fatigue set in as the adrenaline pumping through his veins ran out. For the moment, he was safe. He leaned his aching head against the wall of the locker and shut his eyes. The dried blood on the wall of his mother’s room flashed in his mind. His lids snapped back open.
It’s not hers,
he told himself over and over. But his father had called out her name the minute he saw the wreckage of their home.
Althea!

His breath became a deafening rasp, rushing in and out of his lungs as he tried not to picture the red handprint by the door.
Take it easy, Jas,
he imagined Wayne’s voice talking.
Keep your skirt on. Everything will be alright.

His father would be knocking on Mrs. Carbo’s door any minute, he told himself. There’d be hell to pay for running off, but it would all work out. It had to. The look on his father’s face the night before told a different story. Jasper shuddered.
He’s gonna kill me.

Muffled voices grew louder through the walls. It sounded like fighting. Jasper strained to hear but couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. A door slammed open nearby, and the three stripes of light over his head flicked back on. Jasper sucked in a breath.
One, two, three . . .

“You can’t come back here.” It was the half-naked lady talking. A set of high heels clacked toward the locker.

“The hell I can’t,” the detective barked.

“I’m tellin’ ya, John. I ain’t seen him.”

“Then you won’t mind me looking around. Will you?” The shadow of the detective passed by the locker vents.

“Fine. Help yourself.” She sighed and lowered her voice to a purr. “But come on now, Johnny. Is that really why you wanted to bring me back here?”

The detective’s feet stopped moving.

“Bet your wife don’t do it as good as I can. Five dollars and you can find out.”

“That’s a lovely offer, but I’m working. Open the lockers.”

“Fine, but I can’t open ’em all. Some belong to the other girls.”

Metal doors crashing open shook the box where Jasper hid. He nearly yelped as the one next to him slammed.

“You the only one here?”

“Yeah. Sundays are slow.”

The handle to Jasper’s locker rattled. He covered his mouth to keep from whimpering out loud.

“Whose is this one?”

“That one belongs to Dixie. She ain’t here.”

A flashlight clicked on and poured into the locker. Jasper crouched down as the beam of light danced over his head.

“Come on, baby. You sure you couldn’t go for a little somethin’? I’ll treat you real nice.” The lady’s voice got husky again on the other side of the thin sheet metal, and the flashlight stopped moving. The sound of a zipper opening was followed by kissing sounds. “It’s fixin’ to be a real slow day.”

Something heavy crashed against the locker next door followed by a slap. “I told you. I’m working. I could haul your ass in for solicitation, but I won’t. If you see a little boy roaming around, you better call this number or I’m comin’ back, and you’re not going to like it. Now show me the rest of the booths.”

Even, hard-soled shoes strode past the box where Jasper hid, followed by stumbling, clicking ones. The lights went out again. Jasper stared into the dark with his mouth hanging open. He was repulsed by what he’d heard the strange woman say but felt incredibly grateful all the same. She’d saved him. She’d even been willing to kiss the horrible detective to help him.

But the woman didn’t come back.

The room stayed dark and silent. After the first handful of minutes, Jasper began to panic.
What if she forgot about me? What if the detective arrested her and took her away?
He was still too scared to make a sound, so he sat there as the seconds ticked by one by one.

After what felt like an hour, Jasper stood up and stretched his cramped legs. The locker was big enough to lift his arms up but not big enough to turn around, not with the boots and his suitcase on the floor. As he stretched, his arm bumped into the lady’s purse. He felt the lumpy leather in the dark and could hear something metallic jingle.
Keys,
he thought with rising hope.
Surely she wouldn’t leave without her keys or her purse.
He sat back down and waited.

The blood in the apartment splattered across the walls in his mind again. He put his head in his hands and whispered, “It’s not hers. It’s not hers.” But he didn’t believe it.

Who else’s could it be?
he asked himself in Wayne’s voice.
Come on, Jas. You’re pretty smart. Whose could it be?

Jasper sat back down on his bag and stared into the dark, imagining a masked villain in black storming through the apartment, breaking everything in his path. Maybe it was his blood. Jasper shook his head. If the blood belonged to the villain, that could only mean that someone had tried to stop him.
But who?

It wasn’t his father. He was pretty sure of that, given the shock on the man’s face at the sight of the mess.
Was it Detective Russo?
Police are supposed to be the ones that foil the crime, but Jasper didn’t think so. Detective Russo didn’t seem like a hero at all.
Son of a bitch!
he’d hissed through the bathroom door. That wasn’t the way a hero talked.

Jasper strained to remember what Mrs. Carbo had said on the telephone behind her bedroom door. She’d seemed really upset about something.
Oh, goodness! Gunshots? . . .

Was that what she said? She’d also mentioned some sergeant. Didn’t she?

Her words muddled together in his head until the only one he was sure about was
orphanage
.

The half-naked lady still didn’t come. The longer he sat there, the louder the terrible thoughts whispered in his head. He pictured the masked villain dragging his mother into her bedroom by her hair and throwing her against the wall. He could hear her screaming.

No!

Jasper stood up and clawed at the sides of the metal box. He couldn’t breathe. Each breath hissed out louder than the last as his throat tightened. It reminded him of Sally stuck in the well, only now it was him. He was Sally. He had to get out of there. He felt blindly along the seams of the door. A bulky mechanism stuck out along the right jamb. He fumbled with it, tried to push and turn it. Nothing happened. He pushed against the door with all his might. It didn’t budge.

“Hello?” he croaked into the dark room.
The detective must be gone by now.
He risked saying it again, louder. “Hello?”

Still nothing.

“Hello? Anybody?” he hollered and pounded the door with his fist. “Let me out!”

He pounded and kicked, growing more and more hysterical, braying and bleating. “Let me out! Let me out!
Help!
”

The lights clicked on. Jasper froze in terror.
What if it wasn’t her?

A second later, the door flung open.

“Jesus, baby! You want Moe to find you? Quiet down.” It was the painted lady again. Her thick makeup was smudged with sweat, but it was her.

Jasper fell out of the locker, sobbing.

“Shh!” she hissed, scooping him off of the floor. “Hush up.”

He sniffed and snuffed until he managed to speak. “I thought . . . I thought you’d gone.”

“Don’t be silly. My shift don’t end till five.” She set him down on one of the stools and took the one next to it. She grabbed a tissue and dabbed her sweaty face. “What’s your name, sugar?”

“Jasper,” he said and grabbed a tissue for himself. The mirror cased in lights gave him a shock. His face was a distorted patchwork of red blotches and snot, and his right eye was a pulsing mess of purple and blue.

“How old are you, Jasper?”

“Nine.”

She whistled low and slow, then gave him a hard look in the mirror. “Where you plannin’ to go?”

He bit his lip and looked down at his hands. He had no idea where his father had gone, but he couldn’t risk going back to the apartment. He couldn’t go to one of his old classmates’ houses looking like he did. They’d call the cops. Mrs. Carbo was his only grown-up friend, and she’d called Detective Russo. There was only one place else he could think to go. “My uncle’s farm.”

“Where’s that?”

“Off Old 25, north of Port Huron.”

“That’s pretty far off. How you gonna get there?”

Jasper just shook his head.

She turned and cocked a half grin. He could tell by her appraising look she wasn’t in the charity business. “You got anything to sell?”

Jasper frowned and tried to think. The only things in his suitcase were his clothes and his mother’s diary. The clothes couldn’t be worth much, but the bag was encased in leather. “My suitcase?”

She didn’t even look at it. Instead, she reached out and lifted the necklace from his chest. “This here’s real nice. It might fetch you bus fare.”

“No!” His eyes widened in horror. “No, I can’t. It—it’s my mother’s. She’s been gone.”

“Well, if she’s gone, she can’t miss it, right?”

“But she might come back,” he pleaded, trying to keep his chin from quivering. “She will. I know she will. She has to.”

“Okay. Okay, baby. Maybe there’s somethin’ else we can work out.” She dropped the necklace. “You know how to mop?”

He nodded.

“Well, moppin’s the worst part of the job around here. I’ll give you a dollar if you do it. Deal?” She held out her hand.

He nodded, and they shook on it.

“One more thing,” she said, still holding his hand. She leaned in close, and Jasper could see the dark circles below her eyes under her makeup. “You got to leave tonight. I don’t know what you done, honey, but you have no idea who you’re dealin’ with.”

CHAPTER 22

What did you do for money? For food?

Jasper spent the next several hours in the dressing room while the half-naked lady finished her shift.
I don’t even know her name,
he thought as he sat there, hidden under the makeup counter. He tried to sleep, resting his head against the wall. His legs went numb from sitting on the hard floor. His stomach rumbled in protest at missing lunch.

His father would be out looking for him by now, he figured. He wouldn’t just leave and not come back. Jasper fidgeted in the dark, thinking about his dad rushing through the mess to the bedroom.
Althea!

“No,” Jasper whispered. The villain hadn’t found his mother.
Maybe there were two burglars and they got into a fight with each other.
Jasper climbed out from under the counter and stood up, shifting his weight from foot to foot as the blood returned to his legs in splintery needles. That made more sense, he decided. They were probably furious that they had gone to all that trouble and didn’t find anything worth much money.

The muted sound of music came throbbing through the wall behind the lockers with a slow, pounding drumbeat. Jasper slumped back down to the floor. Something was seriously wrong with the lady who was keeping him hidden in her dressing room. She wore too much makeup and too few clothes. She didn’t look anything like the other ladies he knew. Mrs. Carbo and Aunt Velma wouldn’t be caught dead running around in black lacy drawers like that. They never wore all that black gunk around their eyes or so much red and pink on their cheeks and lips. It was like she was dressed up as some sort of clown. Only she wasn’t funny. She was something else. Remembering the sound of a zipper outside the locker made him frown.
What had she tried to get the detective to do exactly? Pee?

He knew the thought was stupid, but he felt even more stupid that he didn’t know the answer.

Jasper surveyed the row of high heels lined up along the far wall. There was a red pair that wasn’t that different from the ones his mother owned. He stared at them. His parents had once gotten into a hellacious fight about red shoes. His mother wanted to wear them someplace, and his father had thrown an absolute fit about it. Jasper couldn’t remember all the words that were shouted, his head was buried under his pillow at the time, but he’d gotten the impression that the red shoes might just turn her into something. Something bad. Like they had evil powers. Jasper remembered wanting to sneak out of his room and steal the shoes. Maybe he’d try them on and they could make him fly or read minds. But he knew those thoughts were dumb. He already had a pair of red rain boots, and they didn’t do anything special to him.
Red shoes must only work on girls,
he’d thought.

Jasper walked over to the high heels and picked one up.
Aunt Velma would never wear these.
Just like she’d never be caught dead walking around in lacy underpants. He began to wonder why his mother would have the same shoes as the painted lady in the next room. She never walked around in her underpants. She never wore all that gunk on her face.

Holding the shoe, he could hear Cecil saying,
Althea Leary was the most notorious hussy in all of Burtchville.
The word
hussy
sounded damning, like
liar
or
thief
. But worse.

Jasper put the shoe back and dragged his suitcase out from the painted lady’s locker. The music was still thudding somewhere behind the wall. He pulled his mother’s diary out of his bag.

He started at the beginning and reread all of the entries up to the one where his mother met Big Bill.
Giggle water.
He strained to remember the conversation he and Wayne had overheard at the Tally Ho. Sheriff Bradley had said something about a
still
and everyone making their own
mash
back when he wasn’t the law.

That Mr. Hoyt had been up to something. Something bad.
Can we make this our little secret?
Jasper wanted to answer for his mother.
No, Mr. Hoyt. We can’t.
But she had. She had taken the dollar from him in the end. Jasper looked over at the red shoes sitting along the far wall then back down to the book.

August 25, 1928

Mr. Hoyt keeps having me do more things I know aren’t right, but I can’t seem to find a way to stop. I’ve been snooping around his stinking barn for days trying to figure out where all those jugs come from, thinking maybe there’s something I could accidentally break and put an end to all this. The dollars aren’t worth it. I’d rather be scrubbing Mrs. Hoyt’s rotten pots. But I hadn’t found a thing until today.

Old Hoyt just told me flat out that all the giggle water is made up at the Indian reservation still. He says it’s heaps cheaper than the stuff running over the border. He’s sending me up the road to get more tomorrow. He’s sending me right up to the wild men!

“You can’t make me go there!” I shrieked. “I’m liable to get scalped or worse by those heathens. My Lord! What would my father say?”

Hoyt just laughed. “What, you think I’m gonna tell him? Hell no! And you ain’t gonna tell him neither.”

“The hell I’m not!” I yelled back, hoping someone might hear. “This ain’t right. This ain’t Christian! You’re sending me to the slaughter. I won’t do it!”

Then he slapped me dead across the face. “You go. I dare you. You go and tell your daddy that you’ve been cartin’ moonshine all over town for me and Big Bill. You go and tell him that I’ve been paying you dollar bills to break temperance and that I’m a no-good bootlegger. You really think he’s going to believe that? We’ve been goin’ to the same church for years. I’m a goddamned deacon!”

I just stood there stunned for a minute. He had it all figured out. But I couldn’t give up that easy. “I have the dollars to prove it!” I shouted.

“There’s lots a ways for poor girls like you to get dollars. Pretty little girls without morals. You catch my meaning?”

I sure didn’t.

He walked over and grabbed my backside with his big, hard hand to help me figure it out. “Your daddy would sooner think you’ve been lifting up these skirts and giving those town boys with money a nice taste. I’m a respected man in this community. You’re just a little liar, a hustler, and everyone knows it.”

He laughed his hot-air laugh right in my face. I squirmed myself away from him as quick as I could, but he was right. Papa never trusted me, not one day of my whole miserable life. I’ve lied enough times about stupid things, but it’s more than that. He and Mama decided a long time ago that I was just born rotten somehow. He never looks at Perfect Pearl the way he looks at me, like he’s horribly disappointed. He thinks I’m a no-good schemer. Just like Old Hoyt.

Jasper read and reread the entry, trying to make sense of it, certain he must have deciphered the words wrong. He finally slammed the book shut, not wanting to read any more, and curled into a ball with the words
hustler
,
hussy
, and
taste
turning over and over in his mind.
My mother isn’t any of those things,
he argued. She sang in the shower with a voice that would make him stop and listen. She made pancakes shaped like Mickey Mouse just for him. But then sometimes she would leave him alone in the dark apartment when she thought he was sleeping.
She didn’t mean to,
he told himself.
Maybe she didn’t have a choice.
But the other side of his mind didn’t believe that.

Jasper hugged his head with his arms to shut up his brain. He didn’t want to think bad things about her anymore. He didn’t want to think anything.
Sleep,
he thought,
just let me sleep.
He shut his eyes and laid there until he got his wish.

Through the fog of a fitful dream, he heard a knock at the door.

He sat up and found himself in his own bed back home.

The knock came again.

Jasper got out of bed and crept through the empty apartment to the door. He knew he was dreaming when he saw his mother’s favorite vase back on its shelf where it belonged. Still he kept walking.
Who’s there?
he whispered.

There was no answer.

His mother always told him to never answer the door, but she wasn’t there. He was too short to look through the peephole, so he dragged a chair from the kitchen and climbed up onto the seat to peer out into the hallway through the tiny glass eye.

The face of a girl peered up at him. A pretty girl with dark, pleading eyes.

Do you know who killed me?
she asked.

The door to the dressing room slapped opened.

Jasper sat up with a start and cracked his head on the underside of the counter. A pair of shiny black high heels clicked over to him, stopping inches from his nose.

“I’m glad you got a nice nap there, kid.” The lady poked at him with her pointy shoe. “Rest time’s over. A deal’s a deal.”

Jasper rubbed the top of his head and tried to get his cramped limbs to move again. Everything hurt. He quickly checked his pants and was relieved to find them dry. An itchy feather boa was stuck to his cheek. The lady stood in her lacy underpants next to a yellow mop bucket. It was an odd enough sight to make him crack a small smile. No one mops in their underwear.

“Here.” She rolled the bucket toward him. “Moe’s gone home for the day. Front door’s locked. You need to go into the booths and mop up the walls and floors. We only used five today. They’re the ones along the left-hand side.”

Jasper nodded and pulled himself to his numb feet.

“You know which one’s the left?” she asked, holding up her left hand.

“Yep.”

“Well, if you’re not sure, just follow the smell. I gotta get changed.” With that, she ushered him and the bucket out into the dark hallway and closed the door.

Two rows of closed doors lined the hall, barely lit by the flickering bulb at the far end. Jasper stood for a moment, listening to the silence before pushing the mop bucket to the first door on the left.

He wasn’t sure what to expect when he stepped inside. The first thing he saw was a big room with a velvet couch lit up with pink spotlights. The purple walls matched the couch, and a white fur rug covered half the floor. He blinked for a moment and realized he wasn’t actually in the room with the couch. A pane of glass separated the tiny booth where he stood from the stage. The booth itself was just barely big enough for a grown man to turn around. There was a black leather rail about chest high to Jasper and a brass foot rail running along the bottom. Between the two rails was a black leather wall panel. It was spotted with spilled milk.

Jasper frowned. All people did in there was stand and look at the purple room with its purple couch.
Why?
It all looked pretty boring to him. He lifted the mop from the bucket and scrubbed the milk from the wall. The mop water reeked of ammonia, but that was fine with him. He hated the smell of sour milk, especially after being around cows for weeks. He rinsed the mop and scrubbed some more. It took five minutes to clean the wall and floor of the booth.

He opened the next door and found the exact same thing. Each booth looked at the same purple couch. He was deep in thought about it when a spot in the purple wall behind the couch suddenly opened like a door. He dropped his mop into the bucket and stared as the painted lady walked into the room and over to the sofa. She was wearing normal clothes, and the thick makeup was washed from her face. She bent to grab a water glass from the end table next to the sofa, then stopped and squinted at Jasper in the booth. She waved at him and gave him a wink. He waved back and stared after her as she left the room with her drink in her hand.

Ten minutes later, she met Jasper in the hall as he was closing the door to the last booth. “All done?” she asked.

Jasper nodded and wheeled the bucket toward her.

“The janitor closet’s that way,” she pointed and helped him walk the bucket to the far end of the hall. “So whatdya think of your first day in the business, kid?”

Jasper shrugged weakly. He didn’t know what to say, especially since he’d figured out that people paid money just to look at her on the couch in her underpants. Or maybe to watch her take off her underpants. He couldn’t even think it without blushing.

“I felt that way too, honey.” She chuckled. “But you do whatcha gotta do, right? Here’s that buck I promised ya.”

She handed him a dollar after he’d dumped the bucket and hung up the mop.

“Thanks,” he said, afraid to look at her. Something was really wrong with her. Or with him.

She crouched down to face him and grabbed him by the chin, forcing his eyes up to hers. This time, he didn’t see a painted face. She just looked like an ordinary woman. Her blue eyes didn’t look that different from his mother’s. They were hard at the edges but soft in the middle. She gave him a small smile and said, “Don’t mention it. You hungry?”

He nodded voraciously.

“Let’s grab a sandwich on the way to the bus station.” She stood up and offered him her hand.

After a moment’s hesitation, he took it. “Okay.”

The two of them walked past the closed booth doors to the back of the shop and grabbed their bags. She led him out into the alley and snapped off the lights.

As the door swung closed, Jasper turned and asked her, “What’s your name?”

“It doesn’t matter, Jasper. That’s one thing you oughta learn quick.”

“What?”

“Never tell strangers your name.”