The Days of Anna Madrigal (15 page)

“What's gonna be blue?”

“The moon, honey. We're having a full-fledged blue moon. You know what that is, right?”

Michael did not know, actually.

“I'm familiar with the whorehouse,” he said.

Chapter 16

WISTERIA TOES

T
he Stanford boys were getting rowdier downstairs, howling Margaret's name in the parlor as if it were a football fight song. To Andy, something in their tone sounded cruel, something beyond the usual coarseness of men toward the girls at the Blue Moon. He wondered if Margaret's age had made her the butt of mean jokes they shared with each other. If so, he hoped she didn't know it.

He had put on the dress tonight, so the bedroom door was latched. A warm, fickle breeze from the window found the chiffon and made it flirt with his legs. His toenails, as of this afternoon, were painted a shade of wisteria Margaret had chosen to match the dress. He walked slowly across the room, pivoting on his toes like an English lady going barefoot on the lawn of her country estate. Summery, he thought. That's how I feel. He had heard Loretta Young use that word once in a movie and had always wanted to use it himself.
My, don't you look summery tonight
.

He extended his leg and gazed down at the perfect nail polish, the curve of his calf under the wispy fabric. It was hard to imagine how this could be improved upon. Below the knees, thanks to Margaret, he was all he was ever meant to be.

A noise at the door made him stiffen in alarm. It was not a knock either but a thwarted invasion, which could only mean Mama herself was shaking the door against its hardware-store latch. She did it, as usual, more out of pique than in hope of entry, but Andy, in his rising panic, could almost feel the screws flying out.

“I'm not decent, Mama.”

“Well, why the hell ain't you?”

“I'm just . . . changing clothes.”

“Ain't nothin' I ain't seen before!”

Andy kept quiet.
Oh, the things you haven't seen before.

“Better not be diddlin' yourself. You gotta save that for somebody nice.”

“
Mama, please—”

“I left 'em by the kitchen door.”

He was too shaken to think straight. “What?”

“You said you wanted the truck tonight.”

“Yes, ma'am. Thank you.” He had dropped Gloria Watson's name at supper, so Mama, going all whirly-eyed at the mere thought of Gloria's dowry, had offered transportation. She probably wouldn't mind one bit if Andy were to knock Gloria up. Mama had once remarked, in all seriousness, that shotgun weddings paid just as well as the other kind. Not that there was a chance of Andy knocking
anyone
up.

“Where are you takin' her?”

“I have to get dressed, Mama. I'm late.”

Both things were true; tonight was Lasko's night at the Martin, and he got off work at nine. It wasn't the ideal solution to the problem, but Andy had been left with no other choice. Lasko hadn't shown up at school for several days, and Andy's low-key detective work at Eagle Drugs had produced only a cryptic explanation from Mr. Yee: “He got the day off. He's not feeling so good.”

Andy hoped that what Lasko was feeling was remorse for having hocked the valise. If not remorse, at least embarrassment over the betrayal of their friendship. Or, barring that, some degree of fear that Andy might actually stand up for himself. A theft was a theft, even when it involved a valise left at a brothel that a hooker had entrusted to a boy who had lent it—just lent it, mind you—to another boy. The law might like to know about this, Andy figured. There could be serious consequences.

It was strange to feel such unbridled hurt and anger. As a rule, he tried not to indulge in those emotions, knowing how easily they could overwhelm him. Hurt and anger were to be expected by a boy like him, living where he lived, knowing what he knew about himself. But Lasko's action was beyond the pale. It implied that Andy was completely unworthy of respect, exempt from the ordinary rules of society.

It implied that Andy had no choice but to keep his mouth shut.

H
e waited in the shadows outside the Martin while the dinner crowd dispersed. He had already decided that confronting Lasko in the restaurant (or worse yet, in the kitchen) would be foolish. Lasko's father could be there, for one thing, or any number of relatives who didn't know Andy from Adam and would surely unite against a stranger with an accusation. It was better to talk to Lasko where no one else could hear them. Better to wait until he was walking home.

Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Andy studied the stragglers left on the porch, the kitchen help spilling joylessly out of the back, but Lasko was nowhere to be seen. The only person he recognized was Lasko's sister Hegazti, the shy, big-armed girl so adept at balancing plates. He considered questioning her about Lasko, but decided instead to tail her, since that would probably yield more information.

She was heading away from the tracks along the alley behind Bridge Street. No one else was going that way, so Andy, wary of looking ominous, waited until Hegazti had turned onto another street before sprinting to catch up with her. When he saw her, she was turning again, this time into a vacant lot bristling with spindly weeds and auto parts. There was a house on the far side, next to which a flaking wall bore the ghostly remains of a word—
LOTHING
—which marked the back of a haberdashery that had gone bust when Andy was still a youngster. A naked lightbulb on the landing caught Hegazti's red blouse and made it ignite in the darkness.

She was talking to someone in the shadows. Her voice was gentle, placating. Andy could not make out anything, so he moved closer.

“ . . . I made it specially for you.”

“No! I don't want it!” His voice was slurred, but it was Lasko.

“It's cream-filled.”

“No me molestes!”

“Cabron!”

The red blouse extinguished itself. Andy heard a door slam. He walked as casually as possible past the house, implying that he was on the way home himself. Hegazti was inside now, her big arms all but blocking the view into a brightly lit kitchen. She was talking loudly to another woman, Lasko's mother presumably, but she was speaking Basque now, not Spanish. Andy could not understand a word of it, but her agitation made it clear that she had been the one who slammed the door.

So where had Lasko been?

Andy peered across the weedy lot, where a garage was leaning drunkenly against an amputated cottonwood. Its splintered walls had been patched with a Coca-Cola sign as big as a bushel basket. A corona of light, too faint to be electric, was seeping around the edges of the sign. Someone is in there now, he thought.

He moved closer, already weighing and discarding his words for what lay ahead. He had come here in the name of his self-respect, his honor, and it was too late to back out now. He stopped at the garage door and addressed it quietly.

“Lasko?”

Nothing.

“It's Andy Ramsey. I'd like my book back, please.”

Still no response, just the sound of clumsy movement inside. Andy commanded himself to breathe.

“I won't make trouble, Lasko. I just want the book back.”

The door creaked open. Lasko appeared in silhouette against the erratic flicker of a kerosene lamp. He was swaying slightly in a soiled undershirt and baggy trousers, and even from a distance, Andy could smell the
basco
wine on his breath.

“I haven't finished reading it,” Lasko said.

“I don't care. I want it back. I know what happened to the valise.”

“No, you don't.”

“I saw it, Lasko. I even know how much you got for it.”

Lasko's eyes darted nervously toward the house. “Pipe down, okay? I'll get you the book.” He beckoned Andy with a sloppy sweep of his arm.

Andy hesitated, peering into the garage. “Is this where you live?”

“It's sorta my clubhouse.”

Andy knew that was a lie. He could see a swayback bed against one wall, a table with a washbasin and a toothbrush, a nice shirt for school hanging off a nail on the wall. It looked, unmistakably, like a place to which someone had been banished. This was Lasko's Elba, and he was ashamed of it, a fact that somehow, to Andy, made him much more sympathetic, if not an ounce more trustworthy.

He entered the lamplit cavern. Lasko tugged the door shut behind them. “Take a load off,” he said. Andy hesitated, wondering if his righteous indignation could survive sitting down. Finally he sank to the edge of the bed, since there was nowhere else to sit. Lasko pulled the
Book of Marvels
from a shelf above the bed and handed it to Andy. “I'm sorry,” he said soberly, the way drunks do. “I enjoyed it greatly.” He sat on the other end of the bed, head down, hands dangling between his legs, a whipped puppy. His dejection seemed so real that Andy's ire dwindled.

“It's not the book, Lasko, and you know it. That valise wasn't yours to hock. It was a gift to me from someone who was hurt because she thought I was the one who had hocked it. I had to lie to her about where I had lost it. If you needed money for Frisco . . . for the swimming pool or something . . . I would have been happy to . . . well, I might have been able . . . but this way I can't trust you at all. I'd like to be your friend, but why should I even help you anymore? Tell me that, Lasko. How do I know you won't stick up a bank before you get on the Rexall Train?”

And that, Andy realized, was a question he had never imagined asking anyone. The sheer novelty of it was exhilarating—not to mention the chance to sound like a spunky dame in a radio play. Lasko, however, was not in the least impressed, showing no sign of penitence whatsoever. His eyes were still fixed on the greasy packed earth beneath his feet. “I didn't hock that valise,” he said gruffly.

Andy groaned. He was tired of being a lady about this.

“I didn't,” said Lasko.

“Don't play me for a fool, Lasko. I went to the pawnshop. I looked at the tag myself. It said ‘Madrigal' plain as day.”

Lasko shrugged morosely. “There's more than one Madrigal around here.”

Scowling, Andy raised his voice. “
Who?
Hegazti?”

“Shhhh.” Lasko pressed a finger to his cushiony lips, then whispered a single word: “Papi.”

“Your father hocked my valise?” Andy pictured the sourpuss in the restaurant kitchen, the coarser, older version of Lasko who had barked orders to Hegazti and never acknowledged Andy's presence. “What right did he have to do that?”

Lasko started to speak but stopped himself.

“Lasko?”

“He said he didn't want no
puta
suitcase in his house.”

Puta.
Whore. One Spanish word Andy knew well.

“But how did he know about Margaret?” Andy had never told Lasko where the valise had come from. They'd never talked about the valise at all.

“Who's Margaret?” asked Lasko.

Oh, thought Andy. He
doesn't
know. The old man had simply seen Andy with the valise at the Martin, and that had made it
puta
by association.

“It doesn't matter,” said Andy. “Just someone I know at the Blue Moon. Forget it.”

A long, draining silence followed. Then Andy said, “My mother runs a legitimate business, you know.”

Lasko grunted yes. “My old man goes there sometimes.”

No surprise there. Half the town did. “But he doesn't approve of me.” It wasn't a question, just a stark statement of fact.

“Nope,” said Lasko with a wicked smile, waiting a moment before reaching over to sock Andy's arm with the utmost gentleness. His drawn-out sparring match had finally made contact. “He thinks you're a bad influence.”

“So he stole my valise.”

“Yep.”

“And he makes you live out here?”

Lasko nodded. “Till I've learned to be a man, he says.”

Another long silence while Andy wondered what exactly that meant.

“Are you scared of him?”

Lasko hesitated, then pulled a Carnation Milk box from under the bed. There was a small pistol inside, swaddled in kitchen rags and dull with dust. To Andy's relief Lasko didn't pick it up, just pushed the box back under the bed.

“You wouldn't use that, would you?”

“Not if I ain't got to.”

Andy didn't like the sound of that, so he chose to dodge the subject entirely. “Well . . . soon enough you'll be getting away from him.”

Lasko shook his head slowly.

“What do you mean?”

“The Rexall Train ain't coming.”

At first Andy couldn't take this in. He had already pictured the train so vividly in his mind's eye, right down to the cosmetics car and the maraschino cherry exhibit, that it seemed almost impossible that he might not see it for real.

“Why not?” he asked.

“I don't know why not.”
Lasko's anger had flared out of nowhere. “It just ain't. Mr. Yee got a telegram two days ago. It's goin' to every goddamn state in the union 'cept Nevada. They're circlin' right around us . . . Utah, Idaho, Oregon. I guess we ain't worth it. I don't blame 'em. I wouldn't come here neither.”

Andy made a murmur of sympathy. Or tried his best to.

So
that
was it. This explained why Lasko had been hiding out. It explained why Hegazti had been trying to soothe him with pastries. His dream of escape, preposterous as it might have been, had died overnight, so he was mourning it with wine and bile. It had nothing to do with the valise. Nothing to do with Andy either.

Andy slapped his hands on his thighs and rose. “I gotta go, Lasko.”

“Why?”

“I just have to. It's late. I gotta get the truck back to Mama. I'm really sorry about the train.”

Slack-mouthed, Lasko looked up at him. “You're leavin' cuz there ain't gonna be no train?”

“Don't be a nincompoop. I was never even
going
on the train.”