You Don't Know About Me (38 page)

My father's voice reined in the urge. “Aren't you wondering how a frail old man could build this thing?”

“Sure,” I said. “But you can tell me later.”

“There may not be a later.”

I looked at him. His sweat had found channels in his skin and his eyes were unfocused. I was no EMT, but I figured I should keep him talking. “So how did you build this thing?”

He took a breath. “Three years ago the doctors told me I had cancer. I got better, but I knew it was coming back. I began building my
genizah
. I built it for the book, and a dream.”

“What dream?”

His eyes slid toward me. They were focused again. “The dream of an adventure with you.” His eyes were moist. It wasn't sweat.

I didn't know what to say. My tongue felt like a fat tangle. I mean, what do you say to someone who
is
your father but has never
been
your father? It's like being one of those amnesia victims who wakes up to total strangers introducing themselves as your mom, dad, sis, and bro. The best I could do was echo what he said. “We're having an adventure, alright.” The crazy book-burning group stormed back in my head. For all I knew they'd shown up and were burning down the house. “Are you ready to keep going?”

He nodded with a faint smile. “I was waiting for you.”
I helped him to his feet and kept a hand on his belt as he inchwormed up the next ladder.

Soon as my head came through the trapdoor, I saw it. A rusty old safe stood in the middle of the hot room. On top of it was another old typewriter. My father sat on the floor and wiped his brow. I moved to the safe and the typewriter with a page rolled into it.

“What does it say?” he rasped.

“It's not a fill-in-the-blank,” I said.

“That's right, but it's still a combination. Only you, your mother, and I might know it.”

“ ‘Day one/To C. W. Allbright,' ” I repeated. “Is it my birthday?”

“Could be. Try it.”

I stared at the big old dial on the safe. I was so excited, it was fuzzy and out of focus. I turned it right-left-right using the numbers of my birthday. I pushed down on the handle; it gave; the door
creaked
open.

Resting on a shelf was a thick brown book. My hand shook as I took it out and stared at the cover. A gold Indian shield decorated the cover. Gold letters spelled the title:
Thirty Three Years Among Our Wild Indians
. Except for the gold, it looked as ordinary as a book can be. “This is the bad book?”

He must've heard the disappointment in my voice. “It's not the cover, Billy,” he said softly. “It's what's inside.”

I guided my father back down the ladders to the bottom of the silo. By the time we got outside, he could barely walk. I told him I was calling the police as soon as we got back in the house.

“No need,” he said, clinging to my arm.

I waved the book in my other hand. “But now it's in the open. They'll—”

“Shhh.” He cut me off and pulled me to a stop. “Don't you see? I wanted it this way.”

Either I was totally confused or he was delirious from climbing up and down inside a silo. “What are you talking about?”

“No one wants to destroy the book.”

I stared at the half smile creasing his face. “But the phone messages—”

“All fake, orchestrated, even the break-in at my shop.” He tugged at my arm, starting us up again. Confessing his latest trick seemed to revive him. “All part of my last wishes.”

“What wishes?”

“To have an adventure, to do it in ‘the regular way.' ”

“What's the ‘regular way'?”

“You'll find out at the end of
Huck Finn
.”

My father was so spent, he wanted to take a nap. I helped him upstairs to his room.

I recognized the bed's headboard from the DVD. The weird thing was that it wasn't really the headboard; it was the footboard. As I helped him onto the bed he explained how he'd borrowed a page from Mark Twain, who slept in his bed backward so he could admire his fancy carved headboard. My father's headboard had something to look at too. It was decorated with all the illustrations from the original
Huck Finn
. He said they had been his cue cards when he'd memorized the book.

I put the bad book on the bed beside him. Before I left, he asked me to go down to his study behind the kitchen. On his desk was a first edition of
Huckleberry Finn
. He wanted me to read the last ten chapters from that. He also told me I'd find some papers he wanted me to read. When I asked what they were about, he waved me out of the room.

His study was lined with shelves, which held books instead of Mark Twain junk. His desk stood in front of a window overlooking the field behind the house. A thick green book lay on the desk. In black and gold lettering on the cover was
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade.) by Mark Twain
. But there were no
papers on the desk. I figured he had misremembered and put them somewhere else.

I sat down and started reading where we'd left off in Chapter 34. It was freaky. What my father had put us through to free the bad book was almost as bizarre as the stuff Tom makes Huck do to bust Jim out of jail. Tom's version of “the regular way” meant bolting all sorts of unnecessary action onto the smallest thing. Tom and my father had something in common: they were total
dramas
. I suppose everyone needs a Tom Sawyer in their life to ramp it up. I just never imagined my Tom Sawyer being my dad.

Dusk fell as I started “Chapter the Last.” I was barely into it when a loud thump came from the kitchen. I thought my father had come downstairs and fallen. I spun in the swivel chair so fast the book flew out of my lap. I swept it off the floor and was about to straighten up when I saw something in the doorway that froze me—my backpack. It was singed and blackened with soot. Two legs stood behind it. My eyes traced up. Standing in the doorway was a stout man.

Joe Douglas.

I dropped the book again.

He shot me a fake grin. “Some books are like backpacks, you just can't hold on to 'em.” His hand pulled out from behind his back. He held up some envelopes. “I bet you lost these, too.”

They were probably my father's papers from the desk. I shot to my feet. “Those are mine.” Then it hit me: he'd been hiding somewhere for more than an hour, waiting till dark to make his move. It made my skin crawl. “What are you doing here?”

He raised his hands. “Happy to explain. You see, after Nico and Momi Potlatcher called me, I tracked 'em down, which wasn't easy. They needed some help with their hospital bills. I bought 'em a little health care in exchange for some four-one-one. I learned a lot about you, and a little about Ruah. I also picked up a crispy-critter backpack containing some very cool stuff. A DVD with a wonderful old man on it, and a GPS device that directed me to Boot Heel Collectibles—love the name.” He gave a chuckle and went on. “After that, it was just a matter of following you and watching you and the old man pull the badass book out of the silo.” He gave me another fake smile. “It's like this, Billy. I have a bunch of stuff you want, and you have something I want.”

“What?”

He yipped a laugh and kicked the backpack. “It's sure not your dirty laundry”—he waved the letters again—“or your father's last will and testament.”

I wanted to whip out my knife, stab him, and see how much he laughed at that. But I didn't. Not then. I had to wait for the right moment.

“I want the bad book.”

“It's nothing but a stupid ol' book,” I said.

“It may be stupid, but it's worth a lot to me right now. And I know how much it means to you. I'd say it's a fair trade. Your backpack and these letters for an old book with a bunch of Mark Twain scribbles in it.”

I dug in my pocket, yanked out my knife and jerked it open. “Get out of my father's house.”

He stared at the knife, then nodded. “Okay, you wanna
negotiate, you wanna play hardball. I like that. So how 'bout you let me explain the situation we're in before you cut me up? Can I do that?”

I kept my knife pointed at him.

“Here's the big wrinkle, Billy. Between what the Potlatchers told me about you traveling with Ruah and what I know about Mr. Branch's sexual habits, I've got a story I could sell to the tabloids for twice what this supposedly badass book is worth. I can see the headline now: ‘Brokeback Highway: Baseball Star Finds New Ball Boy.' ”

I started for him.

He threw up his hands. “Wait-wait-wait! Before you do something we'll both regret, lemme get to my offer.”

I stopped, giving him one last chance.

“That's better.” He let out a breath. “Here's the contract. You get everything that belongs to you for one thing. You just
loan
me the bad book for a day or two, you know, like collateral.”

“What's collateral?”

“I hold the book, you get your stuff, and if everything goes according to plan, you get the book back.”

“What plan?”

“I'm gonna show the book to Ruah and give him a choice. He stays in the closet, stays my client, and I keep quiet about the two of you frolicking around the west in an RV. Or, he doesn't accept my terms, I go to the tabloids, and you lose the book. So now you have three choices. One, do you cut me to ribbons, go to jail, and become someone's pretty bitch? Two, do you loan me the book and get everything your dad wanted you to have by helping
Ruah stay in the closet? Or three, do you
not
loan me the book, and be remembered as Ruah's bitch for the rest of your life.”

“Nothing happened!”

He shrugged. “I don't care if it did. It's a fag and a boy in an RV. It's what people
think
that matters.” He sneered and said, “Including your mother.”

I squeezed the knife so hard the handle cut into my skin. I wanted to run at him and plunge the blade in his face. I had to think this through before I added murder to my sins. I had to think what was best for me, and what was best for Ruah.

I remembered how Ruah had told me he wanted to follow the “Don't ask, don't tell” rule. He didn't want to be outed. If that was true, then as much as I hated Joe Douglas, he had a point. If I gave him the book it might help Ruah stay in the closet. But then Ruah would be stuck with him. But that might happen anyway, with or without the book. I tried to think of the worst that could happen. That was easy, the story getting out about me and Ruah traveling together. But there was something just as bad. Not seeing what my father had written in his papers. That's what I wanted most:
his
words, not the words scribbled in a book by a writer who'd been dead for ages. Mark Twain wasn't my father. And
Huck Finn
was just a story.

I was just about to tell Joe Douglas I'd give him the book, when he growled, “Time's up.” He reached behind his back and pulled out a pistol. “I'm not a fuckin'
waiter
, I'm a closer. Get the book.” He pointed the pistol. “Now.”

I dropped my knife. “It's upstairs.”

He backed into the kitchen. “Let's do it.” He waved me into the front hall and stopped me at the bottom of the stairs. “Just to show you how much I trust you, Billy, I'm gonna let you get it yourself. If you try to run, I know who's up there.”

So did I, and I wished my father would step out of the shadows at the top of stairs, shotgun in hand, and blow Joe Douglas through the front door. But the only thing coming from the shadows was silence.

I climbed the stairs. My father was still asleep in his room. “Sorry,” I mumbled, and took the book off the bed.

When I handed the book to Joe, he dropped the letters on the table in the hall. “Good negotiating with ya, kid. If you're ever interested in becoming an agent, lemme know. You got the chops.” He held up the book and waggled it. “I'll let you know if this turns into a loaner or a keeper.”

Above the book, through the long window beside the door, I saw a figure coming up the driveway. I recognized the stride: Ruah. If Joe turned and opened the door, Ruah would be caught in the open. Joe started to go. I stopped him with a question. “When will you know, I mean, how soon are you gonna see Ruah?”

“Tomorrow. Don't worry, kid”—he smirked—“when I tell him I have the Allbright family inheritance, he'll come home to papa.”

Ruah was still twenty yards from the house. “Mr. Douglas, if I
did
wanna become an agent, what would I do? Do an internship or something?”

“Kid, I was just schmoozing.” He laughed. “And that's
your first lesson in agenting: knowing when you're being stroked.”

He opened the door and turned into a blur of motion. I heard a crack, and he screamed. The gun clattered to the porch as Joe rolled on his side. He clutched his left knee and bellowed in pain.

Ruah kicked the gun away and stood over him. In his good hand, he held the sawed-off baseball bat.

Joe wailed, “You broke my leg!”

“It's just a kneecap,” Ruah said.

“Fuck you!”

Ruah picked the book off the floor, looked at it, and handed it to me. “This is it?”

I nodded. “He was gonna use it against you.”

Ruah looked down at Joe. “Yeah? Two can play his game.”

Joe screamed up at him. “You're so fuckin' outed! Both of you faggots! Your career is over! You hear me? Fuckin' over!”

Ruah never flinched or took his eyes off him. “If it is, it'll be your loss.”

Joe stopped squirming. “What the hell does that mean?”

“You're gonna keep being my agent.”