Mom reddened a little. “What if Mr. Chapman comes for him?”
“He won’t,” Daddy said. “He doesn’t want to come around here. If he does, he gets another slapping.”
“You can’t solve everything by slapping someone around,” Mom said.
“I know,” Daddy said. “But some things you can. At least temporarily. Haven’t seen Chester around here lately, have you?”
“We could call the police on Chapman,” Mom said.
“They’d just take Richard back to him,” Dad said. “Way the law works when kids run off, darn near no matter what the reason, law takes them back. There’s folks believe kids belong to parents and they can do what they want with their own kids. Law wouldn’t help, Gal.”
“The law does that?” Mom asked. “Gives beat-up kids back?”
“Afraid so,” Daddy said.
“What if Chapman calls the police?” I said. “He could call them on us.”
“He could,” Daddy said, “but he might be thinking we know more than he wants us to know. And we do. Law might give him Richard back, but Chapman wouldn’t want us spreading his business. Town like this, his business would burn through it like a wildfire. Wouldn’t be anyone didn’t know it. When it comes right down to it, he and Stilwind aren’t all that different.”
“Do you think Stilwind will bother us, Daddy? You know, with regulations and all that?”
“That’s his style, son. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
———
ON A HOT STICKY NIGHT with mosquitoes, the Friday starting off the weekend before school was to begin, I went out to visit with Buster.
I did that when the concession was slow, and it was slow right then because the first run of the movie, The Cry Baby Killer, was near the end and everyone was waiting to see the climax. Or have a climax; I was now old enough to understand why some cars parked out near the fence were rocking.
Richard stayed to help with concessions. He seemed comfortable around the family, and right now, comfort was good.
Pretty soon, I found I was telling Buster all about Richard and his daddy without even being asked. It jumped out. Maybe it was information I shouldn’t have shared, but I couldn’t help myself.
Buster shook his head sadly and clucked his tongue.
“Older I get, Stan, more I wish I had a family and hadn’t messed up the one I had. Drinkin’ didn’t do me no good. You know, I haven’t had me a drink since that day . . . with you and Bubba Joe.”
“Do you feel better?”
“I feel miserable. I think about drinkin’ all the time. Near come off the wagon least once a day every day. Make that least every hour. It ain’t easy. Main thing with me these days, is I’m finally startin’ to feel old.”
Buster removed from his shirt pocket a folded piece of yellow paper. He gave it to me and I unfolded it. It was the chief’s report on Susan Stilwind and her father.
“Why are you giving this to me, Buster?”
“Old Man Stilwind starts to give you trouble, it might come in handy. Guess you could say it’s a kind of insurance. You might want to make a copy of it and show it to the old man, tell him the real copy is put away and you got another copy written out and with a friend. That would be me. Here’s the address where he’s stayin’. I had Jukes get it for me.”
“Is there anything Jukes can’t find out?”
“My exact age, and that’s about it. You do this thing, I think your problems with that old Stilwind cracker will be over.”
———
NEXT MORNING, I awoke to find Richard lying on the floor of my room, twisted up in a blanket, clutching his pillow. Nub had taken his spot on the bed, and was lying on his back with his feet in the air, his tongue hanging out.
I got up, grabbed some clothes, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, combed my hair and got dressed. I came back to he room to find Richard sitting up, looking bewildered.
“Don’t like sharin’ a bed?” I said.
“Nub kept licking me.”
I got the piece of paper Buster had given me out of the sock drawer and took a pencil and paper and copied down word for word the police report. I put the original back in my sock drawer.
“I got to go into town today,” I said, folding the copy, poking it into my pants pocket. “I’m going to go before Daddy or Mom asks about me. I’ll be back soon as I can.”
“I’ll go with you . . . If that’s okay?”
“I guess . . . Listen, maybe I ought not tell you this, but if you go with me, you ought to know. I need to have someone else who knows anyway, as a kind of backup.”
I took the folded piece of paper Buster had given me out of my sock drawer, gave it to Richard to read.
When he finished, he said, “I don’t get it.”
I explained it to him. I told him a lot of stuff. One thing that can be said about me, I’m a regular blabbermouth. But I didn’t tell him about Buster and Bubba Joe. I didn’t even remind him of the night we had been chased together.
“So, you’re gonna give him this, way Buster told you?”
“I’m going to give him a copy of it. That’s what I was writing.”
I took the paper from Richard, folded it, and returned it to the sock drawer.
“Well, let’s get to doin’.”
“First, you go wash your face, brush your teeth, and comb your hair. I’ve got a toothbrush and a comb for you. Rest is in the bathroom downstairs.”
———
AS USUAL on a Saturday, the town was bustling. Since Richard didn’t have a bike, we walked. We went by the picture show, and I walked fast as we went, tried not to look through the glass doors to see if I could see James, but I couldn’t help myself.
I didn’t see him.
We walked over to the hotel where Mr. Stilwind lived. In the lobby, we looked around and wondered what to do. A young man behind a counter smiled at us and beckoned us over. He wore a black suit and white shirt and his hair was slicked down flat against his head. He looked like the kind of guy Callie might find attractive.
He said, “May I help you boys?”
“I need to see Mr. Stilwind.”
“Are you kin?”
“No.”
“I believe I should call him. May I tell him what this is about?”
“Tell him Susan and her baby.”
“Susan and her baby?”
“Yes.”
“Should I elaborate on that?”
“No. He’ll know.”
“Very well.”
He called up, spoke what I had told him over the phone. When he put down the receiver, he said, “He’ll be right down. Would you like to make yourself comfortable.”
We went over and sat in some big soft chairs. After a moment, the elevator dropped, opened, and out stepped Stilwind, all dressed in black, looking as if he were about to go to a funeral. The only thing missing was his hat.
He saw me, startled, then came over. “You,” he said.
I hadn’t really noticed before, and maybe it was the harsh sunlight slipping between the great hotel curtains, but up close his face was as marked with wrinkles as a henhouse floor with chicken scratches. He looked ten years older than I had first thought him to be, and I hadn’t thought him to be a spring chicken then.
“I got something for you,” I said.
“An apology from your father . . . He decide to take my offer? It’s still open, you know.”
“No, sir. He would want me to tell you to cram your offer where the sun doesn’t shine. I have a copy of something. This was written by Chief Rowan. It has to do with you and your daughter Susan. We have the original put away in a safe place. This is a copy I made.”
I gave it to him. He read it. His face turned pale. He held the paper in his hand as if he had suddenly discovered a snake there.
“That’s your copy,” I said.