Billy Francis was a big bear of a man, his perpetually slick bald pate unconvincingly swept over with a length of greasy yellow hair he’d grown long on the side. He habitually patted his round belly when he spoke, and his awkward familiarity with Aunt Eustace struck Little Gracie as the ink on the contract that secured them the show. He bounded into the room, shut the door behind him, and immediately sat down on the edge of the narrow trundle bed beside Eustace where he planted a hand at the small of her back.
“The fellows have talked a lot about this,” said Billy, his words hidden in a rum-soaked mist. “Fact is, our eldest brother is seventy-two and well remembers the big war in the last century. Brother Jim reminds us that we’ve bled enough on our own dirt and don’t have any need to go traipsing around the globe to bleed on anybody else’s.”
“Our feelings exactly, Mr. Francis,” said Eustace with an eye toward Gracie, who lingered awkwardly by the bureau. “That is quite the sentiment of my little Gracie’s performance this evening, so we are relieved to know we are all in agreement.”
“It’s good to see eye to eye with one’s friends,” he said, now moving his hand up and down Eustace’s back. “I can see we’re to be such good friends, all of us. How’s about a drink?”
Billy produced a large steel flask from his coat, which he uncapped before taking a deep pull. He said, “Good for what ails you.” He handed the flask to Eustace, who also drank with a sour, pinched face.
Taking it back, Billy stood and extended the flask to Gracie. Eustace moved to press down his arm, saying, “Now, Mr. Francis. My Gracie has a performance shortly, and after all she’s only a child.”
He brushed her hand away like he was shooing a fly, keeping his rheumy eyes on Grace.
“Aw, mother hens always think their fillies are still little children, even when they’re budding right well like this one here.”
Grace recoiled, her arms instinctively wrapping up around her chest.
Eustace protested, “I said she’s only a child.”
“No one believes this gal is ten years old, Eustie,” Billy said with a chortle. “Hell, even if she was, I’m just a man — who am I to argue with old Mother Nature?”
With a lumbering step, he lunged for Gracie with a rubbery grin and reaching hands. Grace let out a wheezy sigh, sidestepping the man’s advance, which only made him laugh. It was a game, and one she was terrified of playing. She squeaked, “Auntie,” backed into a corner of the room from which she could not escape. Billy Francis bore down on her, winding a thick arm around her waist and grotesquely tickling her ribs with his other hand.
“Coochie, coochie,” he belched.
“Auntie!”
Eustace barked, “Mr. Francis, you’d better stop that.”
In lieu of reply, he pressed his rummy mouth against Grace’s, pulling her tight to his enormous abdomen. The room seemed to darken around her. All she could do was fight to keep her mouth closed against the probing tongue that worked to part her lips. She didn’t know what to make of it when his tongue withdrew and his mouth went slack with a startled shout. Billy’s hands flew away from her waist and ribs, went up to the back of his neck as he twirled around, black-red blood spilling down the back of his coat.
“You bitch,” he cried, his hands slick with blood. Eustace stood crouched before him, a five-inch blade jutting from her hand. She’d slashed his neck. “For chrissakes, you crazy bitch.”
Billy swayed, moaning, and fell into a stumble toward Eustace. The older woman did not hesitate. As soon as he was within reach, she met him halfway and drove the blade deep into his prodigious belly, all the way to the handle.
“You killed me,” he croaked. “Holy Jesus, you fucking killed me.”
By then Gracie was sobbing, sunk down to the floor and hugging her knees. Eustace appeared frozen, a photograph, one hand supported on Billy’s shoulder while the other remained against his gut. When she finally let go, the wooden handle stuck out of him like a branch on a fat tree, sticky and red. He grabbed at it, howling when the blade moved inside him, and whirled toward the bed. The tiny trundle collapsed beneath his weight. He landed with a floor-shaking thud on his stomach and lay still.
Eustace trembled, her eyes fixed to where the body lay. Her lips moved rapidly, but she made no sound. Gracie wiped her eyes and, with no little effort, rose to her feet.
“Is he dead?” she whispered.
Eustace rasped, “We have to get rid of him. Hurry — you’re on stage in a couple hours, Gracie.”
Joe Sommer erupted in a peal of laughter, snapping Grace back to the present with a small intake of breath.
“Isn’t he a card?” her aunt said.
Grace agreed, quietly, that he was. Eustace patted her knee and smiled, a genuine smile as broad as it could go, that seemed to say we’re doing all right now, Gracie. Just follow my lead.
She always did.
17
Two things I didn’t have were Graham’s cell phone and his wallet. The phone was in an evidence locker somewhere and the wallet was probably still in his hospital room. Neither was any use to me in my quest to find Helen. I couldn’t even remember her last name, though I knew Graham must have told me a few times. I’d met her in Boston once or twice and she hadn’t made much of an impression on me. Whenever Graham brought her up, I just tuned him out. I wished I hadn’t.
One thing I did remember was the number of his hotel room. He’d been staying in room 325, which I happened to notice because it was the same number of the Holiday Inn room I’d lost my virginity in when I was fifteen. I didn’t mention it to Graham because I knew he wouldn’t find it half as amusing as I did. But hey, it stuck.
It was a long shot, but I hoofed it to the hotel on the off chance that they’d kept his room. I wasn’t sure if the police would have notified them as to what happened yet, but I walked up to the front desk like I owned the place and said, “Hi, I’m Graham Woodard, I’m in room 325? I’m afraid I’ve misplaced my room key.”
A young woman with cornrows smiled and set to clacking her fingernails across her keyboard. After a few seconds she glanced up at me and said, “Date of birth?”
“July fifth,” I said. I couldn’t recall the year so I left it out. She screwed her mouth up to one side for a moment.
“All right, Mr. Woodard, just one moment.”
She vanished into the back for a minute, and when she came back, she handed me a credit-card-sized envelope with a key inside. A real key.
“Here you go,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to charge your account ten dollars for the loss of the previous key, though.”
“My fault entirely,” I said.
The room was exactly as we’d left it on our way to Franco’s theater to watch those reels. Neither of us had been back since. I hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the knob and shut the door.
Graham’s suitcase lay open on the unmade bed, his clothes half folded and half hanging out like multicolored tongues. I saw that he’d brought a tie and sports jacket, and wondered what for. He was a casual kind of a cat; I’d never even seen him wear a tie. Just being prepared, I thought. Behind the suitcase on the side of the bed nearest the window was his laptop bag. I unzipped it, brought out the computer, and booted it up. First thing up it asked me for the login password. I tried half a dozen guesses from the title of that dumb movie he wrote to his own name, but I was denied entry every time. I shut it off and returned it to the bag, 0 for 1.
On a more desperate note, I went through the pockets of his extra pair of jeans. There was a receipt for a pack of cigarettes and two squares of nicotine gum in one and a book of matches from the hotel bar in the other. The back pockets were empty. Then I thought of the sports jacket again, and I wondered when was the last time Graham wore the thing. I got an idea about that and hoped to Christ my luck might hold up. It did.