little boy.
What he might do to her, however, was another matter.
Chapter 25
Teddy stared at Dallie's back as the two of them stood in line at the counter of a McDonald's off 1-81. He wished he had a red and black plaid flannel shirt like that, along with a wide leather belt and jeans
with a torn pocket. His mother threw out his jeans as soon as they got the tiniest little hole in the knee, just when they were starting to feel soft and comfortable. Teddy stared down at his leather play
sneakers and then ahead at Dallie's scuffed brown cowboy boots. He decided to put cowboy boots on
his Christmas list.
As Dallie picked up the tray and walked toward a table at the back of the restaurant, Teddy trotted along behind him, his small legs taking two quick skips, trying to keep up. At first when they'd been heading out of Manhattan into New Jersey, Teddy had tried asking Dallie a few questions about whether he had a cowboy hat or rode a horse, but Dallie hadn't said much. Teddy had finally fallen silent, even though he had a million things he wanted to know.
For as long as Teddy could remember, Holly Grace had told him stories about Dallie Beaudine and Skeet Cooper- how they'd met up on the road when Dallie was only fifteen after Dallie had escaped from the evil clutches of Jaycee Beaudine, and how they'd traveled the interstates hustling the rich boys at the country clubs. She'd told him about bar fights and playing a round of golf left-handed and miraculous eighteenth-hole victories snatched from the jaws of defeat. In his mind, Holly Grace's stories had gotten mixed up with his Spiderman comic books and Star Wars and the legends he read in school about the wild West. Ever since they'd moved to New York, Teddy had begged his morn to let him meet Dallie when he came to visit Holly Grace, but she always had one excuse or another. And now that it had finally happened, Teddy knew this should be just about the most exciting day of his life.
Except that he wanted to go home now because it wasn't turning out anything like he'd imagined.
Teddy unwrapped the hamburger and lifted the top off the bun. It had ketchup on it. He wrapped it back up. Suddenly Dallie turned in his seat and looked right across the table into Teddy's face. He stared at him, just stared without saying a word. Teddy began to feel nervous, like he'd done something wrong. In his imagination, Dallie would have done things like reach over and slap him ten, the way Gerry Jaffe did. Dallie would say, "Hey, pardner, you look like the kind of man me and Skeet might like to have on the road with us when things get tough." In his imagination, Dallie would have liked him a whole lot more.
Teddy reached for his Coke and then pretended to study a sign over on the side of the room about eating breakfast at McDonald's. It seemed funny to him that Dallie was taking him so far away to meet his mother-he hadn't even known that Dallie and his mom knew each other. But if Holly Grace had told Dallie it was all right, he guessed it was. Still, he wished his mom was with them right now.
Dallie spoke so abruptly that Teddy jumped. "Do you always wear those glasses?"
"Not always." Teddy slipped them off, carefully folded in the stems, and put them on the table. The sign about eating breakfast at McDonald's blurred. "My mom says it's important what's inside a person, not what's outside-like if they wear glasses or not."
Dallie made some kind of noise that didn't sound very nice, and then nodded his head toward the hamburger. "Why aren't you eating?"
Teddy pushed at the package with the end of his finger. "I said I wanted a plain hamburger," he
muttered. "It's got ketchup."
Dallie's face got a funny, tight look. "So what? A little bit of ketchup never hurt anybody."
"I'm allergic," Teddy replied.
Dallie snorted, and Teddy realized that he didn't like people who didn't like ketchup or people who had allergies. He thought about eating the hamburger anyway, just to show Dallie he could do it, but his stomach was already feeling funny, and ketchup made him think about blood and guts and eating
eyeballs. Besides, he would end up with an itchy rash all over his body.
Teddy tried to think of something to say that would make Dallie like him. He wasn't used to having to think about making grown-ups like him. With kids his own age, sometimes they thought he was a jerk or he thought they were jerks, but not with grown-ups. He chewed on his bottom lip for a minute, and then he said, "I've got an I.Q. of one hundred sixty-eight. I go to gifted class."
Dallie snorted again, and Teddy knew he'd made another mistake. It had sounded like he was bragging, but he'd just thought Dallie might be interested.
"Where did you get that name-Teddy?" Dallie asked. He said the name funny, like he was trying to
get rid of it fast.
"When I was born, my mom was reading a story about some kid named Teddy by this famous writer-
J. R. Salinger. It's short for Theodore."
Dallie's expression grew even more sour. "J. D. Salinger. Doesn't anybody call you Ted?"
"Oh, yeah," Teddy lied. "About everybody. All the kids and everything. I mean, just about everybody except Holly Grace and Mom. You can call me Ted if you want to."
Dallie reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Teddy saw something frozen and hard in his face. "Go on up and get yourself another hamburger fixed the way you want it."
Teddy looked at the dollar bill Dallie was holding out and then back down at his hamburger. "I guess this'll be all right." He slowly pushed back the wrapper.
Dallie's hand slammed down over the hamburger. "I said go get another one, dammit."
Teddy felt sick. Sometimes his mom yelled at him if he made a fresh remark or didn't do his chores, but it never made his stomach feel all wiggly like this, because he knew his mom loved him and didn't want him to grow up to be a jerk. But he could tell that Dallie didn't love him. Dallie didn't even like him. Teddy's jaw set in a small, rebellious line. "I'm not hungry, and I want to go home."
"Well, that's just too damned bad. We're going to be on the road for a while, just like I told you."
Teddy glared at him. "I want to go home. I have to go to school on Monday."
Dallie got up from the table and jerked his head toward the door. "Come on. If you're going to act like a spoiled brat, you can do it while we're on the road."
Teddy lagged behind on the way out the door. He didn't care anymore about all Holly Grace's dumb old stories. As far as he was concerned, Dallie was a big old butt-wipe. Slipping his glasses back on, Teddy tucked his hand in his pocket. The switch comb felt warm and reassuring as it settled against his palm.
He wished it was real. If Lasher the Great was here, he could take care of old Dallie Butt-Wipe Beaudine.
As soon as the car moved onto the interstate, Dallie punched the accelerator and shot into the left lane. He knew he was acting like a real son of a bitch. He knew, but he couldn't stop himself. The rage wouldn't leave him, and he wanted to hit something about as badly as he'd ever wanted anything in his life. His anger kept eating away at him, growing bigger and stronger until he could hardly contain it. He felt as if some of his manhood had been stripped away. He was thirty-seven years old and he didn't have a goddamn thing to show for it. He was a second-rate pro golfer. He'd been a failure as a husband, a goddamn criminal as a father. And now this.
That bitch. That goddamn selfish, spoiled little rich-girl bitch. She'd given birth to his child and never said a word. All those stories she'd told Holly Grace-those lies. He'd believed them. Christ, she'd gotten back at him all right, just like she'd said she would the night they'd had that fight in the Roustabout parking lot. With a snap of her fingers, she'd given him the most contemptuous fuck-you a woman could give a man. She'd taken away his right to know his own son. Dallie glanced over at the boy sitting in the passenger seat next to him, the son who was the flesh of his body just as surely as Danny had been. Francesca must have discovered by now that he had disappeared. The thought gave him a moment's bitter satisfaction.