“It’s all right, Victoria, I’m fine, just a little tired. Maybe you don’t need to stop here tonight.”
“Mary Ann, are you alone? Did someone answer the phone for you?”
“My neighbor’s here, Victoria; she picked up the phone while I was in the bathroom, but I guess she didn’t say anything. I’m going back to bed now.”
There was something in her voice that was making me uneasy. “I need to stop to see April Czernin; I’ll be heading north in about forty-five minutes. I’d like to drop in just for a minute, leave you some groceries and maybe see you if you’re still up-I won’t wake you if you’re asleep. You did give me keys, you know.”
“Oh, Victoria, you always were an obstinate, persistent pest. If you must come, I guess I can stand it, but if you’re going to be later than forty-five minutes call so that I don’t stay up for you.”
“You guess you can stand it?” I repeated, hurt both by the words and her exasperated tone. “I thought-”
I broke off midsentence, remembering that she was ill, that pain made people react in uncharacteristic ways. My own mother, who had waited up nights for my father, occupying both herself and me with music, cooking, books-we read Giovanni Verga’s plays aloud together in Italian-and she never complained about the wait, the worry. Then one night, in the hospital, she suddenly started screaming that he didn’t love her, had never loved her, terrifying herself almost as much as she did me and my dad.
“Josie’s still missing,” I said to my coach. “How well do you know her? Can you think of anyone she’d imagine she’d feel safe staying with? She has an aunt in Waco who claims Josie isn’t there, but maybe the aunt would lie for her.”
“I don’t know the Dorrado girls personally, Victoria, but I’ll call some of the other teachers in the morning. Maybe one of them can suggest something. I’m in the kitchen and I need to lie down.” She hung up abruptly.
Despite my admonitions to myself, Mary Ann’s brusque manner hurt me. I sat in the dark, my sore joints aching. I had a new bruise on my thigh from where I’d landed on Freddy; I could feel the knot under my jeans.
I dozed off in the warm car, but after a few minutes a knock on my window made me jump out of my skin. When my heart stopped racing, I saw it was Celine’s uncle. I rolled down the window.
“You okay, missus? You took a bad fall out there.”
I forced a smile. “I’m fine. Just a little sore. Your niece-she’s a very talented athlete. Do you think you could help her break away from the Pentas? They’re going to slow her down, keep her from making the most of her gifts.”
We chatted a bit about it, about the difficulty of raising children in South Chicago, and, sad to say, his brother had abandoned the family, and Celine’s ma, she drank, not to mince words, but he’d try to make an effort with Celine: he appreciated what I was doing for her.
We finished our dance of thanks for each other’s concern about Celine. He took off, and I phoned the Czernins. I might have hung up if Sandra had answered, but it was April, her voice sluggish.
“It’s the drugs, Coach,” she said when I said I hoped I hadn’t woken her. “They make me feel like I’m in this big tub of cotton balls, I can’t see anything or feel anything. Do you think I can stop taking them?”
“Whoa, there, girl, you stay on those meds until your doctor tells you different. Better you feel a little dopey for a few weeks now than have to live your life on an oxygen tank, okay? I’m a few blocks from your house with a charger for your phone. Can I bring it in? There’s something I want to ask you to look at, too.”
She brightened at once: she clearly needed more company than her mother. I would have to talk to her teachers, find someone who could stop by with homework, and get some classmates to bring her gossip. When I got to the front door, April was there to open it, but her mother was standing behind her.
“What do you think we are, Tori, a public charity you have to stop by and look after? I can take care of my girl without your help. I didn’t even know you’d given her a goddamn phone until this afternoon, and, if I’d known she was asking for one, I would have bought it for her myself.”
“Take it easy, Sandra,” I snapped. “It’s Billy’s phone; she’s just using it until he comes back for it.”
“And didn’t Bron get killed on account of he had that phone on him?”
I stared at her. “Did he? Who told you that?”
“One of the women at work, she said they really wanted Billy, but they killed Bron because he was driving Billy’s car and using Billy’s phone, they thought he was Billy.”
“It’s the first I ever heard of this, Sandra.” I wondered if there was any truth to the notion or if it was just one of those stories that circulate after a disaster. If I was the cops, or had Carnifice’s resources, I guess I could go to the By-Smart store where Sandra worked to track it down. Maybe Amy Blount would be willing to go down there tomorrow.
“April, can you let me in for a minute? I want to show you and your mom a picture, see if it means anything to you.”
“Oh, Coach, sure, sorry.” April backed out of the doorway to let me pass.
It hurt to see her move in such a slow and clumsy way, when just a short time earlier she’d been loping around like a colt with the other girls on the team. To cover my emotion, I spoke almost with Mary Ann’s brusqueness, pulling out the drawing of the frog and handing it to them.
“Where’d you find that?” Sandra demanded.
“Over at 100th and Ewing. Bron showed it to you?”
She sniffed loudly. “He had it lying on the counter in that workshop of his. I asked him what it was, and he said it was a gimmick. He was making something for one of the guys he knew, and this was the drawing the guy gave him. He was always doing stuff like that.”
“Good-hearted, helping out his pals?” I suggested.
“No!” Her face contorted. “Always imagining he had an idea that was going to make him rich. Frogs on insulating rubber, I ask you, who was ever going to buy that, and he laughed and said, oh, someone at By-Smart would fall for it.”
“Stop it!” April cried out. “Stop making fun of him. He made good stuff, you know he did, he made that desk for you, only you were so stupid you sold it so you could go to Vegas with your girlfriends last Easter. If I’d known you were going to sell it, I would have bought it from you myself.”
“With what money would that be, miss?” Sandra demanded. “Your trust-”
A loud crash, glass shattering in the rear of the house, interrupted her. I had my gun out and was running through the dining room to the kitchen before either of them could react. The kitchen was empty but I heard someone moving in the lean-to. I pulled the door open, crouching low, and hurled myself at the legs.
The space was too small for the intruder to fall over, but he crashed against the worktable, and I backed away just out of his reach to hold my gun on him.
“Freddy Pacheco!” I was panting heavily, and my words came out in short bursts. “We can’t keep meeting like this. What the hell are you doing in here? If you’ve come for the picture you drew, you are way, way too late.”
He straightened up and tried to come at me but backed off when he saw the gun. “You bitch, what you doing here? You following me? What you want from me?”
“So much I hardly know where to begin.” I leaned over and smacked his mouth, too fast for him to react. “Respect, for beginners. You call me ‘bitch’ one more time and I’ll put a bullet in your left foot. Second time, in your right foot.”
“You wouldn’t fire that, ’hos are too-”
I shot at the wall behind his head. The noise vibrated horribly in the closed space, but Freddy turned a greenish tint and collapsed against Bron’s worktable. An unpleasant stench rose from him, and I felt ashamed once more for using my gun to terrify someone-but the shame didn’t make me send him out into the alley with my blessing.