“It’s just, she looks so much like my granddaughter.”
My hands were too full to hug her, and she probably would have shunned me anyway. She held herself with the same innate dignity that had drawn me to Pisces.
Leslie’s gaze fell on the taped boxes in the living room.
“I meant what I said,” she said, “about living on the street.”
“I have a daughter,” I said. “I know you meant it.”
I drove home in the pre-rush-hour rush, big rigs and kamikaze commuters tearing up asphalt. The heater couldn’t overcome the cold air streaming in through my broken window. I shivered all the way in my wet clothes, the car full of the smell of dead things from the sea despite all the fresh air.
Mike wasn’t back yet when I got in. I spread a towel over his kitchen table and, still quaking with cold, laid out the album again.
I was in the shower, scalding water pounding my spine, when Mike came in. He opened the shower door.
“Jesus, Maggie,” he said. “What are you doing in here all naked again? Some consideration, please. I’m an old white-haired man. Night after night, twice yesterday. You’re going to kill me.”
I laughed or cried, it was hard to tell – my face was already wet. But whichever it was, the release felt good.
I looked up through runnels of shampoo-y water. “Who invited you?” I said.
He showed me the bulge in the front of his slacks. “You did,” he said.
CHAPTER 18
Sly was sitting at the end of his MacLaren Hall bunk, waiting for me. The bed was neatly made with a bright red cotton spread. The child was neatly made as well. Long, skinny white legs dangled from new-looking shorts with a primo surfer logo on the belt. The way he kicked his high-top sneakers, I couldn’t miss them. I wanted to snatch him up and squeeze him, but the proud smile still warned of spiky personal fences erected around him.
There were five other beds in the dorm room, each with a different, bright spread. Sly’s roommates were all in class, so we were alone except for the counselor keeping an eye on things from the hall.
“Looking sharp, Sly,” I said. I handed him a big Toys A Us bag and a box of goldfish crackers.
“How come you’re always bringing me stuff?” he asked.
“Because I like to. Does it bother you?”
“Doesn’t bother me.” He grinned, still the old con man. Out of the bag he took a Loktite kit for a scale-model Corvette and a set of enamel paints, with an extra jar of cherry red. He ran his fingers over the picture on the box, his eyes wide. “This is hot.”
“Yeah, it is. You told me you like ‘vettes. Sorry it had to be the snap-together kind of kit. They won’t let you have model glue in here. Hope it’s okay.”
“I’ll check it out.” He never gave away much, but I thought he was pleased, as much by the attention as by the gift. He seemed happy to see me, the way friends are happy. Gave me a warm glow.
“Where’d you get the hot clothes?” I asked.
“That faggot cop. He and his kid took me to get some stuff on Sunday.”
“Detective Flint?” Mike hadn’t bothered to mention a thing.
“I guess that’s his name. The one that you…” He made an appropriately obscene gesture.
“Well, you look great. Need anything else?”
He shook his head. “I’m set. They got me going to school in here.”
“How is it?”
“Not too bad. Hilly used to teach me stuff, and I liked that better. But it’s okay here. They don’t let you watch TV in the daytime, so it’s something to do.”
“Stay with it, Sly. School is your rocket, you know.”
“Somethin’ to do.” He set the kit on the bed behind him and gave me one of his wise appraisals.
“So?” he asked.
“So, what?”
“Everyone who comes to see me wants to talk about what went down, or they want me to identify some guy. So, what is it?”
“I just came by to see how you’re hangin’. I tried to get by yesterday, but, well, things happened. Sorry I didn’t make it. I heard you had a good time last night, though, when Detective Flint came and woke you up.”
He grinned. “Yeah. I couldn’t ID that weird picture he had. I mean, for sure I never saw that dude before. But the cop, he took me out for pancakes, anyway. It was like two o’clock in the morning. Hot, I mean really hot. Like, I ain’t been out after dark since they put me in here.”
“I think you’re a night owl by nature.”
“Not no more. I mean, anymore. They get real strict about how we say shit. Like Hilly, always correcting me.”
“She corrected you because she cared for you.”
He swallowed hard. “She was hot.”
I touched his shoulder. “I told your teacher I would walk you to class. It was nice they let you sleep in this morning, Mr. Night Owl.”
Sly put his kit back into the bag with the paints and stowed it all under his bed. When he stood up, he smoothed the spread with pride.
“I’ll show you the way,” he said, still serious.
We walked out of his bungalow and across the campus, this very serious and wounded little boy and I. He was, for all of his toughness, very dear. I was sure that Hillary had been drawn by the vulnerable quality he had, as I was.
In all of our conversations, Sly had refused steadfastly to say anything to me about his family. Mike had told me the family had a rap sheet with Child Protective Services that read like Tales from the Dark Side. I didn’t need to see it. All that mattered was that Sly was retrievable, and for that, in large measure, we had Hillary to thank.
The only children playing in the hazy sunshine were preschoolers on the far side of the grounds, bouncing around in a small fenced-in play yard equipped with swings and a slide. Sly watched them with a cloudy face.
Mike had told me how disappointed Sly was when he could not recognize George Metrano as the man who had slit Hillary’s throat. That’s why the treat of pancakes in the middle of the night. Mike wanted the truth. Sly wanted the man.
The windows in the stucco classroom block were open. Voices from inside floated out across the empty asphalt yard like a haunting of children; too much energy to be peacefully interred on a warm day.
I touched Sly’s shoulder again. “We’ll get him.”
“Damn straight.”
“That man in the picture? He was Hilly’s real father. For what it’s worth, I’m glad he isn’t the one.”
“Mike said the same thing.”
I smiled. “So, you do know the faggot cop’s name.”
He turned his head away so I couldn’t see the wry grin.
I stopped with him at the entrance to the classroom block.
“Got your homework finished?”
“Under control,” he said.
“Then I’ll see you later, Sly Ronald.”
He tossed his head back in cocky acknowledgment. “Later.”
With his hands in the pockets of his new shorts, he started inside. After a few steps, he hesitated, then he came back to me.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“Hillary is still in the morgue.”
“Shouldn’t there be a funeral?”
“There will be, as soon as we get this all straightened out. Will you sit with me?”
“Yeah. Don’t forget.”
“I promise.”
He squared his skinny shoulders inside his bright shirt and walked on to his class, alone.
I didn’t mind leaving him at MacLaren. But I had a sick feeling whenever I thought about Sly after MacLaren – they could keep him only so long. What would it be? A foster home? Another institution? Back on the streets?
In the ear of my memory, all the way out to the parking lot I heard Sly howl the way Bowser had the day I brought him home from the pound to sleep on my heirloom brocade sofa. There’s a whole lot more to taking in a damaged child than an abandoned puppy. Even though I understood that, every time I saw Sly it was tougher to leave him behind.