“Four hundred is only an estimate, you understand?” the mechanic warned.
“Whatever,” said O’Farrell. It gave them carte blanche to rip him off, but so what? The only consideration was getting the vehicle roadworthy over the weekend.
They took a cab to the theme park and O’Farrell indulged Billy on whatever ride he wanted and then let himself be tugged to a store practically next door to be shown the range of electric space vehicles. He bought one that changed from a vehicle to a warrior, like the one Billy already had.
On the way to the park, O’Farrell had seen a restaurant with an open deck stretching toward the lake, so he took Billy back there to eat. They sat outside, the silver-glinting lake to their left, the upthrust fingers of the Chicago skyscrapers to their right. Billy chose a cheeseburger and fries with a large Coke and insisted his new toy should remain on the table between them. O’Farrell ordered gin and tonic and tuna on rye; by the time the food came his glass was empty, so he ordered another.
“Hear there’s some nasty things going on at school,” O’Farrell said.
“Huh?” The child’s mouth was full of fries.
“Mommy had to come to talk to some people this week?”
“Oh that,” Billy said dismissively.
“What was it about?”
“Drugs,” the boy announced flatly. He moved the toy along the table, toward the Coke container, making a noise like explosions.
“You know what drugs are?”
“Sure,” Billy said, attention still on the spacecraft.
Not yet nine, thought O’Farrelclass="underline" long-lashed, blue-eyed, red-cheeked with uncombed hair over his forehead and his shirttail poking curiously over his belt, like it always did, and he knew what drugs were. And not yet nine! He said, “What?”
“Stuff that makes you feel funny.”
“Who told you that?”
“Miss James.”
“Your teacher?”
“Uh-huh.” He was biting into his cheeseburger now, ketchup on either side of his mouth.
“What did she say?”
Billy had to swallow before he could reply. “That we were to tell her if anyone said we should try.”
“Would you tell her?”
“Boom, boom, boom,” went Billy, attacking the Coke container. “Guess so,” he said.
“Just guess so! Has anyone ever said you should do it?”
“Nope. Can I have a vanilla ice cream with chocolate topping now?”
O’Farrell summoned the waitress and added another gin and tonic to the order. “You know anyone who has tried it?”
“Couple of guys in the next grade, I think.”
Ellen had talked about Nancy Reagan seeking pledges from nine-year-olds, O’Farrell remembered. He said, “What happened?”
“They sniffed something. Made them go funny, like I said.” The toy ceased being a spacecraft and was turned into a warrior so that it could attack from the ground.
“What happened to them?”
“They had to go to the principal. Now they’re in a program.”
“You know what a program is?”
“Sure,” Billy said, letting his warrior retreat. “It’s when you go and they keep on about you not doing it.”
It was a good enough description from someone so young. O’Farrell said, “You love me?”
Billy looked directly at him for the first time. “Of course I love you.”
“Grandma too? And Mommy most of all?”
“Sure. Dad too.”
What about Patrick? O’Farrell thought for the first time. He’d have to ask Ellen. “I want you to make me a promise, a promise that you’ll keep if you love us all like you say you do.”
“Okay,” the child said brightly. The warrior became a spacecraft again.
“If anyone ever comes up to you, at school or anywhere, and tries to get you to buy something that will make you go funny, you promise me you’ll say no and go at once and tell Miss James or Mommy? You promise me that?”
“Can I have another Coke? Just a small one.”
O’Farrell caught the waitress’s eye again and insisted, “You going to promise me that?”
“ ’Course I am. That’s easy.”
“And mean it? Really mean it?”
“Sure.”
O’Farrell felt a sweep of helplessness but decided against pressing any further. Maybe he shouldn’t have tried at all. He hadn’t suggested to Ellen that he should discuss it with the child; perhaps there was some established way of talking it through—something evolved by a child psychiatrist—and he was being counterproductive by mentioning it at all. He felt another sweep of helplessness.
O’Farrell considered stopping at the service station on the way back to Ellen’s apartment, but decided against it; there did not seem to be any point. The women were already home, hunched over more coffee cups at the kitchen table with the debris of a sandwich lunch between them.
“Steak for dinner, courtesy of Grandma!” Ellen announced as they entered.
“Great!” Billy said. “I got a new spaceship! Look!
“Gramps bought it for me. And a vanilla ice cream with a chocolate top!”
“Looks like our time for being spoiled, Billy boy,” Ellen said.
The child scurried into the living room to locate the previous toy and begin a galactic battle; almost at once there came lots of boom, boom, booms and a noise that sounded something like a throat clearing.
O’Farrell said, “Your car’s in the garage.”
“You had an accident!”
His daughter’s instant response caused a burn of annoyance. Never get mad, always stay cool, he thought. He said, “I could have. It’s a miracle you haven’t. That car’s a wreck: at least five thousand miles over any service limit! Didn’t you know that?”
“Been busy,” said Ellen. She spoke looking down, her bottom lip nipped between her teeth, and O’Farrell recognized the expression from when she’d been young and been caught doing something wrong.
“Darling!” he said, perfectly in control but trying to sound outraged despite that, wanting to get through to her. “On at least one wheel, possibly two, there are scarcely any brake shoes left at all. Which is hardly important anyway because there was no fluid in the drum to operate them anyway. Two plugs aren’t operating at all, your engine is virtually dry of oil, and the carburetor is so corroded the cover has actually split. Both your left tires, front and back, are shiny bald, and your alignment is so far out on the front that any new tire would be that way inside a month.”
“Intended to get it fixed right away,” Ellen said, head still downcast. “The brakes are okay, providing you know how to work them.”
“That car’s a deathtrap and you know it!” O’Farrell insisted. “So when was it last in the shop?”
“Can’t remember,” Ellen said, stilted still.
“It hasn’t been serviced, has it? Not for months!”
“No.”
There was a loud silence in the tiny kitchen. Remembering something else, O’Farrell said, “What about Patrick?”
“What about Patrick?” his daughter echoed.
“You told him about this scare at Billy’s school?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s all it is, a scare,” Ellen said. “Nothing’s happened to Billy.”
Don’t be sidetracked, thought O’Farrell. “Patrick’s got visitation rights, hasn’t he?”
“You know he has.”
“Tell me the custody arrangement.”