“We have nothing to settle,” I told him. “I didn’t let the air out of your tires, or anything. Trust me, I’ve got better things to do than mess with the Night Butcher.”
He scratched his neck thoughtfully. “And I should believe you?”
“Yeah.”
He took off his goggles to get a better look at me. His eyes were as wild as his hair. Then he said, “I believe you. For now. What is it you want?”
“I’m trying to help a friend,” I said. “How long have you worked for Waldbaum’s?”
“Flemish!” he shouted.
“Huh?”
“You are wondering about my accent. It is Flemish. I come from Belgium. All you know from Belgium is waffles and chocolate. Now you know me.”
“Great, got it—waffles, chocolate, and you. So how long have you worked for Waldbaum’s?”
“Nineteen years. I was here when cuts were thick, and you could still get a lamb chop with a nice big fillet, back when meat was meat.” He looked off for a moment, nostalgic for the good old days, then said, “Gunther!”
“Huh?”
“You are wondering what is my name.”
“Well, not really, but thanks for telling me.” This was the only human being I’d ever met who had more trouble than me staying on the subject. “Did you always work in this store, or did you get moved around?”
“Always here,” he said.
“Good. So you were here about nine years ago when a little boy got left in a shopping cart.”
Suddenly his whole attitude changed. “No.” He turned back to the beef he had been cutting. “I was not on duty yet. I do not remember.”
“If you don’t remember, how could you know you weren’t on duty?”
He scratched his peeling neck. Little flakes fell to the cutting table. I’m never eating meat from Waldbaum’s again.
“Eczema,” he said.
“Huh?”
“You are wondering about my neck. Why I scratch.”
“What you do with your neck is your business.”
He stopped scratching and looked at me for an uncomfortably long time. “You are this little boy from the shopping cart?” he asked.
“No, but I’m his friend.”
Gunther nodded, then went to remove his smock and washed his hands. “This friend of yours. He is okay now?”
“Not really,” I told him. I thought of what story I could make up to get Gunther to spill his guts, and then I figured the truth would do the job just fine. “He thinks his mother disappeared into thin air, and he never got over it.”
Gunther sighed. “I am very sorry to hear that.” He pulled up a chair and sat down, then pulled up one for me. “Sit.”
Although I really didn’t want to, I knew I might finally be onto something. I sat down, and Gunther took his time before he spoke again.
“You have to understand, this was none of my business. I had nothing to do with it, I only saw.”
Bingo! “So you saw what happened! She didn’t disappear after all, did she?”
Gunther sighed. “She did disappear, in a manner of speaking,” he said. “And she was not the only one who disappeared that night.”
I waited for more, but then he sat back, thought for a moment, and said, “No.” He stood and returned to his meat cutting.
“What do you mean ’no’? You can’t start and not finish.”
He slammed the side of beef back down on the cutting table. “I tell this story only once. Your friend should be here when I do. Bring your friend and I will tell you both about that day.”
Then he gave me four pork chops, cut thick like they used to in the days when meat was meat, and he sent me on my way.
17. A Traumatic Experience I’ll Live to Regret, Assuming I Live
Just as she had promised, Lexie sprung a top-secret trauma attack on her grandfather. It came without warning (without me being warned, that is) the morning after my visit to the Night Butcher. It was Saturday. A day I should have been able to sleep late. As I was tossing and turning all night with unpleasant dreams about meat, I was dead to the world when the phone rang. My mom practically had to use heart paddles to wake me up.
“She says it’s important,” my mom said, shoving the phone into my hand. “I don’t know what could be so important at seven in the morning.”
“Hewwo?” I said, sounding more like Elmer Fudd than I truly want to admit.
“Today’s the day,” Lexie said excitedly on the end of the line. “Everything’s set for noon.”
“Huh? What everything do you mean?” I croaked out.
“Trauma therapy,” she whispered. “My grandfather—remember?”
I groaned, and Lexie got all annoyed.
“Well, if you don’t want to help, you don’t have to come. It’s not like you’re under any obligation.”
“No, no,” I said. “I want to help,” which was true. Traumatizing Old Man Crawley was actually pretty high on my list of Things I’d Most Like to Do. “What do you need me to bring?”
“Just yourself,” she said, “And Calvin. Tell him I want him to come, too.”
“Why don’t you tell him?”
Lexie hesitated. “I haven’t spoken to him since the day we all broke up.”
After Lexie hung up, I dialed the Schwa. It rang once, and I hung up. My encounter with the Night Butcher was still fresh in my mind, and I knew if I talked to him, he’d hear something funny in my voice. I wanted to tell him about it, but a sensitive matter like this had to be handled carefully, at the right time and place.
The phone rang, and figuring it was Lexie again, I picked it right up.
“Hi, Antsy, it’s Calvin.”
“Schwa?” He caught me completely off guard.
“Yeah. You rang a second ago. So what’s up?”
He had star-sixty-nined me. Curse telephone technology. “Uh ... so whatcha up to today?”
“I’ve got big plans,” he said. “The biggest! Of course I can’t tell you about it just yet.”
He was so excited, I knew he was itching to talk about it as much as he wanted to keep it a secret. I should have asked him about it. That’s what friends do, right? They nag you until you tell them the secret they’re pretending they don’t want to tell. The Schwa needed that kind of friend now; one who would listen, and yell at him, “What, are you insane?” And maybe stop him from doing something he’d regret. I should have been that kind of friend.
“Cool,” I said. “Guess I’ll see you on Monday.” And I hung up. I didn’t ask him what he was planning, I didn’t tell him about the Night Butcher, and I didn’t invite him to traumatize Crawley with us. You never realize when you make little choices how big those choices can be. I can’t really be held responsible for everything that happened next, but if I had made the right decision, things could have turned out differently.
At noon I stood at Crawley’s door, taking a few deep breaths. Some dogs were already barking on the other side, sensing me there. One more breath and I pounded on the door over and over, until all the dogs were barking.
“Mr. Crawley! Mr. Crawley! Hurry, open up!”
I heard him cursing at the dogs, a few dead bolts slid, and the door cracked open just enough to reveal four chains stretched like iron cobwebs between me and Crawley’s scowling face.
“What? What is it?”
“It’s Lexie! She fell down the stairs. I think she broke something. Maybe a few things.”
“I’ll call 911.”
“No! No, she’s asking for you—you’ve gotta come!”
He hesitated for a moment. The door closed, I heard the chains sliding open, and he pulled the door open again. Prudence and a few of the other dogs got out, but Crawley didn’t seem to care. He just stood there at the door.