2 Grand Delusion (10 page)

Call me heartless if you want, but I kicked her yet again. At last she opened her eyes slightly.

"Where's Tony?" I asked.

"Hell should I know?" she mumbled, and fell back asleep. I slapped her face. Her eyes reopened, a tad wider this time, but still zonked-looking.

I put my face close to hers, hoping she wouldn't throw up again. "When did you last see him?"

"Who?"

"Tony."

"Why you want him?" A hint of craftiness crept into her hollow eyes. Now that she was opening her mouth more, her breath almost knocked me out—a fascinating combo of puke, potato chips, and rotten teeth. "You a fucking pervert?"

How sweet. She was actually showing some protective maternal instincts. Would wonders never cease?

I tried to act very matter of fact, as if reasoning with a drugged-out, depraved sicko was no big deal to me. "Mrs. Martinelli," I said, moving even closer, but wrinkling my nose so I wouldn't breathe in too much of her decay, "your son is in big trouble."

She gave me a perplexed look, and I reminded myself to speak in short, simple sentences. "Someone may be trying to hurt him. He may have witnessed a murder."
And he may have
committed
a murder,
I thought, but didn't say it out loud. "I need to know where he is. I want to help him."
And myself.

Tony's mom lay there for a while opening and closing her jaw. I thought she was trying to say something, but then vomit came forth and spilled on her chin.

I looked around in the darkness for something to clean her off with. I found an old one-eared stuffed bunny rabbit, and used the ear to wipe her. Some of the puke had dribbled off of her chin onto the top of her breast. I gingerly wiped that, too.

She opened her mouth again. I stepped back, expecting more puke. But this time she said, "Cemetery."

"Cemetery?!"
Jesus, was the kid
dead?
Had he died while I was in jail, and no one even told me?!

"Sleeps there . . . sometimes," Mrs. Martinelli said weakly, using every last bit of her strength getting those three words out.

I eyed her in disgust. How could she let her young son go sleep in the cemetery while she sat around getting high?

She seemed to know what I was thinking, and she looked up at me from the floor. It was a look that if you painted it everyone would say it was brilliant, and it would be displayed prominently in some big-city museum—but nobody would ever in a million years want it on their living room wall. Her look was composed of equal parts guilt, fear, exhaustion, and an overwhelming sorrow. Like she knew she was a shitty mother and a shitty person to boot, and she hated it, but she also knew she could never change it.

Then she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

I tore the puke-covered ear off the bunny and threw it in the overflowing garbage can. I found a towel on top of the refrigerator that was only partly dirty, and draped it over Mrs. Martinelli's thin breasts.

Then I stepped out the door and headed for the cemetery.

11

The historic Gideon Putnam Burial Ground is Saratoga Springs's oldest cemetery. If it were located on the East Side, it would be a major tourist attraction. Since it's not, it isn't.

But even though the city spends virtually no money on upkeep—or maybe because of that—the cemetery has a wonderful disheveled charm. When you push aside the overgrown weeds and read the crumbling gravestones, the names instantly transport you back to an earlier time: "Hosea Samuel Prescott" . . . "Hester Eliza Budd." My personal favorite is "Edward Augustus Rutledge," a Baptist minister who shot himself at the Adirondack Springs Hotel in 1846. Now he's buried across the street from Rite-Aid.

Sometimes I cut through the cemetery on my way to town in the morning. If it's before eight o'clock I usually come across a derelict or two curled up asleep, using a gravestone for shelter from the wind. By eight-thirty or nine, you can generally find the derelicts sitting propped up against the stones, having their first cigarette of the day, or their first drink. I guess these were the same folks who would be sleeping at the Grand Hotel, once it got renovated.

Right now it was a little before five, still dark, and even colder than before. The wind knifed right through my denim jacket. I walked from one corner of the cemetery to the other without spotting Tony or anyone else. I guess the derelicts had felt the weather turning last night, and found shelter indoors.

The wind was attacking the trees, and leaves were committing hari-kari all around me. Shivering, I crisscrossed the cemetery twice more with no luck. The sky was slowly lightening. It looked like Tony's mom was wrong—the only people here were the dead ones.

Unless . . .

Old Gideon Putnam himself was buried atop the highest hill in the cemetery, in a large family plot surrounded by a ten-foot-high stone wall. There was a locked gate that I'd tried to get through once and found impossible. But had Tony, petty criminal that he was, somehow found a way to break in?

I walked up the hill and peered through the gate. I didn't see anyone, but maybe Tony was huddled against a wall out of view. I rattled, pushed, and pulled the gate, then gave up on that and circumnavigated the wall in search of a decent foothold. But there were none; the wall was made of smooth stone, and impregnable. No way Tony could have climbed in. I took one last look through the gate and started to leave.

But then the wind let up for a moment and I heard a tiny noise coming from inside the Putnam family plot, a repetitive
click click click
. It was so faint that at first I wasn't even sure I was hearing it.
Click click click.
What
was
that, anyway? Just a trapped leaf flicking against a tombstone, or something else?

"Tony!" I called out. "Tony, are you in there?"

There was no answer, just more
click click clicking.
  Then the wind picked up again and I couldn't hear it anymore. I stood there straining my ears, so cold my teeth started chattering.

When they chattered, they made a sound.
Click click click.

I shouted Tony's name some more. Then I circled the wall again and found a corner where the stones were a tad rougher and the masonry work a tad sloppier. I scrambled upward, squirming, clawing, scraping my palms raw, and falling flat on my ass five times. But eventually, somehow, I hoisted myself to the top of the wall. I looked down.

Tony Martinelli lay on the ground beneath me, sleeping.

I jumped ten feet down and bent over him. All he had was a sweatshirt and a thin cotton blanket. His teeth were playing a cha-cha. I touched his hand. Ice-cold.

With sleeping conditions like these, no wonder the kid had a perpetual runny nose. I sighed and did the noble thing, taking off my jacket and setting it on top of him. Then I lay down beside him, as much for my own warmth as for his.

Tony's eyes opened. He saw me, and turned wide awake in about a hundredth of a second. He sat up.

"Mr. Burns! How'd you find me?"

"Your mom told me."

At the mention of his mother, Tony's face darkened. Then he turned away from me and started picking his nose. In the pre-dawn light I could see that most of his bruises were gone. But the discoloration from that black eye remained.

"Tony," I said softly, "I saw you that night. I saw you running away from the house."

He took his finger from his nostril and examined it. "I know." He sounded very far away. "When you looked at me in the courtroom, I could tell."

"Tony ..." I took his hand. "What happened that night?"

"I'm cold."

I covered him up with the blanket. It was torn and full of holes. I put my jacket back over him too, then put my arms around him. His body stiffened. I rubbed his back.

He gazed up at me. "Do you want to put your thing in me?"

I wasn't sure I'd heard him right.
"What?"

"You can put your thing in me if you want."

Oh, Lord.

What unspeakable horrors had this boy been subjected to in his nine years of life? No doubt they made my two days in jail look like a springtime walk in the park.

"No, Tony, I don't want to put my thing in you."

His body relaxed. I gave him a hug. He started to cry, then he sneezed, and pretty soon his face was full of snot and tears. He wiped them with the blanket.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Burns." He begged me for forgiveness through moist brown eyes. "I'm so, so—"

"It's okay—"

"No, it's not!" he blurted out vehemently. "I know you didn't kill him! You went to jail because of me!"

You went to jail because of me.
Was Tony about to confess to murder?

I felt joy and terror at the same time—joy for my sake, terror for his. My voice shook. "Tony, what happened that night?"

He blew his nose into the blanket.

"You need to tell me. I promise I won't hurt you."

Like hell I wouldn't. If he confessed, I'd rat him out to the cops. I'd pay for his lawyer and visit him every week—but I'd turn him in, no question.

This was incredibly screwed up.

"Okay, Mr. Burns," Tony said gravely, "I'll tell you."

Tony, watch out, I'm your enemy!
part of me screamed. But silently, of course.

"What happened, I went to that house next door to you to buy some . . . some ..." In the thin gray light, the boy's face flushed with shame. "Some crack. For my mom." His words poured out in a torrent. "Look, I
know
it's bad, I
know
drugs are terrible and everything, but you don't know how she gets. She runs around screaming like some kind of animal, and I'm scared she'll kill herself, or maybe me! She'd do it, too! I
have
to buy the drugs! I have to!"

"It's okay, Tony, I understand."
Sure, I understand, now spill your guts to me, kid
. I felt like an utter slimeball.

"See, my mom doesn't like to buy the crack herself 'cause she's embarrassed. And she gets, like, afraid to leave the house. So I do it for her."

I nodded, as if that sounded like the most sensible arrangement in the world. His face held something I couldn't decipher at first, then realized it was
pride
. Pride that he was taking good care of his mom. That he was being such a good son.

"So that night I went over to Dale's apartment. . . Do you know how him and Zapper work it?" I shook my head, so Tony proceeded to enlighten me. He looked proud again, this time of his knowledge. He might not be too hot when it came to reading and writing, but at least he was getting a solid education in drug dealing. "On odd days, like the first or third of the month, you go to Dale's apartment and give him five dollars. Then he goes over to Zapper's apartment and gets the rock and brings it back to you. On even days it's the opposite—you go to Zapper's place, and he gets the rock from Dale. I guess keeping the money in a different place from the drugs is better somehow, if the cops come and try to arrest them."

Some other time I might be interested in the inner workings of the street-level drug economy, but not now. "So you went to Dale's place?" I prodded.

"Yeah. I gave him four bucks, and promised to give him the other dollar tomorrow from empty cans and stuff. He gave me a hard time but then he said okay. So he went over to Zapper's place for the rock, and he was gonna give it to me. But then we got in a fight."

He shuddered and pulled the blanket around him. "Dale said he'd forget about the extra dollar if I . . . if I would . . ."

"If you would what?" I asked, then immediately regretted it. After that business about putting my thing in him, I was pretty sure I knew the answer, and I didn't really want to hear it.

But Tony stunned me by answering: "If I would rob your house."

Then the torrent of words started flowing again, as he gazed at me earnestly. "But I'd
never
do that to you, Mr. Burns. I mean, I know I've stolen from people, but not for, like,
years"
—yeah, sure, I thought to myself, but I didn't stop him—"and besides, I never robbed from people I
knew
. All it was, see, I was just trying to talk big. Telling him how you and me are friends, and you're a rich famous movie writer and everything, and I got all carried away. I didn't mean to tell him you have a safe with lots of money in it—"

"What?"

"—and I know where you keep the combination—"

"Tony, are you
nuts?
I don't have any safe!"

"I know, I made it up! And I kept
telling
him I made it up, only he didn't believe me, he thought I was just too scared to rob you. See, he was really lifted—"

"Lifted?"

"You know, stoned. And he kept saying over and over how if he had enough money he could buy enough dope to move down to Schenectady and be a big shot, and he'd take me with him. And when I said no, he got crazy pissed off and he said he wouldn't give my mom any rock until I told him where the combination to your safe was. Then he closed the door and wouldn't let me leave and he started punching me in the face, and it really hurt and I was running away from him, and then all of a sudden we heard someone screaming. And then the gunshot. I didn't know who was screaming or who got shot and I was real scared but Dale just laughed. He said no one would ever hurt him because he had his own gun, and if I didn't do what he wanted he'd shoot my puny little ass full of holes and throw my body in the cemetery. And he opened up a drawer to get his gun and turned his back on me for, like, half a second, so I grabbed the rock, opened the door, and ran outside. And that's when I saw you running toward the body. So I know you didn't do it, because if you did, why would you run
toward
the body instead of
away
from it? Right?"

I nodded, reeling from the onslaught of his words.

So little Tony didn't do it after all.
I was relieved—and disappointed as hell. There would be no simple, tidy solution to my legal problems.

Meanwhile he was saying, "I wanted to go over there, when you were standing by the body, but then that cop came. And I had the drugs on me, so I had to wait real quiet until he wasn't looking and then I ran away. Only I felt real bad about you getting arrested and everything, so that's why I went to court the next day, but I kept my mouth shut because my mom would get in trouble if I told about the crack and she'd get super mad at me, and she gets real scary when she's mad, but I know I did the wrong thing and if you want me to tell the cops I will. I really want to."

He finally stopped for breath, and to hear my answer. I wanted to hear my answer, too. Should I ask Tony to tell the cops? It couldn't hurt.

But would it help?

Would the cops pay any attention to this pipsqueak? Not only was he a known thief and a drug middleman, but even worse, he was a friend of mine. Maybe if he had actually
seen
the murder, and could name the murderer, the cops would listen. But as it was . . .

If Tony told the cops, probably all that would happen was his mom would beat the tar out of him.

His teeth were
click-click-clicking
again. Dawn was breaking but it wasn't getting any warmer.

"Let's go get something to eat," I said.

Tony's face brightened instantly. "Okay."

I looked up at the stone wall. "Oh phooey, now we have to climb this thing all over again."

"No, we don't," he announced cheerfully. From behind old Gideon's tombstone, he produced a long rope with a noose at one end. He threw it way up to the top of the gate, and on his very first try the noose settled around a spike at the top. Then he scampered up the rope, swung onto the wall, and jumped down to the ground on the other side. "Come on, Mr. Burns," he called out triumphantly, "it's a piece of cake!"

As I began the slow ascent up the rope—not the quick scamper that Tony had managed—I thought to myself:
This kid's a resilient little bastard. A survivor.