Ask the Dark (15 page)

I need to ask somebody if these is really his. But whoever I ask, his mother or some boy who knowed’m, they gonna wonder where I found’m.

So I can’t ask. Because the second they see’m they’ll call the cops and it won’t be no different than me going to the cops in the first place.

I was sitting there five minutes thinking,
What the hell can I do?
What’s gonna be worth going to the cops and getting my ass arrested?

Then I answer myself.

I got to put the mittens
back.
Back at Miss Gurpy’s where the boxes was. I could wait till later when I was due there with Richie, but that wouldn’t work for me, ’cause I needed to talk with her, with Miss Gurpy. If I done that, and found out how she knows Hodsworth and just who he is, I’d have plenty to tell the cops. And if I called the cops anonymously, sort’f crank-called’m, and told’m what I knew, but didn’t say who I am, they might believe me. Or at least come check it out, same as how I once did that saying I seen a man with a shotgun going round his yard and they sent five squad cars and a helicopter, though that was just a joke, me saying that, and I laughed all day. And they’d go in Gurpy’s house and if something’s there they’d find it, the cops would, and I’d tell’m about the dark house too, and they’d put it all together, and I wouldn’t get arrested in the deal. They could learn everything I couldn’t figure out, like knowing for sure that Hodsworth lives in the dark house and hides stuff at Miss Gurpy’s, and understanding why he knows her. And seeing if there’s any other stuff he got that belonged to Tommy or Tuckie or Jimmy Brest in either of both the houses.

If I could tell the cops all that, it wouldn’t be so bad if I
did
get arrested.

But I can’t say I felt good about going there alone. Going in that house scared me.

So I lay about an hour, hoping to fall asleep and see it all go away. But I never even closed my eyes.

And when that hour was done I was back outside, walking down Denton Avenue to Gurpy’s old dead-end street.

Must’ve been around noon.

Part Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

She weren’t home when I got there, least that’s how she wanted it to look. I stood awhile out front on the walk, staring up at the house, old-looking place with them old lacquered posts made on a lathe, with trees close around it, pine trees, and them pointed roofs and that weathervane up top. I knew her tricks from making deliveries with Marvin, I mean how she might hide if she don’t want visitors, so for a second I stood turned away, acting not to look at the house, but actually looking from the side of my eye, and I saw a curtain move, sort’f shake and then go still.

She was in there.

I went up on the porch. You couldn’t see into the windows of’r house ’cause of the creepers, and where they was torn off there was still all this mess of them little root fingers left over, all dry and brown, and the screens was too dirty to see through. But I looked in anyway. I came all round the porch peeking in.

Finally I rung the bell, not thinking she’d answer, kind’f hoping she wouldn’t. But just like that, the door opened wide and she was standing there in the dark of the house, with me looking at her through the dirty screen door.

Billy, she said, sort’f sharp-sounding and not too happy to see me. You’re here so early. Where is Richie, isn’t he with you?

No, ma’am, I said. I’m by myself, I said. Can I come in a minute?

Can’t you stay out here? I’m very busy inside right now.

I ain’t gonna bother you, I said. Richie’ll be here soon. I just got to wait, is all.

She was looking at me and trying to smile but she just managed to make her face look hurt. This was funny because she’d been different yesterday, no more like a crazy lady who hollered behind closed doors when I brought her medicine, but real friendly, mainly because I guess after so many years alone she was happy to have somebody to dote on. Yesterday she’d brought snacks up to me’n Richie, and I knew it was fun for her. But now she looked at me sort’f cold for a second or two, and seeing I weren’t moving away, she said, All right. Just for a minute.

He won’t be long, I said, and I stepped inside.

The lights weren’t on and the house was all aclutter with little tables and footstools everywhere with papers on’m, and blinds shut with only little lines of light coming out of’m, and that sort’f smell a house gets that ain’t been aired in years, sour smell.

She was dressed in some sort’f dark color tight on her, and her hair, it had a net on it, black net, and I remember good how her fingernails were, all red and shiny like the paint on thumbtacks. She waved for me to come on in, even took my hand, and she said, I’ll give you something to eat while you wait, bringing me into the kitchen to sit at the table while she fished in a cupboard for snacks.

I don’t remember if I ever said how she looks but she’s real skinny, arms like sticks, and hands, too, veiny, and a sort’f pie-crust face, all white and flaky, with the makeup painted on same as how fresh paint colors up dry dough. Figure she’s seventy, or roundabouts.

I was trying to look happy, and as she peeked at me now and again from behind cabinet doors I tried to smile but couldn’t, and she saw I was feeling maybe a little nervous and her face got dark.

What’s the matter, Billy? she asked.

I swear, way her voice creaks, sounds like cellophane.

Nothing, ma’am, I said, sittin’ there, hands on my lap. Just gotta talk with you, is all. Will you sit awhile?

She stopped and looked at me, holding a tin of cookies in her hand. Her face was sort’f stiff and she set the tin on the table.

Will Richie be here soon? she said. She didn’t sit like I asked but kept busy jerking around for them little plates and napkins old ladies use, going in these glass-face drawers to get’m. She seemed real nervous, that like even though she’d let me in to stay what she really wanted was to chuck me out the door right now. And I seen when she weren’t looking my way, she was peeking at the kitchen door behind me.

Richie ain’t coming, I said. Will you sit with me? I gotta ask you something.

She stopped and froze, looking at me. She didn’t say nothing but just pulled a chair out and sat, sort’f careful, her back real straight and her hair and glasses wiry and her face old and white. And that tinfoil Richie talked about, to keep the aliens away? I looked then and seen it under the lip of her collar.

Just as she sat she said, I need to get you some milk, and she started to stand, but right then I looked up’n said, Do you have a son, Miss Gurpy?

She stopped moving. And something come into her face.

Fear.

’Cause from the way she stared I could see I’d just asked the worst thing in the world.

Do you, Miss Gurpy? I said, looking up at’r. A son? Or maybe a nephew? Or just some boy you know and took care of? He’d be about Richie’s age now, I’m thinkin’. D’you have anybody like that?

I heard the water dripping in the sink. And I saw her eyes behind her glasses get bigger and rounder, and it was like we was trying to see who could stare longest.

Then she yelled,
No!

But that no meant yes.

I said, Richie told me when he was at Wharton Evans you used to come by visiting somebody, boy about his age, but he didn’t know’m. Who was that boy, Miss Gurpy?

As I talked her face looked to stretch over its bones, and her eyes got bright and splintery, and her mouth twitchy like she wanted to move her lips but couldn’t, and she bit the bottom one, it all pasty-red, and the lipstick got on’r teeth.

I found something upstairs here, I said. I think this boy of yours done some bad things. So I got to know who he is. You gotta tell me. It might save some people’s lives. I mean it. I found things that make me sure, but I can’t prove it. Will you tell me, Miss Gurpy? Will you, please?

This kitchen we was in was dim like the rest of the house but all the furniture, the fridge and table and counters, was all old and white and boxy, catching the little light there was. Doorway was hung with those sort’f beads hanging down on strings. I was watching Miss Gurpy, waiting for her to answer me. Her face was afraid and she was looking at me, but then I heard the beads in the doorway click, and she looked up fast behind me.

I turned quick and Peter Hodsworth come in the room.

The first thing I wanted was to run, just leap from the chair and run out’f there. But he come right up to me, one big step, and I knew no matter how fast I jumped he’d get me. So I just kept sitting, and I watched him.

He was looking at Miss Gurpy, his eyes cold and shaking his head real slow side to side, like he was saying she’d done something wrong, but not with any words. Then he looked down at me and saw me watchin’ him, so suddenly he smiled real big, like he’s happy to see me, and he says, Hey, man, are you Billy Zeets? I’ve been dying to meet you!

I told him I was. And right then he drops a hand on my shoulder. I looked tight on him. He kept his big smile and his eyes looked bright and frozen on me.

He says, real cheerful, Are you here to do some work? Place sure needs it, huh? He’s still smiling, and asking real nice. My aunt told me you were getting the rats in the attic! Gross, huh? It sort’f freaked me out! She didn’t tell me until last night, and I’ve got some stuff in there I don’t want messed up. Really
important
stuff. It’s not cool she didn’t tell me, huh? She’s a little wacked, huh? And again he looked at her like she’d done wrong.

I didn’t say nothing. I felt the mittens stuffed in my back pocket. And I knew now I’d never get’m upstairs like I’d wanted, so I could go ’head and call the police.

Miss Gurpy suddenly said, He’s waiting for Richie Harrigan, Peter.

She said it fast and loud, and a little wild, like somehow she had the terrors. What I ain’t said is, the whole time she seemed awful scared of’m, jerking herself whenever she moved like a hit might be coming, and never saying a word ’cept to blurt it real sudden.

He just looked at her and grinned.

No. Richie’s not coming. I heard Billy say that.

He smiled down at me again, squeezed my shoulder.

Miss Gurpy’s mouth twitched. She didn’t say nothing.

Hodsworth said to me, Well, are you done here? C’mon! I’ll drive you home.

Don’t need it, brung my bike, I lied.

We’ll take it along! he said.

I didn’t say nothing for a minute. He was looking down at me and never took his hand off my shoulder, like he’d caught me. And even though he had a smile on his face, there was something in his eyes that weren’t a smile.

All right, I said.

He looked at Miss Gurpy and said, I’ll be back in a few hours. Come on, Billy, he said, and I got up and went to the back door, me walking first and him right behind me.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Tell the truth, I can’t remember too good what all happened after we left the house. I mean, a lot of people have asked me what it was like to drive with Peter Hodsworth and talk with’m, and did he act all nutty, and was it sort’f like a cat-and-mouse game where he asked me questions to see how much I knowed. But the way it went none of that sort of thing happened. He pretty much just started beatin’ on me right away.

That ain’t totally true, though. He did ask a
few
questions, ’cause there was one thing he wanted to know from me. But once he got that, the other thing started, and I can’t remember too good at all.

Now, you know how Miss Gurpy’s house was at a dead end, last house, and then woods for a ways. Out back was the big yard all run over with vines and high grass she never cut, and then the big hill with the narrow flight of wooden stairs going up it, the stairs all rotty and busted and the banister just this long line of two-by-fours fallen off the posts and buried in the grass.

Like I said, I was walking first and Hodsworth walked right behind me. His hand was still on my shoulder and he weren’t letting go. And halfway up he put on the other hand, holding tight, and shoved a couple times to keep me moving.

He said, Go up the stairs, Billy. My car’s up there.

I thought about running. But right then my legs felt funny. Hard to move, even to go up the stairs. I knew Hodsworth ain’t slow, knew it from when he’d chased me the other night, and I’d escaped just ’cause I knew the woods better. He was big, too, sort’f chunky. Almost fat. But he could move, and was strong, and I couldn’t outrun’m, ’specially ’cause I was tired and so scared I could hardly move.

When we got up top I was breathing hard but he weren’t. There weren’t no street, but just that alley of beat-down grass, trees so thick on both sides they rose up high and made a tunnel. His car was there, parked in the shade.
A car that’s a truck,
I thought.

He went ahead of me a pace and stopped. A sort’f grin come over his face, not a nice one. He said to me, Hey, looks like we forgot your bike . . .

But from how he talked I knew he hadn’t forgot nothing.

Well, he said, that’s no problem, man. We’ll zip around front for it! C’mon, he said, and opened the door. Hop in!

I did. He sort’f shoved me there, then he shut the door and locked it. Then he went around his side and got in and started it. He pulled out in reverse, crackling over the twigs, brambles scratching ’longside the car. We was sitting side by side, ’cause there only two seats in that Ranchero.

For a second he stopped.

When we’re out there on the street, Billy, I want you to keep your head down. It’s best no one sees you with me. Okay?

He waited a second, and then grinned at me again.

C’mon! he says. All the other kids do it. Really, it’ll be cool!

He talked all cheerful but there was something in his eyes I didn’t want to argue with. So I said okay and slunk down a bit, till my head was same level with the doorjamb.

That’s good, Billy, he said, and backed up farther out the alley.

We drove, him looking forward, and we went through streets making quick turns. He didn’t talk no more, didn’t look over at me, neither. We never stopped out front Miss Gurpy’s house for any bike of mine. Some drizzle come and he turned the wipers on, going
swap-swap.
From where my head was I could look up’n see the sky full of dark clouds and treetops, and when we’d been going straight awhile I knew we was on the avenue.