Book of Mercy (9 page)

Three pies were sitting on the center island in Irene’s big, bright kitchen—a banana cream and two lemon meringues. Irene checked a restaurant-size oven. The smell of apples and cinnamon wafted out with a gust of heat. Irene motioned Antigone toward a U-shaped banquette that seated eight easily. Like the rest of the kitchen, it was all carved wood, painted white, with flowery fabric on cushions and pillows. Antigone couldn’t see the purpose in having pillows in a kitchen.

“Ice tea? Sorry, I can’t offer you some pie, but we’re having dinner guests tonight. Associates of Arthur’s.”

“No problem. I don’t want the little one to develop a sweet tooth.” Antigone tapped her tummy. “Sam read somewhere that whatever I eat is going straight to Junior. I mean if I eat nothing but spicy foods, the kid is likely to come out roaring fire like a dragon.”

“Well, I don’t know much about dragons, but I do avoid all spicy foods myself,” Irene said.

“Of course, you do. You seem like a sensible woman,” Antigone took a sip of tea from a Waterford crystal glass. “That’s why I can’t figure out what the hell is wrong with you, Irene.”

Irene, sitting across the table, paused as she lifted her glass. “Pardon?”

“This book business.”

Irene matched the kitchen: eggshell silk blouse and pants protected by a pristine floral bib apron with ruffles along the edge. She tugged at the bib and smoothed it. “What exactly are we talking about?”

“Just you stomping all over the Constitution with your fancy heels.” Irene glanced at Antigone’s scuffed hiking boots and raised an eyebrow. “I know about your little lists of banned books, Irene. I can’t believe you drew Nancy into this crazy scheme of yours. And it
is
crazy. Censoring books you don’t like. I don’t know how you can sleep at night.”

“I sleep quite well, thank you.” Irene sniffed and lifted her chin. “I’m protecting the children of this town. I’m doing something worthwhile, unlike some people I know who are only interested in running low-class tourist traps and linen outlets.”

“People love my tourist trap, and my sheets are eight hundred thread count.”

“I’m making a difference in our community.”

“You’re making a mess. Do you think you’ll get away with this? This is the United States of America! Americans get a tad irritable when people try to take our rights away. And we’re not a quiet people. The media, the Internet, they’re going to crucify Mercy.”

Irene rapped the table, using one manicured fingernail like a gavel. “I would think you would understand. You’re having a child. A
good
mother thinks of her children.”

Antigone stiffened. “I want to protect my child
from
the world, Irene. But I also want to protect the world
for
my child.”

“What a load of New Age liberal hooey.”

Antigone had learned long ago to counter power with stubbornness. You just didn’t give in—when the words seem to beat you, when the teacher doesn’t understand, when the kids won’t leave you alone. You dig in your heels so deep it’ll take a bulldozer to move you. And that’s what Irene and her overdeveloped sense of entitlement would need—one of Arthur’s bulldozers.

“I’m going to stop you, Irene.”

“I’d like to see you try. Nobody stops me.”

“Don’t make this ugly. Tell Nancy to put the books back, and we’ll forget this ever happened.”

The two women glared at each other like boxers in the ring. The timer on the oven dinged, and both of them jumped to their feet. Irene rushed to the counter, pulled on oven mitts, and removed two apple cobblers from the oven. She placed them on the cooling racks on the granite counter by the stove then turned to Antigone. “Go back to your little deer.”

Antigone knew this was a trick of the powerful: dismiss and patronize and watch your opponent slink off. She’d had a lifetime of people dismissing her. But when she came to Mercy, she had decided her slinking days were over. Her inheritance had empowered her, and now she ran a successful animal attraction and the only vegetarian restaurant within fifty miles. She and Sam also owned a textile outlet and a garage, both profitable businesses. Her eyes narrowed.

Irene smiled and leaned her hip against the counter, which featured a fancy floral motif you might find at Versailles. She crossed her arms, floppy oven mitts still on her hands.

“Think twice about taking this any further, Antigone. You would be better off taking care of your business instead of sticking your nose in mine.”

“This
is
my business.”

“The world is an unpredictable place,” Irene continued. “The textile mill could find another outlet for its seconds. The health inspector could take a special interest in your little restaurant. My husband could find another mechanic for his fleet.”

Suddenly, Antigone felt a roaring in her head; if she had been a cartoon character, steam would have erupted from her ears. She softly rubbed her stomach to quiet herself as much as the baby. “Don’t bring my family’s life into this. I’m warning you, Irene.”

“Or what?”

Antigone gazed around Irene’s prized kitchen. There was no evidence of spilt flour on the counter or measuring cups in the sink or mixing bowls scattered about. It was spotless. Perfect. So Irene.

“You like things neat, don’t you, Irene?”

Silence.

“Everything in its place.”

More silence.

Antigone wrinkled her nose and dragged her hand along the cool granite countertop of the center island. “Everything tidy, contained, in control. Well, control this!” and with a sweep of her arm, she knocked a lemon meringue pie off the counter. It landed upside down on the tile floor.

Irene gasped. She straightened. Her mouth moved but no words came out.

“Oops!” Antigone looked Irene in the eye and said quietly, “I’m not going to slink off and let you and your little club ruin this town. Leave the library alone and leave my family alone, Irene.” She paused, her hand dangerously close to another pie. “Back off, or things could get messy.” Then Antigone started out of the kitchen.

“Antigone!” Irene screamed. “This isn’t over!”

Antigone turned, and Irene smacked her in the chest with the banana cream pie. Antigone blinked. The pie slid down her body, slalomed over the bump of her pregnant belly, and plopped on the floor. The only thing that saved the second lemon meringue pie—and Irene’s pristine apron—was the sure knowledge that Irene would have her up on assault charges if she dared retaliate. Bullies could dish out the pie, but they couldn’t take it. So Antigone simply marched out of Irene’s showcase house, dripping banana cream, leaving the heavy front door wide open.

R
YDER HAD MADE A
friend. Now how the hell had that happened? The kid’s name was Ben, and he was some kind of freakin’ genius. Heck, he even doodled in mathematical equations. He pretty much spooked all the teachers. Ben was everything Ryder was not: white, well off, fawned over by his mother, pushed by his father, able to glide through life without a struggle. And for some unfathomable reason, he had latched onto Ryder.

It was a late Monday afternoon in September. Ben and Ryder walked into the main office just as Mrs. Sweetings, the volunteer, was closing up shop. She threw Ryder a suspicious look then beamed at Ben. Ryder handed her Hector Bob’s official documentation. She barely glanced at it. Mrs. Sweetings made a copy of the fake birth certificate, tucked it away in his file, and returned the original to Ryder. Then she said in the cheery voice she adopted for all the students, “I hope you’ve been having an excellent school year so far, Irwin.”

Ryder replied in a mumble, “I’m here, ain’t I?”

Mrs. Sweetings’s smile flickered.

Outside the office, Ben grinned, “Irwin?”

“Don’t go there, man,” Ryder said, slinging his book bag on one shoulder and shoving open the front doors.

Ben followed. He was a short, chunky kid with wire-rim glasses. His book bag, strapped snugly on his back like a parachute, was so loaded it dragged and bumped his butt. Ben was a learning machine, and for some reason, he liked telling Ryder everything he discovered. It was like hanging with Google.

Oddly enough, Ryder realized he liked listening to Ben sometimes. He would never admit it, but he also
liked
doing homework. Man, how the mighty had fallen. In his old neighborhood, when you worked an angle, it had nothing to do with geometry.

They passed the library, one of Ryder’s favorite places at Mercy High School, even if the librarian was a whack job. Libraries made him think of the Professor. The Professor would have been proud if he could see him now. The Professor believed in education. Wasn’t he always telling Ryder to go to school? Wasn’t he always reading books to Ryder as they sat in some cold, dirty alley? The Professor was one strange dude, but Ryder had loved him. On cold winter days, they’d taken shelter in the heated New York Public Library, like a lot of street people. But the Professor was different, and the librarians knew it. They never hassled Ryder when he was sitting at one of the long tables with the Professor. In a world where children hardly read anything more challenging than comic books and parents preferred bodice rippers to Baudelaire, the Professor with his charming smile and obvious love of books had been librarian chocolate.

Like James Bond, the Professor, even unwashed and in rags, had an unusual effect on women. It was the accent. “I could listen to him talk all day,” one rich bitch do-gooder gushed as she stirred a huge pot of tomato soup in the Salvation Army kitchen. “He could read the telephone book for all I care.” Such was the seduction of a British accent on American women.

The Professor could have gotten away with so much, but scams and grifts never interested him. The only thing the Professor wanted was his old cloth sack of books—his “personal collection,” as he called it—and to hang out with Ryder.

There’d been so many afternoons in the library, Ryder sitting with his back against the wall so he’d have an unobstructed view of all exits, and the preoccupied Professor sitting opposite, his back exposed, a book clutched in his fingers. It was left to Ryder, thumbing through a magazine or book, to keep a casual surveillance, to watch over the Professor and his bag of books.

Now Ryder wished he’d focused less on security and more on the books in the library.

As Ryder and Ben rounded the corner of the library, they ran smack into a pile of smelly, teenage flesh—Art Junior and his gang. Ben, who had been rattling on about some new species of sea creature scientists had just found, immediately shut up. Ryder automatically stood straighter and stared Art Junior in the eye. He relaxed his muscles and shifted his weight forward to the balls of his feet.

“Well, well,” Art Junior smirked. “Brainiac and Chickenshit.” The other boys laughed.

Ryder remained silent. He didn’t move a muscle.

Art Junior edged his face closer to Ryder’s. “Get somebody to haul that piece of shit car out of the ditch?”

“You didn’t even hang around to see if she was hurt,” Ryder snarled. “You coulda killed her.”

“Who? Crazy Deer Woman? She’s nuts, you know. Came right into my house and wrecked my mom’s kitchen. She talks to those animals like Doctor Fucking Dolittle. And now she thinks she’s going to get into it with my mom.” He laughed. “I shoulda just flattened you both and done the world a favor.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ryder growled.

Art Junior glanced at his friends. “Ooooh. Maybe our boy’s got a thing for white meat.”

Ryder started to turn away, then came spinning back around. He threw his elbow into Art Junior’s nose and blood spurted. Art Junior screamed. Three of his friends stepped forward, but Art Junior, doubled over and holding his face, waved them off. Ryder dropped his book bag and lifted his fists.

Art Junior and Ryder were the same height, but that was where the similarities ended. Art Junior was a refrigerator where Ryder, after a summer of caring for the deer, was a puma—sleek, muscled, and fast. Art Junior charged with his head down. “I’m gonna kill ya, boy.” But Ryder nimbly sidestepped the lump of fury and punched him in the side as he went by. Art Junior grunted and fell. Ryder waited.

Art Junior’s buddies were yelling for him to get up and kick some black ass, but he just laid there. When it looked like Art Junior was finished, Ryder turned away and bent to pick up his book bag. That’s when Art Junior roared to life, catching Ryder in the back and simply plowing right through, just as he’d been taught to do on the gridiron. Ryder felt Art Junior slam into him and went sprawling. Art Junior, now on top of him, started pounding, but somehow Ryder wiggled out from under the refrigerator and sprang to his feet, his fists up by his face. Art Junior slowly lumbered to his feet. Ryder was about to go for the family jewels with his foot and drop this asshole like a sack of deer feed, when the football coach came running.