Daddy's Little Girl (7 page)

When his eyes came open he found instead Beth Daye standing in the entranceway to her apartment, a strange-looking, crazed man putting his hands out to her as if he wanted to choke her.

The scream still echoed on the air.

“Maybe it was a bat,” Ruth Foster said to Minerva Smythe, her black maid, in the morning.

“Wasn’t a bat, Ruth. Wasn’t a bat.”

They were at the breakfast table in the white and yellow breakfast nook and the sunlight was pure gold. Minerva had just finished telling Ruth how, hearing a noise, she’d come downstairs last night and something had knocked her off balance. She’d banged her head and hadn’t awakened until nearly dawn. For her troubles, she’d received a goose egg that was purple against her delicate brown skin.

Ruth smiled and touched her friend’s hand. “I sure do appreciate your bravery, checking things out for us.”

Minerva returned the smile, yet there was an aloofness in her eyes. Over the years she’d heard the sound in the basement so many times ... yet Ruth didn’t seem to think anything of it. Minerva had gone exploring a few times—despite the way that her heart had threatened to drive through her chest wall, despite the way that she could scarcely catch her breath the more she walked around the ill-lit, gloomy basement—but she’d found exactly nothing. Just water-swollen walls and little alcoves left over from the days when coal had been stored down there. In all, nothing to be suspicious about, not even a place where anybody could hide especially well.

Minerva looked back at her friend. Ruth looked so pale this morning. Minerva worried about her. Ruth was a frail woman, anyway, and always there seemed to be some kind of burden on her....

A knock sounded on the back door. The two women glanced at each other. Ruth started to get up to answer it but Minerva held out a hand. “Even with a goose egg on the side of my head, I feel better than you do.”

Within three feet of the door, she could see that their caller was Jake Darcy, their handyman. He was dressed as usual in his blue work shirt, khaki work trousers, and brown twill jacket. A plump little man, he did everything around the house that the two women could not do for themselves. He smiled his curiously vacant smile at Minerva and came inside the house. He was maybe fifty, Minerva wasn’t sure.

“Just wonderin’,” Jake said in his slow drawl, “if you wanted me to get anything when I run into town this morning.” He smiled over to Ruth Foster, seeming to have a special fondness for the woman.

She smiled back at him. “Nothing for me, Jake. You might ask Minerva.”

Minerva shook her head and laughed. “Unless you can find a big strong man who wants to look around in the basement.”

Jake glanced first at Ruth Foster then back at Minerva. “What about the basement?” he said.

“Heard some strange noises in it last night.” Minerva pointed to her goose egg. “Somebody or something hit me.”

Jake smiled. His smile was very uncomfortable. “Maybe you just fell down.”

Minerva laughed and waved her hand at Ruth. “She’s trying to tell me that it was a bat. Now you’re trying to tell me that I just fell down.” There was some genuine irritation in her voice.

Sensing her friend’s dismay, Ruth took on a defensive tone. “I’m not doubting your word.”

“Neither am I,” Jake said.

Minerva checked out each one, appeared to be weighing whether or not she believed them. Finally she shrugged and said, “Well, I suppose we’ll never know what it was, I guess.” She glanced at Ruth. “No matter how many times it happens.”

Ruth shook her head. “The times before, it was the wind. That I’m sure of, Minerva.”

“The wind,” Minerva said, tired of the whole discussion. “Maybe it was.”

Jake pawed at his shirtfront with a pudgy hand. “You sure neither of you ladies wants anything from town?”

Ruth thought a moment. “A cake from the bakery would be nice.”

“For you, maybe,” Minerva smiled. She pinched more than an inch around her waist. “Not for me.”

“Oh, Minerva, you haven’t gained five pounds since I met you thirty years ago.”

“Thanks for the flattery, but if you don’t mind I’ll pass on the cake.”

Ruth smiled fondly at her friend. “Well, we’ll see tonight when I set it on the dining room table.”

Jake laughed. “Maybe I’ll stop by myself, just to see how things are going.”

“A white cake with chocolate frosting sounds good,” Ruth said.

“Just watch me resist,” Minerva said, touching the goose egg, wondering fleetingly about the noises she’d heard last night.

Already she knew she was going to give in tonight.

Not only have a piece of cake but also eat the ice cream Ruth inevitably served along with it.

“Well, ladies,” Jake said. “See you presently.”

Dave Evans leaned his head back, savoring the marijuana that was doing wonderful things to his seventeen-year-old brain.

Near the door his friend Bobby Coughlin stood guard. Never knew when one of the pisshead teachers from Burton High was going to walk in and grab you.

Dave, a handsome blond kid who could easily have made first-team quarterback if he weren’t more interested in girls and fun, was generally in enough trouble that any more would get him kicked out of school.

Such as the sort of trouble he was contemplating for tonight, just so that he would get his first opportunity to slide inside the most elusive girl in town, Angie Fuller.

“Hey, man, somebody’s comin’.”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Dave said. “I’m comin’. I’m thinkin’ of how good Angie’s gonna taste tonight.”

Bobby, who wore glasses, weighed not much more than a concentration camp victim, and was generally considered to be a pioneer in the ways of dorkiness, could only shake his head in envy. Bobby’s role was that of go-fer. By seventh grade he had learned that his only hope of surviving the cruel and capricious world of teenagers was to be a supplicant, to attach himself to the most powerful and popular kid he could. In return for Bobby’s services, he would receive protection and a measure of power himself. Which was just what he got from his relationship from Dave. Nobody picked on Bobby, because they knew if they did they would have to answer to Dave, something few sane kids in school wanted to do.

Usually, Bobby didn’t mind the role he played, except for stray moments, like now, when he got jealous of Dave and all the things Dave could do.

Such as fuck Angie Fuller, a sumptuous, teasing red-haired girl whose breasts and genitals Bobby had once seen outlined perfectly in a wet bathing suit. Since that time, he had suffered innumerable heartbreaking erections over her.

And now Dave, another notch in his gun, was going to pick her off—and all he had to do was break into the Foster mansion and walk around in the basement.

“Hurry up, man!” Bobby shouted.

Footsteps slapped down the hallway. Closer. Ever closer.

Dave finished the joint, killed the fire between his thumb and forefinger, then swallowed the roach.

By the time Mr. Sanders, the math teacher, came into the toilet, Dave was zipping his pants just as if nothing had been going on at all.

Bobby was the one who gave it away. Mr. Sanders took one look at him, sniffed the air, and Bobby started flushing and sweating and averting his eyes.

“What’s that I smell?” Mr. Sanders said. A tall man with thinning hair and a very sincere face, he was generally considered to be a “nice” teacher.

“Nothin’, Mr. Sanders,” Bobby said in his best hangdog voice.

“Is that marijuana, Bobby?”

Bobby looked desperately at Mr. Sanders.

“No, Mr. Sanders.”

Sanders paid no attention to either of them. He walked around in little circles, sniffing the air like a police dog on the prowl for drugs.

“That is marijuana,” Mr. Sanders concluded.

He walked over to Dave.

Unlike his friend Bobby, Dave seemed to be enjoying this thoroughly. His golden locks appeared to dance and his blue eyes sparkled. With a great deal of contempt and amusement, he said, “No offense, Mr. Sanders, but I don’t think you’d know marijuana if it came up and bit you on the ass.”

Dave glanced at Bobby for some laughs. But Bobby was too scared to laugh.

Mr. Sanders sniffed again.

“Being in possession of marijuana will get you expelled, Evans. In case you’ve forgotten. Which would mean you wouldn’t graduate.”

Despite the smile that remained on his lips, Dave’s heart began hammering and he felt a small, annoying tic start flicking his left eyelid.

Not graduating.

His father, a prominent local businessman, would be ashamed beyond belief. Not graduating would mean that his family had been reduced to the status of “the dirtballs,” as his father often referred to people of less fortune than the Evanses.

Dave checked out Bobby again.

Bobby was in a case of terminal shock.

“Were you smoking marijuana, Evans?”

Sanders stood no more than inches away from Dave’s face. So easy to reach out and smash the pisshead. One punch and the wimpy bastard would drop for sure.

But Dave knew better. All he had to do was think of all the things the old man would take away from him—the Trans-Am, the late-night hours, the thirty dollars a week spending money—and he knew better than to follow his instincts and punch out the math teacher, Mr. Nerd Sanders.

“No, I wasn’t, sir.”

Dave tried to swallow the “sir,” so that Bobby woudn’t hear him. To control somebody like Bobby, to keep him under your strict command, you had to convince them that you were totally fearless.

Saying “sir” didn’t do a lot to further that impression.

“You’re lying, Evans.”

The word “lying” startled Dave. That he could recall, nobody had ever accused him of lying before, even though it was something he did often.

“Are you calling me a liar, sir?” Dave felt blood fill his cheeks, felt his hands become stonelike fists eager to pound in the angular face of this nobody sonofabitch standing in front of him.

“Yes, I am.”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

Sensing the rage in his friend, Bobby said nervously, “Hey, Dave, just keep—”

“Shut up!” Dave snapped. He wheeled toward the teacher. Brought his fist up so that Sanders couldn’t help but notice it. “Now, man, you want to call me a liar again!”

“You think you can get away with anything, don’t you, Evans?”

Dave inched forward, purposely breathing on the teacher’s face.

The first inklings of fear began to show in Sanders’s face. He was not a brave man. He had spoken a few words in anger. But now that Dave was challenging those words, Sanders did not seem so brave.

“I wanna hear you say it again,” Dave said. “C’mon, call me a liar again.”

“That won’t be necessary. You heard me the first time.”

“C’mon. Just one more time, Sanders. Call me a liar again.”

Sanders had begun to sweat, to avert his eyes.

Dave had begun to smirk. He could hear how Bobby would tell this story later to all the guys. More coin of the realm for Dave.

“You think you coulda been wrong?” Dave asked, bringing up his other fist.

Sanders looked at it, looked over to Bobby who stood absolutely still, watching.

“Wrong?” Sanders said weakly.

“About smelling marijuana in here?”

Dave was so close now the teacher had to back up.

Perfect.

“No,” Sanders said, “I wasn’t wrong, Evans.”

Then Sanders stopped moving backwards and returned Dave’s glare.

“I’m not going to report you this time, but not because I’m afraid of you.”

The smirk did not leave Dave’s face. “Oh, yeah, then why aren’t you going to report me?”

“Because I don’t happen to agree with the marijuana laws.” The teacher smiled. “I’ve been known to take a toke or two on occasion myself.”

Bobby burst out laughing.

With that, the teacher left the boys’ room.

Dave stood there furious, not at all amused.

Sputtering, he said, “Bullshit, he uses it himself. I scared him is what happened. You see him start to sweat?”

Bobby muttered something or other.

Dave lashed out and grabbed his smaller friend by the shirtfront.

“I asked you if you saw him start to sweat?”

“Yeah, I saw him, Dave.”

“He left because I scared him, right?”

Bobby nodded. “Sure, Dave. That’s exactly why he left.”

Dave, still enraged, let go of Bobby, then walked over to the sink.

Combing his hair, studying himself in the mirror, had a soothing effect on him.

Bobby came up in the mirror behind him. Obviously he wanted to make it up to Dave for laughing when he shouldn’t have. He didn’t want Dave pissed at him. No way.

“Man, you really going up to the Foster house tonight?”

At first, Dave wouldn’t talk to him. Just sneered.

“You really going to, Dave?”

Through his teeth, still combing his hair, Dave said, “Yeah, asshole, I am.”

“Man, you really got balls, you really do. That place scares the shit out of me.”

There. That was a little more like it, the kind of treatment a guy expected to get from somebody like Bobby.

But he didn’t want to give in too easy.

He just kept combing his hair, watching the punk Bobby watching him.

“Angie going with you?”

“That’s what she says.” Dave smiled his best shark smile. “Then afterward—”

Bobby laughed. “Oh, that’s right, the bet. If you find out what’s in the basement of the place she—”

Dave cut him off. He didn’t want some jerk like Bobby laying his tongue on a swell chick like Angie, even if only in conversation.

“Then afterwards is none of your fucking business,” Dave said.

Bobby shrugged, crushed, and walked out of the mirror.

Then in seconds, he was back, “I want to go with you two tonight.”

For the first time, Dave laughed his natural loud laugh.

Bobby. Going with them. To the spook house.

Punk Bobby.

Yeah. Right.