Face on the Wall (35 page)

H
omer's class was still meeting in the Concord prison. Even though daily life had become increasingly insane, he attended faithfully, once a week.

Jimmy and Ferris were gone. Ernest Beck with was new. He was enraged at the length of his sentence for selling hashish. “That judge,” said Ernest, “he didn't like me none.”

It was obvious to Homer that Ernest was right.. The judge had gloated over the opportunity to make him an example. He had brought down against him the full force of the mandatory minimum sentencing law. Ernest was in for twenty-one years, with no opportunity for parole. “Twenty-one years!” said Homer. “It's barbaric.”

As for Hank, he was now so angry about the lack of recompense for services rendered, he could hardly speak.

“Wait a minute,” said Homer, “I can't help you unless I know more about it. What were the services you rendered? What did you do that you were not paid for?”

Hank shifted his angry glance down to his shoes and muttered something under his breath.

“Well, what kind of work do you do, Hank I mean, on the outside?”

“I'm an auto mechanic,” snarled Hank. “I was like fifteen when I started in my uncle's garage. I got twenty-five years' experience.”

Homer tipped his chair back lazily. “Well, were you repairing somebody's car? Was that it? The job you didn't get paid for?”

“Not repairing it,” burst out Hank, “not repairing it, for shit's sake. The
opposite
of repairing it.” His eyes moved left to Gordie and Barkley, right to Fergie and Ernest. “I mean, this guy appears at my shop in this old heap and asks me to loosen the brakes, so it, like, wouldn't have any brakes at all, so I says what for, and he says none of your goddamn business, so I figure he's going to wreck it, claim it was an accident, get the insurance. But, shit, better not to ask what for, what the hell, so he drove it to my place and I did what he said, not much to it, he must be an ignoramus not to be able to do it himself, so then a tow truck come and took it away. He was supposed to pay me a goddamn thousand the next day, only I got picked up for dealing and they put me in here, lousy mandatory sentence, me and Emest and a lotta other guys gonna spend half our lives incarcerated, only the guy never paid me, he was gonna pay in cash, only he didn't.”

“That's crazy,” said Homer. “You could get him in real trouble. Did you have an invoice, a bill or something with his name on it?”

“Hell no, he said verbal agreement, okay? I don't even know his name.”

Homer thought about it. “So you want me to find him, is that it?”

“Right, like you're free of charge, right?”

Homer sighed. “That's right. What towing company was it?”

“Jeez, I don't know. Big wrecker.”

“What did he look like, this guy?”

“Medium height, sweat suit, Bruins cap.”

“My God, Hank, it could be anybody.” Homer rubbed his chin. “What make was the car, what year?”

“Chevy Cutlass. Lousy old green four-door. Early eighties. Tires really bald. I told him, I said, nobody oughta drive that heap. Oughta be in a junkyard.”

“Junkyard, there's an idea. I could find out if it turned up at Boozer Brown's place.”

“Boozer Brown? Oh, yeah, I heard of Boozer Brown. Biggest junkyard in Massachusetts, right?”

The good thing about Boozer, reflected Homer, driving out Route 9, was the personal interest he took in every old hulk that appeared on his lot. He was like an antiquarian bookseller, cherishing every ancient volume on his shelves. Maybe it was this loving attention that had made him so successful.

“My God, Boozer,” said Homer, surveying the vast acreage of Boozer's territory, spreading in all directions, littered with wrecks, “you've expanded. When we first met, out there on Nantucket, you had just four or five old cars. And a couple years ago, when I was here, it wasn't anything like this. Look at you now. You must be visible from the moon, like the Great Wall of China. Congratulations.”

Boozer smiled proudly. “Thash right. More people driving too fasht, crazhy kidzh, nutsh onna highway, I get what'sh left. You should jusht shee the way they pour in here, day after day. Blood! Shome of ‘em, shoaked in blood. Shometimes an arm or a leg.”

Homer was used to Boozer's apocalyptic pronouncements, but he flinched anyway. “Listen, Boozer, what I'm looking for this time is a green Chevy Cutlass, early eighties, four-door sedan.”

Boozer's ruined face lighted up. “Oh, sure, I got a coupla thozhe. Wants shee I put ‘em shide by shide. Like I file my shtock in categoriezh, short of. You oughta shee my Lamborghini collection. Shix or sheven Lamborghinizh, shtupid driverzh think they oughta go like hell.”

Sin and its punishment, thought Homer, as they walked companionably through Boozer Brown's emporium. Where else was it displayed so simply? There should be a sign over the entrance to Boozer's junkyard, “Quod Erat Demonstrandum.” Theologians should bring their congregations here on Sunday morning, philosophers should trot their students up and down the aisles between shattered Lamborghinis and crushed Mitsubishis, opening a door now and then, holding up an arm or a leg.

“Here we are,” said Boozer proudly, stopping beside a pair of Cutlasses. One was crumpled into a frightful crescent of twisted metal, the other was a sad-looking heap with a missing door. Homer reached in and tested the hand brake. It wobbled in his hand.

“Shperfectly okay,” said Boozer. “Jusha lil problem with the brakes. Needzha new door. You want it? Fifty bucksh, she'zh yourzh.”

“Oh, no thank you, Boozer. Tell me, how do these—uh—automobiles get here? Wreckers bring them? Company's got a contract or something?”

“Right.” Boozer pulled an old-fashioned hip flask from his pocket, took a swig, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Thish one, wrecker come from Waltham. Waltham Towing. I know the guy. He prolly collected it from shome garage, getzh a bunch of 'em, bringzh 'em all at onczh on a trailer. You know.”

“Good, Boozer. That's great. I'll try Waltham Towing, see if I can track down who it belonged to.” Homer glanced again at the car. “I don't suppose—”

“Regishtration? Take a look.” Obligingly Boozer opened the car door, flipped open the glove compartment, pawed inside it, and brought out an envelope. “Thish izh your lucky day.”

“Great.” Homer reached for it, congratulating himself for so easily solving Hank's grievance. Whoever the bastard was, he'd have to pay up, and then—very possibly—he'd be in much worse trouble. Grinning, Homer slipped out the registration and read the name of the owner of the battered green Chevy Cutlass.

It was Robert Gast.

Chapter 53

… I passed the night and awoke possessing not a piece of silver nor one of gold, and I said within myself, This is the work of the Devil!

The Thousand and One Nights

C
indy Foxweiler's swim cap was yellow, her pink feet lashed the water. Charlene threw all her strength into her strong arms and hurled her body forward, but she couldn't swim fast enough, she couldn't catch Cindy. At the edge of the pool Cindy's yellow cap bobbed up, glistening in the light, and Cindy's coach bent down to her, laughing, and Cindy tore off her goggles, her grin wide and triumphant, her teeth dazzling in her freckled face.

Charlene couldn't believe it. She heard the wild applause and looked up at the cheering people in the bleachers, then ducked her head under the water. In all the other lanes kids were climbing out, pulling off their goggles and caps. Charlene lay still.

In the end her coach had to jump in and pull her out. “Charlene,” he said anxiously, wrapping a towel around her shoulders and holding her upright, “are you okay?”

Charlene said nothing. The water streaming down her face was only partly the chlorinated water of the pool. The rest was tears. She had lost the Junior Olympics.

“I saw it,” said Annie in triumph. “I saw that car plunge down the hill. Flimnap was out there in the vegetable garden, and he raced across and jumped in the car and tried to turn it sideways because it was heading for those big oak trees down there. Eddy would have been killed.”

Homer and Mary were sitting with Annie in the shade of one of the giddy awnings that had been rigged up by Henry Coombs, a set of old bedspreads swaying on poles. The poles creaked, the bedspreads billowed out like sails, giving Annie's ruined house a festive air. Before them lay the mounded wreckage of her south windows and bookcases, her shattered bedroom and ruined bath. Some tasteful person had removed the toilet, or shoved it behind a bush.

Behind them as they sat under the awning, Annie's wall was still bright and perfect, although it was more endangered than a whooping crane or a shrinking population of whales. Her figures gazed out serenely from their fanciful gallery, as if their future were assured. Annie had washed the wall with soap and water. The colors sparkled, the painted columns shone.

Hunched over cups of coffee, they ignored the wall and talked about the car that Homer had found at Boozer Brown's.

“I thought it was strange,” said Annie. “I hadn't seen that car since the day they came here to look at the house. Pretending to be so poor.” Angrily she turned to Mary. “Such a sweet impoverished young family. I fell for it and knocked the rent way down. Then, when they moved in, there was no more old Chevy, just a couple of sporty new cars.”

Mary nodded wisely. “But the Chevy turned up again when they wanted to get rid of Eddy, is that it?”

“That's right. There it was again. Flimnap saw it parked at the top of the hill, sort of poised on the edge with the driver's door open.”

“I'll bet Eddy's weight was all it took to start it rolling,” grumbled Homer. “They left the door open to entice him inside.”

“‘Come into my parlor,'” said Annie angrily. “It's what they accuse me of doing, luring him into my house, leaving the door unlocked. Only it must have been Bob Gast who unlocked my door with his key, the one he copied at the hardware store! And listen, what about the time Eddy was almost run over on Route 2? They used to let him run loose all the time! And whenever he came to my house they never looked for him. As far as they knew, he might be lost in the woods. I suppose they hoped he'd end up on Route 2 again and be run over for real this time.”

“And the sledgehammer,” said Homer, his voice heavy with indignation. “Don't forget the sledgehammer. Gast bought a nice new sledgehammer at the hardware store. In case the kid didn't die when he fell off the scaffolding, the sledgehammer would finish him off.”

Annie gasped. Mary shuddered. “Oh, for heaven's sake, Homer.”

“And then,” Homer went on cheerfully, “he washed off the sledgehammer so no little bits of bloody scalp would be stuck in a crack anywhere, and then he washed his hands and scrubbed his fingernails,
scrubba-dubba-dub
.” Homer demonstrated with an imaginary brush. “And then, when everything was all clean and tidy, he called the police, full of righteous indignation and fatherly grief.”