Me and Billy (7 page)

Finally the Professor came out. He had put on a frock coat over his regular clothes and over the top of that a red sash covered with medals running diagonally across his chest. He made a bow to the audience and climbed up on the driver’s seat. Taking a bottle of the elixir out of the coat pocket, he held it up and began to spiel, talking in some kind of accent that would
have made me bust out laughing if I hadn’t of been so embarrassed. He told them how happy he was to be visiting the charming town of Sabbath and how intelligent the citizens all were. Then he went into the wonderful properties of the elixir, naming all the things it would cure, which was just about anything. He told a couple of stories of famous people who he’d cured with it—Billy’s king of France wasn’t so far off the mark, even if France didn’t have a king. He told them nowhere else could you buy human happiness for a dollar a bottle.

It was beyond me how he could get up there dressed like a circus ringmaster and sling out that palaver in that fake accent. I couldn’t of done it for a million dollars—I’d of dropped dead of shame.

But Billy was just the opposite. He stood there with his mouth open, staring and taking it all in. From time to time I saw his lips move, like he was trying out something the Professor said. Oh, I was going to have a time of it dragging him off to look for the lake of gold.

Finally the Professor said, “My assistants will now pass among you a sample bottle. Just taste it for yourself and see if you don’t feel much improved on the instant.”

We each took a bottle of the stuff and went amongst the little crowd. They were curious, by and large, and most of them took a sip—pretty careful, once they got a smell of it. One or two even said, “By
golly, I do feel perked up a little,” which didn’t surprise me, for that taste would of waked up a dead man. Finally someone bit. That started the thing rolling, and before you knew it we’d sold seven or eight bottles and had three or four more people wavering.

And the Professor was just starting on another spiel to see if he couldn’t pull the waverers across the line, when somebody just behind us said in a voice so loud we jumped: “As I suspected, Johnny McCarthy.”

Me and Billy whipped around, and the Professor broke off his spiel. Standing just a bit back from the van so he was facing the crowd was a fella in a suit, tie, and brown derby hat. He took a big gold watch out of his pocket, snapped the lid up, and looked at it. “I’ll give you just ten minutes to get you and your little trolls out of town.”

He snapped the lid of the watch closed and stuck it back in his pocket.

We looked up at the Professor. He swiveled around to face the man. “Sir, you must be mistaken. I’m Professor Alberto Santini of the—”

“Ten minutes, Johnny.” He unbuttoned his suit jacket and let it fall open. We could now see a small pistol tucked into the waist of his pants. He turned and walked away.

The Professor turned back to the little mob. “Sorry about the intrusion, folks. Pay no attention.” He gestured to me, and I came back into the van. He bent over. “Quick, see if you can sell a couple more bottles.”
He started spieling again. We went back into the crowd and did sell two more bottles. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the man in the suit and the derby hat strolling toward us again. The Professor waved to us. “I’m sorry we must say good-bye. It brings a tear to the eyes to have to leave your charming town, but we have a great many places to visit.” He sat down on the van seat and picked up the reins. “Quick, boys, hop aboard.” He picked up the whip, gave the mules a lick, and in a minute we were heading on out the opposite side of Courthouse Square into the countryside beyond. As we rumbled onto the dirt road, I took a look back at the man in the suit and derby hat. He was standing alone in the middle of the square, one hand cradling the watch, the other hand on the butt of the pistol.

We skipped through the next two or three little towns in order to get well clear of the gent with the pistol, the watch, and the derby hat. Finally we pulled down a wood lane, where we were clear of the road. The Professor sent us off to find firewood and a stream, and as soon as we were out of earshot I said, “I knew it, Billy. I knew sooner or later we’d get into trouble, and here it happened on our second day. We’ve got to get away from this Professor and find other jobs.”

He put his hands on his hips and puffed out his cheeks. “I didn’t think you were such a coward, Possum. That fella wasn’t going to shoot anybody. He was just threatening us. Probably has his own game going in Sabbath and didn’t want us moving in on him. Did you get a look at him? He wasn’t any
farmer in overalls and a straw hat. He was up to something.”

“Don’t bother calling me a coward, Billy. I didn’t see you looking so blame happy when that fella came around with that little pistol.”

“We already left that fella thirty miles behind us.”

“Still, I don’t see any reason for being shot at when we don’t have to be. We’re supposed to be hunting for that gold lake, not running around the country skinning people,” I said.

“Where else are we going to get a job like this? No work to amount to anything, good grub, lots of time to lie around in the sun, and a dollar a day besides.”

“Yes, a dollar a day would be mighty good money if we ever saw any of it.”

“Oh, he’ll pay us, Possum. He’s got to sooner or later.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

He frowned. Then he said, “All right, Possum, you got another job for us?”

He had me there. “Well, OK, I can see where we’ve got to stick to this for a while. Once we get some money saved up, we go look for that lake.”

He didn’t say anything, but I knew he was thinking that if he could just get me to stick with it for a bit, I’d get used to it.

For the next week we traipsed along in that van from one little town to the next—West Potato, Harpoon, Misery Plains, Dead Creek. There wasn’t
much to choose from amongst them—same main street, same grain-and-feed store, same dogs laying in the same dusty street, same farmers in overalls and straw hats leaning somewhere chewing straw. Sometimes we did pretty good and sold a couple of dozen bottles of the elixir, sometimes only six or seven. It was enough to get along on—buy oats for the mules, eggs, meat, potatoes, and cider for the humans, kerosene, shoe polish, and such for the business. The Professor kept saying, “Never mind, boys. We’re just warming up. Down the road there’s some big towns where we’ll clean up.”

I figured the Professor was stowing away a little money for himself, for he did all the shopping. We could figure how much was coming in pretty close, but we didn’t know how much was going out. All we ever knew was what the Professor told us, and that was usually on the order of, “I never heard of such a price for kerosene,” or “that fella must think them eggs is gold-plated,” usually with a shake of the head.

There was one thing to be said for the Professor, though: he liked his chow. He could cook good, too, even though it was over a campfire and he had only three or four pots and pans to work with. He took a lot of pains over it. “See here, fellas, how them eggs is just beginning to get a shine on top? Now you baste it with the hot fat, and in half a minute they’ll be done just right—the white hard and the yellow still runny enough to soak into the bread.” He’d fry up slices of
bread in the fat, and you’d have the best tasting fried-egg sandwiches you ever slid into your mouth. Same thing with everything else—steak done just so; fried potatoes crisp but not hard; pancakes golden brown, firm but moist inside. Billy was beginning to fill out, and he said I was, too. If they’d had cooking like that at the Home, we might never of run off.

Billy was having the time of his life. He’d lost interest in that gold lake.

He was getting some idea of handling mules, although they were still suspicious of him and would balk on him sometimes. He was practicing up on the Professor’s spiel—I wasn’t supposed to know that, but sometimes I’d see his lips moving while the Professor was throwing his line. And he’d graduated from hauling water up to helping the Professor mix the elixir. “You’re doing right good, Billy,” the Professor said. “You got a ways to go, but you’ll get there. I don’t doubt that the time’ll come when I’ll be able to turn the mixing over to you altogether.” That didn’t surprise me very much: the Professor was usually ready to turn over to us anything he could.

I noticed another thing, too: I was getting used to it myself. The days were beginning to blur together and so were all those people we were skinning. They weren’t people anymore, just hands waving dollars at us.

The more I saw that, the more it worried me. Back at the Home, we boys figured we deserved anything we could get away with. Out here it was getting harder
and harder for me to see where these people deserved to be skinned. Oh, some of them did: the Professor said so, and I didn’t doubt it. But some of them—you could tell by their clothes and such—needed their dollar as much as the Professor did. They only gave it up because they were desperate to cure their husband or their old ma of something. It was making me wonder.

I brought it up with Billy one afternoon when we were walking into some little town to put up a poster.

“Billy, what about that lake?”

“Shucks,” he said. “I figured you’d probably forgotten all about it.”

“Well, I haven’t. We agreed we’d stick it out with the Professor until we saved up some money, and then we’d go find the lake.”

“I don’t know where I agreed to that.”

“Yes, you did, Billy.” To tell the truth, I couldn’t remember exactly what he’d agreed to that last time we’d talked about it, but I figured he didn’t, either.

He paused. Then he said, “That’s just it, Possum. We haven’t saved up any money.”

“That’s because the Professor hasn’t given us any. He owes us for a week. He’s got us doing most of the work now, except for the spiel and jamming dollar bills in his pants. He’s just bone lazy, Billy.”

“Possum, I hate to quit now, just when I’m beginning to get the hang of spieling. I’d like to get to where I could do it myself.” He gave me a look. “It might come in handy for us someday.”

“No, it won’t, Billy. More likely we’ll get shot by somebody we skinned once too often.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that fella, Possum. He’s long behind us.”

“Still, you agreed,” I said.

He stood there frowning and trying to remember what he’d agreed to. “I don’t think I ever agreed in just so many words,” he said.

That was probably true. Billy was likely to be pretty cagey about exactly what he agreed to. But he didn’t remember for sure. “Billy, you agreed.”

He shook his head, sore at himself because he couldn’t remember. “That may be so,” he said finally. “But we still haven’t got any money.”

“We got to ask him for it,” I said.

“He might not like it.”

“I don’t reckon he’s going to like it,” I said. “But if we don’t ask him, we’ll never get it.”

It was clear that Billy didn’t really care about the money: it was the easy life and skinning people that he liked. But he couldn’t admit that—he had to pretend he was in it for the money. “All right, Possum, I agree we got to get our money. But you got to ask him for it, since it was your idea.”

The idea made me nervous, for I knew that the Professor would be sore about it. What would I do if he told me to beat it, that he and Billy would run the business without me? Would Billy let me go like that? I
didn’t think he would, so the Professor would have to be careful about what he said. Still, it made me nervous.

I waited until supper, when the Professor was feeling contented and had nothing better to do with himself but sit there burping his chicken and biscuits. I tried to think of a soft way of putting it, but I couldn’t, so I plunged in.

“Prof, it’s been a week since we came onboard. When do you figure you might give us our money?”

The Professor gave me a look and frowned. “I’m mighty sorry you felt you had to bring that up, Possum. It don’t show much faith in old Prof, does it? Especially not after I rescued you and Billy from that Home and got you started out in a trade most young fellas would give their right arm for.” He put on a sorrowful expression, like he was Saint Christopher with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and stared up at the sky. Finally he said, “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Possum. I’m going to forgive you. Yes, I’m going to take into account that you was raised in a Home without a ma’s tender arms around you, and you got hard and greedy from the experience. I’m going to find compassion in my heart for you and do like a good Christian—forgive.” He swiveled his head down from the sky and looked at me. “There. Enough said, Possum. We’ll just forget the whole thing. We’ll consider you never said anything about it.”

He was spieling me just the way he did the folks with the elixir, and it made me sore. “Prof, you said you’d pay us a dollar a day.”

Billy jumped in. “That’s right, Prof. You didn’t rescue us from the Home. I blame near killed myself sliding out that window.” Billy knew there wouldn’t be any excuse for staying if we didn’t get the money.

Now it was Billy’s turn to receive the sorrowful Saint Christopher look. “So that’s all the thanks I get, Billy. I didn’t want to tell you this, for I didn’t want to worry you both none. But that Deacon of yours was right on your trail. I saw him myself coming along the street peering this way and that way down the alleys and into doorways.”

“I wonder how you recognized him,” I said.

“Recognize him? Why I didn’t have to recognize him. He came right up to me and asked did I see a couple of raggedy boys that had run away from a Home? There was a hundred-dollar reward out, cash on the barrelhead. Did I turn you in? Nothing of the kind. I said I had just got into town myself and didn’t see any boys. You fellas had better think twice before you scoff at what I done for you.”

There wasn’t a word of truth in it. Deacon would never, ever put up a hundred dollars reward even if his own sister got kidnapped out of the Home. I was determined he wasn’t going to skin us. “Even so,” I said, “we got to have some money. We can’t go on working for nothing forever.”