Stolen Grace (37 page)

She giggled, “Pinocchio’s silly!”

The priest’s eyes were alight with fire. “Then Pinocchio started to dance and he earned money at a puppet show.” The priest put his hand in his robe pocket and pulled out some córdoba coins and a dollar bill. “Adela just gets coins because she only touched Pinocchio’s mouth. But María gets a whole
dollar
because she really played the game.” He divided the money and gave it to the children, licking his lips at the same time. “But then,” he went on, “Pinocchio forgot to go to school. He’d been given a school uniform and had lots of money spent on him, but he didn’t turn up. Then what do you think happened?”

“He told a lie,” Grace offered.

“That’s right. He
lied
and said he
did
go to school. And then what happened?”

“His nose grew long.” Grace looked at Padre Marco’s nose. It was already very, very long. And big. How could it get any bigger?

“Now we are going to pretend,” he said, standing up and lifting up his robe above his legs, “that Pinocchio’s nose is right here.” His chubby fingers pointed between his naked legs—no underpants, just bare. There were two, round, hairy things hanging like rotten, wizened, kiwi fruits with his Willy in between, which he fondled and played with. “Now imagine this is Pinocchio’s nose.”

“That’s not a
nose
!”

“We’re playing a
game
, María! Do you want money and chocolate or
not
?” His voice had turned Dragonish. Grace didn’t want to play anymore, if he was going to be mean.

María touched his Willy and it sprang up like a creature with a heart and lungs and a brain all of its own.

“Aah, aah,” the father cried out as if it hurt, “you see how Pinocchio’s nose grows when he tells a lie? How come a lie can feel so
good
?” he groaned. “Would you like Pinocchio to lie again? Come on little Adela, make Pinocchio lie.”

“No.”

“María?”

María took the live animal in her hand and laughed. Then she slapped it so it waved left and then right. “It’s gone all hard,” she tittered.

“Hold Pinocchio’s nose, María. Hard. I said, HOLD IT!”

She obeyed.

“Squeeze it, move your hand up and down, he ordered, gripping María’s hand, putting it under his own. Grace noticed lilac-blue veins popping out of the “nose” like rivers. “See how he lies?” he puffed. “See how bad he is? He’s a bad, bad, wicked boy!”

María wriggled her little hand away.

“In fact, he’s so bad I need to take this bad boy in hand
myself
,” he panted, grabbing the thing in his right fist and rubbing and pulling it up and down like it was a cow’s udder until he was going faster and faster and faster like a runaway train. His hips were making dancy circles in the air, his robe was swinging from side to side, wagging like a dog’s tail. Finally, he grunted, “Aah!” White water came out of the wee-wee hole and Grace smelled a raw potato, bleachy smell. Clorox and potatoes. The priest started to cry. He had tears in his eyes. Grace felt badly for him because he must have been in terrible pain. “Bad, bad Pinocchio,” he whimpered, and then he quickly wiped the thing—which had suddenly turned all tiny and Flopsy Bunny—he wiped it with his robe. Then he let the dress drop to the floor, covering his fat thighs once more.

“I’m sorry girls, that Pinocchio was such a liar tonight. Such a big, bad
liar
! But you Angels have been so good. So good, that tomorrow I’m going to buy you candy.”

“And our uniforms?” Grace asked in a very small voice.

“Oh yes. Absolutely. Nice, neat, clean uniforms for two, clean little girls. Now remember what I said, this is
our
secret.” He started to move toward the curtain to leave.

“Will we play Pinocchio tomorrow night and earn more money?” María asked.

“Perhaps. Although I’d like to keep Pinocchio under control. But then again, it’s true, he does need some eyes, doesn’t he, girls? Maybe you could paint some eyes on either side of his big bad nose. That would be fun. That would make the nose get
really
enormous. Ooh yes, that would be great fun.” He crept out of the shack, tiptoeing like he wanted to be a ballet dancer but making a lot of noise as he went. Then he peeped his head back in. Grace saw how shiny and round and red it was, even redder than the snaky Willy with just one eye and a Life of its Own. “Night, night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite,” he said softly.

Grace wanted to wash her hands. She had touched his wet mouth with her finger. She would have to keep this a secret. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t want anybody to know about this ever, ever, ever—there was something stinky about it all. She wondered if her mom could see from Heaven, if she had seen the priest playing Pinocchio with them. She hoped that she was busy doing something else, playing with Mrs. Paws, perhaps.

Because she never, ever wanted her mom to find out.

Sylvia

U
sing Elodie’s ear-buds and connecting the recording pen to Tommy’s iPhone, Sylvia spent the taxi ride, and every minute after, listening to Grace’s recordings. It broke her heart to know that her daughter had visions of her dead in Heaven, to be taken any minute in a black limousine down to Hell to burn and fry with the Devil if Grace said a word to anybody about who Ruth was, or if she tried to speak English. Poor Grace. That witch had filled her head with images of horror: a spiteful God, Bogeymen, trash dumps in Rio. She’d killed off Pidgey O Dollars—of course she had, he was in the photo they’d posted everywhere on the Internet: Grace smiling with her teddy. No wonder Grace hadn’t told a soul—she was terrified. Wetting her bed proved it.

Sylvia listened over and over to each session, starting from before Mrs. Paws’s poisoning and culminating with whole tracts of Spanish. Grace was no longer speaking her own language, except for more complicated words and phrases that had no translation, like blasphemous.

Ruth was even more malevolent than Sylvia had feared. Melinda was right—she’d had designs on Tommy all along. But she was all messed up, too. Traumatized by a five-year-old wetting the bed even though it was she, Ruth, who was provoking her to do so. Grace hadn’t wet her bed for two whole years, previously. Poor little thing. What was Ruth’s plan? Dump Grace and take up with Tommy in her new guise? Just leave Grace with Lucho, and hope for the best? Or, hope for the worst? Sylvia noticed how, not even once, had her daughter declared that she hated Ruth, not once had Grace yelled “I hate Ruth.” Yet by God, was that woman hateable.

Sylvia and Elodie met up with Melinda. They were sitting at a restaurant in the town of Chinandega. Melinda had dumped her backpack at a guesthouse, and now all three were waiting for some dinner. Despite having eaten at Angela’s, Sylvia still felt hungry, as if food could sop-up the ache of anxiety and pain. Earlier, she’d found a couple of schools, although they were obviously closed until tomorrow. She didn’t know what more she could do that night—be patient, wait until light.

Elodie’s camera had been pulled out several times, but most of the people to whom she’d shown the photos were more fascinated by the gadget itself than the images it portrayed. Nobody, so far, had seen the little girl in the photos.

“Boy, is she one sick bitch,” Melinda spat out, having just re-listened to the poisoning of Mrs. Paws.

Sylvia took a long swig of water. “It just amazes me that this pen was with Grace the whole time. Tommy and I’d forgotten all about it.”

Melinda asked, “What I don’t understand is how Grace got it past Ruth? Where did she hide it and
when
did she do all those secret recordings?”

Elodie had been doing her best to follow the women’s conversation. “She had it inside her teddy bear. I saw her once.”

“You mean she hid it in her pajama-case teddy, Carrot?” Sylvia asked.

“Yeah.”

Sylvia grinned. “Of course, what a clever place! So smart. She’s hidden stuff inside him before. She’s quite a magpie.”

“What did you get me again?” Melinda asked, who had been in the bathroom while they ordered earlier.

“You said you wanted something simple, so I just asked for a
gallo pinto
.”

“And that is?

“Basically, red beans and fried rice with onions and peppers. That’s how Angela made it, anyway.”

“Perfect,” Melinda said. “What are you getting?”

Sylvia took a glug of Coca Cola. It tasted delicious. “Me? I ordered a
nactamale
, whatever that is. Thought I was still hungry but I’ve lost my appetite.” She looked at Elodie. “Your English is good, Elodie. So you and Grace
never
spoke in English?”

“I had no idea she could speak English. No idea, at all.”

“All that Brimstone and Fire that Ruth threatened her with, I guess. Grace was just too scared, poor honey. Where did you learn your English, Elodie?”

“I went to work for my uncle in New York. Did a crash course, you know.”

Sylvia shifted in her chair with embarrassment and tried to hide a quiet curl of her lips—“Hell O.D.” as Grace called her in the recording. Elodie was sweet, though, once she warmed up. But Grace had obviously been jealous. Being little didn’t exempt her from feelings of love, even with a man old enough to be her father.

Sylvia had been so preoccupied by the recording pen that she forgot to see if either Tommy or Agent Russo had replied to her latest message. She scrolled down her iPhone and saw:

Darling,

Ruth has supposedly been spotted. Three times. The
Lonely Planet
forum again. On the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, if you can believe it. What she is doing amidst all those tourists is beyond me – she’s really pushing her luck. Another trap of hers? I think it very well could be. Will keep you posted.

Love Tommy

She quickly replied:

Tommy,

Watch out – she’s used the forums before to her advantage – definitely think it’s a trap. S x

Sylvia looked up from her cell phone and noticed a gaggle of young teenage girls approach the restaurant, chatting. American.

“Excuse me?” Sylvia began. “I’m looking for a little girl who looks like a local child and I’m showing everyone and his cousin her photo—would you all mind taking a look?”

One of the girls, with slightly rounded shoulders, long stringy hair, and perfect train-track trained teeth, sat down. It seemed incongruous, Sylvia thought—a band of teenage girls in a non-touristic town in Nicaragua.

“Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name’s Sylvia. This is Melinda . . . and where’s Elodie? She’s got the camera.”

“Went to the bathroom,” Melinda said.

“Hi, I’m Casey and this is Amy and Sonia. We’re here with
Christ’s Little Workers,
a charity.”

“Good for you.” Sylvia sucked in a breath and asked, “Have you visited any schools by any chance?”

“Yes, we did the rounds. Played baseball with the kids—they’re crazy for baseball here, or as they say,
béisbol
. We read them stories, you know, stuff like that,” the girl called Casey told them.

“Uh, oh, here they come!” her friend Sonia exclaimed, a cherubic blonde who looked as if she’d stepped out of rural Ireland a hundred years ago. “Brace, brace!”

A host of little boys, barefoot and wild, swarmed around their table like locusts on ripe wheat. For such a ravenous lot as they obviously were, they were effervescent and cheery, as if being hungry were incidental. “No girl here, you give to boy tonight, boy have good food,” one shrieked through a wide and cheeky smile.

“Fuera, niños!” The restaurant manager, a portly man with a handlebar moustache, came storming from inside, booming and yelling into the small crowd, waving his arms and fending them off like a pack of hyenas feasting on
his
—the lion’s—meat. These were his customers and he didn’t want to lose their business. “Fuera!”

The boys ran off.

“We’re used to this,” Casey told Sylvia. “The children come every night. Even if we pick a different restaurant, they’ll track us down all the same.” She was smiling, though. Scary, thought Sylvia, how one can harden to extreme poverty so soon. “We give them our leftovers,” the girl continued. “We did invite some little girls to come tonight as our guests, real guests—not scraps, but a proper meal—but they haven’t shown. You say you’re looking for your daughter?”

Sylvia sat erect, her eyes shining with hope. “Yes, she was kidnapped and then abandoned. Good, here comes Elodie. Elodie, show the girls the photos of Grace.”

“Grace? Why does that ring a bell?” The three teenagers moved toward Elodie and crowded around the camera. “Oh my goodness, it’s
her.
It’s that little girl with the mesmerizing eyes! She’s the one who should be coming tonight to have dinner here!”

Sylvia’s insides made a loop. “You
saw
her?”

“Yes. Last night. She was with another girl. Another beggar girl.”

“Are you sure it was her?”

“Yes, those eyes and that pixie-cut hair. It was her. Sorry to say this but she was, like, really poor. I mean skinny and dirty with no shoes and like, totally filthy.”

Melinda looked as if she was having heart palpitations. “She’s alive. Grace is alive!”

“That’s right. I remember now. She said her name was Grace, but she was speaking Spanish. She’s your
daughter?
She looks—”

“Like a local. I know,” Sylvia said.

“Except for those eyes,” the girl said, her gaze wide. “They were haunting—I’ve never seen anybody with such a soulful, sad look.”

Soulful yes. Sad?
Sylvia had never perceived her daughter that way. It made her wilt to contemplate her five-year-old as being unhappy. But she was, as Melinda pointed out, alive. Sylvia explained the adoption to her listeners. It was beginning to irk her. Never before had she had to expound on the subject of her motherhood so incessantly and convince people that Grace did, yes really did, belong to her.