The Witch's Key (10 page)

“I bet, but you know, I can’t stop thinking about
what you told me about your son.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. If you don’t mind me saying, some things don’t
add up. For instance, you said that when you got back from the war,
you couldn’t find your son because all the records pertaining to
his whereabouts were destroyed.”

“That’s right.”

“You didn’t check with the Department of Children’s
Services?”

“No. The county had no such department back
then.”

“What about—”

He turned his head sharply to cut me off. “I
checked,” he said, and then refocused his attention out the window.
In any other instance, I would have left it at that. But all my
life I had questions about who I was and where I came from, and
only one man, whose days now were literally numbered, possessed the
answers. I knew he would not understand my motives for persisting,
but at the risk of upsetting a dying old man, I had to know. I
kicked back in my chair to soften my delivery, though I knew that
either way I dished it out, it would sound like a challenge.

“Mister Marcella, you told me yesterday that you and
Gypsy were inseparable for a while, that you guys traveled the
entire northeast corridor together.”

He smiled at that. “Yes, we did.”

“You mentioned how you used to refer to each other as
Bergman and Cooper, after their roles in the movie,
To Whom the
Bell Tolls
.”

“No, no, just Ingrid and Gary, but that was only for
a short time. Later, we started calling each other Katharine and
Spencer.”

“After Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy?”

“Yeah, because of the way they argued all the time in
the movies and then make up.”

“I see. And after all that jaunting around, you said
that Gypsy gave birth to baby Anthony.”

“That’s right.”

“But then she left, and after five years you got
called into the war and you had to put Anthony up at an orphanage
house.”

By now, the freight that pulled out at Minor’s Point
was long gone. Though Pops still swanned the horizon looking for
it, I knew that what he saw instead was a five-year-old boy, scared
and alone on a doorstep, waiting for his dad to return. “I had no
choice,” he whispered. “It was the war.”

“But it wasn’t,” I said. “Was it?”

His eyes floated back to me, still glazed and
unblinking. “No?”

I shook my head. “The movie,
To Whom the Bell
Tolls
, came out in 1943. You said that you and Gypsy were
traveling the NEC that year. If baby Anthony was born sometime
after that, and you left him on the doorstep of an orphanage five
years later, then that would mean you gave him up at least two
years after the war ended. So you see why I have a hard time with
some of it.”

When I bounced all that off Pops, I figured he might
say almost anything to deny his failure as a responsible parent. I
thought he might try to whitewash the most traumatic episode of my
life and sweep it under the carpet by telling me to go to hell and
that it was none of my business. What I did not expect, however,
was for him to turn the tables on me completely and make me almost
wish I were never born.

“I loved Anthony,” he said. His voice sounded choppy
and scratchy. I wanted to think it was all a put-on, perhaps
unwilling to believe that he could get choked up about something
that happened so many years ago. But as I listened to him speak, it
was all I could do not to get choked up myself.

“I don’t know why I told you that story yesterday,”
he continued. “I guess I’m still in denial about what I did to that
boy. I didn’t want you to think I was a bad father. The truth is, I
wasn’t his father at all.”

“What!” I nearly fell out of my chair. “But you
said….”

“I know what I said. But things were always a little
complicated with Gypsy and me. Hell, things were complicated with
Gypsy and anyone else she ever knew, for that matter. I guess I
just wanted to simplify it for you.”

“Well, how `bout you give me the complicated version
now?”

“It could take some time.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He laughed. “But I am, so I guess I’ll give you the
skinny on it as best I can.”

I presented my hand in a sweep. “All right.”

“It all started the day we met Jersey Jake,” he said.
“Jake was a hotshot from Trenton. Thought he knew everything. Had
it all, too: good looks, street smarts, ambition out the caboose,
you name it. But he was green when it came to hopping freights.
Gypsy and I met him on a slow run out of Potomac. The fool kid rode
in on a loaded flat car. Can you believe it?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Pops reeled back as if whiffing smelling salt.
“Nothin`, if you don’t mind getting killed or maimed. Freight on
flatbeds tends to shift on you suddenly when you least expect it.
You’re better off riding on tank cars if you have no other choice.
For my money, though, and Gypsy was no exception, the only way to
ride is in an open boxcar. That’s what the two of us were riding in
the day we met Jersey Jake. It was also the day I almost killed
myself.” He took a deep breath as if narrowly escaping the fate
once again.

“See, Gypsy and I were running what you call a
splash-n-dash. That’s when you hop off a train that’s creeping
through backyard neighborhoods where the houses are real close to
the tracks. If you come upon these houses around daybreak and hit
that sweet hour where the homeowners haven’t taken in the milk and
eggs yet, well then, it’s breakfast on wheels for everyone.”

“Intriguing,” I said. “How’s it work?”

“A splash-n-dash? Simple. See, as the train slows
through the congested parts of a neighborhood, you hop off and load
up your bindle with doorstep goodies like milk and cheese and eggs.
But ya gotta be quick `cause the train’s rolling and you still have
to board again on the fly. Needless to say, old clumsy me, I catch
up with the train after filling my sac like a kid on trick-or-treat
night, but by then I’m all out of breath. I can’t make the jump up
onto the boxcar, so I go the next best route. I try hopping the
bumpers between my car and Jake’s flatbed.”

Pops looked at me with the obvious expectation that I
would understand the perils of such a decision. When my blank
expression exposed my ignorance, he enlightened me, if for no other
reason then to sensationalize his story.

“The bumpers,” he said, “are the couplings between
the cars. They’re lower and easier to hop, but if you trip while
getting on them, you can find yourself under the train, or worse,
the wheels.”

“Ooh. Doesn’t sound pretty.”

“It’s not. You’ve heard sailors speak of Davy Jones’
locker?”

“Yes.”

“Well, us riders call the space under a movin` train,
Casey Jones’ trunk. Fallin` off the bumpers is akin to walking the
plank. I can’t tell you how many guys I’ve met that had to change
his moniker to Lefty, Righty, Peg leg, Half boot, Two toes or
Lucky.” He dropped his head and shook it slowly. “And lots more
that didn’t get to change it at all.”

“Is that what happen to you? Did you fall into Casey
Jones’ trunk?”

He looked up at me in a scowl. “Do I look like I fell
into the trunk? You’re not listening to me, are you, Spitelli?”

“Yes, I’m listening! But you told me you almost got
killed. I thought—”

“I know what you thought, but you apparently missed
the word
almost
. Now shut your crossing gate and let me
finish.”

I sat back in my chair and made a zipping motion
across my lips. Pops pulled the bed sheet up to his neck and
settled his head into a pocket within his pillow.

“So, like I was saying. I got all pooped out running
the splash-n-dash and I decided to hop the bumper. Now then, even
though I know that you shouldn’t tempt your fate on bumpers, I had
done it a hundred times before. Only difference this time was that
I tripped and got myself hung up on a step iron. Next thing I know,
I’m getting dragged along the tracks between the cars, and the
train is beginning to pick up speed again. That’s when Jersey Jake
showed up. Out of the blue he came, like one of them flying trapeze
artists. He straddled the bumpers, reached down between them and
pulled my ass up just when I thought I couldn’t hold on any longer.
It was close, I’ll tell you. I thought he was a hero. Gypsy thought
he was Errol Flynn and went all gushy over him. He started
traveling with us after that. I didn’t care much for the idea, but
what could I say? The man saved my life. And truth be known, I did
kind of like him. It turns out he was funny, smart and good at
hustling free grub at the back doors of the best restaurants you
could find.

“Then along about one night, I see Gypsy and Jake
arguing `bout somethin`. Figured it must be big, `cause Gypsy
seemed particularly angry. Next mornin` we had planned on catching
out on a southbound for Atlanta where we might spend the winter,
but when we got up, Jake was gone. Nobody in camp saw him leave.
Then this fuzz tail with crumbs tells us that Jake caught out in
the middle of the night on rattler to Buffalo. I asked Gypsy then
what the hell was going on, and that’s when she told me. With tears
in her eyes, which I had never seen before with her, she admitted
that she was expecting. Man, you could have knocked me over with a
feather. But as shocking as that was, I could have accepted it, the
worst came when she told me that Jake was the father.”

“No!” I said, and I’m afraid it came out in a gasp. I
could not believe my ears. Nearly sixty years prior, I had lost my
father in one unexpected moment, and now, after meeting and
standing on the threshold of reconnecting with that man, I had lost
him once more. “How could that be?”

He arched his brow at me. “How?”

“No, I mean, I know how, but why….”

“Why what? Why didn’t she just lie and tell me that
the baby was mine? Who knows? Maybe she figured I would find out
one way or another. The point is, I loved Gypsy, and I knew that I
would love her baby, no matter who his daddy was. And I told her
that. I promised her I would not abandon them. But what did she
do?”

I took a stab at it. “She left you with the
baby?”

“Bingo! Not two months after Anthony was born, she
left us. I was devastated, but already I had come to love the boy
as my own. So, I figured I would hang out for a while, give Gypsy
time to adjust to things. I told myself that she would come back if
I waited. And I did. I waited a couple of weeks, which turned into
a couple of months, which rolled into a couple of years. All the
while, I raised Anthony and taught him right from wrong. He learned
his ABCs and 123s and all the other things that kids need to know.
Then one day I realized that Gypsy wasn’t coming back, and that I
was a homeless father with a child coming of school age. There were
no jobs for me. Returning GIs got first dibs on them. Nobody would
hire an unskilled bum like me when there were countless war heroes
needing to feed their new families and pay their new GI
mortgages.

“So, I did the only thing I could do. I left Anthony
with an orphanage and I headed out to find Gypsy. I thought that
maybe if I could locate her and tell her what a wonderful son she
had, that maybe….”

He trailed off with that thought still unfinished. I
could see how weak and tired he had become just from those few
minutes of talking. For that, and for consideration of my own newly
confounded emotions, I decided to call it a day. I hit the call
button beside his bed and waited for India to come up. By the time
she got there, Pops had fallen asleep. I told India that I had
enjoyed my visit, and that I hoped she would welcome me back
soon.

“Of course,” she said. “Just so long as Mister
Marcella doesn’t mind.”

“No, I don’t believe he will,” I told her, and the
thought of me returning seemed to please her.

She walked me to the elevator and escorted me back to
the lobby. At the front door, she stopped and clutched my arm
lightly. “Are you all right, Mister Spitelli?”

I looked at her, puzzled. “Sure. Why do you ask?”

She reached up and brushed my cheek with the back of
her hand. “Because, you look as though you’ve been crying.”

I stopped her hand in mid-stroke and pulled it away.
“Don’t be silly,” I said, and I let it go at that.

I could smell Lilith’s witch’s brew cooking up on the
stove even before I came through the door. It smelled like a cross
between old shoe leather and scorched electrical wiring. If not for
the smiley face on her note the night before, I might have thought
she was mixing up her own special blend of exploding rat poison. I
called to her from the living room to announce my return, and she
answered by inviting me back into the kitchen.

“I need to shower,” I said, heading for the bath. I
should have known that would not work.

“No. Come here first. I want you to try
something.”

I crept into the kitchen, feeling suddenly very
nervous. My police instincts told me to draw my weapon, but of
course I didn’t, and not just because I didn’t own a gun anymore….
Well, okay, that is why, but now I’m glad I didn’t. Lilith stood
with her back to me, stirring intently as I approached. When I
looked over her shoulder into the pot, I saw a swirling pool of
black ink and a lumpy mass like river sludge and seaweed. I must
have made a retching sound without realizing it, because Lilith
jumped back, stepping on my foot, causing me to scream like someone
had knifed me in the belly. My scream made her scream, which made
her hand jerk in reflex. The wooden spoon she used to stir her brew
flipped out of the pot, splashing a wave of black ganja on the wall
behind the stove.

“What are you doing?” she barked. “You scared the
bjesus out of me.”