The Witch's Key (23 page)

While I tried scratching through the years of memory
paint that had dulled the chapters of my youth, Pops drifted off on
a cloud of his own, kept aloft by the whimsical rhyme of a hobo
named young little Skittle. I let him romp for as long as he
pleased, which seemed like quite awhile, but when he was ready to
come back, he did so as though not a second has slipped away.

“We hid around the corner and waited for someone to
answer the door,” he said, recounting how he and Dickey Skittle
abandoned us. “Wouldn’t you figure, though, the bell didn’t work.
We watch the poor boys take a seat on the steps and cry their
little hearts out. I wanted to go back, but Dickey stopped me. He
knew if we did that then we wouldn’t be able to let them go
again.”

“I don’t remember that,” I said.

Pops looked at me queerly. “What?”

“I mean, I bet the kids didn’t remember that. You
know how they are.”

He dropped back to that spot out the window where
time and distance melted into one. “Yeah well, I remember,” he
said, “the way Anthony, especially, cried and cried for the longest
damn time. It broke my heart. I suppose if watching him was my
punishment for leaving him the way I did, then remembering it has
been my penance.”

“How long did they sit there?”

“I don’t know. If an hour was a minute, it was too
long. Eventually, a young lady came by and stopped to help the
boys. At first, I almost jumped out and hit her.”

I jerked back in my seat. “Why?”

He laughed. “I thought it was Gypsy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, can you believe it? She looked just like her.
Course, it had been five years, and through my own tears I might
have thought that any pretty young lady looked like Gypsy. It was
the damnedest thing, but I kept my cool. This nice lady knelt down
by Anthony and she helped dry his tears and gave him a hug.” Again
Pops laughed, or tried to. “Probably the first time the boy felt a
woman’s hug in his life.” I suspected he was right.

I had to wait for him to regain his composure, as the
thought of that really set him back. I wanted to tell him it was
all right and that I knew everything else that happened from there.
I’m your son!
I wanted to shout.
Look, it’s me! I’m your
long lost boy.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready, and
though I’m no psychologist, I thought neither was he.

When Pops got his second wind he said, “After trying
the bell, the young women must have realized it didn’t work. She
took Anthony and little Skittle by the hand and escorted them to
the back door where someone took them in.” Pops dropped his chin to
his sunken chest and shook his head. “I never saw Anthony again.
Next day I went back to my first love.”

“You became a hobo again?”

“
Yup. I went back to riding the rails and
sleeping under the stars. And I advertised, too. I did everything I
could to get the word out there. I figured that if Gypsy was busy
looking for me, then at least she wouldn’t stumble upon Anthony.”
He reached down and began rubbing the top of his left knee. “Then
one day I went and did something stupid. I tried hopping on a
bumper while running a splash-n-dash. The train jerked on me,
spilling me off the bumper and dropping me into Casey Jones’
trunk.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did. I got my damn leg under one of the wheels and
lost it.” He knocked on his leg just below the kneecap. “Thought of
changing my moniker to Woody, but we already had a Woody bumming
out of Buffalo at that time. So I kept with Jersey Jake.”

“That’s wild,” I said. “I bet it put the crimps on
your freight hopping days for awhile, huh?”

“Oh yeah, that it did. But it turned out to be the
best thing that could have happened to me.”

I shot him a look like he might be kidding. “Oh?”

“Yes, I’m tellin` ya. I was still in the hospital
when this hotshot lawyer from Boston came to see me. With his
fast-talkin` ways he soon convinced me to sue the railroad company.
I really didn’t want to, but he made a good argument as to why I
should, and an even better argument convincing a jury why they
ought to reward me. Long story short, I ended up owning the
railroad and changing the name to Gitana.”

I leaned back and smiled at the irony. “I know that
Gitana means Gypsy,” I said. “It’s kind of strange that you should
honor her by naming your railroad after her.”

He laughed lightly. “Honor her?” The look on his face
made me think he might take his leg off and hit me with it. “Son, I
named it Gitana because that company was like an albatross around
my neck. Things were bad enough when I had Gypsy to worry about,
but with Gitana I now had a money-losing train wreck of a freight
company and I didn’t even own a train. It was just a business on
paper. I leased everything: the office, the trains, the tracks. All
of it. Probably did the old owners a favor. My attorney’s fee ate
up what cash money there was. Looked like he was the only winner in
the case. He got the cash. I got an albatross. Go figure.”

“But you stuck with it?”

“Had to, my freight-hopping days were over. But as
luck had it, the 50s were a time of boom and prosperity. After the
third year, I actually turned a profit. The funny thing about it,
before Gitana, few railroad companies leased their equipment. Now,
it’s the only way a small company like mine can exist.”

“So, why the charade?” I asked. “Why are you using
the name Anthony Marcella? Are you still worried about Gypsy?”

“No,” he scoffed, and he almost looked disappointed.
“What’s to worry about? Gypsy’s an old hag now, assuming she’s
still alive.”

“You seemed pretty worried yesterday when I brought
my friend, Lilith, by here.”

His face grew suddenly serious. “She scared me,” he
said. “That girl looked just like Gypsy. But that was Gypsy sixty
years ago. Even a witch can’t stop from aging, right?”

He laughed, and I laughed, and a sudden twirl in the
pit of my stomach told me to enjoy it while I could, because I knew
better. And if Pops only knew about the rite of passage ceremony
and how it restored a witch’s youth, he’d probably ask for a
Kevorkian cocktail on ice.

“So,” I said, “you don’t think she could cast some
crazy spell to make herself young again?”

He shook his head. “I suppose anything is possible.”
Then he turned to me with a suspect look in his eye that worried me
more than I can say. “Let me ask you. How well did you say you know
her?”

“Lilith?”

“Yes.”

I shrugged a little. “Fairly well, I guess.”

“Does she have any tattoos?”

The question struck me as unusually odd. “I’m not
sure I follow.”

He cupped his hand to the side of his mouth and
whispered, “Gypsy has one on her left cheek.”

“Her cheek?” I said, reaching for my face.

“No!” he grumbled, swatting at the air as if erasing
the image I had formed in my mind. “Not there.”

A new one came to me. “Her butt?”

“Yes.”

The thought of that made me laugh. “Really? What is
it?”

“A scorpion,” he said, “about this big.” He formed a
quarter-sized circle with his index finger and thumb. “Maybe a
smidge smaller. It’s been a long time.”

The image in my mind grew ever more vivid. I had
pictured Lilith’s naked butt many times, but never with a tattoo on
her cheek. Under any other circumstance, such an image would likely
have made me smile. Now, however, the thought of seeing Lilith’s
butt and that tattoo made me shudder. As much as I wanted to tell
Pops the truth, that I had never seen Lilith’s ass, I didn’t want
him to worry about it either. So, I looked him straight in the eye
and I lied to his face like any good son would do.

“No. Lilith has nothing like that. Not a tattoo on
her.”

He eased back onto his pillow. “Yeah, I didn’t think
so.”

“Then you’re all right with her?”

“Of course,” he said, though he still did not seem
sure about it. “Bring her back if you like. We’ll talk.”

I reached over and patted him on his good leg. “No,
that’s all right. I don’t need to bring her back. She probably
doesn’t want to hear about trains anyway. You know how girls
are.”

He smiled, but more out of relief, I suspected. I
waited until the lull in conversation gave us both some time to
collect our thoughts before coming back to something that still
bothered me.

“You know, Pops, you still haven’t told me why you
were going around calling yourself Marcella.”

“Didn’t I?”

“No.”

He gave me a shrug like it did not matter, and I do
not suppose it would have if my name were really Spitelli, or
Spinelli or any other name I could have given him. But seeing it is
the name he gave me all those years ago, I felt it more than just a
curiosity that I know. He might have sensed it, too, because he
seemed to change his mind about simply leaving it at that, and
instead, offered up something I could swallow.

“It’s just the name I picked,” he started. “Call it a
tribute to my boy. I don’t know. I had to travel incognito if I
wanted to experience the old days like they were when no one knew
me. I don’t know why, but I just had to do it one more time before
I die. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“Not really,” I said. “I’m sorry, Jake, but I don’t
see you hopping trains at your age, especially with a dummy
leg.”

“Hey, I may be old,” he shook a stern finger at me.
“But six months ago when I set out, I could get around better than
most angellinas. Oh, sure the shacks and the snakes were in on the
gig. They had to for me to pull it off. But I only needed their
help getting on and off the trains when other hobos weren’t around.
They were the only ones that knew me. The rest of `em didn’t. The
yeggs, the wolfs and lambs, the rat cats and the angellinas, none
of them knew me at all. Hell, back in Ipswich they even made me the
captain of the jungle. You should have seen me.” Pops laid his head
back on his pillow and stared up at the ceiling. I doubt if he was
ever as happy as when living the days he spoke of then. “Yes, sir.
I was on top of the world.”

“But then you got sick, huh?”

He rolled his head to the side and looked at me
through hollow eyes. “Yeah, then I got sick. But you know I have no
regrets.”

“None?”

“Nope.”

“What about Anthony?”

“What about him?”

“In all these years, you never knew what became of
him? You never tried to look him up? He could still be here in New
Castle.”

“No, he’s gone away.”

“How do you know?”

“Because some rich couple from Vancouver adopted him
in 48 and moved away. Their name was Klopper or Flopper or
something like that.”

“Klopfer,” I said under my breath. And I wanted to
tell him that no they didn’t adopt me. They wanted to, but the
orphanage wouldn’t let them because they lied about possessing dual
U.S. and Canadian citizenship.

“Eh?”

“Nothing. Listen, Jake, what if I told you that, as a
cop, I can find your son for you. Would you like that?”

He answered quickly and to the point. “No. Don’t you
do it.”

“But why?”

“Spitelli, I’m a dying old man. What good would it do
anyone now to dredge up the muck and mire after all these
years?”

“Maybe he’d like to know you.”

“Yes, and maybe he’d like to see me rot in hell for
what I did to him.”

“But, Jake—”

“No, Spitelli. Let it be.”

I opened my mouth to say more, but Pops shut it with
just a glare. I resolved not to let it rest, though. Now that I had
planted the seed I was sure he would come around to the idea soon
enough. But exactly how I would explain the extraordinary youthful
appearance of his nearly sixty-five year old son, well, that was
another story.

Our longer than usual conversation had Pops looking
pretty tired and worn, so with no more argument about it, I stood
up and slid my chair back against the wall. I patted him on his
foot and said goodbye on my way to the door. Before leaving,
though, I turned back and asked him if I could come back tomorrow
and chat some more.

“You better,” he said. You know my number.”

“Yes, I got your number.” I tapped on the number 9 on
his door and then gave him a wink. “Goodbye, Pops.”

He winked back. “Goodbye, son.”

As I neared the elevator, I could hear his block
whistle blowing the catch out call again. It sounded soothing and
mellow like wind chimes on a summer’s day. At once, my mind flashed
back to a time long ago. I saw a man and his son atop a grassy
hill, watching trains roll along on rusty tracks. “Where are they
going, Dad?” The boy asks, his natural wonder never quenched. But
Dad’s answer falls silent. Something in his eyes makes them water.
The train rounds the bend and blows its whistle. Startled at first,
the child snaps to attention and turns abruptly. “It’s catch out
time,” he says, pointing at the train’s caboose. “Did you hear
that, Daddy? It’s catch out time.”

Dad smiles thinly and swallows back the lump in his
throat. “Yeah, son” he says, and he rubs the boy’s back briskly. “I
hear it. It’s catch out time.”

I grabbed the picture of Gypsy and Pops and met
Spinelli at the front entrance of the justice center. He escorted
me through the security layers and led me upstairs where he and
Carlos had laid out photos from a recent surveillance for me to
see.

“What’s all this?” I asked.

“They’re from last night,” said Carlos.

“They look like surveillance photos.”

“They are.”

“Who were you surveilling?”

He nodded at them. “Look.”

I stepped closer to the table and noticed that the
photos were of a woman, dressed in black with a dark hood pulled up
over her head. I could not see her face, but I knew instinctively
who to suspect. “Did you take these?”