Whistling In the Dark (30 page)

I stopped struggling and fell against him. Then he said in this pretty-sounding voice, “I’m sorry to be in such a hurry tonight, Sally. Usually I like to take my brides out to this spot in the country so we can spend a little more time together, and then I bring ’em back to the lagoon after we’ve gotten to know each other a little better.” He pulled me through another yard with a barking black dog struggling hard against a chain. Bobby kicked at its head. The dog yelped and then went quiet. “You know where we’re going? I’ll give you three guesses.” My legs were shaking so bad that I couldn’t walk, and finally Bobby gave up on dragging me and picked me up in his arms. “We’re going to one of your favorite places.”

I could feel his muscles through his shirt when he half ran past Fitzpatrick’s Drugstore. Through the dim window light I could see Henry at the counter reading. I tried to call, “Henry . . . help.” Bobby put his hand that smelled like car oil over my mouth and in a raspy voice in between breaths he said, “You like that little Homo Henry, don’t you?” He sounded like I had done something to hurt his feelings. “You don’t like Henry more than you like Bobby, do you?” He was staring through the window at the boy I would never get to marry.

I whispered, “No, Bobby. No. I don’t like Henry more than you. I like you the very best of all.” I didn’t know why I said that because saying it made me cry.

Bobby said kindly, “Oh, now, now, don’t do that. We’re gonna have so much fun and then when we’re done you can be with your daddy. And I’ll bring pink carnations to your funeral just like I did for Junie and Sara.” He stroked my cheek and rubbed his nose against mine the way Daddy used to, humming along with the siren I heard. Was it coming for me?

“I know what you’re thinking, sweetheart, but don’t get your hopes up. Bobby is too smart for those cops. Take my word for it. Nobody knows.” He seemed to get extra strong then, like a second wind. We were almost to the lagoon. “Oh, look, there it is. Our honeymoon spot.” He ran across the street with me flopping in his arms. I could hear the siren getting closer and I prayed please please please let Mary Lane have taken that Kroger bag and found Mr. Dave. If she hadn’t, when he was through with me, Bobby could go back and get the Kroger bag and nobody would be the wiser. And when Mary Lane tried to tell people what happened, they’d just shake their heads and think she was telling another one of her whoppers. And Troo . . . what had he done to my Troo?

Bobby giggled when he set me down so gently on the grass under the trees right off the zoo entrance. Not far from the red rowboats, but away from the streetlights. I could smell wet dirt and hear the lagoon water lapping up onto the muddy rocks, and not far off, music and a girl laughing. Bobby pulled his shirt off over his head and then began pulling at his leather belt, grunting when it gave him some trouble. When he looked down at the buckle to get it untangled, I heard Daddy’s voice in my head . . .
Now, Sal, now
.
Fly like the wind
. I jumped up fast and scrambled over the fence and ran down the path that led to the zoo before he had time to grab me. Behind me, Bobby’s feet rattled in the chain-link fence and he was singing, “Red light, green light, hope to see the ghost tonight.” His laugh sounded high-pitched, like an air-raid siren.

I couldn’t keep up that running. I was so tired and my chest was fiery hot so I had to slow down, and I knew when I did, Bobby would catch up to me. So I veered off the path toward the animal cages. He didn’t know the zoo like I did because I heard him trip on the old sewer handle that stuck out of the asphalt in front of the bears’ den and he screamed,

“Fuck.” But then right away I could hear his running footsteps and smell his stink when he said from the darkness close, real close, “Stop, or when I catch you, I will make you hurt like you never hurt in your life, you little bitch.” His voice was deep and as harsh as anything I’d ever heard, and I knew in my heart that Bobby was the devil in the details. And that he’d been true to his word. Nobody knew. The siren had stopped.

But I didn’t. I could hear and smell some of the animals stirring around in the dark. I ran past the lion cage and past my and Troo’s favorite tree and jumped over the black iron fence in front of Sampson’s enclosure. I knew they didn’t put the animals away in their houses when it was this hot. He was there in the dark. Waiting for me. I hurried over the grass to the edge of the pit.

I could hear Bobby come up right behind me. When I turned to face him, he said, “Gotcha.” When he leaped for me, the air came off his body like an airplane taking off, his arms the wings. I waited until the timing was right. And then, at the last second, I ducked and he flew over me, his chest shiny and sleek. It happened so slowly, like he was being held up against the sky by an invisible force. He smiled and reached out for me, and when he did, whatever was holding him up let go and he dropped into Sampson’s pit with a beautiful, beautiful thud.

It was quiet for a while after that except for my breathing. Then rustling noises came from below and my King sang out in the voice of an angel . . . “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

They took us to the hospital that night. Troo had a bump on the side of her head the size of Iowa from when Bobby snuck up behind her and pulled her off the bars and made her unconscious. And her legs had scrapes on them from when he’d dragged her off behind those thorny bushes. I had some marks on my neck in the shape of Bobby’s fingers and some cuts, but Dr. Sullivan said those would go away in time.

Mary Lane was the real hero of that night cuz she
had
taken the Kroger bag when she’d crawled through the shed window. Inside the bag was a pillowcase and Junie’s medal and Sara’s tennis shoe and bits of cut-off blond hair and some other things from some other girls that nobody knew about. Now the police had the proof that Bobby was the murderer and molester. I told her that I would make her as many peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches as she would ever want to eat for the rest of her skinny life. She’d come along to the hospital just to be with us because she wanted to make sure we were okay. She even kicked Police Chief D’Amico in the leg when he tried to stop her. He ended up letting her ride over in his squad car, which wasn’t as good as a fire engine, but it was close. In the emergency room when Dr. Sullivan was checking Troo and me over, he looked at Mary Lane, too, and said, “That child is severely undernourished.”

When Mr. Lane came to take her home, Dr. Sullivan said something to him and Mr. Lane nodded back. But before she left, Mary Lane came to me and Troo (we were together on an emergency bed) and whispered, “Dr. Sullivan’s breath smells like the lion cage.” She inspected Troo’s head and said, “Told you Bobby was a rotten egg. Maybe the next time you’ll believe me when I tell ya something.”

I thought I’d try real hard to do that . . . but I probably wouldn’t. Lying was to Mary Lane what reading was to me. Just plain important. Maybe for both of us it was like what Mrs. Goldman had tried to tell me. A way to imagine away your life for a while so you could go to a place that was filled with
schnitzel
.

“Red light, green light tomorrow night?” Mary Lane said.

Troo and me said, “Of course.”

Then the old nurse came down and took me and Troo up to Mother’s room. Mostly I think Mr. Dave wanted us to go to the hospital so the O’Malley sisters could be with their mother because he wasn’t very good yet at being a daddy. This does take some practice. So me and Troo laid down on either side of her bed, her arms around each of us. She was looking better than she had. Not quite so see-through.

Mother sighed one of her perfect sighs and said, “Well, I go away for a little while and sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what have you O’Malley sisters gotten yourselves into?”

I told Mother all about Troo’s plan to catch Bobby. She listened closely and every once in a while made a sharp gasp. I wanted to say, “You know, Mother, the name game, maybe you are wrong about that. Because an Irish boy tried to murder and molest me and an English girl saved the day.” But I didn’t want her to feel bad so I didn’t say that. But I thought it and I would remember it and would tell her when she was feeling better because that was extremely important information to have in life.

Then Troo piped in with, “After Mary Lane crawled out the window she found Rasmussen and showed him the Kroger bag, and that wasn’t easy because it was so dark. And then she told him that Bobby had kidnapped Sally and how he’d pulled me off the monkey bars. And then the cops found me behind those bushes and woke me up with something that smelled real bad and I told them where to go and Rasmussen ran to his squad car and blared the siren and all the rest of them went to their regular cars with their baseball bats.” She took a gulping breath. “He found Sally in front of Sampson’s cage right where I told him she’d be.”

Mother smiled at the sound of Sampson’s name. She knew how I felt about him and why. It used to make her sort of mad, but that night she said, “Looks like the King was watching over you tonight, Baby.”

I didn’t tell her how I’d heard Daddy’s voice telling me to fly like the wind. Thought I’d keep that between the two of us.

And then Nell came into the hospital room. And Eddie. And, of course, Mr. Dave. After Mother fell asleep and the old nurse told us to go, Mr. Dave took me and Troo back to our new house and ran some water for baths and put in some of that vanilla smelling Avon bubble bath. When Troo was in the tub singing “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” Mr. Dave had me sit out on the back porch with him. We were next to each other on the top step. Our legs were touching. He smelled just like freshly squeezed orange juice. And that made me think of Mr. Gary and his orange tree that grew in his backyard in California.

I said, “Mary Lane told me that Father Jim and Mr. Gary are in love and ran away to California together to get married. Is that true?”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. “Yeah . . . it is.”

“Do you think that’s okay?”

“Not sure. How ’bout you?”

I thought for a bit. “I think it’s okay to be with somebody you love. Even if other people think it’s not okay.”

Mr. Dave musta gotten something in his eyes ’cause he took out his handkerchief and took some time to wipe ’em off. “You know, you were really brave today. But the next time you need somebody to believe you, come to me.”

“But I wasn’t brave,” I said sadly. “I was scared to death.”

“Brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared, Sally.” He was stroking my braid. “Brave means you’re scared and you do it anyway. Everybody gets scared.”

“Do you?”

“I was scared for a long, long time,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. “But I’m feeling a whole lot better now.”

The crickets were going crazy, and next door Ethel was humming some low tune while she was doing the supper dishes. I hoped Mrs. Galecki thought it was okay about her boy being in love with Father Jim. I was pretty sure she would be. Mrs. Galecki loved her late-blooming Gary, and when you love somebody you’re supposed to love them no matter what, right? Even if they are light in their loafers or what Ethel said—a royal queen.

“What’s gonna happen to Bobby?” I asked.

Mr. Dave stared up to the sky for a bit and then said softly, “He’s dead, Sal. We think the fall broke Bobby’s neck.” He looked down at me with our green eyes. “Sampson took Bobby up to the top of the cage and wouldn’t let him go, like he was holding on to him for us. Mr. Lane had to shoot him with a sleeping dart so the ambulance drivers could get Bobby’s body out of there.”

Sampson. You are magnificent!

I didn’t feel bad for Bobby at all. He got just what he had comin’ to him. Maybe I felt a little bad for him because that would be the charitable thing to do, but then I remembered how he growled at me and how he murdered and molested Junie and Sara and what he’d done to Troo’s head and I thought, aw, the heck with being charitable.

We sat there some more and didn’t talk. Then Mr. Dave gently put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him. That was the first time he’d ever done that and it hardly felt weird at all.

Later, after I’d had my bath, Troo and me were spooned under the sheets that smelled sun sweet in our new bed with a wooden headboard and a white chenille spread. And across the room there was something I’d always wanted, and I wondered how Mr. Dave knew to get it for me. It was an aquarium that had a small chest of gold half buried in some shockingly pink gravel and loads of minnow-looking fish and a few called angelfish, which were my favorite. It was a lot like Dottie’s aquarium, so Mr. Dave musta gone up to the Five and Dime.

I was rubbing Troo’s back and staring at the tank and thinking about Dottie and how sad she must be without her mother and father. And how sad they were without her and why, just why did people do some of the things they did?

“This has really been a summer to remember, right, Sal?”

“Right, Troo.”

“You know, Rasmussen’s not even close to being as good as Daddy.”

“I know.”

“Not even close.”

“Not even close.”

Next door, Ethel had moved out to the screened-in porch with Ray Buck. They were listening to some of that jazzy music and every once in a while the two of them laughed and the sound of ice knocked around in their tall metal glasses.

Troo yawned and said, “Night, Sal.”

“Night, Troo.”

One of these summer nights, my sister had stopped sucking her fingers, but she still had her baby doll clutched in her hand. As Troo’s sleeping breath filled the room, Annie and I watched as the fish swam back and forth through that glimmery aquarium water and over that little golden chest, not knowing at all what was inside. I dreamt that I discovered buried treasure that night.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

After the newspapermen came and took our pictures and Dr. Sullivan got rid of Mary Lane’s tapeworm, which it turned out was why she was so skinny (she wanted to tell us every icky detail until Troo and me couldn’t stand it another minute), the rest of the summer days unwound just the way they had before we’d started locking our doors.