Flowering Judas(54)

“That’s true,” Haydee said.

They were at the reservoir now, going over it to the other side of the river where everything was green and country. Haydee liked it out here, even in the rain.

“Thank you,” she said finally. “I’m sorry if I seem abrupt, or something. I’m just a little tired. Thank you for this. I’d really like to do it, if you could.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I could do it tomorrow in the morning,” Haydee said. “I’m supposed to start work at one and be there until six, I think. I really need a car. If I had a car, I could get a job out at Walmart or maybe in one of the supermarkets. Someplace that paid more money and could give me better hours.”

“So, okay, we’ll get your money into the credit union  , then we’ll go looking for that car. I don’t mean right away, I mean—”

“I know what you meant,” Haydee said. “That’s all right.”

Kenny was silent for a long moment while they negotiated an intersection with a traffic light, but almost nothing built about around it to justify needing the light. Finally Kenny cleared his throat and said, “You know, I don’t mean to be a jerk, or anything, but maybe you ought to consider finding someplace else to live. I don’t like the sound of your mother’s boyfriend. And ‘not yet’ doesn’t sound like you’re sure he’s never going to beat you up.”

“I know,” Haydee said. “But it costs a bomb to get a place of your own, and I wouldn’t want to stay in the trailer park. What would be the point in that? Besides, I think this is just, you know, stuff. That man was here, the one the police brought in to find out what happened to your brother.”

“Gregor Demarkian? Really? He was at the trailer park?”

“Your mother was there, too. You’ll probably hear about it at home. They were looking at your brother’s old trailer. I can still hear the thumping.”

“Thumping?”

“I was really little,” Haydee said. “I was, I don’t know, six years old, I think. When your brother disappeared, you know. And I had the small bedroom and it was right against the back of that trailer. And there was always thumping. My mother said she thought it was your brother and his girlfriend, you know…”

“Okay,” Kenny said.

“And then, of course, he went missing, and the police came, and that was the first time I was taken into foster care. Not that it lasted long. It never lasted long. I never knew what the point of all that was.”

They had come nearly full circle now, and were headed up Straits Turnpike toward the Middlebury Road. It would be an impossibly long walk this way, but Haydee loved it. The green hung down on all sides of them. The yards looked painted on.

“Have you ever noticed that even the grass looks better in the richer parts of town?” Haydee asked. “I wonder how they get it that way.”

“I was just thinking that my family keeps causing you an awful lot of trouble.”

Haydee had no idea what Kenny was talking about, but she let it go. First she’d get a car, then she’d get a better job, then she’d get her associate’s degree, then she’d go on to a four year and get a bachelor’s degree, then …

But there were a lot of “thens”, and now she wanted not to sound stupid in class.





EIGHT

1

For Gregor Demarkian, after Howard Androcoelho, Tony Bolero was something of a relief. The man didn’t talk much, and he never said anything in clichés. The ride back to the Howard Johnson was peaceful, even though the bad rain started in the middle of it. The trip back up to his room was even more peaceful. Gregor closed the door behind himself and sat down on the bed to take a breath before he called Bennis and found out what was actually going on. He woke up five hours later because he had left the phone on the pillow next to his head and it was blaring out the 1812 Overture.

The 1812 Overture was the ring tone Bennis had picked out for him for “general” calls, meaning calls from people he either didn’t know or didn’t hear from often. The ring tone she had picked out for herself was that Disney song from Mary Poppins that was a word he could never pronounce right. For Tibor, she’d given him the theme music from Star Wars.

Gregor sat up a little and looked at the phone. The caller ID listed a number he’d never heard of—or might have, but didn’t recognize. It was a Philadelphia number, at any rate. The area code was 215.

He put the phone to his ear and said, “Hello?”

“Oh, good,” Bennis said, “I got you. I’m sorry, Gregor. I don’t have my phone with me and I don’t actually recognize anybody’s phone number anymore. I’ve got it all stored.”