A Hole In The Universe Part 33

"I don't remember. I was mad, but I don't know why." She looked at Jada. "I was mad at you, right?"

"Yeah." She stared at her mother. "The a.s.sholes, you didn't want them talking to me. You said to come in and I wouldn't." Actually, she had screwed up the drop in Dearborn. Thurman had shown up so wasted that he could barely talk, and she had to do the deal herself, forty rocks in her crotch, with him in his do-rag and gang pants, s...o...b..ring all over her on a park bench in the middle of prepville while people kept walking by, looking at them like they were freaks. The guy that finally came was older. He He looked like he belonged in Dearborn, but his hands were shaking and he had those jangly crack eyes like her mother's. He said it was too obvious with Thurman there, so they'd go do the deal in his car, just him and her. The minute she got in he took off. He only went around the block, but she was so scared that she riffled through the bills instead of counting and had come up sixty bucks short. As a result, she and Thurman hadn't gotten a penny from Feaster. And when they got back her mother flipped out because Feaster wouldn't give her the rocks he'd promised her if Jada ran for him. Jada had never seen him and Polie as scared as when the cops came. looked like he belonged in Dearborn, but his hands were shaking and he had those jangly crack eyes like her mother's. He said it was too obvious with Thurman there, so they'd go do the deal in his car, just him and her. The minute she got in he took off. He only went around the block, but she was so scared that she riffled through the bills instead of counting and had come up sixty bucks short. As a result, she and Thurman hadn't gotten a penny from Feaster. And when they got back her mother flipped out because Feaster wouldn't give her the rocks he'd promised her if Jada ran for him. Jada had never seen him and Polie as scared as when the cops came.

"Was Feaster here two days ago? He and Polie?" the older cop asked.

"Not that I remember," her mother said.

"Somebody said they were. One of your neighbors, they saw the truck out there."

"Ask them, then, don't ask me," her mother said.

"Feaster doesn't like the old lady, does he?" the cop asked.

Her mother shrugged. Her teeth were chattering. She hugged herself.

"You see anybody over there on Monday? Up on her porch?"

"Yeah," she said, s.h.i.+vering. "That big guy, the one across the street. Gordon. He killed somebody once."

"But all he did was bring groceries!" Jada blurted.

"When?" the younger cop asked. "When'd he bring groceries?"

"I don't know. Sometimes. Whenever she needs them," Jada said.

"Did he bring her any Monday?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure." She could feel the sting of her mother's stare.

"Yeah, he did," her mother said, coughing. They waited for her to stop. The younger cop covered his nose and mouth. "I remember," she wheezed. "He had two or three bags." Her chest rose and fell as she tried to catch her breath.

"But he left them on the porch," Jada told her mother.

"I don't know," her mother groaned, doubling over. "Jesus, I'm gonna be sick again."

The younger cop continued trying to pin Jada down about Gordon and the groceries. She couldn't remember. She wasn't sure. Her own stomach was heaving. She had to go to the bathroom.

Maybe it had to be this way. Besides, Jukas was nothing but a mean old b.i.t.c.h. Even the cops didn't seem to care all that much. So no matter what, life would just go on like always. The cops were gone, leaving behind the sweet, limy scent of their aftershave, the same as Uncle Bob's. The smell reminded her of a long ride to the zoo once with her aunt and uncle. It had been Uncle Bob's first time there, too. When the baby was old enough, she'd take it to the zoo. She'd get a carriage and take it for long walks. Her mother had probably never been to the zoo either. She'd take her, too. There was so much she'd do for them, her mother and the baby both.

Her mother crawled into bed. She couldn't stop crying. Jada stroked her sweaty back. "It's okay, it's okay, Ma."

"I'm scared. I'm so scared, I don't know what to do."

"Don't be scared, Ma. I'm going to take care of you. I promise. Everything's going to be all right."

"He knows," her mother moaned. "I could tell the way he was looking at me."

"No, he was looking at you like, 'Well, it couldn'ta been her, not all sick and pregnant like the way she is.' "

Her mother rose up on one wobbly elbow. "Yeah, that's right. I'm not that strong."

"Yeah, so see, Ma. It's a good thing you're having a baby," she said, her voice racing to the manic pitch her mother hated, but she couldn't help it because this time she knew things were finally going to get better. "So you gotta eat good food cuz you wanna have a healthy baby, right? Right, Ma?"

Her mother sagged back down. She pulled the pillow over her head, begging Jada to leave her alone, but Jada was too happy to care. The choice was simple, her mother and the baby, or the old b.i.t.c.h.

CHAPTER 22.

"Why? Why do that to an old lady?" the detective muttered again.

What could Gordon say? What was the motive for any heinous act? He had only known his own, fear and cowardice, and here it was again, tire tracks in the lawn, the confusion of voices, another question while he was still answering the first one. The facts flashed on and off in his brain. The truth was in the details, but they kept twisting the details around. Why hadn't he just gone in the unlocked back door? He'd told them twice, he hadn't known it was unlocked until they told him. If he was so concerned about her, why hadn't he tried the key? Why was his hand bandaged? Why did he put the money through the mail slot? He'd already told them. Here-he gave them the receipt. The time on the slip seemed of most interest to them. Where were the groceries, then? He showed them the bags on his counter. Where's the juice and milk? the detective asked, checking the contents against the receipt. He explained why he'd had to throw them out. A detective in surgical gloves fished the empty containers from his trash. So he had drunk them first. Actually, no, he had poured them down the drain.

So these were his groceries, then. No, they were hers. Why would he make up something like that? Maybe to create a reason for being in her house. But he hadn't, he hadn't gone inside. People had seen him over there. Only because he kept checking to see if she was home yet, but that was all. The detective's apology was abrupt and insincere. It wasn't that he didn't believe Gordon, he said. Tough questions were part of the job. Of course. Yes, he understood. But of course did not. He understood nothing.

In the days that followed, Gordon had little appet.i.te. He could feel his flesh tightening around him. His breath came slower. And as he grew more watchful, quieter, there were moments when his sense of hearing was so acute that the tremble of leaves and branches creaking in the wind was almost painful. A pipe clanged and he jumped. He opened the newspaper and cringed with the rustle. The phone rang and his heart raced. It was Dennis. The detective on the case was Warren Kaminski, a high school cla.s.smate of Lisa's. Dennis had just given him Mrs. Jukas's niece's telephone number. She was still comatose. It looked like a house break, the detective said, whether real or staged they weren't sure. The poor old woman probably came home in the middle of it. There were a number of suspects, one in particular, a drug dealer who might have been trying to scare her. Dennis thought it was Feaster. He said he was relieved. Why? Gordon wanted to ask. Did you think it was me? Their conversation was stiff, with no mention of Lisa and none of his new job.

Gordon's first week of work had ended. He enjoyed the brewery's constant racket. In here he was a cog, one more regulated, purposeful, moving part of an orderly world. All he needed was a strong back and an accurate tally of cases skimming off the conveyor belts into the trucks. The wound on his hand was almost healed but still so tender that he wore a heavy-duty glove on the job.

On Friday Delores picked him up after work. She was going to bring him to the bank to open accounts with his first paycheck. As soon as he got into the car, he looked in the envelope. They must have made a mistake, he said, showing her the slip. He watched nervously as she counted under her breath.

"No, that's right. Fifteen dollars an hour. You worked five days. Forty hours times fifteen is six hundred gross." She handed it back.

"A week?" He was stunned.

After they left the bank, he kept touching his pocket to make sure the checkbook and savings book were still there. Delores hadn't stopped talking from the minute he got into her car. These last two weeks of silence had given her so much more to tell him in half the time. He felt himself sinking into her voice the way one surrendered to sleep. As they neared Clover Street, he was disappointed. He wished she'd keep driving.

"That poor thing," she said. They sat in front of his house with the motor running. "Imagine, laying there for two days like that. Remember I said that, how awful something like that would be?"

"Yes, I remember. You did." As long as she kept talking, he didn't have to get out. Her range of topics was like an operatic riff skittering from the tragic to the outrageous, mesmerizing in its confluence. Lifetimes were being fleshed out, each leading into the next tale, on and on in her seamless universe where all things and everyone were not just related, but vitally connected in some ultimately fathomless yet still logical way.

Now she was telling him how much she enjoyed the dress shop. The other day Jean asked her if she might be interested in buying the business. "So I called up my sister, Linda, she's the one, her husband sells bonds, and he goes, 'Oh, no, that would be the worst kind of investment right now with the stock market and everything so uncertain. ' I should have known better, he's such a naysayer, but you know what? After I hung up I thought of Mrs. Jukas, that poor old woman. I keep thinking of her laying there like that, helpless, with no control over anything anymore, just waiting and waiting for someone to come along and help her. My G.o.d, it must have been so horrible. Can you imagine, every minute, every sound, what it must have been like? And I thought, No! I can't let that happen. I can't be like that. I can't!" she said, smiling.

"No," he said weakly. She patted his arm and he forced himself out of the car. In the late-day shade, the old woman's dark little house seemed to have grown taller, wider. It loomed over the street.

Jada and Thurman sat on the wall in front of the old Collerton Savings and Loan. Empty for years, the cavernous granite building had recently found new life as a furniture store that specialized in ma.s.sive velour sofas and chairs with a range of custom components, cup holders, footrests, heated seats, vibrators, headphones, and built-in speakers. She and Thurman had been making their voices vibrate as they tried out the ma.s.sage feature until the salesman told them they had to leave: Thurman's swearing was offending the customers.

Jada kept looking around. She was trying to think of some way to dump him. His cousin Antawan had been his last resort until the cops came around last night trying to find some connection between him and the old lady that got her head bashed in.

"f.u.c.king Polie," he said again, then spat onto the cracked pavement. He was convinced Polie was paying him back for the Dearborn thing. "Like it's all my fault or something."

"Yeah, well, next time give us flashlights or something." The problem had been her eyes as much as the street lamps. If they got any worse, she'd be blind.

"f.u.c.king a.s.shole, know what else he told them?" He pa.s.sed her his cigarette.

"No, what?" She took a long, dizzying drag. Her stomach was shaky. Now every time her mother threw up, she she felt nauseated. felt nauseated.

"About tras.h.i.+ng the big guy's place. So now they're going, 'Oh, okay. That makes sense. The kid, he musta broke in there, too, so then the old lady comes home and he cracks her head open.' "

"Polie, he doesn't know anything about that." She threw the cigarette onto the sidewalk. How could he possibly know that? If he did, then he must know she'd been there, too. Then Gordon would really hate her. Her face was burning. What was she thinking? It was so much worse than that, even. "What about me? He didn't say I was there, did he? I mean, the old lady, he's not saying that that, is he? That you and me-"

"No! Just me, the fat f.u.c.ker. You're like the last person he's gonna mess with-'least not until he can get Marvella to get rid of that thing of his."

"What thing?"

"The baby! She's pregnant, right? He's like, 'I can't believe that rag's doing this to me.' "

"It's Polie's? He's the father?"

"Yeah! Where've you been?"

She felt numb. There wasn't any sweet little baby to look forward to, just an ugly little Polie. They had walked on a few blocks when she decided that Thurman was lying. Polie wasn't really the father, which was probably why he couldn't get her mother to get rid of it. Besides, her mother hated Polie. He was just trying to be the man, man, bragging on like that to Thurman, who until now had looked up to Polie. bragging on like that to Thurman, who until now had looked up to Polie.

Thurman hurried out of the liquor store with two cans of Ice jammed into the pockets of his sagging pants. The old guy in there was so worked up trying to show some r.e.t.a.r.d how to fill out his lottery slips that he'd been able to clip the cans. They ran downtown to the common and sat on a concrete bench engulfed by lilac bushes. Thurman popped open his can and guzzled half of it. "I was just thinking, that a.s.shole, that fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d, I'm just gonna go tell Feaster. I mean, he told me once, he said, 'Anybody ever give you s.h.i.+t you go straight to me.' "

"Polie's not the father," she said.

"Oh yeah? Well, who is, then?"

"It's a secret. I can't tell you."

"C'mon!"

"I can't. It's private. My mother, she'd like, kill me."

"Why?" He laughed. "What the h.e.l.l does she care?"

"f.u.c.k you!" She jumped up and sprinted along the dusty path while he hoisted up his pants, trying to keep pace with her long-legged gait.

"I was just kidding! C'mon! Don't be mad," he panted. Easily winded, he kept stopping. "C'mon, tell me!"

"Why? What do you care?" What did anyone? Even she did not. What was the point? She couldn't even think about that pig Polie being the father of the sweet baby she dreamed about nightly now.

With a lunge Thurman caught her around the waist and brought her down. The more she kicked and punched, the harder he laughed. "Let go-a me, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d. You no-good son of a b.i.t.c.h," she screamed, jackknifing her knee into his groin. He curled up, groaning. She was halfway down the path when a cruiser pulled onto the wide dirt path on her right. She turned, trying not to run as she hurried back. "Thurman!" He couldn't have gotten very far. She walked around the clump of dusty lilacs and called again.

"Be right out," he said above the spray hitting the dry inner twigs.

Cops, she started to say when the cruiser pulled alongside. The cop at the wheel asked her name. "Izzy Rodriguez," she said. An Anglo cop would remember Fossum sooner than a Latino name. They were looking for a tall kid with spiked orange hair, in jail pants. She see anybody like that? No, how come? What'd he do? Armed robbery. He just held up Crowder's Liquor Store.

"So how much did you get?" she asked as they cut through back alleys.

"Some scratch tickets, that's all." He pulled the strip from his pocket. "I mean, the guy was being such an a.s.shole, I couldn't help it."

"You got a gun?"

"No! Musta been the Ice in my pockets, the cans."

Legs outstretched, she leaned back on his cousin Antawan's steps while Thurman got his head shaved inside. He came out wearing a black s.h.i.+rt and baggy mesh basketball shorts. She'd never seen his legs before. They were hairy and thick as a man's.

"Smooth as a baby's a.s.s." He kept rubbing the back of his head.

She laughed and rubbed it, too. "Smoother even."

They stopped behind the drugstore and took turns scratching off the little metallic squares on the tickets with a quarter. Her heart pounded with each one. She liked this new-looking Thurman, dark eyed and menacing.

"This is it!" he promised, quarter poised over the last one, the million-dollar card. First thing he'd do was buy a red Corvette, then drive someplace where it was hot all the time. "That's a f.u.c.king rip!" Eleven cards and no winner, not even a free card.

When they came to the Nash Street Market, Thurman asked again who the father was if it wasn't Polie. She began to tell him about this rich guy from Miami. "He flies his own plane, and when he comes up he's got a condo over in that new place that used to be the old s.h.i.+rt mill. His name's Lenny. Roth," she continued, spotting the Roth bread truck by the Market door. "He's like really handsome and he always wears purple s.h.i.+rts, white silk boxers-"

"White silk boxers!" Thurman howled. "How do you know?"

"Jesus . . ." She sighed and rolled her eyes. "I thought you wanted to hear. The diamond on his pinky finger cost fifty thousand dollars, and right after the baby's born he's taking us on a trip, all four of us."

"Where to?"

"Disney World." Her first ride would be s.p.a.ce Mountain. That was her favorite part of Inez's video.

"Hey! f.u.c.king a.s.sholes!" Thurman banged on the Market window. The grimy plate gla.s.s rattled, and he hit it again. The cas.h.i.+ers looked back in shock as he pounded the gla.s.s with both fists. Jada gave them the finger, and the b.i.t.c.h with the tubes shouted toward the office. The door flew open and Neil Dubbin burst out screaming and swearing at Thurman. They ran through the parking lot, almost blinded by the glitter of smashed bottles, then escaped into the woods behind the store. Neither one spoke as they pushed past spindly branches and wild grapevines that snared the treetops together like an enormous cobweb. Ahead in the clearing was a kind of shelter made from rusting grocery carts that had been covered with flattened cardboard boxes. From inside came a painful whimper. As they crept closer, it grew to a frail bark.

"Leonardo!" She sprang into the clearing. A dog's apricot-colored head rose weakly in the shadows, his hind legs splayed. Each attempt to drag himself forward came with a sharp cry. "Cootie's dog, he can't move!" she gasped, tearing the cardboard roof onto the ground. "Where is he? Where's Cootie?"

"Dead. They found him last week. Downtown, out back of some bar."

"C'mere. C'mere, doggie," she whispered, but every time she came near, the dog bared his pitted yellow fangs and snarled.

"Jesus Christ, it stinks in here." Thurman held his nose. "C'mon, let's go. I gotta get outta here before I puke."

Looking around, she saw nothing but rusted cans and the charred ends of sticks. "He's starving. He doesn't have any food. There's not even any water."

"Yeah? And what're we supposed to do?" Thurman held his nose and backed away.

"Give me a coupla bucks. You said you had money. I'll pay you back, I swear I will. I just wanna go get him some dog food or something."

"f.u.c.k, no! He's almost dead. Look at him." Flies swarmed over the dog's haunches.

"Please, I just wanna get him some dog food, please!"