Crying Wolf (18 page)

The nurse tugged a little harder at her elbow.

“You don't mind sharing your wine, do you, young man?”

“No,” said Nat.

“What's your name?”

Nat told her.

“Enchantée,” she said, extending her hand as though she expected him to kiss it. “I am Helen Uzig.” Nat shook her hand: skin like paper, green veins almost on the surface, pulsing light and fast against his fingers. “Enchantée,” she repeated, “accent aigu on the second
e
.”

“Please, dear,” said the nurse, pulling now.

“Keep your panties on,” said Helen Uzig. She looked right at Professor Uzig and repeated the remark. The nurse pulled again, a little harder, and this time the old woman gave way, half walking, half in tow, toward the doorway. “Good night, my bushy-tailed friends,” she said, as the nurse got her out of the room. “And never forget that Nietzsche is something one must grow out of,” she added from down the hall.

There was a silence. Ferg, on his sixth or seventh beer, broke it. “Your mother's pretty cool.”

“My mother is dead,” said Professor Uzig.

“Huh?” said Ferg.

But Nat got it.

 

T
he prize in the cake was a well-preserved piece of eight, found by Professor Uzig himself off Jost van Dyke, pierced to make it wearable as a pendant. It turned up in Grace's portion.

 

O
nce, in Boulder after a high-school student government conference, Nat had found himself in a pickup basketball game that included a few CU players. It was the only basketball he'd ever played where everything had happened too fast. Now, leaving Professor Uzig's house, snow falling but the moon somehow shining at the same time, an effect—black snow streaks over the disk of the moon—that he'd never seen before, he had that feeling again. He needed to slow things down, to go back to his room, to do nothing. The three of them went down to the cave instead. They were college freshmen. It was Saturday night.

Does the superman make you uneasy?

—Professor Uzig in class, Philosophy 322

S
aturday night. Freedy's favorite night of the week, by far. What else was there, if you thought about it? Sunday, Monday, Tuesday nights all sucked, everyone knew that. Wednesday was a little better, Thursday better yet—he'd even been known to cut loose on a Thursday night, like one time down in Tijuana after those fires or earthquakes canceled the Friday schedule. Friday night was famous coast to coast, of course; but at jobs he'd held, A-1 Pool Design, Engineering, and Maintenance, and others not worth remembering, Saturday was a working day—not a normal working day, because no one expected normal work when everyone was a little wasted, although he would expect it, by God, when he got set up down in Florida, whose money was it, anyway?—but still, a working day, taking some of the fun out of Friday night. That left Saturday night, just one goddamn night to be totally . . . totally whatever. Freedy came alive on Saturday night. He was in the habit.

Totally whatever. That put it perfectly. Saturday morning Freedy lifted over at Ronnie's, feeling real strong, stronger than he had for a long time, since California, in fact. Then he and Ronnie had a few beers, watched an infomercial about real estate or maybe getting into retail, Freedy wasn't sure. Didn't matter: they were always the same, as he told Ronnie. Idea, plan, stick.

“Fuckin' A,” said Ronnie. “I never thought of that.”

“Works for everything,” Freedy said.

“What do you mean, everything?”

“Give you a for instance, Ronnie. What do you want to do tonight?”

“Huh?”

“Just answer. I'll show you how it works.”

“What I want to do tonight?” said Ronnie. “Get laid, I guess.”

“Okay. That's the idea part. Now for the plan. How are you going to make it real?”

Ronnie thought. “Head over to Fitchville?”

“Fitchville? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Thing is,” said Ronnie, “there's sort of a girl.”

“You've got some piece in Fitchville?”

“Nothing what you'd call serious.”

What the hell was going on? Ronnie had a girlfriend? How did that compute? “What's the story?”

“No story. She's pretty nice.”

“Pretty nice?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you meet her?”

“I still do a little reffin'.”

“Reffin'?”

“You know. Reffin' basketball. Pays twenty-five bucks a game. I got my certificate way back.”

“So?”

“So she plays on the team. Point guard.”

“Fuck are you talking about? What team?”

“Fitchville South.”

Fitchville South?
“You're fucking some high-school girl?”

“I wouldn't say fucking, exactly,” said Ronnie. “She's not ready yet.”

“She's not ready yet?”

“She's just a sophomore,” said Ronnie. “But I get hand jobs.”

* * *

F
uckin' pathetic. But that night—sitting in a bar near the state line, a stripper bar, but because of the snow only one stripper had shown up and she was on a break—Freedy's mind gravitated to the subject of hand jobs. Nothing wrong with hand jobs—American as apple pie. Once Estrella had given him a hand job in the Burger King drive-through in West Covina. Home of the Whopper. He kind of missed Estrella. But what good would that do? She'd fucked it all up with that brother scam or whatever it was. He ordered another beer, and a shot of V.O.; he was starting to like V.O.

He liked hand jobs, too: but a sophomore? Some pimple-faced kid with baby fat? Not cool. The cool thing would be a hand job from some classy girl, the drop-dead fuck-you kind. Not Estrella: take away all her good points and what was left? Just another wetback among millions. Did he know any classy girls of the drop-dead fuck-you kind? No. Had he even actually seen one in real life? The surprising answer to that question came as he was knocking back the last of the V.O. He'd seen two!

Two. Double your pleasure, double your fun. Two, as drop-dead fuck-you as they came. As drop-dead, fuck-you as those TV miniskirt lawyers of Ronnie's, except these two were real, real flesh and blood, down there in that underground palace where F tunnel hooked beneath building 68. The underground palace—what was that all about? Some mystery, some college shit from the past, buried down there. Who cared? What mattered was that those two classy girls had discovered it too. Probably thought of it as their little secret. An amazing, what was the word?
Insight
. That was it. An amazing insight. They thought of it as their little secret. But he knew! Amazing. And he was amazing too, because just like that he'd figured out where ideas—the first step on the infomercial road to success—came from. Get an idea, they said, step one, they said, but they never told you where ideas came from. And now he knew. He'd figured it out, all by himself. Was he some unit in the common herd? Oh, no. He was an original, like, thinker. One day he'd be making infomercials of his own. He knew that with absolute certainty. Why? Because he'd figured out where ideas came from. They came—

“I said c'n I get you another?”

Freedy looked up, up into the face of some waitress, not a classy, drop-dead fuck-you face, more like the opposite. Just the basics—face, tits, cunt. “Saturday night, why not?” he said. So cool.

“Phew,” said waitress, “thought you were on one of those toxic-shock trips there for a sec. Bud and a shot of V.O.?”

“Make it a Bud Light.” Had to keep his head clear.

She went away. Ass. He'd left out ass. Face, tits, cunt, ass. Easy to make a joke of it by saying
forget about the face part.
That would be crude. There were crude guys around, but not him. He sipped Bud Light like a gentleman, tried the V.O., went back to the beer, back and forth, but like a gentleman, taking his time, cool and moderate. Had to keep his head clear. Why? Because things were happening, were going to happen. He didn't know what things, but the . . . elements, yes, the elements were in place. Take Einstein. Had Einstein known what those theories of his were leading to? 'Course not—he just knew things were going to happen. Ka-boom.

But—as Freedy went to the can to piss away several beers and V.O.'s—one thing Einstein must have known about, just like him, was where ideas came from. He went into a cubicle, snorted the tiniest possible snort of meth. Ideas: they came—this was incredible!—from the crashing together, the collision, of two . . . two things. Two . . . forces! Yes. Such as: those two drop-dead fuck-you girls thought the underground palace was their little secret. That was force one. But he knew. That was the second force. Ka-boom. And out of that ka-boom—Freedy stepped from the cubicle, saw himself in the mirror, more diesel than ever, smile whiter than ever, like Superman with bigger muscles and a ponytail—out of that ka-boom came an idea, new and fresh: he would go back down to the palace, down where F tunnel hooked under building 68. When? Why not now? It was Saturday night.

He popped an andro, and as he did saw another cubicle open behind him. A guy came out zipping up, a guy in a state trooper's uniform. A fuckin' statie, wearing the Smokey hat.
You wear it in the crapper?
Freedy came close to saying that aloud, probably would have if it hadn't been for the way the statie was eyeing him in the mirror. What the fuck was that all about? Then he remembered the meth. What cubicle had he been tweaking in? Couldn't have been the one next to the statie, could it? Hard to tell. Freedy turned on the tap, washed his hands. The statie broke off eye contact—his image stopped staring at Freedy's was what really happened, as nice a bit of meth thinking as you could ask for, but the main point was that Freedy could stare anybody down, what with those eyes of his that resembled some British actor's—and went out. “Ever heard of hygiene?” Freedy said; but not loud. He wasn't afraid of some statie with bad personal habits, wasn't afraid of any cop, for that matter, but this was no time for distractions. Idea, plan, stick, stick, stick.

 

B
efore he even got to his spyhole, Freedy knew they were there. That creepy music, coming down tunnel F: he didn't like any music, but this kind was the worst. Wasn't even in English, like the singer was rubbing your nose in it.

Freedy removed his drywall door, went into the little room, put his eye to the spyhole. Ka-boom: drop-dead, fuck-you, better than he'd remembered, one, the darker-haired, dressed all in black, the other, the blonde, in red. And that guy. Freedy had forgotten all about him, the college kid he could break in half.

They were lounging on couches, purple couches with gold fringe, drinking some golden liquid from sparkling glasses and talking, the whole room golden too, from the candlelight. The funny thing was that the blond one, hanging something silver around her neck, was saying exactly what she'd said the first time he'd seen her: “How do I look?”

Some weird time warp, like they'd been waiting for him to come back. But what a ridiculous fuckin' question. How could she even ask? Drop-dead fuck-you is how she looked. The drop-dead fuck-you ones had to know they were drop-dead fuck-you, didn't they? Otherwise nothing made sense. Freedy toyed with the idea of saying it, not loud, just cool and matter-of-fact, speaking right through the spyhole.
Drop-dead fuck-you is how you look, babe.
Then their heads would whip up, real quick, to where the sound came from, and he'd come crashing through the wall. Ka-boom. Toyed with the idea, but remained silent. He was good at silence when he wanted to be; right now, he couldn't even hear his own breathing.

“Like a pirate,” said the darker-haired one. “Do you think Leo actually found it, or just bought it somewhere?”

“Who knows anything about Leo anymore?” said the blonde.

The darker-haired one thought that over. The college kid, so breakable in two, watched her do it like something special was happening. “Do you think Dad knew all this?” she said.

“Knew all what?” said the blond one.

“Brooklyn,” said the darker-haired one. “Mrs. Uzig.”

Mrs. Uzig? Leo? Bells rang. Maybe something special
was
happening.

“It would be just like him, wouldn't it?” said the blond one. “To keep the good stuff to himself.”

“I wasn't suggesting that,” said the darker-haired one.

The blonde shook her head. “Daddy's little girl.”

Daddy's little girl. What the fuck was this all about? Suddenly it hit him, another one of his amazing insights: they were sisters! And this other one, the college kid, was their brother! Three rich kids, fooling around down in the tunnels. It all made sense. Lucky for the college kid, that brother angle—might save him from being broken in two.

“What do you mean, daddy's little girl?” said the darkerhaired one.

“You find that obscure?” said the blonde.

Totally obscure, but Freedy didn't care: their bodies! Meanwhile they were exchanging some sort of look. The darker-haired one broke it first, just like the statie with him. Hey! Was this a fight? And were they a little drunk? Probably not—they weren't behaving like fighters and drunks he knew: no snarling, for one thing; no punching, for another.

The music stopped. It got very quiet. Freedy pressed his forehead to the wall, his eye almost in the room. He could hear the candles burning. “More music?” said the college kid, getting up.

For fuck sake.

“How about the Caruso?” said the blonde.

“ ‘Caro Nome,' ” said the darker-haired one, real decisive for some reason.

“ ‘Caro Nome,' ” said the blond one. “Aren't you getting sick of it?” The darker-haired one didn't answer. The blond one turned to the college kid. “Aren't
you
getting sick of it, Nat?”

“Not yet,” said the college kid, Nat.

From his angle, Freedy had a good look at the blonde's face when he said that. She was pissed. He had no idea why, but she was. The others didn't see it: the one called Nat was winding up some old-fashioned record player—maybe an antique, maybe worth a bundle—and the darker-haired one, the little sister, was watching him.

More music. A female voice, the same hideous song that had been playing the first night. The big sister didn't like it either; Freedy could see that. She got up right away and said: “I'm going to call him.”

“Who?” said the little sister.

“Daddy,” said the big sister, said it funny, like it was in quotes.

“Why?”

“See what he knows about Leo.”

“It's the middle of the night.”

“Not in Manila.”

“How do you know he's in Manila?”

Her voice took on an edge: “Or Singapore, Shanghai, what difference does it make? They'll track him down.” She was walking toward the unlit room, the bedroom. “See you later,” she said.

“You're leaving?”

“Bonsoir.”

Or some foreign shit; this was like another goddamn country.

Freedy's angle was perfect for seeing what happened after that. The little sister and the Nat guy exchanged a look, like they didn't know what the hell was going on.
Join the club,
thought Freedy. Meanwhile, big sister was climbing up the rope ladder in the bedroom. There was just enough spillover light from the candles in the big room to gleam on her blond head. Up and out of sight she went. Freedy heard something close like a lid.

The little sister and the Nat guy made eye contact again, different this time. The little sister got up and walked over toward the record player where the Nat guy was standing. Why did he keep calling her the little sister? She was just as tall as the big sister, with a body just as good in every way. In fact—another one of his insights was coming, he could feel it—they were identical, except for the hair. Except for the hair, they could have been twins.