School Days (11 page)

Y
OU COULD BE
in a mall in the food court and you could have no idea where in this great republic you might be. Same cuisine. Same décor. Same clientele. It was comforting. Anywhere in America, you could count on the same fried rice, the same cheese steaks, the same slice of pizza. We met George at a table near the souvlaki stand. She was enjoying a large Diet Coke and a cigarette. She didn't look at me when we sat down.

“Hi, Janey,” she said.

Janey said, “Hi.”

“Remember me?” I said.

George nodded. She had changed clothes, but the look was
the same. Cropped T-shirt, low pants. Her eyes were slathered with dark makeup, and her lips with dark gloss. She had silver rings on all her fingers. And her nails were painted black.

“Have you seen Animal?” I said.

She shook her head.

“Tell me a little about him,” I said.

George looked at Janey.

“He's an okay guy,” Janey said. “You know? You can, like, talk to him. He won't tell.”

George nodded and looked back at me.

“Whatcha want to know?” she said.

“Animal get you dope?” I said.

“Yes.”

“What?” I said.

“Mostly, like, weed,” she said. “But whatever you want, you tell him, he gets it for you.”

“Know where he gets it?”

“Some gang in Boston, I think,” George said. “I think it's his brother's gang.”

“Know the name of the gang?” I said.

“No.”

“Wendell Grant hang with you guys?” I said.

“Some.”

George stubbed out her cigarette and lit another one. She had a thin face. Under the makeup were dim traces of acne scarring.

“Dell do any dope?” I said.

“He was, like, heavy-duty,” she said. “Coke, meth, lots of stuff.”

“He get it from Animal?”

“Yeah, 'course. You get stuff around the Rocks, you get it from Animal.”

“Dell tight with Animal.”

“Nobody was tight with Animal. He is the Man, you know? I mean, everybody is scared of him and like,
sure Animal, anything you say, Animal.
”

“King of the Rocks,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Animal ever have a gun?” I said.

George looked at Janey again.

“I'm telling you,” Janey said. “He's okay.”

She was right, of course, but I wondered how she knew that. Probably didn't matter. I was now a celebrity and, more important, at this moment, I was her celebrity.

“Yeah, he had a gun. Him and Dell, like, used to shoot guns sometimes.”

“What kind of guns?” I said.

“Little ones. You know . . . like . . . handguns!”

“Did you see what kind of handgun?”

“I don't know,” she said. “Just, like, a gun you hold in your hand and go
bang bang.
”

“Square-looking or kind of round.”

“Square, I guess.”

“Shoot a lot of times without stopping?” I said.

“I guess.”

“What did they shoot at?”

“Bottles, and boxes and stuff. Sometimes they'd find a stray cat and, like, shoot at it.”

“Did Dell have a gun?”

George shook her head.

“Animal let him use one of his,” she said.

“Animal have many guns?” I said.

“I don't know,” George said. “I guess he could get them whenever he wanted them.”

“From his brother?”

“I guess.”

“Ever see Jared Clark around there?” I said.

“Jared? The phantom? No. He'd be too scared.”

“You scared?”

“Yeah, of Animal.”

“But you're his girlfriend.”

“Sure. All the girls, you want to hang at the Rocks, you got to fuck Animal.”

“What would happen if you didn't?” I said.

“Nobody, like, doesn't,” she said. “You don't, you don't hang there.”

“And you got to hang somewhere,” I said.

“Acourse,” she said.

“W
HAT KIND OF DOG
you say she was?” DiBella said.

“German shorthaired pointer,” I said.

“And why has she got her head in my wastebasket?”

“Looking for clues,” I said.

Pearl straightened from her exploration of DiBella's wastebasket with an empty yogurt carton in her mouth.

“See, now we know what you were eating,” I said.

Pearl took the carton to the corner of the office and settled down with it.

“She gonna eat the fucking carton?” DiBella said.

“She'll probably chew it and spit it out,” I said.

“On my fucking floor?”

“I'll pick it up,” I said.

DiBella watched her for a moment, then looked at me and shook his head slowly.

“You know how many people come in here with a fucking dog?” he said.

“None?”

“That's right, none.”

“They're obviously not fun like me,” I said.

“And God bless them for it,” DiBella said. “We got nothing on Luis Yang.”

“How about his brother?”

“I talked with the gang squad in Boston.”

“And?”

“They got nothing on Luis Yang, either,” he said. “But there's a Jose Yang in a gang called Los Diablos.”

“Clever name,” I said.

“Yeah. Gangbangers are always imaginative. Usual stuff—deal dope, run a chop shop, fight other gangs.”

“Guns?”

“Yeah. Gang squad says they have guns, probably got a connection. Probably could get more. Probably pretty much anything you wanted.”

“So,” I said. “Maybe we know where the guns came from.”

“Maybe,” DiBella said. “We could shake Animal a little, see what came out.”

“We can always do that,” I said. “If we do it too soon and release him, he'll be looking for whoever ratted him out, and no one will talk to me again.”

“You figure Wendell and the Clark kid hooked up somehow, and Grant got the guns from Animal.”

“Yeah.” I said. “And Animal had taught Grant how to shoot, and, maybe, for whatever reason, Grant taught Clark.”

“That would make it sort of not spur of the moment,” DiBella said.

“It would,” I said.

“No surprise,” DiBella said. “Part of the excitement of something like this is probably the planning and preparation.”

“So,” I said. “They decide to do the shooting. They buy guns and ammo from Animal. They practice until they're ready. And off they go.”

“Yeah?”

“So,” I said, “assuming Animal didn't give them the guns and ammo because he's a generous guy, where'd they get the money?”

“Families are well off,” DiBella said. “Hell, the Clark family is loaded.”

“ ‘Hey, Dad, gimme a couple grand to buy guns and ammo'?”

“Good point,” DiBella said. “Find out when either or both came up with a chunk of cash, and you got an idea when the gun deal went down.”

“Yep.”

“Still don't excite me,” DiBella said. “We got the shooters. We got their confessions. Los Diablos are Boston's problem, and I'm not sure Animal is a major threat to civil order in Bethel County.”

“Animal is small change,” I said. “But I still want to know why.”

“And you think if you know why, you'll be able to clear the Clark kid?” DiBella said.

“I won't know that until I know why,” I said.

DiBella nodded thoughtfully.

“I don't know how smart you are,” he said. “But I'll give you stubborn.”

“May be better than smart,” I said.

“May be,” DiBella said. “Both is even better.”

Pearl exhausted the yogurt carton and abandoned the remnants. She came and sat next to me and looked hopeful.

“So,” DiBella said. “Fine. Go to it. But pick up the chewed carton first.”

Which I did. A man's only as good as his word.

I
SAT WITH
Lily Ellsworth in a large, domed-glass conservatory with a view of the Bethel River, which moved in big blue meanders across the floor of the Bethel Valley under the high, cloudless sky.

“What have you to report?” she said.

“I think he probably did it,” I said.

“I didn't hire you to tell me he did it,” Mrs. Ellsworth said.

“Yes, ma'am,” I said.

She sat very straight in her chair, her hands clasped motionless in her lap. She was perfectly groomed and perfectly still. Under her careful makeup, her skin had a healthy,
outdoorsy look to it. Her hair was white, not silver, but white, and brushed back softly off her face. She was quite beautiful.

“Did you ever give money to your grandson?” I said.

“Often,” she said.

“Large amounts?” I said.

“What might seem a large amount to you,” she said, “might seem a very small amount to me.”

I nodded. I did the math in my head.

“Two or three thousand dollars?” I said.

“I have given him that much.”

“Often?”

“No, last winter,” she said. “He needed it.”

“Did he say what for?”

“No,” she said. “And I did not ask. I love my grandson, Mr. Spenser.”

I nodded.

“Can you recall exactly when last winter?” I said.

“Not really.”

“Did you write a check?”

“Yes.”

“Could you look it up?” I said.

“Why is that necessary?”

“I believe he bought some guns with the money,” I said. “It might help to know when.”

“He did not buy guns,” she said.

“Ma'am,” I said. “They already have him cold. Grant has named him as the other shooter. He's confessed to it. I don't have to help convict him. Anything I can find out will be useful only on his behalf.”

“Or you won't use it?” she said.

“Correct,” I said.

She nodded slowly. We looked out through the glass at the slow lawn that declined toward the valley. Along one side was a stand of hydrangea, their big blossoms moving in the soft wind.

“It is four-ten in the afternoon,” she said. “Would you care for a cocktail?”

“That would be nice,” I said.

She stood effortlessly and walked briskly out of the glass room. I watched the hydrangea blossoms move for a while. She came back with a tray with two glasses on it.

“Gin and tonic,” she said. “I suppose I should have asked.”

“That will be fine,” I said.

She set the tray down on a low table, and I saw that her checkbook was on the tray also. She handed me one of the glasses and took the other for herself. She raised it toward me slightly.

“You seem an honest man, sir,” she said.

“ ‘Let be be the end of seem,' ” I said.

She smiled faintly.

“ ‘The only emperor,' ” she said, “ ‘is the emperor of ice-cream.' ”

“Very good,” I said.

“My generation read, Mr. Spenser; apparently yours did, too.”

“Or at least I did,” I said. “Still do.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do as well.”

She took another pull at her drink. Then she put the glass
down, picked up the checkbook, and began to leaf through the register. I sat with my drink. The hydrangea continued to nod in the late summer outside the glass.

“I gave him three thousand dollars on January twenty-first,” she said after a time. “How many guns would that buy?”

“Four plus ammo,” I said. “And he might have had some left over.”

“For ski masks,” she said.

“And extra magazines,” I said. “Perhaps even a controlled substance.”

“Drugs?”

I shrugged.

“I believe none of this,” she said.

“No need to yet,” I said.

“Nothing will make me believe it.”

I didn't speak.

“You believe it,” she said.

“I think it likely,” I said.

“And you think when he bought the guns in January, he was planning to shoot those people in May.”

“I don't know when he was planning to shoot,” I said. “I only know when he got the money and when he did the shooting.”

“He didn't do the shooting.”

“Have you talked to him since the incident?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Did you ever ask?”

“No.”

“Excuse me, ma'am, for saying so, but you don't want to know.”

She looked at her drink, tilting the glass slightly so the ice rattled faintly.

“Jared has always been a silent child,” she said. “Perhaps lonely. I don't know. I always felt that everyone pried at him too much. His parents were always after him to tell them more. Where are you going? Who are you going with? Who are your friends? Do you have a girlfriend? What do you wish to become? I felt my role was to offer him respite, a place he could come and be loved and respected, where he could indulge himself in as much silence as he wished.”

“Did you spend much time with him?”

“A great deal of time.”

“Did he have a girlfriend?” I said.

“I don't know,” she said. “Nor do I know about friends or ambitions or fears or hopes and dreams.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Books, movies, ideas.”

“Ideas?” I said.

She smiled.

“We talked about love,” she said. “We talked about friendship. We talked about what humans should be. About what one human owed another. About what made a person good.”

“But in the abstract,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Without concrete examples,” I said.

“None tied to him,” she said.

“Better than not talking about them at all,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Did you have any sense that some of these issues might have a personal connection?” I said.

“I never pried.”

“Could you give a guess,” I said.

She was quiet, looking at her glass. Then she raised it and took a long swallow.

“I would guess,” she said, “that they did.”