Thursday's Child Page 4

  Dimly, he realized that he was crying. Maureen would probably think that was a very good thing. He raised the bat again.

  4

  Beau didn’t even want to be at the damned party.

  Unfortunately, in this case, Saul hadn’t given him any choice in the matter. Maybe they had lately reached a sort of trucelike state, occasionally even holding a pleasant conversation, but it hadn’t taken Beau very long to find out just how far he could go in his rebellions against the old man’s wishes. Sometimes, the easiest thing to do was just give in. So here he was. And not only was he appearing at the party, but he was actually wearing the new sports jacket and slacks that had been purchased for the occasion.

  Saul, it seemed, gave one party a year, and this was it. A huge red-and-yellow-striped tent had been erected in the backyard and truckloads of catered food were hauled in. Now what seemed like half the population of Los Angeles (the rich and attractive half, of course) was milling around on the lawn, eating, drinking, and, most importantly, being seen. Beau didn’t know who most of the guests were, although he did recognize a few kids from school, probably hauled along by parents. On his behalf, no doubt. They shouldn’t have bothered. He was pleased that nobody even spoke to him as he walked through the crowd, eating handmade potato chips and drinking Coke secretly spiked with rum.

  At one point in his solitary tour of the backyard, he encountered his grandfather, the host, looking expansive and pleased with himself. “Having a good time?” Saul asked him.

  Beau finished chewing a chip and then swallowed. “Do you know,” he said, “that this is the four-month anniversary of my parents’ being killed?”

  Saul just looked at him.

  Beau didn’t know why he’d said that. But once said, it would have been too embarrassing to apologize or anything. So he smiled brightly and walked away.

  Fed up with the crowd and the noise, he headed for the farthest perimeter of the vast yard, back where the orange and lemon trees grew. He found a grassy spot that was so shaded it was almost dark and sat on the ground.

  Here it was easy to close his eyes and think about the past.

  Because his thoughts were so far away, in another time and a much different place, it took Beau several moments to realize that he was no longer alone. He opened his eyes.

  A girl in a white dress was standing a few feet away, watching him. “Hi, Beau,” she said. “You look kind of lonely out here all by yourself.”

  “I’m okay.” It took him a couple more seconds to recognize her. “You’re Kimberly, right?”

  She favored him with a brilliantly white smile. “Right. Algebra class.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Can I sit here with you?”

  Beau just nodded. She looked like all the girls at school—tanned, blond, and casually perfect. Beau felt sweaty and clumsy whenever they looked at him, which wasn’t that often, of course. He supposed that his reaction was just hormones, but with so many other things on his mind lately, who had time to think about sex?

  Anyway, his actual experience in that area had been limited to solitary jacking off, and even that seemed like too much trouble these days. It probably didn’t say much about the quality of his social skills that an occasional wet dream was as close as he could get to an interpersonal relationship.

  Kimberly sat down too close to him; apparently the concept of Personal Space, something that his parents had always stressed, was not an idea that she was familiar with. He couldn’t help inhaling the cloying scent of her perfume. She gave an expert toss of her head and the golden curls tumbled cheerfully. “You’re a real mysterious figure at school, you know?”

  “Me?” He wiped at his sweaty face with the sleeve of his new jacket. “Why would anybody think I’m mysterious?”

  “Well, you know,” she said, smoothing the front of her light cotton dress, “the way you lived all that time in the jungle or whatever. Like Tarzan, sort of.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” he said sharply. “I wasn’t in fucking Africa swinging from the trees.”

  “Okay,” she agreed willingly. “But it was something like that, right?”

  He didn’t bother to argue anymore; what the hell did he care what they thought about him anyway? He sipped some of the spiked Coke.

  “Well, anyway,” she said, “I think you’re real cute … in a sort of … interesting way.”

  He had absolutely no idea how to respond to that.

  She wriggled even closer. “Can I ask you something really, like, personal?”

  Her breath was hot against his cheek. “What?” he said warily.

  “Have you ever, you know, done it?”

  “Done it?” He wished fervently that she would just go away and leave him alone.

  But she didn’t. Instead, she lifted a hand and touched his hair. “Don’t you think I’m pretty? Most boys do.”

  “You’re pretty, yeah.” His voice sounded funny to him. He cleared his throat.

  Beau wasn’t quite sure who kissed whom first, but all of a sudden they were both stretched out on the grass. There was a roaring in his ears. She fumbled with his belt as he, absurdly, worried about grass stains.

  When his hand touched the wet warmth between her thighs, the feeling was like an electric shock through his system. The next jolt came when he felt her hand wrap around his growing erection.

  A memory shot through him: Jonathan and Rachel and he had always lived in the same small wooden house. A little house with thin walls. The sounds of his parents making love had been a familiar and comfortable part of his childhood. When he was old enough to think about it seriously, he wondered why, at their age, they still bothered. But they did, and what was even more surprising to him, they still seemed to enjoy it.

  Even the night before they died, he recalled suddenly, they’d been at it.

  Beau tried to put together the sounds he recalled so clearly—the sighs and laughter and muffled cries—with what was happening here and now to him. Two figures, one sweaty and awkward, the other seemingly cool and only minimally involved, scooted around on the grass silently. The music from the party could be faintly heard, but otherwise they might have been all alone in the world.

  Wasn’t this supposed to be fun?

  He was inside of her for only a few seconds when it was all over; apparently hormones knew what to do even without much cooperation. As he rolled away from her stilled form, Beau found himself hoping that his parents had enjoyed themselves a whole lot more than this on that last night. He zipped his trousers and sat up.

  She finished straightening her clothes—nobody had actually removed anything for the occasion—and sat up, reaching for her purse. After a brief search, she found and took out a compact and some lip gloss.

  Beau cleared his throat again.

  It was then that he heard the giggle. She heard it, too, and looked up with a frown. “Is somebody over there?” Beau asked.

  An obvious admission of guilt crossed her face.

  Beau reached blindly for his Coke and took a big gulp. “Who’s there?”

  The only response was a hurried rustling and then it was quiet again.

  “Would you please tell me what the hell is going on?” he asked, trying desperately to take control of the situation. Whatever the situation was.

  She sighed, looked away, then sighed again. “Have you ever heard of the Bleu Belles?”

  He tried to think. Blue Bells? What the hell did that have to do with what had just happened here? Finally, he vaguely remembered seeing signs posted around the school about various activities—none of which interested him at all—sponsored by something called the Bleu Belles. “I guess. That’s some club at school, right?”

  She snapped the compact closed and looked mildly shocked. “Not just some club. It’s the club. Every girl at school is just dying to get in. But they’re very selective.”

  Beau was getting tired of listening to her. He was tired of her. “So what?” he said sharply. “Wh
at’s the stupid club got to do with me?”

  Kimberly was looking at the ground, not at him, as she twisted blades of grass between her fingers. “See, the thing is, it’s not easy to get in. Even when you’re invited, there’s still the initiation. They make you do things. One girl, last year, she had to drive the headmaster’s car out of the parking lot and leave it at least ten miles from school.”

  Beau just nodded.

  “So anyway, I was finally invited into the club. And you, well, like I said, you’re sort of different. And we were all pretty curious about you. So …” She looked up finally and shrugged. “See?”

  Yeah, he saw okay. “So this was your initiation.”

  “Right.” She gave him another smile. “Well, nobody got hurt or anything.”

  Beau just looked at her for a moment, then shook his head. “God, you’re really a dumb bitch, aren’t you?”

  Now she was indignant. “Well, you don’t have to get so mad. It was all just a joke.”

  “Sure. Very fucking funny. And I guess somebody had to watch, just to be sure that you went through with it.”

  “Uh-huh.” Her face turned red for the first time. “Just the club president and vice-president. And they swore themselves to secrecy.” She touched his arm urgently. “You won’t tell anybody else, will you?”

  He moved away from her. “That’s not very likely, is it?”

  “Okay, thanks.” She jumped up, gave a tug to her dress, and left.

  Beau swallowed the very last of his Coke and then wished he hadn’t, because his stomach rebelled instantly. For a few seconds, he thought it was all going to come up again.

  When nothing happened, though, he got up and walked back to the party. Nobody seemed to have noticed his absence. After a quick search of the yard, he was relieved to realize that Kimberly and her friends were nowhere in sight. Apparently, with their mission accomplished, they had taken off for more exciting places.

  He didn’t even want to think about having to see any of them when summer school started.

  Beau stopped by the buffet table and made himself a sandwich, hoping that some food would settle his stomach. He layered thinly-sliced ham on dark rye bread and slathered it with spicy brown mustard. He had just taken his first bite when someone poked him in the spine.

  “You’re Saul’s grandson, am I right?”

  Still chewing, he turned. The man standing there was just past middle age, plump, wearing a white Mexican wedding shirt and several gold chains. Beau nodded, but didn’t say anything. He took another bite of the sandwich.

  “Great man, your grandfather.” The stranger stuck out his hand. “Hank Levy. I’m a producer.”

  Beau kept eating, ignoring the outstretched hand. “That’s nice,” he said.

  Levy finally took his hand back. “Actually, I’m real glad to finally meet you. I’ve heard the story, of course, what happened to your folks and all, and I think it would make an awesome film. A powerful story. Politics, romance, death. The people eat that stuff up, you know?” His round face turned solemn. “It goes without saying, of course, that you’d like their story to be told with respect. With care.”

  Beau didn’t reply.

  Levy, undeterred, plunged on. “I really think it would make an awesome film.”

  “You want to know what I think?” Beau said finally.

  “Of course. Your input would be terrific.”

  Beau finished the sandwich. He wiped his mouth carefully on one of the little paper napkins that bore the well-known symbol of Saul’s company. He stepped closer to Levy and kept his voice low. “I think,” he said, “that you’re an asshole.”

  Then he turned and walked away.

  Beau was halfway up the stairs when he encountered Saul coming down. “Where are you going?”

  “To my room,” Beau said softly. “I really don’t want to be at this party anymore.”

  “Not even if I asked you to stay, to talk with people?”

  “You talk to them,” Beau said. “I’m tired.” He pushed past Saul and moved on, not stopping this time until he was in his room.

  He stood there for a moment, looking around at everything. None of it seemed to belong to him, to be a part of his life. Then, moving quickly, he stripped off the new clothes and left them in a heap on the floor. He dressed again, this time in his own ragged jeans and a clean white T-shirt. When he was finished, he shoved another change of clothes into his knapsack, added a couple of books, and then a framed photograph of his parents.

  For a long moment, he paused, staring down at the faces of Jonathan and Rachel. They almost seemed like strangers to him. Finally, he closed the knapsack.

  He waited until the coast was clear and then left the house by the side door, so that no one would see him go.

  5

  1

  There was someone knocking—no, actually, someone was pounding—on the door. He had the idea, vaguely, that the noise had been going on for a very long time before he actually heard it. Robert Turchek sat up in bed and groggily reached for his watch on the nightstand. The room was dark, because all of the curtains were drawn completely closed, but he figured that the two o’clock illuminated on the watch face was P.M. and not A.M. Mainly he figured that because who the hell would come to his door in the middle of the fucking night? Nobody with any sense, that was for damned sure.

  The pounding hadn’t stopped; in fact, whoever it was out there kept knocking with one hand, while pressing the doorbell with the other.

  “All right,” Robert mumbled. “All fucking right.”

  He pulled on some jeans as he hopped and staggered into the living room. En route, it did occur to him that while he knew it was two o’clock, and probably P.M. rather than A.M., he wasn’t altogether sure what day it was.

  For a man who prided himself on being super-organized, this realization was more than a little disconcerting.

  He zipped the jeans and then opened the door, blinking rapidly against the sudden and unpleasant invasion of southern California sunshine. Maureen was standing there. “Oh, hi,” he said. His voice sounded strange, sort of rusty, and he realized that it had been some time since he’d actually spoken.

  “Oh, hi?” she repeated, pushing by him and coming inside without actually being invited to do so. “That’s all you have to say? I’ve been calling for days. What’s the matter with you?” She dropped a load of newspapers and mail—which looked like mostly just ads and shit like that—onto the couch. “Why is it so dark in here?” She began yanking the curtains open efficiently. “I was starting to think that you were dead or something.”

  It all came back to him then.

  “No,” he said. “I’m not dead.”

  She trailed him into the kitchen and watched, arms crossed, as he poured himself a large glass of orange juice. “Bobby, I was worried. You call me to say that your brother—who I didn’t even know existed, by the way—had died and and so you’d be busy for a couple of days. I certainly understood that. But then, nothing. You wouldn’t even answer your phone.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. The juice was helping his voice return to normal. “Like I said, I’ve been busy.” He tried to remember what it was that he’d actually been doing, but his mind couldn’t quite focus yet. “And I think that maybe I had some damned bug. The flu, maybe.” When he thought about it, that sounded right. The flu, yeah. That would explain why the last few days were all sort of fogged over in his mind. A high fever could do that. He gulped some more juice. “I’m feeling better now, though.”

  “Good.” With one quick look, she took in his unshaven, rumpled appearance, and then the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Her attitude softened a little. “It must have been terrible. Your brother dying.”

  Robert sat at the table and began to search through the debris there for a pack of cigarettes and some matches. The red-and-gold matchbook he finally uncovered was from the bar where he’d had drinks with Brown after Andy’s funeral. He held it between two fingers
for a moment, then flipped it open. When the Winston was ignited, he looked at Maureen again. “My brother didn’t just die, you know. He was murdered.”

  She gasped. “Murdered? Oh my God, I didn’t know that.”

  He rubbed a hand over his face stubble. “Well, it happened a long time ago.”

  Now she looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know you don’t.” He picked up the glass of juice again, but instead of drinking, stared at the glowing tip of his cigarette. “I know you don’t understand, Mo, but I’m just too damned tired to explain it all right now.”

  She opened her mouth and then closed it again without saying anything. After a moment, Maureen went to the sink and turned on the hot water. She squirted lemon-scented liquid soap over the dirty dishes.

  Robert shifted a box of Grape-Nuts and threw an empty Ruffles bag to the floor. This place was a mess. He must’ve really felt crummy the last couple of days, because usually he was a very neat person. After surveying the tabletop with dismay, he got up and went back into the living room. Dropping onto the couch, he started going through the mail with absolutely no interest.

  The business-sized manila envelope, with his name neatly typed on it, caught his attention. He ripped it open and found, as expected, a single sheet of paper with another name typed there. Name, address, and an amount of money. The amount was satisfactory, so he carefully folded the paper and put it into his pocket. Probably it was time to get back to work.

  Only one other piece of mail interested him at all. The envelope was creased and dirty and it was addressed in block printing. Pencil.

  After looking at the envelope for a moment, he carefully opened it and slid out a page ripped from a child’s writing tablet. The message was also in pencil, and reading it he had the impression that the act of writing it had been a real effort. The message itself was brief and admirably to the point.

  Maybe you want to know that Danny Boyd is out of the joint.

  That was all. No signature. Nothing except the simple fact that Danny Boyd was a free man.

  Robert crumpled the paper into a small, tight wad. From the kitchen, he could hear the sound of dishes clattering and silverware clinking as Maureen washed them. She wasn’t often this domestic; he must really look like hell to have evoked such sympathy.