'You mind if Michelle tells me stuff?'
'No, ow, no, go ahead, man-tell him, Michelle-let go.'
I eased up on the squeeze, but still held his arm.
'Michelle?'
'Amy Gurwitz,' she said. 'She used to live here, but she moved to Boston.'
'Parents move?'
'No, just her. They threw her out.'
'Address?'
'I don't know.'
Hummer was trying to tug his arm loose.
'Anybody else?' I said.
All of them were silent. The arm squeeze had scared them. I had the secret to dealing with the difficult teen years. Violate their civil rights a little. Cause some pain. Bully them a bit. No such thing as a bad boy.
'No other friends?' I said.
They all shook their heads again, except Hummer, who was still trying to get his arm loose. I let him succeed. All of them were quiet. Hummer sat with his head down, rubbing his arm.
'You think you're pretty tough, huh?' he said. 'Come out and push around a bunch of kids.'
'I am pretty tough, Hummer. But not because I pushed you around. l pushed you around because I had to. There's people can push me around. Nothing to be ashamed of.'
Hummer didn't look up. None of the other kids looked at him. There was nothing else to say. I walked away, back toward the center of town, where I'd left my car. On the way I looked for a puppy to kick.
Chapter 5
There were seven people Gurwitz listed in the Boston telephone directory. None of them was Amy. I called all the numbers and none of them ever heard of Amy. There was one Gurwitz listed in the Smithfield book. I called them. Mrs. Gurwitz didn't know where Amy lived, and didn't know her phone number, and hadn't heard from her since she had left and didn't want to.
'I got three others to think about, mister,' she told me on the phone. 'And the farther away she stays from them, the better I'll like it. Her sister made honor roll last quarter.'
'Any of the kids know how to get in touch with her?'
'They'd better not, and you better not get them involved with her again either.'
'No, ma'am,' I said. 'Thank you for your time.' I hung up and called Susan at the high school.
'The name Amy Gurwitz mean anything to you?' I said.
'Yes. She dropped out last year.'
'She and April are supposed to be friends.'
'Could be. They were both sort of lost, alone kids. I don't know.'
'She got any siblings in the high school?'
'I think a sister, Meredith.'
'I talked to Amy's mom. She doesn't know Amy's whereabouts and doesn't want to. Maybe you could ask the kid sister. She must be smart. She made honor roll last quarter.'
'I'll talk with her,' Susan said, 'and call you back. Are you at my house?'
'Yeah, you know the number?'
She hung up. I leaned my forearms on the kitchen table and looked out the window. The maple trees were black and slick in the rain, their bare branches shiny. The flower bed was a soggy matting of dead stems. The house was so still you could hear its vital functions. The furnace cycling on and then off as the thermostat required. The faint movement of air from the heat vents. The periodic click, somewhere, probably of the gas meter. I had listened to too much silence in my life. As I got older I didn't get to like it more. A barrel-bodied Labrador retriever nosed through Susan's backyard, its tail making a steady arc as it foraged for anything that might have been left for the birds. There was nothing there, but she showed no sign of discouragement and moved on past the naked forsythias and into the next yard, with her tail making its rhythmical sweeping wag. The phone rang. Susan said, 'Okay. Meredith Gurwitz doesn't know where her sister is, but she's got a phone number where she can reach her. You got a pencil?'
'Yes.'
'Okay, here it is,' Susan said, and read me the number. 'Can you find the address from the number?'
'You forget to whom you speak,' I said.
'I withdraw the question,' Susan said.
'Before I hang up,' I said, 'tell me something.'
'Yes?'
'Do you spend much time at work fantasizing about my nude body?'
