“Star Radley,” Walk said.
Bud looked confused, then it hit him and he sobered right up.
“I heard you got into it with her, and her daughter. She was playing, you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself.”
Bud shook his head. “Nothing in that.”
Walk felt wired. He wondered about his sanity, pulling a gun on a man in a restroom. Looking for his angle.
“I took her out a couple times.”
“And?”
“It didn’t work out, that was all.”
Walk reached for the gun again, till Bud stepped back. “I swear it. Nothing happened.”
“You got rough with her?”
“No. Never. Nothing like that. I treated her nice. Shit, I even took her to that place on Bleaker. Twenty-dollar steak. I booked a motel … a nice one.”
“She said no.”
Bud looked at his feet, his pissy jeans, the gun. “Not just no. I’m not a man that can’t take no. Shit, there’s women, ask around. I do alright. But Star, she gave the illusion of it. Being into me. But it wasn’t just no, not now. It was never. That’s what she said. Never. What the fuck is that? Never. It was like she was trying hard to be someone she wasn’t. An act, maybe. All of it an act.”
“An act?”
“I reckon she did the same with other men. The neighbor. I picked her up one time and he came over, told me not to waste my time.”
“Which neighbor?”
“Right next door. Seventies-looking dude.”
“Where were you June 14th?”
Bud smiled when it came to him. “I know when it was. We had Elvis Cudmore playing. I was right here, ask anyone.”
Walk left him there, cut through the small crowd and headed out into night air, heart still pounding.
He crossed the lot, squatted by a Dumpster and puked.
19
SHE ATE HER LUNCH BENEATH an oak tree, eyes on her brother.
The first week passed quietly, she did not speak to anyone. Thomas Noble made overtures, she dismissed him curtly.
Robin was in K2, they had their own area sectioned off by a low fence. Each day he played with the same girl and boy. They stood at the mud kitchen, Robin and the girl short-order cooks, the other boy fetching and delivering to oblivious others.
She didn’t notice she was not alone until shadow cut the light, shade falling over her as she looked up.
“I thought I might enjoy your tree.” Thomas Noble carried his lunch, a bulging sack, in his good hand.
She sighed.
He sat and cleared his throat. “I’ve been watching you.”
“Well, that’s not creepy at all.” She shuffled further from him.
“I was thinking. Would you like to—”
“Never.”
“My father said my mother turned him down the first time. But her eyes said yes so he persisted.”
“Spoken like a true rapist.”
Beside her he spread out a large, thick cloth napkin. Then he laid out a bag of potato chips, a Twinkie, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, a bag of marshmallows and a can of soda. “It’s a wonder more people don’t know about this spot.”
“It’s a wonder you haven’t contracted diabetes.”
He ate quietly, each bite muted as he pushed thick frames up his nose. He kept his bad hand holstered in his pocket. Watching him open the marshmallows with his teeth was painful.
“You can use the weak hand,” she said, finally. “Don’t hide it on my account.”
“Symbrachydactyly. It’s when—”
“I do not care.”
He ate a marshmallow.
Robin ran up to the fence and showed her a purple plate with a clump of dirt on it. He mouthed “hotdog” and she smiled.
“He’s a cutie,” Thomas Noble said.
“You some kind of pervert?”
“No … of course not, I just …” He left it there.
Behind was woodland, out of bounds, long timbers stacked to make fencing, bleached back to bone.
“I heard you’re from the Golden State. Beautiful this time of year. I think I have a cousin in Sequoia.”
“The national park.”
He went back to eating.
“Say, do you like movies?”
“No.”
“How about ice skating? I’m actually quite good at—”
“No.”
He shrugged off his jacket. “I like your bow. There’s a photo of me with a bow in my hair when I was a baby.”
“Do you have an inner monologue?”
“My mother liked to pretend I was the daughter she always wanted.”
“But then all that testosterone kicked in and shat on her dreams.”
He offered her a peanut butter cup.
She pretended not to notice.
They watched a group of boys pass. One of them said something and they laughed. Thomas Noble shoved his hand even deeper into his pocket.
She straightened a little when she saw a boy snatch the plate from Robin. Robin went to grab it back but the other boy, taller, held it from his reach, then threw it to the ground. As Robin bent to pick it up he was pushed over.
Duchess, up on her feet and moving, eyes locked tight on the kid as Robin began to cry. She watched other girls laughing, talking in clusters and twirling their hair, a different species altogether. She hopped the fence. There was no teacher, no lunch lady watching out. She helped Robin up, dusted his shorts down and palmed his tears.
“Alright?”
“I want to go home.” He sniffed.
She pulled him close and held him till he calmed. “I’ll get us home. I promise it. I’ve got it figured, when I’m done here I’ll get a job and a place and we can go home, right?”
“I mean home to Grandpa.”
His friends stood beside, the girl and the boy. The girl came over, plaited hair, dungarees with a flower on the pocket. She patted Robin’s back.
“Don’t worry about Tyler, he’s just mean to everyone,” she said.
“Yeah,” the boy agreed.
“You want to go fix more hotdogs for the diner?”
Duchess smiled and he left her. She watched him go play, nothing more to do above it, all forgotten.
She turned and found Tyler by the fence, going at it with a stick.
“Kid.”
He turned and she knew the look. “What?”
She knelt in the dirt, rough on her knees, the sun behind.
She grabbed
