“The fact is…” She bit her lip. “Maybe artists shouldn’t even have children at all.”
Stoned again. Out of her goddamn mind. He would have pushed past her, gone into his room, except for that good-news part. He waited instead.
“Do you know that song, Freedy, ‘Last Thing on My Mind’?” She started singing, in a little-girl voice that irritated him even more than normal singing: “ ‘Could have loved you better, didn’t mean to be unkind, you know that was the last…’ ”. Her voice trailed off.
Pathetic. He could see Leo Uzig as his father, especially after the reverb thing. What didn’t add up was her as the mother.
“But now maybe I can make it up to you,” she said. “The fact is, I’ve come into a little money.”
“How much?”
“Some. I know you don’t like it here.”
“Who said that?”
“You, Freedy. What with the cold and the lack of opportunity. Maybe I could help… set you up. In a warmer place, if you had some idea.”
“What kind of idea?”
“About what you’d like to do.”
Yes, a lucky day. What was it all about? Choice. He heard that all the time. Bill Gates, all the others, they had choices, they chose from different possibilities. Malibu, Miami, Mediterranean: choice. “I’ve got some ideas,” Freedy said. “How much are we talking about?”
“Some,” she said again.
“Can’t start a pool-” Whoa, don’t give anything away. “ Some won’t cut it in the business world.”
“What… what would be a likely amount?”
“Depends what’s available.”
Her eyes went to the phone. What was she going to do, call the bank? Had to be a dope deal, although he couldn’t imagine her making a big score.
“How would ten thousand do?”
Meaning there had to be four or five times that. Freedy was impressed. “Be a start,” he said.
She nodded, like it wasn’t out of the question, like it could happen.
“There’ll be some travel expenses too,” Freedy said.
“To where?”
“Florida.” Said it out loud. It was real, a real choice. “Let’s call it another two.”
“Two?”
“G’s.”
She nodded again. Should have said three, four, even five.
“When can I have it?”
She glanced at the phone again, opened her mouth to reply. Freedy heard a car door close.
He went to the window. A state police cruiser was parked on the street, a statie coming up the walk, but slow because she hadn’t shoveled. Freedy’s first thought: there goes the dope deal. Then he got a good look at the statie’s face: the same statie who’d eyed him in the men’s room of the stripper bar. He backed away from the window.
Didn’t make sense. Ronnie had filed a complaint? What was wrong with him? Did he want to get seriously hurt? That wasn’t Ronnie. But if not Ronnie, what?
No time to figure it out now. He turned to her; her mouth was still open. “I’ve gone back to California,” Freedy said.
“Not Florida?”
“That’s just what to tell him, for fuck sake. Address unknown.”
“Tell who, Freedy?”
There was a knock on the door. Freedy could move. He moved: down the hall to his bedroom, out the window, into the backyard, through some trees, angling toward the river; heading for Ronnie’s. Nothing to it; but he was pissed. This was supposed to be a lucky day.
But as for getting away clean, that was never in doubt. Freedy had only one bad moment, when a helicopter suddenly appeared. What was this? LA? It swept low over the river, passed above him at treetop level, close enough for him to see it had no police markings; no markings at all, except a big black Z.
25
“You must become who you are.” Identify the quotation and relate to the concept of the Superman.
That Ronnie.
Just when things were getting promising, just when Freedy’s hard work was starting to pay off, who fucks it all up but Ronnie? Calling the cops? Calling the cops because he was too clumsy to avoid bumping his head on a laptop? This wasn’t like the hairy thing under Ronnie’s lower lip, or the girl from Fitchville South, both a bit funny in a pathetic way. There was nothing funny about this. Calling the cops about a private matter crossed the line- everyone in the flats knew that, and no one would blame Freedy, whatever he did. Ronnie was a disgrace.
The slider to Ronnie’s basement was open a foot or so, off the track, askew. Ronnie had probably gone back to bed, was probably still asleep, maybe even with the girl. Was it a school day? Freedy realized he didn’t know what day it was. Cool, in a way. Did the wolf keep track of the goddamn days, or the tiger?
Freedy went in, saw the weights lying around, saw someone’s cut-off sweatshirt-his Planet Hollywood sweatshirt, found by some pool in the Valley, how the hell did that get here? — on the bench press, heard water dripping. He went upstairs to the kitchen.
All quiet, the fridge still humming away, the tub of KFC on the table. Freedy couldn’t remember taking it out of the fridge, but maybe he had. He helped himself to another drumstick, then noticed the laptop, still lying open and unblinking on the floor. Drumstick in hand, he went down the hall to Ronnie’s bedroom. Door closed. He opened it, went in.
Ronnie was back in bed all right, and alone. Eyes closed, maybe sleeping. Oh yeah-and his head was all wrapped in bandages. Freedy moved to the side of the bed. “Ronnie?” he said, swallowed what he was chewing, and said it again, more clearly, “Ronnie?”
No response, like he was in a… coma, or something. Impossible. Not even Ronnie. Freedy was thinking about giving him a little pat, a little poke, a little shake, when he heard footsteps in the hall; very light footsteps, but would anyone be surprised to learn that Freedy’s hearing was second to none? That was why he was already turned toward the door, readying some high-school joke for the Cheryl Ann substitute, when the footstepper walked in.
But not the girl: Saul Medeiros, Uncle Saul, gnawing on a drumstick, just like him. Saul paused, paused in midchew, and said something, possibly not clear because the drumstick got in the way. It sounded like, “Boys.”
Boys will be boys. Must be what he means, thought Freedy, and he started to relax. The laptop incident-no more than a boys-will-be-boys thing to Uncle Saul. Saul knew what Ronnie was all about; he remembered how Saul had smiled his nicotine-colored smile when Freedy said Ronnie was a pussy. Besides, he and Saul had developed a good working relationship. Not that they’d reached the mentor stage yet, but Two guys appeared behind Uncle Saul.
“Look who’s here, boys,” said Saul.
The two boys were big boys, one about Freedy’s size, the other a lot bigger. Both wore black satin jackets with Saul’s Collision in gold letters and crossed bowling pins on the front, plus gold crests reading Runners-Up ’99. Freedy wanted one.
“This here’s Freedy, boys,” said Saul Medeiros. “Numbnut I was tellin’ you about. Don’t unnerstan’ the…
