As Good As Gone (9781616206000) (17 page)

For the next half hour Calvin slouches down with his eyes closed, and Beverly might believe that he's dozing while she does sentry duty, yet at every sound of a car approaching—or of a child's bicycle rattling closer—he comes alert.

Finally, just when she's convinced he really is sleeping, he asks, with his eyes still closed, “You probably don't spend much time in this part of town, do you?”

“I've lived in Gladstone most of my life. I'm all right on either side of the river.” Beverly sits up straighter. “In fact, there was a time when I thought I could turn my knowledge of this town to my advantage. I seriously considered selling real estate.”

Calvin smiles. “Did you now? It's a job that takes more than a pretty smile and a nice pair of legs, you know. You have to pass a test.”

“I don't know how you do it, Mr. Sidey, but you can be insulting even when you hand out a compliment. Yes, I know there's a test. I've managed to pass a few over the years.”

“I'm sure you have,” Calvin says. “But it's generally men who make the property-­buying decisions. And they'd rather shake another man's hand over the deal. That's true on both sides of the river. Up on your side of town or here in Dogtown.”

“I know where that term comes from. And I don't much care for it.”

Calvin says, “I didn't make it up.”

“But it sure came ready to your lips.”

He tilts his hat back on his head, and looks up and down the block. “I'm surprised my son has properties in this part of town.”

Beverly says, “They need places to live too.”

“They? Who are they?”

“Well, Indians, I suppose.”

Calvin smiles again. “Now you're doing it too.”

“Speaking of which,” says Beverly, “you were a little hard on Miss Ann last night when she brought up the idea of trying to help out the Indian population. She wasn't doing anything more than displaying some youthful idealism. But I don't suppose you ever had a case of that, did you?”

“If I did,” he says, “I had a war to wring it out of me.”

“And you don't think the Indians have had a rough go of it in Montana?”

“Does it matter what I think?”

“I'm interested in your opinion, Mr. Sidey.”

He continues to survey the street in both directions. “We won,” he says. “They lost.”

“Simple as that?”

“Simple as that.”

Beverly well remembers Burt saying, on the occasion of yet another injustice involving an Indian, “They bring it on themselves.” Is Calvin's attitude any improvement over Burt's? They're Montana men cut from the same cloth, that's sure, and Beverly feels the familiar old frustration and hopelessness in the face of their hardhearted social philosophy. She's about to say—and this time she really will say it—I've had enough, take me home. But then a car comes down the street and pulls into the driveway. The woman who's driving and the little boy with her barely have time to climb out of their car before Calvin is out of the truck and striding over to meet them.

“Brenda Cady!” The way Calvin shouts the name it is not a question, and her fearful expression when she sees the man coming toward her convinces Beverly once again to get out of the truck and follow Calvin.

Beverly catches up to him just as he reaches the woman's car. “Do I know you?” Brenda Cady asks, glancing briefly at Beverly but trying to keep her attention focused on Calvin.

“You don't need to know me,” he says. “You just have to listen to what I'm about to tell you.”

Brenda Cady is plump, probably in her early thirties. She's dressed in a sleeveless white blouse and bright blue pedal pushers. She's almost pretty, but there's something slightly lopsided about her pushed-­in features that give her a look that's both sullen and submissive. The skinny little boy clinging to her leg is four or five years old, dark-­haired, and dark-­complected.

“You've been given notice to vacate these premises,” Calvin says, and at first Beverly is surprised at his phrasing, but then she remembers that Sidey Real Estate had once been in his hands. “And I expect you to comply with that order.”

Brenda Cady has driven up in a pastel-­green Chevrolet, and now she reaches over and slams its heavy door. Beverly sees in the backseat two grocery bags.

“I'm workin' on it,” she says, hugging the boy closer to her.

“You'll do more than work on it. And I'll tell you what else you'll do: You'll tell your husband or your boyfriend or whoever the hell that was that if he comes around my place making noise again he'll have trouble the likes of which he won't believe.”

“Lonnie? What did he—?” Brenda Cady stops herself and leans toward Calvin Sidey. “Lonnie's not scared of you.” Brenda Cady's mouth twists down and her eyebrows arch. In all her years of teaching, Beverly has never struck a student, but every time she comes across an expression like Brenda Cady's in the classroom or the schoolyard Beverly has to fight an impulse to slap the wearer across the face.

“Isn't he?” Calvin steps forward and places his hand on top of the Chevrolet. “Well, now, Lonnie doesn't know me.” He runs his hand lightly over the roof as if he's a prospective buyer come to inspect the merchandise. When he gets to the back window, he stops stroking the car and taps on the glass lightly with his fist. “So it's up to you to educate him. You teach him he damn well better be afraid.” Then he looks down at the child, a stare so steady and thorough he could be trying to see into the boy's ancestry. Brenda Cady's son ducks behind his mother.

Calvin turns then and begins to walk back to his truck, leaving Beverly to stand with Brenda Cady and the boy. Beverly feels she should say something, but what? Everything that comes to mind immediately cancels itself because she can't be sure of its truth.
Don't mind him; his bark is worse than his bite
. That wouldn't do—she suspects Calvin Sidey's bite could go very deep indeed.
He didn't mean to frighten your little boy
? No, he probably intended to throw the fear of God into anyone who crossed his path. Perhaps Beverly should get right to the heart of the matter:
You might think that was nothing but a crotchety old man, but that's only because you're new to Gladstone—that was Calvin Sidey, and many people believe he once caved in a man's head because the man made a vulgar remark about Sidey's wife. What do you think he'd do to someone who actually burst into the Sidey home and made a threat?

But Beverly says not a word to Brenda Cady and her scared little boy. Instead, she runs across the street to join the man about whom she might have issued such dire warnings, the man with whom, for better or worse, she has thrown in her lot.

TWENTY

Will leans his bike against the garage and heads toward the house. He's thirsty after baseball and he plans to make a pitcher of lime Kool-­Aid. Will's almost to the door when he hears Adam Lodge calling out from the Lodges' yard.

“Hey, kid. Come here for a second.”

Adam Lodge has been mowing the lawn, but he hasn't progressed beyond cutting one or two strips around the perimeter. He shuts off the mower and crosses to meet the boy.

“Come here,” Adam repeats. “I've got a business deal for you.”

Because Adam Lodge is tall and slender, Will has always thought of him as kind of a sissy. But when he sees the man without a shirt—Adam is wearing only a pair of grass-­stained high top basketball shoes and plaid Bermuda shorts—Will is surprised at how muscled Adam is. Yes, he's skinny—his ribs show—but his shoulders are broad, his pectorals are hard plates, and his long arms are knotted with muscle.

“What's the matter?” Adam says. “Didn't you hear me? How'd you like to make a couple bucks?”

“I guess.”

“If you finish mowing the lawn, I'll give you two dollars.”

Will knows exactly what he'd like to spend the money on. That afternoon at Little League he borrowed Mike Florence's thick-­handled bat, and he got two hits. With two dollars and a little from his savings, Will could buy his own Richie Ashburn model Louisville Slugger. Nevertheless, he says to Adam Lodge, “I better check with my grandpa.”

“Your grandfather isn't here. He and my mother drove off together over an hour ago. So what do you say?”

Will's father often complains about the lack of attention Mrs. Lodge pays to her lawn, and there's the evidence—grass so tall it's started to tassel and so many dandelions their gray puffy heads look like fog rising out of the lawn. Will imagines he'll have to lean hard on the mower to get it through this pasture. But maybe when he finishes he'll still have time today to buy that bat.

THE MOWING IS TOUGH
going all right, but Will puts the slow circuits around the yard to good use. He tries to think of how he can discourage Stuart and Glen and Bobby—Stuart especially—who won't rest until they can spy on Ann when she's naked. Yet for all his concentration on the dilemma, Will can come up with no reasonable solution. He
has
to persuade them that they must leave his sister alone, but how could he possibly persuade someone like Stuart Kinder? No
reasonable
solution . . . Suddenly Will feels as though he understands how a murderer might think—it's someone so powerless he resorts to his crime because it seems no other option is available.

The most dangerous places in and around Gladstone, at least those that Will is familiar with, are the river with its shifting channels and unpredictable currents, and an old coal chute, a steep galvanized steel slide that starts at the railroad tracks on a bluff above the river and finally empties onto jagged boulders far below. The problem is, how can Will lure or direct Stuart to either site? And how can he then position Stuart at the top of the chute in just such a way that Will can push him to his death? Or how can he get Stuart to step into the river right where the river is waiting to pull someone under and hold them down all the way to Wyoming? Maybe Will can use Ann as part of the trap.
Stuart, Ann's sunbathing naked over on that sandbar—no, you can't see her from here; you have to cross that part of the river.

By the time he pushes the mower through a few more circuits, his face is hot not only from exertion but embarrassment. He's a kid, and he can no more put these plans into action than he could have imagined into life his plastic cowboys and Indians. Now, if Will's father were like almost all the other fathers he would have guns, and Will could simply wait inside the house with a Winchester or a Colt .45 at his side, and if Stuart Kinder entered the Sidey home, Will could be ready and waiting to blast him away. The mower snarls and coughs its way through the thick grass, and its fumes fill the air, but it's not the smell of exhaust that's sickening Will. His own fantasies make him feel like throwing up.

ALL THE GRASS IS
cut except a bed-­sized rectangle in the middle of the yard when the mower quits. Over and over Will winds the starter rope around the housing and yanks, but the engine just gasps. Will unscrews the cap on the gas tank, holds his breath, and peers in. He hates the sharp smell of gasoline even though for him it has become the smell of summer. The tank looks empty, and when he taps on it with his fingernail the way he's seen his father do, the tank echoes hollowly.

Some lawn mowers need gas
and
oil, and Will isn't sure he can come up with the right mixture, so instead of checking for gas in the Lodges' garage, he'll get the can from his family's garage, where his father has already mixed them.

Will is just exiting the yard when a voice stops him. “Hey, you quitting on me?”

Adam Lodge is standing on the back patio. He's smoking and holding a Budweiser beer bottle at his side, his index finger looped around the bottle's neck.

“The mower quit,” Will says.

“There? With only that little patch left?”

Will nods. “It's out of gas, I'm pretty sure.”

“I filled it up before I started.” Adam drops his cigarette and crushes it out with his foot. “That's usually enough to do the front
and
back.”

Will doesn't know what to say. Is Adam Lodge saying Will lied about the mower stopping? “I went kind of slow,” Will replies.

“The deal was two dollars for the whole backyard. Not most of the yard.”

Will wants to explain that he wasn't quitting, that he was only going for gasoline, but Adam Lodge has turned to the side in order to take a long swallow of beer, and Will thinks he should wait until Adam finishes drinking. But when Adam brings the bottle down it's apparent that he's no longer paying attention to Will. He's focused on something next door.

Ann has come out the back door and is walking toward Will, and with a startling swiftness, Adam Lodge leaps over the row of scrubby spirea bushes lining the patio and then he too is heading toward the part of the lawn where Will is standing.

But, of course, it's not Will that Adam wants to get close to. “Hello there,” Adam says to Ann.

Ann ignores him and asks Will, “Do you know where Grandpa is?” She has walked home from work on this hot day, and sweat has glued strands of hair to her temples and colored half-­moons under her pink blouse's arms and scoop neck.

“Your brother here is trying to wriggle out of a job,” says Adam. “Maybe you can tell him how important it is to finish what he starts.”

Ann acts as though she hasn't even heard what Adam said. “There's a casserole on the counter. Are we supposed to have that for supper?” she asks Will.

“Maybe you'd like to finish the job? What do you say?” Adam asks her. “I'll pay you what I was going to pay him for the whole yard.” Adam runs his fingers lazily up and down his side, tilting his head as if he expects his ribs to make music like the keys of a xylophone.

Ann glances at Adam only fleetingly. “I'm finished with work for the day.” Turning back to Will, she says, “Do you know if Grandpa wants me to heat that up?”

When his father corrects Will's behavior or appearance, he often includes a reference to the family as part of the scolding. “You're a Sidey. Act like one.” Will usually does as he's told, but he's never understood what his last name has to do with whether his shirt is tucked in or out. He still doesn't know what “Sidey” means to most people, but he realizes that Ann must have an understanding of ancestry that Will lacks. She
is
standing straight and tall, and her haughty expression seems to have as its purpose informing Adam Lodge that she—that they, she and Will—are Sideys and that Adam Lodge would be well advised to remember that.

And perhaps Adam knows now that he'll get nowhere with Ann by criticizing her brother. “Why don't we all just say the hell with work for the day? Let's forget about the lawn.”

Only now is Will able to explain why he quit mowing, and he offers his explanation not to Adam Lodge but to Ann. “I wasn't quitting! It ran out of gas, and I was going to fill it up from our can!”

Ann moves closer to Will. “My brother's a good worker. He doesn't shirk,” she says coldly to Adam Lodge.

“Okay, okay,” Adam says, leaning back and laughing. “I'm sorry I said anything. Can't we forget about work?” He holds up his beer bottle. “Can I get you a beer?”

“I'm seventeen,” snaps Ann. “I don't drink.”

Adam Lodge looks Ann over from head to foot as though he has to reassess her in light of her statement about her age. “I won't tell if you won't.”

Ann turns back to Will. “How much was he going to pay you?”

“Two dollars.”

She steps to the side so she can see around Adam Lodge and gauge how much grass remains to be cut. “You owe my brother one dollar and eighty cents.”

Will looks up at his sister with something very close to awe. Where did she find the anger and the courage to speak to Adam Lodge this way?

“Whoa!” Adam holds up a halting hand. “What's this—you two ganging up on me? Who are you—the business manager?”

Ann brings Will back into the argument. “Did you mow all the rest of the yard?”

Will nods. “Almost all of it.”

Ann slides closer to her brother. Will can smell her now, the floral scent of her perfume mingling with her sweat.

“Jesus, you two. I was just joking around and—oh boy, here comes the cavalry.”

Will glances over his shoulder in time to see his grandfather and Beverly Lodge climbing out of the truck, and his grandfather obviously sees them because he immediately heads their way, his strides so long and rapid that Beverly Lodge has to break into a jog to keep up. Is Will's grandfather's haste occasioned by nothing more than the way the three of them are arrayed, Will and Ann squared off against the bare-­chested Adam Lodge?

“What's going on here?” Calvin Sidey demands.

Ann is the first to speak. “He hired Will to mow his lawn, and now he won't pay.”

Adam Lodge rolls his eyes. “That's not exactly . . . I was just trying to teach the kid a lesson about doing the job right. And now I've got the whole damn Sidey clan on my back.”

“You, Adam, were lecturing someone on work habits?” Beverly Lodge says. “I'm trying not to laugh.”

Ann must have believed that Will no longer needs her help now that Grandpa and Mrs. Lodge are on the scene. She walks off toward the house with her arms folded as though the day has suddenly turned cold.

And with Ann absent, Adam Lodge has no choice but to return to the issue underfoot. “You say you have gasoline?” he asks Will.

“In the garage.”

With an exaggerated courtesy, Adam asks Will's grandfather, “May I use some of your gas? Please?”

“If you replace what you borrow.”

“Show me the way,” Adam says to Will.

“And Adam,” Beverly Lodge says, “pay the boy what you owe him.”

When Will notices that Adam is not right behind him, Will turns around and sees Adam still standing in the spot where he watched Ann walk away. Now, however, his head is thrown back and he is staring into the cloudless blue as if he's waiting for the sky above to betray him just as the grass below has.