Ceremony (12 page)

"How usual is that?" I said.

"That a man in Poitras's position would talk with the students?"

..Yeah."

"It's not improbable," Susan said. "But it's not entirely routine, either. Most people yat the state level have no contact at all with students."

"An educator's dream," I said.

"Counseling reports and S.I.J.'s are routinely sent to his office," Susan said, "but the amount of personal contact is sort of unusual. But not so you'd comment on it unless you discovered that your experience was typical -you know, that he was doing this everywhere."

"What is an S.I.J.?" I said.

"Student-in-jeopardy forms."

"Ah, of course," I said.

"So Poitras, assuming that my sample is representative, had a ready list of children ready to drop out of school, beset with emotional problems, vulnerable to anyone who'd want to exploit them."

"Chance of a lifetime," I said. "King of the chicken flicks."

"He mustn't be allowed to continue," Susan said. "Soon," I said. "April will show up soon."

"I cannot wait too much longer," she said. "I cannot permit this to go on."

"The end of the week," I said. "If she doesn't show up by then we'll blow the whistle on Poitras and I'll look elsewhere for April."

Susan agreed and I hung up and went to bed.

Tuesday morning I was back out on Beacon Street and Tuesday afternoon there came April Kyle. She was wearing a man's army field jacket with a first cavalry patch on it and she looked sort of bedraggled, as if she'd been sleeping in subways and eating light. She slouched along Beacon Street from the direction of Kenmore Square, reading the numbers on the buildings until she reached Poitras's. She stopped for a minute and stared at it, then she went up and rang the bell. The door opened and she went in. I stayed put. Maybe she was just passing through. Maybe just a visit and then back home to Park Street Under. Some cocoa and a Twinkie, a little talk of boys and sock hops, thumb through the yearbook, giggle, maybe a stroll down to the malt shop, or maybe not. Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. April didn't come out again. Poitras waddled home at his usual time and let himself in with his key. Still no one came out. I walked three blocks up to Boylston Street and found a public phone and called Susan.

"April's in with Amy and Poitras," I said. "What do you think?"

"Stay there. I'll come in. We'll talk to her together."

"No," I said. "I don't want you involved. This deal is tied into some really bad folks, and I don't want them to know your name."

"I have as much right to be frightened as you do," Susan said.

"Suze," I said. "There've been threats made. By people who can back them up."

"I have the right to be threatened too," Susan said. "I'm coming in."

"No.

"Yes. You have no right to protect me against my will. I have the right to my own pride and my own self-respect. This is the ugliest piece of business I've ever seen. I'm involved. I got you involved and I want to be part of ending it."

"Jesus Christ," I said.

"And if April has to go wee wee again," Susan said, "I can go with her."

"Corner of Fairfield and Beacon," I said. "I'll look for you in about twenty minutes. Bitch."

"Gracefully," Susan said. "You give in so gracefully."

I hung up. It was dark and wet as I walked back down Fairfield. A mixture of rain and snow slopped down, making the street glisten in the streetlights and causing the top of the Prudential and Hancock buildings to disappear in the haze and swirl of it. The commuter traffic had largely drained out of the Back Bay by now -it was twenty of seven, and few people were about on foot. There was a spectral quality to the city. The mist that hovered forty stories up reflected the city lights back in a muted glow, and everything looked a little moonie.

At about quarter past seven I saw Susan walking up Beacon toward me. She had on a poplin trench coat and a large felt hat. The heels of her boots made a clear firm sound in the hushed pale evening. The street seemed somehow to organize around her. Wherever she was she was the focal point, or maybe it just seemed that way because she was my focal point. No way to decide that. If a tree falls in the forest with no one to hear it, does it make a sound? She crossed Fairfield and stopped beside me.

"Has anyone ever told you," I said, "that you coalesce reality?"

"No. They only say that I'm good in the sack."

"They are accurate but limited," I said. "And if you give me their names I'll kill them."

"Is April still in there?"

I nodded. "Unless she slipped out while I was calling you, and why should she?"

"Do we just go knock on the door?"

"Sure," I said. "They've got plenty to hide, but they don't know we know it."

We mounted Poitras's three steps and rang his doorbell. The porch light went on. Amy opened the door. I was wearing a pair of thick-soled Herman survivor boots in deference to the weather and I slipped one of them quietly across the threshold.

Susan said, "Hello, Amy, remember me?"

Amy looked out closely at Susan and then at me. She remembered me too. "Hello, Mrs. Silverman, I didn't recognize you at first," Amy said.

"You know Mr. Spenser," Susan said.

Amy nodded. She glanced once back over her shoulder.

"May we come in?" Susan said.

Amy looked back over her shoulder again. Then back  at us. I smiled. Friendly. From the house behind Amy a voice said, "Who is it, Amy?"

It was a deep, harsh voice, a growl almost. Poitras appeared in the doorway behind Amy. "What do you need," he said in his ferocious voice. His bulk filled the doorway, and I realized he was one of those fat guys who had gotten confused about size as opposed to strength, the way he held himself, the self-consciousness of his looming posture in the doorway. He had gotten a lot of mileage out of bullying people with his size.

Susan said, "Hello, Mitchell."

He looked at us the same way Amy had, and then he recognized Susan. "Susan Silverman. What the hell do you want?"

"We'd like to come and talk, Mitch."

"About what?"

"About Amy," Susan said, "and April Kyle."

"Get the hell out of here," Poitras said, and slammed the door on my Herman survivor. Which did what it was there to do. It stopped the door ajar. I was always careful not to do that when I was wearing my Nikes.

"Mitch, let us in," Susan said.

"Get your foot out of the door," Poitras said in his scary voice, "or I'll chop your balls off."

I looked at Susan. "Wouldn't that make you mad?" I said.

She didn't smile. She was intent on other things. Poitras shoved on the door. "Here we go," I said to Suze.

I put my right hand against the doorjamb and my left hand along the edge of the partly open door and slowly spread my arms. Poitras gave ground. The door opened wide enough for me to get my body in. When I did that, I got my back against the doorjamb and both hands on the half-open door and shoved. The door opened wide and Poitras stumbled back a step into his lavish front hall. I went in after him and Susan came after me. Poitras caught his balance and stretched his right arm out at me and pointed with his index finger.

"You fuck with me," he said, "and I'll blow you away."

"Darth Vadar," I said. "That's who you sound like. Darth Vader. Scary as hell."

Poitras jabbed his finger at me again. "I'm warning you."

He had on a white wash-and-wear shirt with his flowered tie unknotted and hanging down. There was no gun in sight, and he had no special reason to be carrying one, or, if he did, to have it concealed. The threat to blow me away was probably not literal. Still…

"Better safe than sorry," I said to Susan.

I did a little shuffle inside step and hit Poitras a good sharp left hook on the chin. It knocked him down. While he was down, I got his arm twisted up behind him and helped him toward his feet. When he was back up, I shoved him against the wall face first and patted him down with my free hand. No gun. I let him go and stepped away.

"Mitchell," I said, "I can do that anytime I want to, and much harder. So stop trying to scare me to death and we'll go into your living room and sit down and"-I made an expostulating gesture by rolling hands"communicate." I smiled at him.

Poitras's face had gotten very dark and his breath seemed short. I couldn't tell if it was passion or exhaustion. He was in dismal shape, but I'd been doing all the heavy work.

"Susan, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do about this. Who is this goon anyway?"

"Mr. Spenser, Mitchell," Amy said. Her voice was as careful and artificial and unalive as it had been every other time she'd spoken in front of me. For all her voice showed, I had just given Poitras a Popsicle.

"Well, you better have a good explanation," Poitras said. His breathing was still thick. He turned and went toward the living room, his belly preceding him like the cowcatcher on a locomotive.

When we were in the living room, Amy said, "May I get you a drink?" She spoke first to Susan and then to me. We both declined.

Poitras remained standing, so did Susan. I could see she wasn't going to sit and let Poitras loom over her. I didn't care. I sat.

"You're really off base on this one, Susan," Poitras said. The persistency of habit. He was still trying to bully her with his bulk. It's hard to scare the other side when the other side has just knocked you on your ass. Even if I hadn't hit him, I had learned some time ago that Susan was difficult to bully.

"This is really unprofessional, Susan. I can't believe you. This is way, way off base," Poitras said. He didn't look at me.

Susan stepped closer to him. Fat as he was, he wasn't very tall, and in her high-heeled boots she was almost eye level. "Shut up," she said. The words cracked with energy. "I am not interested either in your clichds about professionalism or your pathetic Bluto act. I am here to talk with April Kyle and I will do so right now." She turned her head at Amy Gurwitz and snapped, "Go get her. "

It was Mrs. Silverman the guidance teacher. In reflex Amy turned and started from the room.

Poitras said, "Amy," and she stopped. Two authority figures could play Ping-Pong with her.

Susan's voice shimmered with intensity as she spoke to Poitras. "Do not be a bigger asshole than you are, Mitchell-get her. Bring her out here. Or there will be real trouble."

I shook my head slightly at Susan. Unless we wanted the cops to come right now, it was better if Poitras didn't know what we knew. I didn't want him covering his tracks before we nailed him.

Poitras glanced at me from the corner of his eye and looked quickly away.

"I saw her come in, Fats," I said. "Either you bring her out or I'll go room by room through the place till I find her."

"You can't do that," Poitras said, and glared at me:

"Yes I can. I proved it a minute ago in the hall. Bring her out."

Poitras glared harder. "Someone ought to blow you right out of the water," he said.

"That may be true. But it'll have to be someone in better shape than you."

Poitras looked back at Susan. "Last chance," she said.

I knew that Poitras didn't want me going through the house.

"Okay," he said. "But I don't want you people harassing her. She came to me in desperation, and I don't want her upset."

"Really care about the kids, don't you, Mitch?" Susan said.

"You're goddamned right I do," Poitras said. "Somebody's got to."

April came into the room. She had taken off the fatigue jacket and was dressed as I'd last seen her in the dark woods at the edge of Route 95, except that her clothes looked a little shabbier. She looked at Susan and said, "What are you doing here?"

"I've come to see you," Susan said.

"I'm not going back," April said.

"You don't have to go back," Susan said. "I only wish to know that you are all right and that you are in a situation that is supportive."

"Shit," April said. "That's teacher shit. Supportive."

"Your parents want you back," Susan said.

"I'll bet," April said.

"They do. They hired Mr. Spenser to find you. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"My father?"

"What about him?"

"He wants me back?"

“I don't think he knows what he wants," Susan said. "Part of him doesn't want you back. Part of him surely does. Unfortunately it's the negative part that shows."

"He don't want me back."

"He's confused," Susan said. "He's in pain. He doesn't know how to say what he feels."

"I know how he feels. He thinks I'm shit. He thinks I'm a whore. Well, fuck him, you know? I'm not going back."

"And your mother," Susan said.

"She's a wimp. She just sucks around him."

"Do you want to stay here then?"

"Yes."

.Why?" April shrugged. "Why not? It's a nice place. I've crashed in a lot worse, you know?"

"This is not a place for you, April. You don't have to go home. I can't force you and I wouldn't if I could. But not here."

"Why not?"

Susan looked straight at Poitras when she spoke. "Because this is an absolute pig of a man," she said.

April laughed, a harsh little sound, without humor. "So what?" she said.

Amy Gurwitz was sitting quietly on a hassock in front of an easy chair near the French doors. Her knees and ankles were together. Her hands were clasped in her lap. She was watching the activity as if it were a movie and she was enthralled.

Susan looked at me. She was stuck. So was I.

147 "We can take her by force, Suze," I said. "But what are we going to do with her?"

"She came here looking for some help," Poitras said. "I was the only one she could trust. So she came here. I'll step around that crack about me being a pig, and I'm giving it to you straight. She's welcome here as long as she wants. Just like Amy, and you can make whatever you want out of that with your dirty goddamned minds, all of you. But the kids know who they can count on, by God. So whyn't you and your goon get the hell out of here before you just make things worse."