Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 04 - BOY ON TRIAL - A Legal Thriller (39 page)

“Has he —” I didn’t know how to say it. I finally managed: “Has he come up to you at night?”

I heard her cute little laugh. “Are you worried about that, Billy?”

“Yes, I’m worried,” I said.

“Don’t worry.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Wow, you never change. You’re still a nag. You want the truth?”

“Yes.”

“He came up. Once. That’s all.”

That made me feel sick. And it made me feel I had to do something. Had to get her out of there no matter what.

I told her how I felt, and she didn’t say anything.

“Amy, did you say anything to Carter about what you and I did?”

“Are you nuts? He’d kill me.”

“Don’t you want to leave? Get free of him?”

“We tried, didn’t we? He found us.”

“But he wouldn’t find us if we were smarter this time. Went really far. Cut ourselves off completely. So that no one in the world knew where we were.”

She was quiet for a few moments, and then she said, “You couldn’t do that, Billy.”

“Do what?”

“Not keep in touch with your parents.”

“If it was the only way… I could do it.”

“Do you still have all my stuff? All the stuff I bought when we were together?”

“Sure.”

“I miss that silly stuff. My frog pen, and those lips that ran around in circles.”

“They’re here in my room, in your duffel bag. I’m keeping them for you. Do you miss me, too, Amy?”

“A lot. You’re my real friend, Billy. You’re a wonderful person.”

“So are you, Amy. My favorite person.”

“Do you have another plan, Billy?”

“You know me, Amy. I always have a plan.”

Chapter 34

Since I’d first met him, Duwayne Williams had put on ten pounds but gained another two inches, so he was still a beanpole. He’d had a good year at power forward for Bridgehampton High.

The fluorescent lights of the Brothers Four pizza parlor shone through his big ears. I sat with him in a booth at the back while he chomped his way through a large combo deluxe. After I’d blotted off most of the grease into a dozen paper napkins, I ate a couple of thin-crust slices with double anchovies.

“Man,” Duwayne said, when I’d finished telling him my plan, “you are far out.”

“It’s not that big a deal,” I said. “Maybe it’ll take ten or twenty minutes.”

“And you want to give me two hundred and fifty bucks to help you do this shit?”

“You think it’s not enough?”

“Little bro, I’m just making sure I understand you one hundred percent clear. Two-five-oh.”

“Plus another two hundred and fifty if your brother Torrance drives us out there and hangs till we’re done so we can all leave in his car.”

“The getaway car.”

“Duwayne, it’s not a bank robbery. It’s not even a crime.”

“What is it, man?”

“A status offense.”

“Can you do jail time for that whatever-it-is?”

“Absolutely not. I swear it to you. A lawyer explained it all to me. How old is Torrance?”

“Just turned eighteen.”

“Then it might be a crime for him. He’s not a minor. I’m not sure what crime, though. It’s not kidnaping. She’ll be coming of her own free will. Maybe it’s a tort.”

“A who?”

“Never mind. I still don’t think I want Torrance to be involved.”

“Hey, little bro,
I
can drive his car.”

“You have a license?”

“Shit, no, I’m still sixteen, but I can drive it. Probably better’n he can. I do wheelies with it down at the beach when he’s out in these dudes’ truck every Saturday night.”

“But you don’t have a license. I can’t ask you to break the law.”

“You can’t?” Duwayne shook his head, wiped the olive oil off his lips with a paper napkin, and grinned hugely, so that his teeth gleamed like ivory in the fluorescent light. “Oh, little bro, I really dig you. You are such a cool dude. Far out.
Wa-a-ay
out there.”

This time was a lot harder than the first time. The first time I hadn’t known that people react quickly, and vigorously, and righteously, against the flaunting of social laws by someone who won’t cut along the dotted line. Now I knew how careful we had to be.

The first time I’d known that it would be painful for my mom and dad, but I hadn’t grasped just how painful. And this time would be worse, because it would be like the second blow of a one-two punch. The first time I’d known that I’d be in touch with them and probably see them soon, whereas this time, I didn’t know that at all. That was painful for me, too.

And the first time Amy and I had just strolled away from home as if we were headed for school, and met at the railway station in Amagansett. This time I had to rescue her from the yellow brick jail.

The first time I had viewed it as an adventure. This time, I thought, it looks like hard work and maybe even dangerous.

But I had to do it. If not, the Bedfords would slip off to Florida and I’d never see Amy again. She would go downhill faster than dishwater in a drain. Her life wasn’t yet ruined. Take her away from Carter and she’d recover from what he’d done to her all these years. She just needed help from someone she trusted.

I was the only one.

Traffic crawled on the two-lane highway from Southampton to Montauk, it grew hot, the beaches and the tennis clubs crowded up, and I waited to hear from Amy. When we’d said goodbye after that phone conversation, the plan was just a vague idea nibbling at the edge of my mind. But I knew even then, even before I got Duwayne to agree to help me, that I’d come up with something
,
so I said to Amy, “Call me again as soon as you can, and definitely before Carter gets back from Florida.”

She promised, and so I stayed at home. Whenever the phone rang, I jumped to pick it up, but it was never for me. I read, solved chess problems, did crossword puzzles, played with Iphigenia, watched the leaves droop in the heat on the branches of the elms — and waited for the call that didn’t come.

Amy had said, “Carter’ll be back by June 24th, latest.” Right after he arrived, they would abandon A-1 Self-Storage to the owners. Carter was just going to walk away and not look back.

It was already June 20th, a Saturday. I was nervous. Maybe he was back already. If that was so, my plan was a goner.

I biked out to Springs late that afternoon, parking my ten-speed in the woods about a hundred yards from A-1 Self-Storage. Then I snuck up on the premises, Indian-fashion: on the balls of my feet, avoiding twigs and dry leaves, staying a minute or so behind one tree before I set off for the shelter of the next. I must have been good at it — I surprised a jackrabbit, and he hopped away from me in a hurry.

There was no sign of life at the house. The Toyota pickup was there, and an old yellow VW Beetle that Ginette used for shopping. The Bedford family, minus the head man, was in residence.

I took a good long look at the house, and the pitted dirt road they called Jail Road, and the fence, and the security gate. I studied the third floor where Amy was locked up. No bars on her window. On the two second-floor windows, the old jail bars still remained. I had a pocket notebook with me and I drew a little map, and then, on another page, a diagram of the walls.

I was hoping that Amy would come to the window and I’d catch a glimpse of her, like Romeo hanging out and waiting for Juliet.

“Thus, with a kiss, I die…”

No, don’t even think that way.

Better the prince waiting for Rapunzel to let down her golden hair so that he could climb the tower. Rapunzel… her tears touched the prince’s eyes… and he wasn’t blind anymore…

A Volvo station wagon drove up the dirt road, stopping at the gate in a swirl of dust. That had to be a unit renter. A hand reached out to punch in the security code; the gate clanked, slid open. The wagon drove through the gate into the storage area and vanished down one of the alleys between the concrete buildings. The gate clanked back shut.

I waited in silence for another half hour. The Volvo nosed back out from the alley, and just before it reached the gate it activated a sensor, and the gate slid open so the Volvo could exit.

There was one more thing I needed to know, but for that I would have to come back when it was dark.

That evening Inez broiled red snapper smothered by crusty garlic, and Aunt Grace came over for dinner. “So the gang is together again,” she said, “except for the music student in Maine.”

“Yes, it’s so nice,” my mom said.

I hadn’t yet asked my dad about Carter’s lawsuit. I glanced at him; he didn’t look me in the eye. Maybe this wasn’t the right time.

Between a bite of fish and a swallow of white wine, Aunt Grace wagged her finger at me. “Such a bad boy. You told me all that money was for your mother’s birthday present.”

I helped myself to more crusty garlic.

“What money?” my mom asked.

“All the money he took out of the ATM. I told you about that, Diana.”

“Yes, but…” My mom looked puzzled; I don’t think she wanted to go there, but she must have felt backed against a wall. She turned to me. “Billy, we never discussed this. How much cash did you draw out with that debit card?”

“Plenty,” I said.

Of course what I’d begun to realize was that she’d never known I’d sold my shares in the mutual funds and nearly emptied the money market account at Modern Age. She never checked the account. She was terrific that way.

“How much money did you take to New York?” she asked.

“Enough to live on,” I said. “And some extra.”

My dad became interested, which is what I’d been afraid of.

“Be more specific,” he said.

“I’d rather not, Dad.”

This was a tough one. If they knew I controlled more than a hundred thousand dollars in cash that was mostly in Uncle Bernie’s bank on Delancey Street, I would have a problem.

“Not good enough,” my dad said. “How much, and where is it?”

“Dad, it’s my money.”

“Not in dispute. Nevertheless, I think we’re entitled to know the amount and the whereabouts.”

“Well, I don’t want to tell you that.”

“But you have to. I’m your father, and I insist.”

“I have a right to privacy. Just like you do.”

His blue eyes grew hard. “Billy,” he said, “there’s a limit.”

What could I do? How many ways were there to say no?

I shut up and chewed garlic.

Aunt Grace muttered, “Oh, I’m so sorry I started this.”

In a more kindly manner, my dad said, “My dear boy, on Monday morning your mother can find out what’s in that account. She can close it, and she can cancel the debit card. So you might as well get it over with. Tell us now.”

He was not really computer literate. For that matter, my mom wasn’t so sharp, either. Their secretaries did everything for them. Neither of them seemed to realize that they could go online right now, on a Saturday night, and check the balance of anything under the sun provided that they knew the password.

“I guess we’ll have to wait till Monday,” I said.

The dinner ended in a cool silence. My parents didn’t glare at me but they looked at me the way they might look at some species of animal they’d never seen before and that might or might not do them harm. Aunt Grace finished off another bottle of wine, and when she got up from the table, she staggered. She fell, and put out her hand to stop the fall.

“Gracie!”

She hit the floor, grunted, then screeched in pain. And a moment after that she managed to flop over on her back, and lay there on the carpet, growing paler by the second, while she whimpered. “I think … shit!… I hurt …” Then she threw up all over herself and on the carpet.

That white Berber carpet was a target for both man and beast.

“I fell the same way up on Aspen Highlands,” I said, “except I didn’t puke.”

My parents bundled Aunt Grace off to her house, and I scuttled up to my room and crawled into bed with a book. Around ten o’clock my mom looked in on me. She smoothed my hair — there still wasn’t much of it to smooth — and kissed me on the cheek. I pretended I was dead to the world.

I waited until nearly two o’clock in the morning to be sure everyone was asleep. I had to make this trip now, because on Monday, after they checked the account at Modern Age, everything was going to hit the fan. God knows what they would do when they found out how much was gone from the account. They would ransack my room. The trail would lead to Rivington Street and Uncle Bernie. My dad would know just the right way to threaten him, and I would be poor again, just like every other kid.

Tuesday was the day Carter was supposed to get back — “latest,” Amy had said. Monday night — early Tuesday morning — was D-Day for me. It was Sunday already. Later today, I decided, I’ll prep Duwayne. And I’ll talk to talk to Amy.

At 1:55 a.m. I crawled out of bed, dressed, and padded downstairs in the darkness. I wheeled my bike from the garage, through the house, and out the big french doors that led to the garden.

It was a moonless night with a sky full of stars. Crows whirred high above my head; I heard them but couldn’t see them. I took the back roads of Cozzens Lane and Town Lane, then pedaled north on Amagansett Springs Road. Now and then I heard the distant sound of voices. Saturday night parties were winding down, a couple were still in full swing. I had switched on my bike light and I carried a flashlight snugged against the handlebar. I didn’t want to get knocked down and maybe killed by some drunk partygoer.