Don't Let Me Go (14 page)

As soon as she did, Rayleen leveled Billy with a look reserved for the adults of the building.

“What do you make of all this?”

“No idea,” he said.

“You really think Lafferty would do something that nice?”

“Maybe. He might. When she asked him for the dance floor, he had it back here in under an hour. Maybe he hates other grown-ups and loves kids. Some people can only tolerate little kids or dogs. Or both. It happens.”

“You don’t suppose these two things are connected?” she asked, holding up the gift certificate.

“What two things?”

But just then Grace came bounding down the stairs again.

“He must not be home,” she said, “because I said through the door all about how it was me.”

“OK,” Rayleen said. “Let’s just start settling down again, so we can get you back to sleep.”

“Are you kidding me? I’ll never get back to sleep thinking about my tap shoes!”

“Try.”

Grace sighed and slouched back into Rayleen’s apartment.

Rayleen looked up at Billy again.

“No sirens,” she said.

“Yeah. Well. In this neighborhood, minutes might mean hundreds of minutes. Or maybe they won’t come until morning. Maybe even the police don’t want to be down here at night. I wouldn’t put it past them to wait for a safer hour to investigate.”

Rayleen snorted. “And we’re so used to this shit, if nobody was hit, maybe nobody even bothered to phone it in. I’m going back to sleep.”

“What was that thing you were starting to ask me? Something about two things being connected.”

“Oh. Never mind. That was a crazy thought.”

“You know what I think is interesting?” he asked her.

“No, what?”

“I was thinking about the drive-by a few months ago. Lafferty was out in the hall, running around, checking on everybody, but that was almost…it’s like he needed to take charge of it or something.”

“No ‘almost’ about it,” Rayleen said. “It was a power trip. Pure and simple.”

“But other than that, nobody checked on anybody else. We just stayed in our apartments.”

“We didn’t know each other. That’s the difference.”

Grace appeared at Rayleen’s open door, across the hall, looking impatient.

“Are you
coming
already?” she asked.

Then she rolled her eyes and left again.

“I was thinking
that
was the difference,” Billy said.

Rayleen smiled just a little, and then let herself out without saying more, and Billy locked the door behind her.

He walked into his bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Now we’ll never get back to sleep,” he said.

But he was not entirely correct. Mostly. But not entirely.

• • •

For twenty minutes or so, well after the first light of dawn, he drifted off. And was nearly blown over by the wind currents of the beating of wings. Then they disappeared, suddenly, driven away, in a kind of evaporation, by a sharp sound.

He opened his eyes and blinked into the light.

“Don’t tell me. Let me guess,” he said quietly. “Someone is knocking at the door.”

A second knock.

“I want my old life back,” he said.

Grace’s voice, through the door.

“Billy, it’s me, Grace. Don’t get up if you’re in bed, I just want to tell you that I’ll be really late today, because Felipe is taking me to Rayleen’s salon, and then I’m waiting there till she gets off work, and then she’s taking me on the bus to the Dancer’s World store to get tap shoes.”

“Right,” Billy called out. “I saw that one coming.”

“I wish you could be there with us, so I’d know I’d got the best ones.”

“You’ll do fine. Trust the clerk and tell him how much money you have to spend. He’ll help you.”

“What if it’s a she?”

Billy sighed. “The trust part still goes.”

Rayleen’s voice now, through the door.

“Just wanted to let you know I’m right here to make sure you heard that, Billy.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Go back to sleep now.”

“I will,” he said.

But of course he never did.

• • •

“Wait till I show you what I bought,” Grace said, the minute she bounded through his door. “I think they’re good, and I sure hope you think they’re good. The guy at the dance store said they were
very
good. Well, he said they were very good
for the money
. They were on sale. They used to cost over a hundred dollars, so that must be good, right? Because I didn’t even have that much to spend, but I could get them because they were on sale.” Then, before Billy could even answer, she said, “I’m worried about Mr. Lafferty. He wasn’t there last night, and he wasn’t there this morning before I went to school, and I just tried and he’s not there now. Why would he be gone so long? Where do you think he would go?”

“Oh,” Billy said.

Then a silence hung while he tried on some vague thoughts, all of which had been hanging around anyway, but none of which had yet been acknowledged.

“Billy,” she said. “Wake up. You’re not answering any of my questions.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing, really.”

“Why, Billy Shine! I never thought you would be a great big liar!”

“Right,” he said. “Sorry. I guess I was a little bit worried about Mr. Lafferty, too.”

“But you don’t even like him.”

“So true. I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Billy said, though he wasn’t sure at all. “Show me what you bought.”

“Guess who got me the gift certificate?”

“You found out?”

“Yup. Guess.”

“I can’t guess. Tell me.”

“Mr. Lafferty!”

“But you said you haven’t seen him.”

“Right. I haven’t.”

“So how do you know?”

“The guy at the dance store told me. You were right, it was a man. You said it would be a man I was supposed to trust at the dance store, and you were right. Anyway, he was the same guy who sold Mr. Lafferty the gift certificate. He said he just sold it to him yesterday. He didn’t say the name Mr. Lafferty, but he said it was a guy, kind of older but not real old, and he said the guy was very grumpy and rude.”

“Yup. That’s Mr. Lafferty,” Billy said.

“Close your eyes and I’ll show you.”

Billy closed his eyes. And, while they were closed, his mind slid softly back to the previous night. He heard Rayleen ask, “You don’t suppose these two things are connected?” and he knew, now, what she had meant. She had meant the gift certificate and the gunshot. Maybe part of him had even known it at the time.

He smelled the new leather of the shoes, close to his face.

“OK, open your eyes!”

He opened his eyes, and melted inside.

“They’re black,” Grace said, as if he couldn’t see that. “Do you think black is good?”

“It’s perfect. It goes with everything.”

“That’s what the man said. And he said they have a forced toe box.”

“Forced?”

“Something like that.”

“Reinforced?”

“Maybe. He said it makes you more…I forget, but it’s good.”

“Stable?”

“Yeah, I think so. And he said you can even change the sound — you know, bigger taps or smaller taps — but I’m not sure how, but maybe you can show me. He had some others, with more like bows, like ones with wide ties, but yours are lace-up, so I thought I should get lace-up; and besides, those weren’t on sale, so they weren’t worth a lot more than I paid. Do you like them?”

“Very much.”

He took another deep breath, filling his sinuses and lungs with their aroma. It made him feel the tiniest bit dizzy, but in a pleasant way. In a melting way.

We learned something new today, he thought, but did not say out loud. We learned that one’s first pair of tap shoes are always magic, even if they aren’t
our
first pair.

He looked up to see Rayleen standing in the doorway.

“Maybe we should call the landlord,” Billy said to Rayleen. “And ask him to check on…things.”

“Right,” Rayleen said. “Things. I’ve been a little worried about things, myself.”

Grace

The next time Grace walked upstairs to try to talk to Mr. Lafferty, there was some man she didn’t know standing out in the hall. He was very tall and fat, and he was wearing coveralls, and holding a cigar in his teeth, but it wasn’t even burning. Thank God, Grace thought, because she hated the smell of burning cigars worse than anything. The man was talking to Felipe, who was leaning in the open doorway of his own apartment.

Grace could hear part of what he was telling Felipe as she walked down the hall.

“…and the floorboards might even have to come up, or maybe we could just cut out some of the boards and put in a patch, because we’re gonna have to slap a new carpet over it anyway, so it doesn’t really matter what it looks like. And one wall’ll have to be professionally cleaned and then repainted.”

“Hi,” Grace said, now standing about two steps from the man’s knee.

“Well, hello, little lady,” he said.

So, that was kind of weird, Grace thought. I mean, who talks like that?

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I’m the building super,” he said, which didn’t sound like a thing that made sense in any way.

Felipe, who knew her well enough to know she needed help, said, “Casper is the man who comes and fixes things in our building. The landlord sends him over when something needs fixing.”

Grace narrowed her eyes and looked up at Casper.

“Then how come I’ve never once seen you here?”

Casper laughed in one big, rude snort, and then said, “Guess nothing needed fixing.”

“Are you kidding me? Everything in this place needs fixing.”

Casper stopped smiling.

That was the moment Grace noticed that Mr. Lafferty’s door was standing open just a crack.

“He’s home! Mr. Lafferty is finally home! I have to go tell him thank you.”

A split second later she found herself in Felipe’s arms, her feet dangling and swinging two feet off the ground.

“No,” was all Felipe said.

“Get her,” the super said, though Felipe pretty much already had. “Don’t let her go in there. My God, she’ll have nightmares for a month. Besides, it’s not even sanitary. It’s a biohazard. It’ll have to be professionally cleaned by one of those bio teams that cost a fortune. Owner’ll be pissed.”

Grace relaxed slightly into Felipe’s arms.

“Why can’t I go in?” Grace whispered in his ear.

“Because Mr. Lafferty passed away,” Felipe said.

“Does that mean died?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Just at that moment Rayleen’s voice came booming up the stairs, calling for Grace, because Grace hadn’t actually bothered to mention that she was going.

“Grace? Where’d you go, honey?”

“Yeah, come up and get the kid,” Casper shouted back, startling Grace. “She’s got no business up here. Take her downstairs.”

Grace looked up to see Rayleen standing at the end of the hall, looking uncomfortable.

“Oh,” Casper said. “I thought it was her mother.”

Rayleen didn’t seem to like that, and she didn’t answer it, either. She just marched down the hall and took Grace from Felipe and held her tightly.

“It was just like you thought,” Casper said. “The…situation…you know, with Lafferty. So thanks for phoning it in. Because, you know, if nobody had noticed for a week, it would’ve been an even bigger mess than it is now. Although, considering how much of a mess it is now, that’s pretty hard to imagine.”

“Come on, Grace,” Rayleen said. “Let’s just go downstairs now.”

• • •

“So you knew,” Grace said.

She was sitting at Rayleen’s kitchen table, drinking a glass of milk and occasionally glancing up at the ceiling.

“No,” Rayleen said. “I didn’t know. I wondered. There’s a difference.”

“But you didn’t tell me.”

“Because it might not have been true. And then I would’ve just been getting you all upset over nothing.”

“Well, I’m sure upset now,” Grace said.

“I know you are, honey. I know. We all are.”

“But you didn’t even
like
him.”

“No. But I didn’t wish anything like that for him.”

“Why did he do it?”

“I don’t know. I really didn’t know him very well.”

“Why do you think?”

Rayleen sighed. “I guess he was unhappy. When people are mean, it usually tells you they’re unhappy.”

“He wasn’t mean to
me
,” Grace said.

But she never got an answer from Rayleen about that. Maybe no answer was even necessary. It was just true, and it was too late for anybody to explain it to her now. Or even to themselves.

“He was nice to me three times, all just in the last few days or so. So that’s a lot of times, right?”

Rayleen seemed to be lost in thought, but then she came to, just a little bit, like something woke her up from a nap.

“Three?” she asked.

But Grace’s train of thought had moved along by then. “We need to have a meeting.”

“Who?”

“All of us. You and me and Billy and Felipe.”

“What kind of meeting? About what?”

“Well, that’s why you have a meeting,” Grace said. “To tell everybody what the meeting’s about. I’ll go get Felipe.”