Matchstick Men: A Novel About Grifters With Issues (9 page)

“What’d he tell you about me?”

Angela swings higher, legs kicking longer. “That you were all by yourself, that you were anxious to see me. Not to scare you off, that sorta thing.”

“Scare me off?”

“I dunno. I said he was nice, not smart.” She slows down again, coming even with Roy’s lethargic swinging. “You got fatter,” she says plainly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. From those pictures I saw, at least.”

Roy shrugs. “People get older. They get bigger.”

“Some guys get skinnier when they get old. All skin and bones, all wrinkly. Little old guys on the street, they weigh like twenty pounds.”

“Little old guys, huh?”

“It’s okay, though—you being fat and all,” she says, coming to a halt. Her feet drag in the dirt. “I think you look nice. And it looks like a healthy fat, you know. Like you played football or something and now you just don’t play anymore. You’re not rolling around or wheezing or anything.”

“So your mom had pictures of me around?”

“Sorta. Found ’em under a bunch of old junk in the closet when I was looking for some shoes. After that, she had to tell me who you were.”

“In the closet …”

“At least she didn’t cut your face out,” says Angela. “My friend Margaret, her mom got a divorce, and she cut out every picture of her dad. Just the face, though, so like, when you’re looking at the picture, there’s Margaret, and there’s her mom, and there’s some guy standing next to them only it’s empty where his face is supposed to be. It’s weird, it’s like Freddy Krueger got to ’em.”

“Freddy who?”

Angela laughs and jumps off the swing. Her ponytail bounces past Roy’s nose, hair tickling his forehead. She bends down, legs apart, hands on her knees, staring Roy in the eyes. Her irises are bright blue, sparkling, like Roy saw in the mirror this morning. Maybe that’s what she got from him. Maybe she got his eyes.

“You got a car?” she asks.

“Yeah, I got a car.”

“Then let’s go for a ride.”

The waitress at the diner isn’t surprised to see Roy, but she didn’t expect him without Frankie. Certainly didn’t expect him with a girl, not a little girl like that. She thinks about calling the cops. Decides against it. Maybe he’s got a niece or something. Maybe he’s doing the kid a favor.

“Tables open, Sandi?” asks Roy, and the waitress spreads her arms wide.

“Place is yours. Take your pick.”

They find a booth off to one corner and sit. Roy doesn’t want to be too close to any other patrons. Maybe someone’s seen him in here, running a game. He and Frankie don’t usually play the short in their own hangouts, but sometimes, when they’re bored … Like those college kids and the card trick. Doesn’t want a scene.

“What’s good here?” Angela asks.

“Everything. I guess everything. Mostly, I have the turkey.”

“On rye?”

“On rye, yeah.”

Angela beams. “That’s how I like it.”

“No shit?” says Roy, quickly clamping his lips. “No kidding.”

She laughs, a high, lovely sound. A giggle, still, but almost a laugh. Right on the edge. “I’m fourteen,” she tells him. “I’ve heard the word
shit
before.”

“Better not to use it.”

“Sure, but sometimes it’s all that works. Shit happens, shit hit the fan—sometimes you’ve got no choice.”

Roy opens his menu, stares down at the words he’s seen over a thousand lunches. “Still, better to—there’s no need for it, that’s all I’m saying.” He doesn’t want to lecture the girl. Doesn’t want to give her rules. Just met her, after all. His fault for using the word in the first place. “Forget it,” he says.

Angela shrugs. “Whatever.” She looks down at the menu, runs her finger along the edge. Roy can’t help but watch as she pores over the choices. Sticks her tongue out of the side of her mouth while she thinks. Heather used to do that. Roy smiles.

The girl looks up, catches him. Smiles back. “Know whatcha want?” she asks.

“Turkey on rye.”

“Me too.”

Sandi takes their orders, brings them drinks. Sodas on both sides. They sit silently. Roy looks away most of the time, but glances back and forth at his daughter. Trying to find more features, more similarities. Her shoulders, maybe. The chin, perhaps.

“So, what do you … for fun, what do you do?”

“Hang out, mostly,” she says. “With friends. Movies, run to the mall. Play video games.”

Roy nods, as if he does the same things. “That’s fun.”

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

Silence again. Roy clears his throat, begins to speak, but Angela cuts him off. “Look, we can just sit quiet until the weird part passes, if that’s okay with you.”

Roy is grateful. He chuckles a bit and nods his head. Angela
sits back in the booth and looks around the diner. She takes the clips out of her hair and rearranges her ponytail, fixes her bangs.

The food comes quickly. Roy picks at his food, tearing at the turkey with small bites. Angela packs it in.

“You’re gonna get a bellyache like that,” Roy warns.

“Nah. I ate a whole pizza once from Pizza Hut, and I’m not talking about one of those personal pan pizzas. I’m talking about a large pizza, like eight slices, and it was deep dish. I can eat anything—well, almost anything. Mom ever make you that chicken and mushroom sauce thing?”

“Don’t remember.”

“You’d remember if she had. Now
that’d
give you a bellyache.”

Roy grins. Thinks back. “Your mom and I, we didn’t eat in a lot. Mostly dinner out, mostly fast food or places like this. Or clubs. Olives on the go.”

“I can’t get into clubs. There’s one club, it’s for under eighteen, but it’s a drag. Wednesday nights it’s twenty-one and older, but they card. There was this guy at school who could drop your picture into PhotoShop and screw with it so you’d get a kicking fake ID, but Robyn Markson got caught and now she can’t drive until she’s like thirty or something.”

Roy doesn’t even know where to begin. “Wednesday night’s a school night.”

Angela rolls her eyes. “I didn’t say I go there, I just said they card.”

“Oh.”

“Mom doesn’t care about school nights.”

“She doesn’t, huh? You’re in … what?”

“Ninth.”

“You do good?”

“I do okay. I do good in Computers. And Social Studies.”

“Yeah? What’s that, like geography?”

“And history and government. All that stuff. Mrs. Capistrano, the teacher, she’s cool, she lets me hang out in her room during other classes.” Angela’s food is all gone; she starts in on the garnishes.

“Ain’t they important, too? The other classes?”

“Sure, but—”

“Listen up,” says Roy. “Real important. You gotta go to all the classes.”

Angela leans into the booth. A smirk on her face. Roy knows that smirk. That’s his smirk. “School’s real important, huh? You like it?”

“I didn’t.”

“Didn’t what? Didn’t like school?”

“Didn’t go. Past the second grade, I didn’t go.”

Angela sits back. “Hm. That why you ended up a criminal?”

Roy blinks his eyes. Why did she say that? Why would she use that word? “Your mom been telling you stories?”

Angela starts in on the lettuce again. Between bites, she says, “She didn’t come right out and say it or nothing, but I kind of got the idea.”

“Wrong idea.”

“So what kind are you?” she asks, ignoring him. “You don’t look like a bank robber—”

“You done with that food?”

“—or a murderer. Definitely not a murderer. I’d see that, you know? My class took a trip once down to the county prison. They said it was so we could see justice in action, but I know they just wanted to scare us outta our heads. Anyway, while we
were down there, this one prisoner was being taken back to his cell, and he was all chained up, and the guards walked him past us, and I stopped and looked in his eyes. He looked back at me, too—he did, right at me—and I knew that he’d killed someone. Didn’t know who, but it was someone. That’s what murderer’s eyes look like. You don’t have murderer’s eyes.”

Roy can’t believe where this conversation has ended up. “Are you finished?”

“I still haven’t guessed what kind of criminal you are.”

“I’m not a—”

“It’s okay, you know. Everyone’s done something bad in their lives. Everyone. If you make it a career, it’s just a lot of somethings strung together.”

“I’m not a criminal,” Roy insists. “I’m an antiques dealer.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. I deal in antiques. I buy them and sell them, period.”

“Oh,” says Angela. Her tone lowers a notch. “But when you were with my mom, were you—”

“I was a stupid kid when I was with your mom. I did a lot of stupid things, and I regret them all. That’s it. It was fifteen years ago, I made mistakes.”

“Sure.” She’s far away now. Looking over his shoulder. Down at her hands. “It’s ancient history.”

Roy eats again. Angela is quiet. Roy wonders if he’s said the wrong thing, if he’s screwed something up. He hopes not. This was good, this meal. Sitting down for lunch, forgetting about the con. Just talking. Like with Dr. Klein, only it was closer. Like talking to himself. Over lunch. Pleasant, in an odd way.

“You got a Dairy Queen nearby?” Angela asks, her blue eyes shining in the fluorescent diner light. Roy nods, and his daughter smiles and claps her hands. He hopes that all is forgiven.

Roy opens Angela’s door outside the train station and helps her out of the car. A steady stream of passengers pour in and out of the revolving doors.

“You got everything?” he asks. “Your purse, your book bag—”

“I got it.”

Roy reaches into his pocket and pulls out his money clip. Slides a hundred-dollar bill off the top, hands it to the girl. Her eyes widen. “That’s for something to eat on the train.”

“Jesus.” She laughs. “What, they’re serving caviar?”

Roy laughs, too. “No, I just thought—you need cash, right? For a drink or something.”

“Hundred bucks for a Coke? You don’t get out much.” Roy grins, and Angela nods toward the station. “You wanna come inside? I got like a half hour to wait around. I was gonna do some studying, but if you wanna come talk, we can—”

“No,” says Roy. “No, you go inside. Do your work.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I gotta—” In an hour, he’s got to meet Frankie down at the docks. But he’s not going to tell Angela that. Strange thing is, he wants to. “I gotta meet a client for dinner.”

“An antiques client.”

“Yeah, an antiques client.”

“Uh-huh.” She folds the hundred-dollar bill into her pocket, other hand on her hip. Grabs her book bag by the strap and
hauls it up and onto a delicate shoulder. From inside, she withdraws a pen and a pad of paper with cats on it. Scribbles something down.

“This is my cell phone,” she says, handing the sheet of paper to Roy. “Mom got it for me last year when I had a phone-a-thon with Becky. We were on the phone for sixteen hours straight, no breaks. Becky’s mom took away her phone privileges for a month, but I got my own mobile. Pretty cool, huh?”

“Pretty cool.”

“Anyway,” she says, “you call that, and you get me. You don’t have to worry about talking to my mom.”

“I don’t worry about it. In fact, you tell her I said hi, okay?”

“Won’t do much good.”

“I know, just tell her I said—”

“I’ll tell her, I’ll tell her.”

Roy sticks out his hand, and Angela pumps it. His arm is pulled close, and he follows the motion as Angela leans up, on her toes, stretching. She kisses his cheek. It’s small. Soft.

“See you next week?” she says.

“Next week?” He can still feel her lips on his cheek. It’s wet there. Cool in the breeze. “Sure. Sure. Next week.”

Roy watches as his daughter hikes the bag up on her shoulder and walks away, into the train station. A few young men standing on the steps watch her go, too. They watch too much. They leer. Roy’s first instinct is to smash their heads in. To break their arms so they can’t touch her. To crush their legs so they can’t follow her. To choke off their windpipes so they can’t talk to her.

But there’s no pressure there. No pain in his skull. No bile rising in his throat. Everything’s working out fine. Angela disappears
into the crowd, her ponytail swishing behind her, blending in. She’s gone. Roy can’t remember what he was angry about. People walk past him on all sides, moving to and from their destinations. The revolving door spins around again. Angela’s still not there. He climbs back into his car and drives away. He’s got deals to make.