Park Lane South, Queens (30 page)

Claire remembered herself as a small girl, out here in the driveway, just like this. Mr. Dixon was pulling out of the garage and he'd stopped to say how do. She'd hated him because he called her Red. “Hi ya, Red,” he'd said. “How do?” His beefy wrist was as still as an animal on the Pontiac door and his cufflinks, roulette wheels, had glittered like gold.

Claire returned to the present with a wheezing gasp.

“Johnny?” She shielded her eyes from the sun. “Johnny, can you come here a second? I don't know. This is stupid. But there's this screen loose here in a spot where Michaelaen could possibly have gotten into—”

“Who lives here?”

“Mrs. Dixon. You met her. My mother's friend.”

Johnny remembered Mrs. Dixon. Hadn't Ryan even asked him who the hell she was? So many of those Con-Tact sheets they'd taken from Claire's darkroom had her kisser planted all over them. She was always getting in the way. Even the shots up in the woods were peppered with Mrs. Dixon.

“Who else lives here?” Johnny asked Claire.

“Else? Nobody else. She lives here alone.”

“Here? In this place?”

They looked up at the big well-kept house. It was so big that it suddenly seemed strange to Claire as well. “It's just that I found something here in her garbage pail and I remember her husband, years ago, having a cufflink like the one I found in Carmela's car and … Jesus, Johnny, if she has Michaelaen—”

“All right. Calm down. Where's your mother?”

“They went over to Iris's house because her Siamese … Johnny, they all think Iris has something to do with this but I don't believe—”

He peered down into the can and gave a low whistle.

“You run over and get your mother so we can get through the front door and I'll try and jimmy my way in this way. You tell them something else. Tell them”—he smashed his foot through the window—“that the kids broke her window and they want to get their ball. Or see the damages. Just get inside. And get Ryan over here. Tell him what's happening.”

“Johnny, if she hurt Michaelaen—”

“Hurry up. Go. Hurry up.”

Claire ran across the street. In her mind's eye she saw Mrs. Dixon's plain, pale face. The sound of wind chimes and that face looking up at her from the alley. Those eyes had said something else besides what she had told her, that she'd come to check up on her. She'd looked at her with fear. Because she knew Claire knew without knowing.

Mary pounded on the big brown door. Then she rang the bell. She didn't know what they thought they wanted her to do over here. What would her Michaelaen be doing over here? Why, if they thought Mrs. Dixon had anything to do with … why the very idea—like walking backward through her memory … so very many years ago … she'd come across her Michael in the garage and Mrs. Dixon in there with him. But, of course, nothing had happened. Nothing, Michael had told her. Nothing had happened and he was crying from the fear of the dark. Or had she told him that so he would think it? She knocked harder on the grand oak door.

“Mary,” Stan called, “we're going in here whether she opens or not. Just get out of the way and Ryan and I—”

But right then the door opened, a squad car pulled up, Miss von Lillienfeld came outside on her lawn and Mrs. Dixon, seeing them all, pee-ed right down the front of her nice rayon dress.

“Christmas,” said Stan.

“Coming through,” Ryan came up the steps.

“Michaelaen!” Zinnie cried again hoarsely.

“Michaelaen!” they all called, and they went in and went through the house and kept calling. Only Michaelaen was far far away from them now, and even the hum of the fridge from that moment of opening had stopped. Even the hurry up cold had just stopped.

Claire came down the stairs after Johnny. He was back at the furnace, all sooty, glad not to have found Michaelaen there.

“Come on,” he said. “He's not down here. I checked all over.”

“Where's my son?!” Zinnie's voice carried through the whole house. “Where's my baby?!”

It was finally over. Mrs. Dixon grasped hold of the back of her husband's cane chair and she knew it was finally over. If only that fool Claire had stayed away. But no. She'd had to return looking just like that little brat Michael who'd started the whole thing. It was all his fault. And now hers. Twins! They were both from the devil, that was where. Stirring things up. Making her remember. Why was Mary Breslinsky looking at her like that? So aghast. Didn't she know this had nothing to do with her? This was separate.

So why did they keep up this shouting? What did they want? What did Mrs. Breslinsky's girl Zinnie still want from her? Didn't she know it was over? Hadn't she shown them the cameras? She'd never touched Michaelaen. Their precious Michaelaen. They should only know what a little pig he was. What cunning little pigs they all were. Innocent children! Ha! Innocent nothing. Hadn't her own father taught her all that. A hollow-sounding laugh ripped like gas from her throat.

“Come on, Claire.” Johnny's voice sounded hollow in the cold, dismal cellar.

She turned with him to go, then looked for no reason back over her shoulder and noticed the trickle of water that ran from the refrigerator. She remembered the sprinkler. Only what would be worse, if he was there or if he wasn't? “Johnny? Johnny, the refrigerator.”

She held her breath and watched the light bulb naked on a chain.

His head was on the wall of the sour refrigerator and his face, all pearly and closed, the color of drowned abalone. His hands and feet were blue.

“Helllllp,” Claire called with no sound, like a dream where you're trying to run and go nowhere. But Johnny pulled him out, pushed her out of the way, and was running up the stairs and out onto the lawn.

“Get me some help here,” Johnny shouted to everyone.

“My baby! Let me see my baby!” Zinnie shrieked, only Johnny wouldn't let her. He was down giving him mouth to mouth.

“Is he dead?” Carmela cried out.

“Hail Mary full of grace …” Mary prayed.

They were all coming out on their lawns. Everybody was out and they watched without talking. You could hear the short gasps Johnny made into his mouth, you could feel him breathe for him and the hope that waited, praying, inside every heart.

There was nothing.

Johnny lay down straight on top of him, smothering him, warming him, breathing for him. Making him live, goddammit, with all of the fury and faith he had in him. Come on. Come on. Live.

With an arc of his back like a lover's reply, Michaelaen jerked with one spasm and vomited wildly.

“Yeah,” Johnny said to him. “Yeah.”

And the ambulance came, the paramedics ran over, and Johnny stood up, covered with vomit and furnace soot, and Claire looked at him standing there and thought she would die of this great love that held her.

They brought Mrs. Dixon out with no trouble. They led her down the steps slowly, almost softly, her very best red ruby earrings clasped firmly to her fat, doughy lobes. The neighbors stood about. Mrs. Dixon worried someone would steal her shopping cart off the porch and one of the officers pulled it inside.

“It's hard to believe,” someone said.

Iris von Lillienfeld leaned on her fence. It was true. Monsters never looked like monsters. They were always ordinary people. That's how they got away with evil as long as they did. Iris was suddenly beat. She could use, on this night, a stiff drink.

The Mayor, in the shadow, watched it all. He dare not close his eyes now. He wanted to see, be it hell or high water, which way he was going. And he was going. This had all been too much for his old soldier's bones. Surely, though, it had been worth it. To go out in a bright flame of glory. For he was going. It had all been too much. A hero's death. Yes, what better way. Perhaps a little sooner than he'd expected … but for the worthiest of causes. He moved himself and shifted his insides until the great pain lessened. One comfort: he would live on in his offspring. That was something. Quite something. He thought of Natasha underneath the screened porch. She would look for him. Sadly. And Stan. How his dear friend Stan would miss him. He wouldn't want to go on for much longer like this at any rate. And he'd had a fine life. A long life. Up and down these old roads and the sidewalks raised up at the seams from good roots. Strong roots. Well. This night without him would be fine over old Richmond Hill. Very black and right dotty with stars. Ah, see that. Here came Claire looking for him. She cocked her head as she came over closer. “Oh, no,” she whispered softly and she fell to his side and stroked his brave warrior's fur.

They watched together as the hollering ambulance drove the others away and then the quiet rose up with the moon until all of it seemed only terrible. Claire held him close to her then and she started to sing, any song come to mind, just the cheer of her mettle against any fear of faint heart.

He still realized the house … and the scents of the family within, growing farther and farther away now. “She wheeled a wheelbarrow,” she sang, “through streets broad and narrow. Singing cockles and mussels. Alive alive-o.”

And over the street in the pale sturgeon's moon, with the grace of his ancestor's, stood Lü the Wanderer, the old Siamese. He stretched and he walked through the web that had been there. “Singing cockles and mussels,” Claire sang. “Alive alive-o,” she sang to his bright open eyes.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1990 by Mary Anne Kelly

Cover design by Mauricio Díaz

ISBN:

This 2015 edition published by
MysteriousPress.com
/Head of Zeus

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781784973537

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THE CLAIRE BRESLINSKY MYSTERIES

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