The Dragon in the Ghetto Caper (4 page)

Valentine's Day came on Tuesday, but Andy had finished his during Monday's music lesson. He looked at what he had done and decided that his mother had a perfect right to think that dragons were inappropriate on valentines. On the other hand, he had a perfect right to think that they were not. He also decided that he would use some of his money to buy his mother a Hallmark. This year he would give his dragon valentine to Edie Yakots. He pressed his work between the pages of his social studies
book. Besides being the only valentine at Emerson C.D.S. that had a dragon, his was the only one that had no cupids.

Edie was in the yard when Andy walked up. “Hi, Andrew J. Chronister,” she yelled. “I'm spreading cow-do on my snapdragons.”

“Let's go inside,” Andy said.

Edie wiped her hands on the back seat of her jeans. She held the door open for him, and as he walked through ahead of her, she said, “Some people shorten their name.”

“You mean that Yakots was even worse before it was shortened?”

“I was talking about my snapdragons, the flowers I was putting the cow-do on,” Edie said, washing her hands at the kitchen sink. “Some people call them snaps. But I don't. I call them by their whole rightful name, snapdragons. Because I like the dragon part the best.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Yakots, I've never heard a grown lady call it that before.”

“Well, don't be surprised. You know how I believe in dragons.”

“I don't mean the snapdragons, for God's sake. I mean the cow manure. I've never heard a grown woman call it
cow-do
before.”

“But you knew what I meant.”

“Of course I knew what you meant.”

“Well? See? Harry—he's my husband—says that speech is communication.”

Andy decided to change the subject. “Did you have a nice marriage this weekend?”

“Very nice, thank you. Did you have a nice detecting?”

Edie had poured them both Cokes. Andy carried his into the den, sat down, leaned back, swung his arm over the back of the sofa and crossed his legs. “Oh,” he sighed. “I thought of getting into something new this weekend—memory.”

“Memories are old, not new,” Edie said. “If they're not in the past, they're a
now,
not a memory.”

“Oh, Yakots, can't I make you understand? I'm working on improving my memory.” Andy told her about a famous author who had done a study of two murderers. Instead of using tape recorders while he was doing the interviews, he had used his memory. He had practiced so that he could repeat whole conversations. That way the murderers weren't self-conscious about talking into a microphone. Andy had decided that this kind of training would be as extremely useful for a famous detective as it was for a famous author.

Edie listened with great interest. “I'll help,” she said.

“Don't be ridiculous. How can you help? Half the time you talk as if you were born without conjunctions.”

“I talk perfectly all right after people know me. Harry—he's my husband—says that I taper toward normal. I think it's nice that he says that I
taper
toward normal. Means that normal is less than what I usually am.”

But to strangers, Edie always talked in confetti. And it was that very thing that he had to avoid. It was all right
having her as a secret sidekick, but he didn't want to encourage her. When he was famous, she'd have to appear in public, and the public, God knows, is full of strangers.

“Thanks a lot,” Andy said, “but I can do without you. I have a cassette player. I'll just read something into it, listen and repeat it into the cassette. Then I'll play that back and listen again.”

“Memorizing
reading
isn't the same as memorizing
listening.
Memorizing listening is harder. I'll tell you what. I'll do the reading. You do the listening and memorizing, and I'll check you. It will be faster and more like conversation for you.”

Andy thought that no one, but no one, had ever heard of a sidekick helping a detective get trained. Sidekicks took orders and anticipated needs. Allowing someone to help him would make them too equal; you can't get too equal with a sidekick. Imagine Ellery or Sherlock doing that. “I should hope that your helping would be nothing at all like having a conversation with you. Having a conversation with you is like watching a TV program that is out of sync.”

Edie looked down at her lap and said very quietly, “I thought you were beginning to understand dragons.” She shoved her glasses up on her nose and looked at Andy through their sides.

Dragons
made him remember his valentine. He took it out. “By the way, this is for you. It's not due until tomorrow, but I was finished, so I brought it over.” He handed it to her.

Edie looked at it a long time. Her eyes were shining and saying thank you, but she said nothing. Out loud. Her smile said a lot. No one had ever appreciated his dragons that much. His mother preferred hearts and cupids, and Mary Jane had told him that she thought that he was some kind of pervert, never doing anything but dragons. (Mary Jane had said that when he got older he would read Freud and find out how really weird he was.) And here was Edie, not thinking that he was weird at all. He was more flattered than he thought he should be. “Don't steam your glasses over it,” he said. He hadn't meant to say that. He
should have thought of a better way, a cool way to show his appreciation of her appreciation.

“May I show it to Harry?” Edie asked. “He understands dragons. He claims that he was married to one for twentythree years.” Andy looked puzzled. “Not me.” She added, “I'm not a twenty-three-year wife. His first one was. The one he divorced to marry me.” Edie stared at the valentine a bit longer. “Is this one a boy or a girl?” she asked.

“I wouldn't give a girl to a girl for Valentine's Day, for God's sake.”

“That's right,” Edie said. “I should have known.”

He didn't like her feeling guilty about not knowing it was a boy. He hadn't decided what it was until she had asked. “That's okay,” he said. “You can show it to Harry if you want to.”

“Gee thanks,” Edie said. “Isn't there anything I can do to help you? I would love to help you.”

“Oh, okay,” Andy replied. “I'll bring some stuff over tomorrow, and I'll see how you work out.”

“I'm going to try to be great at helping you,” Edie said.

“Yeah,” Andy answered and left. He closed the door behind him, thinking that he'd find some way to get out of working with her on memory training. What if he decided not to train his memory? Why did he ever agree in the first place? Of course, he hadn't agreed in the first place. He did it in the second. Maybe the third. He was beginning to talk like her, for God's sake. To himself.

S
hortly after he got home Andy decided to develop laryngitis. That would make him just sick enough to be excused from going to Edie's tomorrow and just sick enough not to participate in the Valentine's Day party at school. But not sick enough to miss it. He preferred observing to participating in Emerson C.D.S. parties.

He decided to practice his laryngitis at the supper table. A cool, tough detective ought to be able to keep up that much of a disguise. He also decided that his laryngitis would be a brown-out, not a black-out; he would allow himself to whisper. He wanted to be able to ask someone to pass the salt if he needed it. He knew he would need it. He used a lot of salt.

“And how was your day, dear?” Mrs. Chronister asked her husband. She always asked that. “Just delicious, and how was yours?” he answered. He always answered that. It was their start, and after you've been married as long as they have, you have to start someplace, Andy thought. From that point each of them began a recitation of what had happened during the day.

His mother usually did less during the day and had more to say “Mary Jane had a kitchen gadget party at the Hemmings' this afternoon.”

“Is that Jan and Ira Hemming?”

“Yes, the couple who live next door to the Grants.”

“Not the Grants. The Yakotses,” Andy whispered.

“What's the matter, Andrew? You sound as if you have laryngitis in a foreign language. What are Yakotses?” Mr. Chronister asked.

Andy opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue and pointed to his throat. “Sore,” he whispered.

“Your tongue or your throat?”

Andy pointed to his throat.

“Then hold your tongue and save your throat, dear,” Mrs. Chronister said. She turned to her husband and continued. “The Yakotses are the couple who live in the Grants' house. The Hemmings are still sorry that the Grants had to move. They feel as if they've lost their good right hand. The Grants lived to the right of them, remember? That is the right, as you face the house. Of course, everyone says that the new people are only renting. Strange couple. Very strange. He looks old enough to be her father.”

“He is,” Andy interrupted.

“He is her father, or he is old enough to be?” Mr. Chronister asked.

“Old enough.”

“Very strange,” Mrs. Chronister continued. “Jan Hemming said that she tried to be friendly with the
woman, but she talks as if she had been born without conjunctions or something.” Andy was annoyed at hearing his mother use the exact description he had used. Coming from his mother, it sounded insulting. “It seems that you can't have an actual conversation with her,” Mrs. Chronister continued. “And her husband! Why, he's hardly ever home. He must have some sort of traveling job,” she said, and then smiling at Mr. Chronister, she added, “or another family tucked away somewhere.”

“Yes,” Andy whispered.

“He has a traveling job, or he has another family?” Mr. Chronister asked.

“Both,” Andy whispered.

“Yes, dear,” Mrs. Chronister said. “Save your voice for school tomorrow.” His mother appeared to be more interested in continuing her conversation than in getting the facts. “Jan said that the woman is quite friendly. Jan went over to introduce herself when they first moved in, and she said that they have done the strangest things to the Grants' house. An old church pew and odd colors painted on the walls.”

“In the kitchen,” Andy volunteered.

“The odd colors or the church pew?” Mr. Chronister asked.

“Both.”

“Save your voice, dear,” Mrs. Chronister continued. “Jan said that the Yakots woman went to the January meeting of the Garden Circle. I was sorry that I couldn't go to that one. It happened to fall on the same day that the
Freemans had that champagne brunch for Mary Jane. Anyway, Jan said that the woman seems to be about Mary Jane's age, poor thing. Here she is, saddled with a husband old enough to be her father, and a house that everyone says they're only renting and that she's painted all these strange colors and no one around that she can talk to, that is, if she could talk …”

“She can talk,” Andy said. “She can talk just fine, only she happens to take more listening to than most people. It's not like listening to you. A person doesn't have to listen to you very hard because you never say much even when you say a lot. Mrs. Yakots happens to be better at making sense than at making sentences.”

“Andrew, you will apologize to your mother.”

Andy turned to his father, “What for, for God's sake?”

“For the rudeness of your manner and for saying that your mother never says much.”

“I apologize,” Andy shouted.

“Andrew seems to have lost his laryngitis along with his temper,” Mary Jane said. It was the first thing she had said all during the meal, and, of course, being Mary Jane, it was the worst. Mary Jane always managed to say the first worst thing.

Mr. Chronister looked at his son, interested. “You seem to know this Mrs. Yakots quite well.”

“She happens to be a person who admires dragons and who is willing to buy one. And she happens to be a person who is willing to take time out to help a future detective with his training.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Chronister.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Chronister.

“Oh,” said Ms. Chronister.

“Uh-oh,” said Andy. He realized that in the defense of Edie Yakots he had not only destroyed his disguise, but had also destroyed his excuse for not having her help him. He had not only admitted knowing her, he had committed himself to her. In front of his whole family. At the supper table, for God's sake.

When Andy went to his room, he took his catalogs down from his bookshelf. He began to sort them. He wouldn't take them all over to Edie's. He had too many. When he had started his training, he had also begun collecting catalogs and the Thursday editions of the local paper. The Thursday edition ran the grocery ads. Sometimes Andy made charts of the cost of Ivory soap or paper towels, pricing out the cost per sheet, not the cost per roll. He had thought that it would be good analytical training. But he hadn't had time to do that lately, what with helping Edie with the garden and carrying Sister Henderson every Thursday afternoon. The research he did on the grocery ads never mattered to his mother, anyway. She went to one grocery store and 400 dress shops per week and bought whatever she needed. If the grocery store was out of something, she waited until she went back the next week. “Better the stores should run their legs off than I should,” she explained. People in Foxmeadow hated walking unless it was for some jock thing like golf or for shopping for no purpose—like dresses.