The Dragon in the Ghetto Caper (9 page)

“That's not so. I'll be the one detective who can.”

“Maybe,” Edie said, “but I doubt it. You're trying to be a detective for the same reason that I started carrying
Sister Henderson. We're both looking for the same thing. We're both on the same trail, but I know where I'm going.”

“Just where are you going?”

“Right now, I'm going into the kitchen to clean this penny with copper cleaner. I think it's much nicer to put a shining penny into a wedding pillow. Will you pour?”

“I came here to fire you.”

Edie said, “Later.”

So Edie held the bag, and Andy poured the rice into the pillow after she had put in the penny and the laurel. “I'll have it all sewn up and wrapped before Harry—he's my husband—comes home, and I'm married again. We'll be there tomorrow, and I can hardly wait. Andy, will you please carry the dragon over to your house? Just put it with the other presents that have arrived today. I have a card all signed and ready. I know that I'll say everything wrong if I deliver it. I got a new dress for the party, and Harry—he's my husband—says that I look as normal as gooseberry pie. Actually, that's quite a compliment because people usually say ‘as normal as blueberry pie.'” She bit off the thread as she finished the final seam, and she smiled up at Andy. “I can't believe that I'm going. It's my first big party since we moved here.”

Here was Edie Yakots, a grown-up person, excited and nervous, too nervous even to take a present over to the house. She had bought a new dress for a wedding that wasn't even hers. Everyone else in Foxmeadow, except Mrs. Chronister and Ms. Chronister, he was sure, would wear something that they had worn to the Debutante Ball
or to the Foxmeadow Frolics. Tor God's sake,” Andy told her, “Mary Jane is more cool about her very own wedding than you are.”

“Oh, yes,” Edie agreed. “That's why Mary Jane needs a dragon.” Andy looked puzzled. “Not that I believe that you can ever really give anyone a dragon. Everyone has to find his own. But it doesn't hurt to try. Especially when they're not even looking. I guess it is mostly when you know that someone is looking for a dragon that you should not give it to him. Just try to help him find it.”

The pillow was awkward. Well, Andy thought, dragons were awkward. They had to wrap it in tissue paper because Edie wrapped it raw, without a box, and normal gift wrap wouldn't work. They had used tissue paper of primary colors: red, yellow and blue. Well, Andy thought, dragons were primary. He carried the present up to Mary Jane's room. Andy thought that if they recycled all the gift wrap there, it would make enough Coca-Cola cartons for seven years of drought. Edie's was the only gift not wrapped in white. For a wedding present it looked as normal as gooseberry pie. Well, Andy thought, dragons were as normal as gooseberry pie.

He'd have to fire Edie later. After the weekend. After Mary Jane's marriage.

A
ndy was made to sit in the front row of seats, those reserved for members of the family. He kept turning around to see who was coming in. Edie arrived early. She looked different. Maybe because he had never seen her out of context. Like once he saw his first-grade teacher in the supermarket, dressed in shorts, for God's sake. He hadn't known what to do, so he had ducked down one aisle after another until they ran into each other (cart to cart) at the ice-cream counter, and Andy had been so taken aback that he had saluted.

Edie didn't wave at Andy at all. He had expected her to carry on insanely when she spotted him; he had made up his mind that he wouldn't pay any attention, that the minute he spotted her, he would keep his eyes on his lap. But he kept looking back at her to catch her eye. But he couldn't. She looked at everyone coming down the aisle. Maybe Harry—her husband—had warned her about behaving. She looked different. Then Andy realized that she was not wearing her glasses. She probably couldn't see him. He'd help. He twisted around in his seat and waved

his hand until he caught Harry—her husbands—attention. Harry smiled and gently tapped Edie and pointed to Andy. Finally, Edie herself waved. Andy sat around in his seat, staring ahead and realizing that he had been waving like an antenna in a high wind, for God's sake.

The ceremony took too long. Mary Jane was not satisfied with simply walking down the aisle and having the minister say things to her and to Alton. She had had to put in her two cents, too. She said poetry to Alton, and he said some to her. And then they both said the same things at the same time to the minister. None of them were things they had made up. They were memorized from some book that was not the Bible. Andy looked back at Edie to exchange a smirk with her, but there was no chance of catching her eye. She was smiling and squeezing Harry—her husbands—hand. And she had put on her glasses. She wasn't missing one single thing except Andy's smirk. She could have seen Andy if she had wanted to, if she weren't concentrating so hard on the ceremony.

After the part in the church, everyone who was in the wedding party or who was a member of the family went to the Chronisters' house and formed a line. The guests walked past the line one by one. Most of them shook hands with everyone, but a lot of them kissed everyone, and after seven minutes, Mr. Chronister looked as if he had a case of terminal poison ivy. But he smiled and took it; he took it all: Revlon, Estee Lauder, Max Factor and Yardley.

When Harry and Edie Yakots walked through the
receiving line, they shook hands with everyone. Until Edie got to Andy. She had taken her glasses off again, and she was starting to shake hands with him before she noticed that the short person whose hand she was shaking was her boss, Andy. When she did, it was
sayonara
for Andy. She hugged him.

“Oh, boss,” she said. “I'm so glad we came. And there's more to come, and it was so already beautiful.”

After the Yakotses had passed the whole length of the receiving line, Mr. Chronister turned his decorated face to his son and asked, “Who was that wild woman? One of your mother's relatives, I suspect.”

“An impostor,” Andy answered. “Why don't you have your two detectives arrest her?” That was all that Andy had a chance to say before he had to shake the next few hands.

As soon as they had passed through the line, the guests, each and every one, picked up a glass of champagne and began the real party. Andy figured that he had spent more time in line than any of the guests and that he deserved a glass of champagne more than any of them. So he helped himself. In that room crowded with friends, relatives, business associates, two detectives (somewhere) and one crazy lady named Edie Yakots, Andy drank alone. Everyone else was drinking toasts to Mary Jane and Alton; but Andy was toasting Andy.

His first glass of champagne tasted more like Alka-Seltzer than anything else. His second tasted like Alka-Seltzer with a dash of ginger ale. His third tasted like
ginger ale altogether, and the fourth simply tasted wet. He lifted his fifth glass from the tray of the passing waiter. The waiter gave him a puzzled look; he gave the waiter a defiant look in return. His father took the glass from him and told him that it was time to eat.

Andy looked up at his father. His father was swimming. No, just his father's head was swimming. Andy thought that it was logical for his father's head to be swimming. How else could his father have washed himself clean of all those kisses? He smiled, pleased with his logic. His father seemed to be not smiling. He pulled Andy toward one of the round tables where he was to sit between Alton's brother and Alton's sister. He stared at the shrimp that was in place before him and wondered why shrimp that had been boiled, peeled and deveined should still be swimming. Through cocktail sauce. Andy looked at Alton's brother and Alton's sister. They were much older than he was. They looked old enough to have college or kids. It would be nice to ask them how old they really were, but he decided not to. No one could talk underwater. They weren't under as much water as his father had been. Their heads were just swaying with the tide like seaweed caught on a piling.

Andy next noticed his hands. He looked at them a very long time. He did not normally pay too much attention to his hands, but they were very heavy right now. That, too, was perfectly logical; his hands had absorbed all the weight from his head which was very light right now.

With the fat fingers of his right hand he managed to spear a shrimp. He smiled at it. Boy conquers fish. He bit a piece off, and it dried up, right inside his mouth. It wouldn't go down his throat because all of his breakfast and all of his lunch were suddenly there, clogging the passage. Andy put his napkin over his mouth and backed away from the table. He went upstairs to his room. He thought he walked up, but he couldn't be sure. His feet didn't remember touching the floor.

After he did what he had to do in the bathroom, he went to his own room. He lay down on his bed and watched the grate over the air-conditioner duct bend into various abstract shapes before the weight from his hands moved to his eyelids and forced his eyelids closed.

The lines of the air-conditioner grate were the last thing he focused on before he fell asleep (passed out). Noises coming from the air-conditioner grate were the first thing he focused on when he awakened (came to). Voices. Voices colored red and pale orange. Arguing voices. A man and a woman. No, two men and a woman: red, pale orange and a dash of sienna.

The woman “…because everyone forgot the rice.”

Man One: “Now, lady, you can't make me believe that you came up here for rice. Rice is always kept in the kitchen in a nice house like this here.”

The woman: “I just came for the dragon. It's full, and the bride is ready. It's instant because it weighs less.”

Man Two: “Hold it a minute. You want us to believe that you are the only person at this whole party who knew
that there was rice up here? You were throwing it around last Thursday.”

The woman: “I wanted to surprise everyone who forgot the rice. Which was everyone. They all forgot the rice.”

Andy's eyes wanted to go to sleep again, but some other sight, far in back of his eyes would not let him. The voices continued coming through the air conditioning. The woman's voice was Edie's of course. Who else would talk such nonsense to strangers? Two men strangers. Yet, not so strange. Their voices, their tone, were familiar.
Hold it a minute.
The men from the Plymouth.
Hold it a minute.
Last Thursday she was throwing it around.
Hold it a minute.
The waiter who had looked at him so strangely was one of the crooks. If the champagne bubbles had not gone to his brain, he would have realized who the man was before now. He could have tipped off his father. Where were his father's fine detectives now? He jumped off the bed. He had to rescue Edie. He'd rescue Edie and catch the crooks. Two missions in one. He would feel better about dismissing her after he had evened out the rescues.

If only his mouth were not so dry. He could think better if his tongue weren't drying out his brain.

He walked down the hall to Mary Jane's room. They had closed the door. The cheats! Couldn't trust a crook. He was closed out. He couldn't just turn the knob and walk in and request that they let Edie go. He'd have to be a rough-'em-up detective after all. Except that he was undersized and underarmed.

Underarmed! That was it.

He tiptoed past Mary Jane's room to the bathroom. In use! He had to go through his mother's and father's bedroom to get to theirs. There wasn't much time. He had to stay cool. He would find it easier to stay cool if only he weren't so thirsty.
Thirsty
made a guy hot.

The furs were piled high on his parents' bed. They looked like a giant hairy Moby Dick, for God's sake. Why weren't his father's famous detectives guarding the furs as they were supposed to? He had to do everything. All by himself. Someone was leaving his parents' bathroom just as he reached the door. “Lovely party,” she said. Now, when he was busy being cool and committing a rescue, was no time for conversation. He gave his crotch a good tug, one that would have made Tim Feagin jealous, and he said, “Excuse me,” as he brushed past the lady into the bathroom.

He didn't waste a minute; he didn't even take a drink of water, and God knows, he needed one. He reached inside the cabinet under the sink and took what he needed. He poked his head out the door, his very thirsty but cool head. The coast was clear. He walked rapidly, but coolly, down the hallway and turned the knob on the door to Mary Jane's room. Except that it didn't turn. Locked! The crooks had locked Edie inside. Cheats! He kicked at the door, leaving black scuff marks on the white paint. “Open up!” he yelled.

The instant he saw a crack of light through the door, he thrust one arm in and then the other. And he sprayed.