The First Stone (2 page)

Avoiding pigeon droppings, he sat down on the foot-wide window ledge and leaned back against the rotted casing. The breeze blowing through the glassless opening felt good on his rum-warmed face. If he wanted to, he could close his eyes and pretend he was standing with Nan on Citadel Hill, the sun on their faces as they watched tourists from as far away as California enter the fortress. But he didn't. He'd been nine the last time he was there. Before Nan's cancer had got so bad Social Services had taken him away from her, put him in a foster home. The first of many.

Reef frowned. Bending down, he picked up a fist-sized fragment of windowpane and held it up to his face, looking for evidence of that frightened nine year old in his reflection. Instead, the pitted glass mirroredthe face of a defiant young man whose dark eyes had stared down more than a few social workers, even a principal or two. The glass also reflected someone who was used to getting appreciative glances from the females he encountered. Curly black hair accentuated tanned skin and contrasted dramatically with white, even teeth. His straight nose and square, beard-stubbled Jaw made him look older than his seventeen years, and his tall, tightly muscled frame only heightened that impression. For the briefest moment, he wondered whether Nan would recognize him now, and then he opened his fingers. The fragment shattered as it hit the floor.

“Scar meetin' us here?” asked Bigger.

Reef turned to him, shook his head. “Her ol' man's back.”

Jink pinched one nostril and blew fiercely through the other, sending a green, scab-like projectile into the street below. “Probably got her runnin' all over the city,” he said, before reversing nostrils and blowing again. Twice. Nothing.

“Better ‘n standin' around waitin' for a hand upside her head,” Bigger offered.

Reef nodded. He used to think it was Scar's red hair that set her father off, like waving a flag in front of a bull—neither of her parents had hair that color, nor did anyone else in their family. It was her father who had named her Scarlet. Reef had seen a picture of Scar taken when she was only a few days old, and even thenher hair had been the color that usually earns kids nicknames like Carrot-Top or Red. Of course, no one called Scar those names. Not more than once, anyway.

Bigger sat on the ledge beside Reef, yawned, scratched his armpit. “Jeez, I'm hungry.”

Jink chuckled. “You were
born
hungry.”

“Ain't as bad as bein' born
ugly,”
Bigger replied: “Least I get
full
from time t' time. You're
always
gonna be ugly.”

Jink grinned, three missing teeth like darkened doorways in his mouth. Along with his broken nose, the holes in his smile were souvenirs of several confrontations that had earned him a reputation as a formidable fighter. Not that these features made him any less attractive than he would have been without them. His too-wide face and sloping forehead made him look menacing even in mid-grin, an impression further emphasized by a tattooed snake that curled around his thick neck and bared its fangs below his right ear. Reef couldn't remember the last time Jink had lost a brawl. Couldn't, in fact, even imagine it happening. Although not as massive as Bigger or as razor-quick as Reef, Jink had pit-bull tenacity and a wild-eyed demeanor that, combined with the chip on his shoulder a mile wide, made people turn and cross the street if they saw him coming. Even his teachers were afraid of him.

Except Mrs. Gregory, who'd taught Jink and Reef eighth-grade English three years ago. Reef had justchanged foster families again, which had meant another change of schools, which in turn had made him the new kid in Mrs. Gregory's class. But it hadn't taken Reef long to realize that Stan Eisner, the crazy kid with the wild eyes, was on a collision course with anyone foolish enough to get in his way. The old woman stared him down time after time, never flinching, even the day Stan completely lost it and threw his chair across the room. It had been a lazy last period and the teacher had split the class in half, offering as a reward no homework to the team that could spell the most words correctly. Stan spelled about as well as he did math, which he failed regularly. In fact. Reef learned that Stan had failed almost everything once, and the only reason he'd made it to grade eight was the school board's rule about no one repeating a junior grade more than once. Stan was, as Reef had overheard a teacher comment, “on the two-year plan.” It wouldn't have mattered if he'd stayed home during the even years of his education—he was guaranteed a pass “for social reasons.”

Reef had realized on his first day something that everyone else at that school had known for years: Stan hated school, but he hated teachers even more. He especially hated when they singled him out, forced him to demonstrate his ineptness to everyone in the room, and teachers soon learned it was better for everyone involved not to call on Stan Eisner. Mrs. Gregory, however, was the exception. All of five feettall, maybe ninety-four pounds soaking wet, and prone to putting a blue rinse in her graying hair, Mrs. Gregory was intimidated by no one. So when the next person in line to spell
jinx
was Stan Eisner, she refused to back down as he glared at her, muttering about “friggin' teachers” and school being a “buncha bull.” She waited. Waited for Stan to risk being wrong and take a chance on being right for a change. While the rest of the students in the room held their breath.

Finally, his face black with muted rage, Stan attempted the spelling, spitting the letters one at a time through clenched teeth:
“J … i … n … k … s.”

The tension in the classroom was mattress-thick, and someone at the back, longing for release, gulped. The sound, like a too-ripe pear being squeezed in a fist, was too loud for the room.

“The word isn't a plural form,” Mrs. Gregory explained. “You don't say ‘one
jink
, two
jinks.'“

Suddenly someone giggled, then someone else, then laughter erupted all around them.

Humiliated, Stan rose to his feet. “I can goddamn well say
jink
if I
want
to!” he roared.
“Jink! Jink! JINK!”
For effect, he kicked his desk, sending it clacking into the one in front of it.

“Sit down, Stanley.”

“I
ain't
sittin'!” he bellowed.

“I said sit
down
!”

In response, Stan Eisner picked up his chair andthrew it against the wall behind him, narrowly missing Eddie Blake, who sat in the last seat of the adjacent row. The whole class jerked around, staring in awe as the chair, one leg bent at a crazy angle, crashed to the floor.

Sitting two rows over, Reef grinned. This was infinitely better than the hoedown he'd given Michelle Hatt during phys ed, her face crimson as she'd yanked her gym shorts back up over her bare ass.
“Jink,”
he crooned. Then he repeated it. Louder.
“Jink!”

Students around him grinned, and a few were even brave enough to take up the chant:
“Jink, jink, jink, jink…”

“That'll be
enough!”
Mrs. Gregory's voice. An ice pick in their throats. Then, “Stanley, the chair.”

Stan stared at her a long moment, then hissed, “Bite me, bitch!” and sauntered past her out the door.

Of course he'd been suspended for the remainder of the school year, but since that was his second time in grade eight, he'd gone on to nine the following September anyway. In the process, he'd acquired a nickname he'd worn proudly ever since.

“What's goin' on down there?” Bigger asked. He pointed to a green truck that had pulled up in front of The Pit, the lettering on its side impossible to read from where they sat. Two men got out and stood looking up at the crumbling facade, talking and making notes on clipboards. Then they turned their attention to the buildings on either side of The Pit. One manpulled something out of his pocket and moved over to the alley between the hotel and Wade's Laundry, and the something turned out to be a retractable tape that he used to measure the width of the alley, more information that ended up on the clipboard. The other man returned to the truck and started it, then drove it into the alley and out of view.

“More buildin' inspectors?” Jink asked.

Reef shrugged, his rum buzz gone. “Maybe. I dunno. Let's check it out.”

They made their way back down the stairs, pausing twice to peer into the alley. There was no sign of the men.

“Narcs?” Bigger suggested.

Reef shook his head. “Don't think so. They were payin' more attention to the buildin' than what's inside.” Reef had had run-ins with undercover narcotics officers before. These two didn't seem the type. Their busyness looked real.

They reached the first floor and made their way to the entrance, where Jink eased his shoulder against the plywood, allowing Reef to peer through the upside-down V between the plywood and the door frame. Surveying the street for the two men, he saw no one, then pushed through the opening into sunlight.

“Aww,
Christ!”
he moaned.

Almost simultaneously, the two called, “Cops?”

Reef slumped back against the crumbling wall. “I wish.”

Bigger and Jink eased out onto the step beside Reef, turned in the direction he was staring.

This time their voices were exactly simultaneous.
“Fuck!”

“You can take this garbage and shove it up your—”

The final epithet was lost in the crash and clang of dishware and dinner tray meeting hard tile floor. Mashed potatoes, peas and meatloaf slid across the broad expanse of white, followed closely by a pot of tea and a dish of custard. The girl who had just placed the tray on the bed table turned an astonished face toward the nurse in the doorway.

Mary Clayton sighed wearily. “I should've warned you about Mr. Harris, Leeza. He doesn't think much of the—”

“Pig slop!” the elderly man snorted, banging the rail on the side of his bed. “Nothin' but
pig slop
in this place! Where's my Maggie? Maggie! Look what they're tryin' to feed me!”

Leeza Hemming braved a smile as she turned back to the patient. “It's okay, Mr. Harris. You don't have to eat this if—”

“Maggie knows what I like!” he snapped.
“Maggie
knows.” He looked past her toward the doorway andcalled, his voice cracked and thin, “Maggie! Where
are
you, girl?”

Nurse Clayton clucked softly and moved toward the bed. “Now, Mr. Harris, you know Maggie isn't here. Remember?”

The old man turned to her, his lower lip quivering. “She's not here?”

The nurse's tone was low, professionally sincere. “No, Mr. Harris. Maggie's not here.”

He looked toward the door again and started to cry, his thin shoulders quaking as he sobbed.

Ignoring the mess at her feet, Leeza placed her hand on the man's arm, gently squeezing it and speaking in soft tones. “It's okay, Mr. Harris. No need to get yourself all upset now. Everything'll be fine.”

The old man looked up at the girl as if seeing her for the first time. “Maggie?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, I'm not Maggie. But I'm sure she'd want you to eat something, wouldn't she? How about some soup? Does that sound like something you'd like?”

“You're not Maggie?” The man's voice seemed to come from somewhere far inside him.

“No. I'm Leeza. But I bet the cook's been saving a bowl of soup for someone special like you. Would you like me to check?”

His eyes still leaking tears, he reached for her hand and gripped it like a lifeline. “Will you bring it to me?”

“Of course I will. You just lie back and rest and I'll take care of everything.” She turned to pick up the fallen items, but Nurse Clayton waved her away. “I'll look after this. It's my fault for not warning you in the first place. You go see about that soup.”

Thirty minutes later, the nurse poked her head in the door again to see the teenager sitting by Mr. Harris's bed, chatting softly as she spooned the last of some chicken broth into the elderly man's mouth. He watched her with bright, interested eyes as she got up to leave. “You'll come see me again?” he asked.

“Sure. I'll be here again tomorrow after school.” She leaned over and patted his hand. “You won't forget me now, will you?”

He shook his head.

“He already has,” said the nurse a moment later in the hall. “Forgotten you, I mean.” She took the bowl and spoon and set them on the meal trolley with the other dishes, then accompanied the teenager down the corridor past the nurses' station.

“Oh, I know,” Leeza said. “He still thinks I'm Maggie.”

“His wife,” said the nurse. “She was a resident here too. Passed away last year, poor soul.”

“Sad,” said Leeza. “But, in a way, he's lucky.” Seeing the surprise on the nurse's face, she continued, “I mean that he doesn't remember she's gone. This way, she'll always be alive for him.”

The nurse nodded. “For someone so young, youknow a lot about older people. You must have grandparents.”