Wind Raker - Book IV of The Order of the Air (42 page)

“Hey, Jerry, why would one of the cadets be interested in your dig?”

To his surprised, Jerry laughed. “Oh, no. Was it Lorenz and Sommer?”

Lewis nodded. “Those were the names, yeah.”

“Lorenz was Willi’s student before he joined the Navy,” Jerry said. “We ran into them the night of the Fourth down in Honolulu when they were trying to find trouble to get into, and now I can’t seem to stop running into them. It’s just a little awkward.”

Lewis smiled in spite of himself. That might explain both the interest and the awkwardness, but he was still glad he hadn’t told them any more details. Overhead, the port engine coughed, then roared to life, and the starboard engine followed. He adjusted his headphones, and readied himself for the flight back to Honolulu.

Chapter Eighteen

D
ouglas waited for his moment carefully. He was lying in his cot on the sleeping porch, fat tropical moths banging softly against the screen, trying to get to the light bulb casting a glow over the center of the porch. Jimmy was in his bed, the covers pulled up and his face to the wall, but Douglas knew he wasn't asleep. He waited until it was time to be told to put the light out and go to sleep. That was the right moment.

Douglas put down the dog-eared copy of
The Wizard of Oz
. "Can I ask you a question?" And that was the right way to put it too — with no salutation. Mr. Sorley would put him off, and Dad would put Jimmy off. Not saying either one was something nobody could get mad at.

"Sure." Mr. Sorley probably expected it to be something about what they were doing tomorrow or if there could be cake for breakfast.

"Is magic real? Or is it all just made up?"

He frowned, taking a deep breath like that wasn't a question he expected, like the answer was really hard. "Yes," Mr. Sorley said. "It's real."

"And people really do magic?"

"Yes."

Just a plain answer, like he'd asked if the Pacific was an ocean. Which made the next question obvious. "Then if you can really do magic, why aren't you rich and famous?"

Mr. Sorley sat down on the end of the bed, taking his time about it like he needed a minute to think. "Real magic is hard," he said. "It's not whiz bang pop like in the comics. You have to give a lot to it. But it can give you your heart's desire."

Douglas sat up. "Then why aren't you rich and famous like Lindbergh? He's the most famous aviator ever. He's a millionaire and everybody in the world knows who he is! You're as good as him, right? Mr. Segura said so. He said the two of you could do anything Lindbergh does. But he makes money by the ton and he's in the newsreel nearly every week!"

"That's true." Mr. Sorley nodded. His voice was quiet. "And because he's so rich and so famous, his little boy was kidnapped and murdered. I wouldn't trade ten million dollars and my face in every paper in the world for my son's life. And I expect Colonel Lindbergh feels the same way."

A bunch of those newsreel stories were about the trial, sure enough. Lots of pictures of Lindbergh arriving at the courthouse, stony-faced, his wife's face hidden beneath her hat, but not a picture of that little boy Merilee's age killed and dumped in the woods, though everybody talked about it. Moms talked about it, like their kid was somebody famous that you'd want to abduct, when they were just plain old kids. Nobody was going to kidnap him for a hundred thousand dollars in ransom money, that was for sure. Well, Mr. Sorley was nobody famous. So that came right around, didn't it?

"Magic is real," he said quietly. "And it can help you get your heart's desire. But everybody's heart's desires are different. Some people want to be rich or famous, and that really is their heart's desire. But not everyone." He picked up the copy of
Tthe Wizard of Oz
, glancing at Jimmy's stiff shoulders in the other bed. "What's your heart's desire?"

"Adventure!" Douglas bounced a little. "I want to live on a South Sea island with pirates and spies. And animals. Lots of animals." He'd thought a lot about this. "And I want to live in a treehouse like Tarzan. Only on an island, not in the jungle. With volcanoes like here. And maybe dinosaurs, only probably not because they're all dead. That's what that book by Roy Chapman Andrews says. But you can go dig them up in the Gobby Desert. I'm not sure where that is. Maybe Japan. But you can find their bones and things. And I'd put them back together in my treehouse."

Mr. Sorley's mouth twitched. "That sounds like a very exciting ambition."

"And then I'd stop the pirates and spies when they wanted to steal my dinosaur bones," Douglas said.

"Pirates and spies together?"

"Maybe one at a time," Douglas conceded. "Can magic help me do that?"

"Yes. If you want it enough." He stood up. "It can help you get your heart's desire, even if it's a long and weird road." He reached up and pulled the string to turn the sleeping porch light out. "Now go to bed. It's late."

"Ok." Douglas lay back down, plopping the pillow around a few times.

Mr. Sorley's hand brushed over his brow. "Good night," he said.

Douglas looked up. "Did you get your heart's desire?"

He stopped for a moment, silhouetted against the light in the hall beyond, his face in shadow. "Yes," he said. "I did."

J
erry’s leg felt better than he had expected, enough better that he felt reasonably certain he wasn’t going to do himself any harm if he didn’t go straight to bed. Besides, the others were still keyed up from the flight and Stasi had caught their nervousness and was bustling about trying to make sure the children had a proper dinner and did something improving rather than listen to the radio. Douglas had sulked all through the meal, and Jimmy had that bewildered look as though he couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t happier that he was getting what he wanted. Jerry was glad when they were banished to the sleeping porch. At least Willi had absented himself entirely, pleading business in Honolulu that would keep him late, and Jerry couldn’t say he was entirely sorry. He would find a way to deal with that — somehow — but his talk with Jimmy on the plane had broken loose old memories. Stasi seemed so unhappy, and he thought he could guess some of what was wrong; the least he could do was offer her his own story.

He paused at the sideboard, considering. Alma and Lewis had taken the girls up to bed, Mitch was dealing with the boys, and Stasi… Stasi had retreated to the lanai, for once leaving the dishes untouched. Jerry gave the mai tai in his left hand a last swirl, then hung his cane over his arm, picked up his own drink, and made his way awkwardly through the doors to join her. His wooden leg seemed painfully loud against the sound of the wind and the distant surf, but Stasi didn’t turn. She stood at the edge of the lanai, leaning on the rail, her skin very pale in the rising dusk. The breeze ruffled her hair where it was coming loose from the pins, a single strand tracing a pattern like writing along her cheek. Jerry set the drink carefully on the rail beside her, put his own own on the other side, and rested one hand on the rail. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her glance at him, but he was careful not to look at her, not to see the smudged mascara and the bitten lipstick. At least she was wearing makeup again. Maybe she wouldn’t refuse the drink — she looked as though she could use it.

“I want to tell you a story,” he said.

She made a sound that might have been a laugh. “There’s nothing but fairytales here, darling.”

“Once upon a time….” Jerry looked out at the harbor, where waves drew a white line against the dark. The sky and sea were both purple, the brightest stars already visible overhead. This was not the time for clever banter. “When I was eight,” he said, “my mother made me put on my Sunday clothes on Saturday, and we rode the streetcar to the end of the line, all the way to the edge of town. And then we walked past where the gravel ended to a house with a barn. There was a woman there, and a pack of kids. My mother gave her ten dollars, a five and four ones and the rest in change. And the she gave me the parcel she’d been carrying, and she walked back to town. I never saw her again.”

He risked a glance this time, but she was motionless, her profile white against the night. “The next year, someone called Child Protection about the baby farm, and I ended up at St. Vincent’s Male Orphan Asylum in Baltimore. The brothers told me study was the only way out, and — it was.” He reached into his pocket, brought out his cigarette case, busied himself lighting one until he thought he could find the words. “I can’t help watching you with the kids. I wish — you’re taking such good care of them.”

Stasi took a deep breath, her thin shoulders rising and falling sharply, and turned to face him. “Darling, it’s rude not to offer a lady a smoke.”

Jerry held out the case wordlessly, waited while she fitted it into her long black holder, and flicked his lighter for her. She exhaled the smoke in a long sigh.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said. “I haven’t the faintest idea where to start.”

“Mrs. Fletcher drank herself into a stupor five nights out of seven,” Jerry said, “and in the morning she’d work off her hangover beating whichever ones of us she could catch. Though, to be fair, it wasn’t usually me because I could read the paper to her when it came. We were four to a mattress — no actual beds — and there wasn’t usually quite enough to eat, and I fought like a trapped rat when Child Protection came to take us away, because she was better than nothing. You — I’d have killed to have someone like you take me in.”

He cleared his throat, reached for his own drink to drown the old familiar shame. He heard Stasi breathe again, the end of her cigarette glowing brighter in the dark.

“What was in the parcel?” she asked, and her voice was almost normal.

“What?”

“The package. What was in it?”

“Underwear,” Jerry said. “Socks.”

“Socks.” Stasi shook her head. “Thank you for the drink, darling. I needed that.”

M
itch winced as he tuned the radio, the strident Midwestern tones of Father Coughlin cutting through the Polynesian twilight. "…giving every person a number instead of a name. That's the Mark of the Beast, my friends! Social Security numbers take away your human identity, your Christian name, and replace it with a godless number to be used by the government!" Mitch turned the dial quickly to music. The last thing he wanted to hear was more criticism of the New Deal, which was getting increasingly strident and unreasonable as Roosevelt's economic policies were showing some results. Sure, the Depression wasn't over. They weren't out of the woods by a long shot. But it was better than it had been a couple of years earlier, and without a revolution like they'd had in Germany and other places. It was better. And what was the deal with hating Social Security numbers? Everybody knew there might be twenty guys named Mike Smith in Boston. How would you keep track of which Mike Smith had paid what if there weren't a unique number for each of them?

Stasi was standing on the lanai with Jerry, the hot cherry of her cigarette bright against the gathering night. Jerry was bent toward her, leaning on the rail. And then he turned, nodding, and stumped off along to the other doors. There was something in the movement of her shoulders, of her back.

He went out. "Stasi, are you ok?" She turned away quickly, but not before he saw the track of a tear on her face. "Are you crying? What did Jerry say?" It wasn't fair of Jerry to pile on right now, not when the kids were already giving her a rough time. Protective anger boiled up in him. If Jerry was hassling her about something he was going to give Jerry a piece of his mind….

Stasi caught his arm as he turned away. "No. Don't. What he said helped. Really, it did. I needed to hear it."

"The hell you did. You don't need any more crap right now."

"It wasn't like that." Stasi held onto him by the shirt cuff. In the light through the door her eyes were very bright. "He told me… Well, it helped a lot, darling. Jerry is dear."

All this anger and nowhere to go, a mess that was probably his own making, words that were never the right ones, never enough. "I should never have dropped this thing with the kids on you. If I had known it would make you this unhappy, take away…" Words. It was so hard to find the right words, even with her holding onto his arm in the dark of the lanai. But he had to find them. "All I want is you. Do you understand? I want you back the way you were. I never wanted you to reform or be a good wife or a righteous woman or any of those horrible things. I just want you." His hand closed on her elbow as though he could keep her from drifting away at sea. "I miss my gin-swizzling, Lindy-hopping, pajamas in the daytime, costume-wearing, madcap unreformed dame."

She started laughing through her tears, pulled him close, her face against his neck, cigarette held clear over his shoulder. "I miss being that person too."

"Then stop all this. Just be you. That's all I ever wanted."

"Jerry said…" She hesitated, then went on. "He said he would have killed to have someone like me take him in."

Mitch nodded slowly. He thought he remembered Gil saying once, years ago, that Jerry had been raised in a foundling home, but he'd never thought about it much. But of course that was why Jerry hadn't kicked up a fuss about the kids crashing his summer love nest.

"You'd have been a good mother for Jerry," he said. "Wild and intellectually curious. A mother who wouldn't try to push him into the mold. Who wouldn't cast him off when she guessed about his preferences." His arms tightened around her. "Think about Douglas. That kind of grim, upright woman would kill him. He'd be squashed. Imagine Douglas having to follow those rules, being told that everything he wants is somehow a mistake."

"I couldn't stand that," Stasi said.

"Douglas needs you. He needs a mother like you. And Merilee loves you. She just needs a mom. She's a baby. She needs what you have to give."

"Jimmy," Stasi said.

Mitch took a deep breath. "Jimmy has it harder than the other two. He's trying to prove he's not Joey, and at the same time he's got to defend Joey to his last breath. But he's a kid, Stasi. He thinks he's grown up, but he's a kid. He's saying things that hurt because he hurts. The best anyone can do with him is be patient and help him find his way to manhood on his own, because nobody can give him back his mother. Nobody can make it like it was, and that's the only thing he wants right now." He lowered his face against her hair. "And Jerry's really good for him right now. He's more like Jerry than he is like you or me. Proud. Stiff. Smart and too responsible. But he could take Jerry for a mentor. He needs someone to look up to, someone to show him how to be a man. A leader. Jimmy is looking for someone to follow, and he could do a lot worse. I'd be proud for him to grow up like Jerry."