27.
THROW, CATCH, THROW, CATCH
Same day—Sunday, September 8, 1935
I finally get Piper out of there, back down the stairs and into the bowling alley basement again. “Can you believe that?” she whispers.
“Ness ate Capone’s spit. You know how he shines Trixle’s shoes? Bet that’s the trick.”
“A spit shine?” she asks with a whispery laugh.
“Willy was amazing. I didn’t even see his hand move. Did you?” I whisper as we let ourselves out into the dark night, lit by a full moon and the bright entrance light.
As the cold air hits me, I suddenly stare stupidly at Piper. How are we going to get back to 64 without the guard in the dock tower spotting us? Why didn’t I think this through? Piper can make these kinds of mistakes. I can’t.
“How are we going to get back?” I ask.
“We could shimmy down the wall and walk in the water,” Piper suggests.
“Mattaman will shoot us. He’ll think we’re escaping cons.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Piper says.
I roll my eyes. How can she be so blasé about this. It’s almost as if she wants to be caught. “We could throw a rock over in the wrong direction. Mattaman will point his guns on that spot and we’ll run,” I offer.
“Throwing stuff . . . that’s your solution to everything, isn’t it?” Piper whispers.
“Got a better idea?”
She shakes her head. “Nope.”
A sheet of sweat forms on my forehead. I can’t just stand here and wait until my father comes out. I have to get back to Natalie.
We stare at the guard tower. We can probably get behind my dad’s electrical shop without Mattaman seeing us, but once we get close to 64, there’s almost no way to get back without being spotted . . . or is there?
The first rock makes no sound. The second rock is big and soft—more of a dirt clod, it hits with a thud and splits apart, unloading a pile of dirt on the newly washed road.
We don’t have time to worry about this, we just run. My legs rip across the road and up behind my dad’s electrical shop. Now we’re safely out of sight of the tower, but then I see where we have to go.
To get to 64 now, we have to run within clear sight of Mattaman; there’s no way he won’t see us. I’d hoped we’d be able to scoot across in the shadows, but now I’m pretty certain we’re dead meat.
“We got to pretend we’re supposed to be here,” Piper says, still breathing hard from the run. “Let me handle it.” She darts across before I can stop her.
Within seconds, Mattaman’s high-powered searchlight finds her, and I scuttle out to where she’s standing.
“Piper? Moose?” he calls through the bullhorn. “What’s going on down there?”
“Just coming back from playing for Mr. Hoover, Mr. Mattaman,” Piper calls back.
“Thought you were done earlier,” Mattaman bellows.
“No, sir,” Piper answers.
“That right, Moose?” Mattaman calls down.
My heart beats loudly in my ears, flushing me with guilt. “Yes, sir,” I say weakly.
“Okay then.” Mattaman gives us the nod.
When we arrive at the Mattamans’, Piper cracks a big smile. “I’m so good,” she says.
Doesn’t she ever feel ashamed, I wonder as Mrs. Caconi pounces on us, her face red and shiny with sweat. “Do you have her?” she cries.
“Who? Have who?” I ask, but I already know the answer. I can feel it in the tightening of my belly and the dizziness in my head.
“I don’t know what happened, Moose.” Mrs. Caconi’s lip begins trembling. “One minute Natalie was here. The next minute she was gone. Jimmy and Theresa are out looking for her. But you’d know where she’d have got to. Course you would!” She mops her forehead with her handkerchief.
“I better go get my parents,” I say.
“Oh now, Moose . . . you don’t need to go and do that, do ya? Go on. You’ll find her. I know you will.” Mrs. Caconi’s big pink hand is on my back, pushing me out the door.
“She doesn’t want us to tell,” Piper blurts out as we run down the balcony. “She doesn’t want to get in trouble either.”
I try to figure out where Natalie would go.
“Let’s try the swings,” I say as we head up the stairs to the parade grounds, though I wonder again if I should get my parents. I don’t want to tell them I wasn’t with Natalie, but this is serious.
We round the corner of 64 building and slam into Jimmy and Theresa. They’re panting like they’ve just run a few miles.
“Natalie?” my voice croaks.
Jimmy is doubled over with a side ache. “We checked behind 64 building, Chinatown, the parade grounds. Nothing.”
“I was in the bathroom,” Theresa explains in a high voice. “Jimmy was supposed to be watching her.”
Jimmy puts his head in his hands. “Two minutes I was gone. I just went to get the ball. It went over the railing,” he mutters miserably.
“That’s all you ever do. Throw and catch. Throw and catch,” Theresa practically shouts at him.
“Shut up, Theresa. Let’s just find Natalie,” Piper tells her.
“Where would Natalie go?” I try to think, but my mind is jammed with fear.
“The secret passageway?” Piper whispers.
“She doesn’t know about it.” Then it comes to me, what I told her yesterday: tomorrow. We can see Molly tomorrow. “Your house,” I tell Piper.
Theresa’s head is like a little nodding machine. “She kept talking about that mouse, Molly.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Jimmy shouts at her.
Theresa takes a big wobbly breath. “Don’t yell at me. I didn’t think of it.”
I’m already running up the steps with Piper right behind me. Mattaman can see us here too, only not as easily or as clearly. But right now I don’t care about Mattaman. I just want to find Natalie.
We tear up out of the tower guard’s sight lines and take the shortcut to Piper’s house. At least the passmen won’t be at the warden’s house. Thank God they don’t work at night.
When we get to Piper’s doorstep, heaving from the uphill run, Piper pulls open the door, slips inside, and slams the door in my face. “Wait here,” her muffled voice barks from inside the house.
“Hey.” I shove open the door.
“No!” She squeezes it shut again and turns the lock.
I pound on the door. “Piper!” I yell. Then I run around to the back door and shove myself against it. This door opens easily and I almost fall into the kitchen.
A bed has been moved inside the large kitchen along with bags of fluids and containers of pills. Mrs. Williams is lying on the bed, a thin cover over her enormous stomach, her skin as gray as dead fish, and a smell like overripe peaches is hanging in the air. Doc Ollie’s sister is running a washcloth across Piper’s mom’s forehead.
“Moose?” Doc Ollie’s sister looks up in surprise.
“I found her! She’s here!” Piper yells from another part of the house. Relief shoots through my system.
I duck out the back door, but not fast enough. Piper has run around the house looking for me. She sees me come out the back door.
“I told you not to go in.” Piper’s voice drops suddenly as Natalie comes around the house.
“Natalie,” I say, so glad to see her, my insides ache with relief.
“I told you!” Piper shouts.
“Yeah but—” I mumble, staring at Piper, whose face is half lit by the glow of the big yellow moon.
“Stop looking like that!” She shoves me.
“Like what?” I mutter, wondering how I’m supposed to look.
“Stop!” Piper’s nails are ready to scratch my eyes out. “My mom is fine. Buddy said so.” Her voice breaks.
“Okay,” I whisper.
It’s quiet up here—a world away from the party below. Only the sound of the night crickets and a distant boat horn. Piper looks as if she might burst. “Hey, I believe you,” I whisper in my most soothing voice.
Piper lunges at me again. “She is.”
“Okay, all right.” I lift my arms in the cool night air.
Tears stream down Piper’s face. “I told you to stop looking that way! She’s fine!” Piper sobs. “She’s just going to have a baby. That’s all.” Piper is crumpled over like an empty dress. “Say it!” she cries, her voice choked with sobs.
“She’s fine, Piper,” I tell her. Natalie is rocking from one foot to another, her eyes scanning Piper and then the ground, Piper and then the ground.
Piper’s eyes spit like bacon on the griddle. “You think you know everything. But you don’t. Everyone hates you, Moose.”
“Everyone hates you, Moose,” Nat repeats. “Not Natalie. Not me,” Nat mutters, touching her chest.
Piper ignores Natalie. “Jimmy does. You treat him like an imbecile because he doesn’t like baseball.”
“I don’t treat him like a—”
“Why do you think he’s trying so hard to learn to play?”
I grind my teeth.
“Yeah. Annie’s teaching him. And Annie . . . you only like her because she has a great throwing arm.”
“There are lots of things I like about Annie,” I whisper. “Piper, you’re just upset. Don’t take it out on me.”
“Yeah, name one. Name one thing you like about Annie.”
“She’s nice. She’s smart. I can trust her.”
“If she couldn’t play baseball, you wouldn’t be her friend.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yeah, it is, and Scout hates you because you’re always sure he’s after me.”
“Well, he is after you.”
“You don’t know anything, do you?” she lashes out at me. “You’re a complete moron like your sister. It runs in your family.” She glares at Natalie, the tears streaming down her face.
“You’re a moron!” Piper screams at Natalie.
“Shut up!” I can’t help myself. Nobody says this to Natalie. Nobody. But then the scene in the kitchen flashes through my mind. The gray, sick, drawn face. The sickly sweet rotting smell.
“What’s wrong with your mom, Piper?” I whisper.
“Nothing!” she screams. “Nothing is wrong!”
But the louder she screams, the more she sees I don’t believe her. She shoves me away. “Can’t you see, you moron? Nothing is wrong!” She turns and runs into the house.
When Natalie and I get back down to 64 building, Mrs. Mattaman is waiting for us outside our apartment. I’m not sure what Mrs. Mattaman knows and what she doesn’t know, but from the way her eyes are squinting and her foot is tapping, she’s clearly hopping mad. “Go straight to bed, you two.” Her voice is cold and hard. “I will be back in half an hour to check on you, and you had better be in bed snoring, do you understand me? My kids have no school tomorrow. What about you, Moose?”
I shake my head. It’s peculiar we would all be off when it isn’t a holiday. Normally I’d be happy about this, but with Mrs. Mattaman so burnt up, I wish I did have school.
“When Mr. Mattaman gets off at eight tomorrow morning you, Moose, will report to our apartment. You and Theresa and Jimmy have a lot of explaining to do, you hear me? Pulling shenanigans on an important night like this . . . shame on you!” She waves her fancy jeweled purse at me.
“Mrs. Mattaman?” I ask as she turns to leave. “Is Piper’s mom okay?”
Mrs. Mattaman stops, her chest heaving. “I dunno, Moose,” she says without turning back. “I really don’t know.”