Claire opened the door and in came Mrs. Dixon, short and plump and her hair rinsed blue.
“Now look at this!” she gushed. “The prodigal daughter returned and not a tat the worse for wear! Just as pretty as ever!”
Claire smiled. Mrs. Dixon was so nice that she made you feel not nice. “Mom’ll be right down, Mrs. Dixon. Just went to change her blouse.”
“Let me look at you. My, my!” Mrs. Dixon pulled her apart by the wrists. “You look like a teenager. Those lashes! And your brother’s eyes!” Her own kindly, reminiscent gray orbs twinkled.
Claire’s mouth went dry. She willed her mother to hurry. “Why don’t you sit down, Mrs. Dixon, Mom will be—”
“I always wondered about you, Claire … if you were ever coming home. Your mother missed you so. And your dad—”
Mary arrived then, still buttoning up. Claire fled.
“Hello, Mrs. Dixon. Are we late?”
“Plenty of time, plenty of time.”
“Oh, you’ve brought your umbrella! Did they say it would finally rain?”
“It’s for the webs, dear. Fending off the spider webs.”
Michaelaen looked out the upstairs window. He watched Grandma go. Now she was gone. Immediately, he snuck down the hallway and down the back stairs. He made himself into a tight little fellow and scooted out the doggy door. Nobody saw him. He rushed. He crossed Eighty-fifth and went straight up the block till he came to the tree. He sat down on a root two feet high. This tree was three, maybe four hundred years old. Even Grandpa said so. Michaelaen pulled one sturdy leg over and straddled the root. It was warm as himself. He dug swiftly with the shoe horn he’d brought and in a minute he had a pretty good hole. Michaelaen went into his pocket and pulled out the pictures he’d hidden there. Brian. Miguel. And a couple of the other big boys. They were a little sticky from his pocket. He folded them over and put them in the hole, then covered it up good. Just in the nick of time, too, because here came stupid Charlotte, who lived across the street. Probably on her way to the carousel, by herself. Thought she was big. Phhh. It wouldn’t be too good if she saw him, so he’d better go home. She was one little freshie of a tattletale.
Johnny Benedetto lived in a three-over-three house, right on the southeast rim of Aqueduct Racetrack. The sweet smell of horse and manure and hay filled his kitchen all the time. In the summer it was worse. Johnny stood in the dark at the window, drinking Diet Coke, groggily watching through the Venetian blind at the horse they’d put up in the temporary big top, a golden horse whose head was more often out than in. The horse reminded Johnny of himself. She was a real rubberneck—couldn’t stay indoors without watching the street.
There were plenty of housewives on Johnny’s block who’d demonstrated and fought not to have the stables extended so close to their backyards, but that was just how Johnny’d got the house, cheap, from a family whose asthmatic daughter couldn’t stand it. They’d moved out to Valley Stream and Johnny had lucked out. Nobody liked the smell, but what were you gonna do? There was a feeling Johnny got from looking out and seeing that horse there with her head sticking out. He couldn’t understand why his neighbors didn’t feel it, too. Fury. Black Beauty. Flicker. No, there was something all right about having a frigging horse out your window.
Johnny left his Coke can on the back stairs in a pagoda of other Coke cans and locked the back door. The track was all lit up, the fourth race already underway, and the mosquitos were biting. He was very much alive and that little Hispanic boy was dead. Real dead.
“Who do you like in the ninth?” Johnny greeted the horse while he lugged out the garbage. He opened the garage and hopped into the car. The front seat was littered with old papers, outstanding bills, styrofoam cups and one change of a wrinkly wardrobe which sat there like a frazzled passenger. This was Johnny’s office. The engine underneath the hood looked like a gleaming space center and fingerprints on the door were removed fastidiously almost before they got there, but the inside of the car? He wouldn’t know what you were talking about. Johnny turned the key in the ignition, set the air conditioner on full speed, and snapped on the overhead light. He searched the front and back seats thoroughly and eventually came up with the address he needed. When you had nothing to go on, you went with any stupid lead before you wrote it off. The worst feeling was having nothing to do. If you thought about things too much you’d go nuts. And you usually did.
His honor, digesting, watched staunch vegetarian Claire transport shiny bologna on Wonder bread out to the porch. The crickets were singing. Claire balanced a tall glass of milk with her sandwich and a pickle rolled dangerously round the plate as she maneuvered the door with an elbow. One frozen Milky Way protruded from each under arm.