Эд Горман - Moonchasers and Other Stories

“Dad’ll tell you,” I said. “I just really don’t want to talk.”

In my room, I turned off the lights and sat next to the window and smoked a Lucky. This way I could blow the smoke out the screen. Mom was less likely to notice the smell.

I used Roy’s lighter to get my cigarette going and then I just sat there a long time, three or four cigarettes long, and thought of how much I hated Cushing. I could still see him smiling for the cameras. I could still see him pointing the gun dramatically for the reporters.

I Shot Jesse James. There was a film made with that title once, a good film as I remembered it, and Cushing was just as much of a fink as Bob Ford — the man who shot Jesse in the back — had ever been.

Roy hadn’t needed to die. Hell, he’d been unconscious. But if he’d lived, he would have been able to tell Chief Pike that Detective Cushing had stolen the money.

Finally, I went to bed. I tried to stop thinking about Cushing by thinking about the new girl everybody said was coming to school this fall. I’d always had this dream that this really elegant girl, like Audrey Hepburn say, would come to our school from some real sheltered background, a convent or something like that, and she wouldn’t judge boys by the standards the other girls used — good looks or money or status or muscles — she’d just judge them by what was in their hearts. And so guess who the new girl, at least in my dreams, always fell madly in love with? Right.

I lay there a long time that night thinking about the new girl.

A long time later, the three of them came up and went to sleep. I waited until I thought it was safe and then I went into Debbie’s room and put a silver dollar beneath her pillow. She snored in a cute little way and muttered something far below my ability to hear. I kissed her on the forehead and went back to my room, done with my job as Tooth Fairy.

When I got up in the morning, Clarence was there.

Usually, Clarence would have been at work by now but this morning he’d waited for me.

I had Wheaties and wheat toast and orange juice (or “Or” as Debbie called it) and a vitamin and half a cup of coffee. I felt exhausted. Coffee helped sometimes.

“The governor’s coming next Tuesday.”

“The governor?” I said.

“The governor,” Clarence said. “There’s going to be a picnic for you and Barney and Cushing in the square and then the governor’s going to give you each some kind of award.”

“You know Cushing’s got the money?”

“I know.”

“And you know he killed Roy in cold blood?”

“I know.”

“And you’re not mad?”

“Son,” he said, glancing up at Mom. “Son, your mother and I had a good long talk last night.”

Whenever Clarence and Mom had a “good long talk” about anything, it always meant that I would have to do something I didn’t want to.

“More Wheaties, hon?” Mom said.

I shook my head.

“We think you should go along with everything, Tom,” Clarence said.

Mom came over and put her hands on my shoulders. “If Cushing had told the truth, you’d be in a lot of trouble, dear. A lot of trouble. This way—”

“This way, Cushing gets away with murder and gets to keep all the money!” I pushed back from the table and stood up, looking at them in disbelief and disgust.

“You aren’t any better than Cushing! You’re willing to go along with lies, too!”

“Tom, listen—” Clarence started to say.

But I was already on the far side of the banging screen door off the kitchen.

I got on my bike and rode over to Barney’s. About halfway there I started feeling badly about yelling at my folks the way I had. They weren’t perfect, true, but then I’d heard rumors to the effect that I wasn’t perfect, either. Hard as that was to believe.

People always call Barney’s area “the poor section” but I actually like it better than where we live. I guess it’s the bluffs, all the woodsy hills that run right up to the backyards of most of the houses. Of course, the houses themselves aren’t the best — old frame jobbies long in need of paint and roof shingles and uncracked window glass. But I would happily have traded our fancy new carport for just one of those bluffs.

Barney sat on the porch. He wasn’t reading or eating. He was just staring.

When he saw me, he said, “You hear about the governor?”

“Yeah.”

“God.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll bet Cushing buys a new suit.”

“I’ll bet he does, too.”

I went up and sat next to him on the porch.

“You tell George the truth yet?” I said. Obviously, he hadn’t told his father the truth last night.

“Not yet.”

“When you going to?”

Barney didn’t say anything for a long time. We just watched the traffic.

“I’ve been thinking,” Barney said.

“About what?”

“About maybe not telling George the truth.”

“What?”

He looked over at me. “Who’d believe us, anyway?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Sure it’s the point. My mom says the governor’s probably going to give us a reward or something. Wouldn’t you like to get a reward?”

“Not this way. God, Barney, we owe it to Roy.”

“I’ve also been thinking about Roy.”

“What about him?”

“Now, don’t go getting pissed.”

“I’m going to sock you right in the mouth, Barney. You wait and see.”

“All I mean is—”

“All you mean is that you’re a chickenshit little bastard with no principles at all.”

And then I hit him, and hard enough to bring forth some blood from his nose.

And right away I was sorry. And said so: “I’m sorry, Barney.”

“Fuck yourself.” He sat there dabbing at his nose with a finger. He looked like he wanted to cry.

“Maybe I’d better go,” I said.

“Yeah. Maybe you’d better.”

“You wanna go to a movie this afternoon?”

“No.”

“You wanna—”

“I don’t wanna anything, Tom. You’re a spoiled prick is what you are. Maybe you don’t need the reward but I do. I don’t live in any fancy-ass house the way you do.”

“Our house isn’t fancy. It’s plain.”

“Plain hell.”

Every time we got in a fight, no matter what it was about, it ended up about where I lived and where he lived. I tried to understand but I couldn’t. Where I lived didn’t make any difference to me; and I sure didn’t care where Barney lived.

I went down the stairs and got on my bike. “I’m sorry I hit you.”

“Yeah.”

“I am.”

“Just go, Tom. Just go.”

“OK. And if you change your mind about going to the pool tonight—”

“I won’t.”

Everywhere I went that day, people kept stopping me on the street and congratulating me for helping brave Detective Cushing capture the notorious bank robber.

When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I went home and sat on the screened-in porch reading Double Star and thinking about how Barney looked just after I’d slugged him.

A couple times I got up and went inside and called Barney but his mom very carefully told me that he was out somewhere, which meant that he was hanging around the house but that he didn’t want to talk to me.

After I finished Heinlein, I picked up a Rex Stout novel. I really liked Nero Wolfe, which is to say that like a lot of mystery readers I really hated Nero Wolfe... but I thanked Rex Stout for giving me so many opportunities to hate the fat man in such a pleasant way. I hoped I could be just like Archie when I grew up — acid-tongued and really successful with women.

The Stout novel gave me the idea for the letter. Nero Wolfe was looking into some poison pen letters and I started thinking... what if somebody left the governor an anonymous letter on the podium next Tuesday? And what if the letter told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Roy Danton and how he’d come to be shot and where the money really was right now?