Johnny Temple - USA Noir - Best of the Akashic Noir Series

But no: ridiculous. This was another time, not that time.

This was another campsite. This was another part of Paraquarry Lake. This was another time in a father’s life.

His daughter was alive. Somewhere in California, a living girl. He was not to blame. He had never hurt her. She would outlive him.

Laughter and raised voices from the lakeshore. Reno shaded his eyes to see—what were they doing? Were they expecting Daddy to join them?

Kneeling in the dirt. Groping and rummaging in the coarse earth. Among the broken pottery, bones, and rotted fabric faded to the no-color of dirty water, something glittered—a little necklace of glass beads.

Reno untangled it from a cluster of small bones—vertebrae? The remains of the child’s neck? Hideous to think that the child skeleton might have been broken into pieces with a shovel, or an axe. An axe! To fit more readily into the urn. To hasten decomposition.

“Little girl! Poor little girl.”

Reno was weak with shock, sickened. His heart pounded terribly—he didn’t want to die as his father had died! He would breathe deeply, calmly. He held the glass beads to the light. Amazingly the chain was intact. A thin metallic chain, tarnished. He put the little glass-bead necklace into the pocket of his khaki shorts. Hurriedly he covered the bones with dirt, debris. Pieces of the shattered urn he picked up and tossed into the cardboard box. And the barrel staves… Then he thought he should remove the bones also—he should place them in the box, beneath the debris, and take the box out to the landfill this evening. Before he did anything else. Before he washed hurriedly, grabbed a beer, and joined Marlena and the children at the lakefront. He would dispose of the child’s bones at the landfill.

No. They will be traced here. Not a good idea.

Frantically he covered the bones. Then more calmly, smoothing the coarse dirt over the debris. Fortunately there was a sizable hole—a gouged-out, ugly hole—that looked like a rupture in the earth. Reno would lay flagstones over the grave—he’d purchased two dozen flagstones from a garden supply store on the highway. The children could help him—it would not be difficult work once the earth was prepared. As bricks had been laid over the child’s grave years ago, Reno would lay flagstones over it now. For he could not report this terrible discovery—could he? If he called the Paraquarry police, if he reported the child skeleton to county authorities, what would be the consequences?

His mind went blank—he could not think.

Could not bear the consequences. Not now, in his new life.

Numbly he was setting his work tools aside, beneath the overhang of the redwood deck. The new shovel was not so shiny now. Quickly then—shakily—climbing the steps, to wash his hands in the kitchen. A relief—he saw his family down at the shore, with the neighbors—the new wife, the children. No one would interrupt Reno washing the little glass-bead necklace in the kitchen sink, in awkward big-Daddy hands.

Gently washing the glass beads that were blue—beneath the grime a startling pellucid blue like slivers of sky. It was amazing, you might interpret it as a sign—the thin little chain hadn’t broken in the earth.

Not a particle of dirt remained on the glass beads when Reno was finished washing them, drying them on a paper towel on the kitchen counter.

“Hey—look here! What’s this? Who’s this for?”

Reno dangled the glass-bead necklace in front of Devra. The little girl stared, blinking. It was suppertime—Daddy had cooked hamburgers on the outdoor grill on the deck—and now he pulled a little blue glass-bead necklace out of his pocket as if he’d only just discovered it.

Marlena laughed—she was delighted—for this was the sort of small surprise she appreciated.

Not for herself but for the children. In this case, for Devra. It was a good moment, a warm moment—Kevin didn’t react with jealousy but seemed only curious, as Daddy said he’d found the necklace in a “secret place” and knew just who it was meant for.

Shyly Devra took the little necklace from Daddy’s fingers.

“What do you say, Devra?”

“Oh Dad-dy—thank you.”

Devra spoke so softly, Reno cupped his hand to his ear.

“Speak up, Devra. Daddy can’t hear.” Marlena helped the little girl slip the necklace over her head.

“Daddy, thank you!”

The little fish-mouth pursed for a quick kiss of Daddy’s cheek.

Around the child’s slender neck the blue glass beads glittered, gleamed. All that summer at Paraquarry Lake, Reno would marvel he’d never seen anything more beautiful.

The morning after Amp got killed our neighborhood was lit up with rumors. My mother and me, we barely even made the block before someone passing said, almost with a whistle, “You hear that nigga Amp got popped by some gangbangers?” Someone else said, carrying the news like a bag of bricks, “Sad what happened to that boy who got robbed last night.” People who didn’t know Amp or his kin said, “I know his mother.” “I knew his pops.” Rumors idled in the slow drag of the traffic, the rich Fox Chapellers and Aspinwallers who drove across the Allegheny River into what was our little moat of trouble: Penn Circle, the road looping East Liberty like a noose.

Lies, gossip, bullshit, half-truths spread out, carried in the school and city buses. Pompano heard it was two white guys, probably plainclothes cops, that took Amp out. Walking by with her girlfriends, Shelia said she heard gunshots and shouts. “Amp went out shooting shit up like a true thug,” she cackled, pointing her finger at me like the barrel of a gun. Her girlfriends laughed like she wasn’t talking about someone who’d actually been killed. I mean, Amp was dead and people was already kicking his name around like it never had any air inside it.

This is why I never wanted anybody to give me a nickname. Well, that ain’t exactly true. Most people call me Demario, but I used to let Star call me Fish sometimes. My grandmother used to call me Fish. Her “little fish,” even though I was taller than her by the time I was fourteen. I didn’t even know Amp’s real name. Maybe I heard a teacher say it when we was in preschool at Dilworth. Anthony Tucker . Andrew Trotter . By first grade the teachers, even Principal Paul with her thick-ass eyeglasses and that belt squeezed too tight around her gray pantsuit, called Amp “Amp.” It was the only name he answered to.

I can’t really say he was my friend, though, to tell you the truth. He was never really in class that much, and then he dropped out of high school junior year. Star said it was because he wanted to get a job as soon as he heard she was pregnant, but I think he’d have dropped out anyway. He spent his days on the corner behind Stanton Pharmacy. He was always there in jeans so new it looked like he hadn’t even washed them yet. New sneakers, pro jerseys—people said he had a Steelers jersey for damn near every player. You’d think he’d be there waving his shit in my face or calling me a clown, but I don’t think he ever even noticed me. He’d look right through me, call me youngblood even though we were the same age.

And once he sold me a hammer, I shit you not. It was in the book bag on my shoulders that morning. Even crazier, he sold my mother a big twenty-four-inch level. How he got her to buy it, I’ll never know. But that’s what he did—or what he’d been doing for the last couple of months. Word was out and people, mostly old dudes trying to make ends doing handy work or whatever in Highland Park, would buy shit from him. He’d take you around the corner to a grocery cart full of stuff. I saw he had a cordless drill and a circular saw one day. An empty paint bucket and a couple of utility knives the next. I bought the hammer for two dollars. It was big too. Practically a mallet. I doubt Amp kept what he didn’t sell. He just wanted to get paid. Rumor was, he was stealing things from Home Depot, but I saw the shit. Most of it was used. None of it was useless but most of it was used.