Peter Abrahams - Crying Wolf

He closed the curtains, kept the lights off, made it dark so he wouldn’t have to see the wall paintings he’d grown up with-jungles and unicorns and toadstools and rainbows, with a bunch of elves thrown in, some of them smoking long pipes. And the lion-it was meant to be a lion but it looked more like a giant in a lion costume-holding up a poem on a scroll.

Little Boy

Soft snow cuddles you

In swaddling clothes

While plastic fantastic planet spins

Its wild, wild way

While away all the groovy ways little boy

In the soft snow arms of mother earth.

Freedy had no idea what the poem was supposed to mean, but it had scared the shit out of him every night for years; as had the lion man, and the elves, who turned wicked-looking at night, and all the electric blue, her favorite color. He lay on the bed, heard the music back on. That “Winterlude” song by Bob Dylan. She started playing it on the first snowy day and didn’t knock off till spring. Freedy hated the song, hated Bob Dylan. He pulled a pillow over his head.

It smelled moldy. The whole house smelled like that. Uneven floors, peeling paint, water marks on the ceiling: it was falling apart. All the kids he’d grown up with lived in houses just the same. Only difference was most of them rented, and the ones that didn’t had big mortgages and were always in danger of default, while they-she-had owned their house outright for as long as he could remember. None of these details had interested him back in high school. But now that he knew more of the world, he couldn’t help thinking more maturely about things. Like: what was the house worth on the open market? And: did she have a will? With some other softening questions in between those two, naturally.

What with the pillow over his head and fucking Bob Dylan coming through the walls, Freedy didn’t hear her knocking, didn’t know she was in the room until she touched his shoulder. He sat up, real fast.

She stepped back. “Don’t scare me,” she said. She handed him the phone and left the room, her eyes drawn for a moment to a red frog on the wall, like she was thinking of some change to make.

“Yeah?” Freedy said into the phone.

“Ever meet my uncle Saul?” said Ronnie.

“You got an uncle named Saul?”

“I never mentioned him?”

“What are you saying-you got some Jewish guy for an uncle?”

“He’s not Jewish. It’s just a name they have back in the old country.”

“So?”

“So he’s just, you know, wondering, if you got more extra stuff.”

“What extra stuff?”

“Like TVs and shit. Especially HDTVs-you heard of them?”

“Where d’you think they come from, asshole?”

“Huh?”

“HDTVs. California.”

“Oh. Right. That’s a positive, then. ’Cause my uncle Saul does a little dealing in high tech stuff. HDTVs, PowerBooks, digital notepads-”

“Scanners?”

“Yeah, scanners. Why, you got one?”

“Might.”

“That would interest him, sure.”

“Like how?”

“For buying. Didn’t I say he buys and sells high-tech shit?”

“Where?”

“Down in Fitchville.”

Fitchville was the nearest city, if you could call it a city, just off the pike. “What’s he pay?” Freedy said.

“He pays good. He’s a businessman.” Pause. “Like you, Freedy. Think you can get-think you got more extra stuff hanging around?”

“Maybe.”

“If the answer’s yes, he wants to meet you.”

“Twenty bucks for a Panasonic picture-in-picture, the answer’s no.”

“Not to worry, Freedy. That was just a buddy thing.”

Pause. “You’ve turned into a funny dude, Ronnie.”

“Funny?”

“Humorous, Ronnie. Witty.”

“Yeah?” Ronnie laughed; one of those little laughs like a giggle, when you’re pleased with yourself.

Freedy took an andro from his pocket, popped it dry.

“Freedy? You still there?”

Freedy lowered his voice a little, made it more… intimate. Was that the word? Probably: he had a good vocabulary, went with his brainpower. “ ’Member that time we went one-on-one, Ronnie?”

“In practice?”

“Not in practice. When we had that little… disagreement.”

Long pause. “About Cheryl Ann?” Ronnie said at last.

“Was that her name?”

No answer. Ronnie remembered, all right.

Freedy let the silence go on-controlling it, really, which was pretty cool-then said: “Tell your uncle Saul I’m in the book.”

“But you’re not in the book, Freedy. You’ve been gone for years.”

Freedy hung up.

“This is very thoughtful of you, uh…”

“Nat,” said Nat, handing the gift bottle of pink zinfandel-all wrapped up in red and gold from the wine store, the thickest, shiniest wrapping paper he’d ever seen-to Mr. Zorn.

“Nat what, again?” said Mr. Zorn.

Nat repeated his last name. He and Mr. Zorn shook hands for the second time. Mr. Zorn: whose hand felt small in Nat’s; who didn’t look particularly distinguished-nothing as impressive as Albert, Mrs. Zorn’s personal assistant, or Anton, her personal trainer; who stood shorter than Nat by a few inches, perhaps the same height as Grace and Izzie, but not lean like them, not fair like them; who did have their blue-green eyes, but without the gold flecks that changed the whole effect.

“Nat’s the hero du jour,” said Grace.

“Yesterday’s hero du jour,” said Izzie.

“The hero d’hier, then,” said Mr. Zorn; a minor witticism, if one at all, and not spoken loudly, but Nat heard laughter from all parts of the room.

Christmas Eve, five o’clock, party in the library. The Zorns’ library, on yet another floor, above the bedroom level, wasn’t dark-paneled and musty, like the library in an Agatha Christie mystery, but all glass and blond wood, with tall windows and northern views. By now Nat knew that the apartment had 360-degree views of the city, but its size and structure remained unclear to him. The party was not exactly a party, although a waiter was serving drinks and everyone but Nat and the girls was dressed up; it was just a gathering before people-there were about fifteen or twenty in the room, one of whom, a TV network newswoman, Nat recognized-went off for the evening.

Mr. Zorn showed no interest in whatever heroic feat Nat had performed, but peered at the gift bottle, as though attempting to see through the wrapper, and said: “Interested in wine, Nat?”

Wary of a minefield of wine questions, Nat said: “I’m underage.”

Mr. Zorn looked up; a quick look, but careful. Then he smiled at him, not warm, not cold, not emotional at all, but an intelligent smile, if that made sense-Nat had never seen one quite like it. “But quick-witted,” said Mr. Zorn.

“Very,” said Grace.

“Very what?” said Mrs. Zorn, coming up. She wore something black and low-cut that exposed most of her breasts; a huge pear-shaped diamond-had to be a diamond, Nat thought-hung between them. The effort to keep his eyes off the spectacle almost made his head hurt, although no else seemed to be taking any notice.

“Quick-witted,” said Izzie.

“Who are we talking about?” said Mrs. Zorn.

“Nat,” said Grace.

Mrs. Zorn looked blank for a moment, then turned to him: “Really?” she said.

Grace and Izzie both frowned in annoyance, their foreheads furrowing identically.