Peter Abrahams - Crying Wolf

“In a coma or just thinking it over?” said Saul Medeiros.

“Another good one, Saul. I like a sense of humor.”

Saul checked his watch.

“Know what these things cost new?” Freedy said.

Saul shook his head. “Means nothing. Like with a car. Drive one off the lot, it’s worth half. What you pay for that new-car smell.”

“I don’t think it’s half.”

“Don’t tell me. I’m in the business.” He lit another cigarette. “But I’m a soft touch,” he continued behind a cloud of smoke, “so I’ll tell you what. Think you can get more?”

“More what?”

“Stuff.”

“Sure.”

“You got some kind of contact?”

“Trade secret, Saul.”

“Very smart. Thing is, if you’re in a position to get more stuff, then maybe we could build us a working relationship. You follow?”

“Yeah. A working relationship. I can get stuff. Don’t you worry about my end.”

“Good. Then what I’m going to do, an investment in goodwill like they say on Wall Street, is give you ninety for the goddamn TV.”

Freedy smiled. Didn’t actually smile on the outside, much too sharp for that, or if he did he wiped it off his face real quick, but, hey-here he was not just negotiating but negotiating the shit out of an operator like Saul Medeiros.

“Appreciate your sentiments, Saul. Sincerely. But you know what sounds better than ninety?”

Saul smiled that nicotine smile. “Some round number, Freedy?”

Freedy smiled back, on the outside this time. He himself had great teeth. “You got it.”

Which was how Freedy squeezed a C-note out of Saul Medeiros. He really was an amazing person.

On the way home, meaning on the way back from Fitchville to his mother’s place in the flats, all that talk about Cheryl Ann gave Freedy an idea. Cheryl Ann hadn’t made the cheerleading squad-lost by two or three votes, as Freedy remembered-and even then had been kind of chubby, and maybe a little annoying with that loud laugh of hers, showing the fleshy thing that hangs down at the back of the mouth and all, but none of that was important about her. What was important about her was that she’d meet him behind the field house after practice sometimes-and that she must still be around. The fact was that Cheryl Ann remained the only girl who’d given him a blow job; meaning by that a complete one and for free. And she’d still be around, for sure: Freedy’d done some growing up by now-hadn’t he carved out a place for himself across the country? — and knew that a girl like Cheryl Ann would never go anywhere.

Cheryl Ann didn’t live in the flats. Her place was actually on College Hill, on the dark side but still almost halfway up. What was her father? Plumber? Septic guy? Something like that, enough to put them on the Hill. Freedy drove past the Glass Onion, the last of the boarded-up buildings at the bottom, turned onto her street; no need to even think where he was going, not like LA. He parked in front of her house.

Only it was gone. And so were the houses around it, replaced by a huge rounded thing, all glass and smooth red-brown concrete. Freedy drove to the end of the block and checked the street signs. He was in the right spot; everything else was wrong.

Freedy got out of the VW van, walked up to the main entrance, read the bronze plaque: The Avner K. and Rita M. Budnoy Multicultural Studies Center. What was this? Some college shit where Cheryl Ann’s house used to be? Since when was the college on this side of the Hill? He crossed the snowy lawn to the first normal house and knocked on the door. An old bag answered.

“Lookin’ for Cheryl Ann,” Freedy said.

“You don’t mean Cheryl Ann Crane?”

“Why not?”

The old bag gave him a long look. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“Nope.”

“But you’re looking for Cheryl Ann Crane?”

“Yup.”

She waved her hand at the new building. “Long gone. The Cranes sold out to the college, as anyone can plainly see.”

“Long gone where?”

“Florida. What with the money they got paid they set themselves up in Florida. Why couldn’t the college have planned that place just a tich bigger is what I want to know.”

“And Cheryl Ann, she went too?”

“She surely did. Climate must of agreed with her. Hadn’t been there more than three months but she married a doctor. One of those Cubans, but still, a doctor.”

“Cheryl Ann married a doctor?”

“They sent me a picture from the wedding. One of those real dark Cubans, but a doctor.”

“With that fat butt, she married a doctor?”

“Some men can’t resist a fat butt-don’t you know that by now?”

Freedy went home. Not home, but to his mother’s. On the way he sniffed up the last of his crystal meth. Tweak. Zing. Snow started falling, or maybe not.

This was all temporary. What he needed to do was put together one of those nest eggs, and then… start a business, say. Since pools were what he knew, why not a pool business? Had to be in a warm climate, not California, too superficial, like everyone said. Warm climate, not California: Florida! And would it hurt to look up Cheryl Ann while he was at it?

The kitchen was a mess: muffin tins everywhere, jars of ingredients with the tops off all over the counters, milk and eggs that should have been put back in the fridge left wherever she’d happened to put them down. He dug a muffin out of a tin, took a bite, threw the rest in the trash. Didn’t even taste like food.

Freedy stood over the trash, having smelled a familiar smell. He saw the stubbed-out end of a joint in a discarded tuna can. That meant she was in her bedroom, having one of her naps. Get fucked up, take a nap-part of her life cycle.

Freedy heard the mail falling through the slot, went to get it. Electric bill, phone bill, coupons, something about hunger in Guatemala, and a letter addressed to his mother. He held it up to the light, rubbed it between his thumb and index finger, thought he felt a little crinkling. Made him curious, like Curious Whoever-he-was, some monkey she’d always been reading to him about when she wasn’t painting nightmares on his walls. He was curious and she was napping-how the goddamn hippies lost the world.

Freedy had heard about steaming open envelopes but never actually tried. How hard could it be? He plugged in the kettle, always handy for tea-there were dozens of different teas on the shelves, chamomile, lemongrass, raspberry, banana, pick-me-up teas, relax-me teas, teas for thinking, teas for feeling, teas for wiping out cancer. Steam came boiling out of the kettle. Freedy held the envelope over the spout.

Nothing to it. The flap loosened all by itself, and Freedy peeked in the envelope, saw a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded it: no writing on the paper, but C-notes inside. Two of them. Suddenly it was a C-note kind of day: had to be a good omen.

Two C-notes in an envelope and nothing else. Couldn’t be her welfare or her disability or whatever the hell it was: the government didn’t send cash. Some muffin buyer? With no statement, no name? Some pot thing? But drugs weren’t dealt like that. There was an exchange, this for that, at the same time. Still, with her, maybe a pot thing. What else could it be?

Freedy heard her in the hall. Before the kitchen door opened, he had the money resealed and on the counter with the rest of the mail. Moving at the speed of crystal meth.

“Hi, Freedy,” she said, yawning and scratching under her tit. “I had the most amazing dream.”

Freedy kept his mouth shut; he never wanted to hear another one of her dreams.

“What are you up to?” she said after a little silence.

“Just making tea.”

“You are?”

“Want some?”

“Why, sure, Freedy, that’s very thoughtful of you.” She sat down. “The mango-ginkgo would be nice-that orange box.”