Peter Abrahams - Crying Wolf

“Friedrich, I guess.”

“Friedrich? Is that true?”

“Sure.” How dense could she be? “Like the Freed part’s in both of them,” he explained patiently, reminding himself that she was old.

“I meant is that really your name-Friedrich?”

“Want to see my birth certificate?” he said. Amazing. He actually had the goddamn thing in his pocket, almost pulled it out.

Her laughter, abrupt and unexpected, stopped him. “Aren’t you the funny bunny,” she said. “How about coffee?”

“Sounds good,” said Freedy.

“Excuse the mess,” she said, leading him inside. “It’s everybody’s day off.”

Freedy sat at the kitchen table, in a little nook with a good view of the feeder. There was no mess that he could see. Why would there be in a house on the Hill? It was all very nice. He stretched out his legs, trying to get comfortable. And he did, right away; comfortable, up on the Hill.

“Richie,” called the old lady, although the bird couldn’t possibly hear her, “eat up, there’s a good boy.” The fat red fuck stood on the rim of the feeder, doing nothing.

She gave Freedy coffee, poached eggs on toast, bacon-a gran breakfast. They talked about swimming at Camp Whatever-it-was on some lake whose name he didn’t catch, up in Vermont or maybe New Hampshire.

“What kind of pools do you install?” she said.

“All kinds.”

“Like what, for example?”

“There’s the Malibu. One of our biggest sellers. If that’s a little too pricey, we’ve got the Miami. The Mediterranean’s pretty popular too.”

“This is so exciting-and they all start with M. More bacon?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t I think of this before?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“I’ll have to check with Leo.”

“Leo?”

“Not because of the purse strings-don’t think that for a minute. But he’s sensitive to noise.”

“Leo?”

The old lady nodded toward a framed photograph on the wall. Freedy went over for a look. He saw a guy with wild gray hair, wearing a tuxedo and standing at a podium; behind him sat some famous person whose name escaped Freedy. He peered at the man in the tuxedo. Laid his eyes on him but felt no chill, nothing. Did he resemble this man, at all?

“That was last year, in Vienna,” said the old lady.

“Your son, right?”

No answer.

He turned to her. She was glaring at him.

“What’s up?” Freedy said.

“I hate when people say that,” she said. “Have always hated, hate now, will hate. Leo is my husband.”

Freedy tried to remember what he’d heard in the dollhouse, all so complicated. “You’re not my gran, then,” he said; said without thinking, the words just popping out.

“Your gran?” said the old lady.

The way she said it pissed Freedy off, all that Hill-and-flats shit, just in her tone of voice. He’d been so nice, so polite, even making sure to eat with his mouth closed. And now this. He whipped out his birth certificate, slapped it on the table in front of her, stabbed his finger at the space marked FATHER. Full name: Unknown.

The old lady-old lady, but Leo Uzig’s wife, and therefore the other woman, the one who’d broken up the family he’d never had-gazed at the sheet of paper with her watery eyes. “Is this the contract?” she said.

“Contract?” The voice-male-came from the kitchen door. Freedy turned quickly, saw Leo Uzig. Not a picture on the wall, but the man. Leo Uzig wore a crimson robe and under it a white shirt and knotted tie, but his feet were bare. His feet: he had the kind of second toes that were longer than the first. Freedy’s were the same way. Now he did feel a chill.

“The swimming-pool contract, Leo,” said the old lady. “We have to make a decision. Malibu, Miami, Mediterranean. All beginning with M, as I’m sure you noticed. You most of all.”

“What swimming pool contract?” Uzig said.

“This gentleman is from the pool company,” said the old lady. “Freedy, my husband, Professor Leo Uzig. Leo, Freedy, last name to come.”

“How’s it goin’?” said Freedy, slipping the birth certificate in his pocket.

Uzig didn’t look at him. “Have you signed anything, Helen?”

“And if I have?”

They stared at each other until Freedy said, “Hey. Nothing’s signed. This is just the whatchamacallit. Checking out the dimensions. We’re strictly aboveboard. You know, integrity.”

Now they were both looking at him.

“Thank you, Freedy,” said the old lady, “but I don’t require your help.”

“Huh?”

She glanced at Uzig, back to Freedy. “May I present my husband? Professor Dr. Leo Uzig, Freedy. Short for Friedrich.”

She was introducing them again? What the fuck was he supposed to say? Freedy was wondering about that when he noticed that the expression on Uzig’s face, still turned toward him, had changed. Hard to describe how: kind of like Uzig had suddenly realized he’d eaten something bad; Freedy recalled his own very first night in Tijuana, an all-you-can-eat bar called Gringo’s. Leo Uzig looked the same kind of sick. Why wouldn’t he, being married to a crazy old bag and her with the money? Freedy’d figured that one out in two seconds. She had the money, she wanted a pool, and he didn’t. He was way ahead of them. If I don’t watch out, I’m going to make my first sale, and I haven’t even got a fucking backhoe. That was really funny. Freedy caught himself smiling broadly, smiling in the direction of Leo Uzig. No harm in that: no harm in showing him those white teeth, big and perfect.

Uzig smiled back, the kind of smile where teeth don’t show. “Perhaps it’s not such a bad idea,” he said.

“What isn’t?” said Freedy.

“A swimming pool-isn’t that the subject at hand?”

Subject at hand? What was he talking about? Freedy, who’d never talked to a college professor before, expected them to make more sense than that. “Malibu, Miami, and Mediterranean,” he said, because he had to say something and that sounded pretty good. “You’ve got choices.”

Now Uzig’s teeth showed, not bad teeth, but not as good as his. Probably smiling because he liked those names. Who wouldn’t? They were fucking brilliant, and created-yes, created, like those Budweiser lizards-created by him out of the goddamn blue. Maybe he didn’t even need a backhoe. Freedy realized he could have been a college professor himself, probably should have been. His rightful-what was the word? Birthright. He stopped smiling.

“Why don’t we go out and survey the site?” Uzig said.

“Hey,” said Freedy. “Sure.”

“Me too,” said the old lady.

“It’s much too cold,” Uzig told her. He pressed a button on the wall phone. A nurse entered moments later. What about her day off? Freedy almost said something.

“Bath time,” said the nurse.

“I’m clean,” said the old lady.

The nurse led her away.

Uzig put on boots. They went onto the deck. Richie pecked up one last seed and flew away.

They stood on the deck, almost side by side, gazing at the snow-covered yard. Uzig wasn’t as tall as Freedy, but Freedy could sense he was built sort of solid. Nothing like Freedy, of course, but Uzig was older, and probably hadn’t lifted much, maybe didn’t know about andro.

“I don’t believe there are many swimming pools in Inverness,” Uzig said.

“Just another one of the fu-of the dumb things about this town.”

Silence. Silence when the next question should have been where he was from, or how long he’d lived in town, or something like that. Freedy tried to figure out why it hadn’t been asked, gave up, answered it anyway.

“You’ve heard of the flats?”

“Of course.”