Knight In Black Leather

by Gail Dayton

  Pete rapped on the window, so bundled up in the quilt only his eyes and nose showed. He uncovered his mouth long enough to shout through the glass. "Stop kissing and come on! I'm cold."

  "All right, all right, hold your water." Marilyn laughed, sharing her amusement with Eli.

  Damn, he was in deep trouble here.

  The phone was ringing when Eli let Pete into the house. Marilyn had dropped them off and gone on to pick up supper at the designated Pete's-choice fast food joint. The kid had pushed for eating out, but that would get them home too late on a school night when he still had homework to do.

  Pete dropped his coat on the floor and dashed through the kitchen to snatch up the phone before the answering machine kicked in. Eli followed more slowly, locking the door again, picking up Pete's coat, wiping up the snowmelt. He intended to give Marilyn the fewest possible reasons to want them to leave.

  With one ear, he listened in to Pete's conversation, ready to step in if it sounded necessary. Everyone with a reason to call Marilyn's house knew about Pete, and the kid knew how to handle himself on the phone, what to say, what not to say.

  Right now he was saying, "Yeah, we just got back from my mom's funeral, but Marilyn went to get supper from Tio Burrito. That means Uncle Burrito, you know. I don't know why they didn't call it Uncle Burrito." He paused for breath and apparently gave the other person a chance to squeeze in a quick sentence.

  "O'course I know who you are. Your bedroom is really pink. Why'd you paint it pink? That's a girly color." Another brief pause. "Well, yeah, you're a girl, but geez, do you have to be such a girly girl? You want to talk to Eli?" Pete looked up from his conversation with Marilyn's daughter. "He's right here. I gotta go do my homework before he'll let me play video games, so bye."

  And he tossed the phone to Eli and pounded up the stairs. Eli fumbled the catch--he still had a bit of trouble remembering he had two good hands. Finally he turned the cordless phone right side up and put it to his ear. "This is Court."

  "I thought your name was Eli."

  "It is. Eli Court. Sorry about Pete. He thinks the whole world should be interested in the same things he is."

  "He's--" Julie paused. "Um--Mom's letting him stay in Kevin's old room?"

  "Yeah. He claims all the pink was making him sick to his stomach and I wouldn't let him paint it. It's your room."

  "I...that's nice of you."

  The silence stretched. Eli tried to think what he ought to say to her. "Marilyn will be sorry she missed your call." That couldn't hurt. Remind the kid that her mother wasn't the one who stopped talking. "Can I have her call you back?"

  "Uh--yeah. Thanks. Pete--your son?--his mother died?"

  "That's right."

  "You're divorced or something? I mean, you weren't still married to her..."

  "We were never married. I was sixteen when Pete was born, not old enough to get married. Teresa--his mother--was, but not me. And after that...just didn't happen." He figured telling Julie as much of the truth as possible couldn't hurt either.

  "Oh." This time her pause was shorter. "So my mom's letting you stay there so she can have a son and Pete can have a mother."

  "I hope not."

  "Why?"

  "Because Pete isn't Kevin. And Marilyn isn't Teresa. Nobody's going to take those places. Just like I can't take your dad's place. But I hope like hell you let us make our own places. I don't like coming between you and your mom. It upsets her."

  "So, why don't you leave?" She sounded like she honestly wanted to know the answer, wasn't just trying to push him out the door.

  "Marilyn asked me to stay. I like being with her."

  "Why? She's so much older than you are."

  "I'm older than I am too. Maybe I've only had twenty-five birthdays, but I'm a hell of a lot older than that inside. I have a nine-year-old son. Believe me, Julie, there's not that much age difference."

  He hesitated, but briefly, to be sure he spoke first. "I gotta ask, and I hope you answer. Why did you call? Maybe to talk things over with your mom?"

  "Um--well...Uncle Joey called."

  "Yeah?" Eli prompted when she didn't go on.

  "And, well, he kind of said he...liked you. You weren't so bad as Granma said. And--um--lots of stuff."

  Probably things Marilyn had tried to say to her, but she refused to hear.

  "So, since you got me on the phone, instead of your mom, anything you want to know?"

  "Have you ever been in prison?"

  "Prison? No. Never. Not even when I was a juvenile. I've been to jail a time or three, but the law says juvie stuff doesn't count."

  "I guess not."

  Eli told Julie about growing up in Scranton. He told her about his new business. He even told her about getting kicked out by his stepfather and having to survive on his own. He refused to tell her anything else about those years. He didn't talk about that. Not even with Marilyn.

  Julie listened. She got mad at the places Marilyn got mad, laughed at the places Marilyn laughed. She was her mother's daughter, all right. Eli was beginning to feel pretty good about the conversation, feel like maybe he'd managed to fix at least some of the problem, when Julie dropped her little bombshell.

  "So are you going to marry my mom?"

  Twenty

  ***

  It exploded smack in the middle of Eli's brain, blowing all coherent thought to hell and gone, just as Marilyn walked in the back door with dinner.

  "I..." He couldn't get anything else out.

  "What's the matter? Don't you want to marry my mom?"

  "I..." He managed again. Marilyn walked up and kissed his cheek, setting the containers of food on the countertop. "...don't know," he finished. "I--we just met six weeks ago."

  "Who is it?" Marilyn mouthed.

  "It's Julie." Eli handed the phone to her, desperate for escape.

  "Hi, sweetie, how are you?" Marilyn's eyes sparkled with sudden tears as she listened. Then a wicked grin spread across her face and she put her hand over her mouth as she laughed. "Oh, no, you didn't! Oh, you are so mean."

  She looked up at Eli. "She was just teasing--giving you a hard time. She wasn't serious."

  "Yeah, well, she about gave me a heart attack," Eli grumbled. He wasn't so sure about that teasing bit. She sounded fucking serious to him. He should have realized that by staying here with Marilyn, by bringing Pete into the picture, the question of marriage would inevitably come up, and he didn't do marriage.

  Hell, he didn't even do love. How could anybody possibly think he could do marriage? There were damn few things that scared Eli, that even made him nervous. He'd seen it all, done most of it.

  But just the idea, the very vaguest thought of marrying somebody, especially somebody like Marilyn, had him so terrified he was practically pissing his boots.

  And yet, when you got right down to it, what was marriage but a bunch of promises written down? Promises to stick no matter what, to look after each other. Okay, yeah, to love each other--that was in there too and everybody knew Eli wasn't any good at that. But the other promises he'd already made. Maybe they weren't written down, but he made them, and he never broke a promise. Ever. So really, was it a bad idea?

  Fuckin' A, it was.

  The aroma from the burrito boxes finally penetrated his brain. He went to the stairs and called up. "Hey, Pete, wash your hands. Food's here."

  Seconds later, Pete appeared, hands dripping water everywhere until he got around to wiping them on his pants. He took the plates Eli handed him and set them around the dining table they'd moved from the apartment.

  "Okay, I'll look for you then," Marilyn was saying as she came into the room. "I'm really glad you called. Yes. Me, too. Love you."

  Marilyn hung up the phone. Then she threw her arms around Eli and hugged the stuffings out of him as she planted a smacking kiss on his mouth. "I don't know what you said to her," she said, hugging him even tighter. "But thank you. She's coming home for spring break."

  They had a
week to get used to living in a three-person household before it became four people at spring break. Eli was spending six days a week at the shop, but he split the time with Frank, so some days he went in late and some days he left in time to pick Pete up at school. Pete chafed under the restrictions imposed on him, but until Flash was behind bars again, the kid wasn't going anywhere without an adult along.

  Marilyn came into the shop for the grand tour one day and wound up handling a customer with a complaint about a bill. Frank had added it wrong--but apparently neither one of them could add, because it was added in the customer's favor. By the time Marilyn was through soothing tempers and making the Harley-riding biker happy with his discounted repair, she'd been drafted to handle the office work.

  Spring break changed all that. Pete went down to the shop with them, where he was bored to tears after an hour or so of tinkering. Julie came home from college to stay out most of every night catching up with old friends and then sleep most of every day. She did occasionally come get Pete in the afternoons and take him home where he could play video games or watch rented movies, but Marilyn could feel Julie's resentment every time Eli walked into a room where she was.

  She tolerated his presence, not much more. Still, she was trying, which was more than Marilyn's sisters and mother were willing to do. Marilyn was careful to make time for "just us girls" activities and they seemed to help. So did the board games at the dinner table Julie's last night home. They played "cutthroat Monopoly" with everyone cheating for all they were worth. Julie commented as they went upstairs for bed that she didn't remember laughing like that in a long time.

  On Sunday, before Julie got back in the old car to drive back to school, she hugged Marilyn goodbye. Pete tackled her for his own style of bear hug. Then, to everyone's surprise including hers, Julie hugged Eli.

  "My mom laughs," she said quietly. "Thanks."

  "Sure." Eli nodded, not sure how to react.

  "I'm still not sure I like you." Julie opened the car door. "But Mom does, so..." She shrugged.

  Marilyn managed to hug her one more time before she retreated inside the car and drove away.

  "One down, three to go." Eli came up behind Marilyn and slid his hands onto her waist.

  "She doesn't like you."

  "She doesn't have to. As long as she doesn't hate me and doesn't hate you for liking me..." He paused and craned his neck trying to see her face. "You do like me, right? Julie said so."

  "Yes." Marilyn squirmed out of his grasp. "I like you fine. Now, didn't you say something about taking a look at that light switch in Pete's bedroom?"

  "Oh, now I know the truth. You just keep me around for the handyman stuff. Not that I'm complaining, mind. I don't care why you keep me around as long as you keep me. And kiss me every so often."

  She dragged him down with a hand on the back of his neck and kissed him. Too quickly. "There. Does that meet your quota?"

  "I don't have quotas. Just affirmative actions, and I'm always ready for more action."

  Marilyn thumped the back of his head. "Go take care of the switch. We can discuss action later, and you can show me just how handy a man you are..."

  Life went on, so smoothly that there were days Eli almost forgot Flash was still out there. He never forgot to take precautions, never let Pete go anywhere on his own. On occasion this led to some shouting matches with most of the shouting on Pete's side, though Eli slipped a time or two. But overall, he had relaxed his state of alert.

  Marilyn didn't worry much about Flash either. They lived a long way out from where those awful things had happened, and besides, he was hiding from the police. He couldn't have the resources to track Eli down. It was smart to be careful anyway, and she didn't at all mind taking Pete to school or picking him up. She felt better when she knew exactly where he was and what he was doing, and not because of Flash.

  They were becoming a family, she and Eli and Pete, and it scared her half to death. She kept watching for signs that Eli was tiring of her, that he wanted to move on. She tried not to, tried to live each day as it came, but with each day that passed, they wound themselves deeper into her heart and life. And, oh, it would hurt when it ended.

  She could tell Eli was watching her too. He did more than his share of household chores, on top of repairing things around the house that had been sliding since well before Bill died. He picked up after Pete and drilled the boy in manners that Marilyn's kids had never followed. Marilyn felt as if he was trying to make sure he paid his way, trying to avoid another accusation that he only wanted free rent and child care.

  She wished she'd never said those stupid words, but she couldn't take them back now. She could only do her best to make Eli and his son feel they were home.

  On a Friday two weeks after Julie went back to school, snow had fallen, heavy and wet, only to melt as soon as it hit the ground. It didn't faze the daffodils and crocuses poking through the wet soil around buildings all over town, including Marilyn's house. She left the shop early to run by the supermarket before picking Pete up at school. Joey was coming to dinner and she was out of carrots for the pot roast she had planned.

  She was half listening to Pete talk about the latest recess war and half thinking about how many potatoes she ought to put in with the roast as she pulled up to the light just before the railroad viaduct. Traffic was a little lighter than usual today. They'd only had to wait through two red lights to reach the intersection, and she was first in line to get under the tracks. After that, they had the light at the Y-intersection at the top of the hill, and the light to turn into the neighborhood and they'd be home.

  Just as the light turned green, the door behind Pete was snatched open. Before Marilyn could react, a big man jumped in the car. He grabbed a fistful of Pete's hair, pulling his head back to expose the boy's pale neck more fully to the ugly, very sharp-looking knife he set against it.

  "You don't do what I tell you, I cut the kid's throat," the man growled. "Drive."

  Hands shaking so badly she could barely hold onto the steering wheel, Marilyn did what he said. "Wh-where?"

  "Go straight, across the river."

  Oh God, what was he going to do to them? "What do you want?"

  "The kid. I always only wanted the kid."

  Oh God, oh God. It was Flash. It had to be. How had he found them? Marilyn wrung her mind for something she could do, something to say that might make a difference. "I thought you wanted Eli."

  "I want payback." The grin in her rearview mirror, flashing a gold tooth, made Marilyn shake. "And with Court, that means the kid." The slitted eyes in the heavy face studied her in the mirror. "And maybe you too. I ain't decided that yet."

  "So the big brave man goes after women and children instead of standing up face to face with the man you want." Marilyn spoke before she thought. Stupid.

  Flash's face darkened and he tightened his grip on Pete, who squeaked as the knife pricked the skin of his throat. A single bead of red trickled slowly down into the neck of Pete's white T-shirt.

  Oh God, oh God. Marilyn repeated it over and over in a desperate, half-conscious prayer.

  "Shut up." Flash snarled. "Shut your fucking mouth. Don't say another fucking word, bitch."

  She couldn't even nod. Anything she did could get Pete killed. She drove across the bridge and downriver, then crossed back into the neighborhoods where she and Eli had searched for Teresa. Flash directed her through unfamiliar streets and alleys, alert for signs of police, and finally told her to stop outside a blank-windowed storefront. He got out of the car, keeping Pete under the knife, then dragged Pete out too.

  "If you aren't here when I get back," Flash said, "If you do anything besides sit here nice and quiet in your car, I'll kill the kid. And I won't kill him fast."

  "I'll wait." She met Pete's terrified eyes, wanting to scream, not daring to. "He'll find us, Pete. You know he will. He loves you."

  Flash kicked the car door shut and Marilyn rolled down the window as he hauled the child
into the building. "I love you too, Pete!" she shouted after them.

  The boy dangling from his grip like a marionette, Flash whirled to show Marilyn the knife under Pete's ear. She put her hands over her mouth, both in horror and to show Flash her intent. She didn't dare do any of the stupid, risky things she'd thought of. She'd seen what this man did to Pete's mother and she knew he would carry out his threat.

  Seconds ticked by, each one an hour long, while Marilyn waited for Flash to return, trying hard to shut her imagination down. She saw motion in the windows upstairs, a glimpse of beefy hands as a coarse curtain--a blanket, maybe--was pulled across to hide what was inside.

  She studied her surroundings, tracing in her memory the path they'd taken to get here. Anything to keep from thinking what might be happening inside the ugly abandoned building. She might have a chance to get free, might be needed to tell the police where Pete had been taken.

  Flash seemed to be working alone without anyone backing him up. No henchmen--if that was what they were called these days. No partners. At least not that were in evidence so far. Marilyn thought that might be a good thing. Of course she might be wrong. About everything.

  The big man, dressed in red silk under his black leather jacket, reappeared and got in the front seat beside Marilyn. "You're a good bitch, know how to do what the man says." He showed her the knife, now poised ready to slide into her side. "Don't know what Court's thinkin', goin' after tough old meat like you when he could have prime young stuff. Maybe I'll have to try you out myself, see what the attraction is."

  Marilyn suppressed her revulsion as he picked up a lock of her hair and tugged on it, not gently. He was trying to scare her as much as anything and she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing just how well he succeeded. She was terrified. More for Pete than herself, but there was plenty of terror to go around.

  "How did you find us?" She dared to speak with Pete out of the car.

  "Asked around. Heard about Court bein' with some old broad who worked at the Youth Center, asked around and got your name, broke in and found your address." He sounded pleased with himself. "Ain't just the cops can find somebody they want. Cops can't find their own ass with a map."