by R. L. Stine
“I’m going to explain to Ikey,” Daniel replied without turning back.
“Explain to him? But—wait!”
Daniel trotted to the sand. Samuel could see Ikey sitting hunched at the end of the short dock in a beam of sunlight. Feet hanging over the side, fishing pole dangling beside him. Ikey smiled and waved as Daniel approached.
“Wait, Daniel.”
Samuel sighed. He walked inside the shack and slumped to the damp floor. He scratched the sleeve of the starchy T-shirt. Mum seemed nice. She was pretty with that straight black hair and the shiny dark eyes. Almost like a movie star. But if all the T-shirts were this scratchy, it wouldn’t be heaven.
At least their new home was near water. The ocean and the bay, Mum had said. The place was called Long Island. That was good. Samuel had always lived on an island. Maybe it would feel like home right away.
What did that mean—feel like home? He’d never had a home. He’d never had parents. At least, not parents he could remember. Daniel was kind of his parent. Even though they were the same age.
Thinking this gave Samuel a bad feeling in his stomach. What kind of parent was Daniel? Very bad.
Samuel heard a short cry and a splash outside.
Oh no. Please, no.
A few seconds passed. Samuel sat up as Daniel strode back into the shack. He ducked his head under the fishing nets and dropped onto the cot. His face was a total blank. Eyes dull and lips pressed tightly together.
“What about Ikey?” Samuel’s voice came out shrill and tight. “Did you explain? What did you tell him?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Daniel said without any emotion.
“But what did you say? What did you tell him?”
Daniel shrugged. That strange smile played over his face again. “No more Ikey,” he said. His mouth did a strange quiver. Like a tic.
“Huh? No more Ikey? What do you mean?”
Daniel’s smile grew wider. “No worries.”
“But, Daniel—” Samuel couldn’t find the words.
“No more Ikey,” Daniel repeated in a singsong.
Samuel peered out the doorway to the dock. The dock was empty now. No boy sitting at the end. No fishing pole.
“No more Ikey,” Daniel said. “So, no worries. Come on, bruvver.” He jumped up and, putting a hand on Samuel’s shoulder, guided him outside. “Big smiles now. Come on. Sweet smiles. Sweet. Be excited, lad. Let’s go tell our new mum how excited we are.”
PART TWO
17
Here he was at the Bay Street Theatre, just across from the bay in Sag Harbor, Andy Pavano and Vince’s cousin Cora, in town from Bath, a little town in Maine, where she waitressed at a barbecue restaurant and took classes at Bowdoin, studying for a degree in social work.
Andy got all that info in the first five minutes when he picked her up at Vince’s house and drove into town on a foggy, drizzly Saturday night. She talked quickly, with a slight Maine accent he hadn’t heard much before, and kept tapping his shoulder as she talked, as if trying to keep his attention.
Cora wasn’t bad-looking. She had sort of a bird-beak nose, but her eyes were round and pretty. She had the kind of smile that showed her gums, a toothy smile Andy liked. She was small and girlish—except for her truck-driver laugh, he thought. But maybe she just laughed like that because she was nervous. She said she’d never been out with a cop before.
“It’s not really a date,” he said. “Vince just thought we’d have fun together.” Then he felt like a total dork for saying that. He could feel his face grow hot, but she didn’t seem to notice.
She had to be five or ten years younger than him. Thirty maybe. She dressed young, like a college girl, in black tights and a purple square-necked top that gathered at her waist and came down low like a skirt. She didn’t have much on top, he noticed. Her dark hair was short and layered.
Andy parked on the pier and they walked past a little lobster shack, closed for the night, and B. Smith’s, a large, bustling restaurant overlooking the bay. A crowd stood at the entrance, waiting for the outdoor tables. Enormous white yachts lined the pier along the side of the restaurant.
The aroma of barbecued chicken floated out from B. Smith’s kitchen, and Cora made a face. “Don’t take me near a barbecue place. Sometimes after I’ve been at work in the restaurant, I have to shampoo three times to get the smoke out of my hair. Dogs follow me home because I smell like pulled pork.”
Andy laughed. She had a good sense of humor about herself.
“You and Cora should hit it off,” Vince had said the night before. “You’re both in-tell-ect-u-als.” That’s how he said it, pronouncing every syllable. Was he being sarcastic? Probably.
Andy had told him he liked to read mystery novels and police procedurals, and Vince had teased him ever since, calling him Sherlock and telling him he should smoke a pipe.
Vince wasn’t a Neanderthal, but he pretended to be. He thought it was part of his role as a small-town desk cop.
Cora seemed to think she had to tell everything there was to know about her before they got to the theater. Maybe she just had a thing about silences. Andy knew he wasn’t keeping up his end, but it was hard to get a word in, and he was getting to like her soft schoolgirl voice.
She’d had a long affair with a guy in Bath she met at the barbecue restaurant. He said he was in the music business and seemed to know a lot about music clubs and new acts. But it turned out he sold jukeboxes and pinball machines, and he was married.
After she broke it off with him, he stalked her for a while, sitting outside the restaurant in his car and phoning her again and again, leaving threatening messages and muttering obscenities. When she changed her phone number, he finally went away.
“Did you call the police on him?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t think they’d do anything. Usually, the police don’t do anything in stalker cases till the woman is raped or stabbed in the chest.”
“Usually,” Andy agreed. “But sometimes a couple of cops can go to the guy’s house and—you know—reason with him a little.” Andy waved a fist.
Cora stopped outside the theater. “Have you ever done that?”
Andy stared at her. “Well, no. But I saw it on Law & Order.”
They both laughed.
The play was called Whodunnit? Cora accused him of only having one interest in life. “Do you only go to plays about cops and crime?”
“I don’t go to many plays.”
The play wasn’t great. It was supposed to be a comedy, but people weren’t laughing. The mystery was impossible to solve. The murderer could have been any one of the six people onstage.
Andy hated stories like that where you didn’t stand a chance of figuring it out. The culprit could even be the nearsighted police inspector hamming it up on the old-fashioned living room set.
Cora seemed to be enjoying it more than he was. She kept squeezing his arm every time something surprising took place. She laughed when the police inspector stepped on his eyeglasses and stumbled blindly over the tea cozy.
At intermission, Andy led Cora through the chattering crowd, out the doors to the walled terrace in front of the theater. Horns honked as traffic rolled by. The air smelled tangy, salty as the sea. He was about to ask if she wanted to skip the second act and go get a bite to eat when he saw Sari walk out of the theater.
Something pinged in his chest. A real physical feeling. Like a hard heart thump. Or an alarm going off.
Cora was saying something, tapping his shoulder, but he didn’t hear her. He heard a rushing sound in his ears like water washing over a steep waterfall. How could Sari still have this effect on him?
She wore a short, white tank dress that clung to her body, showing off her long legs and her trim waist. Her black hair fell loosely behind her shoulders.
And who was the guy she was arm-in-arm with? Was he the guy?
That shrimp. He was at least a head shorter than Sari. Wearing a geeky black-and-white wid
e-striped shirt like a referee wears and white chinos torn at one knee, and a rope belt. Some kind of gold necklace hanging in front of his chest. And a tennis hat. The fucking guy wore a tennis hat with the name of his store on the front to the theater!
Andy lurched toward them. He saw Cora reach for him with both hands, startled by his sudden escape. But he wasn’t moving on brainpower. This was some kind of weird primitive force propelling him, the rushing waterfall in his ears sweeping him away.
“Andy?” Sari let go of the shrimpy guy, her dark eyes flashing surprise.
Andy nearly knocked over the tall sign announcing Whodunnit? with photos of the cast. He caught his balance and took her by the elbow.
The shrimp peered out from under his tennis cap, eyes wide with surprise. He had freckles and a wide, innocent face. Reminded Andy of someone from an Archie comic book.
“I need to speak to Sari,” Andy explained to him.
He expected more of a reaction. But the guy just shrugged and flicked his eyes toward Sari.
She didn’t resist as Andy pulled her away, to the side of the theater. A few people turned to watch. He glimpsed Cora behind him, arms crossed now, following him with her eyes till he disappeared around the corner.
Sari giggled. “Are you crazy? We have to go back.”
He backed her against the wall. Her skin felt soft and warm. Her eyes glowed even in the darkness here. He felt a rush of feeling, so powerful he had to take a deep breath.
She had hurt him so much the first time. Caused him so many feelings he didn’t know he had.
And now here they were again. Here he was, feeling this insane rush of emotion, leading him . . . where?
“Andy, you look funny. What is your problem? You don’t have anything to say to me—do you? We have to—”
“I’m back,” he said.
And then he was kissing her. Kissing her. And she was kissing him back. And he felt the electric tingle of her fingers on the back of his neck. Just that light touch could make his head explode, he realized.
He kissed her harder. She wasn’t resisting.
When the kiss ended, they stared dumbly at each other. Her hands slid off his neck. With a shiver of her shoulders, she slithered out from between him and the wall.
A long silence. Yes, his heart was pounding, and yes, the blood was throbbing, pulsing in his temples. But he didn’t hear it now.
Silence. Silence.
And then she shook her head, sending her hair flying loose. She slowly rubbed a finger over her lips, as if wiping off the kiss. “That didn’t mean anything,” she murmured. “Hear me?”
Then she grabbed his head, pulled his face close, and kissed him again.
18
Andy didn’t hear much of the second act. He was aware of Cora squeezing his arm a few times. Was she trying to snap him back to reality? He didn’t want to go back. He could still smell Sari’s perfume, like oranges, sweet oranges. He could still feel the silvery touch of her fingers on the back of his neck. The whisper of her hair falling over his cheeks.
Cora turned slightly away from him, eyes straight ahead, her lips pursed. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. She was giving up. The characters moved across the stage, making broad hand gestures, shouting accusations at each other.
After the second kiss, Sari had repeated her warning. “That didn’t mean anything, Andy. Please believe me.” Then she turned away with a funny, short sigh and went running back to the shrimp.
When he saw her grab the guy’s hands and lean down to kiss him on the cheek, Andy had some evil thoughts. Maybe arrest him for being unsightly. Then beat the guy to death with one of those new titanium tennis rackets.
It wasn’t the first time he had thought of using his profession to settle a score or right a personal wrong. But of course he had never done anything like that. He was a good person and a good cop. A few free counter lunches were the only perks he had ever allowed himself.
He couldn’t help it if his brain got overheated every once in a while. You can control your actions but not your thoughts. And yes, he had violent thoughts.
But the most violent moment of his life? It was back in the living room of the little two-family house in Forest Hills when his father, after too many Budweisers (for a change), settled an argument by punching his mother in the jaw. And Andy, maybe seventeen at the time, had grabbed the old man by the shoulders and shoved him hard, sent him staggering headfirst into the stone mantel. He could still hear the smack of his dad’s bald head, the gasp of surprise, see the darkening line of blood on his forehead.
He’d expected the old man to spin around and come snarling back at him. But instead, he coiled his body, curled into a cowering position against the flowered wallpaper. To his shock, Andy realized his father was afraid of him.
It should have changed everything. But it didn’t. Anthony Pavano was a bully. His son Andy wasn’t.
Then Andy did twelve years as a New York City cop. Nothing as violent as that impulsive moment.
And why was he thinking of it now in this theater with people laughing all around him? Onstage, the nearsighted inspector was interviewing a coatrack. Andy glanced around, searching for Sari. But he couldn’t locate her in the dark.
He really needed a smoke. He could feel the pack of Camels in his jacket pocket. Cora probably wouldn’t approve. Who was Cora? He had to remind himself.
The play ended finally. Yes, the nearsighted inspector had committed the murder. But he was too nearsighted to realize it. At the end, he arrested himself.
Andy climbed to his feet and started to follow Cora across the aisle toward the exit.
“Very clever,” a woman said behind him.
“Too clever,” the man with her said.
“Did you guess the ending?”
“Yes. About an hour ago. But I still enjoyed it.”
“It’s one of his lesser works.”
“All of his plays are lesser works.”
Into the cool night air. A chatter of voices as people hurried to their cars. Cora walked along the sidewalk toward the pier till they were away from the crowd, then turned back to him. “It wasn’t very good, was it.” Said with a shrug and a sad smile.
“I don’t think I laughed,” he said. His eyes were over her shoulder, searching for Sari. How had she disappeared? He just wanted a glimpse of her.
“It was supposed to be sophisticated,” she said. “But the actors camped it up too much, don’t you think? If they’d played it sincere . . .”
He didn’t want to discuss the play. He wanted to catch one more look at Sari and have a slow, soothing smoke. He wanted to burn his throat and let the smoke make his eyes water.
No. He didn’t know what he wanted.
But when he heard the shrill shouts, he suddenly snapped alert. He turned toward the cries. From the pier? He spun away from Cora and took off running.
19
He heard shouts for help. Shrill cries. And, in the circle of light from a tall streetlamp, saw a small group of people wrestling against the side of the darkened lobster shack. He didn’t realize they were children until he was a few feet from them.
“Stop! Police!” he boomed.
He stepped in something soft. Glancing down, he saw a smashed ice cream cone on the pavement beneath his shoe. Another cone lay near it, ice cream still round at the top.
“You dumb shit! You dumb shit! You pay me back!” a blond-haired boy in a blue Southampton sweatshirt was screeching.
A big dark-haired kid, nearly twice his size, had him by the front of the sweatshirt and swung a meaty fist above the boy’s face. “Shut up! Shut the fuck up, liar!”
Two or three other kids stood back a few feet and watched. They were all shouting angrily at the big guy.
Not even teenagers, Andy realized. Their voices hadn’t changed.
“You fuck! You pay me for that cone!”
“You want a cone? I’ll shove it up your ass! You think I can’t? You want to dare me?�
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Kids!
The big kid started to lower his fist to the smaller boy’s midsection. Andy stepped between them and absorbed most of the blow on his side. The kid had a pretty good punch.
“Break it up. Police.”
He grabbed the big kid by the shoulders of his gray hoodie and pushed him backward.
“Get off me, asshole. You don’t look like no police.”
“Sag Harbor Police,” Andy said, as if that would convince the kid. “What’s the fight about?”
The blond-haired boy pointed to the asphalt. “My ice cream cone. He tried to take it.”
“Liar!” the big kid screamed. He lunged at the smaller guy again. Andy caught him and stood him up.
“Ethan is telling the truth!” a girl cried. The others joined in agreement.
“You’re Ethan?” Andy asked.
The blond kid nodded. He had tears in his eyes. He brushed back his straight blond hair with one hand. His whole body was trembling. Andy saw he was struggling with all his might not to burst out sobbing.
“And what’s your name?” Andy asked the other kid.
No reply. Instead, a sullen stare.
“Derek Saltzman,” the girl said. “He knocked down my cone, too.”
“I’ll knock you down, too,” Derek told her.
“You’re not going to knock anyone down,” Andy growled. “What’s your problem?”
“Derek is mean,” the girl said. “He’s always picking fights.”
“He’s always stealing our stuff,” Ethan said in a trembling voice.
“Fucking liars,” Derek muttered.
“Nice language,” Andy said. “How old are you?”
“Old enough,” the kid muttered, still offering up the surly glare.
He has a face like a bulldog, Andy thought. And a personality to match.
“He’s twelve,” the girl offered.
“And how old are you?” Andy asked Ethan.
Ethan took a step back. He didn’t take his eyes off Derek. “I’m twelve, too.”