Surrogate Child

by Andrew Neiderman

“Uh huh.”

  “And she wanted some?”

  “She didn’t say no.”

  “So you got it for her?”

  “I got her a couple of cups, yeah. Then I started dancing, and she got her own.”

  “Why didn’t you dance with her?” Dawson asked. “She was your date, wasn’t she?”

  “She said she didn’t want to dance. I did.”

  “Why would he want to put anything in his date’s drink?” Martha blurted. She sat forward and directed herself to Lt. Diana. “Obviously, it had to be someone else. It’s only logical.”

  “Kids do illogical things,” Lt. Diana said. “Can’t rule something out because it seems illogical to us.”

  “Are you accusing him?”

  “Martha,” Joe said.

  “As the chief said,” Lt. Diana replied, looking unruffled by Martha’s aggressive manner, “we’re not accusing anyone yet, ma’am; but we are looking for information. All right, Jonathan, did you see who was with Audra while you were dancing?”

  “I don’t know. There were a lot of kids around her. Larry Elias was there. Philip Kotin. I saw Brad Rosen.”

  “They were all drinking from this punch bowl?” Dawson asked.

  “Yes, sir.” Jonathan’s use of “sir” raised Dawson’s eyebrows. He looked at Lt. Diana.

  “Did you see Audra leave with anyone?” Lt. Diana asked.

  “I didn’t see her leave. Paula Simon told me she left. She said she was sick.”

  “Didn’t you try to find out?”

  “Find out what? Why should she lie about that?”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. Paul Dawson looked down at his desk and then up at Jonathan.

  “You didn’t see anyone do anything unusual around Audra, then?”

  “No, sir. As I said, I was dancing.”

  “Uh huh.” Dawson studied him a moment and then sat back, pressing the tips of his fingers against one another. “Jonathan, how was your behavior at the last school you attended?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Martha asked quickly. Joe thought she sounded more and more like a defense attorney. “He was living in a different kind of a home then. He’s with people who care about him now.”

  “I understand, Martha, but the principal at our school mentioned—”

  “That’s terrible. What did I tell you, Joe?” she asked, turning to him. “A scapegoat.” She spun around to face Dawson again. “The real culprits here are the school authorities who can’t protect the children. How did that vodka get into the punch to begin with, huh? Why don’t you ask the principal that while you’re at it?” Her face was bright red, and she looked as if she would fly off the chair. Dawson did not respond. He looked at Joe.

  “Martha. You’ve got to calm down.”

  “Calm down? While they work to frame Jonathan?”

  “Nobody’s framing anyone, Martha,” Paul said. “Look . . .”

  “Did someone accuse him? Was there a witness who claimed he did it?”

  “No, Martha.”

  “Then what else do you want to know? He told you everything he saw and heard.”

  “All right,” Paul said, sitting back. Joe saw that Martha’s aggressiveness had pushed him faster along his plan of questioning. “Jonathan, you brought Audra at least two cups of punch, is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll ask you this one once. If it comes up again, it will be because I have uncovered evidence and things will be different when I ask you again. Do you understand?” Paul Dawson’s gaze was intense. He had the hard look of a professional policeman talking to a hardened criminal now.

  “Yes, sir.” Jonathan pulled his shoulders back as though readying himself for a blow.

  “Did you put anything in those cups before you gave them to Audra Lowe?”

  “No, sir, I did not.” Jonathan matched his inquisitor’s determined look. The boy’s in no way intimidated, Joe thought, but he wasn’t sure whether that proved him innocent or confirmed his guilt.

  There was a moment of silence. Dawson sat forward.

  “Is that it?” Martha asked.

  “For now,” Paul Dawson said. Martha shot up out of her seat. Jonathan got up slowly, but Joe hesitated. He felt overwhelmed.

  “You know,” Martha said. “More and more young people are taking drugs themselves these days. They don’t need someone to slip it in their drinks. They slip it in their own drinks. Have you considered that?”

  “We’re on it, Martha,” Paul said politely but dryly.

  “Good,” Martha said. She put her arm around Jonathan and looked at Joe. He stood up.

  “So long, Joe,” Paul Dawson said. “Thanks.”

  “Right,” Joe said. He followed Martha and Jonathan out of the office.

  Sally Kantzler and her mother were not on the bench when Joe, Martha, and Jonathan stepped into the lobby. Bernie Kantzler looked up expectantly. Martha walked right up to him.

  “I’d advise you to watch the way they handle your daughter,” Martha said. “Obviously Harry Lowe’s money is speaking. They’re looking to pin this on someone other than Audra.”

  “Huh?”

  “See you, Bernie,” Joe said. He wanted only to make a quick exit. He said nothing until they were all in the car and he had backed out of the parking lot. “I don’t think you did the boy any good in there, Martha.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “You didn’t give them a chance. You made it seem—”

  “Seem like what?”

  “Like you were afraid of what they would ask.”

  “Did you ever hear anything like this?” Martha asked Jonathan. He was sitting back, his eyes closed again. He opened his eyes and then closed them. She turned back to Joe. “Don’t you realize what they were trying to do?”

  “They were trying to do their job, that’s all,” Joe said. He was tired himself and decided that would be all he would say about it. Martha decided silence was the best route to take, too. No one said anything until they reached the house.

  Jonathan went directly upstairs to his room, mumbling something about being tired. Joe went into the living room, and Martha went up to take a shower, complaining that she had to rush for nothing this morning and never got a chance to get washed and dressed properly.

  “All because of some spoiled brat,” she added.

  Joe didn’t respond. He lowered himself into his easy chair as though he would never be able to pull himself up and out of it. He didn’t turn on the television or pick up a magazine. Instead he simply sat there staring at the silent set. He felt a strange weakness in the pit of his stomach that reminded him of the times in his life when he was frightened by something or felt a great foreboding. He sat there desperately trying to understand it and forced himself to find an analogy with something in the mechanical world.

  All he could imagine to give him a similar feeling was driving along in his car and suddenly having the steering go out. What it would mean was everything was beyond his control; he would be carried along by whimsical fate or some dark force that took pleasure in his plight.

  Joe was now convinced some dark force had indeed entered his house in the guise of this new boy. He had to find a way to rid them of the evil before it was too late. Perhaps it was too late already. He had let his own ambivalence render him helpless for so long that now he wondered if he had what it would take to do battle.

  As if in response, he heard Martha and Jonathan laugh. It was the laughter of strangers, the kind of laughter that left him feeling alone.

  He had lost Martha once and then thought he had regained her, but now it seemed he was in danger of losing her forever. He didn’t know exactly what he could do, but in his heart, he understood that something had to be done and done soon.

  THIRTEEN

  Even though the mirror was covered with mist from the hot shower, Martha saw Solomon’s reflection in the glass. She stepped out of the stall, reached for her towel, and caught h
is image clearly outlined beneath the film of water. It was like seeing him through a heavy fog. She smiled to herself, took the face towel from the rack, and wiped the mirror to bring him out clearly, but when she looked behind her, he wasn’t there. He was only in the mirror.

  The noose was around his neck again, with the remainder of the rope dangling. It looked more like an umbilical cord. Blood seeped out along the woven twine, the cord taking on a fleshy texture. Except for his face and the underside of his chin, his body was as pale as a corpse. It was as if death were creeping up, reclaiming him an inch at a time. She thought his eyes looked more glassy and his lips paler and more swollen than they had during any of the previous times he had made a ghostly appearance.

  It wasn’t unusual for her to see him in her bathroom before, after, or even during one of her showers. Until he was thirteen, they occasionally took showers together. Often he was impulsive about it. He would come in while she was getting ready for a shower, and after she undressed and stepped into the stall, he would undress and step in, too. She never discouraged it, and they had a thing about washing each other’s back.

  She recalled how upset Joe would get whenever he heard about them doing it or saw it being done, especially during the last year or so before Solomon stopped doing it himself. It infuriated her to hear him say it was indecent. At first she concluded that Joe was merely very puritanical. After all, it was his so-called straight-arrow character that had attracted her to him in the beginning and had made him so popular with her parents, too.

  But then she concluded Joe was simply jealous of her relationship with Solomon. It wasn’t her fault that the boy wasn’t as close to him as he was to her. She knew he resented it, and she admitted to herself that his resentment was understandable. Hadn’t she tried so many times to get them to be closer to each other? However, a great deal of the problem was Joe’s fault, too, only he wouldn’t admit it.

  In any case, she disregarded his complaints. She wasn’t going to turn her boy away from her and put up all these artificial barriers just because Joe thought she should and just because Joe had trouble being affectionate. The mother-son showers finally stopped, but they stopped when Solomon wanted them to stop.

  Even so, he didn’t avoid talking to her while she showered or while she dried herself. She never locked her bathroom door; she never asked him to wait outside. Therefore, it didn’t surprise her when Solomon made an appearance now in the bathroom while she was taking a shower. He couldn’t wait to take pleasure in the present difficulties, she thought. The truth was she had expected him. She had anticipated and even welcomed his coming, even though his image was apparently trapped in the bathroom mirror.

  “Still think he’s an innocuous waif?” he asked. When he smiled, she noticed that his teeth looked so gray. Usually Solomon’s teeth had been so white. He took such good care of them that even the dentist had to remark about it. He had only one cavity all his life and that was, in the dentist’s words, “only a pinprick.” There had never been a problem about getting him to go for his regular checkups. In fact, he usually reminded her about it.

  Martha realized something different was happening here. He looked more ghoulish than at any other sighting. Only this realization didn’t sadden or frighten her. It cheered her. He’s losing it, she thought. Soon, he’ll be completely gone again, and he won’t be coming between me and Jonathan.

  She smiled back at him.

  “Solomon, poor Solomon. Deluding yourself again. Did you really think I would fall for all this? Did you really think I wouldn’t understand what you did?”

  “What I did?”

  “It was a pathetic . . . no, it was a juvenile attempt to besmirch Jonathan. Perhaps, under different circumstances . . . if he were still with the Porters, for instance, your plan might have succeeded. They would have thrown him to the wolves to protect themselves. In fact, they did. But here things are and will be different for him. No matter how you use Joe,” she added.

  “Use Joe?”

  “Come on now. I can see through that. I saw through it when you were with us. Why shouldn’t I see through it now? Joe’s so . . . what should I say . . . easily manipulated?”

  Solomon shook his head. Tiny lines of blood trickled out from under the rope and crisscrossed down his neck before disappearing under his shirt collar. The smile left his face, and the underside of his chin, which had been crimson and alive a few moments ago, turned as pale as the flesh beneath.

  “That’s not true,” he said. “You’ve got to start being more observant, Mother, and see things for what they are.”

  “That’s what I’m doing, dear Solomon. That’s exactly what I’m doing,” she added, smiling. His image grew a size or two smaller.

  Martha started to dry her body more vigorously. She ran the towel down between her breasts and over the small of her stomach. Solomon’s eyes followed her activity.

  “Want to dry my back?” she asked. “Oh, I forgot. You can’t. I’ll have to ask Jonathan.”

  “You’re making a mistake, a terrible mistake. You’re being blind again.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes, again. I didn’t do anything to Audra Lowe. He did it.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me that you chose to use her. You used her before to hurt me, didn’t you?”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Am I?” She wrapped the towel around her waist and tucked it in so it would serve as a skirt. Then she brushed back her hair, looking past him in the mirror. He was well off to the left now, growing smaller and smaller. “Jonathan was right about my use of makeup. Everyone liked it.”

  “They didn’t; they were only being polite. You looked foolish.” Solomon’s voice was thinner, weaker, more like an echo in a deep tunnel.

  “That’s what Joe thought, but it was you speaking through him, wasn’t it? Don’t worry, I’ll always know when it’s you. There’s no point in your doing that anymore.” She took another towel and draped it over her shoulders so that the ends of it would just fall over her breasts. “I’ve got to get my back dried,” she said.

  “Mother, don’t do it. Believe me,” Solomon said. She paused for a moment before leaving the mirror. He was much smaller, and his voice wasn’t filled with his usual confidence. That gave her some hesitation, but she pushed it aside. “Mother,” he cried one final time as she turned away. She hurried from the bathroom to frustrate his further attempts to dissuade her and went to Jonathan’s room.

  He was lying on his back, his hands under his head, staring up at the ceiling. When she entered, he turned her way.

  “Do me a favor and dry my back, will you?” she said. He sat up quickly, and she sat on the bed, her back to him. He took the towel from her shoulders and wiped her back in firm, small circles. She closed her eyes and moaned with pleasure. “That’s good. Better than . . .”

  “Than Solomon used to do it?”

  “Yes,” she said. When he finished, she put the towel back over her shoulders and pulled it down over her breasts. She turned to him. “I told you about that Audra Lowe,” she said. “I told you how she used to chase after Solomon and how I had this feeling she was not a nice person.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “I was right, wasn’t I?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “She probably did put the drugs into her own cup. I’m not saying she was doing it to get you into trouble, but she didn’t think what might happen. She just didn’t care. Right?”

  Jonathan shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not important anymore.”

  “Exactly. It’s not important anymore. I promise you, they’re not going to blame you for it. I won’t let them.”

  “You were great in there,” he said. “Those cops never knew what hit them.”

  Martha smiled.

  “I suppose I can stand up for what I believe when I have to,” she said.

  “Joe was kinda . . . upset,” he said.

  “Frightened is more like it.” She smirked.
r />   “I know. I was a little disappointed. When I first came here, I thought you were the weak one and he was the strong one. But things are starting to look different.”

  “Joe is too nice sometimes. Polite at the wrong times.”

  “He means well,” Jonathan said. “But I can see why Solomon was disappointed with him sometimes.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “It’s a shame. But,” Jonathan said, smiling, “you’re not disappointing. You make up for it.”

  “Well, just don’t go hanging around with people who can get you into trouble anymore,” she said. She ran her fingers through his hair. “Choose your friends more carefully.”

  “Right. Thanks for everything.”

  “You don’t have to thank me.” She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “Let’s forget about it now,” she said. “Put it behind us and think only of good things.”

  “Okay.” He smiled. “But it’s going to be hard to forget how you put it to those cops,” he added, and laughed. She laughed, too. “And the way Joe sat there with this look of shock.” Both of them laughed again, their laughter much louder.

  She stopped when she thought she heard something fall in her room.

  “What was that?”

  “What was what?” Jonathan asked.

  “I don’t know.” She listened for a moment. “I’d better get dressed. There’s plenty left to do today,” she added, and went back to her bedroom. For a moment, she stood there looking around. Then she realized the bathroom door was open. Hadn’t she closed that?

  She went to it and looked within. Was it her imagination, or did that look like a drop of blood in the sink beneath the mirror? She stared down at it a moment and thought of Lady Macbeth. “Out out, damn spot.”

  She started to laugh at the literary allusion and then stopped. The drop of blood looked too real. She wanted to touch it, even smell and taste it, but she couldn’t get herself to reach into the sink. Instead, she turned on the faucet and watched the water wash it down the drain.

  For Joe the Audra Lowe incident and the subsequent interrogation at the police station marked a major turn of events. Suspicions that had been running like a polluted stream below the surface of his consciousness began to emerge. The boy wasn’t only a conniver, he was a parasite, because he lived off the heartaches and pains of others.