Vivian smiled. "I ain't sure. Only thing I know is that I got to find another road than the one I been on. If I stay here, things will catch up to Lilly and I can't let that happen."
Martha nodded. "She's sleeping, or supposed to be. I'll fetch her."
Vivian sat on the bench, peering into the surrounding darkness, imagining the man who'd been watching the house, wondering if he was a thug or a policeman who'd gotten a tip, maybe even a bribe from Pighead, who wouldn't hesitate to buy a cop if it meant getting his money back and beating a hard lesson into her.
Vivian's hand went to her throat, clasping the gold chain and the cameo that hung from it around her neck. Tens of thousands of dollars had run through her hands with nothing to show for it. The necklace was the only thing of value she owned and it had been a gift from her mother on her sixteenth birthday, a week before she ran off with George Chase. What, she wondered, would she give her daughter before she ran off again?
"Momma?"
Lilly rushed to the bench and threw her arms around Vivian, mother and child hanging on to one another.
"Hey, baby girl. You doin' all right?"
Vivian stroked Lilly's hair, kissing her cheek. Lilly let loose and stood, smoothing her nightshirt, wiping away tears.
"I'm full growed, Momma. It's time I was with you."
The nightshirt couldn't hide her daughter's shape and the darkness couldn't dull the excitement in her eyes. Vivian knew what that was about. Lilly wasn't just glad to see her mother. Her daughter was feeling the call to bust out and take on the world same as she had the day George Chase drove into her parents' yard. Looking at Lilly was like looking in a mirror only the image Vivian saw was of her past. She was sure when Lilly looked at her, her daughter saw a future of glamour, love and adventure and not the hard road her mother had traveled.
"You are full growed. I'll give you that. Sit with me, child." Vivian put her hand on Lilly's knee, Lilly covering it with her hand. "I brought you to Miss Moore cause I couldn't take care of you like she could. Seeing how pretty you turned out, I know I done the right thing. I was about your age when I left home and it was the mistake of my life except for havin' you. Believe me, Lilly, when I tell you not to make the same mistakes I made. Stay here with Miss Moore. I'll be back when I can."
"Miss Moore makes me go to school all week and go to church on Sunday. I'm so full of readin' and writin and Jesus, I think I'm gonna explode. I want to be with you. How will I know what to do if you don't teach me?"
"All I can tell you is not to do what I done."
Lilly leaned against the bench, arms crossed, pushing her lower lip out. "Like what?"
Vivian looked away, turning her eyes to the heavens, giving God another chance. The moon had risen, smoke and fire turning it pink.
"Look it there," Vivian said, pointing to the sky. "The moon is pink. One day, some man is gonna come along and tell you how pretty you are and you're gonna believe it cause it's true and you and him are gonna want to do somethin' about it. That's the way it is with men and women. But that feelin' ain't gonna last any longer than that pink moon. The fire's gonna go out and that man will turn cold as a pale moon. He'll take every bit of you and leave you on the side of the road like a cornshuck."
A car pulled up in front of Jefferson House, headlights sprayed all over them as it stopped alongside Vivian's coupe. Pighead Hardeman stepped out, leaned over the open driver's door, aiming a gun at them.
"Goddamn you, Vivian Chase! You no good, thieving, whoring, bitch! Where's my money?"
# #
Bobby clung to Elizabeth's hand as they ran out of the locker, stopping in their tracks when they saw what lay in front of them. Lofty tongues of flame shot skyward, wood popping with fiery starbursts, like an artillery battery. Heavy black smoke rolled overhead, a doomsday cloud, as hot, cinder-filled fog choked and scorched their lungs.
The social contract was the first casualty of the fire, primitive instincts turning the park into a cauldron where survival and conquest were the only imperatives. Boys and men carried off whatever they could grab, the strong turning on the weak. A mother, bent over and shielding her child, wailed, afraid to move. A trio of teenage girls held hands as they ran past, searching for an exit. Behind them, a man cradling his daughter, staggered through the smoke, his face blackened.
Sirens reverberated as a phalanx of police waded into the crowd, wielding their clubs in a vain effort to corral the rioters. Outnumbered and outmatched, they locked arms and retreated, waiting for reinforcements.
Across the way, firemen drove their trucks into the middle of the conflagration and unspooled their hoses, turning heavy sprays on the nearest blaze. The fire sucked up the water, spit it back as boiling steam and raged on.
"Sweet Jesus!" Bobby said.
"I think he's sitting this one out," Elizabeth said. "Let's go!"
She was nimble and fearless, dodging the flames, taking him deeper into the park. He kept pace, wondering how she knew where she was going and how they would possibly find Terry. They rounded a corner, stopping at a windowless, one-story stone building; it's heavy oaken door wide open and smoldering.
"In here!" Elizabeth commanded.
It was dark and smoky inside but Bobby could make out a dim light on the far side of the room they'd entered.
"Terry!" Elizabeth said. "Is that you?"
She'd surprised Bobby again, somehow knowing Terry's name though he'd never told her. He hadn't even told her his name.
"Over here, babe!" Terry answered. "Talk about luck, huh? The power goes out but, lucky for us, the bean counters had a flashlight."
"Terry?" Bobby asked as his friend emerged from the smoke carrying a canvass bag over his shoulder.
"Bobby?" He turned to Elizabeth. "What the hell, Betts?"
Elizabeth took Terry's arm. "It's okay, honey. He showed up in the locker house while I was changing. Even got a little show," she said, winking at Bobby.
"And you brought him? Here?"
"He was worried about you. Besides, you and him are buddies, ain't you? What's the harm?"
"What's going on, Terry?" Bobby asked. "Where are we?"
"We're in the park's business office, where they keep the money that they collected today. Me and Betts, we're gettin' out. Just like I told you."
"How? What's in that bag?"
Terry grinned. "Enough money to make it happen. I'm guessin' at least three grand, maybe more."
Recognition dawned slowly but when it did, Bobby shook his head like he'd taken a punch.
"You did this? You started the fire so you could rob the park?"
"Short-circuited a transformer in the Bug House. Been figuring out how to do it all summer. Goddamn thing blew up just like I thought it would."
"But the fire?"
Terry shrugged. "Can't plan on everything that happens. Just got to go with it. We figured the bean counters would have to get out and they'd leave the cash lying around waiting for us to take it. And that's what happened. Didn't figure on the fire being so bad, though. Can't do nothin' about that now." He turned to Betts. "You ready?"
She threw her arms around him and kissed his soot-stained face. "I was born ready!"
"All right, then," Terry said. He pulled away from Elizabeth and put his hand on Bobby's shoulder. "I won't be seein' you for awhile. Might be I'll never see you again. I'm countin' on you not tellin' no one about this. I'd take you with us, but you ain't cut out for the life me and Betts got ahead of us. So you best get on home. You grow a pair, you come lookin' for us. We'll have us a time. I promise you that."
# #
Bobby took the streetcar home, walking the last six blocks. He turned onto his street as a car passed him, burning rubber in the turn, jolting to a stop in the middle of the block next to a Plymouth convertible coupe, headlights flooding Jefferson House. A man jumped out of the car and cursed at someone on the porch.
"Goddamn you, Vivian Chase! You no good, thieving, whoring, bitch! Where's my mone
y?"
Vivian turned to her daughter. "Go in the house."
Miss Moore swung the door open, grabbed Lilly and pulled her inside. Vivian reached in her purse for her Smith & Wesson and stepped off the porch.
Bobby hid behind a thick oak in the front yard of his house, afraid his father would hear the commotion, find him in the yard and order him inside before he could watch what was about to happen. A woman walked down the steps from Jefferson House, the headlights making her a silhouette.
"You wait right there, Pighead. I got something for you," she said.
Bobby bit his lip when she raised her right hand and leveled a revolver at the man she called Pighead, bursts of flame erupting from the short barrel. The man screamed and flinched, returning fire before ducking into his car, jamming the gears in reverse, spinning around and racing off in a drunken zigzag. The woman staggered to the coupe, slumping to her knees, one hand on the door handle.
Bobby ran to the woman. Blood oozed from a wound in her side. Her color was gone and her breathing was faint. He heard a shout from Jefferson House and looked up to see Miss Moore flying down the steps, a girl trailing her, wearing nothing but a nightshirt. He knew Miss Moore to say hello and had seen the girl around but never talked to her, heeding his father's demand that he stay away from the Jefferson House girls, calling them trash.
"Oh, dear God," Miss Moore said, cradling the woman. "Dear, sweet Jesus."
"Lilly," the woman said, her voice faint.
"I'm here, Momma," the girl said, kneeling next to her mother.
Miss Moore gripped Bobby's arm. "She's hurt bad, Bobby. You've got to get her to the hospital."
"Me?"
"There's no one else. I can't leave the girls and no one can know that she was here or who she is. You'll have to leave her with the doctors and get out of there before anyone asks you questions. Now help me get her in her car."
They eased Vivian onto the front passenger seat and Bobby got behind the wheel. He had no trouble working the Plymouth's clutch and gearshift. As he was about to pull away, Lilly grabbed the side of the car, tears streaming down her face.
"Please," she said. "Save her."
Moonlight shone in her eyes, dancing across her face. She stood straight, her shoulders square, her pain and beauty so raw and clear to Bobby that he fell in love for the second time that night. She let loose of the car and wrapped her arms around her middle, as Miss Moore laid a protective arm across her shoulders. Bobby glanced at his passenger. Her chin lay on her chest and her face was slack.
"If she can be saved, I'll do it," Bobby said.
Fifteen minutes later, he wheeled the coupe to a stop outside the emergency room entrance to General Hospital off of Twenty-Second and Holmes and was about to open his door when Vivian murmured.
"Wait," she said.
"Can't wait, m'am. You're hurt too bad."
"Necklace. Give my necklace to Lilly."
"Yes, m'am," Bobby said, lifting her chin until her head lay back against the seat, hoping no one was watching or he'd surely be accused of murder and stealing.
He pocketed the necklace and tore into the emergency room.
"There's a woman in a car outside! She's been shot!"
Two nurses and a doctor rushed out the door, picked Vivian up and carried her inside, disappearing behind swinging double doors. Though Miss Moore had told him to leave as soon as possible, he couldn't without knowing what happened. It didn't take long before one of the nurses came out, shoulders slumped, taking her time because time didn't matter and called the morgue. Bobby ducked out before they thought to ask him any questions.
He drove away, pulling over on a side street a mile away, his mind churning. Terry was gone and he'd never felt so alone. He couldn't believe what Terry and Elizabeth had done, setting fire to Electric Park so they could steal the day's receipts and start a new life. It was awful, terrible and thrilling all at the same time. Awful for the people at the park, terrible for all the destruction, but he had to hand it to Terry. He'd done what he always said he'd do.
He thought about what Terry had said, how he couldn't take him with them because he wasn't cut out for that kind of life. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was doomed to a life on the unemployment line, a thought that made him feel even worse until he heard a voice inside his head calling bullshit on him.
He took Vivian's necklace from his pocket, absently tossing it in the air, his eyes lost in a distant space, the necklace falling to the floor of the car on his third toss. He reached down, feeling for the necklace and found Vivian's carpetbag. He hoisted the heavy bag onto his lap, opened it and whistled.
"Holy Mother!"
He counted the money twice to be sure he had the count right, his hands trembling. He closed the bag and put it back under his seat, holding Vivian's necklace up to the moonlight. He studied the cameo, deciding with sudden clarity what he would do. Terry Martin wouldn't tell him to grow a pair ever again. No one would.
Electric power had been restored when he pulled up in front of Jefferson House. Lilly Chase was sitting by herself on the front porch. She'd changed out of her nightshirt into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Bobby parked the car at the curb, considering his next move when Lilly rose from the porch bench and walked slowly toward him. His stomach did flips, knowing he'd be the one to tell her that her mother was dead. The next thing he knew, she was standing at the driver's door, her eyes full, her lip quivering.
"She didn't make it, did she?"
Bobby shook his head. "I'm sorry. She wanted you to have this." He handed her the necklace.
She slipped it on, running her fingers along the chain and the cameo.
"That's my momma's car."
"I don't reckon she's gonna have much use for it now."
She wiped her eyes. "You figurin' on keepin' it?"
Bobby looked deep into her eyes and saw something he hadn't seen in anyone else. His future.
"Maybe. Depends on a couple of things."
"What?"
"Well, first thing is if you don't mind me keepin' it and the second thing is if you get in so we can get out of here."
She smiled, splitting her face ear to ear, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.
"I don't mind," she said, opening the door and sliding alongside him.
Bobby fired up the engine and pulled away, pointing to the sky.
"I'll be damned! Look at that will you? The moon is pink."
Fire In The Sky Page 2