Billy Straight: A Novel (Petra Connor)

by Jonathan Kellerman

  She and the missus had never discussed the . . . financial situation. The missus continued to pay her, insisting upon full salary, though Lord knew Mildred didn’t deserve it—what use was she in this state?

  Destructive thoughts. Banish, banish.

  She noticed a water spot on the cabinet below the sink, found a rag, wiped it clean.

  Back in the old days, the kitchen had been a bustling place, the missus and him entertaining constantly, caterers milling about, waiters rushing, pots steaming, stainless steel counters blanketed with platters of savories and sweets. Not the least of the latter were Mildred’s pies. No matter who the missus hired for catering, she’d always craved Mildred’s pies, most notably the plum, the Dorset apple, and the mixed-berry. So had him. So had . . . everyone.

  Mildred had cooked and cleaned in the big house for forty-one years, two years after the missus and him moved in. The lodge at Lake Arrowhead as well, but lakeside weekends had only been an occasional thing, even when him was alive, and often the missus called in a cleaning service to remove the tarpaulins and clear the taps.

  The lodge hadn’t been used for over a decade. Not since the terrible weekend.

  Mildred sighed and tamped her hair. Forty-one years, shining the silver, shampooing the wall-to-walls, cleaning nearly a hundred windows, even the leaded glass panels him had acquired from a church in Italy. Oh, the missus always provided another girl to help, but none of them ever managed to keep up.

  For the first decade, her workmate had been Anna Joslyn, that dim, skinny girl from Ireland. Not quite focused, mentally speaking, but a good worker and strong as a brood mare. Then the big loud one from Denmark with the vulgar bosoms, that one hadn’t worked out at all—what a mistake!

  After the Dane, all the agency sent were Mexicans. Good workers, most of them, and generally honest, though Mildred kept her eyes open. Some spoke English, some didn’t. Either way, it was their problem. Mildred refused to learn Spanish—English and French were quite enough, thank you. Miss Hammock’s class at the orphanage had emphasized only English and French, and eight decades of its graduates had worked in the finest homes of Britain and the Continent.

  The Mexicans weren’t a horrid lot, but they seldom lasted very long. Rushing to some family crisis in Mexico, children, husbands, paramours, saints’ days, who could keep score of all those Catholic assignations. Mildred would have preferred young ladies properly churched and educated, straight-backed girls who knew the difference between Royal Crown Derby and Chinese Export. But one accepted.

  The problem, she knew, was that there were no more orphanages—all those babies cut from the womb or allowed to remain with unfit welfare slatterns. One had only to read the paper.

  No need anymore for Mexican girls. Or anyone else, for that matter.

  Mildred was seventy-three, and she wondered if she’d live long enough to witness the final collapse of everything rational and right.

  Not that she expected to keel over any day soon. Except for the arthritis, she felt quite fine. But one never knew. Look what had happened to the missus. Such a beautiful woman, the most graceful woman Mildred had ever seen on either side of the ocean. Nothing but kind words ever left her lips, such patience, and Lord knew living with him had often required patience.

  Look at her now . . . thinking about it, Mildred’s eyes felt weak.

  The coffeepot hissed. Right on time. Mildred poured the missus’s coffee into a Victorian pitcher. Clumsy-looking piece, probably a gift from some dinner guest. The lovely pitcher—the Hester Bateman—was gone. George III, a banner year, proper hallmarks and all. Him had brought it back from one of his London trips, a first-class shop on Mount Street. Someone else might have relegated it to a display case. The missus believed in using the fine things. It had been her breakfast pitcher.

  Till four years ago.

  Cartons of silver, paintings, even formal gowns, shipped off like . . . vegetables.

  When she’d first been hired, Mildred had been afraid to touch any of the missus’s treasures, fearful of marring something. Even back then she could recognize quality.

  The missus, just a girl back then, but so wise, had put her at ease. This is a home, dear, not a museum.

  And a fine home she’d made for him.

  Light wound its way through the branches of the ancient twisted sycamore on the breakfast patio, filtering through the kitchen window and settling on Mildred’s recalcitrant hands.

  Gnarled as badly as the tree. But the sycamore sprouted green every year. If only people merited autumn renewal . . .

  Mildred shook her head and stared at the floor, in need of mopping. Such an expanse. Such a big room . . . not that the last girl had been any use. What was her name—Rosa, Rosita. Three months on the job and fooling with one of the gardener’s boys. Mildred had been forced to call the agency yet again.

  Hello, Mr. Sanchez.

  Hello, Miss Board. And what can I do for you today?

  Cheerful, he was, and why not? Another commission.

  Mildred set up three interviews with “ladies,’’ then the missus told her.

  Do we really need someone else, Mildred? Just you and me, all we really use is the kitchen and our rooms.

  Fighting to sound gay, but biting back tears. Mildred understood. She’d packed the silver and the paintings and the evening gowns.

  So this is what it had come to. All those years, the missus putting up with him and look how him had left her.

  That temper of his. No doubt, it had hastened his death. High blood pressure, the stroke, and him only a young man. Leaving the missus alone like that, poor dove, though he had provided for her in a financial way—one couldn’t fault him there.

  Or so Mildred had thought. Then, four years ago, the change.

  Rooms purged and locked.

  No more Mexican girls.

  The gardening crew cut from every day to twice a week, then once. Then one skinny youth attempting to cover two acres with rapidly diminishing success. Gardens were like children, requiring a hawk eye lest they go delinquent.

  The missus’s garden, once a glory, had become a sad, shaggy thing, lawns spotted and burnt and incompletely mowed, untrimmed hedges swelling uncouthly, trees burdened with dead branches, flower beds whiskered with weeds, the fishpond drained.

  Mildred tried her best, but her hands defied her.

  Did the missus realize? She rarely ventured out anymore. Perhaps that was why. Not wanting to see.

  Or perhaps she just didn’t care. Not because of the . . . financial issue.

  Because Mildred was forced to admit that the missus had changed a long time ago.

  The terrible weekend in Lake Arrowhead. Then him. Tragedy upon tragedy. Not that the missus had ever complained. Perhaps it would’ve been better if she had . . .

  The German railway clock over the left-hand freezer chimed. Something else those nasal-voiced Sotheby’s people had rejected. Not that Mildred could blame them, hideous it was. And grossly inaccurate. Nine o’clock on its face meant eight fifty-three. In seven minutes, Mildred would be at the missus’s bedroom door knocking gently. Hearing “Please come in, dear’’ from the other side of the molded mahogany. Entering, she’d set the tray on a bureau, prop the missus while chattering encouragingly, fluff the mountain of pillows, fetch the wicker bed table, set it carefully over the missus’s comforter, and arrange the service precisely. Silver-plate toast rack filled with triangles of extra-thin wheat bread, browned lightly, the coffee, freshly ground African blend from that little shop on Huntington Boulevard—one needed some luxury for heaven’s sake! Decaffeinated now, but accompanied by real cream, thick enough to clot for the scones; what a job it was finding that! The golden marmalade that Mildred still made by hand, using fine white cane sugar and the few sour oranges she managed to find out back in the orchard.

  The sour orange tree was dying, but it managed to produce a bit of lovely fruit. One thing California was good for was fruit. Mildred still loved to strol
l the orchard and pick, pretending the ground wasn’t hardpacked and lumpy, pretending the herbs were green and fresh, not the tangle of straw thatching the borders.

  Pretending she was a girl back in England, out in the Yorkshire country. Shutting out the fact that on certain days—most days—one could hear the Pasadena freeway.

  Fruit and weather. Those were the only things to recommend California. Despite living most of her life in San Marino, Mildred considered the place barbaric.

  Horrid things in the newspaper. When she deemed them too horrid, she didn’t bring the paper up with the missus’s breakfast.

  The missus never asked about it. The missus never read much anymore, except for those romance paperbacks and art magazines.

  The missus never did much at all.

  Nothing wrong with her, the doctors claimed, but what did they know? The woman was sixty-six but had suffered centuries’ worth of tragedy.

  The railway clock said 8:56 and Mildred had only three minutes to cross the kitchen to the creaky rear elevator that rose up to the missus’s bedroom on the third floor.

  She picked a fine yellow rose from the three without mildew on the thorny grandiflora bush out back. She’d snipped at dawn, trimmed the stems, and placed the flowers in sugar water. Now she laid the blossom next to the covered platter of shirred eggs. The missus rarely ate the eggs, but one tried.

  Lifting the tray, she walked speedily, steadily.

  The kitchen didn’t look too awful, all things considered.

  “Very good,’’ Mildred said, to no one in particular.

  CHAPTER

  28

  I sneak out of the park and go down Los Feliz, staying as far from the light as I can. No one walking up here, just cars whizzing by. Los Feliz ends and Western starts and now the junkies and prosties take over. I turn right on Franklin because it’s darker, all apartment buildings; I don’t want to be on the Boulevard.

  Not too many people out tonight, and the ones who are don’t seem to notice me. Then I see a couple of Mexicans hanging around a corner, in the shadow of an old brick building. Probably doing a drug deal. I cross the street and they look at me, but they don’t say anything. A block later, a skinny prostie with spiky white hair and bright blue T-shirt and shorts comes out of an apartment carrying a tiny purse. She spots me and her eyes get wild and she says, “Hey, boy,” in a drunk voice and wiggles her finger. She’s short, just a kid, doesn’t look that much older than me. “Fuck and suck, thirty,” she says, and when I keep walking, she says, “Fuck you, faggot.”

  For the next few blocks I don’t see anyone, then another prostie, older, fatter, who pays no attention to me, just stands around smoking and watching cars. Then three tall black guys wearing baseball caps and baggy pants come out of the shadows, see me, look at each other. I hear them say something and I cross the street again, trying to seem relaxed. I hear laughter and footsteps and I look back and see one of them chasing me, almost reaching me. I speed up and run, and he does too. His legs are long and he’s got his hand up, like to grab me. I run across the street and a car’s coming and it has to move to the side not to hit me. The driver honks and yells, “Fucking idiot!” and I’m still running, but the black guy isn’t.

  I think I hear someone laughing. Probably a game for him. If I had a gun . . .

  I walk for a long time. At Cahuenga, there’s more light and the entrance to the Hollywood Bowl, a long curvy road that climbs up. I’m not going up there. Too much like the park; I don’t want anything to do with parks.

  So guess what comes next: another park, Wattles Park, what a weird name. I’ve never seen it, never been this far. Not a friendly-looking place—high fences all around and gates with big chain locks and a sign saying the city owns it and it’s closed at night, keep out. Through the fence all I can see is plants. It looks messy. Probably full of perverts.

  Now Franklin ends, here’s Hollywood Boulevard again, I can’t avoid it; like it’s chasing me, this big burst of noise and light, gas sta-tions, cars, buses, fast-food places, worst of all people, and some of them look at me like I’m a meal. I cross La Brea, it gets quiet again, all apartments, some of them pretty nice-looking. I’ve never thought of the Boulevard as anything but stores and theaters and weirdos, but look at this—people live here in pretty nice places.

  Maybe I should have traveled sooner.

  The cut on my arm is dry and it doesn’t hurt much. The ones on my face itch.

  I’m breathing okay, though my chest still hurts. I’m hungry, but three dollars isn’t going to buy me much and I look for Dumpsters to dive. Nothing. Not even a garbage can.

  I walk a little bit more and turn off on a real quiet street. All houses, a nice dark street. But no cans here either, or alleys. Cars are parked bumper to bumper and down a ways I see more light and noise, another boulevard. I stop and look around. Some of the houses look okay; others are messy, with cars parked on the lawn.

  Then I come to one with no car in the driveway or on the lawn. Totally dark. Old-looking, made of some kind of dark wood, with a slanted roof that hangs over a really wide porch. No fence, not even across the driveway. But the grass is cut, so someone lives here, and maybe they keep their cans in the backyard.

  The driveway is just cement with a strip of grass growing in the middle, and I can’t see what’s at the end of it. I look around to make sure no one’s watching and walk back there very slowly. As I pass the front porch, I see a big pile of mail in front of the door. All the windows are totally black. Looks like the people have been gone for a while.

  No BEWARE OF DOG sign, no barking from inside the house.

  I keep going and finally make out what’s at the end of the driveway. A garage with wooden doors. The yard is small for such a big house, just a little grass and a couple of trees, one of them gigantic but with no fruit.

  The cans are out behind the garage, three of them—two metal, one plastic. Empty. Maybe the people don’t live here anymore.

  I turn around and am heading back to the street when I notice a dot of orange over the back door. A small bulb, so weak it only lights up the top half of the door. A screen door; behind the screen is glass. The screen’s held in place by two loop-type things with hooks, and when you twist them it comes right off.

  The glass behind the screen is really a bunch of windows—nine squares in a wooden frame. I touch one lightly and it shakes a little but nothing happens. I touch it harder, knock a few times. Still nothing. Same when I knock on the door.

  Taking off my T-shirt, I wrap it around my hand and punch a lower square on the left side pretty hard. It just sits there, but the second time I hit it, it comes loose and falls into the house and breaks.

  Lots of noise now.

  Nothing happens.

  I reach in and feel around and find the doorknob. In the middle is a button, and when I turn the knob, it pops out with a click and the door opens.

  Back on goes my T-shirt and I’m inside. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to see in the darkness. The room’s some kind of laundry place with a washer-dryer, a box of Tide on top of the washer, some washrags. Next comes a kitchen that smells of bug spray, with lots of plants in pots all over the counters. I open the refrigerator and a light goes on inside, and even though I see food, I shut it fast because the light makes me feel naked. As the door closes, I notice a peace-sign sticker and one that says SISTERHOOD IS ALL.

  My heart is really beating fast. But a different kind of fear, not all bad.

  I walk around, from dark room to dark room, nothing but a bunch of furniture. Then back to the kitchen. A closed door on the way turns out to be a bathroom, with more plants on the toilet tank. I turn the light on, then off. Clear my throat. Nothing happens.

  This place is empty.

  This is sort of fun.

  I go back to the kitchen. The window over the sink is covered by curtains with flowers on them with little fuzzy balls hanging down. Sisterhood. Women live here; men wouldn’t have all those plant
s.

  Okay, let’s try the refrigerator again. On the top shelf are two cans of Barq’s root beer and a gallon plastic orange juice container with just a little juice left. Three gulps of juice. It tastes bitter. I put the root beer cans in my pocket. Next is a tub of Mazola margarine and a stick of Philadelphia cream cheese. I open the cream cheese and it’s covered with blue-green mold. The margarine looks okay, but I don’t know what to do with it.

  Below that is a container of strawberry yogurt and three slices of American cheese, stiff and curly around the edges. No mold. I eat all three.

  These people have definitely been gone for a long time.

  On the bottom shelf is a package of Oscar Mayer low-fat bologna that’s never been opened—I put it in my pocket, along with the root beer—and a whole pineapple, with the green thing still attached on top and soft in a few places.

  Leaving the refrigerator door open for light, I bring the pineapple to a counter and open drawers until I find forks and knives. In there with them are bobby pins and hair bands.

  I take out the biggest knife and slice the pineapple in half. The soft spots turn out to be brown spots, and they’re spreading all over the pineapple like a disease. I cut around them—this is really a good knife—and manage to get some really nice, ripe pieces of delicious, supersweet pineapple.

  That makes me hungrier, and I taste the bologna and end up eating every slice, standing at the counter. Then more pineapple. The juice runs all over my chin and my shirt and I feel it burn my face where the cuts are.

  Then one of the root beers.

  Now my stomach’s killing me because it’s full.

  I go back to the bathroom right off the kitchen, take a leak, wash my hands and face. Then I notice the shower. On a shelf are soap and shampoo and cream rinse and something called detangler.

  Plenty of hot water. I add some cold, make it perfect, run it as hard as it goes. Locking the door, I pull off my clothes and step in. The water’s like needles, hurting me, but in a good way.