Disappearing Acts

by Byars, Betsy

  “And then, wouldn’t you know it, Mrs. Mac came in and caught us. Meat blurted out that he was looking for his pecan rolls, he knew she’d hidden them, and she said that she’d found the empty wrappers when she was making up his bed that morning, that he must have eaten them in his sleep.”

  “The pictures?” her father said tiredly.

  “Oh, yes, sorry. I got carried away.”

  She handed him the seven pictures, and he shuffled through them, glancing at each one for only a moment. He looked up at her. “I take it there’s more.”

  “Yes, the rest are of his father dressed for—” She made a face. “For, I guess you’d say, work.”

  “What kind of work did he do?”

  With a sigh she handed her father the rest of the photographs.

  “See for yourself,” she said.

  13

  BAD NEWS

  Meat approached 1329 Broadview with caution. He was on the opposite side of the street and he paused periodically to tie and retie his shoelaces. He had seen spies do this to make sure they weren’t being followed. As he worked on his shoelaces he glanced up and down the street.

  He straightened once again and went over his plans. He would cross the street, go up to the house, enter, and ring Marcie Mullet’s bell. If she answered, he would ask to speak to her. “I have something that belongs to you,” he said, speaking out loud. He put one hand over his back pocket to make sure the wallet was still there.

  A car pulled up beside him and a voice said, “Just the man I was looking for.”

  Meat stared. He hadn’t heard or seen the car approaching. Although Meat didn’t think he was either a man or someone being looked for, he glanced around.

  It was Chico Jones, Herculeah’s dad, and Meat was very glad to see him.

  “Mr. Jones, what are you doing here?”

  “I stopped by the house, and Herculeah told me you might be here.” Chico Jones got out of the car and put one hand on Meat’s shoulder. Meat couldn’t remember him doing that before. Maybe Chico Jones suspected him of something.

  “You talked to Herculeah?” he asked.

  “She told me about what happened last night at Funny Bonz. I thought I’d check and make sure this—” he paused to look at his notes—“Marcie Mullet’s all right.”

  “Can I go with you? I want to know if she’s all right, too.” It was extremely pleasant to have Chico Jones on his side.

  “You wait in the car. I want to talk to you.”

  “But—”

  He held the car door open like a policeman and Meat got in like a victim. He watched as Chico Jones went up the walkway to 1329.

  Even though Meat was extremely glad to have run into Chico Jones, he was uneasy about the way Chico Jones was treating him. Herculeah’s dad was being too nice. Also, his look seemed more piercing than usual, as if he were actually trying to see into his brain—the way Herculeah frequently did.

  He glanced out the window. Beside him the police radio sputtered with requests and information.

  Could Herculeah have said something to her dad—something about—he couldn’t think of anything to explain Herculeah’s behavior. It was almost scary the way she was avoiding him, as if he had some terrible illness.

  Suddenly, Chico Jones was coming down the steps, down the sidewalk.

  “Not there,” Chico Jones said.

  “‘And nobody’s seen her?”

  “No, but the superintendent heard someone in the apartment during the night.” Chico Jones turned his head to Meat. “So. What happened last night?”

  “I was at Funny Bonz—that’s a comedy club—and I went to the bathroom.”

  “What time?” “A little after seven. And there was a dead body in one of the stalls. It fell forward into the room.”

  “You’re sure the person was dead?”

  “She wasn’t moving.”

  “Did you feel for a pulse?”

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  “See any blood?”

  “No.”

  “And what? You went back to the room where the class was being held?”

  Meat felt that Chico Jones wasn’t asking his usual sharp questions. It was as if something had distracted him.

  “Yes, and I told Mike—”

  Mike Howard.“ Another turn through the mental Rolodex.

  “Yes, Mike Howard. I told him I’d found a dead body and he went and checked it out and came back and said there wasn’t anyone there. He claimed it was an April Fools’ joke. Another person went to the rest room later and didn’t see anything either.”

  “Well, I’ll check it out, Meat.”

  “Will you let me know what you find? Herculeah probably won’t tell me anything. She’s avoiding me these days.”

  He watched Chico Jones closely to see his reaction. Chico Jones gave him another of those sympathetic looks that Meat didn’t care for.

  “You’ll be the first to know,” he said cheerfully.

  Meat got out of the car. He waited for Chico to start the motor, but he didn’t. He leaned out and said, “Go on home, Meat. Herculeah’s got something she wants to talk to you about.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll let her do the honors.”

  And Chico Jones drove away.

  He knows what it is, Meat thought, and it’s bad news. It’s such bad news that he couldn’t even tell me, and that’s part of a policeman’s training—to tell people bad news.

  Everybody knows what the bad news is but me.

  14

  UNCLUCKY SEVEN

  When Chico Jones’s police car had rounded the corner and was out of sight, Meat sighed. Well, there was nothing to do now but go home and hear the bad news.

  He looked up at the house, and his hand covered his back pocket. The wallet. He should have given it to Chico Jones. It was the only real evidence he had. But somehow he wasn’t ready to give it up. It was his excuse for asking questions, for solving the mystery.

  As Meat watched, a face appeared in one of the upstairs windows. The face disappeared at once, as if someone had ducked out of sight.

  Marcie Mullet? Meat thought. Could she have hidden from Chico Jones? That was everyone’s first instinct—to hide from a policeman. Well, she might not hide from him, Meat. After all, he had something that belonged to her.

  He went quickly up the walkway to the house. He opened the front door, which wasn’t locked, and peered into the lobby. No one was there.

  Slowly he mounted the stairs, taking them one by one. He felt as if he were doing something illegal, but, he told himself, he was just going up to see if Marcie Mullet was home because, see, he had her wallet and wanted to return it.

  The door to apartment seven was open. Meat stuck his head inside.

  “Marcie?” he called. “Miss Mullet?” That was better.

  The man he and Herculeah had met last night said, “She’s gone. A policeman was just here and I opened the door for him. I have a key. And look at the place.”

  The room was a mess—clothes everywhere. Meat took in the display in silence. He was genuinely shocked, not just at the tumble of clothing but at the size of the garments. There were bras capable of holding two melons, and skirts like collapsed tents. He forced himself to look away and up at the man.

  “Did she always keep her room like this?” Meat asked.

  “I wouldn’t know. This is the first time I’ve been inside.”

  “But you know her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “What?”

  “Was she—” he glanced at the bra—“was she a ... large girl?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  He glanced around the room again. “Maybe somebody broke in and was looking for something and tore the place up.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Well, if you see her—”

  “That’s not likely.”

  “I know, but if you do, tell her I’ve got her wallet.”

&
nbsp; “What’s your name?”

  “Meat McMannis.”

  The man pulled the door to, locked it, and paused. “I heard somebody in here last night—late. It didn’t sound like her—lots of fast movement. I thought maybe it was that boyfriend of hers—the funny one.”

  “Funny how?” Meat asked. “I mean, funny ha-ha or funny weird?”

  The man gave it some thought.

  “Both,” he said.

  After that, Meat went back down the steps and out into the sunlight. He didn’t want to go home, because there wasn’t anything to do there but hear the bad news from Herculeah.

  He decided to walk past Funny Bonz. He wouldn’t go inside—just stroll past.

  To reinforce the decision, he said to himself, “I will not go inside. No matter how tempted I am, I will not go inside.”

  The first time he passed the building, he gave it a glancing look. It appeared empty. He walked to the corner and crossed the street. This time he paused to put his foot on a fire hydrant, check his shoelaces, and take a better look.

  No lights were on. Nobody was there.

  “It wouldn’t hurt,” he said to himself, “to just see if the alley door is locked.”

  He crossed the street and went up the darkened alley. There was something about the alley that filled him with dread. “If I were Herculeah, my hair would be frizzling.”

  He paused at the door. “I will not go inside. No matter how tempted I am, I will not go inside.”

  As he spoke sternly to himself, his hand, moving as if on its own, reached out and turned the doorknob.

  15

  THE MESSAGE

  For the past hour Herculeah had been steeling herself to face Meat and show him the pictures. It helped her to remember what her father had said.

  “You have to show him the pictures, hon. You don’t have any choice.”

  “But, Dad, he thinks of his father as this tremendous person.”

  “Well,” her father nodded at the pictures in Herculeah’s hands, “he’s tremendous, all right.”

  “Oh, Dad, don’t try to be funny. Help me.”

  “Herculeah, you’ve always told me that the most important thing to Meat was knowing who his father is.”

  “But—”

  “You told me he went to Madame Rosa to have her try and find him.”

  “All Madame Rosa told him was she saw shoes.”

  Again he indicated the snapshots. “There you go.”

  Herculeah looked down at the shoes in the pictures and grimaced.

  “And he went to have his dad’s handwriting analyzed. Herculeah, your best friend is frantic for word of his father, and you have not got the right to keep it from him.”

  She went through the pictures one more time, then put them facedown on the table. She started for the front door.

  The message light on the answering machine was blinking. Herculeah crossed the room and punched Play, even though she might have been stalling for time.

  The message was from Meat.

  “Herculeah, I’m going back to Broadview to look for Marcie Mullet. If you don’t want to come with me, fine! I’ll go alone. Good-bye.”

  He had to be back by now, she thought. Squaring her shoulders, she crossed the street and rang the bell.

  Mrs. McMannis opened the door. “Can Meat come over to my house?” Herculeah asked. “I’ve got something to show him.”

  “Meat’s not here.”

  “Oh.”

  “He went out a little while ago and hasn’t come back. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mrs. McMannis gave her a suspicious look. “I think you do.”

  Herculeah shrugged. She could feel Mrs. Mac’s sharp eyes watching her as she crossed the street. At the steps to her house, Herculeah paused.

  Meat might be at Marcie Mullet’s apartment right now, she thought. What if my dad got an urgent call and Meat’s there alone? What if the murderer’s there? Meat could be in real trouble.

  She thought of the photos inside.

  “Double trouble,” she said.

  16

  A B0DY IN THE CLOSET

  Herculeah tried the front door of Funny Bonz. It was locked.

  She knew Meat was inside.

  She knocked at the door. “Meat?”

  No answer.

  The man at the apartment had told her that Meat had left there over a half hour ago. He had not gone home, so he must have come here.

  And, Herculeah reminded himself, Meat was not the kind of person who could take care of himself in a scary situation, not the way she could.

  She peered through the glass beside the door. She could see nothing. She thought she heard voices. She knocked again. “Is anybody there?”

  No answer.

  She remembered a side entrance—Meat had said something about a door on the alley.

  Moving quickly, she skirted the building and turned into the alley. The walls of the buildings on either side were so covered with spray paint and graffiti that they were a tangle of letters. Only an occasional word leaped out at her—“Spider” ... “Zippo” ... “Beware of” ...

  The Dumpster at the end of the alley had been spray-painted too, so that it blended into the background, almost camouflaged.

  Her steps slowed as she approached the door. Her hair had begun to frizzle.

  She turned the doorknob. The door opened quietly—she had almost expected it to creak. Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside.

  Herculeah moved silently up the few steps and stood in the hall. Suddenly she heard voices to the left.

  Herculeah glanced around. Her hair had doubled in size now and she knew she didn’t want to be found here in this dark hall.

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw a door. JANITOR, the sign said. Herculeah opened it and slipped inside.

  It was a closet of cleaning supplies. Herculeah stood there, scarcely breathing, and when she did, she almost choked on the menthol smell of urinal cakes and damp dry-mops and kerosene rags.

  Now the voices were closer. Two people were coming down the hall. Men.

  Herculeah could make out what they were saying.

  “You mean the body’s still here? You didn’t get rid of it?”

  “I thought it was gone. Man, you have a dead body on your hands and then it’s gone, you don’t go looking for it. I thought I was in the clear.”

  “If I’m gonna help, I gotta know what’s going on.”

  “Right. Last night some kid goes to the john and comes back. This is a funny kid, but not intentionally. He walks out on the stage. His face was like this.”

  Herculeah knew he was probably twisting his face, Jim Carrey-like, into Meat’s. The other man gave a short, reluctant laugh, as if he couldn’t help himself.

  “The kid goes, ‘There’s a girl in the men’s bathroom.’”

  The voice was so like Meat’s that Herculeah was glad he wasn’t here to hear it.

  “The class starts grinning. They, me, everybody, we think he’s doing a routine. Then he goes, ‘And she’s dead.’ Everybody’s looking at everybody else to see if they got it. They think they’ve missed something.

  “Anyway, I go back, check the rest room out and, man, there really is a body. It’s a kid was in my class last time, back for more—thinks he’s ready for the big time.”

  “And?”

  “And, okay, I panicked, there’s no other word for it, and my adrenaline was pumping so fast. I got that body out of there and into the closet in minutes. Okay, I should have called the police, but the last thing I need right now is a dead body in the bathroom. I got enough dead bodies sitting in the audience every night. And this club has got to work. I owe money to people you do not want to owe money to—so I got the body out of there.”

  “And?”

  “And I hid it.”

  Herculeah swallowed. The men’s voices were just outside the janitor’s door now.

  “Where?”

  “The firs
t place I could find.”

  There was a silence, and in that awful moment, Herculeah imagined the men’s faces turning to the janitor’s closet. Her blood froze. They were going to open the door and find not a dead body but her.

  Then the realization hit with the force of a hammer. They would find her and the body. The body was here. In the closet with her.

  It had to be on the floor behind her. Not again! she thought with growing horror. The body she’d found at Dead Oaks had left her with a dread of it ever happening again. She began to tremble.

  She remembered now that in that brief moment before she closed the closet door, she had been aware of something. It hadn’t registered then—perhaps it had been some clothes on a coatrack or some old cleaning rags. She hadn’t paid much attention.

  She should have.

  Now she knew the truth. There was a dead body in those clothes.

  She felt a scream building within her.

  Yes, she thought. Yes! She would scream, burst open the door, dash past the startled men, and be outside before they could stop her.

  Before she could put the plan into effect, a hand from the back of the closet reached out and clamped over her mouth.

  17

  PHONE CALL

  Herculeah remained in a state of shock. The hand was still across her mouth as the conversation in the hall continued.

  “Yeah, the closet. It was the nearest hiding place. So I get through the class somehow and I come back here and I open the closet. Man, the body’s gone. I mean, ‘I ain’t got nobody!’” He burst into song. “‘How lucky can you get?’” Another song.

  Then he got serious. “I figure whoever killed the guy came back and removed the body or maybe I dreamed it or maybe—hey, it’s April Fool.

  “Then thirty minutes ago I go out to the Dumpster and—yeah, somebody had moved the body, but not far enough. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Herculeah waited, trembling, until the men’s voices disappeared down the steps and out into the alley. In a burst of fright and energy, she thrust open the door.