Abel Baker Charley

by John R. Maxim

  Levy stifled a yawn. “For starters, judge,” he said, scratching his thinning head, “the guy's wife is dead. I think he knows from grief.”

  “His daughter isn't dead.”

  “Your kid isn't either.”

  “My son has no face.” Bellafonte's voice tightened and shook. “Baker's daughter has a face.”

  Stanley Levy shut his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them, he glanced back at Vinnie Cuneo and touched a finger to his temple. Vinnie sat up straight and locked his eyes on the back of the judge's head.

  “Judge Bellafonte,” Stanley asked quietly, “what is it that you are asking of us?”

  “Justice,” he said, spraying spittle with the word.

  “You want us to carve up the kid's face?”

  ”I want justice.”

  Stanley folded his hands on his lap and smiled. “That nice little girl?” he asked. “Who never bothered anybody? You want us to turn out her lights like that would be an even payment for whatever happened to that little fucker of yours?”

  The older man stiffened and shook as if shocked by a bolt of current. He spun fully to face Levy, his expression twisted between disbelief and fury. “You . . . you little kike,” he blurted as his right hand flew up and his palm slashed down toward Stanley's cheek. He saw the blur of Levy's hand rising up to block it and he saw an object in the hand, but he ignored it. His own hand stopped short of its mark against something that was not flesh. He could not see in the dark. It was a small object, the pressure against his palm told him. What he felt was no bigger than a coin. But it stung him. It pricked at his palm and it burned the back of his hand, and now the prickling was turning into a deeper ache that rolled across his wrist and sent currents of pain up his forearm. He tried to pull his hand away, but a bolt shot to his shoulder. His mind turned from Stanley Levy and the insult and tried to focus through the darkness on what was hurting him, gripping his hand, paralyzing it, forcing it down and away from Levy's face and pressing it flat against the dashboard.

  Stanley reached for the dome light and turned it on. He wanted the judge to see. He also wanted to see if the judge was making a mess.

  Bellafonte blinked his eyes in disbelief. He saw his own convulsing hand pinned like a bug to the padded dashboard. He saw single drops of blood as they fell away, and he saw the rest as it coursed over his wrist and began soaking his white cuff. And he saw the ice pick that was doing this. “This way you're behaving,” Stanley asked softly. “What would your mother say about behaving this way?”

  In the back seat, Vinnie tensed. There he goes with his mother shit again. He felt a chill. It was the only time he was afraid of Stanley Levy.

  ”I asked you a question.” Levy's eyes bored into the judge, who could only stare in return, barely able to believe that this was happening. “Tell me,” Stanley persisted. “Tell me what your mother would say if she knew you wanted to hurt some little girl or that you were going to smack a small person like me. Tell me if she would like you using words like kike. She wouldn't like that, would she? She'd tell you to say you're sorry.”

  Bellafonte was almost sober now. But he was half in shock. “You did this,” he whispered, “to me?” This last part was louder. He drew in a breath and Stanley knew that the next sound would be a scream. He nodded to Cuneo and pointed to the judge's neck. Cuneo punched him there and the scream became a squawk.

  “Are you going to tell me you're sorry?” Levy asked him.

  His eyes glazed, Bellafonte scanned the outside darkness for help. Forgetting his hand, he tugged at it, and the pain made him shriek. “You're insane,” he gasped finally. ”Tortora will…”

  Stanley brushed aside the irrelevancy. “Your mother's passed on, hasn't she?” he asked gently. “That's too bad. I would have asked my mother to go see her and they would have talked. That would have been good. It would have been a way for you and me to understand each other better.”

  Only a part of the judge's mind heard Stanley's words. The rest was on his quivering hand and what was being done to him. This outrage. This incomprehensible assault upon his person . . . upon the person of Justice Lawrence Bellafonte. First Baker had laid hands upon him and now this ...thing. But he must humor him. He must humor this little maniac until he could get away from him. He would go to a phone and he would tell Domenic Tortora what the crazy Jew had done. No, he thought. He would not call Tortora. Not yet. First, he would call another number. And after the daughter screamed like his son screamed, then he would call Tortora. Tortora would understand. And then someday this man too would scream.

  Bellafonte's eyes betrayed him. Stanley knew that this man would never be reasonable. Better he should be with his mother.

  Tina had been dreaming.

  They weren't bad dreams, exactly. It was more that they were confusing. A whole bunch of little bits and pieces with good parts and not so good parts all mixed together. Most of it was about her father. He was in the building someplace. She knew that. And he was talking to Dr. Bruggerman about her leg and about reconstruction and stainless steel screws and therapy and cosmetic surgery. Part of it, the heel, would always be numb. She didn't mind that so much as long as it wasn't tingly. Tingly is much worse than numb. And her father seemed to feel okay about what Dr. Bruggerman was saying except he thought the doctor was a little bit afraid of him. And at the same time, like through another ear, she could hear things being said about her father that weren't so good. Tina knew that she was remembering the radio, mostly. The radio was talking about what her father had done to that man until the nurse came in and pretended to want to talk about her daughter who Tina kind of knew at junior high, but what she really wanted to do was turn off the radio.

  The really confusing stuff, she thought, was not from one ear or the other but from someplace in between. It wasn't like thinking and it wasn't like remembering. It was more like seeing and hearing. For instance, she knew that a man was talking about her father and the man was with that judge she didn't like. Then all of a sudden, the man was talking about her. Like he liked her. But then the man talking became an old woman talking and then switched back again. It was all dumb like that. Except she didn't have to be afraid of that judge. She didn't have to be afraid of anything. Because whenever she started to feel afraid, or to really start to miss Mom, all of a sudden there'd be her new grandpa smiling at her and spinning that little blue thing that made her feel yummy sleepy. She could almost see it. Ooops! Daddy's coming.

  Tina rubbed her eyes awake. She pressed the button that elevated the top of her bed and made her hospital smock as neat as she could. She'd be glad to get rid of it as soon as Daddy got here with her own stuff. Tina straightened her hair with her fingers, then squeezed a bit of toothpaste into her mouth and swished it around with water. She sat back and watched the door.

  “Hi, Daddy,” she called before she even saw him.

  She got him to smile after a while. He'd come in smiling, of course, but it was the kind of smile you put on right outside the door instead of just letting it happen. She told him the joke about the world's greatest pass receiver who was walking past this building and everyone recognized him and yelled for him to catch this baby who was hanging from a top-floor window. And he was afraid to try but everyone told him he had to, being the world's greatest pass receiver and all, and how he finally ran and caught the baby and everybody cheered and he was all happy and he did a little dance holding the baby up above his head and then he spiked it. Her dad laughed out loud. It was really kind of a gross story, but it was funny.

  Then after a while they watched a re-run of M*A*S*H, and he was laughing because Klinger had a nightgown that looked just like the one he brought for her. He brought three. He got all embarrassed when she took off the hospital gown right in front of him and he kept his head turned. For pete's sake. He also brought more underwear and her own shampoo and toothbrush. He brought some flowers that he picked from the yard and put them on the windowsill with the flowers her class sent and
the ones from Mrs. Carey and the plant from Mrs. Willis with the little rabbit family in it. And he brought her schoolbooks and her C. S. Lewis stories, lots of writing paper, and her scrapbook. From her wall, there was her cat poster, her Miss Piggy poster, and especially her autographed picture of Tanner Burke and the other one with Tanner handing her her trophy. He didn't bring any pictures of himself or Mom. He said he couldn't find them, she thought, but he probably just left them behind so they wouldn't make me cry. They wouldn't. Not now. It was nice to have Tanner Burke, though.

  “Daddy?” He was on the bed with her, one arm around her shoulder. Tina looked up at his face. “Daddy, will they try to put you in jail?”

  He squeezed her. “It'll work out, honey.”

  “You think they'll try, don't you?”

  He didn't answer, but she felt a thump inside him. They would try. She knew that. And she knew that he would hurt them if they tried. Tina knew that too but she didn't know how. And she knew that he wouldn't want to hurt them. He just would. It would be much better if they didn't try. If they couldn't try.

  “You could go away,” she said.

  “No.” He squeezed her again.

  “Just until I'm better. I really think you should go someplace and fix it up for when I can come. Even if it takes a long time.” Tina's own words surprised her when they came. Most of her hated that idea. Most of her didn't even want him to go away until morning. But a part, the part in the in between, thought that going away was the best and the smartest and even the happiest idea of all. She thought of the blue spinning thing.

  Baker heard sirens halfway home. They snapped him out of his thoughts. He'd been dwelling on his own sorrows and on the lonely and frightening maze that was his future. Other people had their troubles, the sirens reminded him. Sirens at night always meant misery for somebody.

  He turned off the Post Road. A police car passed him, going his way.

  Baker's right eye began to water.

  He turned left across the tracks and onto Summit Road. Now he could see the flashing glow of strobe lights blinking like fireflies across the night sky. They were on his street. He knew they were at his house. Baker coasted past Spruce Street. There were four police cars that he could see and several others that were unmarked. An ambulance had just arrived. In the brief flash of a photographer's bulb, he thought he saw a man sitting in a chair in the middle of his lawn.

  He turned right onto the next street and parked the car. Then he walked to a dark connecting street at the end of which stood his house. Sam Willis's driveway was on his right. Staying to the shadows, he ducked into it. He could see Sam and Peg on his front lawn talking to two policemen. Peg seemed to be shivering, although the night was not cold. Baker saw her say some words to the police, both of whom nodded, and she moved away toward her front door. Now Baker saw the sitting man again. He seemed to be praying. His palms were pressed together as if they'd been clamped and his face was bent skyward. Baker could see only his throat and the line of his chin. It occurred to him that no neck could bend like that. He knew he was looking at a corpse.

  Baker heard kitchen sounds. He backed away from the edge of the Willis house and turned the corner, quickly mounting the two concrete steps to Peg Willis's kitchen door. She jumped at his tap but turned and opened the door without first looking through the curtains.

  “Jared?” Backing away, she forced a smile. But Baker had already seen the fear. “Jared, where have you been?”

  “At the hospital,” he answered. “Peg, what's going on over there?”

  Now he saw surprise, then doubt, then a new rush of fear. She glanced toward both doors but did not move. “Jared,” she said, keeping her voice level, ”I think you better go talk to the police.”

  “Damn it, Peg ...” He moved toward her but a hand shot to her mouth. “Hey,” he asked, “what are you going to do? Scream? What's the matter with you, Peg?”

  “What's the matter with . . . Jared, did you kill that man or didn't you?” Peg Willis was about to cry.

  Baker waved both hands in a gesture of exasperation. “What man? Who the hell are you talking about?”

  “That judge. The kid's father.” She waved a hand in the general direction of his front yard.

  “Bellafonte? The old man?” Baker wanted to run to a front window and look again. But he knew it was true. And he knew that Peg Willis would run from him if he gave her the room. Wait a minute. Peg. Peg couldn't possibly believe that he would . . . “Peg.” His voice, he knew, was almost pleading. “Peg, I've been in the hospital since fifteen minutes ago. And the hospital was the last place I saw that judge.”

  “Tell the police, Jared.” Peg Willis wiped her eyes and folded her arms tightly across her chest. She could not look at him. “Please go out now and tell the police.”

  He wanted to hold her. He wanted to take her by the arms and make her look into his eyes and tell him why she was so afraid. Instead he asked, “Can you really believe that I would murder an old man and then sit him on my lawn, for Christ's sake?”

  “Someone saw you, Jared.” She looked at the floor.

  “Someone . .. Who saw what?” he stammered.

  ”I don't know who. The police got an anonymous call.” The tears came freely now. “Oh, Jared, what happened to Sarah and Tina has made you sick, that's all. Anybody would have snapped under such a . . ”

  His hands did take her arms and she squealed. “Don't touch me, Jared!”

  Baker backed off and could only stare. She was terrified of him, but he saw more than that. He saw the agony of a woman with whom he'd laughed and at whose table he'd eaten fighting against the belief that he could be some sort of maniac and losing that fight. She was so sorry, her eyes told him. But much more, she wanted him away from her.

  Baker backed out the door.

  He would go to the police. He would tell them he could not have done this. He was at the hospital. Ask Tina. Ask Dr. Bruggerman. The duty nurse too. And the one who came in with Tina's pill. How could two people have seen him?

  Baker realized that he was walking away from his house. Away from the police. He walked faster.

  And that crazy judge. He wasn't there when I left. I'd remember. I remember everything that happened. I took a shower first. Then I got a shopping bag and started gathering Tina's things. And I looked for the pictures and couldn't find any, even the ones I knew were up on Sarah's dresser, but I saw all her things there and started to cry and just lay down on the bed for a few minutes until the dreams woke me up. The dreams. The judge was in the dreams.

  Baker reached his car.

  The judge and someone else, and the judge was hating and then the judge got hit and couldn't move. Who else was there? My God, not me. It couldn't have been me. It was a dream.

  The car turned around, and once again it passed the end of his street. He saw policemen running to the Willis house.

  He could straighten it out, he thought. But not now. Not when everything was so confused and so many people were afraid. Peg Willis. The doctor. The nurse. Damn it! Who do they think I am, the Wolfman? Who did I ever hurt except that kid?

  Baker climbed onto the thruway. A sob rose in his throat.

  “Tina?” he whispered.

  And she whispered back that it was all right.

  Baker knew that he must be insane.

  At Exit 3, he looked off into the dark hills to his right where the hospital was. He sped past. Tears streamed down his cheeks and he knew he was crazy. Sane people didn't hear voices. Sane people didn't see things happening that they couldn't possibly know. Sane people didn't climb into cars and run and have a part of them crying like this and have another part that was .... happy. Excited.

  There was a toll gate ahead. Baker swung into the automatic lane and reached for the change in his pocket. He rubbed the wetness from one eye with the back of his hand and fed in the coins. He felt the keys in his hand. Sonnenberg's keys. A car behind him honked and he moved through the raised gate. He must be cr
azy, he thought again, and once more wiped the moisture from his left eye. His right eye wasn't tearing. His right eye was shining.

  5

  Tanner Burke pushed open the door of her small suite on the Plaza's fifteenth floor and took several steps across the gold carpet of the sitting room. She turned to see Baker still in the corridor. He stood shuffling uncomfortably as he had while she reclaimed her key from the message desk. The prim little night manager had arched an eyebrow at her dishevelment and then at the rather furtive man whose jacket she was wearing. Then, as now, Tanner was afraid he would bolt. He seemed to be sniffing the air and listening. She didn't know whether he reminded her more of a skittish animal or of a timid teenager at the end of his first date.

  “It's all right to come in, Harry,” she said.

  He looked away. “It's late, Tanner. I really have to go.”

  She shook her head. “And that's another thing,” she said. ”I refuse to call you Harry. You don't look like a Harold and you're not a Harold. I'll call you Peter. That name is at least possible for you.” One hand went to her hip. “Now, Peter, will you come in here please?”

  Baker had to smile. And he had to admire her. In fact, he realized, this was his first good look at her. She was smaller than he remembered. It must have been the ski clothes and thick-soled boots. But she was lovelier, if anything, even with the purplish swelling on her cheek and the bits of dried leaf in her hair that the night man had noticed. He'd like to have stayed. But no, he thought. Baker shrugged apologetically and shook his head.

  First there was confusion in her eyes and then what looked like hurt. Tiredly, she brought both hands to the sides of her face and took a breath.

  “This might sound a bit conceited,” she said, her voice starting to catch, “but do you hang around actresses so much that it's old stuff when one invites you into her hotel room?”

  “Nope.” Baker tried to lighten the moment. “Skiers are old stuff, maybe. But not actresses.”