School Days

by Robert B. Parker

  “What’s that supposed to mean,” the big guy said.

  “Makes you look more dangerous,” I said. “You squint up, like this, and you say, ‘I’m talking to you, pal.’ No emphasis on any of the words, you know. Scares the shit out of people.”

  “Jesus, mister, don’t fuck with Animal,” the red-headed kid said.

  “Animal needs to be fucked with,” I said, “about once a day.”

  Animal walked at me with his fists chest-high and tried to kick me in the groin. He was ferocious but slow. I turned away from the kick and hit him a straight left on the nose. The nose broke and began to bleed. I didn’t want this to take long, because I didn’t want Pearl to get scared and run off. I hit him with a flurry of lefts and rights while he was still trying to get over the initial pop on the schnozzle. He took a couple of steps backward, trying to cover up, trying to regroup. I put my hands on his shoulders and spun him and put my foot in the small of his back and shoved, and he stumbled and slid down the hill and fell in the lake.

  I looked around. Pearl was about thirty feet away in a full, belly-scraping cower. I went over to her and squatted down beside her and put an arm around her.

  “Okay,” I said. “All over. Okay.”

  She sniffed at my mouth.

  “Okay,” I said.

  She gave me a lap on the nose. I stood, keeping one hand on her neck, patting her. The silence around the Rocks was vast. I could still smell the weed, but I heard nothing. At the foot of the hill, Animal was sitting in the lake trying to splash water on his face. The blood from his nose was seeping pink through his hands.

  “Jesus,” the red-haired kid said.

  “I’m looking for information,” I said, “about Wendell Grant.”

  “I never seen anything like that.”

  I was still pumped, and it made me a little brusque.

  “Care to see it again?” I said. “Throw something at the dog.”

  Nobody said anything. At the foot of the hill, Animal sat in the water. He wasn’t splashing water on his nose anymore. He was simply sitting, slumped in the water, his reputation in ruins about him.

  “Wendell close with anyone in the group.”

  Nobody spoke.

  “Anybody got any idea why he might have shot up the school?”

  Silence.

  “Or where he got the guns?”

  Silence. The three girls got up as if they were one. They were in full costume. A lot of hair. A lot of makeup. Cropped T-shirts that stopped well above the navel. Low-rider pants that barely covered the pubic bone.

  “I’m sorry I threw something at your dog,” one of them said. “I like dogs.”

  “You Animal’s girlfriend?” I said.

  “We all are,” she said. “Can I pat your dog?”

  “No.”

  They all three shrugged at almost the same time and moved away. Seeing the group diminish, the red-haired kid got to his feet.

  “I gotta go, man,” he said.

  I took out a card and gave it to him.

  “You think of anything, call me,” I said. “You might as well get the reward as anyone.”

  “Reward?”

  I nodded. He looked at my card and put it in the back pocket of his jeans and walked away. The rest of the kids left. At the bottom of the hill, Animal sat alone in the water. I stared down at him for a while, then I looked at Pearl, who was exploring where the kids had been sitting, in case they had left edible refuse. She was not successful, but there was no quit in her. She coursed back and forth among the rocks, exploring all possibilities. Hot on the trail of nothing much.

  Like me.

  After a while I said to no one in particular, “Okay.”

  Pearl looked up.

  “Okay,” I said again.

  I jerked my head for her to follow and started down the hill.

  24

  I SAT AT THE water’s edge on a small rock. Pearl moved along the edge of the lake, looking for frogs. Animal sat with his back to me, not moving, not saying anything.

  “Three girlfriends,” I said. “Way to go, Animal.”

  He didn’t answer. His head was down, his hands resting lightly over his broken nose, sheltering it, not quite touching it.

  “Put ice on it,” I said. “I’ve had, I think, eight broken noses. They heal.”

  His head was forward on his chest. He didn’t answer.

  “You’re going to be a tough guy, you need to be a lot quicker.”

  He didn’t move.

  “Or pick someone you can scare.”

  Nothing.

  “They’ll forget it,” I said. “You can reestablish. Slap one of those asshole kids around and they’ll think you’re heroic again.”

  “I ain’t forgetting it,” he said in a thick voice.

  “No, probably shouldn’t. Make it a learning experience.”

  He stared at the pinkish lake water between his knees. His nose still dripped blood.

  “I got connections,” he said. “This ain’t the end of it.”

  “You the candy man?” I said.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Yeah, ’course you are,” I said. “You’re the one sells them dope.”

  He shook his head. It hurt. He stopped.

  “You could probably get them a gun, too, they needed it,” I said.

  He was still.

  “I’m not a cop,” I said. “I’m only interested in Wendell Grant and the Clark kid.”

  He didn’t speak.

  “You sell them any guns?”

  Silence. To my right, Pearl kicked up a frog from the growth at the water’s edge, and it bounded ten feet out into the lake, with Pearl bounding right behind it.

  “What’s your name?” I said.

  He didn’t answer.

  Pearl put her head underwater and pulled it out, but she’d missed the frog. She swam in circles, looking for it.

  I said, “If I have to stand you up and take your wallet and look at your ID, it’ll start your nose bleeding again and probably hurt. What’s your name.”

  “Yang,” he said.

  “First or last?”

  “Last.”

  “What’s your first name? “

  “Luis.”

  “Luis Yang.”

  “Yes.”

  Pearl swam one more circle and gave up and came back into shore and began rummaging in the waterweeds again.

  “Emergency room can clean that thing up and pack it for you. Maybe give you some pain pills.”

  Animal didn’t move or speak or look at me. I stood up.

  “Don’t take aspirin,” I said. “It’ll make it bleed more.”

  Then I made a little chuck sound to Pearl, and she and I went back up the hill.

  25

  IT WAS SATURDAY. Lee Farrell had come to spend the day with Pearl. This made Pearl happy because she liked Farrell, and he would almost certainly overfeed her.

  So I was back in Dowling alone, sitting at a table on the sidewalk outside Coffee Nut in the bright morning with a large cup of coffee, cream, two sugars. The girl who had worn the pink top came by and saw me and sat down with me. Her top was white today. And her short pleated skirt was tan.

  “Janey, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Can I buy you some coffee?”

  “Black,” she said.

  I went in and got some and brought it back. She lit a cigarette.

  “I heard you had a fight with Animal,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “I heard you threw him in the lake,” she said.

  “He fell in the lake.”

  “They said you, like, creamed him,” she said.

  I smiled.

  “I won the fight,” I said.

  She stared at me.

  “Everyone is scared of Animal,” she said. “The football players, everybody.”

  “He’s pretty scary,” I said.

  “He’s a perv,” Janey said. “They’re all pervs o
ut there at the Rocks anyway.”

  I nodded. She kept looking at me.

  “What’s the perviest thing they do?” I said.

  “All the girls have to, like, have sex with Animal,” she said.

  “Or what?”

  “Or they can’t hang out.”

  “Do they have any other boyfriends?” I said.

  “If Animal says.”

  “How do you know so much about this?” I said.

  “One of the girls went to junior high with me. I see her sometimes.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “It’s really Annette George,” Janey said. “But everybody calls her George.”

  “Was she there when I had the fight with Animal?” I said.

  “Yuh.” Janey giggled. “She threw the stone at your dog.”

  “You suppose we could talk with her?” I said.

  “You and me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sure, I guess so,” Janey said. “I could call her.”

  “Why don’t you,” I said.

  Janey took a cell phone out of her purse and dialed. I went to get us two more coffees. I bought us some doughnuts, too. Balanced nutrition.

  “She’ll meet us at the mall in an hour,” Janey said.

  “Melwood Mall?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not here.”

  “God no.”

  “You don’t want to be seen with her,” I said.

  Janey shrugged.

  “Or she with you,” I said.

  Janey nodded.

  “Or me,” I said.

  Janey nodded more vigorously.

  “Of course,” I said.

  We drank some coffee.

  “How come you could like beat up Animal so easy?” Janey said.

  “Purity of heart,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure?”

  “What are you talking about?” Janey said.

  “I rarely know.”

  “Seriously, how come? I mean Animal is . . .” She spread her hands; words failed her in the face of Animal’s prowess.

  “It’s what I do,” I said.

  “Beat people up?”

  I shrugged.

  “Like everything else,” I said. “It helps to know how.”

  “And you know how?”

  “I used to be a fighter,” I said.

  “You mean a boxer. Like whatsisname Lennox something?”

  “Yeah. That kind,” I said.

  “Jesus,” she said. “Is that why your nose is like that.”

  “Thanks for noticing,” I said.

  “Were you ever a champion or anything?”

  “No,” I said.

  “But you’re still, like, ah, good.”

  “You been a fighter,” I said, “and you stay in shape, you don’t lose that many fights outside the ring.”

  “You don’t seem like a mean guy,” Janey said.

  “I don’t?”

  “No. You seem kind of nice.”

  “Damn,” I said. “I’ll have to work on that.”

  Janey nodded. Some kids drove by in a red Jeep Wrangler with the top down. They honked. She waved. She was with a celebrity. The guy who threw Animal Yang into the lake.

  26

  YOU COULD BE in a mall in the food court and you could have no idea where in this great republic you might be. Same cuisine. Same décor. Same clientele. It was comforting. Anywhere in America, you could count on the same fried rice, the same cheese steaks, the same slice of pizza. We met George at a table near the souvlaki stand. She was enjoying a large Diet Coke and a cigarette. She didn’t look at me when we sat down.

  “Hi, Janey,” she said.

  Janey said, “Hi.”

  “Remember me?” I said.

  George nodded. She had changed clothes, but the look was the same. Cropped T-shirt, low pants. Her eyes were slathered with dark makeup, and her lips with dark gloss. She had silver rings on all her fingers. And her nails were painted black.

  “Have you seen Animal?” I said.

  She shook her head.

  “Tell me a little about him,” I said.

  George looked at Janey.

  “He’s an okay guy,” Janey said. “You know? You can, like, talk to him. He won’t tell.”

  George nodded and looked back at me.

  “Whatcha want to know?” she said.

  “Animal get you dope?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Mostly, like, weed,” she said. “But whatever you want, you tell him, he gets it for you.”

  “Know where he gets it?”

  “Some gang in Boston, I think,” George said. “I think it’s his brother’s gang.”

  “Know the name of the gang?” I said.

  “No.”

  “Wendell Grant hang with you guys?” I said.

  “Some.”

  George stubbed out her cigarette and lit another one. She had a thin face. Under the makeup were dim traces of acne scarring.

  “Dell do any dope?” I said.

  “He was, like, heavy-duty,” she said. “Coke, meth, lots of stuff.”

  “He get it from Animal?”

  “Yeah, ’course. You get stuff around the Rocks, you get it from Animal.”

  “Dell tight with Animal.”

  “Nobody was tight with Animal. He is the Man, you know? I mean, everybody is scared of him and like, sure Animal, anything you say, Animal.”

  “King of the Rocks,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Animal ever have a gun?” I said.

  George looked at Janey again.

  “I’m telling you,” Janey said. “He’s okay.”

  She was right, of course, but I wondered how she knew that. Probably didn’t matter. I was now a celebrity and, more important, at this moment, I was her celebrity.

  “Yeah, he had a gun. Him and Dell, like, used to shoot guns sometimes.”

  “What kind of guns?” I said.

  “Little ones. You know . . . like . . . handguns!”

  “Did you see what kind of handgun?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Just, like, a gun you hold in your hand and go bang bang.”

  “Square-looking or kind of round.”

  “Square, I guess.”

  “Shoot a lot of times without stopping?” I said.

  “I guess.”

  “What did they shoot at?”

  “Bottles, and boxes and stuff. Sometimes they’d find a stray cat and, like, shoot at it.”

  “Did Dell have a gun?”

  George shook her head.

  “Animal let him use one of his,” she said.

  “Animal have many guns?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” George said. “I guess he could get them whenever he wanted them.”

  “From his brother?”

  “I guess.”

  “Ever see Jared Clark around there?” I said.

  “Jared? The phantom? No. He’d be too scared.”

  “You scared?”

  “Yeah, of Animal.”

  “But you’re his girlfriend.”

  “Sure. All the girls, you want to hang at the Rocks, you got to fuck Animal.”

  “What would happen if you didn’t?” I said.

  “Nobody, like, doesn’t,” she said. “You don’t, you don’t hang there.”

  “And you got to hang somewhere,” I said.

  “Acourse,” she said.

  27

  “WHAT KIND OF DOG you say she was?” DiBella said.

  “German shorthaired pointer,” I said.

  “And why has she got her head in my wastebasket?”

  “Looking for clues,” I said.

  Pearl straightened from her exploration of DiBella’s wastebasket with an empty yogurt carton in her mouth.

  “See, now we know what you were eating,” I said.

  Pea
rl took the carton to the corner of the office and settled down with it.

  “She gonna eat the fucking carton?” DiBella said.

  “She’ll probably chew it and spit it out,” I said.

  “On my fucking floor?”

  “I’ll pick it up,” I said.

  DiBella watched her for a moment, then looked at me and shook his head slowly.

  “You know how many people come in here with a fucking dog?” he said.

  “None?”

  “That’s right, none.”

  “They’re obviously not fun like me,” I said.

  “And God bless them for it,” DiBella said. “We got nothing on Luis Yang.”

  “How about his brother?”

  “I talked with the gang squad in Boston.”

  “And?”

  “They got nothing on Luis Yang, either,” he said. “But there’s a Jose Yang in a gang called Los Diablos.”

  “Clever name,” I said.

  “Yeah. Gangbangers are always imaginative. Usual stuff—deal dope, run a chop shop, fight other gangs.”

  “Guns?”

  “Yeah. Gang squad says they have guns, probably got a connection. Probably could get more. Probably pretty much anything you wanted.”

  “So,” I said. “Maybe we know where the guns came from.”

  “Maybe,” DiBella said. “We could shake Animal a little, see what came out.”

  “We can always do that,” I said. “If we do it too soon and release him, he’ll be looking for whoever ratted him out, and no one will talk to me again.”

  “You figure Wendell and the Clark kid hooked up somehow, and Grant got the guns from Animal.”

  “Yeah.” I said. “And Animal had taught Grant how to shoot, and, maybe, for whatever reason, Grant taught Clark.”

  “That would make it sort of not spur of the moment,” DiBella said.

  “It would,” I said.

  “No surprise,” DiBella said. “Part of the excitement of something like this is probably the planning and preparation.”

  “So,” I said. “They decide to do the shooting. They buy guns and ammo from Animal. They practice until they’re ready. And off they go.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So,” I said, “assuming Animal didn’t give them the guns and ammo because he’s a generous guy, where’d they get the money?”

  “Families are well off,” DiBella said. “Hell, the Clark family is loaded.”

  “ ‘Hey, Dad, gimme a couple grand to buy guns and ammo’?”

  “Good point,” DiBella said. “Find out when either or both came up with a chunk of cash, and you got an idea when the gun deal went down.”