by Joe Meno
At work that evening, the boy detective sits at his desk, staring at Caroline’s small gold diary. He flips through it for a moment, then picks up the phone and calls his parents.
As the telephone on the other end picks up, he knows immediately it is his father who has answered. He can tell because he recognizes the sounds of his backyard, and from his father’s labored breathing he knows that he has been practicing karate, breaking boards with his bare fists.
“Father … it’s me, Billy.”
“Billy, my boy, how have you been?”
“I … I have some questions I’d like to ask, Dad.”
“Well, sure, of course, of course. What’s the matter, son?”
“Well, I guess I was looking through Caroline’s diary, and there’s a page missing.”
“Didn’t we talk about how that wasn’t a good idea, you ruminating on these kinds of things?”
“Yes, I … I don’t know, I …”
“Well, you know how I feel about you dwelling on the past. Let me ask this: Have you been exercising?”
“No, I mean, I … I was thinking … about Caroline, right before she died.”
“Oh no, Billy, it’s not healthy for you to be still focused on this. Did you read that last book we sent, Grief Is OK?”
“No, no, I can’t read those books anymore. I just need to talk with you about this. I need to know what happened.”
“Well, it’s not a good time. Your mother and I … well …”
At that moment, Billy hears the crackle of electricity and imagines the fizzy tang of test tubes bubbling, as Mrs. Argo suddenly picks up the extension.
“Billy, this is your mother. This is a very bad time, darling.”
“But, I—”
“Your father and I are having a rough time now, dear. We’re talking about getting a divorce. It’s very tense here. He’s out in the backyard breaking boards all day.”
“Well, if I was allowed in the house, but it isn’t my house, is it, darling? I only worked my whole life—”
“Please, listen, I need to speak with you both about this,” Billy says.
“That’s not going to be helpful right now, Billy. Your mother, she’s … she’s contemplating becoming a painter and leaving me for an ambassador from Zaire.”
“But please, listen, I need to know.”
“You’re an adult now, Billy,” his mother says. “Part of being an adult is dealing with the terror of being an adult and not knowing what might happen next. Maybe the doctors misjudged you. Your father and I weren’t quite sure you were ready—”
“Mom, Dad.”
“No, ands, ifs, or buts, Billy. You’ll get through this, champ, I promise. Keep your chin up and sail straight ahead, partner.”
“But Dad—”
“We’ll speak again soon, my boy.”
“Goodbye, Billy.”
Billy hangs up the phone and stares at the diary. He flips through the pages and comes to a page with some clippings pasted on it. There is a photograph of all of them so young—Billy, Caroline, and Fenton—all smiling.
Billy places his finger on top of Fenton, slowly, sadly tapping. He stands, carrying the diary, leaving his desk.
SEVENTEEN
On the bus, the boy detective opens his briefcase, then stares at the closed diary and Caroline’s fingerprint set.
There again is the label which has been perfectly typed and reads, Property of Billy Argo, but the Billy is crossed out and has been replaced by a handwritten Caroline in cursive. Beside the label is a small black thumbprint that belongs to Caroline. He stares at the small formations of ridges, and remembers the subtle softness of each one.
The boy detective stands on the front porch of a small yellow house and rings the door bell. The porch creaks as he waits. An overweight woman in a yellow housecoat answers. She is wearing furry blue slippers. She stares into Billy’s face and is nearly speechless, her eyes going wide, her lips fluttering.
“Is that you, Billy Argo? Is that really you?”
“Hello, Mrs. Mills.”
“He’ll be … he’ll be so happy to see you.”
At that moment, like most moments, Fenton Mills is lying in bed. He is massively overweight. His room is like an eight-year-old’s: Pennants of sports teams are posted on the walls, comic books are strewn wildly across the floor. There are newspaper clippings from all of the boy detective’s cases pinned to all the walls. Fenton’s mother calls from the other room, excitedly, “Fenton, Billy Argo is here to see you!”
Billy enters Fenton’s room, very slowly. He stares at his old friend and smiles a small, nervous smile.
“Fenton,” Billy says. The other young man does not respond. He is enormous, in large white and blue pajamas, lying in a small white bed. He is deeply embarrassed of his large size. His little blue eyes dart about the room nervously, terrified to glance upon his old friend’s face.
“Billy,” he replies finally.
“I believe you’ve been sending me letters of some kind.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“You haven’t been sending me secret messages?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Nothing about ‘Abracadabra’?”
Fenton’s large, round face goes soft. He nods as his eyes get cloudy. “It was the only way I knew you’d answer me,” he says. “I tried forever to get ahold of you. Why didn’t you ever call me back, Billy? I called you in the hospital! I even went there, but they said you didn’t want to see me. How come?”
“I … I couldn’t see anyone. I didn’t want to see anyone. I’m sorry.”
“Do you have any idea what happened to me? Look at me for God’s sake, Billy.”
“I’m … so sorry.”
“You wouldn’t even talk to me at the funeral. I tried to talk and you wouldn’t even talk to me. Until you blamed me, Billy. You fucking blamed me.”
“Fenton, please. I need you to forgive me.”
“Why should I? You’re a real asshole, you know that? You’ve made me feel like shit, because I thought I had done something wrong or something. You said … you said it was my fault.”
Billy winces, his heart pounding, his ears ringing from the unfamiliar-sounding curse words.
“I needed someone to blame. I couldn’t figure it out any other way.”
“She just didn’t want to grow up, Billy. None of us did. Well, except you maybe.”
“Look, I brought you this,” Billy says, digging into his coat, pulling out the diary. Billy takes a seat on the edge of the small bed. “I thought we might like to look at it together.”
Fenton stares at the tiny gold book then holds it to his chest, his eyes twinkling.
“Is this hers?” he asks. “Wow, this is nice, man. I’ve missed you, Billy. I’ve missed you both so badly.”
The two men hold hands, then hug.
Billy closes his eyes, nearly crying. “I brought you something else,” he says, drawing away. Billy opens his briefcase and retrieves the finger-print set, then hands it to Fenton.
“I know she’d want you to have this.”
“The fingerprint set. That was hers, Billy. That was her thing.”
“I know. She stole it from me. I think she’d like it if you held onto it.”
“Look, there,” Fenton says. There is a big black fingerprint on the case which still looks wet with ink. “That was her fingerprint. I remember the day she did it.”
“I remember, too. I remember everything like it was yesterday.”
“Me, too, Billy. Me, too.”
The two young men are silent for a moment.
“Do you know I kissed her once?” Fenton asks.
“You did?”
“She kissed me, I guess. We were in junior high school. She said she just wanted to get her first kiss over with, so …”
“She never told me.”
“She made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone. That was one of her two conditions before she kissed me.”
“What was the other one?”
“That I would never try and kiss her again.”
“Did you?”
“Every day.” Fenton looks up, sad, his large eyes blinking with tears. “Why did you leave me alone like this?”
Billy looks down at his feet. The room is suddenly silent.
“Billy, why?”
“I guess it’s hard to see you without thinking of her.”
“It’s hard for me, too, Billy.”
“I know.” Billy folds his hands in lap, words winding hopelessly through his head. What to say now? He searches, then stutters, and finally asks, “So, how have you been, Fenton?”
“I’m not doing so good. I mean, I don’t do anything. I sit up here and read comic books. I had a job at the copy place for a while, but it didn’t work out. I had a line on a job in the city as a clerk, but I turned it down. I didn’t want to … I didn’t want to be around all those people, looking the way I do.”
Billy nods. “You probably should try to leave your house sometime. It’d be good for you to get out.”
“Yeah. I don’t know. It’s scary out there, Billy.”
“It’s probably scarier up here alone by yourself.”
“Yeah. So do you think we could, you know, I could visit you sometime?”
“I think you have to. I need to know there are people like you in the world still.”
“Yeah, well, thanks … for everything,” Fenton says, holding up the fingerprint set. “I mean, thanks for coming to see me.”
“It’s OK,” Billy stands, pulling himself to his feet. He pauses in the doorway, staring down at the gold diary. “Fenton?”
“Yeah?”
“I want to know. What … what happened to Caroline before she died? Why did she get so sad?”
Fenton nods, sadly. “She tried to solve some case all by herself. But I guess she couldn’t do it. She … we … weren’t as smart as you.”
“That’s not true.”
“No, it is, it is. It didn’t bother us, though. We didn’t want to be smart. We were just happy to be around you. But you left—you had to, Billy, you did, you did—but she couldn’t accept that. She couldn’t accept that it was over, you know: being kids. If you’re looking for a reason, that’s about as—”
“No, no, I know. I guess I was hoping there was some … some secret, perhaps. But thank you, Fenton, for everything. For looking out for her. For this. Thank you.”
Billy hugs Fenton once more and Fenton smiles, his cheeks reddening, hugging him back. “The only secret she ever told me was the one you already know.”
“Which secret was that?”
“Your secret word, ‘Abracadabra,’ the one about the dead dove. That’s the last thing she told me, that story, about you and her burying the bird under the porch.”
“Thank you, Fenton. We’ll see each other soon.”
Quietly, the boy detective leaves.
On the bus, the boy detective stares down at his hands, frowning. The small houses and trees of the town flash by like very old dreams.
EIGHTEEN
The boy detective and Penny stare at each other across the coffee shop booth. Billy’s eyes are small and tired-looking. Penny goes to touch his hand and he smiles, pained, staring far away. In a booth beside them, two loud women exchange gifts.
“It’s lovely, just lovely.”
“I thought you’d just love it. Well, happy birthday.”
There is a small, pink glass bird in the woman’s hand.
Penny eyes the gift with envy. She turns to Billy, who is lost in his thoughts, and frowns.
“Do you want to leave, Billy?”
“No, I’m sorry. I’m terrible company tonight. It’s my fault, it’s me. I keep, I keep thinking about terrible, terrible things.”
“Is it your sister?”
“Yes.”
“You miss her very much. It’s very nice to miss someone so badly.”
“Yes, but it’s … the way she left. I can’t make it make sense. I don’t think I’ll ever know why she did what she did. It’s this unsolvable mystery to me.”
“Maybe start small then.”
“Start small?”
“With mysteries you know you can solve.”
“Like what?”
“Like … like small, easy things. For instance, why does it rain sometimes?”
“Well, evaporated moisture builds up in the atmosphere and—”
“That’s very good. How about: Why is the sky blue?”
“It’s the sunlight and clouds reflecting off the surface of the water all over the world, which really—”
“OK, OK. Now something very difficult, a very hard question: Will you please come home with me?”
Billy looks up, sad, disbelieving.
The boy detective and Penny are running hand in hand. They stop outside Penny’s building, nervously staring at one another, catching their breath. Penny suddenly lunges forward and kisses Billy on the mouth. Startled, he kisses back, and they run up the steps, hand in hand once again.
In the hallway, outside her apartment, Billy and Penny kiss desperately as if they are both lost in outer space, somehow struggling to breathe. Penny stops and smiles, then says, “Please, wait. It’s been a very long time for me, since I … well … please, please … please don’t laugh at me.”
“I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t ever.”
“OK.”
They resume kissing as Penny unlocks and then opens the door.
Penny flips on the light. The room is completely crowded with hundreds and hundreds of pink shoes in shoe boxes, pink dresses on hangers, pink hats, pink jackets in bags—all stolen merchandise—thrown about madly. Penny pulls Billy down onto the couch, which is covered with pink shoes and clothing. Billy opens his eyes and looks around, shocked, but smiling.
“You, you stole all of this?”
“Please—you said you wouldn’t laugh.”
Penny and Billy resume kissing. Penny begins to undress, unbuttoning her blouse. Billy stops after a moment, holding her by the shoulder.
“But all of this? You stole all of this?”
Penny sits up, upset, and covers herself.
“Please, you said you wouldn’t.”
“But why? Why do you do it?”
“Most of it is from strangers, women, on the bus or train. Some of it is from stores, too, I guess. I don’t do it to be mean. I can’t help myself.”
“But why? Why do it at all?”
“It started after my husband died. He was a Naval officer, you see. He was away for weeks, sometimes months at time. When he died, he was in another country. He was decapitated in an automobile accident, and another woman—some woman I never met—was in the passenger seat holding his hand when it happened. The woman, she also died. But, but he … he was with another woman, in his final seconds, seconds he should have been thinking of …” Penny looks away, her tiny face reddened with shame. “Those moments were taken, stolen from me. I don’t know why I started. Afterwards I began stealing shopping bags, purses, anything, from women I didn’t know, women who were total strangers to me.”
“I think I understand, maybe,” Billy says, wiping her tears with his hand.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”
Billy and Penny kiss again. Penny pulls away, crying into her arm.
“I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry for you, too, Billy.”
Billy and Penny sit on the couch, side by side, staring out, straight ahead, holding hands, both on the verge of sobbing.
“We both need to start small,” Penny says. “Me, only stealing very tiny, inexpensive things. You, only solving very simple, uncomplicated mysteries.”
Billy nods. Penny kisses his cheek very tenderly. As she opens her hand, she reveals the small glass bird, stolen from the women at the adjoining table earlier that night. Billy sees it and begins smiling. They stare at each other for a long time.
When they kiss, they
kiss slowly.
NINETEEN
The boy detective lifts his head from his desk and realizes he is two hours early for his shift. He also notices that he is mumbling on the phone to somebody. Larry peeks over from across the aisle and smiles.
“Yes, the Nordic Prince is one of our most popular styles,” Billy whispers into the phone.
“OK, kid, try this one. What did I do last night, after I left here?” Larry asks.
“It’s quality hair replacement without the surgery.”
“Go on, guess. What did I do?”
“I don’t know, Larry. I have no idea.”
“I’m a conundrum. You think you know me? It’s impossible to know me. I’m like a black hole. Scientific standards do not apply to me.”
Larry returns to his desk. Billy stares at him, nodding.
“OK,” Billy whispers to himself. “Start small. Start small.”
The boy detective watches Larry as the older man gets up, winks at him, and skips off to the bathroom. Billy stands, slowly following. As he walks inside, Larry is at the mirror, washing his face. The boy detective watches him for a moment, smiling. Larry stops and pulls out his flask, takes a drink, then offers some to Billy.
“Well, Billy, my boy, how about a little pick-me-up? I had this woman today who lost her arms and legs and still thought a wig was the right option, do you know what I mean? These poor, lonely hearts, they practically kill me. Thank God we’re here for them, eh, Billy?”
Billy waves off the drink. He walks over and points at Larry’s middle, thinking: Larry’s shiny gold belt.
“Um, Larry?”
“What can I do for you?”
“I was wondering …”
“Yep?”
“Larry, are you right-handed or left-handed?”
“Right-handed or left-handed? Right-handed, of course. Look at me, I wish I was left-handed. I’ve been working in this madhouse for twelve years, trying to get used to all the left-handed nonsense: scissors, telephones, door knobs, staplers …”
Billy nods and points at Larry’s belt.
“I must say it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Mammoth.”
Larry’s round face goes ghost-white.
“You got it wrong this time, kid. If I was only so lucky to be that rich bum …”