“We have one more option,” Sam said, hoping nobody would ever learn about this last option of his. “There might be some shoes down in the police locker room. You won’t flip out if I drive into the Police Station, will you?”
“I guess not.”
“You don’t have to go. You can get out right here if you want to.”
“I guess I’ll go.”
Henry became jittery again when Sam drove into the police garage, but he relaxed somewhat when Sam told him where he was going. Not that there was complete trust—there were too many police cars around for that. Circling down inside the garage was as much like jail as Henry needed to feel. Still he sat tight like Sam told him, although he fidgeted with the door handle until Sam parked on B deck beside the door leading to the men’s locker room. Sam went into the locker room and came out carrying a pair of white tennis shoes. He sat down in the car and put the tennis shoes on top of the briefcase that separated him from Henry.
“Try these on,” Sam said.
Henry held the shoes up to see them in the light. His face, worn from hard use and neglect, seemed to glow in the light’s reflection.
“You want me to put them on here?”
“Sure.”
With Henry shod at last, Sam drove back out of the garage into sunlight. Henry was not a talker, and Sam watched him clandestinely without turning his head. With shoes on Henry seemed to sit taller than before. Once the air was moving through the open windows, it wasn’t so bad having Henry in the car.
“They fit okay?” Sam asked.
“Yes sir. They fit fine.”
“Not too big?”
“Not so’s I’d say anything. I’m real grateful for what you did. These is your shoes, ain’t they?”
“They’re yours now.”
“Thank you.”
That should be enough, Sam thought. A good deed, sincere gratitude, the city barely awake, not even six o’clock in the morning. Looking directly at Henry, he decided that it was enough.
“Where can I drop you off?”
“Anyplace is fine. Right here is okay with me.”
Right here was First and Columbia. Ahead, the on-ramp of the Viaduct picked up cars for the southbound lanes of the elevated highway. Sam pulled into a taxi stand.
“I ain’t a bad person, officer. I’ve been taken in for little things. I drink too much, I guess, but I’ve never done anything bad. Just thought you might want to know that.”
“Sure.”
“Well, maybe we’ll see each other again. I’ll be the guy with the new shoes.”
Henry smiled like a child who had gotten a new baseball bat or a trumpet, some gift that increased possibilities and had not been used enough to know its limitations. Henry opened the door, got out, and stood on the sidewalk waiting for Sam to drive away. He didn’t leave while Sam was there. Sam leaned toward the open window on the passenger side so that he could see Henry’s face.
“Don’t trade those shoes, Henry. Not for wine, anyway.”
“No sir.”
Sam straightened and waved as he drove off. No one could see the wave, not Henry or anyone else.
Chapter 19
There were two customers in the Donut Shop. One was an old woman who came in every day at nine o’clock for coffee and a plain doughnut—if not every day, at least for the five days Maria had worked there. The other was a young boy she had not seen before. He had come early in the morning but sat off by himself and did not mingle with the other kids. He bought a doughnut and ate it immediately. When the others left, he remained and sat looking out the window. His clothes were dirty, but recently so.
Pierre watched him but didn’t talk to him. He sat on a stool close to the wall on the kitchen side of the counter with the newspaper open in front of him. He was making little progress and had been on the same page for a long time. She found chores that kept her as far from him as possible.
The door opened and another boy came in. Pierre glanced at him, recognized him she was certain, but said nothing. Maria waited for him at the register.
“Coke,” the boy said. He wore an orange baseball cap pulled down so low on his forehead that she could hardly see his eyes.
“Large or small?” Maria asked.
“Big.”
She filled the paper cup with ice as Pierre had shown her so that it would look full with only a little liquid in it. She put the cup on the counter, but the boy made no movement to take out money. That no longer surprised her. He looked at Pierre, who reluctantly nodded approval. He picked up the cup and headed for the door. Pierre folded his paper in half and laid it on the counter as though he had finished reading.
The boy stopped. There was another person at the door. Sam Wright the policeman stood directly in his path and made no effort to step aside.
“Richard Rutherford,” Sam said. “Getting your breakfast, Richard?”
The boy didn’t answer, but he stiffened his back like an alley cat trapped in a corner. Pierre watched the policeman and seemed to forget she was there. His face hardened into a scowl, unlike the expression he had given the other policemen. The other young boy shifted restlessly in his chair. There was no place for him to go either. The old woman was pleased to see the policeman—the only one who had that reaction. Everyone had a response to the policeman.
“Let me get the door for you, Richard,” Sam said. “I see you’re just leaving.”
He opened the door and stood to the side—barely to the side. The boy he called Richard started forward, but there was no resolve in his steps, as if the boy thought he would not make it outside. Sam made the boy pass close to him and slip by sideways.
“Good to see you again, Richard,” he said as the boy passed him.
She didn’t see the boy once he was outside. Sam came toward the counter, and Pierre reopened his paper. He sat on a stool close to Pierre.
“I’ll have a cup of coffee, Miss,” he said.
Maybe he had forgotten her name, or maybe he didn’t know what to call her. She could understand that. She didn’t know what to call him either. He had not come for two days—two days when she had wondered countless times if she should have come, too. She poured coffee into the plastic cup and placed it before him.
“I’ll have a little milk, please,” he said. His voice made her feel unseen and insignificant. “The real stuff. Not those packages.”
She got a milk carton from the refrigerator and carefully poured milk into his coffee. He had not asked for milk the first time. She saw she had forgotten the spoon and quickly reached for one below the counter. She did not want to hear the indifference in his voice again.
“We missed you at the funeral, Pierre,” Sam said, turning toward Pierre at the end of the counter.
For a moment she thought Pierre might not look up from the newspaper, but he finally raised his head.
“What are you talking about?” Pierre’s voice sounded like a man who hated to talk.
“Alberta’s baby. The funeral was yesterday. Too bad you missed it.”
“I don’t know anything about a funeral.”
He picked up the newspaper and turned the page. Sam clenched his jaw and moved a seat closer to Pierre.
“I’m going to ask you some questions, but first let me read you your rights.” He took a blue card out of his shirt pocket and began reading in a loud voice.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney of your choosing.”
“What are you doing?” Pierre demanded, trying to interrupt the policeman’s warning. “I know my rights. You don’t have to read that to me.”
Sam continued reading from the card in a flat voice, “And to have the attorney present with you while you’re being questioned.”
Pierre’s face turned red with anger.
“If you can’t afford an attorney, you have the right to have an attorney appointed for you by the court and to have that attorney
present while you’re being questioned. Do you understand your rights?”
Pierre said nothing. His face remained red.
“How often did you go to Alberta’s apartment?” Sam asked.
“You have no right to ask me questions here,” Pierre said.
“Did you beat her when you went there?”
Pierre stared at him without answering. His eyes narrowed into small slits in his head.
“Did you beat the baby, too?”
Again there was no answer, only his hateful stare.
“I guess you don’t want to talk to me. Maybe tomorrow will be better.”
He returned the blue card to his shirt pocket, then changed his mind and tossed it in front of Pierre. “You keep that. Read it every night before you go to sleep.”
Pierre looked down at the card but didn’t touch it. His jaw trembled as he pushed the newspaper away from him and stood up from the wooden stool.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “You have anything else to say?”
“No. Just don’t go too far.”
Pierre passed Maria without a word. Sam turned in his seat and watched Pierre until the angry man disappeared from view. Then he turned toward her.
“I thought you would be gone by now, Maria,” he said.
His voice changed to the way it had been the first time she met him. She could not keep up with these changes. Before she could answer, if she could answer, Sam stood up from his stool.
“Just a minute, son,” he said to the boy who had started for the door. “I want to talk to you, too.”
She thought the boy would run. His eyes darted from place to place as though judging his chances. Sam saw it, too.
“If you try to run, I’ll have to shoot you.”
The boy’s eyes focused then as he looked at the policeman, half-believing what was said. He slumped down into the closest chair without a word.
Before approaching the boy, Sam turned and looked at Maria for a long moment. She thought he might speak, but he didn’t. He looked at her like a person reading a sign, but she didn’t know what he read. He made his way to the table where the young boy sat waiting.
“What’s your name?” he asked as he sat down at the boy’s table, his back toward Maria.
She couldn’t understand the boy’s weak reply, but she could hear the break in his voice that made him seem very young. The boy seemed particularly dismayed when his voice cracked. She moved over to where Pierre had been sitting to be closer to their voices. She slowly and meticulously cleaned the counter space that she would otherwise have left alone.
“How old are you?” Sam asked.
“Sixteen,” the boy said hopelessly.
“If you’re sixteen, you have to carry your pre-draft card. Let me see your card.”
“I forgot it at home,” the boy said.
“Tell me again how old you are.”
The boy looked down and then back up. She thought she saw the precise moment he gave up. “I’ll be fifteen in January.”
“So how do you like it out there on the street?” Sam asked. He did not wait for the boy to answer. “Pretty exciting, isn’t it?” he said. “If you get hungry enough, you can always drop your pants for one of the wolves hanging around.”
“I’m not like that.”
“Don’t have to be.”
There was a long silence at the table.
“So how come you’re not in school today?”
“I was thinking about going.”
“Thinking? Now that’s a good idea. A guy can never think too much, can he?”
The boy’s face showed he was not sure if Sam was making fun of him or telling the truth. Maria was not sure, either.
“What do you have in your pockets? Empty them out on the table for me.”
The boy stood up, reached into his pockets, and put a few articles on the table. Sam watched him carefully.
“Is that it?” he asked.
The boy searched his pockets again and nodded.
“Sit down then.”
The boy sat down, and Sam separated the items so that each had its place on the table.
“Twelve cents. Not much you can do with that, is there?”
The boy shook his head.
“What do you have the matches for?”
The boy shrugged his shoulders, then said, “Cigarettes.”
“I don’t see any cigarettes.”
“I had some.”
“Rubber band and a gum wrapper. At least you didn’t litter. That’s a good sign. Not much to get started with, is it?”
The boy shook his head again. He didn’t want to talk anymore.
“Do your parents know where you are?”
“It’s just my mom. She doesn’t care.”
“You’re sure about that? Is that what she would say if I called her?”
“We don’t get along.”
“She doesn’t have to get along. You do. How’d you get along last night?”
“It was okay.”
“Sure it was. That’s why you’re sitting in this dump with nothing to eat. It must have been great. Tonight will be even better. Like you said, Roger, you have to start thinking. Is that your real name?”
“Yeah, but my last name is Kramer.”
“Okay. What do you say I give you a lift home, maybe talk to your mom.”
“I don’t want you to talk to her.”
“Okay, I’ll just drop you off.”
“You won’t go in and talk to her?”
“Not this time. Next time you won’t have that choice. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll get us a couple of doughnuts for the road. By the way, Roger, I lied about that draft card stuff. There’s no such thing as a pre-draft card.”
As Sam stood, the boy had a blank look on his face. It took a moment for what the policeman said to sink in. The boy smiled, however, when the policeman turned his back to him.
As he walked toward Maria, Sam was smiling, too. She wondered whom the smile was for—the boy? himself? Could that smile be for her? She would not have picked that smile for herself. She moved away from Pierre’s spot to stand at the center of the doughnut case.
“What do you recommend?” he asked her.
“He had a glazed doughnut earlier,” Maria said.
“All right. Two glazed doughnuts then—make it three—and two cartons of milk.”
“Do you want those to go?” she asked.
“Yes. To go.”
She sensed he was watching her, but she didn’t look at him while she placed the doughnuts and milk in sacks. She didn’t look at him until she rang up the total on the cash register. She couldn’t look away forever.
He noted the total price and handed her two dollar bills.
“Did you find the girl yet?” she asked in a soft voice before making change from the open cash drawer.
“No.” His voice was also softer.
“Was it her baby you were talking about?”
“Yes.”
“He made you mad, didn’t he?”
“Who? Pierre?”
She thought he was going to say no.
“Yes. He always makes me mad.”
She looked around the shop to see if anyone was listening. There was only the old lady and the boy inside. Even so, she lowered her voice more.
“He’s a bad man, isn’t he?”
He looked at her for a moment, as if deciding what he would say. He decided to nod his head, but said nothing aloud. She made a decision, too.
“I have something to tell you,” she said.
“Not here.” His voice was so low that she understood almost as much from reading his lips as from hearing the sounds.
“Where?” she asked.
“Across the street.” He nodded toward First Avenue. “What time do you get off?”
“About three.”
“I’ll wait for you by the newspaper stand.”
She looked out the side window and s
aw the place he meant. She nodded her agreement, then handed him the change for the doughnuts. This time he accepted it and put it in his pocket.
He nodded quickly, one final time, and turned away. He gestured to the boy, who got up and followed him. At the door he gave the boy the two paper bags. He walked to the corner with the boy beside him, waited for the traffic light, and crossed the street. She would cross there, too, at three o’clock. She looked at the clock above the refrigerator. It was only ten.
Chapter 20
The .38 tugged on the straps of his shoulder holster as Sam walked toward the Market. He could have stuffed the lightweight snub-nose revolver into his belt, but he had taken the regulation .38 instead. Did he think he would shoot somebody, or was it the girl’s voice that made him carry the extra weight? The shoulder holster was a leftover from a more enthusiastic time when he had worked plainclothes on the hill, but it had hung unused for years in his locker. Had he become enthusiastic again—going to funerals, meeting the girl on his own time? On this, possibly the last fine day of summer, he wore a jacket unnecessary for the weather to conceal his harness.
At the newsstand across First Avenue from the Donut Shop, he sought refuge among the open racks of newspapers and magazines. He picked up a newspaper from Omaha with a headline about an abundant corn crop. He turned the corn crop toward First Avenue and looked over it to the Donut Shop. The large windows on the west wall were dirty, and he watched for some time before he was certain Maria was still there. He recognized the way she carried herself—an awkward grace that showed through the dirty windows.
He looked at his watch. Two o’clock. Still an hour before Maria was off. Still an hour and more before he could go home.
He put the newspaper back in the rack and walked through the crowded market to Silve’s restaurant. The Market was always packed on Saturdays. Sam tapped on the kitchen door. Silve’s kitchen door was divided in two, with the top open and the bottom closed and locked. Sam could have reached inside himself, but he waited for Silve to unlock it.
“Come in, sir. It’s not morning already, is it?” The old man laughed at his joke as he headed back to the stove. “For a second I don’t recognize you.”
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