“What did he want?”
Myron just stared off.
“Hello?” I said.
“He needs a favor. A strange one.” Myron checked his watch. “I have to run out. I should be back in an hour.”
Well, that was weird. My phone buzzed. I checked my caller ID, and when I saw Rachel’s name, my pulse did a little two-step. I slid away from my uncle and opened Rachel’s message. It read: Can’t talk now. Can I call you later?
I immediately texted back Sure and then wondered whether that sounded too anxious or whether I should have waited, oh, eight seconds to make it look like I wasn’t just standing around waiting for her text.
Pathetic, right?
Uncle Myron hurried off to his car. I headed into the kitchen and grabbed a snack. I pictured Rachel at home, texting me. I had only been to Rachel’s house once. Yesterday. It was a big sprawling estate with a gate at the front of the driveway. It also looked empty and like a really lonely place to live.
The local newspaper, the West Essex Tribune, was on the kitchen table. The front-page story for the third straight issue involved the big-time actress Angelica Wyatt’s visit to our little town. Rumor had it that not only was Angelica Wyatt filming a movie here but that, per the headline:
LOCAL TEENS TO BE USED AS EXTRAS!
Everyone at Kasselton High was excited about this possibility. The boys in my school, many of whom still had that controversial poster of Angelica Wyatt in a wet bikini on their walls, were particularly thrilled.
I, on the other hand, had more important things to occupy my time.
I pushed the paper to the side and took out the photograph of the Butcher of Lodz. I put it on the table and stared hard at it. Then I closed my eyes, imprinting the picture in my mind like a sunspot. I made myself go back to that California highway, to the accident, to being trapped in the car, to seeing my dying father, to looking into those green eyes with the yellow rings as they snuffed out all hope.
In my mind’s eye, I locked in on the paramedic’s face. Then I tried to superimpose this image in my head onto the one I’d created by staring at that photograph.
It was the same man.
But that was impossible. So maybe the Butcher had a son who looked just like him. Or a grandson. Or maybe I was losing my mind.
I should go see the Bat Lady again. I should demand answers.
But I had to think about how to approach her. I had to think it through and consider every possibility and try to stay logical. Plus there was something else to consider.
There is an old saying, “Nothing is certain, except death and taxes.”
Whoever said that forgot one: homework.
I debated asking Uncle Myron to write an excuse note for me:
Dear Mrs. Friedman:
Mickey’s French Revolution assignment will be tardy because he was rescuing another student, watching a man get shot, getting the stuffing beaten out of him, being grilled by the cops… oh, and he saw a photograph of an old Nazi who disguised himself as the California paramedic who told him that his father was dead.
Mickey will turn in the assignment next week.
Nah. I didn’t think that would work. That, and I hate the word tardy. How come you only use the word tardy when it comes to school? And how come you don’t just say late?
Man, I needed sleep.
My bedroom had been, for too many years, Uncle Myron’s bedroom. It was located in the basement and would be considered “retro” if it wasn’t completely lame. There was a vinyl beanbag chair and a lava lamp and even trophies that dated back more than twenty years.
My partner for the French Revolution project was none other than Rachel Caldwell. I hadn’t known Rachel long, but she hit me as one of those girls who always handed her assignments in on time. You know the type. She comes in on test day and swears she’s going to fail and then she finishes the test in record time, hands in her perfect paper, and spends the rest of the class putting reinforcements in her notebook.
No way she’d let me be “tardy” with the assignment.
Fifteen minutes later, my cell phone rang. It was Rachel.
I hit the appropriate button and said, “Hello?”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Yep. Pretty dang smooth all the way around. I decided to go now with what was fast becoming my patented icebreaker: “You okay?”
“I guess,” she said.
Rachel sounded strangely distracted.
“Pretty wild night,” I said.
“Mickey?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think…?”
“What?”
“I don’t know, Mickey. Is it over? It doesn’t feel like it is.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I had felt the same thing-like the bad was just beginning. I wanted to offer words of comfort, but I didn’t want to lie.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, it should be.”
Silence.
I said, “We have that French Revolution project due tomorrow.”
“Right.”
More silence. I pictured her sitting alone in that empty mansion. I didn’t like it.
“Should we get to it?” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Should we try to do the assignment? I know it’s late but I can come over or we can do it over the phone or…”
Then, through the earpiece, I heard a noise in the background.
Rachel may have gasped. I wasn’t sure. There was more noise.
“Rachel?” I said.
“I have to go, Mickey.”
“What?”
“I can’t talk now.” Her voice took on a strange, firm tone. “I have to take care of something.”
“What?”
“I’ll see you at school in the morning.” She hung up.
But Rachel was wrong. I wouldn’t see her in the morning, because by then everything would be different.
CHAPTER 4
It began with a hard knock on the door.
I had been dreaming about my mother and father. We were somewhere I’d never been in real life-my mother, the legendary Kitty Bolitar, was playing tennis.
Before she got pregnant, my seventeen-year-old mother was the top-ranked amateur female tennis player in the world. She quit tennis to have me. And she never played again.
Weird, right?
In the dream, Mom is on center court playing in some big-time match. The crowd is huge. I sit in the stands next to my dad, but he doesn’t see me. Dad just gazes lovingly at my mother on the court. They had been so happy, my parents. Most adult couples with kids, well, they aren’t like that. Sure, they eat together and go to the movies and all that, but they seem to rarely make eye contact. They just occupy the same space, but maybe there’s a comfort in that, I don’t know.
But it was different with my parents. They never took their eyes off each other, as though no one else existed, as though they’d just fallen in love that very morning, as though they were ready to sprint across a field of daisies and embrace with some corny music playing in the background.
Yes, as their son, I can tell you that it was mortifying.
I always assumed I’d find love like that. But now I don’t want it. It isn’t healthy. It makes you too dependent. You smile when they smile. You laugh when they laugh. But when they stop laughing, so do you.
And when they die, a part of you dies too.
That’s what happened to my mother.
In my dream, my mother hits a cross-court winner with a whiplike forehand.
The crowd screams.
A voice says, “Game, set, match… Kitty Bolitar!”
My mom flings her racket in the air. The crowd rises to its feet. My dad stands and claps and has tears in his eyes. I try to stand and clap too, but I can’t. It’s as though I’m glued to the chair. I look up at my father. He smiles down at me, but suddenly he starts floating away.
“Dad?”
I struggle, but I still can’t get up. He’s floating toward the sky. My mom joins him. They both wave for me to follow them. Mom calls out to me.
“Hurry, Mickey!”