Jimmy opened up.
She pulled the screen door back and went inside.
The stench was the first thing she noticed, of course. Burned greasy food. Spoiled food. Dirty clothes. A sweat-soaked mattress. Dust and filth. And dog shit. Dog shit, everywhere.
She wanted to vomit.
Jimmy didn’t turn on his kerosene lantern. She used her flashlight instead, playing it around the dumpy room. She paused at the wall next to his bed, surveying the magazine pages he had Scotch-taped there.
Heather Locklear. Courteney Cox. Pamela Anderson. The current crop of sexpots.
She supposed what he did was lie down on his bed and jerk off while he was looking up at the photos.
Somehow, the idea of Jimmy masturbating both tickled and disgusted her.
He was a pretty disgusting character, actually. He used to do yard work for her. She caught him one day peeking in the bathroom window when she was getting out of the shower. Most people would probably think this was harmless. Helen was frightened by it because in some profound way Jimmy scared her. The thought of him seeing her naked really gave her the creeps.
She didn’t turn him over to the police but she did call a friend at the nearby psychiatric hospital and had her take Jimmy for one week and put the fear of God in him. He got the shock treatments, he got the straitjacket, he got the violent ward, where people screamed all night just the way stir-crazy animals did at the zoo.
He came home not only chastened but terrified. For long months after his release, Jimmy had told everybody about all the terrors of the place. The other patients frightened him.
He told Helen he didn’t want to work for her anymore. He also told her that he would never peek in anybody’s bathroom window again, either. Sacred honor.
“You saw what happened, didn’t you?”
“Huh?”
“C’mon, Jimmy. We saw you watching us.”
“I didn’t go nowhere tonight.”
That got her smiling. “Oh, no? Then why are your hair and your clothes soaking wet?”
“Oh.”
“You saw us.”
“You’re going to send me back to that place again, aren’t you?”
“You know what we were doing?”
“What?”
“We were carrying out a job for our boss. And you know who our boss is?”
“Who?”
“The president of the United States.”
“Wow. Like in Washington and everything?”
“Exactly.”
“Was the girl dead?”
“Yes, she was. And you know why?”
“Huh-uh.”
“Because she was a spy.”
“Wow. Really?”
He was buying it. Jimmy wasn’t smart enough to fake enthusiasm. “She was a spy and she took some secret documents and we had to get them back from her.”
“I think I saw this on TV one night. On some spy show.”
“You probably did, Jimmy. Anyway, she had an accident when we were taking the documents from her.”
“An accident?”
“She fell and hit her head.”
“God. That must’ve hurt.”
“I’m sure it did.”
“I fell and hit my head once.”
“I know you did, Jimmy.”
“It hurt real bad.”
She reached out and touched his shoulder tenderly.
“But you can’t tell anybody any of this — not anybody, Jimmy, you understand?”
“Sure. I understand.”
“Because if you do—”
There was a long silence. He said, “I don’t want to go back there, Miss Helen. You promise me I won’t have to go back there.”
“If you keep our secret, Jimmy, you won’t have any problem. You won’t have to go back there ever again.”
“Honest, Miss Helen?”
“Honest.”
“ ’Cause that place scares me.”
“It scares me, too, Jimmy.”
“So I won’t tell nobody about tonight.”
“I believe you, Jimmy.”
Thunder again. Lightning. Jimmy appeared ghostlike in the silver flaring of the sky.
Despite the chilly temperature, the shack smelled hot and filthy. She needed to get out of here.
“I’ll be seeing you, Jimmy.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You just remember what I told you. No matter what happens — you don’t know anything about anything.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, Miss Helen. No, sir.” “Good boy.”
At the door, she paused. “If you think you just have to tell somebody, Jimmy...”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You come over and talk to me. Understand?”
He nodded.
Raindrops plopped from the sky, tree leaves, the shack overhang, a myriad of hissing and popping noises in the quiet night.
She looked at him a moment longer, and then started to leave.
But he was near her now, grasping her sleeve. In the shadows, his eyes glistened with tears and his voice trembled.
“You won’t ever let them put me in that place again, will you, Miss Helen?”
She patted his hand. “Not if you’re a good boy and do just what I tell you, Jimmy.”
He started crying now. “I’m afraid, Miss Helen. I’m afraid they’re going to put me back in there.”
“You just be a good boy, Jimmy, and you won’t have anything to worry about.”
Then she was gone.
4
In the morning light, there was evidence that last night’s storm had been a lot stronger than a lot of folks had realized.
Large branches had been ripped from trees and flung into the streets. Several electrical wires had been severed, and power wasn’t restored on the east side of town until 7 a.m. The damage at the Hawkeye Mobile Home Court was especially bad. Three trailers had been severely wind-damaged.
Amy heard all this on her office radio as she sat at her desk preparing for another pretrial hearing this afternoon. She was tired and, as her secretary had politely pointed out, maybe just a wee bit on the owly side this morning. Amy had smiled: “Me? Owly? Who’d believe that?” As everybody in the office knew, Amy was subject to mild mood swings. She was never an outright bitch, but there were days when she was a whole lot pleasanter than others.
She marked the page she was reading with a yellow sticky, then reached over and picked up her receiver.
For the tenth time since waking this morning, she tried Richie’s number.
Six, seven, eight rings.
And no answer.
This didn’t signify that he wasn’t there.
Oh, no, on the contrary. It signified that he was most likely there and sleeping off another hangover. Two mornings a week, he reported to the country club around noon. Perfect hours for a guy who wanted to tie one on the night before.
Ten, eleven, twelve rings.
She realized she was getting obsessive.
She had a bad feeling, the same bad feeling she’d had last night. She felt angry with Richie for making such a botch of his life — but at the same time she felt protective, almost maternal, about him.
Maybe she hadn’t raised him properly.
Maybe she just hadn’t had the wisdom or the courage to crack down on him when he was fourteen. Maybe if their parents had been around, Richie would have turned out to be a nice, normal kid with no undue problems.
Maybe.
Her intercom buzzed.
“Yes?”
“Bob Medlow would like to see you. He says it won’t take long.”
Amy had a pretty good idea why the young lawyer had stopped in to see her this morning. This wasn’t a good time, not with a pretrial hanging over her... and Richie sleeping off a drunk.
But she sighed and said, “All right. Tell him to come in.”