بخش 03 - فصل 08

8 It’s Friday afternoon and the suburban streets are feverish

with kids released from school. There aren’t many on Harper Road, but there are still some, and this gives Brady a perfect reason to cruise slowly past number sixty-three and peek in the window. Except he can’t, because the drapes are drawn. And the overhang to the left of the house is empty except for the lawnmower. Instead of sitting in his house and

watching TV, where he belongs, the Det-Ret is sporting about in his crappy old Toyota. Sporting about where? It probably doesn’t matter, but Hodges’s absence makes Brady vaguely uneasy. Two little girls trot to the curb with money clutched in their hands. They have undoubtedly been taught, both

at home and at school, to never approach strangers, especially strange men, but who could be less strange than good old Mr. Tastey? He sells them a cone each, one chocolate and one vanilla. He joshes with them, asks how they got so pretty. They giggle. The truth is one’s ugly and the other’s worse. As he serves them and makes change,

he thinks about the missing Corolla, wondering if this break in Hodges’s afternoon routine has anything to do with him. Another message from Hodges on the Blue Umbrella might cast some light, give an idea of where the ex-cop’s head is at. Even if it doesn’t, Brady wants to hear from him.

“You don’t dare ignore me,” he says as the bells tinkle and chime over his head. He crosses Hanover Street, parks in the strip mall, kills the engine (the annoying chimes fall blessedly silent), and hauls his laptop out from under the seat. He keeps it in an insulated case because the truck is always so fucking cold. He boots it up and goes on

Debbie’s Blue Umbrella courtesy of the nearby coffee shop’s Wi-Fi. Nothing. “You fucker,” Brady whispers. “You don’t dare ignore me, you fucker.” As he zips the laptop back into its case, he sees a couple of boys standing outside the comic book shop, talking and looking at him and grinning.

Given his five years of experience, Brady estimates that they’re sixth- or seventhgraders with a combined IQ of one-twenty and a long future of collecting unemployment checks. Or a short one in some desert country. They approach, the goofierlooking of the pair in the lead. Smiling, Brady leans out his window. “Help you boys?”

“We want to know if you got Jerry Garcia in there,” Goofy says. “No,” Brady says, smiling more widely than ever, “but if I did, I’d sure let him out.” They look so ridiculously disappointed, Brady almost laughs. Instead, he points down at Goofy’s pants. “Your fly’s unzipped,” he says, and when Goofy looks down, Brady

flicks a finger at the soft underside of his chin. A little harder than he intended– actually quite a lot–but what the hell. “Gotcha,” Brady says merrily. Goofy smiles to show yes, he’s been gotten, but there’s a red weal just above his Adam’s apple and surprised tears swim in his eyes.

Goofy and Not Quite So

Goofy start away. Goofy looks

back over his shoulder. His

lower lip is pushed out and

now he looks like a third-

grader instead of just another

preadolescent

come-stain

who’ll be fucking up the halls

of Beal Middle School come

September.

“That really hurt,” he says,

with a kind of wonder.

Brady’s mad at himself. A finger-flick hard enough to bring tears to the kid’s eyes means he’s telling the straightup truth. It also means Goofy and Not Quite So Goofy will remember him. Brady can apologize, can even give them free cones to show his sincerity, but then they’ll remember that. It’s a small thing, but small things mount up and then

maybe you have a big thing. “Sorry,” he says, and means it. “I was just kidding around, son.” Goofy gives him the finger, and Not Quite So Goofy adds his own middle digit to show solidarity. They go into the comics store, where–if Brady knows boys like these, and he does–they will be invited to

either buy or leave after five minutes’ browsing. They’ll remember him. Goofy might even tell his parents, and his parents might lodge a complaint with Loeb’s. It’s unlikely but not impossible, and whose fault was it that he’d given Goofy Boy’s unprotected neck a snap hard enough to leave a mark, instead of just the gentle flick

he’d intended? The ex-cop has knocked Brady off-balance. He’s making him screw things up, and Brady doesn’t like that. He starts the ice cream truck’s engine. The bells begin bonging a tune from the loudspeaker on the roof. Brady turns left on Hanover Street and resumes his daily round, selling cones and Happy Boys

and Pola Bars, spreading sugar on the afternoon and obeying all speed limits.