Back Story. Part 30

"Why does Evelina Karnofsky send you money every month?" I said.

"I don't know who that is, man. Honest to G.o.d."

I slapped him with my open right hand across the face. It was hard enough to make him stagger two steps sideways. He put his forearms up on either side of his face.

"I didn't do nothing," he said. "I didn't do nothing."

"This can get a lot worse, Barry. Tell me about Evelina Karnofsky."

"I can't, man. I don't know nothing. "

I hit him again. His forearms were still protecting his face, but the blow rocked him sideways again and scared him more than it hurt him. He doubled up with his hands clasped over his head.

"Evelina?" I said.

He didn't say anything. It was hard to slap him, doubled up like he was, so I punched him lightly in the left kidney. He fell. I hadn't hit him hard enough to knock him down. He was on the floor now, his arms around his head, his knees up, trying to curl into a ball.

"Evelina?" I said.

He stayed where he was. I gave him a friendly kick in the side.

"Evelina?"

"Stop it. Don't kick me. I'll tell you. Stop it."

"Sure," I said.

I reached down and helped him up. Upright, he stayed bent over as if he'd been shot in the stomach. Lucky, I hadn't hit him hard. He'd have probably died.

"I need to sit down," he said.

"Sure."

"Gimme a minute, man, lemme get myself together."

"Take your time," I said.

When necessary, one could play good cop/bad cop alone.

He sat and started to make himself a joint. His hands were shaking. The left side of his face was red where I'd slapped him. He got the joint a.s.sembled. And lit. And he took a deep, long drag on it and held it in as long as he could before he exhaled slowly. He studied the burning end of the joint for a moment. Then he leaned forward a little and put his elbows on his knees and looked straight at me.

"Daryl ain't really my daughter," he said.

"She know that?" I said.

"No."

"Tell me about it."

"I don't know all about it," Barry said. "Just the part I know about, you know?"

"Tell me that part," I said.

He took another long drag on the reefer. "Me and Emily was living in a house downtown," Barry said, "with Bunny and a couple black dudes, a guy named Abner, and a guy named Leon."

He smoked some more.

"And Abner and Bunny kind of paired off. And me and Emily got together. And Leon was mostly bringing home, you know, the harlot of the night."

The joint was gone. He made another one, calmer now, his hands steady as he talked. I waited. He spent awhile getting the joint together and getting it lit.

"So who had the, ah, fling with Emily?" I said.

"Emily had a lotta flings," Barry said. He was easy now, gliding on marijuana. "But that ain't what went down."

I nodded. Patient, but stern.

"Emily ain't Daryl's mom, neither."

Jesus Christ.

Barry knew it was headline news. He waited a moment to let the effect sink in, enjoying it. Feeling important. Feeling happy now, on his second joint.

"Tell me about that," I said.

"Abner and Bunny were going really hot and heavy," Barry said. "Her especially. She was like a b.i.t.c.h in heat around him."

He paused for a moment and smiled to himself, I think, remembering. I waited. He remembered.

Finally I nudged him. "Uh-huh."

He smoked some more and then came back to me. His smile was beginning to look a little loopy.

"And," he said, "anyway, he knocked her up."

"What was Abner's last name?" I said.

"I don't remember. It was a funny name."

"Dandy?" I said.

"No, man. But like that."

"Fancy?"

"Yeah. That's it. Abner Fancy. What a hot-s.h.i.+t name."

"And Bunny?"

"Like I tole you last time. When I knew her then, she was calling herself Bunny Lombard."

"But that wasn't her real name."

"No."

"Her real name was?"

"Karnofsky," Barry said. "Bunny Karnofsky. No wonder she changed it."

"Daryl is Bunny's daughter?"

"Her and Abner's," Barry said.

"So how did she end up with you?"

Barry grinned. A big grin, a high and happy grin. Forget about being slapped around. All is forgiven. He took a drag on his cigarette.

"Jesus," he said, his voice odd and strained as he let the smoke out through it slowly. "Where are my f.u.c.kin' manners? You wanna toke, man?"

"Thanks, no," I said. "How did Daryl end up with you?"

"Bunny gave her to us."

"Just like that?"

"Yeah. Baby was fair-skinned and, you know, Emily was dark anyway. No one was going to notice."

I walked to the door and looked out at the black Lab sleeping in the sun, on his side, his eyes shut, his tongue lolling out. I turned and looked at Barry.

"Why?" I said.

"Emily kind of liked babies," Barry said. "And, like, Bunny said she'd give us support money."

"Or her mother would," I said. "I was more wondering why she gave her to you than why you took her."

"She didn't want her."

"Any reason?"

"I don't know," Barry said. "Maybe she didn't want a shvartzeh kid. I think she just didn't want the bother. At least she didn't leave it in a Dumpster."

"Good for her," I said. "You adopt her?"

"Not really," Barry said. "But I got her birth certificate. In case anything ever came up."

"May I see it?"

"It's in a safe place."

"Safe from whom?" I said.

"Whoever," Barry said. His loopy smile had a crafty little edge to it.

"That's why the support payments keep coming," I said.

He shrugged.

"Even though she's thirty-four and gone," I said.

He shrugged again. The reefer had burned down to the most meager of roaches. He could barely hold it. Carefully, he took a last long drag on it, trying not to burn his lips.

"That's how you live," I said. "That's how you got this house. All that c.r.a.p about her grandparents' insurance. You've been blackmailing Bunny for years."

"Two thousand a month ain't much," he said.

He snubbed the remnant of his reefer out in his ashtray and began to fumble with the makings for a new one.

"So she was yours for, what, six years, and then Emily took up with Leon, and then she got killed and. "

"The cops s.h.i.+pped her back to me, everybody thought I was her father," Barry said. "What the f.u.c.k, man, Leon wasn't going to keep her."

"You didn't need her for the blackmail scam," I said. "You had the birth certificate."

Barry shrugged. "She'd been with me for six years," he said.

I stared at him. The counterculture had always seemed Saran-Wrap thin to me. Pa.s.sionate about abstraction, flaccid about human feelings. Barry was inarguably an aimless creep. But there it was. He'd taken Daryl and made some vague and nearly useless attempt at fathering her. I shook my head.

"What?" Barry said vaguely.

"Where does Leon fit in all this?"

"I don't know. He was f.u.c.king Emily for awhile, then she went away with him. Then she got killed. I don't know much about him after she got killed."

"He involved in that bank holdup?" I said.

"I dunno."

"He know about Daryl?"

"What about her?"

"Did he know she was Bunny's daughter."

"Naw. Me and Emily and Bunny was the only ones who knew."

"Abner didn't know?"

"Oh, him, yeah, I suppose."