Mister X Part 23

All three of them looked.

The twins' father stood staring down at them, his feet spread wide and his fists propped on his hips.

"Nothing," Jerry said.

Dragging his sled by its steering rope, he began trudging back up the hill, but at an angle, away from Mr. Keller.

"Nothing!" Chrissie echoed behind him.

The desperation in her voice stayed with him always.

"You were talkin' to Chrissie Keller," Jerry's mother said, when he'd returned home. He'd struggled out of his snow-crusted coat, hat, and boots and left them piled on the floor in the mud room off the kitchen.

Still in her white terry cloth robe, his mother was seated at the kitchen table, her hands invisible in her lap.

"Sure," Jerry said. "She lives next door and we go to the same school."

An empty bottle flew through the air and crashed into the wall beside him. It was his first realization that his mother was drunk. Usually she started in heavily with the gin in the early evening, when she was off work from her waitress job at Vellie's, where they served only breakfast and lunch. But today was her day off.

The throwing motion had caused her robe to open, and one of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s was entirely visible. She automatically pulled the robe closed with a quick motion of her right hand.

"I ask you a question," she said, "don't give me a s.h.i.+t answer."

"I wasn't-"

She raised her right hand palm out and shook her head back and forth violently. "You hear me? I mean, you hear hear what I said?" what I said?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Jerry knew that if he agreed with her about everything without making it too obvious, kept everything smooth if delicately balanced, she'd become sleepy and get tired of picking on him.

Either that or...

"Chrissie's father saw you talkin' to her, called on the phone, and said you musta told her somethin' that made her upset. Said Chrissie was cryin'."

"I didn't-well, maybe I did. But if I did, I didn't mean it."

"You tryin' to get in that young b.i.t.c.h's britches?"

Jerry felt himself go red. "Mom!"

"Britches b.i.t.c.h's." She threw back her head and laughed at her unintentional rhyme.

Then she stopped laughing. "I don't want trouble with the neighbors, you unershtan'?"

It was the first word she'd slurred. This could become worse.

"Yes, ma'am," Jerry said.

She stood up unsteadily. The gin bottle she'd thrown at the wall had been empty. The one in her left hand was half empty. Not a good sign.

"'Cause you don't have a father around don't mean you can go misbehavin'," his mother said.

"No, ma'am."

She peered at him as if through the wrong end of a telescope.

"I mean, yes, ma'am."

"It don't mean you ain't got n.o.body to whip your worthless a.s.s when you need it."

Jerry didn't know what to say. He could only nod, hoping it was the right thing to do.

It wasn't.

His mother weaved her way out of the kitchen and returned with a slender wooden switch about a yard long. It was actually a hickory switch, which seemed to dignify and make acceptable what she was about to do to him. Taught to the tune of a hickory stick... Taught to the tune of a hickory stick... Jerry knew all the words to the venerable schoolyard tune. Spanking was simply part of disciplining a boy, in his mother's mind. Or in the mind of anyone who might inquire or in any way come to Jerry's aid. Jerry knew all the words to the venerable schoolyard tune. Spanking was simply part of disciplining a boy, in his mother's mind. Or in the mind of anyone who might inquire or in any way come to Jerry's aid.

Spare the rod...

That wasn't going to happen in the Grantland household.

"Bedroom, young man," his mother said.

Jerry went.

"Need to learn how to hold your tongue," his mother said behind him.

Jerry knew what to do. It took him only a few minutes before he was standing s.h.i.+vering, wearing only his socks. The top of one was still wet where snow had worked its way inside his boot.

His mother stared at him until he bent over the foot of the bed, his elbows on the mattress.

"I wouldn't do this if I didn't have to," his mother said. "If you didn't make me."

Jerry clenched his eyes shut and waited.

The wooden switch hissed like a snake as it cut through the air.

Over and over again. After each hiss came the sharp snap snap of the switch whipping into the bare flesh of his b.u.t.tocks and the backs of his thighs. The pain became a constant fire. of the switch whipping into the bare flesh of his b.u.t.tocks and the backs of his thighs. The pain became a constant fire.

She shouldn't be doing this to me. I'm too grown up. It isn't fair. It isn't right.

Jerry knew enough not to make a sound. He'd adapted to the pain enough so that he could remain silent except for an occasional whimper that escaped on its own and didn't seem to his mother to count. Clenching his teeth hard enough to break them, he could smell the sweet reek of gin on his mother's breath as she began to labor at her task.

She spread her slippered feet farther apart to gain leverage. Jerry had to be disciplined, didn't he? Best thing for him in the long run.

The lashes with the switch began coming further apart. His mother's breath was now ragged, rasping harshly with each inhalation. She was making more noise than Jerry.

With his eyes closed, Jerry stared into the darkness inside him, waiting for it to be over.

But for the pain, it might have been happening to someone else.

Sometimes it did happen to Chrissie Keller, whose father loved her.

Jerry stayed in his room after the whipping, lying curled on his bed and listening to the rain that had begun falling and would soon melt the snow. If the temperature dropped below freezing again, there would be an icy mess outside.

For some reason he was drained of strength in his mother's presence. She could do what she wanted with him. It was...infantile, and he was ashamed.

He didn't move for several hours. The rain hadn't exactly stopped; it now sounded more like sleet.

He heard the rattle and jingle of a car with chains on it, loud enough to be in the driveway.

The car stopped. Jerry didn't bother looking out his window to see who might be driving. It would be a man he wouldn't recognize. Or worse, one that he did. A car door slammed, and he heard someone on the porch. The doorbell didn't chime, but he heard the door open.

A few minutes later his bedroom door opened and his mother stuck her head in. She had on a dress now, and her hair was combed with bangs carefully arranged on her forehead. She was wearing makeup.

"I'm going out for a while, sweetheart," she said. "There are leftovers in the refrigerator if you get hungry."

Jerry didn't move. Said nothing.

After about twenty seconds he heard the front door open and close and the sound of footfalls on the porch. The car in the driveway started up, and he heard the faint jangling of its tire chains again as it backed out to the street and then drove away.

To be on the safe side, he counted slowly to a hundred before getting up and going to his mother's bedroom. The pain was still there, and he moved slowly.

The bedroom was warm, as if she might still be there with her body heat, and it smelled of rose-scented powder and spiced sachets.

When he was in front of his mother's dresser with its tall mirror, he turned his body slightly and saw that there were bloodstains on the seat of his white Jockey shorts. Red lash marks patterned the backs of his pale thighs.

He smiled at his image in the mirror and then bent low and opened the dresser's bottom drawer.

38.

New York, the present Pearl had been first to arrive and was alone in the office. A soft summer rain had begun to fall. It changed the colorful street scene outside the first-floor window from realism to impressionism. The light in the office was made soft by the wavering rain running down the gla.s.s panes. It was a light you could almost reach out and feel.

"It's insane," Pearl's mother said over the phone.

Pearl squeezed her cell phone almost hard enough to break it. "I thought you'd want to know. You're always so interested in my personal life, and now I'm changing my address."

"To move in with the Yancy lizard. Not wise, Pearl."

"It's a decision of the heart, Mom. Like when you married Dad."

"Heart, shmart," her mother said. "Your father-and I still miss him dearly-and I were engaged for two years before we were married. Besides, it had all been arranged."

"Well, I'm not married to Yancy, and anyway, marriages aren't arranged anymore. At least not in this country. We've made progress in that regard."

"You have noticed the divorce rate, Pearl?"

"But the murder rate among spouses has fallen," Pearl lied.

"What does Captain Quinn think of this new living arrangement you propose?"

"I've told you, Mom, Quinn is no longer a police captain. And he doesn't know about it yet."

"I know in my mother's heart-as do you in the heart of a dear daughter-that Captain Quinn would not approve."

"So what?"

"So you are not heeding the opinion-which you know he has-of a man of the world who has sailed harsh seas and endured storms and developed a weather eye, and would tell you that over the horizon-"

"He doesn't even know Yancy."

"He knows many Yancys, dear. And their victims."

"You haven't met Yancy, either, Mom. How could you possibly know any of these terrible things about him?"

"I know those who know of him, Pearl. Word pa.s.ses from mouth to ear, and the word is not good. Mrs. Kahn's cousin's son, himself not a young man with the highest prospects, has been in the Yancy lizard's presence many times in the places where such people congregate, and Mrs. Kahn's cousin's son, once a psychology student at New York University until a so-called misunderstanding about purloined university property brought about the end of his scholarly pursuits, has seen and heard and has some insight into the Yancy lizard's lies and deceptions and total lack of responsibility. He has seen the Yancy Lizard with women other than yourself, imbibing and laughing, and it would logically seem-"

"Mom, I'm not the only woman who goes into bars and imbibes and laughs."

"And you would not be the only woman to fall prey to a reptile of the night and-"

"Gotta go, Mom. Police business."

Pearl flipped the lid closed on the cell phone.

She could talk with her mother about personal matters only so long before snapping and saying things she'd regret. Pearl had learned not to let it reach that point. Not as often as before, anyway. And she hadn't exactly lied about police business. She was was in the office where, as of late, police business was conducted. in the office where, as of late, police business was conducted.

She was sliding her cell phone into her pocket when it vibrated in her hand.

She smiled when she saw that the caller was Yancy.