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Chapter 20
The small confrontation between Timothy and his mom was not mentioned again. Of practical necessity, the household returned to its version of equilibrium, or at least a sort of detente.
Besides, it was mac-n-cheese night, Timothy’s favorite. Who could be grumpy with a mouthful of mac-n-cheese?
“Pass the creamy salad dressing please?” he asked.
Cathryn passed the dressing once she finished using it. Timothy proceeded to saturate his iceberg lettuce to the point where it blended with the mac-n-cheese, an added bonus.
“You want some lettuce with your dressing?” his mom asked.
“Heh,” Timothy said, a courtesy laugh.
“Isn’t your Bicentennial presentation coming up?” Cathryn asked.
“Yep, this coming Monday,” Timothy said.
He used the edge of his fork to break up a particularly crusty clump of macaroni, the best part.
“Is it something parents are expected to come to?” his mom wondered.
“No, not really, it’s just an in-school type of thing.”
This was sort of half true. It wasn’t a full-on assembly in the auditorium, but Mrs. Brenner had said parents could come, if they wanted to.
“Are you ready?” his mom asked.
“I sure am.”
And this really was true. Well, he still needed to finish the concluding paragraph, which Mrs. Brenner said should leave people with something to think about, but he basically knew what he wanted to say.
“Well I’m looking forward to reading it, when you’re ready to share,” his mom said.
“Me too,” Cathryn said.
Timothy nodded with his mouth full. He supposed he might share it with them after the fact, but for now was content to keep it to himself to avoid potential adult nitpicking before his presentation.
The sun was coming horizontally through the back window onto the dinner table like it always did this time of year when the days were getting longer. Timothy noticed how it illuminated the dinner glasses and made little rainbows on the opposite wall. It was kind of beautiful.
“Well, speaking of homework, I have an exam coming up myself,” his mom said, referring to the paralegal course she was taking.
“Are YOU ready?” Cathryn joked.
“I’d better be,” she said. “Just don’t mind me if I bow out of TV watching tonight...”
“We’ll save some dessert for you,” Cathryn said.
After supper, the phone rang while Timothy was washing dishes, his hands full of suds.
Cathryn answered.
“Sure, Timothy’s here, just a sec...”
Timothy quickly dried his hands and stretched the phone onto the back porch as usual. It was Charles, of course.
“Was that your mom?” he asked.
Timothy thought quickly.
“Yes,” he said. It was easier than coming up with a lie that would make sense.
“She sounds nice,” Charles said.
“Yeah, she’s okay,” Timothy said.
“How’d you do today?”
“With what?”
“You said you had a lead you were going to follow up on?”
“Oh yeah...I talked to Ken’s neighbor today, the one I saw back at the Oriole?”
He deleted for now the part about her being a prostitute. It made a good story, but might’ve made her seem a less reliable witness.
“And?”
“And nothing, she wasn’t there that night. But I did find out Luke Grafton’s brother’s name is Kurt. She said to stay away from him, he’s more dangerous than his brother.”
“Kurt, huh?”
Timothy could hear that Charles was holding the phone with his shoulder while he was flipping through the pages of something.
“Looks like the Grafton brothers share an apartment on Furnace Street,” Charles said, “at least they did until Luke became a guest of the State.”
“How’d you figure that out?”
“My top secret database,” Charles replied, “also called called the White Pages.”
Why didn’t Timothy think of that?
“You think the brother’s still living there?” Timothy wondered.
“Only one way to find out...you up for a little surveillance?”
“You mean, actually following him or something?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Back at the Oriole, Charles had been paying attention to Jack Flanagan while Timothy had been watching the way Kurt Grafton acted with Lynda, so maybe Charles didn’t fully realize how scary the thing he was suggesting was. But Charles had yet to lead him into anything the two of them together hadn’t figured out how to handle.
“I am if you are...” Timothy said.
Back in the kitchen, he found Cathryn finishing the dishes when he got off the phone.
“I was gonna do that,” Timothy said, thinking a guilt trip might be forthcoming.
“That’s okay, you do plenty around here,” Cathryn said. “Is Charles the new friend you’ve been hanging out with?”
She’d obviously caught his name when Charles politely introduced himself.
“Uh, yeah.”
“He sounds nice.”
“He is, actually. He’s really nice.”
When they settled into watching television for the night, Timothy’s mom, as promised, had sequestered herself in the dining room with her textbooks, leaving him and Cathryn alone in the living room.
There was plenty of room on the couch, but Timothy let Cathryn have it and he sat on the floor as usual.
When 9:00 rolled around, Cathryn said, “You wanna watch The Rockford Files?”
Timothy always wanted to watch the Rockford Files, but his mom always wanted to watch something else.
“Don’t you want to watch the ABC Friday Night Movie?”
“Nah, I don’t care either way.”
“You really don’t mind?”
Timothy reached over to the TV dial and clicked onto channel 4 just in time to catch the freewheeling harmonica part of the theme song during the opening credits.
Cathryn hadn’t stretched out, there was still space where his mom would usually sit.
So, cautiously, Timothy joined Cathryn on the couch. They proceeded to enjoy the show together.
# # #
Timothy specified that Charles should meet him in front of the Peter Stuyvesant statue at Academy Green.
“How come Peter Stuyvesant?” Charles asked when he got there, seeing there were two equally prominent statues in the immediate vicinity.
“He’s the only one with a peg leg,” Timothy said.
“You know, I never would’ve noticed that,” Charles admitted.
“Kinda piratey,” Timothy said, “thought you’d like it.”
Charles reached into his knapsack.
“Here, try these on,” he said, handing Timothy a pair of sunglasses.
“What are these for?”
“You weren’t planning on wearing your momma’s old reading glasses, were you?”
They were sort of kid’s sunglasses that Charles had clearly outgrown, but when Timothy put them on, they did look a lot cooler than the ones he’d worn to the Courthouse stake out.
“Keep them,” Charles said, “I have another pair.”
Charles put on his own brand-new adult-sized mirrored sunglasses. Timothy’d never seen a cooler pair of sunglasses in his life.
It was 10am Saturday, no school, the day stretching out long ahead of them.
There was almost zero foot traffic on Broadway today, so they slow rolled down the sidewalk side-by-side, daring the world to get in their way.
One guy did teeter and almost fell into them as they passed. He had wrinkly trousers and no laces in his shoes, seemed he might’ve still been drunk from the night before.
A few blocks shy of the Oriole, they reached Liberty Street. There was a gas station on the corner where a bunch of kids younger than them were hanging out, nothing better to do.
“Hey Charles!” they all called out to him.
“Hey guys!” Charles called back as he and Timothy turned onto Liberty Street which led them to Furnace Street.
“How do you know those kids?” Timothy asked him.
“I work with them at the Youth Center,” Charles said. “They’re good kids.”
Timothy was glad for the friendly welcome, otherwise Furnace Street might’ve psyched him out a little bit.
On Warren Street, the Green Apartment Building was the exception, but here was a whole street of green apartment buildings. Many were uncared for, with multiple mailboxes hanging off the front of each. Guys hung out on the corner. Even the craggy trees looked angry somehow.
Timothy’s neighborhood might’ve seemed rough compared to Charles’ in Hilltop Meadows, but this one seemed way rougher.
The sun was shining just the same, and the street was interesting to look at in its way. A few of the houses looked like they hadn’t changed much since the Great Depression, and they probably hadn’t.
With barely any traffic, they were back to riding in the street. The bluestone sidewalk was in particularly miserable condition here, anyway.
A kid stepped out into the street from between two parked cars, about Charles’ age. He looked a little familiar, maybe he was one of the ones who blocked their path on Broadway that one day, but Timothy wasn’t sure.
“Yo Charles,” the kid said in a low voice.
Charles slowed to a stop, Timothy did too.
“What’s up Kyle,” Charles said, evenly.
“Nice bike you got there.”
“Yes, it is,” Charles replied, matter of factly.
The kid, Kyle, reached a lazy hand out and ran his finger along the curving handlebars.
“How ‘bout you let me take it for a little spin,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” Charles said, totally keeping his cool.
“C’mon, Oreo, I won’t be but a few minutes...”
The Kyle kid started to wrap his fingers around the handlebars, as if gently beginning to take possession.
Charles clapped a firm hand over the kid’s hand, pushed his mirrored sunglasses up on top of his forehead, and leaned right into his face.
“Don’t underestimate me,” Charles said, solidly.
At first, the kid laughed off Charles’ formalistic style of speech. But Charles was giving the kid a kind of look Timothy had never seen Charles give anyone before. It was surprisingly...deadly.
When the look registered, and the kid realized Charles was not backing down, he started to try to wriggle his hand free, but Charles did not give it back so easily.
“Okay man, you ain’t gotta look at me like that,” the kid said, “we cool.”
Charles let the hand loose and the kid started backing away.
“Yeah, we cool,” Charles said straight-faced, demonstrating he could speak the kid’s language if he so chose.
Timothy said nothing as the kid looked at both of them one last time before disappearing down the street.
“C’mon,” Charles said to Timothy, lightening his tone considerably, “I think it’s on the next block...”
They rolled up on a brand new Ford Mustang. You couldn’t help but notice it, it was the only new car on the block. Charles slowed, looked at the car, noted the address of the building it was parked in front of. This was it. He nodded toward a little alleyway on the other side of the street. It was weedy and overgrown, a perfect place to conceal themselves without attracting much attention.
Pulling their bikes parallel to each other in the alleyway, they faced out into the street, with a clear view of the Mustang and the apartment building behind it.
Charles, on the left as if in the driver seat, let his sunglasses drop back over his eyes. A dog started barking two houses away, the two boys’ in their sunglasses turned their heads in unison to see where the sound was coming from, then in slo mo simultaneously returned their gaze to the house across the street.
Their heads began to bob slowly and in sync, as if the whole world could hear the same bad-ass bass line from Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak thumping inside both their imaginations.
“We might be here a while,” Charles said, reaching into his knapsack, and popping open a box of mini donuts which he extended first to Timothy.
They ate their donuts slowly, unaware in their profound state of coolness of the powdered sugar that was accumulating around their mouths like snowy five-o’clock shadows.
It was a sleepy street, but there were many things to notice. A little baby was crying somewhere, no one seemed to be bothering to comfort it. A woman with a melodious voice was singing as she hung her laundry out on a line from an upper story window. Another woman came walking down the middle of the street pushing a grocery cart she’d obviously taken from whatever supermarket she’d been shopping at blocks and blocks away.
There was also something interesting going on on the corner. Two guys were exchanging a very sly handshake, it seemed to Timothy like something was being passed between them in the process, but he couldn’t tell what it was.
“There he is,” Charles said, waking Timothy out of what seemed like a daydream.
Kurt Grafton exited the side door of the apartment building, headed out to the Mustang, and looked both ways before opening the door and hopping in.
“That’s his car?” Charles said in disbelief.
If Grafton was trying to be inconspicuous, this was about to change immediately.
When he started the Mustang, it was loud, and when he revved it purposefully, it got even louder.
The guys on the corner sang out to him cheerfully, seeming to appreciate the sheer volume of the engine. Grafton smiled and held an open hand out the window, as if gladly accepting the accolades for his small feat of automotive noise production.
When he put the car in gear, it seemed to whinny like an actual horse as he turned the wheel to pull out of its parking space, then he began to slow roll along Furnace Street.
When Charles nodded in Timothy’s direction, Timothy caught his sugary reflection in the mirrored shades, wiped his face and motioned for Charles to do the same, then they began to follow.
A block later, Grafton slowed to a stop.
“Hang back,” Charles advised.
Timothy’s coaster brakes squealed slightly as he applied them. They tucked their bikes behind a parked car.
“What’s up Anthony?” Grafton called out.
It wasn’t exactly hot outside, but this Anthony guy was shirtless as he came off his porch.
Grafton got out of his car, left the door open, again looked around, then opened his trunk. Anthony looked inside, nodded his head, and Grafton pulled out a cardboard box that looked like it maybe had a stereo receiver in it. Keeping it low, he handed it to Anthony, and they did the same sort of handshake like the guys on the corner that made Timothy think money was being exchanged.
Anthony looked both ways, carried the box to his porch and disappeared inside. Grafton got back into his car, put it back in first gear and kept it there as he continued crawling along, rounding onto Liberty with Charles and Timothy following.
Grafton said Hey to a few other people complimenting him on his wheels.
As he inched out onto Broadway, the kids they’d seen earlier at the corner gas station called out to Grafton:
“Gun it!” they said.
Grafton welcomed the suggestion. With a terrifying squeal, he left a track of rubber and smoke three parking meter lengths long. The light on the next block turned red, he ran it anyway and disappeared.
The kids on the corner cheered. Charles took off his sunglasses before approaching them, so he would look more like a normal kid.
“DANG, he got a V8 in that thing?” he asked, to any of them who cared to answer.
“V6, 105 horsepower,” said one kid, who’d obviously made it his business to know these things.
“That a 75?” Charles asked.
“76,” the kid said, “he just got it three weeks ago.”
“Fine car...” Charles said, turning his bike around, leading Timothy away from the corner and toward Furnace Street once again.
“You catch that?” Charles asked Timothy.
“What?”
“Sounds like Kurt Grafton went out and got himself a brand new car about five minutes after his brother went away, what’s that about?”
They let the question hang there.
Back at Grafton’s apartment building, they dismounted. Timothy followed Charles as they tiptoed around back.
“What’re we doing?” Timothy whispered.
“Well, we know Grafton’s not home, good time to do a little research...”
In a busted-up shed next to the back porch, Charles found what he was looking for.
“You take the can on the left, I’ll check the one on the right.”
“We’re looking in the garbage?”
Charles handed Timothy a pair of rubber gloves, like he’d known this was a possibility all along.
“Technically, it would be more legal if we waited till it was out on the curb,” Charles whispered, “but I don’t want to be out here on trash night.”
Timothy remembered how the crazy guy had yelled and accused him of looking through his garbage on that morning he’d skipped school. He had a bad feeling about this.
“You find anything with Grafton’s name on it, put it in this bag,” Charles said.
“Why’re we doing this?”
“You can learn a lot from a person’s garbage.”
Going through the can was absolutely sickening. There were gnawed on chicken bones, snotty tissues, razor-sharp tin cans, coffee grounds, as well as slimy things with mayonnaise in them Timothy could not identify.
An upstairs window opened. Charles and Timothy froze.
Someone shook out a mop head directly above them. Dust and feathers came floating down, settling in their hair, and adhering to the sticky garbage dripping from their fingers.
The mop was pulled back in. The window closed. The search resumed.
“I found something,” Timothy said. It was a ripped envelope with Grafton’s name on it.
Charles quit looking in his barrel and began concentrating on Timothy’s. They made a quick pile of receipts and bills and whatnot. Hearing footsteps bounding down an inside flight of stairs, Charles stuffed it all in the bag and they got the heck out of there lightning quick before whoever it was came out the back door.
Once they’d put a few houses distance between themselves and Grafton’s, they slowed so as not to seem obvious, but did not stop pedaling until they were back on a park bench at Academy Green, not far from the Stuyvesant statue where they’d met earlier.
“Let’s see what we’ve got...”
Dumping the pile onto the ground, it didn’t look like much to Timothy, but Charles considered each item individually as if it were potentially of utmost importance.
Some of it was junk mail, but there were things that seemed specific. A disconnection notice from the phone company. A receipt from a storage space on Greenkill Avenue, things like that. Then...
“Here we go, mother load,” Charles said, holding a pay stub.
“Why’s that?”
“Look here, now we know where Grafton works, we know his hours, and how much he makes...actually, how little he makes, for someone who just went out and got himself a brand-new Mustang.”
Charles pointed at the figures on the ketchup-stained piece of paper like they were holding gold in their hands.
“Poses an interesting question, especially considering the timing, don’t you think?” Charles asked.
“What’s that?”
“A guy who doesn’t make enough money to keep his phone turned on?” Charles said. “Where’d he suddenly get all that money?”
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I almost puked over the garbage! Sooooo gross!
Ah, the snowy five-o’clock shadow of sugarmen. Only one way to shave it.