Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 3, March 1990

Tall Boys by Rob Kantner

Daddy was dying. Not from the emphysema; that was three years from grabbing him. No: Daddy was dying because it looked like come November he’d have to vote for a Republican — or a Catholic.

“Even Truman don’t want him in there!” Daddy ranted, waving his forkful of smother-broil chicken in the air. “He said Kinnedy ain’t ready to be president yet, and I agree with him.”

“Now there’s a surprise,” Ma said as she spooned a double helping of mashed potatoes onto my plate.

Daddy’s lips whitened as he glared at her. “I always took a shine to President Truman,” he said dangerously.

Ma stopped serving my brother Bill, straightened and stared at Daddy. “For heaven’s sake, Lewis! Back when he was in, you said men under five eight shouldn’t be dog catcher, let alone president!”

Daddy looked angrily perplexed. Across from me, Uncle Dan cleared his throat. I was hoping he’d point out that Daddy himself was only five seven. But Uncle Dan was just as gun-shy of Daddy as the rest of us. Ironic, since he was the only person I ever knew for whom Daddy had grudging respect, bordering on awe. He observed dryly, “Well, Truman should know ‘not ready to be president’ when he sees it.”

I snickered. “Let’s eat!” Ma said, pointedly ending the political discourse as she sat down at the end of the table to my left. “Libby will just have to take supper cold. Say the blessing, please, Benjy?”

We linked hands around the table and I closed my eyes, trying to think of the words. Fortunately, I was saved by the scuffing of footsteps on our porch outside and the squeal of the screen door hinges. “Hi, everybody!” my sister Libby called from the door. “I want you to meet somebody.”

She walked at a bounce toward the dining area, accompanied by a boy/man wearing a small respectful smile. Even to my unschooled eyes, he looked older than Libby. Than me, even.

Libby’s black hair was parted in the middle and combed down smooth, cut at ear lobe level all the way around. Bangs curved down her forehead, arching over her dark eyes. She more than adequately filled her black sleeveless blouse and white striped shorts. A perky girl with a secret smile; my baby sister but suddenly no little girl any more.

Ma was looking at Libby. Uncle Dan, having sized things up, was examining his clasped hands. Daddy, leaning back in his chair with feigned casualness, studied Libby’s friend with his smoky blue eyes, the kind of eyes that terrorized Union troops a hundred years before. “Where you been, Elizabeth?” he asked softly.

“A carnival out in Nankin Mills. Jill’s brother took us. That’s where I met Jimmy. He works in the carnival.” She beamed at her friend. “Jimmy Herndon, meet my family. That’s Daddy and Mama. This is my brother Bill, that’s my brother Benjy, and over there’s my uncle Dan Perkins.”

Herndon was a big beefy razor-cut blond wearing a yellow sport shirt, dark slacks, and pointy-toed shoes. He stepped toward Daddy, big paw outstretched. “So nice to meet you, Mr. Perkins. Say, what a great house you have here! You know, I’ve seen a lot of the Midwest, but Detroit is—”

“How old are you, son?” Daddy asked. There was nothing but interest in his voice. He was relaxed there in his chair, head tipped back, the hard planes of his face benign. The hairs rose on the back of my neck.

“Twenty-four,” Herndon said, dropping his untouched hand.

“Daddy—” Libby began.

“Did you know,” Daddy said, “that Elizabeth just turned fifteen?”

Herndon grinned crookedly. “Well, we hadn’t really—”

Libby threw an imploring look at Ma as Daddy said in a whiplike voice, “Fifteen years old! What kind of skunk did your folks raise you to be, courtin’ a fifteen-year-old little girl?”

Herndon held up both hands. “Courting? I’m not—”

Daddy leaped to his feet, his chair crashing to the floor behind him. “Get out!” he shrieked, face purpling. His fury demanded more oxygen than his ruined lungs could possibly provide; he exhaled in hard puffs between phrases. “Get out! Get out of my house! You son of a bitch! Get out!”

Libby began to cry. Herndon, twice Daddy’s size and well under half his age, took one step back, gave Libby an unreadable glance, then turned and strode out of the house.

My sister’s round face was wet and white. “Thanks an awful lot!” she shouted to the room at large, then ran away into the living room.

My big brother Bill stared grimly into his lap. Uncle Dan looked levelly at me. My heart pounded as if I was the object of my daddy’s wrath instead of a bystander. Ma had risen and now, as Libby’s footsteps echoed up the stairs, she went to Daddy and put her strong arms around his thin shoulders. “Now sit down, Lewis,” she said brusquely. “Sit down and rest and take some supper.”

“Son of a bitch,” Daddy muttered, the words punctuated by puffs. But he sat.

Ma looked all right, but in her own way she was as upset as Daddy, as indicated by the fact that she clean forgot about grace. “Come on, let’s eat,” she said, spearing her chicken. “Libby will just have to take hers cold.”

“I surely do look forward to these Wednesday night suppers with your family, Ben,” Uncle Dan said dryly.

“Daddy’s been real poorly lately,” I said. “And that dopey sister of mine must have a death wish or something, dropping that guy on Daddy like that. I mean, she ain’t even officially allowed to single-date yet. You really think he’s twenty-four, Uncle?”

“Was once, anyway. I have a feeling he’s been a lot of things. In a lot of places.”

The humid July evening was darkening the porch, which opened on three sides to our heavily treed front yard. I sat on the stone railing, facing Uncle Dan, who was half visible on the big oak glider. He was a thin, wiry man who looked younger than his sixty-two years, with a full head of neatly trimmed, graying auburn hair and a narrow unlined face highlighted by remote gray eyes. As usual he wore a light, neatly tailored suit with shiny black wing tips and a narrow black tie. His Panama hat sat on the glider next to him and a Camel cigarette smoldered between his fingers.

I was jumpy as hell, the Big Question sitting fat in my mouth. Uncle Dan knew that, and was enjoying the suspense. We both looked toward the driveway as Bill’s ’58 Fairlane Town Sedan backed along the side of the house and then took off up the street. “Where’s he off to?” Uncle Dan asked idly. “His shift doesn’t start till midnight.”

“Probably gone to see Marybeth first,” I mumbled.

“He’s been at Ford’s what, eight years now,” Uncle Dan observed. “Think you’ll be able to hang on that long, Ben?”

It took a moment for what he said to register. I stood, fists clenched, heart pounding. “Really, Uncle? When?”

“Monday week, afternoons, at the Rouge.”

“Doing what?” Please, no sweeping floors.

“Hanging doors on Fairlanes and Galaxies.”

I whooped. “Great! Beats sweeping floors.”

My uncle inhaled on his cigarette. “Lot of good men sweep floors at the Rouge. I did it myself, for awhile.”

“Hey, it don’t matter! This is great! Now I can quit the freakin’ grocery store and make some serious dough!”

“Sit down,” he said softly. I complied. My uncle leaned forward. “You remember our deal. You’re going to pass your courses next year and you’re going to graduate high school. You’re not a punk kid any more, you’re a grown man, and you’ve got obligations.”

“Yes sir, Uncle Dan,” I said, toning down the excitement.

“I hear you’re flunking anything, I’ll get you fired out of Ford’s. Hear?”

I wondered if he could really do that. Uncle Dan had seniority to burn, but was only a foreman. There was, on the other hand, a lot about him I did not know. That none of us, Daddy included, ever knew. “Yes, sir. And I’ll pay you back for the car loan, right off the top.”

“No hurry,” he said, leaning back on the glider.

“Evening, Ben!” called a female voice from behind me.

I turned. “Oh, hi, Miz Wilder,” I called back.

“Lovely evening,” she said, smiling at us, strolling by alone in the gloom of the big trees.

“Sure is.”

Uncle Dan was sitting up straight, peering past me. “Neighbor lady?” he asked softly.

“Lives up at the corner of Bentler.”

“Mm. Nice. Miss or Missus?”

“Missus.”

I caught him looking at me closely. After a moment he said, “Your mother was telling me about your new girlfriend. Debbie?”

I scowled. “Debbie Miller. She’s not my girlfriend, just a sophomore chick who lives in the house back of us. Been hanging around here, and Mama’s been egging her on, but there’s nothing there. I’m playing the field,” I ended bravely.

Uncle Dan’s distant eyes were on me again, making me feel distinctly uncomfortable. I wished that I could smoke; it would have helped at moments like that. “Think I’ll mosey along home,” he said, as he stood and put on his Panama, “before Act Two starts.”

That was fine with me. It was pushing eight o’clock; Silent Service was coming on. I walked with Uncle Dan down the brick steps and across the narrow lawn to the curb, where his brand-new Thunderbird convertible, the most expensive car Ford built, was parked behind my brand-new second-hand ’51 Deluxe Tudor sedan. “What do you mean, Act Two?” I asked as we walked.

“Libby and her new, uh, beau,” he said. He crushed out his cigarette, opened the door and got inside.

“Oh, I think Daddy done killed that thing dead,” I grinned.

“I don’t,” my uncle answered, face bleak in the fading light. “I saw them together in there.”

I had no idea what he meant. “Whatever happens, it won’t affect me none,” I said with bravado that was entirely felt.

“May you be so lucky, Ben.” He started the T-Bird, waved, and pulled away up Bennett Street, motor purring, tires humming, taillights glowing red in the gathering darkness.

Three mornings later, I hoofed barefoot into the kitchen, tugging my blue National Foods uniform shirt down over my head. “Mama, I threw my newer work pants down the chute the other day. You washed ’em yet?”

She glanced at me over her shoulder as she rinsed off a breakfast bowl in the sink. “I finished the wash yesterday, Benjy. Those pants weren’t in there.”

“I know I put ’em down the chute.”

“They’ll turn up. Wear your old ones for today.” She shut off the water. “Miz Wilder called a minute ago. Her husband’s gone away on business, and she wanted to know if you could stop by there this morning and move some boxes for her. I said you could.”

Move some boxes, I repeated silently. “Sure,” I said, “I’ll stop by there before I go to work.”

“Bring me a pig’s head from the grocery.” She took down a dish towel and started drying her hands. “We’re having Brunswick stew tomorrow.”

“I’ll bring you the dead pig,” I grinned, “but I’ll need some dough.”

“Take a five out of Daddy’s cash kitty.”

“Daddy won’t like that.”

“You do like I tell you,” she advised, “and let me worry about your daddy.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Easy for you to say, I thought. He doesn’t ever hit you.

She finished drying and hung the towel back up. The house around us was Saturday silent. Bill was working overtime at Ford’s; Daddy’s schedule at Kerns Casket was four on and two off, causing his weekends to rotate around; Libby was out somewhere. My mother looked me over, and she seemed to decide. “Set down, Benjy. I got something important to talk to you about.”

Nervous and uncomfortable, I sat. My mother took the chair across from me. Her squarish face was tired and her eyes lacked their usual fervor. Her blue housedress was already limp from early heat and humidity and work. She folded her hands, looked at them, then at me. “You probably ain’t aware of it,” she began quietly. “You got your own life these days. But there’s trouble in this house.”

I was afraid even to breathe. “What kind of trouble?”

“Your sister,” Ma said, “is still seeing that boy. That Jimmy Herndon.”

Inside I sighed, and thanked my lucky stars that it was Libby’s ass in a sling this time, and not mine. “How do you know, Ma?”

“Just a feelin’,” she said. “Your momma ain’t a total dern fool, you know. I know a lot about what goes on in this house.” I wasn’t about to touch that one. After a pause, Ma went on. “For example, I had a feeling that William knew more than he was lettin’ on. So I asked him last night, and I was right.”

“William” was my big brother Bill on the wrong side of Ma. “Right about what?” I asked.

Her lips drew back from her teeth for a minute and her eyes were steely. “Up till Wednesday, William was picking Libby up from summer school classes and driving her to meetings with that boy.”

I couldn’t believe it. “So Bill was helping her?”

Ma nodded grimly. “Your brother is weak. Libby asked him to, and he didn’t have the gumption to say no. Last night he spilled everything. He told me that Libby didn’t meet that boy Wednesday, like she said. They met two weeks ago. She brought him here Wednesday night because she was going to ask us to let him stay in the extry bedroom till he could find a job. Supposably he was quitting the carnival so he could stay in Detroit.”

“Wow. Daddy ain’t heard all this, has he?”

Ma held up a work-worn hand. “Your daddy must never know. He is very poorly. He don’t need aggravation.”

And God knows we don’t need him aggravated, I thought. “What are you gonna do, Ma?”

“I thought about forbidding her to see Herndon. But Jane Lee says if you forbid a teenager to date someone, she’ll turn right around and do it anyhow.”

Jane Lee was a local advice columnist whose counsel Ma ranked just below that of the Gospels. “Jane Lee knows best,” I said, echoing what Ma herself had said down through the years.

She ignored the sarcasm. “Bill swears he stopped helping Libby as of Wednesday. That’s all the help I can expect out of him. For the rest, I’m looking to you.”

I gaped. “Me?”

“You,” Ma said in a cold voice. “I want you to find out for sure if they’re still seeing each other. If they are—” She stopped abruptly and took a deep breath before going on. “If they are, then you will find a way to break it up, and get him out of Libby’s life for good.”

I sat there in our kitchen, listened to the silence, felt the pressure, impaled on a dilemma. On the one hand, I’d been brought up to obey my parents instantly and without question. On the other hand, I wanted no part of Libby’s messes. And I was not, as Uncle Dan said, a punk kid any more. I was practically a grown man now, tired of taking orders. Plus, I only had a week before I went to work afternoons at the Rouge. My free time was running short, and I didn’t want to waste any of it making like some kind of half-assed Richard Diamond, Private Eye.

Forget it, old lady, I said silently. Find yourself another patsy.

My mother said, “I’m not asking you for your daddy’s sake, or for my sake. It’s for Libby’s sake.” She pressed her lips. “That boy is trouble. I just know it. Libby’s too young. She’s strong-headed. Rash. Reckless.”

Here goes, I thought. “Ma, I’m — I wouldn’t know where to start.” Good going, big man, I thought, disgusted. Good thing Fast Eddie and the Bubbas weren’t there to hear me.

She smiled at me. “You’ll find a way. You’ll do it because you’re my boy, and because I’m asking you to, hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You do as I say, now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Take care of your baby sister.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I locked up my Ford and joined Fast Eddie walking with a cluster of other customers up the long grassy meadow toward the carnival entrance. Thin-as-a-straw Eddie wore all black, as usual, and carried his Gibson acoustic slung by its black embroidered strap over his shoulder. He surveyed the sky with his dark eyes and held out his hands tentatively. “Think it might rain?”

“That’s the chance you take, dummy, carrying that guitar around. What’s it for, anyways?”

“Chicks,” he said, his thin face wolflike.

“Well, you’re on your own on that. I’m here to track down this Jimmy Herndon fella.”

“I still don’t get it, Benjy. What’s talking to Herndon gonna get you?”

“I’m going to ask him if he’s gonna hang around or leave town. If he’s leaving town, our troubles are over. If he’s hanging around, well — I’ll have to figure out what to do then.”

We got in line at the carnival admission booth. Fast Eddie studied me. “What’s with you and the chicks department, Benjy? Having yourself a celibate summer?”

“I’m doing just fine, thanks,” I growled, digging into my pocket for money.

Fast Eddie laughed. “You mean Debbie Miller? Your momma was telling me little Deb’s got the hots for you. What a howl!”

“Forget it, man. She’s ugly, she’s stupid, and she’s only fifteen.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

As such operations go, the carnival wasn’t very big. Its dozen rides included a rickety roller coaster, dodge ’em cars, a merry-go-round, a couple of pivoting saucer rides, and the inevitable Ferris wheel. Organ music shrilled from worn-out speakers, and the humid air was drenched with the scent of sawdust, beer, and animal dung.

We hit the midway, which stretched out colorfully the length of a football field, flanked with booths manned by loud, practiced carnies. There weren’t many customers. Some of the booths had none at all. It was perfect, but I didn’t feel all that good. I was hung over, for one thing; as usual, Fast Eddie, the Bubbas, and I had put away a case of tall boys the night before. On top of that I was nervous. I’d never done this kind of thing. I didn’t know where to begin. Oh well, I thought, just dive in and fake it.

“Over here, Fast,” I said, gesturing us toward one of the carny booths. This was a sort of ring-toss game. You threw rubber rings at cases full of long-necked bottles. If you got a ring to stick over a bottle neck, you won a prize. The catch, of course, was that the rings were just barely big enough to fit over the necks, and the bottles were not seated solidly in the cases.

I ambled up to the counter. It was manned by a wizened, deeply tanned man in a baggy blue Truman shirt, ball cap, and loose pants. His face looked like it had collapsed on itself; it had no substance at all except for the wad of chew in his left cheek. As I approached, he sang, “Yes sir, yes sir, win a big prize today, win a big prize. Two chances for a thin dime, five for a quarter. What’ll it be, young fella?”

“Hi,” I said, grinning at him. “I’m looking for Herndon. Jimmy Herndon.”

“This ain’t the missing persons bureau. How many chances you want, now?”

“I don’t want any. Look, I know Herndon works here at the carnival. Where is he?”

The carny stepped back and glared at me, tiny points of light burning in his remote eyes. “You’re blocking paying, customers. Pay up and play, or move on, kid.”

I glanced around. No one else was there. Not even Fast Eddie. Bored already, he’d wandered across the fairway to the Rifle Range and was chatting with the overweight blonde who ran it. She beamed at him in a way that women never beamed at me, and I felt the resentment that went back to when Fast and I were six: how in hell does he do it?

I glared at the carny. “There’s nobody else here, mister. Now I asked you a question. Help me out and I’ll be on my way.”

The sawed-off ball bat came up with blinding speed, swung down and smashed the counter top. I nearly jumped out of my shoes. The carny raised the bat again and waggled the business end like Rocky Colavito, staring hotly at me. “You heard me!” he screamed. “Get moving!”

I gulped. “Okay, okay. No offense.” I backed away from the booth. Several other customers were staring at me. The other carnies paid no attention at all. Fast Eddie had vanished. So had the blonde lady.

I continued up the midway. Gradually my heartbeat got back under control. Big deal, I told myself. You ran into a hard nose first time out. Keep trying. Someone will come across.

Wrong. I worked the midway for better than an hour. I talked to carnies, concessions people, roughnecks and drivers. Leaving out the ball bat part, they were as cooperative as the ring-toss man. Never heard of Jimmy Herndon. Get moving, kid. Mind your own business.

They were lying. I was sure of it. But, I thought as I retraced my route down the midway, there’s no way to prove it. Dead end. I walked on, bound for the exit, wondering where Fast Eddie was, wondering what to do now—

“Hey, Benjy!”

I turned. Fast Eddie gave me the come-on wave. I trotted toward him. “What’s up, Fast?”

He looked excited. “Come here. Quick, before she changes her mind.” He led me between two of the carny booths. Behind the midway was a sprawling grassy area parked full of trucks. One of them, a big panel job, sat facing me with its tail doors swung open. Sitting on the bumper was the blonde woman I’d seen Fast talking with earlier. She was smoking a cigarette and looked nervous. “This is my friend Erma,” Eddie said. “Erma, this is Benjy. Now tell him what you told me.”

Erma’s close-cropped hair hadn’t always been blonde. She stretched a cowgirl outfit and big tall boots, and was ten years and fifty pounds ahead of Eddie, not that it made any difference to him. She scanned me indifferently, glanced around, then said in a low voice, “Jimmy Herndon was a roughneck here at the carnival.”

I glanced at Fast. He was beaming. “I know that,” I told her. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell him the story, Erma,” Fast Eddie said.

She shut her eyes tightly for a minute. Then: “There was a big brawl last week in a bar up on U.S. 12 somewhere. A man got knifed. Throat cut, bled to death. Jimmy was there. Word is, he did it. He’s hiding out. Cops are after him. He don’t dare show his face around here.”

“Nice guys your little sister hangs out with, Benjy,” Fast noted.

“Shut up.” I leaned close to Erma. She smelled of makeup and sweat. “You sure about this, Erma?”

“Swear to God.” Her eyes flickered. “We’re not supposda talk about him. Bad for business.”

“I’ll just bet.” I stood. “Any idea where he went?”

She shook her head and inhaled on her cigarette jerkily. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. Jimmy Herndon is slick and tricky and pure trouble all the way through. You boys stay clear of him.”

“We can’t,” I said, putting all the tough I could into my voice. “Him and me, we got business.”

She smiled sadly. “Then be careful, boys. Be plenty damn careful.”

After thinking it over, I decided to park in the lot of the Michigan Bank, across Grand River from Redford High. I couldn’t park too close or Libby would spot me. I couldn’t park too far away or I’d miss her. This was perfect. Hopefully.

As I waited, the radio whispered the three o’clock news: Tshombe, Katanga, the Democratic Convention, and today’s All Star Game. It was a warm and muggy Monday, had rained earlier and would again. I smoked a Camel cigarette and thought about what I was doing. I’d bombed out with Herndon. Now to go at it from the other end. Follow Libby and see where she went.

Gaggles of kids left the building as summer school classes let out. When I spotted Libby, she was walking east along the sidewalk on Grand River, about to cross Westbrook. Headed away from home.

When she stopped in front of Sock’s Texaco amid a mixed group of whites and Negroes, I realized she was waiting for a bus. I put out my cigarette and started the car. Libby didn’t seem anxious or furtive. She wore a generously cut pleated shirtdress in light blue, with a big wide belt and sandals, and carried her textbooks as if they weren’t important.

A DSR bus came along and roared to a stop. I wheeled my car into one of the eastbound lanes of Grand River as the bus gobbled up its passengers and continued toward the distant skyline of downtown Detroit.

The radio began to croon Percy Faith’s “Theme from ‘A Summer Place.’ ” I’d heard it to death already. I twirled the knob to the next station: Elvis doing “Stuck on You.” Much better. I kept the left lane of Grand River, and followed the bus at the thirty-five mph speed limit. The back ad panel advertised Channel 7, WXYZing, Detroit’s Big Station.

I wondered where the hell my sister was going.

The bus stopped at every major cross street. Each time I hugged the curb, watching fruitlessly for Libby as people got on and off. We passed near the National Food Store where I worked and I flipped it the finger as we went by, knowing I was out of there in less than a week. St. Mary’s Catholic, Ward’s and Penney’s, the Bow Wow Coney Island, the Bel-shaw plant. Traffic was light, but the speed limit was thirty now and we crawled. Winkelman’s, Sears, Charlie’s Cadillac and Dawson Edsel; downtown was rising before my eyes and still no Libby—

I damn near blew it. The bus stopped across from the Riviera Theatre; I watched the disembarking passengers idly and then scanned the marquee: A Tall Story starring Tony Perkins and Jane Fonda. When the bus moved on, I did too, and belatedly spotted Libby half-jogging across Grand River headed for the front of the theater.

Cursing myself, I U-turned in front of Kresge’s and came back as several homebound commuters honked angrily. Libby was not in sight. One thing I knew for sure: she didn’t need to come all the way down here for movies, not with the Redford Theatre right around the corner from our house.

I gingerly turned north on Riviera Street. Libby was half a block away, crossing the narrow street toward the front of a gaunt, gray, two story apartment building. As I rolled slowly that way, she went inside. I pulled into the Riviera Theatre’s parking lot across from the apartment building, drove down to the end, and parked by a tree.

Wesson Apartments was engraved in stone above the door. The building filled the corner of Riviera and Yosemite streets, a modest looking neighborhood. I didn’t know anybody down here. I wondered who in the hell Libby knew down here. I wondered what she was doing in there. Several times I opened my door, ready to go find out. Each time I shut the door and waited some more.

An endless, fidgety hour later, Jimmy Herndon came out of the Wesson Apartments with his arm around my sister. They kissed, he waved, and she walked away toward Grand River, stride bouncy, arms embracing her books.

I fired up the Ford and laid a hot streak of rubber as I swerved onto Riviera Street and rolled abreast of Libby. Her eyes widened when she saw me; then she looked resolutely ahead as she walked. “Go away, Benjy.”

I kept my tone reasonable. “Need a ride, don’t you?”

“I’m fine. Now go away.”

I babied the Ford along, keeping even with Libby. “Come on, hop in,” I said. “You really don’t want to ride that sweaty old bus all the way home, do you?”

She looked at me suspiciously, then tossed her head in what passed for acceptance. I stopped the Ford, she crossed in front and got in. I managed to keep the lid on till we’d turned the corner and were part of the westbound rush up Grand River.

“You’re not seeing that son of a bitch no more, Libby Perkins, or I’ll break both your arms for ya, I swear to God!”

“I’ll see him all I want!” she shouted back. “And you got no right to spy on me.”

I calmed myself with difficulty. “Listen. Herndon’s trouble. He done got into a knife-fight, and somebody died, and the cops are after him.”

I did not get the expected shocked silence. “He didn’t kill anybody,” Libby came back readily. “It was all a big mixup. An accident. They’re just picking on him.”

“How come you know so much about it?” She didn’t answer. “Don’t tell me you were with him when it happened.”

She shrugged and began to play with the window crank, mouth ugly. “What about you? You’re not exactly Mister Simon Pure yourself. I’ve smelled beer on your breath, plentya times. And I know you’re weedin’ off every chance you get. And you prob’ly got some kind of trashy girlfriend stashed away somewhere.”

“I’m seventeen,” I said. “Makes all the difference.”

“No,” she shot back. “You’re a boy and I’m a girl. That’s the difference.” She turned on the radio. It was playing “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” I shut it off on the third beat. Libby scowled and went on, “Mama put you up to this. She thinks just ’cause I’m a girl that I can’t handle things. Well, I can. Every damn bit as well as you.”

Silence prevailed till I made the turn onto Burgess, three blocks from home.

Libby said softly, “You just forget what you saw today. If you snitch to Mama and Daddy, I’ll say you’re a liar.”

“Stay away from him, Libby.”

“You can’t stop me. Mama and Daddy can’t stop me.” She smiled. “Nobody can stop me. Nobody at all.”

As we turned onto our street, I waved at Mrs. Wilder, and she waved back from her porch swing.

“So,” Fast Eddie said from the shotgun seat, “we gonna thump some rump this afternoon or what, men?”

I slowed the ’51 to a stop in front of Sun Ya’s on Grand River as the radio played “Cathy’s Clown.” “We’re just gonna reason with Mr. Herndon. That’s all.”

Fast grinned at me and jerked a thumb toward the back seat. “Is that why we’re bringing along all this Bubba-beef? Because they’re so articulate?”

I glanced in the rear view. The Bubbas filled the back seat with biceps, shoulders, football jerseys, and identical grins. “Reason with him,” one of them said. “Damn straight,” chimed in the other.

Their real names were Joe and Frank Szewczklieuski. But everybody had referred to them as Bubba, both singular and plural, almost as far back as I could remember. The handle was hung on them by my daddy. Being, like everyone else, unable to tell them apart, he was uncomfortable calling them Joe or Frank. And he never could learn how to pronounce their last name, no matter how patiently we tutored him. One day in frustration he called them Bubba, and it stuck.

It was a hot, sunny Tuesday noon. I’d worked the morning at the grocery and then collected the guys for our little visit to Jimmy Herndon. Libby was safely in summer school so I figured the coast was clear. My reasoning was, if I couldn’t talk her out of him, maybe I could encourage him out of her.

The light changed to green, the song changed to “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” and the topic changed to the Detroit Tigers: sorry as hell, tied for fifth with the Washington Senators and going nowhere fast. I lighted a Camel and joined the bad-mouthing, which went from baseball to women, to beer to women, to Fast Eddie’s new band to women, and from there, neatly, to beer.

“Hey, Ben,” a Bubba said, “tall boys Saturday night.”

“Your turn to buy,” the other chimed in.

“Damn, that’s right,” I said. “Guess I’ll be hitting the usual source. If I can catch Denny on duty. He still doesn’t card, does he?”

“Nah,” Fast Eddie said, “but I think he’s on vacation.”

“I’ll figure it out,” I vowed. “Don’t worry, guys. It’s only Tuesday. By Saturday, a case of tall boys will be ours.”

We crossed Livernois; on the home stretch now. Fast Eddie rubbed his hands together. “I think we ought to take Herndon in an alley and lay waste to his face.”

Eddie’s zeal would have been disquieting if it were not so suspect. “Just let me do the talking, Fast,” I said. “Y’all are along for moral support and that’s all.”

“You guys hold him,” Fast said ominously, “and I’ll hit him.”

I rounded the corner and pulled into the half-full parking lot of the Riviera Theatre. We parked, got out, and crossed Riviera Street, making for the doorway of the Wesson Apartments. We’d just hit the sidewalk when Fast Eddie said blandly, “Hey, guys, I better stay out here and watch the car.”

The Bubbas snickered. I glared at Eddie. “What do you mean, ‘watch the car’? It ain’t going nowhere.”

He was already heading back. “I’ll just sit on the hood and scare off the thieves. You guys have fun.”

He waltzed away, whistling a cheerful tune. “Come on, guys,” I muttered to the Bubbas.

The foyer of the Wesson was small, airless, and empty except for a row of metal mailboxes nailed to the cheap plaster wall. Each box had a name and not one of them was Herndon.

“What now?” I asked the Bubbas. Their only reply was a shared grin. I had a brainstorm. “Come on,” I said, and led them to an apartment door. A brisk knock brought the face of a small busty woman with loose dentures, a small mustache, and a hairnet. “Yaaaassssss?” she asked, wobbling.

“Looking for Jimmy Herndon, ma’am,” I said. “He lives in the building here. Big beefy guy? Blond? Works the carnival?”

“Upstairs,” she said with a Smirnoff accent. “Try upstairs, the door with the Tigers decals.” She slammed the door.

“Now we’re cooking,” I said. The Bubbas trailed me like a herd of steer, up a flight of narrow wood stairs to the second floor. I knocked on the door and it swung open obligingly.

I damn near swallowed my tongue.

It was a small one-room apartment with windows looking out over Yosemite Street. The Murphy bed was held down by the stark naked Jimmy Herndon, who gaped at us through the smoke of his cigarette, and a trim young dark-haired woman who, I realized as she gave a strangled “Eep!” and tried to cover herself, was not Libby.

“Excuse us,” the Bubbas said in unison, having been raised to be polite.

“Want to talk to you, Herndon,” I said sternly.

The big man’s good-living face went sour for a second as he recognized me. “Oh, jeez. Okay. I’ll see you in the hall there in a second, kid.”

“Make it quick,” I said threateningly, and pulled the door shut. “Hey, Bubba, trot on out there on Yosemite and make sure our little buddy doesn’t slip out the window, okay?” One of them took off, clomping heavily down the stairs.

I lighted a Camel and smoked nervously. After a moment the apartment door opened and Jimmy Herndon came out, zipping up his pants. He grinned at me. “You’re Benjy, right?”

“Ben. Ben Perkins. And you know why I’m here, so let’s get on with it.”

“Get on with what?” he asked pleasantly. His eyes clicked once to Bubba and then back to me, undisturbed.

“You and Libby. I want to hear you say that it’s over.”

“Well, okay. It’s over. How’s that, Benjy?”

His grin had not wavered. I dropped my cigarette to the floor and slowly crushed it out, feeling my heart pound and fists knot. “You smart-mouthin’ me?”

He showed me palms. “No,” he said deliberately. “Now don’t get riled. I meant what I said. Libby and I are all through.”

I loosened my hands marginally. “You give me your word on that?”

“Absolutely. Look, Ben — you don’t mind if I call you Ben, do you?” He hooked a hand over my shoulder and led me slowly up the hall. “I like Libby. I really do. But she really is too young for me. I’m breaking it off. I’d already planned to, even before today.”

“I see.”

Herndon looked me straight in the eye. “As it happens, I’m leaving town for good. Tonight. So I’ll be out of the picture. Fair enough?”

“Yeah. Okay.” I gestured to Bubba.

“Don’t disappoint me, now,” I warned Herndon. “Don’t worry, Benjy. I won’t.”

The rain was dumping in buckets the next afternoon as I sloshed the Ford up Lahser on my way home from work. I’d put in ten hours at the grocery and I was whipped, grimy, and grumpy. My boss, whom I’d unwisely nicknamed Hitler, had been giving me the crappiest jobs in the place ever since I told him I was going to work at Ford’s. Plus I was jumpy, wondering what kind of explosion waited for me at home. It had been twenty-four hours since my talk with Jimmy Herndon, more than enough time for Libby to find out that he was gone.

A familiar figure waved an umbrella to me from under the awning of Jim’s Sweet Shop. I sloshed the Ford to the curb as my mother ran to the car, opened the door and piled in, dragging her umbrella behind her. “Lord have mercy, it’s enough to strangle frogs! Thank you, Benjy.”

“No problem, Ma.” I wheeled the Ford away from the curb. “So, how’s things around the house?”

“Things?” she asked absently as she glanced inside her prescription bag. Then she arched a brow. “Oh. Things. Well, son, I reckon things are just fine.”

“In the baby sister department?” I asked carefully. “What’s she been up to?”

“Nothing special. Came straight home from school, like yesterday. Studied awhile. Then went out with her girlfriends. There’s a new movie at the Red-ford over there, something with Dick Clark.” She must have taken my silence for skepticism, because she added, “I know that’s where Libby went. I walked up here with her and her friends, since it was right on the way to Kinsel’s for your daddy’s prescription.”

“Well, good,” I said uneasily, swinging right onto Bennett.

“I don’t know what you did, son, but whatever it was, it seems to’ve worked. I’m much obliged.” She looked at me and wrinkled her nose. “Heavens mercy, what is that stench on you, Benjamin?”

“Hot sauce. Had to clean up a busted case of it.”

She had her eagle eye on. “And those shoes! Why in the world did you wear those sorry old shoes to work?”

“Couldn’t find my other ones. Looked everywhere.”

She snorted. “You’re too young to be going senile. First your pants, now your shoes.”

“Sorry, Ma.” I slowed down for our driveway. “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

She smiled at me. “I know. It was unfair of me, imposing on you the way I did. But I’m not sorry. You fixed it and it’s over and I’m grateful, Benjy. Right grateful.”

I wished I could be as positive as she.

But everything stayed calm. At least as calm as it ever was around our house. Daddy came home mean as a snake from a run-in with his boss at the casket company, and had another tantrum when the news came over that Kennedy had, as expected, been nominated. Libby returned from her movie and ate dinner with the family. Then she spent the evening curled up on the living room couch, industriously studying her English. She was in a fine mood. I began to think that maybe Ma was right. Maybe the Herndon episode was over. Maybe Libby would pass her remedial courses and go on to tenth grade in the fall and life would return to whatever passed for normal around our place.

I wanted to believe it. I had my own life to live, and only a few days left before hitting the line at Ford’s. I wanted to cruise in my Deluxe Tudor, maybe turtle-race down Woodward Avenue, four cars abreast doing ten miles per hour; gobble Big Chief burgers at the Totem Pole, catch the Tigers playing the Yankees at Briggs Stadium this weekend, and, of course, have at least one more session guzzling Stroh’s tall boys with Eddie and the Bubbas, assuming I could find a supplier.

But in the end I had to make sure.

I stood before the apartment door and took a deep breath as the Wesson Apartments breathed silently around me.

For the dozenth time since getting up that Thursday morning I wondered if I was being extra dumb, coming down here alone. But, I reminded myself, Herndon didn’t seem all that tough. Big guy, for sure, with some experience on him, but mostly mouth. All lard and no hard, as my daddy would have said. I wouldn’t need the Bubbas to handle him. If in fact he was still here.

I knocked on the door. After a moment it eased back, held cautiously by the dark-haired woman I’d seen Herndon with the last time. She wore a mint Grecian-sleeve dress with a polka dot sash around her slender waist. Her hair was pixie short and so was she: shapely but slight with the wiry build of a dancer. “You,” she greeted me.

I wanted to tell her she looked better with clothes on, but caught myself in time. Not very nice, and untrue, besides. “Me,” I answered, grinning. “Where’s Herndon at?”

“Not here. Who cares where?” She smiled crookedly. “I sure as the dickens don’t. I threw him out.” She stepped into the hallway and pulled the door to. At my expression her face hardened and she pushed the door back open. “You want to search the place? Go ahead!”

“If I wanted to, babygal, I would.” The line sounded better in my head than it did out loud. “What’d Herndon do, find somewhere else to live?”

“Somewhere else?” she mimicked sourly. “He never lived here. Hung around some, you know? But he never spent the night. We had some laughs, okay? But nothing big-time.”

“Seen him lately?”

“You deaf or something? I threw him out, I toldja.” As she looked at me, I saw that her eyes, outlined in black, were the exact color of her dress. “The other day when you were here, I listened through the door. That’s how I found out about him and your sister. That tore it. I never planned to marry the bum, but I wasn’t going to be part of any harem, either.”

“Any idea where he went?”

“If he was smart, he got out of Detroit. Cops are looking for him. You knew that, huh? I called ’em myself to let them know he’d been seen in the neighborhood here. Maybe they caught him, ever think of that?”

Nope. Not hardly. “Sure I did,” I said importantly. “I’m stopping by the precinct right after this.”

“Uh-huh.” Her hips swayed slightly as she gave me the cool green once-over. “When you’re done with all that, whyn’t you come back and buy me a drink or something?”

“Wish I could,” I said, taken by surprise. “But I’m, uh, more or less seeing somebody, you know?”

“At least you’re honest,” she said, which made me feel guilty. She walked with exaggerated grace back into her apartment and smiled and winked at me over her shoulder. “I hope she knows how lucky she is,” she said before closing the door between us.

I idled the Ford at the Schoolcraft traffic light. On the opposite corner sat the C & H Party Store. I wondered if they’d card me if I strolled in and bought a case. I had no idea, and I had no time now. But I’d have to figure the beer thing out pretty soon. Saturday was only two days off.

But I had something bigger on my mind than the need for a case of tall boys. It was a feeling I’d never had before, not quite this way. The feeling that something was going on behind the scenes. That a great big fast one was being pulled.

That I was being had.

“He never spent the night here,” his ex-girlfriend had told me. Then where the hell was he living, between the knife fight and now? Had I even thought to ask her? Nooooo.

“She was going to ask us to let him stay in the extry bedroom,” Ma had told me. Of course, the negotiation had never gotten that far, thanks to my calm, cool, collected daddy.

And Libby had been acting awfully happy last night for a hotheaded girl whose first great love had ankled her.

The light greened and I geared the Ford up to high, half watching my driving. “There’s trouble in this house,” Ma had said. Yeah. Things hadn’t been right. I’d been waking up a lot lately in the dead of night. I’d attributed that to the jitters — starting work at Ford’s would be no picnic, I knew — but what if...

That morning I’d been unable to find my prized Redford High baseball jersey. And Bill had complained about missing a jacket. Either the laundry chute was eating our clothes, or Ma was going senile, or—

“Jesus Christ,” I murmured. I sailed through the red light at Greenfield without even thinking about it. Could anybody be that brazen?

By the time I reached our neighborhood, I’d decided what to do. It was wild-assed crazy, but it just might work — if I could only talk Debbie Miller, my local admirer, into going along.

She appeared, a ghostly, whitish-gray, faceless figure, behind the rippled glass of the porch door, and clicked the latch open. As I pulled the door, she put a finger to her lips and shook her head. I nodded. She turned and led me through the inner door into the house, through the kitchen, and up the carpeted back stairway.

The house had the sweet, foreign smell of strangers and was pitch black and thickly silent except for the faint tread of our feet echoing mutely on the old floorboards. My heart was racing, and I was pumped and primed and as ready to go as if it were nine in the morning instead of just past midnight. God alone knew what the next hour or so would bring.

Debbie closed her bedroom door behind us and faced me. In the faint light of her bedside lamp, I saw that she wore white full-length cotton pajamas over pink bunny slippers. Atop that she wore a white satiny quilted robe that reached from her ankles all the way up to a big button at her throat. She was about as physically inviting as a Barcolounger, which, I discerned in her opening comments, was no accident.

“Don’t you lay a hand on me, Benjy Perkins!” she whispered sharply, gray eyes hard.

I sighed. So much for the big crush she supposedly had on me. Just as well. “That’s not why I’m here,” I whispered patiently. “I explained all that.”

“Better not be. I’m not like that Beth Heinzeroth, sneaking boys into her house to do God knows what. I must be nuts to be doing this. I’m a good girl.”

“I know. So listen, whyn’t you keep yourself busy or something, while I do what I got to do? Go to sleep if you want. I don’t know how long this’ll take.”

She rolled her eyes. “No, thank you. I’ll just stay awake till you’re done with whatever strange business you’re mixed up in. There’s the window. Help yourself. And keep it quiet or you’ll wake my folks — and you know what that means.”

I went to the window, pulled back the drapes, and notched the blinds. Across the narrow adjoining back yards, beyond a copse of trees, I could see the back side of our house, half black and half silvery in the moonlight. Behind me, I heard bedsprings creak as Debbie arranged herself Indian-style against her headboard. I glanced back at her and she raised her chin and stared at me defiantly. I made what I hoped was an innocent, reassuring smile, turned back to the window, knelt and looked out and watched, waiting for something to happen.

An hour went by like that. Nothing happened outside. Inside was another story. Debbie just couldn’t sit still. She flipped through magazines and paced, cleared her throat and smothered yawns, and gave me a clench-jawed steely-eyed stare whenever I dared to look at her.

I was silently composing a speech in which I foreswore, for all time, any and all interest in her body, when I caught a motion outside at the northeast corner of our house.

It was Libby. She wore jeans and a sweater and nothing on her bare feet showing white against the grass. It was in the low fifties that night, cool for July, and she hugged herself as she walked purposefully in the moonlight to the double doors that covered the cement stairs leading down into our cellar.

As I stared, I felt disbelief. I also felt something else, something new: pure cold joy. Got you, you bastard. I got you, got you, got you.

Libby bent and gave the cellar door three taps. After a moment it rose a couple of inches. She opened it the rest of the way, stepped over the threshold and followed the steps down, swallowed up in the deeper blackness as the cellar door dropped shut behind her.

Now! I thought fiercely. Now to settle some hash! I stood abruptly. Debbie jumped. “What is it?” she whispered.

“Christmas time. Got to go, sweetheart.” I headed for the door. “You stay here. I know the way out. And thanks, kid. You done good.”

She stood, nervously tugging the robe tightly around her. “I thought you’d be here longer.”

“Long enough. Go on, get some sleep.” I opened the bedroom door.

She licked her lips. “I enjoyed it,” she ventured.

I waved and stepped out. As I pulled her door shut, I distinctly heard one whispered word: “Bastard.”

I closed the porch door silently behind me and moved at a fast trot across the Millers’ back yard. In the weeds behind their trash barrel I found the Louisville Slugger I’d hidden there earlier. I hefted it and held it at my side as I crept around the copse of trees as quietly as I could. Too late. I heard the cellar doors creak shut and caught a glimpse of Libby rushing back the way she’d come. She’d been down there five minutes, tops.

Well, well. Now this would work even better. I crouched in the cool, damp grass, leaning on the bat, and counted to six hundred, plenty long enough for Libby to get inside, up the stairs, and into her room, out of harm’s way. Then I stood and walked across our lawn, ducking under the clotheslines as I made for the cellar doors.

There I froze a moment. Not a sound from anywhere. I had to do this smart and quiet. I thought it through, then bent and tapped on the cellar door three times, just as Libby had.

After a moment the door rose an inch or so. I stood facing out, with my back against the house, waiting and watching, as it closed. I bent and tapped on it again. Stepped back and hoisted the bat this time, cocked and ready.

The cellar door rose, opening wider and wider, revealing a male arm and then a blond head as Jimmy Herndon ventured up the stairs, back to me. He’d just uttered the first syllable of Libby’s name when the fat of my Louisville ball bat thonked him squarely above his right ear.

He collapsed as if switched off, splattering down onto the stairs. I dropped the bat, bent and took him under the damp armpits of his T-shirt and began to drag him out. He weighed a ton, but I didn’t have far to haul him, and I was feeling too proud of myself to care. I’d done it. I’d taken out the villain, like Richard Diamond, Sundance, Roger and Smith, Peter Gunn — guys like that.

Finally the gagging and retching stopped. I had both big windows of my ’51 Ford open to the cool night air pouring in as I drove down the silent desertion of Grand River, but even that wasn’t enough to dull the stench from the back seat.

“You had to do that, huh,” I growled. “Ya had to puke in my brand-new second-hand car. Thanks a whole lot.”

“You were the one who hit me, kid,” Herndon said hoarsely. “You get slugged in the head, you puke.”

All I knew was, it certainly wasn’t something that happened to Richard Diamond, Sundance, Roger and Smith, Peter Gunn — guys like that. “Should of told me,” I said. “I’d have stopped so you could do it on the street like everybody else.”

“Sorry,” he said, tone wholly sincere. “Mind if I come up there?”

“I don’t care.”

“You’re not going to hit me any more?”

“As long as you’re peaceable I won’t.”

Jimmy Herndon stuffed himself over the seat into the front and arranged himself as far from me as he could get. I followed the night-blanketed street as it lanced toward the heart of Detroit, doing about sixty, catching the synchronized lights perfectly. After a moment Herndon asked, “Where you taking me?”

“The train station. You promised to leave town,” I said sourly. “I’m holding you to it.”

“That’s just fine, Ben. I really appreciate it—”

“Just shut the hell up!” I shouted. “Quit acting like you’re anything but a crooked, devious, sleazy son of a bitch, okay?”

“I’m not all that bad.”

“Aren’t, huh? You been sneaking around with my sister. You been sleeping in the basement of my house every night. You had a whole bag of our clothes ready to take with you. And you’re wanted for knifing a guy. If that ain’t bad, what is it?”

“Survival.” His smile was not kind. “Maybe when you’re older, you’ll understand what I mean.”

I swung right on 14th Street. It was foggier down here, the street lights misty on the fronts of darkened houses and stores. “Well,” I said, “this-here punk kid done took you out, pal. And I could make things even worse, as in turning you over to the cops. But I don’t need the cops to fix you. It’d be too easy, somehow. There’s a lot more satisfaction in running your ass out of town personally.”

He absently rubbed his head where I’d hit him. “You’re giving me a real break, kid. Thanks.”

“No thanks needed. It ain’t Christian charity. I just don’t want my sister drug through the mud with you, hear?”

He was smiling at me. “You really are a pretty four-square guy, Ben. If there’s something I can do for you before I leave, to make amends, just name it.”

“Yeah. Right,” I snorted. “At one thirty on a Friday morning.” We were driving through a neighborhood of streets all named after trees. Nothing was open but the occasional bar. That gave me an idea. Yeah, right. Perfect!

As we reached Temple Street, I swerved the Ford over to the curb by a small building at the corner that said Temple Tavern. I put the brake on and dug in my pants pocket. “You want to make some kind of amends, go on inside there and buy me a case of Stroh’s tall boys. Got it?”

I reached a five at him. He shook his head and came out of his pocket with a large wad of soft, often-folded currency. “Nope,” he said firmly, “I’m covering it. Least I can do.” He hopped out and strode into the tavern. Presently he appeared on the sidewalk again, embracing the case. I got out and opened the trunk; he put the clinking beer bottles inside.

Ten minutes later I delivered Jimmy Herndon to the Michigan Central Train Station, walked him inside, and watched him purchase a ticket to Chicago with several bills from his fat wad of soft currency.

When he completed the transaction, he turned to me, grinning. “Train leaves at six,” he said. “Gonna wait around and wave a hankie as I depart?”

“Maybe I should. To make sure you go.”

“Oh, I’ll go. I promise.” He looked around the cavernous train station lobby. ‘This town’s too hot for me. I’m gone and I’ll stay gone. You whipped me, Ben. I’m out of here.”

I was exhausted. I was scheduled to do a twelve hour shift at the grocery, starting at six A.M. I had to get home and rescue what sleep I could. “Okay. Just don’t let me see your face in these parts ever again.”

Back behind the wheel of my ’51, beating gears headed northwest for home through the misty night, I felt pretty damned good. I’d won. Libby had been smack in the middle of big trouble, and I’d sorted it out. It hadn’t been pretty. I’d made mistakes. But I’d overcome every obstacle that appeared, and in the end I prevailed.

All for no reward — aside from the satisfaction of feeling like maybe I wasn’t just a punk kid any more...

The siren made me swerve and I nearly took out a lamppost at the Outer Drive intersection. A cop car hung to my bumper, red bubblelight and headlights flashing angrily, punctuated by the whooping siren. Heart hammering, I hauled the Ford to a stop in front of the Christian Science church. Damn it to hell! I thought. Nailed. Speeding. My first ticket.

The officer sauntered up to my door and peered down. “Benjy Perkins?” he asked, in what had to be one of the last Irish accents left on the force.

“Yessir.” How the hell did he know my name?

“Would you mind stepping out of the vehicle, young feller?”

I did so, shaking. The cop took my upper arm and led me to the rear of the car. “Got anything special in the trunk, son?”

My homecoming was not pretty.

Daddy, who didn’t bother to bail me out of the 16th Precinct till eight thirty the next morning, nearly ripped my head off. Mama met me at the door to inform me that I was the first member of the Perkins family ever to go to jail. My brother Bill, just leaving for work, shook his head ominously when he saw me. And Libby, my sweet little sister Libby, all angelic in her summer school clothes, tossed her head at my appearance and greeted me with “Morning, jailbird!”

I could handle Daddy and Mama and Bill. Time would take care of my problems with them. But I had to settle accounts with Libby. When she got home, late that evening, I barged into her bedroom and slammed the door. “We got to talk, Libby,” I growled.

She was sitting at her dressing table, brushing her short brown hair. “What do you want, jailbird?”

“First off, cut out the name-calling. This jam I’m in is all on account of you.”

Brush, brush. “Really? Did I put the beer in your car?”

“No.” I stepped closer, about to lower the boom and grimly enjoying it. “I caught Herndon last night. Dragged him to the train station and ran him out of town. He knew about the beer and he called the cops on me, to pay me back.”

The smile went. The brush stopped. Libby looked at it, turning it over and over. Then tears sprang into her eyes and she tossed the thing hard onto the dressing table. “You hoodlum!” she shouted, eyes hurt and angry. “How could you do that to him?”

“I’m the hood? What about him? He’s the one who knifed somebody. He’s—”

She buried her face in her arms, knocking stuff off the dressing table as she writhed. “I loved him and he loved me,” she wailed. “He would have taken me with him. But you butted in before he could make the arrangements. You ruined everything.”

“He didn’t love you. Look at me, Libby. He had another girlfriend at those apartments the whole time. Look at me, damn it! He wasn’t going to take you with him. What would he do that for? He’s ten years older than you. He was just using you, Libby! You were had, and I do mean had.”

She kept crying. I went to her and put my hands on her shoulders. She whirled around with the hairbrush and nearly raked my eyes out with it. “Stay away from me,” she hissed.

“All I ever wanted was to help,” I shot back.

“I’m quits with you. You ruined my life. I will hate you as long as you live.”

“You’re breaking my heart!” I sneered.

She turned to the mirror. “We’ll see how tough you are when Daddy finds out about the cash kitty.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I lent it to Jimmy,” she said, resuming her brushing. “Two hundred and ten dollars. He was going to pay it back before he left town. But you fixed that, all right. He’ll never pay it back now, and I wouldn’t blame him.”

I remembered the wad of soft currency from which Herndon had bought my tall boys. He must have laughed his ass off. “You expect me to take the rap for that? Get real. I’ll tell Daddy what you did.”

“Go ahead. Try. Who’s Daddy going to believe? You’re nothing but a jailbird. You can’t compete against his baby girl Elizabeth, so don’t even bother to try.”

She stood, gave herself one final inspection in the mirror, and walked out of the room.

And, for all practical purposes, out of my life. Down through the years, we’ve mostly met up at funerals. Daddy in ’63. Mama in ’67. The Bubbas in ’70. Uncle Dan in ’84. All gone.

So is the Riviera and the train station, both boarded up. National Foods is now a hardware store. The Totem Pole is a Burger King. Fourteenth Street is a war zone, and the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers — prime competitors of the Detroit Tigers, who in the interim have been better and worse, then better, and are now worse.

The Wesson is still there. So is Redford High. Annie Wilder got divorced and moved away, I never did learn where. Debbie Miller became an English professor at the University of Michigan. My brother Bill married Marybeth and still works at Ford’s. You know all about Fast Eddie Anger if you’re into pop music at all.

By a very circuitous route, I ended up a private detective. Like Richard Diamond, Sundance, Roger and Smith, Peter Gunn — guys like that, sort of. Fast Eddie was my client once. So, even, was Libby.

But it wasn’t till tonight that I realized my very first client was my mother. Tonight, as I stood in the fairway of the Wayne County Fair, overrun with the memories triggered by the sight of the man running a ball-toss booth.

He stood behind the counter, twenty feet from me. He was too busy to notice as I stared at him, superimposing his image, etched clear in the bright lights of the County Fair midway, against the faded memories of three decades ago. Thirty pounds heavier. Hair grayish and wispy thin. Heavy lines had taken the face, and his bouncy swagger was gone. But it was definitely him.

I pictured myself going up to him. I had a lot of questions. Did he really knife someone? Did he ever get caught? How much jail time had he done in the intervening years? What was it like to be well past fifty and still roaming the country, working the shrinking carnival circuit for nickels and dimes? How many women had there been? How much money? How many promises? Did he ever think about the broken hearts and hurt feelings he left in his wake?

The ball-toss went momentarily vacant and Herndon, as if signaled by radio, turned, looked at me, away, then back: locking his stare with mine. I grinned, remembering the sound of the bat as it hit his head. Now, all these years later, I wished I’d hit him harder—

“Ben! Hey, Ben?”

I turned. Will Somers, a muscular blond eight-year-old, galloped up to me, followed at a distance by my friend Carole Somers, great with child and looking tired. “Found the johns okay?” I asked.

“Finally,” Carole said. “Who’s that man over there?”

“Who?” I parried.

“That barker in the ball-toss booth. You were staring at him. Do you know him from somewhere?”

I glanced over at Herndon, whose eyes were still fixed on me. “Nobody important,” I answered. I took Carole in one arm, Will in the other. “Come on, I’ll buy you something to eat.”