Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(31)

After a considerable amount of back and forth arguing, the two officers bundled the boy into the patrol car, leaving the dog, who’d been impossible to catch, behind. Cobb drove, Mahoney sat in the passenger seat. Ethan Allen was alone in the back seat, his heart dangerously close to cracking open again, but his mind fixed on holding back the tears.

When they were a mile or so from the house, Cobb eyed the boy in the rearview mirror and asked, “You hungry, kid?”

“No,” Ethan Allen answered, snuffling the word back into his nose.

“I sure am,” Mahoney said, turning to smile at the boy. “What say we stop at the diner and get ourselves a sandwich, maybe even some pie?”

“I told you, I ain’t the least hungry.” The thought of coming face-to-face with Scooter set Ethan Allen’s lower lip to trembling and regardless of his intention, a stream of tears let loose down his face. Ethan figured Sam Cobb was already suspicious; the next thing would be for him to tell his daddy. Scooter wasn’t a man to go easy on someone, not even a kid. One word from Policeman Sam and Scooter would come back to finish the job. Ethan remembered how time after time he’d taken a heaped-high plate of pie from the same hands that left his daddy’s head looking like a scrambled up egg. He felt a swell rising in his throat. “You better pull over,” he said, “I think I gotta puke.”

“You’re probably hungry,” Mahoney said in a kindly way, “You’d feel a lot better if you had something in your stomach.”

“I ain’t eating no damn pie!” Ethan shouted angrily. “It’s made outta shit and maggots! I ain’t never eating it never again; never!”

Cobb turned with an angry glare, “Watch your mouth!” he growled.

Mahoney broke in, “Leave him be,” he said, “The boy’s scared, and he’s got a right. Ain’t that so Ethan Allen?” He glanced back and saw the boy swiping at the tears overflowing his eyes. “Still,” Mahoney said, “You ought to eat. A bowl of soup, maybe? Or a dish of ice cream?”

Ethan Allen shook his head.

“I’ll tell you what,” Mahoney said, a gentle note of concern in his voice, “when we get to the diner, you order anything you think you might want; if you feel up to eating it, fine. If you’re still not hungry, we’ll get Bertha to pack it up for you.”

“Why do I gotta go in?”

“Officer Cobb and me have been working all day, we need to get some supper and we can’t just leave you sitting in the car now, can we?”

“Why not?”

“If you was to up and run off, we’d be the ones held responsible.”

Although precisely such a thought had already crossed his mind, Ethan Allen said, “I’m just a kid, where’s a kid gonna go?”

Mahoney gave the boy a knowing grin.

By the time they pulled into the diner parking lot, Ethan’s heart was about ready to explode. He could feel it already stretched out to three times the normal size. “I ain’t feeling too good,” he moaned, “if I was to eat one bite of anything I’d for sure puke.” Mahoney clamped a firm hand onto his shoulder and hustled him inside.

Scooter Cobb was hanging over the counter with a sizeable piece of jelly donut crammed into his mouth and a lump of, what could have been raspberry jelly or could have been a part of Benjamin’s face, sliding down his right thumb. Ethan Allen, figuring it to be the later, felt a rise of vomit in his throat. Scooter looked bigger than ever; his head round as a basketball, his body mounded to the size of a mountain, and his hands—big thick massive hands that could squash a boy’s head with hardly trying. Ethan wanted to look away, he wanted not to see the hands, he wanted to turn his eyes from the heavy-lidded face, but instead he stood there and whimpered. It was a tiny sound that simply slid from his mouth—a dead giveaway of his fear. If Scooter hadn’t known before, he surely knew now.

Scooter Cobb lumbered from behind the counter and grabbed hold of the boy. “Poor kid,” he moaned, pressing Ethan Allen into the thick of his stomach. “It’s an awful thing what happened to your mama…”

There was no noticeable mention of his daddy.

For what seemed to Ethan an eternity, Scooter hugged and squeezed, at times pressing the boy’s nose so deep into the greasy apron he could barely breathe. When Scooter finally let go, Ethan swallowed down a gasp of air to clear away the smell of fried hamburgers and meanness.

Mahoney moved to the far end of the diner, he eased Ethan Allen into a booth and then slid in alongside of him. Sam Cobb sat on the opposite side; Scooter next to him.

A short while later, Bertha, a woman with her own share of troubles, dropped four menus on the table. Bertha’s husband had lost four jobs in the last two months, her oldest boy was about to be sent off to reform school and the bunion on her right foot throbbed from morning till night, but still she mustered up a sad-eyed smile. “Sweetie,” she said to Ethan Allen, “your mama was a well-meaning person, and she sure deserved better than she got. I’m real sorry about what happened.” She told the boy she’d be saying a prayer then switched over to asking what he wanted to eat.

“Nothing,” Ethan answered, locking his eyes onto a speckle of yellow mustard at the far end of the tabletop. “I ain’t one bit hungry.”

“Even so,” Bertha winced a bit and shifted her weight to the left leg, “…you ought to eat something. How about I bring you some cherry pie, with ice cream on top?”