Good Neighbors(77)
That’s what they wanted, and they couldn’t have it. He couldn’t let them win.
* * *
At first, the people of Maple Street probably didn’t see what he was holding. He didn’t carry it like a cop, but like a first-time fisherman loosely gripping slimy bait.
He veered from the Passat and in their direction, walking through oil so thick now that grass and pavement were no longer visible. Faces looked out. He hadn’t planned to do anything. Had just wanted them to know that he was carrying. That if they tried to burn down his house tonight, or come after Larry at the hospital, or call the cops on Gertie, bearing false witness that she’d attacked Larry in the night, he’d be ready.
He started with the Walshes. Stood at the edge of their walk. No trespassing with a firearm involved. Sally peered out from her den. He smiled in a friendly way while holding the thing daintily, safety on. “Hey!” he cried. “Thanks for breaking my kid’s skull last night. You’ve been great neighbors.”
Kept walking.
Next the Hestias. The parents both took marijuana for their anxiety, which they baked into cookies and offered for dessert at dinner parties, like they thought they were the first people on earth to turn addiction into social convention. They treated their daughters like their best friends, confiding frustrations and work problems, and the frequency with which they had sex. They considered themselves hip. Cutting edge. They listened to Eminem. They didn’t tell people what they did for a living, and sometimes lied about it, claiming to be doctors. That was because they worked for the insurance company that managed the greatest number of World Trade Center victims in New York. The company was famous now, for denying dust as causation. Trade Center dust, they’d argued in court, with science backed by people like the Hestias, might be no worse than regular dust. They’d tied the money up for years while the sick had died and continued to die of heart failure, emphysema, and cancer. The world was falling apart. They were making it worse. There was a hole in the middle of the park that kept puking black bile. But the Hestias had this idea that Arlo and his family were the real threats. Fucking Brooklyn accents were the problem.
The drapes in their living room ruffled in the bitumen-stinking breeze. “I saw you fuckers the night of the brick. Nobody else walks that slow.”
He walked next to the Singh-Kaurs. They owned the Baskin-Robbins–Dunkin’ Donuts chain on Garden City’s main drag, plus two more in Rockville Centre and Mineola. Arlo stood just in front of their Honda Pilot, in which Julia and Larry had carpooled to countless Little League games. They had a big TV in there. Watched crappy Netflix teenage rom-coms on it. Shit like The Kissing Booth 2, which they mistook for the essence of Americana. He knocked on the car. Just a tap with his knuckles.
Next, the Harrisons, those crazy assholes with the divided house. The only people who’d never hosted dinner parties because it would have been too much of a shit show. “Hypocrites!” he shouted. And then the Pontis, that house of craven men with giant biceps. “Hypocrites!” And then the Ottomanelli house, where Linda and Dominick didn’t have the sense of a bird between them, and their mean-spirited twins ran their roost. “All of you, hypocrites!”
A door opened. The Pontis started toward him. Dominick Ottomanelli came out from his house, too.
“Arlo, come on. Let’s go,” Gertie called.
Arlo saved the Schroeder house for last. Fritz’s car wasn’t in the drive, which was too bad. It felt more comfortable to threaten when the man of the house was home. He stood for a five-count, then raised his gun and pointed. Aimed at the front porch.
“Arlo!” Gertie cried.
“Daddy!” Julia screamed.
Something hard slammed against the back of his head. He was on the ground, eating gravel and sand oil. The gun skittered away from him. And then somebody kicked him. A vivid sense memory flashed. His dad. He got up on all fours.
It was Steven, Marco, and Richard Ponti. It was Dominick Ottomanelli and Sai Singh. He tried to stand. Steven was holding a baseball bat.
Another swing. His legs went out from under him. He tried to get up again, because Julia and Gertie were watching. A scream—deep, masculine, and primal—emanated from Dominick Ottomanelli as he kicked Arlo in the chest with a heavy work boot. The blow lifted him from his knees and back down. He tasted salt. Adrenaline didn’t let him feel his broken ribs, one of which now poked his left lung.
Wearily, Arlo noticed as Rhea Schroeder bent down. Lifted something from the ground… The gun?
He saw a leg and held on to it. Pulled himself up by it. Gertie and Julia had pushed through the men. They were at his side. There was shouting but it wasn’t coming from them. It came from the rest of Maple Street. Some came out to their porches. Others hollered through their windows. The sound came from Nikita, Pranav, and Michelle Kaur and Sam Singh. It came from Rich, Cat, Helen, and Lainee Hestia. It came from Sally and Margie Walsh. It came from Rhea, FJ, and Ella Schroeder. It came from Tim, Jane, and Adam Harrison. It came from Jill Ponti. It came from Linda Ottomanelli and her weird twins. They were screaming and smiling and pumping fists. Jesus God, they were cheering.
Gertie shoved Steven Ponti and his bloody bat. He had the good sense not to fight back. Then she was on the ground next to Arlo, her hands on his ribs as if trying to hold the falling-apart pieces of him together. Julia was next to her.