Out of the Easy(24)

I stared at my hands. “I want to go to college, Dora.”

“College? Well, it’s okay to dream, Jo, but I don’t know about college. That’s a different kettle of crawfish. But I’m sure you could work at one of the nice department stores or maybe even be a hatcheck girl. Honey, I know you love Louise, but you gotta ask yourself—what kind of woman steals money from a child? Evangeline, she’s got a condition. But even with her kleptomanny, she wouldn’t steal from a baby. Do you understand what I’m sayin’? I’m not trying to be ugly, sugar, but I do suggest that you go about your way.” Dora lifted the police report. “And if Louise is sayin’ she’s not your momma, that might just suit fine.”

I stood there, thinking about Dora’s question. What sort of a woman steals from her child?

Dora put her hands on her hips. “Now look, help me out with somethin’. Instead of throwing things out, put everything you find in a box and tell Evangeline not to touch it, that you’re coming back for it. Let her steal a few things. Maybe then she’ll quit sneakin’ in my room for a few days.”

After Dora left, I stripped the bed and swept the floor of Mother’s room. I pulled the broom back from under the bed skirt and heard a sound. A man’s sock was caught in the bristles of the broom. I reached down to snatch it up and found it heavy. Something was inside. I shook the sock over the bed, and a gold watch fell onto the mattress. My stomach plunged as my fingers reached for the familiar watch. I turned it over and saw the engraving.

F. L. Hearne.





SIXTEEN


Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. I heard it all day, pulsing through my head, pumping through the threads of my nerves. I had a dead man’s watch. It was the first time I hadn’t reported something I’d found to Willie. She was still at the meeting with her attorney when I had finished cleaning, so I left with it, the stolen time bomb ticking in my pocket. When I returned to the bookshop, I inspected the watch. I stared at the second hand as it orbited around the expensive gold face, floating over the words Lord Elgin again and again. Was Forrest Hearne wearing the watch when he died? Was it still ticking on his wrist when his heart stopped beating? Or maybe he took it off before he died, lost it somewhere in the Quarter, and it was just by luck that Mother found it. Yes, maybe it was just a coincidence, I told myself.

I sharpened a bookbinding knife and cut a deep square in the center pages of a water-damaged copy of A Passage to India. I put the watch in the hollowed-out slot and locked the book in the glass case at the back of the shop where we kept the repair materials. Patrick had lost his key ages ago.

I walked through the Quarter, tossing the square cutouts of A Passage to India in waste bins along the way. I spotted Frankie across the road and whistled to him. He sauntered over on his spidery legs and fell into step next to me.

“Hey, Josie. Whatcha got for me?”

“I don’t have anything. Actually, I’m wondering if you’ve got something for me. Do you know where my mother was on New Year’s Eve?”

Frankie stopped. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, bouncing it until a white stick of tobacco appeared. He snatched it with his lips. “This info’s for you?” he asked, lighting his cigarette.

“Oh, I see. You’ve already talked to Willie?” I asked.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, yes, it’s for me. And I won’t say anything. This is between us.”

Frankie stared at me, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. A group of tourists approached with a camera, pointing at a nearby building. Frankie grabbed my arm and pulled me to the edge of the sidewalk.

“Your mom’s run off with Cincinnati, Jo.”

“I already know that, Frankie. That’s not what I asked. Where was she on New Year’s Eve?”

He looked up and down the street, blowing smoke out of the corner of his thin lips. “She was at the Roosevelt, having a couple Sazeracs.”

“And then?”

“Drinking with some tourists.”

“What tourists? Where? Was she at the Sans Souci?” I asked.

“Whoa.” Frankie put his hands up. “I didn’t say that. Look, I gotta go. And, Jo, I’m in the business of information”—he leaned in close—“but I’m no stoolie.”

I opened my purse and took out my wallet.

“Keep it. Word is that you’re puttin’ together a college fund.”

“Where did you hear that?” I asked.

“I hear everything, Yankee girl.” Frankie grinned, gave an exaggerated bow, and strode away.

I walked back to the bookshop, stopping to look in the window of Gedrick’s. They had dresses on sale for $9.98. I wished I could have worn something new and fashionable to the Lockwells’ party instead of looking like a sad waif. Mrs. Gedrick stepped out of the shop to empty a dustpan in the street. Her shoulders perked to offer a greeting, then she saw it was me and emptied the dirt into the gutter with a scowl. When I was twelve, I came down with a flu so bad I was nearly delirious. I tried to walk by myself to Dr. Sully’s and got as far as the Gedrick’s shop. I collapsed, throwing up red beans and rice all over the sidewalk. Mrs. Gedrick kept insisting that we call my mother. I knew Mother would be furious if we bothered her. So I told her to call Patrick’s father, Charlie. When Charlie arrived, Mrs. Gedrick wagged a finger at him, saying, “Shame on the parents, whoever they are.” I remember driving away in the back of Charlie’s car, looking at the wreckage that was my life in red beans and rice on the sidewalk. There wasn’t shame on my parents. The shame was all on me.