All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(42)

I ran, straight through the kitchen to the back door. Behind me, the woman called, “Lolene! Come back!”

When I got home, I found Cassiopeia and Cepheus and Ursa Major drawn in the gravel at the bottom of the drive, where Kellen had waited for me. He tried to draw Orion, too, but missed two stars.

I crawled back up the trellis to my room, where Donal was asleep. Safe. In the morning, when I went downstairs to get breakfast for him, Mama and Liam were in bed naked. Uncle Sean was on the couch with a needle on the floor next to him. I picked it up and laid it on the coffee table. Safe.





8

BUTCH

April 1982

If anybody wanted to know why that kid never talked, I could’ve told them. That’s what happens when your mom grabs you by the hair, clamps her hand over your mouth, and gives you a good shake while screaming in your face, “Don’t you ever talk to people! You don’t talk to anyone!”

That’s what Val did to Wavy when she was about three years old. I don’t know what she thought a three-year-old could tell anyone, but I guess Wavy played in the sandbox with the neighbor’s kids, and the neighbor said something that made Liam nervous. More likely the neighbor noticed people going in and out of the house all hours of the day and night. Not everybody is as stupid as Liam thinks they are.

Liam and I go way back, and I owed him for keeping my name out of it when he got arrested, but watching Val rattle that kid’s brain was the end of the line for me. Never mind how long we’d been in business together, I was ready to knock that crazy bitch on her ass. I didn’t have to, because Liam grabbed Val’s arm and said, “That’s enough, baby.”

I never heard another peep out of that little girl. Years later she warmed up to Jesse Joe Kellen. He was one of the local yokels we hired when we moved the operation to Powell. Not much more than a kid when Liam hired him, he was a big thug with a face like a plank. Always looked half-stoned, even though he wasn’t, and didn’t hardly open his mouth when he talked.

Sometimes, Kellen brought Wavy around the lab barracks when he played poker or dominos with us. She’d hang around watching the game, and bring us beers. Like a little waitress.

Kellen and her, they were cute together. She’d lean on his shoulder, look at his hand, count his chips. Him being so much bigger, it was funny how he acted with her. He talked to her like she was an adult. She always whispered in his ear, so you got the idea they were having a conversation. I don’t know what she ever said to him.

One night, Kellen got up in the middle of a hand and said, “I’m gonna go up to the house for some beer.”

“Let’s just finish this hand,” Vic said.

“She’ll play for me.” Kellen gave his cards to Wavy and started up the hill toward the trailers.

We laughed, but she got up in his chair, took her next card, and folded.

Scott won that hand and when he went to deal, he skipped Wavy.

“What, Scott, you don’t like taking money from kids?” I said.

So he dealt her in. She lost fifty bucks on that hand, but she won the next one. Kellen had been down by almost two hundred dollars, but now he was up again. The next few hands, she won more than she lost. Her dealing left a lot to be desired since she had a hard time shuffling, but at least you knew she wasn’t cheating.

Kellen came back with beer about the time Scott and Vic decided to show her how the big boys played. It pissed them off that she’d managed to win some money, so they upped the ante and put down bigger bets. Even though it was his money, Kellen stood back and watched her play. Didn’t tell her what to do.

A couple hands in, Wavy apparently got some cards she liked, because she kept raising. Next thing you know, there was almost five thousand bucks on the table, and that was too rich for Vic.

Seeing she’d raised almost everything she had in front of her, Kellen reached into his pocket, and handed her a roll of bills. Big enough she could barely close her hand around it. All business, Wavy snapped the rubber band off and started counting out hundred-dollar bills.

“You do understand that’s real money, little girl? This ain’t Monopoly.” Scott grinned and raised another two hundred.

Wavy slid the last of her chips out to see him and then the pile of cash she’d made: a thousand bucks. Raised him.

Scott looked down at the chips he had left and the roll of bills she had left. Took him a good minute before he folded. The kid had just taken us for more than a grand a piece. She went to pitch her cards in, but Scott slapped his hand on them.

“Hey, you didn’t pay to see,” Kellen said.

“Come on, this isn’t Vegas. Just a friendly poker game, right?” I was curious.

Kellen looked at Wavy and she shrugged. Scott flipped her cards over. Pair of fours.

We busted up laughing, Vic clutching his sides and sobbing, “You do understand that’s real money, little girl?” Kellen laughed so hard he laid down on the floor next to Wavy’s chair and cried.

Scott, he about cried for real. Wavy watched us with this little smile on her face. She had a hell of a poker face.

Laying there like a beached whale, so weak from laughing he couldn’t get up, Kellen said, “Wavy, tomorrow we’re going into town and buy you anything you want. Anything at all.”

Giggling behind her hand, she put her foot on his chest and nudged him.