Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)(83)

“Rrr-rrr,” said Frankie. “Rrr-rrr.”

He pushed the fire truck. Sammy rolled to the edge of the basement doorway, bumped against the jamb, and there he stopped.

Deborah Ann left the stove. She walked over to the basement door. Brady thought she would bend down and hand Frankie’s fire truck back to him, but she didn’t. She kicked it instead. There was a small clacking sound as it tumbled down the steps, all the way to the bottom.

“Oops,” she said. “Sammy faw down go boom.” Her voice was very flat.

Brady walked over. This was interesting.

“Why’d you do that, Mom?”

Deborah Ann put her hands on her hips, the spatula jutting from one of them. She said, “Because I’m just so sick of listening to him make that sound.”

Frankie opened his mouth and began to blat.

“Quit it, Frankie,” Brady said, but Frankie didn’t. What Frankie did was crawl onto the top step and peer down into the darkness.

In that same flat voice Deborah Ann said, “Turn on the light, Brady. So he can see Sammy.”

Brady turned on the light and peered over his blatting brother.

“Yup,” he said. “There he is. Right down at the bottom. See him, Frankie?”

Frankie crawled a little farther, still blatting. He looked down. Brady looked at his mother. Deborah Ann Hartsfield gave the smallest, most imperceptible nod. Brady didn’t think. He simply kicked Frankie’s triple-diapered butt and down Frankie went in a series of clumsy somersaults that made Brady think of the fat Blues Brother flipping his way along the church aisle. On the first somersault Frankie kept on blatting, but the second time around, his head connected with one of the stair risers and the blatting stopped all at once, as if Frankie were a radio and someone had turned him off. That was horrible, but had its funny side. He went over again, legs flying out limply to either side in a Y shape. Then he slammed headfirst into the basement floor.

“Oh my God, Frankie fell!” Deborah Ann cried. She dropped the spatula and ran down the stairs. Brady followed her.

Frankie’s neck was broken, even Brady could tell that, because it was all croggled in the back, but he was still alive. He was breathing in little snorts. Blood was coming out of his nose. More was coming from the side of his head. His eyes moved back and forth, but nothing else did. Poor Frankie. Brady started to cry. His mother was crying, too.

“What should we do?” Brady asked. “What should we do, Mom?”

“Go upstairs and get me a pillow off the sofa.”

He did as she said. When he came back down, Sammy the Fire Truck was lying on Frankie’s chest. “I tried to get him to hold it, but he can’t,” Deborah Ann said.

“Yeah,” Brady said. “He’s prob’ly paralyzed. Poor Frankie.”

Frankie looked up, first at his mother and then his brother. “Brady,” he said.

“It’ll be okay, Frankie,” Brady said, and held out the pillow.

Deborah Ann took it and put it over Frankie’s face. It didn’t take long. Then she sent Brady upstairs again to put the sofa pillow back and get a wet washcloth. “Turn off the stove while you’re up there,” she said. “The pancakes are burning. I can smell them.”

She washed Frankie’s face to get rid of the blood. Brady thought that was very sweet and motherly. Years later he realized she’d also been making sure there would be no threads or fibers from the pillow on Frankie’s face.

When Frankie was clean (although there was still blood in his hair), Brady and his mother sat on the basement steps, looking at him. Deborah Ann had her arm around Brady’s shoulders. “I better call nine-one-one,” she said.

“Okay.”

“He pushed Sammy too hard and Sammy fell downstairs. Then he tried to go after him and lost his balance. I was making the pancakes and you were putting toilet paper in the bathrooms upstairs. You didn’t see anything. When you got down to the basement, he was already dead.”

“Okay.”

“Say it back to me.”

Brady did. He was an A student in school, and good at remembering things.

“No matter what anybody asks you, never say more than that. Don’t add anything, and don’t change anything.”

“Okay, but can I say you were crying?”

She smiled. She kissed his forehead and cheek. Then she kissed him full on the lips. “Yes, honeyboy, you can say that.”

“Will we be all right now?”

“Yes.” There was no doubt in her voice. “We’ll be fine.”

She was right. There were only a few questions about the accident and no hard ones. They had a funeral. It was pretty nice. Frankie was in a Frankie-size coffin, wearing a suit. He didn’t look brain-damaged, just fast asleep. Before they closed the coffin, Brady kissed his brother’s cheek and tucked Sammy the Fire Truck in beside him. There was just enough room.

That night Brady had the first of his really bad headaches. He started thinking Frankie was under his bed, and that made the headache worse. He went down to his mom’s room and got in with her. He didn’t tell her he was scared of Frankie being under his bed, just that his head ached so bad he thought it was going to explode. She hugged him and kissed him and he wriggled against her tight-tight-tight. It felt good to wriggle. It made the headache less. They fell asleep together and the next day it was just the two of them and life was better. Deborah Ann got her old job back, but there were no more boyfriends. She said Brady was the only boyfriend she wanted now. They never talked about Frankie’s accident, but sometimes Brady dreamed about it. He didn’t know if his mother did or not, but she drank plenty of vodka, so much she eventually lost her job again. That was all right, though, because by then he was old enough to go to work. He didn’t miss going to college, either.