Billy Povich: Loot The Moon Part 21

And then the footsteps stopped.

Scratch was thrown against the trunk lid when the car hit the water. The Ford bobbed once, and then the bay poured inside. Frigid. Salty.

Im singing in my brain.

Just singin in my brain.

He was not worried for his soul. Heck, he was a swell guy. He had robbed the middle cla.s.s to give to himself, but never hurt anybody. If the decision were left to Scratch, he would have enough compa.s.sion to forgive himself, and open up those platinum gates.

Is G.o.d any less compa.s.sionate than I?

He said a funny little prayer for justice, not through the cops or the courts; he never trusted either.

He prayed for Povich.

twenty-four.

Billy slept with his hands folded on his chest like a dead person. Bo twirled the flashlight beam over his fathers eyes until he was sure that Billy was asleep. Then he turned out his light, and he and Albert Einstein went on their mission. With Mr. Einstein held tightly to his chest, Bo did not feel alone. He did not have to wear a mask, as he once did, in order to have the courage to complete his mission.

He listened to Grandpa mumbling inside his room. Grandpa was making another tape for Bo for when Grandpa was dead. The mumbling scared Bo. It sounded like witches.

He padded silently along the hall and stepped down to Mr. Mettss funeral home, one stair at a time. The new red carpet felt good on his bare feet.

Six white couches lined the walls in the waiting room. That was where Mr. Metts kept his telescope, which Bo liked to play with, but not right now. Mr. Metts had set up three rows of folding chairs in the center of the room. That meant a dead person was there. Bo hurried past the brown coffin. "Be right back," he promised. The flowers stank and his nose itched. The carpet in this room was not as soft as the stairs but it still felt good.

The coffin in the next room was black and silver. It lay flat on a low table. The bundles of roses beside the coffin were black too. Bo was afraid of them. They bloomed big and healthy and they smelled good, but they looked dead. He hurried through the room.

In a hallway, he stopped at a white door marked with a gold sign that said PRIVATE. He dug a key out from under the carpet, as Mr. Metts had showed him, and unlocked the door to visit his friend Sal.

Inside the closet, Sals coffin stood on one end. Bo got a little scared and crushed Mr. Einstein in his armpit. He peered up to the gla.s.s window set in the coffin, and to the gray face with black witchs hair in the window.

"h.e.l.lo, Sal," he said. "Its me."

Bo knew Sals story by heart. Sal was part of the traveling circus in 1929. Maybe he had been a clown, but Bo did not know. When the circus came to Providence, Sal died. Mr. Mettss grandfather was supposed to bury Sal, but he did not get paid. So he made Sal a special coffin with a window and put him on display, until Sals family would give him the $125 they owed for the burial. The family never paid.

Bo saved all his money, every nickel he got from Billy and his grandpa, to bury Sal.

"Were up to fifty-three dollars," Bo said. "I thought youd be happy." He looked at the corpse, saw the st.i.tches through the lips, and looked away. "Im not wearing my mask, because I have Mr. Einstein. Grandpa gave me a paper tube to roll my dimes." He laid a hand on the shiny brown wood. "When you get buried youll see my mom. She wont be alone anymore." He felt he might cry and he shut the door. He moved Mr. Einstein to his other arm. Then he cracked the door and whispered inside. "I have to go, Sal. I want to say good night to the others."

Bo locked the door and returned the key.

He went to the room with the black coffin. He stood beside the casket for a minute. Then he reached out with Mr. Einstein and lightly brushed the dolls long white hair on the black wood. Nothing bad happened. He let Einstein rest on a chair, and then went to the coffin again. He held his flashlight in one hand. The coffin had two doors, a big one and a small one. He pressed his palms under the small door and pushed.

The dead person inside was a man. He was very old.

He looked like he was sleeping but Bo knew he was dead.

Fear shook Bos arms. He could barely speak. He whispered, "h.e.l.lo, sir. Tomorrow youll be buried and then you wont be alone. Good night."

He quickly lowered the lid. Then he s.n.a.t.c.hed up Mr. Einstein and hugged him until he stopped trembling.

Two more to go.

The person in the next coffin was a woman. She was very old, like all the dead people he visited. She held pink rosary beads in her hands and looked like maybe she had been saying them when she died. Bo spoke to her as he had the man, and then let down the lid.

The third coffin was deep inside the funeral home, down a long hallway that was very dark. Bo lit his flashlight. The shadows on the walls looked like monsters. He held up Mr. Einstein to lead the way, and followed the doll.

The last coffin was white. He gasped when he saw it. It was very small.

It was the size of a boy.

Bo stepped slowly toward it. His feet did not want to go but he made them do it. They had to do what Bo wanted. The carpet in this room was scratchy. He wished he had his mask. This coffin had two doors like the others but the doors were the same size. He didnt know which one to lift. Bo stroked the white wood with Mr. Einsteins hair. Then he tucked the doll down his shirt so Mr. Einstein was hugging him.

He pushed up one of the lids.

Inside were a little boys legs and feet. The legs wore black pants and white sneakers, small enough to fit Bo.

This dead person was not old. Bos arms quaked and the lid dropped. The noise startled him.

He yelped and collapsed to the floor, in tears.

He backed away, whimpering, clutching his doll, terrified of the dead boy in the tiny white casket. Bo and Mr. Einstein ran away from him.

twenty-five.

Bo dozed over his oatmeal, head on his fist, elbow on the table. His other hand still gripped the spoon stuck in the bowl.

"Look at that kid," Billy whispered.

"I told you oatmeal was boring," said the old man.

"And whats with the outfit today?"

Bo wore his school clothes: new blue jeans, a collared polo shirt, and fleece sweater with the Flying Elvis logo of the New England Patriots. But instead of his little white tennis sneakers, the kid had paired tube socks with the shiny leather dress shoes from his church out fit.

"Bo?" Billy called.

The kid woke with a startled look. His hand jerked and the spoon flung oatmeal like a catapult against the kitchen cabinet. The gob stuck there for several seconds, and the three Povich men watched in rapt fascination as the oatmeal slowly unglued itself from the cabinet door and hit the counter with a splat.

Ziggs had seen enough; the cat jumped from the table and fled.

"You should never wake a sleep-eater," the old man scolded.

"Why are you so tired this morning, Bo?" Billy asked.

"Im not tired."

"Did you not sleep well last night?"

The kid shrugged and heaved a giant spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth. "Cant talk wit my mou full," he said.

The old man chuckled at Billy. "Hes using your own rules against you."

"Wheres Mr. Einstein?" Billy asked.

The boy looked away and chewed. "Hes busy. Has a new job. Top secret."

Billys son was still such a mystery to him. After Angie was killed, the boy seemed to handle the death of his mother better than Billy had survived the loss of an ex-wife. How someone so small could be so tough ... Billy turned away and blinked the tears from his eyes. Mr. Einstein was "busy" in Bo-speak, which meant that the doll was gone. It had been replaced by some other coping system, the way the doll had replaced the Halloween masks the boy used to wear around the house to give him courage to face the pain little children were not meant to see. The timing could not have been worse. The child was terrified of being alone. And he had abandoned his crutch right as his grandfather had decided to let himself die.

"Maybe you should stay home from school today," Billy suggested.

"Whaaaaat?" the old man whined. "He needs to learn."

"He cant learn if hes asleep in cla.s.s."

"But hes already missed too much school already, coming to the hospital for my treatments, visiting Stu Tracy. Do you want him to fail?"

"I want him to be healthy."

The old mans tone softened. He reached out his gray corpse hand and smoothed the boys hair. "I cant watch him proper today," he said. "I got dirty blood and I feel like h.e.l.l."

"Ill stick around and watch him."

"What about your investigation?"

Billy sighed. "Im at a dead end," he confessed. "Ive traced the shooter back to his last apartment, and proven, at least in my own mind, that somebody paid him to kill the judge. But I cant make the leap to the next link in the chain."

Bo sipped milk. He watched Billy over the rim of the gla.s.s. Then he wiped his milk mustache on his sleeve, and announced: "I want to go to school today."

"The kid doesnt want to be a ditchdigger, thank G.o.d," grumbled the old man.

"You sure, Bo?" Billy asked.

The kid shrugged, sipped more milk, and then explained, "Mr. Metts will have three funerals downstairs today."

Huh ... ? What was he saying? That he didnt want to listen to three eulogies through the floor? That he was tired of living above a transfer station for human remains?

"Do you want us to move, Bo?"

The kid shrank from Billy. He grabbed the table. "I never want to leave. Ever."

He drove Billy speechless.

The phone rang.

"I got it," Billy offered, and threw himself from the table.

"You wanna wake up for school?" the old man asked. "Try some coffee. Makes you all tingly inside. Math is easy on coffee."

Billy sighed and carried the cordless down the hall. That was all the kid needed-drugs to make him more hyper. The phone chimed again in his hand.

"Yeah, h.e.l.lo?"

"Billy, man," a low voice purred. "Im glad I caught you home. Heh-heh. A man in my position dont leave his voice on tape."

Garafino!

Billy instinctively clutched his wallet, then covered his thrice-broken nose.

Wait a sec ... Im all paid up with this guy. "You got me mixed up with some other client. Im current with you."

The shark laughed. "Billy, man, youre my favorite. When you need cash, you call me first."

"Ill try the bank next time."

"f.u.c.k the banks, man! When you dont pay them, they give you a lot worse than a punch in the mouth. How long does one punch hurt? A few days? The bankers kill your credit for the rest of your life." He laughed again. Then his voice fell; he grew serious and sounded like he was talking out the corner of his mouth: "You, er, still looking to get to Rhubarb Glanz?"

Billy switched the phone to his other ear. He watched Bo sip from the old mans coffee mug and make a sour face.

"You there, Billy?"

"Yeah. How do I find him?"

"That big Catholic cemetery, man, in Cranston? Its like the only place he goes alone. Later this afternoon, four oclock, when the cemetery kicks out all the cars and locks the gate. Officially, the place is closed at four, but they dont mind if one old man walks around the gates. Youll know him. h.e.l.l be the dude dropping roses on his old ladys grave. Sweet, aint he?"

"What are my liabilities?"

"Better than usual. No guns in the cemetery, and no goons. Glanz likes to keep these visits in the family. Just his f.u.c.ked-up kid, Robbie, wholl drive him to the gates, and then wait in the car on the street. But be careful. Robbies protective of his old man ..."