Blaze. Part 10

There was a phone book bound in stiff plastic covers on the shelf of the kiosk. John consulted it, dropped his quarter, and dialed. When he spoke, he deepened his voice. When he hung up, he was smiling.

'We got two nights at the Hunington Avenue YMCA. Twenty bucks for two nights! Call me a Christian!' He raised his hand.

Blaze slapped it, then said, 'But we can't spend almost two hundred bucks in two days, can we?'

'In a town where a phone-call costs a quarter? You s.h.i.ttin me?' John looked around with glowing eyes. It was as though he owned the bus terminal and everything in it. Blaze would not see anyone with that exact same look in his eyes for a long time - not until he met George.

'Listen, Blaze, let's go to the ballgame now. What do you say?'

Blaze scratched his head. It was all going too fast for him. 'How? We don't even know how to get there.'

'Every cab in Boston knows how to get to Fenway.'

'Cabs cost money. We ain't -'

He saw Johnny smiling, and he began to smile, too. Sweet truth dawned in a burst. They did did. They did did have money. And this was what money was for: to cut through the bulls.h.i.t. have money. And this was what money was for: to cut through the bulls.h.i.t.

'Butwhat if there's no day game?'

'Blaze, why do you think I picked today to go?'

Blaze began to laugh. Then they were in each other's arms again, just like in Portland. They pounded each other on the back and laughed into each other's faces. Blaze never forgot it. He picked John up and twirled him around twice in the air. People turned to look, most of them smiling at the big galoot and his skinny pal.

They went out and got their cab, and when the hackie dropped them on Lansdowne Street, John tipped him a buck. It was quarter to one and the scant daytime crowd was just starting to trickle in. The game was a thriller. Boston beat the Birds in ten, 3-2. Boston fielded a bad team that year, but on that August afternoon they played like champs.

After the game, the boys wandered the downtown area, rubbernecking and trying to avoid cops. The shadows were growing long by then, and Blaze's belly was rumbling. John had gobbled a couple of dogs at the game, but Blaze had been too enthralled by the spectacle of the ballplayers on the field - real people with sweat on their necks - to eat. He had also been awed by the size of the crowd, thousands of people all in the same place. But now he was hungry.

They went into a dim narrow place called Lindy's Steak House that smelled of beer and charring beef. A number of couples sat in high booths padded with red leather. To the left was a long bar, scratched and pitted but still glowing like there was light in the wood. There were bowls of salted nuts and pretzels spotted along it every three feet or so. Behind the bar were photos of ballplayers, some signed, and a painting of a barenaked woman. The man presiding over the bar was very large. He bent toward them.

'What's yours, boys?'

'Uh,' John said. For the first time that day he appeared stymied.

'Steak!' Blaze said. 'Two big steaks, n milk to go with.'

The big man grinned, showing formidable teeth. He looked like he could have chewed a phone book to ribbons. 'Got money?'

Blaze slapped a twenty on the counter.

The big man picked it up and checked Andy Jackson by the light. He snapped the bill between his fingers. Then he made it disappear. 'Okay,' he said.

'No change?' John asked.

The big man said, 'No, and you won't be sorry.'

He turned, opened a freezer, and took out two of the biggest, reddest steaks Blaze had ever seen in his life. There was a deep grill at the end of the bar, and when the big man tossed the steaks on, almost contemptuously, flames leaped up.

'Hicks' special, comin right up,' he said.

He drew a few beers, put out new dishes of nuts, then made salads and put them on ice. When the salads were taken care of, he flipped the steaks and walked back to John and Blaze. He placed his dishwater-reddened mitts on the bar and said, 'You fellas see that gent at the far end of the bar, sittin all by his lonesome?'

Blaze and John looked. The gent at the end of the bar was dressed in a natty blue suit and was morosely sipping a beer.

'That's Daniel J. Monahan. Detective Detective Daniel J. Monahan, of Boston's Finest. I don't suppose you'd like to talk to him about how a couple of hicks such as your fine selves have twenty to put down on prime beef?' Daniel J. Monahan, of Boston's Finest. I don't suppose you'd like to talk to him about how a couple of hicks such as your fine selves have twenty to put down on prime beef?'

John Cheltzman looked suddenly sick. He reeled a little on his stool. Blaze put a hand out to steady him. Mentally he set his feet. 'We got that money fair and square,' he said.

'That right? Who'd you stick up fair and square? Or was it a fair and square muggin?'

'We got that money fair and square. We found it. And if you spoil it for Johnny and me, I'll bust you one.'

The man behind the bar looked at Blaze with a mixture of surprise, admiration, and contempt. 'You're big, but you're a fool, boy. Close either fist and I'll put you on the moon.'

'If you spoil our holiday, I'll bust you one, mister.'

'Where you from? New Hampshire Correctional? North Windham? Not from Boston, that's for sure. You boys got hay in your hair.'

'We're from Hetton House,' Blaze said. 'We ain't crooks.'

The Boston detective at the end of the bar had finished his beer. He gestured with the empty gla.s.s for another. The big man saw it and cracked a smile. 'Sit tight, the both of you. No need to put on your skates.'

The big man brought Monahan another beer and said something that made Monahan laugh. It was a hard sound, not much humor in it.

The bartender-cook came back. 'Where's this Hetton House place?' Now it was John he was speaking to.

'In c.u.mberland, Maine,' John said. 'They let us go to the movies in Freeport on Friday night. I found a wallet in the men's bathroom. There was money inside. So we ran away to have a holiday, just like Blaze said.'

'Just happened to find a wallet, huh?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And how much was in this fabled wallet?'

'About two hundred and fifty dollars.'

'Baldheaded Jaysus, and I bet you got it all in your pockets, too.'

'Where else?' John looked mystified.

'Baldheaded Jaysus, Jaysus,' the big man said again. He looked up at the scalloped tin ceiling. He rolled his eyes. 'And you tell a stranger. Just as easy as kiss your hand.'

The big man leaned forward with his fingers splayed on the bar. His face had been cruelly handled by the years, but it wasn't cruel.

'I believe you,' he said. 'You got too much hay in your hair to be liars. But that cop down thereboys, I could sic him on you like a dog on a rat. You'd be cellbound while him and me was splittin that money.'

'I'd bust you one,' Blaze said. 'That's our money. Me and Johnny found it. Look. We been in that place, and it's a bad place to be in. A guy like you, maybe you think you know stuff, butaw, never mind. We earned earned it!' it!'

'You're gonna be a bruiser when you get your full growth,' the big man said, almost to himself. Then he looked at John. 'Your friend here, he's a few tools short of a full box. You know that, right?'

John had recovered himself. He didn't say anything, only returned the big man's gaze steadily.

'You take care of him,' the big man said, and he smiled suddenly. 'Bring him back here when he gets his full growth. I want to see what he looks like then.'

John didn't smile back - looked more solemn than ever, in fact - but Blaze did. He understood it was all right.

The big man produced the twenty-dollar bill - it seemed to come from nowhere - and shoved it at John. 'These steaks are on the house, boys. You take that and go to the baseball tomorrow. If you ain't had your pockets picked by then.'

'We went today,' John said.

'Was it good?' the big man asked.

And now John did smile. 'It was the greatest thing I ever saw.'

'Yeah,' the big man said. 'Sure it was. Watch out for your buddy.'

'I will.'

'Because buddies stick together.'

'I know it.'

The big man brought the steaks, and Caesar salads, and new peas, and huge mounds of string-fries, and huge gla.s.ses of milk. For dessert he brought them wedges of cherry pie with scoops of vanilla ice cream melting on top. At first they ate slowly. Then Detective Monahan of Boston's Finest left (without paying nothing, so far as Blaze could see) and they both pitched to. Blaze had two pieces of pie and three gla.s.ses of milk and the third time the big guy refilled Blaze's gla.s.s, he laughed out loud.

When they left, the neon signs in the street were coming on.

'You go to the Y,' the big man said before they did. 'Do it right away. City's no place for a couple of kids to be wandering around at night.'

'Yes, sir,' John said. 'I already called and fixed it.'

The big man smiled. 'You're all right, kid. You're pretty good. Keep the bear close, and walk behind him if anyone comes up and tries to brace you. Especially kids wearing colors. You know, gang jackets.'

'Yes sir.'

'Take care of each other.'

That was his final word on it.

The next day they rode the subways until the novelty wore off and then they went to the movies and then they went to the ballgame again. It was late when they got out, almost eleven, and someone picked Blaze's pocket, but Blaze had put his share of their money in his underwear the way Johnny told him to and the pickpocket got a big handful of nothing. Blaze never saw what he looked like, just a narrow back weaving its way into the crowd exiting through Gate A.

They stayed two more days and saw more movies and one play that Blaze didn't understand, although Johnny liked it. They sat in something called the lodge that was five times as high as the balcony at the Nordica. They went into a department store photo booth and had their pictures made: some of Blaze, some of Johnny, some of them both together. In the ones together, they were laughing. They rode the subways some more until Johnny got train-sick and threw up on his sneakers. Then a Negro man came over and shouted at them about the end of the world. He seemed to be saying it was their fault, but Blaze couldn't tell for sure. Johnny said the guy was crazy. Johnny said there were a lot of crazy people in the city. 'They breed here like fleas,' Johnny said.

They still had some money left, and it was Johnny who suggested the final touch. They took a Greyhound back to Portland, then spent the rest of their dividend on a taxi. John fanned the remaining bills in front of the startled driver - almost fifty dollars' worth of crumpled fives and ones, some smelling fragrantly of Clayton Blaisdell, Jr.'s underpants - and told him they wanted to go to Hetton House, in c.u.mberland.

The cabbie dropped his flag. And at five minutes past two on a sunny late summer afternoon, they pulled up at the gate. John Cheltzman took half a dozen steps up the drive toward the brooding brick pile and fainted dead away. He had rheumatic fever. He was dead two years later.

Chapter 13.

BY THE TIME BLAZE got the baby into the shack, Joe was screaming his head off. Blaze stared at him in wonder. He was furious! The face was flushed across the forehead and the cheeks, even the bridge of the tiny nose. His eyes were squinched shut. His fists made tiny circles of rage in the air. got the baby into the shack, Joe was screaming his head off. Blaze stared at him in wonder. He was furious! The face was flushed across the forehead and the cheeks, even the bridge of the tiny nose. His eyes were squinched shut. His fists made tiny circles of rage in the air.

Blaze felt sudden panic. What if the kid was sick? What if he had the flu or something? Kids caught the flu every day. Sometimes they died of it. And he couldn't very well take him to a doctor's office. What did he know about kids, anyway? He was just a dummy. He could barely take care of himself.

He had a sudden wild urge to take the baby back out to the car. To drive him to Portland and leave him on somebody's doorstep.

'George!' he cried. 'George, what should I do?'

He was afraid George had gone away again, but George answered up from the bathroom. 'Feed him. Give him something out of one of those jars.'

Blaze ran into the bedroom. He clawed one of the cartons out from under the bed, opened it, and selected a jar at random. He took it back to the kitchen and found a spoon. He put the jar on the table beside the wicker basket and opened the lid. What was inside looked awful, like puke. Maybe it was spoiled. He smelled it anxiously. It smelled all right. It smelled like peas. That was all right, then.

He hesitated, just the same. The idea of actually putting food in that open, screaming mouth seemed somehowirreversible. What if the little motherf.u.c.ker choked on it? What if he just didn't want it? What if it was somehow the wrong stuff for him andand His mind tried to put up the word POISON, and Blaze wouldn't look at it. He stuffed half a spoonful of cold peas in the baby's mouth.

The cries stopped at once. The baby's eyes popped open, and Blaze saw they were blue. Joe spit some of the peas back and Blaze tucked the goop back in with the end of the spoon, not thinking about it, just doing it. The baby sucked contentedly.

Blaze fed him another spoonful. It was accepted. And another. In seven minutes, the entire jar of Gerber Peas was gone. Blaze had a crick in his back from bending over the wicker basket. Joe belched a runnel of green foam. Blaze mopped it off the small cheek with the tail of his own shirt.

'Bring it up again and we'll vote on it,' he said. This was one of George's witticisms.

Joe blinked at the sound of his voice. Blaze stared back, fascinated. The baby's skin was clear and unblemished. His head was capped with a surprising thatch of blond hair. But his eyes were what got Blaze. He thought they were old eyes somehow, wise eyes. They were the washed-out blue of desert skies in a Western movie. The corners turned up a little, like the eyes of Chinese people. They gave him a fierce look. Almost a warrior look.

'You a fighter?' Blaze asked. 'You a fighter, little man?'

One of Joe's thumbs crept into his mouth and he began to suck it. At first Blaze thought he might want a bottle (and he hadn't figured out the Playtex Nurser gadget yet), but for the time being the kid seemed content with his thumb. His cheeks were still flushed, not with crying now but from his trip through the night.

His lids began to droop, and the corners of his eyes lost that fierce upward tilt. But still he peered at this man, this six-foot-seven stubbled giant with the crazed and scarecrowed brown hair who stood over him. Then the eyes closed. His thumb dropped out of his mouth. He slept.

Blaze straightened up and his back popped. He turned away from the basket and started for the bedroom.

'Hey d.i.n.kleb.a.l.l.s,' George said from the bathroom. 'Where do you think you're going?'

'To bed.'

'The h.e.l.l you are. You're going to figure out that bottle gadget and fix the kid four or five, for when he wakes up.'

'The milk might go sour.'

'Not if you put it in the fridge. You warm it up when you need it.'

'Oh.'