Jimmy the Kid Read online

  A road.

  He didn't believe it. He almost walked across it and off the other side, except that his sliding foot got caught briefly in one of the ruts. He looked down to see what the problem was, saw the parallel lines going from left to right, and shone the dimming light off to his right. A definite road, a farm road, two deep ruts with a grassy lane in the center.

  Which way? He had to have overshot the house somehow, so it would be off to the left there. The highway would be to the right, so that's the direction he took.

  It was easier walking now, on the high grassy mound between the ruts. He made good time, all things considered, and he just didn't believe it when he saw those yellow lines of light out in the darkness ahead of himself and to the right, just outside the yellow cone from the flashlight.

  The house.

  He could see the way it went now. The road didn't go directly to the house, it came in from an angle and swept across in front of it. His ideas of his location and direction had been wrong at every single stage of the journey.

  So the highway was back the other way. Jimmy turned and shone his feeble light down the road he'd just come along. He looked back over his shoulder at the house.

  He sighed.

  19

  A luminous afternoon 'n the black-and-white forest. The monster, played by Boris Karloff, pauses as he hears the sweet notes of a violin. His face lights, he lumbers through the woods, following the sound. He comes to a cozy cottage amid the trees, very gingerbread. Inside, the violin is being played by a blind hermit, who is being played by 0. P. Heggie. The monster approaches, and pounds on the door.

  Someone pounded on the door.

  "Eee!" Murch's Mom said, and jumped straight up out of her folding chair. Which folded, and fell over with a slap.

  They had all been sitting around the battery-operated small television set they'd brought out to follow the kidnapping news. There'd been no kidnapping news-apparently the cops were keeping a news blackout on-so now they were watching the late movie. The three kerosene lamps, the hibachi in the fireplace, and the flickering television screen, all gave some light and less heat.

  Someone pounded at the door again. On the TV screen, the blind hermit opened his door to the monster.

  The others had all scrambled to their feet too by now, though without knocking over their chairs. Harshly Kelp whispered, "What do we do?"

  "They know we're here," Dortmunder said. "Let me do the talking." He glanced upstairs, and said, "May, if the kid acts up, say something about him having nightmares and go up there and keep him quiet."

  May nodded. The pounding sounded at the door for a third time. Murch's Mom said, "I'll go."

  They all waited. Dortmunder's hand was near the pocket with his revolver. Murch's Mom opened the door and said, "Well, for God-"

  And the kid walked in.

  "Holy Toledo!" Murch said.

  Kelp, slapping his hands to his face, yelled, "Masks! Masks! Don't let him see your faces!"

  Dortmunder didn't believe it. He stared at the kid, looking as wet and muddy and ragged as a drowned kitten, and then he looked upstairs. And then he ran upstairs. He didn't know what he thought, maybe that the kid was twins or something, but he just didn't believe he wasn't in that room.

  The door was locked, and Dortmunder fumbled with the key for a few seconds before remembering he had a flashlight in his other pocket-the pocket without the revolver in it-but once he had the flashlight out and shining he swiftly unlocked the door, pushed it open, stepped inside, aimed the light beam all around, and the room was empty.

  Empty. How could that be? Dortmunder looked under the bed and in the closet, and the kid was gone.

  But the door had been locked. The boards were still on the windows. There were no holes in the ceiling or the floor or any of the walls. There were no other exits from the room. "It's a locked-room mystery," Dortmunder told himself, and stood in the middle of the room, flashing the light slowly this way and that, completely baffled.

  Downstairs, Kelp was the first one to find and don his mask, and then he ran over to grab the kid. "I'm not trying to get away," the kid said. "I'm just closing the door."

  "Well, just stay put," Kelp told him.

  "I came back, didn't I? Why should I try to get away?"

  May too had put on her mask by now, and she came over to say, "You're drenched! You'll catch your death! You've got to get out of those wet clothes right now." To Kelp she said, "Go up and get his blankets," and to the boy she said, "Now get out of those clothes."

  Hearing the authoritarian maternal voice, both Kelp and the kid promptly obeyed. Meantime, Murch and his Mom were squabbling over the mask they'd both been using. Murch's Mom hadn't worn one during the kidnapping, and when she'd gone upstairs with May earlier she'd borrowed her son's. It hadn't been anticipated the whole gang would be in the boy's presence at once. Now they were both holding the mask, and tugging a little. "Stan," Murch's Mom said, "you give me that. I have a much more memorable face than you."

  "You do not, Mom, you look like every other cabdriver in New York. I really need that mask, and anyway it's mine."

  Going upstairs, Kelp found Dortmunder in the kid's room, walking around in circles, shining his flashlight here and there. Kelp said, "What are you doing?"

  "It's impossible," Dortmunder said. "How'd he get out?"

  "I dunno." Kelp picked up the blankets and the pajamas from the bed. "Why don't you ask him?"

  "He must of walked through the wall," Dortmunder said.

  Kelp went out, leaving Dortmunder still making circles, and hurried downstairs. May had the boy over by the fireplace now, where there was still some heat from the char. coal in the hibachi. She had him stripped down to his underpants, and she immediately began rubbing him down with one of the blankets, using it a towel. "You're really wet," she said. "You're really wet."

  "And cold," the boy said. "It's no-fooling cold out there." He yawned.

  On the other side of the room, Murch's Mom was triumphantly wearing the Murch family Mickey Mouse mask. Murch, showing his irritation by the set of his shoulders, sat at the card table with his elbows on the table and his hands over his face. Lantern light glinted on his eyes as he peered between his fingers.

  Dortmunder came downstairs. He marched across the living room to where May was drying the boy with a blanket, glowered down at him, and said, "All right, kid. How'd you do it?"

  May, on one knee in front of the boy, folded him in her arms, glared up at Dortmunder, and said, "Don't you strike this child."

  "What strike? I wanna know how he got out of the goddam room."

  Kelp whispered with harsh urgency, "Your mask! Your mask!"

  Dortmunder looked around. "What?" Then he felt his bare face and said, "Oh, for Christ's sake." His mask was near him, on the mantel, and when he picked it up it was warm from hibachi heat. He pulled it angrily over his head and said, "It stinks worse when it's hot."

  May said, "You men get some wood, build a real fire in this fireplace. We need some heat in this room."

  "What wood?" Dortmunder said. "Everything outside'll be too wet to burn."

  "There must be wood in here," she said. "Something to make a fire."

  "All right," Dortmunder said, looking around. "All right, I'll find something."

  "I can't help," Murch said. His voice was muffled by his hands, so that he sounded as though he too had a mask on. "I can't very well carry wood with my hands over my face," he said, and even through the muffling effect the tone of grievance could be heard in his voice.

  "So you'll sit there," his Mom told him.

  Dortmunder and Kelp went out to the kitchen, where they found some built-in shelving they could rip out, and for a time the empty house echoed with ripping, rending, crashing sounds from the kitchen. Meantime, Murch's Mom moved the hibachi to a corner of the fireplace and made a bed for the fire out of ripped-up pieces of cardboard from the cartons that had contained their provisions. Murch sat the card tabl
e and watched the action through his fingers, and May dressed the boy in pajamas and wrapped the other blanket around him. On the television screen, which no one was watching, the blind hermit was playing his violin for the monster.

  Dortmunder and Kelp brought a lot of jagged pieces of wood in, stacked them in the fireplace, and lit the card. board underneath. The fire started up at once, and smoked terrifically for half a minute, during which time everybody coughed and waved their arms and shouted unintelligible and unfollowable orders about the flue. Then all all at once the chimney began to draw, the fire flared up, the smoke was sucked away into the rain and the wind outside, and heat wafted out across the room.

  "That's nice," May said.

  Jimmy, warm now and dry, turned at last and noticed the television set. "Oh!" he said. "Bride of Frankenstein! There's some beautiful shots in that. It was directed by James Whale, you know, he also did the original Frankenstein and The Invisible Man. Just incredible camera angles. Can I watch?"

  "It's past your bedtime," May said.

  "Oh, that can't count now," Jimmy said. "Besides, my room is cold, and you want to keep me warm, don't you?"

  "An exercise-yard lawyer," Dortmunder said.

  Murch said, "Put the kid upstairs, will you? I don't want to spend the rest of my life with my hands over my face."

  Dortmunder said, "And I don't want to keep this goddam mask on any more."

  Jimmy said, "I'll make you a deal."

  They all looked at him. Murch's Mom said, "You'll make us a what?"

  "I already saw your faces anyway," Jimmy said, "when I first came in. But if you let me stay and watch the movie, you can take your masks off and I promise I'll make believe you kept them on. I'll never identify you, and I won't tell the police or anybody else that I ever saw you or that I know what you look like. I'll make a solemn vow." He held his right hand up in the three-finger Boy Scout oath sign, though he was not now and never had been a Boy Scout. But he meant it just the same.

  The gang all looked at one another. Murch's Mom said, "Well, it would be easier."

  Kelp said, "But that's not the way it's done. That's not the way it's done."

  Dortmunder said, "You mean in that goddam book?"

  "I mean anywhere. But, all right, in the book. Could you imagine the gang in that book taking their masks off and sitting down with the victim and watch Bride of Frankenstein?"

  "I really really promise," Jimmy said.

  Dortmunder yanked his mask off and threw it into a corner. "I'll take the kid's word for it," he said.

  "So do I," said Murch's Mom, and pulled her own mask off. "This thing flattens my hair anyway."

  Murch took his hands down from his face. "Boy, that's a strain on the arms," he said.

  May took off her mask, looked at it, and said, "I always thought this thing was pretty silly anyway."

  Kelp, the only one in the room with a Mickey Mouse mask on, said, "You people don't seem to understand. If you don't do a thing right, how do you expect to get away with anything?"

  "Be quiet," Murch's Mom said. "I'm watching the movie."

  May said to Jimmy, "Come here, sit with me.",

  I m a little old for sitting on people s laps, Jimmy said.

  "Okay," May said. "Then I'll sit on yours."

  Jimmy laughed. "You win," he said. "I'll sit on your lap."

  They all arranged themselves in their chairs before the television set again, as they had been before Jimmy had come back. Kelp looked at them all., looked at the kid, looked at the TV, shook his Mickey Mouse-masked head, shrugged, pulled the mask off, flipped it away, and sat down to watch the movie.

  The hermit and the monster ate dinner together. "Food good," said the monster. The hermit gave him a cigar.

  20

  When Dortmunder woke up he was stiff as board. He sat up, creaking in every joint, and discovered that his air mattress had developed a leak during the night. In order to have something for them to sleep on, without having to cart half a dozen beds out here from New York, Murch and his Mom had bought a bunch of inflatable air mattresses, the kind that people use in their swimming pools. And Dortmunder's had sprung a leak during the night, lowering him slowly to the dining room floor, on which he had done the rest of his sleeping. The result being that he was now so stiff he could barely move.

  Gray-white daylight crept through the boarded windows, showing him the empty room, the black hole in the center of the ceiling where a chandelier had been removed, and the other two air mattresses. Murch's was empty, but a blanketed mound breathed slowly and evenly on the other one; Dortmunder felt fatalistic irritation at that. Kelp's air mattress had not leaked, he was over there sleeping like a baby.

  Last night, after the movie, the kid had been put back up in his room with the door locked, for whatever good it might do. But he'd been asleep by then-Dortmunder had had to carry him upstairs-so maybe he was still around. In any event, mattresses had been blown up for the ladies in the living room and for the gentlemen next door in the dining room, and to the pity-pat of rain on the floor-the roof leaked-they had all gone off to sleep.

  Speaking of pitter-pat, there wasn't any. Dortmunder frowned at the windows, but the boards were too close together for him to see out or even to tell what kind of day it was; though this light did seem too pale to be direct sunshine. Anyway. the rain had apparently stopped.

  Well, there was nothing for it but to get up, or at least to make the attempt. Also, there was the smell of coffee in the air, which made Dortmunder's stomach growl softly to itself in anticipation. Last night's Lurps had been better than nothing, but they weren't exactly the kind of meal he was used to.

  "Urn," he said, when he leaned forward, and, "Oof," when he stretched one hand out on the floor and shifted his weight over onto it. "Aggghh," he said, when he heaved his body heavily over onto one knee, and, "Oh, Jee-sus," when at last he struggled to his feet.

  What a back. It felt as though somebody had pounded a lot of finishing nails into it last night. He bent, twisted, arched his back, and listened to his body creak and snap and complain. Moving a lot like Boris Karloff in that movie last night-in fact, he looked a bit like that character-he staggered out of the dining room and into the living room, where he found May, Murch's Mom and the kid sitting at the card table, playing hearts. May said, "Good morning. There's hot water on the hibachi, if you want to make yourself some coffee."

  "I don't want to make myself some coffee," Dortmunder said. "My mattress leaked, I slept on the floor, I'm too stiff to bend over."

  "In other words," May said, "you want me to make it."

  "That's right," Dortmunder said.

  "After this hand," May said.

  Dortmunder grunted, and went over to open the door and look out at the world. The sky was very gray and the ground was very wet and there was still a damp chill in the air.

  "Shut that door," Murch's Mom called. "It's nice and warm in here, let's keep it that way."

  Dortmunder shut the door. "Where's Stan?" he said.

  Murch's Mom said, "He went to get some groceries."

  "Groceries?"

  May said, "Jimmy says he's an expert at scrambled eggs."

  "I always make my own breakfast," Jimmy said. "Mrs. Engelberg is hopeless." Looking slyly at Murch's Mom he said, "You wouldn't be shooting the moon, would you?"

  "Of course not," Murch's Mom said. "With this hand?" Dortmunder walked slowly around the room, bending this way and that, shrugging his shoulders, twisting his head around. Everything hurt. His wrists hurt. He said, "Isn't that hand over?"

  "Not quite," Murch's Mom said.

  Dortmunder went over and looked at the hand. They each had two cards left and it was Murch's Mom's lead. Dortmunder, kibitzing over her shoulder, saw that she had the ace of clubs and the ten of diamonds left. "Well, I might as well get rid of my last winner," she said, and tossed out the ace of clubs.

  Dortmunder walked around to kibitz May's hand, while Jimmy said, "I thought you were
n't shooting the moon."

  "I'm not," Murch's Mom said. "I just don't want to get stuck with the last lead."

  "Sure," Jimmy said.

  May had to play second, on Murch's Mom's ace of clubs, and she had the ace of hearts and the jack of diamonds. Dortmunder watched May's hand hover over the jack of diamonds, which would beat Murch's Mom's final ten of diamonds lead, then hover over the ace of hearts.

  Then it hovered over the jack of diamonds again. Then the ace of hearts again.

  Dortmunder's stomach growled. Loudly.

  "Oh, all right," May said, and threw the jack of diamonds, holding back the ace of hearts.

  "I didn't say anything," Dortmunder said.

  "Your stomach did," May told him.

  "I can't help that." Dortmunder went on around the table to look at Jimmy's hand. The kid had the king of hearts and the queen of diamonds, and he barely hesitated at all before throwing the king of hearts. "If you want to shoot the moon," he said, "I might as well help."

  Murch's Mom, drawing in the trick, looked at the kid with sudden sharp suspicion. "What have you done, you bad boy?" she asked, and tossed out the ten of diamonds.

  "Oh, dear," May said, and dropped the ace of hearts on it.

  "I kept a stopper," Jimmy said calmly. He dropped the queen of diamonds and said, "That's twenty-five for you and one for me."

  "And coffee for me," Dortmunder said.

  "Yes yes," May said.

  Murch's Mom, who was well-known as a poor loser, wrote down the scores and said, "You think you're pretty cute, don't you?"

  "I've learned over the course of years," Jimmy told her, "that defensive play is much more profitable in the long run."

  "The course of years? Are you kidding me?"

  His face as innocent as a choirboy's, Jimmy said, "What's the score, anyway?"

  Murch's Mom tossed the pad across the table to him. "Read it yourself," she said.

  Dortmunder got his coffee from May, who then went back to her game. Dortmunder walked around and around, drinking coffee and trying to limber up, and after a while Murch came in, with eggs and milk and butter and bread and a newspaper and a frying pan and a pale blue flight bag that said Air France on it and God knows what else. Dortmunder said, "We gonna live here?"