Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! (16 page)

It was there for the whole community to see.

W
HEN TUCKER AND NATALIA
arrived back at the Hookers’, they found Dinky, alone, in her bedroom, packing. There were paint stains all over her hands and face, and she was red-faced and breathless.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said to Tucker. “I need someone to get my duffel bag down from the top of the closet.”

“I thought something was wrong with the piston pump in your aquarium,” Natalia said. “Was that all a big lie?”

Dinky slapped a pair of socks into an open suitcase on the bed. “I don’t have time for explanations,” she said. “In a matter of minutes the whole world’s coming down on my head if I don’t get out of here.”

“You ought to wash up first,” Tucker said.

“Your parents won’t be here for a while,” Natalia said. “Everyone’s congratulating your mother.”

“Stars don’t stay stars for very long,” Dinky said. “She might as well learn that.” She glared at Tucker. “Are you going to get down my duffel bag, or let me break my back trying to get it down?”

“Why would you paint something like that all over the streets?” said Tucker. “Why would you do that to your mother tonight of all nights?”

“You’re not shooting smack!” Natalia said.

“I’m not explaining my philosophy of life to you two, either,” Dinky answered. “Where I’m going I won’t owe anyone any explanations.” She was dragging underwear from her bureau drawer to her bed, huffing and puffing with the effort.

“Sit down and collect yourself,” Tucker said.

“Sit down and get caught red-handed by The Good Samaritan!” Dinky said sarcastically.

“Your hands are blue,” Tucker said. “They’re blue and green and gold.”

Natalia said, “Wait a minute—wait. Listen. Susan, if you go in the bathroom and wash up, how will your mother know you were the one who painted all that over everything?”

“Because she has a way of ferreting out the truth—instantly!” said Dinky. “She has radar, second sight, and a third eye!”

Tucker shook his head from side to side, biting away an irrepressible smile. “I’d just like to see the look on her face when she sees it,” he said.

“Why didn’t you stick around for a look at the look on her face?” Dinky said. “What good are you two? I want my duffel bag, Tucker!”

“I just
couldn’t
stick around,” Natalia said.

“I’ll get your duffel bag down if you’ll tell me where you’re going,” said Tucker.

“Don’t try to blackmail me. I’ll get it down myself,” she said. “The reason you didn’t stick around was because you thought you’d sneak in some time to make out before they come home.”

“We came back here to find you,” Natalia said.

“You knew I wouldn’t be here!” Dinky said.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” Tucker said. “You’re not a mirage, are you?”

“I’m practically gone,” said Dinky. “You came back here to mouth a lot of mush to each other.”

“Oh, Dinky,” Natalia said, “why can’t we reach you?”

“That’s a good question,” Dinky said. “It’s certainly not because there isn’t enough of me to reach.”

She began to drag a chair over to the closet. She tried to stand on the chair, but was too exhausted, and just stood bent over it, holding the sides, catching her breath.

Tucker went across and put his hand on her shoulder. “Take it easy, Susan. I promise you that if your parents come in the front door, we’ll lie and say we saw you heading into the deli. You’ll have more time while they look for you.”

“They probably haven’t even left the banquet hall yet,” Natalia said.

Dinky sat down on the chair. She fanned herself with her hand. After a few seconds, while she caught her breath, she said, “How was it going over with people?”

“Well, everyone noticed it,” Tucker said. “You couldn’t miss it.”

“I made sure of that,” Dinky said. “How did it go over?”

“People just kept repeating it: ‘Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack, Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack,’” said Natalia. “I heard one woman say, ‘That’s Helen Hocker’s little girl. They call her Dinky.’”

“I’m not unknown in Brooklyn Heights,” Dinky said with considerable satisfaction.

“Where are you planning to go, anyway?” Tucker asked.

“Don’t try to trip me up when my guard is down,” Dinky answered. “Go on in the front room and make out. That’s why you came here.”

“No, it isn’t,” Natalia said.

“Yes it is!” Dinky said. “Maybe it wasn’t at the time when I used to tease you that it was, but it is now. Everything’s changed.”

“Nothing’s really changed.” Tucker knelt down by the chair.

“Oh, get off your knees, jackass,” Dinky said. “Everything has so changed, and about the lousiest thing I’ve ever had pulled on me in my entire life was pulled on me last night by you two ex-friends!”

“What?” Natalia said. “Tell us what.”

“Tell you
what
?” Dinky hollered. “You don’t know
what?
How could you let me waddle out in all my glory in front of that thinned-down storm trooper, who only came over here to show off his weight loss in the first place?”

“He came here to see you,” Tucker said, “not to show off.”

“Bilgewater! And
you
dragged him over here!”

“
He
wanted to say hello,” Natalia said.

“What if you’d gone crazier, instead of getting better?” Dinky asked her. “Would you like a surprise like that if you’d gone crazier? I got fatter since he saw me last, in case you didn’t notice! And that was a nice fat surprise!”

Tucker and Natalia couldn’t think of anything to say.

Dinky said, “Even that freaked-out street cat took a turn for the better. My mother told me that screwed-up alley cat has become a real tamebrain!”

Tucker said, “Susan?”

“My name is Dinky, El Creep-O!”

“Dinky,” Tucker said, “we’re really sorry about last night. We just didn’t think, I guess.”

“Now it’s ‘we,’ is it? You’re really joined at the hip,” she said.

“You better go home, Tucker,” Natalia said. “Would you mind?”

“I understand,” said Tucker. “Sure.”

“Oh, I love it, I love it, I love it,” Dinky said. “They have this deep and meaningful relationship of mutual understanding.”

“Good night, Susan,” Tucker said softly.

“Susan,” said Dinky, “has been swallowed up and suffocated by the oily, solid substance in animal tissue; she has been strangled by suet.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Tucker said.

“Bug off, El Traitor.”

Natalia walked him halfway down the hall.

“Are you sure you can handle this?” Tucker whispered.

“She’s about to break down and bawl,” Natalia answered. “I know her. She hates to have people see her cry.”

“What if she really does run away?”

“Tucker, she’s not going to
run
anywhere tonight. She’s ready to collapse.”

“If you need me—” Tucker said.

“I know,” Natalia said.

“I feel like a louse.”

“Lice,” Natalia agreed.

On his way down Remsen Street, Tucker saw Mr. and Mrs. Hocker coming toward him. Tucker crossed the street. He darted into the shadows of the brownstones and began walking very fast.

“Tucker? Tucker Woolf?” It was Mr. Hacker’s voice.

Tucker went even faster, without turning around once or looking over his shoulder. He was almost running when he heard the sound of footsteps running after him.

“TUCKER WOOLF!”

Tucker stopped then.

Mr. Hocker was alone. He came toward Tucker with his necktie flying in the breeze, and Tucker noticed that his hands were balled into fists at his side.

“Just where were you going?” he said when he reached Tucker.

“Home.”

“Where’s Natalia?”

“Home. I just dropped her off.”

“Is Dinky with her?”

Tucker remembered his promise to Dinky. He wasn’t sure that it made any sense, with Mrs. Hocker already on her way there, but he didn’t want to chance coming off as El Traitor a second time.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Did you have a part in this, Tucker?” Mr. Hocker said.

“In what, Sir?”

“You know
what
, young man. Did you paint any of that around the streets?”

“No, Sir.”

“I didn’t think you did. But I’m not so sure, now, that you’re not implicated in some way.”

“I’m not implicated,” Tucker said as though he were on trial in a courtroom.

“Then why did you try to avoid Mrs. Hocker and me just now?”

“I have to get home,” Tucker said.

“Is Dinky with Natalia?”

Maybe Natalia was hiding Dinky, for all Tucker knew. She probably was. Dinky was in no condition to see her mother.

“Dinky might have gone to the deli,” Tucker said.

“You’re implicated, all right,” Mr. Hocker said. “I know a guilty party when I talk to one.”

“I’m not implicated. I’m just telling you where she might be, in case you and Mrs. Hocker want to go look for her.”

“Mrs. Hocker isn’t in any shape to go anywhere, and I think you can appreciate why she isn’t.”

“I’m really sorry, Sir,” Tucker said.

Tucker felt sorry for Natalia, left back there to face Mrs. Hocker and to hide Dinky at the same time.

“You come along to the deli with me, Tucker,” Mr. Hocker said.

Then Tucker felt sorry for himself.

They walked awhile wordlessly, and finally Mr. Hocker said, “This isn’t just an average practical joke. I wonder if you appreciate that.”

“I appreciate that.”

“It has more serious implications.”

Tucker was nervously aware of the way Mr. Hocker kept using the words “implicated,” and “implications.” He also wondered what would happen when they reached the deli.

Mr. Hocker said, “You might as well tell me the truth right now, because the whole truth is going to come out: did you and Natalia have any foreknowledge of this?”

“No, Sir.”

“Why did you leave Natalia so early tonight?”

“I just did.”

“And you haven’t seen Dinky since the banquet?”

Tucker swallowed hard. “No, Sir.”

“Then what makes you think she’s at the deli?”

“A hunch.”

“A
hunch
,” Mr. Hocker said snidely.

Tucker didn’t say anything.

“Do you know how deeply this has hurt Mrs. Hocker?” Mr. Hocker said.

“I suppose it would,” said Tucker.

“I don’t understand how Dinky could let a thing like this happen,” Mr. Hocker said.

“What makes you think she’s involved?” Tucker asked.

“A
hunch
,” Mr. Hocker said snidely again. “Sometimes she can be very cruel.”

“Last night,” Tucker said, “we were pretty cruel to her. You weren’t there.”

“What do you mean?” Mr. Hocker said.

Tucker told him about bringing P. John over and surprising Dinky that way. He also reminded him of Christmas Day when Mrs. Hocker made her little anti-P. John speech.

Mr. Hocker listened until Tucker was completely finished.

Then Mr. Hocker shrugged. “Well, Helen never really took the thing that seriously,” he said, as though he were talking to himself.

“I think it was more than ‘a thing’ where Susan was concerned.”

“It never amounted to much, after all,” Mr. Hocker said.

“If it wasn’t much,” Tucker said, “it was still all Susan ever had.”

They were walking down Hicks Street at that point. Mr. Hocker remained silent. They were minutes away from the deli. Tucker glanced at Mr. Hocker, who was frowning and walking with his head down.

Tucker finally cleared his throat and said, “She’s home, Sir.”

Mr. Hocker stopped walking and so did Tucker.

“What’s all this
about,
Tucker?” Mr. Hocker asked.

Tucker’s words came slowly. “I think it’s about things amounting to a lot more than people think they amount to—I think it’s about having your feelings shoved aside.”

Mr. Hocker shook his head. “No, that isn’t what I meant. I meant why did you tell me she’s at the deli when she isn’t?”

“
I
was talking about what
Susan
meant, for once,” Tucker said. “People who don’t shoot smack have problems, too.”

Mr. Hocker looked at Tucker for a long moment. He looked away and gave the pavement a slight kick with his foot. Then he looked back at Tucker.

He said, “And Susan’s safely home?”

Tucker nodded, and smiled slightly … not at Mr. Hocker, exactly; more at the soft sound, “Susan.”

“T
UCKER,” HIS MOTHER SAID
one early morning in late June, “did you finally finish setting up the library at DRI?”

“Not yet,” he answered. “I’m waiting for fall.”

They were driving across the Brooklyn Bridge. They were leaving for vacation, a camping trip to Bear Mountain; just the three of them, and Nader.

Tucker doubted that it was going to be much of a vacation for him. The back seat had a box full of pots and pans on it. Tucker’s father had brought along a fishing pole to keep himself busy, and his mother had brought along one volume on federal estate and gift taxation, and another on suretyship.

“How is DRI doing without Mrs. Hocker?” Tucker’s father asked.

“I guess some people miss her,” Tucker said.

“I hope they’re having a good time in Europe,” his mother said. “Poor Helen will never live down that humiliation.”

“She’ll recover,” Mr. Woolf said. “She’s a very resilient woman.”

“They’re in Venice,” Tucker said. “Natalia got a card from Susan with a picture of them riding in a gondola.”

“Was it afloat, or slowly sinking into the canal?” his father chuckled.

“That isn’t funny,” Mrs. Woolf said. “The Hockers are doing everything to help her lose weight, and they’re doing everything they can think of to show Susan how much they love her.”

“I think I’ll put on a little weight, and see if I can get a trip to Europe out of you two,” Tucker said.

“If you can put on weight eating your own cooking, you’ll deserve a trip to Europe,” his father said.

“Tucker’s getting to be a very good cook,” his mother said, “and he never complains about it.”

“You just never hear his bitching,” Mr. Woolf said. “All the while he cooks, he mutters under his breath. Some day it’ll all come out, I suppose, dramatically, Dinky Hocker style. Right, Son?”