Disappearing Acts (5 page)

Meat opened the wallet and peered inside.

“Get under the streetlight!”

Herculeah pushed him closer to the streetlight and peered over his shoulder.

“Can you make out the name?”

“Marcie ... Marcie Mullet.” Meat gave the words a ghostly reading. “Marcie Mullet.” Then he added, “Oh!” as if he had been stung.

“What?”

“One of the students didn't show up.”

“If she was dead, she couldn't.”

“I'm trying to remember what he said—just that it was a very funny person.” Meat shuddered.

“Address?” Herculeah asked briskly, getting back to business.

“Thirteen twenty-nine Broadview.”

“Broadview! Meat, you know where that is, don't you? It's just two streets over. Come on.”

“Where?”

“To Broadview! To Marcie Mullet‘s!”

“I don't think that's such a good idea.”

“Why?”

“I just don't think I could stand to see a dead body one more time tonight.”

“But, don't you get it? We go there to return the wallet. We knock at the door and ask for Marcie Mullet. If she comes to the door, she's not dead. If she doesn't come to the door ... well, we'll worry about that when it happens. Come on.”

Meat followed Herculeah, but with such lack of enthusiasm that she had to turn around twice to say, “Come on. Listen, Meat, I've got to get home. My mother only let me go out to turn in the film, because I kept bugging her. Then I had to promise I'd go straight there.”

“You broke your promise.”

“I did not. I went straight there. It's on the way home that I'm going a few blocks out of the way.”

As they turned onto Broadview, Herculeah began calling out the numbers. “Eleven-thirty ...

“Is it that late?” Meat asked, alarmed.

“No, that's the number of the house. It's going to be on the other side of the street—two blocks down.”

“Eleven ... twelve ... thirteen—this is the right block.”

Herculeah began walking even faster. She was so far ahead of Meat now that he just stopped and watched tiredly. He leaned against a lamppost for support.

Broadview didn't live up to its name. The houses were close together; the street, narrow. The houses went up two and three stories with attics above, but now there were extra mailboxes on the porches to show multiple occupancy.

Herculeah danced her way down the block. Suddenly she stopped and turned to beckon to him. Meat walked slowly forward and stopped beside her. They looked up at the house together.

There were eight mailboxes on this porch, so the house must have been divided into eight small apartments.

“Come on,” she said.

She went up the stairs and peered at the nameplates on the mailboxes. “Marcie Mullet,” Herculeah read. “She's number seven.” Herculeah flipped up the lid of the mailbox. “No mail.”

She tried the front door. When it opened, she turned her delighted face to Meat and signaled him to come on. He followed her into a small, dingy lobby. Perhaps it had once been the front parlor of the house. There were eight plastic buttons on the wall beside a desk. Herculeah punched number seven.

They could hear a buzzer sound upstairs, but nobody came down.

“Let's go,” Meat said impatiently.

A man unfolded himself from a lean-back chair and peered at them. “Who're you looking for?”

Meat gasped with fright, but Herculeah, again, seemed pleased.

“We're looking for Marcie Mullet,” Herculeah told him. “Apartment seven. We've got something of hers we need to return.”

“Not in,” he answered.

“What time does she usually get in?”

“No telling.”

“Do you happen to know where she went tonight?”

The man thought about it. “Seems like she said she was going to some restaurant. What was the name of it? It'll come to me.”

Herculeah couldn't wait for him to remember. “Funny Bonz?”

Meat's heart was in his throat as he waited for the answer.

The man smiled. “That's it. Funny Bonz.”

Herculeah and Meat looked at each other. Neither had anything to say.

“If you want to leave something for Miss Mullet, I'll see she get's it.”

“No,” Herculeah said. “We need to see her. It's sort of important.”

When they were on the street again, heading for home, Herculeah added, “It's real important. In the morning first thing, we'll come back to Broadview and—” She broke off. “No, first thing I'm going to pick up my photos. Meat, for some reason, those nineteen exposures are almost as much a mystery to me as Marcie Mullet. Anyway, after I see my photos, we're off to Broadview.”

Meat said, “In the morning, first thing, we ought to call your dad.”

“ And tell him what? That you thought you saw a dead body? On April Fool's Day?” She sighed with frustration. “If we had the body, I would already have called.”

“We have the wallet.”

“But what does that prove?”

Meat was silent.

“You know how my dad feels about my playing detective.”

“But that's what you are doing.”

“Well, I'll think about it. Maybe I'll call him, maybe I won't. Satisfied?”

Meat was not satisfied at all, but he nodded.

“I'll see you in the morning.”

“Right.”

It was a morning Meat did not look forward to. But then, he told himself, remembering the events of the evening, mornings are usually better than nights.

A small voice reminded him, Not always.

“Herculeah!”

Herculeah came around the corner fast, just as she had yesterday. Meat thought at first she was hurrying toward him—perhaps to show him her photos—but she did not glance across the street. That was strange. She had to have heard him.

Meat moved to the steps of the porch and started down.

“Herculeah!”

Again she did not glance in his direction. What was going on? Was she getting ready to pull another of those stupid jokes?

He crossed the street, moving with a speed that surprised him. It surprised Herculeah too, from the look on her face when she saw him blocking the steps to her house.

“Herculeah—”

She looked at him as if she did not know him. Her expression was one he had not seen before—strange and unreadable.

“What's wrong?”

Her stare was blank. It was as if she had had a shock so devastating that she couldn't take in anything normal.

“Did you get your photos? I'm sorry I didn't act particularly interested and—okay. I'm sorry I got mad yesterday over your taking my picture—but what with finding the dead body and all ...”

He glanced down. In her hand was a yellow and black envelope from Cameras, Inc.

“Oh, you got them. I'd like to see them.” He didn't really want to, but being a good sport, he held out his hand.

Herculeah clutched the envelope against her as if protecting it.

“They can't have been that bad,” he said. “Well, the ones of me could have.” His hand was still extended. Herculeah looked down at it as if it were the hand from a horror movie.

“Is there something wrong with the pictures?”

She didn't answer.

“Or is it that you went to Broadview. Is that it? Did you see Marcie Mullet? Is she dead? Is that what's wrong?”

She shook her head, and Meat realized that what was wrong had nothing to do with the body at Funny Bonz but with the pictures in Herculeah's hand.

“You might as well let me see them.”

No reaction.

“You know you'll show them to me sooner or later.”

Now she spoke for the first time. One word. “Maybe.”

“So why not now?”

She clutched the photos tighter against her.

“Later? What time? Today? Tomorrow?”

“I don't know. I can't think. I just don't know.”

With that, she swirled past him and fumbled with her key as she tried to unlock her door.

“Aren't we going to Broadview?”

He had never seen Herculeah have trouble unlocking a door before. He had even seen her break locks.

“I thought we were going to Broadview. Remember Marcie Mullet? Remember Funny Bonz?”

She redoubled her efforts on the lock. It gave. The door opened, and in one swift movement Herculeah was inside.

Meat went quickly up the steps and glanced in the small window beside the door. All he could see was the back of Herculeah's coat. It was as if getting in the door was so stressful that Herculeah had to lean against the first thing she came to for support.

He rapped on the glass. “Are you all right?”

No answer.

“Is it something about the pictures?”

No answer.

“Is it something about me? Something I did?”

No answer.

“Well, at least let me in. I hate it when people won't let me in. I won't mention the photos and I won't mention Marcie Mullet. Just let me in.”

Herculeah shook her head in a movement that was almost desperate. He watched as she ran up the stairs to her room and disappeared from view.

Meat continued to peer through the dusty glass. Something was terribly wrong. Was it something about the pictures? Something about the murder?

He couldn't stand it. He rang the doorbell. Even as he pressed the bell and heard the ding-dong, he felt this was stupid and useless. When minutes passed and Herculeah did not come to the door, he knew it.

Still, he couldn't help trying one more time.

There ought to be at least two different rings for a doorbell, he thought, ding-dong when you were stopping by for a friendly chat and ... He couldn't think of any sound that would show the depth of his need right now.

Slowly, shoulders sagging, Meat headed for home. He took his place in the living room, at the window, watching the house in case she reappeared.

But hours passed, and she did not.

Inside her bedroom, Herculeah sat on the side of her bed, still in her coat, clutching the envelope containing the photographs against her chest.

She had been so excited about getting the pictures, she had arrived even before the camera shop was open. It was a strange excitement, not entirely pleasant.

At last Cameras, Inc., opened the door and the envelope was in her hand. She had opened it there at the counter, tearing the flap of the envelope in her haste.

“Some of the older photos are kind of dark,” the clerk told her. “I tried to lighten them, but sometimes when the film's been in the camera awhile ...”

The recent photos came first, one of her mom in the kitchen, one of her. Herculean smiled at the two of Meat.

Then came the pictures that had been taken long ago, the dark ones. The smile faded from Herculeah's face.

She had moved to the front of the store and the light from the window. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.

“Is there anything wrong?” the clerk called from the counter. “I could probably lighten them a bit if I had more time. You wanted them this morning,” he reminded her.

Herculeah didn't answer. She crammed the pictures back into the envelope and ran out the door. Clutching them against her, she had run for home.

The last person in the world she had wanted to see was Meat. She knew she was hurting him by not answering his questions. But showing him the photographs would have hurt him much more.

Behind her, Tarot the parrot said, “Beware! Beware!” Herculeah did not even hear him. “Oh, Mom!” he said in Herculeah's own voice. He had picked this up without any help.

Herculeah didn't react.

Since Tarot's entire vocabulary consisted of these few words, he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

On the bed Herculeah sat without moving, waiting for her mother to come home and tell her what to do.

Hurry, Mom, Herculeah thought. Hurry!

Meat sat in front of the telephone. He was trying not to call Herculeah. He began doodling on the telephone pad.

He remembered that when he was three he would write like this, big loopy letters, and when he had a page full he would run to his dad. “Another story?” his dad would say. “Want me to read it to you?”

Meat's happiest memories of his dad were sitting on his lap, listening to the funny stories Meat had written.