Number 8 (27 page)

“She wouldn't, would she? She wouldn't do a thing like that! And not with Badman!”

Asim grabs both my shoulders and holds me still. I realize I'm shaking.

“Ooooh, who's in love now?” Joe walks by doing a stupid wriggle of his hips.

“Shut up, you idiot. Why aren't you worrying about your friend instead of making dumb jokes?”

Joe laughs. “Old Badman? He can take care of himself.
And
his girlfriend.”

I jump up but Asim is still holding my shoulders.

“Don't think about him now. He knows nothing.” Asim pulls me back down on the bench. “Ez was angry but she wouldn't do anything as … what is the word? Well, as silly as that. You know it. She would not run away, I am sure. But maybe, if she was so angry, she couldn't sleep? She may have gone out for a walk?”

A clutch of cold grips my stomach. “I found something in my garden this morning.” I feel in my pocket and realize it's still there. “This firecracker,” I say, showing Asim. “See, it's been exploded.”

“You found it this morning? It wasn't there yesterday?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“Is there any damage at your home?”

“No, it's okay.”

We look at each other. The firecracker is shaking in my hand. I make a big effort to hold it still.

“So, maybe,” Asim says slowly, “maybe while we were out
Badman entered your garden. What was he going to do? The mailbox—”

“He could blow that up from outside the house.”

“The possum house instead—”

“Is
in
side … Remember how nasty he was about it, how he said, ‘don't hurt yourselves,' and ‘the little possies?' And then we had that fight.” I crack each knuckle twice. It helps me to think. “You know what, I think he came to blow it up. Otherwise, why come right inside the gate? And he knew Mom and I would be out. All day Ez made such a big fuss about how great the night was going to be. Remember the way she was raving about Valerie, how this was going to be her big break, how she'd be famous? Practically everyone in the school knew my mom was going to be out singing at the pub.”

Asim is watching the kids trickling out of the office. They're sort of tiptoeing down the stairs as if they're part of a secret.

“And you know what? He couldn't stand it,” I say suddenly. “The idea of everyone talking about my mother, that she might be famous. Mostly, he couldn't stand Esmerelda talking about it. Remember how he kept saying to me, ‘Mommy's boy.' It was the only thing he could find to try to take me down. ‘Aren't you a little mommy's boy?'”

Asim is nodding furiously. “So maybe,” he hesitates, “maybe if Ez was out walking, or even just up late, she might have seen him. Seen him opening your gate…”

A red rage is burning in my head. It's hard to think clearly above the crackling noise. But I'm seeing something. It's like groping for a hand rail in the dark. “So why didn't he blow up the possum house? He certainly got to it.”

“He must have been stopped before he could—”

“Esmerelda.” A clammy sweat prickles all over me. I clutch Asim. “She stopped him somehow, I'm sure of it. But the firecracker did explode. Jesus, if she was hurt I'm gonna kill him. Do you think she was hurt?”

“I don't know. But it still doesn't explain why they're missing. I mean, Badman is bad, but he couldn't force her to run away with him, take her hostage or anything…”

We keep sitting on the bench. Kids file past, birds peck at the grass, Mrs. Reilly yells at her class in the distance. A feeling is growing in me, a kind of dread, but there's no shape or face to it. There's something missing here, some clue I'm not seeing. I know with this deep knowing that the thing is staring me in the face. I feel like Mom's Ray Charles—I'm hearing the music but I can't see it.

“The last place we can trace Badman to is your garden,” says Asim. “He must have arrived late, but before you got home. Esmerelda may have been with him.” Asim wipes his face. He looks very pale.

“Are you okay? What is it, what are you thinking?”

Asim looks down at his hands. “I'm thinking that there is just one thing to do. We must search this last place where Badman was. We should look it over very carefully. Maybe there is some clue you have not seen.”

The cold feeling in my stomach is spreading. I stand up. “Okay. Let's go.”

Asim stands, too, but he grabs my arm. “First, we should tell the police about this. They have not interviewed you yet. We should tell them too about your … accident. The Mustang.”

“No! Mom would have a fit. I couldn't do it. Anyway it's over now. I haven't seen the car again. Look, I just want to go home, I've got to get home and check things out for
myself. I promise, if I find anything I'll tell the police. Are you coming with me?”

Asim is biting the inside of his cheek. I can see one side is all sucked in. He's hovering there, standing on one foot then the other. “I don't know, I don't know,” he whispers.

“Come on. If we just keep to the fence and walk behind those trees we can get out the school gates without anyone knowing.”

“But that's against the law!” he bursts out. “It's called truancy! What if the principal finds out?”

I turn around to face him. “Look, it's just one day. No one can put you in jail for that! Kids do it all the time.” I look at my watch. “There's a bus that goes back our way in five minutes. They go every half hour.”

Asim's face looks all crumpled like a paper bag. He's sucking his cheek so badly I'm scared he'll bite right through it. A pang of sadness goes through me. He's panicking. Mom had a panic attack once and she looked just like that. White as a sheet. Sometimes I forget. It's too much for him.

“Listen, you're right,” I say quickly. “It's best if you stay here. Probably better if I just go myself. It won't look so obvious, no teacher's even seen me. It's true you don't want to attract any attention like this. I understand, it's okay.” I pick up my bag. “I'll let you know if I find anything.”

I'm heading toward the trees, crouching down low when I feel a hand pulling my shirt. I whip around. Asim's white face is close to mine.

“I'm coming, too,” he whispers.

“Are you sure?”

Asim draws his lips in tight. “Positive.”

We squat down and inch forward with our knees bent like commando raiders. Asim doesn't make a sound.

On the bus we're both quiet. I wink twice at the red light. I wonder what Asim is thinking. I sneak a glance at him. He's still pale and he's hunched down in his seat with his shirt collar pulled up as far up as it can go. I feel pretty tense myself. My heart is still going at about 60 miles an hour. Hasn't slowed since I first heard Esmerelda's name an hour ago. I wonder if you can have a heart attack at thirteen.

As soon as we reach my place, Asim walks in the gate and drops his bag near the garbage cans. He starts at the maple tree. He peers at the trunk of the tree, rubbing his hands all over it, then up into the little house. I decide to check out the other end of the garden.

“Can you see anything?” I call after a while.

He puts his finger to his lips.

“A couple of round furry shapes,” he says walking toward me. “And a pair of eyes, blinking. They must really like it in there, do you think?”

We smile at each other. It feels good to smile.

Then Asim drops to his knees again and starts looking at the grass. He runs his hand over the ground and points to an area shaped like a bean bag where the grass is flattened and a bit mashed. Patches of dirt show through. “This makes me think a scuffle took place,” says Asim. “Like a body or two might have struggled on the ground.”

“What? Esmerelda with
him
? Ugh!”

“So where did you say you found the Thunder?”

“Around here, more or less. On the path there beside the lawn.”

Asim works his way along the path, clearing leaves away with his hands.

“Oh, look, here are the scorch marks! Was this the spot exactly?”

“Yes! The Thunder was lying on the concrete. That's why I saw it. If it'd been buried in the grass here I might not have noticed it.”

But Asim is moving off now, scuttling across the garden like a beetle. His face is close to the ground. All he needs is a pair of feelers coming out of his head.

I watch him work his way up the garden. I'm checking out the area, too, but I'm a bit in awe of his methodical approach. It's as if he was born to it—this detective work.

“What are you looking for now?”

He doesn't answer for a moment. Then he goes to the gate and opens it. I find him on the other side, down on his knees. I crouch down too.

“See this dirt here, in the dip where the grass does not grow?”

“Yeah. Too many feet tramping on it. It fills up with mud when it rains. Mom's talked about putting paving stones there—”

“Look closely.”

I look. “There's some shoe prints. A big one.”

“Yes.”

“Badman's got pretty big feet.”

“Yes, but are they that big?”

I nod. “I think so. His fists are big, too, I remember the feel of them on my ear.”

“Hmm.” Asim is digging into the longer grass near the retaining wall. He's so focused, his fingers parting the thick tall weeds, his face disappearing into the green. He moves a few inches along the wall every few seconds. He's working with the concentration of those forensic detectives on TV.

I'm thinking how different he looks, right now. How
different everything seems. I'm used to him falling apart, of having to be so careful of his feelings. It's like trying not to joggle a valuable package marked “fragile.” I guess I've been thinking I have to look after him. But now, well, it seems like he's in charge. He knows what he's doing. Even if we find nothing, it's so good to be here together.

“Jackson.”

Asim stands up. He's holding something in his hand but I can't see because his fingers are closed tightly around it. I know from his face that the world is about to change. He looks so calm. Pale, but calm.

Slowly he unfurls his fingers. The cold dammed up dread inside me opens like a sea.

“The Blue M,” says Asim. He's reading the logo on the book of matches lying in his palm. There is a smudge of dirt over the last word but when he wets his finger and wipes it, everything is perfectly clear.

“The Blue Moon,” Asim says quietly. “That's the casino where your mother worked, isn't it? The place you told me about, with the bad men?”

All I can do is nod. The dread is like ice water gushing through my head. Numbing my brain.

“Someone from the Blue Moon was here, Jackson.” Asim speaks slowly. It's as if he's dealing with a person who's been in an accident and he's being very kind. Somewhere at the bottom of all the cold I feel grateful.

“Why do you think that is?”

I shake my head. I try to clear it, to climb my way out of this dark, drowning feeling.

“You better sit down,” says Asim suddenly. “You look like you might faint.”

We sit on the grass.

“I have to tell you this, Jackson, but I have been worried about that Mustang ever since we first saw it. I know you do not want to hear this. But now, when it has hit you—”

“What's that got to do with it?” I feel angry suddenly, trapped, as if I can't breathe. “I was in the wrong place, I
told
you, standing there like some idiot in the middle of the road and anyway even old Bill said there are delinquents everywhere around here.”

Asim takes my hand. A part of me is thinking we must look so weird sitting here on the lawn at ten o'clock in the morning holding hands. But mostly I just feel like I'm drowning.

Asim goes on patting my hand. “It's called surveillance, Jackson. I have seen it before. In Iraq, if Saddam Hussein suspected you of plotting against him, or even just being disloyal, he sent his men to watch you. They followed you in cars, or on foot, always waiting there like your shadow, watching. This is supposed to scare you, warn you, make so you can't think straight anymore. Then they start to threaten you. They hurt you, hurt your family.” Asim takes a deep breath. His hand is trembling now. “Many, many people just disappeared in my country. Went missing.”

I drop his hand as if it's burning. “This isn't Iraq! You're crazy, that doesn't happen here. Your trouble is you just can't forget what happened to you!”

Asim sighs. He suddenly looks so old, as if he's seen everything before and he knows exactly what I'm going to say and how this will all finish. I sit there watching him sighing sadly, looking so wise, and it seems as if he's done all the steps of this dance before and he's just waiting for me to catch up.

“Look at it this way,” he says patiently. “It's like adding up fractions. You have to find a common denominator before you can see the whole picture.”

“I know that.”

“Well, what are our fractions? What are the pieces? What do they have in common?”

He waits for a moment, then puts the Blue Moon matches in the space between us.

“The casino is our common denominator,” he says. “The Mustang is one piece, the phone calls are another—”

“The phone calls were from
Bad
man. Everyone knows that!”

Asim shakes his head. “Not me. I know Badman does bad things, but he does not like silence. It is not his style. He puts his name to things. He is very loud and very angry. He is not, what is the word? Subtle.”

There's a pause between us.

“Did you get a better look at the license plate of the Mustang?” Asim keeps on. “I know we saw the 777, but what about the letters?”

I stare out at the street. “I was too busy jumping out of the
way
,” I mumble.