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“Shush up. Stop talking. ”
Leslie lifted her head and narrowed her eyes. “I can hear them. Can’t you? Don’t you hear what they’re trying to say?”
“No, and you can’t either. Hush it, would you?” Lu tried to force her sister’s head back down but Leslie wouldn’t let it go.
“But that door is really heavy, ain’t it? They won’t be able to pull it down, I don’t think. Not unless the water gets higher, and, listen, it’s stopped raining. ”
She was right. The sudden quiet threw into sharp relief the dull staccato beneath the floor where they sat.
“Be quiet, Les. For Jesus’ sake, shut up. You want them to hear you?”
“Who cares?” she said, and the eerie, knowing glare she gave to Lu made her stomach knot and sink. “Can’t you tell? They already know we’re here. ”
But the door was heavy, and it held. And by the time the first hint of dawn came creeping down the Tennessee River gorge, the water was retreating its way back to the river’s bed. Though they wouldn’t open the attic door, the girls shouted out to police when they heard the sirens, and when the man with a megaphone called to them from a small, flat boat.
They were home by breakfast, but all of their mother’s worry didn’t keep the pair of them from being grounded indefinitely.
And late at night, while her little sister slept, Lu listened for the hammering of the searching hands. She never heard it again, but Leslie dreamed of it for weeks—whispering frantic prayers into her pillow between twilight and dawn.
Tell the burned-up man it was all a mistake. Tell him it was all a mistake.
2
Our Lord and Savior
Christ Adams has a typo on his social security card. I’ve seen it, because he likes to flash it around, in case anyone disbelieves him—and a lot of people do. He’s the most entertaining liar in town.
He slipped another cigarette out of the pack and pushed a lock of Day-Glo orange hair out of his face while he sucked the thing alight. We were sitting together down by the river, on the cement curbs that pass for seating along Ross’s Landing. The pier’s polished metal architecture gleamed in the sharp winter sun, but Christ wouldn’t go near it. He wouldn’t get any closer than the bank, where the terraced steps offered a fine view of the river.
“I’m taking a chance coming this close. We both are. And so are those idiots over there, pushing strollers and fishing. I’d rather scoop my eyes out with a grapefruit spoon than sit so close to the water. ”
“It’s a nice day to walk around down there,” I sort of argued. “It’s only a little chilly. ”
“It isn’t chilly for January. ”
“It’s chilly for me?
“Whatever, Eden. ” He chewed the filter end of his cigarette until it fit the yellowed groove between his teeth. He shook his head and pulled his jacket tighter around his shoulders. Christ was about my height, maybe five foot ten, but I probably outweighed him by twenty or thirty pounds. He had that lean, starved look to him that comes from lots of physical activity and not enough nutrition. His was a body built by nicotine, Waffle House, and artificial sweetener.
“Where’s your skateboard?” I asked, only because I’d never before seen him without it.
He shrugged and twitched, as if the question annoyed him. “Busted. Same night as Pat went missing. I told you that part. ”
“No. You haven’t told me anything yet. Since when is Pat missing?”
“Since the same night my board got busted. Besides, if I had it, the cops would’ve thrown me out as soon as we sat down. Some bullshit about defacing the steps. But it’s not our boards that tear up the steps. I don’t care what they say. ”
I stretched out and crossed my feet, leaning back and pulling my sunglasses down off the top of my head. “There’s not much arguing about the graffiti, though. ”
“That’s just protest. Freedom of speech. If the cops at the landing would leave us alone—”
“Then you’d find some other place to make trouble. Look, man—not today. Just say your piece and let me move along. I’ve made nice. I put down my paper and left my window seat because you had to have a word. Well, have it. ”
“All right. You want the fifty-cent version? Here it is: you’d be a goddamn madwoman to move into those apartments over there. ” Christ pointed across the river to the north shore, where a low-cut skyline was developing beside the river.
“What the hell? First Lu, now you. What’s wrong with them? They’re beautiful, they’re almost finished, and I’ve already put down my deposit, thank you very much. I’m moving in on the first of next month. ”
He cocked his head and took a long drag. “Lu—that’s your aunt? Hell, if I were her I’d be damned happy to have you out of the house at long last. ”
