Read Online God's Pocket - Pete Dexter by Pete Dexter - Free Book Online Page B

in trouble, Mrs. Hubbard . . ."
    Eisenhower cringed. There wasn't another cop he knew
of who liked talking to the relatives. Arbuckle told her about the
crane, Eisenhower closed his eyes. He didn't even know what Arbuckle
was talking about, and he'd been there. "No," Arbuckle was
saying, "you're not listening, 'ma'am. It didn't fall on him,
the thing on the end hit him in the head. No, I already told you .
.·."
    Five minutes later Arbuckle hung up and got back in
the van. "That's it," he said.
    Eisenhower said, "Wel1,
Chuck, you never know."
    * * *
    Mickey sat on the bed with her until the sisters
came. She watched him awhile, crying that way that didn't make any
noise, then she stared at the ceiling, and the tears ran sideways
into her hair. He never touched her, something told him not to touch
her.
    Three years in Jeanie's house, in her neighborhood.
It wasn't long enough to touch her now. It wasn't long enough to be
part of this. The sisters came together. There were two of them, but
it seemed like more. All lipsticked and dressed. One of them had five
kids, the other one had a job at Pathmark. He could never remember
which was which.
    He let them in the front door, and walked behind
Joyce up the stairs to Jeanie's room. Joanie went into the- kitchen
to fix coffee. Joyce was ten years older than Jeanie and looked like
she could have been her mother. Joyce and Joanie both. She sat down
where Mickey had been on the bed and Jeanie moved toward her, and
they put their arms around each other and rocked back and forth.
    Mickey stood in the doorway, feeling like he
shouldn't be watching. He remembered now, Joyce had the job at
Pathmark. Her husband was a pressman at the Inquirer. She came over
once a month to look at everything in the house and comment on how
nice Jeanie's things were. How even with two incomes, they couldn't
afford a Betamax. And Jeanie would ask if they were going to their
place at the shore this summer, and Joyce would remind her it was
only a house trailer, and they'd go at it like that for three hours,
every month. Then Joyce would leave, and Jeanie would smile at him
and shake her head, and say something about how it wasn't easy being
the talented sister. He didn't know why, but after Joyce left, Mickey
always got laid, so you could say Joyce was his favorite
sister-in-law.
    Joanie brushed past him and came into the bedroom
with a tray. A coffeepot, three cups and saucers, a sugar bowl, the
box of donuts. She sat in the chair by the window and settled the
tray at the foot of the bed. Joyce propped Jeanie up with pillows and
got her to try the coffee. Jeanie shook off the donuts, but the
sisters insisted. "You got to eat something," Joanie said.
    "She probably just ate lunch," Mickey said.
Jeanie ate about two most afternoons. Nobody in the room seemed to
hear him. Joanie held a napkin under the pastry and moved them
together toward Jeanie's mouth. Jeanie took a small bite and began
crying, real crying now. The kind you could hear out on the street.
    "He was only a baby," she said. "They
said something fell on him .... " The sisters put down their
coffee and held her again. Joyce looked over Jeanie's shoulder and
caught Mickey's eye. He would have been just as welcome down in
Society Hill knocking on doors asking to use the bathroom.
    The phone rang. Mickey picked it up and moved out of
the room to talk. The cord on it, you could take it to the john,
except there was already one in there. "Mr. Hubbard?” It was
the medical examiner's office, saying they needed somebody to come
over and look at Leon. He told the sisters he had to go, and what he
had to do. He didn't know how to say it, so he just said it. That
brought Jeanie around, and she wanted to come too.
    "You don't want to see him now," Mickey
said. And she didn't. And neither did he.
    A lot of it, he figured, depended on what had fallen
on him. He took the Monte Carlo over the South Street Bridge, looking
at the Schuylkill River, the trees, kids on