The Little Friend полностью

“Tomorrow I’ll tell you.”

“Ida, don’t go!” cried Harriet as Ida Rhew broke the small, contented silence that followed by heaving a sigh and moving towards the door, slowly, as if her legs hurt her: poor Ida. “Please?”

“Oh, I’ll be back tomorrow,” said Ida, wryly, without turning around, hoisting her brown paper grocery bag underneath her arm, trudging heavily away. “Never you worry.”

————

“Listen, Danny,” said Farish, “Reese is leaving, so we’re going to have to go on down to the square and listen to Eugene’s—” abstractedly, he waved his hand in the air. “You know. That church bullshit.”

“Why?” said Danny, pushing back his chair, “why we got to do that?”

“The boy is leaving tomorrow. Early tomorrow, knowing him.”

“Well, come on, we’ll just run down to the Mission and put the stuff in his truck right now.”

“We can’t. He’s went off somewhere.”

“Damn.” Danny sat and thought for a moment. “Where you planning on hiding it? The engine?”

“I know places that the FBI could tear that truck apart and never find it.”

“How long’s it going to take you? … I said, how long’s it going to take you,” Danny repeated, when he saw a hostile light spark up suddenly in Farish’s eyes. “To hide the stuff.” Farish was slightly deaf in one ear, from the gunshot; and when he was drugged up and paranoid, sometimes he misunderstood things in a really twisted way, thought you’d told him to go fuck himself when really you’d asked him to shut the door or pass the salt.

“How long you say?” Farish held up five fingers.

“So, all right now. Here’s what we do. Why don’t we skip the preaching and go on over there to the Mission afterwards? I’ll keep em busy upstairs while you go out and put the package in the truck, wherever, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Tell you what bothers me,” said Farish abruptly. He sat down at the table beside Danny and began to clean his fingernails with a pocketknife. “It was a car over there at Gene’s just now. He called me about it.”

“Car? What kind of a car?”

“Unmarked. Parked out front.” Farish heaved a bilious sigh. “Took off when they saw Gene looking out the window at em.”

“It’s probably nothing.”

“What?” Farish reared back, and blinked. “Don’t be whispering at me, now. I can’t stand it when you whisper.”

“I said it’s nothing.” Danny looked at his brother intently, then shook his head. “What would anybody want with Eugene?”

“It’s not Eugene they want,” said Farish, darkly. “It’s me. I’m telling you, there’s government agencies got a file on me this thick.”

“Farish.” You didn’t want to get Farish started on the Federal Government, not when he was cranked up like this. He’d rant all night and into the next day.

“Look here,” he said, “if you’d just go on and pay that tax—”

Farish shot a quick, angry glance at him.

“There was a letter come just the other day. If you don’t pay your taxes, Farish, they’re going to come after you.”

“This isn’t about any tax,” said Farish. “The government’s been surveilling my ass for twenty years.”

————

Harriet’s mother pushed open the door to the kitchen, where Harriet—head in hands—sat slumped at the table. Hoping to be asked what was wrong, she slumped down even further; but her mother did not notice her and went directly to the freezer, where she dug out the striped gallon bucket of peppermint ice cream.

Harriet watched her as she reached up on tiptoe to get a wine glass from the top shelf, and then, laboriously, scooped a few spoonfuls of ice cream into it. The nightgown she had on was very old, with filmy ice-blue skirts and ribbons at the throat. When Harriet was small, she had been captivated by it because it looked like the Blue Fairy’s gown in her book of Pinocchio. Now, it just looked old: wilted, gone gray at the seams.

Harriet’s mother, turning to put the ice cream back in the freezer, saw Harriet slouching at the table. “What’s the matter?” she said, as the freezer door barked shut.

“To start with,” said Harriet, loudly, “I’m starving.”

Harriet’s mother wrinkled her brow—vaguely, pleasantly—and then (no, don’t let her say it, thought Harriet) asked the very question that Harriet had known she would ask. “Why don’t you have some of this ice cream?”

“I … hate … that … kind … of … ice … cream.” How many times had she said it?

“Hmn?”

“Mother, I hate peppermint ice cream.” She felt desperate all of a sudden; didn’t anybody ever listen to her? “I can’t stand it! I’ve never liked it! Nobody’s ever liked it but you!”

She was gratified to see her mother’s hurt expression. “I’m sorry … I just thought we all enjoyed a little something light and cool to eat … now that it’s so hot at night.…”

“I don’t.”

“Well, get Ida to fix you something.…”

“Ida’s gone!”

“Didn’t she leave you anything?”

“No!” Nothing Harriet wanted, anyway: only tuna fish.

“Well, what would you like, then? It’s so hot—you don’t want anything heavy,” she said doubtfully.