Fresh Kills Read Online Free PDF Page B

crazy. He was home. Already he had his keys out.
    The phone rang again; it was Lippert.
    â€œDon’t bring the kid with you, either,” he said.
    I got out and followed Billy up to the front door.
    â€œMy keys don’t work,” he said.
    I got a set of keys from my pocket.
    â€œHere,” I said. “Your mom gave me these.”
    â€œShe changed the locks?”
    â€œI guess.”
    Billy looked defeated. “They didn’t want me here, you think that’s why they did it?”
    â€œI’m sure it’s not why. Look, you go see your fish, whatever, and I’ll pick you up in a couple of hours. If I leave you, you won’t go out, right? I’m not supposed to leave you alone, and I don’t like even asking if you’ll stay at the house, but I have to.”
    Billy lit up like a bulb. “I promise. You can phone me every two minutes, or anything, it would just be so great to know that you could trust me. Thank you,” said Billy. “Thanks.”
    â€œI trust you.”
    He leaned over and kissed my cheek, then drew back and blushed.
    â€œThanks, Artie.”
    â€œI’ll be back in two hours.”
    â€œGood. OK.” Billy started laughing.
    â€œWhat’s so funny?”
    â€œNothing. I’m just laughing. I’m just like happy.”
    Billy sauntered up the walk to his house, arms swinging, hands flapping, skipping every other step, whistling “Yesterday” loud and off-key. Whistling and skipping at the same time, then turning to wave at me as if he felt free.

4
    A week earlier, Genia Farone had stood on her new back patio – made of imported fieldstone, she told me – looking at her swimming pool, which was oval and deep blue; gold mosaic fish sparkled on the bottom. Real gold leaf, Genia said.
    Genia had called me that morning sounding desperate. I went over and asked what was wrong, but she was reluctant to talk. Instead, in a kind of ritual I was used to now, she showed me around her house.
    Fancy loungers with blue and white striped cushions were positioned near the pool, for conversation and cocktails, Gen said, as if expecting a stylish crowd to appear poolside. In her mind were pictures of old Hollywood gatherings and she’d had a bar built with a white leather top and stools to match, and there was a fancy stainless steel barbecue, glass-topped tables and big terracotta pots of white orchids. Plucking a few dead leaves off a plant, Genia smiled faintly, satisfied.
    From inside the house came voices of workers putting new shelves in the kitchen. Power saws buzzed. A quartet of movers grunted as they dragged in furniture bound in thick cloth and duct tape, like mummies. The house was Genia’sobsession. It was as if all the stuff somehow added up to a life, as if the material goods were ballast that kept her from drifting away.
    I felt for her. Stuck with Johnny Farone, Genia believed she owed him because he had married her and made her an American citizen, got her the house and furniture, the Range Rover, the clothes, and because they had Billy.
    â€œWhat do you need?” I said.
    â€œThey’re letting him out for two weeks,” Genia said in Russian. “Billy, I mean, Artyom. I was going to go down to Florida to pick him up, but Johnny’s getting some kind of award in London for the restaurant. We heard Billy was getting out, but we’d already planned this trip for ages. I talked to Billy’s doctor in Florida, his shrink. I talked to the administrator. They said it’s fine. You’re his godfather, Artyom, you’re his guardian if anything happens to us. You’re on all his paperwork. If he is good, there can be some more time off, or whatever they call it, at some point, not now, but later they’ll let him out. This is too much to ask of you, I know.” Genia sat down on the edge of a lounger, got a pack of Dunhill’s from her jacket pocket and unpeeled the